Title: Don't Say Anything
By: Joanne Soper-Cook
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Pairing: Greg Sanders/Jim Brass
Genre: first time/angst
Rating: I'll say NC-17, just to be on the safe side
Spoilers: definite links to the episode "Ellie"

"...Dad?" She's moving closer to him; perhaps he can make her stay this time. Perhaps she'll let him, and then they can forget all the rest of it and just be a family, be something, anything, more than this. His mouth opens; he's waiting to say something. He'll say something in a minute. "It's already too late."

And she is gone, disappearing into the noise and traffic of the Strip, the lights. His face is wet: when did he start crying? He never cries.

He cries whenever he's alone: at home, in his car, at the movies. He tries to keep it to places where no one else will see. When he's got some downtime he likes to go to the movies. The theatres are dark; as long as he's quiet, nobody seems to mind. Nobody ever seems to notice. He never knew the human body could contain so much salt and water, so many vital fluids forever draining out of two tiny little holes in his eyes. He is forever tasting the brine of his own tears, till everything tastes like salt and yet here he is, so far from the sea - so removed in time from a childhood's worth of summers spent swimming at the shore. When he was a kid his dad would take them to Atlantic City, when it was still low-key, before the casinos and the slot machines. Jim spent his time on the boardwalk or the beach, listening to the ocean.

He finds his way back to his car. He's left it parked somewhere near the fountain. He was talking to her by the fountain; she was there. Dad, it's already too late. No malice in her voice, no anger or blaming, none of the poisonous old bromides that children tend to throw back in a parent's face. Perhaps she doesn't blame him. Maybe it's not him she hates. Maybe she hates herself. He fumbles with his car keys. His hands are clumsy and his tears are blinding him and he hates it, hates this weakness in himself. He unlocks the door and tumbles into the driver's seat; his body folds like wet tissue paper. He doesn't even have the strength to weep. He's her father, he should be able to keep her out of danger, to take care of her and make her safe. He's her father - in every way that counts - but she isn't his daughter, not really. She's the issue of someone else's body. She's the child of the man his wife was sleeping with. She's no one.

The door is chiming, warning him that he's left it open, left himself open to the noise and chaos of the Strip. His keys are in the ignition but he can't bring himself to turn them, start it up. He can't bear to start it up again. He's still got one foot on the pavement.

Greg is working late. To listen to the others talk, you'd think Greg never worked late, or Greg only works late when he can't get a girl to go out with him, but Greg often stays behind after the others have left - after Grissom has gone home to his butterflies and his bed, after Warrick and Sara and Catherine and Nick have left. Greg likes the lab: it's quiet and he can think, and he can work without someone forever hanging off his shoulder, asking if such-and-such is ready. He understands the urgency, the kind of work they do, but just for once he wishes they would give him a little credit - just a tetch. It would be nice.

But his eyes are feeling gritty, and the tense knot between his shoulder blades is tighter than it was an hour ago, so maybe he should call it quits. He locks it all down tight, closes everything behind him, and vanishes out the front door of the building, as ephemeral as a trail of smoke. He's driving along the Strip and sees it, Captain Brass's car, with Captain Brass in it. Greg hits the horn and waves at him, but Brass isn't moving.

A chill runs through him: it's dangerous to be a cop in Vegas, and Brass has made some enemies. Greg forces himself calm as he pulls in to the curb. He shuts the car off and pockets the keys, takes his time walking over there. Nobody's dead. He makes himself believe it. Nobody's dead here. "Captain Brass?" Greg would never have the effrontery to call him "Jim" like the others do. He wouldn't dare. And Captain Brass - Jim - is crying. "What happened?" Greg doesn't stoop to inanity, doesn't bother to ask what's wrong, as so many others have done, because it's a useless question and he hates useless questions. He likes questions that lead somewhere, preferably to answers.

"My daughter."

"Something happened to your daughter?"

"No."

He isn't making any sense. Greg crouches down next to the open door. "You'll have to bring me up to speed," he says slowly. This is freaky; he has no idea what's going on. But it's cool, he won't lose it, he can deal.

"She's gone," Brass says. He shifts his eyes to meet Greg's gaze, and Greg rocks back on his haunches. He has never seen...he never wants to...

How can someone look that way?

