Title: No Ringtone is Good News
By: cynevie
Challenge: Phones et al
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG-13, or more. For the swear words about to come.
Warnings/Spoilers: I don't think so. But me being me... And this is my first foray in ngchallenge community! (Yay!)
Summary: A rather noisy silent witness.

***

1/
It was a slow night and they sat around the table talking shop. It was a rarity for them, but they've learnt to enjoy it while they could. It wasn't as rare as watching Greg silent arrival, though.

"Anything we should know?" Sara shifted in her chair, apparently uneasy with the quiet that surrounded Greg. To those who didn't know him, he was merely silent. But they saw a gaping black hole. She was disturbed, like the silence that fell around her whenever she retreated into her own mind.

"Nothing."

"You're awfully quiet, man," Warrick watched Greg poured coffee as if he was transferring volatile fluid into his mug. This was Greg, who took to coffee like duck to water, a gambler to a casino, a magnet to a fridge.

"I can be quiet too, you know."

"Quiet, for you, is relative. Even when your mouth is shut, the rest of you make enough noise to wake the dead."

"Imagine how much easier our job'll be," Greg snorted into his coffee. "Is moping a crime now?"

"No. Just curious. That's all," Sara pushed the doughnuts across the table.

"Didn't get enough sleep, is all."

---

Catherine leaned against the hallway wall, fingers poised on speed dial.

"You're going to call him?"

"Yeah, Nick usually knows what's up with Greg."

"Hm."

"You know, maybe he's turning into a younger version of you. All doom and gloom. He admires you after all."

Grissom harrumphed loudly, "Just make the call."

---

Cath stopped herself counting the dial tone in her ear as she heard Nick's ringtone from down the hallway.

She turned to greet the Texan but all she did see was Greg, Sara, and Warrick watching Nick's cell phone in Greg's hand.

---



2/
Greg had Nick memorized. Greg memorized Nick's preferred everyday things, like what food to go with what problem and what kind of sex to go with said problem. Greg memorized Nick's body, like the place of every mole on Nick's body. Greg even thought that he could probably be the only person on the planet who knew everything there was to know about Nick's dick. Not that he would tell.

Greg had Nick memorized. So, when he heard the first notes of Nick's ringtone he did what he always did - looked up and smiled. At an empty space by the door.

There was no Nick. But the ringtone was so loud, he must be in the vicinity somewhere. There was no Nick. No Nicky smiles or Nicky greetings. Only Sara and Warrick who looked at him funny. What? he wanted to ask, but his pant leg was vibrating and sounded very much like Nick's cellphone.

Fuck! he wanted to say, as he extricated the phone out of his pocket and saw Cath's Caller ID on the display. Greg felt, rather than saw, Sara and Warrick's stares traveling down from his face, across his torso, and ended up on the phone.

Shit! he wanted to say, as Cath's ID disappeared and her voice appeared in the room. "Greg?"

---

"So," Sara said, poised to receive any new material for the office gossip. "Why do you have Nick's phone on you?"

"Uh... must have taken it by mistake."

"O~kay? And?" Greg watched as Sara lift an eyebrow. The way she did when she's onto something. It was fascinating, really, when trained on something else. Like dead bodies for example.

"There is no and."

"There must be an and," Catherine said, smiling rather predatorily as she chewed on her newly acquired doughnut.

"There's no and. Tired. Got confused. Took the wrong phone." Greg would bolt, but Warrick's manning the door. But if he bolted, then it would seem as if he had something to hide. He didn't have anything to hide. Did he?

"Because you didn't get much sleep," Sara added.

"But that doesn't quite explain your moping," Cath smirked. The way she did when she's onto something. Like dead bodies, for example. Cath had that look, one which she had on when she was willing dead bodies to yield their secrets. And Greg wasn't about to spill.

"There is nothing to explain," Greg was anxious. How could he get them to lay off? Well, the easiest way is to tell them why. But he couldn't tell them why, because then he would have to lie. And he didn't want to lie. Not to his friends. But lies through omission was lying too, right? But he wasn't so sure about it himself, so technically he wouldn't be lying. Would he?

"Were you at Nick's playing video games? And you lost?" Warrick offered.

"Yes!" Greg answered too quickly. Much too quickly.

Three pairs of eyebrows were raised at his direction. Crap! he wanted to say.

---

Greg had Nick memorized. Nick's scent, Nick's breathing, and Nick's footsteps. And those same footsteps were heading towards him. Them. Like an unsuspecting lamb to a slaughter. Well, might as well. At least Greg didn't have to die alone.

"Hey, guys. What's up?" Nick greeted them, all too cheerfully. Unsuspecting indeed. Was Nick really that oblivious, Greg thought. Surely he would have noticed three pairs of eyes watching him. "G, did you take my cell phone?"

"Uh..."

