Title: The Rhythms of Love & the Chaos of Hate
Author: Esynnaj
Email: Vebesahshalarc@sbcglobal.com
Disclaimers: CSI and all characters from it belong to CBS Productions, Touchstone Television, Alliance Atlantis Communications and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Rating: FRAO
Summary: It'll take the varying rhythms of love to rid Grissom and Warrick's world of the fiery chaos of a lingering hatred.

THE RHYTHMS OF LOVE & THE CHAOS OF HATE

It had been Warrick's first night off in over two weeks and he had enjoyed it all by himself, leisurely finishing off a cold six pack while watching the late game shows on ESPN. Consistently working the midnight shift and missing Grissom hadn't make it easy to sleep, but he meant to get some rest so he could be awake and fresh when Grissom came home in the morning, so finally turned in about three AM, setting the clock to awaken at seven the next morning. Still, it was after eight and he had been up long enough to fix coffee and waffles before he heard Grissom's Denali come to a halt in the garage and its doors closing. Showered and smelling good, prepared to greet his companion and help him wind down from a hard night's work, as soon as he saw Grissom Warrick knew more was going to be needed. Coming out the back of the garage, Gil slid the unlocked patio doors at the rear of their condo open and charged through them to come into the kitchen where Warrick was at almost a dead run to abruptly stop and stare at him with hollowed out, red rimmed eyes while yanking off his jacket and dropping it to the floor.

Without thought or hesitation, Warrick just stood and went toward him without saying anything. He reached behind Grissom to close the door, pushing Grissom backward against it as Grissom clawed at his shirt and cupped the back of Gil's head with both hands, tilting it up to bring Grissom's lips to his own. Feverishly, Grissom locked on, hands going all over Warrick, urgently kneading his arms, shoulders, sides, hips, spine, wherever he could get to as he strove to put as much of Warrick as possible within his grasp, his left knee sliding all the way up between Warrick's legs and hooking around the left one like Grissom was trying to climb inside him.

Warrick had no idea what must have happened to make Grissom behave like this, but knew there had to have been some sort of serious problem and Grissom was looking for the quickest way to relieve his resultant tension. Warrick broke away from Grissom's open mouth, listening to him pant with concern, staying close so Grissom could nuzzle his throat, holding him loose while Grissom clung tight. He asked softly, "How ya want it, slow and easy or hard and fast?"

"Hard and fast," Grissom whispered.

Because of how he was already hurriedly stripping Warrick' T-shirt over his head with one hand while undoing his own belt and trousers with the other as he kicked off his shoes, Warrick knew they weren't going to make it to the bedroom. That didn't bother him although it'd probably bother Grissom once he managed to get through whatever he was going through. Grissom generally liked intercourse to be a bit more gracious and refined than it was likely to be when done as a rush job in an area designed for unhurried, protracted, comfortable, loving foreplay and its usual aftermath.

"Where ya want it, here or in your room?"

"No. Do it right here. I need it right here and right now."

As he ripped down the buttons of his shirt, actually, hurriedly tearing two of them off, and stamped his feet to force his slacks to fall to the floor in a puddle about his ankles, Grissom reached into a pocket to remove a small parcel. He brought the new, small tube of lube he must've just purchased up to his mouth to rip the packaging away with his teeth while he slid a hand inside Warrick's sweat pants to start jerking him off without so much as a mother, may I.

"You wanna do me? Or want me to do you?"

For some reason, that made Grissom briefly pause. "You'll have to do me. It'd be better. I'm not. My frame of mind isn't. I don't think we should. I want you to do me."

Charmed by the unexpected and inexplicable wildness in his man, whatever the reason for it, Warrick grinned, taking the tube of lube from Grissom as he asked, "Want it up against the wall or down on the floor?"

Grissom breathed, "I don't care. I just want it. I have to have it."

"You want it now or do you wanna mess around first?"

"I want it now. I want to feel you inside me now. I need that bad."

"Whatever floats your boat, babe."

Still smiling, with firm gentleness, Warrick spun Gil around so he faced the glass doors leading onto their darkly screened patio overlooking the spacious, fenced in backyard. Wrapping an arm about Grissom's neck to turn his head backward over a shoulder so he could kiss him, Warrick deftly pushed the tube of lube between Grissom's buttocks to liberally squeeze it, squirting a goodly amount of what it contained up in there then removing the tube and using first one finger then more to spread it around inside Grissom. Then gnawing a fresh set of hickeys onto Grissom's throat, he dropped the tube and curled two fingers into Grissom to massage his prostate, grinning wide as Grissom lurched against the door, hands splaying out on the glass, breathing out in open mouthed, drawn out, quivery gasps.

Noisily speechless, Grissom began squatting then straightening his legs, spreading his feet slightly as he humped back onto Warrick's long, strong, probing fingers, forcing them deeper within himself until he could stand the scissoring, widening motion no longer and demanded in a harried hiss, "Fuck me, Warrick!! Fuck me now!!"

"You got it, Gil."

Warrick pushed his sweats down a bit further until they were riding his hips, the better for him to ride Grissom. Then, after lifting himself to familiarly and unerringly press just a couple of inches or so inside Grissom, he dropped his head to deliciously bite down on Grissom's ear lobe as he pinched both his nipples and slam all the way into him at the same time. The sensational, simultaneous ecstasy of the trio of tenderly pain laced pleasures caused Grissom to issue a high pitched keen as his hands started sliding up and down the glass door with a wet, squeaky sound. Crying out with the thrill of finally being filled, Grissom shut his eyes, rolling his head back on Warrick's shoulder for a moment before letting it fall forward so suddenly, it hit the door with a thump. That made Warrick flinch in sympathetic pain and he slid a hand over Grissom's forehead to protect it from further such contact as he deepened his penetration.

Once he had reached a depth which could proceed no further, he set up the requested hard and fast rhythm Grissom had asked for, softly humming in sync to it, everything in his musical soul and body keeping perfect time with it, closing his eyes to better enjoy the feel of that tight, slick heat that was his lover's ass as it surrounded his still thickening and elongating organ. As he did that and kept easing from one of Grissom's nipples to the other with one hand, he dropped his other down to bundle Grissom's cock and balls into one big hand and massage them before beginning a rough, swift masturbation that soon had Grissom screeching out hoarsely and wriggling about as each of Warrick's battering, inward thrusts deliciously hit his prostate to blissfully turn him upside down then inside out.

Warrick periodically slowed just enough to prevent Grissom from too quickly reaching orgasm, keeping him on edge without losing any of the passion that had built up between them. Very seldom was sex between them as spontaneous as this and Warrick wanted this unusual event to last. He also wanted to hear more of the noises Grissom was making. It wasn't often that Grissom did that as they made love and Warrick loved intense vocal byplay when having or about to have sex. So to get out of Grissom what raunchy sounds he could, Warrick had discovered asking him questions was the fastest, easiest way force him to voice his desires when his mind is on matters of a sexual nature.

"Is it good to ya, Gris? Is it what you wanted, baby?"

Exhaling so deeply and sharply that his cheeks were billowing out with each breath, Grissom gasped in a rushed whisper, "Yes. Yes, oh yes, it is."

"You want more of it? Huh? Do you? Tell me what you want."

"Go deeper. Do it harder."

"Yeah? You want it. like this?" Warrick pulled almost all the way out and rammed back in, bending a bit so he surged up into Grissom so tough that it lifted him from his feet.

Grissom screamed, with his body bowing out, then was swinging backward and forward while Warrick increased his pace and the depth of his penetration until Grissom began gagging, eyes bugging out, his mouth opening even wider and working fishlike as he became convinced Warrick's gorgeous length was going far enough up inside him to perforate his intestines, ride through his esophagus and come out of his mouth.

"You want more of that, Gris? You want some more of that?"

Gil tried to respond, but he had gotten way past the point of coherent speech and could only let himself be wonderfully whipped back and forth on the fulcrum of flesh on which he was mounted. Finally everything in him clinched into one big ball of flushing hotness that was explosively released as a solid spurting of semen splashing the patio door, running down it like thick, steaming strings of white cream.

With Grissom sighing and relaxing from becoming post orgasmic, Warrick pulled out of him to support him, hold him until he got his strength back then move both of them to the bedroom to continue doing this thing his way. But Gil was already taking charge, going down onto his knees, pulling a hand up to keep Warrick from pulling his sweats up, reaching into them and coming back out, flipping Warrick's cock back out of them as well. Then, Grissom did something he had never done before. He began to perform fellatio on Warrick after Warrick had just ejaculated inside him. Acting with unusual swiftness, first he swiped at Warrick's foreskin, pushing it back from the head with his tongue to get at the meat beneath so he could suckle on that awhile before going taking the whole down with a wet, gulping lunge that made Warrick grunt with gritted teeth then give a strangled cry as Grissom had just a moment earlier and slam both hands into the door above Grissom's head.

Warrick hadn't ejaculated, was still hard, and the sudden warm of Grissom's mouth enveloping him was just too much for him to handle. Unavoidably, having no chance of slowing himself down and getting no opportunity from Grissom to even try, he came and came hard, cussing and fussing with his eyes rolling back in his head and Grissom leaning away from him, letting the wet warmth of what was coming out of Warrick cascade onto his chest, pulling Warrick in close to feel as much of that on himself as he could. On the verge of blacking out, Warrick leaned forward over Grissom, panting and resting his forearms on the glass doors above him, the only way he could remain standing. Just as Warrick thought his weakened knees had to give out and he was about to slip to the floor and enjoy cuddling with his lover from a sitting position, Grissom frustrated him by gripping his cock again and taking its head in his mouth for only a second before pulling his lips away with an audible pop. However, before disappointment had a chance to set in good, Grissom drizzled some of the lube onto him and began to masturbate him doing it fast, one hand doing the back and forth over Warrick's shrinking, sensitized, shaft while his other reached between his legs to massage his balls.

For a moment, it was unpleasant to Warrick as a post coital consequence. Then Grissom maneuvered his cock back into his mouth, took the hand away that had been manipulating him and eased three fingers into Warrick's anus as far as he could get them before curving them to seek and find Warrick's prostate. At that very instant, life came pouring back into Warrick as passionate, lusty streaks of pure sexual heat insinuating themselves midway his body and driving him right back to a full erection.

Beginning to breathe much harder and now forced to use a hand to support himself on the door, Warrick restlessly caressed Grissom's face, periodically running his fingers through the thick, soft, graying hair, moaning as he continued to harden, lengthen and thicken, clenching his teeth as Grissom reached high under his tee to return the favor of pinching and squeezing his nipples. After a few moments, Warrick said to him very quietly and unsteadily, "Have a care, Gil. Keep this up, you're gonna make me blow, man. I know how you don't care for it when I cum in your mouth. So, you'd better."

But his words of warning were brought to an abrupt halt as Grissom bore down even more to deep throat him like a pro. Unsure as to whether Grissom had even heard him and suddenly unable to care, Warrick inhaled hard, long and loud, let it go, let it ride and fired a load into Grissom's mouth that was wholly taken down. Grissom swallowed like he had been giving head every day of his life, taking it in and not missing a single drop. Only when Warrick, too sated this time to stand another second's touch on his now hypersensitive cock, staggered back so it became more difficult for Grissom to get at him, was he finally released. Wavering a little unsteadily but managing to maintain his footing as he pulled his sweats up, Warrick asked quietly and curiously, "What's gotten into you, Grissom?"

Still kneeling with his head hanging down now, Grissom said nothing, just shook his head slowly and moaned in a terrible manner that actually made Warrick's heart fearfully skip a beat. Stepping forward to bend over and gently attempt to lift Gil's chin with a couple of fingers, he was saying, "Gil, what's wrong? What's wrong with you?" but then was astonished into backing up when his hand was sharply slapped away and Grissom suddenly came to a standing position, again staring wildly at Warrick with tears in his eyes.

He ordered with an awful finality, "Warrick, it wasn't enough. You've got to leave. You can't stay here tonight."

Of anything Grissom might have said, Warrick would've never thought that would be it. Stunned, all he could think to say to that, was, "What?"

"You have to go. I. can't be around you right now. You have got to find someplace else to go."

Buried in floundering, confused disbelief, Warrick squinted at Grissom and demanded, his bewilderment growing, "What?!!!"

Fists clenched, head hanging again, Grissom turned his stare onto the floor as if he was unable to look Warrick in the eye. "You heard me. You have to find someplace to stay tonight."

"I have to WHAT?!!!"

Grissom raised his head, also lifting clenched fists, and shouted, "You've got to leave!! You have to!! Neither one of us have any choice about that!!!"

"Grissom, I don't know what's going on, but this's my home as much as it's yours!!" Warrick shot back. "I don't have any other!! I sold mine to help pay for this one, remember?!!!"

Grissom knew that, which only added to the guilty fears that were pushing at him. But he could not let that detour him from what he had to do for Warrick's sake as well his own. "You can't stay here tonight!! Do you understand me?!! You can't!! You've got to go someplace else!!"

Finally, it dawned on Warrick that something momentous was pushing Grissom, something he was not yet able to articulate. As unaccustomed as he was to being the one who had to maintain command of his emotions when in Grissom's presence, Warrick now made that effort as he said, very quietly. "All right, then. If I have to, then I'll go. But you've got to, at least, tell me why, man. You could at least do that."