"Why don't I take you home?" Greg touches the older man's arm. "I don't think you're in any condition to drive."

"Just leave me." Brass is pretty whacked, man; Greg's never seen him like this before. Maybe he's been drinking?

"No sir, I don't think so. Come on." Greg helps him out of the car and locks the door. "I'm parked just down here. I'll take you home, make you a nice cup of coffee, you can relax." Greg is worried: he's never seen the Captain act this way, never seen him moving like a marionette, all jerky and insensible. How long had he been sitting in his car? "I make good coffee," Greg says, as if cajoling a child, "the best. You want some?"

"Yeah, I could drink a cup of coffee," Brass says.

"You gave me a scare, I'll tell you that." Greg leans across to fasten Brass's seat belt; the older man smells pleasantly of aftershave, clean cotton and fresh air. "You know me, I've got an overactive imagination. Yeah, I'm always thinking the worse, you know?" He puts the car into gear and pulls smoothly into traffic. "If I'm going to buy some tickets for a concert or get some milk at the store and there's a line, I always think someone's been shot or there's a bomb or maybe, you know, some guys in ski masks went in there and did something really horrible and I'm gonna walk in on it and see it and be like the first guy there and have to deal with it.I know, it's my line of work, yeah, I see where you're coming from, but still."

"She's not my daughter."

Greg's gut contracts into a knot. "I know." He forces himself to breathe. "I ran the DNA we got off your badge."

"I don't even know whose kid she is."

The lights spill over Jim's wet face, creating surreal patterns; his voice is eerily calm, frighteningly empty of emotion. This must be where he goes, Greg thinks, when it gets too much. This must be how he shuts it all down.

Jim isn't proud of Ellie. He's under no illusions about his daughter: she's a felony waiting to happen. It's partly his ex-wife's fault but mostly it's his own, because when his wife and daughter needed him he was never there. Too busy cleaning up the department, getting rid of the dead wood. Good old Jim, always has to do the right thing even if it kills him, and by the time the dust settled he was out of a job and newly divorced, on his way to Vegas with all his worldly goods in the trunk of his car. He remembers stopping in Nebraska, but he couldn't afford a room so he bought a sandwich - a really bad sandwich, a wonder he didn't get salmonella - from a vending machine and slept in his car with the engine running and the heat on because it was Nebraska in January and it was goddamn freezing, but he didn't think to crack the window, oh no. He woke up with a raging headache, got out and vomited his guts by the side of the road: carbon monoxide poisoning. He should have died, but he didn't. He wonders why.

"She's yours." Greg hates himself right now. He wishes he could take all of it back, retract the testing and the theories and the alleles that just don't match. He speaks with difficulty over the lump in his throat: "You raised her. You clothed her and fed her and you took care of her. You scared away the monsters under her bed. You probably taught her to ride a bike, you know? With those sad-ass training wheels that everybody gets on their first bike, and the wobbling and the falling down. You picked her up when she scraped her knees, and maybe you read her stories when she went to bed at night." Greg shoots a quick glance across at Jim. "And you loved her."

"She sure as hell doesn't love me." He sounds more like the Jim Brass they're all used to, the guy that Greg and all the others know, the Captain.

"I probably shouldn't even say this." Greg gears the car down for a red light. "But I think she does. She probably doesn't even know it. She probably doesn't want to know it. It makes it easier on her if she can just write you out of her life. It's a cop out." Greg smiles. "No pun intended."

"Turn left at this next set of lights," Jim says. "It's on Maple Ridge - number fourteen."

Greg considers telling him that he already knows, but is afraid such an admission puts him firmly into stalker territory. He's had a "thing" (mentally, he still puts quotes around it) for Jim ever since they met, Greg's first day on the job. He was fresh out of grad school, terrified, and acutely aware that he knew absolutely nothing. Meeting Grissom nearly sent him into seizures - could the man get any more intimidating if he tried? - but meeting Jim reaffirmed his basic faith in human nature. 'Want a cup of coffee? Come on, I'll show you where the break room is.' Jim had given him the ten-cent tour of the precinct, including the lab, and finished by passing Greg his cellphone number. 'If you need any advice, give me a shout, okay?' It was the single kindest thing anyone had ever done for Greg, and he never forgot it.

