Home of Greg Sanders Slash Fiction
Chapter Four: The Greater Tufted Grissom Appreciation Society
Characters: Gil Grissom, Greg Sanders, Nick Stokes
Rating: FRAO
Warnings: None
Summary: In which "fun" is defined in terms of tarantulas
After three days of ridiculous half-conversations with Greg that earn him increasingly wary looks from Catherine and Brass, Gil decides to move on to phase two of his social experiment.
He's been hearing some grudgingly good things about Greg's work lately, which he translates from Greg-sucks (which is the lingua franca in the field these days) to mean that he's doing something outstanding. He wanders down to officially let him know that he's impressed and watches unseen from the corridor for a few minutes while Greg moves like a whirlwind through his lab.
At the speed he's moving, Gil thinks, it honestly looks like he's got a third arm in there somewhere.
Greg screeches to a halt abruptly, and sighs dramatically.
"What?" Gil asks.
Greg turns, startled, and grins sheepishly. "It's the printer," he says. "It's the slowest part of my operation. It's making me look bad."
"From what I hear," Gil says, "you're looking anything but bad."
"Well," Greg says, "flattery will get you almost everywhere..."
"I mean it," Gil says. "Whatever you're doing seems to be working."
Is Greg actually blushing at that? Hm. Gil makes a note in his mental spiral notebook, the one labelled 'Sanders Observations'.
"Well, you know," Greg says, and tugs impatiently at the sheet of paper spooling out of the printer.
Gil watches him work for another few seconds, though he's not moving at the nigh-invisible clip from earlier. "It's Tuesday," he says after a while.
Greg looks up. "...gold star for Grissom?" he hazards.
Gil grins. "Let's celebrate."
"Celebrate your gold star?"
"Celebrate Tuesday."
"What's to celebrate about Tuesday?"
"It's not Monday," Gil says.
"This is true," Greg concedes, and slides his sheaf of papers into a folder and sticks a label on the cover. "So... okay. How does the Greater Tufted Grissom celebrate Tuesdays?"
"It's a serious affair," Gil says with a knitted brow. "It involves malt beverages. And the possibility of nachos."
"Ah." Greg manages to look sombre. "I understand. Sounds very... grave."
"Very."
Greg sighs. "Well, I suppose one does what one must..."
"The Greater Tufted Grissom Appreciation Society is grateful for your support," Gil continues.
"Well, the sovereign state of Greg-land has always supported the Greater Tufted Grissom Appreciation Society," Greg says.
Gil nods, manages to keep a serious look on his face. "A Society board member will be in contact with his Sovereign Greg-ness to arrange a time and a place," he says.
"Excellent," Greg says. "His Sovereign Greg-ness will ensure that his engagement calendar is kept empty this morning."
"The Society is glad to hear it."
"And his Sovereign Greg-ness is likewise glad."
They look at each other gravely for a few seconds, then Gil nods, and on the edge of laughing he turns and walks away.
He catches a look from Jacqui that suggests that he's on drugs. He shrugs, tries to keep his stupid smile from his face and lets his feet guide him back to his office, where all he has to do is keep from laughing until the paperwork is done. Then the day is all his, and he can laugh all he wants.
The bar that Gil chose is across town in a quieter neighbourhood, well away from the tourist strip but worldly enough that it serves beer and bar fare at nine in the morning.
Greg gets there before Gil does, and as he sits in the booth and tears the napkin into fine strips he thinks, This has to be a joke. It's all an elaborate setup to humiliate me, and Nick is probably hiding in the john with a camera and laughing himself sick.
Then Grissom arrives in a leather jacket that makes Greg swallow hard, and he slides into the seat across from him and smiles. "Sorry I'm late," he says, "traffic."
Greg's not sure if he's more surprised that Grissom actually showed up, or that he owns a jacket that sexy. It's just a leather blazer, he thinks, that's it - but it fits him like a fucking glove and it's amazing in some weird way to see him without his ID badge hanging around his neck.
"Greg?"
"Huh?" He pulls his eyes up from the lapels of Gil's jacket. "Yeah," he says, "sorry. I just - jacket."
Gil looks down and then back up uncertainly. "Jacket?" he echoes. "Jackets in general, or mine in particular?"
