Title: Bare Places
By: Emily Brunson
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Warnings: violence, dark
Rating:NC-17
Summary: Things are not how they seem at Chez Grissom.

He gets home late. That’s the thing. He’s late. And late is never good. Not these days.

Walking in the door he’s thinking, Maybe it won’t happen this time. Maybe it’ll be a good time. It isn’t always bad. Just sometimes. He can’t predict it, but the good times outnumber the bad, still. They do.

He meets glacial blue eyes and it’s that fast. This is a bad one. He actually skids a little, he stops so short. Turn around, leave. That’s what he should do. Because he’s seen this look before. More than once. Oh yes.

"Sorry I’m late," he says softly. His lips are numb. "I just."

Gil doesn’t nod. Doesn’t say anything. Not yet. His eyes remind Nick of those pieces of blue glacier ice that get imported to Japan for rich men’s drinks. So cold they hurt, burn like licking frozen stainless steel.

"Come on," Nick whispers, and swallows. "Don’t be pissed, okay? Just got held up, that’s all."

He hasn’t even taken his coat off yet. Gil’s walking up to him, still silent, and Nick has to make himself not draw back expectantly. But instead of anything else Gil’s stopping a few inches away, nostrils expanding as he inhales.

"Gil –"

"I smell him on you."

Nick can’t not meet Gil’s blazing cold eyes. He’s never been able to look away, and he can’t now. Not even now. "What?"

"You don’t even bother anymore, do you?" Gil says conversationally, and shakes his head a little. "Trying to hide it. Do you think I’m stupid? Is that it?"

"Gil, I’m not hiding anything." Nick has to swallow again. "I swear to God. Not anything."

"Aramis."

Nick feels an absurd urge to laugh. It’s all so surreal. "Aramis? What about Aramis?"

"He wears that."

"Who?" But he already knows. It’s this again. Again, like last time, and the time before.

Gil’s mouth curves in a slow, deadly smile. "McAda. The one you fucked earlier."

His chest feels tight. It’s hard to breathe. "I didn’t fuck anyone earlier," he says heavily. "God damn it, Gil, you know I didn’t –"

Something he’s learned lately: when Gil Grissom wants to, he can move spookily fast. And he wants to now. The blow comes out of nowhere. Gil’s fist and Nick’s cheekbone, and then the floor, another part of this life that’s becoming very familiar territory.

He shakes his head dizzily. His cheek is a fat pulsing tumor of pain, left eye watering. God, that one hurt. On his face, Gil’s never hit him in the face before. Always been more careful than that.

"Is it because he has a big dick?" Grissom asks, standing over him and regarding him so calmly. "Because I know how you feel about big dicks. Never met one you didn’t like."

"Don’t," Nick says hoarsely. "Stop it, Gil, just fucking stop it."

"Funny, I remember telling you the same thing the last time you screwed around on me."

"I didn’t EVER screw –"

Gil’s foot takes him squarely in the solar plexus, which he’s stupidly forgotten to cover. It isn’t like in the movies, when the hero rolls and gasps but then gets up and keeps on fighting the good fight. This is an amazing, electrifying kind of pain, and in the midst of curling up and tasting vomit in the back of his throat he thinks maybe he’s never gonna walk again. It hurts too much.

But Gil’s fingers are in his hair, grown out because Gil said months ago, a lifetime ago, that Nick didn’t have to go around looking like a Corps wannabe all the time, hand pulling him out of his retching fetal position and yanking his head up. "You fucking little WHORE," Gil hisses, grinning now. "You think people don’t NOTICE? You think everyone doesn’t know what kind of man you are?"

It doesn’t hurt as bad when Gil slaps him. Maybe because his belly is still a solid screaming nexus of pain, and his body can’t register all the input at once. He can’t make his hands stop clutching himself long enough to reach up, to deflect the blows, maybe even fight back. It feels as if bits of himself are going to fall out, plop out on the floor like Al Robbins had just done a fast Y-incision on him. Never knew it could hurt like that, never.

And Gil’s hand isn’t letting go. Pulling harder, until it’s stand up or let him scalp him. Gil’s arm snakes around his neck, and for a second it’s like he’s about to give him a noogie, but there’s nothing friendly about this. Propelling him into the hall, the warm Right Guard-smelling feel of Gil’s armpit against Nick’s ear and his own feet stumbling to keep up.

"How’d you do it?" Gil asks. He sounds almost gleeful. "I know you didn’t suck him."

His stomach has unclenched enough that he can actually draw a full breath. Against Gil’s corded wrist Nick grits, "Let me GO, goddamn it, STOP this!"

Gil’s arm swings him around and he lets out a sharp shocked cry as he hits the wall. Doesn’t hurt so much, but knocks all that hard-earned air right out of him again. A painting hits the floor, jarred off its nail by the impact, and Nick hears its covering glass shattering while his bruised cheek grinds against the wallpaper.

"You’re the one who won’t stop," Gil says directly into Nick’s free ear. "Was it good? Did it feel so good when he fucked you?" His hips nudge Nick’s ass crudely. "Didn’t do it in a bed, did you? Couldn’t wait that long, just had to get it right there. Up against a wall, just like this. Didn’t you?"

Maybe it’s because he’s been hit in the head a couple of times already, or maybe he’s just abysmally stupid, but it doesn’t occur to him until that moment what Gil’s about to do. When he feels Gil’s free hand pulling at his belt, yanking at his button-fly jeans that used to make Gil laugh because they were easy-off jeans, old and faded and wonderfully soft, and the buttonholes kinda bigger than they should be. Not because he was a whore, they were just old, but now they’re coming open as easily as they joked about a few months ago, sliding off his hips. And the thought in his head is as clear and terrible as seeing Nigel Crane wearing Nick’s clothes and caressing them like bare skin, bare as Nick’s ass is right now.

"This IS the way whores like it, isn’t it, Nicky?" Gil whispers, and there’s a pause, and then Nick cries out for real, because Gil’s dick is shoving up his ass, hot and hard and as big as Gil seems to think Mike McAda’s cock is, except Nick’s never seen Mike’s dick and never will, and Gil’s is one fucking hell of a lot bigger than most people would probably bet.

"There you go," Gil says nastily. "Two in one night, even better, huh?"

The wallpaper smells like dust and old glue. He can’t stop making these sounds, these weird high non-Nick squirts of noise, every time Gil thrusts into him. It’s too grotesque to completely wrap his mind around, too unreal. Gil can’t be doing this, he CAN’T, things have been weird lately, bad, yes, these sudden rages that come out of nowhere, but nothing like THIS. This is – is – RAPE, and Gil can’t do that, he can’t, it isn’t them, it isn’t him.

Gil bites him, not a love bite, a sharp icy kiss of teeth breaking the skin where Nick’s neck becomes his shoulder, and Nick goes away. Consciously, with nothing but a faint sense of pure relief. It’s happening, yes, okay, but he doesn’t have to experience it. He closes his wet eyes and doesn’t think of England. Doesn’t think about anything at all.

There’s more, later. After Gil’s come, and pulls out of the place where he’s hurt Nick before but only in the best possible ways; more, like the pain in his nose when Gil rams his face against the wall, and the bills that flutter to the floor when Gil empties his wallet. Payment for services rendered, and Nick’s sliding down, pants around his ankles, one flailing hand half-covering a twenty. He lies there cocooned in that same not-thinking shroud while Gil goes berserk. Breaking sounds, crunching sounds, and over it all Gil’s fuming, raging voice, echoing off the plaster in the living room, the hardwood floors.

Nick looks at the twenty-dollar bill stuck to his sweaty hand, and closes his eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

She gets the call at exactly five minutes after seven. She knows because she’s just looked at her watch, and that’s because she’s thinking that whoever has the brass nerve to call her from work not even an hour after she’s clocked out is going to be missing a few body parts when she gets her hands on them.

The brass nerve is Jim Brass, appropriately enough.

"Hope you’re not home yet."

Catherine’s left hand tightens on the steering wheel. "Might as well be. Don’t even THINK about telling me I gotta –"

"We have a situation."

She knows this tone of voice. It’s never good. She brakes for a red light and sighs. "Call Ecklie," she tells him curtly. "If the sun is shining, it’s his situation, not mine."

"Domestic disturbance call," Brass continues as if she hadn’t said anything at all. He sounds a little shaky. That gets her attention. "And we don’t want Ecklie anywhere NEAR this one, trust me."

"Why not?"

"9444 Monterey Drive."

"That’s –"

"Grissom’s house."

The light turns green, but she ignores it, and the ensuing honks from the Jeep behind her. "GRISSOM?"

"I’m on my way as we speak. I suggest you do the same."

"Holy shit."

"Exactly."

"What –"

"Meet me there. I don’t know anything yet."

She doesn’t bother flipping off the guy blaring his horn. It feels as if she’s been dunked in ice water. With a peal of tires she yanks the wheel around, making a sharp right out of the middle lane and not giving a shit.

It’s fifteen minutes to Monterey Drive and Gil’s house. She uses the time to call the sitter, assure her that yes, she’s on her way, just a detour first, sorry, work, same old shit. And then she curses the day she decided to get overlays on her nails, because acrylic just doesn’t chew the way plain old fingernails do.

There’s a black-and-white in front of the townhouse, and Brass’s Ford parked askew behind it. Another patrol car is pulling up, which means this isn’t just another domestic-disturbance call, because that doesn’t take two cars. Not normally.

She parks behind Brass and climbs out. Her knees are shaking, which surprises her. The uniforms getting out of their car give her a semi-curious look. There are neighbors outside next door, talking with yet another uniform. Grissom’s front door is wide open. For the first time since she’s known him she’s reluctant to step inside. Brass was right. Ecklie can’t get involved in this. No fucking way.

Brass himself is just inside the door. His expression is unutterably grim, and he’s very pale. He lifts his chin at her approach. There’s no one else around. She stops short of going inside.

"Neighbors called it in." Brass isn’t meeting her eyes, not quite. Glancing around, that flickering cop-look that is so terribly out of place in this familiar house. "Raised voices, breaking glass."

Catherine nods carefully. "Break-in, maybe? I mean, it isn’t really a domestic disturbance."

"I’m not sure what this is."

"I mean, what. How." She can’t even make a real question; it’s too preposterous.

Yet another cop appearing behind Brass, one she vaguely knows. Tim or Tom or something like that. Tim-Tom has a grim look on his face just like Brass’s, and he’s shaking his head. "This is some weird shit."

"Where’s Grissom?" Catherine demands.

They both give her looks like she’s just informed them she’s gone back to dancing and doing lines. "Thanks, Tom," Brass says softly. "You know to keep this under your hat for now, right?"

Tom the cop nods. "Not sure what we got, anyway."

"Me, either."

"Where’s Grissom?" Catherine repeats edgily. "And where the hell is Nick?"

Brass draws a breath, and then shakes his head and lets it out. "See for yourself," he mutters. "I gotta make a call."

He walks outside, digging out a cell phone, and Catherine looks after him for a second before going into the house.

A picture’s lying smashed on the floor in the hallway. In Grissom’s orderly house it’s like seeing a huge pimple on an otherwise beautiful woman’s face; it’s jarringly out of place. With the hair standing on the back of her neck she edges into the living room proper.

And there she stops, because it’s too strange. Things are broken, all over. Things like lamps, and the top of Gil’s expensive glass coffee table. And Gil is standing there in the midst of the debris with a cup of coffee, looking so normal Catherine feels as if the room just tilted sharply to the right.

"What the hell happened?" she asks out loud.

There’s a moment when Gil looks around, and Catherine thinks, I don’t know this man. Because for just a handful of seconds, maybe fewer, those blue eyes hold an expression she’s never seen before. Not angry; she’s seen Gil angry. Very much so, on occasion. This is something else, something alien and utterly out of place. Something hot and ugly and not entirely sane.

And then it’s gone, and he looks like himself, but tired, more than a little confused. "I’m not sure," he says slowly.

And she thinks later that that’s the moment when she made the decision, even if she wasn’t aware of making it at the time. The decision she had to make and still keep on believing Gil was one of the good guys and not whatever he might really turn out to be.

"Who did this?" Catherine asks, and the look of obscure relief on Gil Grissom’s haunted face is the mirror image of her own.

"I think I did." Gil shakes his head, looking around with real grief. "I don’t – remember."

Head injury, she thinks, and nods to herself. Of course. That explains it. Someone clobbered him, back of the head, maybe, where it isn’t readily visible.

"Where’s Nick?"

His obscurely lost expression doesn’t waver. "I don’t think he came home yet."

It’s still early. Nick left the lab before she did, but now there is no reason to believe anything but what Gil says. So she nods again. "You call him yet?"

"No."

"Gil, we should get you checked out at the ER. Are you hurt?"

"I don’t think so." He reaches up to rub the center of his forehead, a frown curling his mouth. "Headache."

She steps closer. "I think someone hit you on the head," she says gently. "Did you lose consciousness? Any nausea?"

"No. I don’t think so."

And really that’s it. The rest is just cleanup. She works the scene alone, because it isn’t huge, and she can handle it without bringing in anyone else. Gil watches briefly, and then goes into the bedroom. Brass chivvies him out again later, about the time Catherine finishes her sweep, but there’s nothing to add. In the hallway, just the two of him, Brass asks her what she thinks.

"Got a little blood. In the hallway. Someone cut their hand on the glass."

Brass doesn’t nod. "Whose?"

