By: Evan Nicholas
Characters: Gil Grissom, Greg Sanders, Nick Stokes
Rating: FRM
Warnings: None
Summary: Nothing says I love you like a poke in the head with a sharp stick
Notes: Ahh, Franky - where would I be without you? Mis-spelled and delirious with poorly-chosen words, no doubt. Hung in a hallway of shame. My eternal thanks, as always.
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Later - much later, when he's at home with a blistering pot of coffee and everything is back to what passes for normal in his life - Greg will think, What a bad kiss that was. He will think, That was one of the ten worst kisses of my life, and that's including my first kiss ever where I almost bit the end off of Eileen's tongue.
But right now he doesn't have the luxury of perspective. What he has right now is an awkward armful of Nick Stokes and a burning desire to be somewhere else.
When Nick pulls away from him and rubs at his lip - which is probably going to be a bit bruised in the morning, Greg thinks - he looks embarrassed. No, more than that. He looks humiliated. "Sorry," Nick says uncertainly, and looks like he wants to leave but doesn't quite remember how.
Oh god, Greg thinks, why me? "Nick," he says, catching his arm just before he turns away. He hauls him close enough that they can actually talk over the racket of the band, a band that he had really been pumped about seeing, a band that he now thinks he's not going to get to stick around to see.
He thinks how interesting it is to watch Nick blush. Really, seriously blush - even in the funky club lighting Greg thinks he's never seen a colour quite like it.
"I said I'm sorry," Nick hollers above the racket, not meeting his eyes.
"Look," Greg says, finds he has to turn his back on the band just to talk to him. "We should go somewhere, okay?"
Nick glances up to meet his eyes at that, and his blush deepens impossibly. He wants to say no, Greg can see it all over his face, in the fear embedded in his eye; instead he ducks his head and nods.
Great. Greg pulls him through the crowd towards the exit, and his last half-bitter thought as they cross the tiny packed dance floor is that inevitably Vanilla Coward will be back in Vegas sometime. Eventually. He'll just have to see them then - probably lie his way out of work and lurk like a drug dealer in case anyone catches him playing hooky. Sounds like a plan.
***
Even the street is pretty packed, and Greg has to haul Nick halfway down the block before they have a chance in hell of hearing each other without shouting. And something tells him Nick's not going to want to shout this out for the world to hear.
"Nick," he says, letting go of his elbow and turning to face him, "what's going on?"
Nick wobbles for a moment, and Greg realizes he's drunk. Not totally insensate, but definitely approaching blotto.
"I'm sorry," Nick reiterates, and sways sideways.
Ah fuck... Greg rubs his forehead and sighs. "So you want to tell me what that was about?"
"It's nothing."
"It's not nothing, Nick," Greg says. "Last I'd heard, you were straight. So what's with the lip-lock back there?"
"It's nothing," Nick insists, and now he's starting to sound a little hysterical.
Greg narrows his eyes. "You are straight, right?" he asks.
"Um." Back and forth and side to side - if he doesn't fall over, Greg thinks, he's going to be seasick.
He grabs his shoulder and stills him. "Okay," he says, "you're not straight. I get it."
"I'm not - I'm not not straight," Nick says, "but maybe I'm not really not-not-not straight either. You know?"
"No," Greg says, "but that's okay. Speaking of things you're not, though - um... me?"
"I'm sorry," Nick says, shaking his head and shifting from foot to foot. "It's just - I need to, I mean I want to, I just-"
Greg sees the second kiss coming, which is something he can't say for the first: it arrived out of nowhere, chasing the pleasant surprise at seeing Nick in a punk club on a Sunday. This second kiss he can see even before Nick leans in towards him, so he's able to brace himself for it.
It's not quite as bad as the first, but it still makes Greg's list of top ten kisses never to repeat.
This time, he pushes Nick away, firmly but gently, holds him at arm's length. "Nick?" he asks.
Nick looks like he's going to be ill. Great, Greg thinks. Just what I need.
"Nick," he says again, steadies him as he starts to sway again, "Look at me."
He does, but it's a wobbly kind of look that suggests violent upheavals in the near future.
Greg sighs. "I'm going to take you home, okay?" he asks.
There's a momentary look of panic on Nick's face, followed by what can only be described as weird fascination, and then Nick doubles over against the wall and throws up.
Greg closes his eyes and waits for him, thinking of how much he likes the Vanilla Coward's second album and how, no matter how many times he gets to see them in the future, they're never going to be touring it again.
***
Greg pays the taxi driver and watches him drive away while Nick begins the laborious search for his keys.
"They're in here somewhere," he mumbles into the shadows around his door as he frisks himself. "I know they are, I put them there."
"Take your time," Greg says, because standing outside with nothing to do while Nick's hands are otherwise occupied is by far better than whatever Nick is drunkenly planning. He thinks, I shouldn't be here. I should have piled him into the taxi, paid the driver twenty bucks, and gone back to catch the rest of the act.
But he can hear what Papa Olaf would have to say about that, about ditching someone when they obviously can't be left to their own devices. Why does the moral center of his universe have to wear an ugly yellow cardigan with socks to match? Why can't he just have a crazy grandpa who collects bagpipes or something?
"Got 'em," Nick says, and begins the intricate process of inserting the key in the lock.
Greg watches him while he works, or while he fumbles at any rate, and wonders what is bringing this fiasco on. Because it sure as hell isn't some hitherto undiscovered infatuation with Greg Sanders. Lust, no matter how inebriated or terrified or ill-advised, infuses a kiss with a kind of electricity that was noticeably lacking in both of Nick's attempts.
Those had felt like duty kisses, Greg thinks: acted on out of some bizarre sense of obligation. And that was ridiculous, because the only obligation between Greg Sanders and Nick Stokes is a PS2 game that Greg has borrowed and never given back.
"There," Nick declares, swinging the door open and stumbling in after it.
Greg mutters a secular scientist's prayer under his breath and follows him into the dark hallway.
There's the inevitable attempt at a third kiss, and Greg endures it with a clenched jaw and tight lips, and Nick almost trips over something and mumbles an apology and makes a bee-line for the wall where, presumably, there's a light switch.
Greg turns and closes the door behind them. The lights are on when he turns back, and Nick is standing in front of him, his eyes kind of glassy and his torso still swaying ever-so-slightly.
"So," Greg says, trying to decide the best way to get past Nick and into the apartment without being molested. "You wanna fill me in?"
Nick shrugs. "I - I think I like guys. You know?"
Greg nods. "Got that," he says, eyeing the space between Nick and the chest of drawers and wondering how dulled his reflexes are and if he can move fast enough to get through.
"And, you know. So do you." At least he has the decency to frown at that, Greg thinks. "Right? I mean, you - you know. Like guys."
"Yes," Greg admits, "I do." And for the first time since he left puberty he kind of wishes it weren't true.
"So?" Nick says with a forced smile. "You like guys and I like guys and-"
"Just because," Greg interrupts, because that is a thought that needs to be stopped before it gathers any momentum, "just because I like guys and you like guys does not mean we have to like each other, Nick."
There's a puzzled kind of silence for a bit, and Greg seizes upon the confusion of the moment and squeezes past Nick into the living room. He heads for a comfy-looking one-person chair and flops down in it.
Nick wanders in about a second and a half after Greg has wiggled his ass into the sweet spot of the cushion. "But," Nick says, and that stupid look of incomprehension is there.
"No buts, Nick," Greg says firmly from the depths of the best chair in the known universe. "It's like - it's like Warrick and Sara. Right? Warrick likes girls, Sara likes guys. But they can be friends without sleeping together. See?"
Something like comprehension begins to dawn on Nick, and Greg relaxes deeper into the chair. "It's okay," he tells him with what he hopes is a friendly smile, "it was a newbie mistake. You're allowed one before they start giving you penalties."
"But," Nick says, and then he looks like he might be sick again and disappears down another hall.
Greg sighs and lets his eyes close. He likes this chair, he thinks. Under different circumstances, he might decide to never leave it again. He wonders if it would fit in the lab - maybe if they got rid of the GCMS, moved it into Jacqui's lab or something, and pushed the lab bench against the far wall...
"Greg?"
He opens his eyes again. Nick is propped against the wall. "Yeah?"
"I'm sorry."
He smiles. "I know," he says, "it's okay."
"I'm going to bed," Nick says. "I don't feel so good."
"You don't look so good," Greg tells him.
"If you want to stay, I can get a blanket-"
Greg waves his hand. "I'll take care of it, Nick," he says. "Go to bed."
"Okay." Nick smiles at him, a thin wavering line that is the most honest thing he has shown Greg all night. "Later."
Greg watches him wobble down the hallway and out of sight, then lets his eyes close again. So what if he could be out having fun? So what if he could be in a minute club packed beyond capacity listening to the best band ever?
I hope you're happy, Papa Olaf, he snarks in his head, but without rancour; because he knows that this is what it means to be someone's friend.
------------
About fifteen seconds after waking up, Nick wishes he hadn't. His head hurts, his knees hurt, his back hurts, his eyelids hurt, his tongue hurts, and frankly the fuzzy spot in his memory hurts too.
He decides to lie there for a while, hopes maybe he can trick his body into thinking it's still asleep so things will stop hurting.
Except then his bladder draws attention to itself, and then comes the awful taste in his mouth, and Nick realizes that the longer he lies there the worse he's going to feel. Every few seconds another part of his body is going to start to complain, and if he's not up doing something then he's never going to be able to ignore them.
So he negotiates himself into a sitting position, and from there into a standing position, and he keeps one hand on the wall while he picks his way towards his door and then to the bathroom. He hasn't felt this bad in years, not since his frat days. What the hell did he do last night?
The beginning of the answer hits him when he's standing in front of the toilet with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. It comes in the form of a strong feeling that he made an ass of himself, and an equally strong feeling that he should go and see who's sleeping in his living room.
He flushes, washes his hands, spits out his toothpaste and wanders down the dim hallway trying valiantly to ignore the chorus of protest from every joint he possesses. His eyes fall naturally to the couch, which is empty - huh. And then they gravitate to the lazy-boy in the corner, where the unmistakable hair of Greg Sanders is poking out from under a blanket.
Uh-oh.
The end of the answer slams into him with the force of a rocket-propelled pingpong ball driving itself into his memory and leaving a crater. He thinks: Greg. Music. Club. Kiss. Taxi. Kiss. Bed.
Oh, shit.
The ensuing wave of panic that crests over him does a good job of muting his hangover for a little while. He's not sure what scares him more: that he actually got liquored up and went out looking for Greg last night, that Greg turned him down, or that Greg probably remembers the whole thing.
Nope, he thinks after a heartbeat, that's a no-brainer. Greg knows.
Greg knows.
Greg knows.
Shit shit shit shit shit.... he takes a deep breath and then another one, and issues strict instructions to his stomach not to throw up while he's about to hyperventilate.
Look, a rational part of him says, he's gay too, right? So he's not going to set out to ruin your life with this.
That's not the fucking point, the rest of him screams, the point is he knows something you've never told anyone before, ever, and that has to be a bad thing, right?
