| Title: A Shameless Man By: TriplePirouette Category: GSR UST Spoilers: Up to and including Butterflied Disclaimer: They're not mine- I'm a poor college student having fun... take pity... Distribution: please ask first :) Summary: Post-ep for Butterflied "You know it should be easy for a man who's strong/To say he's sorry or admit when he's wrong/I've never lost anything I ever missed/But I've never been in love like this..." -Shameless, Billy Joel - Companion/Sequel to "An Innocent Woman" Griss POV Author's Note- this is fairly dark in the beginning... try to stick with it, though. Feedback PLEASE at: TriplePirouettePhile@hotmail.com I love anything constructive! Blatant flames, however, will be disregarded and used to roast s'mores.... Also, anyone trying to deny the G/S ship after this episode will be burned at the stake for heresy. ;) In the nicest possible way, of course. J/k ~~~~~~~~~~ I feel the heat emanating off of her in waves, and I have the urge to press myself into her beautiful back and bury my face in her hair, begging for forgiveness. I love her, she loves me. I want to wrap myself around her and never let her go. But I can't do that. I can see Sara's eyes reflecting back to me in the glass, and she tenses. I move quickly, the scalpel in my hand slicing through her throat easily and silencing the cry on her lips. She falls limply into my embrace, and I indulge in holding her for a minute. As I lay her on the floor, positioning her body so that I can see the butterfly on her lower back, her eyes stare into mine, losing life. Stepping back, I feel the warm stickiness of her blood on my hands. Looking up to her, her eyes flicker to life as the blood pours from the gaping wound on her neck. "Grissom..." She whispers, "Grissom..." ~~~~~~~~~~ My whole body jerks awake from the nightmare, and I panic. My hands roam my body in search of the warmth of her blood that lingers from the dream before they finally come to my face in a shameless attempt to hide from the images. I'm still in my clothes from the past day, sprawled out on my bed. My mind is screaming, my body aches... pure exhaustion took over once I arrived home, but a glance at the clock shows I've only been able to sleep an hour, the nightmare tearing me from the rest I need. Sad, isn't it, Doc? Just like every time I close my eyes I see Sara lying dead in the morgue, every moment I cannot distract my mind I ruminate on my failures... and my confession. Guys like us. A couple of middle-aged men who have allowed their work to consume their lives. I stand, moving to the bathroom for my much needed shower. I crank on the hot water, barely turning on the cold, and shed my clothes, leaving them on the floor where they land. I step in and just stand under the spray. The only time we ever touch other people is when we're wearing our latex gloves. I'm happy, I tell myself. I grab the soap and start scrubbing my skin. I've created a very successful life. I'm intelligent, respected... when I'm gone my work will outlive me. But will anyone remember me? I haven't loved, haven't lived. I have no one to share my success with, my pride. We wake up one day and realize that for 50 years we haven't really lived at all. There's no one. Nothing. I come home every damn day and talk to my cockroaches, telling myself that I'm happy. But I'm not. I'm not, dammit. Pain breaks through my mental cloud and I look down. The soap gone from my hand, I've been scrubbing my arm with my nails, breaking the skin and drawing blood. I watch, fascinated, as it mingles with the flowing water and dribbles to fly down the drain. A strangled laugh falls from my lips. Watching my blood flow down the drain is like a sad metaphor... but in reality I started dying long ago. I'm not quite sure what's left of me now. I watch as the red liquid slowly ceases its trip out of my body. Then all of a sudden, we get a second chance. Somebody young and beautiful shows up, somebody we could care about. She offers us a new life with her. Images of Sara flood my head; fantasies that I've dreamt for years come flooding back, and I feel guilty and dirty. I kept trying to stop myself from feeling for her, but I never could. She'd haunt me in my dreams, and soon I found I was falling for her. No. I wasn't falling for her. I was falling for an imagined Sara; the woman who made love to me in my dreams every night, the woman who I put on a pedestal and worshiped, the woman who probably had more to do with my warped imagination than the real person. I feel the frustration and anger rise in my body, tempered only by the cooling of the water hitting me. I reach for the shampoo and dig it into my scalp forcefully. I don't know anything about her. I don't deal well with people. I could never be what she wanted, what would make her happy. It was just a crush on her part. And what if she fell short of what I had imagined her to be? I'd be angry, frustrated, and upset, and it wouldn't be