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Playing to win
by Jen

It's still illegal in Texas, having another man's cock up your ass. I guess that's why it really wasn't any surprise to me that Nick knew nothing about it, about how damn good it feels. Well, that and the way Nick himself is. For all his time on the job, and even as a cop, I don't think Nick's really seen much of life. Sometimes I feel like I'm about a hundred years older than him.

At least I'm putting some of those years of experience to good use now, sliding deep inside him, taking it slow and easy till he just can't stop himself and he's begging me to go faster, to touch him, just to fucking well finish it, Warrick. So I do. The sweating heap of our bodies afterwards isn't exactly graceful, but man, I can't keep up the pretence of control any longer and I'm just sprawled out over him. He doesn't object, not till I get myself together enough to pull my head up and look at him. I'm not falling for that Nick-Stokes-freshly-fucked look of his – all dark eyes and openness, like he wants nothing more than for someone to cuddle up to him and tell him they love him. I'm not falling for it. I've seen the way he looks like a kicked puppy when Grissom gets at him, and I figure it can't be for real. He can't have got to this age and still be so hopeful about life. I guess it's just his way of getting what he wants from people. Speaking of getting what you want….

"That's my two hundred," I tell him.

He pushes me off him and sits up. "In your dreams, man!"

"Hey, you begged. That makes it my money."

I lie there and can't help but grin at the indignation on his face.

"I did not beg." I know he's getting pissed; that Texan accent is stronger by the word. "I just – just told you to get on with it. I knew you couldn't last much longer; way you were panting and huffing I thought you were going to end up a DB and then I'd have to explain it to the team without even having got my rocks off first."

Even he seems to realise that's weak, because he can't stop the smile that's breaking out over his face in response to my grin.

I take pity on him and give him a way out. For now. "Double or nothing?"

"What do you think?" He's rolling over and getting out of bed. "What's the deal?"

"I get to make you come – without touching your cock."

He snorts and smacks my ass on his way past. "Like that's gonna happen."

And I lie there on the tangled sheets and listen to him in the shower and plot just how I'm going to get my money.

************

I guess it's true, you never know when life is going to throw you a curve ball. Me and Nick have been working together for some time, but I never thought we'd be doing this. I noticed him of course; hard not to, given the way he strips down in the locker room. Him changing clothes like that would make more sense if he had any idea of style, but those clothes… Man, he needs taking in hand. Anyway, I noticed him, the same way I noticed Catherine and Sara. What's not to notice? I'm alive, aren't I? It didn't mean I ever thought about fucking him, any more than I thought about fucking either of them. Not often, anyway. Maybe a couple of times in the shower it was his ass I was thinking about, but no more than that.

Then we had that Daniel Hope case where Grissom gave me and Nick a pile of home-made porn movies to go through, looking for the possible killer. I don't think that would have changed anything, if it hadn't been for the fact that young Daniel liked men. A lot of men. In a lot of different ways. He'd edited some of the stuff to pretty professional standards; I've paid money for worse. I don't think Nick had, though. He reverted to frat boy at the beginning – the act that put me off him when we first met, till he started either to grow up or to drop the act. He sat there watching, making stupid jokes at first, but then as the tapes went on, he just got quieter and quieter except when we got a particularly clear view of someone's face, when we both got into the detail, freezing the video and making notes. They say there's a first time for everything; watching porn for the faces was certainly that.

I knew he wasn't right afterwards, and I caught up with him at the locker room when the shift finished. We didn't use to hang out much outside work, but he agreed to come and have breakfast at my favourite diner. I think he knew it wasn't right between us. Or maybe he was just hungry. I've been told I think too much.

He came back to my place after breakfast and we had a few beers and talked. As the beers went down, so the conversation got more open, till he came right out and asked me if I'd seen stuff like that before. From there, it wasn't much for him to ask me if I'd done stuff like that before. I began to tell him some stuff and then somehow I guess the effects of wall-to-wall porn all night just wouldn't go away and we ended up with our hands in each other's pants, jerking one another off. There's nothing to be worried about in that - guys giving one another a helping hand when watching porn. At least, that was the way I sold it to him afterwards when the beer wore off a bit and he started getting edgy about it.

Two nights later, he asked me to go to breakfast with him, and we went back to his place. He was still pretty uptight, but determined all the same. After that, the breakfast element became optional. And it wasn't long before Nick Stokes, the original All American Boy, found he liked having my fingers up his ass while I jerked him off. When I sucked him for the first time I thought he was going into cardiac arrest. And it was hardly any time after that that he first felt my cock up his ass.