Greg swallows again. "It's nice," he says. "Haven't seen it before."
"I don't wear it much," Gil says. "It's not exactly a field jacket, is it."
Not unless the field in question is clover, Greg thinks, then stamps his foot down hard on that train of thought. Not going there, he instructs himself, not while Gil is actually sitting across from you.
He pulls an envelope out of his pocket and slides it across to Gil. "Brought you something," he says.
"Oh?" Gil raises his eyebrows and opens the envelope. A laminated business-card-sized piece of cardboard slides out into his hand, and he holds it up to the light to examine it.
On one side it says, "Greater Tufted Grissom Appreciation Society" and has a hand-drawn picture of an owl that has a certain familiarity about the facial features. On the other side it says "Charter Member 000 and Chapter President - Las Vegas".
Gil turns it over a couple times and laughs. "Did you draw this?" he asks, tapping the owl.
"Yeah," Greg says.
"It's good," Gil says, and takes his glasses out to look at it better. "I didn't know you could do caricatures."
"I can't, really. It just worked out." Greg looks over at the bar, wonders what it takes to get some freaking service because if Gil does one more sexy thing on top of the jacket and glasses combo, Greg is going to die of dehydration. As it is he can barely speak for the sudden itch in his throat.
"I love it," Gil says. "Did you make yourself one?"
Greg looks back at him and swallows again. "Yeah," he says, and pulls his wallet out. He takes his own card out, which identifies him as Charter Member 001 and Diplomatic Representative for Greg-land.
Gil looks at the owl again. "Is my hair really that - tufted?" he asks.
Greg grins. "No," he says. "It's a little - something, in the front - but it's not tufted."
Gil raises his eyebrows. "What about the front?"
"It's not a bad thing," Greg says, "it just is. It's kind of cute, actually," and he almost dies of embarrassment at his choice of words and wriggles out of the booth. "I'm going to get a drink," he says. "What do you want?"
"Whatever," Gil says.
"Sure. Be right back." He bee-lines for the bar.
Gil looks at his card again while Greg is gone, wonders when he found the time to make it and then remembers how manically quickly he was working when he dropped in to say hi. He must suddenly have a lot of free time on his hands, he thinks, and he shoots that thought on sight for making him sound like a supervisor when he's sitting in a bar.
He picks up Greg's own card and holds it next to his for comparison. The owl is an exact copy, so Greg must have scanned the original - the 000 card one - onto a computer and printed it out. Which suggested that more of these cards could be made.
If anyone else would be likely to find it funny.
Maybe it isn't funny, he thinks suddenly. Maybe it's just him and Greg and they're both insane. In which case they might as well be insane together, since it's arguably a lot more fun.
Fun. There's a thought that Gil hasn't had in a long time. Fun. Fun is....
He thinks about it.
Fun is doing the crossword. Fun is unravelling a Gordian knot of evidence and motive. Fun is figuring something out on his own for the first time. Fun is creeping Catherine out with tarantulas. Fun is creeping Ecklie out with tarantulas. Fun is-
Fun is hanging out with Greg. And isn't that interesting.
He looks up as Greg comes towards him with a pitcher of beer and two glasses.
"They didn't have anything particularly inspiring on tap," Greg apologizes as he unloads his burden and scoots into the booth again, "but they did have Rickard's."
"Sounds great," Gil says and he watches as Greg pours. "I've been making a list of things that are fun," he announces.
"Oh yeah?" Greg asks. "What have you got so far?"
"Mostly tarantulas," Gil admits.
Greg looks up at him with big eyes for a moment, then laughs. "Okay," he says, "I can see that. If you're you, I mean, I can see that."
"What's fun in your book?"
"Surfing," Greg says immediately. "Dancing. Winning."
"Things ending in -ing," Gil observes with a smile. "Winning at what?"
"Anything. And that ends in -ing, too."
"So anything is fun?"
"Depends who you're doing it with," Greg says. "I ordered some assorted deep fried things, too. Breakfast of champions." He holds up his glass.
Gil touches his glass to Greg's, and they drink. "So what else is fun?" he asks again.
