Title: Rain
Author: Sarah
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Rating: PG-13
Words: Intoxication, Tachycardia and Mooning
Location: Hotel Balcony
Dont's: Character Death
Warnings: Spoilers for Grave Danger
Summary: Gil shuts down after Grave Danger, then he snaps out of it.

***

There were some things he feared forgetting and others he wished he could and still others he was resolved to never being able to entirely forget, especially when he lay in bed, listening to the rain and finding it completely impossible to sleep.

The latter seemed to happen a lot these days, he'd forgotten how to sleep without Nick. But Nick is still at the hospital and Gil doesn't think that now is really the time to tell the Stokes clan that their baby is screwing his male boss. In some ways it helps that there is a constant posse of sisters, nieces, nephews and assorted other relatives around Nick, he has no idea how he would cope picking up the emotional flack on his own; but it also means he can't climb into bed with him, wrap his arms around him bury his face in his neck and breath in the fact that he is still here and still alive.

He'll admit he's hiding at the moment. Standing out on a fire escape at the hospital with cigarette butts round his feet and watching the rain soak the concrete. A bad night for collecting evidence. He's giving Nick and his mother time alone with the last of Nick's sisters to arrive. He's hiding here, and unable to keep from remembering, rain always brings up memories, possibly because it rains so rarely here.

There's good ones, like the first time anyone ever kissed him, Kirsty Sanger, who he used to walk home at the end of their after school lab sessions. They'd been soaked on the way, and she'd invited him in to borrow something of her brother's to wear home. He'd been sitting at her kitchen table watching the rain in the yellow light from the street lamp when she'd leaned across and kissed him, their glasses had clashed together, she'd tasted of coffee, their teeth hadn't fit right and he had no idea what he was supposed to do with his tongue, but it had still been one of the most exciting moments of his life, and he'd been able to hear the rain the whole time.

There were mixed ones. The first time he'd realised just how deeply he was attracted to Nick, that it wasn't just a vague crush on a younger attractive colleague. It had been a crime scene that wasn't. A couple who had tried to pretend their hotel room had been broken into to get the insurance money. They'd been going back to the room to confirm what they already knew, and he'd been proud of Nick. Nick had probably been about half way to his hundred cases at that point and he'd been the one to put the pieces together and figure it out. He'd straightened up and seen Nick standing with his back to him on the hotel balcony, a black silhouette framed by the neon from the strip. The rain had been pouring down and blurring the lights, at that moment the power had cut and he'd stood in the darkness and stared at Nick, lit by flashing blue and pink. His heart had pounded in his chest, he'd been barely able to breath and he'd just thought, shit, shit. It had been a pounding realisation of Nick both his looks and his attraction. Nick had turned then, and they'd stared at each other across the room, through the light slowly shifting from blue to pink, and through the shadows cast by the rain on the balcony window. The lights had snapped on then, breaking the moment, and the moment had taken years to return.

Some of the memories he wishes he could erase. The Collins house. The blood everywhere, the smell of, and the knowledge of what had gone on in there. Not just the sexual abuse of the girls, but the fact the whole family had known, and done nothing. He knew Catharine tried to find out occasionally how Tina was doing. Good apparently, or better anyway, but he wishes he never knew. He sees the little girl's face sometimes, smeared with blood, when he sleeps. He knows Nick dreams of that one too.

He's snapped out of his reverie by Nick's father. The heavy door slams shut behind him and makes Gil jump, Rodger nods at him and leans on the railings.

"Mind if I smoke?"

"No."

In the rain and smoky darkness there isn't a lot to say. Gil just leans back against the wall and stares at the sky.

Oddly, Nick's father smokes the same brand of cigarettes as the magic guy, Toby Arcane, does after sex. The guy's fake tattoo had been smeared by their sweat, and Gil has ink on his palm. He should move really, get going, but he's too sated to bother right now. He knows that very soon the itchy feeling will start, the knowledge that he has to get out of there right now, before the questions and the unbearable awkwardness starts, but for now, he is content to lie there and smear the ink on the other man's stomach.