"Ask me that after I’ve run an analysis."

"You think Grissom did all this?"

She pauses, and then shrugs. "Trashes his own house? Not without provocation."

"Wasn’t a break-in. No forcible entry."

"Someone trying a shake-down? Intimidation? He’s got more than a few enemies, I don’t have to tell you."

"Maybe." Brass is as inflectionless as she’s ever heard him. "Where the fuck is Nick? Doesn’t he live here now?"

Catherine nods. "A few months, yeah. Gil didn’t know where he was. Said he hadn’t come home from work yet."

Brass gives her a sharp look. "That’s funny. He told me he was headed home a couple of hours ago."

"I don’t see him. Do you?"

"Let me know when you get an ID on that blood."

"No duh."

Finally there’s nothing else she can rationally do, and Gil’s holed up in the bedroom again. Brass is nowhere to be found. She packs up her gear and her baker’s dozen evidence bags and takes a final look around. It’s all a question of evidence now. In his right mind Gil would appreciate that. Maybe once the effects of his head bonk wear off he will. Who did it? Up to a few glass shards and a few drops of blood.

She goes outside into bright morning sunshine, and climbs wearily into her vehicle. A long night has become an even longer day. And she isn’t sure what in the hell she’ll find along the way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The hummingbird feeder mesmerizes him. It’s frantically busy, probably been one here every summer for years, a known hot spot. He thinks about something his dad said one time, years ago. How if hummingbirds were six feet tall they’d rule the earth. The most warlike creatures imaginable. Now, watching them chase each other jealously away from the sugar-water Mecca in the middle of the courtyard, he thinks his father was absolutely right. A human-sized hummingbird would be scarier than shit.

He’s seen this place dozens of times before, and never really looked at it. Just another motel off the interstate, old but cheery, the kind of late-fifties Googie spot he remembers from trips when he was a kid. Mom and Pop establishment, clean as these things ever were, and a pool, too.

This late in the day it’s starting to fill up, tourists of course. There’s a family in the room next to his, two kids splashing in the pool, water wings on their arms looking like bulging yellow tumors.

He sighs, and makes a face when his ribs twinge. Nothing broken, not even cracked, according to the radiologist who read his x-rays a couple of hours ago, but his belly still hurts. Other parts of him, too, although his mind can’t quite focus too closely on those smaller more intimate hurts, not without making him want to cry, or else hit something. And that’s sort of ironic, isn’t it? All things considered?

And now it’s getting to be time to go to work. Except then the pooch will be well and truly screwed, because he may be able to hide everything else, but his face is another matter. The ER nurse took pictures as part of standard procedure, but Nick doesn’t need to see them. He’s caught a glimpse of himself in the small bathroom mirror. That’s plenty.

"I’m required by law to call the police," the ER doc had said, regarding him with a suffocating kind of professional pity. "You’ll need to file a report."

Nick had just looked at him. "You can call," he’d replied indifferently. "Whatever."

The doctor looked affronted. "If you don’t want to file charges why did you ask for a rape kit?"

"Insurance," Nick told him, and reached for his shirt. "Can I go now?"

He’d left AMA, never saw any cops, and screw the fact that leaving without medical approval meant his insurance wouldn’t cover the ER trip. That was a problem for another day.

And now what? Go to work? With one eye swollen nearly shut and face looking like he’d gotten on Mike Tyson’s bad side? Would Gil even be there? Did any of it matter?

He looks away from the hummingbird feeder. His eyes sting with tears, but he isn’t sure if they’re grief or fury. Maybe both. Part of him wants to stay here, curl up in that creaky bed and wrap that worn chenille bedspread around him and cry. Cry for what he’s lost, what he thought he’d wanted for so long and finally gotten. What had been so good for a while and gone so appallingly bad the past couple of weeks.

Has it only been that long? Only two weeks? Give or take? It feels like months, years. A lifetime of living with Jekyll and Hyde, no clue that what had been ridiculously, absurdly romantic at first could become so terrible.

And what makes his throat ache right now, savagely, is the fact that he still wants to believe Gil couldn’t do this. Gil Grissom isn’t LIKE this, this isn’t him. But all he has to do is look in the mirror for proof. Gil did do this. Hit him, punch him and kick him. And this isn’t the first time. No, Nicky, admit that. This isn’t the second time, or the third. This is – maybe the fifth, or the sixth, but far from the first time. The first time he’s hit you in the face, yes, but not the first time he’s hit you. Before now he’s liked punches, usually right in the belly, although twice he’s caught you in the back, right over the kidneys, and the second time you pissed pink for two days after. No one could see it, but if you’d taken your clothes off for them they’d have seen plenty.

He’s so tired. He wants to sit down, relax, but his ass hurts, hurts in a sullen way that makes him feel nauseated, and more like crying than ever. At least he knows now what it has taken to make him finally walk away. Evidently he can take being used for a human punching bag when Gil takes the notion, but he draws the line at rape. And that’s what it is, isn’t it? Even if Gil is his lover, has been for months now, the best, warmest, most devastatingly attentive lover Nick has ever known. This morning in the hallway was rape, and the knowledge hits him all over again, bending him a little at the waist and sending a wave of renewed anguish breaking over him, a tsunami of helpless horrified grief. Gil DID this.

The time to leave for work comes and goes, and he doesn’t move. The hummingbirds have done for the evening, along with the kids in the pool, and he stands at the window and stares out at the glow of the Strip over the roof of the motel across the parking lot. It’s time to go, time to face the goddamn music, but he just can’t do it yet. Because to do it will be to really end it, to say goodbye to what he’s thought was the best thing to happen to him in so many years. End maybe more than that – maybe Gil’s career, and certainly his own job, because he won’t be able to stay. Not then. And where will he go? Back to Texas? Someplace else, someplace fresh? Someplace where he doesn’t associate every single thing with a person he can’t imagine living without?

It wasn’t always like this. It wasn’t anything like this, not until that first morning. Until then it had been wonderful. No other way to describe it. And even after, the wonderful parts were still there. Sometimes. But so was the other stuff.

He leans his forehead against the glass and the neon flamingo in front of the motel flickers to life. Hot pink and tacky, and kind of pretty, and a perfect metaphor for this city. He smiles a little, and feels his eyes stinging with tired tears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I love you, you know," Gil told you before you both got out of the car.

You couldn’t help staring at him. "I -- I love you, too."

"Just wanted to say that. Because I haven’t."

"Told me? Or loved me?"

A smile curved one corner of Gil’s mouth. "Told you. Before."

You gave him an uncertain nod. "Well, I’m glad you did."

"We should go in."

"Yeah. Pretty much have to."

"Come here."

Not a long kiss as kisses went, but sweet, and deliberate. After that you went mostly your separate ways, work being what it is. But the first half of your shift that night was spent in a faintly bemused mood, still transfixed by Gil’s unexpected but very welcome declaration.

It wasn’t as if the L word hadn’t been broached before, in somewhat guarded terms. And Gil had made it abundantly clear in unspoken ways, you had to admit. For someone so naturally reserved in his professional endeavors, Gil Grissom was, flat-out, a flaming romantic in private. Not that you weren’t, at least in some ways, but nothing prepared you for the ardor of Gil’s pursuit once mutual interest had been established. No flowers or chocolates; that was a little too feminine, probably. But long expensive dinners at restaurants whose names you couldn’t have pronounced if your life depended on it, and walks, and an introduction to Gil as a person rather than an icon, a boss, a mentor. In becoming the true focus of Gil’s attention, you felt as purely wooed as you had ever been, no, moreso. It was flattering, and entrancing.

But love, well, that was something beyond where you’d yet gone. Even in inviting you to share his home, Gil hadn’t gone that far before. Crazy, but true.

Sometime after midnight you wandered over to Gil’s office with vague thoughts of supper. You found Gil in terse conversation on the phone, and stood politely just outside the door. You hadn’t intended to listen in. Just kind of happened, and you already knew which case was under discussion. Same as last week, and the week before. Month before.

"I have no intention of doing any such thing." Gil sounded as cold and deliberate as you’d heard recently. "I do my job. Aside from that I can’t control the outcome. No, I don’t need that. Well, you know how I feel about it. I appreciate your concern. Right. Yes, of course I will."

You peeked in when you heard him hang up. "Hey."

Gil gave you a distracted look. "Hi. This isn’t a good time."

You nodded slowly, and fought down a little disappointment. Grow up, Nicky, it’s not all about you. "Everything all right?"

"Nothing I can’t handle."

"Mobley?"

Gil shook his head and you watched him take a file out from the middle of the stack in his inbox. "The DA."

"Ah. Was it about Coppa?"

Gil smiled a little. "Isn’t everything about Coppa these days? Listen, I’ll talk to you later, all right?"

"Cool."

You nodded at a couple of folks on the way to the break room, but you didn’t really see them. Instead you thought about the case, the one consuming all of Gil’s free time the past few weeks. The one Gil seemed so bent on keeping you at arms’ length away from.

Not that mob-related cases were all that rare. And this one, despite Gil’s attempts, was pretty common knowledge. Fraud, embezzlement, murder – the usual suspects. But Albert Coppa was an old nemesis, ever since Gil’s investigation of the guy’s son’s death had resulted in an embarrassing drug allegation and posthumous murder charge. Guy was dead, wasn’t like he could go to trial. But Coppa had taken it quite personally when Gil ix-nayed the idea of letting the murder idea go. Franky Coppa might be pushing up daisies now, but before he shuffled off the mortal coil he made sure Nancy Rodriguez preceded him in death. Justice was justice, even if there was no one left to prosecute.

Now Coppa watched Gil, watched him a lot. You had even heard a rumor – unsubstantiated but hardly unbelievable – that the guy kept files on Gil, maybe more than that. Typically, Gil’s reaction the one time you asked about it was pretty dismissive.

"To him, it’s personal," Gil said, shrugging. "We interfered with his family. In this case, blood family – his own son. Honor, omerta, whatever you choose to call it, it’s standard procedure for an important mob figure like Coppa to think in terms of vendetta. But I wasn’t the only one working the case, by a long shot. Yes, I was part of it, but just one part. Don’t think this is all about me, Nick. Believe me, it’s not."

So you let it go. You didn’t forget, no. But you let it lie, because that’s what you sometimes did in a relationship. Compromise. Trust that in due course Gil would tell you what you needed to know.

You had cause to regret that decision later. But weren’t all important decisions flavored with a little regret? Nothing was black and white. Nothing ever would be.

~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~

He’s been doing this job long enough to believe he has very little capacity for surprise left. He’s seen too much. So many permutations of vanity, hubris, anger, jealousy, and pure greed that these days everything’s just a variation on a generally larcenous or violent theme.

But right now he’s surprised, all right. In a decidedly bad way.

"Just tell me what you remember," Brass says, summoning his calmest, most neutrally supportive tone. "Anything. It’ll be a start."

Grissom looks tired. Totally understandable; nothing like a break-in to mess up one’s routine.

Except Brass is less and less convinced this was a break-in. Of course it all depends on Catherine at this point, but another legacy of doing cop work so long is instinct, and he’s got sirens and klaxons going off all over the damn place on this case. Something ain’t right, more than one something, maybe, and chief among those is the man sitting in front of him, sipping coffee and looking tired and confused and not nearly worried enough.

"There isn’t anything," Grissom says hoarsely. "I don’t even remember coming home."

"Did you see Nick? Do you know where he is?"

A faint frown creases Grissom’s brow, but this too isn’t what Brass expects. Not these days. "I don’t know," Grissom whispers.

"Did you try calling him on his cell?"

"I must have."

"But you don’t remember."

Grissom shakes his head again.

"Okay, Gil, you need to go to the ER, get yourself checked out. I mean, you gotta remember something. You sure nobody hit you on the head?"

Grissom gives a short, spooky little laugh. "I’m not sure of anything."

Neither am I, Brass thinks sourly. Especially regarding you.

Outside again, he can’t stop a quick sigh of frustration. The neighbors haven’t been as helpful as he’d hoped. "Mrs. Hamilton, is there anything else you can tell me about what you heard? Something you left out, maybe?" He tries for as much friendliness as he can muster, considering how freaky this entire mess is. "You never know what might turn out to be helpful. Would you mind going over it one more time for me? Just in case?"

Lisa Hamilton bites her lower lip. She’s small and young, and her heavily pregnant belly is almost grotesque. She looks as if she’ll go into labor any minute now. He devoutly hopes she waits until he’s gone to do it. "Well, like I told you, I was already up, and Trent was still in bed. We usually sleep in on Saturdays, but I haven’t been sleeping all that well lately." Her hand goes unconsciously to the vast mound of her stomach. "I was making coffee – decaf – and I thought I heard voices outside, so I went over to the door. But they were coming from next door."

"Voices. How many?"

She shakes her head slightly. "Maybe two? Or it could have been three. I’m not sure."

Brass gives her an encouraging nod. "So two or three men, and they were yelling?"

"Cursing. And I thought I heard things breaking. And then nothing, but Mr. Grissom is a good neighbor, you know? Never makes any noise at all, he’s very quiet." She looks a little flustered now. "I was worried, and then Trent came in the kitchen and asked what was going on next door. So I called 911." She glances almost apologetically at herself. "I would have gone to check on him, but. The baby."

"Of course," Brass agrees. "Smart choice. Thanks, Mrs. Hamilton. I appreciate your patience."

"Is Mr. Grissom okay?"