He watched in increasing amazement while Grissom, wearing nothing but his unbuttoned shirt, fists clenched, face flushed a maddened dull red and whole self straining, struggled to answer his implicit question while Warrick waited but could not. Finally, eyes squeezed despairingly and tightly shut, he did the most he could currently do. "I can't!! Not right now!! Warrick, you have to GO!! Please!! You have to leave NOW!!"

Warrick had never, to his recollection, seen Grissom, generally the most composed man he had ever known in his entire life, quite like this. Grissom was more than merely upset. He was wildly out-of- control. The wrenching shudders periodically tearing through him were so powerful, it appeared to Warrick as if they were seizures and any one of them might rip him apart. A barrage of emotional explosions was going on inside him and Grissom was internalizing their force. Warrick ached to reach out to him, assist him back to stability in any and every way possible.

But incredibly, Grissom was advancing on him with his fists still clenched, coming forward with an unconscious but very evident threat clear in every tense line of his body. His stuttering, stumbling steps reminded Warrick of a rabid coyote he had once seen at a camp he had attended for low income children. From the safety of a cabin the counselors had rushed them into, he and the other children had watched as the coyote had been shot and killed by a hunter who lived nearby and had been called in by the counselors. What had struck him most about the incident had been, to his eyes, the coyote's confused and unsuccessful attempts to behave as it should, to recover its sanity when it hadn't any left. With red rimmed eyes filling with tears as he had fought and failed to prevent body shattering sobs while threateningly approaching Warrick, so much of Gil's current behaviors had seemed the same to Warrick. He recognized that Grissom was holding onto his sanity by the sheerest, thinnest thread.

As angry as he was, Warrick was unwilling to be the one to snap that thread. He spun on his heel and stalked out the door which immediately was slammed and locked behind him. Wincing at the finality in the awful sound of that closing door, his heart painfully lurching, Warrick paused outside to squint up at the bright morning sun as he took several deep breaths and tried to calm down, the blood pumping so hard through his veins, he could hear it swirling through his body in his ears. No way could he and Grissom allow their very dissimilar moodiness to become unmanageable at the same time, but that had been what was about to happen in there.

He had seen that blank, flat look that had been in Grissom's eyes when he had first opened the door twice before and both times he had ended up battered and bruised. However, that had been under distinctly different circumstances. He'd been into the sex and simply taken the roughness, while it occurred, as part of the intercourse. After the second time, Grissom had been much more troubled about the too rough sex it than he and had not touched him in a similar manner since those two incidents. They were still in mutual amazement at actually loving each other, sex had become mutually phenomenal, Warrick had accustomed himself to monogamy, which he had once thought he'd never be able to do, and Gil had shown himself to be a sweet, very considerate and tender lover. most of the time, that is.

Admittedly all hadn't been, evidently still was not, happy on the homefront. Things had been constantly tumultuous. First Grissom had walked away, his attempt at emotional self-protection preventing him from seeing how important Warrick was to him. Only when he had nearly lost Warrick for good had he rectified that error by repeatedly informing Warrick how much he loved him then making the arrangements necessary for them to be with one another all day every day.

However, even after they had begun living together, the strain of trying to stay together had led to Grissom pushing Warrick away again. His insecurities had led to the erroneous assumption he could not possibly mean enough to Warrick for Warrick to remain true to him. As a result, Gil had committed the very act of betrayal he had worked himself into believing Warrick had to have done but had not. It had not been strictly the revelation of that betrayal which had driven Warrick to spend several days at Nick's place before missing Gil too much and deciding to return, but more Grissom's reaction afterward.

He had tried to blame the victim, Warrick, for the splinters being shot into their relationship, had refused to accept his own responsibility for them. That was what bugged Warrick the most and he knew he soon wouldn't be able to tolerate, was the apprehensive lack of confidence leading to blinding dishonesty with self in which Grissom trapped. It was becoming clear to Warrick this manner of handling interpersonal matters was a habit with Grissom, his way of avoiding having to tear down the massive walls he had built about himself to shield himself from emotional pain. Warrick had spent the last year trying to punch holes in those walls and was still convinced he was succeeding. As he stood on the porch in the lightly drizzling rain he realized he'd been sent him away for his own protection. Grissom had been frantic to keep himself from doing any injury to the man with whom he had chosen to share his life. To Warrick, that was proof of love. Gil had driven Warrick away rather than take a chance on hurting him.

Everything in Warrick was pulling him to go back in and inform Grissom of this realization, but he knew the time wasn't right. As he walked away, he was fast coming to one conclusion. He had to do something. For both their sakes, he had to come to a quick understanding of Grissom's behavior then bring Grissom to a similar understanding, no matter what that effort required. Otherwise, they were going to lose each other and he could not take that thought. Fact was, he could not live without Grissom and knew Grissom, whether he had yet to realize it or not, could not live without him. Therefore, there simply had to be a satisfactory common ground allowing them to come together in lasting harmony. The only possible thing left for him to do was to find what that was and show Grissom that it existed.

After a last glance back at the condo he shared and was determined to continue sharing with Grissom, he slowly walked toward his Tahoe, casually tossing a thick ring of keys into the air. They were Grissom's. He had swung down to lift them from the floor where Grissom had thrown them as he had come in and been too blinded by his fury to see Warrick palm them. As he started his vehicle up, Warrick muttered, "Sorry to steal your keys, Gris. Hope you know where your spares are. But you've got secrets you're still not telling me and I've gotta find out what they are. I love you and ain't gonna have you fuckin' us up just cause you're too much of a tight assed emotional cripple to let anyone in enough to help you."

Sure Grissom would watching him from inside the condo to be certain of his departure, he started the Tahoe, drove it a few blocks, parked, opened his glove compartment and reached for the cell phone that was in there. Impatiently waiting, he didn't even return a greeting after Nick answered but immediately demanded, "What's the matter with Grissom?"

There a silence then Nick asked, "He's still acting weird?"

"Hell yeah, he is!!" Warrick shouted, flinging his free hand into the arm. "What's wrong with him?"

"Uh, well, two cases tonight were kinda rough and they seemed to bother him a helluva lot for some strange reason."

"What were they?"

"The first was a male prostitute found dismembered in a vacant lot where derelicts used to camp out before they were forcibly cleared out by the cops. He was young, just a kid, but reminded all of us of you and that rattled Grissom. Then, you remember that case a few months ago with the two lovers named Alan Wainwright and Stephen Parker? The one where Parker got beat up by Wainwright but both of 'em claimed somebody had broken into their apartment and did it?"

"Yeah, I remember it. They didn't say anything else until a neighborhood kid with a record was arrested for some other break-ins in the area and accused of the crime. Parker got guilty and came in to confess Wainwright had beaten him up. Well, Parker's in the hospital. Earlier tonight, Wainwright slapped him around again. Parker must've had enough of that shit. So he shot Wainwright then put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. While we were at their place gathering evidence, something made Grissom shut down tighter than a new drum and he didn't act like himself for the rest of the shift."

Now, the silence came from Warrick's end of the phone line and lasted so long, Nick finally had to ask if he was still there. After that, Warrick said, "Yeah, I'm still here. Look, Nick. Grissom's in a really fucked up mood and we had an argument. I can't stay there with him right now. Mind if I come over to your place?"

"Hey man, not at all. Come on over. I'm wired and would appreciate the company."

"Thanks. I've gotta something to do first, but I'll be there in a coupla hours or so."

Allowing the cool rationality he had been learning over the years from Grissom to overtake him, his mind quick ticking in a scientific analysis of the situation, Warrick put the SUV in gear and returned to the lab. He greeted the day shift personnel as he headed for Grissom's office with the plan in mind to tell anyone who asked why he was there that he had the keys and had come in to pick up something for Grissom. But everyone was too accustomed to Warrick's presence from frequent events requiring midnights to come in on other shifts or too busy going about their own daily tasks to have much interest in why he was there. He went into Grissom's office and locked the door without any questions from anyone. Then he just stood still and let his eyes wander about the office, trying to figure out where Grissom might be hiding the information he wanted.

He was certain it had to be there. It wasn't in what they had named the bug room of their condo, Grissom's private and pristine kingdom that Warrick respected by never entering without Grissom being in there first. Even then, he always asked permission if Grissom hadn't invited him in. So, while he was sure Grissom wouldn't've hidden what he was seeking there on the off chance Warrick might go in one day and seek it when he wasn't around, which Warrick had and found nothing. Grissom had no other private areas other than his office, so here was where it had to be.

It wouldn't be on his computer. That was for solely LVPD business and Grissom wasn't the type to enter anything from his intensely private life into a forum that might be hacked by inquisitive strangers or friends. Nor would it be buried in the increasing mounds of paperwork he never quite got completed. That was also too easily accessible. He wouldn't mix it in with newly solved or recent, unsolved cases because they might be pulled for review or updating, which was sometimes done by him, Sara, Nick or Catherine. Grissom wouldn't take a chance on them coming across information he wanted to keep from them. So Warrick guessed it had to be in his old case file cabinet someplace.

In some ways, Grissom was nothing if not predictable and, over the years, Warrick had come to know him better than anyone else except maybe Catherine. When he went to the cabinet and saw the third drawer from the bottom had a combination lock on it, he was sure he was finally on the right track. Having been taught by some of his more criminally minded buddies how to listen and feel for the indicative click of running a certain digit on a combination lock that caused it to drop into the next slot, Warrick set about putting that skill to use. He had to go through a startling number of false starts, which took up a good half and hour, before he finally figured out how to open the lock. Then it still took him more than an impatient hour and a half of flipping through Grissom's closed case files to run across three thick ones without well defined designations that were totally unknown to him. He had been at CSI for eight years, long enough to know what Grissom named the majority of his case files and these three were the only ones that did not strike a note of familiarity with him.

The first was simply called REGRET and concerned an unnamed teenager who had been the son of wealthy parents and supposedly killed by a downtown drug dealer. The ultimate conclusion was the father, recalling the history of his own youthful drug use, had trailed the boy and caught him making a buy. They had argued and fought. During the fight, the father had unintentionally killed his own son then made the mistake of trying to hide what he had done by setting up the dealer to take the blame. Warrick curiously wondered why all the names had been neatly and completely blacked out, including that of the drug dealer who had been briefly arrested and every police personnel that had been involved in the case. But Grissom had solved it long before Warrick joined the team, so he put it aside.

The second was what he wanted, so he didn't waste any time looking at the third, which was named SUSPICION. The third one was entitled RAPE and it wasn't even a case. It was a thick collection of newspaper articles, printed out Web pages and an abundance of other documents plus over two hundred pages of a journal handwritten by Grissom about one man, Tim Englewood. That was the man who had date raped then arranged and participated in a gang rape in which a young Grissom had been the victim. Warrick grew increasingly furious as he read through the file, both at Englewood and Grissom. He was, of course, infuriated at Englewood for what he had done. But he was equally infuriated with Grissom for spent all these years having concentrated so much of himself on the horror of that long ago incident.

Englewood's entire life history was in the file. It included information about his birth date and birth place, where he had grown up and every school he had gone to. There were pictures of his parents and siblings, their spouses and children and Englewood himself, beginning with his childhood and continuing into his adulthood and later on into his life. The file had copies of his college transcripts, his BA diploma and even copies of papers he had written with Grissom's assistance while they had been attending the university together. It included the announcement of his engagement to a local woman of similar class and education, newspaper pictures of their wedding and a blip about their divorce. There were antidotal tales about his upbringing from fond membranes by his family and friends that had been published at various times in various newspapers when he had been a popular high school, college wide receiver with a glorious future.

There were updates from Englewood's university graduation to when he was on Canadian and semi-pro football teams after he was unable to make it into the NFL right up to the present which depicted him as a currently well-known businessman in the Los Angeles area. And there were a pile of newspaper articles about his arrest, trial, conviction, sentencing and ultimate imprisonment for second degree criminal sexual assault on a sixteen year old boy, a crime for which he served nine years and for which he adamantly maintained his innocence throughout.

To envision Grissom wasting numerous hours of numerous days through the years obsessively keeping track of a man who had abused him so badly, physically and emotionally, disappointed and infuriated Warrick. Suddenly, he came to the decision he'd personally have to put a stop to it. Once he had made copies of certain information, he put everything back as close to the way he'd found it then went over to Nick's place.

That night, almost as soon as he arrived on shift, Grissom came into the locker room, seeking him out to say he was sorry even though Greg and Nick were also there changing clothes. As always, Warrick readily accepted his apology while noting Grissom seemed to be completely back to normal. He was back in his niche of safety. However, as the other two men drifted away to give them privacy, Warrick shook his head and said, "I know it's not your fault, but alla this is too much, Gil. It's just getting to be more than I wanna handle, so I'm gonna stay at Nick's awhile."

Feeling a just bit of jealous apprehension at the choice, "Gil asked, "Why Nick's?"

Smiling a little, Warrick answered honestly, "I'd stay at Grams, but she'd ask too many questions then get busy tryin' to fix things back up between us. You and me, Gil, we're gonna haveta fix this for ourselves and we can't be together until we've both taken steps to do that. You know that just as well as I do."

