Those Who Wish Us Well by Evan Nicholas [Reviews - 46]
Chapter or Story - Text Size +

Category: CSI - Slashed > Gil/Greg
Characters: Gil Grissom, Greg Sanders, Nick Stokes
Rating: NC-17
Genres: First Time, Humour
Warnings: None

Summary: In which Nick is toast, and Greggo's back in town



NOTES:
1. This is a Gil/Greg fic, but there's a bitter aftertaste of Nick/Greg
2. Thanks, as always, to Franky - I'll find the right words one of these days, babe.
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"Here's to those who wish us well
and those that don't can go to hell"

-- a toast my mother learned from her father





He can't even hear the music anymore.

It's still pounding: he can feel it coming up through his shoes, in the communal pulse around him, in the bodies pushing against his, he can taste it. But it's bypassed his ears, and that's a good thing, because if he has to listen to another fucking verse about how fine love is, he's going to be sick.

He doesn't go clubbing much anymore. He's usually at work when the clubs are hot anyway, usually sitting with his nose in a petri dish and five people standing in his doorway, tapping their feet and demanding to know why he can't work faster. He's learned to live with that, learned not to feel bad about the fun he's missing out on. After all, he tells himself when it gets to him, he asked for night shift, right? He ((asked)) to work for Grissom, to be part of The Team. Brought it on himself.

So stop bitching, Sanders, he lectures himself, stop whining and enjoy the anonymous ass grinding into you, grab on with both hands, baby, because Greggo's back in town.

Someone's arms find their way around him and he lets them pull him back, now it's his ass grinding into someone, and that's just as good as anything else. Better, even, because this - the filthy wonder of it, of wanting someone to pound into him right here, right now, to make him pass out from sheer pleasure in front of all of these strangers - this is what he's been missing.

And don't go there, he warns himself when one of those hands slips up under his shirt and traces something skittish on the skin between his belly button and the line of his boxers. Don't even think about Nick right now, Nick never did this to you, Nick never took you out and showed you off, never let anyone else touch you while he was watching, Nick never let you have any goddamn fun.

Those random hands keep moving, keep dipping lower and cupping him and doing all the right things, all the things he's needed forever and ever and hasn't had in nearly as long, and hey those lips at his jaw, those can't be from the same body as those hands and hot fuck - that just makes it that much better.

He groans and a mouth finds his and sucks the noise right out from his lips, so he moans again because that feels good, too. And someone is moving behind him frantically, he can feel the rhythm change out of synch with the rest of them, and he starts to twitch to his own inner pulse too - those hands and those lips and those other hands and holy christ more more more -




He thinks, I really should change.

He keeps an extra set of clothes in his car just in case. Not in case he just had amazing group sex fully-clothed in a club that he's never even heard of before - it's been waaay too long since that happened. No, usually it's because he's spilled something on his good clothes at work and doesn't want to go home covered in blood or garbage or whatever unspeakable thing Grissom gave him to play with that night.

But right now, he doesn't want to change. He likes the feel of being sweaty and sticky and obscene, and he wants everyone to know it. It itches like hell, his own semen gluing itself irreversibly to the inside of his shorts, and he's pretty sure he's got someone else's splattered across the seat of his jeans, but who cares? Who the fuck cares? It's not like Nick gets to throw a fit about how he's being disgusting. It's not like Nick has any say in what he does anymore.

Nick. Ha, fuck Nick. Nick doesn't deserve him. And you know what?

He slides into his car and starts it, slams it into gear and peels out of the parking lot.

Nick doesn't get to have him anymore.





Random speed check, seat belt check, drug test, breathalizer, whatever. He knows he was driving badly, and he grits his teeth and hands his wallet through the open window to the cop who sniffs indelicately and glowers down at him.

He wants to glower back, but doesn't. It's one thing to be caught smelling like sex and covered in ejaculate, it's another thing entirely to get tossed in general lockup smelling like sex and covered in ejaculate. He'll take the ticket, the fine, whatever they want to throw at him - hell, they can take away his license for all that he cares right now - but he's not going to give them an excuse to take him in for the night.

