Title: Consequence

 

 

Author: podga

 

 

Pairing: Gil/Nick

 

 

Rating

 

 

Warning

 

 

Disclaimer

 

 

 

Summary: Gil tries to do the right thing.

 

 

 

It's been so long since he was last with a woman that at first he's almost unsure about what he should be doing. He knows the mechanics, but he's constantly caught by surprise, the texture of skin under his fingertips smooth instead of rough with hair, a soft yielding where he's used to finding solid muscle, the weight of the body in his arms too light. He can't lose himself in the moment and his every action feels calculated, almost pre-meditated.

 

It's only when she whispers his name that everything starts to feel fluid and right. She calls him Nick, not Nicky, that nickname that might imply affection, but also that he's somehow young, weak, immature. He's her protector, her knight in shining armour. She needs him and his belief in her can make a difference in her life. And he realizes that it's exactly what he needs right now. After drifting aimlessly for months, for what seem like forever, he can be of consequence to somebody. He doesn't think beyond that, bracing himself on his elbows so as not to put his full weight on her, bending his head to kiss her.

 

 



"Do you have to go?"

 

 

He pulls on his shirt and looks down at her and smiles. "Yeah. Things to do," he answers vaguely, thinking of the shift report he never filed, even though he has no serious intention of going back to work to do so now.  

 

 

She snuggles down into the covers. "Too bad. I guess I'll be seeing you. You know, when I get in trouble again."

 

 

"No more trouble," he says mock-sternly, pointing his finger at her. "Don't blow off classes and study hard."

 

 

She smiles sleepily, and he crouches down next to the bed, caressing her cheek. "I'll be seeing you," he promises. He briefly wonders why he's even leaving. It's his day off and he can stay with her all day if he wants to. Maybe he's become conditioned to not lingering, to backing off. As he walks out the door, he's not thinking of her anymore, but of Gil. "Stop it," he mutters, as if saying the words out loud will help him block a confused, almost irrational, feeling of guilt, of being unfaithful. To whom, after all? To a man who has made clear that there's no future between them, or to a woman whom he hardly knows and for whom the act of sex is – was – just part of her job?

 

 

When he gets home, he keeps his mind determinedly on everyday details. He showers, noting that the bottle of shampoo is almost empty and composes a shopping list in his mind as he stands under the warm spray. He lies in bed and switches on the small TV he's had since college, and falls asleep to McCoy looking up and saying "He's dead, Jim!"

 

 



He wakes up with a fresh sense of determination. Sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in front of him, he wonders how he let things with Gil go so far. It had seemed simple at first, just a mutual attraction, no strings attached. Then, when Gil got promoted, Nick felt an urgency that hadn't been there before, as if they'd run out of time. Maybe it was that pressure that turned a rather pleasant exploration into something Nick decided he had to have. And let's not forget that little incident with Amy Hendler, when Gil saved his life.

 

 

Every detail started to take on a special meaning. If Gil invited him to his own home, that meant he cared, because Gil himself had once said that it had been years since he'd done that. If he let him stay the night, that was another step forward. If he invited Nick out to dinner? Wow, that must be love.

 

 

And, of course, Gil being Gil, he had to feel independent. So Nick developed a strategy to let Gil think that he was in total control of everything. If he wanted to see Nick, that was fine, and if he didn't that was fine too. Keep up the illusion; let Gil think he can run off at any time, as Nick reeled him in closer and closer.

 

 

Somewhere along the line, Nick started believing in this little romantic fairytale he'd been constructing. But he sees now that the truth was far different. Gil's only human, after all. Why not take something, when it's handed to him on a silver platter? For all his weirdness, Gil is actually pretty straightforward and he was always careful to set the limits. If Nick wanted to believe something else, if he chose to see Gil standing drenched at his doorstep as a final surrender, if rather than reeling Gil in, he reeled himself in, then he has only himself to blame.

 

 

Thank God for Kristy. Being with her helped open his eyes, kicked him out of his inertia. He's not kidding himself that there's any kind of future for the two of him, but she's fun to be with. Impulsively he decides to take her out to breakfast. He tries calling her, but she doesn't answer, so he decides to head over to her house. If she's still not around, he'll just head on to the diner; it's too beautiful a day to be stuck at home.

 

 

As he nears her house, he tries calling her again and gets the answering machine once more.  He's in the middle of leaving a message when he sees the police cars blocking the driveway. It takes a second to register the coroner's van, and a wave of nausea hits him. He pulls up in front of a police officer he recognizes, though he can't remember his name at the moment.

 

 

"Hey, Nick, what's up?"

