Title: Dreams of Flying
Author: podga
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: CSI and its characters do not belong to me. I write and post for fun only.
Summary: Sequel to Looking For Home. Series 5

In the dream, he’s ten years old and he’s standing on the roof of his grandfather’s barn, the summer sun hot on his bare head. He can hear the droning of a harvester in the distance and up closer, maybe fifteen feet below, the voices of his two youngest sisters telling him that it’s easy and not to be afraid. From up where Nick is, they seem very small, as does the haystack he’s supposed to jump into. What the heck, he thinks, and he jumps. To his delight, he finds he can float in the air above the haystack; then he stretches out his arms and legs, and swoops in lazy circles, until he lands gently on his feet beside his sisters.

Sometimes he flies high over the fields, until he reaches Dallas, and everybody is pointing up at him in amazement, and his parents rush out of the house and call to him that he’s in Big Trouble for flying off without permission, but that since he’s home, he might as well come down for milk and Oreos. Other times he flies over the ocean, a body of water he’d only seen in pictures at ten, so that even when he dreams of it today, it looks like an enormous bathtub filled with water the exact color of his Blue Green Crayola crayon and big orange and yellow fish.

In real life he hit the edge of the haystack, tumbled off and broke his collarbone, and when they came home from the hospital his Granddaddy tanned his bottom and sent him to bed without supper.

 

Nick gets the call from Lenny Rhys just as he’s backing into a parking space in front of the lab.

“I didn’t expect to reach you in person,” Lenny says. “I thought you’d be home and in bed by now.”

“My shift ran longer,” Nick says, closing his eyes and trying to focus his thoughts. It’s decision time, and he’s nowhere nearer to knowing if he wants to rent the apartment than he was yesterday. Grissom is sitting next to him, and Nick wonders why he doesn’t get out.

“Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that everything’s set. When do you want to sign the contract?”

“I don’t know, Lenny. It looks like it’s going to be a few busy days ahead of us at work. Big case. I don’t know when I’ll manage to come over.” He opens his eyes and stares ahead, determined not to turn around and check Grissom’s reaction at what he’s saying. Why the hell is he still waiting in the truck, anyway?

“Well, I can give the contract to Janet, if you like, and she can drop it off for you.”

“No, that’s alright. The thing is, Lenny, I’m not really sure about this.”

“You seemed pretty eager yesterday,” the old man says. “This isn’t a bargaining trick, is it? Because I’m not going to lower the rent more than I already did.”

“No, the rent is fine. The apartment is great, the best I saw. It’s just that…” Nick pauses and looks around at Grissom, who is making no bones about listening in on the conversation. Nick blocks the receiver with his hand. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Grissom says, looking patient, as if it’s Nick who’s inconveniencing him. Nick glares at him, then brings the phone back to his ear to catch the tail end of Lenny’s question.

“… hear you. Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Listen, Lenny, I just haven’t made up my mind about leaving my old place yet. I’ll give you a call as soon as I know one way or another.”

“I’m not going to hold the apartment for you.”

“I don’t expect you to. It’s a really great place,” Nick says with some regret. “I’ll call you. And, Lenny? Thanks.”

“And don’t expect the discount when you finally decide,” Lenny says querulously and hangs up.

Nick sighs and flips his phone shut.

“I heard you telling Sara that you liked the apartment and that you were planning on signing the lease. What happened?”

“I don’t know. In the end it just didn’t feel right,” Nick says. He climbs out of the truck in order to put an end to the conversation and walks to the back to unload the evidence.

“Why not?” Grissom asks, meeting him at the tailgate, and leaning in next to him in order to pick up a couple of bags.

Nick straightens up and shrugs. “The neighborhood,” he says vaguely.

“What about it?”

Nick considers prevaricating further, but Grissom is like a pit bull; he’s not going to give up until he’s sure he’s hearing the truth.

“Brian lives two blocks away,” he says finally.

“And that’s a problem?” Grissom asks, looking at him closely.

