Title: Greg Sanders and the Great Gay Escapade (Monday to Monday)
Author: amazonqueenkate
Pairings: Greg Sanders/David Hodges; Nick Stokes/Bobby Dawson; hints of Sara Sidle/Gil Grissom
Warnings: subterfuge; gay guidance counsellors; gratutious humor; shamelessly slutty Greg
Rating: PG-13 for language and many, many, many references to sex
Disclaimer: Oh boy. I can't even begin to tell you how much I DO not own this show and, relatedly, how much I DO NOT want you to sue me for this.
Summary: When Conrad Ecklie makes Greg an offer he can't refuse, well, he doesn't refuse it. The only problem is what he has to do to keep that offer good, and it ain't pretty.
Author's Notes: Inspired by but not really based off the movie Partner(s), which is cute and should be rented. This has been long in coming, much in the making, and is also nearly fourty pages long. This should not scare you, but rather encourage you, because it is also a ton of fun. Special thanks to Sara, Kelly, and the rest of my LJ friends' list for putting up with endless mentions of this fic. And for those of you in the know: this is the Behemoth.

Conrad Ecklie called Greg into his office on Monday.

 

"Sanders, come in!" he greeted with a creepy smile that, retrospectively, Greg knew he should have recognized as a sign of the apocalypse or, at the very least, a hint. Ecklie rarely smiled, and when he did, his teeth spanned his mouth in a way that reminded Greg of a ravenous, snarling rat dog. This, however, did not stop him from smiling back and smoothing his suit coat before offering a hand. "Nice to see you. Sorry to pull you away from the case. You're working a homicide with Sidle, aren't you?"

 

"D.B. in a baseball dugout, yeah," Greg confirmed, and Ecklie dropped his hand like dead weight. He tried to keep smiling. "We're just waiting on prints and stuff, but you know lab techs."

 

"I'm sure you do, too, having been there one yourself," Ecklie replied casually. He sunk into his plush leather chair, and Greg managed to make himself almost comfortable on one of the two other seats, both facing the desk. It felt something like elementary school, being called in front of the principal. It'd only gotten worse in the last few years, with Ecklie's promotion to Lab Director overshadowing every breath taken by his so-called "underlings." Greg himself had never heard Ecklie use the term, but David Hodges swore on his grandmother's klotski cookies that he'd overheard that very thing. Greg wasn't always sure of David's sincerity, but the man's love of baked goods was a force to be reckoned with.

 

He was pondering this very thought – cookies – when Ecklie cleared his throat and flipped open a file. "I won't keep you long," he vowed, still all smiles, "because I know you're a busy man. And that's what I like about you, Sand – Greg."

 

Greg blinked. "That I'm busy?"

 

"That you work hard for this lab." He folded his hands on the desktop, over whatever paperwork he'd opened up. "You're a hard worker, and that's something we don't see around here. Especially lately, with all the so-called ‘regime' changes: Catherine heading up day shift, Grissom in unofficial retirement with Sidle and Stokes sharing his shoes, not to mention the switches we've had to do just to keep the laboratory technicians balanced..." He shook his head. "But you, Greg, you're constant. A rock in the river, if you will, never moved by the current around you."

 

"I could be eroded," Greg put in, suddenly twice as nervous as he'd been before. He pulled at the sleeve of his blazer when Ecklie's smile wavered. "I mean, yeah, I can't be moved, but rocks get eroded. Turn to sand. Maybe I'm turning to sand."

 

Ecklie paused, lips pursed, and then the white-toothed gleam of his smile returned. "You're unerodable, Greg. You remain, well, true. To yourself, I guess you could say. You're always Greg Sanders, even if you've gotten a few haircuts over the years. It's rare to come across someone who is as… Well, as comfortable with himself as you are. I appreciate that."

 

For the first time in a very long time, Greg had absolutely no idea what Ecklie was even talking about. "Excuse me?"

 

"You know. Your comfort. With being yourself." He suddenly looked down at the file he'd opened, flipping a few pages. "As you know, Greg, the swing shift supervisor position opened up a few weeks ago. I hesitate hiring someone new, especially when everyone else is already in arms over some of the recent shifts in scheduling and budget. I'm trying to consider current CSIs."

 

Fidgeting in his seat, Greg swallowed. "Oh. Well, you know, Nick's always said that he'd love to – "

 

"It's only a matter of time," Ecklie continued, almost as if Greg had never spoken at all, "before I have to make a permanent decision for night shift supervisor. I'd like to pick fresh blood for swing. Someone younger, more versatile. Someone…unerodable." His eyes darted up from the file and came to rest squarely on Greg's face. Greg suddenly knew what all of Grissom's pet bugs felt like. "Someone like you, Greg."

 

"Like…me?" It seemed undignified to think of his own voice as a squeak, but that was exactly the sound that escaped Greg's lips – an undignified, uncertain squeak. "Ecklie, listen, I appreciate the offer, but I'm not sure I'm really supervisor material. I can barely supervise my goldfish. Do you know how many goldfish I've gone through?"

 

Ecklie chuckled – actually, physically chuckled – and waved a hand. "I've seen you at work, Sa – Greg," he assured him, though the stuttering lacked something in actual confidence. "You're adaptable, and you can definitely take command. You've made mistakes in the past, but then, haven't we all?"

 

Greg wondered how many times Ecklie had used the bathroom at a crime scene, or convinced his boss that a homicide was, in fact, a suicide. The number was definitely less than one.

 

"I look forward to introducing you to the swing shift," Ecklie trucked along, giving him little time to even gape, let alone think of a way to turn him off to this idea. Wherever Ecklie got his crack, it was the good stuff. "How's next week to start?"

 

"I – "

 

"Excellent!" Ecklie rose, and even though Greg wanted nothing more than to sit in that chair and at least process all the information being flung at him, his legs rebelled and pushed him to his feet. "In the meantime, I wish you and Sidle the best of luck with your case. If you need any help, just let me know."

 

The door to Ecklie's office clattered shut, blinds banging into the glass windowpane, and left Greg standing in the hallway and feeling as though he'd just woken up from that naked high school nightmare to find himself actually naked.

 

==

 

"He what?!" Sara demanded, and none too quietly. Her exclamation was, in fact, so much the opposite of quiet that David Hodges stuck a finger in his ear and made a pained face.

 

"Sidle, deafening me will not make your results come any faster. Though I can see how this concept would confuse you."

 

Aside from Sara's shock and David's disdain, the trace evidence lab was relatively still for the evening, with most the other CSIs out on calls or harassing other laboratory technicians. David's disdain, as it was, did little for Sara's shock, and she pushed Greg in the shoulder before continuing. "Get out of here! That little weasel knows I want to be supervisor, and he offers you the position? What the hell?"

 

Across from the counter, David – who'd been running evidence with all the mystery and smokescreening of the Wizard of Oz, a move that was starting to bother Greg a bit – rolled his eyes. "People in Timbuktu know you want to be supervisor," he informed her dryly, and wiggled the computer mouse. "But everyone here except you knows that you'll never get the position."

 

Sara narrowed her eyes. "And why is that?"

 

"Because it's only a matter of time before you start pin-pricking condoms to get pregnant, that's why."

 

Had Greg been drinking something, it would have ended up contaminating all the evidence on the trace counter. As it stood, he sputtered and stared at David. So did Sara, which he suspected gave David more satisfaction than most people got from sex; he smirked at the computer monitor as though he'd just laid golden eggs.

 

"First," Sara said after a long moment of annoyed silence, "if and when Gil and decide to have children, we will decide it together." David snorted. "And Ecklie never said that. You just like being an asshole."

 

"True, I do," he retorted, still not glancing up from the computer screen, "but it's all over the lab. Your fertility makes you a bad candidate. You'll share the position with Stokes until you get pregnant, and then you'll be on the mommy track. It's the way it goes."

 

She looked ready to argue, but for some reason just closed her mouth and crossed her arms over her chest. Greg, on the other hand, couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow. "Where'd you hear this?" he asked, half curious and half… Well, fully curious, come to think of it.

 

"I know a guy." When Greg just blinked, David rolled his eyes. "Seriously, Sanders, is there some sort of pill they give you CSIs to make you stop listening to anyone who doesn't immediately pertain to your case of the week? Conrad's baits-and-switches are old news. Just ask Jacqui – she won the pool for what day you'd get offered the job." He shook his head. "I was holding out for Friday."

 

"You knew?" Greg gaped, and Sara looked ready to punch something – probably Hodges or the GCMS if proximity were any indication, but both were valuable if irritating components to the trace lab. "Why didn't you tell me?"

 

"Because there are very few things in life that give me as much joy as watching you squirm." The computer beeped, and he suddenly squinted at the display. "Your tail light, ladies, is from a 1995 Buick of some sort. The greasy substance smeared on it is glove oil. You can thank me any time now."

 

Sara grumbled something and stalked out of the lab in a huff, and she made no pretense about slamming the door hard behind her.

 

Greg sighed. "She's pretty pissed," he noted.

 

"No, really? I thought that was general surly Sidle behavior." David paused and looked almost thoughtful for a moment, as though considering this. "Actually, I take it back. That is general surly Sidle behavior. You have nothing to worry about."

 

"Unless she murders me in my sleep over this," Greg sighed.

 

He made it about halfway to the now-closed and formidable-looking door before David said anything else. "Just tell Sidle why you got the job," he encouraged, and Greg frowned over his shoulder at the other man. "She won't be so pissed off then. Well, unless she wants to be in your shoes. I never really know about her."

 

Part of Greg really did not want to ask. "What do you mean?"

 

The smirk that crossed David's lips bordered very directly on evil. "The only reason you got the promotion," he said nonchalantly, even throwing in a shrug for good measure, "is because pretty much everybody in the lab thinks you're gay."

 

Greg tried to respond, but his jaw failed him. It was probably for the better, anyway, because sharing the news made David start humming "I Feel Pretty", and the only retorts that came to mind after that were personal attacks.

 

==

 

"They think I'm gay."