It had broken Warrick's heart how ghostly pale Grissom had turned as he had spoken of their abrupt separation having a forthcoming continuance, but admired the man so much when Gil, with that innate class of his, simply graciously bowed his head in sorrowful acknowledgement of Warrick's words and said quietly, "I completely understand. Actually, you've stayed with me much longer than I anticipated you would and I'll always be grateful for that. No one else has ever been able to nor wanted to, with me being the way I am."

"Gil, I'm not sayin' I'm gone for good. I'm just saying it's better for me to be gone until we work some things out."

Grissom put a gentle hand on Warrick's arm as he gave him a wistful smile, "My hope is that we can do that. I don't want to lose you. I love you."

"I love you too, Gil. It's just that.."

"No. You don't have to further explain. I can the wheels turning in your head, trying to come up with comforting words that tell me nobody's perfect and we're both at fault for what's happening between us. I'm not going for that, Ricky. I'm not as emotionally obtuse as you think. I know quite well who bears the brunt of the responsibility for this break-up and that would be me." Briefly, he put a finger on Warrick's lips to keep him from speaking. "I have to tell you something I don't think I have before and that you very much need to know. Our being together has made of me a better man. You've helped my journey toward wholeness and I'd never had any inclination to do that before, in fact, never thought I needed to do that before until now. I know myself better because of you and appreciate the sweet love you've shared with me. I intend to do whatever's necessary for the growth of that self-awareness to continue so I can bring you back into my life and there'll be only peace and happiness, once you've returned to me."

Grissom stepped back from Warrick as he added, "Please don't lose faith in me. I'm going to do whatever it takes to get you back. I'm not going to contemplate living life without you. That simply is not imaginable. I can't and won't allow that. But when you come back, you must feel safe with me and I must feel safe with you. We've both got to know I'll always be in control of myself. For me to ever hurt you again. that would destroy me, Ricky."

"Gris, you haven't."

"No. I can't and won't allow that to go on anymore either. You and I cannot continue rationalizing this situation. The bottom line is I've. I've caused you physical trauma in two separate incidents and been distrustful and emotionally abusive toward you due to my own shortcomings, not yours. I wish I wasn't, it'd make life easier for me. But I'm too intelligent not to recognize what I am. I can't keep lying to myself and saying everything's going to eventually be all right between us, that we'll get through this on our own. I need outside help and came to not only apologize to you, but also tell you I've made an appointment with a psychiatrist on Monday. It's time for me to start using a professional to help me work through the web of the internal shit I've been carrying around all these that's made a mess of me. I've built it up so high, I can't see or get over it, can't work through it alone and won't endanger you with the harm I might do to you while I am working through it.

"So you go stay with Nick for awhile. That's probably the best thing for both of us. But know this, Warrick Brown. I'm going to get you back. I won't do that until I'm healthier, but you're mine and I'm going to get you back. Think on that every time somebody makes a play for you. Think on that every time you get horny or need comforting and look at Nick or Catherine or anybody else. As soon as I feel I've gotten myself somewhat together, I'm coming after you and you won't stand a chance against what I'll be putting down. Now. Finish getting dressed. Staff meeting starts in ten minutes. I'll see you there and don't be late."

As Gil turned away, Warrick called to him, "Hey, Gris, don't do nuthin' with my house. Don't even think about selling it because I'm not there with you. I'm gonna keep makin' my payments. I will be back. Don't think I won't. So everything better be there when I get back."

Grissom turned around to look at him and say quietly. "It'll be there, Ricky. Just let's do what we must to make everything right between us so you can hurry and come back home to me where you belong."

Warrick grinned as he watched Grissom spin on his heel to walk out the locker room and continued smiling to himself even after he had left. No matter how many or what his faults were, Grissom had class and was one man definitely worth keeping. His smile widened as Nick returned to ask, "Did you and Grissom have a good talk, get things out in the open?"

"Nah, not really. Basically, he just agreed it's probably best that we separate for now."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don't be. It's temporary. We've just got a few things we need to work out is all. Once we do that, we'll be good to go."

Nick brightened on hearing and grinned while saying, "Then that means you'll keep on staying with me for awhile longer after all, huh?"

Warrick grinned back at him, but the grin had a sharp edge to it and Warrick's eyes held a sadness that Nick missed as he said, "Yeah, man, we still get to do the beer guzzling, yelling like idiots at the game on TV thing together."

It took exactly eight days of separation from Grissom for Warrick to realize he wouldn't be able to tolerate much more. Seeing the man every day at work and not be able to touch him or have any real interpersonal contact with him was really what he couldn't handle. No matter how hard he tried to be cool and collected about it, it just wasn't going to be possible for him to get back into the former professional roles they had once had played with each other. From bland manner Grissom was behaving, it appeared he might be able to do it but Warrick was sure he could not. Every day that he went into work and had to look at Gil, it felt like he was suffocating, his heart was growing heavier and heavier. It was becoming too much for him to take. Somehow, he had to get out of the mess he was and do it fast. Therefore, the first thing he did was go to Jim Brass.

"Jim, I need to get recent information on a guy and get it without him or anybody else knowing I got it or how I got it."

Jim studied Warrick a second then asked. "Whatdaya need it for?"

Warrick studied him right back then asked him, "You know me and Gil were together, right?"

"I know you were and now you're not."

"We were because of this man and now we're not because of this man. He hurt Gil bad once upon a time, did very bad things to him and he's never paid for that."

"So you're looking to making him pay, huh?"

Warrick didn't answer for a time. Then he said, "No. I'm not. Not really. For right now, I just wanna know about 'em. Gil hasn't been able to forget about 'em. He's nuthin' to me, but he's a big thorn in Grissom's side. If he's changed, I wanna see if I can get Gil to see that so he can start letting go of his memory. If he hasn't changed. then yeah, I might. wanna see. if payback would be possible."

"Have you got anything on 'em?" Warrick handed Brass a sheet of personal information on Tim Englewood he had lifted from Grissom's office containing his name, social security number and most recent known address. Brass took it and said, "I'll see what I can do."

Four days later, Warrick and Brass met again and the first thing Brass said was, "That man is the worst kind of a bastard, a full blown, dyed-in the wool, unchangeable, sonafabitchin', muthafucker of a bastard. I don't know what the hell he might've done to Grissom, but what else he's done is nine years of hard time for raping a kid fifteen years ago. He tore him up good. The boy had to have rectal surgery. The only reason your guy didn't do more time is the boy was a hustler and the jury couldn't be convinced it didn't start out consensual and get rougher than was intended. Englewood was also accused of rape on an ex-boyfriend six years ago, but the charge was dropped to assault and battery when the boyfriend got scared or embarrassed and refused to testify. He only did a year in the county jail for that. Both times he was behind bars, while he was in the county and while he was upstate, it was reported he forced himself on fellow prisoners and paid guards to look the other way. Since he got out of jail on the A&B, there's been a host unsubstantiated rumors he's involved in a widespread pedophile organization arranging local and overseas trysts for wealthy men to be serviced by young boys. He's one of the owners of a big construction corporation that's been expanding internationally and it's said they use it as a cover, but nobody's been able to prove anything. How in the hell did you and Grissom get tied into a guy like him?"

"Believe me, you don't wanna know. Anyway, Grissom wouldn't want you to know, so I can't tell you."

"Oh. I see. Well, now that you know what you know, what're you gonna do about it?"

Warrick shrugged. "I don't know yet. All I do know is he's a monkey climbing all over Grissom's back and I've gotta find some way to get the fucker off."

"If you're willing make the effort and spend some time, I might just be able to help you with that. I've got some FBI friends down in LA trying to close down him and his friends' kiddie operation. They're the contacts who gave me the goods on your guy. They told me he's hot for fine looking studs that're kinda sorta. just like you. I know you're not into that pretty boy lifestyle anymore, but they've been having trouble getting a reliable undercover source willing to go on the inside to get information about how these baby assignations are set up and who they're being set up with. No matter what you used to be, you were a cop for a minute and now, you're a cop at heart. How'd you like to be the one to assist my FBI buddies in doing that?"

"That works for me. Let's do this thing."

When Warrick came in to put in for the five weeks of vacation he was due, Grissom looked down at the paperwork for a long, silent moment. Then, without looked up, he said, trying to keep any note of despondency out his voice, "I remember when we talked about taking our vacations together and going skiing."

Warrick said sharply, "Don't do that, Gil. We're not together now. Don't make this hard for me. The break up was your idea, not mine. I just went with the flow."

Now Grissom did look up at him. "I never wanted us to break up. I was. only. worried about your safety and well being. I only wanted."

"No. I don't want to get into this now, I really don't."

"Of course you don't." Gil looked back down at the forms. "You want to start your vacation on Monday? That's only three days from now. This must be a snap decision. What's the rush?"

"That's not your concern. Sign the papers or don't and let me go."

Grissom signed the papers.

The following Monday morning, Warrick took an early flight out to Los Angeles. After renting a car and going to the downtown hotel where he had made a reservation, he put his luggage in his room, had a leisurely lunch then went to keep an appointment Brass had made for him with a burly, harried, hard charging FBI agent named Ed Taylor.

"Thanks for agreeing to do this for us, Mr. Brown, but before we get into the whys, and how to, but while I have the utmost respect for and trust in Jim Brass and know he recommended you for this job and speaks highly of you, I gotta hear straight from the horse's mouth why you think you're the one who can do this."

"I didn't always do what I do now and Brass knew me when I didn't. I used to be a numbers runner and a gambler in Vegas. I've ran a few con jobs in my time and I was pretty good at it. I cut it close, when it came to me not ending up on the wrong side of the law. Brass let me slide several times and I owe him for that. He knows I grew up without parents, which means I grew up poor and hard on the wrong side of the tracks with friends who wanted to lead me wrong, wanted me going wrong just because they were going wrong and thought it was best for us to go wrong together. But luck, a grandmother who loved me, so beat my ass to keep me turning back to the right road, and meeting the right people at the right time led me to where I'm at now, which is working for the LVPD."

"Good answer. That's all I needed to hear. Let's get down to business. What we've being trying to do is close shop of this child prostitution ring for years and only had partial success. We know who they are, what they do and who they do it. We know who their contacts, pimps and madams are on both sides of the ocean. But they keep shifting, expanding and updating their territory and technology on us. If we can find out where their main base is, gather in all of their paperwork and data to get the names of their clientele and prove in a court of law they've got this set up going, that'll be the break we need. One reason why we think getting in good with Tim Englewood might do that for us is the company in which he's an owner, Joss Construction, has got big money contracts in India and each of the Asian countries where child prostitution's most prevalent, making it an excellent conduit for money laundering. Another reason is he has a long standing membership in two very private and very exclusive clubs catering to wealthy homosexuals.

"Now I you want to understand, these clubs have nothing to do with the pedophile ring Englewood helps others to run. Some of my guys, women and men alike, are homophobic buttholes and are convinced that they do, no matter what I say. But I know they're totally unconnected. We're only sending you to the one meeting tomorrow night because we want you to get as close to Englewood as possible. You're just his type. He's had three lovers who resembled you. In fact, you look a lot like him. Englewood's a helluva of a narcissistic individual who gets off on himself. He'd marry himself if he could. In fact, you're his younger version, a big, healthy, good-looking, hulk of a guy like he was in his football playing day. It'll be easy for him to get a hard-on for you. I should tell you; with the lovers that he's liked; Englewood's a real romantic in the beginning. He'll do right by you then. He only mistreats young rent boys he hires as one night stands and lovers who leave him before he's ready for 'em to go. But we'll have you outa there long before that happens.

"So here's how this'll go down. We've already got an undercover agent who joined this club you're going to a couple of years ago. His name's Roger Holloway and he'll pick you up at 8:00 pm tomorrow evening. You'll go in as his guest and acquaint yourself with Englewood. Then turn on the charm. From what you say about your past life and the looks of you, that should be easy. Get to know the man, get familiar with 'em, get as close to him as you can, take it far as you can, as far as you're willing, as far as your moral standards will allow you to go. Got that? Good.

"Now, this watch is high tech and contains a wire. It's not tasteful and it's bulky, but still much less intrusive and noticeable than a body wire. We'll be able to hear everything going on around you and we'll be right there if anything bad jumps off. Get Englewood to say as much as you can, get as much info outa him as you can. Far as we've been able to find out, he's one of the main go to men for the ring. He and his people are the ones who set up the clients' overseas trips and keep track of the local and international client base. Do what you can to discover where they do that.

"Take these. They're the identification papers we had made up for you. We named you close enough to who you really are for you to easily remember your fake name, but far enough from who you actually are for nobody to quickly pick up on your actual identity. You're Richard Jones now, a wannabe from Compton trying to make it as an actor in Hollywood. You've got the style and looks to carry that off. Next, what we're gonna do is have one of our more fashion conscious agents take you shopping. She'll get you dressed out to the nines. We're gonna even let you take your wardrobe home with you when you leave. We've never been able to get anybody Englewood was interested in enough who could get in close to him. We've got a good idea on how he likes his lovers to be dressed and that's how we're going to outfit you. It'll be more than worth the cost of the clothes if you can find out where the operation's headquarters is or where the client list is kept. If you can get both, that will be absolutely outstanding."

