Title: Falling Into You
By: Unity2008
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Magic happens, even if you don't believe in it. Sometimes, when you stop searching, you find out that what you need might be right in front of you. I'm not new to fanfic, but it's been a LONG hiatus and this is my first attempt at m/m.
Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or any of its characters.
A/N: This is the first of I don’t know how many chapters yet, alternating POV from several characters, and sort of song-fic (the titles of the chapters will help you along!) I have NOT written fan-fic in a LONG TIME so reviews are MORE than welcome! Hugs in advance!

Chapter One: On my own….

GREG:

I have a photographic memory. It has served me well in my lifetime. I never forget things. I breezed my way through high school, college, graduate school and all the way to the top of the field in DNA analysis by the age of 22 without ever having to study. It has also caused me a lot of pain. I don’t even have to close my eyes to remember every tragedy of my lifetime from bitter teasing and bullying of my childhood to the minute details of every instant of the lab explosion that left me scarred for life, or the beating I took the night that I killed Demetrius James, or the pain-filled terror of watching Nick buried in a glass coffin knowing that for all of my incredible intellect I could do nothing to save him. This gift can be bittersweet, as well. I can see vividly the look of relief and love on Grissom’s face when we found Sara in the desert, weak but alive. I recall that moment, from time to time, when I want to remember her. She is gone now, finding herself, and I can only imagine that Grissom is dying inside without her here. She is my friend, and I don’t have many of those, but she is Grissom’s world. I wonder, sometimes, if he would be better off with my gift, able to relive the moments of happiness that they shared, or if it would only make him more miserable as it does me. The hardest part of this gift, for me, lies in the fact that I don’t even have to conjure up the memory of every time my soul has connected, if only briefly, to the person who is the center of my world. It’s hard when love goes unrequited, but it is what it is. You see, my world, my heart, and my soul belong to one person, but he will never know this because he doesn’t feel the same way about me, and it would destroy the relationship that we do have. I know this for a fact, but it doesn’t make the memories any easier to bear. I can recall, with perfect clarity, every time his hand has touched my shoulder. I can feel the tingle of electric shock waves coursing through every skin cell and burning, me to the core just from the touch of his fingertips on my still clothed skin. Even when he is nowhere near me, I can smell his musky scent, the sweetness of his breath as he leans over me to verify a result. I can see, clearly, the flashed “I love you” that he never meant to give me. I can relive every conversation that we have ever had with perfect clarity until it makes me want to collapse in my bed and cry myself to sleep in the darkness of my room, shrouded against the daylight by thick blackout drapes that hide the sunlight but cannot keep away the pain and loneliness that are my constant companions.

I’m getting morbid, I fear, tragically so. Memories of moments with him are not just tragedies. They don’t always make me wish that I could take a razor and slit my wrists, leaving behind all that I can never have. They are also fuel for some pretty powerful masturbatory fantasies. Just one small recollection of an innocent touch is all I need. My own vivid imagination fills in the rest just fine. I can take those fingers, placed gently on my shoulder and move them skillfully down my arm to intertwine themselves with mine as his hand guides me to the bedroom. We are always silent in my fantasies. No words need ever be spoken. His eyes lock with mine and I can see all that I need to see within them. His love is endless, and we move as one being. His lips claim mine and our tongues battle against each other for control as the need to consume one another becomes more and more urgent. Clothes fall to the side, just like they do in cheap romance novels, and we are naked against each other, our erections sliding together, friction making us moan with hunger. Then, he is inside of me, taking me, pounding hard against me in animalistic lust. We cry when we come together, screaming each others names against the silence. Then, when we are sated, he slips from me and I feel the emptiness of his loss. But soon, his arms surround me and I am safe and whole and loved. We fall asleep that way, or at least I do, since I am really alone and it is only my climax that wets the sheets. But, for the moment at least, I feel complete.

OK, so the details are a bit sketchy, and you probably think that I sound like one of the aforementioned dime store romance novels, except that all of those feature horny male heterosexuals deflowering innocent female virgins. Well, the truth of the matter is that this is exactly where my fantasies come from, and aside from the heterosexual part, they actually don’t fall to far from the apple tree of truth. Yes, that’s right, Greg Sanders, boy genius, soon to be forty year old virgin. Well, not quite forty yet, but you get the idea. It’s not that I haven’t tried. In fact, trying was how I first realized that I was gay. You see, there was this one time, at band camp…..OK, bad cinematic allusion, I’m sorry. Actually, it was at science camp. There was this girl, and she was just off the cart. We were both sixteen and a bit more “unusual” than the rest of the science geeks, she with her Goth make-up and jet clack hair, me with my two-toned spiky mop and tragically loud-colored taste in shirts. We hit it off right away. In fact, we spent the entire summer joined at the hip. On the last night of camp, I decided I needed to make my move, so I kissed her. She kissed me back and we made out for a while, but nothing was happening, if you know what I mean. It was nice, but I wasn’t turned on at all. Well, Abby, being a bit more worldly and a heck of a lot more honest than me at that age simply seized the opportunity (after first seizing my flaccid cock and getting no reaction at all aside from a panicked squeak from me) to tell me what I probably already knew. “Greg,” she said, “You’re gay. Just accept it and go find yourself a nice hot boy to play with. Oh, and when you find him, can I watch?” Yep, that’s my Abby. A decade later and she’s a hot shot scientist with the NCIS in DC, I’m in Vegas working as a CSI, and we are still the best of friends. And she still wants to watch. Only the second thing I found out about myself is that not only do I want to have sex with men, I want to do it in a relationship. Unfortunately, I want to do it in a relationship with Nick Stokes, handsome, charming, Texas accent to die for and also a coworker and heterosexual as heterosexual can get. Now, do you see why my life sucks?

So this is why I am sitting at home alone on my night off staring at a computer screen playing game number 1346 of solitaire with about one one millionth of my attention actually on the game (remember that photographic memory? –I’ve played this hand before) and the rest wandering off about Nick Stokes and the impossibility of ever having him in my life as anything more than a co-worker and a casual friend. I wonder what he is doing tonight. We both have off, since we’ve both been putting in doubles and triples almost every other shift since Warrick was killed. There’s another memory I can’t erase – the look on Nick’s face when he lost his best friend. I wished that I could hold him, let him cry, ease his grief a little. But we’re not that close. I keep thinking that I could pick up the phone, call him, as a friend, you know. But what would I say? Besides, he’s probably off on a hot date or something. He probably has his arms around a busty blonde girl right now and she’s doing her best to make him forget everything but her. I am just getting lost in my own sorrows and getting morbid again when my AIM screen flashes.

“Do you want to play a game?”

“Hey, Abs! Wassup? Let me guess, Saw FIVE is it this time?”

“Yep. Just got back from the theater, but it sucked. They should have quit like three movies ago before it got stupid. Anyway, just some rare down time. Surprised to see you online. Feels like we haven’t chatted in forever”

“Yeah. It’s been hell”

“So, what r u up2, Greggo?”

I hate it when she calls me that, because it makes me think of Nick, even though she called me that long before he ever entered my life, but I let it slide. “Oh, not much. Contemplating quantum mechanics, the usual”

“Thinking about Nick, again, eh? LOL”

“No”

“UhHuh….so, do you want to play a game?”

“What game would that be?”

“Oh, I don’t know….I could be Nick and you could be you and we could have hot IM sex”

“Forget it Abby. I am NOT going to use my unrequited love to fuel your gay boy fantasies!”

“Are you naked, Greggo? I can’t wait to get my lips around that big, huge cock of yours”

“Forget it, Abs. I’m serious. And besides, Nick would NOT talk like that.”

“Oh really, how can you be so sure? What if he called you on the phone tonight, just to see if you were alone. To see if maybe, just maybe, you were all alone in your apartment thinking about him.”

“Because he doesn’t. He doesn’t talk at all. In my dreams, that is. He just shows me that he loves me. That’s all.”

“What if I told you that I cast a love spell on you, Greggo? That I discovered the secrets of ancient Wiccan goddesses and I put them to use on you, my best friend in the whole world, so that you wouldn’t have to stay a virgin forever?”

“I’d tell you that too much soda destroys tour brain cells. Now let it alone, I mean it.”

I was getting aggravated and it’s hard to express that clearly in an instant message, but Abby knows me pretty well, fortunately.

“Sorry, babe. It was just a thought”

“Yeah, a bad thought”

“LOL. Look, I really am sorry, OK, sexy? I gotta run. I just got paged. Gibbs needs something done and he needs it done yesterday. Take care of you, OK? And pick up the phone every once and a while”

“Will do, Abs”

And then she was gone, just as quickly as she had arrived, leaving me alone in my contemplations again. It was nice to talk to Abby, even though she did have some off the wall ideas of fun. At least it was better than suffering alone in silence. I was thinking about her and about how much fun we had together over the years even though we hardly saw one another because of our jobs when the phone rang, so I thought, more than likely, it was her calling to see if I was locked in the bathroom jerking off. But the caller ID said Nick and I stared at the phone like it was something from outer space. I was frozen in place. I couldn’t answer it.

Chapter Two: Pretending he’s beside me

NICK

I never imagined myself as they type of person who would drown his sorrows in a bottle of booze, but then again I never anticipated the fact that my best friend would be taken from me so violently and abruptly that I never even got to say goodbye. Life goes on, you know, just like it always does. It went on after I was abused as a child, and it went on after I was accused of murdering Kristy (what a mistake that relationship was right from the start – I should have known that living out a lie would only lead to someone getting hurt, but I never thought it could end up with someone being dead), and it went on after I was rescued from my coffin in the ground, and it goes on after I lost my only really close friend. You see, Warrick is….was…. the only person who has ever really known me for me. Everyone else knows Nick Stokes, the strong and silent one, the one who takes everything in stride, who never gives up, and who is able to compartmentalize all of life’s tragedies. Sure, Catherine knows about the abuse, and she knows that I live with that every day of my life, but that’s not the real secret life of Nick Stokes, ladies man extraordinaire. So here I sit, alone in my apartment, finally getting a night to myself away from the tragedies of the human existence, and what am I doing? I am drinking my way through a bottle of Jack Daniels, straight, on the rocks, and staring at the flickering images of my muted television set. I could go out. Go to a bar. Find a girl. Come home. Have meaningless sex. But I’ve done that before and all it leads to is a moment of physical pleasure followed by days of emptiness and guilt. I keep staring at my phone, hoping it will ring, hoping that there will be some great emergency and I will be needed at work. It beats sitting here. But if it gets any later I won’t be able to make it in to work even if they do call. I can feel myself getting more and more intoxicated. I think it’s the lack of food. I’m not really sure when the last time I ate was.

The flickering lights of the television are the only lights I have on. I’ve closed the drapes so that Vegas and all of its happy colors are hidden from view. I can’t look at them any more. The color from the screen is making the room fill up with strange shadows. One of them reminds me of Warrick, and if I close my eyes I can almost picture him, sitting on the sofa beside me, laughing at some bad comedy or shouting at the referee for making a bad call. He’s got a beer in one hand and a handful of chips in the other. We used to hang out here a lot, on those rare occasions that we both had a night off. After his marriage fell apart, he said that hanging out with me was the only thing that kept him from going back to the casinos. He wanted to change his life, make up for things in his past that haunted him. Now I know why. I never knew he had a son. I wish I had known. I wish I could have been there for him, fighting by his side for what was rightfully his. I wish I had been there that night in the alley, standing up for him, keeping him safe, instead of sitting at a table in the diner flirting with yet another nameless, faceless, meaningless woman. People tell me that I have saved so many people. They tell me that it’s my gift. But I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t save my own best friend. I couldn’t keep Sara from leaving. I did my part to save her from the desert, but I couldn’t save her from herself, couldn’t save the love that she and Grissom so obviously shared. And I couldn’t save Greg, either. Sure, he’s still with us. He’s fine, on the outside. But I wonder, sometimes, if he feels the same way that I do on the inside. He doesn’t seem to smile as much anymore. He doesn’t joke as much. He doesn’t wear his hair the same crazy way that he did so long ago when he was young and innocent. His clothing, like his manner, is more subdued, and I can’t remember when it all started to change. I’m not sure if it happened after the lab explosion, or after the Demetrius James incident, or if it was happening all along and I was too caught up in my own life and my own problems to notice him. I don’t think it’s fair for me to say that I couldn’t save him, because the truth of the matter is that I never even tried.

