Title: Unfold
Author: geekwriter
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG-13
Category: angst
Summary: They live parallel lives.
A/N: So, this is the maybe-sequel to Absolutely Zero. It may or may not suck. I'm bad at deciding things like that sometimes.

Greg hung his keys on the small brass hook just inside his door and kicked off his shoes. He shrugged his jacket off and draped it across a tall stack of cardboard boxes. He moved past some more boxes in the kitchen and opened his fridge, looking for something to wash away the ache in his throat.

He scratched the scar on the back of his neck as he pushed aside a carton of milk that he was pretty sure had been sour for weeks. His refrigerator was pretty bare—a hunk of parmesan cheese, some barbeque sauce, a jar of wheat germ that he'd bought before he remembered that he was shopping for one instead of two.

He grabbed his last bottle of water and stood up, letting the door close on its own. He hit the play button on his answering machine on the way out of the kitchen and stepped over wires and cords so he could turn his computer on.

There were some messages from his friends asking where he was, telling him he had to quit his job if it was so intense that he didn't have time to come out with them anymore. His mother had called and told him to call her back. Some guy named Chris had an exciting offer he couldn't afford to pass up and urged him to call their 800 number. His mother left another message telling him to call her, then another.

"Fuck," Greg said as he reached for the cordless phone, his mind running through all the possibilities of things that could have gone wrong in the past week, things she wouldn't want to tell him over his machine.

"Hi, sweetie," his mother said. She'd been unstoppable since she'd mastered Caller ID.

"Hey, Mom. What's wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"You left me three urgent messages. What happened?"

"Oh," she said. "Right." He could hear her puttering around the house. "Oh, well, do you think you'll be coming home for Easter?"

"What?"

"Well, your aunt and uncle are coming down for Easter, and I thought it would be nice if you could come, too. I know how busy you are with work, but I thought I'd mention it."

"You couldn't have just told me that in your message? I was worried that something was really wrong."

"Oh, I'm sorry, honey. I just didn't want to use up all the tape on your machine."

"It's digital, Mom. There's no tape to use up." He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"You sound tired. I've been trying to get a hold of you for days. You haven't been at work this whole time, have you? They work you far too hard."

"No, I wasn't at work. I mean, yeah, I pulled a quadruple but I crashed at Nick's yesterday."

"Oh." His mother had been uncharacteristically silent on the subject of Nick ever since Greg had moved out.

"What?"

"Nothing, sweetie."

"Mom…"

"It's none of my business."

"That's never stopped you before."

"I really don't have anything to say, honey. You and Nick can work this out on your own. I just worry about you, that's all."

"There's nothing to work out," he said.

"But you've been spending time back at your place?" She sounded so hopeful.

"It's his place, Mom. And I just crashed on the couch. I'd been up for days working this triple homicide and he didn't think it was safe for me to drive home. That's all."

"He always has looked out for you."

"Mom."

"What? He has."

"Can we not talk about Nick?"

"Who's talking? I was just making an observation."

Greg grinned and shook his head. "How's Dad?"

"Oh, he was talking to one of his friends and there's a research spot open—"

"I'm not coming back to LA."

"I know, honey. It's at UNLV. I don't know all the details but apparently they're mapping the bovine genome."

"I don't want to work in a research lab, Mom."

"You could work on your doctorate, get a teaching position somewhere."

"I might get my doctorate some day, but I'm not going to spend my life in a sterile lab charting cow DNA."

"Researchers don't get blown up," she said. "Researchers don't get shot at."

"Nobody's ever shot at me," he said, wincing a little. It wasn't really a lie. He'd never actually been aimed at. He didn't think.

"I just can hardly bear to think about you at those crime scenes. God knows what could happen."

"Mom, I'm not going to get shot. I get to the scene after the crime's been committed. The bad guys are long gone, OK?"

She sighed. "I just worry."

"I know you do."

"It was bad enough when it was just Nick out there in the field, but now that both of you—"

"Jesus, Mom."

"What?"

"Just…I'm too tired to do this. Either say what you want to say or don't say anything at all."

"I just worry about you. Both of you."

Greg nodded. "Yeah." He considered telling her that he carried a gun and knew how to use it, but he wasn't sure if it would make her feel better or worse.

"So. Easter?"

"I don't know," he said. "I'll check the schedule at work and get back to you, but I doubt I'll be able to get it off. I'm kind of back on the bottom of the totem pole."

"I talked to Mrs. Corelli yesterday. Angela's working at a lab in Delaware, makes a hundred thousand dollars a year."

"Good for Angela," Greg said.

"That doesn't even include bonuses or overtime. Plus, she gets four weeks of vacation a year, excellent benefits, a 401(k)—"

"Mom. It's not about the money. You know that."

"I just want you to be happy."

"I'm happy."

"You don't sound happy."

"I'm…" He sighed. "I'm happy with my job."