 

"Greg," Bobby sighed, holding out a beer. "It ain't the end of the world."

 

"They think I'm gay."

 

"You say it like it's being a leper," Nick muttered, and flipped another channel on the television.

 

"They think I'm gay! Me! Greg Sanders! Straight man of the world!"

 

"We heard," both men replied.

 

Greg heaved a sigh of his own and sunk down onto Bobby's couch (or maybe it was Nick's; their possessions had been so similar when they moved in together that he could never figure out what furniture had come from whose apartment) and grudgingly accepted the proffered beer. Nick settled on a sports something-or-other on the television, leaving Bobby to either feign interest or focus in on Greg.

 

He chose the latter, and plopped down on the arm of Nick's overstuffed chair. "Greg, really. I don't get all offended when people start thinkin' I'm straight."

 

"They never make that mistake," Nick muttered under his breath, and Bobby nudged him with his arm.

 

Greg stared forlornly at his beer. "It's not like it's bad," he stressed when both his companions – his very best friends, even if Bobby obsessed over Broadway musicals and Nick spent entirely too long making his ironed blue jeans not look ironed – said nothing. "I mean, it's not like I haven't, y'know. Experimented."

 

"Yeah, Cath showed us the pictures of you and Henry from the Christmas party," Bobby informed him, though fairly sympathetically. "I told Jacqui not to spike the eggnog."

 

"But, it's just like… I don't get it." He took a long pull from his drink, as though the cheap-ass stuff Bobby liked really would numb the overwhelming pain deep in his masculinity. "Sure, I'm friendly and stuff, and I'm hot – "

 

"And humble," Nick noted.

 

" – but I have no idea what I've ever done, ever, to make anyone think I might be… Y'know. Gay."

 

The television clicked off immediately as both Nick and Bobby turned to stare at Greg. No, not stare, gape. They were gaping at Greg as though he'd just grown three extra heads, and he shrunk slowly down into the couch.

 

"What?" he asked after a moment of the unsettling gaping had passed in utter silence. "I don't come across as gay!"

 

"You don't?" Bobby questioned, wide-eyed. "Greg, you use more hair products than I buy in a year, and my hair's pretty much the definition of why people shave their heads."

 

Nick nodded slightly. "And your Grissom thing," he pointed out.

 

"It's not a thing," Greg protested, picking at the label on his beer bottle. "I just admire him. Healthy admiration is a good thing!"

 

"And your clothes," Bobby added. "Well, the good ones."

 

"And the flirting."

 

"The way you act around guys when you're drunk."

 

"Or when you get into the chocolate."

 

"Actually, just the way you act around guys." Bobby shook his head slightly, and Greg wondered how much further he'd have to press himself into the couch cushions before they swallowed him whole. "Greg, you're the poster boy for gay promiscuity. Most the lab thinks you're sleepin' with everyone." He glanced away for a moment. "Like Nicky."

 

Nick, for all his usual decorum and ability to just smile tightly in awkward situations, choked on air and stared up at Bobby as though he'd just announced he was a stripper named Penelope. "Excuse me?" he asked after a moment of goggle eyes and a slack jaw. "Greg and I have never had a gay vibe!"

 

Bobby smirked. "Really? With all the touchin' and whisperin' and talkin' ‘bout porn you used to do?"

 

"It was casual conversation!"

 

"Right." Bobby shook his head, and Greg tried not to feel like he was hanging out with the gay odd couple. The attempt failed as Nick, with all the straightness of pink pleather pants, harrumphed and turned the television back on. "Greg, look. Ecklie got confused, ‘kay? All you gotta do is tell him that you're straight, and it'll be fine." He paused, frowning slightly. "‘Course…"

 

The last time he'd heard Bobby start a sentence with "‘course" and trailed off like that, Greg had ended up on a blind date with a lesbian contortionist named Ramona. "What?"

 

He glanced over at the television for a moment. "Reno criminalistics just had a big discrimination suit brought up against them. A gay CSI got overlooked for a promotion that should've been his. Rumor ‘round the lab is that Ecklie's tryin' to prevent that from happenin' here."

 

"And he can't just wait until Sara gets pregnant," muttered Nick from his chair, and flipped to the classic movie channel.

 

Bobby rolled his eyes. "Political correctness is catchin' up to the law enforcement profession," he continued, and brought his attention back to Greg. "I ain't sure what Ecklie'll do."

 

The lump in Greg's throat pressed hard against his windpipe, so he washed it away with a healthy gulp of beer. "He's going to not promote me for being straight?"

 

"Didn't say that." Bobby shrugged. "I'm just sayin'… I dunno." His eyes met Greg's. "You want the promotion?"

 

Greg considered this with another long pull from his beer. Ecklie's revelation had shocked him, sure, but he'd always wanted to try his hand in a supervisory position. Sara's fire and brimstone in the trace lab and for the rest of shift only fueled that interest; he could make her eat her words while earning more money and spending significantly less time climbing in sewers, dumpsters, septic tanks, and other disgusting locations.

 

Not to mention the fact he'd spend significantly less time listening to Bobby and Nick bicker like an old married couple.

 

"I guess," he finally said, and Bobby quirked an eyebrow. "I mean, it'd be cool."

 

"Cool?" It was Nick who said this, and glanced away from what appeared to be an early-morning viewing of Sunset Boulevard to send him a dubious look. "Greg, trust me – being a supervisor isn't ‘cool'. It's hard."

 

"I know," he groused, and slumped against the couch. Nick's tone of voice only served to make him feel like a six-year-old. The man needed a dog or kid to admonish, one of these days. "I think I could do it. I might even be good at it." He frowned. "You think Ecklie'll really pull me from the promotion if I tell him I'm not…you know."

 

Nick snorted. "Ecklie split up our team because Sara yelled at him," he reminded him. "He's capable of anything."

 

Bobby nodded solemnly. "You gotta decide what you want, I guess: the promotion, or your heterosexuality." He smiled slightly to himself. "Never thought I'd get to say that."

 

"I… I don't know." Greg gulped down a few more mouthfuls of beer, only to discover that it was disappearing far more quickly than he'd initially expected. "Do you think it'd be hard?"

 

"What?"

 

"Pretending to be gay." And once again, both Bobby and Nick were staring at him as though he'd just changed species. He threw up his hands. "Will you guys stop doing that?! I'm not crazy, okay?"

 

"G, you just asked if it'd be hard to fake your sexuality," Nick pointed out, and when Nick said it, Greg realized exactly how ridiculous a notion it was. "Crazy doesn't quite cover it." He muted the television set and shifted in his seat to more fully face Greg's couch-ridden sulking. "Even if some people – like Ecklie – think you're gay, that doesn't mean it's a sure thing. You'd be expected to, well, act gay. Live like a gay man."

 

Bobby glanced down at him. "Nicky, you're sayin' this like we're a whole separate nationality or something."

 

"In a way, we are," he replied, and kept his eyes on Greg. Greg wondered if this was how Grace felt when Will and Jack discussed deeply gay topics. He also wondered if he watched too much TV on his nights off. "Greg doesn't like musicals, he doesn't iron anything, he has no taste and no idea how to get taste. If he weren't such a flirt with everyone and everything, no one would make the mistake of thinking he's gay."

 

"You're not givin' him enough credit."

 

"Bob, did you ever think he was gay?"

 

Frowning, Bobby leaned against the chair and shook his head. "Okay, so you got a point."

 

Since the other two men were apparently finished discussing him as though he wasn't actually in the room, Greg sighed miserably. "But I want this promotion!" he protested. His friends glanced at him sympathetically but made no move to offer further advice – though honestly, he hadn't been expecting it – and he decided the only way to think further on this was to finish his beer in one fell swoop. When that daunting task (two swallows) was completed, he pursed his lips and considered the situation. Gay or not, a promotion gave him an opportunity to prove himself. And if Ecklie thought he'd promoted a gay man to swing shift – arguably the least important and least recognized of the shifts – everyone won.

 

And Sara would have to admit, for once in her life, that she'd had way too little faith in the whole situation.

 

He set down his empty bottle on the coffee table with a dull clunk and hopped off the couch. "You can teach me," he stated.

 

"Teach you…what?" Nick asked, looking confused.

 

"How to be gay." Now both of them looked confused, and Greg rolled his eyes before continuing. "You said that no one would actually mistake me for gay if I didn't flirt so much. Fine. Teach me what else I have to do. Take me to musicals. Make me watch Barbra Streisand. Do you have a copy of The Joy of Gay Sex? I could use some light reading."

 

"Whoa, Greg, slow down," Bobby cautioned. He, too, rose to his feet, and Greg wondered if he had done it so he could run for the phone and call the local mental health clinic. "This ain't somethin' to take lightly."

 

"And neither of us," Nick added, sounding a great deal less optimistic than Bobby, "are qualified to teach you the ways of homosexuality." He shook his head. "I don't even believe we're having this conversation."

 

Greg ignored his long-time friend's pessimism and general bad attitude and threw up his hands. "Look, guys, I can do this! I can be gay! How's anyone going to know the difference, anyway? Do you know how long it's been since I had sex? Let me tell you, it's been weeks."

 

Bobby rubbed his face with a hand. He suddenly looked very tired. "Greg, if you really want to do this, we're not the right people to ask."

 

"Then who is?" he pressed. He wasn't going to let this go, not when he had two very nice, very supportive, very gay friends in the same room. "If you and Nick – who are gay, in case you forgot – can't help me, who can?"

 

The question caused the other two men to exchange wary glances.

 

"He does owe us," Nick stated, and turned back to the television.

 

Bobby sighed. "He's gonna kill his," he muttered, and shook his head.

 

==

 

"No, Bobby. In fact, not just ‘no'. Absolutely not. Never. Not even if this is the last favor you ask me before you die."

 

In all his wildest fantasies and moments of twisted day-dreaming, Greg never would have imagined Bobby Dawson pleading with another man – especially not the intolerable David Hodges – about schooling him in the ways of sexual orientation and same-sex relationships. Then again, Greg would have never expected Ecklie's offer, or the fact that he actually wanted the job.

