Title: Halfway Round the World
By: Caroline Crane
Pairing: Speed/Tyler
Rating: PG
Summary: He's been hoping this day would never come.

This is the part of his job he hates the most – standing around, wasting time while they wait for somebody to cut through a bunch of red tape just so they can do their jobs. He's always thought arguments about jurisdiction were bullshit, because the point is that somebody's dead and the longer they wait to process the crime scene the harder it's going to be to figure out what happened.

He can tell Delko's not any happier than he is, because he's been shifting restlessly when he's not fiddling with his sunglasses and every so often he lets out a heavy sigh. And he's not sure where Horatio went, but he's starting to think they're doing a whole lot of standing around for nothing.

"This is crazy," Delko finally says, jaw set in that line that lets Speed know he's not going to stand around much longer. Not that there's anything else to do, at least not until Horatio fights it out with the Feds who showed up right after they did.

Speed opens his mouth to agree, but before he gets the words out he catches sight of a uniform out of the corner of his eye. She can't be much older than his brother, and when Speed realizes she's walking right toward them he reaches for his kit. He nods when the cop stops in front of them, glancing at first him and then Delko. "You Delko and Speedle?"

"Yeah," Delko answers, arms still crossed over his chest and at least he's not playing with his sunglasses anymore.

"Lieutenant Caine sent me to tell you to head back to the lab. Looks like the Feds are throwing their weight around pretty hard in there."

"Thanks," Speed says, swallowing his frustration at wasting forty-five minutes doing nothing when at least he could have been catching up on paperwork. The last thing he wants to do is hang around after his shift and fill out forms when he could be at home. And it still feels weird to think of Tyler's place as 'home', but that's where he's been going after work every day for two weeks, and he'd rather be there than stuck at work with a stack of reports.

He turns to follow Delko, but the sound of the cop calling his name stops him, and he turns to glance back at her. "Yeah?"

"You're Tim Speedle, right?"

"Yeah," Speed answers, frowning as he tries to figure out where this is going. He's pretty sure he's never seen her before, but he doesn't always pay that much attention to the uniforms on any given case. "Do I know you?"

She shakes her head, smiling this weird sort of smile that makes him tense. "I know your brother. Well, I met him. When they brought him in, I was on desk duty that night. He was real nice. Funny."

The tension drains out of him when he realizes she's not going to hit on him, but as soon he remembers that Delko's still standing behind him it comes rushing right back. Part of him wants to lecture her about developing crushes on the deadbeats she meets at the station, but his brother's not a deadbeat, and anyway he doesn't even know her. Instead he just nods and clears his throat, glancing over his shoulder long enough to see that Delko's definitely listening before he answers.

"I'll tell him you said hi."

"Sherry. Sherry Kingsley."

"Right. See you around."

He turns and walks away before she can say anything else, like maybe an amusing anecdote about how Matt kept them all in stitches while he was being booked, or maybe how he tried to organize a protest over the overcrowded holding cells in county lock-up. And he can just imagine the impression his brother made at the precinct house if some rookie's still fawning over him – he'd been hoping that maybe nobody on the night shift recognized his name, but now…now he's going to have to think of something to tell Eric.

Neither of them says anything until they're out of the house, but once they reach the truck and stow their kits in the back Eric climbs into the driver's seat and looks at him. "Since when do you have a brother?"

"Since about nineteen years ago," Speed answers. "He's a freshman."

"You've got a brother who lives in Miami and you've never mentioned him?"

"He doesn't live in Miami. I mean he didn't," Speed says, frowning as he stumbles over his own words, and he's not even sure why he's explaining something that isn't any of Eric's business. "He came down for spring break and decided he liked it here."

"Was this before or after he got himself arrested?"

"You'll have to ask him that. Look, it's no big deal. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They dropped the charges."

Eric nods and starts the truck, but he's grinning and Speed can tell he's enjoying the fact that at least someone in Speed's family is a screw-up. And it just shows how little Delko really knows about him, because compared to Speed's past, Matt getting arrested is nothing. Matt's not the one who freaked out and dropped out of school because he couldn't handle his best friend's death, and he's not the one who disappointed his parents by turning out gay.

For a few minutes he thinks Eric's actually going to drop it, but once they pull into traffic the other man glances over at him again. "So all those questions you were asking me about what it would take for me to bail somebody's relative out of jail…"

"I told you, it was a hypothetical question."

"Doesn't seem so hypothetical to me."

"Just drop it, okay?"

He doesn't mean to sound so angry – he's not, really, at least not angry with Eric. Mostly he's mad at himself, because he's the one who got himself into this situation and now he's going to have to figure out a way out of it. Chances are Eric will forget about it eventually, but there's always the possibility that he'll run into somebody from Narcotics, somebody who knows Speed and remembers who bailed out his brother.

And even if Delko doesn't put two and two together, there's a good chance it's going to get back to Horatio. Which means Speed's going to have to tell him before he hears it from somebody else, because even if he doesn't hear about Matt, there's only so long Speed and Tyler can live together before somebody notices something. He swallows a heavy sigh and turns to stare out the window, ignoring the tense set of Delko's jaw and all the questions he knows the other man's dying to ask.

Questions he's not asking, at least not right now, and Speed's grateful that he's letting it drop for once. He doesn't say anything at all during the rest of the trip, and when they pull into the parking lot Delko shuts off the engine and climbs out of the truck without a word. He doesn't wait for Speed before he grabs his kit and heads inside, and Speed tells himself it doesn't bother him. He'd rather deal with the silent treatment than try to come up with answers Eric might believe, anyway, and until he figures out what he's going to tell Horatio he doesn't even want to think about telling anybody else.