Living Backward

By Emily Brunson

©2005

A week after he started the job in Las Vegas, he knew he'd found the place he'd been looking for. Crazy, because it was the last place on earth he'd have predicted. Always figured he'd stay in Texas; everyone else in his family had. But no, here he was. Sin City, and him a good Catholic boy.

Well, mostly good.

Everything fell into place like a gift from God, too. They found a house on the first day, even if the rent was higher than was really comfortable. But it was a great house for a rental: nice yard, two big bedrooms, two-car garage. And only about half an hour from work, which was a huge bonus.

And work was definitely something else. In his life Nick had never felt so in over his head, and never loved it half as much. It wasn't that the Dallas lab was substandard, necessarily. Pretty good, in fact. But his first night in Gil Grissom's gleaming, hyper-new facility Nick had felt seriously humbled. Yes, he had the skills, yes, he knew the procedures. All that, however, was only a place to start. Grissom expected a lot more than adequacy, and Nick had every intention of living up to his standards. Even when it meant homework all over again.

"You've gotta be kidding," Sean told him after Nick's second night at work. "Tell me you're kidding."

Nick shrugged and drank the rest of his coffee. "No, I'm not," he replied, sighing. "I'm the low man on the totem pole, and I got a shitload of catching-up to do."

Sean groaned. "So catch up at work, all right? But not HERE. Man, I thought we could relax now."

"Relax." Nick patted his shoulder and went over to rinse the cup at the sink. "And I'll relax, too, maybe next month."

Or next year, he thought. It didn't bother him nearly as much as it should have. Christ, Gil Grissom. Nick hadn't thought he had a chance in hell at scoring the job in the first place. Granted, he had the qualifications. Sure. Three years as a cop, nearly two as a criminalist. He could talk the talk and walk the walk. But there had to have been about a thousand other guys -- and gals -- up for the job. How had he made the first cut, let alone gotten to the interview stage? Hell, gotten an OFFER?

He didn't know, and he wasn't going to ask anyone. Instead he was going to work his ass off, show Grissom he'd made the right choice, and consider himself just about the luckiest ex-Aggie alive.

Sean, now. That was a little different.

"Look, I won't be gone all day." Nick slung himself into one of the other chairs at the kitchen table. "Be back by one, at the latest. Okay? I'm sorry." He reached out and squeezed Sean's hand. "But I gotta hit the books. Until I get caught up."

Sean's thumb stroked the top of Nick's hand. "Man, you haven't stopped since we got here," he said, but his blue eyes were wry rather than really ticked. "When are you gonna slow down and relax a little? We're here. Look around and enjoy it."

"Maybe next week." Nick grinned and leaned forward to kiss Sean fast on the mouth. "You know," he added, "you could unpack a few boxes while I'm gone."

"Oh, that sounds like fun," Sean grumped. Then he grinned. "Whatever. But this weekend we are kicking back. No arguments, okay?"

"No arguments from me. I promise."

It really wasn’t much after one by the time he got home, either. Mostly all this DNA shit – hard coming from a place where you did one job and one job only, to a place that expected CSIs to be generalists, and techs to do the hardcore analyses. DNA was still a very strange foreign language for Nick, and when he got home that afternoon his head was still spinning with material he hadn’t realized he’d need to know until he actually started the job.

If Sean had unpacked anything, Nick couldn’t tell. With a sigh he skirted the piled-up boxes in the living room and went into the kitchen. "Anybody home?" he called, taking a beer out of the fridge. There was no reply.

Great. Well, the boxes had waited this long; they could wait a little longer. He was exhausted. He drank his beer standing at the kitchen sink, and stowed the bottle in the box under the sink before heading to bed.

Where Sean awoke him at some point by crawling under the sheets and kissing his neck. "Wake up," Sean crooned.

Nick blinked blearily at him. "You smell like booze," he said, turning his head.

"I had a margarita with Troy and Michael." Sean blithely kept going, hand sliding under Nick’s tee shirt to stroke his belly. "No big deal. You said one o’clock."

"Sorry. Sean, I need to sleep. I’m really tired."

Nibbling Nick’s earlobe, Sean whispered, "This’ll help you sleep better."

"I was sleeping fine." With a sigh Nick turned on his back, gazing up at him. "What time is it?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Dunno. About six, I think."

Nick gaped. "Six? Shit." He tried to sit up, and Sean bore him right back down again.

"Oh, come ON," Sean said, frowning. "You don’t have to go yet. I know you don’t."

"I need to grab a shower. Sean, I gotta go to work."

"Your shift doesn’t even start until eight." Sean’s hands pinned his own to the mattress. His blue eyes glinted, and Nick felt a tingle of reluctant interest in his groin. "Don’t even try to pull that one on me," Sean continued, lowering his head to brush his lips over Nick’s. "I know better."

He knew the minute he let Sean kiss him it was all over but the cleanup. Sean’s mouth tasted like tequila and lime, talented tongue darting between Nick’s lips. He felt Sean’s erection against his own, hard and heavy. It was plenty; Nick groaned and arched up a little, meeting Sean’s kiss eagerly.

Sean sat back on his haunches to pull his shirt over his head, and Nick watched and then yanked his own off, grinning when Sean stood up on the mattress to remove his jeans. Sean’s long, lean body made Nick’s heart bump in his chest. He slithered out of his boxers and sighed as Sean settled back between his legs.

"I love you," Sean murmured a few minutes later, sliding home inside Nick’s body. "Oh, God, that feels so good."

"Love you too," Nick whispered.

It was good and bad that it was always like this. No matter how annoyed he got, even pissed off sometimes, once they were naked he couldn’t even try to pretend that he didn’t want it. Just like ten years ago, when he was a freshman and Sean an out-of-place junior at A&M. It had taken a while for Sean to get him in bed, but Sean was nothing if not devoted to his personal causes, and chiefest among those back then had been getting Nick’s legs in the air. A task at which he had succeeded admirably, no doubt, although his parents probably wished he’d given a little more of that focus to his school work. Not that they knew at the time about their son’s preferences, any more than Nick’s had known of his own.

But from that first beer-soaked humid night in College Station, on a creaky bed in a rundown apartment filled with pizza boxes and discarded beer bottles, Nick had been giving into Sean just about any time Sean wanted him. Which was wildly, sometimes somewhat uncomfortably often back then, and maybe it wasn’t quite the two-or-more times a day anymore that it once was, but those patterns appeared to be inscribed in granite. No matter what Nick really wanted – no matter what his obligations were, increasingly – he had zero resistance to Sean’s amorous charms.

"Look at me," Sean grated, staring at his sweaty face. "Look at me when you come."

Nick felt his face contorting, the hot inexorable rise of his orgasm impossible to deny. "I am," he gasped.

Sean’s eyes were impossibly blue, compelling, teasing. "I see it. Yeah, that’s it, come on, Nicky, give it up, feels so good." He thrust long and sure in Nick’s ass, easy rotations of the hips, every stroke sending a new flare of helpless heat through Nick’s body.

He kept his eyes open until the pleasure of his orgasm was too much, and he bit his lip and threw his head back and cried out, legs gripping Sean’s hips with bruising power. From some distant place he heard Sean’s pleased, thick chuckle, and then he sped up and jerked his hips and came, too, that signature low grunt that Nick associated so indelibly with them, this long relationship that had endured so much, that had become one of the defining factors in his life.

He ached a little after Sean pulled out of him, but it was a familiar ache, a good feeling, and he turned drowsily on his side while Sean flopped down next to him. "You don’t play fair," Nick mumbled, raising up and straddling Sean’s lean hips.

"Nope," Sean agreed blithely, grinning as Nick leaned down to kiss him.

"Bitch," Nick said, and bit Sean’s lower lip lightly.

Sean laughed.

He got his shower, just a little later than planned, and when he emerged from the bathroom Sean was asleep, one arm thrown over his eyes, naked body lax and beautiful. Nick paused on his way to the closet, watching mutely. Could have been a goddamn movie star, he was so handsome. Could have done anything he wanted, really, Sean just had that knack. That way of just walking into a room and having people like him, want to know him. It was a gift, and one that Nick had often envied in their long time together.

He stopped again by the bed on his way to work, but Sean didn’t even flinch when Nick bent to kiss his shoulder lightly. Smiling, Nick grabbed his jacket and headed out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You need a hand with that?"

Nick looked up, eyebrows lifted. "This? Nah, thanks, man, I got it covered."

Dave had his arms crossed, leaning against the table. "Well," he continued, "you were saying the other night about how the Dallas lab didn’t have this version of the software. I figured since we had a pretty tight deadline, you know."

"It’s okay." Nick forced a smile he hoped was friendly. "Spent a little quality time with the program a couple of days ago. Think I got it down now. But thanks."

"Suit yourself. Grissom’s strict about deadlines, though." Dave shrugged.

"I’ll watch my back."

After Dave walked away, Nick allowed himself a tired sigh. David Montoya was one less than sparkling aspect of the new job. Seemed to honestly know his stuff, which Nick respected, but from the moment he’d met the guy there seemed to be something else in the air. Nick wasn’t sure it had anything specifically to do with him – new-guy jitters, more than likely – but at the moment he’d take a cut in base pay just to have Dave stop watching over his shoulder all the time. Hell, even Grissom didn’t hang over him that much, and he was the one Nick really wanted to learn from.

"You’ll get used to him," a dry voice said from the doorway.

Nick looked around, and grinned. "You think?"

Catherine Willows nodded and strolled inside. "Dave’s got a little bit of a complex," she told him, making a face. "Good guy deep down, but lately, I dunno. Rumor has it he’s looking around for something else."

With the feeling he was stepping into a puddle whose depth he didn’t yet know, Nick nodded cautiously. "Wow. With all this stuff, why’d anybody want to work anywhere else?" He regretted how rah-rah brown-nose it sounded once it came out, but managed to keep his cool.

Catherine laughed. "Hey, I don’t disagree. Lots of toys, and smart people to boot." Her smile softened. "So settling in okay? How’s the house?"

"Good. Still need to do some unpacking, but it’s all right. Got the essentials."

"And work?"

Nick drew a careful breath. "I’m learning," he said after a moment. "Things are a little different. Not in a bad way," he added hastily. "Just, you know."

"Uh-huh." She grinned again. "I hear what you’re saying. But you’re doing great, Nick. Really."

"Thanks." He felt his face coloring with ridiculous pleasure. "It’s pretty fun."

"Good. Listen, Grissom wanted you to stop by when you get done with that."

Nick sat up straighter. "Oh. Okay."

"No rush. Relax. I gotta hit the road. Later."

"Later," he echoed.

Regardless of her words, he pushed it a little on the shirt fiber analysis. Hell, at least he knew fibers. Wasn’t that tough, just a little time-consuming. And he was damned if he’d make the man wait too long. Not this early in the game.

Tapping his fingers waiting for the printer to spit out his results, he found himself smiling. Catherine Willows was the polar opposite of Montoya. Personable, friendly, and let’s face it, if he didn’t bat for the other team he’d have probably lost his heart the first night at work. Beautiful, sure, but smart, and that combination was dynamite. Married, of course, but what the hell, so was he, for all intents and purposes. And he might be queer, but he certainly wasn’t blind, or stupid. Willows was just as intelligent as Montoya, and a hell of a lot easier to get along with to boot. He knew who he’d pick to accompany him if he had to go to a desert island for a while. He just hoped Grissom’s summons wasn’t another assignment with Montoya.

Test results in hand, he gathered up his nerve and went to Grissom’s office. Grissom was predictably on the phone, but motioned Nick to a chair. "Yeah, I’m about to leave. You mean there’s more?" He nodded and took off his glasses. Without the lenses his eyes were as blue as Sean’s, maybe moreso. "Okay, tell me."

While Grissom listened, Nick surreptitiously watched. Two weeks of working together hadn’t done much to mitigate what he admitted was kind of a fan-boy fascination. Grissom was just so goddamn cool. Not just brilliant, but cool. Nick had to resist pulling out the pocket tape recorder he’d used in college, just to catch the man’s every word.

When he realized he was staring, he made himself look around. Nothing really personal, like pictures of family or anything. Grissom’s office was packed with entomology crap, backing up the information Nick already had about the man’s particular passion. Nick didn’t share it, kind of found bugs sort of interesting in an offhand way but otherwise was pretty neutral, except cockroaches, which he silently loathed. Not that he was going to volunteer that one, considering the live ones marching around a tank over to the left. Okay, give him a dog any day over roaches, but whatever peeled your grapes, right?

He was studying a silkworm moth when Grissom finally hung up. Nick glanced over, smile at the ready.

"Nice work on the Andrews analysis," Grissom commented, stacking papers on his desk. "You learn that technique here or back in Dallas?"

Technique? Oh. "Dallas," Nick said. "Randy – Matthews, you know? He showed me that one last year."

"I’d probably have let the machine do it for me. Interesting to do it the old-fashioned way."

And was that a compliment or a slam? Nick had absolutely no idea, and Grissom’s face was completely unrevealing. He decided to take it as a sort of compliment, and nodded.

"We have two dead bodies in a house south of the city, outside town. You’re done with that?"

"Yeah. Want to see?"

"No. Drop it in Martinez’s box on the way out." He gave Nick’s attire a disparaging look. "You’ll need something warmer. We’ll be mostly outside."

"Got it."

He grabbed his jacket in the locker room after stowing his analysis results in Abe Martinez’s box. Okay, so some things Grissom wanted to see, and some he didn’t, and so far Nick had made out no particular pattern distinguishing between the two. Just random, which kept him on his toes in an uncomfortable sort of way.

Outside the lab Grissom glanced at him. "My car?"

Nick shrugged. "I’m without wheels tonight. Sorry."

"Not a problem."

Both inside and outside of Grissom’s car were immaculate. The sleek, fairly new Mercedes was undeniably cool, but it didn’t fit him, for some reason; Nick thought it was a questionable choice of vehicle in terms of taking it anywhere that might require off-road driving. But nice, certainly. He sat back in the sweetly comfortable passenger seat. "So what’s the case?"

"Double homicide, most likely. Unclear yet, but Abrams thinks that’s it."

Nick nodded. He’d only worked one DB in his short two weeks on Grissom’s team, and a flicker of tension zinged through his muscles. Grissom liked things a certain way. Nick just hoped he’d remember to go to point A before zigging off to point F or P.

After a few blocks Grissom cleared his throat. "You doing all right?"

Nick looked over at him. "Yeah. Yeah, doing fine. Thank you."

Another long, fairly uncomfortable silence, and then Grissom spoke again. "What made you decide to leave the police department and pursue forensics?"

Okay, he’d asked that same question during Nick’s interview, and Nick hadn’t liked answering it then. He sure didn’t feel like it now. He shrugged. "It’s a fascinating field," he told him evenly. "I was curious, talked to a few people. Then the position opened up, and I went for it."

"No regrets?"

"Nah. I really like it."

Grissom nodded, eyes steady on the road ahead of them. "Anyone else in your family in law enforcement?"

Jesus, it felt like his goddamn interview all over again. What was up with that? "In a manner of speaking. My mother is an assistant DA for Dallas County."

"Interesting. What does your father do?"

Here we go. Nick drew a long breath. "He’s a judge," he said slowly. "Two years ago he was appointed to the Texas State Supreme Court."

That got him a look, as he’d known it would. Had during his first interview, as well. Now Grissom acted like he hadn’t even heard him the first time. "A family of lawyers," he stated, sounding neutral. "Anyone else?"

"Well, my brother – Cabe – he works for the SEC down in Houston, so yeah. He did the lawyer thing. And Kathy. She’s a partner in a firm in Arlington. Tax law, I think. But that’s it." Nick forced a smile. "The rest of us strayed from the one true path, I guess."

"Rest? How many siblings do you have?"

"Uh. Six. One brother, five sisters."

"Ah."

And like a light being turned off, Grissom’s attention waned. Nick glanced ahead and saw several vehicles clustered up ahead in front of an isolated house, about a quarter of a mile. "This us?" he asked, lifting his chin.

"Evidently."

The two DBs were male, both dead of obvious close-range gunshot wounds. After getting the skinny from one of the sheriff’s guys, Nick busied himself with the camera, aware of Grissom here and there, dusting for prints, talking quietly with various people.

"Gotta be drug-related," one of the deputies declared. "We’ve been out here twice the past year with warrants. These guys are new, though. The other ones are in jail right now."

"Someone was unhappy with the merchandise?" Grissom asked.

The deputy shrugged. "Who knows? Bunch of goddamn scumbags, anyway."

One of the dead men looked young enough to still be in high school. His upturned staring face had a shaving cut on the chin, and Nick swallowed a surge of sadness while he focused the camera. What a waste. This kid oughta be flirting with girls and working part-time at the DQ, not lying here in a drying pool of blood and urine, a hole the size of Kansas in his left upper chest.

They wrapped up a few hours later. About a dozen distinct fingerprints, and no shortage of other forms of evidence. Nick straightened from his crouch near where the other man’s body had lain, and glanced at Grissom. "What now?"

Grissom tucked the latest evidence bag into his pocket. "Think we’re about done here. I don’t expect this will take too long, do you? We got lucky with trace evidence."

"Looks like it," Nick agreed. He shook his head. "What a waste."

"A form of social Darwinism," Grissom countered.

"I guess."

They drove back to the lab in silence. Once there Nick ducked into the fingerprint lab to run the prints. No problem finding a match: their two dead kids, plus four other positives, three of whom had drug records. Piece of cake.

He was in the fibers lab preparing a few slides when his cell phone rang.

"What time are you done?" Sean asked. Music played in the background, loud and thumping.

Nick tucked the phone between jaw and collarbone. "Not for a while. Where are you?"

"Satyricon."

"What’s that? A club?"

"Yeah. Why don’t you come over here when you get finished?"

"They’ll be closed by then."

Even over the music he could hear Sean’s sigh. "Damn."

Nick slid the fibers under the microscope and sighed, too. "Believe me, I’d rather be there," he added. Not absolutely, completely true, but at least partly. He told himself. "Why don’t you come get me for lunch?" he asked, knowing Sean wouldn’t.

Another sigh, and Sean said, "I can’t right now. There’s, you know. Stuff."

"Yeah, I know what kind of stuff. Would you promise me to call a cab if you get toasted? Don’t you have an interview tomorrow?"

"I’ll be okay. I gotta go."

"Love you."

"Love you."

He set the phone on the table and leaned forward to focus the microscope. And well, he sounded more like Sean’s mom than Sean’s lover there, but damn it, he needed that job. Rent was coming up, and the way things were going, they’d be choosing that over food for the next two weeks.