 

 

"Not a lot," he responds automatically. "What's going on?"

 

 

But he knows what's going on, he doesn't have to hear the answer, or see the gurney with the black body bag on it being wheeled out of the house. I'm fucked, he thinks and then immediately afterwards, I should have stayed with her, she'd still be alive now. When he sees Ecklie walking out of the house, his only thought is to get away, and three seconds later wonders if he said goodbye or just drove off. He has to see Gil, reach him before Ecklie does. He's only a couple of blocks from the lab when he realizes he's still holding his phone in his hand.

 

 

When he tells Gil what happened, Gil barely reacts. He just listens, until Nick finally runs out of words, then leans back in his chair and sighs. "You told me you weren't dating her," he says, as if the most important aspect in the whole story is that Nick may have lied to him in the past, but he doesn't look upset or angry. He doesn't even look mildly concerned and Nick's heart sinks. Forget seeing me as a lover or a friend, he thinks, it's like I'm not even a member of his team.

 

 

"What were you thinking, Nicky?" Gil asks three seconds later, and Nick bristles at everything: the nickname, the condescending tone.

 

 

"I wasn't. We had a connection, you know? A chemistry thing, I guess."

 

 

Gil just continues staring at him blandly.

 

 

"She was irresistible, man." Nick doesn't know why he's admitting so much, when what he's saying isn't even really true. He just wants something out of Gil, some sign that this is more than a case about people he never met, but there's absolutely nothing there. "I took off around four," he finishes resignedly.

 

 

Catherine walks into the office, her warm sympathy and concern a stark contrast to Gil's attitude, and it helps Nick realize that he should concentrate on what's important, and that's getting himself cleared and not Gil's feelings about him.

 

 

"Maybe I should just go to Ecklie and tell him I was there," he offers.

 

 

"When you're a suspect and you're innocent, you keep your mouth shut. I'll talk to Ecklie," Gil answers, and he sounds exactly like Nick's father used to, when he offered to go and talk to Nick's teachers about Nick getting into a fight at school.

 

 

Nick doesn't know if Catherine senses something in the air, but he's grateful when she offers to take over. He stands up.

 

 

"I can't just sit here."

 

 

"Okay, go for a walk. Maybe you'll accidentally bump into your guy Jack," Gil suggests.

 

 

"Yeah." Nick walks to the door.

 

 

"ID him, but don't approach him."

 

 

Nick stops short and looks back. "Okay," he says. He walks away from Gil's office, fighting to keep his eyes from watering, angry that he wants to cry not for Kristy, or even himself, but because, despite everything, he still wants Gil to care.

 

 

The day and night that follow are the longest in his life. At some point Greg tells him that Catherine now has his case and the news regarding, as Greg puts it, "his little soldiers." If he weren't so frightened at the prospect that he'll be arrested, he'd be embarrassed that so many people in the lab now know what's been going on; the grapevine must be having a heyday with this.

 

 

When Catherine finds him in the break room and tells him he's in the clear, he's light headed with relief. "Thank you," he says gruffly, hugging her tightly.

 

 

At the police station, he loses one last illusion, when Jack Willman tells him that Kristy was going to school in order to start her own racket. For a second he resists the thought, but he knows Willman isn't lying about this. Another romantic fairytale he let himself believe in.

 

 

"Want to go for a drink to celebrate?" Catherine asks him, looping her arm through his.

 

 

"Uh, thanks Cath. I'm kind of …beat. Maybe tomorrow?"

 

 

She takes a step back and looks at him. "OK. Tomorrow it is. You're buying."

 

 

He nods. "I'm buying," he agrees, then raises a hand goodbye and walks out of the police station to his truck. He sits in the cab for a while, clenching the steering wheel. He has his life back, but he's alone. Well and truly alone.

 

 

 

 

"I need to talk to you," Gil says at the end of their shift several days later.

 

 

"What about?" Nick asks, without looking up.

 

 

Gil hesitates for a second, his eyes scanning the empty locker room. "Us."

 

 

Nick keeps his head down, methodically tying his shoelaces. "There isn't an ‘us.'"

 

 

"OK then, me. And you."

 

 

Nick tries to tell himself that it's only curiosity that makes him agree. Their contacts since Kristy's death have been sporadic and purely professional. In fact, exactly the same as they were in the approximately three weeks between when Gil had come to Nick's house in the middle of a rainy night and the night when Kristy died. And those were exactly the same as they'd been for about 3 weeks before that night. Only this time Nick's been leading, not following.

 

 

"Where?"

