Riddles
A series of naughty scenes
by Emily Brunson
(c)2002
I.
If you break me
I do not stop working,
If you touch me
I may be snared,
If you lose me
Nothing will matter.
As long as he'd worked in the forensics game, he couldn't remember ever feeling this way. This strong a combination of two opposing elements, dread and anticipation.
It carried, too. Not a person on his team wasn't on edge. They looked tired, nervous, and downright wary. Which wasn't all that surprising, all things considered. But it was wrong, glaringly wrong. And there wasn't a soul there who didn't know why things were so off.
Gil handed out assignments without any chitchat. It hurt a little that no one else chatted, either. None of the normal badinage, no dry comments from Warrick or Catherine. Nothing. Just nods and tight looks and silence.
"Any questions? Good. Let me know what you find out." He waited for them all to stand up and sort themselves out, and then added, "Nick? A moment."
Everybody else beat it like their shoes were on fire. Not surprising.
"Close the door," Gil told him.
Nick's face was a flat mask of calm. He shoved the door closed with one foot and crossed his arms. "What's up?"
Gil sat back in his chair and gazed at him. "You know what? I'm tired of this little game we're playing here. It wasn't fun when it started, and it sure as hell isn't fun now."
The mask shivered into an expression of familiar, mulish anger. "Who's the one playing games, Grissom?" Nick retorted. "Gonna ask me another riddle? Because if you aren't, I got work to do."
"No riddles. And the work can wait. Get over this, Nick. Get over it now."
"Riiight." An exaggeratedly Texan drawl. "No problem."
"You want an apology? All right, I apologize. But I also stand by what I said earlier. You aren't ready. And you're showing me right now just how not-ready you really are."
Nick gave him a cold, hateful smile. "Well, we all know you never make mistakes. Far be it from me to --"
"Don't say it," Gil stated harshly. "Don't piss me off any more than you already have."
"What do you want me to do? Say thank you?" Nick snorted eloquently. His face was flushed dull red. "Humiliation's a lousy goddamn teaching method."
Without planning it Grissom stood up fast, the chair shooting back and banging against the wall. "I'm not your teacher," he snapped. "I'm your boss. You asked me to tell you like a man, I did that. Now act like a man yourself and deal!"
The red was going away; Nick looked stricken, and furious. "I do the damn work! You want me to act like a man and punch your goddamn lights out? That what you want?"
Gil felt a weird, easy smile twist his lips. "Give it your best shot, Nicky."
There was a frozen moment where he saw just how pasty white Nick's face had gotten. And then Nick was snarling something incoherent and stepping close enough Gil could almost feel the rage baking off him. "Don't tempt me," he whispered, eyes flat black and lethal.
"You hate me? That it?"
"Getting there." Nick grinned, showing a lot of teeth. "Next stop."
"Hate me because I'm right?"
The grin disappeared.
"What do you want, Nick?" Gil asked, not backing away an inch. "You want my approval? Is that what this is about?"
"What difference does it make?" Nick ground out, breathing fast and raggedly. "Won't get it."
"You don't need it! What difference does my approval make? Do the work! That's all I ask!"
Nick's expression was horribly transparent. "It's not fair," he said in a shocked voice. "What do I have to do to get one word out of you? What do you want me to do?"
There was a reason why he avoided getting too angry. Lots of them, actually, but mostly the one he recognized now. The one that had him smiling without any humor at all, heart thumping wildly in his chest. The one that made him not care. At all. "What do you want ME to do?" he asked evenly. "Isn't that really more the question?"
"I hate you," Nick whispered. His eyes glinted with savage tears. "God, I hate you so much."
"Do you?" Gil took a step forward, enjoying the way Nick started, the clumsy retreat. "You want me to hate you, too?" He stepped forward again, and again, backing Nick up against the table behind him.
"Fuck you."
"No. Fuck YOU."
Touching Nick's chest was like laying his bare palm on a live electric wire: current leaped off Nick's body, hot and ashamed and horribly alluring. Gil almost groaned, feeling Nick's heart galloping under his palm, his own dick suddenly steely hard inside his pants.
Now would be the time to STOP, Grissom, some ragged, wailing voice inside his head cried. Now, before you let this man -- this KID -- lure you into doing something far more unprofessional and far less forgiveable than being inexperienced at your job.
And then Nick made a wavering sound and arched up against him, eyes closed and leaking tears while he pressed his groin against Gil's. The wailing scream inside Gil's head cut off like someone had slit its throat.