Thoughts of money faded away as he started processing the fibers he’d brought back. Screw it. If Sean wasn’t gonna worry, he wasn’t either. Right now there were bigger fish to fry, right here in River City.

~~~~~~~~~~ 

Chapter Two

As much as he hated to admit it, he didn’t really remember Nick Stokes’s interview all that clearly. What Gil did remember was the headache he’d had that day. One of the bad ones, one of the only times when he wished fervently to just take a sick day and have done with it. The headaches didn’t come often; once a year was fairly typical. But when they did, the pain was well-nigh unbearable.

But Stokes had come all the way from Dallas for the interview, and Gil couldn’t exactly ask him to come back sometime when his head didn’t hurt. Pills helped, and pills were what had gotten him through that morning. A week later, reviewing the candidates for the position, he sat shaking his head. All were comparable: bright, eager, dedicated, etc., etc. What made his choice for him were two things. First, Stokes had police experience, and that was an unexpected bonus. It had singled him out from the reams of resumes Gil had sorted through the previous three weeks.

But mostly it was the realization that Gil hadn’t really liked any of the other three. That he didn’t dislike Stokes essentially got him the job.

He didn’t share that rather embarrassing fact with anyone, of course. Hiring should be rigorous, serious, all that. And normally it was….but this time, well, he was strapped, shorthanded, and Stokes had all the necessary experience, plus a bit extra. He called the man that afternoon, and felt not even the tiniest flicker of recognition, hearing him speak. Had he even interviewed him? But there it was, on his calendar the previous week. Feeling a little disjointed, Gil trotted out his offer, and Stokes accepted on the spot.

It wasn’t until he reported for his first day of duty that Gil actually remembered him. And sitting at his desk, listening to that thick sweet Texas accent and watching Nick’s chiseled features, he felt another shock, this one more personal and even less comfortable than the earlier ones. How had he forgotten THIS?

At the end of that night’s shift, home again with a decidedly triple brandy in front of him, he thought that if nothing else, this was definite proof he was nowhere near up to snuff when his annual headaches struck. Because Nick Stokes was one of the most attractive men Gil could remember meeting in a very, very long time. Not a very professional observation, but one he felt sure he’d remember making if he’d been at all in proper form during the interview.

Handsome didn’t really matter, of course; Nick could have had a face like the proverbial mud fence and Gil would probably have made the same decision. Almost certainly, since he didn’t remember him anyway. And it wasn’t a feeling he was particularly proud of, that immediate, intense awareness of Nick’s presence.

So after some initial discussion, a tour, this and that, he handed off most of Nick’s orientation to Catherine, and retreated to his office with a feeling of mingled relief and regret. Relief, because, well, Nick made him uncomfortable. Regret? That, too.

A month after Nick began working at the lab, Gil had come to a decision. Libidos were best checked at the office door. He’d never conducted an affair with a colleague, and he had no intention of changing that habit at this late date. Never mind that Nick pinged Gil’s rusty gaydar so wildly he felt as if he were in a bad submarine movie. It didn’t matter. Work was work, and relationships were relationships, and ne’er the twain would meet, at least where he was concerned.

A noble sentiment. And one to which he held fast, for all of roughly two days.

If only the guy weren’t so goddamn hot.

"I got a knife, and some blood."

Gil flinched and glanced over, wishing he’d brought his glasses. Nick gave him a fast, oblique look, no expression at all. "Under the bed," he continued evenly. He was already taking a pair of latex gloves from his pocket.

"Our missing kitchen knife?" Gil asked slowly.

"That’d be my guess."

Nick hunkered back down and reached under the bed, and Gil bit his lip savagely to cut off any mute remarks about the spectacularly nice fit of Nick’s khaki trousers. Instead he turned, facing the man blustering in between two uniformed cops. "Care to explain how this got there, sir?"

Nicholson made a face. "How in the fuck should I know? Like I said, I was gone until about two hours ago." His cheeks got redder.

Gil shrugged. "It does seem pretty careless. Killing your girlfriend and doing such a good job of hiding her body, and then stowing the murder weapon under your bed?"

"Look, I ain’t stupid," Nicholson spat, going a little purple now. He licked his lips. "You think I’m stupid? I told you, I was at the bar. What, you want me to prove it?"

"Wouldn’t hurt."

"Fine. Go over there, knock yourself out. Musta been fifty people there, and they all saw me. Ask Trish, she’s the waitress."

Gil nodded. "We will."

Even before he turned away he’d pretty much decided Nicholson, as repellant as he was personally, was probably telling the truth. Which meant they were short a suspect in Alice Chambers’ murder, and what had appeared to be an easy case might not be so much.

"Bound to be at least some partials," Nick remarked, studying the knife through the clear plastic of the evidence bag. "I mean, it’s a start."

Gil nodded. "I’ll start on the bathroom."

"Cool." Nick ducked back under the bed.

Two long hours later they were done, and the reality of his girlfriend’s death had evidently sunk in for Nicholson; he looked as if someone had given him a right jab straight to the kidneys. The alibi was legit. He’d been holding down a bar stool until nine, which gave him absolutely no time to have gotten home for the killing. Gil paused on his way out. "I apologize for the questions, Mr. Nicholson," he said formally. "It’s procedure."

"Yeah, well, fuck your procedure," Nicholson retorted in a choked voice. "Who the fuck killed my girl? That’s what I wanna know."

Gil nodded. "So do I."

With Nick at his heels he made his way through the small clot of lookie-loos and unlocked the car. Inside it was mercifully quiet, and he got them onto the highway before Nick spoke.

"Any theories?"

Gil shook his head. "Not yet. Have to see what her background check turns up, which might be tomorrow." He glanced over. "Thoughts?"

"Wasn’t premeditated. That knife under the bed? Somebody freaked, beat it out of there." Nick sounded just like a cop then, his tone bland and impersonal. "My money? Old boyfriend, ex-husband, something like that."

It was exactly what Gil was thinking as well, and he nodded before turning his attention back to the road.

A mile or so from the lab, Nick’s cell phone rang. His voice was still distant as he answered, but his next words were far warmer. "Hey. Yeah, I was wondering. I thought you’d call me before now. How’d it go?" He turned slightly away, face to the window. "Really? Excellent. Yeah, I hope so, too. Did they talk salary? Okay. When did they say they’d call? Huh. Yeah. No, I’m working, I gotta go. I’ll call you in a little while, okay? Love you."

Hanging up, Nick turned a quick glance Gil’s direction. "Sorry. You know."

Gil made himself nod. "No problem. Girlfriend?"

"No, that’s –"

He cut off when another phone rang, Gil’s this time. The ensuing conversation with Barnes, the detective working Alice Chambers’ murder, took them to the lab’s front door, and it didn’t occur to Gil until later to think that Nick had denied having a girlfriend, but hadn’t said anything about a boyfriend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Well, this is gonna be fun."

Gil listened to Catherine sigh, and nodded. "Looks like it."

"I’ve heard of partying until you drop, but this is taking it a little too far."

"Agreed."

The sidewalk outside the club was jammed with people waiting with little patience to be allowed inside. The cops looked flustered, and Gil caught one of them glancing at his watch. "Any day now, okay?" the man called, and Gil resisted the urge to flip him off.

"We got the call fifteen minutes ago. What do you want, for us to beam over here?" Catherine shot back anyway, and the cop had enough grace to look a little sheepish.

Just inside the door, Jim Brass looked pissed, and Gil mentally girded himself for whatever rotten mood the man was in tonight. But when he got there Brass just gave a tired shrug. "OD, probably. Kid’s right over there." He lifted his chin in the direction of the bar.

"His friends?"

"That’d be the other bar." This time Brass pointed left.

"Make sure they don’t go anyplace."

"Really? You think?"

Someone had probably turned the music down, since it didn’t actually feel as if Gil’s ears had started to bleed walking inside. But there were plenty of people on the lower level, a few gawking at the spectacle, most of them keeping right on with the drinking and dancing. Gil did a double-take when he noticed the same-sex pairings. "Is this a gay bar?" he asked Catherine, who nodded absently.

"Hasn’t been here very long. Before, it was the Odeon." She brushed past him, gazing at the crumpled body by the bar. "Damn, if this kid is 21 I’m RuPaul."

The boy did look perishingly young – emphasis on the "perish," Gil thought glumly – and very dead. His lips were covered with white foam. One tightly clenched hand held a purple sheet of paper.

Hunkering down, Gil raised his eyebrows at Brass, who’d tailed them over. "Did his friends tell you what he was taking?"

"Predictably enough, they disavow any knowledge of controlled substances." Brass shrugged. "Hell, he could have scored it here. Plenty of opportunities. What do you think? Ecstasy?"

"Maybe. But I think something else." Gil frowned at the boy’s hands. "Did he have a seizure?"

"Not sure. Have to talk to the friends. They saw the whole thing."

Gil nodded. When he stood, Catherine frowned at him. "You got that look."

"Which look?" he asked, scanning the low, wide room for the cluster of friends he’d glimpsed earlier.

"The one that says you think you know what this is."

"Well, I don’t. But I don’t think it was ecstasy."

"That helps."

The friends were exclusively male, and uniformly shocked-looking. One of them, a tall young man with at least the appearance of being over the legal drinking age, shook his head at Gil’s approach. "He didn’t take anything," he said in a shaky voice. His tense expression was adamant. "He didn’t do that shit. None of us do."

Gil nodded slowly. "Tell me what happened?"

"Nothing happened!" burst out a boy with a shock of artificially blond hair. His eyes were red and puffy, and he looked about a step from bursting into new tears. "Nothing! We were standing there at the bar, you know, he was getting a coke. And he just got all funny, and then he fell over and started shaking all over." The blond boy drew a hitching breath. "And then he just stopped."

"And he wasn’t taking anything? That you know of?"

The first boy shook his head. "Ryan hated drugs. He was like, the last person who’d do that. No way."

Catherine nodded. "What about other things? Did he have any history of seizures that you know of? Anything you can think of that might explain what happened?"

"He was fine." The boy put his arm around the blond, who was now sobbing again. "He said he had a headache earlier, but he was fine. I mean, majorly pumped, really. Excited."

"Stick around a little bit?" Gil asked. "We might have some more questions."

"Okay."

"And?" Catherine asked Gil, when they walked away. "What’s your theory?"

"Frankly? I have no idea."

"Previously healthy kid? Falls over with a seizure and dies? Gotta be a reason."

"There is. We just don’t have it yet."

They watched Ronnie and some new guy load up Ryan Martinez’s body, and Gil shook his head. "Not much we can do now. We’ll wait for the toxicology report."

"Still could be foul play."

"Maybe. But I doubt it." He looked at the door and scowled. "They’re already letting people in again?"

From several yards away Brass caught Gil’s glare and held up his hands.

Catherine touched Gil’s elbow. "Hey, isn’t that Nick?"

"Where?"

"Coming in, right there. Oh man. I know a couple of lab techs who are gonna be SO disappointed."

"Why?"

"Female ones."

Still not seeing the man in question, Gil nodded absently. The music was already cranking up louder. "Okay."

"And who’s that with him?"

This time he looked. And it was Nick, except Nick had never, ever worn anything like that in Gil’s experience. No, definitely not work attire.

The man in question glanced their way, eyes widening. Then Nick was walking over, beaming.

"What the hell are you guys doing here?" he yelled over the music.

"Work," Catherine screamed back. She gave Nick a brief hug. "Okay, you HAVE to wear those to work," she added, giving the skin-tight leather pants an appreciative look. "I will PAY you to wear them to work. Please?"

Nick threw back his head and laughed, looking so relaxed and happy he was almost a stranger. And in those clothes he nearly was: the black pants, and a tee shirt so tight it appeared spray-painted on.

He looked good. No, revise that, Gil thought with a slightly dizzy feeling. He looked fantastic. He looked –

Gil swallowed and made himself smile when Nick grinned at him. "Y’all need any help?" Nick asked loudly.

"That’s okay," Gil yelled. "We’re just about done here."

A man walked up behind Nick. The person Catherine was referring to earlier, no doubt. Gil felt his eyebrows raising. The man was tall – 6’3", maybe taller – and just as good-looking as Nick. Not quite as suggestively dressed, in jeans and a blue shirt. A swoop of light brown hair over a clean-featured face, great bones, and clear blue eyes. The guy’s smile was a lot less open than Nick’s, but then he probably didn’t yet know who they were. Gil felt his own smile faltering.

The man touched Nick’s waist, and the smile went away entirely.

"Oh, hey." Nick grinned dopily at them. "This is Sean. Sean Barton, my partner. Sean, this is Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows. We work together."

Sean’s handshake was firm and dry, his gaze briefly assessing. "Nice to meet you," he bellowed, wincing.

"We gotta go!" Catherine told them, shaking her head. "We’ll see you later, okay?"

"Okay!" Nick agreed. Then Sean was pulling him away by the hand, threading them through the thickening crowd.

Outside Catherine waited for Gil to catch up. "Well, that confirms a few suspicions," she said, giving him a rueful smile.

"About Nick?" Gil led the way over to his car, fishing for his keys.

"I mean, damn. Not only is he gay, but he’s taken. Sad day for men and women both."

Gil forced a smile before he climbed into the car.

But later, waiting at a red light, he felt his teeth clenching. So the old gaydar wasn’t out of service after all. Not that it mattered. Nick might be a great coworker and stunningly handsome, but he was spoken for. By some guy much younger than Gil and pretty much Nick’s equal in the looks department.

So he could relax now, right? Looking was all he’d be doing, and that was that.

He did his best to listen to Catherine’s running commentary on Nick and his GQ boyfriend, and tried to ignore the flavor of frustrated regret in his mouth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter Three

Catherine bought him a drink to celebrate roughly six months on the job. He thought privately that it might just have been her reluctance to go home yet that prompted her to do it, but he wasn’t complaining. He didn’t have that much to look forward to, either, not to put too fine a point on it.

"So how’s Sean?" Cath asked, taking a healthy swig of her Bloody Mary.

"Fine. He’s good."

Catherine’s expression was faintly sour. "I bet he is. Did he go to work yesterday?"

Shifting a little, Nick shrugged. "I assume he did. He’s writing, though, and Carol said he can flex his hours when things are going strong."

"Nick –"

"It’s okay, Catherine," he interrupted, forcing a smile. "Really."

"It’s not. Really. You’re working your ass off." Her eyes had a hard sheen to them. "How long has he been working on that thing? Two years? Three?"

Four, Nick thought about saying. Closer to four and a half, actually. Instead he kept his smile with effort and shrugged again. "It’ll be worth waiting for." He let the smile go with relief. "How’s Eddie?"

Well, if it wasn’t exactly his most cavalier moment, it at least shifted the harsh spotlight from the shortcomings of his personal life to hers. Her expression grew predictably opaque. "Good. He’s going to Palm Springs today. They got a gig."

"You going with him?"

"You’re kidding, right?"

"Well, I mean."

"No," she said crisply. "I’m not going with him." She bit off the end of her celery stick and chewed, gazing at him. "You know," she said suddenly. "If this is a contest, I’m not sure who’s winning. Me or you."

Nick smiled faintly. "Me either." He drank the rest of his beer and set the mug on the table. "I gotta go, Cath. Thanks for the beer."

"Is it that time already?" She glanced at her watch.

"I told Joe I’d go in early today. Relax. Have something to eat."

She nodded. "Maybe I’ll do that. Don’t work too hard, okay? Damn it, you gotta sleep sometime."

"I’ll be okay."

Getting into his car, he wondered about that last for a second before pushing it away. Circumstances had conspired to place him squarely in the middle of morning rush hour, which Nick personally thought was the mother of all misnomers, considering the crawling speed of the traffic. Sitting behind an enormous F250, he put the car in neutral and rubbed his eyes.

It wasn’t as if there were no other options. He could think of one. Only trouble was, it was called chapter 11, and he was double- and triple-damned if he’d fuck his credit rating for the foreseeable future, all because of a few whopping credit-card bills. Well, and a few other things. Expensive things. The car had died two months ago, and there was no way he could start payments on a new one. Easier to get this one fixed, although that right there had taken most of a paycheck. With Nick driving their one vehicle pretty much all the time, that left Sean to fend for himself for his sporadic trips to the store for work – and fending meant cabs, all too often.

"Just take the bus," Nick had said, with positively angelic patience, he thought. But Sean’s head was already shaking, his upper lip curled expressively.

"Bus system sucks."

"Ride a damn bike then."

Sean just sort of laughed at that, but right now Nick didn’t find it very funny. Sean’s free-for-all spending habits were a big part of what had landed them here in the first place.

Well, revise that, now that there was no one around to know anyway. Sean’s spending was entirely the reason Nick’s bank account was as dustily empty as his wallet these days. To Sean, the money would just somehow…appear. It always had, it always would.

Thing was, the money appeared because Nick earned it. Sean’s tiny paychecks from the bookstore were hardly worth considering. And it was for that reason that Nick had gone to work for Joe Youroukelis almost exactly a month ago today. Almost exactly the same time that Nick’s sleep had been reduced to about two hours a day, and his free time shrunk to pretty much zero.

Sean hated it, of course. Nick wasn’t home enough before he’d taken a second job; now? Ships that passed in the goddamn night. The last time they’d had sex was two weeks ago, and Nick was so tired then that it was strictly going through the motions. His libido was nonexistent, and not helped by the fact that he wasn’t all that happy with Sean.

He put the car in gear and inched forward, mouthing a curse when traffic stalled again less than a block further. Right, not all that happy. Try sincerely UNhappy, even if he tried his damndest not to show it in front of anyone. Until death do us part and all that, and he really did believe that, except that his own death certificate was going to say "expired due to morbid exhaustion," and that would probably be next month. He was so tired he barely knew which way was up, and maybe it hadn’t cost him at the lab yet, not too much. But it would eventually. Sure as night follows day.

Catherine hadn’t been very impressed when Nick explained to her one night last week. "So he’s a writer," was her flat reply. "So?"

"His first novel was really well received." Nick manufactured a smile for her, but it was the truth. Sean’s first novel, Enter Screaming, had won not one but three awards for best debut mystery the year it was published, including a Lambda, and even got a Book Club listing. None of that meant huge sales, but there’d been two reprints, and a contract for three more novels by 2002.

Only problem was, Sean hadn’t finished that second novel. Unlike the first, which Nick had read in all its various iterations before Sean nervously submitted it to the publishing firm that ended up buying it, this second novel was seemingly eternally in-progress. He talked about writing, spent time at his computer, but he’d been doing that for a very long time, and Nick had yet to see a single chapter.

"I’m not ready to show it to you," Sean said the only time Nick had mentioned it recently, about three months ago.

Nick had been honestly surprised. "Sean, I love your writing. Man, you’re awesome. And I’m dying to see it. Come on. Just show me the first chapter? I mean, I’m dying here."

He’d seen that Sean was pleased at that, but there was something else there, too, something furtive and uncomfortable. It had taken quite a bit more prodding and two more beers before Sean had finally said, "I feel like everyone’s waiting for this one to flop. Sophomore slump. They’re waiting for it to suck, Nicky."

"Who’s waiting? I mean, waiting, sure, but not because they hope it’s gonna suck. I know it won’t."

It got him another smile, but the uneasy light in Sean’s beautiful eyes hadn’t disappeared. Not that night, and not any time since. And now Nick was starting to have thoughts he truly hated. Thoughts about what Sean was really writing. Thoughts like wondering if there was any second novel at all.

He made it to the restaurant after almost twice as much drive time as he usually needed. Joe was working tables himself, which was never a good sign. Nick caught his harried eye and sighed while he went into the back to grab an apron. So, back to college. Waiting tables, even if Joe’s diner was on the upscale side. This close to the Strip, business was always good, and Joe’s food was worth the money. Tips were good to excellent. Some days Nick took home more than twice what he calculated he earned in a day at the lab. Talk about nuts: earning more slinging Greek-American grub on a table than he did working with thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment and considerable education as a CSI. But there you had it.

"If you were not a man I would kiss you," Joe muttered as he pelted by, heading for his customary haven in the kitchen.

"If I were a woman I’d still belt you," Nick shot after him, and gave a pleasant smile to the retired-looking couple at #4. "Hi there, I’m Nick. You want some time to look at the menus first? How about some coffee?"

"I think we’re ready to order." The man exchanged glances with his wife before holding up a tattered red menu. "Do you have a senior special?"

Nick took out his pad of paper. "You bet, right there on the back." He took out his pen and forced himself to keep on smiling. Work it, baby. Those tips don’t earn themselves.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"All I’m saying is, it costs a lot of money. Okay?"

Sean’s lips were tight with annoyance. "And all I’m saying," he snapped, "is that if we don’t get another car I’m going to lose my mind."

Nick nodded crisply. "Okay. So drive me to work again, and we’re set."

"And pick you up at seven. And take you back at –"

"Hey, you don’t like it? Go full-time at the bookstore."

Sean heaved himself out of the chair, sighing. "You know what? All you ever talk about is money. All the time, money money money. I mean, I’m sick of hearing about how we don’t have any money and you’re working 24/7!"

"Well, welcome to my world, Sean," Nick said tightly. "But if I don’t work 24/7 we’ll be living in that car, not just taking turns driving it. You know?"

Sean shook his head and stomped to the refrigerator. Beer in hand, he wheeled around again. "You promised me you wouldn’t do this," he said, gesturing with the unopened bottle. "Remember? You told me you wouldn’t pull this shit."

"Pull WHAT shit? Sean, it’s this or starve to death!"

"You said." Sean swallowed audibly. His face had gone very pale. It had the effect of somehow making him look even more handsome. "In Dallas, you said, ‘Your writing is your gift, Sean. It’s special, it’s more than special. And that’s what you have to do. I will support you in any way I can. But you have to write.’ You remember? You said that. You did."

Gazing at him, Nick nodded slowly. "Yeah. I said that."

Sean’s mouth worked for a moment. "You said, ‘I’ll work two jobs if I have to. But you have to write.’" He sat down again, thumping the beer bottle on the table and ignoring it. "So was that true, or was that just bullshit?"

"Christ." Nick closed his eyes briefly, and then looked at him. "It wasn’t bullshit," he said slowly. "I meant it. You’re a fantastic writer. You always were."

"And the part about two jobs, well, I guess that was just heat of the moment, right?"

Damn Sean and his eidetic memory. Nick leaned forward and covered Sean’s hand with his own. "No, it wasn’t. I meant that, too."

"I’m gonna finish." Sean’s hand was still, not turning palm to palm as Nick had hoped. "I know you don’t believe that, but I will. And I’ll get the rest of the advance. I’m not a deadbeat."

Nick nodded. "I’m not saying you are, Sean –"

"I mean, working at that store, it’s sucking the LIFE out of me. Those people, I want this, do you have that, and half the time – more than half – they can’t tell Kerouac from Tolstoy, you know? Idiots. It’s like half my brain is gone every day. I can’t write like that. I can’t."

He hated Sean’s phenomenal memory, but he hated this creeping guilt-feeling even more. Because it was true: Sean was a fantastic writer. Enter Screaming had cost Nick more than one night’s sleep, he was so creeped out, and if Sean’s agent wasn’t just blowing smoke, that movie adaptation wasn’t too far in the future. When that happened? They’d be in solid green clover.

"So let’s compromise," Nick said gently, sliding his hand under Sean’s and lacing their fingers together. "Okay?"

Sean looked as if he were one step from crying. "How?"

"We gotta tighten our belts. If you need more time to write, I want you to have it, and I mean that." He raised his eyebrows for emphasis. "I do mean that. But we can’t get the other car. We gotta share this one."

Sean nodded slowly. "Okay."

"And honey, you gotta stop spending without writing it down. We can do it on what I earn, but we gotta know where the money’s going. That’s all I’m saying. It’s not the work, Sean, it’s not. I swear. But just because I’m earning more doesn’t mean we can spend more. It doesn’t work that way."

A ripple of annoyance crossed Sean’s features. "I know that. I’m not an idiot."

"I didn’t say you were. But you and money, Sean, it’s like a marriage made in hell."

"I don’t spend THAT much." Mulishly.

"It’s enough, okay? It adds up."

"So what are you gonna do? Give me an allowance?"

Meeting Sean’s snapping eyes, Nick shook his head. "Of course not. Damn it, you know that’s not what I mean."

"Okay, okay. Sorry." Sean made a frustrated grimace. "That was just bitchy. Sorry."

"Yes, it was, but hey. I understand it, okay? Jesus, I wish you didn’t have to work. I wish I could make this all happen for you. But I can’t, you know? You gotta do part of it, too."

Sean nodded slowly. "I will. I promise, I just -- Living here, and you’re always gone. It’s not what I thought it would be."

Another spasm of tired guilt tensed Nick’s stomach. "Then let’s make it better," he urged, squeezing Sean’s hand. "Let’s get out of this goddamn financial black hole, and I can quit the diner, and we can have a real life, okay? It won’t always be like this. I know it won’t. We just have to watch it for a while. That’s all."

"Why do you put up with me?" Sean whispered. His full mouth had gone tight, blue eyes searching.

"Because I love you, damn it. Don’t you GET that?" Nick coughed a strangled laugh, shaking his head. "That’s why."

"I love you, too."

"You better." Nick grinned, and waited for that beautiful smile to curve Sean’s mouth. "Because you’re stuck with me."

Chapter Four

"Is it just me, or are we short tonight?"

Gil glanced at Catherine and shrugged. "Dave called in. And don’t ask me where Nick is. I have no idea."

She walked inside, hands in her pockets. "He’ll be here. What’s up with Dave?"

"He says he’s ill. I suspect a raging case of the blue flu." Gil leaned back, tapping his fingers with a pencil. "You’ve heard about him hunting for a new job, I suppose?"

"He isn’t exactly chummy with me these days." Catherine canted one hip against a chair. "Think he’s found something else?"

"Not sure." He’d drawn a breath to add something caustic when Nick skidded up to the door.

"I’m here, I’m here." Face flushed, Nick ducked his head. "Sorry I’m late. Won’t happen again."

"Everything okay?" Catherine asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I was just running late. Man."

Frowning, Gil took in the bags under Nick’s eyes. "You’re not sick, are you?"

"No way." Nick gave him a fast grin. "Good to go."

"Well, we’re short Dave, so we could all be working solo tonight."

Catherine fidgeted. "Didn’t you say you were about to hire someone new? Or did I dream that?"

Gil glanced at her. "Hoping to, as soon as the paperwork clears. But he won’t be much help right off the bat. I need Dave." He shrugged. "Nick, you feel like some overtime?"

Something unreadable flickered across Nick’s tired features, but he nodded. "Any time."

"Until we get some more help around here we may all be racking up the hours."

Both Nick and Catherine nodded this time.

As it happened, the night was pretty godawful. He and Nick went out to have a look at a burglary-turned-robbery-turned unexpected triple homicide, and that ate up a giant chunk of the night. Enough work for all four CSIs at once, except Catherine was out on a missing-child case that would probably get much more publicity tomorrow than the robbery, and Dave -- Well.

Sometime around four, he took a breather and slumped down next to the car. Christ, he was tired. God damn Dave for crapping out on them tonight. It would be easier sometime in the near future, if Warrick really could come on board. The verdict was still out on that, the sheriff still digesting Brown’s fairly checkered past. But no question the new position wasn’t just needed, but vital; they had more than they could handle, nearly every night, and there was only so much overtime anyone could expect of a handful of people. Catherine had a family to think of. Dave, too. Nick, well, a partner, at least, which meant everyone had outside responsibilities except himself, and he was only one person.

They needed Warrick. Hell, they needed Dave, and Gil was braced every evening for the guy’s letter of resignation. If he’d just hold out until Gil had Warrick up and running, they might make it. Just. But if not….

He glanced to his left, and saw Nick trudging through the brush outside the house. Kid looked worn out, and Gil sucked a deep breath and stood up, resisting the impulse to give a big sigh. Not the world’s greatest example to set.

Nick caught sight of him and walked over. "More cigarette butts," he announced, dangling a baggie in one hand. "And more shoe prints."

"Good. Are we about wrapped up here?"

Nick nodded. "Far as I can tell. You?"

"Let me speak with Jim."

Brass muttered something peevish at him that didn’t seem to outright forbid them from leaving, so Gil gathered up his kit and collected evidence samples and stowed them in the trunk of the Mercedes. Out on the highway, he drew a breath to comment on the case and let the air out, wordlessly. Nick’s head lolled on the headrest, mouth slightly open. He was sound asleep.

Gil frowned. They were all tired, but this was a little extreme. He nibbled his lower lip for a couple of miles, and then sighed. Sleep tomorrow, Nicky, tonight we’re still on the clock. He reached out and shook Nick’s shoulder gently. "Nick. Nicky. Wake up."

Nick shot bolt upright in his seat, blinking rapidly. "Oh shit," he said in a thick voice. "M’sorry. Didn’t mean to do that."

Gil gave him a mild nod. "You should rest as much as you can, off the clock. I’m not sure what kind of hours we’ll be working at the moment, but we could be pretty late."

He heard Nick swallow. "I’m really sorry." He sounded almost tearful. "Man, that shouldn’t have happened. It won’t again, I swear to God. I was just –" He shut up, shaking his head.

"What?" Gil asked, when nothing else was forthcoming.

"Didn’t get enough sleep," Nick said vaguely. His gaze was fixed on the view outside the front window, but his cheeks were red even in the glancing light from the lamps along the street.

"Anything going on?"

"No. No, everything’s fine." Nick produced a fast smile.

Gil nodded. "Good."

Back at the lab it was the same bustle as always, and he was immersed in shoe-print analysis when Catherine poked her head in. "Breakfast? I got burritos."

Gil looked up, blinking. "Sure."

They ate in the break room, watching the majority of the night crew trickling out, the early birds on Conrad’s detail walking in. Nick was nowhere to be seen.

"Gil, we really do need some help." Catherine wiped her mouth daintily on a paper napkin, and sipped some coffee. "You want me to talk to Brass?"

Gil finished chewing a bite of potato and egg, and shook his head. "I already have. He’s aware of things." He set the burrito on his napkin. "Nick actually fell asleep in the car this morning. I wish he would temper his lifestyle a little. I need both of you firing on all cylinders."

Catherine stared at him. "Temper his lifestyle?" she echoed. "Gil, Nick –" She paused. "You don’t know, do you? He didn’t tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"Nick had to take a second job. He’s working the lunch shift at the Sage Diner."

Gil blinked, sitting back a little. "He what?"

"He and Sean have some serious bills, evidently." Her expression turned sour. "No, wait. You want the truth? Nick’s partner is a goddamn freeloader. Nick would smack me for saying it, but that’s the truth. Sean works about ten hours a week in a pissant bookstore, and the rest of the time -- Hell, I dunno. He’s a writer." She uttered the words with withering contempt. "He published a book once, something."

Floundering, Gil shook his head. Sean was a writer? "You mean -- Nick is working another full-time job ON TOP of the lab?"

"Now you see why he fell asleep."

"Jesus, Catherine, that’s insane! What -- What kind of bills could they have that he’d have to do that?"

She shook her head and took another bite of her burrito. "Wondered that myself. School, maybe? Just living expenses, I don’t know. I mean, money goes through Eddie’s fingers like water, but we make out okay. Most of the time. I’m sure as hell not waiting tables." She gave him a direct look. "I think," she added slowly, "things may not be all that good right now. For Nick. So maybe – bear that in mind. Okay?"

Gil picked up his burrito but didn’t take a bite. "How long has he been doing this?" he asked finally, still shocked.

"Couple of months, I think. Me and Eddie went over there one day for lunch. Saw him. So I got some of the story."

"Does he need a raise? For God’s sake, I can at least see what I can do. But this –"

"Raise wouldn’t hurt any of us," Catherine quipped, but her smile faded fast. "Yeah, that would help, if you can swing it. I’m sure. Arranging for Sean to actually grow up would be even better, though." She wadded up the foil burrito wrapper and tossed it in the trash. "Sorry. I like Sean, you know? I mean, I think lots of people do, until you figure out he’s thirty-one going on twelve."

Gil nodded slowly. His own appetite had vanished. "You said he’s a writer?"

"Wrote some novel a while back. I mean, from what Nick says it was pretty good. But Sean’s supposed to do more, and I think Nick’s afraid he’s stalling."

Gazing at her, Gil nodded again.

~~~~~~~~

At home, he stood motionless for a long moment before frowning and walking over to the north bookcase. He wasn’t a big fiction reader most of the time; had been, at one point, but his interest in fiction had waned over the years, and these days he bought maybe two or three novels a year, at the most. And those he sometimes didn’t read until months had passed.

But something had crystallized in his head, the moment he realized Nick’s Sean was a writer. Familiar name, in that nagging way that said he’d seen it but not very recently. He squatted, knees popping loudly, and ran his finger along the spines of the books. Few mysteries; had enough of those at work. When he did read fiction it was usually political thrillers, the occasional work of nominally literary horror. Hard to predict what would catch his eye, although favorable comments from friends didn’t hurt.

He found it on the third shelf down. Sean Barton. Enter Screaming.

Mouth dry, Gil drew the book out. He remembered this, remembered the cover. Almost two years since he’d read it, and it had been worth rereading, if he’d been able to face the bone-chilling bleakness of the plot resolution again. No last-minute heroics here; Barton had been merciless, and Gil remembered feeling he shouldn’t get too attached to any one character. Not even the protagonist, since the present tense meant even that man wasn’t necessarily safe.

Enter Screaming had won the Lambda for mystery fiction, that year. Explained how Gil had first heard of it. He took the book over to the couch and sat down, flipping through the first few pages. He stopped short at the dedication.

"For Nick. My own David, without the sparrows."

Sparrows had featured prominently in the book. Harbingers of doom, according to folklore. And David, Gil remembered, was the protagonist’s lover.

He shut the book and sat back. So Nick’s partner wasn’t just a writer, but a published writer, an award-winning writer. And from the look of things, Nick was supporting Barton, less muse than patron of the literary arts.

A flicker of dull anger curled in his belly. So who supported Nick in all this? No question that Sean was talented. But from all appearances Nick was working himself into the ground, and there was no second novel yet. What was the holdup?

He glanced at his watch. Nearly ten. Nick was working the lunch shift.

What the hell. The Sage offered a mean omelet. Not particularly hungry, but he could fake it.

It was half past before he walked in. The diner was about a third full; late for the breakfast crowd, and lunch was at least half an hour away for most people. Gil nodded at a blonde girl taking an order at a booth, and slipped into a chair at a two-top.

He didn’t see Nick, and for a moment he thought maybe Catherine had the wrong diner. But then he appeared, carrying a tray with four heavily laden plates. The food went to the table across the room, giving Gil a chance to brace himself.

And take in Nick’s appearance. Dressed in a green tee shirt with the Sage logo over the heart, rumpled khaki pants. Standard waiter garb, no surprises. But Nick’s professionally amiable expression was exhausted. He might be a good waiter – probably was – but no one would miss the fact that he was very, very tired.

Gil watched Nick check in with the folks at the next table, and then turn to glance over in his direction. Nick’s smile faded into a look of utter surprise.

Gil forced a smile. "Hey, Nick."

Nick wiped his hands on a towel as he walked over. "Hey, Grissom. What brings you here?"

"The western omelet, for one."

Nick nodded slowly and took out an order pad. "That’s a good choice." He swallowed visibly. "Want some coffee?"

"Sure. Can we talk?"

The shocked look faded into caution. "Okay. Is – something wrong?"

Gil drew a long breath. "I wasn’t aware until this morning that you’d had to take a second job," he said carefully. "I was – surprised."

Nick shrugged. "We gotta do what we gotta do." He shifted a little, glancing over Gil’s head as the bell dangling from the front door sounded. "Listen, I get a break in a little while. Can we talk then?"

"Sure," Gil agreed softly.

"Cool."

It was more like an hour, and a truly excellent omelet and several cups of coffee, before Nick finally doffed his white apron and walked over. He slung himself into the other chair and produced a faint smile. "Sorry. Busy."

"Tips any good here?"

"Pretty good. So what’s up?"

Seeing the stubborn thrust of Nick’s jaw, Gil nodded. He laid a twenty on the table and pushed his chair away. "Outside?"

Nick nodded shortly. "Okay." He tucked the twenty and the ticket in the pocket of his apron and followed Gil’s lead.

Outside the temperature had risen steeply, and Gil went to the shade by the parking lot before facing Nick again. "I can get you a raise, Nick," he said, shaking his head. "You’re going to kill yourself working these hours. Why didn’t you say something?"

"What was I supposed to say? ‘I’m broke, Grissom, gimme more cash?’" Nick snorted. "It’s okay. Don’t worry about it."

"I do worry about it. I need you at 100%, Nick, not – sixty, or fifty, or thirty." Gil sighed. "You look exhausted."

Nick shifted, sliding his hands into his pockets. "I’m all right. It’s just temporary. You know, until Sean gets done."

"Another novel?"

Nick nodded, eyes widening slightly. "You know he’s a writer?"

"I read his first novel. It was very good."

Nick smiled and kept nodding. "Right. Wasn’t it? Spectacular. I mean, he’s so talented, Grissom. Just knocks me out."

Gil fought down a spasm of irrational anger. "Yes, he’s talented," he agreed soberly. "But how long can you keep going like this? Burning the candle at both ends? In our line of work you can’t afford to let your guard down, Nick, not for long. You know that."

"Is this because I fell asleep last night?" Nick flushed, looking away. "That’s not gonna happen again. I swear. Okay?"

"This isn’t about you falling asleep. Or not completely. It’s about you working two jobs and getting no rest." Unable to resist, Gil added, "I hope Sean is at least working, too."

Nick’s expression visibly closed off. "He works," he snapped. "It’s none of your business, man. I mean, come on."

Gil nodded slowly. "You’re right. But it is my business to make sure that my people are at their best. And you’re not, Nick. I don’t want to meddle in your personal life. But I also don’t want to find out you’ve missed something critical because you were too tired to see it."

"Jesus." Now Nick’s face morphed into a look all too easy to interpret. Pure dreadful anxiety. "Are you firing me?"

"Of course not," Gil said immediately. "Don’t be absurd."

Nick sagged a little, shaking his head. "I swear I’m not gonna screw things up," he said breathlessly. "I mean, I’m fine, I just –"

"What if I could give you regular overtime? Pick up a few extra shifts? Would that help?"

Nick blinked at him. "At the lab?"

"Yes, at the lab. We’re short-handed as it is. Brass can budget for it. It’d still be long hours, but at least you’d spend them at one place. Would that mean you didn’t have to wait tables?"

"I don’t –" Nick broke off, clearly flummoxed. "Maybe." But he was nodding. "Yeah, I mean, probably. You’d do that?"

"Well, aside from the raise I really wouldn’t be doing that much. The overtime’s pretty much a given these days, if you want the truth. And you’re due for a raise anyway."

"Still." Nick nodded slowly. "That’s really cool of you," he said slowly. "Thank you."

Gil raised his eyebrows. "This mean you’ll go home and sleep?"

"Well, I gotta give Joe some notice. But yeah." Nick produced an awkward, luminous smile. "Yeah, it should."

"Good enough. I hope to have a new hire for us soon, as well, so maybe in a few weeks we’ll have everything squared away."

"Cool."

"Then I’ll see you tonight, all right?"

"Absolutely."

He thought Nick looked a little less tired as he walked away. And that was good, wasn’t it?

Chapter Five

Joe took the news with better grace than Nick expected. It would leave him short-handed, but wait staff wasn’t that hard to find.

"So when do you leave?"

Nick thought about telling him there wasn’t really any leaving, so much as shifting venues, but he shrugged. "I can stay another week, how’s that? Is that enough time?"

"It’s okay." Joe surprised him by patting Nick’s shoulder. "You were overqualified anyway."

Nick snorted. "Maybe."

"No maybe."

Probably because he was leaving anyway, Joe sent him home early, about 1:30. No one was home, and Nick spared a moment to be grateful he didn’t have to interact, even with Sean, before crawling into bed, not even taking a shower first. Too goddamn tired to care.

When his alarm went off at six, Sean still wasn’t home. Frowning, Nick slammed a cup of coffee and contemplated calling around before dismissing it. Surely Sean was at the store. If he wasn’t, well, Nick wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know.

It burned when he took a piss. He gazed down into the toilet bowl and drew a long breath, lips tightening. Then he flushed and went to turn on the shower.

Sean finally called not long after Nick got to the lab that night. Sounding tired, not in a particularly good mood. Nick nodded, made the appropriate noises. Finally Sean paused.

"What’s wrong?"

"Nothing," Nick said evenly, glad he had the fibers lab to himself for once. "Why?"

"Don’t even try to lie to me," Sean said. "You’re pissed at me. Is it because I was gone today?"

"I assumed you were at work. Weren’t you?"

A tiny pause. "Yeah. Part of the time."

"See?"

"Aren’t you going to ask where I was the rest of the time?"

Nick sighed and leaned his chin on his free hand. "If it’s important, I figure you’ll tell me. Was it?"

"I hate when you get that tone in your voice. God."

"What tone?"

"That – snotty tone. You sound like my goddamn father."

Nick sat up straight, a hard cold knot forming in his stomach. "Sean, I’m at work," he said crisply. "If you want to fight, it’ll have to wait until I get home."

"Only you never ARE home, are you?"

"I was today. All afternoon. And where were you?"

"NOW you want to know." Sean uttered a harsh laugh. "Knew you couldn’t go without asking me that."

"It was rhetorical," Nick snapped. "Look, I don’t have time for this. I’ll see you in the morning."

"I’ll believe it when I see it."

"Oh, believe it, Sean. You can take it to the fucking bank."

If Sean said anything else, Nick didn’t hear it. He gazed at the dead receiver in his hand, distantly shocked in the midst of cold anger. Never hung up on Sean before. Never, not in ten years. Been hung up on a few times, sure. But never done it himself.

"Do I even want to know?"

He flinched, turning to glance at Catherine in the doorway. "No," he said curtly, and slumped a little. "Trust me."

She walked slowly inside the room. "I got our DNA results," she continued after a moment. Perched on a rolling stool, she looked tired and unhappy. "Think we’re back at square one."

He leaned back and sighed. "Figures."

"So we can –"

"Go back and see what we missed?" Nick shook his head. "We didn’t miss anything, Cath."

"Somebody did."

"So we let the cops do their jobs. When they find something new, we’ll analyze it."

Her look was startled. "Grissom likes us to be more proactive than that."

He nodded grimly. "So do I, when we’re not buried under ten tons of work already."

"You had a fight with Sean."

"Not yet," Nick shot back in a thin voice. "Next question?"

"I’m not the enemy, Nick. You don’t have to be an asshole."

He regarded her silently for a moment, and then shook his head. "I apologize. I got some things on my mind. Shouldn’t take them out on you."

She nodded. "Want to talk about it?"

"Frankly? No. It’s just – shit. Same shit."

"Nick –"

"No, it’s okay." He forced a smile, and saw her head draw back a little. "Maybe I better, you know. Just work."

