Title: Five Things Greg Sanders Absolutely Does Not Like
Author: geekwriter143
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: total fluff
A/N: Remember when I asked everybody to list me a bunch of things? This is why. I'm using all those random things in the crappy ficlets I'm trying to write at least every other day.

1. Singing in the shower

Greg does not sing in the shower. Ever. If he did sing in the shower, which he most definitely does not do because that would be lame, he certainly wouldn't sing anything by Phil Collins. Or Wilson-Phillips. He especially does not sing Electric Youth by Debbie Gibson at the top of his lungs while doing the accompanying dance moves.

If he were to sing in the shower--which he most certainly does not--he would never wait until Nick was gone so he could do it uninterrupted, and he wouldn't ever use the loofa as a microphone. Also, if he ever got caught singing in the shower, he would deny it to his dying day and insist that Nick must have selective schizophrenia, which he might want to have checked out since he's obviously hearing voices. There's no other explanation for Nick hearing the entire Color Me Badd oeuvre emerging from behind the shower curtain. It wasn't Greg. It couldn't be Greg, because does not sing in the shower.


2. Cats

Greg doesn't dislike cats, but he doesn't like them, either. That little sad puppy look Nick gives him doesn't budge him one bit when the idea of getting a pet comes up. He has nothing against animals, he just doesn't want to share his living space with one.

First of all, they shed. Second of all, they poop in a box. Third of all, they poop in a box in your house, and then send little poop molecules flying through the air by scratching at the box and scattering litter everywhere. Nick promises, though, promises to clean the litter box every day and take care of the food and water and brush the thing and de-lint all of Greg's black clothes, and he looks so hopeful that Greg can't say no.

Greg comes home from an extra-long shift and finds Nick on the floor, laughing softly, and Greg sees the little gray fuzz ball and he sighs. "What'd you name it?" he asks. He doesn't have to like the thing, but it makes Nick happy and he'd might as well know its name.

Nick's about to answer when Greg suddenly yelps. There's something on him, something climbing his jeans, up his leg and past his thigh and onto his t-shirt, up his chest with nails sharp as razors.

"She likes you," Nick says.

Greg reaches up and pulls the red ball of fluff off his shoulder. He's pretty sure he's bleeding in at least three places. "You got two?" he demands.

"You should always get two," Nick says, as if it's a theory as well known and accepted as gravity or plate tectonics. "Besides, they were litter mates, and they were the last two at the shelter, and I couldn't take one and leave the other."

Greg doesn't even bother to argue. He holds the red ball of fluff away from him, its little hind legs dangling. It mews, but he doesn't care. It's not cute, it's vicious. "I am not a scratching post," he says to the thing before setting it down on the carpet next to Nick.

"I thought we could name them Cookie and Milk," says Nick.

"Whatever," says Greg, and he goes off to bandage his wounds.

When he wakes up the next day, he's already running late for his shift. He rushes out the door and completely forgets about the kittens until he gets home. Nick's working a double, Greg's exhausted from spending hours digging a body out of concrete, and all he wants to do is catch a few hours sleep before he has to go back in. He sits down on the couch, closes his eyes, and sighs.

Mew.

Greg opens his eyes and looks down at his feet. The red kitten is sitting there, looking up at him with big green eyes.

"I'm not going to play with you," he says.

The kitten continues to look at him. Mew.

"I am not your owner. Nick is your owner. I am your owner's boyfriend. I don't even like cats. I'm a dog person."

The kitten looks at him, looks at his feet, and then attacks his shoelace. It throws itself at the shoelace, bats it, jumps up in the air, and bats it again.

"Hey," says Greg, "I deal with enough meth-heads at work. I don't need one in my house."

The kitten has captured his shoelace and is gnawing upon it happily.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Greg pries the thing off his foot. "That's not food. These shoes are new."

The thing wriggles out of his hands, then promptly curls up on his lap and falls asleep. Greg refuses to think it's cute. He carefully lifts the thing up and sets it, still asleep, on the couch. He has cat hair on his pants. He strips down, tosses his clothes in the hamper, and crawls into bed.

Mew.

Greg opens his eyes. He thinks he's slept for at least a few hours. There are four glowing eyes gazing at him. He groans and closes his eyes again. "How the hell did you get up here?" he asks.

Mew.

He opens his eyes again. The gray fuzzy thing curls into a ball and looks at him over its tail. The red fuzzy thing bats tentatively at his hair. He wonders which one is Cookie and which one is Milk.

