Home of Greg Sanders Slash Fiction
Chapter Five: The Relentless Pursuit of the Waffle
Characters: Gil Grissom, Greg Sanders, Nick Stokes
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Summary: In which Greg is careless and Hodges is pond scum
A couple days later, once word gets around that Grissom and Greg were spotted leaving a bar together, Nick starts to hang around the lab more often.
At first Greg is irritated because Nick is starting to flirt again, and the last goddamn thing he wants is to get back into THAT bed of denial. Then he's sort of relieved, because at least Nick's not trying to obliterate him anymore, and the other CSIs seem to read this as back to normal and they relax.
And then it's back to irritation, because he really is flirting, really is trying to give it - to give them another go.
"Nick," he finally says when he's had enough of the puppy-dog eagerness and he's stifling an urge to kick him in the seat of his pants, "I'm not sure if you got the inter-office memo or not, but we're not dating anymore."
"I know that," Nick says with an easy shrug and damned if that drawl isn't making an appearance again. Only now it's not cute, it's obnoxious.
"So... go moon over someone else."
Nick laughs. "I'm not mooning over you, Greggo," he says. "I just... kinda miss you is all."
"That IS mooning, Nick-o, and the answer is no."
"I haven't even asked a question yet."
"But you're going to," Greg points out, "eventually you are going to ask me a question, and the answer is no. No I won't loan you my PS2, no you can't come over and play it, no you can't crash at my place when you 'accidentally' lock yourself out. No, no, no."
Nick bristles but lets it slide. "That was the old me," he says. "This is the new me."
"What new you?" Greg asks.
"The one that Warrick and Sara and everyone knows is - knows kinda digs guys, right? That one. Isn't that what you wanted?"
Oh Jesus, Greg thinks, please let us go back to trying to kill each other. "No," he says. "I mean, yes. Wanted. Want- ED. Past tense. Present tense? Not so much."
"Why?" Nick is still easy, still affable and charming. "What changed?"
Greg sighs. "I changed, Nick. I spent eleven months with you being someone I didn't like being, and I don't want to do it again."
"It won't be like that, I promise."
Greg closes his eyes before he rolls them in Nick's face. "No," he agrees, "it won't be, because it's not going to happen. It's over. It's done."
"Well."
Greg opens his eyes again to find that Nick is on the edge of getting angry.
"I guess it wasn't that serious to you after all," Nick says, "'cause you sure got over it real fast."
"Nick... it was serious. I was serious about it. You should have clued in when I moved in with you, you know? But then... it wasn't serious to you. And now I see that it would never have worked out, so it's better this way."
"Right." Nick nods, backs out of the lab with his hands in his pockets. "I guess I just don't measure up to Gil Grissom, huh?"
Greg lets his mouth fall open. "What?"
"Everyone's talking about it, you know," Nick says. "But maybe you just like being gossiped about. Maybe that's what you get off on." He stars to walk away.
"You don't KNOW what I get off on!" Greg hollers after him, and instantly wishes he could catch the words before anyone hears them.
Jacqui is staring at him, and he knows if he turns around then he'll see Archie and Hodges gaping at him like the stunned fish that they so frequently imitate.
He stomps back to his lab and turns the music up just enough that he hears it. It's one of Jacqui's discs again, some Evanescence-wannabe that really don't do it for him right now. He hits stop, pops the disc out, and sends it skipping across the hall to Jacqui's lab.
Grrr. And he'd been having such a good day.
Gil comes in covered in mud and sludge and something undefinable that he seriously doesn't want to define, and he strips down in the locker room and scours himself raw in the showers. Miserable, hellacious, god-forsaken case that's been eating at him - quite literally eating at his shoes at any rate; they're going to have to be replaced before they disintegrate completely - and after an entire NIGHT of slogging through unspeakable liquids...
...nothing.
He wants to do something to take his mind off of this, to remind him that not all human beings are evil sons of bitches who bury their kids in muck, and the only thing that springs to mind is Greg.
Anything with Greg. Even if it's humiliate-the-old-guy charades, because at least then he'll be laughing. And laughing at his own prudish ineptitude would be better than this.
He gets dressed and goes up to his office, because there's still an hour on the clock and if he's not in the building when Ecklie arrives there's usually hell to pay. He logs onto his computer, sniffs at his forearm and wonders if he got himself as clean as he could have, then sighs and checks his email.
One, from Greg. Subject line: Hostile force besieges Greg-Land. He leans back in his chair and opens it. Nick is driving me up the wall. Wanna buy me breakfast and hear me bitch about it? --Charter Member 001, GTGAS
He grins, feels some of the tension of the last seven hours ebb from his back and shoulders, and sends a quick reply: GTGAS Support Volunteer Army on standby for extraction. Will send word prior to deployment. --000
He watches the clock creep miserably towards the end of his shift, gets a little bit of paper moved from one box to the other, nudges Warrick in the right direction on the B&E he's working, and checks his email compulsively.