Greg pulls his car into the driveway and shuts the engine off. He should feel weird about this, but he doesn't; he feels comfortable. It's cool, he's just helping out a friend. It's no big deal. He follows Jim up to the front door of a neat, well-kept townhouse. The lawn has been carefully trimmed and there are various shrubs and flowering bushes on either side of the walkway. Greg has no trouble imagining Jim spending his weekends here, weeding the flowerbeds and putting in new shrubs, mowing the lawn. He can easily picture Jim in sweats and sneakers, carrying buckets of dirt from the backyard. It's a nice picture.

Jim is rattling the door keys; the night is full of crickets. "Hey, you still got a little..." Greg reaches out and brushes a teardrop from Jim's face. His fingertips are rough, and warm.

"Thank you." Jim looks at him, really looks; Greg is smiling. If someone looked at Greg and didn't know better, they would think him facile, young and foolish, careless - but there is sorrow in his eyes, and a terrible secret. Everybody's got a skeleton. "Come on in - excuse the mess. The maid just quit." Jim leads him through the house to the kitchen, which is white and spotlessly clean. "I usually make coffee fresh, so you'll have to grind the beans." Jim takes off his suit coat and loosens his tie, sits down at the kitchen table. He's exhausted; he feels a hundred years old.

"Man after my own heart," Greg says. "Don't believe Warrick or Nick. I make the best coffee in the whole damn lab." He falls silent as the grinder cuts in. "Nick thinks coffee is that cowboy crap they drink where he comes from and Warrick? Warrick would drink anything. Now I, on the other hand, am a coffee connoisseur. I know what I like and if I like it? I want more of it. No sir, you can never get too much of a good thing that's what I always say because the good things are always in short supply and the bad things? Too many of those, my friend." Greg is spooning coffee into the percolator, pouring water. He performs these simple actions with a deft and practiced hand, the same way he does everything. Jim admires that, wishes he could be as precise as Greg is.

Jim starts to say "It's really good of you to do this," but Greg waves it away. He takes care to seat himself at a right angle: directly across the table is too confrontational and he doesn't have the cojones to sit right next to Jim. That requires more bravado than he has right now. He's really not brave. He hides himself a lot, behind stupid jokes and inappropriate clothes. He's young, and he despises his own youth because it makes him stupid.

"For the record, I'm sorry." Greg listens to the sound of the percolator.

"Yeah, well..." Jim touches the surface of the table with his fingertips, flexes his hand. He has nice hands, strong hands with slender fingers, sensitive fingers. The people at the lab don't know it, but Jim likes to touch, and he likes it when people touch him. Jim doesn't get touched nearly as much as he should, and never as much as he would like. "You close to your own parents?"

Greg nods. "Yeah, pretty much. I should call home more often."

Jim feels himself smile. "You turned out good. I bet they're proud of you." He reaches out, thinking to rumple Greg's hair, but pulls his hand back at the last moment. Greg isn't a kid; he's a grown man. Maybe he doesn't want someone like Jim rumpling his hair.

"This is a really nice place you've got here."

"I wanted somewhere decent, for Ellie. Yeah, I had the idea - " Jim stops abruptly, his face twisting; he masters himself and carries on. "I had the idea that maybe she might want to live with me, instead of her mother."

Greg doesn't know what went down between Ellie and Jim; he didn't see it, wasn't privy to their conversation, but he wants to shake Ellie until her eyeballs switch sockets. "She'll come around."

Jim smiles sadly. "No she won't. She's like her mother. I'd say she's like her father, except I don't know who he is."

The wall clock ticks; Greg examines his fingernails. Anything he could say would be superfluous; instead of soothing the wound, he would widen it. He couldn't do that. Jim's in enough pain already, and Greg won't add to it. He couldn't bear to make things worse. The percolator stops; the coffee is ready.

"Ah - coffee." Greg pours, makes idle chit-chat about coffee and cream and sugar and then they are silent, sipping.

"It is good coffee," Jim says. He is suddenly very tired; he leans his cheek against his hand and fights to stay awake. It's just adrenaline let-down. He'll be fine in a minute. In a minute he'll get up and go to bed, and probably go to sleep, maybe.

"Captain Brass?"

He's been asleep. There's a tiny puddle of drool on the table under his cheek, and his neck is scrunched. It pops painfully when he moves his head. "Jesus, Greg, I'm sorry."