“Yeah.”

Grissom’s lips thin and his expression grows shuttered. “I see,” he says, then he turns on his heel and strides away from the truck, leaving Nick standing there and wondering what the hell that was all about.

 

The trouble with having things pointed out to you is that you can no longer plead ignorance for not facing up to them, Nick muses. At some level he’s always known that he’s in love with Grissom; he might have called it admiration, fondness, even gratitude for Grissom having saved his life, but deep down he knew he was lying to himself. So then he decided that the only reason he’d fixated on Grissom (and fixation was different than love) was that it provided a legitimate reason for him to not take a chance looking for an actual relationship with a man who would reciprocate. And Grissom himself was safe. He’d never shown any interest in Nick, quite the opposite in fact, and once Nick started reporting directly to Grissom a relationship was entirely out of the question.

Is entirely out of the question. Because other than Brian having opened his eyes to what he’s been missing sexually over the past ten or twelve years, nothing has really changed in the situation between Grissom and him. Sure, Grissom seems to have been trying to be more supportive lately, and with his new-found awareness, Nick sees that a couple of times he might have even been expressing a certain affection, but he’s still Nick’s boss. And Nick would be a fool to expect anything more, or to take Grissom’s overtures more personally. Heck, Warrick has a closer relationship with Grissom than he does, and so does Catherine. And Brass. And Doc Robbins. And Sara. He stops running through names before he gets even more depressed.

Still, Brian is right about one thing. If he tells Grissom how he feels about him, it’ll resolve the situation right quick. Grissom will tell him in no uncertain terms that nothing is going to happen between them, maybe he’ll even offer him a transfer to a different shift, and then Nick can put this idiocy firmly behind him and move on. Better to know. But he’s not prepared for the finality of losing the relationship that they have between them now. Anyway, what’s the rush? They’ve been a certain way for a long time and there’s no need to change, just because Nick is now prepared to acknowledge certain things about himself. He knows what he needs to do; he doesn’t have to hear it from Grissom.

 

“Got any plans for the weekend?”

Nick looks up from the computer screen and stretches his back. “Nah. There’s a couple of more places I want to check out, but I’m starting to think I’m better off staying put.” He’d never told anybody but Grissom why he wanted to move, even though he’s pretty sure everybody else drew the right conclusion.

Warrick nods. “You’ve got a nice set-up, Nick. And what happened… well, it’s not gonna happen again, right?”

Nick grunts in acknowledgement and leans forward again, his attention on the screen again.

“Do you still have Luna?” Warrick asks out of the blue.

“I… yeah, I do,” Nick says slowly, and suddenly he starts to laugh. “They even left me the extra movie channels Crane had programmed in for me. I guess they figured I deserve some compensation.” He laughs harder. It’s not really funny, but at the same time it is, and Warrick is laughing too.

“Anyway, if you’re not doing anything, why don’t you come over and watch the game on Saturday?”

“Which game?”

“Man, I got 150 sports channels. Any game we damn well want.”

 

By Saturday, it’s turned into a party. Nick invited Greg and Dave, Catherine invited herself when she heard about the event from Warrick, and then Nick figured he might as well invite the whole team and the lab rats. The more the merrier. For a while he even toyed with the idea of inviting Brian; they’d left things on a pretty good footing, and Nick likes the idea of having at least one friend with whom he can be totally honest with. Except that being open and honest with Brian is a theoretical concept; Brian might understand and share some of Nick’s problems, but he’s found his own set of solutions, most of which Nick doesn’t agree with. Besides which, Nick doesn’t believe that beer and pizza will stay just that, and it won’t be just Brian’s fault.

When he spoke to Grissom, he made such a mess of trying to sound casual and normal that he ended up sounding unwelcoming, as if he’d been forced into issuing the invitation. He met Grissom’s eyes and read the decision in them, and he reached out and clasped Grissom’s forearm in order to forestall the answer.

“I’d really like you to come,” he said quietly.

