Meets West
By: lily
Pairing: Gil/Alan
Fandom: CSI: Vegas and Boston Legal
Rating: R
Summary: Alan and Denny come to Las Vegas to get Gil's help on a case.

“Denny, stop that,” Alan didn't bother keeping the tired annoyance out of his voice.  After interminable hours in airports and on planes with his best friend, his patience was fraying.  He needed a single, solitary moment to collect his thoughts.  He needed it badly.  Sometimes he envied Denny his ability to keep going so long as he had a scotch and a cigar at hand. 

“What kind of guy keeps a...what the hell is this?” Denny asked, turning the jar on it's shelf.  “That's disgusting.” 

“Quit playing with everything and sit down, for God's sake.  The guy – Dr. Grissom, for the record – is a renowned scientist.  What he keeps in those jars is none of your business.”  Alan flopped in a chair, wishing the Denny hadn't insisted to the receptionist that they wait in the office, rather than in the lobby like everyone else.  They'd been up for well over twenty four hours now, since the minute they'd landed Denny had wanted to hit the casinos and take in a show while they waited for the crime lab's graveyard shift to start. 

He was pretty sure there was someone discreetly watching them while they sat in the office, anyway.  Who the hell just let people sit in an empty office like that?  Especially one with a massive file cabinet full of all sorts of sensitive case information, never mind the precariously stacked files perched on the edge of the desk.  He knew it wouldn't be long before Denny tried to peruse the “reading material,” and God help him when that happened. 

He loved Denny.  But Denny could be a handful.  He had a sense of entitlement that barely fit into any given room.  The same went for his ego.  He simply didn't see any good reason why he shouldn't be allowed to read case files, fidget with experiments, or anything else that struck his fancy.   

Alan, on the other hand, had his mind on the case before them – the real reason they were in Las Vegas looking up Dr. Gil Grissom, expert in forensic entomology.  He knew in his gut that their client was innocent, but there was no alibi outside of...possibly (and how remote that possibility was, Alan hated to think about), the analysis of insect activity on the body that was found floating face down in the reservoir near the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts. 

The murder had been horrendous, no mistake about that.  The forensic team in Boston had concluded that the wounds which rendered the face nearly unrecognizable had been made with a hammer – both sides, to be exact.  The torso had been shredded by the back end of the hammer, the claw end normally used to pull nails turned into a stabbing weapon.  The victim had been alive for most of it according to the tissue samples taken from around the wounds.  Wrists and ankles were ringed with ligature marks, one shoulder was pulled completely out of its socket, whether by the attacker or in some attempt to protect or escape, no one would ever really know. 

The cops had fingered the man's cousin for the crime.  The family wasn't close, relations were occasionally acrimonious, but murder didn't seem to fit.  Not in Alan's head.  The cousin, Alfred Douglas, was twenty years old, a student at the University who worked forty hours a week at a local diner to pay his tuition.  He was majoring in education although whether or not he would finish that, or be able to get a job if he did, was dubious at the moment.  His name, even if the jury found him innocent, would be forever linked with the nightmare images of the body in the reservoir.  What school would hire someone with a background like that?  Even if they did, what happened when some parent remembered?  It was one of the inequities of the justice system: even if you were declared innocent, no amount of fanfare could erase that black mark of suspicion from a person's past. 

“You're in a sour mood.  You could use something to drink,” Denny told him, producing tiny bottle of Glenlivet from the inside pocket of his suit coat. 

“I don't want a drink.  You stole that from the plane, didn't you?” 

“They left it out.” 

Alan just shook his head.  “I'm tired, Denny.  That's all.  Alcohol isn't going to help.  What time is it?” 

Denny glanced at his watch.  “A quarter after ten.” 

“He's late.” 

“No, I'm not,” a voice barked from the door.  A smell wafted into the room as the shadow form stood there.  Alan could feel the critical gaze like ice along his neck.  “I've been attending an autopsy, and handing out assignments to my team while two people I don't know hole up in my office, looking for my advice, while they complain about my attendance.” 

The shadow stepped in and became real.  Critical blue eyed gaze wandered to the shelves, and he immediately picked out the jar Denny had been looking at.  He turned it a quarter, nudged it to the left a little, and turned back to them.  “What do you want.”  There was nothing about it that was a question. 

Denny was unfazed, instead, he handed the tiny bottle of scotch to the man they had to assume was Gil Grissom. 

The investigator gave him a look of disdain.  “I'm on the clock.” 

