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crack_van2006-05-08 11:00 pm
visionshadows.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2006-05-08 11:00 pm
Within Without by Eleanor Lavish (NC-17)
Fandom: CSI: LV
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eleanor_lavish
Author's Website: Splinterific, but her CSI fic can be found at CSI Forensics
Why this must be read: I'm actually really shocked this story hasn't been rec'd yet. It's one of the best stories I've read that deals with the first season episode 'Boom' which is when Nick is investigated in the death of the prostitute Kristy Hopkins. It's a what if story where Nick is convicted for Kristy's murder and because he's a CSI, he ends up getting targeted on the inside. His friends have deserted him and he's pretty much alone until Grissom decides it's time to reopen the case and free Nick before Nick dies.
This story is very long and complex and only a portion of it is about Nick in prison. The majority of the story is set after Nick gets out of jail for Kristy's murder, but is suspect in the murder of another inmate. It's not a happy story by any means, but it's a story about how far Gil will go to help save Nick both physically and mentally.
The only thing he remembers clearly the day of the verdict was Gil Grissom’s face. The look was one of utter incomprehension. Poor Gil was finally getting a taste of how the world really worked.
Which might be why his visits to Nick were abysmal failures.
Catherine tried to play peacemaker. “He feels guilty, Nicky. He hides it by projecting righteous indignation at the system, but it’s guilt. He feels like he didn’t do enough to help you.”
Well he didn’t, did he. was Nick’s icy first thought. “There wasn’t anything he could have done, Cath,” is what he’d said.
But lying in his bunk at night, or shivering in the group shower, or sitting alone in the stone yard, baking in the heat of the Nevada afternoon, Nick thought maybe he was wrong. Gil Grissom was a fucking machine, and he might have found it, might have found that one thing that would have made the difference. He didn’t blame Cath, or Greg, or any of the other half a dozen CSI’s who’d examined the evidence. It was pretty irrefutable evidence, after all.
But he didn’t kill Kristy, and he knew it, and so did Grissom. Nick thought of the night he’d laid awake six years before,
scared of disappointing his idol on his first day with the LVPD CSI unit. He thought of the nights he’d laid awake thinking of Gil’s hands as he pulled truth out of the detritus of human remains, of his cold blue eyes narrowed in concentration, of his face as he figured out solutions to unsolvable mysteries. He’d thought other things too, on other nights. He still thought them, and Nick cringed inwardly every time his brain concocted a fairy-tale alternate ending to his current hellish life—one that included Gil Grissom on a fucking white horse, armed with facts and proof and protection. And it always ended with a kiss, just like in the movies.
But his life wasn’t a movie, and Grissom couldn’t come to his rescue.
He didn’t like to see Gil anymore, and every visit was torture on them both. Nick would ask about work, and Gil would try to answer without giving details of cases Nick had no right to know anymore. Gil would ask about Nick, and Nick would answer in vague niceties and skip all the bad parts. But Gil was watching him now, watching close at every visit, and he could see where Nick censured himself. He knew that Nick was leaving parts of his life in prison out of their conversations, and Nick couldn’t stand to look at him as he put the pieces together, and Gil couldn’t look back once he did.
He didn’t like to see Gil anymore, but that didn’t make it hurt less when he stopped coming.
Within Without
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Author on LJ:
eleanor_lavishAuthor's Website: Splinterific, but her CSI fic can be found at CSI Forensics
Why this must be read: I'm actually really shocked this story hasn't been rec'd yet. It's one of the best stories I've read that deals with the first season episode 'Boom' which is when Nick is investigated in the death of the prostitute Kristy Hopkins. It's a what if story where Nick is convicted for Kristy's murder and because he's a CSI, he ends up getting targeted on the inside. His friends have deserted him and he's pretty much alone until Grissom decides it's time to reopen the case and free Nick before Nick dies.
This story is very long and complex and only a portion of it is about Nick in prison. The majority of the story is set after Nick gets out of jail for Kristy's murder, but is suspect in the murder of another inmate. It's not a happy story by any means, but it's a story about how far Gil will go to help save Nick both physically and mentally.
The only thing he remembers clearly the day of the verdict was Gil Grissom’s face. The look was one of utter incomprehension. Poor Gil was finally getting a taste of how the world really worked.
Which might be why his visits to Nick were abysmal failures.
Catherine tried to play peacemaker. “He feels guilty, Nicky. He hides it by projecting righteous indignation at the system, but it’s guilt. He feels like he didn’t do enough to help you.”
Well he didn’t, did he. was Nick’s icy first thought. “There wasn’t anything he could have done, Cath,” is what he’d said.
But lying in his bunk at night, or shivering in the group shower, or sitting alone in the stone yard, baking in the heat of the Nevada afternoon, Nick thought maybe he was wrong. Gil Grissom was a fucking machine, and he might have found it, might have found that one thing that would have made the difference. He didn’t blame Cath, or Greg, or any of the other half a dozen CSI’s who’d examined the evidence. It was pretty irrefutable evidence, after all.
But he didn’t kill Kristy, and he knew it, and so did Grissom. Nick thought of the night he’d laid awake six years before,
scared of disappointing his idol on his first day with the LVPD CSI unit. He thought of the nights he’d laid awake thinking of Gil’s hands as he pulled truth out of the detritus of human remains, of his cold blue eyes narrowed in concentration, of his face as he figured out solutions to unsolvable mysteries. He’d thought other things too, on other nights. He still thought them, and Nick cringed inwardly every time his brain concocted a fairy-tale alternate ending to his current hellish life—one that included Gil Grissom on a fucking white horse, armed with facts and proof and protection. And it always ended with a kiss, just like in the movies.
But his life wasn’t a movie, and Grissom couldn’t come to his rescue.
He didn’t like to see Gil anymore, and every visit was torture on them both. Nick would ask about work, and Gil would try to answer without giving details of cases Nick had no right to know anymore. Gil would ask about Nick, and Nick would answer in vague niceties and skip all the bad parts. But Gil was watching him now, watching close at every visit, and he could see where Nick censured himself. He knew that Nick was leaving parts of his life in prison out of their conversations, and Nick couldn’t stand to look at him as he put the pieces together, and Gil couldn’t look back once he did.
He didn’t like to see Gil anymore, but that didn’t make it hurt less when he stopped coming.
Within Without