Right?
Greg starts to stir, and Nick bolts as quickly as he can in his sorry state back to his room and closes the door.
Smooth move, he tells himself.
Then he tells himself to go fuck himself.
***
Eventually there is a smell of coffee, and a little bit later a smell of toast, and Nick realizes that Greg is not going to spontaneously go home. He's going to stay there until Nick makes an appearance or until shift starts: whichever comes first.
So he runs a hand through his hair and creeps out into the hallway.
Greg is sitting at the kitchen table with the newspaper and a stack of toast and cheese. He doesn't look up when Nick fills the doorway to the kitchen, keeps reading until Nick makes a noise.
Then he looks up, and - Nick feels a lot of tension leave his body - smiles.
"Hey," Greg says, and pushes a chair out from under the table for him. "It's about time. I was about to put together a search party."
Nick sits down carefully, eyes the toast. "Yeah," he says because it's a nice non-specific thing to say.
"A little hung over?" Greg asks with an evil grin.
"Shut up," Nick suggests mildly, eyeing the coffee pot next to the toast. His stomach is torn between keen interest and sheer mutinous disgust.
Greg shakes his head a little, still grinning. "You know," he says, "the temptation to torture you is pretty overwhelming right now."
Nick hopes Greg didn't notice his panic-frozen moment there. "Oh yeah?" he asks as neutrally as he can.
"I looked through your CDs," Greg continues, "and I see you have, among your collection of questionable country ballads, some actual rock music. Loud stuff. I was going to blast you out of bed a couple of hours ago, but I took pity on you."
He winces. "Thanks."
Greg prods the toast a little closer to him. "Eat something," he says. "It'll sop up all that acid."
God... Nick takes a slice of toast, picks off the semi-melted cheese, and stares at the slightly-burnt square looking back at him. "Not too sure this is a good idea," he says.
"You can't go into work like that," Greg says pleasantly, "so you've got to eat something."
Nick sighs, inserts a corner of toast into his mouth and bites.
Greg is watching him, and Nick recognizes the look of shrewd assessment. "So," he says when Nick is busy chewing and can't really do much about it, "you remember last night?"
He makes himself finish chewing and then swallow before he replies. In theory, this is supposed to give him time to come up with a good answer. In practice, it just lets him realize that he has nothing to say to that at all.
"Yeah," he finally says. "Shit, Greg, I don't know what to-"
"It's okay," Greg tells him, and something in the tenor of his voice tells Nick that he's getting used to saying this to him. "You don't have to apologize, okay? It happened, it's over, we're good." He raises his eyebrows. "Right?"
Nick is proud of himself for holding his gaze long enough to nod and say, "Right."
"Good." Greg sips at his coffee for a few seconds, lets his eyes fall back to the newspaper.
Nick watches him. That can't be right, he thinks. I can't get off the hook that easily. "Um," he says, "I mean, not that I - you know - but, uh, did I...?"
Greg gives him a terrific look of incomprehension. "You want to try that in English, Nick?"
He swallows. "I've never, I mean, I didn't-"
A light goes on somewhere in Greg's head. "Ohhhh," he says, nodding. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone. Okay?"
He lets out a sharp breath. "Okay," he says, and he's beginning to think that maybe he means it. Maybe it will be okay. Who knew?
Greg's eyes slide to the paper again. "Eat," he says without looking up. "You'll regret it later if you don't."
***
Nick drives him to work and promises to drive him home after. "Thanks," he says awkwardly in the lobby where their paths split, Nick on to the briefing room and Greg down to the lab.
"For what?" Greg asks.
He shrugs. "You know," he says. "Everything."
"Oh." Greg smiles at him, claps him on the shoulder. "You'll be fine, Nick."
Nick nods, smiles, thinks he should probably say something else but can't think of what. "All right, then," he says, because that's another good conversational space-filler. "I'll see you in the morning?"
"You'll probably see me before then," Greg tells him, "unless by some miracle your cases tonight don't involve any blood or DNA or other biological samples."
"Right," Nick says, grins. "Later."
"Later."
They go their separate ways.
------------
"Hm."
If I can just get those three granules of sand isolated, Gil thinks as he peers down his microscope, just - no, not that one, no quartz allowed in this experiment - if I can just get those three off to one side-
"I said, hm."
He sighs, lifts his head and turns to Catherine. "Yes?" he asks.
"I'm just pondering," she says. She's leaning against the counter not far from him, looking out the door of his office into the shift-change swirl of people in the lobby.
"No you're not," Gil tells her. "Pondering is quiet and careful consideration. What you're doing is trying to get my attention. You have it."
She rolls her eyes at him, and he marvels at that: no one else has enough self-confidence to make fun of him to his face. Then he thinks, That's because she's your friend. Friends can do that. Subordinates can't.
"Fine," she says as though she doesn't want to talk about it but is willing to if it makes him happy. "I was just watching Greg."
"Greg?" Gil turns his head to follow her gaze out into the faux-marble expanse of the waiting area where Greg Sanders is slouched in one of the vinyl chairs along the wall.
"Yeah," she says. "He's just sitting there."
"And?" Gil asks, glancing over at her. "I sit all the time, Catherine. It's what people do when they're tired of standing."
Another great roll of the eyes. "He's waiting," she says, as though explaining something to her daughter on a particularly recalcitrant day.
"Waiting?"
"God, Gil," Catherine says with amusement, "how can you be a criminalist and be so completely blind to everything around you?"
"I'm not blind to everything around me," he protests. "I pay a lot of attention. To the evidence, to suspects, to-"
"To insects," she tells him. "I know. But look: Greg is obviously waiting for someone. Waiting for who? And why?"
Gil blinks. "You could ask him," he suggests.
She looks exasperated. "Teaching you to gossip is like teaching Lindsey not to swear," she says. "What I'm trying to get at is that Nick and Greg arrived together tonight, and they're leaving together now."
"You don't know that," Gil says immediately. "He could be waiting for anyone."
"So you knew they arrived together."
"No," Gil says patiently, "but I'm assuming that you're actually relating a known fact to me. The rest is supposition."
"Supposition, huh?" She grins at him, and it's sort of unsettling. It's a little bit feral. "Want to put some money on that?"
"No," Gil says again.
"Friendly wager."
"No."
"Not for money, then."
"No. Gambling on a colleague's social life is - it's unprofessional, Catherine."
"Loser buys the winner a drink."
"No."
She sighs. "You used to be a lot more fun," she says accusingly. "And at this point it's not even about their social life anymore. This is - this is a matter of principle, Gil."
"Exactly."
"The principle in question being that you used to be a lot more fun than you are now."
There's a moment of silence. Catherine is staring him down, challenging him, and she's not going to blink.
Finally he says, "That's not a principle, that's an axiom."
"Loser buys the winner a drink."
"Catherine-"
"Gil. I have a ten-year-old daughter. Don't even kid yourself that you can out-brat me."
She's serious, he realizes. "Fine," he says with measured reluctance, "one drink."
She grins at him. "Excellent."
"But not this morning," he adds, "because I have to finish this." He indicates the microscope. "This time-sensitive experiment which you interrupted."
"It's sand, Gil," she tells him. "You're looking for its melting point. That's not time-sensitive."
He blinks, and that feral grin of hers returns.
"I do actually pay attention at your dispatch meetings," she informs him sweetly, and turns back to the lobby. "Drinks tomorrow, then."
"Fine."
And despite his determination not to, he finds himself sitting at his desk with his chair angled just right so that he can keep an eye on Greg. Catherine rearranges the furniture so she's got a good vantage point, too, and they sit in silence for a few seconds.
"You have anything to drink?" she asks after a while.
"No."
"Pity. Anything to eat?"
"Actually, yes."
She watches him reach into a desk drawer. "No insects," she tells him.
He shrugs and closes the drawer. "Then no, I don't."
She sighs.
They watch for another few seconds.
"Remind me who I'm rooting for?" Gil asks about the same time that Greg checks his watch again and Catherine starts drumming her fingers.
"You're rooting for not-Nick," she says.
"Oh. Good."
She raises an eyebrow at him. "Good?" she asks. "What does that mean?"
"It doesn't mean anything, Catherine," Gil says, and feels that his life is slipping by degrees out of his control. He looks longingly at his microscope.
"It must mean something," Catherine challenges, "or you wouldn't have said it. You have a problem with Nick and Greg?"
He turns back to her. "What?" He knows he didn't miss anything she said, but he's resolutely certain that he missed something, somewhere. "What are you talking about?"
"Greg," she says, "and Nick."
"What about them?"
"God, Gil, sometimes talking to you is like talking to my autistic nephew. We are sitting here watching Greg wait for Nick to show up, so they can leave together."
"Or not," Gil says, but she ignores him.
"The extrapolation that I'm implying is that they're dating."
He sighs. "Why does it matter?"
She sends a mouthed prayer for patience up towards his ceiling tiles, and shakes her head. "Because, Gil," she says with severely tested patience, "it just is. It's a little mystery. Don't you like little mysteries?"
"How is this a little mystery?" Gil asks, filled with a vaguely horrifying curiosity. "Based on the fact that Nick and Greg allegedly arrived together?"
"Based," she tells him, "on the fact that they have been flirting for years and that they did arrive together, in actual, observed, empirical fact."
He blinks. "Flirting?"
"Do you notice anything that isn't six-legged?"
His eyes involuntarily move to his pet tarantula, and when he regains control of his facial muscles and looks back at Catherine, he knows with dead certainty that if she had anything she could throw at his head, she would.
"F-L-I-R-T-I-N-G, Gil. All the time."
"Oh."
She mutters something unflattering about men, followed by something even more unflattering about Gil Grissoms in particular, and slumps deeper into her chair.
He watches her fume, and wonders how he lets himself get sucked into this mire of gossip. Nobody else can do it to him like she can - he doesn't want to know all of this, he doesn't want to care either way. And yet, he thinks, and yet.
She gives him a deadly cold look. "What?" he asks.
"What do you mean, 'what'?" she demands. "Gil, I've been talking to you for a several minutes and I don't think we're actually having the same conversation."
"We aren't?"
She casts her eyes around for something she could throw, and Gil feels himself smiling.
"I'm sorry," he says.
She sighs. "Just make sure you've got cash with you tomorrow," she says. "You're going to get me a nice, expensive drink."
"You'll probably have earned it by then," he says.
She whips her head around to face him. "What was that?"
He tries to look innocent. "Nothing," he says.
She narrows her eyes at him but turns back to the show, such as it is. "Oh, and look who's entering stage left," she says after a short while.
Gil looks. He sees Nick wandering down the hall, shrugging into his jacket as he goes, saying something random to someone he passes, exchanging grins and shakes of the head. He comes around the corner into the lobby, hesitates and looks around, and-
-walks directly towards Greg.
Hm, Gil thinks. "Circumstantial," he admits haltingly.
Greg looks up as Nick gets closer, and he stands and says something and Nick shakes his head again and punches Greg lightly in the arm, and they leave together.
"More like probative," Catherine says wickedly, and pulls herself out of the chair. "Nice chatting with you, Gil," she says, "we'll finish this conversation tomorrow over drinks."