Denny shrugged, pocketed the bottle, and held out his hand to introduce himself in his usual bluff, self-important manner.  Alan cringed – it wasn't going to work on the scientist.  If anything, Denny would put him off helping them.  But there was no time to stop it.  “Denny Crane.”   

Grissom didn't take the hand.  Instead he just stared at it.  “I'm afraid that I haven't had a chance to wash up yet.  I wouldn't want to get you dirty,” he said.  From anyone else, it might have been a polite concession.  From Grissom, it was an insult to Denny's slick mannerism. 

Alan stood up and tried to insinuate himself between the two men.  “I'm Alan Shore.  I,” he started, then looked at Denny, who's expression was a little hurt.  “We,” he amended, “need your help.  We're came all the way from Boston for your advice.  My client has been accused of murder, and the only evidence that can possibly establish his alibi is bugs.” 

“Is that right?  How am I supposed to analyze insects from Boston here in Vegas?  Assuming I have any intention of doing so.” 

“I have the entire case file, with pictures,” Alan reached back into his brief case and presented a fat green file folder.  “The victim was found in a reservoir near the University campus, he'd been dead for at least three days.  He was...” he found himself unsure if the correct word would be 'bludgeoned' or 'stabbed' suddenly.  “The instrument used to kill him was a hammer, and he was tied hand and foot.  There was hemorrhagic tissue around almost all of the wounds.  There's no doubt it's horrific and the community is naturally anxious to see the case resolved.  But my client --” 

“That's enough, Mr. Shore.”  Grissom had been watching him carefully.  Alan was surprised to find himself a bit uncomfortable under the steady gaze.  He'd faced down judges that made the best attorneys quake, he's sat in rooms with violent men, with insane women in blood drenched bridal gowns.  It normally took more than a critical glance to upset his mental balance.  “I'm sure the details are in the file.  I'd like the chance to go over the material without bias.  And let's admit it – bias is your business.” 

“You'll look at it then?” he felt hopeful.  If anyone could find the problem with the time line in the police report, it was this man.  Maybe the whole, long, trip hadn't been for nothing, as he'd worried about. 

“I'll look at it,” the scientist's expression was guarded.  “I can't make any promises.  How did you think to bring this all the way out here?”  Curiosity was apparently a part of his personality that couldn't be squashed, regardless of irritation. 

“I went to a few of your lectures when you were teaching at Williams last year.” 

“Really?” he seemed surprised, eyebrows arching over the tops of his glasses, his face barely readable in the dim light of the office. 

“I found it fascinating.  I've tried a good many cases in environmental law, and your discussion panel on hive collapse and the status of bees in the environment was troubling.  Have you conducted any experiments?”   

“Hive collapse?  What does that have to do with anything?”  Denny interjected. 

“Denny,” Alan rubbed his eyes.  “I knew you wouldn't find it even remotely interesting.  Besides, you were out with...which one was that...” 

“You and your environment,” Denny grumped.  “Hive collapse.  How about some solutions for this mad cow thing?  That would be something?” 

“You wanna have your body frozen like that friend of yours?” Alan shot back, patience bitten to the quick by Denny's unceasing need to be the center of everything. 

“Fine.  Be that way.  I'm going to the Tangiers.  I'll see you when I see you,” Denny stalked out, pouting a little. 

“He does mean well...” Alan looked at Gil and tried to explain. 

To his surprise, Gil smiled a little.  “Mad cow?” 

“Mad cow,” Alan replied definitively.  “The man is my best friend, but that doesn't make him a good traveling companion.  Especially when a case is involved.” 

“Mad cow it is, then,” Gil replied.  “For what it's worth, I have a few friends with a gift for annoying me.  I think I understand.”  He crossed the room and leaned against the desk, rifling through the folder.  His brows knit over the coroner's report and the photographic evidence.  “This really is ugly.”  The corners of his mouth turned down, and Alan wouldn't have put money on it, even in Sin City, but he thought the scientist looked vaguely ill.   

At least that meant he wasn't just a wimp when looking at the photos made him want to lean over the nearest wastebasket and retch out every meal he'd ever had.  He felt kind of good about that.   

“Alan?” he used the familiar first name tentatively.  The lawyer nodded approval, waiting for Gil to go on.  “I have an administrative shift tonight.  I can look this over and meet you for lunch...” he looked at his watch.  “Breakfast,” he corrected, “at about seven?  There's a diner not far from here where the crew goes to blow off steam after shift.  It has a red and white checked awning.  That's not it.  Go to the one across the street – the front door is recessed between a couple boutiques.  I don't think we'll want interruptions when we discuss this.  If I need to ask our coroner or my team anything, I can do it during shift.” 