"I'm getting this feeling, with your help, this's gonna work out so well. Brown, you're our best bet yet. Englewood is gonna make a beeline for your ass. Jim Brass told me you're cleared to do this for us over the next four weeks. But with the groundwork we've already laid in, I'd lay odds it won't take that long. You spin this for us right, we'll have everything we need to break this thing wide open in two weeks tops. We've already got everything else we need, except the exact whereabouts of the evidence. We get that and we're good to go. You do this one on one for me, put the goods in my grasping, not so little paws and you'll not only have my gratitude for life, but also will get to have me owing you one huge favor, Mr. Brown, and I always pay my debts."

The agent who went shopping with Warrick not only bought him several complete changes of clothes inclusive of formal, semi-formal and casual wear that dressed him from the skin down to socks and shoes, she carried him to a hair stylist who also arranged for him to get a pedicure, manicure and massage then took him out to dinner and a night club for a late evening of dancing. By the time he fell into the bed with the sunrise, he was blissfully worn out and well on his way to adapting to his temporary change in lifestyle. When he woke, it was well into the afternoon, which wasn't much different than working on the midnight shift at the lab. He took a hot shower, had room service bring up a late breakfast and ate while he studied the file Ed Taylor had given him as an update on the man's current patterns as well as criminal records Brass had additionally passed on to him and looked over the information he had lifted from Grissom's office. He wanted to firmly implant as much information about the man as possible into his head before he came face to face with him.

Then he got dressed and walked over to the Joss Construction building only three blocks away from his hotel just to see what it looked like. He had purposely chosen this particular hotel because it was near the one Englewood worked at. Architecturally, it was a colorful and magnificent, very artistically designed. If it was representative of the work the company did, Warrick could understand why its legitimate business was growing. Anyone would be proud to claim ownership of such a beautiful structure. He was wandering around on the third floor of the eleven story building when he heard a secretary say, "Mr. Englewood, your sister called. She said something came up and she's running a little late for dinner at Ranchero's, so will be there about 15 minutes or so behind time."

As Warrick heard a deep, masculine voice saying cheerfully and eased back out of sight, "That's not a problem, honey. I've got so much to do before I can get there, I'll probably be late myself," he felt a chill run down his spine. From the shadow of a recess near a water fountain, he watched in silence as a black man taller and much wider than himself with an overwhelming air of professional confidence in an expensive suit strode past him. He wasn't fat, just big all over, his girth that of an always muscular man whose muscles were softening as he got older and who was too busy to take the time to exercise and keep them hardened. He was accompanied by three other business men as he rapidly strode down the hallway and too busy conversing with them to notice the younger black man gazing at them from a nearby recess.

Stepping out, Warrick watched Englewood go by him and smiled, just a little. This was not going to be difficult, he thought. He had seen men similar to him before. That was one money hungry, power seeking character. It was written all over him. And Warrick had found, due to experiences of his earlier life, that money hungry, power seekers were always targets for a fast con. They were frequently blinded by greed and that made them careless, which made them almost too easy to take down. Plus, he was a juicy, full bodied bastard, oozing all over with lust. It was just about seeping from his pores. The dirty minded sonafabitch was loaded with it. Warrick had heard it in his voice and seen it in his eyes. Oh, yeah, Lolita had taught him well. This was gonna be one of the quickest tricks he had ever rolled.

With his smile widening into a grin, Warrick quietly moved toward the stairs, jogged down them lightly to the ground floor to quickly and quietly leave the building in order to assure he wouldn't cross paths with Englewood and meet up with him before he should. He didn't want to ruin ahead of time what was sure to be a very eventful next few weeks.

At eight o'clock sharp that evening, there was a knock at Warrick's hotel room. He opened it to an elegantly attired, very trim and dapper, middle-aged man with short shorn gray hair and piercing, light blue eyes standing slightly above five foot eight in height. He held out a slim hand, which Warrick automatically shook, smiled perkily and said in a low, well modulated, "Good evening, Mr. Brown. Oh. Excuse me. What I should say is, good evening, Mr. Jones. I'm agent Roger Holloway, your handy dandy escort." His eyes expertly shot up to Warrick's rich mass of professionally coiffed tight curls, gave his cream colored, perfectly tailored, classically modern Calvin Klein suit with its sexy edge covering the lanky frame a quick once over before landing on the shiny, dark brown alligator pumps on Warrick's feet. "Oh yes," he murmured appreciatively, "You'll do. You'll definitely do."

He smartly swiveled a hip slightly to cock his right arm up, resting his fist on a thigh, his elbow akimbo for Warrick to take hold as he purred, "Shall we go?"

Roger Holloway had a Lincoln Continental which he drove to a wealthy neighborhood north of Los Angeles very well and very fast. He drove it there so fast, without, it seemed to Warrick, slowing down for any curves, other traffic or red lights, that Warrick checked to make sure his seat belt was secured numerous times, reached for the dashboard more times than that and constantly prayed that he survived the trip. Roger was a talkative fellow and bent Warrick's ear the entire time they were traveling. "I don't look like an FBI agent, do I? Well, that's precisely why I am. I've never been the type to let anybody tell me what I can or can't be solely because I don't look like I should or shouldn't be this or that. What I am, my good man, is a very rich faggot and proud to be one. I'm even a highly decorated Marine. Of course I had to put up with that don't ask, don't tell bullshit while I was on active duty and still have to keep my lifestyle on the low, low as an agent, but I don't hide what I am nor what I do and I dare anybody to make an issue of it. If they ever do, I intend to sue the pants off the lot of 'em and I've got the wherewithal to do that. One Granddad down in Texas is into oil and real estate, owns half the state and would be glad to back me up if I do have to sue. My other Granddad owned the other half of the state, had a golden touch with the stock market and left all of what he had to me, his only grandson, when he died. Oh hell yes, I'd sue the shoes, socks and panties off everybody and their grandmas if they fuck with me because of my sexual orientation and they damn well already know this.

"Some of my fellow agents have tried to fuck with me; which I've made many of them regret; but I'm fortunate to now have Eddie as my supervisor. He's one helluva good boss, the very best. Him and me, we work well together. He's got such a unique way of doing things and knows I'm a good agent who does my job. I simply love that man and I mean that in the platonic sense. Eddie flies straight, got a wonderful wife and four wonderful kids. We're best friends. He likes me and I like him because he gets things done right. Like how he's bringing you in to put the final wedge into this case? Nobody else would've thought of that. We needed some fresh, new blood, somebody from out of town who could put a light up under Englewood. Everybody before him tried to break this ring by going after those at the top, never thought to go at it from the middle management where the bulk of the work is done. But Eddie did. That's where all the niggling paper trails are. That's where we've been getting the information that'll eventually help put the top, middle and the bottom away. We get our hands on the rest of it and that's when we put everybody behind bars."

Warrick leaned back, closed his eyes so he couldn't see the death he was sure was coming at him due to the reckless driving but kept his ears open just in case Roger's chattering dropped information his should know. However, despite the speed, they finally arrived safely at their destination. As a young, smiling, female valet opened his passenger door, Warrick climbed shakily from the Lincoln to find himself in the circular drive of a brightly lit mansion. After they went up the marble steps and walked through two sets of double doors into a foyer, Roger handed a silver gilded card to one of two doormen. He studied it for a moment then handed it to the first of a line up of butlers in black tie and tails. The butler moved from a line up with Roger and Warrick following him from the foyer through a large, semi-lit room with a highly polished floor to another set of double door behind which Warrick heard the murmur of a large crowd.

When the butler opened these doors and stepped to the side, he was admitting them into a ballroom three times the size of the room through which they had just passed and one filled to capacity with men of many ages, many shapes and many sizes, if not many colors, in evening dress. And many eyes turned toward them when Roger entered with Warrick, most of them raking over Warrick just as Roger's had when he had first seen him. Roger noticed that as they walked in and he murmured, "Oh, this is going to work out very well. You're getting a lot of attention, Mr. Jones. I hope you know how to take advantage of it. I realize this might be a different sort of venue for you, but it IS something you can handle, right?"

"Oh, yeah," Warrick said, his eyes already moving about as he looked for Englewood. "That's not gonna be a problem."

"That's good, because I won't be hanging around you for much of the evening. That'd be defeating our purpose. If I were to do that, others might be reluctant to approach you. We have to make sure everyone's aware that, while you're here as my guest, you aren't private property. Therefore, I will soon begin flirting with others. I expect you to do the same with the ultimate goal being you leaving with Englewood. We want you to get him to talk to you, go home with him and look around in there if you can. But I want to make this very, very clear. You stay safe with him. He's a dangerous man. Don't do anything, and I mean not one damn thing, that puts you in jeopardy. Is that understood?"

"It's understood."

"Don't forget you're wearing a wire and we've got a team that'll always be posted nearby if you get into any trouble. If you do, just holler out and they'll come running."

Roger walked into the ballroom reaching for Warrick's hand and gaily swinging their intertwined fingers whenever he paused here and there to introduce him to various friends and acquaintances. Warrick, vastly amused by how the man could so easily move from former Marine and professional FBI agent to educated homosexual steadfastly defending his constitutional rights to choice of lifestyle to wealthy, flirty faggot, just as easily fell into his role of a kick ass, cool and charismatic, laidback worldly brother on the make. It wasn't difficult. He was wearing the expensive clothing designed for it and he'd always had the looks, sensuality and attitude for it.

Even before Roger discreetly wandered away, members of the club and their guests were putting the make on Warrick, making it unnecessary for him to put the make on them. They were coming up to inquire his name and his reason for being there from Roger then boldly stepping in front of Roger to start a conversation with him. After Roger left, he noted that Warrick couldn't move more than a few feet without drawing a small crowd of lingering admirers. Being one of only four African-Americans in attendance who weren't on the serving staff, it didn't take long for Warrick to come to Englewood's attention. Although he was engaged in discussion with several other people, Englewood's eyes zeroed in on Warrick over the crowd and stayed there. It was less than ten minutes before the big man disentangled himself from those about him and was on his way to Warrick's side. After that, he allowed no one else near the younger man, once actually swept away one hanger away on with a beefy arm. The man, enamored of Warrick and hoping to have him to himself after peeling Englewood off him, had simply refused to leave. Englewood, after brusquely brushing him so hard to the side that he nearly tumbled to the floor, grabbed Warrick's elbow and rudely strode elsewhere with him.

As the evening had wound down, Roger had popped up in near the sofa on which the two big men were seated to remind Warrick that, as the man who had brought him, it was time for them to go. Without giving Warrick the slightest opportunity to speak, Englewood had said he'd be sure to get Warrick back to his hotel and Roger could go his merry way, the look in his eyes saying Roger had no choice about the matter. Roger had acquiesced, making a show of his reluctance. As he had done that, he had first looked searchingly into Warrick's eyes and seen a certain sensuous laziness that had assured him of who was in charge of whatever forthcoming events went down.

Englewood might present an overt, pugnacious, ex-con danger, but Warrick had a lean, lethal, deadly aura of his own. He was relaxed and confident, looked like a man who could take care of himself. Only after he had ascertained that had Roger walked away, smiling grimly as he'd gone outside the mansion to call for the valet to bring his car around. No doubt about it, the lock was in. Success was at hand.

Warrick did indeed go home with Englewood that night and Englewood did indeed want sex. But how he wanted it did not appeal to Warrick. He was insistent on being the dominant partner, which just so wasn't happening. The only man Warrick had ever allowed to penetrate him was Grissom and he wasn't ready for a change. Therefore, a long, not always playful wrestling match ensued, one Warrick might have lost if he hadn't nearly as tall as Englewood, younger and more in shape with the superior physique, quicker to pick up on Englewood's erogenous zones than the older man was able to pick up on his and able to talk game better than Englewood.

It finally came down to Warrick betting Englewood if he couldn't make Englewood want to get fucked in less than thirty seconds just by fingering his ass, he'd let Englewood do whatever he wanted to him and wouldn't complain about it. Liking the idea of that, Englewood had agreed. Standing up sturdily buck naked with his feet firmly planted wide apart, his fists on his hips as Warrick moved to stand in back of him, he had waited with a leer on his face, already anticipating what he planned to do to Warrick. But this those long, lean fingers had eased into him, the lubrication on them making the journey an easy one, unerringly found his prostate, and done things to him nobody else ever had. Eventually, he had found himself breathing irregularly and doing nothing to stop Warrick as he put a condom on and, pushing on Englewood back so he was bent over, moved to mount him.

Within a few minutes, Warrick was on his feet hovering behind Englewood, holding him up and riding him hard, hands on his hips to keep him squatting in place, pulling straight out then thrusting straight in as deep and fast as he could without finesse and technique, uncaring of the other man's pleasure, just seeking his own. All he wanted was the fuck, a tight, wet, hot hole in which to deposit his seed. It had been over a six weeks since he had ejaculated except by the use of his own hand and the luscious sensation of being fully buried in another's flesh was simply stupendous. Fantasies of Grissom were tumbling through his head to drive him on and, as he neared orgasm, he was hard put not to scream out his lover's name. But he shook his head violently, clenching his teeth to prevent that. No way was he going to allow himself to call Gil's precious name aloud in this unpleasant atmosphere. It did not belong here.