"Go ahead and hate me," Gil said icily, thrusting his leg between Nick's thighs and relishing the garbled, furious sound Nick made in response. "But let's be honest about what you REALLY want, all right?"
"You can't -- do this." Nick shivered against him, eyes still hot with rage but almost bleeding desire at the same time, need, a gaping chasm of desperate need that made Gil feel sick, and strung out with anger.
"Shut up, goddamn it," Gil said, and grabbed the front of Nick's shirt to pull him against him.
The kiss hurt. Nick fought him, probably not as hard as he might have but enough to leave bruises on Gil's shoulders, the flavor of blood and coppery-tasting lust in his mouth. And then Nick dug his fingers into Gil's muscles and kissed back, furiously, expertly.
Under the shirt Nick's skin was fever-hot and silky over hard muscle. He made a mewling sound against Gil's lips and Gil thought blearily about a fine line between love and hate before shoving the files and abandoned coffee cups off the table and slamming Nick down on his back.
"This what you want?" he asked harshly, standing between Nick's flung-open thighs and tilting his hips a little. A sharp, thin blade of pain blossomed behind his right eye. "Will this be enough?"
Nick's legs locked around Gil's hips, strong as steel. His lips were stretched in a terrible grimace. "Not yet," he said in a strangled whisper. He sat up with a wrench of muscles and kissed him, a painful bang against Gil's teeth.
Anger was a funny thing. He was angry, so he should want to do something with that anger: yell, or strike out, or something. But this was a whole different flavor of anger, sickening, painful, and utterly indistinguishable from pure raw lust.
This was how people raped. Not from desire, but rage, and the sick-sweet taste of power.
His hands didn't shake at all when he unfastened Nick's jeans. Nick on the other hand was shaking like a leaf, flopping back on the table so hard it had to hurt, jittering and panting underneath him.
Sanity returned in the form of denim puddled on the floor, and the excruciating sight of Nick's bare lower body, all smooth flexing muscle and no tan and helpless erection.
Gil shivered and shook his head. Under his reaching hand Nick's cheek was hot and wet with tears. "God, Nick," he whispered raggedly.
Nick's lips drew back in a snarl, and he turned his head and sank his teeth into Gil's hand.
"You BITCH," Gil heard himself say, as if from a very distant place. Wondering, but only briefly; the rest of him was aching with immediate, stark rage. He glanced at the blood on his hand and back at Nick's grinning face, and whatever the moment of misgiving might have meant, it was gone.
It gave him a jolt of fiery satisfaction, the way Nick bit his own hand when Gil shoved into him. Good: matching wounds. The sounds Nick made were a horrifyingly wonderful aphrodisiac, as delicious as the feel of his tight flesh hot and flexing around Gil's dick.
Fine, THIS was what you wanted, you sullen little-boy BITCH. And you GOT it.
He thrust fast and silently, aware of Nick's legs around him, the heave of his belly, the flagging erection returning. Nick came with a curdled scream, eyes clenched shut and face turned into an ugly rictus of pleasure. Even before he lost himself in the mindlessness of orgasm Gil felt the way rage and desire were already turning into disgust. At himself or Nick, he couldn't tell.
When he was done he zipped himself up with hands that did tremble now. Nick lay bonelessly on the table, legs limp, only his belly still moving with his ragged breathing.
Gil nearly tripped over the forgotten jeans on the floor, and picked them up with something approaching horror. The pain behind his eye was a rabid animal, snarling and spitting and biting.
"That'll do," Nick said behind him, and Gil spun around.
Some of the shock he felt was mirrored on Nick's face. But there was a bleak kind of satisfaction, too, and a little triumph as well. "Coulda just hit me," Nick added.
"Go home," Gil said hoarsely. His bitten hand throbbed in time with the headache.
Nick eased himself off the table, wincing but not losing the little smirk. "Gonna fire me instead?" he asked bitterly, but he held his jeans in front of him like a barrier, mortified after the fact. Far, far too late.
Gil swallowed nausea. "Get out. Please." He shut his eyes. "Get out."
He heard the muffled sounds of Nick putting his pants on, and then there was a body too close to his own. His eyes shot open, and Nick smiled, friendly look completely belied by the heat and lingering rage in his gaze.
"I'll suck you next time," he whispered, teeth showing. "How about that?" And leaned in to kiss Gil's shocked mouth once, hard, before ducking out the door.