He watches her go. "We will?"
"Of course we will." She waves at him from the door of his office, and joins the rest of the exodus into daylight.
After a while, Gil gets up and goes back to his microscope.
***
His mind won't quite leave it alone, though. He gets another four data sets on his experiment before he realizes he's too distracted to be useful, and he packs it up for the day and logs off his computer.
Ecklie grunts at him as they pass in the hall, and Gil knows that he's watching to make sure he actually leaves the building. He remembers with some fondness a brutal case about two years ago, when he had stayed on the premises for almost forty-eight hours straight, and had uncovered the best way to beat the overtime blues: sneaking up on Conrad Ecklie when he thought you'd gone home.
It's childish, he can admit that - it's a ridiculous thing for a man his age to take delight in, but he figures the inhumane nature of his chosen field allows him a certain peevishness. And as long as it's directed solely at Ecklie and his cronies, he honestly doesn't see how it could do any harm. Everyone wins, he reasons when he's feeling cynical.
He doesn't double back tonight, though. He goes straight out to his car and squints at the staggering intrusion of sunlight into his life, climbs in behind the wheel and allows himself a sigh.
It's not that I wish them ill, he rationalises as he starts the engine. If they're happy together, then... well, good for them. To have found each other in the vast hinterlands of society. I mean, it's hard enough to meet anyone when you work the evil hours that we do; and then to find someone who isn't disturbed - or freakishly turned on - by what you do for a living...
No, he thinks as he pulls out of the parking lot, they're lucky. They know each other, and they also know the dark reality they inhabit ten hours a day. It won't come between them, won't translate into exhaustive arguments about keeping secrets and being obstinately unwilling to talk about their working lives.
The good part of his soul is happy for them.
It's the rest of his soul that's the problem.
He concentrates on the road, and on the traffic, and on the distracted driver ahead of him, and refuses to dwell on his private misery until he's safe at home. He collects his daily paper, exchanges pleasantries with his neighbour as she leaves for work and contemplates the sad state of his garden, then locks himself in his house and draws all the curtains.
He sits on the couch facing his stick insect terrarium with a glass of scotch in his hand and slowly raises the lid on the pandora's box of his heart.
The problem, he is willing to admit, is himself. His own... well, his own stupidity, for lack of a better word.
He sips at his scotch.
Nick Stokes has always been his weakness. From the first moment he had bounded into the briefing room, more exuberance than experience and more gusto than skill, Gil has been smitten. Something in the man's charm, in his smile or his eyes or his easy-going ways or his kindness, has wormed its way deep into his heart and taken root there.
He has never been able to convince himself to approach him, though. There was always an excuse: first Nick was new at the lab, then he was too swamped with his mad rush to CSI 2, and then to CSI 3, and then there was the Warrick-Brass fiasco and suddenly Gil was in charge, and then.... well, then there was the subordinate-supervisor thing, and then his ongoing disaster with Sara, and...
And and and. Always a thousand ands and buts and if onlys.
He's always been comforted, though, by the firm belief that it would have been fruitless to profess his feelings to Nick because Nick was, is and ever shall be, a ladies' man.
He drains his drink and pinches his eyes closed.
You're an idiot, Gil Grissom, he thinks.
And the closest thing to a positive spin that he can put on this is that, just because Nick is apparently not as straight as he thought he was, it doesn't actually mean that he'd be interested in Gil Grissom.
Particularly not when there's young and exciting Greg Sanders around.
He makes the rounds of his insects, feeds the ones that need feeding, spends a few minutes watching the explosion of ants that appear at a few sprinkled granules of sugar, and eventually makes his way to bed.
Sleep is a long time coming.
Greg has to do it.
It's the third time they've hung out, the third time Nick has tried (and failed) to pick his brain subtly about what it's like to be with a guy. The good news is that he hasn't tried to gain any first-hand experience again, and once he gets past his stammering, stuttering embarrassment towards the subject at hand, Nick is kind of endearing.
He reminds Greg of his own innocence, all those years ago. His own virginity, so to speak.
"So?" he asks. They're at Nick's place again, where they seem to gravitate when Nick wants to ask delicate questions indelicately. Greg finds he enjoys these times, likes the way it makes him feel the older and wiser of the two. For once.
"So what?" Nick asks.
"So, who is it?"
Nick has a bottle of beer halfway to his lips when Greg's oh-so-casual question penetrates his head, and it stops in its trajectory. "Who's what?" he asks.
Greg hides his victory grin behind the lip of his mug of coffee. It's his own concoction of Blue Hawaiian and Kahlua and it tastes so much better when it's being chased down by gossip.
"Come on, Nick. People don't just suddenly decide they're gay. So who is it?"
"I didn't just decide I'm gay," Nick protests. "I just didn't tell anyone for a long time."
Greg gets such a kick out of the little blush that the word gay produces on Nick's face. He's so young, he thinks in a moment of Papa Olafian condescension. So young it's actually cute. "Okay," he says, "so who is it that's prompting you to start telling people?"
A deeper blush. "I'm not telling people, Greg," he says, "I'm only telling you."
"Yeah right," Greg says with an easy laugh. "You only told me because I was safe. Because you thought you could experiment, see what it's like."
"Greg, I didn't-"
"Easy, Nick," Greg says, "I told you, it's okay."
Nick humphs into the neck of his bottle of beer.
"It was a trial run, Nick," Greg says knowingly. "To see if it would be worth it to tell someone else. So: who?"
"Greg-"
He wonders if it makes him a bad person that he likes to see Nick so uncomfortable. Downright squirming. "Come on," he says, "you can tell me, you know you can trust me."
"It's not - it's not a trust thing," Nick says, examining the lettering on the label in his hand.
"Oh no?"
"It's - look, it's an embarrassment thing, okay?"
"Oooh," Greg says with a wicked smile. "Sounds juicy. You gonna spill?"
"No."
"So I'll just have to guess, then." Greg leans his head back and stares at the ceiling. "It's gotta be someone you know personally," he says, "and it's gotta be someone I know, or it wouldn't be embarrassing to you. So: who do we know in common?"
"Gre-e-e-g..."
"Well, there's the obvious - Warrick."
"No!"
"Ecklie."
"Jesus - are you drunk?"
"You sure it's not Ecklie?"
"Greg!"
He laughs. "Okay, okay... Doc Robbins."
"No."
"Hodges."
"No."
"Grissom."
"...No."
He's halfway to thinking up another name when his brain backtracks. "Woah," he says, "it's Grissom?"
"No," Nick says, and he's right on the edge of the stuttering-stammering thing again.
"Oh my god!" Greg says, and knows he sounds a little like a teenaged girl. "That's - that's brilliant!"
"It's not brilliant, Greg," Nick snaps, "it's - stupid." He lets the bottle down and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. "It's stupid and awful and stupid and humiliating and stupid and awful and did I mention it's stupid?"
"No no no," Greg says, "this is - this is perfect."
Nick peels his hands away long enough to send a murderous look over at Greg. "How?" he howls. "How is this perfect?"
"Nick," Greg says, and levers himself out his favourite chair and joins Nick on the couch. "Oh, Nick, man - you don't get it."
"Don't get what?" Nick asks, eyeballing him.
"First of all, having a major crush on someone untouchable is a milestone in your career."
"My career?"
"Your gay career," Greg tells him. "Secondly, Grissom-"
"My gay career?!" Nick demands.
"Nick, Nick, Nick..." Greg gets an arm around him and pulls him in for a conspiratorial buddy-buddy here's-the-way-it-works chat. "You're embarking on an exciting new career of hot sex with hot men, whether you like it or not."
"I am not," Nick says and shrugs Greg's arm off his shoulders.
"You're not?" Greg asks.
"No," Nick says. "I'm not. It's just a - a Grissom thing. Okay?"
"Enough of a Grissom thing that you got drunk and tried to seduce me?"
Nick blushes furiously.
"Would you relax, Nick?" Greg pleads. "It's okay to be gay. It's fun. It's heaps better than the alternative, trust me. Say it out loud, Nick: I'm queer and I'm proud."
"I'm not, Greg."
"Don't care. Say it anyway."
"Greg..."
"Humour me, Nick. I'm queer and I'm proud."
"Greg..."
"Queer and proud, Nick."
Nick sighs, shakes his head but Greg can see the resigned humour in his lines around his mouth. "Fine, Greg," he says, "queer and proud. Happy?"
"Delirious," Greg laughs and relaxes back into the cushions of the sofa.
"Well, that's a load off my mind, then," Nick mutters.
Greg chuckles. "So you want to hear the second thing?"
"What second thing?"
"The second thing about Grissom," Greg says.
"What second thing about Grissom?"
"The second thing about Grissom that I was going to tell you, and then didn't."
Nick sighs. "Sure," he says, "let's hear this earth-shattering second revelation."
Greg grins, holds his tongue long enough to make Nick look up at him, and then says, "For my money, Nick, he's gayer than you are."
There's a long silence then, broken when Nick laughs so hard he starts to cough. Greg watches his fit with a patient smile.
"You're kidding me," Nick manages to say eventually, when he's got some of his breath back.
"Nope," Greg says easily.
"The fuck you aren't," Nick says, and peers down into his bottle. "I'm getting another," he says, "but you're cut off, whatever that is you're drinking."
Greg watches him walk into the kitchen and listens to him rummage in the fridge. "I'm serious," he says after a few seconds.
"You are not," Nick says, leaning against the door frame to the kitchen and sipping at his bottle.
"I am," Greg says. "I get a kind of hinky vibe from him sometimes."
Nick blinks. "Bullshit."
"Not a word of it, Nick," Greg says. "He pings the gaydar from time to time. Which, I might add, you never did until you kissed me."
"Huh," Nick says, and Greg recognizes it as Nick-without-anything-salient-to-add.
"I'll drink to that," he says with another grin, and brings his mug to his lips.
Nick frowns a puzzled frown, and a heartbeat behind Greg, he sips from his own drink.
------------
Only now, of course, Gil can't get it out of his mind.
Every time he sees Nick, he wonders about it. Wonders how they fell together, wonders how long they've been seeing each other, what they do for fun - aside from the obvious, he thinks, and forbids his imagination from going there.
And every time he sees Greg, he wonders how serious they are, whether Greg can actually make Nick happy in the way that he deserves, whether...
Whether there could ever be a chance in hell for a middle-aged entomologist with poor social skills and a definite sag around the middle area.
He watches them kid around between cases, banter and barter for evidence and test results, play ridiculous games like Name that Compound and Greg's new personal favourite, Mime that Test Process. He watches them from doorways and from around corners, and realizes that Catherine is right: this has been going on as long as Greg has been working nights, and he - Gil Grissom, professional observer - has never noticed it.
They pass each other notes. Well, Greg passes Nick notes anyway, which Nick reads and then crumples up and tosses into the nearest garbage can. The notes seem to mollify him, Gil thinks; they make him blush and duck out of the room to hide somewhere obscure. His first thought is that they are arranging trysts somewhere in the building - and while he is willing to overlook obvious flirting on the clock, there is a line in the sand when it comes to actual sexual relations at work - but his circumspect surveillance of them tells him this is not the case. Greg stays predictably in the lab, and Nick scurries into the auto shop or the trace lab or wherever it is that he can be useful, and...
