Title: Saturdays
Author: E Kathleen Roper
Category: This would probably be considered Angst-Without-Plot.
Spoilers: Very minor for Mea Culpa
Rating: FRM, though that might be a bit on the high side.
Warnings: Self-mutilation, "no basis in canon"ness, and no happily ever after.
Pairing: Nick/Greg, if you squint
Summary: On Saturdays he wore a mask.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, and they're happy that I don't.
Author's Note: I didn't want to write this, but the idea was insistent, and it was easier to write it than fight it. It's uber-short, about 1k words, and un-beta-ed. You can blame this ficlet on the fact that my muse gets morbid near the holidays.

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It had become something of a ritual, these past few months. He would wrap up what ever he was doing and hit the break-room fifteen minutes early. Greg would show up a little early for his shift and they would chat as Greg drank that expensive coffee that he favoured. Nick hadn't realised how much he enjoyed their on-the-job banter until the schedule changes had made it impossible. These stolen minutes, several times a week, made it less of a loss.

After a few weeks, Greg started bringing two cups of coffee with him to work, and Nick stopped drinking the sludge usually found in the break-room. The conversation stayed light, and they still didn't comment on the fact that they always found themselves in the break-room at the same time every day, but the matching coffee cups said clearly that this was a standing appointment.

Some days he noticed that Greg's smile seemed a little forced, his face a little pale, his words not quite so light. Eventually he realised that "some days" were always Saturdays, and he started to watch more closely. Greg's face was always open, the emotions close to the surface, but on Saturdays he wore a mask.

When Greg came in one Saturday, more pale than usual, Nick reached out to catch him almost before he stumbled. When he grabbed his arm, just below the elbow, he could feel the bandage beneath the fabric of Greg's shirt and he didn't have to look at his hand to know that the moisture he felt on his fingers would be red. He looked into Greg's eyes for a long moment and saw nothing but emptiness behind the mask, but he understood. He understood why Greg never wore short-sleeves and why Saturdays always left him looking so very pale.

He dropped Greg's arm and went to the sink to wash the blood from his hands before taking the First Aid kit from the cabinet and steering Greg into an empty room. He didn't say anything as he pushed back Greg's sleeve and peeled the bloody bandage from his arm. Greg didn't flinch as Nick traced his fingers over the scars, ten in all, each three inches long and half an inch apart, in various stages of healing, fading towards white before being reopened in an endlessly repeating cycle.

He washed the blood from Greg's arm and pulled the cut closed with butterfly bandages. When a fresh square of gauze had been taped in place he ghosted his fingers across it and asked, "Why Saturdays?"

Greg didn't answer at first, but his eyes moved higher up his arm, to older scars, faded but still visible, nestled in the crook of his arm. Scars that hadn't been reopened for years. "My best-friend and I went to the same college," he said, his voice emotionless. "We both took too many classes. Between labs and lectures and papers and projects, we never had a free moment during the week. But on the weekends we couldn't relax because we couldn't stop thinking about everything we had to do. So we found a way not to think." He lightly traced the faded track marks. "We knew heroin was dangerous. We thought if we kept it under control, if we only did it together, if we only did it on Saturdays... It wouldn't hurt anyone.

"But one Saturday we took too much. We passed out and he didn't wake up." Greg finally looked up to meet Nick's eyes, but his gaze was still blank. "At his funeral I saw the tears and realised we were wrong. It was hurting everyone. I decided that from then on, I would be the only one hurting on Saturdays."

Nick wanted to tell him that he was wrong. That it hurt him to see the scars and know that it was guilt hiding behind Saturday's mask. That he didn't need to keep reopening old wounds and bleeding for his past mistakes. That there were other ways to cope. But he didn't know how to say it and he didn't think Greg would hear him even if he did. So he simply nodded, pulled down Greg's sleeve to cover the scars, and closed the First Aid kit.

They continued to meet between shifts. Greg always brought coffee and they talked about everything except blood and razors and Saturday's price. And on Saturdays Nick would pull him aside, and push up his sleeve, and wordlessly change the bandage on his arm. He knew that he couldn't take away Greg's pain, but he could wash away the blood and cover up the scars.

When shift change came and went one Saturday, with no sign of Greg, Nick was the only one who knew why. He suggested that Grissom send someone to Greg's apartment to check on him and then he retreated to the break-room and started a fresh pot of coffee. The expensive kind; Greg's favourite brand. He drank his coffee silently, from his own mug, and when Grissom returned half an hour later Nick didn't have to see his grief-stricken face to know that the news wasn't good.

An hour passed, and the news spread quickly, and Nick didn't see that his eyes were the only ones not filled with tears. He drank his coffee in silence and hid his pain behind his own mask. When the coffee was gone, he rinsed his cup and walked blindly to the morgue where he asked for fifteen minutes alone with Greg.

Greg was pale. Paler than he had been on any other Saturday. But all Nick saw were the scars, the ones he had cleaned and bandaged so many times. He lightly traced his fingers over the scars that would never have a chance to heal and regretted the words he had never found the courage to say. He knew that the death certificate would list the cause of death as suicide, and he knew that it would be wrong. This wasn't suicide, it was just too much pain and too many years of Saturdays. Nick taped a bandage over the cut on Greg's arm for the last time, and felt some relief, knowing that at least from now on, he would be the only one left hurting on Saturdays.


end

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