her fault. It would be mine. It is mine. I couldn't do it. But you did. You risked it all. And she showed you a wonderful life, didn't she? But then she took it away and gave it to somebody else, and you were lost. But if she was everything I had dreamed of, everything I wanted, I'd be lost if she ever left. Just as I'm a shell of my former self now, I'd be afraid to think of what would happen if I had her and then lost her. If she left me. If she died. Or even if she just changed her mind. I would lose it all; everything I'd ever secretly wanted. I step out of the shower and mindlessly rub the towel over my wet flesh. So you took her life. You killed them both and now you have nothing. I'm still here. Are you? Are you still there, Dr. Lurie? Because I'm not here. I've become the ghost I always tried to be. My own words from a few days ago float into my head, the conversation with Nick typical of my behavior as of late. "Good. We certainly don't need another me around here." Truth is, they could probably do without the me they have now. They'd get along just fine. I can feel my eyes starting to droop as I pad, naked, back to my room. I move to stumble into my bed, anxiously awaiting the cocoon of my blankets, when I catch a look at myself in the mirror. I'm old, thicker around the middle than I'd like to be, and not at all the me I see in my dreams when I'm making love to her. No, I'm not what she needs at all. I surrender to the pull of the bed, this time wrapping myself in the blankets. ~~~~~~~~~~ The alarm startles me from a dream of her. Not a nightmare, but a dream. A dream where she loved me, even as I am now. I've slept over fourteen hours and through one shift by orders of both Catherine and Atwater. They both said that after pulling a triple I wasn't allowed near CSI for at least twenty-four hours. My body obeyed, craving sleep. My mind never left Sara, though. Blissfully, my sleep was deep and not plagued by nightmares. Only a single, amazing dream that I was ripped from. Getting out of bed, I feel hung over, but that's more from the schedule of the last few days than anything else. I slip on a pair of clean boxers and my robe and move slowly into the kitchen, automatically putting on a pot of coffee. I stop. It's too quiet in here. I know I'm alone, but I don't like to feel alone. Now the only sound is of the coffee brewing, and that depresses me. I can feel myself slipping into the depression and sorrow of yesterday that was all consuming. I don't want to do that again. It was out of control, and scary. I didn't think I was that crazy or obsessive. The vision of me laughing in the shower as I rub my skin to pieces startles and frightens me. I pull my robe tighter around me and move to the living room, my eyes scanning over the entertainment center restlessly. The news will depress me and I don't feel like sitting here to try to find something worth watching, so that rules the TV out. I turn the radio on, and after going though my presets and hearing nothing but commercials, I grumble and flip it over to CD. The first few strains of an opera ring out, and I quickly stop it and pull the CD out, tossing it on the shelf; that story of love and loss is the last thing I need now. I run my finger over my collection and I stop on a well worn favorite disc and smile. I wonder if anyone would even know what I listen to besides the classical I keep at work. As I head back into the kitchen to get my coffee, a track I wasn't expecting starts up; I must have left the player on shuffle. I shrug and hum along, searching for food. Already my mood seems to have elevated as I sing along quietly, looking though the refrigerator for something to eat. "Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television, North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe..." I pull out a box of frozen Stouffer's Macaroni and Cheese, and preheat the oven. I move around the kitchen, emptying the garbage, putting away dishes, all while I sing, my mood soaring higher and higher, even almost balancing out he last 36 hours. I can do this. I can move on, and go back. I can still be happy. Or at least content. I pull the wrapping off the tray of macaroni and shove it into the oven, then settle at the table as the song ends. The first strains of the next song start, and I hurry to the CD player, grabbing the remote. Some people stay far away from the door I quickly silence Billy, hitting the next button. I am not an innocent man, and that song would just rub salt in these open wounds. The next track starts up, one of my favorite songs, and I sink into the couch, mumbling along, my eyes closed. Well I'm shameless when it comes to loving you I'd do anything you want me to I'd do anything at all And I'm standing here for all the world to see There ain't that much left of me That has very far to fall You know I'm not a man who has ever been Insecure about the world I've been living in I don't break easy, I