Her eyes narrowed a little, but she gave a slow nod. "Yeah. Maybe so."

~~~~~~~~~~

Fortunately the rest of his shift went pretty well. Which, all things considered, he didn’t really expect.

On the way out he ran into Grissom.

"Starts next week, right? The OT?"

Grissom nodded. "Starts whenever you want it to."

"Okay, next week, then. I gave my notice."

"Good."

Nick turned, and paused. "Hey, you wanna grab some breakfast? Supper, whatever it’s time for?"

He hadn’t planned on asking. And he was sure, from Grissom’s expression, he hadn’t anticipated being asked. The little smile that came and went on Grissom’s face looked shocked, and charmed.

"Sure," Grissom said slowly. "Let me close up my office."

That only took a couple of minutes. In the parking lot, Nick tossed his keys from one hand to the other. "Where to? Anywhere but Joe’s, please."

Grissom smiled again. "How about Mexican?"

"Sounds great."

He drove according to Grissom’s directions, which took them to a beaten-down neighborhood and a tiny pink-painted building that had definitely seen better days. "Nice," Nick pronounced dubiously, putting the car in park.

"I come for the food, not the ambience."

And about three seconds after he tasted his menudo, Nick was in full agreement. "Damn. This is better than Rosita’s. And that’s saying something."

Grissom sipped his beer, and Nick spared a moment to wonder about alcohol laws in Vegas before deciding he didn’t much give a shit. "Usually I have to pay people to try that. Nice to see a fellow aficionado."

"What, menudo?" Nick grinned. "Only hangover cure that actually works."

"Rosita? Is that in Dallas?"

"Rosita’s a person. She was our housekeeper, when I was growing up."

"Ah." Grissom dipped his spoon back into the savory stew. "Good cook, I take it."

"The best. Hell, she practically raised me herself. My folks – busy." Nick shrugged and reached for his own beer. This menudo wasn’t just better than Rosita’s, it was hotter, too. Not that he was complaining. He slugged some beer and said, "I spoke great Spanglish when I was a kid. Wish I still could."

Grissom snorted. "Spanglish."

"Well, you know."

"You don’t have to work today?"

"What, at the diner? Not today." Nick dug into his food, talking after he swallowed. "I gotta work tomorrow through Saturday. Then one more shift Monday, and I’m done."

"That’s good to hear."

Nick watched while Grissom deftly wiped his bowl with a rolled-up tortilla. Short, economical motions. He had long fingers. A hot ripple of attraction expanded in Nick’s belly, and he frowned, glaring down at his own food. Where the fuck did that come from?

He thought about the pills in his jacket pocket, and the frown deepened. Yeah, maybe he knew.

And thinking about it seemed to leach all the savor from his meal. He pushed the little remaining menudo around, not eating it. His mouth tasted sour.

"Everything all right?"

The gentle question made him look up. "Yeah," he said awkwardly. "Sorry. Just thinking."

Grissom gave a slow nod. "Not such good thoughts, I take it."

Nick frowned at him, and Grissom added, "Your face. It was like – sun going behind clouds."

Nick couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Under his gaze Grissom’s cheeks darkened. "Sorry, that seemed like the best – description."

"It’s okay." A little embarrassed himself, Nick gazed back down at his bowl. "Before work tonight, I got –" He pressed his lips together, thinking about how he shouldn’t say anything, this was not only none of Grissom’s business, but none of his interest, either. But the words spurted out anyway. "I got some weird news. It put me kinda – off my stride all night, you know?"

"Weird?"

Nick met his blue eyes quickly, and looked away just as fast. "Weird, bad," he said softly. "Nothing that’ll affect work," he added in a stumbling rush. "Nothing like that. Just, you know. News."

Grissom leaned back in his chair, nodding absently to the waitress who picked up his empty bottle and lifted her eyebrows. "If you want to talk about it," Grissom said slowly.

Talk about it. With Gil Grissom. He’d rather pluck his eyelashes out, one by one, before going to work gouging out his eyes with his fork. "No," Nick said softly. "No, it’s just on my mind, that’s all."

"I may not seem like it, but I’m not a bad listener."

That odd curl of attraction was back, suddenly, and it was only the pills that made him decide it would be wrong in so many countless ways. But for a single, savage moment he wanted to talk. To do more than talk. To listen, to stay right here, in this run-down but sparkling-clean taquería, until the goddamn cows came home. Screw sleeping, screw Sean, screw everything but the light from the open front door casting soft shadows on Grissom’s features, making his blue eyes so clear and vivid Nick felt as if he were drowning in them.

"Thanks," Nick said softly. Regretfully. "But I guess I gotta work it out on my own."

Grissom blinked, and the sense of falling down a bottomless, brilliant chasm was gone. "Understood."

He paid over Grissom’s objections, reminding him the meal had been his own invitation. And by the time he turned into the lab parking lot, the light really did seem to have gone from the day. He felt tired, and anxious, and under it all, percolating with anger.

"Get some rest, Nicky." Grissom paused by the open passenger-side door, squinting in the sunlight. "See you tonight."

"Will do."

"Thanks again for breakfast."

Nick produced a tight smile. "My pleasure, man. See you later."

"Later, Nick."

~~~~~~~~~~

The front door was unlocked. He hoped it was because Sean was home, and not because Sean had forgotten to lock it before he left.

With his jacket draped over his arm, he tossed the keys on the table by the front door and walked slowly through the house. Quiet, and for once things were kind of picked up. Not exactly clinically neat, but it would do.

In the bedroom, Sean lay in his usual splayed fashion on the bed, just starting to blink sleepily when Nick walked in.

"Hey," Sean said in a groggy voice. "What time’s it?"

"Nearly nine." Nick lifted his chin. "We need to talk."

"Okay." Sean sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Do I need coffee for this?"

Nick swallowed. "Probably. Here." He held his jacket in one hand while he reached into a pocket with the other, drawing out one of the pill bottles. "You’ll need it to take these." He tossed the bottle on the bed.

Sean picked up the bottle. The drowsiness was rapidly leaving his features; he frowned, squinting at the fine print. "What the hell are these?"

Nick sagged down into the sprung wing chair near the closet. Now that it was finally out, he didn’t even feel angry anymore. Just tired. Tired to the bone. "They’re antibiotics," he said without inflection. "You need them. We both do."

Sean stared at him. "Why?"

"Because I went over to the clinic yesterday, because it hurt like hell to take a piss. And guess what I found out? I have gonorrhea, Sean," Nick told him, leaning back in the chair. "And if I do, you do, too."

Sean’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.

"What’s more," Nick continued heavily, "since I haven’t slept with anyone but you for a very, very long time, that means I got it from you. And I can only think of one way YOU got it. You know?"

"Shit," Sean whispered. Very, very awake.

"So who have you been fucking, Sean?" Nick asked harshly. "Because it can’t have just been me."

Chapter Six

"So you’ve had the tour." Gil leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands wide. "What do you think?"

"I think I’m in way over my head." Warrick slouched and uttered a short laugh. "Grissom, man, you sure about this?"

"About what? You? Absolutely. Next question?"

"That Brass guy. Real hardass, huh?"

Gil smiled. "Leave Brass to me. Your only concern is to get your feet wet, all right? I think you’ve met everyone. Catherine, Dave."

"Dave’s the one’s leaving?"

"Right. Next week is his last week."

Warrick rolled his eyes. "So that gives me a week. Nice."

"There’s also Nick. He isn’t here yet, but I’ll introduce you when he gets in."

"Cool."

"Now. Feel up to running some prints for me?"

Warrick’s eyes were big with misgiving, but he nodded. "Sure, think I can handle that."

"Any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. In fact, ask even if you don’t. No one will bite. I promise."

That got him a wary look and a cautious smile.

When Warrick was settled at the AFIS terminal, Gil allowed himself to relax a little. Regardless of Warrick’s own misgivings, he was very sure the hiring was a sound decision. Sure, Warrick lacked experience. But there was only one way to get that, after all. And he’d been trained by the best. Or nearly, Gil amended to himself with a tiny smile.

Nick showed up not too much later, looking tense and tired. "Got anything?" he asked, leaning in Gil’s office door.

"Numerous things." Gil took off his glasses. "Warrick’s here."

Nick gave a short nod. "New guy?"

"I gave him prints to run. Mind checking in with him before you get started?"

"Sure, no problem."

"Finished with the diner?"

"Yeah." Nick didn’t look particularly happy at the admission, Gil thought. His handsome face was preoccupied, grooves cut heavy around his mouth. "Free and clear."

"Good. If you want to stay late today, I can give you a green light."

"Definitely."

Was it relief he heard in Nick’s raspy voice? It was, he thought, and felt an odd prickle of worry.

An hour or so later he dropped by to check Warrick’s progress. Didn’t take that long to run a single set of prints, but he’d given him a real stack. He found him grinning at something Nick had just said.

"I see you two have met," Gil observed from the doorway, sliding his hands into his pockets.

"Yep." Nick’s expression looked a lot less tense now; he grinned and nodded fast. "Sure doesn’t need my help. You got anything?" he asked Gil.

"Brass just called. DB over on 52^nd Ave. Probable hit-and-run, happened about twenty minutes ago. You fellows care to join me?"

"Sure thing." Nick lifted his chin at Warrick. "Got a strong stomach?"

Warrick’s expression didn’t waver. "Guess we’re about to find out."

"Just don’t puke on the body, all right? First rule of CSIs."

With a soft snort, Warrick muttered, "Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind."

~~~~~~~~~~

As it happened, Warrick seemed not to have too much trouble with what turned out to be a very nasty scene indeed. In fact it was Nick looking slightly green, as he gazed down at what remained of a previously healthy seventeen-year-old boy.

"Man, it just about turned him inside out." Nick’s voice was artificially hushed, barely audible over the hubbub of engines and radios all around them.

Gil touched Nick’s shoulder lightly. "That truck had to have been doing at least seventy when it struck him."

Nick shook his head. "Bless his heart."

Warrick stood nearby, mouth a tight disapproving line. "What the hell was he doing out here in the boonies, s’what I wanna know."

"Me, too," Gil agreed. "Let’s see what we can figure out. You okay with this?"

Warrick nodded. "Yep."

"Good."

He kept Warrick at his side while they did their initial inspection. Aside from a briefly unsettled look when Nick started collecting body parts, the man seemed perfectly solid. Gil was reassured once more that Brown had been a good choice. Even if the sheriff had had to be sweet-talked into the deal.

Back at the lab, he sent Warrick off with paint chips, and caught up with Nick in the morgue. The dead boy’s body was just being unloaded.

Al Robbins gave Gil a flat look. "I assume there isn’t much mystery surrounding cause of death," he remarked dryly.

"More interested in the tox screen, frankly."

"I’ll need some time for that, as you know."

Gil nodded. "Nick?"

Nick’s eyes tore away from his inspection of the body, meeting Gil’s gaze. "Yeah. Sorry, wanted to make sure he got here okay."

"We’ll need to talk to the family. They’ve been contacted, should be on their way right now."

"Right. Yep."

In the hallway, he glanced at Nick. "Warrick seemed to do fine tonight."

Nick nodded. "Looks like he knows his stuff." He stuck his hands in his pockets, glancing up at the elevator floor indicator.

"Something’s bothering you."

"I’m all right."

A lie, and a careless one. Gil gave a slow nod of his own. "My door’s always open, Nick."

"Thanks."

Upstairs, Brass was waiting, looking even more sour than usual. The dead boy’s family was waiting in the conference room; hearing that, Gil figured he knew the reason for the extra dollop of unhappiness in Brass’s voice. Epidemic tonight, apparently.

Nick went with him to talk to the parents. But five minutes after they started, Gil wondered if he shouldn’t have left Nick outside.

"He’s seventeen years old." Nick sounded odd: strangled, voice higher than normal. "What was he doing out there?"

"You think we know?" The mother, a plump woman with artistically streaked blonde hair, stared at Nick. "We thought he was home in bed!"

"Well, you thought wrong, didn’t you?"

"Nick." Gil fought to keep his voice level. "Why don’t you go check on Warrick? I’d like to know if he’s found anything."

Nick’s face was pale, but he gave a short nod. As the door shut behind him, Gil turned to the distraught-looking parents.

"Why did he have to say that?" the woman asked tearfully. "Why’d he have to be so – mean?"

Gil drew a long breath. "I apologize if my colleague offended you. So you have no idea what your son might have been doing out that late?"

The father finally spoke. "He’s a good boy. Was," he amended, his voice cracking. "Never broke his curfew. Got good grades. There’s no reason."

Gil nodded carefully.

~~~~~~~~~~~

He found Nick half an hour later, poring over the toxicology report. He barely looked at Gil, brow furrowed with concentration.

"Clean as a whistle," Nick said flatly. "Whatever he was doing, it wasn’t drugs."

"Good." Gil pulled up a chair on casters and sat down. "You want to tell me why you treated his parents as if they’d been the ones driving the car that ran him down?"

"Parents need to take more responsibility," came Nick’s distant, cool reply.

"Be that as it may, it’s not our job to provide social commentary or moral guidance. Why –"

"He had his whole LIFE ahead of him!" Nick glared at him, and Gil felt another slow surge of shock, seeing the tears in Nick’s eyes. "Everything! And now he’s chilling in the morgue! It shouldn’t have happened!"

"No, it shouldn’t. But it did, and we’ll see another like it tomorrow night, and the next. Different circumstances, but the rest will feel the same. You have to be able to handle that. If you can’t –"

"I can handle it."

But seeing Nick’s grief-stricken features, Gil wasn’t so sure. "What’s going on, Nicky?" he asked gently. "It’s not all about this boy, is it?"

"I’m okay," Nick whispered.

"No, I don’t think you are."

Nick said nothing to that. And watching his flushed, agonized face, Gil abruptly remembered they were sitting in a very public place.

"Come on," he said gruffly. "Let’s get some air."

Nick followed him silently, tractable as he had not been before, and Gil held the door for them both. The night air was warm and soft, and he inhaled the smell of ozone from the far-off thunderstorm to the west before turning to face his companion.

"What’s going on, Nicky?"

Nick wiped his face with both hands and shook his head. "I’m sorry." His voice sounded hoarse and young. "I didn’t mean to be an asshole to those parents. God, they didn’t deserve that. Want me to go apologize?"

Gil cocked his head to one side. "Might not hurt. But that’s a symptom. I wish you’d tell me what caused it."

Nick nodded, looking out at the parking lot, the bustle of traffic on the avenue beyond. "I got some stuff going on," he said finally.

"What stuff?"

"Sean and me. We broke up."

Gil made a silent "oh" with his lips. "I’m sorry to hear that," he said carefully. "I -- When?"

"A week ago." Nick’s eyes shone in the street lights, bright with fresh tears.

"What happened? I mean, if you want to talk about it."

Nick coughed out a harsh, flat laugh. "Embarrassing," he said, shaking his head some more. "Sounds like a goddamn soap opera."

"What –"

"He cheated on me," Nick snapped, raising his hand. "Okay? Want to know how I found out he was cheating on me? He gave me a fucking venereal disease."

He was thankful for the darkness. It hid his instinctive flinch. Insult upon injury, to be sure. "Jesus," Gil breathed. "Nick, I’m sorry."

"It’s okay." Nick sounded crisp now, dry and tight. "Whatever. So I kicked his ass out. I’m just, you know. Hasn’t been the best fucking week." Another hard laugh, short and compact, like a bullet.

"You want the rest of tonight off? I can arrange –"

"No. No, man, it’s cool. I just – need to keep busy, that’s all."

Privately Gil wondered about that. Cool was not how he would describe Nick recently. But he refrained, saying only, "All right. I need to go check on Warrick’s progress. What do you think of him?"

Nick gave him a quick look. "Me?"

Gil nodded and smiled. "Any thoughts, observations?"

"Well. I mean, he looks like he’s doing fine so far. Interesting guy. Did you know he’s a musician?"

"I do indeed. You should go hear him play sometime. He’s very talented."

"Cool," Nick said slowly. "Yeah, I’ll do that. No, I mean, I think he’s doing great. Sharp, real sharp. And he didn’t puke. Better than I did, my first body." His teeth glinted as his lip curled. "I hurled all over myself. MVA, girl wasn’t wearing her seat belt. Ejected from the vehicle. Ugh."

Gil had to smile again. "So did I."

"Get out."

"Seriously. I was working at the coroner’s office, in LA. My first autopsy."

"You did not puke. I don’t believe that."

Gil laughed and shook his head. "Believe it. Although I think it was more the smell than the appearance of the body. My boss finally came to the bathroom to find out if I was okay. I must have thrown up for half an hour."

"No way." But to his relief he saw that Nick was grinning, too. "You’re Mr. Cool. You really puked?"

"I really did."

"Get out," Nick repeated. But his grin, while smaller, hadn’t gone away.

"I should get back. You’ll be all right?"

"Yeah. I’ll be okay."

"I’ll wrap up with the parents. If you’ll check for the other results?"

"Yeah, okay. You bet."

He turned, and Nick said, "Grissom?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks."

"No problem, Nicky."

Chapter Seven

"I don’t believe it."

Nick sighed and took a beer from the refrigerator, balancing the phone between his shoulder and his ear. "Believe it," he said, kicking the door shut.

Jamie didn’t say anything for a second. Then she sighed, too. "You and Sean have been together forever. Just – God, Nicky. I’m sorry."

"Don’t be. He fucking cheated on me. Again."

"Are you sure? Last time –"

"He gave me a DISEASE, Jamie! How much more sure can I be?"

"There’s got to be some other explanation."

He sat down heavily at the kitchen table. "Man, you’re taking HIS side? You did this last time, too! How do you think YOU would feel, huh?"

"Well, I’m surprised, that’s all." She sighed again. "It’s like finding out Cabe and Mary were getting a divorce or something. I just -- You guys always seemed so happy."

"Yeah, well, Las Vegas has been eye-opening, all right?"

"I just don’t want you to do something you’ll regret."

Nick laughed once. "Believe me, I’m not the one who did anything. I got the fucking prescription to prove it."

"I’m sorry. Nicky, I’m not suggesting you did anything wrong. Just -- Sean’s like a brother, too, you know? I can’t imagine you two apart."

"Look, I need to go. I can’t -- I don’t want to talk about this anymore."

"Nick, please. I’m sorry if I pissed you off. Are you okay? Want me to come see you?"

Now? he wanted to snap. Not fucking likely. "I’ll be okay," he said dully. "Just – need some time, I guess. I’ll talk to you later, all right?"

"Call me. Any time. I mean that."

"Yeah. Okay."

He hung up hard, and slammed half the bottle of beer, wincing at the immediate spike of cold behind his eyes. Great. His own sister, worried about Sean instead of him. Wonderful. Pretty much reflected the whole family’s point of view there. Who was the son/brother and who the lover? Sometimes he thought they lost sight of that. It was all, Sean’s so talented, and Sean’s so handsome, and Nick you’re so lucky you found such a great guy.

Whatever.

He finished the beer a few minutes later, and put the bottle in the bin before wandering out into the living room. Finally got the place really squared away, at least. Easier without Sean taking things out and leaving them wherever he happened to be at the time.

Sitting on the couch, he picked up the remote and turn on the tv, mindlessly flipping channels. Nothing interesting, nothing diverting. Goddamn it, he wanted to stop thinking for a while. Stop remembering. Was that so much to ask? Maybe he needed another beer. Or ten.

Work tonight, remember? Gotta earn that paycheck, so you can keep on paying off those goddamn credit cards. Debt you didn’t create, don’t forget. Sean’s debt, which he just avoided because you gave him his walking papers.

He hit the mute button and leaned back, closing his eyes.

Could remember that scene like it had just happened. Wondered if he’d ever stop reliving it like he’d been doing for a week now. Sean’s white, shocked face, his apologies. His fumbling, useless excuses. I was lonely, Nick, I screwed up. I got drunk, this guy was coming on to me, and I was lonely and it happened. I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, please believe me, it will never happen again, ever, ever, so help me God.

And that utterly disbelieving look, that bewildered headshake. You’re kicking me OUT? I love you! I never wanted to be with anyone on this PLANET but you, and you’re kicking me OUT?

So why was it that Sean had fucked it up, Sean had been the one to cheat on him, lie, screw around, get the goddamn CLAP, and Nick was the one feeling guilty now?

With a muffled sound he sat up and flung the tv remote at the wall, watching it bounce off and land on the floor in several pieces. Because that’s the way it’s always been, that’s why, honey. Sean’s the one with the winning personality. Sean’s the one people like better. And letting someone like that go when they want to stay? Idiocy. Forgive him, go forward. You did it four years ago. You ought to do it again. Deal with it, work it out, hold onto him. You won’t catch someone else like him again. Guys like you only get lucky once.

He flopped back on the couch and grimaced, feeling tired tears burning his eyes. Maybe it was all true. Maybe he’d just fucked up, but major. But he was so tired. Tired of Sean’s diva act, tired of excusing his laziness because he was an "artist." Tired of working his ass off while Sean partied, and evidently got laid while he was doing it. So Sean was gorgeous and brilliant and far more magnetic than Nick would ever be. So what. Didn’t change things.

He ought to sleep. So damn tired. But sleep had been an iffy thing lately. Maybe the bedroom, because he remembered buying that bed with Sean, bouncing on the mattress with both of them giggling and Nick blushing like a fool because the salesman had a funny, prim look on his face. But Sean was too charming for even that guy to resist, and he’d taken $50 off the price just because Sean asked so sweetly.

He stretched out on the couch instead, and closed his eyes, wiping away the wet tracks on his cheeks with impatient hands.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The phone rang again a few minutes before he was supposed to head to the lab. Shirt half-buttoned, he hustled to answer it – probably work – and had to swallow and blink a couple of times when Sean’s hoarse voice greeted him.

"I want to come home."

Nick sank into a chair, shoulders drooping.

"I’m down the street. Can I come in? Can we talk? God, Nick, please say something. Please."

"Sean," Nick sighed.

"I’m begging, okay?" Sean sounded so bad. God, never heard him sound so young, so – lost. "Please, baby, let me come home. I swear to God. I’ll never screw up again. I’ll never do that to you, never, ever."

Nick swallowed. His throat hurt savagely.

"Just to talk. God, Nicky, please?"

"All right," Nick whispered.

He stood at the door and waited, and maybe two minutes later he saw Sean’s tall, lanky form, walking briskly up the sidewalk. Face tight with exhaustion and fear and resolute hope. So handsome. So damned beautiful.

Nick backed away from the screen, arms hanging limply at his sides while Sean trotted up the steps, opened the door.

"Aw, Nicky," Sean said softly, and Nick burst into tears.

Sean’s arms were such a familiar place to be. The feel of his body, hard and lean and warm, hands anxiously stroking Nick’s back, mouth pressing kiss after frantic kiss on Nick’s hair, his forehead, his temple. "I missed you," Sean choked against Nick’s ear. "Baby, I missed you so bad. Please let me stay. Please, God, I’m begging you. Don’t make me go away."

Nick slid his arms around Sean’s waist and whispered, "I hate you. You hurt me so bad. Why’d you do that? Why, Sean, why?"

"I fucked it up. I’m sorry. I’m so so so so sorry."

Closing his eyes, Nick pressed his hot face against Sean’s shoulder. "I missed you too," he choked.

Sean drew back a fraction, hands coming up to cup Nick’s cheeks. His blue eyes surveyed Nick’s face, narrow with pain and bright with a few tears of his own. "It won’t happen again," he said tightly. "Ever. I swear to God, Nicky. I’ll never fuck this up again."

"Swear it. Swear it, Sean."

"I swear. I swear, Nick, god, never." Sean swallowed, and a tear made its way down his drawn cheek. "Let me come home. Let me make it up to you. Please."

"Yes," Nick gasped, and then Sean’s mouth covered his own, kissing deeply, familiar, devouring kiss, and Nick pressed up against him, eyes tightly closed, relief like a heady drug coursing through his veins.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Predictably, Catherine wasn’t very impressed.

"God, Nick, I don’t BELIEVE you. You took him BACK?"

Nick sighed and glanced at her. "Look, we’re just talking, all right? It’s -- Nothing’s decided yet."

She snorted. "Did you sleep with him?"

"Like that is ANY of your business."

"So you did. I knew it."

It stung, not least because a part of him knew she was right. He’d never been able to resist Sean, not really. And certainly not in bed. He shrugged and plucked his report off the printer. "I got work to do," he said thinly. "Let’s talk about this some other time, all right?"

Catherine didn’t say anything. Just shrugged and stalked away. Leaving him standing there fuming, and worrying, because hadn’t it really played out exactly as it always did? Sean fucked up, and Nick ended up feeling so guilty he took Sean back anyway, over and over again?

Clutching his printout, he took off for Brass’s office.

But if she or anyone else among the few who knew about the soap opera of Nick’s personal life thought anything else, they didn’t say it. He did his job, they did theirs, and that was that.

A week later, even Catherine had stopped giving him accusing looks. Things were back to normal. The realization was such a relief, his knees actually felt weak for a moment. Things were the way they were supposed to be. Sean was his partner. Partners forgave each other for screwing up. That was the way things worked. You worked it out. And went on.

Which didn’t quite explain why, two weeks after that breathless reunion just inside his screen door, the relief had faded. It was the same. The same as it had always been. And yet he couldn’t forget. Not the gonorrhea, not the cheating, not the broader implications. Was this what he wanted? Really? Did it matter?

He still loved Sean. Of that he was wearily sure. Would always love Sean, evidently, no matter what he did or didn’t do. And Sean was on his best behavior. No hardcore partying. Attentive, pretty much adoring. And one morning, when Nick came home from an exhausting shift mostly spent wading through murky water looking for scant evidence, Sean presented him with a cup of coffee, a cheese danish, and the first four chapters of his second novel.

"Not completely sure about it yet," Sean said gruffly, when Nick gave him an open-mouthed stare. "I think Patterson needs some fine-tuning. But if you got some time, you know. Tell me what you think?"

Nick nodded, and crammed a bite of danish in his mouth while bending over the first page. Half an hour later the danish was drying on his plate, the coffee cold, and he was shaking his head, grinning, leaning back in his chair.

"Jesus," he said faintly. "Is there more?"

Sean’s face was cautious, but already a bit pleased. "I’ve got half of chapter five done. You like?"

"Fuck. It’s incredible. God, Sean."

"Cool."

He went to bed a few minutes later, looking in at Sean typing busily at his word processor, and smiling while he slid between the sheets. Would probably mean Sean wasn’t in the mood for sex much, the next few weeks, but it was a small price to pay. He was writing again, really writing, and what Nick had read so far was better than the first novel. Miles better. Chilling, and utterly absorbing.

Still smiling, he closed his eyes and burrowed under the covers.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"You almost got it." Nick grinned and pointed. "Line these up. Then enter. Presto."

Warrick shook his head and did as indicated. "Thanks, man. I’ll get it."

"Not a problem. This machine has a mind of its own."

"Yeah, I noticed."

"Anything else?"

Warrick made a dour face. "Nah, think I got the rest."

Nick grinned and slapped Warrick’s muscular shoulder. "See you later."

"Later."

He was hurrying down the hallway when Catherine’s voice stopped him. "Grissom wants to see you."

Nick frowned at her. "What for?"

"No idea." She was toting a plastic-wrapped bundle, hair flopping into her eyes. "Didn’t say."

"You need a hand with that?"

"Go see Grissom first. Then if you got time, sure. I’ll be in trace."

"Got it. He in his office?"

She was already a few feet away. "Ballistics," she said over her shoulder.

"Cool."

As promised, he found Grissom in low conversation with Bobby, who cast Nick a fast smile and nod. Grissom took off his glasses and lifted his chin. "Good, there you are. Thanks, Bobby. Make sure you get those results to Brass, all right?"

"Absolutely. Hey, Nick. How you doin’?"

"Good. You?"

"Can’t complain."

In the hallway, Grissom said, "Let’s talk in my office."

Nodding uneasily, Nick fell into step with him. "Should I be worried?"

A faint smile lifted the corners of Grissom’s mouth. "I don’t think so, no."

"Whew."

"Hang on, let me just check my messages."

Nick stood fidgeting while Grissom chatted with Darla, the receptionist, took a sheaf of pink message slips and flipped through them. He separated out a couple and stuffed the rest into his pocket. "Sorry."

"Not a problem."

"My office, right?"

"Right," Nick agreed, frowning.

"Right."

Okay, Grissom was acting a little odd. Was this the way he braced you for bad news? Fumbling, a little awkward? But he’d said Nick didn’t need to be worried. That evidently wasn’t powerful enough to actually keep Nick from worrying. He caught himself nibbling a fingernail, walking in Grissom’s wake, and made himself quit.

Grissom turned the doorknob and said, "After you."

With another puzzled look, Nick walked inside, and then flinched when someone called, "Surprise!"

Mouth gaping, he gazed at Catherine, Warrick, Archie, Bobby, even Al Robbins and Jim Brass, all standing there grinning at him. "Huh?"

Behind him, Grissom cleared his throat. "This is for you, Nick. With my compliments."

The article in Grissom’s hand was an identity badge with Nick’s picture on it. It took a moment of staring to see that the text below his photograph read "CSI II" instead of the familiar "CSI I." "Oh," Nick breathed. "Wow."

"Congratulations, Nick." Catherine’s smile would have lit up the Strip all on its own. "Welcome to the next level."

Brass stepped up, offering his hand to shake. His grip was tight and brief. "Good job, Nicky. You earned it."

Dazed, Nick nodded at all of them, grinning when Warrick made a crack about planning to take less time than Nick had to reach the same rank. "In your dreams, buddy," Nick said weakly, and grinned wider when Warrick gave him a meaningful look.

"So we meant to get a cake, but SOMEONE forgot to order it," Catherine told him, casting a scathing look at Grissom. "So we’ll have it tomorrow, okay?"

"You don’t need to do that," Nick said weakly, ridiculously pleased.

"Of course we don’t. But we will anyway, so there." She went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "Good job, Nick," she murmured.

"Thank you."

Everyone scattered pretty quickly after that. He didn’t begrudge them; work didn’t wait long around here, and besides, there was no cake yet. He was too stunned and pleased to much care.

"Probably should have done this at your six-month eval," Grissom said, crossing around to his desk. "God knows you’d earned it by that point. You know there’s a substantial pay increase that goes along with this, right?"

Nick gave a flustered nod. "Yeah. I -- Thanks."

"Some more vacation time, first-day sick pay. That sort of thing." Grissom cast him a fast grin. "Not that I expect you to take a sick day. Considering you haven’t had one yet."

"You never know."

"True." Grissom leaned one hip on the corner of his desk. "Congratulations, Nicky," he said gently. "Sorry I forgot the cake. Drink after work? Let me make it up to you?"

Nick nodded again, awkwardly. "Sure. Sure, that’d be great."

"Very good. Give me an hour and we’ll go. How’s that?"