The colors of the shadows have changed again, and for a second Warrick’s image fades away and Greg is sitting on the sofa beside me. Not the Greg that I see every night at work in the field, but the old Greg. I take another drink, top off my tumbler, and let the burning of the amber liquid course through my blood and I watch him out of the corner of my eye. I don’t know why he is there, because as far as I know he’s never been in my apartment before. We don’t hang out together outside of work, or a meal or a drink after shift. We aren’t even close, really. But he’s here now, beside me. He’s smiling and he’s laughing, and I can’t help but smile right back at him. He always makes me smile, except when he makes me cry. I couldn’t even visit him in the hospital. Neither time. I tried to go, but as soon as I got behind the wheel I started to cry, and I don’t know why. But he’s right beside me now, and I want to reach over and pull him into my arms, hold him close, keep him safe, beg him to never leave me. Suddenly, I am struck with the strangest thoughts. I wonder what it would be like to touch him, and I don’t mean just casually, the way that I always do, a hand on his shoulder. I wonder what it would be like to trace the outlines of his muscles all the way down from his shoulder blade to his finger tips. I wonder what it would be like to grasp his hand in mine, to pull him close to me, to look into his chocolate eyes, so full of expression, and kiss him on the lips.

I realize that I am having an erotic fantasy about a man. Not just any man, but Greg, my casual friend and co-worker. It must be the alcohol making my brain fuzzy, or the melancholy of thinking about Warrick. I’m not gay. I don’t look at men this way. I never have, and at forty years old I am not going to all of a sudden switch teams. And even if I did, it’s not like Greg is gay. Or is he? I realize, suddenly, two things. The Greg that was sitting beside me a moment ago is gone, leaving nothing but shadows in an empty apartment, and I have emptied the entire bottle of Jack Daniels in one sitting. Thank God it’s still early in the “day” – 11pm for me is like 11am for normal people – so I can still salvage what is left of my time off and be sober enough to get to work tomorrow night. I am just getting up to drag myself back to bed, even though I have only been up for a few hours, when my phone beeps. I look at the screen and see that I have an urgent e-mail message. Thinking it’s from work, realizing that I will have to come up with a good excuse not to go in given the state that I am in, I open my e-mail only to discover that the sender is Greg. “CALL ME, ASAP. I need you.” I am filled with an instant sense of dread as I hit the number on my speed dial. The phone rings on and on. He isn’t answering, and I can’t help but think that somehow, some way, this is a sign. The problem is, I’m not sure what it is a sign of, and I am instantly more terrified than I have been in a very long time.

Chapter Three: All Alone

GREG:

By the time I had finally managed to drag myself out of my stupor and think about actually answering the phone, realizing that in all likelihood this was not the result of some magical spell cast by Abby, it had already gone to voice mail. Probably Nick was just calling to ask me to switch shifts with him or something equally mundane. If it was important, he would leave a message. So I waited, staring at the phone, but it remained silent. The display read one missed call, and I considered, briefly, calling him back to see what he had wanted but decided against it. Yes, I am a chicken. Maybe he just wanted someone to talk to. Maybe, had I answered the damned phone instead of acting like the hopeless geek that I know I am, we would have been on our way to meet up for lunch or a movie or something equally trivial. Maybe he just decided he didn’t want to be alone and we could have hung out together. But the truth of the matter is that for as much as I want to spend time with Nick, to be the one to make him smile again, to ease his pain, but I don’t know that I can do that and not suffer myself for wanting more than he can ever give me in return. It’s not like I feel that he owes me something in return. My love for him is selfless. It’s unconditional. It’s just that I don’t think that I can take the pain of spending so much time with him. At work, it’s OK because its work. We can laugh, and we can even flirt – well, I can flirt – but it’s harmless. Here in the real world, if such a place really exists, the rules are a bit different.

I finally came to the realization that there was not going to be a message and I wasn’t going to get up the nerve to call him back, so I settled instead on sitting down to watch a movie. Productive, I know. I should be doing something with my night off. I’m running out of clean clothes and I don’t really have any food in the house to speak of. It’s midnight already – lunchtime in my world – but I’m not even really all that hungry. I decide to order Chinese instead of going to the grocery store. I always decide to order Chinese. It’s like a pattern that I just can’t break myself out of. I can cook. It’s not like my culinary skills are limited to Ramen noodles. But what’s the point? I’m sitting on the sofa, staring at the television screen, and it can’t have been more than fifteen minutes since I placed my order when there’s a knock at my door. I am thinking that those Asians sure have gotten fast – that or they know my schedule by now and have my order ready and waiting when I open the door and instead of facing a delivery boy with a brown paper bag I am face to face with a disheveled, frantic, out of breath and obviously intoxicated Nick Stokes.

“G, I got here as fast as I could. What’s going on?” He practically falls through the doorway and I am confused to say the least, but he’s weaving on his feet and I am afraid he’s going to fall over, so I grab him by the arm and guide him to the sofa.

“Nick, what are you talking about? What’s the matter?”

“You told me to call you. Your message. You said it was urgent and when I called you didn’t answer. I thought something had happened. I though that you were…” He couldn’t finish the statement, and he collapsed in a heap, running his fingers through his hair, trying desperately to calm his labored breathing. In spite of my concern for his condition and my curiosity as to what the hell he was rambling about, I couldn’t help but think that he looks sexy as hell right now.

‘Stop it, Sanders’ I chastised myself for my rapidly derailing train of thought and focused on the matter at hand. “What message, Nick? I didn’t leave you a message. I’ve been sitting here all night. I heard the phone ring, but by the time I got to it the voice mail had picked up and when you didn’t leave a message I figured it wasn’t all that important.”

“Yes, you did. You sent me an e-mail. It’s here. Right here in my phone.” He frantically scrolled through his inbox. “It’s not here. I know it was here. I saw it. Jesus, G” he seemed to deflate, “I think I’m losing it.”

“Nicky, calm down. How much have you had to drink tonight?”

“I don’t know, G. Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know. I’ll just leave, now. OK. I don’t know where my brain is right now.” He started to get up, unsteady on his feet, and I knew that I should do something to stop him, say something, act, react, but it’s like my brain and my body were stuck somehow and I couldn’t form a coherent thought. A knock on the door, this time it had to be my dinner, broke me from my state of inaction and I pushed him gently back to the sofa.

“Sit. Let me get my food and we’ll talk or something.” I answered the door and paid the boy, setting my food on the coffee table and went to sit beside Nick who was looking like he was about to be sick. “How did you get here, Nick? Please tell me you didn’t drive.”

“I drove.” He looked so guilty.

“Stay there. On second thought, give me your keys.”

“G, I’m fine. I’ll just go home…” He tried to get up again, but he didn’t make it to his feet this time.

“Give me the keys or I take them by force which, ordinarily, would be difficult but right now I am pretty sure I can take you.” Reluctantly, he complied and I pocketed the keys, grabbed my dinner, and headed for the bathroom first for Tylenol and then the kitchen for water and to put my food in the fridge for later. Tap water was all I had, but it was better than nothing. Returning to the living room, I found him collapsed in a heap on the sofa, still awake, but glassy eyed and fading in and out of consciousness. I worried about alcohol poisoning, but he seemed to be holding his own. “Here, take these.” He took the pills, put them in his mouth and managed to get some of the water in his mouth and the rest on the front of his shirt, his hands were shaking so badly. I took the glass and placed it on the table.

“OK, Nick. Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on, G. I told you, I got a message to call you. It sounded urgent. I panicked.”

“That explains your frantic trip to my apartment, but it doesn’t explain the fact that you are drunk off your ass.”

“It was my night off. I was just having a few drinks, that’s all. I guess I forgot to eat or something. Look, I’m sorry”

I don’t know what possessed me, really I don’t. The timid side of me said to let it go, don’t push him. But the same Greg Sanders who took matters into his own hands and saved that man from being beaten in that dark alley decided to make an appearance again. “Stop lying, Nicky. Stop lying to me and stop lying to yourself and tell me what’s going on.”

A flash of anger in response quickly dissolved into a look of abject terror which faded just as quickly and was replaced by something I could only define as desolation. “G, I don’t know. I just. Everything is wrong and I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take being alone. I can’t be strong all the time. I just can’t. I couldn’t save them I couldn’t save him. I can’t save you. I wasn’t even there for you. I’m so sorry. So sorry.” Then the floodgates opened and I was sitting on my sofa beside Nick who was sobbing uncontrollably. This was not at all the reaction I expected, although I shouldn’t have been all that surprised given the state he was in, but I didn’t know what to do, so I did what came naturally. I opened my arms and he collapsed against me. I enveloped him in a hug and worked my hand around him so that I could gently caress his back and held him until he cried himself to sleep. It still didn’t make any sense, but I didn’t know what else to do.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but eventually the tears subsided and Nick’s breathing went from ragged to smooth and even, and I knew that he was asleep. I disentangled myself and went to get a blanket and a pillow. I covered him carefully, not wanting to wake him, although it seemed as though he was out cold. Just looking at him, he seemed so frail, not like the Nick Stokes I was used to seeing. His skin was pale, and he had dark rings beneath his eyes. I reached out and gently brushed the hair from where it had matted in the sweat on his forehead and gave in to temptation, placing a soft kiss on his brow, then I placed the trashcan from the bathroom on the floor beside his head in case he needed it in the morning, turned out the lights, turned off the television, went as quietly as I could into my bedroom, closed the door, and did the only thing I could think of to do. I called Abby.

Chapter Four: I walk with him til morning

ABBY:

The digital clock on the nightstand read 2:13 in the morning and the phone was ringing. It’s not like I actually sleep all that much anyway, what with the hours I keep at work and the caffeine that I’m constantly pushing through my system, but this time I really had been asleep. It had been a long day, and I’d kind of gotten involved in a bit of a side project and I was just getting to the juicy part of a really hot dream that involved Tony, McGee, Ziva, myself, a large four poster bed, handcuffs, whipped cream….well, you get the picture. I wanted to just ignore it but the caller ID said Greg, and there are just some people in your life that you don’t ignore. Those are your real friends, and aside from the aforementioned trio who had been visiting my dreams, and Gibbs and Ducky who were thankfully absent from my dream, Greggo fits in that category of important people whose calls will never go unanswered. Plus, I had a sneaking suspicion I knew why he was calling.

I fumbled for the phone, flipping it open, and putting on my best wide-awake and mainlining caffeine cheerful. “What’s up, Greggo?”

“Hey, Abs. Did I wake you?”

“What, it’s like not even daylight yet. Of course I’m awake. And it’s only been like what, three hours since we talked on line? What’s new? Did you finally tell your handsome cowboy how you felt about him and he rocked your world? Is my Greggo finally an un-virgin? Is…”

“Abs, shut UP, please. I need to talk to you, for real.”

“Whoa, Greggo, OK, what’s goin’ on?”

“He’s here, Abs.”

“Who’s here? Where’s here? Here here or here there?”

“Nick. He’s here. Asleep on my sofa. Well, passed out more like it. He showed up here not too long after you signed off.”

“That’s fascinating, Greggo, but inquiring minds want to know. Was it hot? Is he a top or a bottom? Are YOU a top or a bottom?”

“There was no sex involved. He just came over and now he’s passed out on my sofa.”

“Yeah, but between the arrival and the passing out, what happened?”