 

Life had been so much less complicated when he was just a lowly DNA tech with a ridiculous crush on Sara Sidle.

 

"Dave, c'mon," Bobby insisted, and planted his hands on the breakfast bar. Across from him, David rolled his eyes and continued drying his dishes. "You're more typical than - "

 

"Oh, no you don't," David interrupted, and plunked a glass down on the countertop. He pointed an accusatory finger and associated dish towel at Bobby. "This is not going to become another case of the two gay slaveholders stereotyping the Yankee. Just because I am from California does not make me any more or less gay than you two. For one, I hate musicals."

 

From his seat at David's kitchen table, flipping through the newspaper, Nick snorted. "You don't hate Aida."

 

"For your information, Stokes, Aida is a rock opera. That is entirely different." For some reason that confused Greg, the statement caused Bobby to chuckle, and David returned to his usual combination of glaring and grumbling. "Besides, why the hell do you want typical? Sanders isn't typical. Sanders is… Sanders is like the fruit you'd find in the organic market. I'm mainstream produce." He scowled further. "And starting to hate this metaphor."

 

"Greg just needs to be able to get away with this until Sara gets knocked up, Dave," Bobby pressed, and David grunted as he pulled another dish from the sink. "Once she's outta the runnin', Nick's gonna be the night shift supervisor and not even heterosexuality will get Greg ousted from his job."

 

"Word choice, Dawson. Word. Choice." David sighed and set down his glass. "And you pick me, of all the flamingly homosexual people you know, to help you with this task? I think I'm offended."

 

"We chose you because you aren't flamin'. You're the perfect choice."

 

"Yes. The perfect gay man: barely gay at all."

 

Bobby started to argue again, but the awkwardness of standing in David's kitchen and listening to their bickering caused just enough of a delayed reaction that Greg could barely keep up. He raised a hand, successfully cutting off the next well-timed Bobby-begging or David-dodging.

 

"Wait, back up a minute," he interrupted, allowing his reeling mind a chance to at least slow down. Across the counter, David still looked ticked off. "So… Hodges is gay?"

 

Nick sighed and turned a page in the newspaper. "This is why you could never pass as gay," he muttered to no one in particular. Bobby scowled across the room at him.

 

David, on the other hand, rolled his eyes. "Yes, Sanders. I am, as they say, gayer than the Fourth of July. Where have you been? Do you live in a box?" He paused as Greg kept staring at him, as though considering the answer to his own question. "No, I take that back. I've been to your apartment. It explains so much."

 

"But… You never told anyone."

 

"No, I didn't. I don't wear my sexuality on my ugly flannel sleeve, like some of us." Bobby glanced down at his green-and-white shirt and wrinkled his nose at the criticism. "And I don't intend to start doing it just because Felix and Oscar here beg and plead." He focused his gaze in on Bobby, and his voice grew colder. "I don't."

 

Bobby sighed. "David, please. It ain't that long. Just a couple quick afternoons of explainin' things, maybe takin' him to a club. Helpin' him at least understand the mechanics and stuff, y'know?"

 

He scoffed. "I am not going to be his gay fairy godfather!"

 

Bobby frowned and glanced at Nick, who promptly set down the newspaper and sent David a stern and surprisingly unpleasant glance. "You owe us," he reminded him.

 

David snorted. "Oh, I do not owe you. That thing with Ramona – " The other two just kept scowling at him, and he folded like a bad hand of poker. Greg wondered what David's experience with Ramona had been. "Okay. Maybe I do owe you. But that does not qualify me to become his…his gay guidance counselor!"

 

"You just gonna name every profession you can think of and put ‘gay' in front of it?" Bobby questioned, sounding slightly amused by the whole thing. Of course, Greg figured, Bobby could be amused. Bobby's career wasn't on the line. Hell, his job security was probably improved by his sexuality, if Ecklie's new campaign of political correctness was any indication.

 

"If that's what it takes," David vowed, looking something between very serious and very pissed, "then yes."

 

"Hodges," Greg said, though the sound of his own voice adding to the conversation surprised him. It surprised the others, too, apparently, because Nick folded up his newspaper and Bobby blinked his eyes. "I know you don't get it, but I really want this promotion. I won't be annoying, I swear. And I'll pay for the food we eat."

 

He snorted. "You think I'm going to eat with you? That's rich."

 

"Please." David glanced suddenly up from his dishes and actually met Greg's eyes, though Greg couldn't be sure if this was an improvement or not. David looked… He wasn't sure how David looked; it wasn't really concern or even interest, but it lacked his normal edge of apathy. The combination was strange at the very least. Or maybe it was the very best. Greg wasn't sure.

 

Sighing, David shook his head. "I swear to you, if you make me look like an idiot in front of anyone – especially anyone attractive – I will stab you and make it look like an accident."

 

Greg grinned. "Deal," he vowed, and beside him, Bobby smiled, too.

 

==

 

"So, what do you know about homosexuality, anyway? And if you cite either Will & Grace or Brokeback Mountain as your source, this conversation will be over."

 

Greg sighed and poked at his eggs, which – even though he had ordered them fried – had arrived entirely too runny for comfort and dribbled mercilessly onto his hashed browns. If David noticed his discomfort with the state of breakfast, he certainly didn't say anything. Instead, he just chewed on yet another chunk of pecan waffle and watched Greg say nothing. Greg was getting really sick of people watching him like that.

 

"If you can't answer the question," David finally said, and tore open another sugar packet for his coffee, "you're screwed, and not in a good way."

 

Greg speared a yet-unharmed shred of potato and popped it in his mouth, delaying his response time all of five seconds. "I lived in California," he finally said, trying his best to give the statement an air of authority, or at least confidence. "A lot of my college buddies were gay. Openly." He shrugged and poked again at his eggs. "And I've done some stuff."

 

"Yeah. Because chewing on Henry's jugular at the Christmas party counts as Queerness for Dummies." He scowled, and David rolled his eyes. "Do you at least know how it works?"

 

He blinked. "How what works?"

 

"Your coffee maker." He blinked again, and David looked ready to stab him in the eye with his fork. "Sex, stupid. Do you know how sex works?"

 

"Oh! Well, duh." Greg felt both very dumb and very uncomfortable as he reached for his orange juice. It was tart and pulpy, but he drank it like it was the last source of hydration on earth. "It's like with a woman. Only, you know. In a different…door."

 

David snorted and actually smirked the smallest bit. Greg hoped it was a good sign. "You're completely clueless," he chided, which proved once and for all that a smirk was not and would never be a good sign, not in the least. "You haven't even Googled this, have you? Dear god, the next time Lucy and Desi ask me for help, I'm saying – "

 

"Well, if it isn't the new swing supervisor, Greg Fly-boy Sanders!" announced a voice, and Greg's mouth dried out as he glanced up to see Warrick Brown standing beside his chair, smiling brightly. He cursed the decision to drink his juice in one greedy chugging session. Across the table, David focused on his waffle as though it was a 1500-piece jigsaw puzzle. "What're you doin' here? I would've figured you'd be scoping out your office and seeing just how big of a stereo system you can fit in there."

 

Warrick clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to hurt, and Greg forced himself to smile. "Already covered," he lied, and tried his best not to look back at Hodges. "I'm planning a whole HDTV setup, actually. Surround sound, the works. And then, instead of paperwork? Madden 2K7."

 

"A man after my own heart." Warrick made no effort to even greet Greg's breakfast partner, and Greg wasn't sure if he should be relieved or irked. He decided on a healthy combination of the two as Warrick pulled up a chair and made himself at home. "Crazy stuff, though. I would've thought Sara'd get the spot, you know?"

 

The comment caused David to snort, and for the first time, Warrick actually glanced in his direction. "There has to be a pill," he stated, reaching for his coffee. "That's the only way."

 

Greg smirked. "Yeah," he confirmed, but Warrick just looked confused. "I mean, yeah. Weird, Sara not getting the position."

 

"Yeah." Warrick glanced back at David again, his eyes resting there. A few seconds later, he rocketed out of his chair. "Well, I'm just here picking up breakfast to go. The wife, you know, she's working, and I thought I'd surprise her."

 

"Aren't you sweet?" David muttered, and Greg hid his smirk by wiping his mouth with his napkin.

 

"See you around, man." He clapped Greg on the shoulder again, hard, and then wandered off. Greg watched out of the corner of his eye until he made it all the way out of the restaurant.

 

Once the door closed, David grunted. "One of these days, his enormous ego is going to stop fitting through doors."

 

"Oh, stop," Greg retorted huffily, and pushed his eggs further away from his precious hashed browns. It did little good. "Warrick's cool."

 

"Warrick Brown is a summary of everything that is wrong with straight men." He paused and set down his fork, suddenly reflective. "New question: have you ever been sexually attracted to a man?"

 

The question caused Greg to choke on his second unharmed sliver of potato, and he sucked the last few drops out of his glass before even attempting to respond. "You mean, like, while I was sober?"

 

"No. In fact, you get extra gay points for being attracted while drunk."

 

"Then no." He sighed. "But does that really matter? I mean, just because I've never really felt that with a guy doesn't mean I can't fake being gay."

 

Sighing, David reached up and rubbed his forehead. "Except for the fact that it's the basis of this whole lie of yours? Of course."

 

"Yeah, but I can be a single gay guy. There are tons of those." He paused. "Right?"

 

"It's not just that." He shook his head slightly, glancing down at their respective breakfasts. "Look at it this way," he said evenly. "Eventually, you're going to be expected to have a boyfriend. What are you going to say when someone at work wants to set you up on a date? ‘Sorry, I'm seeing someone, I just left them in my other sexuality'?"

 

"I…" David had a point. David had a very good point, and Greg prodded at his runny eggs again. "I didn't really think of that."

 

"Of course not." And with that, David reached across the table and grabbed his plate, pulling it away. Greg started to protest, but then the half-eaten waffle was sitting in front of him, its side of fresh peaches sweet-smelling even from the table top. He frowned and glanced up at David, who was now salting his poked-at hashed browns.