"Excellent."

~~~~~~~~~~~

He was still occasionally turning his new badge over and staring at the extra Roman numeral when Grissom poked his head in the fibers lab doorway. "Ready?"

Nick dropped the badge and nodded. "Absolutely. All done."

They ended up at a place Nick had never even seen before, tiny hole-in-the-wall bar where Grissom was known by name, and at a tiny table they ordered drinks. In the dimness Grissom’s face was shadowy, unreadable as he lifted his glass. "To well-deserved promotions," he said quietly.

"I’ll drink to that," Nick replied with a fast grin, and tasted his bourbon. Sweet and blazing hot sliding down his throat. Perfect.

Away from the lab and the surprise-party setup for the news, Grissom seemed a lot more relaxed. Nick listened intently to a couple of random war stories, and thought Grissom paid a lot more attention that he usually did to Nick’s own tale of his first two weeks as a cop in Dallas.

"They just – threw you out there? No more preparation than that?"

Nick shrugged and finished his bourbon. "Hey, I’d already graduated. Sink or swim, you know?"

"I hope you weren’t stuck with that partner very long."

"Nah. He retired, like, the next year. Burned out."

"Sounds like it."

"So anyway, I got to talking to Pete, you know, heads up the lab there. And I thought, jeez, this is where the real answers are, you know? So when he called me that September, I said I’d put in my transfer. Next thing you know, I’m learning forensics."

"Their loss was our gain."

Feeling his face coloring, Nick ducked his head. "I guess. Been interesting, I’ll tell you that much."

There was a second round, and after that one Nick had to admit he was kind of fried. Long night – long WEEK – and he hadn’t had anything for lunch tonight, either. Grissom looked perfectly cool and collected, of course; as if he ever really looked any other way. Nick let him grab the tab this time, feeling another abashed grin on his face.

Outside the temperature had dropped, pre-dawn chill in the air, and Nick drew a deep breath and hoped his slight buzz would dissipate before he had to get in his own car and drive home. He glanced at Grissom and frowned. What was that look? Preoccupied. Maybe Griss had a little buzz on, too?

"I’m really sorry about the cake. Did I mention that already?"

Nick watched Grissom unlock the passenger-side door. "It’s cool. Don’t worry a-bout…."

He would have said something else, but Grissom was standing so close, and it must have been the bourbon, or the high of getting that promotion, or maybe just something else he didn’t much want to look at too closely, but close was getting closer, and he should have minded, should have backed off the way he did when Patrick made a pass at him back in Denton, sorry, man, I’m spoken for, thanks anyway, but somehow he wasn’t doing anything like that. Instead he was standing very still, and when Grissom’s hand touched his waist he opened his mouth, drew a fast little sip of air, and still didn’t move.

"I don’t." Grissom was staring at him. The look in those blue-blue eyes was impossible to ignore, that heat that went directly to Nick’s groin, made his heart skitter in his chest and his brain utterly blank with, let’s face it, LUST, yeah, all that stuff you didn’t want to admit even existed a month ago, only now fuck it, Grissom is HOT, and he’s looking at you like he’s thinking the exact same thing about YOU.

Nick gave a weak little oof of sound, and Grissom pulled him way too close and kissed him right on the mouth.

And pulled away again far too soon, just a fast taste of lips, tongue, flavor of the martinis Grissom had just drunk. Elusive and scarily delicious, not like Sean at all, pinpointing one totally terrifying fact: You have not kissed anyone since you and Sean got together. No one. You have not tasted another man’s mouth in ten goddamn YEARS. And it shouldn’t taste so good. Feel so incredibly wonderful. It fucking shouldn’t.

"I’m sorry," Grissom whispered. "I shouldn’t have done that."

Nick nodded. "No."

Nothing else. After Grissom turned away, he got into the car, sat rigid while Grissom climbed in the driver’s seat, turned on the ignition. Drove in silence, his face lit by garish neon over and over again, set in tight lines. Back to inscrutable, and Nick turned and watched the cars through the passenger window, willing his heart to slow the fuck down already. Just one of those things. Just an impulse. Nothing more. Not like Sean. Wasn’t as if it would happen again. No. Because he wasn’t Sean, he was stronger. No.

The sun was nearly up when Grissom turned back into the parking lot at the lab. No one around; their shift was long over, and the day folks were already inside, doing their thing. It was quiet. Deserted.

"See you tonight."

Grissom sounded so calm. Nick gazed at him, fighting down a flare of disappointment. "Okay," he said after a moment. "Yeah."

Only he couldn’t seem to make himself move, open the door, slide out. The way he should, the way he was supposed to. Instead he was sitting, sitting. And looking sideways, whispering, "shit," under his breath, and Grissom’s expression twisting, crumpling when he met Nick halfway, mouth already open, their teeth clicking together for a second and then a little adjustment, just a hair, and Nick twisted his fingers in the collar of Grissom’s shirt and held tight, kissing as hard as he was being kissed, feeling Grissom’s hand on the back of his head, holding on.

It took everything he had to stop. Feeling the way Grissom was shaking a little, the same struggle, KNOWING it was just as hard for him.

"I have a boyfriend," Nick said against Grissom’s lips.

"I don’t care," Grissom replied harshly, and kissed him hard again.

I don’t either, Nick thought, but I’m supposed to. Oh God, I should. Sean, I’m sorry. Lo, how the mighty are fallen. I’m sorry, baby.

Grissom’s hand squeezed Nick’s cheeks, holding him a bare inch away. "Then go," he said in that same thick, angry-sounding voice. "Go, if you have to."

"I have to," Nick whispered. "I have to."

He felt like weeping when Grissom sat back. "Go on," Grissom muttered. "Just go."

I don’t want to. But I have to.

His knees wobbled when he climbed out, and he clutched the door for a second while his head swam, nothing to see, folks, just everything fucking falling apart when it was just getting better. That’s all. Nothing to see here.

He sat in his own car long after Grissom’s Mercedes had pulled away, disappeared into morning traffic. And finally, when his fingers could manage it, he turned the key in the ignition and put the car into reverse.

Chapter Eight

He’d cursed himself for ten kinds of fool before he’d gone four blocks. Ridiculous. Making a pass like a dirty old man. Never mind that for a brief few seconds he was sure Nick was giving as good as he got. Ultimately it didn’t make a jot of difference. Nick was still very much involved in a long-term, serious relationship. A troubled one, perhaps, but still. Far, far outside the guidelines Gil had established for himself long ago.

The self-directed fury didn’t ease up at home, either, and carried over that night. He found himself hardly able to look at Nick, much less interact on any real professional level. And it wasn’t even Nick he was angry at. No, this was his own fault, entirely, and shame fought with an ever-present, percolating awareness that he’d slipped once, and it would be all too easy to slip again.

As far as he let himself notice, Nick didn’t seem out of sorts. His usual amiable self. A little quiet, but otherwise – Nick. With a level of relief he found a little shocking in itself, he heard Brass assigning Nick to work with Warrick on a missing-person case outside of town. Thank God. Out of temptation’s path. If he couldn’t be an adult about this himself, at least the fates were looking out for Nick’s best interests instead.

But Catherine brought in a cake around midnight, with a sigh and a jab at Gil’s forgetfulness, and sitting around the break-room table, watching his team interact and listening to the good-natured discussion, Gil felt a thousand miles distant. Unable to keep himself from looking, watching. Watching Nick, to be precise. Like the obsessive old fool he increasingly knew himself to be.

"I’m telling you. I called it." Nick licked his fork and pointed it at Warrick. "You owe me, pal. Ten bucks. Pay up."

"You said, ‘Maybe.’ ‘MAYBE.’ That ain’t the same, man! I don’t owe you nothin’."

"Called what?" asked Catherine.

Still shaking his head, Nick looked over at her. "I said our missing person wasn’t missing. Just didn’t want to be found. Warrick disagreed, and – you know, we placed a small wager. Very small."

Brass pushed his plate away. "Department frowns on gambling during work hours."

"This wasn’t gambling. Honest. Just, you know. A little understanding. Between friends."

Brass shrugged. "If money changes hands, that makes it a bet, my friend."

Nick didn’t look terribly alarmed. "Aw, he’s never gonna pay up anyway, because he’s a WELCHER."

"Now those are fighting words," Warrick rumbled. "YOU said, ‘Maybe.’ And you know it! That ain’t a bet!"

"And YOU said she was grabbed out of her vehicle. Which she WASN’T."

"Which YOU didn’t exactly say! ‘Maybe she just walked away.’ That’s what you said!"

"Gentlemen," Gil said mildly. "Can you keep it down to a dull roar, please? I think there are some people in Reno still trying to get some sleep."

Nick settled back in his chair, and Gil could have sworn he was about to grin, although he didn’t, quite. "You still owe me, man," he muttered. "And you know it."

"Don’t owe you nothin’. That ain’t a REAL bet."

"And there won’t BE any REAL bets, not tonight or tomorrow or any other time. Am I right?" Brass glanced from Nick to Warrick, and back to Nick. "Well?"

"No bets," Nick said, and sighed.

Warrick slumped a little, too. Something about his sullen face made Gil grin. "Yeah, yeah, no bets."

"Thank you. Catherine, thanks for the cake. Nick, congratulations again." Brass picked up his paper plate and rose. "Now I assume you all have actual work to do? Sometime tonight?"

That got them moving. Gil watched silently while Nick and Warrick made their way out, quieter now but still arguing. Nick was fine. You’d never know that – what? His colleague had been pawing him eighteen hours ago? Was he supposed to act differently? Was it disappointment that curdled in Gil’s belly, a cold leaden lump? Or just the cake?

He drew a deep breath and threw his things in the trash before heading for his office.

~~~~~~~~~~

As the Chairman of the Board might have said, luck was a lady that particular night. But she was not so kind the next.

"So he was what? Running away?"

Gil nodded. "Evidently."

Nick leaned back in his chair. He was wearing glasses; Gil couldn’t recall ever seeing him wear those before. "From what? His folks thought things were pretty good."

"That’s what I’d like to know, as well. We need to talk to them."

Nick gave a slow nod. "Okay."

With Nick poring over printouts and himself driving, it was almost possible to pretend that this was only what it appeared to be: two colleagues, pursuing a questionable lead. Never mind that he felt Nick’s presence like a glowing brazier a foot and a half away, near enough to touch easily, so easily.

Nick seemed so oblivious. So blithely unaware that Gil was fighting down untoward urges with all the zeal of St. George against his dragon, the battle between good and evil playing itself out in the cab of his 1996 Mercedes. Silently, without the blood and breathing fire. But still.

And then Nick cast him a fast, oblique look. A matter of a second, maybe two, easily long enough to convey the fact that he knew all too well exactly what Gil was doing. The battle wasn’t so easily read on his face, but his dark eyes were pained and eloquent, and Gil’s fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly, knuckles gleaming white as the streetlights whipped by.

"You think it had something to do with the parents?" Nick sounded hoarse, and cleared his throat.

"I think it well might have."

"Abuse?"

"Possibly."

"You got a warrant, didn’t you?"

"Yes."

"Cops meeting us there?"

"Should be."

"Cool."

He felt stronger by the time they reached the house. Dragon not precisely vanquished, but rebuffed in the face of business. Good enough. He grabbed his kit and didn’t wait for Nick to follow suit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"God, it still gives me the heebies." Nick’s voice was shaky, matching the lingering tremor in his hands. "Like something out of a goddamn movie or something."

Gil nodded slowly. "I agree."

"No wonder that poor kid ran away. Surprised he didn’t sooner."

"Maybe he did. We may never know."

"I need a fucking drink."

"So do I."

Nick didn’t say anything else, nor did he need to. The memory of what they’d found in the Tomlinson family’s basement weighed heavily on Gil, as well. Chuck Tomlinson’s parents’ idea of corporal punishment was extreme at best, barbaric and inhuman at worst, and he suspected the latter had driven their son to make his abortive flight for freedom. Pure unhappy coincidence that he’d been struck by a speeding truck in the process. Nothing Gil could hang on the parents. More was the pity.

The rest was up to the police, and the prosecutors. He hoped they’d throw everything they had at the Tomlinsons. One thing he knew for certain: He himself would have a great deal to say at the trial, whenever that came about.

He glanced at Nick again, and found him staring bleakly ahead, mouth tight with emotion. At least Gil had learned to compartmentalize these things, assign them to boxes and close the lids tight when he wanted to. Nick, he knew, was not so good at that. He wore his emotions on his face, his heart on his sleeve. It was part of his charm, but it was also a potential weakness. One Gil hoped devoutly no one would ever learn to exploit.

He hadn’t planned to say anything; had in fact never dreamed of it. So it surprised him at least as much as Nick when he heard himself remark, "I apologize for what happened yesterday."

Nick’s quick look he felt as much as saw. "You don’t -" Nick paused. "Don’t apologize. It was – me, too."

Shamefully, his heart stuttered, hearing it. "Yeah?"

A sigh. "Yeah."

"I’m – attracted to you. It’s unfortunate, but I think we should be on the same page."

"Yeah."

He loathed these awkward silences. And yet he didn’t have the words to do anything about this one. It hung in the air, pregnant with truths he couldn’t voice.

"So you wanna pretend like it didn’t happen?" Cynicism didn’t suit Nick; he sounded young and scared, not world-weary as he had perhaps hoped.

"I didn’t say that."

"Then what are you saying?"

Gil kept his eyes glued to the dark highway ahead of the car. "I don’t know," he whispered.

"Sean, he –" He heard Nick swallow. "He cheated on me, you know."

Gil nodded. "I know."

"More than once."

That he didn’t know, and he risked a look to the right, catching the twisted expression of sadness on Nick’s too-open features. "I’m sorry."

Nick shrugged. "I never did." His voice was toneless. Far more than the casual words earlier, this – lack -- in his voice made Gil’s belly clench with helpless concern. "I mean, I had the chance, you know? I could have. But I always said no. Always."

He couldn’t reply to that. What would he say? Until me? Or did that count? What constitutes infidelity in your playbook?

After another agonizing pause, Nick continued, "He’s writing again, you know that?"

"Oh?"

"It’s good. Fucking incredible. Better than his first book, way better."

"I’m glad to hear that."

"And I don’t care," Nick whispered. "I’m supposed to. But I don’t."

Gil swallowed and clung more tightly to the steering wheel. "What are you supposed to feel, Nick?"

"I don’t know. I don’t. I did before, but I don’t anymore."

"All right."

"I wanted you to kiss me. I wanted that so bad."

At this rate he would have to pull over soon. Couldn’t think about driving, couldn’t make sure he didn’t aim them at an oncoming vehicle, or land them in a ditch someplace. He fought to keep his voice level. "I’m not supposed to be happy to hear you say that. But I am."

"Jesus." Gil glanced over and saw Nick sagging back in the passenger seat, hand shading his eyes. "Man."

"What are you telling me, Nick? I made it a rule a very long time ago: No affairs. Nothing I have to keep hidden. I’ve never had cause to regret that decision."

"Until now?" Nick asked softly.

"What we did last night – was impulsive. I can’t allow myself to continue that. Do you understand? If -- If we do that again, it won’t be an impulse."

"Do you want to do it again?"

Gil found a grim smile on his face. "I believe I’ve made that clear, haven’t I?"

"Sean –"

"You want to talk about Sean? Fine. Let’s talk about Sean. Do you love him? Do you?"

The tiniest of breathy pauses. "Yes."

"The truth, Nick. Because if you do, this conversation is over. I won’t interfere with that."

This silence was much longer, long enough to let a sharp, icy pain shiver into existence in his belly. "I used to," Nick whispered. "I used to love him."

"I see," Gil breathed. "And now?"

"Part of me, I guess. Part of me still loves him. He’s – important."

"How important? Tell me."

"My family loves him. He’s like – their cool son-in-law. I mean, I think they think of us as married, you know? My sister Jamie, the other day – she told me to suck it up, that we had to stay together. And I was thinking, Why? Why should we, if it isn’t – what it used to be?"

"I can’t answer that. You know that."

"I know. I know."

"What do you want? Right now, not five years ago, not last week – what do you want, right now?"

Nick’s voice was quenched, miserable. "I don’t know."

Gil gave a crisp nod. "All right. When you do know, when you figure that out -- You know where to find me. Or not."

Nick didn’t say anything at all to that.

~~~~~~~~~~~

And he didn’t say anything the next night, or the night after that. The entire excruciating conversation began to dwindle in Gil’s mind, shrinking in content and impact both until it became something of an idle fantasy, more than anything truly substantive. By the next night Nick’s demeanor had eased back into his sociable veneer, joking with the ever-irascible Brass, competing more or less avidly with Warrick.

It was all quite, quite normal. And to his unspoken relief, his own urges seemed content to sit on a back burner, simmering but never coming to a boil. The attraction was still there, oh yes, but manageable now. There were no hooded looks, no speaking glances. Nick was as friendly and capable with him as with any other colleague, and never any more so. How could he not do the same?

His renewed resolve was only tested once, nearly three weeks later, when he saw Sean sitting in the break room with Nick and Catherine. With the knowledge that he was standing on the very edge of a cliff, over black unknown depths, Gil walked inside, meeting their smiling faces.

"Hey, Gil." Catherine lifted her chin. "You hear the news?"

Gil shook his head. "What news?" He held out his hand to Sean. "Good to see you again, Sean."

Sean’s grip was firm, fingers warm and dry. "You too."

He couldn’t see anything untoward in Nick’s smile. Just fondness, pride. "Sean finished his novel last night. The new one."

Gil mustered a smile of his own. "Congratulations."

"And," Catherine prodded.

"And." Nick’s smile became a grin. "This morning we found out Enter Screaming got optioned for a movie. Big screen, alla that."

"Wow." Gil nodded. "That’s tremendous, Sean, congratulations again."

Sean’s face creased in a broad smile, winning as anything Gil had ever seen. "Took a while, but yeah. Thanks."

"Let me and Eddie take you guys out for a drink this weekend, okay?" Catherine reached out to touch Nick’s knee. "Little champagne, what do you say?"

"Works for me," Nick told her, still grinning.

Sean nodded. "Absolutely. But what about tonight? You guys working late?"

"Ugh." Catherine shook her head. "Wish I could. Weekend’s the best I can do."

"Nicky." Gil heard the sweet pleading in Sean’s voice, and fought down an irrational urge to snarl. Sean leaned over, bumping Nick with his shoulder, leaning against him. "Please say you’re gonna celebrate tonight. Please?"

Nick cast a quick glance at Grissom and Catherine before sighing. "I’ll be late, but I’ll be there, okay?"

"Rock ON." Sean kissed him fast on the lips, and sat up. "Okay, I gotta go. Good to see y’all. Catherine, Gil."

Gil made himself nod. "You too, Sean. Take care."

Nick stood up. "I’ll walk you out."

Gil didn’t miss Sean grabbing Nick’s hand on the way. Gazing in their wake, he stood very still. And then flinched when Catherine’s voice interrupted his reverie.

"I don’t think I’ve ever seen that look on your face before."

"What look?"

"That one," Catherine replied dryly. Her eyes had narrowed. "You don’t like Sean, do you?"

"Like, dislike – I hardly know him." Gil shrugged and took a seat opposite the couch. "Quite an accomplishment, though. Finishing a novel and finding out the very next day your first sold for a movie?"

"Thank God he got his act together." Catherine shook her head slowly. "For a while there, you know, I really thought Nick ought to just dump his ass. But I guess he’s straightened up. As it were."

He gave her a brief smile. "Certainly looks that way."

"Nick looks happy. He’s been – weird lately. Have you noticed?"

"No," he said evenly. "I can’t say I have. Weird?"

She shrugged. "I just figured they were fighting again, but now -- I dunno. Well." She placed her hands flat on the cushions on either side of her legs, and pushed up. "I got a date with a cute guy in ballistics."

At the doorway she paused. "You should come with us this weekend. Get to know Sean a little better. He’s – I dunno, a very interesting guy."

"Maybe I’ll do that," Gil told her.

"Good. Do you some good to get out a little. I’ll make sure Eddie’s on his best behavior."

He nodded slowly. "Good."

Giving him a wry look, she said, "Later."

~~~~~~~~~

Two hours later, he closed his working file and took his glasses off, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly. The wheels of justice were turning as slowly as ever, and the investigation of the Tomlinsons’ bizarre basement of discipline was creaking along. Hampered by budget cuts to CPS, and an assistant DA who was curiously reluctant to make any actual decisions. The evidence was there. All that remained was pushing through the indictment, and there Gil had no further say. Much as he’d like to.

He leaned back and picked up his cup of coffee. It was cold, and he made a face as he forced down a swallow. Why was the coffee always so goddamn bad? Was he the only person who noticed? Surely someone else here could tell the difference between a decent bean and institutional crap. If no one could, he’d have to see about hiring someone. It would be worth the extra budget expenditure, just to have someone on staff who could brew a good cup of joe.

The lab was quiet tonight, for once. Mostly because Brass had sent everyone out on assignments, and those few technical personnel working at the moment were, in fact, working, not socializing. Warrick was out on a first for him: a single homicide, quick and dirty. No question he could handle the work. He’d been pulling his share and more for weeks now; Gil had never seen anyone blend in so seamlessly with the rest of the team before.

Maybe not fair to Nick, who admittedly scored higher on the personable scale. But there Gil was nowhere near as sanguine in terms of sheer thick skin.

Nick. Well, and there you had it. Circling back yet again, on that wearying, worn track, to the person Gil could evidently not force himself to stop thinking about. Not tonight. Not knowing that Nick would be leaving early, headed out to celebrate with his partner.

He knew this feeling, now. This particular dark, queasy feeling. The taste in his mouth, like coppery water from old pipes.

Jealous, Gil? That and two bits will get you a cup of coffee. Although it won’t taste any better than the swill you’ve got sitting at your left elbow, buddy.

He picked up the cup and stood, marching out into the hallway to pour the cold dregs down the water-fountain drain. He rinsed the cup and trudged back into his office, and had just set the cup on the table near his desk and considered tackling the pile of paper in his inbox when his cell phone rang.

Catherine interrupted him before he’d gotten more than the first syllable of his name out.

"Grissom, you need to get over here now."

He paused. "Over where? The MGM?"

"No, we’re at – corner of McKinley and Belton. The U-Stop."

As far as he could remember, Catherine and Nick had been sent to look into a burglary at the hotel. He frowned. "What’s there?"

"A big fucking mess, that’s what." In the background he heard excited voices, one of them almost certainly Brass. "Nick wanted a Coke, so we pulled in here about ten minutes ago. Now we got a hostage situation."

"What?"

"Yeah, some shithead with a Mag 357 and some kind of serious bug up his ass about something."

"Where’s Nick?" His own voice sounded strangely tinny in his ears.

"Yeah, well, guess who’s one of the hostages?"

He sat down hard on the edge of his desk, and said, "I’ll be right there."

Chapter Nine

The funny thing was, he sort of wanted to laugh. Of all the convenience stores in all the world, he had to stop at the one with the crazy guy with the gun.

Figured.

"Just tell us what you want!" the woman in the lemon-yellow pantsuit cried. She was the one who’d cut in front of Nick, because evidently her need for peach-flavored instant tea mix and two boxes of Ding-dongs was far more critical than his, for a soda. Fine; he could sip while he waited. Only now the Ding-dongs were squashed from where Nick had stepped on the boxes, moving with quite a bit of alacrity with a titanic gun waved in his face, and the lady in yellow didn’t seem to give a shit about her snacks or her instant beverage or anything else anymore but getting out of here alive and in one piece.

Nick could relate.

He’d had a chance – an incredibly tiny chance – to draw his own sidearm. About twenty minutes ago. But he’d hesitated. Lots of reasons for that, none of which mattered save one: He was pretty sure the sweating Latino clerk would have been shot before Nick could fire. And then the opportunity was gone, but he had one thing going for him. The insane guy with the Magnum didn’t know Nick was packing. He didn’t have on a uniform, he didn’t have a radio, ergo he wasn’t a cop. Which was technically true, but hey – you worked with what you had.

"What I want," the gunman snarled, "is for YOU – to SHUT – the FUCK – UP!"

The last was a scream, pretty much like the screaming he’d been doing since he first whipped out the gun and pushed it against the poor teenaged clerk’s nose. Spittle flying, whites of his eyes showing, sweat on his face, the whole nine yards. Some leftover cop part of Nick sat back and muttered, Probably drugs. And that part was probably right, but it just didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of difference right now. Right now, there were two other people with him who didn’t have cop experience, who didn’t know him from Moses, and who’d probably fall right in the way of a bullet if push came to shove.

Therefore, it fell to him to make sure push didn’t go that direction.

Piece of cake, right? Or, well, piece of Ding-dong.

Feeling his balls draw up so tight he wondered if he’d ever see them again, he straightened up from his kneeling position by the candy bars. "Look, man," he said in his most reasonable voice. "She’s right. You want money? Take the money. I got a little; you want it, it’s yours. All right? But don’t hurt anybody. You don’t need to."

"You have no IDEA what I need." The gunman advanced a couple of steps. His hand was trembling badly; Nick prayed his finger didn’t slip on the trigger. "No fucking IDEA. You think I want MONEY?"

Nick licked his incredibly dry lips. "Okay, then what do you want?"

The man stared at him, and then uttered a high, whinnying sort of laugh. It sounded like a fork on a blackboard. "I WANT. A goddamn beer. That’s all!"

"So take it. Come on, man, do what you gotta do and –"

Oh, mistake. What did you think, Stokes, he was reasonable? Nick thought, as the gun shivered in his direction. Big mistake.

"Shut up! SHUT UP!" The gunman cawed another awful laugh, and Nick stiffened when the muzzle of the gun advanced, an inch from his cheekbone. "What do I have to do to make ALL of you just be QUIET?"

That’ll work, Nick thought, and then he thought of Sean, and he tried to keep Sean’s face in his mind but it kept going fuzzy and becoming Gil’s, a rare, sweet smile on his lips, and he thought, very calmly, I’m not going to see either one of them again. This is pretty much it. He’s seriously going to shoot us. I’m going to die here, tonight, with fake chocolate icing on my shoes.

He heard a crackle, muffled through the plate glass windows, and then a bullhorn trumpeting, "This is the police. We have this building surrounded; you’ve got nowhere to go. Repeat: you are surrounded. Come out with your hands in the air."

The gunman spun, the Magnum dipped, and Nick moved without thinking. Launching himself forward, nice neat tackle like he first learned at good old Highland Park High School. The guy went down, easy as pie, and for a second, for the best, most shining second of his life to date, Nick was sure he had him. Positive. Bet the farm.

And then his loafer slid in ersatz cream filling and sent his foot slipping out from under him, and he reeled over to the right, shoulder careening into the Baby Ruths and the Reese’s peanut-butter cups, and the gunman grabbed him and wrapped an arm around his neck, close as a lover and twice as smelly, doncha know, and Nick drew a whiff of the guy’s armpit and thought, Well, so much for THAT.

"You’re gonna die, pretty boy," the man murmured against Nick’s ear. "Nobody fucks with Jack Underhill. Nobody."

The muzzle of the gun was cool and impersonal, nudging his temple. He closed his eyes, and heard the hammer draw back.

Bye, Gil. I’m sorry I didn’t say it when I had the chance, but I fell in love with you a long time before you ever took a chance on kissing me. About the same time I fell out of love with Sean, I guess. I wish I’d told you. Then it wouldn’t feel quite so bad, this dying thing. Scary, yeah, but I had so much I needed to do.

And then glass broke and he was sure the guy fired, but he couldn’t feel anything in his head, and the man holding him wasn’t holding him anymore. He was flying backward, feet coming up in the air, and he took out a big rack of beef jerky and Slim Jims on his way back down. He didn’t move at all after that.

The lady in the yellow suit screamed piercingly, over and over again, a human air-raid siren, and Nick stood very still and gazed down at the bleeding, very dead guy on the floor, and then his legs folded beneath him and he sat down hard, ass flat on a Ding-dong, still in its plastic wrapper.

He didn’t start shaking until about half an hour later.

Before that, it was actually not all that unfamiliar. He’d never been personally involved in a – robbery, or whatever this was supposed to be – before, but yeah, he’d worked enough, as a cop, as a CSI, to know the drill. He talked to Brass, let an EMT give him a cursory exam and announce that he wasn’t injured (except maybe his pride, and some other areas that didn’t show). And that was kind of that.

It was even okay, seeing Grissom outside. No idea when he’d gotten there, or what he’d seen, but his face was the most awful shade of whitish-green Nick had ever seen, and that was saying something.

"Maybe this is a sign I should give up Cokes," Nick said to him, and clenched his hands into fists to keep from just throwing his arms around Grissom and holding on for dear life.

"Jesus, Nicky." Catherine blurred into his line of sight, striding up and giving him the same hug he’d barely kept himself from giving Grissom. "Are you okay? My GOD."

He nodded against her strawberry-blonde hair. "I’m okay."

"What did he want? Money? Drugs?"

"No idea. He was bugshit crazy."

"My god."

Brass walked up then – pretty nimble on his size elevens when he wanted to be – and looked Nick in the eye. "You all right?"

"Yeah," Nick said, admiring his steady voice. "I’m cool. Ears are ringing."

"Didn’t think Oates could take that shot. Christ, that was close."

"Yeah."

The lady in yellow wasn’t screaming anymore, and when she walked out Nick saw that she’d recaptured her instant tea, although the box of Ding-dongs had become something else. Fine; wasn’t like he gave a shit, and he was pretty sure the gray-faced clerk didn’t, either.

Brass listened to something one of the dozen-or-so cops whispered to him, and nodded. Then he said, "Nicky, take the rest of the night off. Go clean yourself up."

Nick nodded slowly. "Okay."

"Come by tomorrow, I’ll take a statement. No rush, that asshole isn’t going anywhere."

"Right. Yeah."

Catherine’s cool hand touched his wrist. "I’ll hitch a ride back with Grissom. You sure you’re okay?"

He nodded yet again. "Yeah. See you later."

"Call me if you need anything."

Behind her, Gil didn’t say a word. His color had come back, though. Nick thought about his life-flashing-before-his-eyes moment in the store, and sighed. Deal with that later. Whatever it meant. He was all of a sudden so tired he couldn’t see straight.

He peeled the Ding-dong wrapper off his ass before he climbed in the car. Get cake on the seat anyway, but he just really didn’t give a shit, frankly.

About a block from the house, he yanked the car over to the curb and barely got the door open to lean out before he threw up hard. Something about that sickly sweet cake-smell that clung to him like fog, and the memory of the gunman’s blown-open head, his eyes open and staring up at the ceiling. Guhhh.

When he sat up again, he could barely get his fingers to grip the steering wheel, they were trembling so badly. Never even drew his own weapon. Could have, at one point, but he didn’t, and that clerk had been crying so hard. Never mind he probably thought he was a tough guy, in real life; he’d been bawling like a four-year-old when Nick left.

Sounded pretty damn good right now, actually.

He parked the car a little skewed in the driveway, and when he got out his knees buckled, wobbled under him, then finally locked enough that he could stand up straight and fumble his house key from the ring. He could hear his own breathing in his buzzing ears, fast and shallow.

Sean. Where was Sean? He called his name, and listened to his own high, shrill voice with abstract interest. Sean. Sean wasn’t home. Sean was out, someplace. Celebrating. Remember? Book, movie. Party time.

He peeled off his clothes on the way to the shower. God, he was covered in gunk. Cake everywhere, on his BACK, how’d it gotten there, on his jeans, his shoes. He turned on the shower, set for pure hot water, and stuffed his clothes in the hamper. His mouth tasted like shit, and he grabbed his toothbrush and the mostly empty tube of toothpaste before climbing in the tub.

And he stayed in the shower until the water ran lukewarm, until his skin was lobster-red and the smell of sweet cake was entirely gone. Brushed his teeth three different times, used up the rest of the toothpaste. Hoped Sean had gotten another tube recently.

In the bedroom, dressed in sweats and still feeling cold, he dialed Sean’s number. Thank god for speed dial. His fingers were so numb he couldn’t feel the buttons.

The phone rang three times, and he thought the voice mail would pick up, but then there was a crackle and Sean’s hoarse, "H’lo?"

"Hi," Nick said breathlessly. Hmm, voice still sounding sort of soprano-y.

"Hey, baby." Drunk, Sean was drunk, very drunk. Of course he was. Celebrating, remember? "Why aren’t you here?"

"Sean, I need you to come home. Something – happened."

"What? Can’t hear you, baby, this fucking music. Get in the car and come on! You can tell me about it here, okay?"

Nick closed his eyes and gripped the phone with his numb fingers. "Something – bad happened, okay?" he said more loudly. "I can’t -- I can’t come over there. Not right now."

"Are you at work? Aw, man, you are NOT telling me you gotta work, fuck, Nicky. I don’t fucking believe it."

"I’m not at work!" His nose was stinging; he realized with slow surprise that he was crying. "I’m at home! Come home, Sean, goddamn it!"

"You know what, no. No, Nick, this is MY night! You can’t even come over and have a single drink to celebrate? Just one fucking drink? Tonight of all nights?"