With those long withheld fluids finally pouring from his body, his head began to clear and he realized Englewood hadn't suffered from Warrick's total lack of concern for his satisfaction. He was twisting and bucking wildly beneath Warrick, breathlessly squealing like a stuck pig, his semen splattering the floor about the same time Warrick's was filling his ass, repeatedly splashing down in thick, white, slippery ropes slinging out to wrap around his arms and slide down over his reflexively clutching fingers. He kept grunting and stiffening, his whole body hunching up then going rigid as his climax continued even after Warrick's was done, the surges of cum ongoing while he softened.

At last, his knees gave way and he dropped to all fours on the carpet, dripping with sweat, panting and muttering hoarsely with his head hanging down, "Christ. Christ. Jesus H. Christ. Nobody's ever fucked me like that. I've never liked getting fucked cause it's never felt like that. I never knew it could feel like that. I'm not gonna be able to sit down for a week, but that was so goddamned good." Trembling, Englewood weakly stretched out flat on the floor and chuckled. "This must be how women feel when they've been fucked right. I do know I'm sure as hell gonna want you to do it again."

"Not a problem," Warrick said, taking deep breaths as slipped his condoms off and tossed them into a nearby wastebasket with a mild frown of disgust. Then he leaned over with his hands on his knees, panting slightly, watching the other man with unreadable eyes. "Oh, believe me. I plan to fuck you until you can't see straight, I really, really do."

Warrick didn't get back to his hotel room for six straight days and that was because he insisted upon it. Glutted from having to have sex up to three times a day, sometimes more, and no privacy at all, he needed time away from the man. Englewood wanted to spend as much time as possible with him, was domineering and controlling as hell. Strangely enough, just as Ed Taylor had said, he was also a romantic who loved candlelight dinners in public and private. Despite his previous incarcerations, he was still in the closet to his family except for the sister living in Los Angeles who was an in the closet lesbian. He had convinced the rest of his family that his first imprisonment had resulted from a false accusation and the second had been a simple disagreement. They had believed him when he had said they were flukes that would never occur again. Since they lived in Michigan and knew nothing of his Californian lifestyle, they hadn't any reason to doubt him.

So, Englewood had no qualms about taking Warrick out or showing him off to friends and his sister. He always began showering Warrick with gifts, casually dropping jewelry and other items into his lap, buying expensive articles of clothing and ordering Warrick to wear them immediately, being spontaneous about trips across the country or to other countries and saying they were business trips but insisting that Warrick go with him. It turned out to be the most breathless month of Warrick's life. He'd had others do similar things for him but this was most amazing because it was a black man spending so freely on him, which he had never experienced, and one he should have been despising.

That was not to say he liked Englewood, for he did not. Even if he hadn't been arranging the despicable things with children that he was, the man just wasn't likeable. He was discourteous to those who worked for him, treating them like peons, expecting them to stay and work hard solely because they were well paid, which most of them did as long as they could, fawning over clients until he got what he wanted from them then tossing them to the side and sneering at everyone else, unbelievably but firmly believing the majority of them were beneath him.

He seemed to like Warrick not only for his attractiveness but for his intelligence as well, saying he'd met men with looks and no smarts, smarts and looks but seldom in combination at the same time. Englewood never wanted to be away from Warrick, went so far as to begin taking him to work with him, would have Warrick sitting bored stiff to the side as he conducted staff meetings or met with clients. Warrick had, starting to uncomfortably feel like a boy toy, had enough. He was ready to put the hook in, finish up the con. With Brass getting the sheriff to arrange it, he had been away from Vegas eight weeks already instead of five and wanted to go home. He managed to get away and call Ed Taylor, who agreed to meet with him so Warrick could air his complaints about what was taking so long.

Nodding his head, Taylor said, "You're right, you're right, we should've had you outa there before now. But your wire was feeding us so much good stuff, we went too far, got greedy and wanted more. But I don't think we need it. Here's the important part of what you've gotten us and what I think will do it. Remember one of the trips Englewood took with you was to the place in Petoskey, Michigan?"

"Yeah, I remember that because it was colder than hell and because you had the never to call and ask me to break into a locked room he had there cause he was emailing strange shit overseas from there. You wanted to know what kind of computer system he had in there."

"That was it. That was it. You did a good job with that, too. You getting the brand names off 'em helped us out a lot. His CPUs were some kinda sophisticated Japanese setup that had been interfaced with his Asian and Indian counterparts which's what had made so difficult for us to break down his programming. Don't ask me to explain. I can barely handle a keyboard enough to type a memo. Anyway, we haven't cracked his code yet, but I'm told we're about to and we think it'll be the client list we've been after, because three days later, a junket of four men met up and went over to a brothel of girls over in Cambodia. The oldest of the children there is only twelve. Some of them get paid a little bit of nuthin' and some are actually slaves who were sold by their parents."

Seeing Warrick frown at the idea of what those children had to be suffering, Taylor said, "But that's information I'm sure you don't wanna know and don't haveta know. Just know we're closing in on getting 'em outa there. The other thing I can tell you is," Taylor pointed out as he tapped the watch he had told Warrick he could hand over and not wear anything, "from the conversations you had and the trips you've taken with Englewood, we've narrowed down their biggest base of operations to four places. It's either over in Petoskey, upstate New York, Mexico or Canada. We knew it had to be on this continent and now we know about where. That's where most of what we want is gonna be. We've already got warrants to check out the first two locations, but didn't want to scare anybody into running for cover, so were waiting for permission from the Mexican and Canadian governments to check out the other two before we made our move. While we were waiting for that, we figured we'd keep you in place, since you were doing such a fantastic job. I'm apologizing to you for that. You're free to go home any time you're ready, Mr. Brown. Thanks for everything. You've gone above and beyond in service to your country."

"You're goddamn right I have." After Warrick stood up to leave, he turned to ask one more question. "That wire. It picked up everything, didn't it?"

Taylor grinned. "It sure did. I wasn't gonna mention it, but since you've brought it up, I have got tell ya this. From the sound of things over these last few weeks, you are one very energetic and vigorous young man, very, very vigorous, indeed." Warrick could not think of a single thing, in fact, did not want to think of a thing to say to that. So he just matched Taylor's grin, shook his head and walked out.

Within an hour, he was packed and ready to go. He turned in his rental car and was at the airport two hours after that, catching the first flight heading back to Las Vegas. While on the plane, he called Catherine and asked her to come pick him up. But when he stepped into the waiting area, much to his surprise, it was Grissom, not Catherine, there for him. Slowing his pace to a crawl, he found himself smiling as he stopped near the man whose very presence made his heart turn flipping wheels of happiness on that first unexpected sight despite all the turmoil they were going through trying to make their relationship work out. As he matched Warrick's smile with a faint one of his own, Grissom said quietly and simply, "I love you, Warrick. I know Catherine said she was going to pick you up, but I'm ready for you to be back with me, so that's part of my job."

Shaking his head in wonderment, Warrick resumed walking and came up close to Grissom to say softly, "Goddamnit, Grissom, I swear you are the most pigheaded, tenacious sonafabitch I've ever known in my life. If I didn't love you so much, I'd slap the shit outa you, just to see if that'd get to you to be less stubborn."

"It most certainly would not, not if it that has to anything to do with you not being a permanent part of my personal life. That notion is one I prefer not to ever contemplate." Grissom's blue eyes darkened as he narrowed the very small space that remained between him and Warrick, an unusual move for him, an extremely private man, to make in the very public arena of the bustling airport and rested the tips of his fingers, very, very gently, against Warrick's cheek. Then he gripped Warrick's arm and Warrick could feel him trembling as he whispered, "I've missed you more than I thought possible for me to miss anyone or anything in the eight weeks, four days and ten hours you've been gone. You were gone so long, that I thought you might not come back. I missed you while you still in town and staying at Nick's and coming to work, where I still saw you but while you weren't living at home. It just wasn't the same, even then.

"You've got to come back to me, Ricky. I want you back home. I want you in the same place where I am. I can't live there without you. It may sound crazy and infantile, but I've been walking around and sleeping with pieces of your clothes, just so I could have the smell of you near me. I know I drove you away, but I need you back. If you wish, I'll go down on my knees right here and now and beg you to come back on any terms you like. I'll get rid of my bugs and my classics and listen to your jazz all day every day. I won't ever touch you again, if you don't want. We'll live celibate forever. We'll live however you want. We can have parties every weekend and I'll be the friendliest host you've ever seen. Just please. Come home with me."

For a moment, Warrick said nothing, just stood smiling at Gil. The man was trying the best he knew how to become a martyr for the sake of love but it was an ill-fitting role for Gil Grissom to play and it was touching that he would attempt it. Warrick honestly meant to respond in a similar grave and civilized manner since Grissom had spoken so seriously. But the peaceful bubble of contentment that had begun on the airplane because he was finally going home and which had grown into delightful exhilaration as soon as he'd laid eyes on Gil now caused Warrick to burst out into uncontainable gleeful laughter at those words. Quite surprised by that, Gil's eyes widened slightly as he cocked his head in that familiar, birdlike movement expressing a mildly confused curiosity and that made Warrick laugh even more. Finally, with his eyes sparkling as he got himself under control, Warrick said, "Let's go get my stuff and then we can talk about it."

After they had gotten his luggage, they settled in a booth in an airport restaurant, ordered lunch and talked about nothing much until Grissom dropped the bomb of, "I should tell you that I've been seeing a psychiatrist, Ricky, like I said I would."

"You've been what?"

"I've been seeing a psychiatrist, a Dr. Jeannette Proctor."

Warrick grinned with amusement at the name in his voice. "You've being seeing a Dr. Proctor?"

"Please, Warrick. I'm being serious. She's very good. Catherine recommended her."

"Catherine recommended her?"

"Yes. Apparently, Catherine started going to her when things got bad between her and Eddie. That's what gave her the strength to finally leave and get a divorce. You can see how happy and strong is she is now as a single mother. Dr. Proctor's very good. I've had several insightful sessions with her and I'd like both of us to go see her."

But Warrick shook his head. "I'm not much of one for headshrinkers, Gris. My family never was into that kinda shit. We never put our business into the street like that."

"This isn't putting our business into the street, Ricky. It's about getting ourselves healthy. It's about making ourselves happy. I want you back home with me more than you can possibly know. But I can't have you there with the fear that I might hurt you or that you might let me hurt you always rolling around in the back of my mind."

"Gil, I won't ever let you."

"Warrick, I'm sorry, but whatever you have to say on this matter is immaterial. I want you back and must have you back. I wish I could deny myself the pleasure of your company but haven't that kind of strength. You're a necessity I have to have. But if you can't or won't agree to go with me to Dr. Proctor at least once, the very instant I feel any sensation of an uncontrollable urge to hurt you, I promise you, I'll leave and do my utmost never to return to you. I've failed you twice and shall not a third time. That's my most solemn and sincere vow to myself and to you. I want you to come back. But the first time I think I feel I'm about to do anything harmful to you, I'm leaving and I won't ever come back."

In silence, Warrick studied Gil for the longest time, looking into somber blue eyes and realizing he was seeing Grissom speak from the heart as much as the man ever had. Finally, he said, "All right, Gil. If that's the way things have gotta be, all right. I'll go with you at least once. Set it up. I'll be there."

Dr. Proctor's office was spacious and lavishly furnished, on the 17th floor of a downtown skyscraper. When they entered for an evening appointment a week later, Warrick was mildly nervous, more than a little suspicious and extremely reluctant when he met the tall brunette woman in her fashionable, dark blue power suit and spike heels. Her lively, very intelligent gray eyes raked him professionally as she drawled, "Good evening, Mr. Brown. I'm glad to finally meet you. Dr. Grissom's told me a lot about himself and about you."

"I'll just bet he has," Warrick growled.

"Come on in and have a seat. I've set out refreshments. You're my last clients of the day, so we have all the time we need to relax and talk."

As he sat down, Warrick said, "We're here for Gil, not me. I haven't got anything to talk about."

Dr. Proctor smiled as she said, "Of course you do. Every relationship is a two way street with a whole bunch of side streets shooting off from that very busy main street. Both of you bring your past histories into that main street. You're both scientists and understand the dynamics of dissection. You've gathered forensic evidence then separately examined it to make of it a whole picture to build a conclusion from your original hypothesis for a criminal matter. By coming together, you've created a new set of emotional entanglements that now has to be taken apart, straightened out and subjected to intense scrutiny in order to create a healthy and happy foundation for your relationship. That is our goal here. Now, before we begin, let me say, Dr. Grissom's given me permission to give you a synopsis of what he's already told me during our previous sessions. It goes something like this."

"He was raised by an artistically inclined, well educated, highly intellectual mother who had gone deaf before he was born and who already had too many outside interests to allow her only child to become the center of her life. His parents divorced when he was just five years old and his father, an international import/export dealer, traveled too much to be involved in family life, so was peripheral to his son's upbringing. They were lacking in parenting skills and emotionally distant, which resulted in their son becoming emotionally detached himself, much to his detriment. He also suffered two unsuccessful love affairs while in college, one with a female professor who admired his intelligence but who denigrated his sexual prowess in the same breath and another with a fellow male student that led to a traumatizing gang rape for which he never received subsequent medical care or counseling. This, along with lack of childhood love, crippled his social and interpersonal interaction with others throughout his adulthood until he met and fell in love with you, Mr. Brown."

