"THESE ARE SLASH STORIES
- THAT MEANS TWO MEN IN ROMANTIC &/or SEXUAL SITUATIONS!"
The Sun Always Shines On TV
by elfin
Part One
Catherine watched Warrick rubbing his eyes as he approached.
“You should be at home, in bed.”
He regarded her with a grim expression. “You too. How’s Nicky?”
She said nothing, letting Warrick make up his own mind as he stopped
next to her and pressed his hand to the window, unconsciously mimicking
Gil’s earlier contact with Nick through the lid of the coffin.
In the cool, private room beyond the glass the lights were off but the
dim corridor lighting threw in enough to gently highlight the patient
and his guardian on the bed.
Gil Grissom - iceman – was sitting half-on, half-off the mattress, up
on the pillows where Nick’s head should have been. Instead, Nick was
using Grissom as a pillow, head rested on the soft swell of Gil’s
stomach, lying on his side curled tightly against the other man’s leg,
one ravaged arm across the wide body.
Gil was gently rubbing the fingertips of Nick’s right hand were it
rested on Gil’s left. With his other hand he was tenderly stroking
Nick’s hair - the only part not of him not swollen and covered in the
chalky white salve that was supposed to stop the bites from itching.
Once Nick was aware enough to feel them, presumably.
Gil’s was an unfailing touch, never tiring, despite his eyes being
closed and his looking as dead to world as his ward.
But while the only things keeping Nick under were sedatives and
anti-toxins, Gil was finding sleep to be an elusive luxury.
Nick’s heart rate was too high, his blood pressure above normal, and
there was an answering tension in Grissom’s body. He was utterly
exhausted but wide-awake.
“He’s been sitting like that for over three hours,” Catherine murmured,
almost to herself.
Warrick tapped his thumb silently against the glass. “He’ll stay there
all night if it’s what Nick needs.”
“I know. I owe him an apology.”
Gil opened his eyes – he knew they were being watched and he knew who
by. If he didn’t understand they needed to be there just as much as he
did he’d have ignored them. But he understood all too well.
He inclined his head, inviting them in.
Catherine opened the door silently and Warrick stepped passed her,
standing between her and the bed. Asking permission with dark eyes,
answering Gil’s tired smile with one of his own, he moved his hand over
Nick’s head. Tears pricked his eyes. He was wiped out, physically and
emotionally. The night felt as if it had lasted a lifetime.
But Nick was alive. Safe. Back with them, where he belonged. He was
battered – maybe beaten – but to see him sleeping there was a
breathtakingly intense thing. It would be a while before they got over
this. They had to accept that Nick might not, ever, get over it.
Gil didn’t speak. He let Warrick work through whatever was in his head,
keeping up the soothing strokes that had finally settled Nicky,
persuaded him to stop fighting the sedatives and eventually succumb to
sleep.
Nick remained terrified - his mind still back in the coffin, imaging
his body was too.
After a few long minutes, Warrick told Nick goodnight, that he’d see
him in the morning. He brushed feather light fingertips over the
feather light blanket then turned, gave Catherine a brief hug and left.
Gil let out a deep breath and met Catherine’s empathic gaze.
“I’m sorry,” she told him, and he knew what for. He nodded. In the end,
the money hadn’t made one iota of difference except to break his heart,
tear into his soul just that little bit more. For now he didn’t have
the energy or inclination to explain. He was glad Catherine didn’t need
him to.
It was a while before she spoke again. “He’s not going to get over this
one.”
Gil swallowed. “I know.”
“What are you going to do?”
For a second he couldn’t answer. The whole night flashed through his
mind like a graphic movie, and tagged on the end was the memory of
Holly Gribbs. His breath snagged on a sob that broke from his throat.
Catherine raised her hand to her mouth for a moment before sliding an
arm around Gil’s shoulders.
Gil took a deep breath and leaned into her just a fraction. “I don’t
know…. I’ll keep him with us. We’ll keep him with us. He’ll be safe
with us.”
She nodded, squeezing the tears from her eyes, letting them slide over
her cheeks and into Gil’s hair as she pressed a kiss to his head.