Nick doesn't smoke after sex. He blushed when Gil asked him if he ever had, embarrassedly admitted to smoking pot in college, and blushed more when Gil slid his finger down and in and rubbed him inside where he was still loose and wet and open and whispered "Did you ever do this in college?"

"Never got over how women talk. Lived in a house with six of them for years and I still can't quite believe it. Especially Rachie, now she's here you just watch. She'll get Nicky talking."

He's snapped out the pleasant memories of smeared ink and flushed, happy Nick to the reality of being cold and standing in the rain with Nick's father.

"Yes." It's a generally safe answer, Cath talks a lot, women do.

"Stupid you know. I gave up smoking the night Emily was born. It was, difficult, I prayed, said if He let them both live I'd never smoke another cigarette again, made some other crazy bargains. We were surprised by Pancho, after Emily, we didn't want to risk it again..."

Gil doesn't know what to say, suspects that saying anything isn't really required. He wishes he was somewhere else, somewhen else, like their bed two weeks ago when the sun was shining and the most they had to worry about was how to coordinate their shifts.

"But how can God really... I know my Nick, he wouldn't, he hasn't done anything to deserve this..."

Gil thinks he should be more sympathetic, but he suspects he stopped really feeling anything a week ago. He thinks that when he got to the ER and the doctor confirmed that Nick would be fine, that was the last time he felt any real emotion. Standing by Nick's bed and holding onto his shoulder he'd felt relief, but nothing like the intensity of a few hours before. He's lived on hazy memories and auto-pilot since then.

And he gave up on God a long time ago.


The next day and he's sitting in the hospital canteen stirring barely drinkable coffee with a plastic spoon and staring at the grime on the table top. He's had a whole hour alone with Nick today, just the two of them there, and he sat there and held Nick's hand while the other man dozed. It was easier to look at Nick now the bites weren't so savage and horrible and he could touch Nick without feeling he was causing more pain than anything else. Nick hadn't said much, he still seemed to be in a dreamy phase where his mind hadn't even started to process the trauma it had been though, and it had been nice, or what passed for nice these days, to just sit there and touch him and breath in his presence.

But then the family turned up and now he was here in the canteen, stirring bad coffee with a plastic spoon and wondering if he would get to say goodbye to Nick properly before he had to go to work.

He looked up as Nick's mom slid into the chair opposite him, also stirring a cup of coffee. She didn't meet his eyes, but stared down at the table top.

"It's funny, I don't think many of the statements Nick has slurred the past few days would really stand up in court, but then again I know from personal experience that the stuff you slur on pain killers and sleeping pills, well... They seem to remove the part of your brain that makes you think before you speak."

She paused and trailed her spoon through some spilt coffee on the table top.

"It wasn't so much of a surprise what he told me. Well it was, but it wasn't, it makes sense and then I wonder why I never noticed before."

Gil looked up at her then, but she was still staring at the table and he felt his chest tighten, there were a lot of things Nick had never get round to telling his parents.

"He told me, he wasn't making much sense, the drugs had kicked in, that I had to watch out for you because this was going to be hard for you and you were going to have difficulties with so many people around. When I asked him why, why you were special and why you'd be here more than his supervisor or Warrick he said, he just looked at me like it was the most obvious thing in the World and said "because he loves me.

"So Gil. I suppose what I'm attempting to ask you is whether Nick meant in a fatherly paternal way, or in another way."

He didn't speak for a moment, stirred the oily coffee and tried to formulate his thoughts. He wasn't good at scenes like this, moments with emotions boiling and bleeding beneath them. Some people had the knack of the right word at the right time, but when he was involved he lost the ability to speak that language. He just felt exhausted, and knew he should be feeling something. Panic maybe or concern, but they were just creeping feelings around the numbness that hadn't left him since he stood by Nick's hospital bed.

