Home of Greg Sanders Slash Fiction
Chapter Five
"Think he's gone?" Greg breathes.
Nick strains to hear anything. They're in the guest bedroom with the door closed, and Nick has his ear pressed to the wall where it's thinnest and he's listening. "They're not in the house anymore," he reports, barely above a whisper, "but I haven't heard a car yet."
Greg shivers. Nick caught him coming out of the shower, threw Gil's bathrobe at him and told him not to make a sound. And he hasn't, even though he's still damp and Gil's robe isn't that warm and his feet are going numb. He's pressed against Nick's back but Nick is so tense that he's actually colder than Greg is, and all he wants is to crawl into bed and pull the comforter around him.
"Are you nuts?" Nick asks when he makes a move towards it. He catches his wrist and hauls him back.
"What?" Greg whispers. "I'm cold."
"That bed is loud, man," Nick says, and then presses his ear to the wall again.
Greg rolls his eyes but says nothing. He wants to point out that Jim saw Nick go upstairs, he's bound to be wondering what's taking him so long, but he doesn't. It sounds like Jim's gone, anyway, so it's only a matter of time before they're allowed to move again.
The door downstairs closes heavily, and Nick allows the bedroom door to open a crack.
After a long pause, Gil says, "It's all right, he's gone."
Nick lets out a rush of air and scrambles downstairs, and Greg follows him.
Gil is standing in the entranceway with his back to the door, and he looks up and tries to smile at the two of them halfway down the stairs, ready to descend on eggshells.
"It's okay," he says again, takes a deep breath. "Really."
Nick comes down slowly, gets within an arm span of Gil and stops. "What happened?" he asks carefully.
"We had it out," Gil says simply.
"And?" Nick asks.
"And do you see him in here, shaking hands and passing out the cigars?" He sounds more bitter than he probably thinks he does.
"Oh, Gil..." Nick closes the distance between them and hugs him. "I'm so sorry."
Gil holds on to him, takes a couple deep breaths, pushes him away gently. "It's all right," he says, "it was bound to happen sooner or later."
"But still-"
Gil shrugs as nonchalantly as he can. "The problem with deluding yourself," he says, "is that when you're proven wrong, you feel twice as stupid about it."
Nick touches the side of his face. "What do you need?" he asks softly.
"I don't need anything," Gil says. "I have everything I need." He kisses Nick warmly, and holds him tightly again, and looks up over Nick's shoulder at Greg, still perched halfway up the stairs.
"That includes you, Greg," he says, and holds one hand out to him.
Greg moves down the stairs slowly, approaches them and takes Gil's hand uncertainly.
Gil pulls him in and wraps an arm around his back. "Don't," he says, kissing the side of his face.
"Don't what?" Greg asks.
"Don't think that this is your fault."
Greg squeezes his eyes shut. How is it that Gil knows exactly what he's thinking? he wonders. Knows what he's thinking and what to say to stop it?
"I'm telepathic," Gil says into his hair and tightens his arm. "I told you, I love you. Both of you."
Greg decides two things then, while he's being crushed between Nick's shoulder and Gil's ribcage. One: he's going to stop making his problems Gil's problems, too, because he's already got enough to worry about.
And two: he's going to learn to think inside his head.
They watch the other movie that Greg brought, a brainless shoot-em-up with a few memorable moments that requires zero intellectual input. None of them are particularly absorbed in it, but they watch it through to the credits anyway, Nick on one side of Gil and Greg on the other, curled up on the couch and pressed together and trying really hard to pretend that they're paying attention to the explosions and chase scenes on the tv.
After the credits have finished, when they're staring at the repeat FBI warning about piracy, Gil takes a deep breath and Greg thinks he can tell the exact moment when Gil makes his decision to stop moping.
"It's okay," he tells them, "really it is. Jim will sulk for a few days and he'll probably give all of us a wide berth, but he'll get used to it."
"Gil," Nick says, "he's one of your best friends-"
"I know." There's a shadow of sad humour to his voice now. "We've had rough patches before, we get over it. It just takes time." He turns to Greg and touches his face. "You may have the day off tomorrow," he says, "but the rest of us don't. We should get to bed."
"Okay," Greg says, "I'll go home."
Gil catches him around the waist before he makes it to his feet. "Stay," he invites. "Please."
Greg looks at him, then at Nick, and wonders what he should do. He wants to stay, he does - he wants to be of some use to Gil, of some comfort, after all the shit he dragged up this morning. But: he also thinks that, if it were him in Gil's position, he would want to be as close to alone as he could right now, to lick his wounds and regain some measure of composure. Definitely wouldn't want Greg Sanders getting underfoot.