He looked up at her as she straightened, his own tears tracking a
tickly path over his nose.
“You need some sleep,” she told him, knowing she was wasting her
breath.
“I’ll sleep soon.”
”You’ll get cricks if you stay here much longer,” more misspent air.
She knew he wasn’t leaving. “I’ll bring you a change of clothes if you
give me your keys.”
He nodded at his coat over the back of the chair behind her but he
said, “He asked me if my soul died a little every time I pushed the
button.”
She didn’t need to ask who. “I think we all died a little tonight.”
They knew hell by name, sight and smell now. Nothing would ever be the
same as it was. God alone knew how Nick would cope. If he’d cope at
all.
She lifted the keys from Gil’s coat and found the one to his apartment,
taking it off the ring. Then she stood, her gaze settling for a moment
on Nick’s poor face, fixing in mind the certain knowledge that they’d
saved his life; at least physically he was going to be okay.
Touching her lips to Gil’s forehead she squeezed his shoulder.
“Goodnight, Gil.”
“Night, Catherine.”
He remained awake long after she’d gone, playing the ends of Nick’s
hair through his fingers, feeling the strong if rapid heartbeat against
his thigh.
It would be a while before he felt able to let Nick out of his sight
again – a personal battle he wouldn’t be alone in fighting. All he
could do – all any of them could do now – was to be there for Nick when
he needed them and to let him go when he asked them to.
Gil slept eventually, but only until he was woken by raised voices and
a vicious squirming against his chest.
One raised voice, he realised as he snapped awake. Nick, struggling to
free himself from the plexi-glass prison still locked around his mind,
sobbing in his desperation. Gil tried to calm him but he was just
another restraint in the muddle of Nick’s drug-enhanced panic. Instead
of trying to contain him, Gil slid from under him and dropped to his
feet. His numb leg gave out and he managed only a controlled drop to
his knees next to the bed, hands gripping the mattress to steady
himself as he went down.
Nick instantly curled up, pulling his legs tight in front of him,
forming a foetal ball, trembling and sobbing in the grasp of a
nightmare born of real terror.
Still kneeling, Gil touched the tips of Nick’s fingers and reached one
arm around to stroke his hair. And he spoke, softly, his voice almost a
lullaby. “Nicky, you’re safe. We’ve got you. You’re safe. You’re out of
there, Nicky. We’ve got you. You’re safe.”
By the time the trauma specialist arrived, Nick’s sobs had muted, his
breath hitching but his body steady again. She checked his vitals
quickly before leaving them be, not wanting to disturb her patient
further. There was only so much medicine could do for patients under
her care, a fact she knew too well. Nick had to do the toughest part on
his own, but not – it seemed – by himself.
She’d spoken to Catherine earlier, and to Nick’s friend who had had to
be talked out of letting go of Nick’s hand when the entourage had
arrived. She’d met his parents who’d cried a lot and told him that they
loved him. And after they’d all gone Gil had remained, offering
everything he was, all the strength he possessed for Nick to draw from,
surrounding him with safety.
Gil continued to purr reassurances as he reaching back to pull the
chair up to the bed, to rest his arm on the pillow above Nick’s head
and resuming the even strokes of his hair until Nick’s breathing evened
out and he sank once more into sleep.
This, Gil reasoned darkly, was a critical time. It was essential for
Nick to know that crying and being comforted was okay, that this was
the least Gil would do for him. Soon Nick would be aware of them, aware
of his wounds and his fears. He would come to understand that a part of
him that had died in that grave and he needed to know it was all right
to mourn.
They couldn’t afford to let him push them away – if they lost sight of
him for a moment he would be lost to them for good.
The person Nick had been was gone. All they could hope was to shape the
new man he became. Their strength had to be his strength, because right
now it was all Nick had.
Part Two
Gil leaned forward, keeping up the gentle stroking of Nick's hair and
fingertips, watching red-rimmed eyes open slowly and lift to meet his
own. He tilted his head and smiled.
"Hi, Nicky," he murmured softly. They weren't sure how Nick's
eardrums had fared. They knew he could still hear, he'd heard Gil
through the glass lid of the coffin, but they didn't know if for Nick
the words had been backed by a continuous ringing courtesy of the
gunshot he’d fired three feet from his head in an enclosed box.