...they work. They don't meet up for anything more unprofessional than video-game talk in the break room, and even that isn't crossing any lines, because they all do that, in their own ways. Catherine and Sara will have clipped conversations about Lindsay, Warrick and Nick will dissect the latest all-star disaster on ESPN. Even Gil himself has been known to have random non-work-related conversations with his colleagues between exhaustive sessions with suspects or evidence. It's human nature, and he can't fault them - any of them - for that.
He doesn't set out with the intention of reading those notes, because they're passed discreetly and they aren't really interfering with anyone's work. But when Nick shakes his head and tosses one at a convenient can, and leaves the room before he realizes that it bounced off the rim and onto the floor...
Gil makes sure no one sees him as he scoops it up and tucks it into his pocket.
He isn't sure what he's expecting, or indeed why he feels compelled to invade their privacy like this at all. His only claim is that it's in plain sight, and while he knows that is a lame defense for anything short of an actual criminal investigation, he can't bring himself to throw the note out before he gets a chance to look at it.
He gets his chance later that night, when everyone else is out in the field and he's waiting in his office for Jim Brass to call him into the interview room and process the suspect. He closes the door and twitches the blinds closed, then realizes how suspicious that must look and opens them again.
He sits at his desk and uncrumples the wadded yellow paper.
It's a post-it note, and the petty, vindictive monster who lives in the back of Gil's brain thinks, Well at least you can get them for wasting office supplies.
He shakes his head once to dispel the demon, and reads it.
It says, you're drooling - very Q but not particularly P.
It's in Greg's handwriting. Gil reads it again, decides he can't decipher it without a key, and drops it into the waste basket next to his desk. He feels dirty for having read it at all, never mind that it's gibberish. It's in whatever code they've devised, and that thought alone makes his heart break a little.
They have a code.
Gil can remember very clearly the last relationship he'd been in where they'd had their own code. It was in grad school, almost twenty years ago. His name had been Eric and they'd been together just under a year, and they had been madly enough in love that they had invented their own private way to communicate in public.
It seems stupid to try to gauge another person's relationship by his own, Gil thinks, especially since his own have been dismal failures for more than a decade, but he can't quite stop himself. A private code speaks of intimacy beyond a casual fling. It speaks of something that is going to last, something with at least the illusion of permanence.
When the phone rings and Jim tells him they're ready for him, he's glad of the distraction.
***
"So?" Jim asks when their suspect has been escorted from the room by his belligerent lawyer, "you gonna tell me?"
"Tell you what?" Gil asks, organizing the samples he's collected and signing what needs to be signed.
"Whatever it is that's eating at you."
He looks up from the evidence and meets Jim's eyes. "No," he says.
Jim chuckles. "I know that 'no'," he says, "that's the 'no' that really means, 'you're going to have to work at it'."
He sighs. "Jim..."
"Let me buy you breakfast," he says, and pulls the door open. "I'll call you when I've got this thing wrapped up for the day."
Gil watches him leave, unable to think of a polite way to extricate himself from the invitation. Oh well, he thinks, Jim will be tied up for at least another couple of hours. He can come up with something in that time.
***
"Is that all you're having?"
The waitress looks from Gil to Jim and back again.
"Yes," Gil says firmly across the table to Jim, then smiles at the waitress. "That's it, thank you."
She scribbles it down and leaves.
"You know I've got this, right?" Jim asks. "I mean, that's usually the cue to pig out. Remember?"
"I'm not particularly hungry," he says, and as soon as he says it the words resonate in his head: not particularly. Not particularly hungry, not particularly P...
He realizes Jim is watching him knowingly, that he recognizes the look on his face.
"What?" he snaps.
Jim smiles and shakes his head. "Whatever it is, Gil," he says, "you've got to let go of it."
"It's nothing."
"So there is an 'it'."
Gil brings his cup of coffee to his lips and wishes he had more friends who weren't in law enforcement, weren't professionally trained to spot an evasion or an outright lie.
"Let me see if I can work this out on my own," Jim says, "from first principles."
"Jim..."
"According to Catherine, this snafu starts a couple days ago-"
His eyebrows climb towards his hairline. "According to Catherine?" he squawks. "She's been - gossiping to you? About me?"
"Gil," Jim says kindly, "for most people, the fact that their friends worry about them is a good thing. It's a reassuring thing."
"I'm not most people," Gil says.
"This is true," Jim concedes, "but we love you anyway. So: is this about Nick and Greg, or is it just one of those wacky coincidences?"
Gil sighs. Should have bailed on this breakfast, he thinks. Should have manufactured some lame excuse and gone home to feel sorry for myself.
"See," Jim continues, "Cath thinks you have a problem with Nick and Greg because they would appear to be gay all of a sudden. But she doesn't know you as well as I do, so she can be forgiven for that. Me, though - hell, Gil, I know your ins and outs better than anyone else. So: is it Nick, or is it Greg?"
Gil manages to hold Jim's gaze long enough that Jim has his answer. He hates that he's too cowardly to say it out loud, hates that Jim knows him so well that he doesn't have to.
"You know," Jim says conversationally, leaning back in his seat and regarding Gil somewhat clinically, "when Nick first joined nights, I thought that he was exactly what you needed."
Gil's mouth falls open. "What?" he asks.
Jim smiles. "Hey, I'm an old romantic, okay?" he says. "So sue me. I kept waiting for you to make your move, sweep him off his feet..." He shrugs.
"God, Jim."
"So I was right the first time. Why'd you freeze up?"
"I-" He isn't sure how to explain this without making himself out be the coward and wallflower that he so obviously is. "Jim, he was - he was young. He was new. He was straight."
"You were straight once, too, remember?" Jim asks.
He shifts uncomfortably in his chair. "That was - an aberration."
Jim chuckles. "So you snoozed, Gil," he says, "and you lost. Is that it?"
Gil ducks his head so he's not making eye contact anymore. "It sounds so trite when you put it like that," he says.
"It is trite, Gil. Get over it. Go find yourself some undergraduate entomologist who can do obscene things with his tongue, and move on."
He knows he looks like a moron with his mouth hanging open like that, but something has been scrambled in his brain by Jim's little pep-speech and he thinks it's going to be a while before the wiring sorts itself out.
"Are you - did you just say what I think you just said?" he demands eventually.
"Yep," Jim says cheerfully. "Consider it friendly advice."
"Jesus, Jim." Gil looks down at his coffee and for a dizzying moment he can't remember what he's supposed to do with it. "That's - that's immoral."
"Why?" Jim asks. "Because I used the masculine pronoun? Because he'd be young and energetic? Because maybe you could actually get laid this way, and stop mooning like a twelve-year-old?"
Gil gawps at him. "I thought this was supposed to be friendly," he says weakly.
Jim shows him his teeth. "This is friendly," he says. "You'd hate to see unfriendly."
***
For about half a millisecond once he gets home, Gil actually contemplates taking Jim up on his advice. He has a flash of fantasy involving some anonymous young man with deft hands and a keen interest in things six-legged, allows himself a rosy preview of a happy domestic scene of sexual bliss and intellectual companionship-
And then he actually laughs out loud.
It has been a damn long time since he's had any interest in sex without emotional intimacy, and the last time was enough of a fiasco to convince himself never to try again. It's a young man's game, he's discovered, and as such is best left to young men. And anyway: his emotions are so tightly bound up in Nick that he could never untangle them to share with someone else.
So he just has to accept that Nick is spoken for, and find some way to move forward. Descend into his job again, into his twin passions of entomology and forensics, and let his heart heal itself while his hands are busy doing something important.
Just like that, problem solved.
Yeah, right.
------------
Nick thinks, If Greg sends me one more of those little notes, I'm going to force him to eat it.
It's not that the notes aren't useful - they are. He needs someone to tell him when he's staring too obviously at Grissom, he needs someone to poke him in the back of the head - metaphorically - and let him know that he's embarrassing himself. He needs this, because he has no perspective on the matter himself.
In fact, he feels a little out of control, a little loose. Like if Greg weren't there, he would do something he would regret later. Probably not much later, truth be told.
But Greg seems to take too perverse a joy in his role as mentor. He gives him the "queer and proud" talk at least once a day, generally over the phone when they're both at home; and Nick can admit that he needs to hear that, too. He needs someone to tell him that what he's feeling - that who he is - is all right.
But when Greg shortens "queer and proud" into "Q&P" and starts peppering his malicious little memos with it - enough.
Especially when he's so - right.
And the thing is - something he's going to have to talk to Greg about when they get a chance, maybe this weekend if they're not both working - Grissom is starting to act a little strange around him. Putting a little extra distance in, going from 'Nicky' back to 'Nick', being a little more formal towards him.
His inner optimist wants to think that it's because he's starting to do his job well, that Grissom is starting to think of him as a colleague and an equal, that he's giving him the respect he's beginning to deserve.
And his inner pessimist says it's because he knows, he knows and he's disgusted and he's trying not to freak out completely.
Between the two, the pessimist is winning, although Nick is open to the possibility that this is an illusion created by the relative volumes of his optimist-voice and his pessimist-voice. Maybe, he thinks, the optimist is just being drowned out.
***
Then Warrick has to go and get into it.
"You and Sanders going out?" he asks one night in the trace lab, tactful as always.
"Huh?"
"That's the rumour, man," Warrick says, shrugging as if to suggest that it has nothing to do with him. That he, being just the messenger, should be excused from all retaliatory measures.
"What?"
"Is that a no?"
And dammit, Nick thinks, if Catholic guilt isn't bad enough when it comes to lusting after your male boss, it absolutely sucks when it comes to lying to your best friend.
"Would it be a problem," he hears himself ask delicately, "if I was?"
"If you were dating Sanders?"
He licks his lips. "If I was dating - well, anyone. Male."
"Huh." Warrick looks at him for a long time, then shrugs. "I guess not," he says.
"You guess not."
There's a long silence between them.
"So is that a yes?" Warrick asks.
"Is that a no?" Nick counters.
"No what?"
"No, it wouldn't bother you if I was - gay."
"No," Warrick says, "it wouldn't bother me. I mean, I don't want you to think that I-"
"I don't," Nick says quickly. "I got it. You're not, you know."
"Right."
Warrick grins at him. "So that's a yes, isn't it?" he asks.
Nick considers. "No," he says.
"Bull shit."
"I'm not," Nick says, feels himself start to grin, mostly out of nervousness. Just because Warrick's not going to kick his head in doesn't mean this is going to end well. "It's... we're just friends. Good friends," he adds, "but just - friends."
"Uh-huh," Warrick says, still smiling, and turns the section of sheet that he's processing over on the table. "'Cause you know, he's gay too."
Nick swallows. "Just because he's gay," he says, "and I'm gay, doesn't mean we're necessarily dating, Warrick."
"Doesn't mean you're not, though."
Nick watches him work. "Okay," he says, "but I'm saying that we're not."