"OK," he says, "here's the thing. Nick likes cats. Nick grew up with cats and has always wanted his own. Me, I'd prefer a Golden Retriever, but we're not home enough to take care of a puppy, so we got you instead. He got you. Not me. I am just here because I love Nick. I am not taking care of you in any way. Got it?"

The gray fluffy thing has fallen asleep and the red fluffy thing bats at his hair again. He picks her up and rolls onto his back, holding her about a foot above his chest. Her tail flicks lazily. "You don't look like a Cookie," he tells her. "Or a Milk. You look like...a Cheery Longbottom."

The cat doesn't react, but Greg knows he's gotten her name right. Cheery Longbottom it is. He looks at the sleeping gray kitten that hasn't moved. His name is obviously Constable Downspout. He lets Cheery curl up on his chest and closes his eyes, hoping to go back to sleep. When Constable burrows beneath the covers and presses against his body, seeking warmth, Greg does not smile at all because, really, he doesn't like cats. Not even really cute fuzzy ones that snuggle against him and purr and make him laugh when they lick his face with their sandpaper tongues.


3. His Library Card

Not that Greg has a library card, because that would be almost as lame as singing I Wanna Sex You Up in the shower, which he doesn't do, no matter how many times Nick says he thinks it's endearing and promises not to tell. Library cards are for people who do things like read books and be smart, and Greg's way too cool to be smart. Except for the fact that he is smart and he's never been cool, of course.

He is kind of cool. He's his own kind of cool. He's the kind of cool where being smart and listening to weird music and liking guys are all good things, not bad. He's the kind of cool that will last, he thinks, because all those jocks from high school reached their coolness peak over a decade earlier, and Greg's just hitting his stride.

In high school he was the geek with full headgear who couldn't get a date, and even if he could have he couldn't have gotten a date with anyone he was actually attracted to because even in California, queers got their asses kicked.

In college he was the geek that all the girls talked to because he was so "nice," and all the guys just ignored unless they needed help with their chemistry homework or somebody to take their skates to get sharpened. Finally, in his junior year, a guy did pay attention to him and he lost his virginity. He thought he'd feel cool after that, but he just felt sticky.

It wasn't until grad school that he realized he was his own kind of cool, that people sometimes looked up to him for being as smart as he was and for doing his own thing. They were mostly the undergrads he TA'd and they didn't know any better, but still. It was nice to finally feel cool for who he was.

He still never mentioned library card, though, because 23 years of pure geekiness had taught him that sometimes, it was best to hide things like that. The day Nick left him a note asking if he could see if the library had Birding on Borrowed Time the next time he was there, Greg was pretty sure he was in love.


4. The Lingering Scent of Nick's Aftershave

Greg can't stand the smell of Nick's aftershave. No, that's not true--he just doesn't notice it. Ever. He never sits on the edge of the tub after Nick's left just so he can breathe it in. He doesn't jerk off sometimes with his face buried in Nick's pillow, inhaling the scent. He doesn't sometimes open the medicine cabinet just to look at the bottle and think, "That's Nick's. That's Nick's aftershave and it's here because he lives here. With me. We live together. Nick and I live together." And then he never dabs a little bit on his neck and wrists to help him sleep when Nick's not there and there's no company except the cats and Greg hates sleeping anymore when he doesn't have Nick's warm body to snuggle up against.

5. Being in Love

Greg has never been in love before. He's been infatuated, sure, sometimes almost obsessed, but he's never really been in love. Being infatuated is easy and it makes you giddy. Being in love is hard.

Being in love means that he picks his clothes up off the floor and never leaves his damp towel draped across the foot of the bed. Being in love means he does things like talk about his feelings and his future and where the relationship is going. Being in love means that he can't just storm out when he and Nick fight because there's too much on the line for him to risk losing.

Being in love means cleaning up puke when Nick gets the stomach flu. Being in love means not buying that new leather jacket because they need that money for the mortgage, and his high credit card bills worry Nick, anyway. Being in love means that sometimes they do go to bed angry, even though it feels like fighting with Nick could kill him sometimes. Being in love means working through it and coming out stronger on the other side. Being in love means that he could live without Nick if he had to, but it wouldn't be much of a life.

Being in love means feeding two cats who act like he maybe sprinkled crack on their kibble, and giving them water, and playing with them, and emptying their litter box when Nick has to work two or three shifts in a row.

Being in love means that he shares his entire life with a man who loves country music and talks in his sleep and irons his t-shirts. Being in love means he thinks those things are endearing, not annoying, and being in love means he's finally brave enough to admit that, yes, he sings in the shower. Badly. And he enjoys every minute.

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