"Grissom...." It was a beautiful sound; the rough, croaky voice.
"It's Gil," he told him firmly as long lashes swept down for a moment
and a single tear tracked over Nick's cheek. "We've got you,
Nicky. You're safe. You're in the hospital."
A shudder ran the length of Nick's body, breaking in a sob. More
tears followed the first and Gil's heart threatened to break entirely.
"I'm sorry...."
"No.” The older man swallowed his own emotion. No weakness
to be shown here, they had to be strong for Nick. “There's
nothing for you to be sorry about. You did everything right, you
didn't put a step wrong." He hesitated, the thought occurring
belatedly that he shouldn’t be hinting at the presence of the web feed
from the box just yet and that maybe he'd misinterpreted Nick’s apology
anyway. "It's okay to cry, Nicky. You need to cry."
Nick's head moved in small jerks, side to side. "There's a lot
inside you right now. You need time to work through it."
The wet face crumpled and Gil thought for a second about calling
someone else. Catherine had always said he wasn't a
'people-person' and this was far from the best time for him to be
practising his non-existent psychology skills. But equally it
wasn't the time for him to be running away from his own
insecurities. He stayed put, letting Nick find his own precarious
balance, relieved when those big brown eyes found his again.
"Is everyone okay?" He didn’t sound like himself at all, voice
not much more than a painful rasp. But it was okay – it would
recover far faster than its owner.
"Everyone's fine, Nicky."
"Rick...." Gil wondered if Nick had heard Warrick's quiet mantra
at the graveside.
"Warrick's gone to get some sleep. They all have." He
considered his next words carefully. "We were there with you,
every step of the way. You were never alone." There was no
way Nick was going to believe that without an explanation, but he was
absolutely sure this wasn’t the right time to be telling him about the
feed, or that it was them switching on the light and depriving him of
air.
Gil had even warned the others – it was something Nick was going to
have to know. But not yet, not until he had a few reserves to be
able to deal with it. Right now he had nothing.
If Gordon hadn't have already killed himself, Gil may have done it for
him.
Nick's eyes had already closed again. Gil felt a pressure on this
hand and as the tension drained slowly from Nick, as he gave in to the
seductive velvet unconsciousness of the drugs in his system, he curled
three fingers around Gil's thumb.
Closing his own eyes, Gil let the tears run silently over his face
until no more would come.
~
Judge Stokes pulled the door closed behind him, hearing the quiet
click, looking at his wife fighting to hold herself together against
the odds.
The specialist - Dr Sui - was waiting for him outside the private room
and Stokes tried to listen to what she was telling them about trauma
victims and the different ways in which different people dealt with
what they'd endured.
But his attention kept slipping, focusing instead on his son on the
other side of the glass. Nick's old boss had pulled the chair
back to the bed. Nick - still not really 'with it' - was saying
something and the older man was smiling with all the affection the
judge knew he should be showing but couldn't. It didn't come
easily to him. Somehow he knew it didn't come easy to Grissom
either. But he was managing, and Nick was responding to him in a
way he wasn't responding to his own parents.
Stokes felt a touch to his arm, glanced apologetically at his wife, and
realised Dr Sui was speaking to him.
"...no way of knowing what's going on in Nick's head. But Dr
Grissom has a fair idea because of what he and his team saw, because of
how they were involved. Right now he's saying all the right
things and given time I think he can ask the right questions."
She looked at Nick's father, her expression sympathetic. "I know
it's hard, but if Nick feels comfortable with Gil, it wouldn't be a
good idea to upset that."
It was later, when they were back in their hotel room, when Nick's Mom
asked her husband why he was jealous of Gil Grissom.
Judge Stokes stared out over the dusk-haloed city from thirty storeys
up and tried to explain, "He's our son, my Pancho. I'm the one
who should be at his bedside, offering him the kind of support... a
father should be offering."
Gillian Stokes looked surprised. "You think Dr Grissom's playing
a father-figure role?" She didn't wait for answer - she didn't
want one, or want to respond to his obvious question. She closed
the bathroom door behind her and started to run a bath.