Gil tugs him forward, leans his head against the side of his neck and says, "Greg. I would like you to stay, really and truly. Please."
And he's saying it so softly, so gently, and his nose is touching that spot just above his shoulder that always makes him shiver, and... and a hundred thousand other reasons to capitulate.
"Okay," he tells him, and lets his eyes close when Gil pulls him in tightly in a close hug.
"Thank you," Gil whispers.
Nick and Gil are going through the motions of making the bed so Greg slips into the bathroom while their hands are busy. He looks at himself in the mirror, isn't particularly fond of what he sees, and thinks that a quick shower is what he needs to look less like the total wreck that he is. Except he just had a shower, and comforting though it would be to delay the inevitable of returning to the bedroom, it would only make him more miserable in the end. He hates the thought that he's this much of a coward, that he's thinking of locking himself in the bathroom and never coming out again.
So he scrubs his face and brushes his teeth and avoids looking at himself again, and when he wanders back into the room still wearing Gil's bathrobe, he encounters the concrete feeling of a conspiracy.
Nick is looking at him a little like Gil was earlier, and Greg is torn between soundless fury that he's being talked about behind his back and a painful hitch that they care this much.
"Come here," Nick says, and his voice is a little rough around the edges as he holds out his hand.
Greg takes it, lets himself be drawn into a hug, and is dimly aware of Gil disappearing into the washroom. God, he thinks as Nick's arms come around him, what a setup.
Nick kisses the side of his face and lowers them down onto the bed, wriggles so that Greg is in that happy little dip in the middle of the mattress that is usually his favourite place in the known universe but tonight feels a little like a gravity well.
"Gil told me," Nick says softly, resting face-to-face with him so their legs are tangled.
"I know." Greg tries to keep his voice even, light, but of course he can't. It catches on something in the back of his throat but he wills his eyes to stay open, to not cry again.
"Greg," Nick soothes and he's smiling, touching the side of his face again, his eyes full of tenderness and wonder, "Greg, I love you so much it hurts."
He manages to smile, even if it doesn't get past his lips. "I know," he says again. "This thing with Gil - it's blown out of proportion, okay?" He tweaks the smile a bit. "So don't worry about me. I'm fine."
Nick kisses him quickly, lets his head fall back to the mattress again. "I want to believe you, Greg," he whispers, "but I can't, not yet." He kisses him again. "Right from the start you couldn't get your head around Gil, and I think you still can't."
"Nick-"
Another quick kiss. "You will," Nick promises. "It just takes time and trust, and baby, we're not going anywhere."
Greg swallows. "Look," he says, "I appreciate - this, whatever it is - but...." He sighs. "Now isn't really the time, is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"God only knows what Brass is going to be like tomorrow, and he's never liked me so it doesn't matter but what about Gil?"
Greg feels the mattress dip behind him and another set of arms wrap themselves around him. "Gil will be fine," Gil says at his shoulder, "and so will Jim. We're big boys, we'll look after it. It's Greg that I'm worried about."
Nick kisses the end of his nose and rolls away, gets up and pads out of sight.
Greg tries not to panic at the situation, isn't sure why he feels he should be panicking except that Gil is still holding him from behind, and it's clear that despite all the shit that's hit the fan the one thing he wants to fixate on is the one thing Greg doesn't want to think about.
Which is no doubt why Gil is so intent on it.
He sighs and closes his eyes. Gil's lips touch the back of his neck and he's pulled over onto his back, so he'd be staring up at the ceiling if he opened his eyes - which he thinks maybe he's never going to do again - and Greg knows to the bottom of his soul that Gil is watching him carefully, probably calculating something gently unkind.
"Greg."
"Mm."
Gil's hand is pleasantly cool against his face, and it turns his head so that he'd now be facing Gil (but he's not going to open his eyes so it doesn't matter) and Gil's lips touch his cheek so gently that Greg's not entirely sure he didn't imagine it.
"Greg." Gil kisses him again, touches his eyelids and then his lips and he feels Gil's arm settle over his chest. "We got interrupted earlier."
Greg sighs again. "I don't want to keep having this conversation," he says.
Gil chuckles. "I meant before that," he says. "You were saying something about tying me up...?"
His eyes fly open of their own accord, to find Gil watching him with a uniquely-Gil combination of love and amusement.