 

"What?" David asked, setting down the shaker. "You're hungry but too much of a baby to talk to the waitress about new eggs. So eat the damned waffle. I like eggs."

 

Greg allowed himself one last, wary look at the waffle and then picked up his knife. "Thanks," he said, smiling a bit.

 

David didn't smile. "Oh, just shut up and eat. You're giving me a headache."

 

==

 

"I don't believe it!"

 

Jacqui Franco tipped her head back and laughed – no, cackled – as she said this, and in his spot leaning against the dumpster, Greg sighed. The night was cool and dark, which was fairly standard for spring, and the only lights came from the propped-open emergency door and the glowing embers of Jacqui's cigarette. The former disappeared occasionally as someone passed through the hallway, but, as with many things, Jacqui's light was constant, even if her laughter was grating and made Greg want to stab himself in the stomach.

 

"Stranger things have happened," David pointed out darkly, crossing his arms. "For example, you've been on dates. They're still trying to figure that one out."

 

"Oh, screw you," she retorted, and flicked her ashes in what could have very well passed as some sort of reply. "Just think about it for a minute, will you? Ecklie – who's straight as an arrow, far as I can tell – thinks that Greg is gay. Greg Sanders, who has slept with pretty much every woman in this lab. What'd you do, Greg? Grab his crotch?"

 

Greg shuddered at the mere thought. "Nothing!" he protested. It seemed that the longer this went on, the more futile arguing he did with people; day two of Ecklie's misinterpretation of his personality, and he was letting Jacqui turn his active sex life into an insult. "Apparently, being a nice guy makes everyone think you're gay."

 

"And being cruel makes you actually gay," Jacqui added with a smirk, and David rolled his eyes at her.

 

"It's just temporary, anyway," Greg insisted, though the snorting from his makeshift teacher did not particularly back up his statement. He sent him what he hoped counted as a withering glance. "I'm just going to let people think this for the couple months it takes Sara and Griss to work out their issues and have a baby. Then, I'm off the hook."

 

Jacqui smirked around the filter of her cigarette. "You actually believe that people are going to think you're gay for a few months?" she questioned him after a long moment, her eyes aglow with what Greg could only term "unspeakable evil". "Yeah. I give that three days, tops."

 

David rolled his eyes. "You forget how well I teach," he muttered.

 

"You forget," she replied, still not looking away from Greg, "that I am one of the many, many women who has had not-drunken-enough sex with this man." Greg flushed at the memory. "No man, woman, or small barnyard creature in his, her, or its right mind would ever mistake Greg for gay. Ever."

 

"Good thing Ecklie is none of those things." David shook his head. "Look, Jacqui, I think it's crazy, too. But Stokes and Dawson had their hands in this, and you know how that always turns out."

 

She flinched. "Ouch. Did they bring up the Ramona thing?"

 

"They cited the Ramona thing as the very reason I should pay my penance by doing this crap."

 

"Hey!" Greg cut in, frowning. "The advancement of my career isn't crap!"

 

David rolled his eyes. "The advancement of your career through what some would call subterfuge but most would call lying is the definition of crap."

 

"What's really crap," Jacqui pointed out, tossing her cigarette butt onto the pavement, "is what Ecklie's doing. He's being PC for the sake of being PC. That's meaningless."

 

"Oh, here we go. A feminist rant by Jacqueline P. Franco." He stepped forward and smashed the discarded cigarette, stomping out the fading light from its burning end. "Do us a favor, Jacq, and scribble the Reader's Digest version on a napkin and hang it in the break room. I have work to do."

 

Greg nodded along with him, but he'd barely made it two steps towards the door when Jacqui's hand landed on his shoulder and pulled him back. She smelled faintly of smoke and something fruity. "Greg, I'm just saying that this isn't going to be easy," she cautioned, and for the first time since long ago – long before their drunken foray into fairly pathetic sex, Greg remembered – he heard actual concern at the back of her tone. "Even if people fall for it – and trust me, some of them won't – you've got to be committed to this. Possibly long-term, if you want to keep your job. It might be okay right now, but what if you find a girl you really like in the next couple months? You can't date her, because you're ‘gay'."

 

He shrugged away her hand. "Not like I've had a lot of luck lately," he admitted, and in front of him, David tossed a glance over his shoulder. "Besides, I deserve this. Even if I'm not getting it on merit."

 

"You should get it on merit," David put in, and reached for the door handle. "Ecklie's a nutjob."

 

"David Hodges!" Jacqui chirped. "Was that a compliment?"

 

"Parish the thought," he replied, and stepped inside.

 

==

 

"Dave's actually a nice guy under all the big talkin'," Bobby informed Greg conversationally a few days later, climbing up the bleachers with popcorn and sodas. It was a hot Saturday in Las Vegas, but Catherine had managed to convince most of them that supporting Lindsay in her softball playoffs was more important than air conditioning. He handed one of the sodas to Greg. "And Jacqui's got a point, too. It ain't easy."

 

"I know it's not easy," Greg stressed, playing with his straw. A few nearby parents, mostly wearing sun visors and Sundance High School athletic apparel, groaned as "their" team earned another out. "I just wish I got all of this. I feel like there's some secret message on the back of a big gay cereal box and I'm still two UPCs short of the decoder ring."

 

On the other side of Bobby, Nick peered at Greg over the rims of his sunglasses. "Did you really just compare this to cereal-box decoder rings?"

 

"Is it wrong?"

 

"Yeah. Extremely."

 

Bobby chuckled and sipped his drink. "Greg, it's not that hard," he assured him, which usually meant that it was in fact much harder than Bobby himself believed. "I mean, you know about the sex – "

 

"Ballpark. Soccer moms. Social conservatives," Nick mumbled under his breath.

 

" – and really, it's not like you've never handled the goods before, right?"

 

Greg shifted in his seat, suddenly very uncomfortable. He tried to blame the hot metal that was trying to burn a hole through the ass of his blue jeans, but it was very difficult to give too much credit to the bleachers when Bobby was staring at him. He swallowed a mouthful of soda and wondered what it was about these two men that made him gulp all beverages like a man stranded in the Mojave. "Well…"

 

"You and Henry had that thing," Bobby pointed out, and Greg suddenly wished he'd stayed home with his fish tank, Xbox, and harmlessly heterosexual pornography collection. "Please tell me you did something other than make out in my lab."

 

He smiled awkwardly. "Well, you know how it is, when you're drunk." Now Nick was focused in on him, too, as well as a forty-something woman a few rows over. He coughed into his hand. "You know. When you're drunk, and not everything works like it's supposed to?"

 

"You mean you couldn't…?" Bobby prompted.

 

"No! No, I totally could. Trust me, I was… I was in the game. But Henry…" The metallic clink of softball meeting bat echoed through the field. "He kinda struck out early."

 

The forty-something woman turned about three different shades of red and suddenly glanced away. Greg wondered if indecent public conversation was misdemeanor or felony. With his luck, it'd be the latter.

 

Nick, however, smirked. "I figured."

 

Bobby elbowed him in the side before turning his attention back to Greg. "So you've never actually…"

 

"No."

 

"Figures," chimed in another voice, and suddenly David was plopping down on Greg's other side, dangerously close. "Shove over, Sanders. Dammit, how big is your ass? You should be watching your girlish figure."

 

"And I thought you loved me just the way I am." Greg did scoot over, though; somehow, it felt far more comfortable to practically sit on Bobby's lap than to do so on David's. He blamed the fact that his relationship with Bobby was built on respect, shared interests, and beer instead of sarcastic argumentation and false sexualities.

 

Bobby reached over Greg, handing over one of the popcorn bags. David didn't even thank him. "You're the worst excuse for a would-be gay man I've ever met," he chided, and Greg rolled his eyes before turning his attention back to the ball game. "Really, even most straight men manage to get their hands on one strange pe – "

 

"I need another soda," he decided suddenly, and rose to his feet. Nick arched an eyebrow and Bobby frowned, especially as he sprung over David's legs to get to the aisle. "Anybody need anything? No? Good."

 

Greg was actually fairly certain that Nick had asked for peanuts or a pot roast or package of ball-point pens, but he didn't particularly care to hear. Instead, he made a bee-line for the concessions stand and then walked right past it, to a blissful little corner of shade in the heat of the desert. He sighed and closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than to go home and reassert his sexuality and sanity in one fell, Playboy-packed swoop.

 

"You know, some people say mocking is good for the soul," commented a voice after only a few brief moments of normalcy, and Greg didn't even bother to open his eyes. "Really, Sanders, lighten up."

 

"Lighten up?" he questioned, and reached up to rub the exhaustion from his face. "I've been told four times in the last four days that it's ‘so good' that ‘someone like me' got promoted." Using finger quotes were difficult when one's fingers were occupied in massaging sore eyes. He finally pulled his hands away and glanced warily at David. "It's like high school, when I couldn't take music theory because I'd never been in band."

 

David snorted. "Yeah, but the rest of the school was grateful." Greg rolled his eyes and pulled himself away from the concessions wall, trying to escape back to civilization (or at least, away from his unwelcome advisor). David stepped in front of him. "Look, Greg, it's not like we're not going to point out that you're insane. But you've always been insane, even before now."

 

He grunted a response and tried to walk around his human road block, but David was irritatingly good at following a trajectory. "If you don't want to help me, that's fine," he said, "but you don't have to be an ass about it."

 

"But I'm always an ass." Greg moved to step past him, but David caught his shoulder and held it with a hand. When he moved his head in an attempted glare, he discovered that David almost looked concerned, or at least thoughtful. "Honestly, since Fred and Wilma can't overhear, I think what you're doing, while crazy, is ridiculously… Well, it's brave. Gay men hide in closets, but straight men don't usually build closets for the express purpose of coming out of them."

 

Greg frowned. Somehow, there was a flaw in that logic, but he almost enjoyed the fact that he'd just be paid a compliment by one of the most difficult people in the history of humanity. "You're impressed?"

 

He snorted and rolled his eyes. "That's going a little far. I'm more… Well. I'm not impressed."