“Well, he called first, but I though it was just because of that spell you said you cast on us and I freaked out and didn’t answer the phone and then he showed up at my door drunk off his ass and babbling all sorts of shit about a message and not saving me and then he started sobbing.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I held him until he fell asleep. I managed to get some water and some Tylenol in him first, and then I covered him with a blanket, stuck a trashcan by his head for if he pukes, kissed him on the forehead, and locked myself in my room and called you.”

Abby let out a piercing shriek that Greg was certain would have woken Nick even through the phone lines and the closed door. “Greggo, your first kiss. That is SO hot!”

“Abby, YOU were my first kiss.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t count. You didn’t know you were gay.”

“Well, technically this doesn’t count both because he was passed out at the time, and he’s NOT gay.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe he’s bi”

“He’s straight, Abby.”

“Then what was he doing drunk and crying on your doorstep?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I called you. If this is your idea of a love spell, it’s pretty fucked up.”

“OK, but I’m gonna need more details if I’m gonna figure this one out for you. This is where that photographic memory of yours is going to come in handy. Tell me EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING that he said. Walk me through it step by step.”

“Well, when he arrived he was in a panic and I could tell he was drunk. I opened the door and he said ‘G, I got here as fast as I could. What’s going on?’ ”

“He calls you ‘G’ – that is so cute. OK then what?”

“I asked him what he was talking about because the thing is Abby I never sent him a message. I talked online to you, ordered Chinese food, and that was it. But he seemed so certain that I had sent him an e-mail. He said ‘You told me to call you. Your message. You said it was urgent and when I called you didn’t answer. I thought something had happened. I though that you were…’ only he couldn’t finish the sentence”

“Oh my God, he thought you were dead or hurt or something. See, he does care. I knew it. I was right. I am ALWAYS right. Say it Greggo – Abby is ALWAYS right!”

Greg got really silent when I said that, so it sort of ruined my little victory dance, but that was all right because the important thing is that I knew that I was right. There was hope for the geek and the cowboy yet. “OK, G…” and I emphasized the G because it just sounded so cute and I bet it sounded hot as hell when the cowboy said it, “then what happened?”

“Well, he sort of collapsed on my sofa and started running his fingers through his hair, and I got distracted for a second. I told him that I had heard the phone ring but I didn’t get to it ion time and since he hadn’t left a message I had figured it wasn’t important. But he was insistent. He said ‘Yes, you did. You sent me an e-mail. It’s here. Right here in my phone.” But he couldn’t find it anywhere. He said ‘It’s not here. I know it was here. I saw it. Jesus, G, I think I’m losing it.’ So I told him to calm down and I asked him how much he’d had to drink because I knew I hadn’t sent him any e-mails. He wanted to leave, but I knew I couldn’t let him just walk out the door. I didn’t know what to do, but then the Chinese delivery boy got there and it sort of got me back in control of the situation. I asked him how he’d gotten here and he said he drove, so I made him give me the keys. He kept saying he wanted to leave, but I pushed and then he just sort of broke down.”

“OK, this is where I need the details. What do you mean he broke down? What did he say to you?”

“He said: ‘G, I don’t know. I just. Everything is wrong and I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take being alone. I can’t be strong all the time. I just can’t. I couldn’t save them I couldn’t save him. I can’t save you. I wasn’t even there for you. I’m so sorry. So sorry…’ and then he was just crying and I couldn’t understand anything else that he said.”

“OK so lets take it one step at a time. What could he mean by everything?”

“Beats me, Abs. There’s too much to list. In the time that I have known him he’s seen all of the same stuff that you and I have seen and then some. He’s been shoved through a window, buried alive, his best friend was just murdered. It could be any of that, all of that…”

“You know the job better than I do, Greggo. I’m still in my lab all the time. But I know from McGee and Tony and Ziva that the stuff they see all the time is enough to make you want to give it up or just blow it all up. What was it he said about being alone?”

“He said he can’t take being alone, and that he can’t be strong all of the time.”

“Is he usually strong?”

“Yeah. He came right back after he was buried and almost died and it was like nothing happened. He worked Warrick’s case and he hasn’t stopped since.”

“Warrick was his best friend, right, the one who you said was murdered by the undersheriff?”

“Yeah”

“Well, then that explains a lot. And didn’t you say he worked your case after the Demetrius James incident?”

“Yeah”

“And there have been times when you couldn’t save someone, haven’t there been?”

“Of course, Abby. We’re CSI. We get there after the fact. Usually, by the time we get called to the scene, there’s no one left to save.”

“So that pretty much clears it all up, case closed, so now I can get back the super hot dream I was having that I put on hold because I thought that you were going to tell me something super super hot.”

“But what about the fact that he kept saying that he couldn’t save me? I don’t need saving, Abby. I’m not in any danger – at least not that I know of.”

“He’s afraid, Greggo. Can’t you see that? The way he raced over to see that you were all right even though he knows better than to drink and drive? He’s afraid of losing you. Now what more do you want? Go get him, hot stuff, before something does happen and you lose the chance.”

“I don’t know, Abs. I can’t take that chance. If, and that’s a big if, anything were to ever happen between us he’d have to be the one to make the first move. I can’t open myself up to that possibility of being rejected by him because when it happens, and it will, I’ll be left with nothing.”

“And if you don’t take the chance, you’ve still got nothing. I love you, Greggo, but you have to open yourself up to pain if you want to find pleasure. It’s like Yin and Yang. You can’t have one without the other.”

I could here Greg take a deep breath and sigh, but then I also heard something else from the other end of the receiver. It was a distinct but plaintive cry that could only have come from one person. “G?” the voice asked, and then Greg was saying his goodbyes and the phone went dead. I rolled over in my bed, put the phone back on the table and tried to conjure up images of a sexy cowboy and two geeks piled up on top of a big four postyer bed.

Chapter Five: Without him, I feel his arms around me

NICK

I woke up and panicked. I was on a sofa that was definitely not my sofa and I felt like I had been hit by a semi. I briefly wondered what bar I had been to and what random girl I had offended to the point that I was sleeping it off on her sofa before a wave of nausea hit me. Thank God for the trashcan conveniently placed at eye level on the floor beside the sofa.

Relieved of the better part of a fifth of straight alcohol, I assessed my whereabouts. That was when the events of a few hours earlier started to come blearily back into some sort of focus. I had gone to Greg’s. He had sent me an e-mail. It was urgent. Only he hadn’t sent me an e-mail at all. And I had finally broken down and I think I tried to tell him what was wrong, but I don’t know how much sense I really made. What I did remember, clearly, was the feeling of his arms around me holding me while I cried. I don’t think I have felt that safe in a long time. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to recapture the feeling. I remembered the events of earlier in the evening – the Greg that I saw in the flickering lights of the television screen, sitting beside me on the sofa at home, and I experienced another moment of strange desire. I wanted him to hold me again. I think I wanted more than that, but for now all I wanted was to feel his arms around me again. To say that I was confused doesn’t begin to cover it.

A part of me wanted to just get up, slip quietly out the door, maybe leave a not, apologize for my actions, maybe take the trash can with me. But I couldn’t, for two reasons. First, when I tried to stand, the room didn’t cooperate. Second, I remembered the fact that only a few hours earlier Greg had relieved me of my keys. I glanced at the digital display on the DVD player. 2:45 am. Middle of the day in my world. Greg should still be awake. I wondered if he had left me here alone, gone out to run errands, or just to escape the drunk man passed out on his sofa. There was only one way to find out.

“G?” I tried to call to him, but it sounded more like a cross between a croak and a whine and it made my head hurt even more. I tried again, louder. “G? Are you here?”

He slipped quietly from his bedroom and was at my side almost instantly. Kneeling down beside me he pushed the vomit-filled waste bin out of the way and seemingly made a cool wash cloth appear from thin air. Gently, like my mother would have done when I was sick as a child, he wiped my face and offered me the glass of water from the coffee table. I drank a few sips, but the nausea was still an issue.

“Hey.” Greg’s voice was soft, gentle. He didn’t seem at all angry or confused or anything. He was just Greg.

“Hey.” I tried to smile at him, but I couldn’t get the muscles in my face to listen to me. I think it was his eyes. The way he looked at me, so full of compassion, was more than I could handle. I broke down again. The sobs just started, seemingly from nowhere. But it was OK because Greg was there, and his arms were around me again. He was holding me, kneeling on the floor with his arms wrapped around me, and I just clung to him, pulling him closer to me until he was on the couch with me and we were somehow connected. “I’m sorry, G. I’m so sorry” I tried to tell him but the words couldn’t form around the tears.

“Shhh, don’t try to talk yet, Nick. Just relax. It’s OK.” He was running one hand through my hair and the other was making soothing circles on my back and I felt like the world had suddenly shifted into place. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but at some point I realized that I had taken my own hand and started to caress Greg’s arm. I felt the muscles tense beneath my fingers and I pulled away, quickly, trying to disentangle myself, ashamed at my actions, but Greg just held me tighter. “It’s OK, Nick. You can touch. I’m right here.” His words were saying that it was all right for me to touch him, but his body was trembling.

“What are we doing, G?” I don’t know where the words came from. They just came.

“I’m just holding you, Nicky, that’s all. Everyone needs to let go from time to time. That’s what friends are for. We help each other through the rough times.”

“It feels so good, G. You feel so good, G. Thank you.”

He loosened his grip a little and pulled away, slightly, readjusting our positions so that we were side by side on the sofa. Tentatively, he reached out one hand and stroked his fingertips down the side of my cheek, almost as though he were savoring a moment, committing it to memory. And then, his touch was gone and I felt as though something elemental had been stripped away from me but I didn’t know how to get it back again. “G?”

“Yeah, Nicky?”

“I just feel like there has been so much loss, so many missed connections. I feel like I don’t know where to go next, where to turn….”

“I understand.”

“I’m confused, G”

“Me too, Nicky.” He smiled when he said it, but it wasn’t a happy smile. That sense that he was creating a mental picture of this moment fluttered past my consciousness again.

“G?”

“Yeah, Nicky?”

“A few minutes ago, you said it was OK for me to touch you, but you were trembling. Why?”

Greg laughed again, but the laugh was somehow bitter. “Nicky, I really think that it would be better for both of us if I don’t answer that question.”

Chapter Six: And when I lose my way

GREG

“I’m scared” he said to me. My mind was reeling. ‘I’m holding him in my arms and he’s touching me’ kept running through my mind and it felt good, it felt right, but it was also the most frightening thing that had ever happened to me. Seriously. Rank it up there with lab explosions and being beaten senseless. At least in both of those cases the worst possible outcome I could envision was my own death – painful, permanent, perhaps, but not anywhere near as devastating as letting this moment go on only to have it end with Nick hating me forever. I couldn’t stop shaking. This moment with him in my arms was burning itself into my mind forever.

“Me too, Nicky.” I tried to smile at him, but I think my expression came closer to a grimace.

“G?” I could hear him call me that forever.

“Yeah, Nicky?”

“A few minutes ago, you said it was OK for me to touch you, but you were trembling. Why?” All I can do is try to laugh this moment off. There is no way in hell that I can tell him the real reason, no way that I can admit to him that what I am feeling is more than just friendly concern.

“Nicky, I really think that it would be better for both of us if I don’t answer that question.” I can’t answer that question because the answer will destroy me, destroy us. I disentangle myself from Nick and stand to walk across the room. I need to get away from him, from his touch. If I stay in his arms, I can’t lie to him. I will have had to tell him the truth, tell him that I was trembling because I needed him, wanted him, loved him even.

“Don’t, Greg. Please.”

He stares at me and there is so much pain in his eyes. They are full of hurt and loss and loneliness, and I want to believe that I also see something like love in them, but that is a fool’s dream. “Don’t what?” Did I just say that? Was that my voice that sounded so weak, that cracked on each syllable?