Finally, at quarter-to-free, another message from Greg. Does the GTGAS-SVA employ strategic ballistic pancakes? --001
Gil looks at the clock, wonders if it's close enough that he can lock his office and bail for the day. Sighs, realizes he hasn't actually seen Ecklie yet, so no, he can't go enjoy himself.
Only when sufficient syrup reserves are visually accounted for. --000
Catherine comes into his office a few minutes after he finally decides that Ecklie can go screw himself, he's leaving. He's just restacking the clutter on his desk and shutting down his computer when he looks up to find her filling his doorway.
She's waving a sheet of paper at him. "You know," she says, "the department has a strict zero-tolerance policy on sexual harassment." She's grinning, though, so he figures she's not actually going to castrate him for whatever it is she thinks he's done.
"What?"
She reads from the paper: "To: Greg Sanders. From: Gil Grissom. Subject: Armament. As follows: Only when sufficient syrup reserves are visually accounted for."
He knows his mouth is hanging open but he can't quite remember what to do about it. "What - how - where the HELL did you get that?" He recuperates enough of his motor control to make a grab for the sheet of paper.
Catherine holds it just out his reach. "Hodges is passing them out to anyone who'll slow down enough to take one."
"WHAT?!"
She takes a startled step back. "Wow," she says, "who knew you could roar like that."
"Dammit-"
"Relax," she says, and hands him the paper. "Nobody actually thinks you're dating Greg."
There goes his mouth again.
"It's just one of those fun, insane rumours that gets going and feeds itself. It'll blow over."
"Nick was bothering him," Gil says, "I'm buying him breakfast so he can vent at me unofficially and he wants pancakes, Catherine. Syrup, pancakes."
"Uh-huh," she says. "Watch your toes. You know what Ecklie would do if this were to be, uh, substantiated...?"
She winks at him while he's still stutteringly incoherent, and slips away before he recovers enough to yell at her again.
Jacqui is the one who first tells Greg that something is up, and that Hodges is apparently behind it.
"Whatever it is," he tells her knowingly, "if it's rotten you know Hodges is at the bottom of it."
"He was poking around on your computer," she says cryptically, "and I know you don't always log off your email..."
He narrows his eyes at her. "What?" he asks. "And why are you trying not to laugh at me? You always laugh at me. You almost peed yourself last year you were laughing so hard. So why the cover-up now?"
She hands him a folded sheet of paper. "Wait until I'm not here," she says, and scoots back to her lab as quickly as she can. She closes the door, which she never does, and Greg stares at her behind glass for a second.
Then he reads the paper and feels an explosion of rage billow in his chest.
Wow. He hasn't felt this furious in - in - in years. Not even when Nick was being a shit to him did he ever feel this, this, this white hot hate. This overwhelming instinct to seek out and destroy. Obliterate. Eviscerate and bury in separate counties.
He takes a quick sharp breath and holds it for a count of ten, then lets it go. A little calmer, maybe, a little more clear-headed.
Hodges is a dead man.
He storms out into the corridor and directly to Hodges' lab, where the smug bastard is sitting at his computer with a mug of coffee - a mug of GREG'S PREMIUM HAWAIIAN BREW, the sonofabitch - with Nick sitting next to him.
"Well, well," he says suddenly, loudly, from the doorway.
Nick jumps about a foot in the air and slops coffee down his khakis.
Hodges glances casually over his shoulder and smirks. "Aren't you running late for your syrup appointment?" he asks innocently.
"You ratbag son of a-"
"Now, now," Hodges soothes offensively, "don't get worked up for nothing. I'm sure Gil baby has all sorts of uses for that energy. Is he as kinky as people say he is?"
Nick looks uncomfortable, glances from Hodges to Greg and back again. "Maybe I should-"
"No fucking way," Greg snaps and grabs him by the elbow when he tries to squeeze past. He shoves him back towards Hodges and lets his dark side rise to power. "Hodges, this is below even you - hell, it's probably illegal, reading someone's email without a warrant. If I can lay charges against you, you slimeball piece of shit, I will. That's a fucking promise. And YOU." He rounds on Nick. "If this is your way of trying to win me back, you're a bigger coward and fuckwad than I thought you were and if you think I'm going to keep my lips sealed about your sexual hangups now, Cowboy, you're even stupider, too."
Nick is decidedly pale now. "Greg, come on man, it was just a joke-"
"What?" Greg demands. "You want people to know what you called me when I was going down on you? Is that it? You want people to know that you wear a lace teddy when you take it in the ass?"
Nick's face is a colour of white Greg has never seen before. "I never-"
"Oh yeah?" Greg flashes a cold, evil grin. "If it's juicy enough, Nicky baby, people will believe anything."
He turns on his heel and walks out.
Gil runs into Greg in the hallway between his office and Greg's lab.
"You heard?" Gil asks.
Greg nods, a tight movement that looks anything but agreeable.
"Then let's get out of here before Ecklie shows up. He's running late and I could kiss him for that right now."
Greg breathes through his nose for a moment. "You still want to leave with me?" he asks.
"Yes," Gil says immediately, then hesitates. "I mean, only if you-"
"I don't need my jacket," Greg interrupts, patting his jeans pocket for his wallet and his keys. "Let's get out of here."