 

Smirking to himself, Greg arched an eyebrow. "Really?"

 

"Really." And with that, David removed his hand and allowed Greg to pass by, but not before drawing almost uncomfortably close to him. "And by the way, Henry doesn't just have that problem when he's drunk." When Greg's eyes blossomed and he turned to look David square in the face, he was both surprised and not to see the other man smirking. "Like I said before, I know a guy."

 

==

 

Greg hated to admit it, because it seemed an odd thing to admit to, but he actually appreciated the support his coworkers offered upon exit of his so-called closet. Well, the support from his coworkers who did support him. Not from the rest.

 

"I should have known," Catherine bemoaned, and wrapped her arms around him. Her tight hug was almost uncomfortable, but he managed to move past the clinginess of the embrace and hug her back. "Greg, you know that you can always talk to me about anything you need, right? Even if I don't completely understand, I support you, just like I've supported Nicky." She glanced around the hallway and then leaned in even closer, her voice low. "And honey, don't date Nicky, okay? Nice place to visit, but from the sounds of it, not even Bobby wants to live there."

 

Warrick cocked his head to the side. "Man, I should've guessed," he commented, mostly to himself. Greg frowned and put down the coffee pot. "I mean, no offence, Greg, but any guy who sleeps around that much has got to be compensating for something. It just…makes sense."

 

Archie, along with Ronnie and David Phillips, had laughed openly and walked away.

 

Wendy's expression reminded Greg of the way his sister had once looked after she'd mistaken a decorative butter pad for candy. "You're kidding me, right?" she asked, leaning back in her chair. "Wow. You know, Julie's always told me that I wouldn't know a gay man if he bit me on the ass, but I assumed I'd know when if he bit me on the neck." She paused. "By the way, Julie says next time you have frustrated sex with me, she expects to be invited."

 

But it was Sara Sidle, leaning against the trace counter in wait to ambush David and demand trace results, who evenly met Greg's eyes and refused to glance away. "Excuse me?"

 

After a brief double-check that they were, indeed, alone, Greg leaned marginally closer. Even if he was telling a select few people before they heard it through the grapevine, he wasn't going to sky write the news. "I'm gay."

 

"Yeah. I thought you said that." She leaned in, too, and scowled at him. "If you think I'm going to fall for that, you're full of shit."

 

"Sara – "

 

"Greg, do you know how many times we've had sex in the last seven years?" she asked, and from the tone of voice, Greg could tell that she certainly did. "Trust me. If you were gay, that wouldn't have happened."

 

"Really, Sidle, could your world-view get any more limited?" The door settled back into its jamb as David entered the lab, armed with two manila files and his normal, unamused facial expression. "Gay men can have sex with straight women. Some of them even like it, though that one is beyond me."

 

Sara looked downright surprised at David's sudden appearance, but she hid it, though poorly, by narrowing her eyes in his direction. "They do not," she argued.

 

He snorted. "And you know this from what? Your long history of being a gay man?" That only caused her to scowl further, and he set down his file folders. "If you're going to criticize Greg's promiscuity, at least do it on the basis of the fact he sleeps with everyone. Don't limit it to women."

 

This time, it was Greg's turn to glare. "Thanks, Hodges."

 

"No problem whatsoever. I am an equal-opportunity asshole, after all. Now, was there something you needed, or is the oxygen in my lab just tastier than the oxygen in the rest of the building? I can bottle it if you'd like."

 

Sara went into her diatribe about her results, and the desperate need for them, filling David in on the nature of their case. Or maybe she was talking about the Behemoth monster at the end of the third dungeon in her favorite video game. Greg, admittedly, wasn't listening. Instead, he was thinking about the fact that David had just defended him to Sara. David didn't defend people. When Jacqui's ex-boyfriend had stormed into the lab the year before and tried to break into her locker, David had given him the combination. But here he was, sticking up for Greg against a surly, unhappy Sara Sidle.

 

"Sanders?"

 

He blinked and discovered that David was staring at him. Sara had apparently wandered off, and Greg sighed. She'd have his head on a pike by the end of shift, no doubt. "Sorry," he apologized awkwardly, "I just kinda zoned out and – "

 

"I don't care." David dismissed his excuse with the wave of a hand. "Just go chase down Sidle. Hopefully before she blows you into little Sanders-bits."

 

That news didn't make Greg particularly anxious to leave, and he glanced over his shoulder at the closed laboratory door. "Is she mad?"

 

"No. In fact, realizing that she got passed up for a promotion based on heterosexuality just made her day." Greg scowled, and David rolled his eyes as he started processing what looked like a fleck of off-white plastic. "Really, Greg, what were you expecting? A fruit basket?"

 

"I didn't think she'd freak out."

 

"She's not freaked out. She's pissed." Greg frowned further, which only caused David to let out a little groaning sigh of frustration. "Look, Sanders, it's like this – she doesn't care that you're gay or might be gay or think being gay is a nice accessory. She's mad because she thinks it should be her."

 

Greg frowned. "I'm starting to think she's right," he muttered.

 

He didn't mean to mutter it loudly enough to be heard – he'd barely meant to say it aloud at all – but David's head immediately popped up from examination of his evidence. "Don't," he stated sternly.

 

"Don't what?"

 

"Don't go all weepy, oh-poor-Greg, I-am-not-worthy on me. Not after you've said repeatedly that you deserve supervisor." He went back to work. "Already sick of your feigned sexuality? Fine with me. But if you're going to let Sidle get to you, you might as well throw in the towel now and save the rest of us the angst of when a stranger who isn't just a bitch for bitchiness' sake has something to say about you being gay."

 

Greg took a moment to consider all this, his elbows on the countertop and his attention focused squarely on David. It was odd to have a man who used to work to be cruel and unnecessarily critical actually work towards making him feel, well, comforted. He wondered if there were pod people overtaking the crime lab slowly; today David, tomorrow the world.

 

Finally, he sighed. "You're right," he admitted.

 

"I'm always right." Even though he wasn't looking up, David was smirking. "The sooner you learn this, the better off we'll all be."

 

==

 

Saturday evening boasted the semi-annual pseudo-cocktail party for the betterment of the crime lab, or at least that was how Catherine grudgingly described it when Greg met her, Sara, and Nick just outside the local Hilton. As it was, Greg hadn't expected to be invited to the semi-psuedo-whatever-it-was – usually, only serving supervisors were allowed to attend – but an embossed invitation in his work mailbox had begged to differ. Standing outside with his friends in his best suit and tie, he felt distinctly out of place.

 

"Lindsay really wanted to go to a movie tonight," Catherine was explaining as they waited in an awkward little groping for Bobby (Nick's doting date, though if anyone asked, he was with Catherine) to return from parking the car. "She wanted to see some stupid teen thing, but I'd rather be there than here."

 

"I'd rather be anywhere but here," Sara responded, and flicked her gaze over at Greg. Greg fiddled with his tie for the tenth time in half as many minutes. Would there ever come a day when she'd stop trying to melt him with her death glare? Only time would tell.

 

"C'mon, guys. We drink some wine, we snack on cocktail weenies, and we go home with our jobs." Nick grinned as he said this, and Greg knew from experience that he was thinking more about what else he'd be going home with. "It's not so bad."

 

"I feel like a monkey," Greg volunteered.

 

"And you look like one, so it works," Bobby said as he joined the group, equally monkey-like in a suit of his own. Greg had never seen Bobby in a suit – come to think of it, he'd never seen Bobby out of blue jeans – and had to admit that he cleaned up fairly well. Not as well as Warrick and his GQ sense of style, or Nick's classic black suit, but it wasn't bad.

 

As soon as he realized he was actually assigning terms to his companions' suits, he decided that was even creepier than thinking Bobby cleaned up well and forced those thoughts far from his mind.

 

They moved into the site of the party – Hilton ballroom two, directly across the hall from Desert Villa's senior prom – and promptly split up in a variety of directions. Greg was almost tempted to tag along with Nick and Bobby, but something about being the new supervisor at the big fund-raising booze-party of the year made him feel that he should hold his own against the collection of strangers milling around. He accepted what was either scotch, bourbon, or oddly colored soda from a wandering server and began to mill about the room.

 

The downside to being the new supervisor, he realized belatedly, was that he knew next to no one. The crowd of suit-wearing men and cocktail-dress clad women swirled around him as he contented himself with hugging one of the hors de oeuvres table. As he watched strangers chat or move to the light music provided by a string quartet, he decided that this was a fine time to see if he could eat his weight in bacon-wrapped water chestnuts.

 

He'd just loaded up another plate with food when a man approached the table and sent him a warm smile. He was an average-looking guy in his forties, Greg decided, and wore an unfortunate toupee along with his suit. Greg smiled at him and crunched down on a water chestnut, and before he knew it, the stranger was peering curiously at him.

 

Uh-oh.

 

"I'm sorry, I don't think we've met," he said after a long moment of said curious peering, and offered a hand. Greg shook it tentatively. "I'm Thomas Burkhardt, an assistant district attorney. I mostly prosecute narcotics."

 

"Oh, hey," Greg greeted, and then considered drowning himself in the chocolate fountain thanks to his teenage-sounding conversation starter. "Nice to meet you. I'm Greg Sanders, and – "

 

"I know who you are, Greg." Burkhardt's smile only widened as he said this, and Greg swallowed the sudden lump of dread that was perched on the back of his tongue. "I don't suppose you'd keep up with gossip amongst attorneys, but the office has been abuzz with the news of your promotion. It was such a shame, what happened to that man in Reno, and it's so good to hear that you didn't find yourself overturned by the same stumbling block."

 

He nodded absently. "Uh, yeah. I think so, too." He silently cursed his impulsive need to strike out into the crowd on his own.

 

"Frankly, I admire a man like you," Burkhardt continued, as though he hadn't listened to Greg at all. "Law enforcement is still such a backwards career track. Your openness is refreshing." He moved along the length of the table, and when he made it to Greg's end, he discovered there was no additional food on Burkhardt's plate. "How long have you been out?"

 

"Out?" Greg croaked.