“Thank you so much.  Really.  Especially after Denny...” 

Gil smiled.  “Go get some sleep.  You look like you need it, and I have a shift to run.”   
 

Now, back in his hotel room at the Tangiers, with Denny safely tucked away at some roulette table or staring at some showgirl, Alan found himself finally able to relax with a glass of scotch.  He kicked off his shoes and laid back on one of the queen size beds, glass in hand, and let his mind drift. 

That was his first mistake.  Without the constant distraction of Denny close at hand, he found himself examining his interaction with Gil that day.  Examination was what he did, he couldn't help himself, even though it often came to no good end when the introspection centered on his own proclivities. 

Proclivities.  There was an interesting territory, not wholly uncharted, either.  What was it about Gil?  He liked women, he liked them a great deal.  There was nothing more intoxicating than a powerful woman.  Women like Shirley Schmidt never failed to make his pulse race.  Denise Chase, nee Bower, as attractive as she had been, had nothing on someone like Shirley, or Shelina.  Denise had been a little challenging, and fun to tease, but ultimately, he what he really always wanted what he couldn't have.  Shirley was out; he would never sacrifice his friendship with Denny. Shelina was passionate and intelligent, beautiful and just almost too much.  She was even more focused than he was, and that amazed him.  Many people made the mistake of thinking he was distractable.  Nothing was further from the truth – he just had the ability to focus on more than one thing at once.   

People also made the mistake of assuming he was as cool and aloof as he played.  Denny had seen past that, somehow.  He thought Shirley did, now that they'd worked together for four years.  He simply knew that he couldn't afford to let his passions get the better of him, lest they consume him.  He'd walked the edge between divine conflagration and sane detachment each time he'd argued against or witnessed an execution.  He couldn't not sit in the witness room and watch as murder was mandated by the state, with people who should be speaking out against it carrying out the act.  People like priests and doctors, who were supposed to value human life above everything else.  And people said lawyers were unprincipled.  He laughed a little at the thought, amber scotch sliding warm down his throat. 

Gloria – now there was a woman for his mettle, or so he'd thought.  When it became a question of whether or not he would father her children, she'd made her decision with cool and calculated swiftness.  They were over, and it left him wondering if she'd really wanted him or if he'd been a tool for her to fulfill some chronology of life she'd stashed in a diary somewhere. 

Alan knew his proclivities well.  He loved women.  But every once in a while, he found himself faced with a man who drew him just as much as Shirley, Shelina, or Gloria had.  A younger Paul Lewiston would have been real trouble for him; all that passion, all that calculation, all hidden under that calm exterior.  Paul's intelligence had been immensely attractive, and always regretted that he hadn't had a chance to try a case with him.  In fact, most of the time, when he went out of his way to drive Paul to distraction, he'd done so knowing the trouble he was courting, but wanting to see the man expose that side of himself that seethed with passion and purpose.  He just couldn't stop or help himself, it seemed.  He had to push people, especially those he found himself attracted to, just like a moth couldn't keep itself away from the flame.  He wondered if the moth knew how close to immolation it was when it flitted close to the candle flame. 

If anyone could answer that, it would be Gil.  Thus he was back to square one.  He'd felt some sort of draw when he'd attended the lectures at Williams, and the discussion panel on hive collapse.  It was in the quick precision of Gil's glance, the softening and distracted gaze of blue eyes when an occasional question made him stop and think for a time until he could form the most comprehensive answer he was capable of.  That need for thoroughness, for exhaustive knowledge, that brilliant mind and gentle voice...all drew him.   

He'd been nervous about meeting the man in person.  Like the girl in the yellow dress of so many yesteryears ago, he wondered if he'd be able to focus on the matter at hand (along with keeping Denny corralled) or if his knees would start to tremble and his words would fail him in the face of a man who had such a profound effect on him.  He had, for the most part, avoided the few men he'd been attracted to like the plague, fearing some lingering, sublimated want of a father figure rather than honest desire.  The ones he'd almost faced he'd challenged at every turn, like Paul Lewiston.  The couple who had seen through his teasing to initiate any sort of contact had been short lived; whether that was their doing or his he wasn't sure.  He seemed not to be meant for long term relationships.  The only one he had given himself over to, the one that had eventually driven him crazy, had ended against all his better efforts when a blood clot had traveled to his wife's heart, where it had ruptured her aorta.  She was gone before he could even react, and he missed her every single day.  It was irritating to have someone know him so well, even when it was comforting.  Now that he considered it, his relationship with her had been quite a bit like the one he had with Denny now.  He didn't think Denny's clavicles were exquisite, though, even if he possessed a healthy lack of inhibition. 

