Home of Greg Sanders Slash Fiction
Chapter Five
Gil is off on a union-mandated personal day when Greg next corners him in the parking lot. Their shift has just ended, and like all the days this week they have been too busy to have more than thirty seconds together. Nick has spent those thirty seconds assiduously avoiding him, but that (of course) doesn't make a dent in Greg's determination. Which is kind of sweet in and of itself.
"Seems like I'm always apologizing to you," Greg says sheepishly, scuffing at the dusty pavement with the toe of his sneakers.
He sighs, leans against his car and crosses his arms on his chest. "Look, Greg," he says, ignoring the rush of adrenaline Greg's voice triggers, "I'm serious. This has to stop."
"I can feel you from here," Greg says, standing six or seven feet away. "I know you feel it, too."
"That's not the point," he hears himself say and a voice in the back of his head whispers, liar.
"It is the point," Greg counters, and he deserves full points for stubbornness. "We both want this, and don't even try to tell me you don't."
"Wanting it isn't enough," Nick says. "We have to be adult about this."
"I want to be very adult with you," Greg explains, takes a halting step forwards. "Please, let me..."
He shakes his head. "Can't, Greg," he says.
Greg takes another step forward, then another, and he's suddenly within touching distance and the electricity between them is enough to make Nick's breath snag on something.
"Can." It's barely more than a whisper and Greg reaches out to him cautiously.
The fact that they're standing in the parking lot in broad daylight doesn't seem to register with him. Greg's hand on his arm is enough to propel him out of his tense stupor and send him reeling into his open arms, eyes closed and lips moving on automatic. They fit together so perfectly it's hard to think of why this is wrong, why he's been avoiding this so hard.
They stay there for what feels like forever but can't really be that long. There's a sudden squeal of brakes somewhere near them and they pull apart, gasping and breathless and guilty as sin. Nick looks around, and sees Warrick sitting at the wheel of his own car, gaping at them.
He winces, turns from Greg and unlocks his car.
"Get in," he tells him in a gravelly voice and starts the engine before Greg is even around to the passenger side.
"Ooops," Greg says with a manic grin that reeks of fear.
"No shit," he says through clenched teeth. He clashes his gears trying to get the damn truck moving, and can't meet Warrick's interrogatory gawk as he peels past him.
"Where are we going?" Greg eventually asks.
"Home," Nick says, because the only thing he can think is that if anyone can make this right it's Gil.
He realizes, once he's parked in front of the closed garage door and has taken a few breaths to calm himself down, that Greg doesn't know that this is Gil's house. He's never been here, thinks it's just Nick's place.
Greg picks up on Nick's seething tension, and keeps his mouth shut. Follows him up the gravel path to the front door, waits with his hands in his pockets while Nick fumbles with his keys.
Nick hopes to hell that Gil is there. He thinks he probably is, can't think of where else he would be, but with the way his night is going he expects to find the house empty. He almost bursts into tears of unrestrained joy when he hears the water running in the kitchen.
He knows Greg is still somewhere behind him, doesn't care. He kicks his shoes off and stalks through the living room and into the kitchen, where Gil is washing dishes and humming.
"Love you," he mumbles attaching himself to Gil's back and letting his lips fall on the nape of his neck.
Gil turns with a surprised look on his face, pulls a dishtowel off the rack above the sink and dries his hands before he brings them around him. "You okay?" he asks, feeling the tremor in the body he's holding.
Nick shakes his head, knows he has only a few seconds before Greg wanders in innocently, doesn't want to leave the warmth of Gil's love. "Greg is here," he mumbles, kisses him quickly on the lips and then takes a step back.
Gil considers him for a moment, then raises one eyebrow and wanders into the living room. After a strange moment of suspended time, Nick follows him.
Greg is looking at a case of mounted butterflies next to the window when Nick comes in, doesn't realize he's no longer alone. "These are beautiful," he says, turning around, and swallows the rest of his commentary when his eyes settle on Gil.
"Thank you," Gil says with an amused smile. "I'm quite proud of them."
"Gri- Dr Grissom," he manages after a scrabbled moment of panic. "Um, hi."
"Can I get you a drink of something?" Gil asks, and Nick can hear the laughter in his words but knows that Greg can't: Greg who hasn't learned to listen the way he has, doesn't know what Gil on the verge of cracking up sounds like, Greg who will automatically leap to the worst possible conclusion.
"Uh," is what he says before he stammers to a stop. "Um."
"I assume you're both off the clock for the night," Gil continues. "Beer? Wine?"
The absurdity of the situation strikes Nick then, and he wipes at his face to hide the smile he feels blossoming there. He knows it's tension and nothing else, tension and an overwhelming love for Gil that needs to get out somewhere, but he can't start laughing now. It would destroy Greg utterly, and that's not why he brought him here.
"I'd love some wine," he says, even though he really wouldn't.
Gil smiles warmly at him and then glances back at Greg. "How about you, Greg?" he asks.
"Sure." It sounds strangled, sounds as though it is taking every ounce of strength that he has to utter that one syllable.
"Let me go get it," Gil says with another warm smile, this time aimed at Greg, and he disappears back into the kitchen.
As soon as Gil's back is turned, Greg bolts back the way he came, racing for the front door and reaching for his shoes and failing at both.
Nick catches his elbow just before he knocks himself out on the closet door just inside the entrance, and steadies him with a hand on his shoulder. "Easy, Greg," he soothes.
Greg spins around and gives him an evil look. "What the fuck is going on?" he hisses.
"Nothing," he says. "This is - this is the way it is. Now you know."
"Uhhhhh-"
He shrugs. "I told you I was seeing someone," he says with a soft smile. "Are you okay?"
"No," Greg says, and throws his hand off. "No, I'm not okay. What the fuck did you bring me here for?"
"I didn't know what else to do," he says. "Things are a mess. Warrick saw us."
"So you're dragging Grissom into this?"
"He's already in it, Greg," he says. He wants to touch him again, thinks maybe it'll help ground him out of the panic that has claimed him. He holds his hand back, though. Knows that if there's any way of keeping him inside the house it's through words, not touch. Touch has already landed them in a heap of trouble.
"Please," he says, "come inside."
"What, so he can piss himself laughing at me? Yeah, I saw that - nice of him not to actually laugh in my face-"
"He's not laughing at you," he says, "if anything he's laughing at me."
Greg bristles. "What, it's so improbable that I could-"
"He's been laughing at me since this whole fucking thing started," Nick tries to explain, is frustrated that the right words don't seem to exist. "He's been trying to tell me that it's okay, but I couldn't believe him. Didn't believe him, because it was two completely separate things. But now - now I get it." He holds out his hand. "It's not two things, it's just one. Please."
Maybe it's the pleading in his voice, maybe it's what he's saying, or maybe it's just the fact that Greg knows if he walks out now he's never coming back. After a hopelessly long stretch, Greg takes his hand and lets himself be pulled back into the house.