Nick swallowed and sobbed once, silently. "Okay," he whispered. "Forget it."

"Nicky! For Christ’s sake –"

"See you later."

Still carrying the phone, he went out to the living room, sobs bubbling up like lava. Oh yeah, now you freak. Well, at least you didn’t blubber in front of Brass.

He made himself drink a shot of bourbon, but it burned unpleasantly in his gullet and seemed to ignite in his belly, hot and painful. The house was so goddamn empty. And he was flipping out. The memory of that gun kissing his temple. Knowing – beyond the shadow of a doubt – that he was going to die there, in a shit-hole convenience store with so much left undone. Unsaid.

He thought about calling Catherine, but his spastic fingers hit Grissom’s number instead. Who picked up so fast Nick was distantly surprised.

"Nicky?"

Oddly, the sound of his voice made it much harder to keep from crying. "Hi," Nick whispered.

"What’s wrong? You okay?"

"I just –" He produced a hiccuping sob, and shook his head blindly. "K-kind of freaking out."

"Jesus. Nick."

"C-can you come over?"

"Of course. Nick, are you all right? Will you be okay until I get there?"

Relief had washed over him, warm and sweet: Gil was coming. It would all be okay. "Yeah," he whispered. "I think so."

Chapter Ten

He’d never been to Nick’s house. Had to look up the address, and his haste was confounded by the twisting streets of Nick’s neighborhood, the burned-out street light on the corner. But then he saw Nick’s car, parked with the two front wheels out in the yard.

Sanity, for just a brief second: Where was Sean? Was he here? But surely if he were, Nick would not have called. Not that particular call, voice so thick with tears and terror that Gil had been jogging to the car before he even knew Nick was asking for help. No, if Sean were here that call would not have happened; ergo, Sean was not here.

And putting his own car in park, teeth clenched so hard he heard the enamel squeaking together, he wondered if he’d have given a shit even if Sean WAS here.

He tapped on the rickety screen door and then turned the handle, calling, "Nicky?" Walking inside, screw the formalities.

Nick sat on a wide couch, dressed in sweats a couple of sizes too big for him. His red eyes met Gil’s, and he stood and wobbled, and without any thought at all Gil strode over and pulled Nick to him.

Nick’s hair was damp and spiky, smelling like shampoo. His sturdy body shook in Gil’s arms. "Gil," he said, muffled against Gil’s shoulder.

"I know," Gil whispered. "I know."

And he did know, oh yes. There would be a price to pay for Nick’s bravery. He’d seen it, after all. Through that mercilessly clean storefront window, Nick’s actions, trying so hard to stop that gunman, and failing so completely. Nick’s face, slack with shock, with that enormous gun pointed at his temple.

Should he tell him? That Brass told that sniper not to take the shot, that it was too close? That Jon Oakes said, in that odd detached voice Gil had only heard once before, years ago in a similar situation, "I got it?"

It didn’t matter. Not anymore. The shot was true, whoever that man was, he was dead now, no longer a threat, and Nick – didn’t need to know. Didn’t need to know that it had almost gone so very differently.

"Come on," he said softly. "Sit down before you fall down."

He maneuvered Nick onto the couch, but Nick clung like a limpet, and with a tired nod Gil recognized the fact that he liked being clung to. Shouldn’t, but did. He slid his hands up Nick’s iron-tight back and sighed. "You’re okay, Nicky. I promise. It’s all over."

Nick drew a hitching breath. "Didn’t even – draw – my fucking piece."

Gil nodded, hand gently stroking Nick’s spine. "If you had, there’d be more than one dead body in the morgue tonight. You did the right thing."

"I thought – thought I was dead. For sure. Jesus."

So did I, Gil thought, but just nodded again. "You’re not. You’re okay."

Funny. The angle was killing him, his back squawking indignantly, but he felt as if he could stay this way all night. Calm as he had not been before, calm as Nick most certainly wasn’t at the moment. Just relieved, and dreadfully glad to be able to do this. Glad that Sean wasn’t here. Glad that Nick had made that call.

Nick hadn’t completely stopped shaking when he pushed away a little. Face flushed, a line indented in his cheek from Gil’s sweater. He produced a wavery smile. "Thanks for coming over."

Gil nodded, reluctant to let go completely. Shameful, taking advantage, and he just didn’t give a shit. Not anymore, not when he’d nearly lost Nick a couple of hours ago. "Wild horses," he said gruffly.

Nick’s puffy eyes narrowed. "You cried," he whispered.

Gil sat very still, swallowing when Nick’s hand crept out, fingers brushing away the wetness Gil hadn’t known was on his cheek. Nick’s mouth worked, but no words came out, and with a muffled sound Gil reached up and took his hand, kissed his fingers, held them against his mouth.

Nick’s expression crumpled, and he leaned forward, blindly seeking, and Gil kept his hand tucked against his chest while he met Nick’s kiss, every nerve singing with pure relief.

Heat of the moment, he thought with a far-off detached part of his mind. Nick needed comforting, and Sean wasn’t here, and Gil was. That’s all. Did it matter? Was it true? He had no idea. Nick’s mouth was sweet with peppermint and bourbon, that much he knew. And he could drown in that flavor, in the feel of Nick’s muscular body flowing against his own, straddling him, pressing urgently forward as if trying to get every inch in direct proximity to him.

Headlights brightened the drapes over the window, brakes sighed, and Nick stiffened against him, broke that long kiss with a flinch, sitting up. And then scrambling off Gil’s lap, scuttling over to perch in the armchair two feet away.

Gil wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and glanced at the front door in time to see Sean walk inside, puzzled smile turning quickly to a frown.

"Nicky?" A fast, narrow-eyed look at Gil, and then Sean strode over, dropping to his knees in front of Nick’s chair. "What happened?"

"I’m okay," Nick whispered, not unbending from his tight curl in the chair.

"You called, and it was so fucking LOUD, and then you hung up on me, so I got here as fast as I could. Troy gave me a lift." He ran his hands up Nick’s shins, pulled his legs down. "Jesus, baby, have you been crying? What the fuck happened?"

Nick unfolded like a failed origami crane, all legs and arms and reaching hands, and slid his arms around Sean’s neck. His eyes, dry now, met Gil’s, a mute, speaking look that made Gil sit up straighter, swallowed over the sudden ache in his throat.

"I should go," Gil mumbled.

Sean didn’t turn, busy whispering something and running his hands over places Gil himself had touched, a moment ago. Nick didn’t nod, still gazing at him, dark eyes pleading for him to stay even as his mouth said, "Thanks for coming." Don’t go. Don’t leave.

"Talk to you tomorrow," Gil managed, and fled.

~~~~~~~~~~~

He didn’t see Nick the next day. It happened to be Nick’s day off, probably a good thing, and so it was Thursday before Gil had the chance to see how Nick was doing. Pretty well, from all appearances. No trace of the red, swollen eyes, tremor all gone now. Nick looked perfectly normal.

Gil fought down an irrational spasm of – what? Annoyance? Disappointment? Garden-variety thwarted lust? – and turned to duck back into his office.

An hour later he went to the Bellagio with Warrick, stolidly worked, and when Warrick asked him what the deal was, what was going on, he shrugged and tightly told him to finish up sometime this millennium. Warrick’s hazel eyes held no hurt, but his mouth tightened, and he nodded and went back to dusting for fingerprints.

By the time he got back to the lab, his mood, sour to begin with, had utterly blackened, and he didn’t return Archie’s cheery greeting in the hallway. Just made for his office, sanctuary, hiding place, and closed the door.

It wasn’t until the end of their shift that Nick came looking for him. Standing in the doorway, hand still gripping the doorknob. "Want some breakfast?"

Gil swallowed. "Not today."

Nick’s calm expression didn’t change. "I’m thinking menudo. I know a great place."

"That’s probably not a very good idea."

"My treat."

"Goddamn it, Nick –"

Nick slid inside, leaning back on the door until it snicked closed. "You want to talk here? Fine, let’s talk here."

Gil glanced down at the papers on his desk. "There’s nothing to talk about."

"I think there is."

"I don’t really care WHAT you –"

"I’m leaving him."

Staring at him, Gil fumbled his glasses off, letting them drop on the papers. Nick’s face was unsmiling now, tight with something Gil couldn’t name. His mouth was a thin, closed line.

Gil nodded jerkily. "Let’s have menudo, then."

"Cool."

~~~~~~~~~~

Nick said nothing in the car, driving fast and expertly, eyes hidden behind dark glasses. After a single searching glance Gil kept his eyes forward, mind blank. He’d find out soon enough.

They had beers and steaming bowls of stew in front of them before Nick said anything else. Poking at his menudo with his spoon, not taking a bite. "I haven’t told him yet."

"That you’re leaving him."

Nick shook his head slowly. "I’ve known for a while. I think." He glanced up, eyes narrowed slightly. "It’s not because of you. Not – completely."

Gil made himself nod and pick up his own utensil. "All right. Why?" He’d never been less hungry in his life.

"Lots of things, I guess. Most of which you know about." After a pause, Nick drew a deep breath. "You asked me a while back, a couple of weeks. You asked me if I loved him. I’m always gonna love him, Gil. That isn’t gonna change."

It hurt far, far more than he’d thought, hearing it. He dropped the spoon and reached for the beer instead. Drank a huge swallow. "I see."

"But it isn’t enough," Nick continued. "Think I’ve known that for a while now. Maybe before the whole STD thing, I dunno. For sure after. About the time I figured out I was in love with you."

Motionless, Gil gazed at him, waiting.

"He’s been everything to me for a really long time," Nick said, still so calm. So very unlike the emotional display of two nights ago. He shrugged. "And I was raised to believe that even when things get bad, you stick together. Work it out. I’ve seen my parents do it, lots more than once. Nearly got a divorce, two or three times. Separated for a while two years ago. But that’s what they did, Gil, they worked it out. That’s what I’ve always believed. And when I met you –" For the first time a flicker of uncertainty lit his features. "It was the first time I ever thought I could picture my life without Sean in it. And that scared me so bad, Gil. You have no idea."

Yes, I do, Gil thought, but made himself nod. "And now?" he said rustily.

"He’s got his new book, and the movie. His agent’s already setting up the book tour. And I’m tired of lying. I’m really tired of it."

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Nick’s, even though that long stare was so goddamn painful. "Then what, Nick?" Gil asked. "What are you telling me?"

"I looked at some apartments yesterday. I think I can swing it." Nick finally looked down, eyes scrying his bowl as if looking for some sort of sign. "I think I gotta – be by myself for a while. See what that’s like. I haven’t – done that in a long time."

"Why tell me?"

Nick’s glance was cautious, a little wounded. "I don’t know," he whispered. "Do you?"

"Because if you’re telling me you want to be with me, then that’s one thing. But otherwise – I have no idea. I don’t. What is it?"

Nick looked down again. Laid his spoon carefully on the table. "I’m not sure."

"Oh, for Christ’s sake." It felt good to be angry, for once. Refreshing. "Tell you what, Nick. You do what you have to do, all right? But you don’t have to clear it with me. Leave Sean, don’t leave Sean – it’s your decision. And I’m not your excuse, okay? Leave me out of it."

"That’s what I’m trying to do!" Nick snapped, leaning back in his chair. "Don’t you get it? I don’t want him to know that -- that –"

":That what? You were kissing me thirty seconds before he walked in the door? That if he hadn’t come home when he did –"

"It’s not an affair." Nick had gone pale, lips a tight white line. "We never."

Gil nodded. "No, we never. But is it so different?"

"It’s different because I don’t just want to fuck you!" Nick snapped.

Placing his elbows on the table, Gil laced his fingers together. "Then what do you want?"

"Like it isn’t obvious? Christ, Gil!"

"No, it’s not obvious. It’s not obvious at all. I can’t figure it out. You want me, you don’t want me. I mean, who’s manipulative here, Nick? Sean? Not from where I’m sitting. You want us both, and you can’t have us both. That’s it, that’s all. How else can you describe it?"

"I want some time, that’s all." Nick’s voice had stepped cheek-to-cheek with whining now. "So I can be sure."

"You know something? I’m not sure you’ll ever be sure." Gil tossed his unused napkin on the table. "Thanks for breakfast."

"Wait. Please."

He paused in the middle of standing. "For what, Nick? For an epiphany? For you to get off the fence and finally make up your mind?"

Nick’s eyes were huge and tragic. "Don’t go, not like this. Please, Gil."

Gil gave a crisp nod. "You know where I stand. The thing you have to decide is where you stand. But I can’t keep doing this. It’s not fair to us, and it’s for damn sure not fair to your partner."

"I’m sorry," Nick whispered. "I’m doing the best I can."

"Well, maybe you are. So am I. I think the best thing I can do is stop this, once and for all. You do what you have to do, Nick. And so will I."

He didn’t wait to see Nick’s reaction to that. He was striding out the door into golden early-morning sunshine, already dialing the cab company.

Chapter Eleven

Sean was waiting for him when he got home. Coffee made, glancing at a newspaper, smiling that incandescent smile when Nick walked through the door.

"Hi."

Nick nodded tiredly. "Hi."

When Sean hugged him – solicitous, God, he’d been so damned nice since the other night, God almighty was it only two nights ago? – it didn’t feel as good as it always had. Nice, sure. But it was a duty, not really much of a pleasure, and Nick extricated himself as quickly as he could.

Sean regarded him. "Long night?"

"Yeah."

"Want some breakfast?"

Nick shook his head. "Need a shower."

"Okay." Sean’s blue eyes narrowed. "You okay, baby? You seem – weird. Did something else happen?"

Oh yeah. You could say that. But he shook his head again, shrugged off Sean’s hand. "Just the usual crap. Listen, lemme grab a shower. I’ll feel better then."

Sean waggled his eyebrows. It used to make Nick grin. Now it made the weight on his shoulders suddenly double. "Want me to wash your back?"

"Sean, not right now. Okay?"

It got him a heavy sigh and an accusing look. "You know, you’ve gotten so bitchy lately. What the hell is your problem?"

"I’m tired and I stink and I want a shower," Nick fired back. "Which of those is a crime on your planet?"

"Whoa, sorry I even fucking suggested it." There was real hurt on Sean’s face, along with an alarming note of suspicion. "Something did happen, didn’t it? Why won’t you tell me?"

"God, will you just leave me ALONE?" Nick bellowed. "Jesus! What does it TAKE?"

Sean didn’t say anything at all to that. Just regarded him for a brief moment, and then turned to walk into the bedroom.

Fine. If nothing else, he could get his goddamn shower in peace. Starting to feel like the guy who’d nearly shot him the other day. Five more minutes of Sean’s nagging and he’d have hauled out his own sidearm.

His weird temper tantrum swirled down the drain a few minutes later, along with any energy he had left. Uncalled-for. Sean was just being Sean, after all. He’d always been nosy. Always had to know everything Nick was doing. And before now, Nick hadn’t minded telling him. Not that there’d been that much to tell, for a long time now. Work, work, eat, sleep, work, work.

Well, now he had something new to tell Sean, didn’t he? And man, this was really gonna knock Sean’s socks off.

Nick leaned against the tiled wall of the shower and closed his eyes. Was he sure about this? Was he sure about any of it? Because there would be no unsaying it, not once it was out. Sorry, Sean, but I need some space. Some time to think. I kissed my boss a few times, oh, sorry, guess I didn’t mention that before, but anyway, I did, see, and now when I look at you I’m not sure I like what I see anymore.

No. That wasn’t the truth either. The truth was he hadn’t been liking Sean much for a long time now. Maybe it was the move. Sean, away from his social circle, his security blanket of writer friends and cheering section, and what had been charming in Dallas was annoying here. Childish, selfish. Because it really wasn’t just Sean who’d lost a support system; it had been Nick, too. Hadn’t his parents footed the bill for a few things back in Turtle Creek? More than a few? And when there were fights – and when Sean dicked around on him the first time – there had been family to take up the slack, act as highly motivated counselors to get them talking again, help them smooth over the cracks.

Here in Vegas, well, the support was pretty much nonexistent. Financial or otherwise. He and Sean were on their own, and staring at the disintegrating bar of soap on the shower caddy, Nick thought bleakly that they hadn’t been doing well at all, not since they got there. Sean’s philandering, his own flirtation and near-…something with Gil Grissom were just symptoms. The disease was something neither he nor, he suspected, Sean, had been willing to look at too closely.

How long had it been since he’d been happy with Sean? Months? Why did Dallas seem like Eden compared to Vegas? What had been so much better there, and gone so totally balls-up in Nevada?

Really, things hadn’t been all that perfect the last two years in Dallas. He’d pushed that away, didn’t want to admit it, but hadn’t the move to Vegas been a valiant attempt at keeping them together, motivated, interested? It had been a great day when Nick told Sean he was interviewing for the job. Vegas, Sean said. Holy shit. That’d be a blast. And he’d supported it all the way, but had it been for Nick’s career? Or just a change of scenery?

The water was running cooler, and he didn’t have any answers. He wearily turned off the taps and dried off, cinching the towel around his waist and drawing a deep breath before heading for the bedroom.

Sean lay on the bed, back to the door, with a book in his hand. His body was a long, tense line, not relaxing when Nick sat down Indian-style on the other side.

"Sorry about earlier," Nick said softly. "I was a dick."

"Yeah, you were." Sean still didn’t turn over and look at him.

"I think we need to talk."

"So talk."

Nick made a face. "I’d rather talk to your face than your back."

With a sigh Sean tossed the book on the bedside table and rolled over. His face was set, that carefully guarded expression Nick recognized from more than a few arguments in the past. Stubborn, waiting for Nick to make the first move.

And beautiful, and familiar, and for a moment Nick couldn’t speak at all. Just sit there while a wave of anguish and regret rolled over him. How had it all gone so wrong, so utterly awfully wrong? When? Because of all the emotions roiling through him right now, he couldn’t find any that seemed like love to him. Just something bittersweet, and tired.

Sean’s face softened, straight brows meeting over his eyes. "What is it?"

Nick nodded. "I’m gonna move out for a while."

Sean sat up slowly. His blue eyes were wide, uncomprehending. "What?"

"I need some time. I’m not -- I don’t know. I need to think."

"Wait a second." Red flooded Sean’s pale cheeks. "You’re -- Did you say you’re moving OUT? You –"

"I want to spend some time – apart. Yeah."

"You’re LEAVING me?"

"Sean, just –"

"Who is he?"

Nick blinked at him. "Huh?"

Sean’s mouth had gone tight, blue eyes turned thunderstorm-gray. "You met someone, didn’t you?"

"It’s not that. It’s not, Sean, it’s us. That’s why. That’s it."

Sean nodded slowly. "And you expect me to believe that?" he whispered. A tiny, ugly smile had appeared on his lips. "Right. Right, Nick. Sure."

"God damn it, Sean –"

"It’s that guy, isn’t it? The one you work with."

Nick swallowed. "Gil."

"Gil. You fucking called him Grissom a month ago. I KNEW it. MotherFUCKER." Sean sprang off the bed, all lithe coiled energy. "I knew it when he was HERE. In our HOUSE."

Watching warily, Nick said, "It’s not about him. It’s about us. I mean that."

Sean had paced over to the dresser; now he spun around again. "You’re punishing me, aren’t you? You’re getting me back."

"What? Aw, damn it, Sean, why’s it always about YOU?"

Sean snorted. "I knew you weren’t gonna let me off the hook for that. You’ve been sitting there WAITING, just waiting until everything was GREAT, the book, the fucking movie, and then you do this. Oh, that’s nice, Nicky. Great timing. Just perfect."

"Would you listen to me? Shit! It has nothing to do with that. I just –" He cleared his throat, closed his eyes briefly. "Maybe it’s just for a while. I don’t know. I just – I need to go."

"Go where? His house? That where you’re gonna live now?"

"No," Nick said tiredly. "I’ve never even been to Grissom’s house, Sean. I don’t even know where it is."

"Right. Tell me another one." Sean grabbed the tee shirt lying at the foot of the bed and stalked out, shoving his arms into it.

Holding the towel around his waist and wishing he’d taken the time to put on some clothes before starting this, Nick followed him. "Sean, wait. Would you wait a second?"

"For what?" Sean snapped over his shoulder. "More punishment? No thanks."

"I’m not PUNISHING you! For God’s sake, is that what you think this is?"

Sean took a beer out of the fridge and spun off the top. "I know what this is," he said clearly. "So come on. Lemme have it."

Nick gazed at him. "What do you mean?"

"Get it out of your system. What’d I do? Yell, scream, come on, Nick. I can take it. But don’t give me this bullshit about moving out and I need to think." Sean rolled his eyes and took a big gulp of his beer. "That’s just crap."

"Get it out of my SYSTEM?" Nick kept on gaping at him.

"I mean, you did this in Dallas, remember? ‘Oh, Sean, I just think I need to spend some time away from you, get my head on straight.’" Sean grinned, but there was no humor in it. "You lasted two weeks, and then you couldn’t get back fast enough. ‘Look, Sean, I got an interview. Wanna come with me?’"

"It wasn’t the same," Nick said thickly. "Not even close."

"Oh really? Sounds exactly the same to me."

God, he hated this. Hated how Sean was better at this than he was. Better at fighting, better at remembering things. Better with words. He felt impotent, fuming, ridiculous. "Have it your way," Nick muttered, turning around. "I don’t fucking care anymore."

In the bedroom he dressed fast, jeans and a sweatshirt, and then hauled the black overnight bag out of the closet. A few things, he could come back for the rest later. Worry about that some other time. Clothes, needed some shit to wear to work. He pulled shirts off hangers, impatiently avoiding Sean’s stuff.

"Oh, come on," Sean said from the doorway. "Nick, just stop it. All right? Come on, have a beer. Let’s talk like grownups. All right?"

"I tried that," Nick said tightly. "You didn’t listen."

"Okay, I’m listening now. Okay? Come on." He felt Sean walking up behind him, felt his hands touch Nick’s shoulders. "Don’t be like this. We’ll talk, we’ll work it out. We always do, baby."

Nick shrugged away from him, tossing the handful of shirts in the direction of his bag. "We always do what you want, Sean. That’s what we always do. And I’m tired of it."

"Tired of what? You’re not paying my way anymore. I know you did for a while, but I got a six-figure check in the bank that says that’s over."

"Great. We got rent due."

"Nick." God, he hated that tone. That silky, knowing voice. Used to work on him like balm, now it felt like needles pricking his skin. "Baby, come ON. Come on, look at me."

He stood very still, and when Sean touched his shoulders again he let him turn him around. Sean’s expression was calm, faintly, infuriatingly amused. "You are SO worked up about this," he crooned, fingers kneading Nick’s muscles. "And I still haven’t even figured out what. You aren’t screwing your boss, and you aren’t pulling some diva act because of the thing a few months ago. I mean, where’s this coming from, honey? Is it what happened the other night? The guy at the 7-Eleven?"

"U-Stop," Nick whispered. "It was a U-Stop."

"Okay." Sean smiled ingratiatingly. "Is it that? It freaked you out, I know. Maybe you feel like you need to assert some authority or something?"

"Don’t psychoanalyze me," Nick spat. "Don’t even fucking try."

"Well, I mean, look at yourself! You’re about to crawl out of your own skin, and you can’t even tell me why! Nicky, you don’t want to move out. Oh baby, that ain’t it."

His eyes were burning with furious tears. "You always tell me what I want. Don’t DO that. You don’t know what I want!"

"What would you do, by yourself? You’ve never BEEN by yourself."

"I can’t think around you. I’ve tried, and I can’t. You always – do this."

"Maybe that’s because I know you, honey. Ever think of that?" Sean’s hands were back on his shoulders, fingers sliding up to stroke his neck. "I know you really, really well."

No, you don’t, Nick thought, and felt tears escaping, ridiculous, childish tears.

"Baby, don’t cry." Sean sighed, and pulled him close, holding tight when Nick struggled reflexively and then went still. "You’re right, this is partly my fault. I didn’t know you were getting this messed up. In your head, all turned around like this. I got so into the book, and all that stuff, and I didn’t see it until now."

"Let me go," Nick whispered against Sean’s shoulder. "Just please let me go."

"I’m not gonna do that, Nicky. I’m not. And when you get your head cleared up you’ll thank me for that, okay? You’ll see. I’m right about this. You just need to relax, and let go of all this stress, and everything will be okay."

Nick shook his head blindly. "It won’t."

"It will. Listen to me." Sean drew back a few inches, and his hands came up to cradle Nick’s face, fingers stroking his cheeks. The storm-gray had gone from his eyes; they were back to clear, lustrous blue. "It will," he said softly, "because we belong together. We always did, from that very first day. We will always be together. We swore it in College Station, and we’ve done it, and we’ll always do it. We’ll always make it. Even when shit happens. We belong to each other. That’s the way it will always be, Nicky."

"No," Nick whispered.

Sean smiled indulgently. "Yes. We don’t have a choice. It’s fate. It was always fate."

After a few minutes, Sean hung up the shirts. Nick sat on the edge of the bed, not watching, staring at his knees, at his hands lying limp and powerless in his lap. When Sean undressed him, he didn’t protest. Didn’t help. Just let him.

And in bed, when he curled away from Sean’s roving hands, Sean propped himself up on one elbow and gazed down at him, tracing Nick’s jaw with his fingers. "It’ll be all right, Nicky," he said softly. "I promise you. Everything will be all right."

Lying in the cool, curtained bedroom, Sean’s arm warm draped over his belly, Nick turned away, gazing at the far wall. Funny, he didn’t feel like crying at all now. Just tired. So damn tired. Sean’s hand moved on his skin, and he closed his dry eyes.

Chapter Twelve

Reactionary, but he threw himself into work after the dismal golden morning and Nick’s stuttered excuses. He’d said his piece; he’d made his position clear. What more could he do? Nothing, and so he applied himself to his job, kept his focus in a way that he hadn’t for weeks now.

Of course he saw Nick all the time. Inevitable, after all. But with zero hesitation he undertook to avoid being alone with him. Best to stay out of harm’s way. He’d already contributed enough to this mess; he had no intention of doing more.

Calm, decision made, he felt better than he had in months. Productive, sharp, insightful. The news of Hugh Tomlinson’s indictment was more balm to his nerves. Son of a bitch deserved everything he got. His only regret was that Fran Tomlinson wasn’t included in the indictment. Abuser she might not have directly been; enabler, most certainly.

He said as much to the ADA, but had to content himself with what he had. And hope that what he remembered of childhood Catholic school held true, and that Fran would get her just desserts in the end.

As accustomed as he was to Catherine sometimes playing the role of voice of his own subconscious, he was unprepared for the way it turned out. That Catherine, embroiled in the latest of her husband’s foolhardy exploits, would be paying so little attention, and that it would be Warrick, calm and sharp-eyed and inexorable, who would point out to him the things right under his nose.

"Nice place," Gil said expansively, and sipped his drink.

Warrick glanced around the tiny bar and shrugged. "Ain’t exactly the Blue Note, but it’ll do."

"I enjoyed your set. I hadn’t heard some of that – new?"

"Some of it."

"Very good."

Warrick gave a slow smile. "Thanks, man. Surprised me, seeing you here. Didn’t think you’d make it."

Gil lifted his eyebrows. "I’m off tonight, and you’re playing. I love jazz. Why wouldn’t I be here?"

"Yeah, well, I appreciate it. Just wanted you to know that."

"My pleasure, Warrick."

"Thought Nick was gonna show. Guess not."

Gil took another sip of his martini. "I didn’t know he was planning to be here."

Warrick gave another shrug and picked up his beer. "Said he would if he could. Something about his partner and this party tonight. Guess the party won out."

"Sounds like it. I’m sorry."

"Nah, don’t be. He’s from Texas; what does he know from jazz?" Warrick smiled crookedly and drank some beer. "So what’s with you and him anyway?"

Gil froze in the midst of setting down his glass. Then, placing it carefully on the table, he replied, "I’m not sure what you mean."

"Just thought you were pissed at him or something. He sure thinks that."

"Pissed?"

Warrick gave a slow nod. "He screw something up?"

Gil drew a long breath and leaned back in his seat. "No," he said carefully. "Not as such."

"All right. Hey, look, none of my business, right? Just, he hasn’t been acting right lately. I figured it was Sean, you know, whatever. Think the guy’s depressed or something. He ain’t been himself, that’s for sure. You know, he didn’t even give me shit about that Hernandez thing. No way he’d have missed that before. This time?" Warrick shook his head. "Just let it fly right on by."

"I’m sure he’s all right," Gil said uneasily.

"Yeah. Will be, yeah."

"How well do you know Nick?"

He saw Warrick digest that, a rather unexpectedly personal question from someone like Gil. "All right, I guess. Hang out with him sometimes, grab a beer, that kind of thing. I know he’s bent. Got a significant other, all that." He shrugged.

"And he seems -- depressed?"

"Lately, yeah. I’m no shrink, you know? I mean, I do the job. The rest, well. But I guess, yeah. Think there’s something going on?"

"I’m not sure," Gil said softly.

Warrick gave a slow nod. "Right. Hey listen, I gotta get back up there. Break’s over. You gonna stick around a while?"

"For a while, yeah."

"Cool. Later, Grissom."

A few minutes later Warrick was back at the piano, face serene, and Gil leaned back again, letting the cool, intricate music wash over him. How long would it be before some company signed him? Of course he had to make the demo first. But the man was astonishingly talented. Wasted on forensics, even if he was good at that, too. Others could be equally good. But no one Gil knew would be able to make a piano sing as Warrick did.