He hadn't fallen all over himself – he'd probably been too tired.  Which left him pondering how things would go at breakfast.  Seven in the morning was going to arrive awfully quickly, he realized, looking at the red luminescent numbers of the hotel alarm clock.  He swallowed the last of his scotch, set the glass on the night table, undressed in the dim light of the reading lamp, and crawled under the covers to go to sleep. 

He was back in that dimly lit office, contemplating the moth suspended in resin on the desk, the huge dusty wings in their shades of brown and ocher held perfectly at the sides of its body.  Across the desk, Gil Grissom studied him the same way, detail for detail, and it made his palms start to sweat.  He was good at covering his nervousness, consummate at hiding any less-than-confident mannerisms from the eyes of others.  He had to be.  Other lawyers, judges, and juries all picked up on the tiniest of indications that he might be uncomfortable – and if he was uncomfortable, was it maybe because he didn't believe his client as whole heartedly as he was telling them, and asking them to believe themselves?  It was survival, resisting the urge to wipe his hands on the front of his pants to dry them. 

But the scientist was better.  “Something wrong, Alan?” his tone was so soft and gentle, genuinely concerned with his discomfort, that Alan wanted nothing more than to answer the question. 

He remained silent, looking from the moth, up through his lashes at the man sitting across the desk from him.  Blue eyes and salt and pepper hair, enough intelligence to make his head spin, and underneath that cool, analytical exterior, nothing but fire.  Alan knew without understanding how he knew.  That was okay, though, it was the knowing that was important. 

“Maybe I could help?” that voice was seductive, and Alan closed his eyes.  A mistake.  A very, very big mistake, because behind his eyelids he could see all the things that the rest of his body was wishing would happen.  He didn't even see Gil get up, and jumped when, out of nowhere, there were hands on his shoulders.   

His breath shook when he let it out, and he turned his head to face the man standing behind him, and his will broke.  He saw desire behind the protective distance in those eyes,stood up from his chair, and seized his opportunity.   

Gil was solid in his arms, warm flesh maddeningly concealed by the button down cotton covering his torso.  Hands, broad fingers, settled on his sides, almost shy in their movement, contrasting with the enthusiastic lips that parted easily so that Alan could taste more.   

More was coffee, and something chocolaty-cinnamon, so sensual Alan could hardly handle himself.  He was lost -- terribly, horribly lost.  So lost he hoped he never found his way home again.  Prayed that the birds would follow behind him and eat every damn breadcrumb he'd ever left in his wake so that he could stay in this enchanted place forever. 

He'd been right.  Even while Gil was a scientist, with all the necessary objectivity and detachment and commitment to evidence and repeatable results, that exterior hid so much.  Alan wondered if the people he worked with truly ever guessed at or appreciated all the passion contained in the broad shouldered form that hid itself in baggy shirts.  He doubted they did.  He was certain they didn't appreciate the beautiful ass that was so often concealed by baggy pants or jeans – not the way his hands were right now.   

Nor did his coworkers make a memory in the nerves of their fingertips of the muscular legs.  They heard his voice dispense wisdom, facts, theories.  He probably scolded each and every one of them on occasion.  Gil might have even raised his voice in anger a couple times – the job carried a level of frustration and a sense of responsibility that would make anyone snap no matter how good they were.  But the grumbling moans that softly trembled from his throat were Alan's alone.  That was knowledge that only served to make his breath come harder, intensify the hot flush that raced along his skin, and made him pull the other man tighter against him, so that he could indulge his needy cock with contact and the feel of equal arousal against his own hip.  

Knowing that Gil wanted him was one thing, feeling it was another.  He nibbled at the man's bottom lip before breaking contact and letting his head fall back as he tried to catch his breath.  He needed to reclaim a scrap of his sanity before the sensual need he'd been fighting made him do something impulsive and stupid and too, too fast. 

Gil gave as good as he got, though.  The fingers were running up his back now, pulling him so close that there was barely room for either of them to breathe while lips and tongue began experimenting over his neck, finding places that were sensitive, finding out how they were sensitive, so thoroughly – how many people would have found that unattractive?  Too many.  Too many people didn't realize the eroticism of this exquisite attention to every tiny detail.  Gil was probably counting his pores as his tongue rasped over the not quite perfectly shaved angle of his jaw.   

The mirror that had allowed him to step into fantasy-land shivered and shattered.  He didn't know why.  Denny apparently hadn't woken him when he'd come in, because the other man was snoring in the other bed as Alan sat up abruptly, shaking his head, glancing down the rumpled blankets and seeing what he already knew he had to deal with tenting the fabric just below his waist. 

