Title: There Is a Time
By: Caroline Crane
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG
Summary: Greg doesn't want Nick's help.
Warnings: Spoilers for "Play With Fire". It's sort of a post-ep, I suppose.

This wasn't what he'd had in mind.

When Nick said 'let me help you' Greg should have known better; he knew all about Nick's hero complex, knew that Nick got off on taking care of other people. It didn't have anything to do with Greg, it was just a way for Nick to feel useful, to feel like he was doing something noble. He lived for this crap, and Greg was just a means to an end.

His hands were just as gentle as they should be when they unwrapped Greg's bandages, his touch feather-light when he cleaned the damaged skin and wrapped Greg up again. He said all the right things, never lost his patience even when Greg was cranky and feeling sorry for himself, and every day that Nick was so disgustingly nice made Greg resent him a little more.

It took a week for Greg to start resenting the attention, and another week before he was ready to kill Nick in his sleep. He fantasized about it sometimes, while he was lying on his side staring at the wall or the TV or the inside of his eyelids, not sleeping because Nick was breathing so loud just out of eyesight. He said it was in case Greg needed anything, but Greg knew the truth.

Nick was trying to drive him crazy. So far it was working.

"Stop," Greg ground out through clenched teeth, barely aware of the sound of his own voice until Nick's hands stilled against his back. He was hunched over on the edge of the bed, his back burning every time the air touched his still-open wounds, reminding him that he needed the help, that no matter how much he resented it he couldn't just tell Nick to go to hell.

"What? Did I hurt you?"

And God, he wished Nick wasn't so fucking nice about it, so goddamn guilty at the thought that he'd hurt Greg, because the guilt made it a lot harder for Greg to feel good about hating him.

"Why are you doing this?"

"What?" Nick asked, and Greg didn't have to look to hear the confusion. He could picture Nick's face in vivid detail; the big brown eyes, the confused frown, the hurt around the edges like someone had just kicked a puppy.

Heavy sigh, hands clenching hard against the sheet to keep himself from turning just enough to get a glimpse of the expression that looked so good on Nick. "I said, why are you doing this?"

"You don't know." It wasn't a question so much as a realization, as though it was just dawning on Nick for the first time that Greg had no idea what he was doing in Nick's house, why he'd come home from the hospital not to his apartment but to Nick's place. He knew Catherine had volunteered to look after him -- penance, he guessed -- and at the time he'd been grateful to Nick for stepping in. At the time he'd been able to convince himself it was because they were friends, even if they never did any of the things friends did together. Or maybe it had just been the drugs that kept him from wondering, but he'd run out of the good stuff a few days ago and thinking was starting to become a problem.

Nick's hands were moving on his back again, not replacing the bandages but just stroking gently over the undamaged parts of his skin. And he didn't want to lean into it, didn't want it to feel good, but he'd gotten used to those hands and long before the explosion he'd caught himself wondering what they'd feel like on him. He never thought he'd find out. He didn't want to find out this way, but he couldn't change it now.

"If I knew I wouldn't have asked." His voice was soft but the room was silent aside from their breathing, and he knew Nick could hear him. He knew Nick could hear the bitterness, but he was glad for that because he wanted to hurt Nick as much as Nick was hurting him without even realizing it.

The hands on his back stopped moving, then a small rustle of movement and he thought maybe Nick was going to leave him there, leave him stranded to deal with the bandages on his own. Then something soft and warm brushed his shoulder, once and then again, across the undamaged skin on his neck and he felt his throat start to close when he realized Nick was kissing him.

It stopped just as abruptly as it started, and then Nick's hands were moving again. "That's why."

All Greg could do was nod, because as explanations went it was the best one he could hope for. The only one he'd wanted, and there would be plenty of time to talk about it once Nick didn't have to take care of him anymore.