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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-05
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1,007
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1/1
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5
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Lazarus Never Freed a Chain Gang

Summary:

It's hardly two pages and you're asking for a summary? Okay,  fine. Angsty missing scene to last night's episode.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:



Lazarus Never Freed a Chain Gang
by Tobias Charity

 

At first, Grissom was unsure of what had woken him; the family in the townhouse next to him had a very large dog with an equally large bark, so when he heard woofing and laughter outside of his window, he fingered that as the cause. Noting the time on the clock (Christ, only eleven? This was the day-shifter's equivalent to four in the morning.), he stuffed his head underneath the pillow and tried to go back to sleep, but then he heard it: a thin, keening whine, so quiet it was barely in the range of his hearing. He sat up and looked over at his bed partner, who was very much asleep, curled into the fetal position with his face pressed into the pillow. There, there it was again, the same high-pitched, drawn-out whimper that grew steadily louder until Grissom could make out actual words.

"Nooo...no no no..." Nick drew his legs up closer to his body and buried his face in the crook of his elbows. "NononotgildontnogodnotgilpleasedontnonoNO--"

"What the..." Grissom murmured, reaching out to shake Nick awake, when Nick suddenly thrashed out and wailed loudly.

"No, Crane, no, pleaseNigelgoddonthurtGIL!"

Oh, shit. This dream sounded way too much like the ones left over from Nick's ordeal with Crane; Grissom wasn't about to let Nick go through another nightmare like the horribly vivid and detailed ones he'd described to Gil last April after Crane's mess of a case, and so he made a split-second decision against all that psychology class had taught him about waking a person having a nightmare.

"NICK!" Grissom grabbed Nick roughly by the shoulders and Nick shot awake, sitting up so suddenly that he got tangled in the sheets, overbalanced, and tumbled over the side of the bed. Grissom heard a loud *whump* and flinched before peering over to see Nick sprawled on the floor, rubbing his head and looking disgusted with himself.

"That was stupid. I haven't fallen out of bed since I was a little kid."

Grissom tipped his head to one side and raised an eyebrow. "Have you not had nightmares since you were a little kid, either?"

Nick's eyebrows knitted together and he looked up at Grissom, expression bewildered. "What're you talking about? I didn't have a nightmare."

Both eyebrows went up this time. "One hell of a dream, then. And not a very nice one, either."

To Grissom, Nick currently looked very much like the little kid he'd referenced before, blankets still wrapped around his waist and plaid-clad legs, and his tousled head resting on his hands. He gave Grissom a sleepy, wise-ass smirk. "Maybe you were the one having the dream, Gil. I kinda remember a dream, but it was a very nice one involving me becoming better friends with my pillow. Haven't seen much of it lately; wanted to do a bit of catching up with it, see what's goin' on in its life, y'know?"

Grissom didn't smile. "Nick. Don't toy with me."

The smile dropped off Nick's face as suddenly as Nick himself had keeled out of bed. "Jesus, *Grissom*, didn't realize that my REM interested you so damn much." Nick struggled to stand up, then plopped back onto the bed, dragging the blankets up behind him.

"It interests me when I wake up and hear you yelling "No no no" over and over again, even substituting my name in there a few times, accompanied by the word "not." What the hell kind of dream was that?" Grissom didn't wait for a reply. "It was Crane again, wasn't it?"

Nick's face darkened and he pulled the covers up around his shoulders before turning onto his side, facing away from Grissom. "So what if it was; none of your business."

This was getting ridiculous. Grissom reached over and wrenched Nick's shoulder back, pinning it to the mattress with one hand so that Nick had no choice but to look at him. "You. Can't. Handle. It. Do you hear me? You're having a normal psychological reaction to a very frightening event in your life--something like what we're working on now, and your neurons are focusing in on the trauma again; it's a classic post-traumatic stress disorder. You need to--"

Nick jerked out from under Grissom's hand and snarled, "I'm not a fucking long-term experiment, Grissom. You don't get to watch my reactions to everything that might possibly remind me of Crane, okay? Jesus, just because you haven't got any problems of your own doesn't mean that you get to go around imposing on everybody else's life. It can't be Crane that we're dealing with now--it's not the same MO, not the same pattern--there's no reason that I should react like--"

"Nick, listen to yourself. You're admitting you've got problems and you're trying to convince yourself as much as me that you're normal and haven't got problems. If the nightmares are coming back because of this case--"

"Grissom, stop it! Just--just shut up, okay? Stop talking. I. Do. Not have PTSD. Not have any sort of post-trauma random neurological firing or whatever the hell. Not have anything that a TylonolPM and an hour in front of SportsCenter won't cure. Got it?" He flung the covers back and tugged down his t-shirt. "I can take care of myself. You, go...just go do something other than mother hen me." Nick padded out to the living room and Grissom heard the quiet murmur of ESPN start up in the background.

What the hell kind of friend--what the hell kind of lover would let someone self-destruct right before his eyes? Grissom let a sigh hiss out from between his teeth and pulled the sheets up over his head. Not even Nick had that much pride. He'd work it out himself and figure out that the things he'd said were mostly to convince himself that he didn't need anything from anybody, or he'd realize that he did need Gil, just as much as Gil needed him.

 

/fin/

Notes:

This orphaned work was originally on Pejas WWOMB posted by author Tobias Charity.
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