"I didn't actually mean-"
Gil kisses him quickly and smiles at him. "I know that," he says, "but that's where we got interrupted."
Greg swallows hard. "What about Nick-" he asks.
"Nick is fine," Gil says, captures his hand and brings it to his lips. "We need this, you and I. Don't worry about Nick."
He wants to protest that he can't not worry about Nick, but Gil insinuates himself well into Greg's personal space and pulls him close and kisses him for real this time, not a peck but an actual kiss that involves a little depth and a lot of heart, and there's only so much Greg's body can take before he starts to cave in.
"You were in the process of seducing me," Gil says at such a low register that Greg barely hears him.
"I was?" Greg asks.
Gil nods, lets a hand slide down Greg's spine to the small of his back and rubs a circle there. "You were," he says. "It was working, too."
"It was?"
"It was."
Greg licks his lips. "Oh."
Gil smiles against his mouth, moves his body some imperceptibly small increment that does something electric to Greg's brain, and he kisses him again, soundly. "You want to pick up where you left off?" Gil asks.
"Um," Greg says, because that electric something has scrambled most of his synapses, he's sure of it, and his short-term memory is not what it used to be. Come to think of it, neither is his long-term memory. His world has been reduced to the immediate present, and he's not sure what he's supposed to do about it.
Gil smiles again, makes another shivery move against Greg, and props himself up on one elbow. "Or should I pick up where you left off, instead?" he asks.
Greg looks up at Gil's face, above him but so close that spatial relations seem like a foreign concept. "Okay," he whispers, and keeps his eyes open until just before Gil kisses the skin under his right eye.
Then he thinks, I'll worry about it - whatever it was - later.
Gil has always loved music. Before he had submitted to surgery to save his hearing, when he was living in an expanding bubble of silence, that had been his secret fear: that he would lose the intricacies of pitch and tone and melody.
He's never played an instrument. In high school he had suffered through the clarinet, always in awe of the pianists and the timpanists and everyone who felt the innate connection to the art that he couldn't duplicate. He spent an awkward and demoralizing year in college trying to learn the piano before ultimately accepting that he would never be able to play, not even enough to amuse himself.
But he discovered a new instrument not long after he gave up on the traditional ones, and it's one that he has learned to master. The human body, he has taught himself, is an instrument of rare beauty and unparalleled complexity. Its music may not be audible but it is breathtaking nonetheless, and Gil feels the overwhelming tactile pleasure of a maestro when he lets go of everything but the music and allows himself get lost.
Each body is a thing of beauty, he thinks, each body a work of art, a symphony waiting to be written, to be heard and studied. It's a truth that trasncends age and gender and size and colour and scars, puts everyone on an equal footing, all beautiful in their own song.
He regrets that he hasn't made time for Greg in this way, he thinks; that Greg has been a part of his life for two and a half months and he hasn't made a point yet of learning his every note.
In the beginning (and he knows this is a weak excuse for an omission that in his own eyes is inexcusable) it was because he didn't want to overwhelm Greg; Greg who was scared of not fitting in, of not finding a place with him and Nick, of being dropped summarily when the whim was over. And then it was just - more expedient to enjoy the company of both Nick and Greg simultaneously, more communal and more fun, dammit - yes, more effortlessly fun - to not make a point of this. And it hurts him, it actually pains him in a visceral, physical way, to see what his own short-sightedness has cost Greg.
Yes, he knows that Greg's insecurities are rooted in far more than this, but he knows that those other causes have his fingerprints all over them, at least some of them do - and that hurts, too. A lot of what happens at the lab is out of his hands, things go wrong and he has to respond to them, has to react and to supervise. And he knows that he's competent at his job (although he'll never have the ease that Catherine has) and that Greg is professional enough to take it in stride when it lands on his shoulders.
But this... he has no excuse for this act of personal neglect, for not making the effort on Greg's behalf the way he did for Nick, the way he has done for all of his lovers.
The only prayer he can offer is the hope that late is better than never.
He eases Greg out of the robe he's wearing, manoeuvring him by kiss and touch and murmured indecency, and pulls the thin body against his own naked flesh.
"Do you trust me?" he asks gently.
Greg nods, the skin of his face turning pink and his breath catching somewhere in his chest.
Gil smiles, kisses him, and begins his study.
He has learned a special sort of detachment for times like this, times when his entire being is focused on someone else's body. It's a discipline that arose out of his study of Buddhism, although he can't shake the feeling that the teacher who guided him back in the day would be appalled at what he's doing with his hard-won knowledge. But it allows him to section a part of himself off to act as an observer, an observer and a cataloguer and a taker of notes, while the rest of him follows his partner into bliss.