Grissom looked down at Nick’s hand resting on his arm, then up into Nick’s eyes. “Thank you,” he said after a small hesitation. “Can I bring anything?”

Relieved, Nick dropped his hand and stepped back. “Nope. I’ve got everything covered.”

 

He shouldn’t have waited so long to do this, Nick thinks. He should have filled the house with his friends immediately, reclaimed his space. Even though he’s busy scrubbing a pot, a job he’s hated with a passion since it was part of his chores when he was a kid, he smiles happily.

“Nick! We need more beer out here!” he hears Warrick yell from the living room.

“Come and get it yourself, you deadbeat,” he yells back.

“It’s about time you got off your lazy ass,” he says when he hears Warrick open the refrigerator.

“This is why I don’t like to fraternize with the underlings,” he hears Grissom behind him. “They become insolent.”

Nick turns his head and sees Grissom standing at the fridge, holding a six-pack.

“Oops,” he grins. “I wouldn’t have said anything if I’d known it was your ass I was addressing, boss.”

Grissom snorts. “Well, my ass feels insulted nevertheless. Let me go and give these out, and I’ll come back and help you.”

“No, that’s okay…” Nick wants to say that he’s almost done, but Grissom has already walked out of the kitchen, so he turns his attention back to the pots. Home-made sauce for the pasta had been way too ambitious.

“So, what can I do?” he hears Grissom’s voice right behind him. What the hell, Nick thinks, and points out the dishtowel.

 

Catherine is the first to leave, citing baby sitter issues, and she starts a general exodus. People leave in small groups according to when their designated driver wants to go, and finally only Grissom is left. He’s lounging on the couch, his elbow resting on its arm, watching something black and white on TV, a half-smile on his face.

“What’s that?” Nick asks curiously, sitting next to him.

“Honeymooners. I didn’t know they still show it.”

Nick tries to watch for a while, but he doesn’t really get it, so he gets up and starts gathering the last plates and glasses that are strewn all over the living room.

“Need any help?” Grissom asks.

“No, I’m just gonna stack’em in the dishwasher and throw away the trash.”

“Okay. This’ll be done in about five minutes.”

“No problem.”

He’s leaning over the dishwasher when he senses a presence behind him. He turns around to see Grissom standing with a couple of more glasses.

“Thanks.”

He reaches for the glasses, then turns to put them in the dishwasher as well. When he straightens and turns back around, Grissom hasn’t moved. Nick thinks he wants to say goodbye, so he waits expectantly, but Grissom simply stands there, sometimes meeting Nick’s eyes, sometimes looking away. Nick discovers his mouth has gone dry.

“Griss? Can I get you something?” he croaks.

Grissom shakes his head.

“I had a good time,” he says finally. “Thank you for inviting me.”

Despite the commonplace words, there’s a strange tension building between them. With Brian, with anybody else, Nick would know exactly what’s going on. But with Grissom… No, it’s simply his imagination playing tricks on him.

“I’m glad you came,” he says.

“Me too.”

They smile self-consciously at each other and Grissom steps back and puts his hands in his pockets.

“I should be going.”

“Should you?” Nick asks, then at the surprised look on Grissom’s face, adds hastily, “I mean, are you okay to drive?”

“Oh. Yes, I’m fine.”

Still, Grissom doesn’t make a further move to leave. He just stands there.

Nick has regretted most of the actions in his life that immediately followed the thought ‘what the hell.’ He has a feeling he’ll regret this one as well. He takes the two steps separating him from Grissom, leans forward and kisses him on the mouth. Grissom doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t back away either, so Nick closes his eyes and kisses him again, his mouth opening over Grissom’s.

 

He doesn’t remember the fear he must have felt when he was falling, or the pain when he broke his collarbone. Yet every sound, every smell, every emotion, every smallest detail in his dream is sharp and vivid, so much so that he sometimes thinks that the dreams are actually memories, and that he really did fly that afternoon.