"I do, we are, together."

"Right."

She leaned back and stared back down at the table. There was so much to say he supposed, but they couldn't even meet each other's eyes.

"I don't suppose the two of you were ever planning to inform us." Her tone was acidic and scratched across his ears.

"Nick was going to tell you soon, its still quite new..."

"New? His homosexuality? Or his affair with his much older boss who couldn't do the decent thing and buy a sports car?"

He breathed in sharply and looked up at her, trying to make his mind work. There were lots of things he should say, "I love your son," "We're happy," "I know its bizarre but we're good together." But he couldn't get the words out of his throat, possibly because he realised with a vague sense of disturbance that he didn't really feel them at that moment, he knew he loved Nick but he couldn't feel that emotion, he knew he should be angry at Nick's mother reacting just the way Nick had been worried she would, and that thought made him respond.

"He was worried you would react like this, that's why he's been putting off telling you."

She stared at him in shock, her mouth hanging open.

"I don't care that if he's gay. I care that he never told me he'd fallen in love, I care that if he had died I would never have known, and I care that there is this huge area of my baby's life I don't know anything about, and if he had died I would never have known it!"

She began to cry then. Ugly chocking sobs with her head in her hands. He tried to take her hand but she snatched it away and covered her face. Her breath was hitching, as though she was trying desperately to stop crying but couldn't. He looked around at the people sitting in the canteen who were all awkwardly looking away and pretending they couldn't hear the horrible noises she was making.



He woke up slowly the next day. It was warm and still early and his body felt languid and aroused. He wished Nick was here as he reached down to touch himself remembering vaguely, half asleep and drifting, remembering Nick drunk on the raki his sister had brought back from Greece. Nick had been giggling, of all the ridiculous things for a man in his thirties to do, but he'd been giggling after drinking too much of the stuff and they'd tumbled into bed, Nick had kissed him wet and hot and then laughed into his mouth as Gil had rolled him onto his back. He hadn't been able to remember having sex with someone who giggled so much, and Nick had been so relaxed and hot under his hands and mouth, had licked off more of the raki from his chest and then started giggling again until Gil had been really laughing too, and the way Nick had flung his legs over his shoulders so casually and uninhibitedly as though it was the easiest thing in the world, and had been so hot around him, there hadn't been any tension at all, he had just slid in and it had just been good, and hot, and so fucking good...

He snapped out of the memory as he spilled into his hand, blinking rapidly and staring around the room at the dying light of the day as the cold numbness settled back into his body, along with the reality.



They were digging up the desert. A small time drug dealer had been caught with a trunk full of crack and had been trying to buy his way to a lower sentence by squealing to all and sundry about everything, including a dealer who'd been missing for about two months being buried in one of the abandoned gold mines that litter the desert round Vegas. It was a hot, close night, and stuffy in the mine. Sara was walking up and down with a geo-physics machine. She wasn't speaking much tonight and he was grateful as he shuffled around the cave looking for evidence.

"Here. There's something buried here, long rectangular, big enough to put a body in."

The rookies came forward with their shovels, and they sifted through the layers of sand and stone till they came to a wooden crate. He felt Sara step away and looked up at her. Her eyes were wide and she was breathing too fast.

"Sara? Are you alright?"

She nodded, and waved a hand at him to open it. He did so, jumping back to avoid getting a full face of the fumes that would have come from the decomp.

"Oh God. Oh God."

He looked around at Sara, she was staring in horror at the box, tears gathering in her eyes and trembling.

"Sara?"

"Look at the lid Gris, he was buried alive..."

He looked down at the lid and saw the deep scratches, the man must have tried to claw his way out. They'd seen this before, in much more horrible situations than an execution of a rival hood. He turned back to Sara to say so, when it suddenly hit him, the last time they had seen this, the last time they had dealt with someone who had been buried alive.

