Title: Tag for Strip Strangler
Author: elfin
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Pairing: Nick / Gil
Rating: PG
Spoilers: The Strip Strangler
Summary: an alternative view on breakfast
Disclaimers: the usual, I'm only playing with these lovely people
Archive: sure, just make sure my email address is somewhere near the story

~

Sitting listening to Culpepper making his Academy Award speech, Gil didn't care that his name wasn't mentioned. He felt for his team, but looking around at them, they didn't seem to care either.

He'd found himself overwhelmed by their loyalty, their support over the last couple of days. Now he was back from his forced vacation and things were back to normal.

Except that there'd been a shift in what 'normal' actually was.

It appeared, for example, that he and Nick were no longer a secret.

His lover was sitting tucked into the crook of his arm. If Gil was being honest he would have had to admit that he'd had stolen an illicit stroke of Nick's nape before stretching his arm along the back of the seat. But Nicky hadn't left too much to the imagination as he'd leaned into Gil's side and sat quite happily snuggled there.

Warrick's eyebrows had climbed an inch, Catherine's smile warned of an impending lecture. Only Sara appeared to be ignoring the obvious and that was fine. Like Nick had said a couple of days back, let her play it whatever way she needed to.

He'd predictably got it in the neck from Nick, as he'd been sitting in the back of the ambulance. Why had he gone there alone? Why hadn't he asked for backup?

"What the fuck were you thinking?!"

"Nicky...."

"Don't 'Nicky' me! How do you think I'd feel if he'd managed to split your head in half? Huh? I might as well have given you a lift to his front door, Gil!"

A few tears, a careful cuddle, Gil knew he was forgiven. It would just take a little while for the fears to return to their usual background simmer.

The bruising in his shoulder from Goggle's attack was already coming out, as if he needed a visual reminder of how close he'd come to getting killed. It hurt like hell but he wasn't passing up breakfast with his team for any amount of blissful unconsciousness.

The meds he'd been given would knock him out, he knew, so he hadn't taken them yet.

Turning his head, Gil dropped a kiss into his lover's dark hair, no longer caring who saw. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the expression on Catherine's face. Whatever. He'd deal with it. He hadn't given Nick up when he'd been made supervisor of the nightshift and he damn well wasn't giving his lover of two years up now.

When their breakfast was up, Warrick and Sara went to fetch the plates and with a meaningful smile at Gil, Nick followed.

Catherine waited a beat before the questions started.

"How long?"

"Longer than it should have taken a crack team of Crime Scene Investigators to work out."

"To the exclusion of all others?"

Gil nodded once. "Absolutely."

"Love him?"

"More than anything in the world."

She smiled, wide and happy. "I am unbelievably jealous."

"Of me or of him?"

At the counter, Warrick nudged Nick's arm, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

"Hey, man, how come I didn't know?!"

Nick shrugged. "We didn't want anyone to know."

"Why?"

"Privacy."

"And now?"

Now, they'd talked about it on their way to breakfast with Nick driving Gil's Tahoe.

"You want to tell them, don't you, Nicky?"

"Yes."

"Why now? After all this time?"

"Because this way, if you ever take off alone after a brutal killer again, someone will tell me."

Sliding back into the seat next to Gil, Nick turned to grin at his lover.

Leaning down on a whim, Gil kissed him. He'd only meant it to be a peck on the lips but Nick's tongue brushed the tip of Gil's and it was pushing the limits of his self-control to end it when he did.

Parting, they glanced around them.

Catherine was making googly-eyes. "Awww! You actually look great together!"

Warrick was obviously still wrapping his brain around it, slightly more interested in his eggs at that point. Sara... Sara looked as if she'd work around it, eventually.

"I love all you guys," Gil reassured his team.

Nick grinned. "He just loves me the best."