He closed his eyes and listened.

~~~~~~~~~

But he paid more attention after that. Excruciatingly aware of Warrick’s words, he watched Nick the next night. Covertly, oh, not so that anyone would particularly notice. But he watched.

He saw it immediately. Darkness clung like a caul over Nick’s face, shrouding his expressions, damping the normally bright light in his eyes.

Something had happened, yes. But instead of invigorating Nick, it had sucked some essential force out of him. He walked like Nick, talked like Nick. But some very Nick-ish part of Nick was missing.

Late in the shift, Gil sat in his office and felt the first shiver of real, sharp alarm. While he’d sat on his hands, smug in his certainty that all of this was Nick’s responsibility, Nick had – faded. And there really was only one explanation for that, wasn’t there?

Shoe’s on the other foot now, Gil, isn’t it? How’s that feel? You told him to do something, and it looks a lot like he did, and now evidently it’s backfiring in a serious way. Still ready to sit on your high horse and not participate?

Hot with furtive shame, he went home without seeing Nick again, and went to bed knowing sleep would be slow in coming. Nonexistent, as it happened; every time he closed his eyes it jolted them open again, the memory of Nick’s dismal affect, the knowledge that he himself had very much shoved Nick into the middle of the pool and commanded him to swim, and turned his back before checking to see if Nick would be able to dog-paddle his way out again.

Finally he made coffee, heavily medicated with brandy, and sat in his living room. It didn’t come naturally to him, this introspection. If Nick carried his heart on his sleeve, Gil himself buried his so deeply at times that uncovering it, revealing its secrets, was a monumental task. Easy to admit he felt a physical attraction; it was simple, direct, easily satisfied. But beyond that he rarely dared to go, and now, struggling with self-examination, he felt a scalding rush of awareness. He was a participant in this, whether or not he found it comfortable to acknowledge. It was he who had made that too-critical first move. Even if Nick had wanted him to do it, in his conflicted unspoken way, this was something Gil couldn’t pin on him.

Pandora’s box, Gil. You opened it yourself. Whatever happened later, that’s one thing that remains crystal clear.

He switched to plain coffee around four, and ignored his own bloodshot eyes when he went to take his shower.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next day he took out Sean’s book and began rereading it.

He remembered the gist of it, of course. The cover was reminder enough. The protagonist was a man in his early thirties, a police detective caught up in a convoluted serial-killer case. Hiding the fact of his sexuality as well as the presence of a long-term lover in his life, the man ended up allowing the killer to escape, and in his own blind rage with himself, self-hatred, killed the lover himself.

Two chapters in, he was reminded again of how very gifted a writer Sean Barton truly was. The tale was compulsively readable, and yet repellent at the same time: He disliked Jonathan Myer, mistrusted him, and felt a deep surge of protectiveness for his lover, David. David, whose fascination with birds and migratory patterns and fluctuating avian populations ran like a narrow silver thread throughout the book.

Did Nick like birds? Was he a bird-watcher, something? Was Nick David? What did that mean?

Two pages into the third chapter, he shut the book with a snap. He scouted out his cell phone, and dialed Nick’s number with a finger that trembled terribly.

Nick sounded groggy when he picked up. "’Lo?"

"Nick, it’s Grissom. Is this a good time?"

A long pause, and the sleepiness had faded considerably from Nick’s voice when he spoke again. "Yeah. It is now."

"I want you to do something for me."

"What?" Slow, and mulish.

"Can you meet me before work?"

"Jesus. I don’t -- I don’t know."

Gil swallowed. "It’s important, Nick," he said tightly. "It could be very important."

Nick cleared his throat. "Okay. Where?"

"Anywhere. The taqueria, or the diner. The diner, yes."

"Why?"

Gil nodded slowly. "I can’t tell you that, not yet."

"You son of a –"

"Nick, listen to me. Bring a copy of Sean’s second book."

This time Nick’s voice was pure surprise. "Huh?"

"If you can, don’t let him know you have it. You can do it, can’t you?"

"Well, yeah, but –"

"I’ll explain later. Just bring it, Nick, please."

"You’re a bastard. God, Gil."

"Be that as it may. Six o’clock, at the diner. Nick, not a word of this to Sean. Do you understand me?"

"No, I don’t understand," Nick said icily. "You haven’t TOLD me anything."

"I will. I promise. Just – be there. Please."

A very long pause, and then Nick muttered, "All right, okay."

~~~~~~~~

He kept the first book in his briefcase, safely out of sight, and waited with a cup of coffee in front of him for Nick to show up. Which he did, albeit a quarter of an hour late. Looking exhausted, and angry, and carrying a binder under his arm.

Nick set the binder on the table and put his palm flat on the cover. "Tell me why," he said by way of greeting. "Before anything else."

"A suspicion," Gil replied haltingly. "I’m not sure I can say more than that."

Nick snorted. "Not good enough."

Gil nodded. "Do you like birds, Nick?"

That made Nick pause, eyes narrowing. "Why?"

"Just answer me. Do you? Do you bird-watch?"

"What the fuck are you talking about? I used to, yeah. My dad, he’s into birds, and he got me into it years ago. But I don’t so much, not anymore. No time, why, Gil? What has this got to do with anything?"

"Let me read the second book," Gil said slowly. "Then I’ll know."

"Sean would kick my ass if he knew I was doing this." Nick’s fingers slid away from the binder. "You have no fucking idea."

Gil touched the binder and slid it over. "Don’t be too sure of that," he murmured.

"That’s it? You asked me here to give you Sean’s BOOK? What, you just dying for a sneak peek? Wanna beat the rush or something?" Nick slumped back against the cushion with a snort. "That’s nice."

Hands flat on the binder, Gil said, "You didn’t leave him."

"Not yet," Nick muttered.

Gil licked his dry lips. "I think you should. As soon as possible."

"Oh really."

"Yes. If you need a place to stay, you can stay with me. I mean that."

Nick sat up sharply, hands going to press palms-flat against his temples. "God, I’m so tired of everyone telling me what I’m supposed to DO! Just stop! Stop – ordering me around!"

"Who else is telling you? Sean? Does he order you around?"

"Fuck." Nick’s arms came down, and he grasped the edge of the table, pulling himself upright. "I want that back tomorrow, you got it?" he said harshly. "Read it, whatever, but I gotta have it back fast. You understand?"

Gil nodded slowly. "Don’t worry," he said softly. "I won’t let you down. I promise, Nicky. I won’t let you down."

Standing, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, Nick gazed at him, and then sighed and shook his head. "Okay. I gotta go."

"Be careful. Promise me."

"Whatever."

He watched Nick’s retreating back, and only blinked when the bell hanging from the door jangled loudly. The heavy binder under his hand felt warm, alive. With a fast shiver Gil drained the rest of his cup of coffee and laid a couple of bills on the table, and then picked up the book and made his way out.

Chapter Thirteen

He borrowed money from Cabe for the apartment deposit. No telling older brother what the money was for; Cabe was curious, of course, but Nick had never asked him for money before, and Cabe and his lucrative law practice could afford the relatively small sum. Nick made sure Cabe knew he’d be repaying it as soon as possible, and beyond that said nothing at all.

That same day, Sean announced they were going to LA.

"Just ask for some time off," he said, while Nick gazed unsteadily at him. "A week or two."

"Sean, I need a little more notice than this. We’re shorthanded as it is; I can’t just –"

"So call in sick." Sean gave him an indulgent grin. "I have to go, you know that, and we’ll have fun. I promise. Come on, baby," he added, softening his tone. "I got like, four meetings, but the rest of the time we can play. Go out, go dancing, go sit on the beach…."

"It sounds good," Nick said after a moment. "I agree. But I don’t think I can swing it at work without some notice. I’m sorry, Sean."

Sean’s Cheshire smile disappeared. "Surely your buddy Gil would understand," he said tightly. His lips had thinned, and his teeth showed when he spoke again. "You and he are getting pretty chummy these days, aren’t you?"

"It’s not up to Grissom. It’s Brass’s decision, and believe me, I’m not chummy with him."

Blue eyes sparking with quick anger, Sean snapped, "Not yet, you mean."

"Sean, come on. I don’t work at the bookstore, where they let you make your own hours. I work –"

"I know exactly where you work. And who you work with." Sean’s grin was back, but Nick didn’t like the look of this one. "You don’t need the overtime anymore. And don’t even TRY to tell me you don’t have sick time. I know better."

"You sound like you think this is some goddamn hourly wage job. Like the diner. This is my CAREER, Sean. I can’t just flip it the damn bird. Call in sick when I’m not. Christ."

"It’s just a week! Since when would that make or break your career?"

"I’m not saying a week would, I’m saying not giving me any time to go through the right channels would –"

"Channels." Sean snorted. "Come on, Nicky. Just give ‘em one of those pretty smiles. Ask nice. You know how to do that; I’ve seen you do it. If you want it, you’ll get it." His smile warmed up again, dizzyingly. "And then we can actually kick back. Great hotel, great food, and it’s fucking California. Come on, baby. It’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna kick some serious ass."

After a moment Nick allowed a fractional nod. "I’ll see if I can swing it. It’s the best I can do."

Sean’s smile didn’t falter, but something in his blue eyes frosted over, glacial and startling. "Okay," he said softly. "Sure."

~~~~~~~~

Because he was honest – or at least tried to be – he asked dutifully once he was at work. Brass gave him a brief, shuttered glance. "Week after next? Warrick beat you to it. Sorry, kid. Give me a little more notice next time, see what I can do."

Nick nodded philosophically. There. Formality taken care of.

Only to make way for another. He found Gil in his office, jawing on the phone, and stood impatiently just outside the door. Not listening; he pretty much didn’t give a shit what Gil was talking about.

When he heard him hang up, he poked his head in. "Hey."

Grissom’s expression went from routine, calm, to vaguely – guilty – just like that. "Hi, Nick," he said. "Come in."

Nick stepped about a foot inside and lifted his chin. "You finished with Sean’s stuff?"

The weird guilty look changed, into something Nick couldn’t quite interpret. "Yes." Gil reached for his briefcase, took out the binder. "Here."

Nick took it and stuck it under his arm. "You read it?" he asked gruffly.

"Yes. I did. Thank you."

Gazing at him, Nick felt a sharp surge of anger in his throat. That’s it? What was it for, Gil? What the fuck are you up to? But he just said, "Whatever."

"Nick –"

"Tell me later. I got stuff to do."

He stashed the book in his locker and stalked off to check his DNA results.

Sean’s reaction to his news the next morning was far calmer than he expected. "Okay," was his reply. Measured, even. "Guess that’s that, then."

"Maybe I can drive up over the weekend."

"Sure. Sounds good."

Sean was quiet after that, eyes distant, but when he pulled Nick down on the bed a couple of hours later something in his tense features cut off Nick’s tired protest before he’d even drawn a breath to voice it. Sean fucked him hard, with the exquisite stamina that had so many times before stirred Nick to more than one loud orgasm, but this time he didn’t think he’d come at all, because it kind of hurt. And staring up at Sean’s flushed, intent face, Nick thought that it was supposed to hurt, it was purposeful, and he gritted his teeth and took it, and looked away when Sean’s expression turned to hot triumph, his voice thick and exultant in Nick’s ear.

When Sean fell asleep, Nick climbed wearily out of bed and took a shower. Washed off the bits of blood and kept his eyes fixed on the tiles, counting out how long until Sean left for LA.

That night Sean drove him to work, and kissed him before he got out of the car. His ass ached, and something chilled and bone-tired inside his chest, and not even the sight of Gil, the lingering questions there, much moved him. He went through work methodically, semi-interesting evening spent at the incredibly expensive house of a casino owner whose girlfriend had turned up dead in the hot tub, and at midnight, just when he was starting to think it might be a good idea to eat something more substantial than a granola bar, he looked up and saw Sean walking down the hallway, hands shoved in his pockets.

"Wanted to take you to lunch," was Sean’s only reply when Nick asked him what in the hell he was doing here at this hour. "Come on."

They ate enchiladas at the late-night mom-and-pop place three blocks down the street, and in the car Sean kissed him insistently, mouth flavored like smoky calabacitas, and said, "Is it so wrong for me to want you with me?"

Nick drew back into the passenger seat and slowly wiped his mouth. "You’re just pissed because you’re showing off," he said softly. "You want me around while you’re in the spotlight."

It was cruel, callously so, and he knew he’d meant it that way. Sean didn’t reply, but ground the gear into reverse.

In front of the lab, the air thick inside the car, Nick sighed and said, "I’m sorry. But I can’t do the dutiful wife thing this time, Sean. I can’t. Just suck it up, okay? I’ll be there next time." Liar. You won’t. You never will be again.

Gazing forward, Sean said, "You are my wife, Nicky."

Nick froze with his hand on the door latch. "What?"

Sean’s mouth curved, the suggestion of a smile. "You always have been."

"You fucker," Nick breathed, eyes wide. "You did not just SAY that."

"You belong with me," Sean continued, finally turning to look at him. His hand came out to smooth over Nick’s cheek, and when Nick twitched his head to the side Sean’s fingers closed on his chin, pinching tight. "At my side, Nicky," Sean hissed. "That doesn’t change because your job has given you delusions of grandeur. Nothing changes that. Ever."

Gazing at Sean’s stranger’s face, Nick felt a shudder of thick dread. The pinch of Sean’s fingers was making his eyes water. He reached up and grasped Sean’s wrist, closed his own hand over the slim bones until Sean let go, eyes widening slightly. "Lots of things change, Sean," Nick replied. "Plenty. All the time."

"Not this." But there was a degree of reserve in Sean’s voice now, a little backing-off. "Not even close."

"I have to go," Nick said. "Go home, Sean."

"Aw, Nicky." Sean sighed, flopped back in the seat. "I didn’t mean it, all right? Just – heat of the moment, whatever. You drive me crazy, you know that? Fucking crazy."

Nick nodded grimly. "You ever touch me like that again – ever." He had to swallow. "I’ll break your wrist, Sean. That’s a promise."

Sean looked at him, face blank in the dim car. Nick drew another breath, and then climbed out.

He hid his trembling hands in his pockets when Brass waylaid him in the hall a few minutes later, asking for a progress report.

~~~~~~~~~~

The fibers analysis could wait, really, but he lingered over it anyway, taking his time with very routine shit, calmly checking his results. Putting off going home, Nick-eee? Well, that’s one way to handle this. There’s another, even better. Grab Cabe’s money when the bank opens and go pay that deposit. Get the fuck out while you still can.

Yeah, that’s the best solution. But is it the one you’ll choose? Wonder what kind of odds Warrick would give you on that?

He took his printout off the machine and eyed it glumly, and then glanced at the doorway. Grissom stood awkwardly, arms dangling at his sides. Backlit by the corridor fluorescents, his expression was murky. "I didn’t know if you’d still be here."

Nick brandished the report. "Dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s."

"I’d like to talk to you."

"You are talking to me."

Grissom shifted a little. "A more private place."

Nick looked away, unclipping the last slide from the ‘scope and storing it in the box. "Seems like every time we find a more private place, we end up doing shit we regret, Gil," he said coolly. "Besides, didn’t you say this was my problem? Not yours?"

"I regret that. I laid the entire burden at your feet, and – That was unfair of me."

"Yeah, no shit." He stood and heard his knees pop loudly. It still kind of hurt to sit, and the memory of why that was so gave his voice a little more bite than he really intended. "Doesn’t change anything. It IS my problem. Don’t worry about it."

"I am worried. Very much so."

"Okay, well, that’s your choice, all right?"

"Where’s your car? I didn’t see it outside."

Nick picked up his report and shoved the chair back under the table. "Sean drove me."

"Need a ride?"

He drew a breath to retort, something along the lines of he could damn well afford a cab right now, thanks so much, and Gil held up his hand. "Please, Nick," he said in that same soft, urgent voice. "If I didn’t believe it was important, I wouldn’t push. But I do."

Nick gave a slow nod. "So what I thought was important, the other day -- You could walk away from that. But now it’s important to you, and I’m supposed to do as you say? That’s a nice double standard you got going there, Gil."

Staring at Gil’s tense face, he could see the barb hit home. No flinch, nothing like that, but Gil swallowed, nodded fractionally. "Maybe so," he said in a rusty voice. "I was wrong before. I don’t believe I’m wrong now. I – care about you, Nick. More than I think I realized until two days ago." His cheeks had gone a dull red, and he swallowed again. "I don’t want anything to happen to you."

Try as he might, he couldn’t see any deceit in Gil’s eyes. Regret, anxiety, yes. But no lies. Whatever he believed, he really believed it. And seeing that, Nick couldn’t find it in himself to turn away.

"All right," he said evenly. "So guess I need a lift, then."

Gil gave a tiny nod. "Okay."

~~~~~~~~~

Some kids were playing a mutant form of kickball in the park. It took seeing that, considering it was nine o’clock in the morning, before he realized it was Saturday. No school today.

Watching through the car window, Nick said, "Let me get this straight. You think that I’m David. And Sean is pretty much a sociopath. That about cover it?"

Beside him, Gil sighed. "Nick –"

"No, I really want to know." Nick turned his head, glancing over at him. "I mean, I’m curious. Does that mean you think Sean’s going to KILL me?"

Gil rubbed an eye and said, "It’s not that simple."

"Seems pretty simple to me. I’m mean, you’re saying I should take my goddamn sidearm to bed with me this morning, and –"

"Have you read the second book?"

"It’s called The Hyacinth Girl."

"I thought you were David. At first. The birds. Other – ideas. But Enter Screaming was a prelude, I think."

"To what?"

"The first book was about the frustration of not being able to own someone. Jonathan and David are -- David IS those birds. David essentially cannot be caged. And when he finally realizes that, when he realizes David will never be his chattel, Jonathan kills him."

Nick sighed. "It’s a Biblical reference, I mean –"

"Maybe it was intended to be. But the David and Jonathan of the Bible loved each other. Jonathan doesn’t love David here. He can’t. He isn’t capable."

He felt dizzy, and somehow detached from the conversation. This wasn’t actually real. It felt more like discussing some old case, some precedent-setting event that had happened decades ago.

"The second book," Gil continued in that same leaden voice, "is much more mature. Andrew is filled with good intentions. But the proprietary nature of that relationship, Andrew’s with Carlo’s -- That’s the same."

"Carlo doesn’t die," Nick said softly.

"Doesn’t he? What is left of Carlo by the end? When all is said and done? Fragments, tiny glimpses. Most of what made him Carlo is gone. Isn’t that a kind of death, Nick? Hasn’t Andrew slaughtered Carlo in all but the physical form?"

"You make it sound so – horrible," Nick whispered.

"It is. It’s dreadful, monstrous." Gil’s eyes were terribly blue, imploring. Begging him to understand, to agree. "Carlo is a CHILD at the end, Nick," Gil whispered. "He’s broken, docile. And Andrew doesn’t see anything WRONG with that. To him, it’s a natural progression. The only progression. It’s fate. Fate!"

The detachment was gone. Gil’s words rang inside his head, a din like a dozen bells all clanging at once, not musical but a godawful racket, making it impossible to think.

Fate. Wasn’t that what Sean had told him? That morning, with Nick’s clothes strewn over the bed and Nick’s face pressed between Sean’s warm hands? They were fated. It was meant to be this way.

You are my wife. You have always been.

He swallowed a bubble of nausea. "I’m not Carlo, either."

"Not yet But how long until he makes you into him, Nick? How long?"

"Shut up," Nick whispered. "Jesus, you’re insane."

"What happened when you told him? I saw it on your face. You told him you were leaving him, didn’t you? And he talked you out of it."

Well, he’d zinged Gil earlier, hadn’t he? His turn now. He faced the park again. The kids had vanished, as if they hadn’t ever been there at all.

He jumped when Gil’s hand covered his. Warm fingers over his cool ones, squeezing and not letting go.

"Want me to say it out loud?" Gil still sounded hoarse. But steady. "Fine, I’ll say it. I don’t give a shit about Sean. I never have. But I know you do. And I’ve done my best to make my peace with that, to not interfere."

"Gil –"

"But." A much harder squeeze of his hand, hard enough to hurt. Gil met his dazed eyes with gleaming blue certainty. "I’m past that now. Do you understand me? I’m in the game. I will not let go easily." His expression contorted, became if anything even more intense. "Do you understand?"

Nick stared at him. His fingers were going numb. He nodded jerkily.

Gil’s grip loosened but didn’t let go. "Then don’t give him the chance," he whispered, with Nick’s hand an inch from his lips. "Don’t, Nicky."

"He’s not – evil."

"No. But is there really any difference?"

Nick swallowed and closed his eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~

"When does he leave?"

Nick fidgeted in his seat, eyeing the front door. The car was in the driveway. Sean was home. Expecting a call that hadn’t come. "Next week," he said thinly. "He’ll be gone for a week."

"Have you found a place yet?"

"Y-Yeah."

"Good. Excellent."

"I don’t want to see him," Nick whispered, and hated the shake he heard in his own voice.

"Jesus," Gil moaned beside him. "Jesus Christ, Nicky. Come home with me."

"No. I can’t."

"Why the hell not? Why can’t you? If it’s what you want?"

Because I’ve never been alone, Nick thought, while the house rippled in front of his eyes. Because I don’t know what I want. I’m not sure I ever have. "I have to go," he said. "Thanks for the lift."

"Call me. If you – need anything. Anything at all."

Nick gave a slow nod. "Sure, Gil. Okay."

He didn’t look back as he climbed out of the Mercedes.

Chapter Fourteen

There was no coffee waiting this time. In fact he didn’t see Sean at all, until he went into the bedroom. Sean lying on his back, fully dressed, talking on his phone and giving Nick the barest of glances before mumbling something goodbye-sounding and hanging up.

He’d walked to the closet and gotten out a sweatshirt when Sean said, "So how’s Gil?"

Lips tightening, Nick replied, "Fine. Gave me a ride."

"Yeah. I bet he did."

Nick drew a careful breath and turned. Sean’s face was an ugly mask of anger, eyes practically spitting blue sparks. "A lift," Nick added evenly. "You had the car, remember?"

"You were supposed to call me when you were done. I waited."

"What difference does it make? I’m home now, aren’t I?"

Sean sat up and rolled off the bed, all smooth economy of movement. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, you are." He smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant expression. "You look nervous. Why are you nervous, Nicky?"

Because you look like a predator with its eye on supper, maybe? Nick yanked off his shirt and stuck his arms in the sweatshirt. "I’m not," he said, muffled through the fleece. "But you’re not exactly being Prince Charming here, either."

When his head emerged from the top of the sweatshirt, Sean was a lot closer. Still that musing, dangerous look, that suddenly made Nick feel abysmally tired. "What?" he snapped, pulling the shirt down. "I mean, stop, Sean. Just fucking knock it off, all right?"

"Stop what? Stop caring when you drive up in another man’s car? A guy who practically drools all over you every time he sees you?" Sean reached out to pluck an imaginary piece of lint off Nick’s shirt. A strangely gentle gesture, next to the heat of his words. "You keep telling me I don’t have anything to worry about. And yet I keep seeing – worrisome things."

"You’ll get over it," Nick said tightly.

He didn’t wait for a reply. In the kitchen he got out the coffee and had gotten water in the machine before Sean doggedly followed him.

"You sat there for a few minutes. What was he saying to you?"

Nick grabbed the bag of coffee and scooped some out. "It was work shit, all right? What do you care? A case."

Sean’s hands touched his shoulders, not gripping tightly. Massaging. "Long night?"

"Pretty much."

"That guy gives me the creeps. He’s like what’s his name. The guy you were working with right before you transferred."

Nick closed the coffee and stuck it back in the cabinet. "Steve."

"Yeah." Sean’s arms slid around Nick’s waist. "He had it so bad for you. Kinda pathetic."

"Steve had a wife and three kids. He had responsibilities. I don’t think he felt the way you think he did."

"Are you kidding? Surprised he didn’t start licking you the minute you walked in the door." A tiny pause. "He didn’t, did he?"

Uncomfortably, Nick realized it was a joke, and with a pallid smile he turned in Sean’s arms. "No," he said softly. "Never licked me."

A tiny smile curled the corners of Sean’s wide mouth. "But he wanted to," he whispered. "That Gil guy does, too." He nuzzled Nick’s jaw, kissed it. "All…over."

I’d let him, Nick thought, closing his eyes while Sean kissed his throat, warmed his hands beneath Nick’s sweatshirt. In fact I hope he does, one of these days. And I think if you knew that part, you might just kill us both.

"You still mad at me about last night?" Sean asked against Nick’s ear.

"Yes."

"Gonna make it up to you. Make everything all better."

"How, Sean? How are you gonna do that?"

Sean drew back an inch and smiled. "Oh, this and that," he murmured. His hands slid up Nick’s torso, fingers tweaking Nick’s nipples. "I know what you like, baby."

In the instant before Sean kissed him, Nick thought bleakly, Do you? Maybe you do.

But not everything.

He wanted to tell himself it was just one of those things, routine, maybe just keeping Sean off his back – metaphorically, at least – until it was time for Sean to go to LA and Nick could get his ass out of here.

But the truth wasn’t that simple. The truth was that what Sean was doing felt so damn good. Might be a shitty excuse for a boyfriend, a user of the worst sort – and Nick was all over that, yep, no more illusions, no more denials, Sean was a leech and a cad and, if not quite a total loser, at least up there in the running. Books or not.

But he knew good and goddamn well what he was doing when it came to sex, and Nick might be within shouting distance of hating Sean now, but his body loved what Sean was doing. No matter what happened, no matter the shit, the fights, the degree to which Nick increasingly thought he wanted a very different person to be in this very same position with him – Sean could still get him hot, and keep him that way. Or so it appeared.

The coffee dripped into the pot unattended while Sean drew him into the bedroom, and ten minutes later the coffee was ready and Nick was, too, lying tense and trembling on his back, thighs spread as wide as he could get them, with his cock in Sean’s horribly talented mouth. Thinking, with the tiny fraction of his brain that could still think: What does this mean? Does it mean I’m not as sure about all this as I thought I was? Or does it mean that it doesn’t matter who does it, it just feels fucking great to get your dick sucked?

He arched his hips upward and whimpered, and felt Sean chuckle around him, hands kneading the soft insides of Nick’s thighs, cupping his balls and rolling them in his fingers. Bringing him so close, right to the fucking edge, and then slowing down, drawing it out until Nick was about to crawl right out of his skin, so helpless and taut with pleasure the tiny remainder of his brain just shorted out.

He squealed when Sean finally let him come, made that sound they both knew he only made when it was REALLY good, when he was out of his mind with it and couldn’t control the way his voice cycled up into the coloratura registers and warbled like a goddamn porn diva’s. And Sean just kept right on doing it, sucking him in so deep it felt like his dick was tucked up between Sean’s LUNGS, and Nick flopped back on the pillows and shuddered and twitched and felt a cramp building in his right thigh, kissing cramps, that’s what they used to call ‘em, except this was a sucking cramp, Jesus fucking CHRIST, he’d just come so hard he wasn’t sure he hadn’t had a goddamn aneurysm.

"That’s better," Sean whispered, sounding just a little raspy while he crawled up Nick’s sweaty limp body and stared down at him. His smile was luminous, triumphant. "Much, much better."

Nick pushed weakly at him, feeling relentless tears building behind his eyes. Bad enough that great sex sometimes made him cry anyway; this was something else, this was maybe goodbye sex, and that was goodbye to ten YEARS, goodbye to nearly a third of his life, and grief rose in a choking flood, regret and love and passion all confusingly mixed together.

"Don’t cry," Sean said softly, wiping Nick’s cheeks with his fingers. "Just gets better from here, honey."

Nick turned his face away, rolling onto his side.

And there was more presently, Sean’s talented mouth and tongue applied to another part of Nick’s anatomy that wasn’t objecting at all, making him stretch and purr and gasp while Sean rimmed him, opening him up for Sean’s cock. Here, too, Sean was generous, the way he could be when he wanted to be, stroking long and slow, long-dicking him until he started to get hard again, started squirming underneath him the way he had so many times before this. Sean’s teeth grazing his shoulder, tongue tracing lines of wet warmth from the nape of his neck to the middle of his back, and finally Nick was kneeling, face mashed against the pillow that was cool in spots, wet from his stupid, unstoppable tears, and Sean was gripping his hips with iron-tight expert fingers and fucking him fast and short, laughing in the middle of it with a sound of such unfettered joy that Nick gasped a harsh sob and jerked, spasmed again on the sheet while Sean grunted and buried himself deep and came inside his body.

~~~~~~~~

The sex helped for a little while. But that night, combing his hair and trying not to think about anything at all, he remembered the rest.

"Mmm, you smell good." Sean gazed at him in the mirror, smiling. "Edible."

Nick mustered an answering smile. "You already did that, remember?"

"Oh yeah. Oh, I remember." Sean gave Nick’s ass a squeeze. "Hey, listen, before you go, I wanted to ask you something."

Dread, cold and immediate, materialized in Nick’s chest. He set the comb on the counter and turned slowly. "What?"

"I was talking to David this morning. He said something kind of interesting."

"David your agent or David from Dallas?"

"Agent."

Nick nodded. "What did he say?"

"Don’t – flip out, okay?" Sean’s smile faded, his expression flattening. "Just – listen, for once?"

"All right, I’m listening." And I’m very sure it’s not something I want to hear.

"I mean, you’re so touchy these days. I never know when you’re going to take things the wrong way."

"Sean, just tell me. Okay?"

Sean gave a tense nod. "Okay. David thought it was time for me to think about moving to the city."

Nick blinked. "The city? What, New York City?"

"We’re so far away from everything here. From David, from the publisher, from – everything. Vegas is like, the moon, you know?" Sean slid his hands in his pockets, leaning against the bathroom wall. "Anyway. David, he said it would be a good career move. Be closer to things, be able to go in person for a look at the galleys. Meetings, that kind of thing."

Nick sagged back against the counter. "New YORK?"

"It’s just an idea. Not a plan, Nicky, okay? Just – running it by you." Sean’s hands came up, palms out.

It wasn’t like Sean to be this hesitant. And with a cold prickling up his spine, Nick knew. "You told him we’d do it, didn’t you?" he whispered.

"No. Did you hear what I just said? Just an idea!"

"But that’s not what you said to David, is it? You told him it sounded great. You let him think it was a done deal."

Sean’s mouth turned down, a slight twist of his lips that spoke eloquently. "I told him I’d ask you about it," he said in a thin voice. "And that’s what I’m doing!"

Nick snorted bleakly. "You always say you know me, Sean," he said slowly. "All the time. But guess what? I know you, too. And I can smell a lie from a lot farther away than this. I know exactly how that conversation went. You got all into the idea, and before you knew it you were telling him we’d be there next month, weren’t you?"

"Aw, Nicky –"

"No." Nick gave a crisp shake of his head. "That’s my answer."

Sean’s mouth opened and closed again, while his cheeks flushed dull red. "All right," he said thinly. "Fine."

"I gotta go to work."

He chose a shirt at random, and while he was still buttoning it, Sean came in the bedroom. "So that’s it, huh." He sounded hoarse. "No discussion. Just – no."

"That about covers it."

"And I guess the fact that I came to this fucking snotrag of a city for your career just – doesn’t count."

Tucking in his shirt, Nick glanced at him. "Don’t pull this shit on me, Sean. Don’t."

"What shit? Shit like how I dropped everything to follow you here? Shit like how when it’s MY turn, you won’t do the same for me? Is that the shit you’re referring to, Nick?"

Oddly, what would have made him feel guilty three months ago didn’t. He wasn’t sure why that was. After all, Sean was right. Sort of. Yeah. Nick shook his head slowly. "Guess that makes me an asshole then, doesn’t it? But you have my answer. What you want to do with it is up to you."

What he hadn’t planned on seeing was the hurt that crept into Sean’s wide blue eyes. Real hurt, and surprise, shocked surprise. "Wow," Sean said weakly. "Asshole’s putting it mildly."

"Look." Nick walked stiffly over to him. "If you really made it a choice, Sean, then yeah. We could discuss it. I still think I’d say no, but I wouldn’t be a jerk about it. But you didn’t make it a choice. You made it a done deal. And you’re standing there all hurt and shocked when I didn’t just jump."

"I DID ask you! God, you have short-term memory loss or something? What –"

"You’re also leaving shit out. Shit like how, back in Dallas, you told me you were the one who could work anywhere. You’re a writer; you can write wherever you are. You’re the one with the awesome memory; you remember that? Huh?"

Sean’s jaw jutted. Oh yeah. He fucking remembered.

"Well, I can’t do that with my job," Nick continued evenly. "Jobs in my field don’t grow on trees. Even if there was a position open in New York, you think I could get it? I have a degree from a middle-rank university and three years of experience. My resume’d be first in the shredder. I’m way underqualified. When guys with ivy-league degrees and a shitload more experience have trouble working the big markets, you think I have a shot? Think again."

"You’d find something," Sean muttered.

"Something. Yeah. Hello, retail. Or flipping burgers. Is that what you want for me, Sean? Is it?"

Sean lifted his chin. "Don’t you get it, Nick? Why the fuck would you WANT to work?"

Nick swallowed. "Huh?"

"You don’t have to. So why do it?"

Staring at him, Nick shook his head. "What are you saying?"