"Pull your car over onto the shoulder," the cop instructs him when he comes back without his wallet. "Just over there, where the officer is waving."

He crawls across the white line and turns the engine off. "What's going on?" he asks.

He hasn't been drinking, he hasn't done any drugs - maybe someone at the club was smoking up and he smells like it, but there won't be any in his blood, at least not enough to test for (and he would know, wouldn't he - hell, if he times it right the test will come through the lab on his watch and wouldn't that be a laugh and a half) and if they're going to ticket him, they should just ticket him.

The second cop leans in the window and takes in the scene with the same blank disgust as the first guy. "Gregory Sanders?" he asks. This is the guy in charge of his wallet, now. It's open and he's looking down at the driver's license.

"Yeah."

"You were driving erratically, Mr Sanders."

"I know." He tries to grin, decides it probably looks feral and stops. "I've had a shitty night. Just write me the ticket, I'll pay the fine, put it on my record - whatever."

The cop shines a light in, lets it linger at his crotch for just a moment longer than strictly necessary. "Everything all right, sir?"

He wants to laugh, he really does. He wants to say, Do I ((look)) all right? He wants to say, Jesus suffering fuck are you ((blind))?!

"I'm fine."

"Uh-huh. Just wait here."

Greg watches him saunter away in the rear view mirror, contemplates taking off while the guy's back is turned. His shorts have long ago passed 'itchy' and are well into 'Spanish Inquisition' by now, and suddenly he's tired - he's exhausted, man, he hasn't gone out like that in a long time, maybe he's getting old or something.

The cop is showing no signs of coming back anytime soon, so Greg undoes his seat belt, slouches down in the seat, and scratches as furiously as he can.





"Greg?"

He's starting to doze when the voice stabs at him, and he snaps his eyes open, not entirely sure where he is. It comes back to him immediately, in a wretched flash that almost hurts, because that's Grissom - Gil goddamn Grissom - leaning over to peer in his car window, and yep - he's still the sorry-assed debauched louse he was an hour ago.

"What?" he asks, because he really is too tired to make excuses. Right now he'd rather be fired on the spot so he could go home than have to stay here at this roadside stop for another minute.

It's not often that Grissom is at a loss for words, and under different circumstances Greg would find it hysterical. He's memorizing the inside of the car, Greg thinks, like he would any other crime scene. Memorizing the stench of semen and the incriminating stain on the front of his jeans, made worse because he's been scratching; and there's probably a hickey if not actual teeth marks on his neck, and he knows Grissom is making a note of that, too.

"Greg, do you know what time it is?" Grissom finally asks.

"What?" Greg asks, blinks. "No. Late?"

"Is this what you do on your nights off?"

He wants to laugh, but where before he stopped himself so he didn't get arrested, now he just doesn't have the energy. "Define 'this'," he challenges. "Get laid? Ha. Hasn't happened in a long fucking time."

Grissom frowns ever so slightly. "Are you okay to drive home?" he asks after a long pause. It's amazing how he doesn't have to inflect his voice for Greg to hear his pity, his contempt.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You almost drove into a tree, Greg."

He what? He sits up, looks over his shoulder. "What tree?" he asks.

"The officer who called said you seemed drunk," Grissom continues, "but you blew zero."

"What tree?"

Grissom points at something behind them, something almost out of sight. "Back there," he says. "That's why they flagged you down. What happened?"

What the... He almost drove into a ((tree))? How'd he miss that?

"I don't know," Greg admits. "I don't remember a tree."

Grissom's frown deepens. "Did you black out?" he asks. "Have you hit your head at all tonight?"

"No. I guess I was just distracted."

"Distracted."

"Angry. Look, Grissom - I'm fine, okay?" He tries another smile, hopes it's got more grin and less teeth than the last one he tried. "I'm on my way home anyway."

Grissom studies him for another while, then shakes his head, a tiny movement that purses his lips. "I'll take you home," he declares. "I'll have someone tow your car in."

Aw, shit. "I'm fine," he insists.

"No, Greg," Grissom says in his totally reasonable voice, "you're not. Here." He hands him his wallet through the open window. "Get your jacket and come with me."