"Uh-huh."
"What?"
"Well, you know." Warrick pulls the box of transfer stickies across the table and bends over his work. "You've been hitting on each other forever, and then last week you show up together..."
Hitting on each other forever? Nick thinks. What the hell...? He'll deal with that later. "I drove him in that day because - well, because he crashed at my place. As a friend."
"Sure." Not buying a word of it, Nick thinks, but too polite to actually call him on it.
He sighs. "Warrick," he says, "you've crashed at my place. I've driven you into work on occasion. Doesn't mean we're dating."
"Yeah," Warrick says, straightening up and examining his transparent tape lift, "but I'm not gay. You know?"
Nick sighs, wonders if he has the guts to use Greg's Sara-analogy, and then decides against it. Warrick just might deck him at that, after all.
"Never mind," he mutters, and holds one of the victim's socks up to the light. "Just... I'm not dating Greg."
"Sure," Warrick says, "whatever."
Nick catches his eye, and he's relieved to see amusement there more than anything else.
"Shut up," he says, and Warrick rolls his eyes at him.
------------
Gil hates to think of himself as an eavesdropper. Maybe it's because of his mother, because of learning to speak with his hands at a young age and developing an early respect for the privacy of communication. Maybe it's just good manners - also his mother, he thinks - or maybe overriding uninterest in the daily soap operas of those around him.
But sometimes he stumbles across conversations by accident, conversations that he can't ignore. He thinks of a long bus trip in his student days, of being stuck for three hours behind a bickering couple and being drawn inexorably into their crises and squabbles. It was mesmerising in the same way that a car crash is mesmerising while it's happening - he didn't have the strength to turn away, to find another seat and to tune them out.
This is like that.
It's not that he needs to hear Nick confess to Warrick that yes, he and Greg are dating - he already knows it, he doesn't need to hear it from Nick's own lips. And he doesn't need to hear Warrick's reaction to the news, because he already knows what that is going to be, too - a little surprise, maybe some shock, but underneath that is a solid friendship, and he knows that this little bump is not going to throw them apart.
He knows he should keep going, he knows he should kick himself into a higher gear and drift aimlessly away from the trace lab. He can get their report later, the case isn't so hot that half an hour here or there will make or break the whole thing.
Except...
He lingers for a moment outside the door, sees a drinking fountain a few yards away, decides that he's really quite thirsty and if he happens to hear anything while he's quenching himself, well...
And well, indeed. He stands frozen over the trickle of water, taking in every sound he can hear. Warrick, Nick, Warrick, Nick, footsteps, Nick...
Gay, but - not dating Greg?
It takes him a few seconds to work through the implications of that. A few seconds of staring mulishly at the tile in the water fountain alcove, of revisiting all of his grim selfish thoughts of the past few days, of seriously pondering the serendipitous karma of his situation.
Nick. Gay. Single.
And then it comes back to the same old, same old: just because he's gay, Gil old bean, doesn't mean he's lusting after you. To paraphrase something he overheard in a hallway once.
He sighs, instructs his mind to focus on the case again, and forces his feet to lope back towards his office. Warrick or Nick will bring him the report when they're finished with it.
They don't need him nosing around where has no business being.
***
He finally succeeds in getting some work done. Catherine catches him staring vacantly at the wall and shames him into at least pretending to be doing something, and in the process of trying to fool her he actually does get into the rhythms of science.
He's working with a new species of beetle that's starting to encroach into the area - his blood pressure tends skyrockets when he thinks of the so-called scientific establishment denouncing global warming - and which may or may not prove useful as a forensic tool. He's on his third generation of pupa, and there's still so much to observe, to document, before he can even start making predictions on these babies.
He has the previous literature on his desk, but he always likes to make his own calculations before he consults someone else's. It's not that he thinks other scientists are less accurate than his - well, not entirely - but he likes the precision inherent in controlling their environment to mimic Las Vegas and the surrounding desert. What is fact in California does not necessarily hold true in Nevada.
He's so absorbed in the process of rationing out dinner for his larvae that he barely registers when someone taps at his door, until they do it a second time.
"Grissom?" Nick asks somewhere behind him.
He startles, and watches in dismay as an entire spoonful of meal lands in the terrarium and a mass of beetles-to-be swarms up over it.
He sighs, straightens up and turns around. "Yes, Nick?" he asks with forced patience.
Nick tries a little smile. "I've got that report from trace," he says.
"And?"
He knows it isn't Nick's fault that he overfed the bastards and they'll probably gorge themselves and die. He should have been more careful, and he knows damn well he shouldn't be short with Nick because of it. But he finds it so much easier to ignore his low-down instincts when they're couched in irritation.
"Um... well, not too much, really," Nick says. Gil can see him reacting uncertainly to his hostile posture, can see the temptation to leave the report on the edge of his desk and walk away slowly.
He sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. "Sorry, Nick," he says, "it's not you."
Nick relaxes visibly, and that smile makes a tentative reappearance. "You sure?" he asks.
For a heartbeat, Gil is tempted to tell him the truth. "Yes," he says instead. "I'm sure. What have you got for me?"
Nick's face flushes ever so slightly - or maybe it's a trick of the light as he takes a halting step into the room, Gil thinks. "Well," he says and touches his tongue to his lips quickly, "there were two fibres that we've identified as a cotton-linen blend-"
Gil swallows hard, perches on the edge of his desk, nods to show he's listening and hopes he remembers to stop nodding when Nick's mouth stops moving. It's funny, he thinks; I had more self-control when I was sixteen than I do now. That can't be good.
"...so we're thinking maybe it was the brother."
Nick is looking at him hopefully, and Gil has to send strict instructions to his legs not not not to get up and go to him.
"Sounds like a solid lead," he says. "Why don't you leave that with me-" He holds his hand out for the report, "-and go do your thing."
Nick looks at him a little funny. "My thing?" he asks.
Uh oh - busted for not listening to a damn thing. "It's your idea, Nicky," he says breezily, "run with it."
Nick looks at him for a moment longer, and the lingering gaze is awkward, weighted with something ill-defined and - abrasive.
Then he smiles, nods, and says, "Okay. Cool. We'll, uh, keep in touch?"
"Good," Gil says, smiles at him until he turns and leaves.
And then he sits where he is for a while longer, because Nick walking away from him down a long corridor is not a thing he gets to ogle all that often in his life.
In his sad, tragic, pathetic, re-adolescent life.
He goes back to his larvae - who are definitely eating themselves to death - and forces his mind away from Nick's rear end long enough to find some kind of composure. It takes him a while.
"Greg."
He's been watching the clock for a while now, like he usually does once five o'clock rolls around. This is the home stretch, this is the bit that makes or breaks your whole night: will he be out of here at eight on the nose, or is something unspeakable going to happen that will keep him chained to his mass-spec until noon?
"Greg?"
"I'm listening," he says, because he is. He can watch the clock, process DNA swabs and listen at the same time.
"Are you really?"
He glances up at Nick, who is leaning against the door frame.
"You know I am," he says with a grin. "What's up?"
"What are you doing after work?"
"Sleeping," Greg tells him promptly.
Nick's face falls, but he catches it quickly. "Oh," he says, "okay. That's cool."
Greg sighs. "After I hang with you, I mean," he says, "then I'm sleeping."
"Greggo, you're allowed to have a life, you know?"
He shrugs. "Potay-to, potah-to," he says. "Gonna buy me breakfast?"
"Sure."
"You're on."
Nick grins at him, that maddening grin that Greg will admit was kind of cute until he actually got to know Nick and realized he would never, ever ever be able to date him without doing one of them injury. "Thanks, man."
Greg nods. "That's what I'm here for."
***
"You know people think we're dating?" Nick says, drumming his fingers on the table.
"People thought we were dating two years ago, Nick," Greg says. "I'm used to it by now."
Nick blinks. "You serious?" he asks.
"Would I lie?"
Nick shakes his head in wonder. "You know, Warrick told me that we've been flirting - you and me, I mean, not me and Warrick - forever."
Greg shrugs. "We probably were," he says.
"We were?"
He sighs. "Nick, flirting is fun. You may have noticed that I flirt with everyone. Only difference is, you flirt back." He grins. "Could be worse," he says. "People could think you were dating Hodges."
Nick is speechless for a moment. "That's - not a happy thought, Greg."
"I know." He tweaks his smile into something mean. "That's why I mentioned it. So: what's up?"
Nick sighs. "I wish I knew, man," he says. "Honestly."
"So give me a hint, then," Greg says.
"Well, it's - it's Grissom."
Greg reins in his knee-jerk sarcastic response. Everything is Grissom these days, he wants to say, but won't because Nick is at about the seventeen-year-old stage of development, and he doesn't need to be smacked down yet. Wait until he hits his twenties, he thinks, then he's fair game.
"I mean, he's been acting weird around me, and then today - I don't know. It just - something feels off, you know?"
"Define 'off'," Greg says.
"Like... I don't know. Just - something's not right. Something is hanging in the air between us, and I don't know what to do about it."
"Hm."
"I mean, it's - it's like he's wants to say something to me but he doesn't want to - like, oh I don't know. I give up."
Greg thinks, You'll give up the day Ellen DeGeneres moves into the White House. He puts a smile on his face, though, and says, "Well, you know that all gossip runs through the labs before it goes anywhere else, right?"
"Sure."
"I'll listen," Greg says. "I'll keep my ear to the ground, see what I can find out for you. Sound good?"
Nick's face is a study in shy gratitude. "I owe you one," he says.
"At this point, Nick, you owe me several," he replies pleasantly, "but I'll settle for an omelette as an instalment."
***
He keeps tabs on the ebb and flow of rumour in the labs, as promised; at the end of two miserably long shifts he knows more about Hodges' parakeet's health problems than he ever wanted to, he knows that Lindsey shoplifted a tube of lipstick, he knows that Warrick's having a rough time since one of his gambling buddies moved back into town, and he knows that Jacqui's sister is trying to get pregnant.
What he doesn't know is what's going on with Grissom and Nick. He has his theories, of course.
One of his theories is that Nick is hyper-sensitive and Grissom is just having a bad week. He has them sometimes, Greg has noticed - he gets cranky and frustrated and snaps for no reason. Not that he seems to be there right now, he thinks, but it could be a milder form of the affliction.
Another theory is that Grissom is weirded out by the fact that Nick is apparntly gay all of a sudden, although he doesn't personally put too much stock in it. He knows that Grissom has dated a handful of women, but he's morally certain that he's dated more than a handful of men. It's a certain something around the edges, maybe in his lips when he gets pissy - and he does get pissy when the situation warrants - or maybe in his wrists when he's preoccupied. Something definitely twangs at Greg's spidey senses, and he really doesn't see Grissom freaking out if someone else is gay.
Then a third possibility presents itself, and it takes Greg about three seconds to realize that he's stumbled onto the truth.
It strikes him in the middle one of those spontaneous meetings that tend to form in the halls outside the labs, when three different people come to collect results from three different labs at the same time, and there are impromptu free exchanges of theories in the ill-lit corridor.