---

"Nick, sit down. We want to ask you something," Warrick said, maneuvering him into the nearest available seat. Greg smiled gingerly at him, as if apologizing for taking his phone by mistake.

There's nothing to apologize for he wanted to say, but Nick finally noticed how harassed Greg looked and how predatory his other colleagues looked.

Well, shit.

---



3/
"So, what is the story behind the swapped phones?" Geez, does this woman know when to back off? Greg wondered, as he observed Sara's renewed vigor. Apparently not. That was one thing that made her the CSI she was. And Greg was thankful that such intensity was trained at Nick. For now, at least. The three of them were ganging up on Nick now, probably realizing that Greg wasn't about to spill any. At least not yet.

"There is no story. It's just a simple mistake. He took mine. I spent ages trying to find it, which is why I'm late, by the way."

"So, you're not denying that he's been staying over?" Catherine said and smiled. Indulgently, like a mother asking the obvious off her teenaged child caught at it behind the bike shed.

Nick didn't say anything for a while, and Greg was worried. He didn't know why he was worrying, but he was worried anyway. He worried about a lot of things lately.

"Well..." Nick hesitated, and Greg tried not to take his eyes of Nick. Greg wondered what Nick would say. Unrehearsed, unprepared. Greg wondered whether Nick had a lie prepared, and whether he'd be prepared to lie.

Greg had a lie prepared too, and rehearsed to cover all possible angles. He had enough practise over the years anyway. There was a lie for the teachers for when he felt like bunking school; there was a lie for the cops for when he had "illegal pharmaceuticals" written all over him; there was a lie for the parents for when they asked him about his lack of girlfriends; there was a lie for the neighbors for when they saw him hugging a friend of the male variety; and there was a lie for every girl he took home to meet his parents. In fact, he had a lie for every occasion. Lies he never had the heart to use.

Nick's short un-Nick-like "What?!" shook him out of his thoughts. He looked up to see the three busy-bodies smirking.

"I said," Sara drawled patiently, "If this is about Nick and Greg K-I-S-S-I-N-G, don't bother fibbing. We've known all along."

Nick was flustered, so Greg took matters into his own hands. "You've known all along?"

"Since the very beginning," Catherine said.

"Hey, give us credit for being the best CSIs in the business," Warrick was over by Nick's side, giving a friendly pat on a very strung-out shoulder.

"We didn't want to ask because we thought you'd tell us sometime. But you made us wait for way too long," Sara was brandishing her coffee mug to make a point. Greg winced as he watched the liquid sloshing dangerously.

"Okay!" Nick shrugged Warrick's hand off his shoulder, eyes darting around the room trying to find a point of contact that wasn't human. "So now the secret is out, what do you want to know?"

"Oh, easy question. Why is Greg moping?" Warrick was back by the door.

"He mopes," Nick said. A statement of fact.

"I've tried telling them that, but they won't listen," Greg offered, trying to make Nick to look at him. Surely he's not mad at him? "I'm capable of moping too, you know."

"We know," Catherine said as she took the empty seat next to Greg. "We've seen you mope before. But not this type of moping."

"We didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. We're concerned," Greg wanted to believe Sara. She sounded sincere afterall. But the gleam in her eyes told him that she was still fishing for gossip.

"Well, you guys have a weird way of showing your concern. And anyway, it's something that I need to sort privately," Greg conceded, "With Nick."

He shifted in his seat as Nick turned to look at him sharply.

"G?" Nick was worried now, Greg could tell. Worried about the things that even Greg couldn't name. But the two of them need to sit down and properly talk, without audiences and without sex as a distraction.

"I'll tell you later," Greg said. Later would be good. It would let him name and explain his problems away. Hopefully by the time he and Nick sat and talked, there wouldn't be a problem.

---

There was an uneasy silence. Greg felt depression setting in, like the ones he felt when faced with an impossible puzzle or situation. He could feel Nick trying to bore a hole in his skull, just by staring and worrying. He could feel Sara and Catherine and Warrick running a million scenarios of what-could-have-beens in their head.

A ditty broke the silence.

"My phone," said Warrick, but made no move from his perch by the door.

"Well, answer it then," Catherine said, as the tune got louder.

"It's in your purse still," Warrick said.

Greg found it hard not to watch as Catherine fished Warrick's phone out of her bag and handed it to Warrick who snorted when he saw the caller ID. He didn't know a lot of things, did he?

---



4/
The clock ticked patiently as it always did. It was late, or early, depending on how you'd prefer to look at things. Nick was already in the shower when Greg threw his keys onto the kitchen table. The coffee machine was humming quietly, seemingly uninterested at what was about to happen. It's an inanimate object, you shit. Greg told himself.

An insect flew past him, and Greg thought about Grissom. Grissom loved bugs. Greg loved Nick. Bet you a million bucks Grissom didn't have to sit and have difficult, life-altering conversations with bugs. But then again, this was Grissom. But Greg was willing to bet that any conversation Grissom might have with bugs wouldn't be half as complicated as the conversation he was about to have with Nick. And bugs couldn't punch the living daylights out of Grissom.