As she sat swilling the hot water in with the cold, she thought about
the way Gil had been touching Nick's hand and petting his hair when
they'd arrived at the hospital that morning. Not fatherly touches
- Gil's were the tender caresses of a lover.
~
When Warrick and Catherine dropped by after their shift, Gil gave them
some time with Nick even though he was still drowsing under the heavy
drugs that were attempting to bring some balance to his abused system.
Dr Sui found him standing next to the coffee machine in the corridor
staring sightlessly at the plastic cup waiting for him.
“Dr Grissom?”
He started, and was relieved he hadn’t already picked up his drink or
he might have thrown it all over her.
“Gil, please,” he recovered quickly.
She gave him a little smile. “Gil.” She was a small woman,
Chinese by birth, American by culture. And she’d liked Gil
Grissom the moment she’d met him. “Nick’s mother rang.
They’re leaving for Texas in the morning.”
Gil almost shook his head. Why would they…? It didn’t make
any sense to him. Nick was injured and frightened, why wouldn’t
his parents put off going home for as long as it took? Would they
want to take Nick…?
“She asked me to keep you informed of Nick’s progress.”
Not taking him with them then. Gil bent to collect his coffee,
ignoring the burning in his fingers where he gripped the Styrofoam cup.
“So… how’s he doing, Doctor?”
“Physically he’s doing well. The bites look worse than they are
now, the drugs and the transfusion have helped clear his blood of the
toxins. They’ll itch like hell as they heal but for no more than
a week or so. His ears look undamaged, although he’s going to
need to tell us if he’s hearing any constant ringing. Mentally,
he spent fifteen hours in a box underground thinking he was going to
die there….”
Gil nodded slowly. “I know.”
“He needs to see a psychiatrist.”
“I think he has one.” He knew for a fact. Not the
departmental one but a private one he started seeing after Nigel Crane
dropped into his life.
“Make sure he goes. Make sure he talks.”
“Don’t worry, Doctor. We didn’t give up on him when he was taken,
we’re not going to give up on him now.”
Part Three
“Nick?”
No response. Gil stepped a little further into the small
room. Nick was standing at the window, his back to the door,
hands on the wall either side of the pane as if he could widen the
space simply by pushing.
The window looked out onto a narrow courtyard surrounded on all four
sides by twenty-storey hospital wings.
“Nicky?”
Gil knew from personal experience how easily someone could be startled
even by a friendly face. So he crossed the room quietly to stand
a couple of feet from Nick, putting his back against the wall, waiting
for the younger man to notice him.
Close-up he could see the subtle trembling of Nick’s slim but solid
form. It brought a frown to his face. But he only had a
moment to consider it before dark eyes found him.
“Hey, Gil.”
There was no inflection in Nick’s voice, no surprise at Grissom’s
presence.
All of Nick’s defences were down. He didn’t have the ability or
the energy to raise them yet. He was naked and vulnerable.
But it wouldn’t last long and then he’d build walls around himself so
high and so thick no one would ever to be to break through. Gil’s
plan was to be on the inside when those walls went up.
It was a possibly reckless decision made as he’d stood at the edge of a
deep hole lit only by torchlight. He’d stared at the ground in
which Nick had been buried. And suddenly he’d decided life was
too short to hide any longer.
Gil pushed away from the wall and stepped up to look out of the window
properly for the first time since Nick’s admittance four nights
ago. He stared at the dark red brick and the neatly laid slabs,
at the wilting rose bushes and baking earth.
He put his hand on Nick’s arm, wishing he hadn’t felt the
barely-suppressed flinch.
“Let’s get out of here.”
There was nothing physically wrong with Nick. The ant bite toxins
were still being cleaned out by his own natural defences boosted by the
serum they’d shot him full of on the first night. But there was
no reason for him to be kept in at Desert Palm (Las Vegas didn’t have
hospitals, it had medical facilities) over and above Dr Sui’s concerns
for his mental well-being.