He sits on his jacket in Grissom's truck. It's bad enough the guy came all the way out to a roadside stop to deal with him, he doesn't need to clean someone else's semen off the passenger seat in the morning. He doesn't think about what his own car probably looks like. Oh well - he'll deal with it later.

"So why'd they call ((you))?" he finally asks as they get near his apartment building.

Grissom shrugs as he drives, doesn't take his eyes off the road. "Courtesy?" he says. "Someone saw your work ID in your wallet, punched through to the switchboard."

"Ha." Greg looks out the window. He hates his neighbourhood, isn't too sure why he's still here. Too much of a pain in the ass to move, he knows, but still. This place depresses him.

"Is this you?" Grissom asks, pulling up in front of a boring low-rise.

"Yup." He opens the door and scrambles out. "Thanks for the ride."

Except Grissom is killing the engine, he's getting out, too, standing on the street and looking around. Taking it all in, squirrelling it away somewhere in some internal database of seedy areas in Vegas.

"See you tomorrow?" Greg says hopefully from the curb.

Grissom turns to face him. "I'm coming in with you," he says.

"You don't have to-"

Grissom gives him The Look, the one that not-too-gently reminds Greg of who is in charge and who takes the orders.

Greg swears under his breath and marches up the steps, knows Grissom is following him silently, patiently. Like a shark.





It's been ages since Greg has been here. Sure, he drops by once in a while to pick up his mail, but pretty much he doesn't set foot in the place. Sure as hell doesn't clean, and when he opens the door and steps inside, he gets a snoutful of dust and thinks, oops. Didn't mean to let it get this bad. He sniffles and wills himself not to sneeze.

Grissom follows him in, stands just inside the door with his hands in his pockets while Greg finds the lightswitch and turns it on.

"Yeah yeah yeah," Greg says, "it's a pigsty, I know." He moves through the main room towards the window, which he forces open against years of being painted shut.

Grissom is still looking around him, cataloguing what he sees. "It looks like you haven't been here in a while," he says conversationally.

"Yeah, well," Greg says. "I haven't."

"Where have you been living?"

He hesitates a few seconds before answering, but only a few seconds, because if Nick is such a absolute bastard then why the fuck should Greg protect his dirty little secret anymore? "At Nick's," he says with a little rush of triumph, and goes into the kitchen.

There's a short pause. "Nick Stokes?" Grissom asks from the other room.

"Yeah," Greg says. "But I guess I'm moving back here now." He wishes it didn't feel like such a life sentence. He looks around. He can always move, he knows, but he's thinking maybe he should burn all of his furniture, first.

He comes back out with two glasses of water, offers one to Grissom, who takes it but doesn't bring it to his lips. Greg can see the gears turning in his head, see him work through all the permutations and corollaries of that piece of news.

"Oh," he finally says, and then, "What happened?"

"The usual," Greg says, and wonders just how cruel he's allowed to be. "We had a fight, it's over, it's done."

"When?"

"Before he left for work."

It's like a little light going off somewhere in Grissom's mind, like something rattling around has spontaneously found its place.

"Let me guess," Greg says, "he was a queen bitch tonight."

Grissom almost smiles at that - almost. "Close," he says. His eyes fall on a withered plant in the corner.

Greg follows his gaze. "That's Kenny," he says.

"Kenny?"

"South Park?" Greg says.

Grissom shakes his head.

"Never mind. I suck at house plants anyway." Greg drains his glass of water and goes back into the kitchen.

This time Grissom follows him. "Do you - need to talk?" he asks, clearly asking out of some sense of obligation. "About what happened?"

"No." Greg fills and drinks another glass of water. Man, he hasn't been thirsty like this since that time Nick decided he needed to take up running. He pushes the thought aside and sets his glass down on the counter.

"You're sure you didn't hit your head?" Grissom asks.

"Positive."

"Hm."

Greg rolls his eyes where Grissom can't see him, then turns to face him. "What does that mean?" he asks.

"I'm worried that you didn't see that tree."

"It's nothing," Greg tells him. "I was tired, it was late, I was angry - I shouldn't have been driving, okay? I know that."

"Good."

"And I won't do it again, dad."