Nick certainly could punch Greg and probably crack a few bones in the process, if he wanted to. Not that Greg thought Nick as a violent type at all. Not that Greg wanted Nick to hit him. But it was certainly a possibility, and statistically more possible than a bug pitted against Grissom.

Greg was nervous.

A mug slid into his line of vision, a white mug with black liquid. He looked up to find out that Nick was nervous too, and his world turned into a black and white parody of fear. If only for a while.

"What do you want to tell me?" Nick was too calm, Greg thought.

"You..." Greg hesitated, wondering how far should he go, how deep he wanted the proverbial stormy waters to be. "You're not worried of what I might say?"

"Oh, I'm worried, all right," Nick smiled a shaky half-smile. "But what's the point? Would you stop the conversation if I said that I'm worried?"

"No."

"Well, I guess you better start talking. I switched off all our phones and pagers, and switched the house answering machine on." Greg couldn't blame Nick for wanting to start and finish as quick as possible.

"It's too late to back out now, I guess," Greg sighed.

"Damn right. You had me thinking so hard, I almost fucked up the crime scene."

Nick sipped his coffee and Greg followed suit.

---

"We've been together for a while now, right?" Greg ventured out tentatively, and Nick didn't like the sound of it one bit.

"Is there something wrong?" Nick wondered if Greg wanted out. "I thought you love me."

"I do love you!"

"But?" Nick couldn't tell what was wrong with their relationship, couldn't figure out what was amiss. He didn't think he did anything wrong, and he didn't think that Greg would be accusing him of anything.

"I... actually, I don't know if I love you."

"You... don't... love me," Nick hated the way it sounded so negative, so foreign to his ears and on his lips.

"No! I... I love your smile, your personality, your body, your presence, your quirky habits, your dick. I love being here for you, I love being here with you, but I don't know whether I love you, Nick."

"Sounds like you love practically almost everything there is to love about me, so you must love me," Nick didn't know whether to laugh or to scream in frustration. He was lost and he thought Greg was lost too.

Lost for words, words that even when found wouldn't be able to articulate feelings so completely. Nick wanted nothing more than to be able to crawl into Greg's head, or heart, or both, and to find that elusive problem.

He wanted to know, so he could solve it.

---

"It's just that... you know, a lot of nights I stayed up after declaring 'I love you' thinking 'I don't feel anything'. I know, logically that we're sharing something good, something great, but it felt like nothing. An empty white space with no name, no sense of direction, and I wondered whether I've gotten off at the wrong stop."

"So, you feel nothing about this. Us. What we have?" Nick said and Greg wished Nick wouldn't look so miserable.

"I don't know. I still have to find out the name of it. The meaning of it." Because meaning is important to Greg. Because he couldn't live with a big empty unidentifiable space in his heart, warm and fuzzy and beautiful as it was. He had this feeling before, he used to like it before. The Nameless Great Love, he used to call it. A love so great nobody could give a meaning to it, a love so great it existed in the realm of no meaning, of no consequences. He had this feeling before, with those who came before Nick. He thought it was enough, living in a great mystery of it all. But when he found out that he got too comfortable and started drifting away, he didn't have enough reasons to swim back to the shore.

And he didn't want to ever drift off from Nick. "I want to recognize it, give it a name, give it a reason and call it mine. I want to find that name, find that answer so you can remind me of it whenever I feel like I'm drifting away from you." What a sad cliche, Greg thought. It even sounded too melancholy, too pathetic, even to Greg.

"You're not breaking up with me, then?"

"No! Of course not! But, I can't make promises for the future, Nick. For now though, breaking up was the one thing I didn't want to do. But I understand if you want to... you know... break up, like... right now."

"Why would you think I want to break up with you? I'm not the one having problems in this relationship," Nick wanted to reach across the table, Greg mused. "I don't want to break up with you. I want to be there with you to find a name for it."

"I can't promise anything, Nick."

"I don't need promises Greg. It'll be nice to have one, for sure; but I don't need it."

"Okay..." Greg dropped his gaze. He concentrated on the heat spilling out from the mug onto his palms. "So, does that mean I'm sleeping in the couch, tonight?"

"I was kinda hoping that we can still sleep together," Nick said and smiled. The smile that Greg loved so much.

"In the couch?"

"In bed."

Nick's arms were heavy and reassuring, Nick's warmth was warmer than any warm coffee, Nick's presence was very reassuring, and Greg sighed.

"It'll be like looking for the perfect pet," Nick whispered. "We'll find it." Their own personal secret.

"Should we... uh... you know, phones?" Greg remembered Nick was on-call, and there'd be a few of unhappy people if phones went unanswered.

"Leave 'em."

***

Next story in series - Charity is the Best Policy.