Title: Sweet Spot
Author: podga
Pairing: Gil Grissom/Nick Stokes
Rating: NC-13
Warning: Spoilers for "Boom"
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine and I don't make money off of them.
Summary: Gil comes to terms.

Gil learned pretty early in life that things were easier if he didn't draw too much attention to himself. The trouble was that even when he tried to go about his own business as quietly as he could possibly could, people noticed and interfered. Teachers would call on him, even when he didn't raise his hand, and it went against his nature to pretend not to know the answer when he did. Recess monitors ensured that he participated in games and got picked for teams, even when he just wanted to sit quietly in a corner and think his own thoughts. Kids mostly disliked him and he probably would have been picked on a lot more than he was, except for three things: an explosive temper, a willingness to use his fists when pushed too far, and the fact that he was good at baseball.

It was playing baseball that he first discovered the sweet spot. "Try to find the sweet spot," the team's coach used to say. At first he couldn't figure out what that meant, until he looked it up in the dictionary:The area around the center of mass of a bat, racket or head of a club that is the most effective part with which to hit a ball. He still remembers the first time he found the sweet spot, swinging the bat and not even realizing he'd hit the ball until he saw it soaring across the baseball diamond and over the back fence. He watched it, lost in wonder and a heart-swelling joy, barely registering the whoops of his team mates or his coach yelling at him to get his ass around the bases.

In the thirty intervening years, Gil has forgotten a lot. When he looks at old class photos that his mother kept, he feels no connection; if it weren't for recognizing a couple of teachers and his own face, which seems to grow more sullen and withdrawn in every picture, he wouldn't even be sure when or where they were taken. But he remembers that one moment, the white ball flying in a cloudless bright blue sky, when everything fell perfectly together. And he remembers other moments as well, moments that he also came to think of as having found the sweet spot, even though they had nothing to do with physics: Completing the last question to his Biology SAT, certain he'd achieved a perfect score. Reading his first Shakespeare sonnet. Walking in New York City among skyscrapers on a blustery afternoon and looking up at the exact right moment to see a flock of birds outlined against a cloud streaked orange and red by the setting sun. To this day, he still finds sweet spots: they just happen, their value all the greater because he neither expects nor feels he deserves them, even at those rare times when he's actively seeking them.

At first, he told himself that he didn't really know why he'd acted the way he did. To dig into the details, into motivation and cause and effect, was too painful, because to do so was to confront the fact that if anybody was to blame for what had happened, it was he. For taking Nick for granted, even as he pushed him away time and time again. For thinking that he could postpone certain decisions for ever. For believing that he could exist in a limbo, where he knew what he wanted, but didn't know what he was willing to give up in order to have it. Not that he realized any of this at the time, of course. Just as he didn't realize it while he sat listening to Nick's story, his supervisor's desk between them. Far easier to tell himself that what was really a sense of betrayal was merely anger at Nick's stupidity in getting involved with a hooker who had already been the subject of investigation in two separate incidents, when Gil had specifically warned him against doing so, at his compromising the lab and the team and all the work they did.

The realization came later, not in a blinding epiphany, but in bits and pieces. That he'd felt jealous and betrayed, and that through a series of conscious actions and unconscious omissions, he hadn't actually earned the right to feel that way. That he'd reacted so strongly against the possibility of a future with Nick, not because he hadn't wanted it, but because he'd wanted it so much and he couldn't realistically see himself achieving it. And finally, that he could spend his life regretting the past and wondering about what might have been, or he could take a risk, explain everything to Nick and hope for a chance to start fresh.

Finally he doesn't have the courage to explain everything, or even much of anything for that matter. He'd thought about what he needs to say, rehearsed in his mind obsessively, but confronted with the reality of Nick sitting in his living room, when he hadn't expected to even get this far, he's tongue-tied. He's used to winning his cases through intellect and logic, neither of which can be applied either to his past behaviour or to his feelings right now. So he only tells part of the truth, hoping that it will be enough.

Asking for a second chance doesn't come out as he'd intended either, and his heart sinks at the mess he's created and at his inability to express what he really wants.

"Would things between us be any different? Would you try?" Nick asks suddenly, and Gil wants to promise everything, the whole world, but a lifetime of reserve keeps him mute. He squats in front of Nick and takes his hands, gathering strength from the contact, realizing how much he's missed Nick's vibrant warmth. I love you, he thinks, but he can't say that either, it's too soon and Nick wouldn't believe him anyway.

"So are you to my thoughts, as food to life," he says, doubting that Nick will recognize the quote or its source, and so, what Gil is trying to say, but Nick looks at him and Gil thinks he reads some of his own hopes and emotions in Nick's eyes. "I don't know if they'll be different. But I'll try. I have to."

Nick closes his eyes again and there's nothing more for Gil to say, he just holds onto Nick, trying not squeeze his hands too hard, trying to be patient. Please, he thinks, please.

At some point that sometimes feels too near and sometimes comfortingly distant, they'll have to deal with their jobs and their friends and the future. But for now, Gil loses himself in the sweet spots, so many of them, all undeserved, all perfect, and unlike those of the past, carrying in them the promise of repetition: Nick's smile, and his kiss, and the way he hugs Gil to him when they sometimes dance, and the weight and heat of his body when he lies in Gil's arms.