The clock read 5:45 AM.  Might as well get up – he'd have to meet Gil... 

This was not good.  How the hell was he supposed to meet the man and discuss a case when one part of his brain would be busy finishing up that dream he'd had? 

He'd done difficult things before – he hesitated to use the word hard, lest he slip into cliché.  He could do it again, he thought, rolling out of bed and padding across the room to the bathroom for his shower.   

He stared at the temperature dial, torn between a cold shower or taking care of business with a hot shower and some hotel conditioner.  The brief, but torrid image of spending quality time in a hot shower with the forensic scientist made the decision for him, and he turned the dial to the right before grabbing the tiny bottle of conditioner from the basket by the sink.   

At 7:00 AM precisely, he was at the diner, with the dark green painted door recessed between a used book store and a vintage clothing store.  No wonder Gil liked this place – the temptation to head into the bookstore for just a minute was almost overwhelming.  His fingers itched to leaf through pages soft from the presence of those who read before, maybe a leather spine or two, to find the really prize pieces that every used bookstore had nestled among it's stacks.  Books were an addiction, they were Alan's drug, along with his balcony time with Denny, and his ability to speak.  Take any of the three away, and he could very well cease to be. 

He waited at a booth for a full fifteen minutes before a haggard looking Gil stepped through the door, making the bell suspended above the open corner tinkle cheerfully.  Sun was slanting in through blinds drawn to protect the eyes of the few patrons. 

 
“Grissom!” a voice rang out from behind the counter.   

“Hello, Anna.  Someone should be waiting for me?” he looked slightly chagrined, and Alan noted it was a peculiarly boyish expression on his face. 

“He's right back there.  Said you two had some things to discuss.  You'll have your usual?” she asked, pointing to the table where Alan sat. 

“No,” he looked pained.  “I'm afraid not.  Coffee and an English muffin should do it.” 

“Rough night, huh?” she asked, already pouring coffee.  She looked at him knowingly – Alan had a flash of insight.  This was where he hid from his crew when he had a night he didn't think he could handle.  He wondered what had happened since he'd left the man's office. 

Gil shrugged, not wanting to go into detail, but accepted the coffee cup gratefully and Anna let it slide, getting to work on the requested English muffin.   
 

The night had gone totally downhill after the attorneys had left his office.  Denny Crane was quite a character...mad cow and all.  Gil couldn't quite find it in him to dislike the man, but he didn't quite trust him, either.  For all Denny's bluster and ego, he felt that Denny wasn't the type to play politics – not like the administrators at the lab.  Denny could probably out-play any of them on any given day, but he was at a point in his life, as well as in his career, where he didn't have to. 

Alan Shore had been another matter.  Alan had rattled him.  

He tried not to let on, hoped it didn't show, but he remembered the man who always sat in the back of the room at lectures.  He never raised his hand to comment, but there was something in his posture, in his eyes, that said he was absorbing every single word.  He was different from the other people in the room, somehow.  More comfortable with himself, perhaps?  Something more refined, something slightly melancholy.  Initially Gil told himself that the reason the man in the back of the hall nagged at him was because he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was about him that caught his attention in the first place. 

The problem was, he knew perfectly well what had drawn his attention.  It happened rarely that an individual could draw him like that, the attraction something deeper than the normal curiosity that he felt around other people.  Attraction was the crux of it, really.  Mental attraction, which led to wandering thoughts, and eventually a peculiar awareness of the other individual's aesthetic qualities, which inevitably went to physical interest.  He'd been well done with his curiosities about Alan Shore for a few months now, but fate (if he believed in such) had somehow had the pluck or audacity to throw the man back into his space again. 

He'd been aware of that slight, mental tickle the other man produced as he'd gone over the case file.  The crime was gruesome, and there was very, very little for him to go on.  He had eventually run some of the pictures down to Archie to see if anything could be done with filters and computers and the like to bring out some of the details.  If Alan thought the man was innocent, for some reason Grissom was inclined to believe it, which troubled him.  Alan's passion for justice, and defense of someone who should have bee considered innocent until proven guilty was infectious.  Normally, he wouldn't form anything resembling an opinion until he had thoroughly gone through every shred of evidence before him.  Alan's projection of his gut-feeling about his client had attached itself to his intellect, and he just hoped he was still going through the evidence objectively. 