 

"Yes, out." He smiled in a way that twisted kindness into creepiness. "I've been out for six years, myself."

 

The small lump of dread in Greg's stomach took that opportunity to become a softball-sized tumor of horror deep in his throat, and he stepped backwards just the smallest bit. "Uhm, not long," he admitted, which really was the truth. "I just always figured it was no one's business but mine." Okay, that was a lie, but it wasn't like Burkhardt had any idea.

 

"I understand completely." Burkhardt set his plate on the tabletop – not, Greg noted, a good sign – and stepped forward another few feet. "So, is there a Mr. Sanders at home?"

 

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, Greg, no need to be so humble," he replied with a flick of his wrist. "With everyone talking about your openness and comfort with your sexuality, I'd think you'd be comfortable shouting a relationship from the rooftops. But then, I was also thinking – " He stepped closer as he said this, lowering his voice. " – that, if there's not, you and I have a chance to get to know one another better."

 

Greg's voice somehow escaped, and he let out a strangled squeaking sound upon his first attempt to speak. "You… You mean…" he stammered.

 

Burkhardt's smile grew, and his hand landed on Greg's upper arm. It took every iota of restraint in his entire being not to slap that hand away and run, screaming, out of the room. "I absolutely mean that very thing," he said in a way Greg was sure meant to count as reassurance, even if it made him feel even more terrified. Burkhardt leaned into his shoulder and dropped his voice further. His breath was hot against Greg's ear. "And I mean it in the most carnal of ways."

 

"Greg!"

 

The sudden sound of a familiar and much-appreciated voice gave Greg the perfect opportunity to jerk away from Burkhardt without having to kill the man with a cocktail toothpick. Burkhardt, looking confused and slightly irked, whirled around to see the one man Greg had both least expected to and most wanted to see:

 

David Hodges.

 

David, looking completely undisturbed by any of what he'd just witnessed (or almost-witnessed, as the case may have been), strolled right up to Greg. A smile – an actual, genuine, non-abrasive smile – appeared on his face. "I couldn't find you anywhere, and Nick and Bobby said they'd lost track of you. Figures that you were over here flirting."

 

Greg moved to reply, but before he could open his mouth and try to formulate any sort of protest – even a half-hearted grunt – David's hand landed in the small of his back and held him there. He sucked in a sharp breath, but David didn't seem to notice. "You're the new A.D.A., aren't you? We've even heard about you in the lab."

 

Burkhardt looked rather angry. Greg couldn't say he blamed him. "And you are?" he asked, an edge of annoyance to his previously smooth tone.

 

"David Hodges." His smile carried on as he offered a hand to the now-scowling man. "Greg tends to lead people in the wrong direction. He's just too nice to say no." He waggled his eyebrows. "I'm not complaining, of course."

 

"Of course," Burkhardt agreed, and grabbed his plate. A few ladyfingers ended up on the floor. "If you'll excuse me…"

 

"By all means," David nodded, and just as quickly as he'd appeared, the unwanted A.D.A. returned to the crowd of strangers. As soon as he had disappeared, David sighed and dropped his hand. "Idiot," he grumbled, and stole a water chestnut from Greg's stash.

 

Greg glared at him. "Yeah, because that's all my fault," he retorted, even though he knew far too well that it was entirely his fault. David rolled his eyes and started across the ball room, but Greg tailed him. "What are you doing here, anyway? This is only for invited guests of the lab."

 

"Jack and Diane called me up and said you might need back up," he replied without ever glancing over his shoulder. Greg wondered exactly how many nicknames he'd developed for Nick and Bobby over the years. "I should have told them I don't work weekends."

 

"You came here for me?" Greg questioned. David said nothing, just pressed faster through the crowd, and Greg practically tripped over three different strangers in his attempt to keep up. Within seconds, they were out of the hotel and into the cool Nevada spring. He watched as David – who, like Bobby, looked surprisingly good in a suit and tie – crossed the front sidewalk and settled onto the edge of a raised landscaping bed. For the first time, he couldn't read the other man's expression at all.

 

"Did you really come for me?" he repeated.

 

David looked as though he was actually considering a reply, but then frowned and rolled his eyes. "Sanders, I am not doing this."

 

Of all the responses he'd expected, that was not one. "Doing what?" he asked.

 

For a moment, there was silence between them, as though David expected the question to fly away and be completely forgotten. Finally, he sighed and rolled his eyes. "In case you haven't noticed, you are a straight man. You are a straight man who is riding the wave of political correctness into a promotion, sure, but a straight man nonetheless. I…" He paused, and suddenly his gaze was wandering along the edge of the sidewalk, instead of just focusing on Greg himself. "Look, just because you somehow got it into your head that faking gay isn't a big deal does not mean that you don't affect other people. Like Burkhardt."

 

"I didn't mean to mislead him," Greg admitted, and David just rolled his eyes. "You've got to believe me! I never thought that'd happen. I guess word spreads kinda fast around here."

 

"No kidding, Sherlock." The response was cooler than Greg had expected, even from David. "Just…do me a favor, okay? Stop pretending to be fond of me, okay? At the end of the day, I'm just your damned gay tutor. I prance, you prance, and we all prance back to our lives. Where you, may I add, have sex with women."

 

He frowned. "Why do you assume that I have sex with women?"

 

"Because if you had sex with men, Sanders, none of this would be happening."

 

Greg pressed his lips together and said nothing, still standing just a few inches short of David. In the silence outside the hall, it almost felt as though they were alone together, even if a few strains of mediocre pop music did drift in from the high school prom in the second ball room. He watched as David watched him, observing him like a piece of evidence. His eyes, quiet and shadowed in the dim lighting, traveled up and down the length of Greg's face, as though he was searching for something.

 

For a moment, Greg wanted nothing more than reach out and touch the other man – show him how much his friendship (if it could be called that) meant – but something stopped him. He stiffened and took a step back.

 

As soon as he did, David dropped his eyes.

 

"See you tomorrow, Sanders," he said, and disappeared into the parking lot before Greg could decide if he wanted to stop him.

 

==

 

"He was going to kiss me, Bobby."

 

While Nick Stokes was still very much the good Methodist boy he'd been since birth and went to church every Sunday to pray for his big gay soul (or so Bobby explained it), Bobby Dawson usually spent his Sunday mornings cleaning out the molding leftovers and spoiled milk in their refrigerator. Greg knew this, which is why he'd decided to drive over to the Dawson-and-Stokes residence at eight a.m. on Sunday morning and rouse both of them from bed. Nick had grumbled his way off to church and now Bobby was perched on a stepstool, prying open Tupperware containers and sniffing their questionable contents.

 

Well, when he wasn't listening to Greg rant, at least.

 

"Greg, he was not gonna kiss you," he stressed for about the seventeeth time, and then tossed a mostly-empty margarine tub in the vague direction of the kitchen sink. "Even if he was interested, Dave knows you're straight. That's really the biggest rule there is: no fallin' for straight guys. He knows better." He shook his head and pulled a can from the fridge. "Stop freakin' out and just have a beer."

 

"Bobby." Greg hopped off the counter and stalked right over to him, setting his feet hard onto the linoleum. All his promises to himself to ignore what had happened the night before, to put it in the past, and to definitely not tell another living soul about it flew out the window as he drew in a steady breath.

 

"Greg?"

 

"Even if he didn't want to kiss me, I wanted to kiss him."

 

The beer can hit the floor with a loud thump and rolled all the way to the kitchen table, but Bobby didn't seem to notice. Instead, he stared up at Greg, his face was the very mask of surprise, shock, awe, and complete uncertainty. For the first time in the last week, though, Greg didn't feel like some sort of museum exhibit. He deserved the surprise-through-uncertainty staring. God knew he felt it through his entire being, especially since the night before.

 

"You…wanted to kiss him?" Bobby repeated, and he nodded solemnly. "Greg. You're not – "

 

"I've experimented. I've done stuff. Maybe I'm…" He ran a hand through his hair. He'd prepared himself to breach the topic, at least to Bobby, but he hadn't thought through the actual conversation associated with said topic-breaching. "I don't know, Bobby. Maybe it's just ‘cause of the stuff he said to Burkhardt, but sitting outside of the hotel…" He shook his head. "I really wanted to."

 

A car door slammed suddenly, and Bobby frowned as he stood up and made his way into the living room. When he returned, his frown was magnified to about ten times its previous inception. "Romeo just arrived, and he's lookin' pissed."

 

"What? Hodges?" Greg glanced frantically around the room, looking for some escape method. The back door offered some comfort, but unless Bobby and David did whatever David had arrived to do in the back-most bedroom, his chances of escaping unnoticed were slim and bordering on none. He doubted he could fit in the pantry, too. "Shit, Bobby, I can't be here! Not after what happened last night. I gotta – "

 

"Chill, Greg. You stay here. I'll chat him up in the livin' room and get rid of him, and then, you can explain to me what the hell's actually goin' on." He sighed and shook his head. "I didn't know when I started datin' Nick that I signed up to deal with the whole funny farm."

 

Bobby skulked out of the room just as the doorbell rang, allowing Greg a few frantic moments to grab the stepstool, pull it into the corner beside the fridge, and plop down on it. The voices in the other room, for the most part, were muffled by the buzzing of the refrigerator, and he was eternally grateful. With all the interior angst of figuring out what'd come over him the night before, the last thing he needed was to hear David rant and rave about the stupid straight boy with the ridiculous crush.

 

That was what it was, Greg decided as he huddled in his corner, listening to words he couldn't make out. It was a ridiculous crush. There was no logical reason for him to be attracted to David Hodges, especially since he was a straight man and David was not. David was just putting in time with him. Making an effort. Reaffirming that he deserved good things, like an excellent job. Or so Greg would just keep repeating to himself, ad nauseum, until something came of it.

 

Besides, for all he knew – for all that made sense – David was sitting in the living room right now and explaining to Bobby the top three thousand reasons why he would never again speak to that creepy pain in the ass, Greg Sanders.