That's the thing about Nick. It seems like he's shocked easily, but when he tries something, he gives it everything he's got. It was no time at all before Stokes the slightly-wary turned into a monster; he's suggestive as all hell at work these days, leaving me flustered and half-hard just before Catherine or Sara walk into the room and he wanders away, looking for all the world like the cat who ate the canary. The very innocent-looking cat, let me add.

So, I reckon it's time to start taking my revenge on him for some of those times. I've been thinking about it for the past couple of nights, since we made that bet. I like thinking about it, because there's nothing prettier in the world than hearing Nick beg. The very thought's getting me going as I get ready for him to come over tonight. I've showered, the condoms and lube are ready, and all that's left is for me to get out my latest little toy. It was my favourite toy, till Nick. Now it's just a dildo. It certainly doesn't keep me warm at night – day – the way Nick does. He's started staying over sometimes, now. There's nothing in it. We're hardly lovers or anything like that; just friends who have sex. It's just that sometimes he won't come over, like the last couple of nights, telling me he's got stuff to do, and I find for the first time in my life that I don't really like being on my own. I feel like I'm at a loose end without him. He's a cocky son-of-a-bitch, but he doesn't mean it, not really, and there's something about that smile of his that means I can let him get away with just about anything. Except winning our bets. Some things in life are sacred, after all.

And some things are. He comes over as planned, but as we didn't see each other at the end of last night's shift, I didn't know about that woman putting a gun in his face. He says he's fine, but he just wants to chill for a while, nothing more. And chilling seems to mean sitting on my sofa, chugging his way through every last beer in my fridge, and then laughing too loud and too long at things that really aren't that funny. Till mid-laugh it turns to a choke and before I know what I'm doing I'm next to him, holding him as he pretends he's not crying into my shoulder.

"I thought I was dead," he's saying, and without knowing what I'm doing I hold him even closer, all the time wondering where that fucking freight train came from that's just slammed into my heart.

"It's ok, Nick. You made it. You did good," I tell him, because if I don't say that, I'll be crying myself at the thought of what might have been.

It's not long before he's pulling away, getting up and walking over to the window. I can see him wiping his face quickly, and I glance away, so he doesn't think I'm watching him.

"I'm sorry, " he says, turning round. His lip's trembling slightly, and all I want to do is go to him and make it all right, but I don't know how.

"Look, I better go," he says, heading for the door. And I know he's feeling awkward and I know he shouldn't be, but I'm damned if I know what to say to him.

"Stay if you want," I say.

He turns round at the door and the smile that's trying to come out has got all twisted somehow. "Thanks, Warrick," he says, and I know it's for more than the offer of staying. "But, I got things to do – you know?"

I know. Probably things to do like not sleeping properly and reliving it again and again. A bit like when Holly Gribbs got killed. You think you're over it, then it comes back and bites you in the ass when you least expect it. But I can see he doesn't want anything from me.

"See you tonight," I tell him, because I don't know what else to say. What else is there to say? 'I think I love you'? If he wasn't running before, he would be then, that's for sure. And I realise I'm still sitting there, wondering what else I should have said, and he's gone.

************

Damn, I hate this. The whole of this last week Catherine's been mother-henning him, Grissom's doing a pretty good job of it too – if reminding him, however obliquely, to be careful almost every time he goes out to a scene counts - and even Sara's pulled her head up from her work long enough to actually talk to Nick. Well, once, anyway.

He doesn't like it. It's like he thinks he's failed at something, and the others are being overnice to compensate. The problem is, I want to do the same thing they're doing. I want to make sure he's safe. While that's what I want, it's not what he wants. He doesn't want any reminders of what could have happened to him. He wants everything back the way it was. So I'm going round to his place after tonight's shift, with the aim of screwing him slowly and thoroughly until he gives it up for me.

He hasn't been round for the last few days. I don't know why. By going round to his place, I'm making it harder for him to avoid me, if that's what he's been doing. Not that he gives much sign of wanting to, if the grin on his face when he sees the takeout I'm carrying is anything to go by.

It's almost like any other day; sharing pizza, squabbling over who gets to pay for it, half-watching the video of the ballgame from last night while slowly getting down to business. I love the sound he makes as I pull his zipper down. I love the way his head goes back as my hand closes around him and I feel the weight and warmth of his cock. I love the way he says my name, all sort of strangled and breathless as my hand starts moving on him. And then he's reaching for me, pulling me till my mouth meets his and our teeth are clashing as he kisses me, hard and desperate, while his hands push inside my clothes, and I'm arching helplessly into his touch. I want to be inside him, but this feels so good, his need, his hand moving faster and faster as his tongue thrusts into my mouth and before I can do anything except gasp I'm coming all over him.