He wouldn't find out that night, though.  When he'd gotten back to his office from the AV lab, he'd found a call sitting on his desk.  A presumed DV in the suburbs that had gone bad.  It was a twisted whopper of a case, too; the abused was the husband, who was sitting in the emergency room with cuts and bruises all over him, some of them fingernail scratches, some of them from a paring knife.  He had scars from previous incidents, too.  Circular burns, long thin lines a shade lighter than his normal skin tone, a crooked nose...he'd never reported anything out of fear of being arrested himself.  If he were arrested, he'd lose his job as a security guard at the mall in Loughlin.  This time, though, they'd had new neighbors, who apparently weren't as shy about calling the cops to get in the middle of other people's business as the previous neighbors were.  There was a uniform at the house monitoring the wife while she packed her bags, and the husband sat, despondent, on a hospital gurney.  He looked like a man who's reality had been knocked for a loop; like his jacket had been turned upside down and shaken so that everything fell out of the pockets, for everyone to see.  Even the parts he'd much rather keep to himself. 

Gil had processed him as quickly and quietly as possible.  He probably would have been arrested if it hadn't been for the statement from the neighbors, who said that the wife had met him in the driveway after he got home from work.  It was then that the altercation had started – her screaming at him, while he tried to calm her down and pull her inside the house before things escalated.  When the neighbors could still hear screaming after they'd been in the house for ten minutes, the police had been called. 

 
The evidence of a long pattern of abuse was visible in the scars and in the man's eyes, which refused to meet Gil's no matter how he tried to ask questions and catch his brown eyed gaze.  The husband had explained that she had problems with medications; either she would forget to take them, she'd feel good and figure she didn't need them, or the doctors were switching them and the new stuff wasn't working.  In any of the scenarios, she became depressed, suspicious, and violent.  She had always been like that, and he was convinced that he could help her.  Gil thought what she really needed was some sort of in-patient program, but kept that to himself.  The man wasn't ready to hear it.  The only saving grace was that they hadn't had any children. 

He checked to make sure that the wife was, indeed, staying with her sister, before he set the file aside while physical evidence made it's way through the lab and photographs were processed.  Those things were out of his hands for the moment.  Unfortunately, the night had yet another nasty surprise for him.  Three young people, teens to early twenties, dead in a club.  They were trampled when the fire alarms and sprinklers went off in the over-crowded facility and people had moved in a panicked mass toward the doors, pushing and shoving everything and anyone out of their way to get to safety. 

There was no fire, just a stupid prank.  They found the kid that did it – underage, just like one of the victims.  All of them chemically altered in some way or another.  He'd been hiding in a utility closet near the alarm pull.  The case put him, Brass, and Robbins all in foul moods, and the last three hours of the shift had passed in acrimonious silence.  Brass was almost removed from the case for his energetic interrogation of one of the club's other patrons.  The kid who'd pulled the alarm was lucky enough to be under sixteen, and thus had to wait for an advocate or parent to be present for questioning.  This had given Brass time to blow off steam and get his perspective in order before dealing with the key suspect.   

The kid threw up on the table, just barely missing the case file, when Gil had shown him pictures of one of the victims, broken bones and swollen tissue from all the blunt force trauma of hundreds of feet disfiguring her completely.  Stupidity apparently had a conscience.  Too little, too late, Gil thought, shaking his head sadly at the expression of numb disbelief on the fourteen year old's face and the tears that were spilling thickly and silent down his mother's face.   

By the time he had everything wrapped up enough to leave it for the night, he'd forgotten about his breakfast appointment with Alan – until Archie stuck his head in his office with pictures of a bloated body floating in murky water.  The tech was a genius.  There was no question of it; he looked at the original pictures, then the enlargements that Archie had so carefully managed, which brought the scene to poster size in separate prints, while maintaining vivid clarity.  He could see maggots on flesh exposed through ripped clothes and on a hip that had been bared when the current or his struggles had hiked his shirt up well above the top of his grubby jeans.  Water skimmers made reflective circles in the water around the man's head.  Other signs of activity were present at the hairline, above the collar.  It might be enough.  He found himself hoping to give Alan the answer he was looking for. 

“Thank you, Archie.  This is excellent.  I'll owe you breakfast or something,” he offered. 

“Naw,  don't sweat it, Griss.  Where is that anyway?  Doesn't look familiar, and I think I've seen pictures of bodies from just about everywhere in Clark County.” 

“Boston, actually.  I got a visit from a couple lawyers who were looking for help on a case.  I told them that I couldn't tell them what they wanted to hear necessarily, but I'd find out what I could.  This really does help.” 

“Cool.  Boston, huh?  I almost got to go out there last year, but Ecklie wouldn't approve the funding,” Archie's youthful face turned down in a look of acid bitterness. 

