Title: Subway Series
Author: podga

Pairing: Gil Grissom/Nick Stokes
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Characters don't belong to me and I don't make money off of them
Summary: Gil and Nick come to an understanding of sorts.

The dream was so vivid that when I wake up, I roll over, fully expecting to see him lying there next to me. Still dazed with sleep, I think he must have gotten up to go to the bathroom and I listen for him. But there are no living sounds, just the small clicks and low hums that are only ever noticeable in an empty house. In the gray light of the darkened bedroom, I can make out the book lying open on the bed next to me, my glasses on top of it. Slowly, almost reluctantly, I accept what the evidence is telling me. He hasn't been here and I'm alone.

I look at the clock on the bedside table and see I still have an hour before I need to get up. I close my eyes, half-chasing the dream again, trying to remember the details, but they're rapidly slipping away and all I'm left with is the fleeting memory of laughing dark eyes and of the warmth of his lips on mine.

I jerk upright at the buzzing of the alarm clock what seems like three seconds later, and I realize I must have fallen asleep again. This time there were no dreams, but I feel tired, as if I haven't slept at all. Generally I'm good to go after a cool shower and a couple of cups of coffee, but not today. If I'm lucky, maybe I'm coming down with something. At the moment, even the flu seems like a preferable option to the mountain of paperwork expecting me at the lab on my supposed day off. Strictly speaking I don't have to go in, but if I don't, I'll regret it. Early last week I figured out that I can deal with everything but the most urgent paperwork on my days off; that will allow me to spend more time on the field, and it's not as if my social life will suffer. So I had great week and now it's time to pay the piper. I don't know how the hell I'm going to keep this up in the long term.

Overall I like being a shift supervisor. Brass is my friend, but he's a cop in every way that counts. He's both too impatient and too cynical to follow the evidence with an open mind. Putting him in charge of us had been an effort to bring the two disciplines of cop and scientist, closer together, but ultimately it was a failure. I know the results will be better with me leading the team. There are two things I hate about the job though. One is the paperwork, the masses of which have surpassed even my most pessimistic expectations. The other is how old it makes me feel. There was already a distance between me and the rest, even Catherine, and now it seems to have grown. Sometimes I feel like they all look at me as if I'm an infallible elder or worse, a parent, from whom they expect unconditional support and approbation. I wonder if they realize I'm only forty four; I might not be a spring chicken, but I'm not old, or at least not as old as they seem to think I am.

Four hours later, I don't think I've made the slightest dent in the paperwork, certainly not in any of the stacks of administrative forms. Leave requests, OT approvals, expense reports, departmental memos and god only knows what else are still in a haphazard pile on my desk. I guess the decision to go over the case files first was wrong, even though a lot more interesting. Only one more, I promise myself, and then I'll handle the administration.

The file I pick up is the Garris kidnapping case. I leaf through the forms in it. Sara's write-up is solid, impeccable. Nick ultimately did a good job as well. I read through his report of the processing of the blackmail tape, making sure that there are no gaps, no room for a defence attorney to present the slightest challenge. It's all good and I sign off on the file and set it on the stack of closed cases.

Faithful to my promise, I pick up a pile of expense reports next. Of all the things I need do, this seems to be one of the most pointless: checking the expense reports of criminalists. We trust them around the bad guys and then carefully go through their itemized expenses to make sure that they haven't slipped in a non-job-related meal at McDonalds. I flip through the receipts perfunctorily and approve the first expense report, then move to the next and the next mechanically, no longer checking, just signing and thinking about other things. More specifically, about Nick's job performance.

Nick asks a lot of questions and I've always considered this a positive trait, but lately too often they seem to be about things I'd have expected him to know by now. And has he always flung himself at cases with cocky self-assurance, attaching himself to the obvious evidence, when he should be digging deeper? He's a good CSI, he wouldn't have solved over one hundred cases in a relatively short period of time if he weren't, but somehow I expected a bit more of him during the cases we've worked on together over the past couple of weeks. In some ways he's like Brass: not cynical, no, but impatient, still a cop by instinct. As it is, I'm not sure I can trust him to deal with more complicated cases on his own yet.

"Grissom."

I hear his voice, but I react to it with a slight delay. In a way, I'm not surprised by his presence. I've been thinking so hard about him I almost feel like a conjured him up. He's standing at the doorway, dressed in faded jeans and a T-shirt, holding up two or three shirts in cleaner's plastic wrap.

"Hi. What are you doing here?"

He raises the shirts. "I just picked these up and thought I'd drop them off in my locker, rather than taking them home. I saw your car outside. I didn't realize you're working today."

I indicate the paperwork. "Catching up on some things."

"Oh." He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, looking ill at ease. "Been here long?"

I check my watch. "About five hours."

We both survey the files and papers stacked on my desk, the chairs and even the floor. I need to work on my filing system, because by this point I'm not really sure what I've worked on and what I haven't.