Grissom and Jacqui are poring over something on one side of the hallway.
Warrick, Nick and Bobby Dawson are bantering just inside the ballistics lab.
Brass is filling Greg's doorway and asking him about blood transfers, and Greg is mid-way through explaining DNA degradation using small words when something flickering like electricity catches his attention just over Brass's shoulder.
Grissom's eyes are darting surreptitiously from Jacqui's neat hand-written report to the profile of Nick a few feet away.
And Nick's eyes are darting surreptitiously from Bobby's disassembled firearm to Grissom.
And they don't notice that they're both doing it, even when they're doing it at the same time.
"Hey, Sanders. Greg!"
"Huh?" He forces himself back to the conversation at hand, back to Brass.
Brass, who is looking old and tired and fed up with flaky lab techs.
"Right," he says, recovering, and finishes his song and dance with the better part of his attention snared elsewhere.
"Thanks anyway," Brass says when he works out that he's not going to get the answer that he's looking for.
"Hang on," Greg hears himself say, and is kind of surprised when his hand shoots out and grabs Brass's elbow before he wanders away.
Brass glances down at Greg's hand, and then up at Greg's face. "Yes?" he asks, drawing it out a beat longer than necessary.
"Look," Greg says, suddenly not entirely sure what he was going to say. Oh, to hell with it. This is starting to get annoying. "Do you still have the authority to fire me?"
"What?"
"If I say the wrong thing, can you sack me?"
He narrows his eyes, and Greg gets an appreciation of what it must be like to a suspect under this man's scrutiny. "I'm sure I could find a way," he says, "if you give me an excuse..."
"That's not what I mean," Greg says. Dammit. Just when he's getting control of his babbling around Grissom, now he has to start doing the same damn thing around Brass. He wasn't like this when Brass was the boss - why now?
"Then why don't you say what you mean, Greg."
He takes a quick breath. "It's just - and please correct me if I'm wrong because it's one thing to make an ass of myself to you but something altogether different to make an ass of myself to Grissom - it's just.... I was wondering."
Brass blinks. "Wondering what?" he asks, and Greg is amazed at how flat and unemotional he can make his voice become when he needs to.
"Grissom," he says, dropping his voice into a quieter register. "Is there any chance at all that he's kind of well, you know - got a thing for Nick?"
There's a yawning chasm of silence for a few seconds, a gaping black hole of noise that absorbs the sounds of all other conversations around them. Then it pops and the noise floods back in, and Brass is narrowing his eyes at Greg.
"Why are you asking me this?" he demands at length, his voice even and calm, practically pleasant.
Greg swallows. "It's just, well... I mean, look at them." He gestures hopelessly out into the corridor.
Brass gives him another cold look, but follows his gaze. And after a few seconds during which Greg isn't sure if he should be updating his resume, Brass sighs deeply and mutters, "Jesus."
"See?" Greg asks.
"I suppose everyone else knows about this, too," Brass says, still achingly toneless.
"I don't - I don't think so," Greg says carefully.
They watch for another moment.
"You know," Brass says, "if I were a lesser person, I might be tempted to meddle in this."
"If," Greg agrees, "you were a lesser person - and, say, if I were a lesser person, also... how might we go about meddling?"
Brass peers at him shrewdly.
"...hypothetically," Greg adds haltingly.
"Well," Brass says, "one could lie to them - that is to say, I could lie to Gil while you simultaneously lie to Nick - and lure them out somewhere, and we could stand them up."
"We could," Greg agrees, nodding sagely, "but in all honesty, I think that might be a bit too subtle."
Grissom and Nick actually make eye contact for a moment, actually look each other in the eyes, and they both look away guiltily and continue to pay ninety-percent attention to the reports they're being given.
Brass sighs again. "You're right," he says, "it'd go right over their heads."
They watch in silence for a bit.
"Hypothetically," Greg says, "we could just tell them..."
Brass considers this, then, "No. They'd both be mortified."
"You're right."
"How about this, then?" Brass asks. "You take Nick out for a drink somewhere, and I'll take Gil out for a drink somewhere, and we'll all be pleasantly surprised when we run into each other."
Greg nods slowly. "That's good," he says, "that's very good. It gives us a certain control over the situation. Keep them on target, so to speak."
"If we were lesser people," Brass says after another few seconds.
"Of course."
"But since we're not," Brass continues, "I guess I'll have to play the good friend who lends an ear - you know, buy him a drink and let him cry on my shoulder."
"You're a good man," Greg tells him.
"We'll probably end up at the Desert Cactus," Brass continues as though talking to himself, "probably around ten o'clock this morning..."
Greg nods. "That sounds like exactly the kind of thing a good friend would do," he says.
"Yes," Brass agrees. "Hey, I hear you and Nick are pretty good friends, too."
"I guess we are," Greg says.
"What a coincidence, then." Brass turns to him and flashes him a tired smile, and then nods. "Well, back to work I guess."
Greg nods. "Indeed."
"And if I happen to see you around later this morning," Brass says, wandering off, "then so be it."
------------
"Now Gil," Jim says, leaning back and crossing his legs, "I don't want you to be angry."
His drink is already against his lower lip when Jim casually says the one thing Gil doesn't want to hear. Whatever bombshell the man is about to drop, he doesn't want to know. He wants to sit and finish his drink, maybe have another one afterwards, listen to Jim talk about Ellie or work or anything in between.
Well, obviously not anything, because he doesn't want to hear what comes next. Whatever that might be.
"I've been thinking about our conversation a while ago, see," Jim says, playing with the swizzle stick in his glass.
"Which conversation?" Gil asks, narrowing his eyes. They've had a dozen conversations in recent memory, and he hopes it's one of the innocuous ones that Jim is referring to, because if not - if it's one of the obnoxious ones instead - then Jim is going to be treated to the seldom-seen spectacle of Gil Grissom in full retreat.
"You know," Jim says, "about you getting over you-know-who and getting laid."
He closes his eyes for a moment, then drains his glass and stands up. "Thanks for the drink, Jim," he says stiffly, "we should do this again-"
"Would you sit your ass down?" Jim asks pleasantly.
They look at each other for a few seconds, then Gil lowers himself back into his seat. He looks around, not entirely sure how he let Jim talk him into a drink at such a lounge, and equally unsure of why he isn't leaving when every bone in his body is telling him to bail.
"Why?" he asks. "Jim, I do not want to have this conversation. Again."
"Well," Jim says, "then you're in luck because this is a brand new conversation."
"Jim..."
"I know this guy," Jim says, "he'd be perfect for you-"
"Jesus!" He leaps to his feet again.
Jim grabs the sleeve of his jacket and tugs at him. "Would you just hear me out?" he asks. "I'm not trying to set you up."
"The hell you aren't."
"I'm not - well, okay, maybe I am," Jim concedes, "but it's for your own good."
He wrenches his arm free and towers over him, irritated that Jim is just - smiling up at him. Smugly. "I don't need to be rescued from myself, Jim," he says. "I've been alone a long time and I do not need you playing matchmaker-"
"Gil, would you sit down? Please?"
"No," he says. "Why should I?"
"Because," Jim says patiently, "Greg Sanders and Nick Stokes are walking this way, and we wouldn't want them to see you in a state. Would we."
He wants to believe that Jim is bluffing, that his least favourite non-couple couple is not actually descending on them to - whatever. But Jim looks so self-satisfied that he has to look for himself, and sure enough, Greg and Nick are weaving their way through the tables towards them.
And then it occurs to him that Jim may be a malicious, meddling prick when he wants to be, but he's not deliberately cruel. Which means, while Jim may be more than willing to piss him off in private, he wouldn't dare if there were an audience.
"Greg," he says with what he hopes is a friendly smile as they get near, "Nick. What a small town."
"No kidding," Greg says, stopping beside them with his hands in his pockets. Nick is hovering behind him, looking - something. Uncomfortable, maybe? Acutely whatever-it-is.
"It may sound like a lame line," Jim says dryly from his seat, "but you come here often?"
Greg shrugs, smiles at Jim. "Actually, no," he says. "But I've heard good things about it, thought I'd give it a try."
"Well," Jim says with his blithe smile of patent unhappiness, "don't let us keep you two."
There's a flicker of confusion that dances across Greg's face. It's only there for a heartbeat, but Gil takes note of it and wonders what it means.
"Uh, okay," Greg says, shrugging with one shoulder. "We'll, uh-"
They're going to leave, Gil thinks. They're going to leave and Jim is going to get into it again, and I won't be able to throw my drink in his face because they'll be close enough to see it. And they really don't need to see me throw a snit fit across a bar.
He fits another smile on his face. "No," he says, "stay. Let Jim buy you a drink."
Another flicker of something between Greg and Jim, and then Jim sighs heavily and levers himself to his feet. "Fine, fine," he mumbles, "one drink. Far be it from me to spoil the tenor of the day."
"I'll have the same again," Gil says, inflecting his voice towards pleasant malice, and holds up his empty glass.
"I bet you will," Jim says, heaves another sigh, and turns balefully to Nick and Greg. "What about you two?"
Nick asks for a beer and Greg requests a screaming orgasm, and there's a strained moment.
"I'm not ordering a screaming orgasm," Jim tells him.
"It's just a drink," Greg says, stopping just short of batting his eyelashes at him.
"I am not," Jim repeats slowly, "ordering a screaming orgasm."
Greg sighs, peels his jacket off and drops it into a chair. "Fine," he says, "I'll order it."
They stare each other down for a moment, then Jim mutters something unflattering and wanders away. Greg flashes Nick and Gil a wicked grin, and follows about five steps behind.
Gil watches them weave through the scattered tables towards the bar, and there's something about it, something he can't quite put his finger on, that feels - wrong. Like he's missing something, something obvious and vital, something he really shouldn't be missing.
Then Nick clears his throat and Gil's attention is ripped from the problem at hand to the seat next to him.
"So," Nick says with a forced casualness, "nice place, huh?"
Gil shrugs. "It's more Jim's style than mine," he says, "but it's not bad."
Nick nods slowly and looks around. "It's got class."
"I suppose it does."
There's music in the background, a soft piano that isn't quite jazz but is just this side of blues; mostly the other patrons are dressed in flashy evening clothes, and Gil thinks they're probably still coming off the high of winning on the strip. From what he hears, it's a hell of a rush.
"You, uh-"
Gil blinks at Nick. "I - what?"
Nick shakes his head, drops his eyes to the low candle burning in the centre of the table. "It's nothing," he says.
"Okay." Gil watches the candle almost gutter itself, then dance back to light.
"It's just," Nick starts, and then stops.
Gil waits for a beat. "Yes?"
He lets out a huff of air. "Does this seem a little - I don't know. Weird to you?"
He frowns, but only a fraction. "Weird how?" he asks, because yes, it does feel weird to him, but it's nice to have someone else notice it. Someone else articulate it.
"Like... I don't know. I was kinda hoping to go home and go to bed, you know? Only Greg won't let me, says he has to take me out this morning, has to buy me a drink right now kind of thing..." He shrugs uneasily. "That's kinda weird. He doesn't usually - I mean, I'm usually the one dragging him out."