"I’m sure he will be." Brass pauses. "You didn’t by chance see Nick around, did you?"

"He’s the friend, right? The one you mentioned earlier?"

"Right. Was he here this morning?"

She gives him a helpless look. "I’m sorry, I didn’t see anyone."

"Okay. Thanks again."

His phone rings as he’s going back to Grissom’s front door. He can’t keep irritation out of his voice when he answers.

"Well, I’ve solved part of the mystery, at least." But Catherine doesn’t sound triumphant. She sounds very odd. As if she’s got something lodged in her throat.

Brass nods. "Anything’ll help. What?"

"I may not know where Nick is, but I know where he was. Right there."

"Here? In the house?"

"Yep. That was his blood. Jesus, Jim."

Brass closes his eyes for a tiny second. "You’re positive."

"100%."

"Anything else? And I mean anything?"

She sounds even more strangled. "Nothing. Nick’s blood, Gil’s fingerprints, nobody else. I can’t find any evidence suggesting a third party was there."

"There wasn’t a third party," Brass says after a second. "I think we’re both clear on that by this point."

"Then that means."

"Yeah."

"Oh my God."

"You still at the lab?"

"Y-Yeah, but –"

"Stay there," he says shortly. "I’ll call you." He doesn’t wait for her to hang up. Inside Grissom’s cool house every out-of-place thing has a sinister aura to it. He feels as if he’s in a stranger’s home.

Grissom’s still sitting at the table. He looks exhausted, and Brass muscles down an automatic flicker of concern.

"Okay," he says more loudly than he intended. Grissom flicks him a startled look. "Why don’t you grab your jacket, Gil?" Brass continues heavily.

"Why?"

"We need to take a ride."

"Where?"

"Gonna get you checked out. Maybe stop by at the lab."

Grissom’s blue eyes are far, far too knowing. "You think I did this, don’t you?" he says calmly.

Brass fights another weird flicker of pity. "I think we don’t have all the facts yet," he replies after a silent moment. "Catherine found some stuff."

He wishes he didn’t see Gil’s face right now. This slow, terrible understanding. "Did you find Nick?" he whispers.

Brass swallows. "Just what he left behind. Come on, Gil. Let’s go."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She has a familiar weird taste in her mouth. Metallic, harsh, the flavor of a copper penny or the wind on a hot radiant Nevada afternoon. It’s the taste of anger, or maybe rage. It’s not unfamiliar, but everything else about this is. It’s wrong, and yet all that wrongness doesn’t ease the way her mouth tastes, or her too-fast heartbeat.

The printout seems to look placidly back at her, indifferently black and white, paper as flat and unyielding as the facts. That is Nick’s blood. That little swab, the kind she’s used for years, but rarely to find out something like this, something she so desperately wants to somehow un-know, and yet fills her with this hot anger.

Her hand is shaking as she stacks the printout along with the others, stows them carelessly in her briefcase. She’s heard Jim Brass’s voice outside. They’re here. And she doesn’t have a clue what she will say when she sees them. Not a single one.

The chair skreeks when she pushes herself away from the desk. Someone clears his throat.

"Mind telling me what’s going on?" Conrad Ecklie looks suspicious, which is to say he looks perfectly normal, leaning in the door. Eyes narrowed, mouth pulled down in an unconscious scowl.

Catherine fixes him with a flat look. "Yeah," she says. "I mind." She gets up. "Excuse me."

"You, Brass, and Grissom, all here at –" She tries not to see the day-shift supervisor checking his watch so ostentatiously. "—nearly noon? I’d say you were working overtime, but I saw the computer. You’re not even clocked in."

"Do me a favor, Conrad, okay? Just go do your job, and leave me alone. Leave this alone. It doesn’t concern you."

His expression doesn’t even flicker. "If it concerns this lab, it concerns me."

"Oh, come off it," she says harshly, brushing past him. "I’m sure you have things to do. So do I." She catches a glimpse of Brass’s taut form down the hall. "Leave it alone," she repeats in a low, tight voice. "Trust me. You don’t want anywhere NEAR it."

For once he actually seems to have a clue. Or maybe it’s the look on her face, but whatever the reason, Ecklie gives a slow nod. "Everything okay?" he asks belatedly, mustering his features into something like a robot approximating concern.

"Don’t ask."

They’re in the conference room, and even before she’s gone inside her heart rate has doubled. She’s actually scared, and that fact is both startling and infuriating. Scared of what? Or should that be, who?

"Hey, Catherine. Come on in." Brass looks exhausted and weirdly energized. This too is familiar. He gestures at a chair, and shuts the door behind her.

"This isn’t going to help," Grissom says dully. "I don’t remember anything."

Gazing at him, Catherine thinks of a million things to say, but she can’t move the words past her lips. Grissom looks bad. Worse than bad; he looks old, used up. There are dark smudges beneath his eyes, making the blue even bluer. That’s fine; she’s seen him tired, they all have. But there’s something else there, something she can’t readily define but makes the skin on the back of her neck prickle. Something terribly, awfully wrong.

"Okay, Gil, but here’s the thing." Brass sits down across the table from her. He seems so normal. How can that be? "Remember or not, you did a number on your own house. And that may not be all you did."

Grissom flinches. Right there, in front of God and everybody, flinches terribly. "What?" he asks after a long moment. "What did I do? Tell me, for God’s sake."

"I swabbed that blood we found in the hallway," Catherine hears herself say. It seems to echo in her own ears, coming from a long, long way away. "Guess whose it was?"

Grissom meets her eyes and doesn’t say a word. His face is the color of putty.

"You bastard," she breathes, not without wonder. "You hit him. How many times, Gil? How much did you knock him around before he started bleeding? Once, twice? Huh? Tell me!"

Somewhere in the middle of it she’s found herself again, not distant at all anymore, but right there, RIGHT in the moment, and this anger tastes good. Righteous, perfectly appropriate. And Grissom’s expression falters, uncertain and scared and confused, and seeing it makes her grin.

"That’s enough, Catherine."

She flicks a fiery look at Brass and hates his grim disapproval. "Why?" she barks. "He beat Nick up! Why the hell is that enough?"

"Because Nick could have cut himself shaving for all we know," Brass fires back. "You’re making assumptions. It’s too early."

"Well, I can fix that." She whips around and stares at Grissom again. He doesn’t look any better. Worse, in fact. Seeing it fills her with dark glee. "Show me your hands, Gil. Come on."

He shakes his head slowly. "Catherine."

"Do it! Let’s see ‘em!"

Brass says nothing at all, and Grissom gives a minute nod. His hands are trembling, badly, and for a second Catherine feels a lurch of worry, outright alarm. The wrongness is worse, filling the air like a bad smell. But over that is the anger, and she gazes at Grissom’s shaking fingers. Sturdy hands, craftsman’s hands, well-manicured. The knuckles of his right hand are bruised, and there’s a tiny cut in the webbing between thumb and forefinger.

"Well," Catherine says crisply. "I don’t think Nick bled all over that hallway from a goddamn shaving cut, do you, Jim?"

Brass draws a deep breath and lets it out in a quiet whoosh. "No," he agrees softly. "I don’t."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was really such a good shift. Three cases closed between the five of you, and nothing new you wouldn’t be wrapping up fast tomorrow night. You felt good. Tired, sure, but good. You were thinking about Hannibal and that whole A-Team "I love it when a plan comes together" thing when you reached Gil’s office. It made you smile.

"Vamanos," you told him, and grinned.

He didn’t grin back. You remembered that later. He didn’t even crack a smile. Which, considering it HAD been a good, productive shift, was out of character.

Instead he sighed and tossed a file over on the table. It slid off, and he said, "Fuck." For a man who pretty much never cursed, the F word was strong.

"You okay?" you asked. Because he wasn’t, obviously.

But he nodded and grabbed his stuff, and you left.

You still had no idea. How could you? It went way beyond the unheard-of, deep into the misty realm of never-happen-in-a-million-years, and you had no way of anticipating it.

It didn’t really start until you reached the truck. Gil tapping his fingers while you climbed inside, could practically hear his teeth grinding with impatience.

"What’s your deal?" you asked, kind of annoyed. "We going to a fire?"

"I’d like to get home sometime before the next millennium," he said crisply, and put the truck in gear.

A few blocks later you roused yourself from your sulk to say, "What’s eating you today? Are you mad or something?"

No reply. That was the first time you noticed how odd he really looked. His face was flushed, and he moved restlessly while he drove, jittery short motions. It was weird, no doubt about it. Some mood you’d never seen before? But you knew him so well. You’d seen him angry, and pissy. But never like this.

You decided to let him stew, since he wasn’t replying anyway. The funny thing later, funny in a kind of terribly non-humorous way, was that you were thinking, I guess we won’t have sex this morning. Sex for you was the best nightcap, always made you sleep like a baby, and you’d been looking forward to it all night. In that moment it was a bummer: no nookie for Nicky.

At the house he was still silent, so you got a beer out of the fridge and started pulling out stuff to make some food, always hungry when you got home. Gil’s weird look had been forgotten, not completely, but shoved to the side by the exertion of deciding if you wanted to actually cook some pasta or just make a sandwich and have done with it, when you heard Gil say, "What did McAda say?"

You took out the tortellini – pasta did sound better after all, and the water was nearly boiling – and frowned at him. "When?"

"You two seemed pretty cozy. Don’t try to tell me that was all work."

That got your attention. You stared at him with your mouth open until the pasta water boiled over and distracted you, because this, too, was a new look, a new sound. Gil was bouncing on the balls of his feet, and he was smiling, but not in a friendly way. An eager way, yeah, like he was just waiting for you to say something, ANYthing, and give him an excuse to keep right on. Right on what? There was nothing to keep on about.

But you had to mess with the water, and when you turned around you were a little pissed yourself, more than a little. "Well, Gil, it was work," you said tightly. "What, did you think we had a quickie out behind the goddamn Bellagio?"

Any other time that should have deflated him. Your brand of sarcasm usually did the trick, made him feel ridiculous and made him laugh a little. But this time he didn’t do any of that. This time he hit you.

Sucker punch, right jab to the belly, and you doubled over like you were making a nice courtly bow. Not much of a windup, so you didn’t fall over or anything, but it knocked all the air out of you for a few seconds. Long enough for you to register what he’d just done.

"Jesus," you heard him whisper. "I’m sorry, Nicky. I didn’t mean to do that."

You put your hand on the counter and looked up at him, blinking because your eyes were watering. He looked godawful, and you were still too shocked to even be angry yet. Gil Grissom HIT you. It was like finding out your mom and dad were smoking crack in between court sessions; it was that bizarre. Maybe YOU were smoking crack, because this wasn’t even remotely possible. Gil HIT you.

Gil looked funny, still, but it was because he was wearing a stupid tragic look. "Forgive me," he said. "Oh Jesus, Nick, I’m so sorry."

All you could think to say was, "You hit me." Your voice sounded all wavery and cracked, like you’d suddenly time-warped back to puberty. "You JERK."

He looked like you’d hit HIM right then, so woebegone, but you could handle that look, at least it wasn’t the alien expression he’d worn right before he’d done it. And you already felt better, not that you wouldn’t have a nice bruise there, probably, or maybe not, you couldn’t always tell. Whatever, didn’t change the fact of what he’d done.

You forgave him, of course. After he’d apologized enough. Stress, sure, things sometimes made you mad enough to hit somebody. Happened to most people. Just the actual hitting part didn’t, usually. But after he spent most of the day making up for it, you caved, let him hug you, kiss you even, and it was over.

Except it wasn’t. But you didn’t know that. You weren’t really scared yet.

That didn’t happen until Thursday.

~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~

"You know I want to believe you, Gil," Brass says softly. "Right?"

Grissom doesn’t meet his eyes. "But you don’t."

"Honestly? I’m not sure what I believe right now."

"I wouldn’t hurt Nick. I wouldn’t." A thread of ferocity has entered Grissom’s dull tone, and Brass welcomes it. "Believe anything else you want, but that part’s true. I wouldn’t hurt him. He’s too important." His voice breaks on the last word, and he raises a shaking hand to his temple.

"How long has it been since you had anything to eat?" Brass asks gruffly.

Grissom shrugs and doesn’t reply.

"Lemme get you something. Okay? Maybe it’ll clear your head a little. You can remember something."

"No." Grissom clears his throat and looks directly at him. "I’m going to my office."

"Gil –"

"I’m not trying to run out on you," Grissom snaps, and stands suddenly. "But until you arrest me I’m a free man, and I’ll be in my office."

Brass nods after a moment. "Okay, Gil," he replies mildly. "Go ahead."

In the hallway outside Catherine gives him a disbelieving look, and Brass raises a hand. "Just – cool your jets there, all right?" he says before she can light into him. "He’s not going anywhere."

"I can’t believe you didn’t arrest his ass already," she snaps. Her cheeks are flushed. She looks about as angry as he’s ever seen her, and that’s saying something.

"I need to see Nick first. Until then this is all circumstantial. You know that, Catherine."

She visibly deflates a little. "Yeah. Where the hell IS Nick?"

"Hell if I know. He’s not picking up his cell."

"What if he’s hurt? Did you try the hospitals?"

"If he’s there he went no-info."

She looks uneasy. "Maybe I should stop by Desert Palms. He could be in the ER and we don’t even know."

"Might be a good idea."