Nicky. Nick had been buried alive, Nick had nearly died in a box in the ground, Nick had scratched the top to get out, Nicky had nearly died... And he felt it now. It crashed around him like a tidal wave and he couldn't breath, his heart was beating so hard it felt like it might explode in his chest. He saw Sara's lips moving and her face was wet, but he couldn't speak, his heart was racing and in between the panic and the horrible sickening realisation that Nicky had nearly died in a box, and thought that he had disappointed him, and had nearly died, and this was all then swamped in the sudden knowledge that his heart shouldn't be beating this fast and that he was possibly having a heart attack and he should stay calm, but how could he stay calm when Nicky had nearly died...

He staggered out of the mine, Sara clutching his arm though he was barely aware of her, and the two of them swaying like they were drunk. He was pushed to the ground, and saw the EMT's rushing over, ambulance lights flashing blue in the darkness, just like they had been that night when they had rushed Nick away from him and he had had to follow behind in his car, swearing at every stop sign and red light that slowed him up.



"Tachycardia."

"Not a heart attack."

"Nope. A heart condition though, causes palpitations, light headedness, chest pain, fainting and frequently panic that the patient is having a heart attack."

He was sitting in a bed in the ER, in one of the godawful hospital gowns, and Dr Richards, who at least he knew quite well, although usually he was also leaning over the metal handrail to gather evidence, was peering through his glasses at him.

"It can be brought on by physical conditions so I'm going to run some tests, but it's also related to stress, and frankly Gil you have been under a huge amount of stress, with what happened to Nick, coupled with age and the fact that I suspect you've been living on caffeine... I wouldn't be surprised if cutting down on coffee and doing more exercise will prevent it happening again."

After the tests had been collected, he pulled on his clothes, but he couldn't stop his hands shaking and the buttons wouldn't fit into the holes easily. When he was finally done he drifted up to Nick's room and stood by the door, staring through the glass panel. Nick was sitting up in bed, staring at his bumpy hands, and not speaking. His head was bowed and Gil couldn't see what he was saying. His mother was in a chair and looking out of the window, one of the sisters standing at the foot of the bed and talking rapidly, waving one of her hands about.

He reached up to touch the glass, his chest had still vaguely hurt, but now it ached. Nick. Nicky, who had nearly died, and who he loved so much. It was crazy really, for the full strength of that to hit him now, staring through glass in a hospital corridor which his chest aching and his mouth still sour from the adrenalin earlier. It was a blinding moment, like the one in the hotel lit by rain and neon lights years earlier. Or their painfully awkward first official date a few months ago, where Nick had broken the tension by going into the this rambling story about how you can apparently see parakeets in the parks in London because they escaped from some zoo years earlier and settled in very well and now can be seen flapping cheerfully through the trees. He'd known in that odd, geeky moment that he really was going to give this a try and he hadn't been able to stop smiling because he really was going to make a go of this, properly, not like his half hearted attempts with various others over the past fifteen years, and something in his face must have made Nick stop because he was repeating his comment about how come knowing lots about birds made him a geek who watched the Discovery Channel too much, but knowing about bugs made Grissom a genius? And Gil had laughed then and taken Nick's hand, in the middle of the restaurant, and said that he didn't know but Nick could talk about birds all he liked, for as long as he liked...

This moment was another moment of realisation. It wasn't hot and surreal like the first, or glowing like the second. It was awful really, because twisted through that love was the knowledge of how utterly useless it was to Nick at the moment. It wouldn't heal his bites, and it certainly wouldn't do a thing for what he must be going through. Gil was also realising just how little he'd taken in over the past week, like he'd been in an extended period of shock and was only now realising what had been happening outside of his private numb bubble.

Nick spoke at that point, looking up at his sister and apparently snapping at her, then he saw Gil and looked surprised. Gil pushed open the door and the sister jumped in surprise, then her face turned guilty and embarrassed as she saw him. Nick's mother also looked guilty but stood up and said pointedly,

"Hi Gil. Good to see you today."

