Title: Tomorrow
Author: kentucka
Series: A Love Triangle 2/2
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Pairing: Warrick/Greg, Nick
Rating: FRM
Warnings: none
Category: 789 word drabble, slash, angst, sap
Notes: Unhappy endings are bad for my creativity. Sequel to Today. Greg's POV.

He stands in front of my CD collection. Half of my apartment is filled with CDs, some of them stuck in a rack where they belong, but most of them are simply lying about, covers around and below the coffee table, the CDs themselves around and on top of the stereo.

“Don’t you ever put them into order?”

It’s not like I feel in particular need to explain myself to him. “No use. It’d look the same a couple of days later.” Why did I let him in here in the first place? His being here is annoying me. And I am unfair to him. But life’s unfair.

He surprises me by smiling. “I know exactly what you mean.” He switches the player on, and doesn’t even wait for music to start before he turns the volume down. As low as it is now, I cannot recognize the band, which does not improve my mood. What is his game now? Turning up my music but not listening to it; isn’t that the most impolite thing he ever did to me?

“Look, Warrick, as much as I enjoy your company…”

Yes, it’s Warrick again, not Rick, not Warr, ever since that evening, and I know it hurts him. It hurts him because I punish him for having needed Nick for once; it hurts because he stepped back for me and never brought it up, not even in an argument. Not even now. But it feels so awfully good to make him feel some of the pain I’m in. I have never stopped to wonder where this pain actually comes from - I’m afraid of where that would lead me.

“You hate me,” he tells me in a perfectly controlled voice, but he’s towering over me now, trying to intimidate with height and visible muscle. He’s wrong, as I push him back, and yell at him that he’s right. He’s at me in an instant, backing me into the wall as I try to keep a distance when he advances and refuses to let himself be pushed again. Last week was drama, today is action.

I hate him, I tell him again, but I don’t know why. All I know is that I am hurting; it feels like needles pricking my skin from within, like rope constricting my ribcage, like my heart breaking. And I know that somehow, he is responsible for all of this.

“You hate me because you think I don’t love you.”

I nod without listening to him, because his assumptions are likely to be correct just as much as not. I want him gone, want him to leave me alone, want him…

“Because you think Nick loves me more than you.”

I shake my head. I don’t think. I know.
My hands are still pressing against his chest, but he’s not moving an inch - and if, he’s getting closer. He would have made a great football player. I remember watching him and Nick wrestle for the ball on the field. The picture blows up right in my face, the realization of just how well they looked together shredding me into pieces. I have no right to break that up…

Warrick holds my face still, looks into my eyes. He speaks, but I don’t hear him. My ears ring with their laughter, and my memory continues to provide images of them rolling around on the green. How they ran up to me, grabbing their sandwiches. Nick kisses me on the cheek and says ‘Thank you’ still laughing. And Warrick--

--kisses me. Now. Why?
I struggle and he lets go, saying: “You’re wrong, you’re wrong,” sounding like he has repeated these words for the last ten minutes. Suddenly I note that I am sitting on the floor, with Warrick kneeling in front of me. I guess I lost the thread of our conversation.

“Where am I wrong?”

He leans in again, pressing our lips together softly for only the shortest of moments. “Thinkin’ that Nick would ever be able to choose. That any of us would ever risk losing you.”

I’m dizzy. “Why now?”

He smiles, and it’s beautiful, comforting, soothing. “Haven’t been myself lately,” he shrugs self-ironically, makes fun of how hard the last week was on him, of my failure as a friend.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. He didn’t mean to twist the knife.

He shakes his head and kisses me, but this time, he probes deeper. This is the line, I suddenly notice, which I have never crossed with him. However much we both loved Nick, we never got closer to one another than coworkers, friends at best. Or maybe it was Nick that had kept us separate all those times; we were too busy competing for his attention to notice any mutual attraction. Whatever the reason, I feel something opening up inside me, and so does my mouth. I am ready, not afraid anymore to let him in.

Warrick ends our kiss and draws a deep breath. “Last week… I knew you’d be there. I had hoped for both of you to…”

I melt into his embrace to shut him up, knowing that I have a chance to make it up to him. There will be more days of hell, just like last week. But if we get a little lucky, we’ll have some romance in between as well.

~end~