Watching her stride away, he thinks privately there’s about zero chance Nick’s in the ER, no information or not. Yes, ERs protected assault victims by concealing their identities, and if Nick had gone there he’d have opted for it, almost certainly. But he knows Nick. If he’s gone silent it’s because he wants the time. Time to think, time to come up with a plan. When he does, Brass has a sneaking suspicion he’ll be one of the first to hear about it.

As it happens, about an hour later, he’s right.

It’s nearly two when his own cell phone rings. He’s not even thinking when he answers. Just exhausted, and weary in his soul. Nick’s voice sounds crisp and disarmingly focused.

"I need to talk to you."

Brass sits up sharply on the break-room couch. "I was wondering if you might not call," he says carefully. "You okay?"

"So you heard."

"You could say that."

"Have you seen him? What happened?"

Brass draws a deep breath. "Your neighbor called in a 10-51. Where are you?"

Nick pauses. When he continues it’s slightly less calm. "Are you at the lab? Or the station?"

"Lab."

"Is Gi -- Grissom there?"

"Yeah. In his office."

"I’m in the parking lot."

Christ. "I’m coming outside, okay? Don’t move."

Catherine’s long back from her fruitless trip to the hospital, and he ignores her questioning look, makes haste to the exit. Nick’s truck is parked at the end of the row, almost hidden behind Ecklie’s new Expedition. Nick himself is a dark form in the driver’s seat.

Brass stops by the window, and waits, and a second later Nick rolls it down. It takes everything Brass has to keep the calm demeanor. Nick’s face is bruised, one eye so swollen Brass doubts he’s seeing anything out of it. No question what happened now. None at all.

"What do you want to do?" Brass asks.

Nick looks at him out of his good eye. "I don’t want to see him," he says harshly. "Can we go to the station house to do this?"

"Do what, Nick? You wanna file charges on him?"

"I don’t –" Nick looks away, and Brass waits. "I don’t know yet," Nick continues after a long moment. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"Good," Brass bites off. "Don’t let him get away with it, Nicky. He –"

"Not just battery."

It isn’t what he expects to hear, and he blinks. "Okay," he says after a moment. "What else?"

Nick’s face crumples. "I can’t say it," he whispers, a thready tone of pure misery. "I can’t."

Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. He already knows, and knowing, he can’t say it either. "Crap, Nicky."

Something terrible twists Nick’s expression, upper lip drawing back in a near-snarl. "On second thought," he says. "He’s here? Fine."

Brass takes a step back and watches Nick climb out of the truck. "Maybe this isn’t such a good idea," Brass says softly.

Nick’s one good eye is stony. "Too late."

~~~~~~~~~~~

He’s sort of giddy with unexpected freedom. An entire day set aside for this interminable court appearance, and now instead of a short lunch break he’s done. Footloose, fancy free, and a fast buzz past the lab, drop off his shit, pick up his other shit, and he is outta there. No plans, but that’s fine, perfect. The afternoon lies before him as open and welcoming as Latisha Thomas back in the tenth grade, all mocha-latte skin and perfect round breasts and legs out to there, smiling like his virginity was her holy grail and she was gonna make sure he was well shed of it come morning.

He’s still smiling when he pulls into the parking lot, whistling on his way inside, nodding at a couple of poor day-shift slobs. In fact the smile stays perfectly intact until he sees Cath down the hall. Then it slips. Because she shouldn’t be here. And if she is, well. There’s a reason, and his next paycheck says it’s one he won’t like.

"Hey, Warrick," she says as he walks cautiously up. She doesn’t smile. "Court?"

He nods. "Let out early today. Wonders never cease. What’s goin’ on?"

Catherine waits a beat. "Lots of shit," she says finally. "None of it good."

"I don’t even wanna know, do I?"

"Nope. Neither do I. But I do. Why should you get lucky?"

Warrick winces, and catches a glimpse of Nick further down the hall, half-in the conference-room doorway. Brass is with him, looking grimmer than Cath. He can’t see Nick’s face. "What, everybody workin’ a double today?"

"Something’s come up. Something big." Catherine’s fingers are cool on his forearm. She looks pinched now, tired and worried. "It’s about Grissom. And Nick."

He glances down the hall again, but her words have hit him all over again. Hard enough to find out his mentor, the guy he looked up to second only to God just about, was into guys. Harder to find out he was doin’ the nasty with one of Warrick’s closest friends, not to mention a colleague. He liked to think of himself as an open-minded man, and he believed he was. But Gil Grissom’s startling relationship with Nick Stokes had pushed him pretty hard for a while. Yeah, he’s come to terms now, sure. Finally. But he can’t lie and say he isn’t still sort of shocked about it. Just never saw it coming, not in a million million.

"Shit," Warrick says softly. "What?"

"It’s kind of –"

Whatever she was going to tell him, he never finds out. Because Grissom walks out of his office, and sees Nick, and Nick sees Grissom, and all of a sudden they’re all smack in the middle of a Robert de Niro movie.

"What are you doing here?" It barely even sounds like Grissom: that hard flat tone, cold snotty college-professor voice. Warrick hates that tone when it’s used on him, which fortunately isn’t often; its effect on Nick is salutary.

"Think I was gonna hide?" Nick snaps, and turns to face him, giving Warrick his first look at Nick’s face. It’s illuminating. Nick looks like he went up against a door and the door won. Only Warrick has a sudden sick certainty that doors had little if anything to do with the current situation. Nick’s grin is wide and awful. "No such luck, Gil. I won’t roll over for you. Not this time."

"Don’t do this, gentlemen," Brass says in a leaden voice.

"Oh no?" Grissom replies, as if Brass hadn’t said a word. His expression, unlike his tone, is entirely new to Warrick: twisted, ugly, as close to a look of certain hatred as Warrick has ever seen on anyone. It makes Grissom look old, and alien. And frightening. "Rolling over comes so easily for you, Nicky, I’m surprised." His blue eyes belie his cold words; he looks beyond furious. "Not enough notches on your bedpost for one day? Hmmm? Out shopping for a new sugar daddy already?"

"Fuck you," Nick whispers. There are tears in his one open eye. "You sick FUCK, you RAPED me."

As much as Warrick is absolutely sure Nick hasn’t planned to just spit it out like that, he knows for damn sure he didn’t expect to hear it himself. He rocks back a little, just pure honest shock, and so he almost misses the rictus twisting Grissom’s unrecognizable features, the explosive rage in his eyes, because there’s only a second to see it. And then there’s a garbled sound, something thick and wordless and bestial that CAN’T be Gil Grissom’s voice, and he’s not just moving toward Nick, he’s FLYING at him.

Warrick’s own reflexes are normally pretty good, so he blames surprise for slowing him down. He can’t stop Grissom from plowing into Nick, one shoulder catching Brass and sending him thudding against the wall, just as blown away as Warrick. Grissom and Nick go down in a hissing spitting heap, and then Warrick’s got his shit back together, enough that he’s doing a little flying of his own, a few running steps and he’s got his hand on Grissom’s wrist. Not fast enough to keep him from connecting, and the sight of Gil Grissom’s hands wrapped around Nick’s neck almost shocks him motionless all over again.

"God DAMN IT!" Brass is bellowing, trying to yank Grissom off Nick and keep Nick from ripping the guy’s eyes out at the same time. And somewhere in this Twilight Zone scene that’s taken the place of reality as Warrick knows it, Catherine’s up to her elbows, too, hands grabbing the collar of Nick’s shirt and actually dragging him backward on his ass.

And then he stops paying attention to Nick or Catherine because Grissom isn’t just some pissed-off guy spoiling for a fight. Holding onto him is like grabbing a mountain lion, some big and dangerous animal fighting for its life, not understanding the motives of whoever’s doing the holding, just getting the fact that it’s under attack. Grissom’s words are stuttered gibberish, but his expression isn’t: it’s livid, the purest, scariest rage Warrick has ever witnessed in his rather experienced life. It’s beyond anger, somewhere skirting the suburbs of downright inhuman.

This isn’t right, he thinks, and takes an elbow to the stomach, oofing and keeping his grip on Grissom’s arms through sheer awakening fear. This isn’t right, this can’t be just Grissom, pissed off, it can’t. I’ve SEEN him pissed and it ain’t pretty, but it ain’t this.

"Stop it!" Nick shrieks, standing a few feet away and holding his hands out like Grissom wasn’t trying to reach him to claw his face off. "Stop it, Gil, Jesus CHRIST, stop it, don’t DO this!"

Grissom pauses. And for a second, oh, such a nice second, Warrick thinks it’s because he’s actually listened. Maybe whatever the fuck is going on between Grissom and Nick is meaningful enough that Nick’s voice can get through to him, through whatever bizarre trippy THING this is and stop him.

And then Grissom tenses and screams, literally screams with rage, and Warrick grits his teeth and stops trying to figure things out, and just hangs on for dear life.

~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s curiosity that brings him to the crime lab that day. Well, curiosity and a little nasty satisfaction. Got yourself into trouble, did you, Grissom? Lo, how the mighty are fallen.

Not that he really wishes the man ill, you know. Just…a little lowering to the level of the common man, that’s all. Come down outta that ivory tower, get a taste of how people with real emotions and real problems go at life, why doncha.

Thing is, a little gossip hasn’t prepared him for what he finds in that hallway. He’s off duty, thinking he’d get the skinny, and he walks instead into a pitched battle.

"What the FUCK," Mike McAda breathes, too astounded to even move for a second.

The hallway is filled with people, most of whom are clustered around a thrashing, screeching form it takes him a long time to realize is Gil Grissom. What is it he’s wished, back in the day, when he and Grissom were still he and Gil, and having the occasional semi-comradely drink and chitchat? That Gil would stop being so smart and so goddamn RIGHT all the time and just be real for a while? Show some honest down-to-earth regular-Joe emotion for once?

Well, he’s got his wish. That’s real rage on Gil Grissom’s face right now. And seeing it, feeling a chill like an arrow of solid ice jolting up his spine, McAda wishes devoutly to have the old stoic Grissom back.

"Feel free to – jump in," Jim Brass pants in his direction. He’s got one of Grissom’s arms, and has evidently lost his grip at least once, if the rapidly swelling bruise on his chin is any indicator.

But nothing next to the battleground that is the face of the other person McAda’s looking around for. Nick Stokes’s face looks like hammered shit – emphasis on the hammered – and suddenly McAda knows exactly the nature of that 10-51. His anger is immediate, and invigorating.

Oh, you bastard. Knew you couldn’t be as fucking holy as you always pretended.

Grissom’s wild blue eyes find him, and he gives a snarl of renewed fury. "YOU," Grissom howls, and flings himself against the arms holding him back. Unsuccessfully, but maybe not for long; Brass is fading, and the Brown guy looks scared and less and less sure of himself.

McAda meets Nick’s pleading gaze and nods curtly. His hand is on his sidearm. "Me, yeah," he agrees. "Cut it out, Grissom. Just back the fuck down, don’t make me use this."

"Don’t shoot him." Nick materializes at McAda’s elbow, bruised face ghastly pale. "Jesus, he’s – you can’t SHOOT him."

"Ain’t gonna shoot him," McAda says, although he doesn’t move his hand. "Not unless he makes me."

Grissom glares at him, and Nick, a hot gaze of jealousy. Nick is shaking his head, hand held out like a trembling benediction. "Gil, listen to me," he says. "It doesn’t have to be like this. Calm down, please, Jesus, just calm down and listen to me?"

Grissom’s answering lunge finally breaks through the arms holding him. This time they all go down like a fucking line of dominos, and McAda’s between Nick and the lunatic Grissom has become. Screw pulling his weapon; he’s got hands full just trying to keep Grissom from going around him or over him or maybe just through him to get to Nick.

"What, you wanna finish the fuckin’ job?" McAda wheezes, and gives a shove with his right hand to the center of Grissom’s chest. A comical look of surprise replaces the madness, at least for a second, and Grissom goes careening back the direction he’d come, sprawling in Brown’s arms. "Hold ‘im!" McAda snaps.

"Don’t hurt him!" Nick bellows at the same time.

McAda casts him a fast look of disbelief. "Like you GIVE a shit?"

The look on Nick’s face is tragic. "Something’s WRONG," he wails, and sits back on his ass, looking a lot like he’s going to cry.

Fighting down a surge of bleak disgust, McAda climbs to his feet. Grissom’s snarling inside the tense ring of Brown’s arms. "Got that right," McAda mutters. "Goddamn fuckarow."

Catherine’s into it again, and Brass, both of ‘em talking to Grissom like he’s actually listening. "Cool it, Gil," Catherine snaps. "Don’t DO this. Not here, not now. Snap out of it."

McAda reaches around and unclips the cuffs from his belt. "This’ll help." He holds them out, and Brass takes them as if they were made of something disgusting.

"Is this really necessary?"

"Hey, you’re the one gonna need an x-ray of your goddamn face," McAda retorts. "You tell ME."

It’s creepy the way Grissom’s eyes only seem to see Nick. Fixated, a look McAda’s seen a few times in his career and never liked, once. Yeah, he knows that look. That’s the same look he remembers from when he was a rookie back in the day, Paleozoic Era just about, Jersey City and his first partner, Marco Gutierrez, another 10-51 and the look on that guy’s face, the look that sent chills down Mike’s spine and a nasty dream that night, a dream that came spookily true a week later when he and Markie went back out and got an eyeful of the guy’s very dead wife. That look in hubby’s eyes said murder, just as loud and honest as Grissom’s do right now.

"Gil," Nick says shakily. Still there, still hanging in, just like that dead woman back in Jersey. Just as fucking nuts as Grissom. McAda’s rolling his eyes while he listens to Nick say what they all say: We can work it out, it’s gonna be all right, just calm down, please, relax.

Save it, sugar, he wants to snap. Give it up. He beat your face in, and if I had three minutes and a roll of nickels I’d give him a taste of it himself before I arrested his ass. Walk away and don’t look back. He ain’t worth your time.

But Grissom’s crazed expression is changing. Not to understanding, not to calm, but confusion, and a sick look, a physically ill look.

"Gil?" Catherine says. They’re all still suddenly, like everyone took a collective breath and now they’re all just waiting.

For what, McAda never has to find out. Because Gil Grissom arches back in Warrick Brown’s strong arms, and his eyes roll back in his head, and McAda hears Nick draw a deep breath and whisper Grissom’s name one more time before Grissom stiffens in a bone-wracking seizure.

~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t that you forgot what he did. Of course not. But you’d forgiven him, and he’d promised not to do it again, and you believed that promise. He was a good and kind man, under a shitload of stress, and true, it was wrong of him. But it was also wildly out of character, and he made it up to you the next day, cooked your favorite meal and then took you to bed and loved you into a sweaty lump of protoplasm, and it was all good.

You figured that was why you simply walked into it the next time. It wasn’t that you didn’t believe it would happen again. You couldn’t believe it. You could not.

It was after work again. Thursday morning, one of those baking mornings when the previous night was so hot there wasn’t any time to cool off before the sun came up again. You were tired and sweaty and irritable, and you were too busy feeling sorry for yourself and the suck-shit case you’d spent way too much time working on with zero results. You weren’t paying dick attention to Gil, or anything else. You just wanted to go home and shower and drink enough beer that you didn’t have to think about work or anything else for a while.

You got the shower, but you never made it to the beer. Instead you got a phone call, which you took with your hair wet and your teeth gritted with anticipation.

"It’s a wash," Mike McAda told you, exactly as you’d feared he might. "Driver’s alibi’s solid. Sorry, kiddo."

"Damn it." You glared at yourself in the bathroom mirror and grabbed a towel.

"Think you missed anything?"

You were pretty sure you didn’t; you went over the damn car for three hours already. But there was a dead girl in Al Robbins’ morgue who deserved some justice, and cops wouldn’t be able to get it without some evidence. Evidence you needed to somehow provide, even if it meant going back to the lab and tweezing the goddamn car all over again. "I’ll call you," you said briefly.

"Good boy."

You hung up and Gil said, "Who was that?"

You hadn’t heard him come into the bathroom, but you didn’t much give a crap. "Mike. I gotta go back in."

"No."

He was sort of smiling when he said it, so you snorted and shrugged. "Yeah, well, I’d rather not, trust me. But there’s –"

His hand grabbed your wrist, hard. "I mean it. He can wait."

"Maybe he can, but the case can’t." You stared at him. "I’ll be back in an hour or two. Don’t sweat it."

He didn’t say a word, and he didn’t loosen his grip.

"Let go," you added. "That hurts."

"Every time he calls, you jump." His smile wasn’t neutral anymore. It was cold, and dangerous. "You know that? Why is that?"

"What is WITH you and McAda?" you blurted, and pulled your arm free, not without some effort. You rubbed your wrist and kept on staring at him. "It’s a CASE, for God’s sake. One you assigned me to, remember?"

"Having second thoughts?" Gil said hoarsely. "Regrets? Is that it?"

"Regrets about what? Gil, what in the hell are you talk –"

"You think I don’t see what you’re doing?" He was thoroughly in your space then, and it occurred to you for just a second that you were still wet from the shower, naked as the day you were born, before you backed up. His grin had a crazy, furious cast to it. "I may not have the best hearing in the world, but I’m most certainly not blind. Far from it. You’re going to be with him, aren’t you?"

"I’m going to be with the CAR, Gil," you said, not quite as angry as you’d intended. For the first time in a while you remembered him hitting you. Just that once, but with this same look on his face, this bizarre evilly happy grin. "Would you just relax? I’ll be back in –"

You’d planned to scoot around him. Head to the bedroom, get some clothes on, because if there was gonna be a fight you were not gonna do it naked. But you only made it one step, and then he pushed you. No, revise that, it was a shove, and you thudded back against the edge of the bathroom counter.

"You little shit," he said with ugly contempt. "Couldn’t get enough of him last night so you’re going back for more today? Don’t even have the guts to be honest with me."

There were no words. You couldn’t think of a single thing to say, gazing into his furious eyes. And then he smiled again, full of bitter disgust, and his fist took you in the side, no gut-punch this time but a fast jab right under the ribs. When you bent, air whooshing right out of your lungs, he followed up with a blow to your back, and another, and number four had you sprawling on the bathroom floor. Your entire lower back was a hot throbbing blur of pain. All you could do was lie there, gasping and retching a little and wondering if he’d ruptured a kidney or something.

"Admit it," he snarled, kneeling next to you. "Say it, Nick, tell me the truth!"

You threw up instead, right there on the damp bath mat, and he looked repulsed, and then scared. By the time you got up enough to get away from that stinking rug he was apologizing, but his eyes had no remorse in them, only confusion and a lingering sullen gleam. You cleaned it up yourself, saying nothing, wincing at the hot throb of pain in your kidneys.

And when you were done you stood up straight, although it cost you a lot, and went into the bedroom to put on some clothes. He followed you, watching, and when you looked at him he shook his head with what looked like honest bewilderment.

"What happened?" he asked you. He was shaking.

You were angry, sure, pissed as hell. But you didn’t trust that reprieve. You knew enough now to know he could blow up again, without warning, and that knowledge scared you. Scared you a lot.

You made it to the door before he begged you not to leave. And of course you didn’t. Not even when you saw the blood in your urine a few hours later, because a part of you still couldn’t believe he could do this. It was an aberration, that was all. Not the first, but not a habit, not regular.

Telling yourself it wouldn’t – couldn’t – happen again worked. At least for a while.