"Naw, it's okay. You look like you could use a nap." Greg takes the cold coffee from him and dumps it down the sink. ""Maybe I should stick around for awhile."

His own anger surprises Jim. "Hey, if you think - "

"No, it's . you're really tired. I can't let anything happen to you." Greg is big-eyed, probably scared, or maybe something else. "I'd worry."

Their eyes meet, and in that instant, something indefinable shivers through Jim. He can feel his pupils dilate. "Alright," he says, "Okay."

"Maybe I'll just crash on the couch," Greg says. A part of him is shrieking: how dare he invite himself into Captain Brass's home, into his personal space like that? What the hell is he thinking?

"Just through here." Jim gets up and Greg obediently follows him into a spacious living room, tastefully decorated in shades of blue and green and gray. It reminds Greg of the way the sky looks, right before it gets too dark to see.

Greg sits down on the sofa; Jim sits down beside him. "You're welcome to stay wherever you like," Jim says, and there is something new in his eyes now. Greg's heart is thudding in his chest: he knows what he wants to do, but wonders if he would ever have the courage.

Jim's eyes are blue. Of course Greg has noticed. Of course his eyes are blue. Kind blue eyes, kind face, a nice man, a really good man. Greg's heart is aching.

"Do you want me to go?" Greg's hand drifts to his cheek and Jim relaxes into the caress, leans into the young man's palm. Greg is right there, right in front of him; Greg is cupping his face and Greg is leaning in and Greg is kissing him, a mere brush of lips against his own.

Jim finds his voice: "You don't have to do this."

"I don't have to, no." Greg's mouth hovers over Jim's. "But I want to." He cups his hand around the back of Jim's neck and holds their faces together and slowly, artfully plunders Jim's mouth. It's surreal in the morning light to be kissing like this, kissing on the sofa and feeling deft young hands strip away his tie, open the buttons of his shirt. Greg's tangled brown head moves slowly down Jim's body; Greg's fingers are in Jim's mouth and their bodies are pressed together. Greg unzips him, kneads Jim's already-rigid cock through the fabric of his boxers. "Silk?" Greg is amused. "Decadent."

"Greg - " Jim clutches the young man's hands, forces him to look up. "Greg, listen to me." He has to make certain things as clear and lucid as can be, before his ardor catches up with him, before he lets himself give him. "I don't expect...I don't expect you to do this, okay? I don't want you to feel obligated." And now Greg will get up and leave, and Jim can take his sorry ass into the shower and jerk himself into oblivion before he falls asleep. Maybe.

Greg takes a deep breath, lays two fingers over the detective's mouth. "If you say that one more time," he murmurs, "I will scream. This isn't some sad pity fuck, okay?"

"It's not?"

"It's not."

It's really not: it's warm bodies tangled together on the sofa and a slow wave of arousal that fills Greg up inside. It's powerful and poignant; he thinks he might cry because he has never, ever felt anything like this before, with anyone. He pulls back slightly. "You got a bedroom?"

"Mmm, I do." Jim is curiously joyful. He isn't supposed to want this but he does, and this glorious young man wants him. It's almost too much to bear. Greg is curled against him, and Greg's opened mouth is pressed against his chest; he can feel Greg's arousal against his thigh. His heart is beating gladly. He takes Greg by the hand and leads him towards the back of the house, where it's cool and quiet, and the dark drapes screen out all available light. Their bodies move slowly in the gloom, heavy shapes twisting under water, fluid and beautiful. Greg is rangy and slender, still coltish, still growing into his body; his limbs are lean and corded with muscle, and his belly is the flat belly of a boy. 'You're just so goddamn young,' Jim thinks, but doesn't say it aloud. He is grateful for the darkness because it hides his middle-aged body, stretched and battle-scarred. Greg's fingers find the old bullet hole in his shoulder, dip into the scar across his back, but Greg doesn't ask about it. These are questions for later, when all desire has been sated and they lie together in the quiet, possibly...if there is an afterwards. If there is a later.

"Do you trust me?" Jim breathes the question into Greg's ear. "Really trust me?"