 

 

"My place?" Gil asks, and Nick can't help the way his heart jerks at that. I'm pathetic, he thinks. Spineless and pathetic. Nevertheless, he follows Gil home.

 

 

"I owe you an explanation," Gil says when they're seated across each other in the living room. He's leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together. Nick can see that his knuckles are white.

 

 

"No. You don't owe me anything."

 

 

 "Nicky—"

 

 

"Don't call me that. I'm not a boy," Nick says harshly.

 

 

"I know you're not," Gil responds, looking surprised. "It's just my— I'm sorry if I've offended you."

 

 

Nick shrugs uncomfortably, not looking at Gil. He shouldn't have agreed to this discussion.

 

 

"Nick."

 

 

Nick waits for a while, but Gil doesn't continue, so reluctantly he looks up.

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"You think I'm a cold-hearted bastard, don't you?"

 

 

That jerks a laugh from Nick. "Yes," he says, then shakes his head. "No. No, I don't think that."

 

 

They stare at each other for a while. There's a muscle ticking in Gil's jaw, and he looks at Nick without blinking.

 

 

"Maybe I am. But I don't know how to deal with this."

 

 

"With what?"

 

 

"I don't know how to," Gil repeats, as if Nick hadn't spoken. "I get things wrong."

 

 

"What are you talking about?"

 

 

"Us."

 

 

This time Nick doesn't tell him that there's no ‘us.' It seems as if there is, at least in Gil's mind, and a tiny hope sparks, catching him unaware, because he'd convinced himself that he doesn't want Gil anymore.

 

 

"I was jealous." Gil laughs shortly. "I was so jealous I could barely stand to look at you."

 

 

Nick doesn't have to ask what Gil is talking about. "You hid it well."

 

 

"I know. From you. From Catherine. She said I wasn't supportive."

 

 

"You weren't."

 

 

Gil nods. "If I concentrate on one thing, I can lose myself in it. I can block everything else out." He says it simply, and Nick can't tell from his tone if Gil thinks his ability is something to be proud or ashamed of. "I concentrated on the bombing case. For a few hours, that's all I thought about."

 

 

"Oh. Good for you." This time Nick can't hide the sarcasm. "Warrick tells me you were very supportive towards Kretzker. Even dropped by his cell to pay him a visit."

 

 

"I'm sorry, Nick." Gil's voice is quiet. "There's no excuse for how I acted or for how I felt at the time."

 

 

"How did you feel?"

 

 

Gil shrugs. "It's not important."

 

 

"No, I guess not. Not any more." Nick stares down at the tips of his shoes. He should buy a new pair.

 

 

"Nick. Would you be willing to try again? With me?"

 

 

Nick gapes at Gil. "I—I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

 

 

Suddenly Gil gets up and walks over to stand in front of Nick. "I'm no good at relationships. I know that. But…" he pauses and Nick can hear him swallow. "Would you give it another go with me?"

 

 

If he stands up, he'll be too close to Gil, and he needs some distance. He was never offered a choice with Gil, or at least not a conscious one. One thing led to another and then he found himself chasing Gil and the harder Gil seemed to run, the harder Nick chased, almost instinctively, without considering if he really wanted Gil, or what he'd do if he caught him. Sort of like a dog chasing a car.

 

 

"Would things between us be any different? Would you try?"

 

 

It's a stupid question, he thinks. Of course Gil is going to say he'll try. The real question is why, but that's something Gil will never tell him. Or maybe he will, but not now.

 

 

Gil squats down in front of him and takes his hands. Gil's palms are warm, his clasp solid, and his touch is both soothing and exhilarating. Nick closes his eyes for a second, concentrating on the feeling. Is a choice really a choice, when one option is unthinkable?

 

 

"So are you to my thoughts, as food to life," he hears Gil say softly, and he opens his eyes again. "I don't know if they'll be different. But I'll try. I have to."

 

 

His hands still clasped between Gil's, Nick tries to push emotion aside and think. The one thing he keeps coming back to is that Gil has always been honest with him. Not necessarily open, but completely honest. Gil never mentioned a relationship before. In fact, in the past he'd been pretty clear about the fact that there wasn't going to be one. Nick doesn't know what shifted Gil's thinking, and he doesn't much care.

 

 

"Okay, Gil. Let's try," he says finally, his reluctant tone at odds with the wild, spiralling joy bursting inside him.

 

 

"Good. Great," Gil smiles and squeezes Nick's hands almost painfully, pumping them up and down in a weird double handshake.

 

 

"Gil."

 

 

"Yes?"

 

 

"This would be where you kiss me."