“Don’t walk away. Please. I need you.”

Deer in the headlights. I’ve heard that expression before, but I don’t think that I have ever really been able to apply it until this very moment. I am standing in the middle of my living room, Nick Stokes curled up in a ball on my sofa, tears threatening to escape from his eyes as he begs me not to leave him, and I am frozen. I can’t move. I can’t blink. I am stuck here and I don’t think that I am even breathing. And then his arms I reaching out to me, he is trying to stand and make his way towards me, closing the gap. He’s talking to me again, and I can’t make out the words at first. I am focused on his lips moving. He is closing the distance between us so slowly.

“I’m sorry, G.”

“What for?” Finally my mouth is working at least even if the rest of me is slower to respond. He hasn’t closed the distance between us entirely. He is standing barely three feet away from me, arms at is sides, eyes still brimming with unshed tears. His accent is thicker than usual, and his voice is deep and choked with emotion.

“Everything. Every time I wasn’t there for you. Every time I didn’t see you. I couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t what, Nick? I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.” I could feel that we were on the verge of a moment, something was changing but I didn’t know what it was at precisely that moment that Nick decided to change the rules. He moved closer toward me, reached out his arms and took a hold of me, pulling me close. I could feel his arms around me, pressing me against him, enveloping me in a tight embrace. His muscles felt taut, tense but strong. I could smell the stale scent of whiskey on his breath and feel the air escaping from his lips pressed close against my ear when he whispered the words that would change everything.

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Yes.” I couldn’t lie to him. Besides this was an easy question. Who hasn’t been in love at least once in his or her life? But it didn’t end there. I began to tremble again. This time, it was Nick soothing me. He ran his fingers softly up and down my spine and I knew that the only thing separating his perfect touch from the scarred landscape of my flesh was a layer of fabric. I shuddered even harder to think of him touching my imperfection, my damage. His arms tightened even more around me, keeping me close to him for his next question.

“Have you ever been in love with a man?”

“Yes.” Once the words were spoken, I couldn’t take them back. I had to get away from him. I couldn’t stay close to him after that admission, but no matter how hard I struggled I couldn’t break away from him. I closed my eyes waiting for the realization to sink in, waiting for him to shove me away in revulsion, but it never came. I could feel him shift so that he was face to face with me, his breath warm and sweet on my face. Time seemed to stand still.

“Open your eyes, G. Please.” He was sobbing again, I could hear it in his voice, thick with tears. One hand released its hold on me and reestablished itself, fingers gently touching my cheek, entreating me to open my eyes as much with his touch as with his words. I had no choice but to comply, and when I opened them he was staring so deep into my soul that I could feel his gaze burning me like the fire from the lab. “Who?”

I didn’t even hesitate. I wanted to escape, and if honesty was the only way to end this pain then honesty would be the final act. “You” I whispered, and he closed his eyes and seemed to relax against me, pulling us both to the floor, still entangled together. It took me a moment to actually come to grips with the fact that he wasn’t running away from me, wasn’t pushing me away. My whole body was tense and his was relaxed. His hand sought mine and he laced his fingers through my fingers and held on tightly. His eyes were closed now, and he was struggling to regain control of his breathing. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, neither one of us saying a word. It was Nick who finally broke the silence.

“You’re not shaking anymore.” His voice was even now, more in control than I had heard him since he stumbled through my door so many hours ago.

“You’re not crying anymore.” I don’t know why I said it. It was the only thing that I could think to say. A thousand questions were running through my mind, but now was not the time to ask them. The clock on the wall read six am. A random thought occurred to me. On a “normal” day, we would have been clocking out at the end of shift, grabbing a bite to eat, perhaps, and coming home to sleep in our separate beds. “Are you tired, Nicky?”

“A little.” He nuzzled against me like a cat, burying his face against my shoulder. I could feel vibrations, and I realized that he was laughing softly, chuckling to himself. The sound scared me. I began to wonder if this was all some great cosmic joke played at my expense, but Nick, once again, changed the game plan. “Can you be hung over when you haven’t really gone to sleep?”

“Yeah, Nicky. I think you can. Unless you’re still drunk.”

“Uhn Uhn. Not drunk. Just got a headache, ‘sall.”

“C’mon. Let’s get up off the floor and let me get you some Tylenol. Okay?”

Nick grabbed hold of me tightly, stopping me from rising off the floor. His face was a mask of terror, reminding me of what he had looked like in the coffin when he thought that we wouldn’t reach him in time, when he thought that he was going to die there, all alone, under the ground. “You’ll come back?”

“Yeah. I’ll come back. How else are you gonna get the Tylenol?” I smiled my best quirky smile at him, but he just looked at me, sadly.

“No, I mean you’ll come back to me, ok?”

“Yeah.” I must have grinned at that question, because all of a sudden his entire demeanor changed, and he rose to his feet, half carrying me with him and half stumbling against the pain of his headache. I helped him to the sofa once again, propped a pillow up behind him and, as he closed his eyes against the light that was filtering in from the morning sun, I couldn’t resist it any longer. I bent down and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, and he reached out and grasped my hand again.

“You did that before. Last night.”

Embarrassed at my actions, I mumbled my reply. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“OK. I’m gonna get you some Tylenol, Nicky. I’ll be right back. I promise.”

“No, please. Just stay.”

Chapter Seven: I close my eyes and he has found me

I couldn’t let him leave. All of a sudden, everything was falling into place. I had feelings for Greg that went beyond friendship. It wasn’t about being gay or being straight. It was about needing him beside me, needing him in my arms. I couldn’t explain it. My head was throbbing, but I didn’t need drugs. I needed Greg. When he brushed his lips across my forehead, it sent chills through my entire body. I wasn’t repulsed, I wasn’t scared, and I distinctly remembered that he had done it before. I reached out to capture his hand again, to lace my fingers through his, to hold him to me.

“You did that before. Last night.”

I hated myself, immediately, for saying the words because his mumbled reply told me that he was afraid of my reaction. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Don’t be.” I tried to put what I was feeling behind the words.

“OK. I’m gonna get you some Tylenol, Nicky. I’ll be right back. I promise.”

“No, please. Just stay.” I gripped his hand more tightly, pulling him toward me on the sofa. It hurt to open my eyes, the sun shining in through the windows was so bright, but I managed to half drag him onto the edge of the cushion. He gave in, using his free hand, the one that was not locked in mine, to gently run tentative fingers through my hair. It felt so good to feel his touch that I began to relax into it, closing off all thoughts of the universe that existed beyond the sensation of Greg’s nimble fingers against my skin. I felt like I should be saying something, doing something, giving him something in return, but I realized that I didn’t know where to begin. Feeling this way was so far outside of my realm of life experiences, yet it didn’t feel strange or wrong in any way. To the contrary, it felt more right than anything I had ever experienced in my life.

“You need some sleep, Nicky.” His voice was so soft, so soothing. I just wanted to listen to him all day long, but my eyelids were drooping. The stress and the alcohol had taken its toll. As long as Greg was close to me, I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time.

“Will you stay with me?”

He avoided the question, again, and I began to realize that Greg was still just as scared as I had been. “I live here, Nicky. Where else would I go?”

“It’s too bright in here.”

“You can sleep in my room, if you want. There’s blackout drapes in there.”

“Will you stay with me?” I couldn’t believe how needy I sounded. I wanted to sleep, but I wanted the cover of darkness and I wanted him beside me. He ruffled my hair one more time before responding.

“If that’s what you want.”

“Yeah.”

He was smiling down at me. “C’mon, then. Let’s get you to bed, cowboy.” From anyone else, that would have bothered me. I’ve never been a fan of nicknames, but when he called me that, like everything else he had done since the moment that I stumbled through his door, he just made me feel safe and loved. I let him lead the way. “Bathroom’s there if you need to, ya know, do anything or get some Tylenol or anything.”

He was nervous, and I hesitated for a moment, unsure that what I was doing was the right thing. Not for me. I knew that I wanted this, but in spite of his admission earlier I didn’t want to push him away. I slipped my hand from his and went into the bathroom. I needed to relieve myself of the alcohol I had consumed. That done, I stripped to just my boxers and I grabbed four more Tylenol and dry swallowed them. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw just how haggard I looked. I took some toothpaste from the tube on the counter and used my fingers to clean the remnants of alcohol and vomit from my mouth. Nothing left to do, I opened the door to find Greg standing frozen staring off into the distance away from the door. His bedroom was everything and nothing like I had expected. Band posters covered the walls, and an enormous mass of computer equipment took up one entire wall. Those details, I had expected. What I had not expected was the four poster king sized bed, laden with pillows and deep comforters and the soft glow of an enormous fish tank alongside one wall. He had turned one side of the bedcovers back, and I assumed that he was expecting me to take it. Was he afraid to look at me? Embarrassed? Repulsed? Had I misread him? I took the invitation and crawled into the bed. As soon as he heard me pull the covers up, he turned to face me again. His face was flushed red, and I looked at him quizzically, but he was uncharacteristically silent, just looking at me. “God, you’re beautiful.”

I think that the words escaped him against his will, for he turned away again as though embarrassed to have spoken them out loud. He turned away again. “You said you’d stay.” I needed him.

“Hmmm…yeah. Sorry, Nicky.” He came around to the other side of the bed and lay down on top of the covers, reaching out to gently stroke my back, tracing soothing patterns there again. I wanted him closer, but I didn’t want to pressure him.

“Hold me, please.” He scooted himself closer, still keeping the blankets between us, and wrapped his arms around me. He was tense, at first, shaking slightly against me, but he quickly relaxed. This time, he placed the gentle kiss on the back of my head, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I turned in his arms so that we were facing each other once again. In the dim glow of the aquarium, I looked into his eyes trying to read their emotions.

“My turn” I said, as evenly as I could manage as I slid one hand up to cup his chin. I traced its contours with my thumb then slowly, cautiously, closed the distance between my lips and his. I don’t know where this sudden bravery within me was coming from, but I knew that what I wanted right this moment was to feel the brush of my lips against his. I suspect I had known that from the second that I chose to take the time to “brush” my teeth, making myself as appealing to the sense of taste as possible. As I closed the distance, I could feel rather than hear him whisper something to me, and it brought me back. What if this wasn’t what he wanted? What if this was all a big mistake. I waited, searching his eyes. “What, G?”

“I’ve never….”

Never what? I paused, considering. Never been with a man? This was new to me, as well. Until a few hours ago, I had never even considered being with a man like this. Was that his fear? Was that what was holding him back? “Neither have I, G. We don’t…”

“No, I want this. It’s just; I’ve never even kissed before. Not really. Just once…”

All of a sudden the importance of this hit me. He’s never been with anyone, male or female. Was he waiting for something, someone? I pulled back from him slightly, kissed my own fingertip and placed it gently on his lips. Then I turned him in my arms and pulled him close to me, pressed up tightly against his back, feeling his hips against my center and thankful this time for the covers separating him from feeling my arousal. I was growing hard just being close to him. Never had I imagined that my body would respond this way to another man, but it was. At that precise instant I realized that this would have to be perfect. It would have to last not just for now but for forever. This wasn’t desire, it was need and beyond that it was love. “Sleep, G. Just sleep.” I whispered to him, copying his earlier lead and placing a kiss on the back of his head. He smelled like coffee and citrus shampoo and something that I could only define as “Greg” and only knew that this scent had already been in the back of my mind.

“I should be the one holding you.” That simple statement felt more powerful than anything any lover had ever said to me in the past. It wasn’t about his needs. It was about me, only me. When I had first collapsed in his arms, broken and lost, that was what I had wanted. When I had first picked up that bottle a few hours ago, that was what I had wanted. I had wanted it to be all about me and all about my needs and my fears and my pain. Not anymore. I found that my needs were no longer pressing against me, no longer dragging me down. Now, all of my needs were focused on fulfilling Greg’s needs.