have my pride But if you need to be satisfied I'm shameless, baby I don't have a prayer Anytime I see you standing there I go down upon my knees Images of Sara float though my mind, and as much as I know it's a bad idea, I don't fight them. This movie in my mind has played over and over to this song, but not until today has it taken on any significance. And I'm changing, I swore I'd never compromise But you convinced me otherwise I'll do anything you please You see in all my life I've never found What I couldn't resist, what I couldn't turn down I could walk away from anyone I ever knew But I can't walk away from you I have never let anything have this much control over me Cause I worked too hard to call my life my own Yes I made myself a world and it worked so perfectly But it's your world now, I can't refuse I never had so much to lose I'm shameless... I can't get her out of my mind. "I couldn't..." I hear again. But I should. Dear God, I should. Depending on the day, the hour, the minute, my decision will sway from no to yes with ease. Now is one of those moments. Now, the yes seems so easy to say. You know it should be easy for a man who's strong To say he's sorry or admit when he's wrong I've never lost anything I ever missed But I've never been in love like this... It's out of my hands I'm shameless, I don't have the power now But I don't want it anyhow So I've got to let it go A life lesson I've learned in my years in "sin city" comes rushing back to me: the submissive in the relationship always has the power, not the dominant one. As much as I think I'm making the decisions here, I'm not. I can't. I can't look at her every day and feel certain that I've made the right decision, that I know. I'm shameless, shameless as a man can be You can make a total fool of me I just wanted you to know I am shameless I feel like dropping to my knees in confession, pleading for her forgiveness. The next song starts as my hands rub over my face. My decision seems so wrong now, so stupid. I sit, tuning the music into the background, all the while trying to think, but not really think, about the problem. Maybe I'm hoping if I only think about the superficial problems that I'll come up with a brilliant idea to solve the whole thing. The smell of burning cheese makes me jump up, and I reach into the oven without a thought as to what I'm risking by using my bare hands, and pull the black tray out. I yank it out, and toss it on the counter to survey the damage; only the cheese in the corners is blackened. The dinner is salvageable. I search around for the pot holders, only to realize a whole song later that they're in the laundry. I shake my head and move back to my dinner. I scrape around the areas blackened beyond recognition and put it on my plate, savoring the first steaming taste. I stop and almost drop my plate. I couldn't do it. But you did. You risked it all. And she showed you a wonderful life, didn't she? Sara is like my dinner. I took a risk without thinking. I could have gotten burned, but I didn't. If I had searched around for the pot holders, which weren't there at all, my dinner would have been burnt and in the end I wouldn't have had pot holders or a dinner. I'll risk burning my hands for a measly plate of macaroni and cheese, but I can't take a risk for Sara? And I'll bet she tastes a lot better than this, too, I think as I push the macaroni around. But I push that thought out of my head- eager to follow my previous train of thought. Maybe it's not too late for us, maybe we're only a little crispy around the edges. The disc repeats, and the words float back into me. You see in all my life I've never found What I couldn't resist, what I couldn't turn down I could walk away from anyone I ever knew But I can't walk away from you I have never let anything have this much control over me Cause I worked too hard to call my life my own Yes I made myself a world and it worked so perfectly But it's your world now, I can't refuse I never had so much to lose I'm shameless... I am shameless. I'll scrape away the burnt edges. I can't walk away from this. She's stayed with me so long, I'll never be able to get rid of her. I don't want to get rid of her. I worked for everything else in my life, it only makes sense that I should work for this, too. Revelations over frozen mac and cheese, who would have thought? I quickly eat the rest and head for a shower. Now I just need to figure out what to do, now that I know what I want. It's what I've wanted all along. I start singing loudly as I ready for my shower. I knew there was a reason I picked this CD today. I'm shameless, I don't have the power now But I don't want it anyhow So I've got to let it go I'm shameless, shameless as a man can be You can make a total fool of me I just wanted you to know Sara is worth the risk. Even if I get burned. If you never try, you'll never know. I'm not ready to never know. |
| Read the sequel "It Has Always Been" |