"Oh God, please, yes." Greg's hands clench in the sheets and Jim hovers over him. This is the last lucid thought that Greg is able to have for quite some time, and fifteen minutes later he is a wibbling, incoherent mass of pleasured nerves, a bundle of aching, devastated need. Jim has been over every inch of him with hands and mouth and tongue and teeth; Jim has mapped his body - Jim is a sensual cartographer. Greg can feel his eyes rolling back in his head; his thighs are slippery with his own moisture. He wraps his legs around Jim and they slide together in the tunnel of heat they have both created, belly to belly. Jim has been so controlled up until now, controlled for Greg's sake, wanting it to be good for Greg or needing it to be so Greg wouldn't have to feel so bad about going to bed with someone old enough to be his father.

Greg isn't thinking much of anything at all because his brains have gone radically south, and all his intellectual prowess is residing in his groin. He is grinding himself against the older man with delicious abandon, and the room fills slowly with their mingled cries and whispers and the musk of sex. Greg shouts when he comes, and Jim presses a hand gently over his mouth.

"The neighbors will think I'm killing you," he grins.

"Fuck the neighbors," Greg pants. A powerful aftershock ripples through him and he rides it out, blind and keening. He clutches at Jim. "You," he whispers.

"Me what?"

"You, now. Please." He moves his hand between their bodies; they are both slick and wet, and Greg is mightily confused.

"Think you would have heard me over the racket you were making?" Jim says, not quite smirking. They lie in silence for awhile, drifting, both of them tired now, sleepy.

Greg props himself up on one elbow. He has never seen Jim Brass look the way he does right now. He knows he is responsible, and he's glad. "I think - "

"It's okay," Jim whispers. "You don't have to stay." Of course Greg wants to be up and away and put all this behind him. What young man would admit to such a thing? He's so young, and Brass knows he is old, old and used up.

"Would it be okay if I did stay?" Greg's fingers trace the line of Jim's cheek. "I'd like to stay with you. I want to."

"Okay." He is astonished, but that's for later. He is terribly tired now, and his fatigue is overlaid with sadness. Ellie, he remembers. Ellie is gone again, back to Jersey, as far from him as she can get. Between Vegas and Jersey there's no one watching out for her. There's no one. He feels Greg's arms around him, and Greg curled into him, a warm shape at his back. He feels Greg kiss the nape of his neck and pull the covers over them both. Greg doesn't have to be here, but he is. Maybe Greg needs someone, too, someone to watch out for him and keep him safe. Maybe he could be that man.

He wakes up to the sound of the shower running and the smell of fresh coffee in the kitchen. It's well past four in the afternoon, but he's actually slept, better than he has in ages. The shower stops and Greg comes into the room with a cup of coffee. "I made this for you. And there's food in the kitchen, if you want. I didn't know what you liked, so I made some of everything."

"You made breakfast? You don't have to do that." Jim takes the coffee and sips it gratefully: fresh ground beans, coffee decanted with an expert hand, delicious. Greg is shifting his weight from one foot to the other, wanting to say something. "What is it?" Jim has steeled himself for the rejection that he knows must come. Of course this was a one-night stand. Of course this will never, ever happen again, shouldn't have happened in the first place, don't know what I was thinking, can we just forget this ever happened - he's heard it all. He's perfected his reaction: stone-faced at first, then utterly understanding. They never want to see him again.

"Can I see you again? After work, I mean?" It comes out all in a rush. "If you don't want to, that's cool. You probably don't want to. I mean, why would you? I'm...you know, I'm an idiot. I'm just being an idiot. You probably have better things to do."

He pats the bed. "Come here." He waits till the young man sits down. "I appreciate your help last night, but don't feel obligated to stick around because you feel sorry for me."

"I don't feel sorry for you." His voice is steady. Greg decides that he likes himself this way. "What I feel for you is not even close to sorry." He drops his eyes, starts picking at the bed spread. "I mean, I see you out there in the field with Grissom and the others, and you always know what to do. You just do. You're not like me. Nobody notices how good you are, but I do. I mean, I totally get that."

Jim tries to hide his smile. "You totally do." There's mirth in his voice, a hint of amusement; he drops his head.

"You're laughing at me."

"Never." He pulls the young man into his arms. Greg's skin is smooth and undamaged like a baby's skin. He snuggles into Jim with a great many murmured sounds of pleasure. "How about we take this one step at a time, huh? See where it goes." He feels Greg nod against his shoulder.

"Okay." I love you. He'll say it later.

He'll say it.

The End.