~~~~~~~~~~~

He isn’t used to hurrying. His patients aren’t usually going anyplace. And it’s rare that he takes the time to curse his prosthetics. After all he’s had them since he was eighteen. He’s so used to them he sometimes even forgets what it was like to have real legs. But right now he wishes fervently for his long-lost nimble feet.

The hallway is crowded, but the people melt out of his way, silent. He takes in the tableau without flinching, and lifts his chin at Catherine. "You called an ambulance?"

She nods. "Jesus, Al, what is happening to him?"

He hunkers down awkwardly, using one crutch to bolster himself. "You said a seizure." Grissom’s face is pasty, diaphoretic, and Al doesn’t much care for the sound of his breathing. "How long has he been unconscious?"

Grissom’s pulse is still racing, so it hasn’t been long. Catherine mutters something about two or three minutes. "What happened before the seizure?" Al asks, reaching down to loosen the collar of Grissom’s shirt.

"He flipped," Jim Brass states curtly. "Extremely agitated."

"Agitated?" Catherine sounds like she can’t decide whether to laugh or cry. "He tried to kill Nick!"

Al glances at her, and then belatedly at Nick. Nick’s face is heavily bruised, but it doesn’t look very new. "What happened?" Al snaps, and goes back to surveying Grissom’s prone form.

"He’s -- He was angry." Nick’s voice is high and thready, cracking a little. "I don’t -- Don’t know what set him off. I never do."

"Is he taking any medications?"

"N-No. Nothing."

Grissom’s eyelids are flickering, and Al leans forward intently. "Gil? Wake up and look at me. That’s right. You’re okay." Grissom’s gaze is bewildered, uncomprehending. "You’re safe. Everything’s all right."

Nick thuds to his knees next to him. "What’s wrong with him?"

Al doesn’t spare him a look. "He’s post-ictal right now," he replies briskly. "Confusion and disorientation commonly follow seizure activity."

The ambulance arrives remarkably quickly, and by that time Grissom seems almost normal. Al doesn’t trust it, though, has learned over the years not to, and when Grissom wants to get up Al shakes his head. "Humor me," he says in a flat voice. "Let’s get you checked out in the ER before anything else."

"What happened?" Grissom stares at him, looking flummoxed.

"You had what appeared to be a seizure. Just take it easy."

"Nicky?"

"I’m here." Nick has a game, shaky smile on his face. It doesn’t fool Al, and he’s pretty sure Grissom doesn’t buy it, either. Nick grasps Grissom’s hand, holds it like a lifeline. "You’re gonna be fine," he adds in a tremulous voice. "Okay?"

Grissom frowns. "What happened to your face? What’s going on?"

Nick casts Al a desperately scared look, and Al shakes his head. "Some amnesia is common," he tells him quietly. "He may not remember much from around the time of the seizure, maybe even earlier."

The two EMTs work fast, strapping Grissom onto the gurney without much commentary. "Can I go with you?" Nick asks anxiously. The two men exchange glances and then shake their heads.

Outside they watch the ambulance leave, and Al would like to ask Nick more about his face, more about what exactly Grissom did before his seizure, but Nick’s already sprinting for his truck. Al looks at Catherine. "Mind telling me what else is going on?"

She sighs. "Freaky shit, that’s what."

"Specifics, please."

"Can we get a cup of coffee? This is gonna take a few minutes."

He nods. "Fine by me."

~~~~~~~~~~

He’s driving like a bat out of hell, and he knows he has to calm down. He’s shaking so bad his hands will barely grip the steering wheel. It doesn’t matter if he hurts himself in a wreck, but he hates the idea that he might hurt someone else. So he lets the ambulance go, making himself not run the same red light they do, and sit to wait for the signal to change. Gil’s fine. He was talking, he was okay. Nick can’t do anything from the truck, anyway.

But he still burns rubber when the interminable light finally turns green. He’s aware that he’s crying a little, just maxed the fuck out, too much happening in too short a space of time. He’s never seen anything as awful as Gil in the midst of that seizure. It’s wrong, it’s not allowed, seeing him so vulnerable, and Nick coughs out a harsh caw of a sob while he muscles the truck into a turn, catching a glimpse of the ambulance too many blocks ahead of him.

He parks in a fire lane and doesn’t give a shit about the ticket he’ll probably get. Just beats it into the ER, thanks god he knows the code to bypass the front desk and get through the locked doors to the back. Gil’s been stashed in one of the big trauma rooms, but it’s a few minutes before Nick can get in. The EMTs are two guys he knows, Neal and Jason, and Neal takes a look at Nick’s face and grabs his arm, pulls him over to the nurses’ station.

"He’s okay, man," Neal says quietly. "He’ll be fine. All right?"

"Okay," Nick whispers.

"What the hell happened to you?" Neal’s eyes are too assessing, scanning his face briefly and professionally.

"Nothing, a misunderstanding." Nick makes an impatient gesture. "I gotta see him."

"Yeah, okay."

But he can’t see him, not for long, because they’re taking him away for a CT, and then Brass shows up, looking weird and tired and kind of scared, too. He glances around the empty room. "Where is he?"

Nick swallows a couple of times and thinks maybe his voice will work. "Tests," he says. And that’s all that’ll come out, so he taps his temple, shakes his head.

"He’ll be okay, Nicky," Brass says gruffly. His hand is warm and terribly reassuring on Nick’s shoulder. "Kinda worried about you."

I’m okay, Nick thinks about saying, but it won’t come out. Instead he coughs another hard painful sob, and Brass’s face blurs. His shirt smells like starch and faint cologne, and he stands very still while Nick leans his face against Brass’s shoulder and lets himself cry a little. Not sure why, except he’s so tired, and sore, and over it all is the fear, fear that something’s really WRONG with Gil, something that forgiveness can’t fix, that nothing can fix.

Brass is silent, one hand awkwardly patting Nick’s back, until Nick finally coughs and pulls away, wiping his face and feeling the surprise of his swollen eye all over again.

"Sorry," Nick whispers.

"Don’t be. Christ."

He’s got his shit at least marginally back together again by the time they wheel Gil back into the room. Gil looks tired now, or maybe tireder, but he smiles, reaches out for Nick’s hand. Nick clings to it like a lifeline, peering anxiously at Gil’s face.

"What’d they say?"

"Nothing yet." Gil’s thumb strokes the back of Nick’s hand. "I’m all right," he whispers. "I promise. Tell me what happened to you."

Nick swallows. "You don’t remember."

With a frown Gil shakes his head. "I don’t remember much of today. If anything. Strange."

"It was the – seizure, I guess."

"I guess." Gil’s eyes are steady on him. "Tell me, Nicky. Please?"

The arrival of the ER doc saves Nick from having to say anything. It’s a different doctor from the one he himself saw earlier today, thank God. He looks brisk and efficient, and not too reassuring.

"Your CT’s fine, Mr. Grissom," he says without ceremony. "No signs of a TIA, no cranial bleeding."

"Okay," Gil says slowly. "What else?"

The doctor’s eyes flicker over Nick’s face, a tiny frown appearing and fading almost as quickly. "I’d say your seizure was the result of your drug use," he states flatly. "Almost certainly."

Nick gapes at him, and feels Gil’s hand slip out of his own, to lie limp on the bed.

"Drug use?" Gil says in a disbelieving voice. "What in God’s name are you talking about?"

"You tested positive for methamphetamine and phencyclidine. A nasty combination."

"Wait a second," Nick blurts. "That’s not possible, it can’t –"

"I don’t use any drugs," Gil interrupts curtly. "The only exception is Vicodin, as needed for migraine, and that’s about once a year, maybe less. That’s it."

The doctor’s expression is unconvinced. "Your toxicology results suggest otherwise," he returns in a cool voice. "Be that as it may. As it stands I think you’re in no danger of further seizure episodes, but I suggest you take it easy for a day or two, and return to the ER at any sign of further problems. Needless to say, any – recreational drug use – is strongly discouraged."

"So noted," Gil bites off. His face is flushed, a muscle jumping in his jaw.

"The nurse will have your discharge papers for you in a few minutes." The doctor gives Nick another probing look. "You take care, Mr. Grissom." He says it without looking at him, still studying Nick’s bruised face. He draws a breath, but doesn’t add anything else, ducking out of the room.

Nick gazes at Gil. "Jesus," he breathes. "Gil, what –"

Gil sits up sharply. His expression is painfully grim. "Tell me what I did," he interrupts hoarsely. "Did I do that?" He lifts his chin in Nick’s direction. "Did I hit you?"

He feels a little dizzy. "Gil."

"Jim?" Gil barks. "Did I?"

Brass is silent for a moment. "Yeah," he says slowly. "You did."

Gil’s expression is frozen, glaring at Nick with ferocious concentration. "Oh, Jesus," Gil says faintly. "Oh, Jesus."

"I’m okay," Nick says, shaking his head fast. "I’m fine, Gil, believe me, God, you didn’t MEAN to, you –"

Gil makes an inarticulate sound and throws the sheet back, standing up. His hands are visibly shaking as he grabs his pants.

"Gil, please." Nick circles the bed, lets Gil get his pants zipped up before he touches his arm. Gil flinches hugely. "Look at me," Nick says intensely, edging as close as he dares. "Look at me! I’m fine. They’re just bruises. Okay? Somebody DRUGGED you, man, you weren’t responsible for what you did! I see that now. Okay?"

Gil stares at him, and Nick sees tears in his eyes right before Gil coughs out a broken sound and pulls Nick into a fierce hug.