"That should've been a positive occurrence." Looking at Warrick, Dr. Proctor asked of him, "Can you tell me why it wasn't?"

Glancing at over Grissom, Warrick said, "Mostly, I think it was. If any of it wasn't, it's cause I. kinda look like the guy who. hurt him in college."

"Precisely. You too much resemble the man who instigated his rape. That's one obvious reason why Dr. Grissom has difficulty separating the man you are from the man that person was. Now that we've brought that into the open, we're going to leave that for the time being and go on to other matters. Dr. Grissom's told me of your reluctance about coming here, but I'm hoping you'll be willing to tell me a little about yourself, even if you don't believe you need to. It might assist us in better understanding important dysfunctions of the connections you two have created between yourselves."

His face tightening, Warrick looked at her and said, "I don't know what you want me to say."

"Well, for now, let's just start with your upbringing."

After another glance at Grissom, who was staring at the opposite wall with a closed, guarded look on his face, Warrick took a deep breath and began. "Okay. I never knew my father. I don't know if he's dead or alive or where he's at. My mother died when I was seven and my grandmother raised me in Vegas and I loved it."

"Very briefly, tell me about your life while you were growing up."

"Ain't much to tell. It was classic for my neighborhood. I grew up right here in Las Vegas and it was a perfect fit for me, tuned right to my rhythms. Grams was a Christian and into the church and strict, but I was into trying to be slick and gave into peer pressure. Still, she loved me and I loved her back. We didn't have much and the lady worked two, sometimes three jobs, just to take care of me. I had no choice except to do what I could to help out. Like I've told Gil, lotsa of what I did wasn't legal. For years I didn't tell Grams what I was doin', just brought money home and said I was doin' odd jobs for neighbors or local store owners and stuff like that. Actually, I was running numbers by the time I was eight, cause cops won't bother a kid as quick as they will grown ups. I was already was developing a taste for gambling by then, but didn't get into it big time 'til I was at ULV and had to start paying for tuition and my own living expenses. That's when I found out I had the knack and got hooked. Like most gamblers, I wasn't as good as I thought I was and lost more'n I won, but couldn't see that for years. Still, things were pretty cool for awhile. Least, I thought they were. What was really happening was, I was turning into this perennial student walking a fine line between an honest and a criminal life cause I had a girlfriend named Lolita Avondale who finer than a snail's eyelash tryin' to turn me into a full time grifter. I was working the serious con on the side, had a gambling monkey growing on my back that was putting me in debt to the wrong people and was doin' all kinds of illegal shit to pay my bills.

"And then," Warrick cocked his head at Grissom and smiled a little, "that's when I first saw Gris at a forensic workshop he gave on campus, which was a good thing. He turned me from what I was doin', got me onto a different track in life."

"Before we get into that, why did you stay so long on that criminally inclined road you were headed down?"

"Cause right or wrong, I liked it. At the time, I was in love with Lolita and my Vegas lifestyle. I was seriously enjoying the hell outa everything I was doing."

"Why?"

Warrick shrugged. "This's my kinda town. It fits me."

"You said it's in tune to your rhythm, Mr. Brown. Tell me more about that."

Frowning, Warrick asked, "Tell you more about it how? I don't understand."

"Dr. Grissom's told me you have a love of music. From the beginning, you've expressed how perfectly Las Vegas fits your rhythm, applying to it what I consider to be musical terms. Do you relate many factors of your life to musical rhythms?"

"I.guess maybe I do."

"Do you know why?"

For a moment, Warrick said nothing. But Dr. Proctor waited patiently, as did Gil, and he finally said, "Well. I guess. it's cause I grew up in what's called a saintified church and those holy folks sing and dance like no other. Grams and Mama put music in me. I don't remember my father, but Mama did. All I know about him is the darkness and sadness he left in her before she died and that she passed it on to me. He was a jazz and blues musician, played the trumpet, left it and some other of his things with her when he disappeared. Mama made a shrine of them that nobody, including me, his own son, could touch. Grams hated the man and threw away all of his stuff soon as Mama died. I never got to have any of it. They wouldn't let me. They didn't want me to, Mama because she loved him too much and wanted him to belong only to her and Grams because she hated him too much and didn't want him to belong to none of us. Neither she nor Mama understood how. precious having his things might've been to me. I remember standing next to Grams and watching her burn all of it in a barrel in our backyard, listening to her mutter terrible curses at my father and wishing, just once, I could've touched some of it."

There was silence. When no one said anything, Warrick took a deep breath and continued. "Mama was a musician, too. She had music in her heart, both light and dark but mostly dark when I knew her. She sang like an angel and played the organ and piano. She was teaching me to play when she died. Grams couldn't do anything except play a mean tambourine, but got me piano and organ lesson she really couldn't afford. When I was a teenager, playing in jazz clubs around Vegas was one of the things I did to make money. Las Vegas has a pulse like no other city in the world. You can feel it when you walk down the street. Even in the daytime, you can feel it. I believe everything pulses. It all relates to your heart and the beat of your heart. Everything has a beat. You live by the beat of your heart. What you gotta do is make rhythms that're unique to yourself. Everybody's got soul and your soul's got a cadence. You've gotta set up internal syncopations that work for yourself. That's automatic. I've done that for me and Gil's done that for himself. Now, we've just got to do that with each other."

"So what I'm hearing you say is the rhythms of Las Vegas match your rhythms."

"That's what you're hearing, Dr. Proctor."

"I also heard Dr. Grissom was able to turn you away from them."

"No, he didn't do that. He just showed me a different way of using 'em. He showed me the way I was using 'em wasn't good for me, that there was a better way."

"I see. How did he do that?"

"Well, uh, I was majoring in chemistry and really was interested what he had to say. So I asked a few questions at the workshop. Guess they must've been the right questions, cause Gil pulled me to the side afterward and said if I wanted, he'd give me a personally guided tour of the LVPD forensic lab. That was nine years ago. He impressed me so much, I finally decided to settle down and get my degree. Right after that, I applied for a job with the police department and started working for him soon after that. The rest, as the saying goes, is history."

"And simply meeting Dr. Grissom led you into this momentous lifestyle alteration?"

"It wasn't all that simple. I was nearing my thirties and the fruit, as my grandmother says, doesn't fall far from the tree. She had raised me right and something in me was gettin' tired of livin' a life headed nowhere. I knew what I had, good as it felt, was light weight. It was all glitz with no substance. Gil had substance. He's the smartest man I know. I had the greatest admiration for that right from the start. I wanted some of that. Plus, I'm a big, black guy and I'd gotten used to usin' that as kinda an intimidation factor to work the con on rich white folks in from the 'burbs with money to spare. But it's never fazed Gris, not once. I can lose my temper and get all up in his face but he never falls for it, always stands his ground. Other than Grams, he's the only one who can always back me up. I like that. I like that a lot. What it really was, he came to me at the right time. He showed up when I as ready to make a change anyway."

"Do you believe the rhythms of Dr. Grissom match yours, Mr. Brown?"

"Yeah, sure I do. I wouldn't love him like I do, if they didn't."

"Do you believe they match in a negative manner as well as a positive one, Mr. Brown?"

To this query, Warrick said nothing for a moment, just gazed at her. Then instead, he carefully asked in return, "Why are you asking me that?"

"I generally don't make snap judgments, but based on my over twenty years of experience, will in this clearly defined case. What I'm seeing, coinciding with what Dr. Grissom's told me about his childhood and what you've told me about yours which tells me more about the dynamics of your relationship than you probably thought you were, is this. Both of you grew up, basically, is as fatherless young men and you're very resentful of that fact. Your mother, Dr. Grissom, placed her own interests above you during your formative years while your father was absence due to business concerns. Your mother, Mr. Brown, died during your formative years while loving a man who had deserted before your birth for unknown reasons. But nevertheless, your mother, Dr. Grissom, and your grandmother, Mr. Brown, brought you up to be strong and self reliant. Both of you are survivors. Social, cultural, parental and environmental references, as with all people, have made you the men that you are. The difference is, subsequent events turned you far inward, Dr. Grissom, while they turned you far outward, Mr. Brown. However, you met and we had the classic yin/yang scenario of opposites attracting.

"You buried your emotions but polished your admittedly extremely high intellect, Dr. Grissom, to let that be all the world was allowed to see of you. Then, you caught sight of Mr. Brown, this vibrant, attractive young man who reminded you so much of another that had broken your heart and spirit but who also, as time went on, was different enough to confusingly renew your heart and spirit. On the other hand, Mr. Brown, you experienced a much desired replacement for the father you'd never known and sorely missed, someone unafraid to discipline you. It was an inappropriate form of discipline, because Dr. Grissom didn't know it was father figure discipline you were seeking. Mr. Brown, unknown to you, it was vengeance for the abuse Dr. Grissom had suffered years before that he was seeking. The fact that you did not know why he was doing it, Mr. Brown, that Dr. Grissom did not know why he was doing it and neither of you could stop it is what turned what you were doing to Mr. Brown into abuse, Dr. Grissom. That's what has made you an enabler for letting it happen, Mr. Brown. All of these behaviors were episodic and reactionary symptoms of deeply held subconscious, childhood related and childish fears in both of you and you both must become aware of that. As intelligent, well educated men, your awareness is the beginning of we require as a guidance tool toward the healing process necessary to end these dysfunctions."

Dr. Proctor gave Gil and Warrick her first smile. "Now that we've gotten to the grist of the problem, gentlemen, please grab a donut or two, or a piece of fruit, or whatever else you wish to eat and a cup of coffee or tea, then make yourself as comfortable as you can. I adore helping my clients get to a good place in life and that frequently that takes some time. So sit back and relax. The three of us are about to chew on this thing for a good, long, long while."

Much to Nick's disappointment, the next day, Warrick picked up his things to move back into the condo with Grissom. It wasn't a perfect situation because, at Gil's insistence and to Warrick's disbelief, they slept apart while continuing the weekly sessions with Dr. Proctor. After a month of that, he was chomping at the bit for some sort, any sort of sexual contact, was going mad at being so close to Grissom and still not getting any. But at least they were back together and that was better than being apart.

Actually, it wasn't so bad. It was almost like Grissom was courting him. He was so nervous about being alone with Warrick in the condo that he began consistently taking him out to breakfast after work then wining and dining him almost every evening before they went to work, leaving just enough time for sleeping and taking care of off duty personal affairs. He'd purchase hard to find, brand new albums Coltrane, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington or Lady Day CDs for Warrick's turntable and casually hand them to him then walk away before Warrick could adequately express his thanks. Warrick often came home to find Gil had, on his nights off, prepared a scrumptious, candlelit, gourmet dinner. Afterward, they'd settle down to watch television, perhaps a game in which Gil had little interest or an old movie in which Warrick had little interest that ended up with both of them falling asleep on the sofa rather than going to their separate beds.

Warrick got so he'd practically kidnap Gil, connive him into his truck under some pretext and end up riding him into the mountains or out to a park where they'd walk awhile under a warm, summery moonlight, just the two of them. Or he'd trick him out to a nearby or far away golf course where they could hit a few balls together over eighteen holes and have a few leisurely drinks on the nineteenth. A few times he managed to get Gil out to his favorite jazz clubs where he'd maneuver Gil to a seat of honor while he jammed with the band.

At most of them, he respected Grissom's wish for privacy and merely introduced him as a friend. But at one where several of the members in the large band were obviously same sex partners, he insisted on a more personal introduction by kissing Gil dead on the mouth and making the open declaration of, "Ladies and gentlemen, meet my lover, Dr. Gilbert Grissom. He has no musical talent whatsoever, but he absolutely makes up for that in other areas." Uncomfortable at suddenly becoming the center of attention, Gil had flushed bright red and hastily ducked into the nearest seat as a spotlight had been trained on him and he had been given a round of applause by the crowd. However Warrick had grinned wickedly but so lovingly at him from the stage while taking his seat at the electric piano that his unease had fast faded and Gil had felt nothing but pride to have a lover who was so skilled in so many creative things that he was not.

Over the weeks, their comfort level increased as their counseling with Dr. Proctor continued. Gil had not allowed sex to begin again, much to Warrick's disappointment and discontent, but their closeness was greater and their relationship was stronger than it ever had been. He still was not altogether sure about the necessity of going to a psychiatrist but went to please Gil, just not as regularly as Gil wished him to go. He admitted the sessions were helpful, just believed they were tedious, expensive and intrusive.

Then the one incident neither of them had ever thought would ever happen broke everything wide open for both of them. Tim Englewood came to town.

And he was not same. Some sort of strange sickness was upon him. The fast talking, sharp eyed and sharp dressing, hale and hearty individual Warrick had met up with in Los Angeles was not the sweaty and slack skinned person who came nervously into the upscale restaurant where Warrick and Gil were having dinner on one of the very few nights they'd ever managed to have off work together. He searched feverishly and frantically for Warrick then walked toward their table, anxiously smoothing his suit which was baggy on him because he'd lost more than twenty pounds of weight in the three months since Warrick had seen him.