Unlocking the Tahoe remotely, Gil opened the driver’s side door and
slid the key into the ignition, starting the engine without getting
in. Nick watched him quizzically, expressions not changing even
when Gil pressed a button that wound down the rider’s side window.
Then he walked around and held the door open for Nick to climb
in. When he closed the door, leaving off his seat belt, and
immediately hooked one arm out of the window, fingers hugging the hot
metal of the SUV’s black skin, Gil knew he’d been right. He would
need to do a lot more of these subtle experiments, hoping each one
would have just a minute effect that would in the end help Nick build
his resilience and confidence back up to what they had been before
Gordon.
BG.
He and his daughter were two people the Las Vegas CSIs would never,
ever forget.
Fastening his own belt, not hassling Nick about his, Gil tooled the
Tahoe out of the parking lot and on to the busy road, crossing two
lanes of traffic only to re-cross a couple of minutes later in order to
get up onto the highway heading southwest out of the city.
Gil had combined compassionate leave with eight years’ worth of unused
annual leave and the threat of permanently leaving to take Vegas’ CSI
count down by another body. Under the circumstances Ecklie hadn’t
been able to refuse and he’d obviously been sure that Gil’s resignation
was serious and would have been swift to come had he not agreed.
The sheriff, still stinging perhaps from his own refusal to fund Nick’s
ransom – even though paying it hadn’t helped their cause directly – had
arranged a Level Three CSI secondment from LA to cover. If an
entomologist was needed, Gil could be called. Otherwise he would
be back as and when. Nick’s abduction and incarceration had reset
a few priorities for everyone, it seemed.
But if Nick had even thought about work or questioned Gil’s
omnipresence, he hadn’t mentioned it. Gil wondered if maybe doing
so would mean bursting the bubble and letting reality in. It was
a difficult thing to face at the best of times – reality - but after
what Nick had been through it was a minefield that he would eventually
have to cross.
It was a hot day and having the window down was playing havoc with the
air conditioning, but Nick didn’t seem to notice and Gil didn’t care.
They travelled in silence until they were out of the city, surrounded
by desert on both sides. Then Nick turned to him and asked,
“Where we going?” in a tone that told Gil he’d just figured they
weren’t going anywhere he’d expected.
Gil smiled across at him – an easy-going smile that suggested there was
no more to this impromptu road trip that his own desire to leave town
for a couple of hours.
“Thought you might be hungry,” he quipped.
It worked. For a second Nick’s mouth opened in a wide, familiar
smile. Then it was gone, choked off by the trauma sticky and
cloying around the edges of Nick’s mind. Gil noted it and moved
on. Everything was a small step and Nick’s recovery was going to
be a series of these very small steps.
The Tahoe turned a long, yawning corner and Lake Mead came into view
over the dunes, its jagged edges suggesting it had been sliced out of
the desert with a knife wielded by a lunatic. Around the edges of
the huge lake there was an eclectic yet predictable selection of
marinas and sailing clubs, bars and restaurants. But the only
thing within striking distance of where Gil had parked was a cute
ice-cream parlour with eighty-two different flavours and outside
seating at wooden picnic tables under a blue linen canopy.
Gil led them to a table closest to the water’s edge, with the tables on
either side unoccupied. They sat down and he watched Nick peruse
the extensive choices printed in yellow on a candy-pink menu card over
thirty inches long. Just now the haunted expression was masked by
a childlike glee and Gil gave an inward sigh of relief. Another
successful experiment. A good decision. He could only hope
he made more right ones than wrong ones over the next few crucial weeks.
“Three scoops,” Nick said suddenly without being asked, “choc-chip,
cherryade and mint.”
Gil screwed up his face in disgust. “You’re serious?”
“Sure! It’s a great combination. You should try it.”
He felt a warmth in Nick’s ability to just be himself like this.
Here, and for some time to come, Gil wasn’t his boss but his
friend. He was glad Nick appeared to understand that.
Gil kept the conversation light, “It’s unnatural!”
“Unnatural? For someone who eats ants–“ The word stuck in
his throat and Gil watched in helpless horror as the mask slipped, the
smile faded. But Nick took a deep breath and forced the edges of
his mouth to lift again. “I’d have thought you’d be more adventurous
when it came to ice-cream is all.”
