Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationship:
Character:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Collections:
Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
Stats:
Published:
2020-11-04
Completed:
2005-06-12
Words:
4,660
Chapters:
3/3
Comments:
2
Kudos:
32
Hits:
2,104

The Sun Always Shines On TV

Summary:

Series Part: one
Fandom: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Category: h/c
Rating: FRT (this part)
Spoilers: for 'Grave Danger'
Summary: the early hours of the morning, the start of a very long recovery
Disclaimer: if they were mine, I wouldn't have let Tarrantino anywhere near them!

Chapter 1: Page 1

Chapter Text

The Sun Always Shines On TV
by elfin

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.

tbc