“No, G. This is perfect, just perfect.”

I fell asleep that way, Greg nestled in my arms, and I didn’t dream at all.

Chapter Eight: In the rain, the pavement shines like silver

GREG:

It was the rain that first woke me, pounding against the side walls of my apartment, thunder crashing. The blackout drapes could keep the flashes of lightning at bay, but not the roar of the water rushing against the walls. The digital display on the clock was flashing twelve, but I knew that hour was probably long gone. Nick was still holding me as tightly as he had been when we had fallen asleep in the early hours of the morning. Part of me was still not sure that what had happened only a few short hours ago was real, but even I could not deny the feel of his weight draped carefully across my body or the gentle puffs of each exhalation against the back of my neck. He was sleeping soundly, untroubled, and I wondered how long it had been, if ever, since he had truly allowed himself the luxury of feeling safe.

This time, I blessed my photographic memory as I allowed every minute detail of the time that we had spent together come back into focus. When he asked me if I had ever loved a man, he had not pulled away at my response. When I admitted that he was the man I had loved, he held me closer. When he tried to kiss me…only centimeters had separated our lips from making that first contact, but I needed to know for sure that this was really what he wanted. I cursed myself only slightly for pulling away. I knew that I could have, at the very least, collected one more perfect memory. But I didn’t want a memory. I wanted truth. Too much was riding on this, these feelings, for me to allow myself to just fall into something that Nick would regret when reality sank in again and the alcohol had cleared his system. I needed to know that this was not about some primal need to be close to someone, anyone. I would rather miss that one chance at short-lived bliss if it meant that, should Nick regret the night before, we could at least stay close as friends. Unless, of course, he felt that he had already gone too far.

Mind addled with every possible disaster scenario, I eased myself out from the shelter of his arms after taking a full minute to just feel what it was like to be in their safe harbor. I slipped out into the living room to find my phone. Two o’clock. Seven hours until the start of another shift. I realized that, with everything that had happened, I had never even eaten my dinner when I saw the brown paper sack on the shelf in my otherwise empty refrigerator next to the lone can of Blue Hawaiian and the carton of half and half. I wasn’t sure if I was actually hungry or if my stomach was queasy for other reasons not at all related to food or the lack thereof, so I opted instead for a pot of coffee. I looked out of the window at the rain slicked streets of Vegas, sky darkened by the storm, and everything seemed to glisten. Unlike the usual haze of dirt and grime that I associated with daylight hours, everything seemed to be crystal clear and clean. The coffee had just finished brewing when my phone chirped once, letting me know that I had missed a call. Abby. Of course. She was checking in on me.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and sank down on the sofa. It smelled like Nick. I closed my eyes and relived the feel of him, holding me, as I drank the steamy liquid that I craved only slightly less than his touch. Okay, more than slightly less, but at the time it seemed fairly close. I was starting to feel that maybe everything wasn’t completely hopeless, and a feeling of peace and contentment unlike anything I had felt in many years, if ever, had just begun to replace the nervous ache in my heart. I punched the button on my phone to listen to my messages when the call waiting informed me that Grissom was calling. What a way to kill a pleasant mood. When Grissom called this soon before shift, it was never good news.

“Sanders.”

“Greg, both of dayshift’s DNA techs had to be taken to the ER because of a chemical spill. We need you to cover.”

“On my way.”

Simple, to the point. That’s Grissom. Never a moment’s consideration that any of us might have a life outside of the lab and the field, outside of our jobs. But, to be perfectly honest, up until a few hours ago that statement would have been remarkably true for me. I finished the coffee and slipped silently into my room. Nick was still asleep, but he had shifted one of the pillows, the one that I can only assume still held my scent as it had been under my head when we were sleeping, so that his arms were still encasing something. His breathing was deep and even. I fed the fish and scribbled a quick note for him so that he wouldn’t be alarmed when he awoke, changed into a t-shirt and jeans and quietly left the apartment.

It was a long, boring day. The dayshift techs were reported to be fine, but were given the rest of the shift off. I cleared their usual backlog and when the night crew came in passed off to them a clean slate for the evening, for which they were appropriately grateful. I had to keep busy. Keeping busy was the only thing that kept me from thinking about Nick. As the hours ticked by, I wondered if he had awoken and read the note. I wondered if he would call me. I wondered if I should call him. I listened to Abby’s message. “SO, did my little Greggo finally get LAID? Are there little cowboy sperm circling around inside your body as I speak? Was it HOT??? Enquiring minds want to know! Seriously, sexy, just call me when you can and let me know what’s going on. I love you” I couldn’t deal with her. Not now. Not until I knew what was really going on.

Eight O’clock made its way around, finally, and I made my way to the break room to put on a pot of coffee and wait for assignments. Nicky should have been rolling in at any moment, and I had to still myself to keep from pacing expectantly. I jumped when Catherine came in the room.

“Greg, you okay?” Her motherly concern was about as irritating as Abby’s hyperactivity at present.

“Hmmm, oh, I’m fine. Just didn’t sleep well is all. Maybe I’m coming down with something”

“Must be something going around. Nick called in sick tonight as well.” My heart fell into my stomach. What had I done? Had I scared him away? Was he so repulsed by what we had shared in his drunken state that sobriety made him run as far away from me as possible?

My hands shook as I poured the coffee, a fact that did not escape Catherine’s attention, nor Grissom’s. He raised his eyebrows and I quickly covered. “Sorry, Grissom. Just not feeling 100% but I’ll be fine.”

“Good. Nick’s taking a sick day and we need you in the field tonight. We’re short staffed as it is.”

“Is he okay?” I regretted the words as soon as I said them. Catherine gave me a strange look, but the look Grissom gave me, similar to the look one would expect him to give a bug under a microscope, was worse.

“He’s fine as far as I can tell. Just said he wanted to use up a sick day. He has plenty and he said he was just a bit under the weather. We’ve all been under a great deal of pressure lately.”

Grissom hadn’t been himself lately, either. Not since Warrick’s death and Sara’s reappearance and subsequent disappearance. He looked older, more tired. The night was busy, for which I was glad as focusing on the tasks at hand, processing first a break in, then the suicide of an elderly man with end stage cancer, kept me from thinking about or, worse, calling Nick. Neither case was especially difficult, nor were they anything that made me feel great sadness. The burglar had gotten away with less than $100 in cash from the register of a convenience store and a bag of chips and a six pack of Natural Lite. I wasn’t even sure why we were going through the motions, but a fingerprint ID from the register came back to a teenager who had been arrested six times already for similar crimes. He was safely in custody before midnight. My phone still hadn’t rung.

The elderly man’s suicide did make me sad, but only because I could see myself like him someday dying alone. The fact that had chosen to end his suffering didn’t seem at all tragic to me. It was the note that hit closer to home. He wrote: This is just to let you know, whoever you are, that I took the pills of my own free will. Don’t blame the doctor or anything. I sent my rent check for next month, so Mr. Jones will have some time to re-rent the place. Hopefully I didn’t stink it up too bad. Don’t cry for me, whoever you are. I had a great life while it lasted. Tom.” We had him shipped off to the morgue and next of kin, a great granddaughter living in Daytona, Florida, had been contacted and was making funeral arrangements by five. The sun was just barely starting to creep in over the horizon, and I had settled in to finish some paperwork when I checked the phone one last time. Still nothing. I thought about the day before, about Nick, about the old man dying alone, and I thought about the fact that I was going home, once again, to an empty apartment, a computer screen, leftover Chinese food (I still hadn’t been able to bring myself to eat anything) and some fish.

Chapter NINE: All the lights are misty in the river

NICK:

The sound of a door shutting was what finally woke me from the soundest, most peaceful sleep I had experienced in a long time. It took me a few minutes to remember where I was – in Greg’s bed – and to realize that Greg’s sleeping form had been replaced by Greg’s pillow that still smelled of coffee and citrus. I was lying on my side, facing his fish tank, hugging said pillow, and I could hear the rain beating down against the side walls of his apartment. Greg lives in a beautiful apartment. I hadn’t really noticed it before, or at least I hadn’t given it any thought. The Boulders is a bit expensive for my budget, and I wondered if he had regretted his choice of living accommodations when he took the pay cut to go into the field. But I had to admit the place is beautiful. I know that he has a balcony that has a clear view of the mountains, and that the complex itself has a pristine manmade river running through the center. Greg must have chosen it because he misses California. I don’t miss Texas. If I could stay away from there forever, that would be just fine by me.

I stared at the fish for a while, watching them swim lazily back and forth, their iridescent colors glistening under the pale bluish lights of the tank. I was glad that he had chosen blue for his color scheme. Green glows still make me feel trapped, like I was in my coffin. Blue is peaceful. Like Greg, when he lets all of his nervous energy fade away, like he was when he was holding me.

Greg was holding me. Those words were slow to sink in, but when they did they still felt just the same as they had before we fell asleep. I recalled that brief instant, before I almost kissed his lips, when he told me that he had never been with anyone before. I still wanted him now as much as I had wanted him then. Maybe even more so now that my head was fully clear. This wasn’t just some moment of weakness. This was something much more powerful. Yes, it was scary. Keep in mind that I have never even considered what it would be like to be intimately involved with another man, much less thought about the possibility of falling in love with one. But this wasn’t just another man. This was Greg, and for some reason that made all of the difference in the world to me. No amount of strict Baptist upbringing, a part of my life I had left behind long before I even left Texas, could make me feel that this was anything but the perfect place for me to be, not just now, but always. What I didn’t know was how to go about turning that understanding into reality. I knew that Greg had feelings for me. He even said that he loved me, or that he had loved me. I couldn’t quite be certain, some of the events were still not crystal clear in my mind, but I know that he had mentioned loving a man and that the man he had loved was me and if he had loved me once, even if it was just in his dreams, then there was a chance that we could make this into something more than just a fantasy.

A glance at the clock told me that the storm had knocked the power out at some point. I rolled over to try and find my phone, thinking to myself that if Greg had left already it must be getting late. Maybe he went to get food, or get the mail, or something equally inane. He would have woken me if we had been late for work. My phone was sitting on the nightstand, a folded piece of paper beneath it. Three o’clock. Plenty of time for us to talk whenever Greg returned before I needed to go home and think about getting ready for work. I opened the paper to find Greg’s handwriting. I experienced a brief panic attack, thinking that, perhaps, he had fled from me, from his own bed, but I quelled the terror long enough to let the words speak for themselves:

Nicky:

I didn’t want to wake you – you looked so peaceful and, yes, beautiful, lying in my bed. I hope you don’t hate me for saying that. Grissom called me in to work early. There isn’t any food (unless you like cold Chinese – the microwave blew up last week) but I made coffee. Take your time getting up. There are clean towels under the sink in the bathroom. We can talk later, if you still want to. I’ll always be here for you,

G

The words themselves were simple, but I could sense in them his fear. For once in my life, although I’d never admit this to anyone, I was the confident one. I knew what I wanted. I haven’t really known what I wanted since the time the babysitter came into my room and did more than just tuck me in. I’ve just been going through the motions, pretending that everything was right with my world. Greg is what would make things right. I opened the phone to dial his number, but I wasn’t sure what I should say to him. Instead, I made my way to the kitchen to grab a cup of the still hot coffee. As expected, it was Greg’s special blend and it tasted just like him. I took it to the balcony that overlooks the artificial lake and watched the rain come pouring down in it. Even though the day was half way over, the sun, usually a constant in Las Vegas, had not seemed to have put in an appearance. The landscaping lights were still on, and they reflected off of the water. It was beautiful. Greg had called me that. Beautiful. No one else had ever used that word to describe me. At least not that I knew of. But, in reality, Greg was the beautiful one. If I closed my eyes and sipped the coffee just right, I could almost taste him.