Gil felt a surge of pride stronger than any of the bad feelings milling
around inside him. He wanted to lean over the table and hug
Nick. But instead he stood and with an acknowledging tilt of his
head and slight raise of the eyebrows before taking Nick’s order to the
counter.
When he returned, hands full, Nick was still sitting, arms crossed on
the tabletop, staring out through black sunglasses at the winking
water. The casual pose belied the tension in his shoulders but it
was a start nonetheless, for both of them.
Gil had been able to leave Nick alone, albeit for just a couple of
minutes, albeit in bright daylight in a public place. Gil had
expected some level of panic from at least one of them but it hadn’t
happened.
It wasn’t a crime scene, of course, and it wasn’t dark. And that
thought made Gil suddenly wonder about the dayshift, and whether that
wasn’t the best time for Nick to keep working. He’d told Ecklie
he wanted his guys back but if it meant him swapping shifts so be
it. Not that Catherine would be happy. He had no idea what
was going to happen if and when Nick went back to work but he was sure
on a couple of points. Nick at least was returning to his team
and it would be a very long time before he attended another crime scene
alone.
All this was in his head as he sat down and put the Styrofoam bowl of
oyster wafer and pink, brown and green ice-cream in front of
Nick. The young man’s grin was worth every cent, every dollar,
even of the million that had gone up in the explosion – something else
Nick knew nothing about.
“What’ve you got?” Nick questioned him around a mouthful of mint.
Gil pointed out the individual scoops with the end of his spoon,
“Strawberry, Orange Peel and Crushed Beetles.”
It took a minute but Nick actually laughed.
Part Four
They walked along the
shoreline for a couple of minutes, but the drugs in Nick's system meant
they
didn't get too far.
"Gris, could we stop for
a bit?"
"It's Gil. And
yes, we can."
The crystal sun on the lake
was blinding. Gil watched the glints
like stars against the black of his sunglasses, not really thinking,
not ready
to touch the raw recall waiting for him close to the forefront of his
mind. If he was feeling that way, god
alone knew how Nick was doing.
The silence that fell between
them was an easy one. Gil had never
considered their relationship easy. He
knew what he was to Nick, or rather what he had been BG.
A mentor, a teacher, someone to be looked
upon with awe, despite Gil trying to dissuade him from the hero worship. Still, in the message that was supposed to be
his suicide note, Nick had felt the need to apologise for disappointing
him.
"You know, Nicky, you've
never...." He caught himself.
He wasn't supposed to know about it, was
he? "I'm very proud of you."
He glanced across at the man
sitting on the ground next to him, saw his words hit home.
"Not sure I've done anything to deserve
that," he responded quietly, deliberately vaguely.
"You're very good at
your job. You bring an... empathy to it
that I just don't have." He
inwardly flinched. This wasn't going the
way he'd wanted it to. "You're a
good CSI, Nick."
No response this time and Gil
was happy to let it drop for now. Later,
when the details started to emerge and emotions were running high
anyway, he'd
say more. He promised himself he would
say more.
"Do I have to go back to
the hospital?" Nick asked suddenly.
Gil shrugged. "Only
to collect your stuff. Then I'll take you
home."
"You don't have to baby-sit
me." But the unspoken need rang in
his voice, loud and clear.
"I'm not babysitting
you, Nick." He didn't offer any
explanation of what he was doing and Nick didn't push for one.
But his next question was a
surprise. "Why'd he do it?"
"Who?"
"The guy who took
me. Why... that? Why
me?"
Gil explained carefully about
Kelly Gordon and her conviction, about Walter Gordon and his motives. He kept any bias out of his voice, speaking
as he would when calling a scene, without emotion, without that empathy
he'd
praised Nick for having. It was one of
the hardest things he'd ever done to keep himself out of his voice.
"It wasn't personal,
Nicky."
"That's what you said
after Crane. It felt personal then and
it sure as hell does now." Nick's
voice was breaking, the emotion so close to the surface, leaking
through the
cracks of his shattered control. Gil
nodded once. Nick's eyes filled with
tears. "You know... I wish I could
say I'm glad it was me and not someone else... I wouldn't have done
that to my
worst enemy... but... truth is... I wished it'd been anyone but me. I don't want any o'this."