That is weird, Gil thinks, and his own pool of suspicions begins to deepen. He looks over at the bar, where Jim and Greg are allegedly ordering for the four of them, but-
But they're sitting on the stools with a bowl of peanuts between them, talking. Jim is saying something and shaking his head, and Greg is laughing, and neither of them is vying for the attention of the barmaid, who is wiping the mahogany bar not too far from them and looking bored.
And then out of nowhere comes the memory of the only game of chess he's ever played with Jim, and of Jim's resounding victory after an shamefully short play. Jim is good at making you do what you weren't planning on doing, he thinks; that's why he's a good cop.
And if this isn't a setup, he thinks, I'll eat my racing cockroaches.
He looks back at Nick, who is still staring at his shoes.
So, he extrapolates, if this is a setup, then they're both in on it: Jim, who knows about me and my stupidity, and Greg - who knows about Nick. All about Nick - right?
They wouldn't go to these lengths if they weren't sure of their intentions, he thinks, would they? I mean, he thinks, if Jim knows how I feel about Nick, and if Greg were to know something similar about Nick... But they wouldn't.
Would they?
He thinks a moment longer. Well, Jim sure as hell would. And if they're sitting over there being friendly, and if we've both been manipulated to this point - they're not so stupid they'd make a mistake as monumental as that. Right?
He can feel that his heart has sped up in increments, and he clears his throat. Now or never, he knows, because they're never going to set this situation up for them again.
"Can I ask you something?" he says, breaking the silence that was stretching between them like an elastic.
Nick glances up sharply, softens the look on his face with a shy smile. "Sure," he says.
Gil reflects on the wisdom of having a plan before charging into battle, and tries to think what he should say next. "You and Greg are - close, right?"
Nick blushes a little. "We're friends," he says in the patient voice of someone who has had this conversation before and is getting tired of it. "We're not - you know. Close."
"No," Gil says, "I know. But - you talk to each other, right?"
Nick shrugs. "Sure."
"You tell him - personal things. You... confide in him."
"Sure," Nick agrees, but with a touch more trepidation.
"So," Gil continues, picking his way carefully, "if someone were in a position to set you up with someone, that would probably be Greg."
Nick starts to nod and then freezes, and his eyes grow wide. All that delightful blush drains out of his face, and after a stuttering moment of terror he manages to force his eyes towards the bar, where now it's Greg's turn to regale Jim with a tall tale.
"Um," he says in a strangled voice, and now that he's broken the full-body-freeze he's fidgeting. "Well, I, um-"
Gil watches him, thinks: he's going to bolt in less than a minute if I don't stop him. "Nick," he says, "it's okay."
Nick gives him a wild-eyed look. "Look," he says, "I mean, I gotta-"
"Nick." He swallows hard and reaches out to touch Nick's hand where it rests on the arm of his chair. "Really. It's okay."
Nick stares down at his hand, at Gil's fingers which are laced through his so loosely that he probably wouldn't even notice them if he weren't suddenly hyper-aware. Gil can feel Nick's heartbeat, or maybe it's just his own thump and buzz that he's noticing.
"See," Gil says, because he has to finish this, whatever this is, or he won't have to worry about Jim kicking his ass because he'll do the honours himself. "If someone were in a position to set me up," he says, "that would probably be Jim."
Nick turns towards the bar after a long moment, and Gil watches his face while he assesses the situation. Then he feels Nick's fingers squeeze around his own.
"That son of a bitch," he says, tight with anger.
Gil swallows. "I'm sure they don't mean anything, Nick," he says, retracting his fingers and leaning back into his chair. He hopes his disappointment doesn't show too prominently; knows it probably doesn't because it never has in the past, and there's no reason why it would now.
"No," Nick says, clenching his jaw and drawing some of that colour back into his cheeks. "No, he does."
He isn't sure what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything.
"I mean," Nick says, "that's - that's sneaky, dammit. I thought - I thought I could trust him. I thought-"
Gil sighs. "Nick," he says, "it's okay."
Nick slumps back into his chair, eyes the two at the bar with as much wrath as he can muster.
Gil lets him stew. This is exactly what he himself had been like a few minutes ago, when Jim had dropped his little I-know-just-the-guy-for-you speech. Nick deserves a few minutes of fuming silently, he thinks. He's earned it.
He looks down at his empty glass, wishes Jim would at least come back with drinks.
Then Nick sighs, and brings his hands to his face. "Can I ask you something?" he asks, his voice so quiet and drained that Gil almost doesn't hear it.
He swallows. "Sure," he says, hopes his voice sounds lighter than it feels.
"You used to call me Nicky," Nick says in his small voice. "Why'd you stop?"
It's not what he's expecting, not by a long shot, and it takes him a moment to get his mind in the right time zone. "Honestly?" he asks.
Nick nods.
"I thought it was unprofessional," he says. "Too personal."
"Personal is okay," Nick says, and uncovers his eyes to look at Gil.
"Not when I became your supervisor," Gil says.
"Oh." Nick nods, lets his eyes fall to the candle again, which is still alive though not by much. "I get it."
Gil watches Nick shutter himself again, can actually see the retraction of all things personal and private. Let's pretend this didn't happen, he's telegraphing. Supervisor, Nick-not-Nicky, got it.
Except Gil doesn't want to let it go.
"Nick," he says haltingly, "look..."
"Naw, it's okay, Grissom." Tight smile.
"No," Gil says, "it's not. Let's-" He sighs. "As much as I am going to relish torturing Jim for this - this debacle... I'm kind of glad that he did it."
Nick meets his eye sort of sideways. "Yeah?" he hedges.
Gil smiles, and for the first time tonight, it feels right. "Yeah," he says softly. "I am."
After a second or two, the lines around Nick's eyes crinkle into kindness. "Me too," he says.
Gil reaches across the chasm between them and catches the tips of Nick's fingers. "Want to go out for a drink?" he asks.
Nick grins shyly. "Yeah," he says.
Gil stands up and Nick follows him, and they look at each other for a bit and then Gil feels himself start to grin. This is ridiculous, he tells himself; this is nuts and it's not going to work out and you know it.
"I, uh, I don't have my car with me," Nick says. "Greg drove."
"By lucky chance," he tells him, "I have mine." He pulls the keys out of his pocket and dangles them in front of Nick's nose. "Where do you want to go?"
"Somewhere not here?" Nick says hopefully.
"Sounds good," Gil says, squeezes Nick's hand once and lets it fall to his side.
When they get to the front door, Gil turns and glances back at the bar, and shakes his head when he realizes that Greg and Jim are watching them leave. He gives them the finger, and Greg laughs at him and Jim is grinning and shaking his head; and then Nick tugs at the cuff of his jacket and he turns away from them.
"Anywhere?" he asks.
Nick shrugs. "Surprise me."
It's not like he's never been in Grissom's car before. It's not like he's never ridden in the front seat, never sat with his knee resting against the door panel and watching the world zip by his window. It's not like he's never nursed an aching longing from this seat before. It's not like this is really anything new.
Except it is, because Grissom keeps looking over at him, half uncertain and half delighted, and his eyes are full of a kind of warmth, and Nick just wants to grab his hand where it's resting on the gear shift because he can. Could, anyway, if he weren't such a coward.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Grissom asks gently.
"Huh?" He finds a smile that isn't too nervous. "Not thinking too much, actually," he says.
"Looks like it."
He shrugs. "Just... wondering, I guess."
"Wondering what?"
He shrugs again. "Wondering if I should kill Greg on principle."
Grissom grins. "We could pull a Hitchcock switch," he says. "I'll kill Greg and you kill Jim, and no one will be the wiser."
"Except we're not exactly strangers on a train, are we?" Nick asks.
"No," Grissom concedes, "not exactly." He lets his eyes stay on the road for a while.
Nick takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Shouldn't be nervous, he tells himself; excitement is okay, anticipation is okay - you've only been in love with this guy for three years and now out of the blue and without any warning whatsoever he's taking you out for a drink - what's to be nervous about?
"Nick?"
He puts on his smile again. "Yeah?"
"Just checking. You sort of phased out for a second."
"Sorry. Just thinking."
Grissom returns his smile. "Greg, again?"
He shrugs. "Indirectly," he says, "I guess." Because this is Greg's fault, and depending on how it turns out he's either going to bake the guy a cake or knock his teeth in.
"It would be nice," Grissom says with an amused edge to his voice, "if you weren't thinking about someone else on our first date."
Date. Oh, Christ. He looks over at Grissom, and clears his throat. "Is that what this is?" he asks. "A date?"
Grissom half-shrugs. "I guess it's whatever we make it," he says, and Nick can tell how carefully he's picking his words. Hedging his bets. And Nick may not be the absolute foremost expert on reading Grissom's body language, but he'd put money on his interpretation of the tension in his shoulders, the line of his lips.
"I want to make it a date," he says firmly, hoping his voice doesn't actually warble.
Some of that tension dissipates from Grissom's shoulders. "Good," he says. "So do I." He looks over at him and smiles.
And that's when it hits him, that is actually is a date: an orchestrated occasion with a set goal in mind, that of getting them closer together. This is not like all the other times they've grabbed a bite together because they were in a mad rush out of the lab to get to some scene and forgot to eat, or the handful of times that night shift convinced Grissom to come out with them for drinks.
Nope, this is the real deal, Nicky-boy, and you are nowhere near ready for it.
"I, uh," he says, because there has to be some way to let Grissom know that he wants this but he's freaking out. "I kissed Greg, you know."
He watches the march of expressions across Grissom's face while he drives. "Oh?" is the eventual reply.
"Three times," Nick says, "or so he claims, but I was pretty drunk and - and I can only remember two."
Grissom keeps the car moving with traffic. "Uh-huh...?"
It's not exactly a question, but Nick supposes he would have inflected up, too - uncertain. Hell, he's pretty uncertain himself, why he's bringing this up. Grissom doesn't need to know, he tells himself. Except now that he's brought it up (of course) he has to finish it because that is a stupid place to stop talking.
"And, uh, he's the first - the only - guy I've ever kissed."
Grissom's mouth falls into a slightly-surprised 'O', and when he glances over at him Nick can see the beginnings of understanding.
He blushes.
"Nick," Grissom says, "I didn't know - I'm sorry."
Huh? "For what?" he asks.
"I thought - never mind. I shouldn't have - I'll take you home."
Nick watches helplessly as Grissom changes lanes and swings his truck around a corner. "No," he says when they make their second right turn in as many blocks, "no, wait."
"Nick, I can't take advantage-"
"Yes," Nick says, "you can. I want you to. I mean, I - I only kissed Greg because I'd never kissed a guy before and I didn't want my first time ever to be you."
He gets a sharp look for that.
Shit. "I mean, I didn't want to kiss you and find out that it really wasn't me at all, and then screw up everything without - without it being worth it. You know?"
Another look, slightly less sharp than the first. "Nick," Grissom says, letting the car slow to a stop at an intersection and leaving his foot on the brake, "tell me if you want this. I don't want you saying yes out of some sense of obligation, or out of some conviction that Jim and Greg must be right."