~~~~~~~~~~

His head is throbbing. Every bump in the road feels like a spike driven between his eyebrows, and it seems as if every car passing them decides to honk when it’s closest.

So what? Maybe the pain in his head is just desserts. His head should hurt like Nick’s face must hurt. It’s only fair, right?

"Gil, come on." Beside him Nick is visibly tense. One hand keeps sneaking over to touch Gil, on the shoulder, the hand. As if Nick’s reassuring himself Gil’s still there.

Oh, I am, Gil thinks blackly. All you have to do is look in the mirror, Nicky. Look at what I did to you. Instead of wanting me here you should be wishing me a thousand miles away. Or more.

"Aw, man, Gil, don’t –"

"Don’t forgive me," Gil snaps, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead. He wishes he were driving, so that he could stomp on the accelerator. "Not yet. Don’t."

"If it were me, you would."

But it wasn’t you, Gil thinks. It was me.

By the time they reach the townhouse he’s nauseated, but he swallows his sickness furiously, accepting the pain in his head without complaint. Nick is hovering, dodging around him to get the door, surveying him anxiously.

"Why don’t you take one of your pills? I know your head hurts, it’s –"

"I’ve been drugged enough," Gil retorts, shaking his head. "No more."

Nick’s hand touches his belly, and Gil freezes. "What, did I hit you there, too?" He doesn’t wait for Nick to nod. "Let me see." He isn’t careful, hurrying, yanking Nick’s shirt out and pulling it open. Underneath the fabric Nick’s stomach is cruelly bruised, a pattern Gil recognizes from old experience. "I kicked you," he observes faintly. "Didn’t I?"

"Gil, please –"

With a muffled sound Gil turns, hand clapped over his mouth. The bathroom is barely close enough. And while he vomits he thinks, I have become what I fear the most. I am what I hate.

When it’s over Nick is right there, shirt closed again, hiding the truth. He holds out a washcloth, big brown eyes filled with dumb misery.

Later, after he’s changed clothes, Gil sits in the kitchen and watches Nick fritter around, making sandwiches neither of them wants and still quiet, still so watchful. And Gil thinks about who did it, who might have arranged for it to be done. But the questions have little power. Instead he draws a long breath.

"Was this the only time?" he asks quietly.

Nick stands very still, with his back turned. "No," he replies in an equally soft voice.

"Tell me."

"It doesn’t matter."

"It does to me," Gil says fiercely. "I want to know what I did to you. All of it."

When Nick turns there are secrets in his hooded eyes. "All right," he says slowly. He walks over and sits down at the table. There is sweat on his upper lip. "Ten days ago. That was the first time."

Gil stares at him, too shaken to speak. Ten days? A week and a half ago, not as long as it might have been but far, far too long to ever have happened at all. And he doesn’t remember it. Not any of it.

"I should have known something like this was going on." Nick’s voice is leaden, filled with heavy recrimination. "I knew you weren’t like that. I knew. I should have asked questions, I should have looked around. God, what was I thinking? I KNEW!"

"Stop it," Gil says harshly. "Stop it, Nick. None of this was your fault. God, no."

"It wasn’t yours, either!" Nick blurts.

"Wasn’t it?" Gil finds a thin, painful smile on his own face. "Even with drugs, I thought nothing in the world could ever make me hurt someone I love. But I did. I did, Nick, I beat you."

"It wasn’t you," Nick says staunchly. "I know that much."

"Then who the hell did it, Nick? The tooth fairy?" Gil stands abruptly, pacing over to stand by the sink. "Drugs or no drugs, there is no way I –"

"Gil, would you listen to yourself?" Nick turns in his seat. His face is waxy pale, but there is still warmth in his eyes, pleading for understanding. "We’ve both seen this kind of shit dozens of times, all right? They found PCP in your system! Last year, you remember? That case, the one with the football player? Jared Mentzner? Good, clean-cut kid, worse thing he ever did was break his goddamn curfew by fifteen minutes, and one night he went to a party and somebody slipped him PCP in his coke, and a couple of hours later he came home, strangled his ten-year-old sister, and skinned her. When the cops came they found him wearing his own sister’s skin like a fucking robe! You think people are responsible when they take that shit? You think they know what they’re doing? Bullshit! You think Jared would ever have done that in a million years if he hadn’t been insane on drugs?"

Gil stares at him, wordless. With a harsh inarticulate sound Nick gets up and takes a limping pair of steps toward him. "He wouldn’t," Nick adds tiredly. "And neither would you. I KNOW you. And if there’s anybody around here who should be feeling like shit it’s ME, all right? Because I DO know you, and what you did -- That wasn’t you. It just flat-out wasn’t."

All his self-directed rage is gone, like a puddle of water evaporating on a baking July day. Gil sags back against the counter, suddenly aware of his persistent headache, beating behind his eyes. "I can’t stand it," he whispers. "I can’t stand thinking I – hurt you. Jesus, Nicky, I would never do that. Never, ever."

Nick gives him a wavery, sweet smile. "I know that," he says in a chiding voice. "Don’t you get it? You’re preaching to the choir."

When Nick walks closer Gil sighs, closing his eyes at the feel of Nick’s sturdy body wrapping itself around his own. "I’m sorry," he says against Nick’s hair. "Even – if I wasn’t myself. I’m sorry I did that to you. So, so sorry."

Nick nods, sliding his arms around Gil’s waist. "It’s okay," he whispers.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The news hits her like a roundhouse blow. Well, she’s been pretty quick to think the worst of Gil Grissom, hasn’t she, and why is that? Couldn’t be a chip on her own shoulder, could it? Couldn’t have anything to do with her own decidedly checkered past, now?

Recrimination weighs her down like lead. It’s hard to think. A fact for which neither Al Robbins nor Jim Brass let her rest one red second.

"So the real question of the day," Brass says heavily. "Who dunnit?"

"And how?" Robbins counters. "I can’t see Gil standing still for an injection, so we can rule that out. All I can think is that he ingested it somehow."

"But it’d still work then, right?"

Robbins gives a curt nod. "More slowly, but still efficacious, oh yes."

They both look at her, twin curious expressions. "You notice anything, Catherine?" Brass asks.

She shakes her head slowly. "Not a thing. I mean, since when I do watch what Grissom eats?"

"Considering how many bugs I’ve personally witnessed him chow down I see your point." Brass makes a funny little moue of distaste, quickly gone. "Right now though, it’d behoove us to start thinking real hard about it."

Robbins shrugs. "Why don’t you call him? Unless I miss my guess this will have occurred to him as well."

Which is how Catherine ends up on the phone with the man she so recently had demonized in her own head, and publicly as well. It really doesn’t go that badly. At least he doesn’t call her Benedict Arnold to her face.

"I brought my lunch yesterday." Grissom sounds beyond exhausted, tenser than she’s ever heard, which is saying something. "I knew I wouldn’t have time to eat, probably."

"But you did?"

"I assume so. I don’t remember."

"What about earlier today? You changed, you know? Did you eat anything in your office before the – episode?"

"Again, I don’t remember. I must have."

She doesn’t say anything about him perhaps trying a little harder. Just agrees and hangs up. "I’m gonna check his office," she says, after sighing. "He’s been bringing his lunch."

The trash in his office is clean. Damn the custodial crew for being punctual. But it only takes some relatively smelly searching through the dumpster to turn up various bits of lunch-bag detritus. She sits up on the edge of the dumpster and waves a Baggie at Brass. "Paydirt."

Two hours, two calls to the sitter, and some nasty fumes later, it’s confirmed.

"So somebody was slipping him a little extra pick-me-up with his salami on rye." Brass looks as tired as she feels, his suit rumpled. "Who?"

"Unfortunately I’m fast but not that fast. Don’t know that part yet." Catherine hands him her printouts and sighs. "Jim, I gotta go home. My daughter’s gonna think I put her up for adoption. I’ll be back in a couple of hours."

"Take longer. It can wait until tonight."

"Right," she agrees dully. "Guess so."

But even seeing Lindsey’s sweet face half an hour later doesn’t make her feel much better.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The entire morning Nick’s felt as if he were living in a house where someone had planted a few land mines. Not sure where they are, or if they’ll go off at all, so he walks carefully, checks and rechecks, and basically hopes for the best.

And Gil sort of calms down, too. A little, at least. By the time Nick cajoles him into agreeing sleep might be a very good thing, he doesn’t seem quite as frenzied with self-hatred.

"Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing here."

Nick blinks at him over the rim of his cup. "What?"

"This." Gil sips, and gave him a brief, familiar smile. "It’s a hot toddy."

"So?"

"The only time you make these is when someone’s emotional."

"Or when it’s cold."

"It’s not cold, Nicky."

"Tastes good, though, doesn’t it?"

That gets him a tiny, wonderful chuff of a laugh. "Yes. Tastes great."

"So drink it and humor me." Nick takes another taste of the hot sweet drink and smiles. "And maybe you can sleep, okay?"

Gil’s eyes flicker down. "Sleep. Yeah."

But the toddy does its job, at least somewhat. Gil’s eyes are bleary when Nick guides him into the bedroom, aiming him at the bed and pushing him down. "It’s been a long-ass night," he says calmly, bending to take one of Gil’s feet in his hands. "You need some rest."

Gil lets him pull one of his shoes off, regarding him without smiling. "It won’t happen again, Nicky," he murmurs. "I swear to you. Never, ever again."

"Well, you got that right." Nick goes to work on the other shoe. "Because next time one of us starts acting like his evil twin we’ll ask why."

Gil’s fingers are cool on Nick’s shoulder. "It wasn’t your fault, either."

Nick sets the shoe next to its mate and looks up. "I know," he says softly. "I do."

"Good."

It doesn’t start until after he’s gotten Gil undressed and stashed in bed, and gone to work on his own clothes. Something prickly, far-off but nosing closer. He frowns to himself and pushes tiredly at it, this feeling, but it persists. Edging around him while he hangs up his shirt, drapes his jeans over a chair.

"You okay?" Gil asks in a rumbly-tired voice from the bed.

"Yeah." Nick swallows and puts his thumbs under the waistband of his boxers. It takes a second to make himself pull them down, and that’s weird. Not like Gil’s in any shape to have any fun, anyway, and he himself has never felt less horny in his life. They’re just – drawers. No big.

But it gets worse in bed. Lots worse. His heart speeding up, stomach doing a weird little drop-and-roll. And there’s no reason for it, no need for it at all. Everything’s FINE now.

"Nicky?" Gil’s staring at him, not touching him yet, thank God, but watching him while he sits down, pulls the sheet out of the way. "What’s wrong?"

"Nothing. Just tired, I guess." He avoids Gil’s eyes.

"Are you feeling okay? You want some Advil?"

Gil’s hand touches his thigh, and he flinches.

I know how you feel about big dicks. Never met one you didn’t like.

"No," Nick says in an odd little voice. "No, that’s not it."

He isn’t sure who he’s talking to, and he isn’t sure it matters. Grief rises up in a choking bile-tinged flood. It wasn’t enough they had to make him hit him, no, no, it had to be this, too, and he cringes away, hating himself for having to do it, as unable to stop it as he can voluntarily stop his own heart.

"Nick, what is it?" Gil’s sitting bolt upright, face as gray as wet paper. "Talk to me, damn it!"

Something about that sharp tone sends an aching harmonic through Nick’s bones, and he grits his teeth and shudders. "Don’t touch me," he says thickly. "Just don’t."