 

"Dave – " He heard Bobby say suddenly, and realized that the fridge had shut itself off. He could now hear clearly enough to make out David's sigh in the next room.

 

"Bobby, look, I get it," David responded. He sounded tired and annoyed from Greg's vantage point, but that didn't stop him from straining so he could hear better. "Poor, lonely Hodges, all sitting by himself while Stokes and Dawson get to shack up and have rabbit-like mansex. Feel bad for poor Hodges. Give him cookies. Cookies don't work? Then vodka. No vodka? Sanders will do nicely." He snorted audibly. "The catch here is – and it really is a catch – that I don't hate him. I can't just play pretend gay man with him anymore. If you really think he needs to learn the ways of the homosexual world, you and Stokes do it. I quit."

 

In the kitchen, Greg leaned against the refrigerator, David's words ringing in his ears. He couldn't have heard all that right, or be translating it properly from Hodges to Human. This was David Hodges. David Hodges struggled to care about his own grandmother. If he was suggesting what Greg thought, then –

 

"Dave, we're not expectin' you to hook up with him, if that's what you're so worried about." Bobby's tone was heavily apologetic. David must have looked as annoyed and upset as he actually sounded. "He just needs a friend through all this, and I'm sorry, but Nicky and I ain't the ones to do it."

 

"I never said that's what you expected of me." David sighed, and Greg could imagine him running a hand over his forehead like he sometimes did when he was frustrated. "But it's like the apple tree in the garden, Bobby. Even if you're not supposed to eat it, the snake's the best salesperson in the world."

 

"‘Cuse me?"

 

"Dawson, if you don't get that comparison, there really is no hope for you." Another sigh from David echoed into the kitchen. "You know what? Forget about this. After tomorrow, Sanders'll be so busy trying to supervise his staff that he won't even remember who I am. No reason for me to worry. I'll just see you later."

 

"Dave – "

 

"Later, Bobby."

 

Greg closed his eyes and listened to the footfalls spanning the living room and the eventual shutting of the front door. Part of him was tempted to stand up and chase after David, demanding the whole way what he'd meant in his argument. But the rational portion of his consciousness just didn't have the strength and patience, never mind how he'd feel if he was just misunderstanding the whole situation.

 

"I suppose you heard that mess," Bobby commented, and Greg opened his eyes again to see his friend leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest. He shook his head. "Greg, this whole thing just officially blew itself to kingdom come and back, and I've gotta tell you, I don't have the foggiest notion how to fix it."

 

"Oh, and you think I do? That's funny." He sighed and buried his face in his hands. "This is dumb, you know that? This is so very, very dumb. Ecklie feeds me this line of bull about how he's promoting me because I'm so ‘unerodable' and comfortable with myself, and what do I do? I get myself into… Into this!" He used one hand to gesture vaguely at Bobby, the kitchen, the living room, and anything else that could be lumped into this mess – maybe the beer can on the floor, too? "Ecklie must be a nutjob, because I don't even know who I am, anymore."

 

Bobby sighed. "Greg, sexuality ain't as black-and-white as you want it to be."

 

That caused him to look up from his hands, and he did so by glaring across the kitchen at Bobby. "I'm not gay!" he protested loudly.

 

"I'm not sayin' you are. God knows you've had enough sex with Sara, Mandy, Wendy, Jacqui, and even that one time with Cath." Greg groaned at the memory and returned his face to his hands, but not before he caught Bobby smirking slightly. "Look, all of us know you're not gay. But maybe you're not totally straight, either. I mean, there's gotta be a reason why you and Henry were foolin' around like you were, and why you flirted with Nicky for so long."

 

"For the last time, I was not flirting with Nicky."

 

"You were, Greg," Bobby repeated in a way that left very little room for argument. "You and Nicky flirted so bad I thought y'all were datin'. And maybe there's something to that, y'know?"

 

Greg peeked between two fingers and eyed Bobby curiously. "To dating Nick?"

 

Bobby feigned a good-natured shudder. "God, no. Nick's Texan, sure, but not crazy. I mean to your flirtin'." Greg frowned and finally put his hands back in his lap, and Bobby's own smile faded along with it. "You and Dave, you've been flirtin' and arguin' for years, and maybe there's a reason for it beyond the fact y'all really want us to think you hate each other."

 

He snorted. "I don't like him."

 

"You wanted to kiss a guy you don't like?" Bobby replied, regarding him dubiously. He obviously didn't believe Greg's claim, which was probably for the better; Greg didn't really believe it, either. "Greg, you've got a guy you wanna get your hands on. He wants you back. Stop lookin' a gift horse in the mouth and just go for it."

 

"I - "

 

"When's the last time this happened? Honestly. It's been a while."

 

Greg sighed and lulled his head against the side of the refrigerator. A moment of thought revealed that he couldn't remember the last time he'd had more than sex simply for sex's sake, and the realization grated on him. "It'll never work, he decided.

 

He gauged Bobby for a reaction, and received an eye roll for his trouble. "Y'all are impossible," he huffed, shaking his head. "You ain't happy when you have a chance to get together, but then you ain't happy apart. Stop bein' an ass and just be happy." He frowned. "And gimme back my stool. I gotta get this fridge clean."

 

Climbing off the stepstool, he pushed it across the linoleum. Bobby snatched it and set it back in front of the refrigerator before tossing the door open. For a moment, Greg just stood there in the middle of the kitchen, watching as a very irked Bobby Dawson started pulling items off the shelves.

 

Finally, he sighed. "What would you do?" he asked quietly.

 

Bobby didn't look up. "I dunno," he admitted, "but if I passed it up, I know I'd never bitch to my friends ‘bout being lonely again."

 

Greg couldn't really argue with that logic.

 

==

 

David's house looked empty and abandoned as Greg pulled his Jetta into the driveway. So empty, in fact, that he was sorely tempted to just turn around and go home. On his way across town, he'd nearly turned around three times and fled back to the safety of Nick and Bobby's freakishly clean kitchen. Bobby's words of quasi-wisdom plagued him, though, and he kept on driving. Now, sitting in the driveway with his car still running, he wondered exactly how much courage a man needed to risk screwing up one very valued almost-friendship.

 

He killed the ignition.

 

David's grass was mowed and his flower bed full of cheery flowering plants that Greg figured probably shouldn't be able to survive the Vegas heat but were, instead, thriving. The paint on the outside was clean and relatively new, and the door boasted a brass knocker and a nice little "Hodges" nameplate. He could imagine David affixing the knocker on an off day, after the grass was mowed and flowers watered, and could almost hear the other man grumbling to himself that it was lame and overdone.

 

Greg wondered how long he'd thought these things about David.

 

Grasping the door knocker, he allowed it to thump against itself a few times and waited semi-patiently for a response. None came. In fact, the house was eerily quiet both inside and out, a ghostly excuse for a residence if ever there was one.

 

David, he realized, must have been so downtrodden and upset by his conversation with Bobby a half-hour earlier that he'd gone to an all-day bar and started drinking. Or maybe he wasn't drinking at all, but rather had drowned himself in the bathtub after a difficult day of lusting after a man who would never appreciate him. Yes, right now, Greg could just see David's last bubbles of breath floating on the surface, his bare skin glistening with water as he –

 

"Dammit David!" he announced, and ignored the door knocker to pound his fist against the wood. "Answer the door before I call 911! David! C'mon, David – "

 

The door opened so quickly that Greg nearly punched David in the face, giving David very little time to duck out of the way. He glowered across the threshold. "Call 911 for what? Trespassing? Sweet that you'd turn yourself in."

 

He stepped away from the door and started back into the depths of the house, and Greg paused on the welcome mat for a long moment before actually gathering up the courage to follow. David's house was, as it'd been just a week before, clean and neat, and by the time he made it to the living room, David was switching off the television and picking up the remnants of the newspaper.

 

When he spent too long in silence, David glared up from his task. "Did you want something specific, or are you just adding ‘harassment' to your rap sheet?"

 

"I – Oh. Yeah." He ran a hand through his hair, which gave David ample time to roll his eyes and turn his attention back to the newspaper. "I wanted to talk to you. About the last, you know, week."

 

"Oh, your great gay outing? Dammit, my word choice's worse than Dawson's today." He shook his head to himself. "Whatever, Greg. If you want to come out as a straight man again, it's no skin off my nose. Not like you need another Burkhardt whispering sweet nothings into your ears."

 

The memory caused Greg to frown. "No, this isn't – I don't want to be straight." And that caused David to abandon his tidying completely and actually stand all the way up, hands on his hips and eyebrows creeping into his hairline. "I actually think I'm not."

 

He snorted. "Sanders, if you're gay, I'll eat my coffee table. Without ketchup."

 

"I don't think I'm gay, either." When he kept staring, looking increasingly less annoyed and more confused, Greg sighed. "It's like - have you ever wanted something and not known that you wanted it until something totally crazy happened?" he asked. "You don't know what you've got in front of you until it's waved in your face, and suddenly, you really want it. Want to keep it, but if keeping it's not enough, you want more of it."

 

David frowned. "Are we talking about a flag, a pennant, or a banner?"

 

"Just hear me out, you asshole."

 

"I am, though I can't quite figure out why. I think being around you all these years has finally done permanent brain damage."

 

Groaning, Greg stalked across the room and pointed a finger directly at David's chest. He could feel the annoyance burbling up in the back of his throat, sharp and impatient. "This is what I mean!" he exclaimed, his hand shaking. "There is no way I should want this, but I do! And it took me years of stupid arguing to even think I might want it, and that's only because Ecklie thinks I'm gay!"

 

All the playfulness that had almost touched David's expression faded, and he stepped abruptly away. "I don't know what you mean," he stated, and reached for the newspaper.

 

"Yeah, David, you do." He grabbed the newspaper and threw it on the floor. "Do you even realize what we've been doing?"

 

"Well, I know that I was trying to pick up my living room, but you've successfully ruined that venture. No clue about you, though." There was an edginess to David's tone as he started stacking coasters. "Unless your goal is confusing me. You've succeeded rather well at that."

 

"You're playing dumb."