More than his lessening bulk caused Warrick not to immediately recognize him. It seemed his very personality had been altered. Englewood had also lost much of that bluff, self-confidence that had carried him through life. His eyes were dull and his movements were awkward, almost shambling. He was less than ten feet from them by the time Warrick looked into his face, knew who he was and, staring at him, paused with his fork half to his mouth and muttered, "Aw, shit."

Instantly, he dropped his fork and stood up, saying, "Gil, I'll be right back." He walked up to Englewood, grabbed him by an elbow and manhandled him in the opposite direction, demanding, "Man, what the hell are you doin' here?!!!"

Ignoring that question, eyes still on Gil, pointing at Gil, as he stumbling backward in Warrick's grip, Englewood demanded in turn, "Who's he?"

"Who he is ain't any of your goddamned business. What're you doin' here?"

"I had to see you. You left without saying goodbye or telling me who you really were or where you were going. I've had a helluva time finding you."

"That was the way, remember? You explained it to me. No real names, no real connection. It was all fantasy and playtime. Then we get back to reality until the next time."

"But you weren't going to give me a next time. You just disappeared and never came back."

"That's right. But I never lied. I told you plain I was out for a good time and nuthin' else. Right from the start, I told you there was someone else back home that I loved very much. So I don't see what the problem is."

"The. problem is. my life's a mess. It looks like I may lose my. There's some. legal issues I'm dealing with right now. My freedom and my livelihood are in jeopardy. Things aren't going very well. My finances hit a little snag. I might have to give up my apartment because my company's suffered this downturn, gone into a bit of a spiral and we're considering bankruptcy. The shit's really hit the fan with me, Rick. I need something to, ah, pick me up. So I was hoping we could. Well, I thought you and I'd had a meeting of the mind, you know?" Englewood tried a crooked smile on for size, but it came out as a smarmy, insecure, jerky motion without the cocky confidence it had possessed in Los Angeles. "Not to mention a meeting of the bodies." Digging an elbow into Warrick's side, he asked in a pitiful whisper, "That was good for both of us, wasn't it?"

"Man, all I did was fuck you," Warrick flatly answered. "It was sex. It was just sex. And I always enjoy sex, especially when I haven't had any for awhile, which I hadn't."

"But. you acted like you cared for me."

"Hey, that's just the way I am. I'm friendly with everybody. You read too much into it."

Englewood violently shook his head. "No, I didn't, no I didn't. I couldn't have. I couldn't feel the way I do about you if you hadn't felt the same way. I love you and know you felt something for me. What we had was too good for you not to have felt something for me in return."

"You're wrong about that. I didn't feel anything. I was just." Warrick glanced over Englewood's shoulder to see that Grissom was coming toward them, mumbled, "Damn." and moved to intercept him, turning back to point at Englewood and say, "You stay right there, don't you move. You do and there'll be hell to pay." Then he walked to Gil and said, "Gris, you don't want to know about what's happening with this guy, you really don't."

Gazing past Warrick at Englewood, Grissom said quietly, "Somehow, I think you're wrong about that." Looking very calm, he turned his eyes up to meet Warrick's "Somehow, I think I have to know. Somehow, I think I'd better know. Who is he, Warrick?"

There was a long silence with the two men studying each other. Then Warrick finally said, "Gil, we've been going to a psychiatrist to get a handle on the trouble we'd been having between us. We've been working a lot of that shit out, but we still have a lot of it to go. I don't know if you're ready to have the worst of it put in your face like this."

"Maybe I'm not, but it appears that it's here. Who is he, Warrick? Is he your new lover?"

Warrick almost laughed at that idea. "Oh, hell no, he definitely ain't that. He's far from that. You're the only lover I've got and the only one I want." Warrick took Gil's forearms and turned him, placing himself between Englewood and Grissom so his own body blocked Gil's view of the other man. Then he took a deep breath, steadied himself and said, still holding onto Grissom's arms, "I want you to stand still for this and not speak for a count of ten, Gil. Just think about what I'm about to say and internalize it slow.

"That's Tim Englewood, Gil." Warrick tightened his grip as the other man turned deathly pale, supporting him as his knees started to buckle. "No," Warrick snapped from behind clenched teeth. "You won't do this, Gil. Goddamnit, you aren't gonna show any weakness in front of this asshole, none at all. I'm not gonna let you. You stay on your feet. Do you hear me, Gil? You stay on your feet. Get yourself together and stay your feet."

Hearing Warrick's commanding voice seemed to rally Grissom and, blinking hard, he clutched Warrick's arms in turn as he stiffened his legs. Holding Warrick's green eyes with his blues to claim some of the strength he saw shining there, he whispering wildly, "Why is he here?"

"I wanted him outa our lives and thought the best way to do that was to get him outa your head. He was still roaming around in there, still as big and alive to you as he was when he hurt you. I wanted to know what kinda man could've done what he did to you. Maybe it was sick, but I wanted to meet him. So, I met up with 'em in L.A. a few weeks ago. Brass had some FBI friends of his set it up for me. We did like a sting operation that's ended up with the man being charged with all kinds of shit like running a prostitution ring, child enslavement, black marketeering and fraud. I helped with that, but didn't tell you cause I thought it'd upset you. I also figured I'd never see the man again. I swear before God, last thing in the world I ever thought could or would happen would be for him to show up here."

"But. that doesn't tell me WHY he's here, Warrick."

"I know, I know. All I wanted was to make him suffer as much as he made you suffer. I wanted him to hurt and Brass gave me an excellent way, the perfect way to make that happen. But I guess. the bastard's. fell in love with me or something. I thought he was too hardcore to do that, but he has. I never gave 'em my real name, but he found it out somehow and here he is."

His eyes wide, Grissom asked, "Did you tell him about me? Does he know my name?"

That notion had not occurred to Warrick and, as it did, he first glanced back at Englewood then back at Grissom. "I never told him anything about you and he's not acting like he has any idea who you are. Do you want him to know?"

Grissom immediately shook his head. "No. No, I don't." Then he said cautiously, "But I'd like to talk to him with you. I'd really like to do that."

That made Warrick smile. "You would? Then come on. Let's go do that."

Very unconsciously, Gil reached for and held onto Warrick's hand as they proceeded to walk toward Englewood. Warrick silently glanced at him for that and was appreciative, because Gil had never done that in public before. Knowing it was due to apprehension, for Gil's hand was clammy with perspiration, he returned the pressure loosely and let go as soon as Gil seemed to realize what he had done and pulled away.

To Englewood, Warrick said, "This's the man I told you about. This's the man I'm in love with."

Englewood's eyes raked over Grissom without any sign of recognition as he held out a hand to him to introduce himself with some semblance of his former vigorous manner saying, "Hi. I'm Tim Englewood. I'm pleased to meet you."

With hardly a tremor, but completely unwilling to make any physical contact with the man who had so badly misused him, Grissom said quietly, "I'm sorry, I have severe arthritis and can't shake your hand. I'm John Smith." And that was all he said, for Gil most definitely and absolutely was not pleased to be meeting Tim Englewood.

Warrick grinned, barely able to contain his amusement. "I'm sorry, but John's the reason that whatever you feel for me hasn't got anywhere to go."

"I see." Despite his growing deflation, with a sneer in his voice, Englewood said, "I could've offered you a lot, but you prefer to have a white man for your sugar daddy."

Warrick opened his mouth to respond to that, but cocking his head slightly to the side, Grissom said before he could, "Yes, he did, possibly because I offer him more than just material goods. Despite prevalent myths, it's not only African-American men who're physically well endowed and skilled in the boudoir." Boldly, he looked Englewood up and down. "From the looks of you, you're not in the best of health. Ricky's a very vital young man. I'm quite sure you haven't me and wouldn't be able to meet his needs as well as I do."

That startled Englewood and his mind went blank for a moment. Then he said, "Well, if you'd be willing to put that to the test, I could prove you wrong. Let him come back to Los Angeles with me awhile and I'll show him I can top him as well as you can." Then Englewood looked at Warrick and said, "What do you have to say to that?"

Very casually, Warrick leaned back on the wall behind him, crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes steadily narrowing as he stared at Englewood, nodded toward Grissom and said evenly, "He and I are one. I belong to him and he belongs to me. If anybody wants in my life any kinda way; and that includes you; it's got to be with his approval. If he doesn't give it, me, you don't get."

Englewood's eyes widened as he took in the significance of Warrick's cool comment. He crumbled and his tears finally spilled over as he whispered to Warrick, "You never really wanted me, did you? It was all an act, wasn't it? Everything we did all those weeks, all of what I thought we had together was just part of a cruel trick to get me to take you places and spend money on you, wasn't it?"

Warrick simply shrugged while thinking to himself, "What you did crippled him and kept him in pain for over thirty years. Gil's unhappiness is my unhappiness and I hate being unhappy." But what he was said was, as he turned his head to look at Grissom who, mind swirling at an impossible situation, was standing and gazing solemnly at Englewood. "So what's it gonna be? You've got a decision to make." Gil looked at him. His eyes were plainly saying, you've either gotta let go of him or you've gotta let go of me. I won't share you with 'em anymore, not another minute. Choose, Gil, choose between us. Right or wrong, I've done all I can do. It's your play now.

Grissom couldn't take his thoughts off Englewood. His mind was insisting on trying to layer onto the miserably dejected full-bodied businessman with five decades of living under his belt the specter of the tall, muscular, football player with a charming, cockeyed smile who had long ago torn his body into pieces that had healed and his soul into pieces that he had never been able to put back together. But he could not do it. This wasn't the same person who had been the source of horrifying, vengeful fantasies. This wasn't the popular youth who had been part of those terrifying nightmares over the years. This was someone different, someone totally unknown to him.

"I want. this man to leave, Warrick," Grissom said with shaky and soft finality. "I can't stand the sight of him another second. I want him to leave now. I want him. away from me." He lifted his head to meet Warrick's eyes. "I want him out of our lives forever."

Warrick smiled and there was uncommon ice in the smile. "That's all you ever needed to say. He's gone." He stood up, looking dead at Englewood as he walked to the teary eyed contractor until he was face to face with him. "You heard the man," he said. "He's made his choice. You gotta go."

Englewood began weeping, his hopeful depression now riding on total rejection, heading toward total breakdown. Awkwardly stumbling as Warrick dauntingly forced him backward to a nearby exit, Englewood begged between sobs, "Please don't do this to me."

"I'm not doing anything to you. You've done it to yourself. You're a bastard, man. You like to hurt people. Over the years, you've hurt a helluva lot of people and it's starting to be your payback time. Get over yourself and live with that fact."

Breathing hard as he was backpedaled, sounding bewildered, Englewood said, "Dear God, I know. I know. I. was wrong in so much of what I've done. So much of it started when I was. when I was young and stupid. And I'm so sorry for it. You may not believe me, but I'm suffering for it. I wish I could. I'm going to make it up to folks if I can. I will. I've already told the judge I will. I'm telling that to you, too, Rick. Please listen to me. I'll, I'll do it however you say. I'll do whatever you tell me to do, whatever you want. I'll do whatever you want to make things right so you'll let me be with you. I can, I can fix this. I can make it right. Just tell me what you want."

Continuing to walk forward, Warrick cocked his head and said, "Yeah? Then tell the world what you did to those you did wrong. Tell the ones you did wrong that you're sorry. Tell the world what you really are."

"What? Tell the. No. No, I can't do that." Englewood violently shook his head, still shuffling backward. "So much of it happened a long time ago. So much of it is. nobody needs to know about it. All of it was a mistake, a horrible, horrible mistake. I won't make those same mistakes anymore. I'm not that same person anymore."

"The hell you aren't. You were just a few weeks ago. I talked to some folks who know you pretty good and, from what they tell me, you ain't changed much. You just learned how to hide your dirty laundry better. It's some sorta sick power trip with you, notching your belt with the mess you make of other people's lives. You get off on it. You never have been shit and you ain't shit now. No matter how many showers I take, I still can't get the stink of you off me. But don't worry about that, cause, once you're gone for good, I'll clean just fine."

Whining now, Englewood breathed, "Please don't do this to me. You can't do this to me. You can't turn me down. I offered you everything I have, everything I am. I don't have anything else to give. You can't turn me down. I can't live without you, Rick. You've done something to me. You've taken me over. You infected me. Don't be so mean as to leave me hanging like this. You can't do this to me."

"Yeah, well, watch me. Go back to L.A., man. There's nothing here in Vegas for you, especially not me. Go back to your friends. But you know what? I advise you to get new ones. The ones you got, if you wanna call 'em friends, are money grubbing backstabbers just as hypocritical and underhanded as you are."

Englewood meant to say more in his attempt to convince Warrick to remain in his life, but tripped over the first step leading outside the restaurant and went sprawling gracelessly to the sidewalk. Warrick had an instinctive, gentlemanly impulse to help him up, but overcame it to firmly shut door on the woebegone, tear stained, pleading face. Then, he turned back to Grissom to take his elbow in hand and stride rapidly in the opposite direction, leading Grissom toward the front entrance of the building as he said, "Com'mon, Gris. We're outa here."