"What I’ve BEEN saying since I got paid for the screenplay! We’re RICH, baby, you don’t HAVE to work! Just –"

"We’re not rich. We’re not even close to rich. How long do you think that money’s gonna last, Sean? A year or two? What then? Just whistle a happy tune and hope our next ship comes in before that?" Nick drew back a couple of steps and snorted. "God, you’re such a – child sometimes! Grow up!"

Which, he thought later, had been a mistake. Because Sean hated sarcasm, hated snide, and that had been both but more of the latter. And was certainly why, instead of using the words that were Sean’s allies, the words that, until today, had always served him in far better stead than they ever had Nick, he belted him one.

Not the hardest punch Nick had ever taken – that was back in his PD days, a crack addict who’d laid him out with a right hook that felt like a wrecking ball to the face – but nothing to sniff at either, sending him reeling backward and fetching up hard against the bedpost.

Wriggling his fingers like they hurt, Sean snarled, "Don’t fucking call me a CHILD, Nicky. Fuck you."

Nick reached up to finger his jaw cautiously. Funny, but his mind felt incredibly clear. Even if he was going to have a bit of explaining to do in a few hours, if this bruised the way he thought it would. He found a warped smile on his face, along with the bruise. "Hey, I call it like I see it," he said rustily.

Sean’s lips pulled back from his teeth, and Nick said, "Go ahead." Low, tight, a voice he didn’t quite recognize from his own throat. Kind of a scary voice, he thought with distant satisfaction. "Try it. Hit me again, Sean. I promise it’ll be the last time."

They stared at each other, a long moment spinning out into longer, and Nick saw it when Sean backed down. A bleak kind of triumph surged through his veins. Yeah, you BETTER back off. You got five inches on me, but I got WAY more experience than you. Don’t wanna go to LA with your pretty face all smashed up, right? Looks bad in the pictures.

Nick straightened and tucked the back of his shirt back in. "See you later, Sean," he said crisply.

Sean still didn’t move when Nick brushed past him. And he didn’t follow him, while Nick grabbed his jacket and keys and opened the front door.

Chapter Fifteen

Whatever he was expecting – and these days he placed no bets on that – it wasn’t the grin on Nick’s face when he peeked into Gil’s office.

Nick’s bruised face, Gil revised, sitting up sharply.

"Hey," Nick said softly, fingers tapping on the doorjamb. "Whassup?"

"What happened to your face?" Gil asked.

Nick shrugged. "Don’t worry about it."

Surging out of his chair, Gil circled around the desk and walked over to the door. "I do worry," he said tensely. "Did Sean do that? Wait, don’t answer. Of course he did."

"It’s all right. Really." Nick’s smile was beautiful, making the reddish swelling on his jaw all the more stark. "I don’t think he’s gonna try that again."

"I hope you hit him back."

Nick’s gaze roved over Gil’s face, a curious cataloging expression. "Nah," he said absently. "Didn’t really have to."

Gil nodded slowly, and bit once on his lower lip before sighing, "How long again until he leaves?"

The grin was back. "Three days."

Something had changed. That much was clear. As clear as the energy suddenly sizzling up Gil’s spine, the tingle of ready, immediate interest. He’d actually leaned forward an inch before he came up short, realizing with a scalding shock that he’d been thinking of KISSING Nick. Right here, in his office. Or not thinking. Just acting, mindless as a hormone-driven 15-year-old boy.

Nick’s smile softened, becoming something both wistful and devious. "Later," he said huskily.

Watching him walk away, Gil swallowed and shifted uncomfortably. So Nick had things well in hand, in spite of the war wound on his face. At this rate Gil would have to take himself in hand, just to get through the night without straining something.

When he realized he was grinning, too, dopily and shamelessly, he ducked back inside his office and hid behind his computer.

The rest of the shift didn’t reveal anything more about whatever had transpired between Nick and his erstwhile partner, although Gil overheard Nick’s explanation more than once. A misunderstanding, he informed Catherine, whose skeptical expression wasn’t fooled. But she too seemed mollified by whatever else she saw on Nick’s battered face.

Then Brass called to tell him about a six-car pileup on the interstate, and the puzzle of what had started that cascade of vehicles crashing into each other absorbed him, at times so deeply he even forgot to be horny around Nick. Nick, who made a surreptitious bet with Warrick over the upcoming Spurs game in spite of Brass’s earlier edict, and who at a quarter of midnight uttered a heartfelt "Yes" after checking the score, gleefully ridding Warrick of what appeared to be a crisp new twenty. Business as usual, then.

Gil drew a deep breath of warm desert air, and went back to shining his flashlight over the chassis of an overturned Expedition.

~~~~~~~~~~

Some of the worry returned, near the end of the shift. Thinking inexorably about Nick, and that bruise, and whether it would have a companion by the next workday. Even seeing the man in question walk into his office, hearing him ask about maybe going to get some food, didn’t much ease Gil’s mind.

"You’re sure," Gil asked heavily.

Nick frowned. "About what? Breakfast?"

"Going back there. Sean."

"Oh. Yes, Gil. I can handle him." The frown was gone, almost as quickly as it had appeared. "So? You wanna get out of here?"

Carefully, Gil replied, "I think that should wait, Nick. A little while." Until he’s gone. At least for a week. Then I think I won’t be able to wait. Not a split second.

Nick’s lips formed a slow "o" of understanding. "Okay. I gotta run a couple of errands anyway. Pay that deposit."

"Good. Yes, please do that."

Nick’s grin made him feel odd all over. Feverish. "Believe me I will."

Not even his lingering concern over Nick’s apparent disregard for his partner’s violent turn could quite tamp down that low simmer, either. He went home about two hours later, still restless, seeing Nick’s handsome face in the video screen of his mind

and not just his face, buddy, let’s be honest now, you copped a look at his ass a few dozen times tonight, too

and feeling that erotic energy burning in his groin. He stood for thirty seconds in the shower before reaching down and finally, FINALLY taking care of the ache that had come very close to being a real agony. Didn’t take long, either; might have been long familiarity with the most economical motions to get the job done, but as he washed the traces off his body a few minutes later, he thought with dark humor that the explanation was much, much simpler.

That night the bruise on Nick’s jaw had darkened to purple, but there were no new ones, and if he was quieter, less jovial than before, Gil couldn’t see any return to that awful thundercloud that had followed Nick around for too long. Two more days, he thought grimly. Two more days, and Nick’s plan could be put into motion.

It sounded like forever.

~~~~~~~~~~

The morning of Sean’s scheduled departure for Los Angeles, Gil went in search of Nick. He found him in the garage, legs sticking out of the same battered Expedition that was looking more and more like Vehicle Zero in their mass collision case. A rollover, something Gil was finding wearyingly familiar in these sorts of cases.

"What time does he leave?" Gil asked quietly, leaning against the open passenger door.

Nick flinched, and from inside the vehicle Gil heard him mutter, "Ow." He emerged after another moment, rubbing his bumped head. "Scared me."

"Sorry."

"Need to hang a bell around your neck, something." Nick softened it with a wry look and clambered to his feet. His coverall was so dusty it looked mahogany, not dark blue. "Ten," he added in a lower voice.

"Are you driving him to the airport?"

Nick nodded and clapped his hands on his chest, watching the billowing dust. "Jeez. I’m Pigpen."

Gil snorted and fought down a sneeze. "It’s seven now. Maybe you should…"

The glance Nick shot him wasn’t fooled. "I know what time it is, Gil," he replied mildly. "I’m on it."

Shifting from one foot to the other, Gil said awkwardly, "I apologize. I was just –"

"I know." Nick’s dusty hand stole out and touched Gil’s lapel briefly. "It’s okay."

"When you – move your things. Would you like some help?"

Nick gave a slow nod and took back his hand. "Yeah. Yeah, that’d be good. Thanks."

"My pleasure."

"I gotta grab a shower."

Gil nodded. "Right. Yes."

"See you later, man."

"Be careful."

"I will."

At home he stewed, piddling with things, glancing too often at his watch, at the clock next to the refrigerator, the clock in the living room, the clock on his computer. At 10:15 he flopped down on the couch and released a colossal sigh. Gone. Sean was GONE. Christ. Finally.

His phone rang at a quarter to eleven. Gil was already smiling when he answered.

"So, I was thinking, you know." Nick sounded breathless, as if he were fighting down a bad case of the giggles. "You haven’t seen my new place."

"No," Gil agreed, sitting up. Suddenly he felt like giggling, too. Weird feeling. "Sure haven’t."

"It’s on Sierra. The Woodlands. Unit C48."

"Are you there?"

Nick gave a high laugh. "I’m looking at my living room. Kinda small, but it’ll do. How are you with arranging furniture?"

"Terrible," Gil gasped.

"Me, too. Come over."

"Okay."

It was harder to find than he anticipated, lost in a warren of an apartment complex, and it was nearly an hour before he saw Nick’s battered car tucked between a worse-looking Escort and a brand-new F250. When he climbed out of his own vehicle it felt as if his heart had climbed up right into his throat, clogging his breathing, and he paused to force a few lungfuls of air before walking to Nick’s new front door.

The door swung open before he’d gotten his finger away from the doorbell. Nick’s flushed face wasn’t grinning now, and Gil opened his mouth and Nick’s hand came out, grasping the front of his shirt and yanking him inside. Gil had the briefest glimpse of an empty, anonymous living room, the kitchen dark and silent behind a dividing bar, and then Nick’s mouth was covering his own, hands still locked in the folds of Gil’s shirt.

He’d thrown himself into that bottomless kiss, too, glorying in the feel of Nick’s hot tense body against his own, sliding his arms around Nick’s waist and pulling their groins flat together, until he felt the way Nick was shaking. Trembling all over, more than even this degree of sexual tension could explain. And so Gil broke away, bringing his hands up to touch Nick’s feverish cheeks, gazing into his dark eyes. Eyes, he saw, filled with tears.

"Nicky," Gil said hesitantly.

Nick gulped a loud, harsh breath. "He’s gone," he said in a high voice. "I can’t believe he’s gone."

Gil nodded slowly. "Not for good," he made himself say. "Don’t forget that."

"I don’t care." Tears beaded Nick’s eyelashes. "All I could think was – how bad I wanted to see you."

Troubled, Gil kept on nodding. "Me, too. But –"

"No, I’m okay." Nick gave a fast, shaky grin and dipped in to place another firm kiss on Gil’s lips. "So what do you think?"

Gil opened his mouth for another kiss, and when Nick pulled an inch away Gil mumbled, "About what?"

"The apartment."

"Oh." Breaking Nick’s avid gaze was like ripping off a limb; he flinched with the effort of it. "It’s nice," he said thickly. "S-Spartan."

"Need to buy furniture." Nick leaned in again, nose pressed against the side of Gil’s throat. "Something to sit on. Sleep on."

The sibilants were making the hair on the back of Gil’s neck stand up. Shifting a little, he found other parts of himself were not exactly uninterested, either. The realization was both alluring and a little terrifying. Nick didn’t even have a BED.

"You know how long it’s been since I kissed anybody but him?" Nick asked softly. His eyes darted over Gil’s face, eyes, hair, nose, cheeks, mouth.

"About thirty seconds?" Gil managed.

It brought possibly the most beautiful smile to Nick’s face Gil had yet seen. "Besides you," he whispered.

"A long time."

Nick gave a slow nod. "Really long. I forgot – what this feels like."

"Tell me?"

The gorgeous smile faded to an intent look. "Like I’m going out of my mind," Nick replied hoarsely. "Like I wanna fuck you right here on the floor."

The words went straight to Gil’s dick. He swallowed with difficulty. "What else?"

"Lots of things." Nick’s hands came up to touch Gil’s face, fingers tracing over his cheeks, past the curve of his ears, up to hesitantly brush over his hair. "Like, what do you eat for breakfast? What’s your middle name? What do you look like when you’re just about to come?"

With a thick sound Gil wrapped his arms around Nick’s waist and yanked him up against him, kissing his mouth hungrily. And Nick was right there, all of him, for the first time, Gil thought dimly, the first time he’d ever held all of Nick, not just the parts that Nick allowed, the bits that he didn’t keep in reserve for Sean. For a tiny second Gil wondered. What was he getting himself into? A studious loner like himself, embarking on a torrid affair with a young, vibrant colleague? Was he INSANE?

But nothing he’d done in years had felt as right as this did. Nick fit against him like a puzzle piece Gil hadn’t figured out was missing until now. The toned, sleek body, and Nick’s mind, too, sweet-natured and generous and so damned emotional. Filling in the spots Gil’s maker had missed, seamless as magic.

Nick clung to his shoulders, breath warm against Gil’s skin, and whispered, "Sound all right to you?"

With a laugh Gil nodded slowly. "Yeah," he murmured. "That sounds pretty damn great."

Chapter Sixteen

His preoccupation did not escape his colleagues’ notice.

Catherine chalked it up to yet another quirk in Gil’s already admittedly quirky personality. Warrick, slightly less distracted with no spouse or very young child to deal with, noticed more, but wasn’t the sort to linger over it, or confront him about his tendency to lose track of conversations in midstream, or the fact that he’d been caught twice now actually leaving the lab on time.

And for once Gil was glad for Jim Brass’s unsettled personal life, since very little escaped Jimbo’s notice under normal circumstances. No, he was happy with things the way they were: no questions, no prying looks, no real interest. Business as usual at the lab, for all intents and purposes, and Gil wanted very much for it to stay that way.

The fact that it wasn’t – that business had mixed with personal to a significant degree, and was likely to continue doing so into the foreseeable future – Gil chose not to mention to anyone. They’d know soon enough. Until then? Sleeping dogs.

But tonight, four days into Sean Barton’s long-awaited LA visit, Gil sat in his cluttered office and allowed himself the kind of smile he’d done his best not to let Catherine OR Warrick see. Just between him and his cockroaches, things were just about unspeakably rosy lately.

Sitting on the living-room floor in Nick’s cavernously empty new apartment, four days ago – only four? It felt like longer, much longer – he’d already known this changed everything.

"I guess I need a U-Haul or something," Nick mumbled against Gil’s throat. The position ought to have been uncomfortable: Nick practically sitting on him, so tightly wrapped around him that Gil wasn’t entirely sure where Nick ended and he began. But Gil didn’t mind it one bit. "I mean, gonna take a lot of trips in just the car."

Gil nodded and allowed a brief breath of Nick’s shampoo-smelling hair. "What will you take with you?"

"Dunno yet. Don’t want the furniture, at least not most of it. He can have it." Nick shifted a little, still holding on but sitting next to him now, back against the wall. "I don’t mean I’m gonna, like, clean him out," he added, a trace of discomfort in his low voice. "Just, you know. What’s really mine."

"Sounds reasonable."

Nick lifted his head and gazed at him. His expression was easy to read: musing, and a little besotted. "It would, to you," he murmured, lips turning up in a smile.

"Of course."

And then there really wasn’t anything else to say, just staring at each other, and Gil was almost uncomfortably aware that his face, too, was an open book. After all this time, all the crap of the past year, he was no more capable of dissembling than the rankest of amateurs. For better and hopefully not worse, he was set on this course, this bumpy risky road with Nick finally next to him, on the same page, the same paragraph, the very same words. He didn’t want to turn away; didn’t believe he could. Now he understood why the phrase was "falling in love." Because it was like falling. A screaming, uncontrolled descent into heart-pounding chaos. And he’d never been so glad to go.

Nick’s eyelids drooped, eyelashes fluttering, and Gil swallowed a groan because that wasn’t sleepiness, that was something else, something that matched the fast pounding of his own heart, the tight hot tension in his groin. "Let’s go to my place," he said, astounded at the thick growl of his own voice.

Against Gil’s throat, Nick nodded. "Yes," he whispered.

And driving to his own townhouse, Nick’s fingers warm over his hand on the gear shift, Gil felt that crazy smile again. That joyful look that would have startled Catherine speechless, had she been around to see it. That look of a man hurtling off the cliff, down, down to what he had absolutely no idea, only that he wished gravity would strengthen and pull him faster, bring him closer to whatever waited at the bottom.

Nick barely looked at the house. Too busy kissing Gil’s neck, fingers clumsily picking at Gil’s shirt buttons. Didn’t seem to care about the layout, the furniture, the carefully arranged shelves of books and trinkets picked up over a lifetime. With a shiver of uncaring joy, Gil thought, All that can wait, and herded Nick in the direction of the bedroom, yanking out Nick’s shirttail, running his hands up Nick’s bare flanks and listening greedily to the sound of Nick’s harsh indrawn breath.

His bed gave a loud alarming creak when they landed on it, but a millisecond’s prayer that the slats would hold and Gil had forgotten it, immersed in seeing just how fast he could get the rest of these annoying clothes off, himself and Nick both, and gazing at Nick’s flushed, unsmiling face and seeing his tongue sneak out, touch his lower lip. With a hoarse groan Gil kissed him, plastering him to the bed and kicking away his trousers, let them fall on the floor, he’d have them cleaned someday.

He had a brief glimpse of Nick’s naked body before it was too close to his own to see anymore. As beautiful as he’d imagined, too many times in this same bed, silent in the dark. There was time for looking later. So much time. Now he only wanted the sound of Nick’s voice, thick and heavy with lust and love, the feel of Nick’s tense thighs under his hands, opening to let him lie between them, against him. Nick’s hands skittering up his back, short nails dragging through the groove of Gil’s spine.

Should slow down, should draw it out, enjoy it, but he couldn’t, and Nick’s legs wrapped around him, clenching strong as iron, Nick’s mouth opening soundlessly when Gil shoved inside him, eyes wide and caught and pleading.

Half an hour later he picked up the lamp from where it had toppled off the bedside table. He hadn’t heard it fall. Had noticed when the stressed slats gave, but it was the most pleasant incline, a gasped laugh from Nick and a toothy grin and then Nick’s head going back, cords standing in his neck while he groaned and whined and then gave a sharp, high-pitched cry, tension melting into open-mouthed oblivion.

Gil drew a breath and leapt from the cliff, feeling the wind tangle in his hair, the whistle of his descent ringing in his bones. As the bottom came up to meet him, he grinned and threw back his head and sang, and the impact drove the breath from his body.

~~~~~~~~~

Of course it couldn’t always be like that. All metaphors and singing bones and shattered, rather expensive lamps. But when the inadvertent mess was cleaned up – in various forms – he lay with his head pillowed on Nick’s bare, sleek chest and thought there would always be some lingering flavor of that first time, every time he held Nick. Kissed him, fucked him. He was changed. There was no going back now. Only forward.

"Sorry about your lamp," Nick said, and his chest rumbled with a laugh.

"Screw the lamp."

"As it were."

Gil chuckled, too.

After a while, sitting half-dressed at the kitchen table, they ate spaghetti carbonara from a huge bowl, and talked, and when they made love again it should have been slower, eased by the knowledge that this was no longer the first time, did not have to be frantic. But it wasn’t slow, it was fast and hard and if no more of Gil’s accessories suffered a premature demise, it was only because they just happened to avoid them. This time when Nick came, it was with tears in his eyes, and without being told Gil knew that this, too, was Nick, this ready expression of emotion, and when it was done he held Nick’s sweat-trembling body against him and listened to him cry, listened calmly, and felt that he might fly apart because his own bones could not contain this feeling, this steady high pitch of joy.

They slept finally, in Gil’s lopsided bed, and Nick wore his pants with one of Gil’s shirts to work that night. And the next morning, without any discussion at all, Nick came with him when he went home, and ate the breakfast Gil made, complimented him on his cooking. And then screwed him over the breakfast table, Nick’s hands tight and confident on Gil’s hips, his hot, curved cock first painful and then mind-bogglingly good inside him, reaching up to touch that sweet, elusive spot, angling just right, and Gil screamed and beat his fists on the wooden table when he came, knees buckling and body held up mostly by the sheer force of Nick’s fucking, Nick’s voice squeezing another spasm out of him before he just lay there and took it, eyes closed and mouth hanging open while Nick bellowed and cursed and came inside him.

Late that afternoon, waking slowly with Nick’s fingers leisurely petting his hair, Gil said, "I love you."

Nick’s smile was sweet and sleepy. "I know."

~~~~~~~~~

On Friday morning, he drove Nick to pick up the U-Haul, ignoring Nick’s protests that at least one of them really ought to sleep today.

"I’m off this coming weekend," Gil told him calmly, turning the wheel with the heel of his hand. "I’ll be all right."

"If you say so." But Nick’s smile was transparently glad.

The rental house Nick had shared until now with Sean was a good distance from Nick’s new apartment. Probably intentional, although Gil didn’t ask him about that particular choice. Instead he let Nick direct him, pointing out various things to be stowed in the truck.

"I’ll get clothes and shit later," Nick puffed, the muscles in his arms standing out in sharp relief as he toted a television set out the doorway.

Breathless under the weight of books, Gil just nodded.

The truck wasn’t completely full by mid-afternoon, but Nick pronounced it good enough for now, and locked up the house before climbing behind the wheel of the U-Haul. Back at his apartment, Gil frowned when Nick told him he’d do the unloading himself. True, Nick had the night off and had the time for it. But still.

"Don’t worry about it," Nick said, leaning forward to kiss Gil’s mouth soundly. "Go home and get some damn sleep. I’ll talk to you later."

And so he did.

They were both off on Friday night, and so Gil went with him when he returned again to the rental house, toting a sack with strapping tape and a load of old newspapers from Gil’s garage. Nick’s kitchen was neat and well-stocked, but Gil observed him gnawing his upper lip while he surveyed the cabinets, visibly favoring one set of dishes and leaving the rest.

"These are more mine," was Nick’s only comment.

Wrapping a sheet of newsprint around a plate, Gil nodded.

The dishes, the cooking utensils, a few items from the pantry, and after they were done Gil couldn’t really see all that much of a difference. Far from cleaning Sean out, it looked to him as if Nick were leaving Sean a great deal more than he was taking. Just essentials, really. Like the furniture Nick had shaken his head over, the pictures, the knickknacks. Nick was cutting his ties even shorter than Gil had imagined.

"I don’t need a lot." Nick held a piece of delivery pizza loosely in one hand, without taking a bite. "It’s just – stuff, you know? But a lot of it just reminds me of things." He shrugged. He looked tired, and a little depressed. "I can get new stuff. I don’t – want the rest."

Gil picked the last olive from his slice of pizza and nodded. "I understand."

Nick took a bite of pizza and chewed without evident relish.

They hung Nick’s clothes on a bar suspended over the back seat of Nick’s car, stashed the boxes in the seat and stuffed as much as they could in the trunk. And when they walked back inside, Nick shoved his hands in his pockets and stood silently in the living room, gazing around.

Cautiously, Gil asked, "Are you all right?"

After a moment Nick nodded. "Just thinking."

"It’s a big change. Would you like me to – leave you alone? I can –"

"Nah." Nick shook his head, glancing at him. A precarious smile twisted his mouth. "Just -- Ten years. It’s a long time."

"Yes, it is."

"He’ll freak." The smile vanished, leaving Nick looking wan. "I mean, it’s so – sneaky. I tried not to make it this way, you know? Told him to his face I was leaving. But he just didn’t hear me."

Gil nodded. "Maybe because he didn’t want to hear what you had to say."

"No shit." Nick sighed, walking slowly into the kitchen. "I don’t know how else to do it. Maybe he’ll pay attention to this."

Spine tingling, Gil said, "I don’t think he’ll be able to ignore this, no."

Nick gave a listless snort. "Not much chance of that."

Gil walked to stand next to him, hand sneaking out to touch Nick’s waist. "Are you all right, Nicky?"

Nick turned into the touch, shoulders slumping. "Not really," he said after a long moment. "But I will be."

"Good."

Nick swallowed and reached out to place his hands flat on Gil’s chest. "This helps," he whispered. "I’m glad you’re here."

"I wouldn’t be anywhere else."

"Good."

Nick’s lips parted readily under his own, body drooping against him. No lustful tension this time; no, this was all grief and regrets, and no little anxiety, thrumming under Gil’s hands.

"You sure about all this?" Nick asked finally, breath sweet against Gil’s lips.

"Yeah," Gil replied. "I am."

"Me, too."

He remembered the feel of the kitchen counter against his hip, cool and unyielding, and Nick’s arms sliding around his neck, that deep, leisurely kiss. The promise of more in the near future.

And then someone said, "I don’t THINK so." Gil blinked, and drew away, and something happened to the back of his head, something that made a dull meaty thunk, and everything disappeared.

Chapter Seventeen

As paranoid as being inside the house made him feel, he never saw Sean come in. Blame the fucking sensational way Gil Grissom kissed – it would take a better man than Nick to be able to think coherently while making out with Gil.

And so when Sean spoke, Nick froze, and Gil twitched, and then Gil’s head snapped forward and smashed into Nick’s nose, and everything just went to hell.

A moment to think, Christ, this isn’t a nosebleed, this is a GEYSER, and then Nick caught Gil during his slide to the floor, a total limp weight in Nick’s arms, not insubstantial, nope. Blood dripped on Gil’s shoulder while Nick got him lying down – Sean had hit him, Sean had HIT Gil, in the HEAD – and then Nick blinked up at Sean and felt warm liquid streaming off his chin.

“You’ve been a naughty boy, Nicky,” Sean said. He was holding his baseball bat.

Hit Gil. Hit Gil HARD. Nick rocked back on his heels and said, “You better fucking hope he’s not dead.” Blood arced out in a little spraylet on the “p.”

“Saw all that crap outside and thought somebody was robbing us.” Sean uttered a high little jittery laugh, and Nick saw his fingers tighten on the bat. “And what do I find? You, and him. Lied to me, lied to my FACE, you fucking ASSHOLE –“

His anxious fingers found a pulse, strong and steady, but Gil wasn’t waking up. Lying there out cold, and now Nick saw the goose egg on the back of his head, huge motherfucker, oh Jesus, the longer he stayed out, the worse –

He got one foot under him and tasted blood before he launched himself at Sean.

Sean went down, too, didn’t hit his head, more’s the pity, but the baseball bat went flying, arcing over the breakfast bar and hitting something that crunched. Yeah, Sean might be able to land a decent punch when he had the chance

and cream the SHIT out of the back of Gil’s HEAD, Jesus Mary Mother of God could be a skull fracture could be ANYTHING

but so the fuck could Nick, given the right motivation, not ordinarily a fan of physical violence but right now he’d have beaten the shit out of Mike Tyson, no problem. He had the briefest glimpse of Sean’s twisted, shocked face, and then Nick’s fist took care of that, FELT Sean’s cheekbone give, never mind Nick’s hand was probably just as broken as Sean’s face, we can deal with that, in fact more, and the second blow did something to Sean’s jaw, and he went completely limp.

“Kill you,” Nick tried to scream, but all that came out was a whisper. “Kill you for that, KILL YOU, MOTHERFUCKER.”

Blood had drenched the front of his shirt, and he uttered a thick garbled sob before untangling himself from Sean’s legs, pushing away and crawling back over to Gil. Who was moving, a little, but his open eyes were blank, wandering over Nick’s face and away as if he hadn’t understood what he saw.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Nick crooned, and turned his head to spit a mouthful of bright red blood. “Everything’s gonna be okay, Gil. I promise, I swear to God. You’re gonna be just fine.”

The strange cast hadn’t cleared when Gil looked at him again. “Muh,” he said distinctly.

“Oh Jesus,” Nick warbled. His hands shook so much he could barely grab onto Gil, and Christ, there was blood EVERYWHERE, how could one nose bleed this much? His right hand was a hot blaze of pain. “Gil, look at me. You know where you are? Look at me, man.”

“My head hurts,” Gil said.

Out of nowhere Nick giggled. “No shit,” he managed, and gave a thick sob. “He hit you so HARD.”

“I’m okay.” But Gil’s features were still bewildered, and Nick hissed and grabbed him when he tried to sit up.

“Just lie there for a few, okay? I’m gonna call an ambulance.”

“What happened to you?” Gil’s dim eyes narrowed. “Blood.”

His cell phone was still in his pocket. He took it out and managed to get the antenna raised, smearing blood all over the face. “I know,” Nick babbled. “No big deal.”

“Sean.”

“Out like a fucking light. I think I broke his face.” This time when he laughed it sounded weird to himself, shrill, like a horse whinnying. He shut his mouth tight, burped another hysterical shriek of laughter, and saw how swollen his fingers were before doing his best to dial 911.

~~~~~~~~~

And then it was all cleanup.

Sean woke up before the ambulance got there, and this time when Nick looked he saw that he really HAD broken Sean’s face, or at least some integral part of it: Sean’s cheekbone was very flat, and his left eye watered steadily. He looked like he wanted to say something, but the pain made him shut up again.

Sitting with his back against the cabinet, Gil’s body clutched to him, Nick didn’t much mind that.

Brass got there about five minutes before the ambulance, which meant either he’d been in the neighborhood or something in Nick’s phone call had scared the bejesus out of him, and his reaction to the sight was pretty informative.

“Holy crispy SHIT,” Brass said weakly.

“Gil, his head.” Nick sobbed once, out of nowhere. “Sean hit him.”

Brass looked at Sean, and then back at Nick. “Christ, Nicky, your FACE.”

Inside Nick’s arms Gil went tense, and said, “Gonna puke.”

Brass got him a wastebasket. Head injury, Nick thought, and held Gil up, positive loss of consciousness AND vomiting, he’s at least got a mother of a concussion, and fuck, you don’t know that Sean didn’t bash his whole SKULL in, do you?

“You called an ambulance?” Brass was squatting, eyes narrowed with honest concern.

Nick nodded, and Gil retched again.

He’d stopped puking by the time the EMTs got there, and Nick shrank back against the counter again and just watched them work, C-collar, vitals, strapping Gil onto a yellow-painted gurney. Then one of the EMTs looked at him. “You’re injured, too.”

Nick shook his head. “M’okay.”

“You’re not okay,” Brass said harshly.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Jesus, Nicky.”

The EMT shrugged and turned to see to Sean. Sean, whose murderous blue eyes didn’t seem to ever leave Nick. With a shrug, Nick turned away.

~~~~~~~~~

“You know, there are better ways for me to find out about this.”

Nick nodded slowly. “Sorry.”

Brass shifted in the uncomfortable chair, looking like he wanted a cigarette. Nick thought if there were any around, he’d join him. “So you want to press charges?”

The ER bed was hard as a rock, and the sheet kept sliding in funky ways underneath him. He didn’t even need to BE here. At least his nose had stopped bleeding. His hand, though, wow, yeah, must have broken something there. Not that it mattered. “Fuck yes,” Nick snapped.

“Think the doc’s about done with him. I’ll take him down to the station house.” The tense look hadn’t left his features. “Might want to consider a TRO while you’re at it.”

“Whatever. Yeah. How’s Gil?”

Brass shrugged. “Haven’t heard yet.”

The doctor came in before Nick could ask what in the hell THAT meant. “Well, they’re broken,” he said, and crossed his arms.

Nick blinked at him. “What’s broken?”

“Your nose and your right index and middle fingers,” the doctor replied gently. “Remember?”

“Oh.”

“Not much I can do for the nose right now. We’ll pack it, put in a drain. You’ll need to come back tomorrow for repacking. We’ll splint the fingers, but you’ll need to see an orthopedist tomorrow as well.”

“What’s going on with Gil? Nobody’s told me anything, and –“

“Mr. Grissom, right?” The doctor exchanged a brief look with Brass.

“His – head.” Nick swallowed and tasted fresh copper.