I slipped back inside and decided to quickly check my e-mail. I could do that, run outside and get my overnight bag from the car (I learned long ago to always keep a spare set of clothes in my locker and another in the Denali) take a shower and maybe then I could figure out what my next move should be. I had just touched the mouse and brought his computer to life when a text box appeared on the screen.

ABS1013: Hey sexy. I left you a voice mail, but I guess you were sleeping – with the HOT COWBOY I hope?

A moment of panic then, as I realized that this was an instant message. This was one of Greg’s friends. Messaging Greg. On Greg’s computer. Thinking he (she?) was talking to Greg. Think, Stokes. Do something. Anything. Nick Stokes, king of inaction.

ABS1013: Greggo? You there? Don’t tell me you’ve been screwed into oblivion already.

OK, I can’t hide forever. This person knows I am here, well knows SOMEONE is here, and in a minute he (she?) will probably be calling Greg and asking why he’s not responding. Type. I can do that. It’s just like e-mail. Or texting. Just on the computer. My nieces and nephews do it all of the time.

LABRAT: Hi. This isn’t Greg.

Hit enter. Just like an e-mail. Wait for a response.

ABS1013: Oh shit.

LABRAT: I’m not a burglar or anything. This is Nick…the “cowboy” I guess…

ABS1013: DOUBLE SHIT

A long pause ensued and I started to formulate a bit of a plan in my mind. First, I needed to find out who this was. Obviously this person knows Greg well enough to know WHO I am (and to know that G calls me cowboy – something I didn’t even known until very recently) and also knows that Greg has some sort of feelings for me. Furthermore, this person does not want Greg to know that I know that he/she knows that I am here. Okay, that line of reasoning is getting to complex and I still have a bit of a hangover. But, still. This could be useful.

ABS1013: We did NOT have this conversation, OK?

LABRAT: What conversation? At this point I don’t even know who I am talking to. You know who I am. If I am going to pretend that I never had a conversation with you, shouldn’t you at least tell me your name?

Another pause

ABS1013: Abby

LABRAT: Abby from Quantico? You work with NCIS, right?

ABS1013: That’s the one. I’m surprised he mentioned me.

LABRAT: He talks about you from time to time. Cases and stuff that you’ve asked him about.

ABS1013: Cool. Listen, now that you know who I am, can we just pretend we never talked? Please?

LABRAT: Only if I can ask you a few questions first.

ABS1013: OK. Shoot.

LABRAT: Greg’s a virgin, right?

ABS1013: Way to get straight to the personal there, cowboy.

LABRAT: You started out pretty personal.

ABS1013: Right. OK. Yes, he is. So don’t hurt him, cause if you do, then we won’t have to worry about this conversation. I know people who can do stuff. Bad stuff.

LABRAT: Whoa with the threats there. I’m not planning on hurting him. That much, I can promise you. In fact, I’m asking you this stuff so that I won’t hurt him. I really care about him. A lot.

ABS1013: The feeling is mutual then. But he said you were straight.

LABRAT: I am. I was. I don’t know what I am.

ABS1013: Sexuality is actually subject to all kinds of permutations, you know. We may have preferences, but to some extent we are all biologically capable of responding to either sex. Humans are the only animal species that places such a strict social constraint on physicality.

LABRAT: You sound just like him.

ABS1013: I know.

LABRAT: He said he’s never even kissed anyone. Is that true?

ABS1013: Well, sort of. He kissed you last night. On the forehead.

LABRAT: I know that. He did it again. And I almost kissed him. On the lips. But I wanted to wait when he said that he’d never done it before.

ABS1013: Well, he’s kissed me once. But that was when I told him he was gay. It was at science camp. He never had a girlfriend, or a boyfriend before. Then he met you, and he didn’t want anyone else.

LABRAT: So, if I wanted to…seduce….him, what should I do?

ABS1013: I really don’t know anything about gay sex, cowboy. I mean, I think it’s hot and all, but you are asking the wrong person.

LABRAT: I don’t mean sex. I mean the rest of it. I want to do this right. I want to let him know that this is more than just a one time thing. I want him to know that I want this to be forever.

ABS1013: Wow. You work fast.

LABRAT: We’ve known each other for eight years, Abby. And I think, somewhere deep inside of me, I have felt this way about him for a long time. I just wasn’t ready to face it until now. And now, I just don’t want to regret any part of it along the way. I want it to be perfect. I wish that I could give him stars and moonlight, all of it.

ABS1013: How much time do you have?

LABRAT: I have to leave here in a couple of hours to go in to work. Greg got called in early.

ABS1013: Can you call in sick?

LABRAT: I can, but he’ll worry.

ABS1013: Let him. It’ll all be worth it.

LABRAT: What if he comes home looking for me? I’m at his place now. And if I leave I can’t get back in. I don’t have keys.

ABS1013: No problem. I can log into the CSI computers and keep track of his positioning all night. He’s in one of the Denalis, right?

LABRAT: You have access codes to our system?

ABS1013: No. But I don’t need them. Don’t worry about that part. Now, all I need is your credit card number.

LABRAT: My credit card?

ABS1013: I’m not going to steal it or anything. Besides, if I WANTED to I could. Easily. You wouldn’t HAVE to give it to me. This just makes it seem more honest.

LABRAT: OK, but is it safe to give it to you in this message screen?

ABS1013: Normally, no. But as soon as Greg clocks out and heads your way this whole conversation is going to disappear. Now, you call in sick and start doing some house cleaning. I KNOW for a fact his place is a mess. Just listen for the door and keep an eye on this screen so I can tell you his status. You’ll be getting a few deliveries, but you have at least an hour or so if you need to shower and stuff.

LABRAT: Thanks, Abby.

ABS1013: Don’t thank me, Cowboy. Just make him happy.

LABRAT: I will. I promise you that.

Chapter TEN: In the Darkness, the trees are full of starlight

GREG:

I dreaded the return home to my apartment, knowing that all I would find there were memories of yesterday. I was hungry, tired, but too depressed to even stop for food. Catherine invited me to breakfast, sensing that something was troubling me, but I declined. As I drove toward my home, all that I could think about was Nick. What was he thinking? Did he hate me now that I had seen his vulnerability? Was he repulsed by me? Would he want me to leave, to stay away from him forever? Why? What had changed? What had I done to pull him to me and then drive him away just as quickly? I tried all day to convince myself that he had called in sick to cure his hangover or that he had stayed in bed sleeping. But I couldn’t. I knew that he was gone, and all that I would have left of the day before were the memories. I tried to call Abby, but she wasn’t answering her phone. Finally, I gave in to the inevitable and drove myself home. That was when things really started to get strange.

The first thing I noticed, as I pulled into my usual parking space, was the presence of black drapes across my front window. Blackout drapes, just like the ones in my bedroom. I started to become a bit more hopeful for a moment thinking that perhaps Nick really had woken up sick and had just moved to the living room. Had I been less obsessed with the worst case scenario, I might have also noticed the black Denali parked as surreptitiously as a vehicle that large can be in the farthest possible visitor spot. Hurrying now, just in case he had left a note or something for me before leaving my apartment, I raced up the stairs, inserted my key, turned the lock and beheld a sight beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

In the first place, I have never been a plant person. I like nature, but I also kill it. My fish are about the only things that have ever survived a natural lifespan with me. But there, in the center of my living room, were two medium sized palm trees bedecked with tiny Christmas lights, and Christmas was six months away. I stepped through the doorway, and before I could process any more of the scene laid out before me, a figure slipped from the shadows by the door, closing it behind us, and wrapping his arms around my waist tightly from behind. I could feel him, just as I did in my memory, and I leaned against his warmth and solidness. A million questions flowed through my mind, and I could feel his body trembling against mine. The tears that had threatened to flow all day long escaped in a silent flood running down my face. I said the only thing that I could think to say, although at the time it wasn’t the most intellectual remark I could have made in response to all that Nick Stokes had apparently done for me that day.

“You’re shaking.”

“You’re crying.”

“You’re still here.”

Nick chuckled and loosened his hold on me slightly. “If we’re done stating the obvious, dinner is getting cold.” He reached down and took me by the hand, leading me to the coffee table, set beneath the trees, pillows scattered for cushions, candles lit and softly flickering, and two steaming bowls of hot and sour soup on oriental themed china that I knew I didn’t own. I looked up to finally see him standing before me, dressed in casual black slacks and a black shirt, looking as beautiful as he has ever looked. His eyes were bright but filled with apprehension. I squeezed his hand gently, not sure if I was reassuring him or myself. “Take off your shoes, G. Sit. Let’s just relax and enjoy this, OK?”

I did as he asked, and as I went to lower myself to the cushions, he was right there to help me. He took his place opposite mine at our makeshift table, and I couldn’t stop looking into his eyes. I wanted answers to so many things, but I also wanted to just enjoy this moment, place it in my memory forever. He took a spoonful of his soup without ever leaving my stare, motioning for me to do the same.

“Eat, G. I know you have questions, and I promise you right now that I will answer them all. Ask me anything, and you will get nothing but honesty from me.”

I copied his lead, taking a spoonful of soup first as he filled matching ceramic vessels with steaming sake for both of us. I didn’t know where to start, but my curiosity won out. “How?”

I think that my choice of an opening question shocked him for a moment, and he sipped hid wine thoughtfully, perhaps reconsidering his honesty. “I had some help, but don’t be mad. Abby.”

“But you don’t know Abby.”

He laughed, and I have to admit Nick’s laugh is the most amazing sound in the world. “I do now.” He smiled and blushed as he said it, and I couldn’t begin to imagine what she could have possibly said to him. Actually, I COULD imagine it, and that was the problem. “I woke up right after you left, and so many things were clear in my mind, G. It’s like everything had changed overnight. I was just going to check my e-mail, but Abby messaged and one thing led to another. I told her I wanted to give you the perfect night, and she took it from there.”

“That’s why you called in sick.”

“Yeah.”

We fell into a contented silence, finishing our soup and sipping the wine. Nick rose to clear the dishes and I didn’t want him to leave. I reached my hand toward him and he took it gently, brushing his fingers over my palm. That slight contact made me shiver. “Let me just get the next course, G. Then you can ask me another question. I’m not going anywhere.”

He returned with plates of steamed seafood, heaped over rice, and my hunger, held at bay for so long by stress and fear and worry, took over. We ate, still in silence, as I formulated my next question. To be honest, this night was rapidly stripping me of my reputation as a many of too many words. “Why?”

“Last night, something just clicked, G. I promised you that I would be totally honest with you, but I don’t know what it was. It started earlier. I was home alone, thinking about Warrick and the fact that he was gone and never coming back, feeling sorry for myself because I hadn’t been able to save him, trying to drown my guilt, and I thought that I saw you sitting on the sofa beside me. I started feeling something, but I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t want to explain it. Then, when I got your e-mail, I was terrified that I had lost you too. Life is too short, too uncertain. Last night, this morning, in your arms I felt safe. I felt loved. And I don’t ever want to not feel that way again.”

“I never sent you an e-mail.” Astute response there, Greg, I chastised myself.

“I know. I can’t explain that one. But whatever it was, fate or magic, I’m just glad it happened.”

As soon as he said the word “magic” a lot of things came crystal clear to me. Abby. All of her talk of magic spells might have been nonsense, but magic fingers on a computer screen were definitely more her style. Maybe someday I would know for sure, but for now if Nick wanted to believe in magic that was just fine by me. “You’ve never been with a man before.”

“Neither have you, G.”

“Have you ever had feelings for a man before?”

“To be honest, I don’t think I have ever been in love before. Not until now. Not until you.”

Okay, that one floored me. Tears were starting to fall again, and this time Nick reached out to gently capture them on his fingertips. Then, he took those same fingertips and slipped them into his mouth, swallowing my tears, and that had to be the single most erotic moment of my life up until that point. Dinner forgotten, what little was left of it, I reached out for his hand. We laced fingers across the table and just sat there, candle light and tree lights flickering softly.