"What?"

This is the way whores like it. Isn’t it?

But that wasn’t Gil. This is Gil, this isn’t the same guy. That person this morning just borrowed this face, this voice, and did something so terrible Nick can’t

"I have to go," Nick hears himself say in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice.

"Sweet Jesus, Nicky, what is it? Your face –"

"Nothing, I just remembered something." Yeah, say that again. He doesn’t risk looking at Gil’s familiar beloved evil face. "I’ll be back later." And saying it makes him want to cry, because he isn’t sure he can stand it, being right here and knowing what happened. He can’t, he can’t DO it.

Gil catches up to him in the living room. He’s snagged some pants, holding them up with one hand while he grabs Nick’s arm. "Nick, TALK TO ME!"

He doesn’t even think. Just flings that hand away, short sharp deflection that makes Gil’s open mouth snap shut immediately. "Get your hands OFF me," Nick snarls. "You got it?"

Gil stands very still. "Okay," he says slowly, nodding. "I won’t touch you. I swear."

And now Nick can’t even remember that other face, that other thing. All he can see are Gil’s haunted features, the awareness not yet fully formed in his gray-blue eyes and yet growing, recognizing.

"You weren’t yourself," Nick whispers. "That’s all. That’s all it was."

Gil shakes his head very slowly, and then closes his eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later he realizes he probably knew all along. It would explain why he felt so sick, not just physically but sick at heart, sick to the soul. But awareness was a funny thing. How could you know something and pretend you didn’t? How could you ever hope to succeed in such a ruse?

Now, standing frozen in the middle of his living room, he knows what Nick hasn’t told him. What Nick has undoubtedly not wanted him to find out, ever.

It’s too much. He can’t bear it.

He sits where he is, on the floor. His legs won’t hold him up. Nick doesn’t reach out to help him. Nick stands where he is, hands limp at his sides, and doesn’t speak.

So odd, how little it really takes to destroy someone. He’s seen it happen far more than once. It’s not how much, it’s all what. That one particular thing that crosses the line, that breaks a person beyond the hope of ever coming back whole.

When he opens his eyes, he sees Nick is crying.

"You called me a whore," Nick says in a low, awful voice. He doesn’t move to wipe his face. "You thought I was sleeping with Mike McAda. You threw money at me. After."

In the midst of the dead place he’s in, Gil nods calmly. Yes, jealousy, that made sense, didn’t it? Such a pretty boy, Nicky. Gil was by no means the only one to notice. He can’t remember ever feeling particularly threatened by any one person, but it isn’t hard to imagine. Even McAda, who had never been anything more than a colleague. Sure.

"And I know it wasn’t really you, but it feels like it was," Nick blurts, shaking his head. "It didn’t, but in there, in bed –"

He wants to do so many things. Reach out and make this go away. Tell Nick it wasn’t him, it can’t have been, because he would never, ever do such a horrifying thing. Despicable thing.

But what can he say or do that will matter? Nick already knows those things.

"I don’t want to blame you," Nick whispers. His tears have stopped. He looks ghastly pale, still shaking his head. "But I keep doing it. I keep – hating you."

Understandable, Gil thinks about saying, but doesn’t. He nods. The floor is very cold under his ass, and he gets up awkwardly, holding up his pants and buttoning them with trembling fingers. Nick still hasn’t met his eyes.

"Aren’t you gonna say anything?" Nick sounds petulant, but there’s no heat behind the words. Only misery in those beautiful eyes, the first thing Gil noticed years ago, or maybe the second, who remembered? There was a lot to notice.

Gil clears his throat. It sounds like a rusty gate opening. "I can’t think of anything but how sorry I am."

Nick gives a slow nod. "I think I’m gonna go," he says haltingly. "Just -- Maybe just today. I need to think."

Gil nods too, even though the words feel like augers burrowing into his chest. "I understand." Although a part of him doesn’t. He’s been violated, too. Doesn’t Nick see that? And immediately he’s filled with scalding remorse for the thought. Of course Nick sees it. Whose needs are more important? He is nowhere near an answer to that.

As if the decision, and Gil’s agreement, have eased him somehow, Nick comes close for the first time since the bedroom. "I’ll be back," he says. "I will."

"Good," Gil whispers. "I’m very relieved to hear that."

Nick leans forward and places a chaste kiss on Gil’s lips. "See you later, Gil."

Gil stands in the same spot for some time after Nick has gone. The house is quiet, seeming to hold its breath, not even the hum of the water heater right now.

The bedroom is too fraught now, too much of a reminder of what he’s had and, perhaps, lost now. He dozes off on the couch about an hour later.

~~~~~~~~

You couldn’t believe it when it actually happened. That long dreary afternoon when it felt as if you’d been at work forever, you’d be at work forever, there was nothing BUT work ever again, forever amen. But it was finally done, and this weird tension that had been there for what felt like ages between you and Griss, it seemed to be done, too. Just two guys kicking back at the end of a double shift, sitting next to the truck and drinking bottled water warm as spit, thinking about heading home and finally getting some shut-eye.

You knew even at the time that he’d had absolutely no intention of kissing you. It shocked him as much as it did you. But it was so natural, too, just leaning over and laying one on you, and you gave back as good as you got, opening your lips and tasting his mouth for the first time.

His eyes were wide with surprise, but a couple of seconds later there was a second kiss, and a third, and then you were no longer two guys sitting there recovering from a long stint poking around a crash site but two guys sitting there making out, sucking face for all you were worth. You were dizzy and terrified and yet it rang through your brain like a claxon: so right so good wanted to do this SO fucking long.

"Nick," he said at one point. Sounding utterly unlike your boss, no, this wasn’t a boss voice at all, but a startled and yeah, hot voice, thick with arousal.

"Yeah," you agreed, before you latched onto his lips again.

You’d have done him right there, too, man, stripped right down and given it up, but he said something about how it was hot and dusty and, well, right out there in the open, in front of God and everyone, and how about his place, and that worked, too. He didn’t drive back to the lab for your vehicle. Just took you to his condo, a drive you never could remember later but for a blur of kisses and these short awestruck laughs, crazy, crazy that it could happen like that, so fast, and yet so great.

Five minutes after you got there you were both naked, and five minutes after that you took his dick inside you for the first time, your legs so wide apart your hips hurt and staring up at his face feeling as if you’d wake up any second now, alone at home, jizz all over your belly and thinking, Wow, I had a wet dream about Grissom. But the feel of it brought you back to the moment: he’s big, Christ, he’s colossal, and it hurts a lot. You hadn’t done this in some time now, not since Jeff in Dallas, and Jeff wasn’t hung like Gigantor, either, so you might never have done exactly this.

He took it slow, as slow as he probably could, but you didn’t come that first time, no matter how you’d figured you would. Still, it was fantastic seeing his face when he did. Knowing he was doing it inside you, fucking you, sweating and cursing and shoving so deep into you you started wondering if he’d ever stop. And hoping he wouldn’t. Praying he wouldn’t.

It made you bleed, that first time, and it did a couple of times after that, too, but it was all right. He made it all right, by worrying about it, and cleaning you up, and then using his mouth on you in ways that made you feel as if your entire blood supply had turned into lava, that had you babbling and squealing and bucking like a goddamn bronco beneath him. He took everything you had to give and kept on taking, until you shot a load that couldn’t have just come from your balls, no, it felt like he sucked your goddamn life essence out of you. And you couldn’t have loved it more.

That night you stood by his desk while he gave out assignments, because sitting down was most definitely not an option, maybe not for another week, or maybe a year, you weren’t sure. What you were sure of was that you hoped, prayed to be sore a lot from now on.

You caught his eye, right when he was finishing up, and you stifled the laugh that wanted out, but his face went crimson, and it was all over. You brayed laughter that nobody else understood, and five minutes later you were still giggling, little sprays of laughing like a bad case of the hiccups. Pissed Catherine off that you wouldn’t share the joke later, but that was okay, too. It was all good. All of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

He has no idea where he’s going. Back to the motel, maybe, but he drives past that, and then past the city limits sign. Just driving, windows down and hot air rubbing against his face, making his swollen eye burn. Why’d he give up his place? Why did he have noplace to go now? How did he let this happen?

It’s all so stupid. He knows that. Just an understandable physiological reaction to trauma. Like the time he went back out to the stables, the week after the rodeo in Amarillo. Just get back up on the horse, Nick, except it was literal that time. Ransom hadn’t meant to throw him. Nick had never been thrown, not like that, not in the middle of the barrel course, just a misstep on Ransom’s part, and they were both flying.

But it was natural that that first morning back at home, it took him a second to gather his nerve. And slinging his leg over, wondering if it had been an accident or maybe some hitherto unknown quirk in the quarter horse’s personality, until he slid into the saddle and Ransom gave that familiar whicker, that low grumbling sound that cracked Nick up and charmed him both, that "Oh, hey, there you are, buddy, can we play now?" sound that Ransom always gave when he was feeling feisty and ready to show off a little.

It’s just like getting back on his goddamn horse. Except it isn’t. Not quite.

He wipes wind-driven tears from his cheeks and thinks about taking the turnoff to Tahoe, spending what was left of the day sitting by the lake in solitude and maybe renting a cabin while he was at it, when he sees the flashers in his rear-view mirror.

Fuck, he thinks when he hits the brakes. How fast was I going? But he doesn’t really know.

He pulls over and shuts off the engine, waiting like a good boy for the state trooper to walk up to his door. The engine ticks loudly in the sudden quiet.

"Good afternoon, sir." The trooper looks cool and professional, mirror shades in place. "On your way to a fire?"

"Nossir."

"In that case, mind telling me what’s the rush?"

"How fast was I going?"

"94."

Nick nods tiredly, and looks over at him. "Sorry about that." And he really is.

The trooper doesn’t say anything for a second, and then reaches up to take off the shades. His eyes are blue and narrow. "You all right, son?"

Nick gazes uncomprehendingly at him. "Huh?"

"Got into a fight?"

"Oh. S –" Weirdly, his voice breaks, and he clears his throat. "Something like that, I guess. I’m okay."

Except he’s not. His throat hurts, hurts bad, and the trooper’s plain, sunburned face splinters into a million shiny fragments through the tears in Nick’s eyes. "Just a second," he tries to say, and shakes his head.

"Okay, son. Why don’t you step out of the vehicle? You got some ID?"

Nick nods and reaches blindly into his glove box. His sidearm is in there, and he can almost feel the trooper tensing up. "It’s okay," Nick warbles, and takes out his PD badge.

"Come on, Mr. – Stokes."

He gets out, and trudges at the trooper’s side to the cruiser. Inside it smells like the pine air freshener stuck to the sun visor, with a touch of Old Spice. He slumps down on the back seat and wipes his cheeks.

"Okay, sir." The trooper hunkers down by the open rear door. His shades are back in place. "I’m not gonna cite you, since I think some bad mojo’s gone down in the recent past, am I right?"

Nick produces a numb nod.

"And seeing as how you’re a cop, or close to being one. But I don’t think you’re safe to drive right now. Truth is, I think maybe you need to see a doctor."

"Already did," Nick says, seeing his own reflection in the sunglasses. "I’m okay."

"Might want to rethink that, all right, Mr. Stokes? Here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna lock up your vehicle, and call a tow truck for you. And then we’re gonna go back to town. What’s your address?"

He shifts, as a spasm of pure misery curdles in his belly. "I can’t go back there. Not now."

"That where this happen?"

"Yes."

The trooper is silent for a moment. Then he sighs. "You got money for a motel?"

"Yes."

"All right, then."

Outside the car he can hear the trooper calling it in, got a fellow officer in distress here, no, no EMS needed but send out a wrecker if you would.

Distress. Yeah. Guess you could put it that way, all right.

Any other time he’d be embarrassed. Right now he’s just tired.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gil’s townhouse looks deserted when he drives up. Brass sits in the seat for a moment after he turns off the engine, just gearing up. And then he climbs out. He’s tired, and he’s godawful sore. His chin hurts, his side hurts, and his head hurts worse than either. He’s getting too goddamn old for this shit.

He’s leaned on the bell four times before the door opens. Grissom looks about like Brass feels, which is to say, godawful.

"Hey," Brass says.

Grissom doesn’t reply. Just leaves the door open.

The mess has been cleaned up. The great room smells like Pledge and Pine-Sol, everything neatly put back in place and the broken items discarded. There’s no sign of Nick.

Grissom walks back over to the couch and sits down heavily. Brass follows, settling his weight into a chair and sighing.

"How you doing?"

Grissom regards him with dull eyes. "About as well as you’d expect." He sounds like he has strep throat. Brass has never heard him sound so tired.

"Yeah. Nicky here?"

A spasm of real agony ripples over Grissom’s features. "Nick – needed some time," he says very softly.

"So he took off."

"Yes."

"Gil –"

"I don’t blame him," Grissom lumbered on. "What I did to him –" He breaks off, and doesn’t say anything for a second. "I don’t blame him," he repeats finally.

"Warrick got that analysis done." When Grissom gives him a befuddled look Brass gently adds, "Your lunch things. Cath started the work, Warrick finished it."

Grissom nods slowly. "And?"

"It was in your food. Dunno how they did it, exactly, but there was enough shit in your lunch to take down Godzilla."

"Prints?"

"Nothing but yours."

Grissom nods again.

"Whoever did it, slicker than snot. You have any idea –"

"Coppa," Grissom says.

Brass stares at him. "You sure of that? Because –"

"Maledizione."

"Come again?"

"Vendetta. Revenge."

"You mean over last year?"

Grissom nods. "It doesn’t just make sense. There’s a bizarre kind of ironic logic to it." His voice sounds stronger. "To him, I didn’t just prove his son was guilty, posthumously. I ruined his honor. Besmirched his name. It’s a stain that will never be cleaned, and it touches the whole family." Grissom shrugs. "The proper retaliation is to ruin my honor, just as I ruined Franky Coppa’s."

"You didn’t ruin shit. Franky did that all on his own."

"You and I know that. And probably Franky’s father knows that on some level, too. But honor demanded I pay for it." His smile is ghostly, unsettling. "Coppa knows me, Jim. For God’s sake, he’s practically studied me. He’s obsessed with that guilty verdict, and he holds me personally responsible. What better way to get his revenge than by making me hurt the most important person in my own life?"

Brass sits back. His mouth tastes funny, like hot aluminum. "How could he be sure you’d – do what you did?"

"He couldn’t. But he was willing to take that chance. No matter what happened, it would be something I’d never normally do. Not ever. But he hoped it would be this." He hasn’t lost the wintry smile. "I’ll bet he’s crowing over his minestrone tonight."

"You’ll never prove it, Gil. I mean, it makes sense, but –"

"I don’t have to. He’s finished. He won’t do anything else."

"You sure of that?"

Grissom meets his narrow gaze steadily. "Very sure. The only thing that could have made this any sweeter for him would have been me killing Nick. As it stands, I did enough. Nick is gone, Jim. And I don’t think he’s coming back."

Brass shifts again, frowning. "You can’t be sure of that," he says softly. "Nick’s – freaked, but he knows what happened. He knows you didn’t mean to –"

"I raped him, Jim."

"Look, maybe it’s –"

"No." It’s soft, and firm as steel. "No, that’s what I did. And you can’t undo that with apologies. You can’t excuse it. Nor should you."

"Christ, Gil." Brass sighs, shaking his head. "Give him a few days. He’ll come around. Jesus, the two of your were like -- Never thought I’d say it, much less think it, but you two were just about the best couple I ever saw. Nick is crazy about you. Maybe he just needs a little time. You both do."

Grissom glances down at his hands, and finally produces a tiny shrug. "We’ll see," he says softly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gil doesn’t show up for work the next few nights. Catherine says he touches base, but she’s clearly surprised that Nick doesn’t know that. Nick doesn’t bother explaining. If she can’t figure it out on her own, she isn’t the investigator he thinks she is.

When he does come back, Nick almost wishes he hadn’t. Gil looks bad. Gil looks – old. Worn out, used up. He doesn’t meet Nick’s eyes. He hides out in his office, claiming – not without some justification – a shitload of paperwork.

It isn’t as hard to check in with him as he’d thought it would be. Almost feels normal, leaning against the doorway, hands in his pockets. "How you doin?"

"Fine." Gil gives him a lightning-fast look, enough to show the dark rings under his eyes. "How are you?"

"Okay, I guess." He walks inside the office. "You want to talk?" he asks cautiously.

"We’re at work, Nick. It’s not a good time."

Nick nods slowly. "Right. No, you’re right. But later. Okay?"

"Sure."

But the night winds on, and Nick spends most of it at a site in Egypt, and by the time he shuffles back to the lab it’s full-on morning and Gil’s long gone. And he’s tired, and a little bit pissed off, and so he goes back to the motel, pats the flamingo on the way to his room. He’ll go by and see Gil later. Maybe after some sleep. It’ll all seem better then.

But he sleeps late, and there isn’t time. And it keeps on like that, a couple of days turning into a week, and two, and he’s racking up the bills at the motel and wondering what exactly it is he’s doing. Should he rent an apartment? Get his shit out of storage and find someplace real to live? Does this mean he really isn’t going back?

Three weeks to the day after all hell broke loose, after Coppa’s shit plan blew his cozy life to flinders, he sits staring out his window at the ugly view outside, and a lurch of homesickness hits him out of nowhere, blammo, a bullet straight through the heart. He misses home. He misses the home he’s had with Gil, their things, their life. He doesn’t know if he’s ready to hit the sack yet. Doesn’t know if he won’t freak out again, when the time comes. But he hates it here. Hates that some fucked-up mobster with a hardon for revenge has been able to so completely screw up their lives.

He packs his stuff in the car and pays his last bill at the desk. The clerk pats his hand when he hands her the money. "Going home?" she asks.

"Yeah. I think so." He makes himself smile. "If they’ll still have me."

"They will, sugar. Don’t worry."

But he does worry. And not just about whether or not they can patch things up. But whether or not Gil is okay, since Nick can just about count the number of times they’ve spoken in recent memory on the fingers of one hand. He’s seemed okay at work. Professional, all that. But that isn’t what matters. What matters is what the look on his face will be when he sees Nick on his doorstep. Welcome? Or not?

There are lights on, when he drives up. Company? But no other cars outside. He’s as nervous as he can ever remember being in his life. Mouth dry as West Texas sand. And he can’t use his key. It doesn’t feel right, yet, to just walk in. Does he still live here? He isn’t sure.

So he rings the bell. Gil answers after about a minute. He’s looked through the spy hole, he knows who it is. His face is utterly calm. Expressionless.

"Hi," Nick says thickly.

"Hi."

Nick swallows. "Can I come in?"

"Of course."

The hallway is familiar, the glass on the painting fixed. It doesn’t seem like the scene of anything awful anymore. Just – a hallway. If bad things happened here, they happened a while ago. They’re over.

The new coffee table gives him pause. "Nice," Nick says, pausing alongside it.

"Thanks. Want something to drink?"

"Yeah."

He shadows Gil into the kitchen, and watches him retrieve beers from the fridge. Gil still looks so calm. Tired, but okay. More okay than Nick feels.

They touch their beer bottles together, and Gil says, "Mud in your eye," and Nick nods and bursts into tears.

Gil doesn’t move, not then. But his face twists, the first real emotion Nick’s seen since he came here. "Nicky." His voice is strangled. "Oh, Nicky."

"I muh – miss you," Nick says, clutching his beer bottle like a lifeline. "I miss you suh- so bad."

"Then stay," Gil says gently.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