"And the rest of it?"

"I'm working on it."

"Are you?"

"Mom."

"All right. All right. I'm not supposed to worry about my only child? Don't answer that. I'll tell your father you called."

"'kay."

"And I'll remember to leave a longer message next time. You're sure it won't use up all the tape?"

"It's digital, Mom," he said. "There's no tape."

"You and your electronic gadgets. OK. I love you, sweetie. Thanks for calling."

"Anytime," he said. "Love you, too." He hung up the phone and sat there for a moment before he logged on to check his email.

**********

Nick rolled over in bed, then rolled over again. He lifted his head and fluffed his pillow, then flopped back down. He stared at the ceiling. He rolled onto his side and stared at the wall.

He'd gotten a few hours of sleep. Well, maybe an hour of sleep. Half an hour, at least. He'd gone to sleep thinking about Greg and he woke up thinking about Greg and he knew thinking about Greg was what kept him awake but he didn't know how to stop.

He sat up and threw off his covers, went to the bathroom to brush his teeth but ended up just getting a drink of water instead. He considered taking a shower. He'd taken one at work after getting back from a particularly muddy crime scene, but it wouldn't hurt to take another. He inspected his fingernails to see if he'd gotten all the dirt out from under them.

His phone rang and he rushed back into his bedroom to answer it. Maybe it was work calling him in. Not that he wanted to get called in, since getting called in meant somebody had probably died and it's not like he wanted anybody to die, but getting called in also meant not being stuck in his empty apartment trying desperately to sleep when sleep just wouldn't come.

He snatched his phone up. "Stokes."

"That's how you answer your phone?"

He cringed. He should have checked Caller ID, first; he would have let the machine pick it up.

"Sorry, Mama. How've you been?"

"Completely unable to get a hold of my youngest child. Honestly, if I didn't know how many hours you put in at that job of yours I'd think you were avoiding me."

He forced a chuckle. "Come on. Why would I do that?"

"Stranger things have happened. How many hours have you worked already this week?"

"I don't know. Sixty, seventy maybe."

"That's the kind of schedule an intern is supposed to pull."

"It's a demanding job. I knew that when I took it."

"If you'd just come home and—"

"I'm too old for law school."

"But with your experience you could work as a consultant, an expert witness—"

"Not a chance."

"You’d actually have days off, have a life, have time to meet somebody and start a family. And you know what kind of money expert witnesses make."

"And you know what scumbags most of them are. I'm not about to go against everything you taught me and spin my testimony to please the highest bidder."

"I never thought you'd do that, Nick. I know you better than that. I just think that it's time for you to settle down. You'll meet a nice girl and—"

"I'm not gonna meet a nice girl."

"Not in Las Vegas you're not, not working the hours you work."

"I don't want to meet a nice girl."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm gay, Mama." The words were out before he could stop them and his eyes went wide and he reached out to steady himself against the wall. He'd imagined telling her so many times but he'd never even gotten close to actually saying it before.

There was silence at the other end of the line, nothing but his mother's breath.

"You still there?" he asked softly. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. His skin had gone cold and his limbs had lost all their strength. "Say something."

"What am I supposed to say?" her voice was tight.

"Anything."

"I wish you hadn't told me."

Nick let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sob.

"You told me to say anything, and that's what I'm thinking. That's what I'm thinking right now, Nick. I wish I didn't know because I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this. God, this is going to destroy your daddy."

"So don't tell him."

"You want me to keep it a secret? You tell me…you tell me something like this and you expect me to keep it from him?"

"You can do what you like," Nick said. "Tell him, don't tell him. It doesn't matter. I just can't pretend anymore." He sighed as his pager went off. "Damnit," he said as he snatched it up off his bedside table. "It's work. They're paging me in."

"You give your life to that job."

"It's worth it. Look, we'll talk about this later, all right?"

"No we won't. I don't ever want to talk about this again, Nick. Do you understand? Never again. I have to go. I have a deposition I have to get to."

Nick pulled the phone away as the dial tone droned in his ear. He dropped the phone in its cradle and looked at his pager again, jotting down the address on the display.

He laughed softly as he got dressed. Greg had been right, after all. He'd told the truth and the world hadn't come to an end. Not that Nick had ever really doubted him.

I know you're scared, Nick, and that's OK. You're scared shitless, but you have to do it anyway because once you do it, once you tell them and you see the world doesn't end, then you'll realize that you're free.

Nick cringed then, not from the memory of Greg's words but because he could have done it before. It had been so easy. He'd been terrified, but it had been so easy to say, finally. He could have done it before and it might have changed things. If he could have told them the truth just two months earlier Greg might still be around.

He shook his head as he buttoned his shirt. It was that kind of thinking that kept him awake when he was supposed to be sleeping. It was that kind of thinking that made him hurt so bad sometimes he wondered if he'd ever be able to let go.

Next story in series - Not So Unusal