Grissom rolled his eyes.   

“Told me I should come up with the money myself – yeah, right.  How am I supposed to come up with air fare and hotel money to get across the country?  I could have really learned a few things at that workshop, too.” 

He rarely got to see the tech get worked up like this.  Ecklie had really gotten under his skin with that.  Grissom wondered briefly how quickly the administrator got anything from the AV lab, particularly from graveyard's cases.  He wouldn't put it past Archie to have his own filing system based on the current star date and written in Klingon or something.  It was interesting how possessive investigators and lab rats were about their work – he'd noticed it no matter where he happened to be working.  It was magnified, however, when there was someone like Ecklie around.   

In all honesty, Grissom had softened a little toward the administrator since Nick's kidnapping – he knew that Ecklie had pulled out all the stops on trying to get the investigator back, to come up with the ransom money out of lab funds by hook or by crook.  Conrad had looked like a kicked puppy when the upper echelons had denied his initiative and instead, coldly, set him to the task of telling the team to “prepare themselves for a funeral.”  Like they were all supposed to just drop what they were doing and start writing eulogies.   

But still.  Conrad's eye was on the bottom dollar.  It wasn't entirely his doing, but the way he buckled to the demands of people who'd never spent a single shift poring over evidence, talking to victims, telling parents that they'd lost a child, or working against the clock to deliver evidence for a court case, still galled him on occassion.  They were the people who talked a big talk and puffed themselves up on the fact that the lab was the second best in the country, but never did any of the work that went into achieving or maintaining that status. 

He'd hoped that he'd emphasized his desire to let the team get out and attend those kinds of things clear – that it was necessary to keep and develop the sort of skills and maintain the interest of the lab rats who kept the gears turning.  Even if the lab had to expense it.  Across the country wasn't cheap, but certainly Clark County could broker some sort of deal with the government in Boston or something.  It was a little “college” but maybe they could work something out with other labs to set team members up with host families if the distance and expense of a trip were prohibitive, and saving hotel costs made the difference between attending and staying home. 

Such were his thoughts as he drove through the rising sun, toward the cafe with the dark green recessed door, and as he looked at his watch and noted he was fifteen minutes late.  Normally, he wouldn't have given a single whit about whether or not he'd kept someone waiting, especially when he was doing something as a favor for another investigation outside of his own lab.  But this was different, somehow.  It was Alan, who he now knew was slightly taller than himself, had acutely intelligent blue-gray eyes, and a silken voice that probably wove an effortless spell over many a juror.  Hell, probably a judge or two, as well. 

He shook his head as he went in the door, and Anna greeted him.  His stomach was feeling unsettled, and he blamed the night's ending case load.  Butterflies, moths, cocoons...they were all flitting and wriggling around his diaphragm, the nervous feeling that seemed to have no basis making him even more nervous, as nonsensical as that sounded.  

“I'm sorry I'm late,” he said quietly as he set the file down on the spotless Formica table as he took his jacket off and hung it over the back of the booth.  “Things got a little chaotic after you and Denny left.  Where is Denny?” he looked around.  The friendship between the two men ran deep, there was no missing that.  He'd expected to see both of them together at all times. 

“Sleeping off an evening of running a roulette tables and ogling show girls.  He has a penchant for such things that I can't quite afford,” Alan smiled, still looking tired. “My name's not on the door.” 

Gil looked at him quizzically after the final statement.   

“Denny likes to point out to those impertinent enough to disagree with him that his name is on the door to the firm and theirs isn't,” Alan smiled.  “His ego is well earned, even if it wears thin sometimes.” 

“He strikes me as someone who has earned a little spot in the sun,” Gil replied carefully.  “How long has he been an attorney?” 

“Since dirt, according to most,” Alan laughed a little, sipping at his coffee.  “Close to fifty years, never lost a case – another thing he likes to point out to people.” 

“I've heard of the firm.  I started as a coroner in Los Angeles.  I admit that it took me a few minutes to connect his name with the big corporate firm out there with two lawyers from Boston, though.  How did you come to be working with them?” 

“Happenstance, happy accident, kismet?” Alan smiled softly again, and somehow the expression only emphasized the natural melancholy set of his eyes.  It was a contradiction that had Gil fascinated.  “I was fired from the firm I worked for before, but I'd worked with Denny once or twice, and he opened up an office  for me.  Luckily the other partners have put up with me this far, despite what Shirley calls my tendency to tilt at windmills.” 