Grissom does quirk a small smile, but smothers it quickly. "Good," he says again, but with a touch more warmth this time. "I'm sorry about Nick."

"I'm not."

Grissom raises an eyebrow. "No?"

"No. He treated me like shit and I'm done with him." Greg holds Grissom's gaze. "I just need to get my stuff back and I'm good."

"Do you need tomorrow off?"

He thinks about it. He still has Nick's key, he could get his stuff while he's not there and just have done with it. But that feels like cowardice, and he's never backed away from a fight in his life. "No," he says. "I'll be there."

"Greg," Grissom says, "you don't have to be superhuman about this."

He lets himself laugh. "I'm not," he says. "This is me, getting on with my life."

Grissom holds his gaze a while longer, then nods. "All right," he says, "but if you change your mind...."

"You'll be the first to know," Greg lies pleasantly.

After Grissom leaves, he strips down and stands in front of the mirror in the bathroom, looking at himself. Yep, he thinks, definitely going to need to soak that off. Showering just ain't gonna cut it.





He's not eavesdropping, Gil tells himself, not really. He's in the break room, legitimately looking for coffee filters for a titration he's improvising in his lab. It's not his fault that the showdown is happening next door, and that Greg's not bothering to keep his voice down.

"Forget it, Stokes."

"Come on, Greg."

"Me? Excuse me for wanting to have a say in my own life-"

"What? We talked about this-"

"No, ((you)) talked, and when I tried to say something, you took off."

"Jesus, Greg-" Nick stops, drops his voice from the near-shout he was reaching, tries again. "That's not fair."

"How is that not fair, Nick? You called all the shots. You still are. Fuck, I left you and you still think you're in charge."

"Can we have this conversation somewhere else?"

"No."

"Shhh!"

"NO! I'm sorry that who you are - who ((we)) are disgusts you, Nick, that you'd rather die than have anyone know what a fucking ((faggot)) you are, what a screaming ((cocksucker))-"

There's a sharp sound, and Gil almost drops the box of filters he's holding because that sounded an awful lot like someone being smacked. There's a long silence and he wonders if he should go next door and see what's going on.

"Fuck you, Stokes," Greg says eventually, and it's such a low, dead sound that it gives Gil the creeps, and he's not even in the same room.

"Shit, Greg, man, I'm sorry-"

"Get out. Of my fucking. Way."

There's a stomp of footsteps disappearing down the hall, and after another protracted silence there's another set, headed in the opposite direction. Gil looks up in time to see Nick walk by with a grim set to his jaw and his fists clenched at his sides.

Well well well, Gil thinks with a nasty taste in his mouth, what am I supposed to do about ((this))?





Between the MacGyvered science project in his lab and the case that Catherine is working, Gil doesn't get down to the DNA lab until much later, and he hesitates in the doorway for a bit, watching Greg move around his equipment.

He thinks for a moment that it's been too long since he's told him what a good job he does. Then he thinks, the guy's private life just went to hell, I'm sure the last thing he needs is a pat on the head from his socially inept boss.

He clears his throat, tries not to flinch at the look of cold steel that Greg nails him with when he turns around - and then covers immediately, trying to pretend he didn't just try to kill him with his eyes.

"Hi," Greg says, tries to smile and drops his attention back to the job at hand. "Sorry."

For what? Gil wants to ask. "How are you?" he says instead.

"Me? I'm fine."

"I, uh." He clears his throat again. "I heard what happened earlier, with Nick."

He sees the muscles across Greg's shoulders bunch up momentarily under his lab coat, and then he sees them relax slowly. "Yeah," Greg says, "sorry about that."

"Are you all right?"

"Sure."

"Greg..." Why is his throat so dry all of a sudden? "It sounded an awful lot like-"

"That was my fault." Greg glances up long enough to flash his teeth at Gil in what is presumably supposed to be some measure of humour. "I was baiting him. It's okay."

"It's not okay," Gil says.

"It is if I say it is," Greg informs him, slides one sample into a machine and turns to get another one ready.

"Greg-"

"Look, Grissom, I'm fine. Okay? Things are going to be fine."