"Will you drive?" Greg asks in the parking lot. "I want to get fucking tanked."
They find a place that serves bourbon with their Belgian waffles, and Greg decides that it is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.
Gil watches him slam a second drink back after the first. "Maybe you should wait for your waffles," he says as tactfully as he can.
Greg sighs and thumps his head on the table. "I hate my life," he says to the plastic tabletop.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not YOU," Greg says and raises his head enough to look at Gil. "You're about the only GOOD thing that's going on right now. This is - this is NICK and fucking HODGES and they're out to DESTROY me and they're going to take YOU down, too. Fuck." He fingers his empty shot glass, glances over at the waitress but doesn't order another one.
Gil tries to think of something to say. He draws a blank.
Greg heaves another chest-wrenching sigh and lets his head fall to one side. "Are we dating?" he asks.
"Um," Gil says.
"I mean," Greg continues, "it didn't really occur to me that we would be except people seem to think that we are and now I'm not sure. I mean, we hang out sometimes and I guess an outside observer might argue that we flirt but I flirt with everybody, I mean I even used to flirt with HODGES or I tried to anyway but he's like a black hole and just sucks all of the life out of everything so I gave up on that. But it's only because we never used to talk all that it even looks like I'm flirting with you now and the only reason we talk at all now is because you were there when I almost hit an invisible tree and then I don't know - one thing led to another I guess and we're friends but that doesn't mean we're actually dating does it? I guess it might except by that standard I'm dating half the lab and-"
He stops for breath and doesn't bother to start again.
Gil says, "Do you think we're dating?"
He takes a deep breath. "Maybe?" he says, expelling an entire lungful on one word.
Gil smiles. "I think maybe we're dating, too."
There's a bit of a pause while they look at each other as though they have never seen a species quite like the other until now.
"O-kay," Greg finally says, and looks down at his two empty shot glasses, side by side. "Boy I wish I hadn't had those."
"You seem to be doing all right," Gil says.
"You're not hearing what's going on in my head," Greg tells him. "Wow. Think that food's going to get here soon?"
"It won't be long," Gil says, "I hope."
"Shit. Me too." Greg drums his fingers on the table for a few seconds. "We aren't really dating dating, are we?" he asks.
Gil half-frowns. "I don't know," he says. "Why?"
"I mean, we've already established that all we have in common in terms of fun and recreation are picnics, Pink Floyd and the Muppets. What kind of basis is THAT for - for - for whatever you call it when you're dating but not in a capital-R relationship?"
"A small-R relationship?" Gil suggests mildly.
"I mean, what would we DO?"
"We could have beer and onion rings," Gil says with a smile. "Or waffles and hard liquor. Or we could send scandalous emails where we're sure Hodges will find them."
Greg groans and hits his head on the table again. "We are dating, aren't we?" he asks.
"I think so."
"Shit."
"Is it that bad?" Gil asks. "To be dating me?"
"Quite the contrary," Greg says into the table. "I would be stoned on endorphins right now if I didn't think I was going to die a slow painful death at the hands of Ecklie and Cavallo."
"If they're going to lynch anybody," Gil says, "it'll be me. And you'll have to move your head, Greg, or you're going to have two orders of waffles placed on top of it."
He lifts his head and lets the waitress lay out their breakfasts, and gives her a weak smile.
She's pointing to his empty shot glasses. "Get you another, honey?" she asks in the voice of a lifelong smoker.
"No," Greg says, "but if you have any cyanide lying around..."
"I'll take a look," she says and walks away.
Greg watches her go. "Is she really deadpan," he asks, "or just not that bright?"
Gil grins. "Does it matter?" he asks.
"No." Greg picks up his fork and contemplates the heap of waffle and whipped cream and frozen berries. "Doesn't this bother you?" he demands.
"Esthetically, it does leave something to be desired," Gil agrees, inspecting his own plate.
"Not the WAFFLE," Greg says, "Jesus. I mean - this thing with - well, Hodges. And Ecklie, eventually."
"Well..." Gil watches Greg massacre his breakfast. "I guess it does," he says, "but... I'm having fun for the first time in as long as I can remember, and I can't quite bring myself to worry about it."
"Fun?" Greg asks, with something like a sliver of hope. "You're having - fun?"
"Yeah," Gil says with a shrug. "I forgot how to do it. Somewhere along the line I let it fall off the radar, and now... I don't know. I've found it again."
Greg is silent for a long time before he finds his voice again. "Wow," he finally says. "That's... I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."
"Really?" Gil smiles. "That's kind of sweet."
"Fun, huh?" Greg asks with a grin of his own.
"Fun."
"So should I be looking out for tarantulas?"
"If you're good."
Greg's eyebrows make a break for his hairline at that, and Gil grins at him.
The waitress comes back. "Couldn't find any cyanide," she says, "but we have some cinnamon. Is that sort of the same thing?"
Greg takes the jar of spice that she's holding out to him. "Close enough," he says, and soon as she's out of earshot he starts to laugh, and Gil is only a second or two behind him.