Gil laughed a little, a laugh that felt deep, and in concert with the other man's expression.  This was dangerous territory, he told himself, and took a scalding sip of coffee to bring his mind back to the case that was very literally before them.   

“Is something wrong?”  Alan asked, hunching down in his seat to try to catch Gil's eyes. 

“No, nothing.  I just...our AV tech was able to enlarge the pictures, but I haven't had a single chance to go over them.  In fact, I might have forgotten them entirely if he hadn't dropped them by my office as he was leaving.” 

“Oh – well.  You probably need more time...”  

“No.  No, we can go over them here, if that's all right with you.  You seemed an apt enough student at my lectures at Williams,” he teased, letting the detail slip without realizing it. 

For the next two hours, they looked at photos like puzzle pieces, the originals providing the context for the magnified prints.  Gil filled pages of blank paper with precisely lettered notes regarding the position of the body, the apparent state of rigor compared to the coroner's report, looking at the time of the police report against the time of the autopsy against the statements taken by police and investigators from family and friends, and the poor jogger who'd found the body.   

Gil set his empty coffee cup down on the edge of the table, a tacit indication that it was time for yet another refill.  Alan watched his every move, fascinated.  The almost bashful man who had sat down across from him disappeared as the scientist took over.  No detail was too small to be noted and compared and teased apart from the whole puzzle to be assessed and analyzed.  There was everything to be learned and Gil let nothing slip by him.  It was the same intense, passionate attention to detail that had made his earlier dream so troublesome.  He was beginning to fear that it might become troublesome again, especially when Gil started putting papers and photos back together in order, and slipping them back into their folder.  “We've probably pestered Anna enough for one day, would you mind if we moved somewhere else with this?” 

Alan looked up, a little astonished to see an early lunch crowd filing in through the door.  “I don't imagine the photos are helping her business any,” Alan teased, even though he could feel his stomach tighten nervously.  “Denny is asleep still, I'm sure.  I'm afraid that going back to the hotel is out of the question at the moment.  I'm not sure where that leaves us.” 

Gil hesitated, then met Alan's eyes.  “I have a coffee maker and some of Greg's Hawaiian coffee.” 

Alan reached for the folder, planning on having it handy to disguise any outward signs of not-so- professional interest in the other man.  He was being invited to Gil Grissom's personal home, and that had to be something like ground zero.  He'd gotten the impression that the scientist was intensely private, and rarely shared his space with anyone, for any amount of time; never mind his coffee.  Even if he didn't have a clue who Greg was. 

Gil seemed to pick up on some of his confusion.  “Greg used to be our best DNA tech – one of the best lab rats I've ever seen.  He's been working in the field for a couple years now, otherwise you probably would  have seen him.  You would have at least heard him – he had a habit of playing music in the lab. One of his vices is his coffee – forty dollars a pound directly from the Big Island.  The stuff is legendary around the lab.  I think when he went into the field and stopped bringing it in, people actually went through withdrawals.” 

Alan laughed at the description.  Something told him he would have liked to have met Greg.  In fact, whenever Gil had spoken of any member of his team, it had been in tones of absolute respect.  The only one he'd heard of was Nick Stokes, and that only because his kidnapping had made the news all the way out on the east coast a few years before.  He had been stunned to hear that the man had gone back to work at the lab, and was still working in the field, solving cases.  It took an amazing level of mental and emotional stamina to survive an experience like that; to return to the job that had led him there took a kind of commitment that Alan had only ever really felt for his own job.  He had always thought that there was nothing else in the world he could be other than a lawyer.  Maybe this Nick Stokes was the same way – he had to be an investigator because it was what he was made for. 

“That would be...” to flirt or not to flirt, to skate up to the edge of words that might make that open expression and those incredible blue eyes close up on him, or draw him in deeper.  Goddammit, it seemed that no matter where he went he courted trouble.  “I would enjoy that very much,” he finished, the words cool and diffident, but hoping that his eyes would express the depth with which he meant them. 

“Do you have a car, or?” Gil let the sentence drift. 

“No, I took a cab,” Alan replied as he snitched the bill and paid it against Gil's protests.   

“You're doing me an immense favor.  The least I can do is pay for coffee,” Alan stood up, taking a deep breath to steady himself as he left the tip on the table.  “And offering me the privilege of allowing me into your home so that you can continue to work on my case.  I'll owe you more than coffee before we're done if this comes out the way I hope it does.” 

“It may not, you know,” Gil warned, the scientist reasserting himself.   

“I would never ask you to tailor your findings to my hopes,” Alan reassured him.  “It would be a disservice to us both.” 

“I guess I'll drive, then.”