He instinctively starts at Greg's back, curls him up on his side and begins his exploration between his shoulders. It's a spot that Gil knows well, in his own way; he had memorized the scars before the wounds stopped bleeding, even before they had wheeled Greg onto the ambulance, before the shards of glass were even removed. He had been struck dumb then, lost to his own kind of shock, unable to do more than stay at his side, listening to what they were telling him without actually hearing any of it, and watching the blood soak through Greg's clothes.
He touches these scars carefully now, noting with a heavy heart the places where nerve damage is the most, where Greg doesn't seem to register his touch at all. He transfers those areas to his inner Greg-atlas, colours them black and tries not to dwell on how they came to be.
But there are spaces between the scars where his skin seems hyper-sensitive, as if to compensate for the deadened areas: a careful tongue in the right place can elicit a full range of noises, he discovers, and takes a while to explore them. He becomes aware of Greg's movements, tiny aching motions that wordlessly and eloquently tell Gil to keep going, to keep moving, to keep mapping.
He kisses Greg's spine and works his way down his side, along his ribs and the curve of his hip, down the expanse of his thigh to his knee, where he stops again. This is the knee that blew out in a surfing accident, he thinks, and touches his lips to the pale scar he finds. He hates to think of the pain that this young body has endured to have earned all of these badges, these marks of courage.
Greg moves again, slides his skin against Gil's mouth, and Gil looks up to find that Greg has rolled over, is on his back and his knees have fallen to one side and he's staring down at Gil in a mix of terror and awe.
Gil can't breathe for a moment, trapped in the intensity of Greg's eyes; and then the remote-operated part of his brain kicks him hard and he takes a deep, shaky breath. "Greg," he murmurs, slides both hands up the insides of Greg's legs and kisses a trail up to his hip.
The muscles under his hands are quivering, excitement maybe but probably fear, Gil thinks, and he stills his fingers and forces himself to take another deep breath, a little less shaky this time.
"Greg," he says again, softly, "tell me - are you all right?"
Greg nods tightly, and Gil is unpleasantly reminded of his panic attack the first time Gil tried to seduce him. Dammit. He lets out his held breath slowly, withdraws his hands and joins Greg at the head of the bed.
"Greg," he whispers, and touches the side of his face. "It's okay, honey."
Greg's eyes are tearing up again and Gil watches them close.
Gil gathers him into his arms and holds him carefully, kisses the side of his head. "It's okay," he repeats, "don't worry about it, it's okay."
As he soothes Greg out of his misery, he thinks, He's scared of me. Then he amends, He's still scared of me.
Gil lets his own eyes close, keeps a gentle hand moving through his hair, lets the rational part of his brain come up with sensible things to say under the circumstances. It frees the rest of him up from the responsibility of being supportive, which is good because he thinks he's going to buckle under the weight of the world right about now.
He doesn't know exactly how he came to instill this level of fear in Greg. He knows that Grissom at work has something to do with it, that Gil-and-Nick has something to do with it, that the mad rush to intimacy between them as a three-faceted unit has something to do with it.
Shit. He should have listened to his own warnings, he thinks with a painful sorrow; he had told Nick to be careful, not to scare Greg, not to push him too far or too hard or too fast into something unexpected, something unforseen.
But Nick has never been the problem, he realises. Nick and Greg fit together naturally, the way Nick and Gil do. It's Gil and Greg that are the forced match, who are hemmed in by invisible lines that define their borders. He's not used to borders in a relationship, he's not used to them in his head or in his heart or in his bed. Doesn't know what to do with them.
Doesn't know where to start, even.
Greg is starting to drift now, out of panic and into something like rest, and Gil curls him on his side and holds him tight, kisses the line of his jaw just under his ear and listens to his heart start to slow into sleep.
He wants to make this right. No, he doesn't want to: he needs to. Needs to make this right because he's hurting Greg, he's poisoning him from the inside, tainting him with fear where there should be none: where he's loved, where he's cherished, where he's important.
Gil sighs against Greg's shoulder, kisses his neck again and wonders if he has the strength to let go, for the good of both of them. To let them drift apart, to return to being two pairs and not one three-of-a-kind.
Greg has gone completely slack when Gil extracts himself, withdraws his arms as carefully as he can and rolls away. He pulls the blanket over Greg's sleeping body, stares down at him with the same fierce love he's felt for Nick since the beginning, and then turns and walks away.