He wants to argue with him, wants to know if that was the first time Nick's hit him, wants to know all the sordid little things that sent Greg out doing god knows what last night while Nick acted like a brat all shift and pissed everyone off. He wants to understand how something he didn't know about - something right under his nose that he was completely unaware of - could blow up so spectacularly, with so little warning.

"Okay," he says after a while of watching Greg's hands move from one delicate operation to another. "If you need to talk..."

"Got it."

Gil nods and leaves.





He hates gossip, he really does - nothing destroys a workplace faster than malice, and nothing transmits malice faster than people standing around a coffee machine. But in this one instance, this one particular case, it's not the worst thing he's encountered.

He gets the gist of it from Sara and Warrick, who have come to some sort of truce in their eternal fight in the light of a serious meltdown.

"Sanders a queer, okay," Sara is saying when Gil happens to be walking past the trace lab. "I get that. But Nick?" She shakes her head.

"Well..." Warrick shrugs uneasily with one shoulder. "I gotta say, I'm not that surprised."

"What?!"

"He's always seemed a little... forced about women, you know what I mean?"

"No."

Warrick sighs. "Well, anyway, whatever happened it ended badly."

"I wonder what Greg did to fuck it up."

Gil stands in the doorway and listens. He learned to be silent at some point in his life, he isn't sure when - with a deaf mother you'd think he'd never have bothered to learn the art of stealth - but he's always been glad of the skill.

Of course, he thinks, these are Nick's friends, naturally they're going to assume that it was Greg's fault. But at the same time...

He sighs, scares the daylights out of Sara, gives her one of his ill-defined looks that suggests disappointment, and keeps walking the way he was going.

Catherine catches him when he's halfway down the hall to his office. "Got a minute?" she asks, falling into step next to him.

"Sure," he says.

She waits until they're in his office. "You've got to do something about Nick," she tells him.

"I do?" he asks, going around his desk and sitting down.

"He just ripped Archie's head off because he's half an hour behind on the convenience store tapes," she tattled, "he almost slugged a suspect and, oh yeah, if anyone so much as looks at him funny he goes ballistic."

He looks at her for a while. "You've heard, I assume?" he says.

"Oh yeah." She drops into a chair across from him. "What's your take on it?"

"Honestly?" He considers it. "I think Nick is the problem."

She raises her eyebrows. "Oh?"

"It's - complicated. I overheard a conversation earlier, and then, well, there was last night."

"Yes," Catherine says, "I heard about that."

"You did?" What? ((How?))

"Brass asked me if I knew anything about it."

"Oh." He drums his fingers on the edge of his desk.

"So?" Catherine asks. "You gonna talk to him?"

He really doesn't want to. "Sure."

She grins at him. "Good man," she says, and leaves.

He doesn't feel like a particularly good man.





"Nick? You have a minute?"

He waits until the shift is wrapping up, until Nick is more or less on his way out of the building, and then he catches him in the hall outside the locker room. He's been waiting, and trying to make it look like he hasn't.

"Not really, Grissom," Nick says.

"Could you ((make)) one?" Gil asks, inflecting his voice in the most supervisory way he knows how.

Nick sighs, shrugs. "Sure," he says, "whatever."

They go back to Gil's office, where there's a door that closes and gives them a modicum of privacy. Well, the illusion of it anyway - people saw them walk in here, they're probably circling like bats outside in the hallway, their ears tuned to the specific frequency of glass.

"What's up?" Nick asks. He sounds tired.

"I'm sure you know the overall tenor of the rumours around here tonight," Gil says, noting the flare of anger that spikes in Nick's eyes. "I'll take that as a yes."

"Look, if anyone has a problem-"

"Nick, we have a zero-tolerance policy in effect at the lab. If anyone gives you any grief, I want to know about it."

Nick simmers across from him but doesn't say anything.

"Likewise," Gil continues, "if you give anyone ((else)) any grief, I will find out about it. It goes both ways. Right?"

Jaw clenched so hard it's a wonder Gil can't hear molars cracking. "Right," Nick agrees with visceral reluctance.

"What's personal is personal, Nick. It should stay out of the lab."

"Got it."

"Okay then. Have a good morning."