"I want this," Nick is able to say immediately, without hesitation, because he does want this. He's wanted it for too long to lie about it anymore.
Grissom is looking at him earnestly now, really looking into his eyes and examining what he's seeing there. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," Nick says. "I'm sure."
Grissom is still inspecting him, right down to his soul by the feel of it, so Nick reaches across the space and pulls him in close enough to kiss.
It's not a very good kiss. Nowhere near as bad as some of his kisses - a distant impression of Greg's lips ghosts into his memory - but definitely not one of the better ones. Maybe it's because he's shit-scared, maybe it's because it's hard to kiss someone in the front seat of a car this size when you're both wearing seat belts, maybe it's - maybe it's just him. Shit: maybe he is screwing this up and it won't be worth it. Maybe he is straight.
He pulls his head back and chews on his lower lip. He doesn't know what to say, doesn't know if he should apologize and find a taxi or try again or just bluff his way through it... He looks up at Grissom, and he thinks, Whoa.
Because Grissom's eyes are a sparkling black like nothing he's ever seen before, and the thought that he - Nicholas Frederick Stokes, youngest of seven Stokeses and all-around family fuckup - has had a part in producing that kind of aroused interest is... wow.
He feels his heart speed up a bit, and his lips belatedly send him a message about how good Grissom's mouth felt. About how much they'd like to try that again.
This time, Grissom meets him halfway and this time, it's a good kiss. It's a very, very, very good kiss. It's the kind of kiss that makes Nick forget to breathe, and then there are tongues and even when his lungs start to burn a little he doesn't really remember what that means.
Grissom pulls away first, a little breathless and eyes definitely glazed and he brings his hand to touch Nick's cheek. "Nick?" he asks softly.
Nick is being forcefully reminded about oxygen. "Yeah," he says between great gulping lungfuls of air. "I'm good."
Grissom runs a finger down the side of his face and traces it along his lower lip. "You're better than good," he says, and his voice is sounding a little husky around the edges.
There's a honk of a car horn behind them, and Grissom startles, looks in the rear view mirror to see two cars in line behind him. "Oops," he says, and pulls the car through the intersection.
Nick watches him drive. "Where are we going?"
"I can't remember," Grissom says, and laughs. "I honestly can't - was I taking you home?"
"If you were," Nick says, "you're definitely coming in with me."
The car almost swerves - almost - and Nick can see Grissom swallowing with some difficulty. "Okay," he says. "I can come in for a bit."
"Gonna take longer than that," Nick says, and as soon as the words are out of his mouth he realizes that he never made an actual decision to say them. Some rat bastard of a demon is speaking through his mouth, and-
-and if that is the effect is has on Grissom (the car does swerve this time), then Nick thinks that this demon is probably his new best friend.
He looks out the window to guage where they are, and he smiles. His place is only a few blocks away. Thank god.
***
He isn't sure what he's expecting when they get there. Grissom parks the car and they fumble with their seatbelts and Nick looks for his keys and Grissom digs for his wallet, and then they mumble something at each other and Nick stands on the curb while Grissom locks the doors and they go together down the walk and Grissom leans against the wall while Nick fiddles with his door, and then-
And then they're inside, and the demon that has control over Nick's vocal chords extends its reach into Nick's limbs, and he finds himself latched onto Grissom, mindless with desire.
Grissom makes a noise against him, a deliciously wanton noise that feeds the demon, and before Nick really realizes that he's doing it, he's grinding himself against Grissom's hips. "Oh god..."
Grissom turns his face into Nick's neck and does something seriously sinful to the spot just under his jaw, and a full-body shudder wracks through his frame. He clutches helplessly and knows he's not going to last long, but can't find the strength anywhere in his body to slow himself down. And the demon doesn't want to - it wants to come, now and hard and forever.
"Please," he hears himself say, is amazed at the desperation in his own voice.
"Anything," Grissom says against his skin and drops a hand below his waist. "Let go," he urges into his throat, makes a quick movement that brings them closer together, slides a leg between Nick's and pins him hard against the wall.
Nick whimpers; he's aware enough to be slightly embarrassed about it.
And his little noise of need is enough to draw a long groan out of Grissom, who does something devious with his hands and his leg that makes Nick shudder all over again.
"Trust me," Grissom whispers, pulling him tight against his thigh, "just let go and feel, Nicky... I want to see you, I want to see you let go and give in to this, I want to see you let me do this for you..."
He keeps talking against the pulse point in Nick's neck, and he introduces a maddening rhythm into the movement of their bodies, and Nick stops being aware of most of what is happening around him. There are spots of searing heat on his body that make him writhe, where lips and hands are touching skin; and there's the raging fire between his legs that's starting to spread down his legs and up his spine, curling into his stomach and into his lungs.
Oh god, he thinks as he tightens his arms around Grissom's back. Oh god, he thinks as he begins to buck against the solidity of Grissom's leg. Oh god, he thinks as the wet warmth of Grissom's mouth slides along his neck. Oh god oh god oh god oh god...
His eyes are squeezed shut when he comes and he's pretty sure he's going to pass out. He clamps down hard on anything he can reach - on Grissom's torso, on his leg, on the hand at his crotch - and rides the waves out. They take a long time to crash and break, and when the surf actually settles enough that he can open his eyes, he knows that the sodden, satiated glassed-over look on Grissom's face is mirrored on his own.
He blinks at him slowly, smiles, and finds a hand that will listen to his commands and brings it to touch Grissom's face.
Grissom turns into the touch and kisses the palm of his hand. "God, Nicky...." he murmurs.
He becomes aware of something digging into his back, and he shifts away from it, moving within the cage of bone and muscle that is supporting him. He reaches around behind him and discovers it's a doorknob, and then he actually looks around and realizes that they never made it into the living room. That they just had sex leaning against the inside of his front door.
That gives him a rush of sorts, a post-adolescent moment of adolescent testosterone. He'd needed it so badly, wanted it so desperately - they both had - that they couldn't be bothered finding a horizontal surface. Couldn't be bothered getting undressed, either.
And he thinks of how good it was, and he can't wait until they try it for real. In bed, naked. The thought makes him shiver.
"Nick?"
He turns towards the voice and knows he's still wearing a stupid soppy smile. "Yeah?" he asks.
The cage around him shifts, draws him into a close embrace. "Can I ask you a favour?"
"Mmm." He returns the hug, decides he's never going to let go again. Not as long as he lives.
"My name is Gil," he hears whispered, and it's laced with amusement.
"Hm?"
"You're still thinking of me as Grissom." A light kiss lands on his neck. "I can tell."
He knows he's blushing, and although Grissom - Gil - although Gil can't see the flush of pink creeping up his cheeks, he's pretty sure he can feel it.
"Sorry," he says, lets his own lips fall onto the stretch of skin before him. "I'll try."
"Thank you." Another kiss, and another shift in the cage around him. "Nick?"
"Mmm."
"We have to move because I may be spry for fifty, but there's a limit to how long I can hold you up like this."
He lifts his head from the juncture of neck and shoulder, and blinks again. "What?" he asks, and then realizes that his feet are resting on the ground but not actually supporting him. He stands, ignores the weak protests from his legs that they liked having someone else do all the work, and tries another smile.
"Sorry."
Gr - Gil kisses him. "Stop apologizing," he says, takes his hands and moves half a step back to look at him.
Nick squirms under the attention. "What?" he asks.
"You're beautiful," Gil says, and brushes a hand along his jaw. "Truly."
And hey how about that, there's his blush's horde of wannabes, clawing their way up his neck. "You too," he says.
Gil gives him a look that says meaningless platitudes are not requested.
"You are," he says, pushing himself away from the door and prodding Gil into the apartment proper. "Your eyes are beautiful, your smile is beautiful, your hair is beautiful, your hands are beautiful, your arms are beautiful, your neck is beautiful, and that's all I've really seen but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts the rest of you is pretty beautiful, too."
There's a look that Nick has never seen before on his face now, and he leans it to kiss it. "Truly," he says, and feels a smile of sorts curve against his lips.
"All right, all right," Gil says, "I'll take your word for it."
"Good," Nick says, nuzzles under his chin. "So do I get to inspect the rest of you anytime soon?" he asks. "I have money and doughnuts riding on this."
Gil's arms come up around him and hug him close. "That had better not involve Greg in any way," he warns.
"Gee, Gil," Nick says, "it'd be kind of nice you weren't thinking about someone else on our first date."
Gil laughs, a deep sound that comes from his chest and sinks naturally into Nick's. "No one but you, Nicky," he promises.
"Good," Nick says, and the corresponding blossom of warmth and affection just between his lungs is an amazing thing, too.
------------
Greg is running about five minutes late - not late enough to technically be late late, but just enough to fluster him - when the plastic bag falls out of his locker and almost gives him a heart attack.
He lets it land on the rubber mat and catches his breath for a moment before he stoops down to pick it up. Probably Jacqui, he thinks, turning it over in his hands. It's a CD, he can tell by the size and feel of it, and he winces when he thinks of the last music she inflicted on him.
"You'll love it," she had told him, "it's right up your alley."
Electric-cowboy-twang meets Def Leppard. He hadn't talked to her for almost a week after that.
He sighs, pulls the CD out and looks at it. Vanilla Coward Live in Philadelphia, it says. There's a post-it note stuck to the back, and it's just signed, Nick.
Hm. He peels the plastic from the jewel case and takes it down to his lab with him. It's not their second album, he reads from the back of the jacket as he walks, but it has an improvised early version of the song that would become their first single from the second.
Hmm.
Nick makes an appearance not too long after, while Greg is listening to the third track for the fourth time and dodging evil looks from both Jacqui and Bobby Dawson.
"Is that the right band?" he asks from the doorway.
Greg looks up from his imaginary drum set. "Yeah," he says. "Where'd you find it?"
He shrugs. "I have my sources," he says. "I just wanted to - you know. Make it up to you that I dragged you away from their show."
Greg grins. "No problem," he says. "This is perfect." Even though it isn't, not exactly, but it's pretty damn close and Nick looks like he had a good day.
"Cool." Nick nods once, turns to leave.
"Hey Nick," Greg says before he goes.
"Yeah?"
He grins again. "Was it worth it?" he asks knowingly.
Nick blushes around the edges, a delicate infusion of pink. "Was what?" he asks.
Greg laughs at him. "I told you so," he sing-songs.
Nick makes a face. "Shut up."
"I'm glad it worked out, okay?" Greg says. "I mean, if it hadn't, I would have had to change my name and move to Buenos Aires, you know?"
"You're right," Nick says, "you would have."
"Well..."
"But you would have had company," Nick continues, "because Brass would have been on the same plane."
Greg's turn to blush a little. "That transparent, huh?" he asks weakly.
Nick shakes his head in wonder. "Just be glad that I'm in a good mood, Greggo."
"Fine," Greg says, "I won't do it again."
Nick smiles. "You won't have to," he says. "Catch you later."
Greg waits until he's gone before he skips back to the beginning of track three, and cranks it as loud as he can.
-- The End --
(cue the soppy music and bring the house lights up)
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