Title: The Road Less Traveled by 10th-letter
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG13
Summary: Greg dozes off in the lounge and goes on a journey of self-discovery.

 Greg Sanders was standing on a dirt path in the middle of a vast field. There were sparse trees surrounding the narrow pathway and in the distance stood a massive mountain range. Greg was mildly surprised to find himself on this path as the last he could recall, he was leaning back in his chair in the Las Vegas Criminalistics Lounge, fresh mug of coffee in hand.

”Weird.” thought Greg. ”I’ve never been anywhere like this before. Maybe I caught a whiff of one of Grissom’s experiments.”

Greg stuffed his hands in his pockets and started down the pathway. After a few mindless minutes, he passed a small boy sitting under a tree sitting in front of a GI Joe figure and a Barbie. Greg smiled and strolled over to the boy. Unfortunately, the boy was upset.

“Hey there, Big Guy. What’s wrong?” asked Greg.

The boy looked up through his shaggy brown hair his eyes red from crying. The boy sniffed hard and looked up. “Hi. Nothin’ happened. There were some mean kids here before and they teased me.”

Greg kneeled down and brushed a tear from the boy’s cheek. “They teased you? Well that’s not nice of them.”

The boy sniffed again. “They said I couldn’t play with both of these toys.” He said, nodding at the GI Joe and the Barbie. “They said I had to pick just one, but I like them both! This guy’s name is Duke and if you press the button on his back he karate chops! See?” The boy jumped up, excited and pressed a small button on the GI Joe’s back, playfully karate chopping Greg’s shoulder. “And her name’s Chrissy, she’s not as popular as Barbie, but she’s just as pretty! She came with this really cool dress! See?” The boy pushed aside a few leaves on the ground, unearthing a somewhat stained pink dress. “Why do I have to pick, Mister?”

“You should never worry about what others tell you. Always play with whatever you want to play with, not what some meanies tell you. Oh and call me Greg.”

“Greg? That’s my name too! I’ve never met anyone else with that name! I’m an only child, and my mommy never lets me play on the playground too much!” said the boy. The taller Greg stood up quickly in surprise as the boy vanished, a smile on his face. What had he just seen?

~~~

Greg continued his musings as he continued down the path. Before long he passed a pimply faced, lanky teenager with spiked hair and an oversized Marilyn Manson T-shirt. ”This is getting freaky.” thought Greg.

“I don’t care what you say, Cindy! We’re through!” shouted the teenager, walking to a bench nearby. Confident no one was looking; the teenager picked up a crinkled copy of Men’s Health and opened it up to one well-worn page. The teenager sighed and closed the book.

“Hey, you ok, man?” asked Greg, walking over to the bench.

The teen shot up and quickly hid the magazine under his shirt, grabbing a nearby copy of Playboy and opening it to a random page. He looked around and coughed, making his voice unnaturally deep. “Um. Hey. I’m fine, Dude. Not like I’m looking at some fag porn or anything!” the teenager nervously laughed.

“Calm down. And you can drop the voice. Name’s Greg Sanders and I have a feeling it’s yours too.” Said Greg, sitting down across from who he now realized was his teenaged self.

“You- you’re me?” stammered the younger Greg.

“Yeah. I think I dozed off at work and woke up here. Wherever ‘here’ is.” Explained the older Greg.

The teenaged Greg looked around, as if noticing the field for the first time. “I have no idea either. I just got back from school and crashed on my bed. Mom’s being a pain. Cindy broke up with me and I can’t stop staring out the Chem Lab window onto the football field. But chances are you remembered all that.”

“Most of it. Listen, what I’m about to say is something I wish I had heard when I was your age. And if I think to hard about this situation, my brain will explode, but just hear me out,” Started the older Greg. The younger Greg nodded and leaned forward, eager. “Be who you are. Look wherever you want to look. High school is going to be hard enough as it is, but there will be things to look forward to. Enjoy it while you can, because you’ll never have the experience again. And Mom means well. She can be too overprotective, but you- I- we, whatever mean a lot to her. Cherish the moments you two have together while you can. Things will work out. They always do. The ride will just be a little rocky.”

The younger Greg sat in rapt attention throughout his older counterpart’s speech, nodding when appropriate.

“Oh and, Greg?” asked the older CSI.

“Yeah?”

“Take that magazine out of your shirt and buy a new one. No one will think of you any differently.”

The teenager blushed and smiled before vanishing just like the young boy had. More confused than ever, Greg continued down the path.