~~~~~~~~~~~

He thinks, if he’d met Nick for the first time tonight, he wouldn’t have known how handsome he was. Nick looks ghastly. Pale and tired and red-eyed, and too thin. All Gil wants to do is take him in his arms, wrap him up and love him and show him it’s all going to be all right, but he can’t do that. Not yet. Not until – something. Something else that hasn’t happened yet.

"I was so sick of that fucking motel," Nick says, with a jittery little laugh that sounds like a tiny piece of breaking glass. "You have no idea."

"I bet I can imagine. This place was – very quiet."

"I didn’t mean to stay gone so long. Just – everything felt so off. Inside, you know?" Nick swallows, his eyes too bright when they meet Gil’s. "Brass said last week there wasn’t jack we could do about Coppa. That fucking sucks, Gil. It blows."

Gil nods. "Yeah, it does. But I should have taken the warnings more seriously. Yours and others. I won’t underestimate him again."

Nick’s tiny smile vanishes, and Gil wishes devoutly to see it again. In its wake Nick looks more pinched than ever. "Jim said you thought he was done. That this was all he wanted –"

"I do think that. I’m just saying I won’t turn my back to the door again."

"I want things back the way they were," Nick whispers. "Before he fucked with you. With us."

"I want that, too, Nicky."

"You do?"

Gil smiles. "Yeah. More than anything."

Nick’s been sitting in a chair, but Gil watches him stand and move over to sit next to him on the couch. He’s strung so tight Gil doesn’t have the nerve to reach out to him yet. But something inside his own chest sings with relieved joy.

Nick’s hands are twined together, one foot tapping. "You know something?"

"What?"

"That day I bailed on you, you know? I didn’t have a clue where I was gonna go, I was just driving around. This state trooper pulls me over. Speeding."

Gil gives a cautious nod.

"But I mean, he didn’t give me a ticket or anything." Nick snorts, shaking his head. "The guy turns out to be really nice. Won’t let me drive back to town, but drops me at that motel. Has my truck towed over there, all that."

"Above and beyond the call."

"It gets better. I mean, the guy checks up on me. I think it’s because he knew I was a CSI, whatever. But like three different times, right? Guy Stouffer. You know him?"

Gil shakes his head.

A slanted, tired smile appears on Nick’s lips. "So finally he comes by, and he says, ‘Nick, what are you doing here?’ And I’m just looking at him, because hell, I don’t know. I’m marking time, I guess. And he takes out all these pictures from his wallet. Family, wife and I kid you not, seven kids. He starts telling me about this time when he worked a major MVA. Something like eighteen cars, trucks, and nine people dead at the scene. A few years ago, I don’t remember when exactly. Before my time."

"I remember that one," Gil says with a tight nod. "Caused by a tractor-trailer swinging off the road."

"Yeah." Nick regards him for a moment. "He – Guy – he said six of those people were kids. And he couldn’t look at his own kids for a while without seeing those dead kids in the wreck. Every time he looked, he saw his own kids dead like that. All he could think was that life didn’t make any sense, you know? Could have been his family, easy.

"So one day his wife says, ‘Whatever’s bugging you, whatever awful crap you see at work, you leave it there. Because your kids aren’t dead. They’re still alive, and healthy, and you’re missing out, buddy.’"

Gil nods again. "And?"

Nick shrugs. "So he stopped doing it. But what he said – I thought about us, you know? It wasn’t an accident. But what he did, you know, that guy you were when you were all cranked up – that wasn’t you. Any more than those were Guy’s kids dead on the highway. You’re fine. You’re you again, and what the fuck was I waiting around for anyway?"

"And here you are."

Nick slumps back against the couch. "Yeah. Guess so."

"Is this where you want to be, Nick?"

Nick nods. "Yeah. It is."

"I worry about –"

"Don’t. I’m okay, Gil."

Gil isn’t sure about that. But when Nick slides over and rests his head on Gil’s shoulder, it feels good. Very, very good.

"Maybe we just gotta start over, in a way," Nick murmurs.

After a moment Gil slides his arm out and around Nick’s shoulders. There’s no flinch, no anticipated drawing-away. Nick sighs a little and relaxes.

Later, Gil says, "Hungry?"

"Not really." Nick sounds sleepy, voice thick as syrup.

"You’re tired."

"So are you."

Gil smiles slowly. "Guess I am."

"Let’s go to bed."

"Mmmm."

Nick angles his head and gives him a laughing look. "To sleep, Gigantor."

The name makes Gil laugh out loud. And everything feels okay. Better than okay. Things feel right.

And later, lying there watching Nick sleep, feeling him pressed up against him the way he always had, before, it seems as if Gil might be able to sleep, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~

You wake up in the bed you’ve shared with Gil since that freaky first day, and for a second you wait for the memories to hit. The unwelcome ones, the ones that had you jumping off this same mattress like it had been lined with tacks not so long ago.

But you remember, and yet the memories have lost their power. That Gil wasn’t this Gil. This Gil is the one you really remember. The one who wooed you well and true.

He gazes up at you, unsmiling, reaching up to run his thumb over your cheekbone, the one that a month ago had been bruised, and is now back to normal. "I’m glad you’re home, Nicky," he says.

"Me, too."

You remember. But straddling his hips and running your fingers over his chest, you remember it all, not just parts. Mr. Hyde is gone, but so is Dr. Jekyll. This is Gil Grissom, no one else.

You get him ready, and he never moves, just lies there and watches you, this hot longing in his blue eyes. Gigantor, yeah. He’s beautiful. You slide him into yourself and groan, and the last flicker of memory comes and goes, seeming to just puff out of existence. It’s gone, that part. What’s left is this, and it’s a damn good tradeoff.

Finally he moves beneath you, face tensing because you’re working yourself on him, a tiny smile on your lips, knowing what he likes, what works, what turns him on. His hands are warm on your thighs, convulsively kneading your muscles, and when you lean down he arches up, meeting your mouth, hunger with a salting of desperate gladness.

When he finally comes you’re right there with him. Stroking your own dick for all you’re worth and watching your come spatter his chest. His face is flushed, turning his eyes even bluer than before. You flop down on him, keeping his dick inside you, and wheeze, "Wow."

He chuckles breathlessly. "Yeah."

You lie there, glued together, joined together, and after a while, with his hands slowly tracing lines up and down your back, your eyelids flicker closed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One must have a mind of winter 
To regard the frost and the boughs 
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; 

And have been cold a long time 
To behold the junipers shagged with ice, 
The spruces rough in the distant glitter 

Of the January sun; and not to think 
Of any misery in the sound of the wind, 
In the sound of a few leaves, 

Which is the sound of the land 
Full of the same wind 
That is blowing in the same bare place 

For the listener, who listens in the snow, 
And, nothing himself, beholds 
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

("The Snow Man," Wallace Stevens)

 

 

END

• Main CSI page
• The new stories
• Gil/Greg stories
• Gil/Nick stories
• Gil/Warrick stories
• Nick/Greg stories
• Nick/Warrick stories
• Greg/Warrick stories
• Nick/Bobby stories
• Jim Brass stories
• David Hodges stories
• CSI: New York stories
• CSI: Miami stories
• Other pairings & threesomes
• Gen CSI stories
• C.S.I. Crime Scene Investigation: The Complete Ninth Season