“Hairline skull fracture, a significant concussion. We’ll admit him, keep him a couple of days, make sure there are no secondary problems.”

“I want to see him,” Nick gasped. “Please.”

A trace of uneasiness crept over the doctor’s features, but he nodded. “Let me finish up with you first.”

Finishing up took nearly two hours, and in that time Nick figured out that his nose in fact really did hurt. Almost as much as his hand; he nearly bit through his lip while they were splinting it. But the pain was unimportant, in the long run; he stoically took the papers the nurse gave him, southpaw for the moment, and then got up to follow Brass down the hallway to Gil’s room.

Gil, who looked a little pinched, but otherwise so perfectly normal that Nick was half-crying even before he reached Gil’s bedside.

“I’m all right,” Gil whispered, reaching out to touch Nick’s left hand where it locked in the bedclothes. “Just a headache.”

“He could have kuh-killed you,” Nick managed. His voice sounded stopped-up, alien; it took him a second to think of the cotton wadded up inside his nostrils. There was a stool nearby; he rolled it over with his foot and sat down.

“He didn’t. Nicky, your NOSE.”

Nick reached up to touch his nose, and found a huge fat PROBOSCIS instead. Didn’t feel as if it belonged on his face at all. “Oh,” he said weakly. “Yeah. It broke.”

Gil swallowed, and a flicker of pain flashed over his face. He had a bruise on his forehead; Nick assumed that was what had smashed into his nose. “I never even heard him come in. Got the – drop on us.”

Nick nodded and went back to clutching Gil’s hand. “How do you feel?”

“Head aches.” Gil licked his lips. “Have you looked at yourself?”

“Nah. I’m all right, just my fucking nose. Not like your HEAD.”

“Yeah,” Gil breathed. His eyes closed, and he made a face. “Don’t remind me. Tell me you kicked his ass.”

“Kinda, yeah. I think I broke his cheekbone. And maybe his jaw.”

“Guess that explains your hand.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Gil snorted, still lying there with his eyes clenched shut. “Maybe that’ll keep him out of our hair for a while.”

“Well, that and a TRO.”

Gil’s eyes cracked open at that. “You talk to Brass?”

Nick nodded. “Think he’s gonna arrest him.”

“You’re sure that’s what you want?”

Nick sat up straighter. “You’re kidding, right? He ASSAULTED you! He could have fucking killed you! You gotta ASK?”

He hadn’t meant to shout, but it was loud, and he cringed when he saw the way Gil’s face crumpled, head turning away slightly. “Sorry,” Nick whispered. “Jesus. Can’t they give you something?”

“I have to stay awake for a while. Concussion.”

“Oh. Yeah. Want me to – leave you alone, you know, let you –“

“What I want,” Gil said hoarsely, “is for you to stay right where you are. All right?” His smile was wispy but genuine. “Only maybe no shouting.”

Nick risked a smile, and felt it in his swollen nose. His own head was starting to ache, or maybe it had been aching all along and he hadn’t been paying attention. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Good.”

He wasn’t sure what he’d planned to say next, but it didn’t matter; the doctor came in, said a few things, and presently a nurse showed up to roll Gil out of his room and on his way upstairs. Brass stood by the nurses’ station, and Nick slowed when he reached him.

“Where’s Sean?” Nick asked.

Brass lifted his chin in the direction of the closed exam-room door nearby. “Be a wait on that arrest,” he said evenly. “He’s gonna need a few pins for his cheekbone first. And the jaw.”

Oddly, hearing it didn’t make him feel triumphant, or much of anything except ungodly tired. He nodded slowly. “Okay. I’m gonna – stick around, see how Gil’s doing.”

“I’ve kept this under my hat as long as I can, Nicky.” Brass looked uncomfortable. “But now I gotta call in a few troops. Catherine, Warrick. That is, if you still want to pursue this.”

Nick shifted from one leg to the other. His nose throbbed, a steady miserable ache, and the urge to blow it was nearly a compulsion. “Why wouldn’t I want to?”

“Then that means everybody finds out. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Only something you might want to consider. Grissom – he’s a pretty private person. Did you ask him?”

Nick gazed at him. “Not really. No.”

Brass nodded and reached out to give Nick’s shoulder a brief squeeze. “Do. Either way, I’ll take care of it for you. All right?”

“Thanks.”

“Those are two of the biggest shiners I’ve ever seen.” Brass shook his head. “You look like hell, you know that? At least change shirts?”

Dumbly, Nick gazed down at himself, and saw that yes, Jimbo was right, that was a shitload of blood caked in his shirt there. And seeing it, he felt filthy, gross. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Guess so.”

~~~~~~~~~

The staff wouldn’t let him camp out all night like he wanted, and in any case they finally let Gil have something for the headache, and he just about ordered Nick out.

“Go home, Nicky. Get some sleep. You’re gonna feel like hell in the morning.”

He already did, although that was one fact to which Gil was NOT going to be privy, not if Nick had anything to say about it. He shrugged. “I’m all right. I just don’t -- I want to make sure –“

“I’m fine.” Gil turned a frowning look at him. “The rest will do us both good.”

Nick nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll be back in the morning.”

“Good.”

He kissed Gil softly, and then had to laugh because his nose was truly gigantic right now, and Gil reached up to touch the bruise on his own forehead and said, “Did I give you that?”

“Yep.”

“Jesus.”

“It’s all right.”

“Nicky, you have two black eyes and Karl Malden’s nose right now.”

“Who?”

Gil smiled. “Never mind.”

Nick stood up and gave Gil’s hand one last squeeze. “See you in the morning, then.”

“Definitely.”

Catherine was in the hallway. Leaning up against the wall, arms crossed.

“Hi,” Nick said cautiously.

“Jesus.” Eyes wide, she took a few steps toward him. “Holy shit.”

He swallowed. “It’s not that bad.”

“Yeah, it is. That’s gotta hurt.”

“I’ll live. Gil’s okay, you know? That’s – the important part.”

Her expression cleared, shuttering until all he saw was cool professionalism. “So you and Gil, huh? And Sean found out.”

“He wasn’t supposed to be there. Look, if you’re just gonna sit there and tell me how I fucked up, well, guess what, Cath? I figured that much out for myself, all right?”

She gave a stiff nod. “He could have killed you both,” she whispered. “You figure that out, too?”

“Yeah,” Nick replied. “Yeah, believe me.”

Her hand came out, touching his arm lightly. “Thought you might need a ride home,” she mumbled, all the stiffness suddenly gone. “Something.”

“Aw, Cath.”

“You scared the SHIT out of me,” she managed, and gave his arm a tight squeeze. “Had to just about pry it out of Jim with a crowbar, and then Gil’s in the hospital, and you look like – like –“

He smiled. “Like what?”

“Hammered shit,” came her hot reply. “Damn it!”

He was getting more and more tired by the second, not to mention sore as hell, but when he reached out for her she was there, arms locked tight around his waist, and he closed his eyes and felt a little of the tension starting to loosen its grip. Just a little.

Chapter Eighteen

He’d had a few bad headaches in his lifetime. More than a few, if you wanted the absolute truth. But nothing touched the one that hung on even two full days after Sean Barton clobbered him with a baseball bat. It didn’t help knowing it could have been far, far worse. In forensics, he’d had more than one opportunity to see the sorts of destruction a heavy object wielded with force could inflict on the human skull. Horrible destruction, all too often lethal destruction. He was lucky to be alive and have his brains relatively intact.

Now if only this headache would go away.

"You know what to be on the lookout for." Dr. Dominguez was his earnest, unsmiling self, delivering each word with precise emphasis. "Headache gets worse; you start vomiting again; any weakness or seizure-like activity. Any of those, you get your ass back here ASAP. Understood?"

"Absolutely," Gil said.

"Don’t have to tell you, head injuries really aren’t something to mess around with. I wouldn’t discharge you if I didn’t think you were doing fine, but there’s a hell of a lot we don’t yet understand about the way traumatic injuries work. So don’t screw around. Andrea will be in in a second with some papers for you to sign. I’ve also written you a scrip for some painkillers. I want to see you in my office next Monday. All right?"

"Understood."

Dominguez’s grip was cool and a little damp. "Take care of yourself, Gil. Watch out for those damn baseball bats."

He produced a wan smile. "Most definitely."

It was over an hour before the nurse showed up with his papers. Nick arrived just before she did, and as he’d done every time he’d seen Nick lately, Gil tried not to just recoil in shock. Nick looked flat-out awful. There would be no return to that patrician-straight nose of previously; he’d have to have someone work on it to make it look anything other than distinctly potato-ish. The black eyes had darkened, and between them and the bruising associated with Nick’s shattered nose, his face was one big black-and-blue mess.

But his smile was familiar, even if his features were not, and seeing that truly happy grin, Gil let go of his shock and went with it.

"You sprung yet?"

Gil shifted over a little to let Nick sit beside him on the bed. "As soon as I sign some paperwork, yes. How are you feeling?"

"Aw, I’m all right." Nick nudged him with his shoulder. "Bought some furniture."

"Really? You’ve been busy."

"This salesman, Gil, man, you should have seen his face. I mean, these, right?" Nick pointed at his twin shiners. "I think he thought I was some kind of maniac. So I’m asking about beds, and this couch that looked pretty good, and I’m going, So how much for all this? And the guy asks – I shit you not: How much would you like to pay? I’m going, Well, how much does it COST? And the guy’s practically babbling. We can set up payment options, and you know, I can knock $100 off that sofa, no problem. And I’m thinking, DAMN. Come in looking like a tough guy and all of a sudden everybody wants to keep you happy, you know?" His laugh was pure and totally genuine. "Man, I oughta get beat up before buying my next car. God only knows what kind of deal I’d get, you know?"

Gil smiled. "So you bought a couch?"

"Yep. Okay, got a couch and loveseat thing, a set. And a bed and a dresser. Some other stuff. Still don’t have a table and chairs, but that’s gonna have to wait until next month. Or me winning in the casino or something."

"Sounds good."

"Yeah, not too shabby." Nick’s effervescent smile ramped down a few notches. "So you feeling okay? How’s your head?"

Gil considered. "Still have a little headache. Not a problem," he added, when Nick’s mouth threatened to turn downward into a frown. "It’ll wear off soon."

"Okay."

But it popped Nick’s momentary happily domestic bubble, and he didn’t say much of anything else before the nurse bustled in, handing over papers on a clipboard and filling Gil’s room with a sweet flowery perfume smell. Nick took the handles of the wheelchair, and so Gil couldn’t see his expression while they rolled down the hallway and into an elevator, and finally arrived at Nick’s vehicle.

Driving, Nick’s unhappy look was all too easy to read, though.

"What’s wrong?" Gil asked softly.

It took a moment for Nick to reply, in a slow, careful voice new to Gil’s ears. "Sean got out of the hospital yesterday. I did the TRO thing. I don’t --" He broke off and made a face. "For what it’s worth."

"How much of a threat do you think he still is?"

"Shit, I dunno. Maybe none. Gil, I don’t think you should be alone right now." He glanced briefly over at him. "I mean, maybe he’s shot his wad, maybe he hasn’t. But I wish you’d stay with me. For a while. Just in case."

Another new tone: more grown-up, not lascivious or wistful but even, considered. This wasn’t Nick wanting Gil to stay over so they could fuck. This was Nick doing what he perceived to be the right thing to do.

It was logical, and so Gil nodded. "Might be a good idea."

"Yeah."

So instead of going home to stay, he went home to pack a bag, and then Nick drove them to his new apartment. Which was still pretty bare, but Nick’s couch looked comfortable, and he did have a bed. A big one.

Gil watched the way Nick set his sidearm carefully on the little end table next to the sofa, and thought bleakly that it was probably a wise move. Just in case.

~~~~~~~~~~

But there the gun stayed. Gil’s headache ebbed and vanished entirely over the next twelve hours, and although Nick’s face was still distinctly battered a week after the episode with Sean, he looked a little less dangerous. As for Sean, if he was around, Gil didn’t know about it. All things considered, he was pretty sure he’d find out, though, which meant that for whatever reason – maybe as simple as Sean having no idea where Nick lived now – there wasn’t any trouble.

They broke in Nick’s new bed that first night. And by the time Gil admitted he was a bit tired of living out of his suitcase and making fast trips to the house for supplies, they’d repeated the exercise several times. And late in the afternoon, the two-week anniversary of the attack, Gil admitted that the sex was outstanding. No question; Nick knew his way around, and showed absolutely no hesitation in proving the fact. He was an expert lover.

And Gil had seen a curious look on his face, more and more often. A still look, an introspective expression. Nick, he saw more and more clearly, was dynamite in the sack. But he was not as good at mastering his own thoughts. Those looks were brooding, preoccupied. And that afternoon, both of them for the most part healed, Gil saw the same expression creeping over Nick’s features, and felt a spasm of terror in his belly.

"What is it?" he asked without thinking, leaning against the kitchen counter. "What’s wrong?"

Nick cast him a puzzled look. His nose was healing better than Gil had feared. Maybe no plastic surgery after all. "Huh?"

"Tell me what you’re thinking. Please."

"Right now? Nothing much."

"Nicky."

"Really." The puzzled expression remained. "I mean, I wasn’t really thinking at all."

Gil nodded slowly and swallowed. "Do you regret it?"

"What?"

"Come on, Nick. All of this. Moving out. What happened with Sean. This." He gestured between the two of them. Christ, how he hated elucidating. Why couldn’t Nick simply – pick up on it? The way Gil had?

"Regret it?" Now Nick looked appalled. "Jesus. Why do you gotta ask something like that?"

"That’s not an answer."

"Because I shouldn’t have to GIVE an answer! Shit, Gil, I’m here, aren’t I? Both of us are here. If I didn’t think it was the right thing, I’d have bailed. Simple as that."

Would you? Gil thought tiredly. I’m not so sure. "Sometimes I see a look on your face," he said after a long taut moment. "And I don’t know what that look means."

Nick poured coffee into a mug and said, "What look?"

"You miss him, don’t you?"

"Who?" Nick walked over to sit at the brand-new table – a gift from Gil, price tag still attached, tackily enough – and didn’t quite meet his eyes. "Sean? I dunno. No, not really."

Following him, Gil slid into one of the chairs. "Honestly?"

Nick stared into his coffee so long Gil almost wondered if he’d heard the question. But finally Nick shrugged, a slow, heavy motion. "It hurt him," he whispered. "And I never meant to do that. Never."

"I know. I know you didn’t."

"But that doesn’t matter. Because I did. I didn’t handle it the way I should have. You know? It was – underhanded. I mean, Sean -- He was a jerk, a lot of the time. Yeah, I see that. But now." Nick leaned his chin on his casted right hand. "I wish it’d been different, that’s all. Cleaner."

"Nick, I think I should go back to my place."

"Oh God." Nick closed his eyes.

"We need some time. Both of us." Gil leaned forward, reaching out to touch Nick’s left forearm. "Not to stop seeing each other. But I don’t think you’re ready for us to live together. I don’t think I am, either."

Nick’s throat worked convulsively, and when he opened his eyes again they were wet. "It’s all screwed up," he said thickly. "It’s just all so goddamn fucked up."

Gil gave a slow nod. "Some of it is, yeah. It’s not an ending, Nick. I’m not saying that. It’s – complicated."

"I’m crazy about you," Nick said in a choked voice. "Nothing complicated about that."

"And I feel the same way." Gil mustered a smile and squeezed Nick’s arm. "Believe me. But I don’t want to start this feeling as if there are strings attached. Unresolved issues. I want a clean slate, Nick. We deserve a clean slate. Or else all that happened – it will always stand between us. Do you understand what I’m saying?"

"I don’t know. I guess."

"We have all the time in the world. There’s no rush."

Nick stared at Gil’s hand on his arm. "I thought that before, too. I was wrong."

"No, you weren’t. But we both screwed up, Nick. We both did, because what happened with Sean wasn’t just his fault. It was ours, too. Both of us, not just you or me. Both of us."

A spasm of pure misery twisted Nick’s features before he looked away. "I keep wanting to apologize to him," he whispered. "I never -- I NEVER wanted it to come to this. Never!"

"God, Nicky, of course you didn’t. I know that. I do. For what it’s worth, neither did I."

"But now you’re gonna leave."

"Not leave, not like that. Just – take a step back. Listen to me." He grasped Nick’s hand and drew it closer, until Nick’s dark damp eyes reluctantly turned his direction again. "You want to know what I want?"

After a moment Nick asked, "What?"

"I want to ask you out on a date."

Nick blinked, and in spite of the tears Gil saw a tiny hint of a smile. "A date?"

Gil nodded. "We can’t really start over. Too much has already happened. But we can take our time, Nicky. Don’t rush things. Tell me the truth: Are you really ready to live with me? 24/7? Or don’t you think it might be good to take it one step at a time? The last thing I want is for one of us or both of us one day to sit here and think, We got here because after all that happened, we had to. Not because we truly wanted to."

"But I do want to." His brief smile was gone. Nick’s hand tightened on Gil’s. "I do."

"Then taking our time won’t change that. But it will give you time to grieve."

Nick nodded slowly. "Grieve."

"And it’s not as if you’ll be alone for all that. After all, you do have plans Friday night."

"What?"

Sidling closer, Gil pressed a chaste kiss on Nick’s knuckles. "Dinner, and maybe a show. After that, who knows?"

Nick gave a grudging smile. "Date, huh?"

"How does eight o’clock sound?"

"All right, I guess."

"Wear a tie. It’s a nice place."

"Aw man. A tie?"

"But of course. A first date calls for dressing up, don’t you think?"

"You’re nuts."

Nodding, Gil smiled. "About you? Always, Nicky."

~~~~~~~~~~

It was only in the privacy of his own townhouse that the reality of his proposal struck him with full force. Was he INSANE? Another man would have grabbed Nick and held onto him with all his strength, not practically pushed him in the direction of someone else. Especially not someone like Sean. Sean, who for all his flaws had shared ten years with Nick, thick and thin, sickness and health, all that.

Sean, who had more than once demonstrated his ability to wrap Nick around his little finger when he wanted to.

It took two whiskies before Gil could relax a little. After all, his plan wasn’t entirely without merit. He couldn’t stand the thought of Sean’s ghost trailing after them, invisible but still attached, wafting until he sat between them. And he would. Nick might never clap eyes on Sean again this side of the hereafter, but Sean would be there anyway. Unseen, unassailable, unstoppable.

And, the prickly voice inside his head prodded, what if he decides to go back to him? Even after all that? What if all you’ve done is sow the seeds of destruction? What then, Gil-baby?

He chased that shadowy voice away with a third whiskey, and went to check his email.

At work that night, painstakingly picking at skeletal remains stuck inside an ancient previously buried footlocker, he sat up to wipe the sweat from his face. Across from him, Warrick was doing the same, mopping his brow with an elderly paper towel.

"He ain’t goin’ anywhere," Warrick muttered, leaning back and letting out a sigh.

"No. Not anytime soon."

"So." Warrick glanced at him. "You and Nick."

Absurdly, he felt the beginnings of color rising in his cheeks, and was glad for the murk around the edge of the dig site. "Are you asking, or just remarking?"

"Asking, I guess. I mean, none of my business, you know."

Gil smiled. "We’re seeing each other."

"So, like. Seeing each other."

"Dating, I suppose. Is there a problem with that?"

He hadn’t said it sharply, but Warrick raised both hands anyway. "Nah, man, it’s cool. I’m just getting on the right page, that’s all." A pause, and then he added, "And it’s good, right? After all that shit last month, you know."

Gil nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said. "I think it is."

"That’s good. I mean, I’m not asking for details. You and Nick, man, that’s enough to wrap my head around right there."

With a grin, Gil said, "Good, because that’s all I’m saying."

"Good."

"Good."

Another pause. "So does this mean –"

"Warrick. We have bones to pick. Real ones."

"Right. Got it."

He had a maxilla in his hand when Warrick muttered, "Just, you know, don’t KISS him in front of me or anyth –"

"Warrick!"

"All right! Shutting up."

Grinning, Gil went back to gently teasing out the rest of the mandible.

~~~~~~~~~~

He was precisely on time to pick Nick up. And Nick was ready, mouth-dryingly handsome in a blue jacket Gil had never seen before, dark trousers, and the requisite tie. Never mind that his nose was always probably going to retain that new, slightly aquiline cast. To Gil’s dazzled eyes Nick was gorgeous.

Nick ran his fingers down the lapel of Gil’s coat. "Nice," he said, with a slightly lopsided grin. "You clean up real good, Grissom."

"Ditto." He leaned forward, and frowned when Nick drew back an inch. "What?"

"I don’t put out on a first date." Still grinning, Nick patted Gil’s cheek. "What kind of guy do you think I am?"

Gil snorted, and then laughed out loud. "Touché."

They were in the car when Nick added, sotto voce, "I mean, I don’t usually."

Hand on the gear shift, Gil glanced at him. "The night is young."

"Ain’t it, though?"

Gil grinned and backed the car out of the space.

He’d chosen the restaurant without much thought – Provençale, one of his own favorites, and certainly a date-nice place – and had no cause to regret it. One of the perks of frequent patronage got them his favorite table, by the window and away from the main traffic areas, and Herve didn’t bother with a wine list, since he really didn’t have to.

Gil lifted his glass and looked steadily at Nick. "First dates," he said, mouth quirking in a smile.

Nick’s cheeks were a little pink when he nodded. "Jackets and ties."

Gil nearly choked on his first sip.

The food was delicious, and all the more so for having to explain to Nick what some of the items were. Not a cretin, Nick, but a relative newcomer to the kind of French cuisine Provençale served, and blissfully open-minded. He only balked at the snails, but did at least take a taste.

"Not bad, huh?" Gil asked, watching him closely.

Nick’s relieved expression was classic. "Nah," he said with false breeziness. "Not bad."

"Want some more?"

The breeziness vanished. "Do I have to?" Nick whispered.

Gil laughed. "No. Of course not."

"Because, I mean –"

"It’s all right. Eat your soup."

"S’good soup."

"I know."

In between explanations and eating, they talked. About nothing, really, not much shop talk, and nothing all that earthshaking. Just – the sort of thing Gil had in mind when he’d proposed this in the first place, and watching Nick, smiling and listening to his story about his brother’s disastrous first day in court a number of years ago, a part of him sat back and said, Nice job, Gil. Not too shabby. This could really work.

Glancing down at his veal, Gil fought down the urge to nod. Yes. Yes, it could.

Herve brought demitasse and brandy after the meal, and in the fading sunlight Gil saw Nick’s expression change. Smooth, turn a little opaque.

"I wanted to tell you something," he said evenly, holding his coffee but not tasting it yet.

"Oh?"

"I thought it would make you uncomfortable. So I waited."

Gil set down his own cup. "Uncomfortable in what way?"

Nick did sip his coffee, and then said, "I went to see Sean yesterday."

Oh. Gil felt his spine stiffening. "I see."

A faint, sweet smile played at the corners of Nick’s mouth. "I wanted to – wrap things up, I guess. Apologize. No matter what he did, no matter how bad things got -- I never wanted to hurt him like that. So I went to see him."

Gil managed a slow nod. "How is he?"

"Well, they took the wires out of his jaw already. So better." Nick snorted and drank another sip of the strong black coffee. "He’s moving."

"Oh? Where to?"

"New York. I knew that’s where he really wanted to go. Now he’s going."

"How did it – feel? Seeing him?"

The moment before Nick replied stretched like excruciating taffy, longer and longer, and Gil felt his throat tighten before Nick finally said, "All right, I guess. I didn’t know what to expect. But I mean, I said what I needed to say. You know, I was sorry, but this was the way things had to be. All that."

Gil released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. "And?"

Nick flicked him a fast look. "And – nothing, really. He was cool about it. Mostly. Didn’t freak, or you know, try to brain me with a baseball bat."

"Good," Gil said weakly.

"Said nice things. And I think he was trying to get me in bed."

Gil froze again.

"But it’s weird," Nick went on, seemingly oblivious. "I told him it was over, and it felt – true. I just said, No, we’re done, Sean. That’s over. It’s all over."

Gil gave a cautious nod.

Nick leaned back in his chair. "I thought he’d freak. I mean, I don’t know if I’ll believe he won’t freak until his ass is moved to Manhattan. But I can’t do anything about that, you know? Nothing but what I’m doing. I did what I thought was right. The rest -- it’s up to him. Get over it, get past it, whatever. But I’m done."

Out of nowhere, his throat ached savagely. Gil glanced down at his cup, swallowed several times, and then flinched when Nick’s fingers covered his own.

"I didn’t just do it for me, man," Nick said huskily. "I did it for us, you know? Start fresh. No strings attached."

"I know," Gil managed. "I know, Nick."

A brief squeeze of his hand, and Nick smiled. "Your coffee’s gonna get cold."

Gil nodded. "That’s all right."

"Damn good coffee. Be a shame to waste it."

Gil smiled. "Then I won’t."

Nick grinned, and picked up his own cup again.

Epilogue

"TWO cakes?"

Catherine grinned and rummaged for knives in the drawer. "Hey, you like chocolate, Grissom doesn’t. It’s not like pizza, you know; I can’t order half one style and half another."

"Looks good." Nick reached out and stuck his finger in the chocolate cake’s icing. "Mmm."

She gave him a mock-severe look. "You could wait until you at least blow out the candles."

"Oh."

Warrick stuck the rest of the candles in the white cake, and rummaged for a lighter. "Grissom’s cake probably gonna set the place on fire," he murmured.

"Prime of life, Warrick," came Gil’s easy reply. "Don’t knock it. You’ll be here sooner than you think."

About five minutes later everyone sang Happy Birthday, and when they were done Nick faced Gil across the table and leaned over to blow out his candles – twenty-nine, Jeez, it did look like a lot – and then stood up straight and grinned while Gil finished blowing out the rest of his.

"Make a wish," Catherine called, and Nick kept on grinning, because you know, it was just that kind of evening. He wished for criminals to take the damn night off for once, so he could relax, and maybe he and Gil could cut out a little early, go do a little celebrating of a far more private kind. The thought made him blush, but then so had the appearance of the cakes earlier and the surprise of everyone gathered in the break room for an impromptu double birthday party.

"Nice of you guys to have your birthdays next door to each other," Catherine had remarked. "So whose birthday IS today?"

"His," Nick told her. "Mine’s tomorrow."

"And tomorrow’s what? Two hours away? Hell, if we eat slow we can cover both. Nice."

Now he took the knife Catherine handed him and reached out to cut a piece of his cake, and met Gil’s knowing eyes. That look made him turn red again, and this time someone giggled, and Warrick groaned, and Nick cut a very uneven piece of cake and manhandled it onto his plate.

About the time he and Gil were moving to the other table to sit and enjoy some empty calories, Nick’s cell phone rang. Considering the noise level, he ducked out into the hallway to take the call.

"Happy birthday, Nicky."

He leaned against the wall. "Hey, Jamie. Thanks. But not for another hour."

"Oh, crap. I forgot the time difference."

"That’s okay. How you doing?"

"Isn’t that my line?"

Nick grinned. "Doing great. Catherine organized this party tonight. I wanna think it’s because everyone’s just nice, but I think half of them just don’t want to work tonight. Any excuse."

She laughed, a sweet sound in his ear. "Did she get you a cake?"

"Damn straight."

"Chocolate?"

"Absolutely."

"Next year you should come home for birthdays. Mine’s next week."

"I know that. Keep on checking the mail."

"It’ll be like when we were kids. God, I remember how much I used to hate having to split a birthday party with you. Remember when I turned twelve and you were eleven?"

"Yeah, you yelled at me and said I was born the wrong day and should have waited until September."

She laughed again, harder this time. "I don’t mind as much now, I guess."

"Nah." He smiled fondly. "Hey, it’s Gil’s birthday right now. For another fifty-five minutes, at least. Maybe we can do that next year. Three birthdays in one."

"How is Gil?" As usual, her voice got a few degrees less friendly when discussing Gil, although really, she’d had plenty of time to get used to the changes in Nick’s personal life. "Doing all right?"

"He’s doing great. I really want you to meet him, Jamie. He’s a very cool guy."

"He sounds like it," was her gallant if stumbling reply. "I’m glad you’re happy. You are happy, Nicky? Aren’t you?"

He walked down the corridor a few feet as he spoke. "Yeah. Yeah, things are working out – real good."

"Do you ever hear from Sean?"

His smile slipped and fell, but it didn’t feel as bad as it once had. "I got a letter a few months ago. I mean, that’s so Sean, writing a letter instead of email or something, you know?"

"And?"

"And – nothing, really. He said he was working on his third book. Just about to start the tour for Hyacinth Girl. I mean, you know. Just news."

A long pause on Jamie’s end, and then she ventured, "Do you miss him? Ever?"

"Aw, Jamie. Yeah, I guess so. Sometimes."

"I just -- The two of you, you know. I guess I’m still adjusting to the idea that you – aren’t together anymore."

"We haven’t been for nearly six months," Nick said gently. "It’s not a newsflash."

"I know."

"Look, why don’t you come down here sometime? Labor Day, whatever. Spend a couple of days? You’re gonna like Gil. You really are. He’s amazingly cool, Jamie."

"Yeah," she said faintly. "Well, maybe I’ll do that. I could get a few days off."

"Do it," he urged. "Anytime. I mean it."

"Let me look at my calendar."

"Okay. But seriously. We’ll have fun."

She gave a soft, reluctant laugh. "All right. I’ll see what I can do."

"Excellent. Listen, I gotta get back in there. My party, you know."

"Okay. I love you, Nicky."

"Love you too, Jame. Talk to you later."

"Bye."

Most everyone had finished their slices of cake by the time he got back, and he saw Warrick going back for seconds while he walked over to rejoin Gil.

"Not bad news, I hope," Gil murmured at his side.

Nick scooted his chair in and shook his head. "Nah, just Jamie. Birthday stuff."

"How is she?"

"Good. Hers is next week."

"Good."

He ate his own neglected piece of cake, and mostly just watched and listened while people talked, cracked jokes, the usual kind of thing that happened when they could gather for a rare unofficial event and just kick back. Catherine held court at the opposite end of the table, some story about back when she was working as a stripper and some prince-type of guy from a Middle Eastern country offered her a gigantic amount of money to move to Saudi Arabia or someplace.

Gil’s arm settled over Nick’s shoulders, and Nick turned him a surprised look.

"Happy birthday, Nick."

Nick frowned, and then glanced at his watch. "Oh. Yeah, it is. Thanks."

Gil’s expression was open, unguarded. "Did you make a wish?"

"Of course."

"What did you wish for?"

Nick leaned against Gil, welcoming the solid feel of him. "The usual. Peace, goodwill towards men."

"Very altruistic."

"I’m a nice guy, you know."

"Very."

"And you?"

Gil gave a considering look. "I just wished we could cut of here early and open that bottle of champagne." He sighed. "I suppose that makes me selfish."

"Nah. I wished the same thing."

He grinned, and Gil did, too, and then leaned forward, tilting his head slightly. And just before Gil kissed him, Warrick uttered a theatrical groan and called, "No PDA! Aw, man, you said no kissing!"

"Shut up, Warrick," Nick, Gil, and Catherine all said in almost perfect unison.

"My eyes," Warrick whimpered.

Grinning, Nick looked straight into Gil’s blue, blue eyes, and then tilted his head, too, and smiled when their lips met.

~~~~~~~~~~

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. (Margaret Young)

 

END

1/26/05