“Nicky, are you scared?”

“That depends. If you are asking me if I am afraid of loving you, then the answer is no. If you are asking me if I am scared of what other people might think, I will call them all up right now and tell them that Nick Stokes is having a romantic dinner with the most amazing man in the world, Greg Sanders. If they don’t like it, then that is their problem, not yours, not mine. If you’re asking me if I am afraid of being intimate with you, then the answer is yes, but not because you are a man, although I am afraid that I won’t know what to do, the real reason for my fear is that I am terrified that I will mess this up, that it won’t be perfect, that you won’t believe me when I say that this is not about tonight, it’s about forever.”

And he’s gone and done it again, left me totally speechless, until he adds his parting remark, “Besides, if I mess this up, if I hurt you in any way, Abby said she’d kill me.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I hope you know, Nicky, that’s not an idle threat. She’s got a whole NCIS team to back her up.”

“I know she does.” He was grinning at me now, like a small boy. “So, how am I doing so far?”

“So far, perfect.”

“Dance with me, G.” And then he was taking me by the hand, helping me to my feet. I don’t know where he had hidden the stereo remote, but suddenly “Hero” is playing and I am a sucker for that song. Only Abby would have known that, as well, and I can’t help but smile because he’s got me in his arms now and we are dancing.

Let me be your hero,

Would you dance,
If I asked you to dance?

Of course I would, is all I can think, and we are heading to the center of the room like a couple of young lovers.

Would you run,
And never look back?

“Never” I whisper to him. I’d never run from him.

Would you cry,
If you saw me crying?

And we were both crying, holding on to each other.

And would you save my soul, tonight?

He’s looking into my eyes now, and I realize that we have still not shared our first kiss, but I know in that instant that it is coming and I wish that I could make time stand still. Even knowing that I can relive this moment in perfect clarity forever is not the same as actually being in the moment.

Would you tremble,
If I touched your lips?
Would you laugh?
Oh please tell me this.
Now would you die,
For the one you love?
Hold me in your arms, tonight.

His fingertips are brushing against the side of my face and he’s moving closer now. His lips brush against mine, tentatively at first, tasting, and then, although neither of us knows what it is that we are supposed to do in this situation, instinct takes over. His tongue is asking entry to my mouth, and I am opening up to him. I can feel heat pulsating down my entire body. As the kiss deepens and he pulls me closer, I know that I am becoming aroused, and it scares me. I am still ashamed that he will feel me, but he pulls me to him and we are touching down there, pressed together, and he is as hard as I am.

I can be your hero, baby.
I can kiss away the pain.
I will stand by you forever.
You can take my breath away.

I can’t breathe. His lips are locked to mine, his arms holding me to keep us from falling to the floor, and he is pressed up against me, our erections brushing together through the fabric of our pants. He is looking into my eyes now, pausing to catch his breath. “Beautiful, G. You are so beautiful”

Would you swear,
That you'll always be mine?
Or would you lie?
Would you run and hide?
Am I in too deep?
Have I lost my mind?
I don't care...
You're here, tonight.

He’s kissing me again, and I haven’t said a word. I have lost all power to form a coherent thought, let alone a coherent sentence.

I can be your hero, baby.
I can kiss away the pain.
I will stand by you forever.
You can take my breath away.

Oh, I just wanted to hold you.
I just wanted to hold you.
Oh yeah.
Am I in too deep?
Have I lost my mind?
Well I don't care...
You're here, tonight.

He breaks the kiss and holds me there, as he sings the last lines of the song along with the music.

“I can be your hero, baby.
I can kiss away the pain oh yeah
I will stand by you forever.
You can take my breath away.

I can be your hero, baby.
I can kiss away the pain.
And I will stand by you, forever.
You can take my breath away.
You can take my breath away.

I can be your hero.”

The music ends, and we stand there, frozen. “I love you, Nick Stokes. I love you.”

Chapter ELEVEN: And all I see is him and me

NICK:

I am looking into his eyes now, listening to the words of the song that I have chosen just for this moment, our first kiss. I spoke the truth when I told him that I was not afraid of these feelings I had for him, but I was terrified that I would somehow make this less than perfect.

Would you tremble,
If I touched your lips?

I can already feel my own body trembling as I hold him in my arms.

Would you laugh?
Oh please tell me this.

I only want him to laugh from joy, not from the fact that I have never kissed a man before and I really don’t know how to do this. It seems so elemental, when you think about it. It can’t be that much different from kissing a woman. But this isn’t just a kiss. This is a beginning.

Now would you die,
For the one you love?
Hold me in your arms, tonight.

My fingertips are brushing against the side of his face and my body has started to take control and operate on instinct, which is a good thing because I don’t think that I can think this through any longer. I move closer to him and then it happens. My lips brush against his, and I am tentative at first, tasting the coffee that Greg loves so well and feeling the electricity that passes between us. Then, I don’t even need to think anymore. My tongue is probing against his lips and I am desperate to be as close to him as possible. I can feel heat pulsating down my entire body and I have never, ever, been this desperate in my life. I am aware of my hardness as we press together, and I know in that moment that I could reach orgasm from just his kiss. I pull me to him and we are finally touching, hips pressed tightly together, and I am relieved to find that he is as hard as I am.

I can be your hero, baby.
I can kiss away the pain.
I will stand by you forever.
You can take my breath away.

I feel him start to melt in my arms as our erections touch, and I hold back like a teenager. I grasp him tightly to keep us from falling to the floor, and he is pressed up against me, our erections brushing together through the fabric of our pants. He is looking into my eyes now, pausing to catch his breath, and I have to tell him just how he looks to me, flushed and aroused. “Beautiful, G. You are so beautiful”

Would you swear,
That you'll always be mine?
Or would you lie?
Would you run and hide?
Am I in too deep?
Have I lost my mind?
I don't care...
You're here, tonight.

And then I am kissing him again because I can’t get enough of him.

I can be your hero, baby.
I can kiss away the pain.
I will stand by you forever.
You can take my breath away.

Oh, I just wanted to hold you.
I just wanted to hold you.
Oh yeah.
Am I in too deep?
Have I lost my mind?
Well I don't care...
You're here, tonight.

I break the kiss and hold him there. I need him to listen. I have practiced this all afternoon, and while I know that I will never be a singer, I need him to know that this song is for him and him alone, and that these words are mere echoes of what I hold for him in my heart.

“I can be your hero, baby.
I can kiss away the pain oh yeah
I will stand by you forever.
You can take my breath away.

I can be your hero, baby.
I can kiss away the pain.
And I will stand by you, forever.
You can take my breath away.
You can take my breath away.

I can be your hero.”

The music ends, and we stand there, frozen. Greg breaks the silence and my heart feels as though it will explode through my chest “I love you, Nick Stokes. I love you.”

I need to respond, I know that I do, and someday this response will come back to haunt me, I am sure. “Wow.”

Okay, that was impressive. I mentally kicked myself for what should have been a declaration of love, but I guess he got the picture clearly enough without needing for me to say it directly because he smiled at me and said “Yeah. Wow.”

“So, am I doing OK so far?” I desperately needed affirmation, and this was so not like me at all, but I needed to know.

“Yeah, Nicky. More than OK.”

And now comes the really scary part, I think to myself. The music has ended, the dance is over, and we’ve made it past the first kiss. I want to take it to the next step, but I don’t want to move too fast. I know that I want him, and I know that he wants me. We have known each other for eight years, so it’s not as though we are strangers. I have been with women before, taken the next step from the kiss to the bedroom without hesitation. I don’t feel strange being with a man, a fact which has stopped surprising me. My body is responding, and I can feel the need pulsating within me, but I am frozen in place. I am absolutely terrified to make the next move because this time, I am in love. This time, it matters. Greg saves me by taking the decision out of my hands. He pulls away slightly, grasping my hands in his and a start to lead me toward the sofa, but this is not where I want him, not where this is going to happen.

“No.” My voice is thick and broken, and he misunderstands me. He drops my hands from his and turns to move away, muttering apologies under his breath and I finally get a grip on my scattered emotions to capture him in my arms, his back pressed firmly against me and I hold him there as I whisper in his ear. “I want you. Not here, though. Bedroom. Please.”

I can’t even form a complete sentence, but he nod his head just as I discover the flesh on the back of his neck just centimeters away from my lips and I am distracted once again, entranced, mesmerized. I begin by kissing lightly, tracing my lips from his shoulder all the way to his ear, and he is shaking. I take his earlobe in my mouth and gently suck and nibble, then repeat the process again, holding him tightly in my arms, and he starts to moan. It is the most amazing sound, and my body responds instantly, thrusting against him, pressing myself against his body. I let one hand find its way to his chest, still fully clothed, and drift softly down to the front of his jeans where I trace my fingers against the hardness of his erection. I can feel him respond through the fabric, and we are dry-humping like teenagers, he into my hand, me into the flesh of his ass as I continue to suck and bite his neck. I lose myself in the sensations and am almost at the edge when I feel his hand close over mine. “Wait, please.” I could never deny him.

I gather him up into my arms, and he makes a shocked sound then I am carrying him down the hallway to the bedroom. There candles provide soft light and the freshly made bed is covered with rose petals. I had thought it was a bit much when Abby insisted, but as I lay my soon to be lover down in the center of the bed I realized that it was not even close to enough. He was smiling up at me, so open and trusting, and it was my turn to say the words. “I love you, Greg, God, I love you.” I claimed his lips again, this time stretching out my length atop him. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close as we resumed our dance, his hips rising from the bed to press against mine as our tongues eagerly sought out the deepest recesses of each other’s mouths.

We kissed for several long but glorious minutes, and then parted to catch our breath. I knew that we would need these pauses and I welcomed the moment as a chance to bask in every aspect of the experience. Lying by his side, I traced a finger down his arm and watched as he took in his new surroundings.

“This is amazing, Nick.” Tears were dropping softly from his half-lidded eyes. “I can’t believe you did all this for me.”

“G, I would do all this and so much more. I want to give you the world. Not just tonight, but every day and night for the rest of my life.” I captured his lips again, pulling us both on our sides, and he reached hesitantly to touch the buttons on my shirt, looking deeply into my eyes, questioning. “Go ahead, G. I’m all yours.”

I forced my body to go perfectly still and I watched his tentative movements. Nimble fingers adept at handling the smallest piece of evidence trembling as they tried to undo a simple button, but I wanted to let him have this all to himself. No matter how long it took, this was his pace, not mine. I steadied my breathing as best I could as, buttons undone; he opened the front of my shirt and slid it back on my shoulders, exposing my chest. I fought back a laugh at the seriousness of the expression that had taken over Greg’s face. He was studying me, intently. Then, he touched the newly exposed skin, first with a gentle fingertip, then, in one swift and unexpected bold move, he followed the path of that finger with his mouth and all threats of laughter ceased. I thought that I had come undone. My body was on fire at his touch.

He shifted so that he was straddling me, continuing his exploration of my chest, returning to my lips, discovering the sensitive peaks of my nipples, and while this night was, in my mind, all about him, I was reduced to incoherent moans as he tasted and touched me in a way no one else had ever done. Finally, I pulled myself together enough to grasp my hands firmly on his hips and guide our erections together again. He pressed down against me and I arched up in time to his thrust. Everything was going smoothly, we were responding to each other so easily, so naturally. I slid my hands up to grasp the hem of his t-shirt, wanting to take my own turn experiencing the flesh of the man I loved, but the moment I began to lift the edges, he froze, a look of panic clouding features that had been so relaxed and focused only a second earlier. “No.”

He pulled away abruptly, sliding up to press himself against the headboard of the bed, eyes downcast. “G, what is it? Did I do something wrong?” I prayed to anyone who would listen that I hadn’t screwed this up somehow. Then he said one word, softly, and I understood exactly what I needed to do to make this right.

“Scars.”