The ride back to the condo was conducted in silence. Warrick was comfortable with it and had no desire to break it. Grissom was unaware of it, his mind busily turning over every event; the good as well as the bad; that had occurred since he and Warrick had first come together. So much of it had been built on a shaky foundation, even the closeness they had acquired and the expressions of love and devotion they had given each other. None of that could have ever become solid because of the phantom presence of a young Tim Englewood was fading fast from his mind.

Originally, Grissom had been put out by Warrick's reluctance to meet with the psychiatrist then monumentally irritated when he missed several sessions. Gil was convinced that was the best method of resolving their issues, so could not understand Warrick clamming up at a couple of them, refusing to openly discuss matters of importance with her. It was such counseling that was the best avenue to building a firm foundation for their relationship. After all this time, he was still seeing in his mind the images of that first night when Stephen Parker had been beaten into broken bits and pieces by Allen Wainwright and had still refused to press charges or even inform the police of who had actually beaten him, then of the night when Grissom and his team had been called back into the two men's lives after Parker had shot Wainwright then had turned the gun on himself.

Again, Grissom had been forced to question Parker as he lay in a hospital bed and been astounded when the man had once more defended his lover's actions as something Wainwright could not help, as something Parker had, in fact, possibly brought on by his own errant behavior. Even as he lay on his death bed, peaceful and cognizant of his own actions after having pumped four bullets into Wainwright and shot half his own face off in an eventually successful murder/suicide attempt, Parker had been sorely out of touch with the reality of his being an enabler and harshly abused man. That had been an epiphany for Grissom.

Wainwright and Parker's scenario had resembled his and Warrick's too much. The first time Wainwright had put Parker in the hospital, Allan had been right there the entire time, the faithful lover always nearby, up to sleeping in a cot next to Parker's bed as he had recovered, holding his hand with genuine, sincere tears of regret in his eyes. But Grissom had looked into those conniving eyes and known as surely as he inhaled and exhaled on a daily basis that, sooner or later, he'd run across the two again. Wainwright had used his constant presence to convince Parker not to tell anyone what had really happened as much as he had used it to reassure him of his warped love. Grissom had thought when he saw them the next time it'd be because Wainwright would've finally beaten Parker to death. It had never crossed his mind it'd be because the mild mannered and much more enthusiastically, defensively in love Parker had finally taken more than he could stand and killed Wainwright.

These two men had been blind to the horrors one had been doing to the other and their terrible interactions had been ruinous to whatever good remained between them. Their blindness had led to both their pointless deaths. That same night, due to thoughts on what they'd done, plus seeing the young, dismembered hooker who so reminded him of Warrick and horrific memories of his own, Grissom had fought mightily against an overpowering drive toward revengeful impulses he had been able to keep bottled up until Warrick had broken through fragile emotional partitions he had built up over decades. Twice before, he had failed and Warrick had physically suffered because of that failure. Warrick had suffered because he had thought he was helpless to control his own impulses, which was a lie.

His vow now was that never again would he judge himself helpless in the face of unmanageable urges. There was no such thing. He could proudly say he had won that third battle against approaching violence. He'd sent Warrick away and was receiving the psychiatric assistance he needed. But Grissom was still uncertain as to whether he could win the entire war. That required Warrick coming back fully in all ways as his life partner, a thing that he so very desperately craved, and making sure he remained safe once he was there.

He'd driven his lover away for his own protection and become sure Warrick had been bewildered and angry enough to never come back. By that act, Grissom had been positive he'd blown his last chance at happiness. The only solace he'd had by what he had done was being released from the burden of fear he might destroy himself and Warrick as Allan Wainwright had done to himself and Stephen Parker. He'd been relieved only to no longer have to live with the fear of further abusing Warrick as he had once been abused.

Now that fear was back on him because of Warrick's dogged determination that they belonged together and to each other. It was what he wanted above all things but also was a happiness he did not believe he deserved. Even finally having seen Englewood as he was now rather than as the young man whose handsomeness and sweet smile had hidden a corrupted core, could not reassure him that he should let Warrick back into his life. His emotional safety and Warrick's physical safety was at stake.

As soon as Warrick parked in the garage at their place, he said as he climbed out his Tahoe, "We're sleeping together tonight, Gil. I'm sick and tired of going to bed alone. I want you next to me tonight, no matter what you say."

Climbing out as well on the passenger side Grissom looked over at him and said, "This doesn't change anything, Warrick. It can't. A one time confrontation with one's demons isn't enough to alter a life time of dysfunctional behavior."

Grinning at him, Warrick said, "I'm not expecting that it would be, but it's a better start than spending months or years of our time with some headshrinker who doesn't give a shit about us, just wants to charge us over priced rates. I don't wanna waste all that time trying to get you, and me too, into a place where we can face our demons. I'm not waiting for you and me to work things out so we can become us. I ain't got that kinda patience. I want us to be us quicker'n that."

"I'm. not sure I'm ready for that," Grissom whispered, a hand tented over his eyes, trying to push away a migraine that was starting up. "I've made a solemn vow to myself that I'll never hurt you again. But I'm not sure I'm ready to keep that vow yet. I'm not sure that I'm strong enough to honor it yet."

"Well, I'm sure that you are. And don't forget, I vowed I wouldn't let you do anything that hurts me again. Don't you have enough faith in me to believe I mean that?" Warrick glanced into Gil's eyes when he flinched just a tad too much as the lamps were flicked on in the living room. They weren't that bright and Grissom's overreaction meant he had a bad headache coming on.

"Yes. Yes, of course I do. But. your love is. I worry that you'd simply be unable to stop me because of your love for me and. because you seem to.respect me. too much and. want me to have whatever I want despite whatever harm it does to you. As you said yourself, you aren't aware when I hurt you. until afterward."

"That was then. This ain't then. You may not think so, but I've learned some things about myself from Dr. Proctor. I really have listened to her. One good thing she showed me was how to recognize what signs to look for when you're about to, umm, lose it. I'll know 'em now, Gil. I'll know the difference from now on. I won't think it's just how you make love. I won't let it go just to please you. I'll know you've lost control of yourself. Now I'll know it hurts you even more than it ever hurts me and I can't keep letting anything go on that hurts you. Since hurting me hurts you, I give you my word it won't happen again, not ever. Like you said, I'm younger and stronger. I'll make you stop before I'll let it happen again."

Grissom smiled grimly as he wearily sat down on the sofa and asked softly, trying to hold back the pain already threatening to tear his skull apart, "You'd stop me first from now on, huh?"

Warrick smiled back with tenderness as he said with equal softness, "Yeah. For the sake of your soul, yeah. For the sake of us, yeah, I'm gonna do that." Very gently, he leaned over to touch the back of his hand to Grissom's cheek, heart turning over when he felt wetness there. "But it won't come to that, Gil, cause we're gonna love each other enough; and do it in the right way; so it won't ever haveta come to that again."

"I should remind you that you're not the first to claim you can, by showing you can care enough for a loved one, stop them from the commission of destructive acts that end up hurting them. That fails more often than it succeeds."

"Won't fail this time. You said once what made what happened work was your sickness played into mine, that we had some kinda sadomasochistic thing going. Well, that's not what it was. You're not a sadist and I'm not a masochist. Like Dr. Proctor said, I just didn't understand it was more than about rough sex. Some folks get off on that. But that ain't me. I don't like pain. I'm not into it any which way. From now on, I'm on top of that. If it hurts, I'm gonna say stop. If you can't or don't stop, bottom line is I'll stop you. You'd best believe I can do that. I WILL do that. Because you'd leave me or make me leave you if it happened again, so there's no choice otherwise that I can see. I'm not gonna let you push me outa here again. I'm way too into you to be away from you. That'd make for a desert of loneliness for me. So I've gotta do whatever I gotta do for us to stay together. Cause it looks like that's the only way for me to be happy."

Warrick walked away, first to go into the bathroom connected to Grissom's bedroom. Afterward, he went into his bedroom and from there went into the kitchen. He returned to the living room with a pill bottle, a glass of water and large bundle of files tucked under his arm which he tossed onto the sofa next to Grissom. Then he knelt in front of Gil, bouncing lightly and impatiently until managing to twist off the recalcitrant top on the bottle of Imitrex and saying commandingly, "Open up."

Gazing tiredly into Warrick's eyes, Grissom obeyed and Warrick popped a pill in his mouth. Then he handed Gil the glass of water and watched him swallow the pill. Smiling, he said as he patted the file, "Just so you know, this explains everything I was doing during the two months I was gone. It's got stuff in there I'd better tell you I stole from your office and some other stuff FBI agents down in L.A. named Ed Taylor and Roger Holloway sent to Brass about what's going on with cases they got goin' on involving Englewood. Thinking I'd need this if you started asking questions, Brass helped me pull it together. If you feel up to reading, take a look at it."

Gil reached for the files to pull them onto his lap. "If it tells me about what you were doing while you were away and why, that's very important to me. So, headache or not, I very much want to and will read them right now."

"Good. I'm gonna go take a long, hot shower while you do that." Looking right back into Gil's eyes, Warrick sighed quietly and said, "First though, I gotta warn you about something. They didn't mince any words in there, Gil. They put in there what me and Englewood said and where we went, what we did when we got there and practically how many times we did it. He gave me shit, really nice shit. I'll hock it if you want me to, but I swear before God I don't wanna just throw it away. Brass recommended me to his FBI friends down in LA and they went with me since I look like Englewood when he was young and he's got this narcissistic habit of picking out younger men for lovers who look like he used to. They hadn't been able to find anybody to go undercover and get close to him until they got me. I agreed to do it for 'em cause I figured he needed to pay for the rotten shit he was doin' now and, even if it wasn't directly, for the shit he did to you when yall were in college together. If everything pans out like Brass and Taylor says it will, he'll be going away for a long time and it won't be medium security like before. Taylor called me to say he plans to see to it Englewood doesn't go down just for federal or international crimes, but gets locked up by the state. He wants California to confine him for decades of hard time in a place where prisoners don't look kindly on baby molesters and he'll get to spend his time gettin' his peanut butter packed instead of him packing somebody else's."

Ducking his head to look at Warrick over the reading glasses he had just slipped on, Grissom queried, "Am I to infer from you saying that he, as you word it, packed your peanut butter?"

Grinning, Warrick said, "No, you aren't to infer nuthin' of the kind. When it comes to that, I belong to you and nobody else. You're the only one who ever gets to do that. That was virgin territory when you and I got together, it's stayed that way and it's gonna stay that way. Actually, I never really touched the man any more than I had to. I doubled up with the condoms every single muthafuckin' time." Warrick stood up. "Read the rest, Gris. Then, if you want, we can talk more about it after I finish my shower."

But some vibration in Grissom's stillness kept Warrick from moving and he stood quietly within it, waiting for what else his lover had to say. After some hesitation, Gil said slowly, "I'm going over in my mind how often I've worried you might. leave me for another, bed down with someone you found preferable to me. Can you imagine how strange it is for me to realize the first person you'd have sex with, other than me, would be the."

"Don't say it, don't even think it. You know damn well that's not how it was. Besides, preferable to you? Nobody else comes anyplace close, man. And we've talked about how I don't believe sex and love amount to the same thing. We weren't together then anyway, which's really beside the point. As much as what you and I do together feels good, it's more about making love than having sex and I don't make love with nobody except you. In addition to that, there's the fact."

Grissom smiled. "No need to get huffy and defensive or waste your time offering extensive explanations, Warrick. The reasons for and ramifications of what you've done seem quite clear to me. I was merely putting a philosophical question out there which requires no actual response. At least you have the legitimate excuse of saying your bedding down with someone else was done for my sake. I betrayed you in a similar manner but can't say the same and won't be so hypocritical as to denigrate you for what I've done myself for much less of a good rationale. So relax and go take your shower while I flip through this. From merely glancing at the front page, I can already see that it's going to make for very interesting reading."

Warrick stayed in the shower so long that what had been stinging hot water was cooling off and his skin was beginning to pucker. Still, he didn't get out. He was mentally exhausted and getting exasperated with trying to figure out the much too complicated puzzle that was Gilbert Grissom. He wanted the pieces to fall into place by themselves for a change without either of them having to struggle to get them there. He was standing with the palm of his right hand on the shower wall, his fingers lightly and irritably scrabbling at the tiles, all his weight on his left heel while he restlessly rocked on the ball on his right foot. His head was listlessly hanging down while his left arm was straight along his side, a dead weight.

Every line of his body was showing lassitude, dejection and depression when loving hands that had refused to caress him in more than two months slid about him so inquisitive fingers could tenderly fondle his nipples, lips that had only chastely and briefly touched his during the same time period hotly mouth the back of his shoulder then spread to let teeth nip at his neck and ears as a naked body that had not been up against him in much too long plastered itself against him until its penis was able to work itself between his buttocks.

Smiling slowly, Warrick opened his eyes, lifting his head until his face was directly in a sparkling stream of less than warm water and sent a silent prayer heavenward. It was going to take some time and they still had quite a bit of work to do, but he was willing to do that, even if it meant keeping Dr. Proctor in their lives awhile longer. Because he was finally back where he belonged.

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