~~~

After a few quiet minutes, Greg came upon a fork in the road. To his left was a well paved road filled with sports bars, skyscrapers and movie theatres. To his right was another paved road with beautifully manicured plants, bistros, coffee shops and stores of all kinds. On both streets the people looked happy.

To his left the men were dribbling basketballs and the women were happily eyeing the mannequins in the shop storefronts. To his right, the men were well-built with all manner of dogs in tow. Some held cups of coffee and relaxed in corner cafes talking with friends while others held hands happily. The women were just as happy walking arm-in-arm, listening to music and talking happily. To his left stood a statuesque blonde in a low cut top, beckoning him forward. To his right stood a tall well-built surfer with short blonde hair, absent-mindedly lifting his shirt to rub his well toned abs. The man winked at Greg and smiled.

As Greg turned towards the man, he saw a third road emerge directly between the two. On this road, no one was alone, they all walked hand in hand happily dancing to whatever music they wanted and going to whichever restaurant they wanted. Several men had a woman on one hand and a man on the other. Greg smiled as he noticed a man leaning back against a store front window as two buxom women made out in front of him before turning to make out with him. Standing on the edge stood a handsome man with short-cropped brown hair wearing tight jeans. Next to him stood a woman with shoulder length brown hair and killer curves. She smirked and looked to the man next to her and both winked and beckoned Greg forward. Without thinking, Greg stepped onto the new road towards the man and woman. When he reached them, both draped their arms over his shoulders and planted kisses on whichever cheek was closest. As the trio walked down the road, Greg finally noticed the street signs on each road.

The statuesque blonde stood on Heterosexual Road and the surfer on Homosexual Way. Greg looked over the shoulder of the man to his right and saw the street sign: Bisexual Boulevard. Greg grinned from ear to ear. He was home.

Nick Stokes looked to his left and saw the hallway empty. He look to his right and was greeted to a similar sight. He was finally alone. His coworkers had been pestering him all day to get this piece of paperwork done or that experiment completed. He just needed a few minutes to himself to relax. Silently closing the break room door and closing the blinds, he grabbed the nearest newspaper, not caring if it was recent. As he sat down, he opened to the first page that caught his attention: the Arts and Entertainment section. Only halfway through the first article, Nick dozed off, resting his head in his arms.


~~~

When Nick opened his arms, he was in a park. It wasn’t that particular fact that stunned Nick; it was that the park seemed remarkably similar to the one near his house growing up in Texas. All the benches and trees were in the same place; even the passing birds sounded the same. Nick walked along the path in front of him, stunned to notice he had the park to himself. As he rounded a corner, he saw a small boy looking off into space.

“But Maggie! I wasn’t doin’ nothin’!” shouted the boy in a thick Texan accent. There was silence for a few minutes before the boy appeared to respond to the unseen person. “Maggie! Don’t tell Pop! Please? I’ll do anythin’! He can’t find out!”

There was the disembodied sound of a door slamming and the boy turned around and fell to the ground in a heap, crying. Nick walked up to the boy and kneeled down in front of him, wiping a tear from the boy’s cheek.

“Hey there, Champ. What’s wrong?” asked Nick.

The boy looked up and sniffed. He coughed a bit, trying to lower his voice. “Nothin’s wrong, Sir. My sister was just bein’ mean ta me.”

“She was mean to you? That’s not nice.” Said Nick, softly.

“No! It isn’t!” said the boy, louder, standing up. “Ya hear that Maggie!”

“What’s wrong? Maybe I can help.”

“It’s nothin’, I can handle it. My pop wants me to be a man and I can. Real men ain’t crybabies, they need ta be strong.”

“There’s no problem in cryin’ if you need to. It doesn’t make you any weaker. I just wish I knew that when I was your age.” Said Nick, looking the boy in the eyes. Nick thought something seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“And all I did was play with her nail polish!” blurted the boy.

“Oh. Did you apologize for touching her things?”

“Well, no. But the color looked nice. But, um, I mean- um- Never mind.” Stammered the boy.

This all seemed bizarrely familiar to Nick, but the true understanding was just beyond his reach. Suddenly, the boy seemed to react to a voice in the distance and paused for a second.

“I told her not to tell! I have ta go Sir, thanks for listenin’” said the boy, turning around.

“No problem. Now apologize to your sister, ok?”

“Yes, Sir. Oh! My name’s Nick!” shouted the boy before disappearing.

It can’t be. Nick thought to himself. It’s a common name, right?