Unable to just sit there, Gil
put one large hand on Nick's back, squeezing his shoulder then
awkwardly
rubbing down and up, following the curve of his spine.
Nick wiped his running nose
on his sleeve. "Sorry...."
"Stop saying you're
sorry. You shouldn't be.
You need to talk, Nicky, and you need to
cry. It's a release, like
screaming. It's good for you."
Only later did the thought
occur that Nick might be apologising for crying in front of him.
~
Gil followed Nick into his
apartment and stopped dead. Low
ceilings, dark blue décor, narrow corridor out to the bedroom
and
bathroom. He almost laughed, the insane
laughter of the hysterical bubbling up from his chest.
But he didn’t.
He watched Nick, as skittish
as a doe, standing in his own living room, knowing the exact same
thoughts were
spreading through Nick’s mind but at a much madder rate.
He watched.
And Nick started to unravel right in front of his eyes.
Gil caught him, gently stroking
his arms, not gripping, not restraining.
“Nicky, come back to my place.”
He heard himself and softened his tone.
“I’ve got… open plan, high ceilings with white walls. I’ve got… a kingsize bed that’s all yours and
a walk-in shower to… to die for.” He
smiled. Actually smiled.
What else could he do?
He was utterly relieved when
Nick smiled a little too, so the next words chilled him to the bone.
“Jeez, Gil. I
live in a goddamn coffin.”
~
For the most part Nick was
holding the pieces together okay, even if bits kept getting away from
him. Gil knew he had to hold it together
too.
But it wasn’t easy.
Watching Nick sleep, sprawled out over most
of the surface of his bed, Gil let a couple of the myriad emotions
filter to
the surface.
Since they yanked him –
literally – out of the box, Nick had had little or no privacy. So after he’d given his houseguest a tour of
the apartment, Gil had forced himself to go out, just down to the store
for
supplies, and to the chemist to pick up Nick’s prescriptions. To give the man some space.
The whole time he was out he
was plagued by an empty dread. He
worried himself into nausea so that by the time he unlocked his own
front door
again and let himself in, his heart was racing with an irrational
terror that
Nick was panicking, Nick was terrified, Nick was…
…Nick was crashed out on the
sofa, television showing some gentle, early afternoon detective show,
the
remote hanging from loose fingers. At
the sound of the door, he tipped his head back and smiled a small smile
and Gil
experienced a wholly inappropriate but possibly desperately needed
moment of
euphoria.
He smiled back, letting it
light up his eyes. “Still hungry?”
“Not after all that ice
cream!”
Gil closed the door behind
him with his foot and crossed to the kitchen area.
“Well, it’ll take a while to cook. By
the time the apartment’s filled with the
smell of garlic and tomatoes, your mouth’ll be watering.”
~
He hadn’t lied. Gil’s
pasta sauce and home baked garlic bread
had been incredible. Then again, Nick
wasn’t sure there was anything that wouldn’t taste incredible. He was glad, so incredibly glad to be
alive. It was only just sinking in, he
thought. There were more ‘ifs’ than he
dared to count. But he knew one thing
for certain. If Gil hadn’t taken him out
of the hospital, brought him home, he wasn’t sure who would have.
His heart rate started to
speed up. How the hell would he cope
alone? What if someone came for
him…? What if Gordon…?
“Nick.” The
hook in Gil’s voice brought him gently
back from the edge. “I’m here, Nicky.”
He took a deep breath and
nodded once. “Sorry.”
“No. Nothing
to be sorry for. You feel like you’re
losing it, you reach for
me, okay? Wherever we are, whatever else
is happening. Here, at the lab, on a
case, anywhere.”
Nick nodded again but it
wasn’t enough. “Promise me, Nick.”
Oddly, it brought a smile to
his face to hear the words he remembered so well from when…. Best not to remember it. Not
yet.
Not ready. “I promise.”
Gil’s smile was perfect.
“Good.”
~
Part Five
coming soon?
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