"I'll go put these away," he says, indicating the shirts again, and I nod, watching him as he turns around. I feel his absence immediately, even though I can still hear his footsteps in the hallway. Suddenly I'm not so much alone as lonely. I look down at the expense reports and I'm thinking of him again, only this time it's not about his job performance. The truth of the matter is that Nick and I have unfinished business. It's too late to wish that we hadn't started something, or that I wasn't promoted when I was, or that I'd had even an inkling that I might be promoted, so that I wouldn't have encouraged Nick to stay with the team. All I can do now is bring things to a halt. It's not that I doubt my ability to keep my professional and my personal life completely separate; I know where my priorities lie and I've never lost sight of them. I just don't like the imbalance. I joked about teaching Nick, but we hooked up as equals. I know how he views people in authority and, much as I'd like to think nothing's changed between us, I know he must see me differently now.

"Grissom?" He's standing at the doorway again, leaning against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets. "I was wondering. Are you about to wrap up? Maybe we could go for a couple of beers and watch Game 5 of the Series. It's starting in about an hour and it's likely to be the last one, the Yankees are already up by three."

My first instinct is to refuse. I still have too much work to do. Then, as I look at him standing there, I reason that I'm not going to get through everything anyway, and that I can finish up tomorrow. And maybe spending time with Nick as casual friends will push the other stuff to the background. This is not a date, I tell myself firmly. I almost convince myself, too.

The bar is already crowded when we arrive and judging from the accents, about 99% of the occupants are from New York. We manage to find a table towards the back and spend the next few hours watching the game. There's too much noise to hold any kind of a real conversation and we're not as emotionally vested as most of the people there, but I enjoy the game and I like the fact that Nick and I are sharing this. For a while it looks like the Mets are going to push the series to a sixth game, it's a tie to the top of the ninth, but then the Yankees score a two-run hit. When the game is over, only a few of us leave the bar; the New Yorkers remain to either celebrate or drown their sorrow.

It's grown chilly outside and I can see goosebumps break out on Nick's bare arms. Still, he doesn't seem in too much of a hurry to reach his truck, strolling slowly next to me.

"That was a good game!" he says for about the third time.

I smile. "Definitely worth sacrificing some paperwork for. I hope there weren't any urgent leave requests in the stacks I didn't get to, because I intend to blame you if I get yelled at."

His laughter is a little too long and loud for the joke. He seems to realize it and stops abruptly, clearing his throat in embarrassment. "Grissom…" he starts, then pauses and I know I don't want him to continue.

"It's time I headed home," I say.

"Yeah. OK," he agrees gruffly, but instead of continuing to walk, we both slow to a stop, standing next to each other. He turns to face me.

"Don't you ever get tired of doing the right thing?" he asks me.

"What?"

"This isn't loss of interest, right? This is doing the right thing."

I'm not sure how I want to answer. To tell him that I've lost interest, that I made a mistake, is the easiest way out, certainly for me and maybe for him as well. But he's right. I am tired of always doing the right thing.

"Nick. I don't want you to misunderstand."

"Misunderstand what?"

"I'm attracted to you. Very much so. But that's as far as it goes."

I'm looking at him closely as I say this, but I don't see any change in his expression. He doesn't seem surprised. Or hurt.

"So then, there's no problem, is there?" he asks. "It's just… scratching an itch."

"No, it's not," I react hotly, then shut my mouth, but it's too late. I've already said too much.

He quickly scans the parking lot, then leans over and kisses me. It's quick, almost a peck, his lips cool and dry on mine, and it leaves me wanting more.

"Whatever," he says. "You know what? I want you. And you want me. And tomorrow, or in a week, or in a month, it might be the same or it might not. And whether or not you do the right thing tonight, that won't change."

When he puts it that way, it makes sense. At the end of the day, sometimes there really is no difference between thinking about the sin and actually committing it. And I've never been into fasting or hairshirts. All the same, I have to make one more attempt to ensure that we understand each other.

"I don't want to insult you, but I have to say this, even if I don't think I need to. On the job I won't treat you any differently than the others."

I can see his jaw clenching. "Understood. And I don't want to insult you by telling you that I won't accept to be treated differently," he grits out.

We glare at each other for a couple of seconds, but then, even though I feel like a horse's ass, I can't help grinning. "Good. I'm so glad that went well."

He bites his lip, fighting his own smile. "Can we go home now?"

"Your place or mine?"

"Yours," he says after a moment's hesitation, a faint question in his tone.

"OK," I say. "I'll see you there."

On the drive home I puzzle over that last minute. There was something in his tone that makes me a bit uneasy, but I can't figure out what it is, so I finally let it go.

I wake up experiencing déjà-vécu. I roll over and he's not in bed, and the house is still and silent. But I know from the dent in the pillow and the mussed-up sheet next to me and from the memories that are sharp and clearly defined, that this time he really was here.