"Fuck," I say, when I can get my breath back. I'm half-expecting him to get at me for going off like a teenager, but instead he simply thrusts lightly against me, and I feel the damp head of his cock sliding against my stomach where my shirt's open. Later he'll be mine. Later he'll be begging and pleading with me to fuck him, but right now he needs to come, and we both need to sleep. So I just move down the sofa a little way and my lips slide down around his greedy cock. His hands knot in my hair as I go down on him, trying to get me to move faster, to take him deeper and he begins to lose it. When my finger brushes over his asshole, he groans and gives it up for me, every last drop.

We lie there for some time, too satisfied and just too beat to make it his bed. He finally prods me into it, but I don't think I come round properly even in the shower, because all I know is feeling the coolness of the sheets around me, his warmth in the bed beside me, and then the freedom of nothingness.

I wake up to find that my cock woke up sometime before the rest of me, if the way it's pressed up against Nick's ass is anything to go by. I'm pretty sure I'm smiling as I move even closer to him, kissing the back of his shoulder and enjoying the sleepy noise that escapes him as I do so. The slight movement of his hips so that my cock fits more comfortably against him lets me know he's awake, and if I had any doubts, they're lost as he moans slightly when my hand reaches round to tug gently at his nipple. I was going to make him beg, going to make him lose the bet, but it feels too good pressed up against him like this. His back is warm and hard against my chest, his spine too bony for comfort but just right for blanketing with my body, my own nipples tightening as I rub myself slowly against him. We're moving gently, but it's getting faster, and I'm breathing hard as I rub myself against his smooth ass. It's over too soon as I come over him, second time in a night – day – and all without fucking him once. I'm still plastered against him, damp with sweat and come, and I reach around and take his pleading cock in my hand. So warm, so desperate, so fucking gorgeous. I start jerking him off in rhythm with his pushes back against me, and he murmurs.

"What?" I pause for an instant. Maybe I do need him to beg, just a little.

"S'good." Not so much a murmur as a drawn-out moan, as my hand works him again. "Gil…"

This time's not so much a pause as a dead stop. Did he just say - Gil? He's rocking back against me harder, seeking for what's stopped, and I raise myself up on one elbow to look at him.

He's still asleep. He's still fucking asleep – or as close to it as makes no odds – and he said Grissom's name. Maybe he's dreaming of work. Maybe it wasn't how it sounded. One way to find out.

"Nicky?" I whisper and stroke him again, and he shudders and comes with a string of little sounds of pleasure.

I let him go, and turn away. He doesn't seem to notice my absence; instead he simply rubs his cheek against the pillow, as though it's something precious to him, and settles into sleep again with a little satisfied sound that I know all too well.

I'm shaking. I didn't think anything could faze me any more, but I'm shaking. I don't believe it. Any second now he's going to roll over and grin that shit-eating grin of his at me about how he got me going. How the fuck could I believe he fancies Grissom, for Christ's sake, he'll demand of me. He's so much older. He's our supervisor. He spends half his time putting Nick down. He'll toss out a compliment to him about once a year. And that once a year occasion is when Nick will turn pink with pleasure and spend the rest of the shift – hell, the month - so damn pleased with life that he's a real pain in the ass.

Fuck. I throw the covers back and get out of bed. My clothes are scattered across his floor, and I start dragging them on, suddenly needing to be out of there.

"Warrick? Where're you going?"

It's sleepy. It's innocent. So fucking innocent. Not like he'd ever close his eyes and pretend I was someone else. I don't want to turn round and see his face. I don't want him to see mine till I've got it under control. Come on, Brown, you play the tables. You know how to cover. So I just make out like I've just been dealt the best hand in the history of the state of Nevada before I turn round, and I know he won't see a thing that I don't want him to see.

"I've got things to do," I tell him. "See you at work."

I think he says my name again as I walk out, but the rage is building in me so loud that I can't hear straight. I can't even hear it when I slam the front door behind me.

I get in my car, and take off out of there. I don't look back. If you spend time looking at the hand you just lost, you'll lose the one you should be playing now. And right now, the thought of losing myself in playing is about the only thing that means anything.

Taking a right at the next intersection, I head back towards the glitzy end of town, where the casinos are and the stupid stupid people who fill them. Stupid people who come to Vegas looking for fun but get in deeper than they ever expected. Stupid people who end up broke and broken.

And I tell myself it's the setting sun in my eyes that's making it suddenly hard for me to see.