 

"Better than actually being cast in the role."

 

Greg let out a frustrated, incoherent noise as David finished with the coasters. He grabbed the one page of the newspaper that was left on the coffee table and, without another word, started towards the kitchen. Greg considered storming out the door and going straight home, where he could burn David Hodges in effigy and return to his life as a delightfully straight – if somewhat promiscuous – man with no claims to homosexuality other than a supervisory position at work.

 

But that was what David wanted. He wanted Greg to give up, throw in the towel, and return life to the frustrating status quo. They could argue, bicker, and even hate each other, but life would go on.

 

There was nothing Greg wanted less than to let life just go on.

 

"You can't lie to me, Dave. You can't tell me you didn't mean it."

 

David turned around in the doorway, his expression blank. "Excuse me?"

 

Dread, or something like it, turned around in Greg's stomach, and he pushed it way as he summoned up just enough courage to take a few steps forward. "No one ever said you couldn't eat the apple."

 

"You were– dammit." David closed his eyes momentarily, looking about ready to either punch something or flee the scene of the crime. "Look, there's no right answer to that question, so I'm not even going to try. I'm just going to throw the newspaper out, go back into the den and check my e-mail or hang myself. Doesn't take a CSI to find the door."

 

He started past the kitchen like a man on death row, but Greg – suddenly very agile when he had been frozen in confusion and fear only moments before – managed to step in front of him and effectively block the doorway. "There's no one stopping you," he said quickly.

 

David frowned down at him, brow tightening. "What?"

 

"The apple."

 

He rolled his eyes. "Dammit, Greg, it was just a stupid metaphor. It didn't mean anything. Get over yourself and let me through."

 

"No."

 

"No?"

 

"No," Greg repeated, and, sucking in a deep breath, he leaned forward and did the only thing that was in his mind, the only thing that had been in his mind for the last day and even the days and months he couldn't admit to before this very moment.

 

He kissed David.

 

David's lips were warm and just a little dry, nothing like Henry's had been at that damned Christmas party, and even though they made no attempt to move against his own, he kissed them. He kissed them with all the pent-up frustration and desire he'd felt over the past week, plus all the pent-up quasi-flirting they'd done for years. He kissed David as though he'd never kiss another person again, and if the enormous butterflies fluttering around in his gut were planning to stay, he didn't particularly want to try it out on another person.

 

Suddenly, the dry lips against his pulled away, and – just as Greg was ready to open his eyes and protest – they returned, freshly dampened and red-hot against his mouth. The newspaper remnants fluttered to the floor, and Greg grunted as David pressed him into the hallway wall, his back against the plaster as his mouth opened and made its acquaintance with David's tongue. Hands roamed the length of Greg's sides and came to rest on his hips, and out of every sexual encounter he'd had since his first time the weekend of college graduation, Greg knew that this was going to be the best.

 

After a long moment of labored breathing and fingers tugging at shirts just to find that first touch of skin against skin, David pulled back and stared down at him, his face flushed and expression considerate. "You've never done this," he pointed out, almost quiet.

 

Greg tried to remember how to speak but found he couldn't, and settled on nodding. David kept looking at him, though, waiting, and he sighed. "You're my gay fairy godfather," he reminded, and a smirk snuck up on him. "You've got to teach me."

 

David smirked back. "I've heard I'm a hard teacher," he cautioned.

 

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Greg retorted, and leaned up to kiss him again.

 

==

 

Greg Sanders knocked on Ecklie's office door the next day.

 

"Come in," Ecklie called from within, and even as the door opened, his eyes remained on his paperwork. Greg smoothed his shirt and tried not to look or feel too awkward as he closed the door behind him.

 

"Are you busy?"

 

Glancing up, all traces of indifference disappeared from the director's face, and he flashed another of his creepily-nice smiles. "Greg!" he greeted. "Come in, sit down! I wasn't expecting you in for another hour. You must be excited about your first day of work."

 

"Something like that," he replied, and made little effort to sit down. Instead, he ran his fingers along the back ridge of one of the empty chairs, which caused Ecklie's smile to disappear fairly quickly. "Look, Ecklie," he stated, hoping not to delay the inevitable, "I don't deserve this promotion."

 

For the first time in documented history, Ecklie blinked and looked confused. "Excuse me?"

 

Greg sighed. "It's like… Well, I'm not gay. I know you thought I was when you gave me this position, but I'm not. I mean, yeah, I'm dating a guy, but I'm not the queer poster boy you want to prove that the lab's politically correct, you know? If you want to promote a gay man, Nick's really been wanting the night shift position. Sara can have swing, which she'll tolerate. And it's better for when she does get pregnant. Well, if she does."

 

For an awkwardly long moment, Ecklie just gaped at him. Usually, this would have bothered Greg, but he'd gotten rather used to people looking at him as though he'd just announced himself to be Marilyn Monroe. Finally, he frowned. "You're dating a man?" he asked cautiously.

 

Of all the things he'd just said, Greg'd figured that the dating-a-man topic would be the least shocking. "Yeah." He considered the events of the last twenty-four hours and frowned to himself. "Well, kind of. It's more arguing, having sex, and then arguing some more." He would have never guessed Ecklie's frown could have magnified until it did. He flinched. "You know what? Pretend I just didn't tell you that."

 

"It's probably for the best," Ecklie confirmed, but he was still staring. Another awkward length of silence passed, and Greg began to wonder if he'd come out of his self-made confessional chamber with any job at all. He'd have to sell his car, condo, and then probably his body. It wouldn't be pretty.

 

"Sanders, I don't know how to explain this," Ecklie said just as Greg began to wonder if he could support himself as Nick and Bobby's personal slave, "but I never thought you were gay."

 

Greg blinked. "I – You – What?" he stammered. "Why the hell did you promote me if you didn't think I was gay?"

 

Ecklie smirked slightly. "I promoted you because you do good work, and you're not the type to change because you're a supervisor. Lord knows I had enough problems with Willows when I put her in charge of swing." He shook his head, and Greg didn't blame him for mourning that particular disaster. "As for Sidle and Stokes, I'm still deciding between them. It has nothing to do with who in this lab is gay." He paused, still watching Greg with a disturbingly careful eye. "Where did you hear that?"

 

There was only one answer for that question, and Greg certainly wasn't going to lie any further. "Well, uh, Hodges said – "

 

He was cut off by a roll of the eyes. "David Hodges would believe his mother was a rabbit if he heard it in the lab rumor mill," Ecklie informed him, and it took Greg all of a half second to realize how deeply true that was. "You've earned this promotion. Enjoy it. And I really hope you didn't start dating a man because of all this."

 

"I – Well, I didn't." Which, he rationalized, was mostly true. When Ecklie quirked an eyebrow, he shrugged. "Maybe a little. But really, I started dating a man because – "

 

He couldn't decide if Ecklie looked interested or appalled as he started explaining, and really, he didn't want to figure out which it was. "You know what? I'm going to leave now."

 

"Probably a good idea," his boss nodded, and returned to his paperwork.

 

==

 

"So," Bobby said.

 

He, Nick and Greg were lounging in the spacious Dawson-and-Stokes living room, beers in hand and The Birdcage muted on the television. As it usually was, Nick stared off into the screen while the other two chatted. Greg figured it was the natural order to things, especially after the week he'd just had.

 

He leaned back against the couch cushion. "So," he replied, wondering when they'd become such stunning conversationalists. "Who would have thought I deserved the promotion?"

 

"Who would have thought I still haven't beaten Sara for night shift?" Nick questioned under his breath, and Bobby swatted at his arm.

 

"I think it's great. You got the job, you got the man, and now, when you tell people you're gay, you ain't really lyin'." As Greg started glancing around for something to throw, Bobby laughed. "I'm kiddin', I'm kiddin'. You still made out like a bandit, though. Any other man'd kill to be half as lucky."

 

Smiling slightly, Greg shrugged and allowed himself a slow pull of his beer. No need to chug, not now. "Yeah, well, considering the amount of crap I had to put up from you two to get here, I think I deserve it."

 

"Crap? Sanders, you received nothing less than tender, loving care." David was wiping his damp hands on his jeans as he emerged from the hallway, and he sent Bobby a faux-annoyed glance. "Your hand towel looks like it hasn't been washed since 1982, Dawson. I think it plans to devour my skin."

 

"Bathroom's Nicky's deal. I do the kitchen."

 

"Obsessively." Nick flicked off the television and shifted to glance at Greg. He smiled slightly. "For the record, G, I always thought you deserved it."

 

Greg smiled back, which only served to pull Nick into full-out-Stokes-grin mode. "Thanks, man," he replied, watching as Bobby patted Nick warmly on a shoulder.

 

David, on the other hand, made a retching sound as he flopped down on the couch. "This is not a hokey after-school special. There will be no group hugging while I am in the room."

 

"Aww, Dave," Greg pouted, sticking out his lower lip for effect, "don't you want to be all gooey-lovey-dovey with me? We can snuggle and call each other ‘pookie'."

 

"If you ever call me pookie, I will kill you in your sleep and make it look like an accident." He reached forward and snatched Greg's beer, downing several gulps before Greg managed to snatch it back. "And I do not snuggle."

 

"You did last night."

 

"That was not snuggling. I was actually trying to crush your bones. You must drink a lot of milk."

 

"I drink other things, too, in case you forgot."

 

Seated on the edge of Nick's favorite chair, Bobby started choking on his beer. A quick inspection revealed that Nick was biting back a laugh himself and using the hand that wasn't hiding his mouth to thump Bobby on the back.

 

On the couch, David just shook his head. "The way you act around the innocent little Southerners. Really."

 

Greg was tempted to argue the point, resuming the bickering and banter, but Nick's hand was now rubbing slow circles on Bobby's spine, and somehow, he lost the urge. Instead, he scooted down the couch until he was right next to David, their legs and sides flush.

 

Sighing, David threw an arm over his shoulders. "You are going to irritate me until the day I die," he grumbled.

 

"That's what you get," Greg retorted, and caught the hints of a smile on David's lips as he grinned, himself.

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