~~~

Trying to push the thought out of his head, Nick walked farther along the path. After a few minutes of relative silence, he saw a teenager wearing a football jersey, leaned up against a tree. The teen stood up and paced, the back of his jersey read “Stokes”.

This is way too weird. thought Nick, rubbing his temples. Might as well get this over with. Nick walked over to the teenager and cleared his throat. The young man turned around quickly, his face was flush.

“I don’t know why I did it. No idea what possessed me. I was just pure adrenaline, I just- Oh!” stopped the teen, noticing the older man for the first time. The teen checked the older man out briefly before wiping his hands on his dirty football pants and offering his hand to Nick.

“Hi. I’m Nick Stokes, Dallas Regional High Starting Quarterback. And yes, my dad is that Judge Stokes, responsible for more traffic convictions in the past four years than any other Judge in the county. Sorry, I’m rambling. I’m just gonna shut up now.”

The older Nick smiled and returned the handshake. “I’ve had a really weird day so far, and I’m assuming you have too, so I’m just gonna say it. Or at least what I’ve figured out so far. I’m Nick Stokes too. I think you’re me when I was 17. You are wearin’ my old high school heresy and my father was responsible for more traffic convictions than any other judge in the county.”

The younger Nick stood silent throughout and nodded when his older counterpart finished. “I have no idea what you just said, man.”

“Yeah, me neither. I was just kinda goin’ with what sounded right. I fell asleep at work and I think this is all some funky dream.” Replied the older Nick. “So what happened?”

“You don’t remember?” asked the younger Nick.

“With what I’ve seen today, I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

“We had just finished practice and we did great. We were really in sync today, ya know? Of course you do, we’re the same person. I was pumped, full of adrenaline or somethin’ and I just did it. Did the thing that had been keepin’ me up at night.”

“What did you do, Nicky?” asked the older Nick.

The younger Nick smiled as he remembered. “I kissed Brett Davidson, the Tight End. God, talk about ‘tight end’… Shit! I didn’t say that! You didn’t hear that!”

“Nicky, I heard it and I think you and I, we, whatever, need to accept it. You have and I had a crush on Brett.”

“But I can’t be, you know. Momma volunteers at the church all the time! I hear what the preacher says every Sunday! It’s a sin! I’ll go to Hell! It says so in the Bible!” the younger Nick started breathing heavily.

His older counterpart rubbed his back, soothing him. “I’m going to tell you somethin’ my friend Greg told me once. Hopefully I can do him justice. He said: ‘You can’t hide behind a book looking for protection, you need to think for yourself’ The Bible says a lot of things, Nicky, not all of them are smart.”

The younger Nick smiled and vanished, leaving the older Nick alone once more.

~~~

Nick continued down the path, finally coming to its end. There was a thick fog in front of him, blocking his way. Without thinking, he turned left and was on a city street filled with sports bars and strip clubs. Nick walked towards the bar and reached for the doorknob, his hand slipping off. After a few more tries, someone on the inside opened the door for him. Nick couldn’t fit through the door. After a few minutes of trying he gave up and walked towards an outdoor restaurant and sat down.

Or rather, he tried to sit down. He couldn’t maneuver his hips past the arms of the chair. He tried several more, but none worked. He didn’t belong in this town. Noting felt right. Heading back towards the path, he kept walking until he was on a well manicured road, small coffee shops and stores lined the road and music was being played out through speakers mounted in the café awnings. Nick walked towards one of the cafes and sat down. Not only did he fit in this chair, but he was actually comfortable. Within no time at all, a thin, shaggy haired man strolled up and tapped Nick on the shoulder.

“Nick? You there?” asked the man.

Nick turned around and looked up. The face was very familiar.

~~~

Suddenly Nick was lying in the break room, his face glued to the newspaper. Greg was standing over him, hand on his shoulder.

“Nick, you ok? I’ve been standing here for, like five minutes.” He asked.

“Huh? Yeah, sorry, G. Hey, you wanna, um, I mean would you like to-“ stammered Nick.

“Yes?”

“Would you wanna see a movie and grab some dinner after shift one night?” asked Nick

“Yeah, of course. Want me to call –“started Greg. Nick’s hand snaked over Greg’s.

“Alone, Greg. Would you go on a date with me?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”