Title: L'Espirt de L'Escalier
By: Daniella
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Genres: angst, drama
Rating: PG13
Warnings: none
Summary: Greg's thoughts on words, memories, and the French.

You were never that good at French. Not really. You didn't have much experience on the subject, not much past what you saw in movies, stereotypical guys with moustaches and berets running around with a few long loaves of bread stuffed under their arms.


Apart from Norwegian, which you had been hearing all your life, you just weren't very good with foreign languages, that's all.


Then again, there were some that would say you had enough trouble with English. Hodges still won't let that ‘funtain' thing go.


The point was, French. A language you knew hardly anything about, save for the occasional ‘oui oui' and strong cheese.


But it was funny, the sort of things you keep inside. Memories and the like. Stuff you thought you had long forgotten, it has the tendency to pop back up again. Always when you least expect it. The colour of the dress your date wore to your senior prom, for example (canary yellow). That first chem exam you did back in college (aced it). You had been processing some clothes for GSR the other day when the pattern of the shirt on the layout table before you brought back memories of that time you spent with Papa Olaf at that family reunion when you were twelve.


Memories. People retain more than they'd like to think. And it always regurgitates itself at the funniest times, like a cocktail of nostalgia and déja-vu.
Daja-vu. That's French. You know that.


You're not sure if it has a technical name, but there's a point when you're experiencing so much pain that you just don't feel it anymore. You go numb, and you aren't sure whether you feel more relieved or scared by the sensation. You brain stops processing what's around you and you're left to float. Left to think. Left to remember.


But that's one moment you're sure you'll never forget, first the odd smell that you couldn't quite place, and just as you turn around suddenly you were forced forward sharply, and there was a flash of unbearable pain before you went completely cold. Before you went numb.


You remember lying there on your stomach, not really hearing much because there was this annoying ringing sound in your ears and it wouldn't go away, and everything was red and flickery, and you couldn't help but think that it should feel hot but you felt nothing but an icy chill crawling down your back.


And it was then that you started remembering. All the stupid little shit, stuff you thought you had long forgotten.


When you were in the fourth grade, your best friend was Terry Emmett. He lived down the street and had a dog named Lucy. She was old and half-blind, and never wanted to play with you.


You had your first boyfriend when you were in college, that's when you outed yourself too. His name was also Terry, a different Terry, and as you were lying there with the ringing in your ears and the icy cold on your back, you couldn't help but find funny. He was a French major, he used to take you to see weird foreign films with yellow subtitles along the bottom but the two of you were always too busy making out in the back of the theatre to pay attention to the plotline.
You were lying there on your stomach, wondering if Sara was yelling at you cause her mouth was wide open but she wasn't making any noise, that's when you remembered all of this.


Terry was always really smart, scholarship-smart, languages and literature and history. But you were smart too, you with your advanced chem and bio courses, nomenclature and equations. That's what made you and Terry work so well; it was all the stuff you could learn from each other. Cause for you, learning was always fun. Knowledge was always sexy.


At that point, you were being picked up, it felt like you were gliding but everything was moving in a strange direction. You could still see Sara, she was clutching her hand. The whole crime lab was dark and you couldn't figure out why.


You had lost your virginity to Terry, after you had been dating for a while, you were both clumsy and awkward about it, but it was cool, cause there you were. Greg and Terry. In love (or something that felt close to it), and unashamed of what you were.


You were twenty-two.


L'esprit de l'escalier. That's what you remembered as they drove you away in the ambulance. Not that canary yellow dress (it was really ugly, but you said it looked nice anyway), not Lucy, the half blind dog (she bit you once).


L'esprit de l'escalier. Literally translated, it means the spirit of the stairway. In the ambulance, you thought about Terry, but you didn't think about that first night of awkward sex, you didn't think about his foreign movies, you thought of l'esprit de l'escalier.


Terry told you about it; it's a French term that doesn't have a direct English translation. He explained it to you, and you're remembering it now. Nostalgia mixed with déja-vu.


It goes like this: you're in high school and you're walking down the main stretch of hallway. This asshole from your English class appears in front of you through the throng of teenagers and calls you a fag. His buddies start to emerge at his sides, and you need to reply. You need to think of something witty and insulting to say back at him, to save yourself. To look cool. But it doesn't come, so you clutch your chemistry textbook tighter to your chest and push through their group, and your exit is marked by their laughter. And then, right as you're going down the stairs to get to the courtyard, then it hits you. The perfect comeback, the perfect witty reply. You have it now; standing in the stairs, but it's too late. The asshole and his friends have moved to torture someone else. That's l'esprit de l'escalier. That's what Terry taught you, cause knowledge is sexy. That's what you remembered that day, that day of the explosion as you rode in the ambulance, drifting in and out of consciousness.


All the things you should have said but didn't really think of until later.


The French are smart people, you realized it then. And your mind started to drift as you stared at half of a hospital room, were you lying on your side? You weren't sure. But you could see half of a hospital room, all brilliant white and chemically clean, the smell filling your nostrils, and you started to think about Nick.
Nick Stokes, and l'esprit de l'escalier, of course.


All the things you should have said to him. All the times you had the chance, but he flashed you that smile and then, right then, you lost all ability to form cognitive thought. You hated to make the comparison, but he was kind of like those assholes back in high school, leaving you feeling vulnerable and unsure of what to do.


All the things you should have said.


God, you're attractive.
I want you.
Look at me.
Don't leave.
Fuck me.
I need you.


All of it, lost in the stairway, with the witty comeback you had for that teenager who called you a fag. All those words, repeated over and over again in your mind, but never used. Never used, but always remembered. Because people retain the oddest things.


The explosion was a good two years ago now, at least, but you still remember that night. That first night when you were conscious in your hospital room. Alone with your thoughts. The doctors had all left, and your family hadn't arrived yet. Just you. And those memories. Those unused words.


Nick, where are you.
Please come.
Please stay.
I need you.


You still remember the decision you made, lying there on your side with that chemical clean smell and your view of half a hospital room. You decided that while the French were pretty smart, they were also fucking idiots. To hell with them and their moustaches and their cheeses and their stupid esprit de l'escalier.
What's the point of words if you never say them aloud?


You decided then, to fuck l'esprit de l'escalier. Life was too short to come up with the answers later. One minute, you're totally fine, the next, you're sprawled across the floor on your stomach, with ringing in your ears and ice cold chills up your back.


That butt-ugly canary yellow prom dress wasn't important. Terry wasn't important. The other Terry wasn't important either, anymore.


What was important was the here. The now. The head rush you felt every time Nick Stokes gave you one of those smiles.


What was important was that night. That night in the hotel room, something like two years ago. You were alone, the doctors had left, your family hadn't arrived yet.


That night. That night when suddenly, you weren't alone anymore. A familiar form was standing in your line of vision. Nick Stokes smiled at you, that night. And there came the head rush, right on cue.


That night, two years ago. Smartest decision you ever made. The French don't know shit.


Nick looked happy but sad all at once, he was smiling but his eyes were red.


He looked like he was about to speak, but you stopped him. You paused, thinking about l'esprit de l'escalier again. All those things you should have said.
And then you opened your mouth. And then they all came tumbling out.