Chapter TWELVE: Forever and forever

GREG:

I was straddling Nick Stokes, a place that I had wanted to be for years. He was reduced to incoherent moans as I tasted and touched every inch of his bare chest, sucked his lips and tongue in my mouth, nibbled the peaks of his nipples and marked his beautiful flesh as my own. He grasped his hands firmly on my hips and guided our erections together and I thought that I would die or cum right that very moment from the sensory overload. He had done everything to make this night perfect, and I was finally starting to believe that the man I had been secretly in love with for years and years, the man who would never in a million years be anything other than straight, might actually be in love with me, too. I couldn’t stop my body from reacting to him, and if this was how hot this was going to be clothed, I wasn’t sure how I would survive it when we were both naked. I pressed down against him and he arched up in time to my thrust. Everything was going smoothly, we were responding to each other so easily, so naturally. This was pure instinct and pure love. Then, it all fell apart. He slid his hands up to grasp the hem of his t-shirt, but the moment he began to lift the edges, I froze. I couldn’t possibly let him see me. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have forgotten that I am and always will be damaged goods? “No.”

I pulled away abruptly, sliding up to press myself against the headboard of the bed, turning my eyes away from his questioning stare. “G, what is it? Did I do something wrong?”

I said one word, softly, and I knew that this would be the end. “Scars.”

But instead of leaving, instead of going further away from me, Nick drew closer. I flinched as his hand touched my shoulder. “I have scars too, G. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.”

“They’re ugly, Nick. I’m ugly.” I found myself sobbing, choking on the words, and in all honest this was probably the ugliest I had ever seemed in my life, eyes red, nose running, and tears streaming down my cheeks, huddled in the corner of my bed and trying my best to hide from the man whom I loved more than life itself. Admirable, Sanders. But Nick wasn’t going away.

“Do you trust me?” The pressure was light on my shoulder, and a tissue had materialized from somewhere wielded by a second hand to gently clean my face like a child. He brought his lips gently to mine, then asked again, “G, will you trust me?”

Saying no wasn’t even an option. “Yes.”

Gently he turned pulled me to the center of the bed and lifted the shirt over my head. I closed my eyes and willed myself to keep on breathing. He kissed my lips, and then ghosted a kiss down my neck pushing me backwards. Maybe that was his plan. If he keeps me on my back, he can’t see the scars. I began to lose myself in the feel of his mouth on my chest, on my stomach, working its way down to the waistband of my jeans. He paused when he got there to look into my eyes. “Still trust me?”

“Yes” I was barely breathing, so I nodded as well. He opened the front of my jeans and slid down the zipper. Then, he was sliding them off of me, taking my briefs along with them. I was naked, lying on the bed in front of a still half dressed Nick.

“Don’t move.” He was looking at me with such intensity. “God, you are beautiful, G.” I waited for him to touch me, but he didn’t. “Turn over.”

I felt the panic start again, I wanted to run, to hide, to just get away from him, but his eyes held me in place, pleading with me to comply. So I did. And I buried my face in the mattress, gripping the sheets with both hands as I waited for the world to crash down around me. Instead, I felt the bed shift and he was gone for a moment. I heard him moving around the room, but I was afraid to even move. Then, the bed shifted again and and I felt something soft begin to trace the fine lines and jagged ridges that criss-crossed my back. He started at the base of my spine and traced each one, bringing his hand all the way up over my neck, turning my head slightly to trace the side of my face with the rose petal that he had just used to map my back. “They remind me, G. They remind me that you are alive.”

I wanted to respond, but that same instant I felt him lower himself on top of me and I realized that he was naked as well. He was lying full length on top of me, pressed against me. I could feel his swollen erection pressing against the crack of my ass, sliding in between my legs and nestling against my balls. I arched up into him and he pressed back, rocking his hips against me as he kissed my neck. “I love you, G. All of you.”

And then I was using all of my strength to flip myself over, confidence regained. I was on my back again, not out of fear, but out of a need to feel us pressed together. I took his hips in my hand and pulled him close as I thrust against him. He took my mouth and delved as deeply as his tongue could go. We began to move in time with each other. I wanted to make this last, but I didn’t have the strength. The sensations were far too powerful. One last thrust, and I felt myself cumming hard.

NICK:

How could he possibly think that his scars were anything but beautiful to me. The roadmap of his back was proof that he was still alive and pressed beneath me. The feel of our bodies completely touching each other was more powerful than anything. My cock slid easily between his legs, and we fit together perfectly. “I love you, G. All of you.” Words could not even come close to the feelings that I was having right then, and when he turned beneath me and began to thrust us together, I knew that I would not last long. I wanted this night to be perfect, but maybe this was how the first time was supposed to be. I didn’t know. I didn’t have any idea what to do or what to expect, but instinct seemed to be doing a pretty good job so far. Then, he thrust up against me one more time and I felt him pulsing against me, felt his hot cum saturate my penis as he reached his orgasm, and that was all I needed. I came harder than I have ever come before, our essences mingling on our spent cocks as we slid together. Breathing hard, both of us, I clutched him to me with all of my might, rolling him so that we were spooned together, his back against me, unconcerned that we were still covered in each other’s cum. I didn’t want to release him. Not for a long, long time.

I held him for a moment in silence as we both regained our composure. He spoke first, soft and low. “Nicky?

“Yeah?”

“Sorry.”

“What for, G?”

“I didn’t mean to end it all so soon.”

“Who said anything about ending.” My voice sounded a lot more confident than I felt, because I really had no idea where to go from here, but I slid my hand down his chest, pulling him closer to me, and I touched his penis for the first time (not counting when we had pressed against each other). I took its softened length gently in my hand and began to fondle it. In seconds, he was already becoming hard again. “We have all day, G.”

He let me play with him for a while, softly caressing his length, and I knew that I was also getting aroused again. He must have felt it because he grasped my hand to still my movements. Rolling over to face me, he slid down on the bed so that he was eye level with my cock. “May I?” And I couldn’t believe that he felt the need to ask after what we had already done, but I nodded to him anyway. I expected him to take me in his hand as I had done to him, and he did. What I did not expect, as I closed my eyes to the sensations, was to feel him take me in his mouth. I reacted, bucking my hips and sending my hardened length down his throat and he gagged on it. Smooth move, Stokes. I pulled him up and held him in my arms.

“G, I’m sorry. So sorry.”

But he wasn’t scared, and he wasn’t angry. He was laughing as he kissed me. Not a deep kiss, just a reassuring peck on the lips. “I guess we need more practice, huh?” And then he was slithering right back down again, only this time he used his hands to keep my hips firmly on the bed as he lowered his mouth gently around my shaft. He set the pace, and it was almost enough to drive me insane, yet I didn’t want him to stop. His tongue would tease my slit, and when a few drops of precum slipped from the tip, he lapped them hungrily. All the while, he kept his eyes wide open, looking directly into my eyes. Nothing had ever been this powerful, this erotic. “Nicky?”

“Yeah, G?”

“Fuck me, please?”

And for a moment I was taken aback. This was supposed to be about making love, a perfect first time. Not that those words weren’t about the hottest thing that I had ever heard, and not that it didn’t remove that last shred of fear that had nagged me from the start – who was going to be the top in this relationship (ok, so I was still terrified of being “penetrated” but I would have let him, really I would) and my brain was going so fast that I couldn’t respond, but Greg is a mind-reader now, I think.

GREG:

I can tell he’s thinking about it, and he’s scared again. What a pair we are. We don’t know what we are doing, we don’t know how to do it, but its right and that is all that matters. This slow stuff has been amazing, but there is more to Nick than this. I know that there is. And right now, I want to feel it.

“I’m not going to break, Nicky. And this is the sweetest, most wonderful, most perfect first time anyone could have asked for, but it’s OK to fuck me. It’s OK to let go.”

“How, G?”

I have to laugh at how scared he sounds. “Did this little party come with lube and condoms, by any chance?” I figured it was a safe bet that it did since Abby had arranged it. Nick rolled away from me and pulled a small bag from under the bed. Inside I found a tube of anal ease and a box of ultra sensitive Trojans. I held the lube to Nicky, explaining. “This kind will make it hurt less the first time. For me that is. For you, it’ll just feel tight, and it should feel good.” Then, I handed him the condoms. “I think you know what these are.”

“G?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m clean.”

“Me too”

“Can we…”

“Sure, Nicky.” I tossed the condoms to the floor, knowing that this was the way I had wanted it as well, but I wasn’t going to pressure him.

“G?”

“Yeah, Nicky?”

“This is it, OK?”

I wasn’t really sure that I was understanding what he meant by that. “What is?”

“This. This is forever, G. OK?”

And my heart was in my throat when I responded “For as long as you want, Nicky.”

“Forever.”

We kissed again, long and deep. Our cocks were hard and they brushed against one another like they belonged together. “Now, will you fuck me?”

This time, he laughed with me. “I still don’t know what to do, G.”

“You have to prepare me. Use your fingers and the lube.” I spread my legs and he knelt between them, holding the lube and just looking at me. It was almost comical. Then, he took a hold of my cock and brought his lips down around me. It was amazing, and I had to fight hard not to thrust against him as he had done to me, but it wasn’t what I wanted. “Wrong place, Nicky.”

He laughed, and I could see some of the tension leave him. “I just wanted to taste you, first.” And then, he was lubing his fingers and placing one against my entrance. It slipped inside easily. All of those years of playing with myself paid off. I pulled my legs further apart and thrust pack into his hand.

“More, Nicky.”

Then, there were two fingers inside of me, and the second one brushed against my prostate. I think I sounded like a girl when I emitted a sound that was a cross between a moan and a scream, but he pulled out in a panic. “Did I hurt you? We can stop.”

I shook my head and gripped his wrist, guiding him back. “No, Nicky. That felt GOOD.” His fingers were inside me again, feeling me. He brushed the nerves again, and I managed to keep it to just a moan. Nick is definitely a quick study, because once he figured it out he made sure to brush against me as often as he could as he stretched my channel. “Now, Nicky. Please.”

“What do I do, G?”

“Put more lube on your cock, and then enter me slowly.”

He did as instructed, and I guess we did it right because he slipped right in and nothing has ever felt so right.

NICK:

I can’t believe this. I am buried inside of Greg, and he feels so perfect around me. He is so tight and so hot and this is just about the most incredible feeling in the world. He has his legs wrapped around me, and I lean forward to kiss him. He kisses back and then he sends me over the edge.

“Move, Nicky. Make me yours, forever.”

I can’t hold back. I start to move and before I can think I am picking up the pace, and he is arching into me and I know that I am hitting that spot with every thrust. He is crying my name and I am crying his. He comes first, his hot seed splashing against my chest and coating his stomach. I am right behind him, filling him with a final thrust. The moment is amazing until, coming down off my high, I slip from him and notice the blood.

“Oh, God, G. You’re bleeding.” I roll off of him, moving to examine the damage, but he just pulls me up to kiss my lips.

“It happens the first time, Nicky. We were careful. They’re just little tears. Next time will be easier.”

Next time. Oh, God. He said next time. And now I am crying again.

“Shhh, Nicky. It’s OK. It hurts a little, but it also felt amazing. I promise.”

“It’s not that, G.” I need him to understand. You said forever.

“Isn’t that what you said you wanted?”

“Yeah.”

“Then just accept it, Nicky. I love you.”

“I love you, too, G.” And then, he was slipping from my arms. He sensed my terror and just smiled.

“Candles, Nicky. I don’t want to burn my apartment down.”

He blew them out, one by one, as I brushed the rose petals from the bed. He slipped to the bathroom and retrieved a warm wash cloth as I turned down the covers. He returned to OUR bed and we gently washed each other. A final kiss good night and he rolled into my arms. In pulled the covers over us and held him close. This felt as if we had been doing it forever.

“Sleep well, Nicky.”

“You too, G”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I’ll still be here.”

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