"Let's see... sex - obviously. Um... music, clobbering Hodges intellectually, clobbering Hodges physically - well, I can only extrapolate that but I'm pretty confident in the projection - um..." Greg drums his fingers on the table. "Going to the top of a mountain and screaming. Camping. Well, camping if you're with fun people - if you're with the Scouts it sucks because they really don't like you to have sex in your Scout tents."
"How old were you in the Scouts?" Gil asks with a faintly horrified expression.
"Maybe it wasn't the Scouts," Greg says thoughtfully. "Whatever the next badge up is. Whatever. They have no sense of humour, anyway."
"No," Gil concedes, "they probably don't." He's starting to feel old, listening to Greg rattle off things that are fun - they come so easily to him, so quickly and his choices are so energized.
Greg is staring off into space. "What else is fun... making ice cream is fun. Eating two and a half pounds of jelly beans and watching all of the Star Trek movies back to back is fun."
Gil blinks. "It is?"
"Sure," Greg says. "Well... it's a little nauseating in the middle there, but... you know. The overall experience is fun. You have to pace yourself, though."
"How do you pace yourself through - what is it, seven movies?"
"Ten now," Greg corrects him, "but who's counting. The secret is discipline."
"Discipline?"
"And strict rationing of jelly beans. And it helps if you have a stash of chocolate-covered coffee beans on hand, too, because at about number eight you really need an edge."
Gil is shaking his head slowly. "That's... remarkable."
Greg meets his eyes. "Well I don't do it OFTEN," he defends. "Just... once in a while, it has to be done."
"Has to be done."
"Has to be done," Greg asserts. "For reasons of mental health."
"The improvement thereof?" Gil asks doubtfully.
"But of course!" Greg takes a long sip of his beer.
Gil watches him swallow and lick his lips, and there's a painful lurch somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. "Do you do anything 'fun' that sane people might enjoy?"
"Define 'sane'," Greg challenges. "I bungee-jumped naked once."
That takes a moment and a half to process. "Why?"
Greg shrugs. "It was a hundred bucks to jump," he says, "or free if you went naked. A hundred bucks is a hundred bucks."
The image of Greg naked is a distracting one for some ill-defined reason that Gil doesn't want to think about. Supervisor, age difference, recent breakup. There: three perfectly good reasons not to even contemplate it. Too bad his brain isn't listening.
"Bungee-jumping - naked or otherwise - is not sane, Greg."
"And tarantulas are?" Greg asks. "All right, let's think of something mutually fun."
Sex springs immediately to mind for Gil, and he's delighted beyond words that the busboy shows up then with a plate of crunchy things.
"I like games," Greg says, pulling an onion ring apart. "But I've heard about you and poker, and I can imagine you and Trivial Pursuit, and I can't quite picture you and charades, soo..."
"Why not charades?" Gil asks.
Greg raises his eyebrows. "Can't quite picture you at Greg charades," he specifies. "Death metal and euphemisms for sex, mostly."
Ah. What's there to say to that? "So no games, then."
"I like picnics," Greg says.
"Picnics are good," Gil says. "I can do picnics."
"I bet you can," Greg says with a wicked grin. "I bet it's all wasps and ants and daddy long-legs."
"Not exclusively."
Greg tops up their glasses. "So we have picnics in common," he says. "What else?"
By the time they stagger out into daylight it's almost noon, and Greg fumbles with his shades while Gil slides his on coolly. Greg watches out the corner of his eye, wondering why that one action is so deadly hot.
"Are you okay to drive?" Gil asks.
"Yes, dad," Greg mutters. "I only had three beers and that was over the course of three hours and more lard than I've eaten in a long time."
"Just checking," Gil says and holds up his hands defensively. "I'd hate for them to pull you over again."
"And what about you?" Greg asks. "What if they pull you over?"
Gil grins. "They never pull me over," he says. "See you tonight?"
"I'll be there," Greg says with a smile, and watches Gil walk towards his truck.
It's not right, he thinks, that someone like Gil Grissom should be so obscenely sexy. And it's not just the glasses or the sunglasses or the leather jacket or the fact that he's single-handedly smarter than most people Greg has ever met.
It's everything and it sucks because he can't do anything about it.
He mopes out to his car once Gil is gone, and goes home to absolutely resolutely NOT jerk off in the shower while thinking of leather jackets and greasy fingers being licked clean.
Not even a little bit.