"Hello."

He looked at the bed and Nick gave him a rather shaky smile.

"Well. This is awkward. Me and Lizzy are now going to leave you two to it." Jillian grabbed the sister's arm and escorted her out. Gil heard her say,

"But it isn't..." before the door closed behind them.

He had to touch Nick now, but he wasn't sure where to begin. Or what to say,

"Hi, how are you today, I just had a startling and mildly earth shattering revelation that I really do love you, enough to marry you if I could, enough to move to the moon if you asked me to. Oh and by the way, work's fine, we dugup a guy that was buried alive today. It seems to be the new trend among Vegas crooks."

No. Not the right words. He sat down in silence instead and took Nick's hand and kissed it, but kept it there afterwards pressed against his mouth and shaking.

"Gil?" Nick's free hand came out to stroke his hair and he murmured again, "Gil?"

"It's just..."

He couldn't speak, and he could feel the pounding in his chest again.

"Hey Gil, its ok, I'm ok. Just a bit chewed up."

And that just made the pain worse, that Nick was possessed of the belief that he needed to be strong for him when he had been the one hurt.

"Gil." Nick's voice was firmer now and he looked up.

"I'm going home tomorrow. And I'm alive, and you are too, despite the attempts of various nutters and criminals, I'm alive Gil. Anything else is too much deal with right now." He sighed then and his stroking hand moved down to Gil's face, "According to the shrink I'm still in denial so I think I can hold myself together till I'm home. So you can too ok, Gil? You've got to, because there is no way I can't break down if you break down, and we really don't want my Mom thinking you've upset me. So you gotta hold it together for me till tomorrow, ok, Gil we'll keep it all together till tomorrow."

Gil laughed then, a laugh that didn't sound like him, but was tinged with desperation and a horrible sound that shouldn't come from him. But it was laugh or cry and the fact that he had in-laws to worry about for the first time in a long time was sort of funny.

Nick made a funny sort of chuckling, sobbing noise and breathed in sharply.

"Get on the bed."

So he did and curled around Nick, who hissed at the aggravation of his skin but settled back against him anyway.

"Itches."

"It would do."

"The experiments in the fridge go. No bugs round the house."

Gil sighed into Nick's hair, he smelt of hospital

"I don't know how much people have told you..."

"Not much. You certainly haven't been talkative."

He sighed and hugged Nick tighter.

"Sorry I was..."

"Freakin'. According to Catharine."

"Freaking, is accurate. But well, it was the ants, an ant moved onto the camera lens and so we could see it, and I could work out where it was and that's how we found you."

Nick tensed in his arms and said stiffly,

"Yes, about that. Catherine and Warrick explained... Did you, see anything, incriminating."

"You terrified us a few times..."

"I made a tape. He left a machine so I could record a message... It started off coherent, but I got a bit. I think I said everything to you on that tape I ever wanted to, some of it you were probably better off not hearing. I know there was no sound, but you can lip read..."

"I can, and I did. There was no one else there, but I know what you said. Nick, look at me."

His voice sounded tight, and he took a breath before continuing because this was the moment to end all moments. He had nothing of any practical use to offer Nick, nothing to that would really help him through what was going to happen next, but he had this and he supposed it would just have to do.

"You have never disappointed me, and you were always enough for me, and I do love you, I thought you knew."

"Hoped."

"Well, now you know."

They sat for a long time, Nick with his head on Gil's chest, Gil staring out of Nick's tiny window. You didn't see the stars in Las Vegas, too many lights and too much pollution. But he could see the moon and he wondered if it would become like the rain. Something that would always remind him of now, of the metallic taste of adrenalin, the chemical smell of the hospital, the background hum of the machines... And of Nick who had been buried alive but who they had got back, and who was warm and who was probably steps away from a full scale nervous breakdown but for now seemed content to just lie against him and breath. The last peaceful moment before the clean up or the breakdown began.

***