Work Text:
Evidence - Denue Series: Visible Evidence
by Macx
It was brownish blue, with a touch of dark red. A stark contrast to the fairer basic color of the surrounding tissue. The skin wasn't white, but also not deeply tanned. A hint of stubble had persevered through the morning shave.
Running around the throat, part of it hidden from view due to the simple fact that he would have to turn to see it all, the bruise was still spectacular. It was blatantly visible on the left side and a smaller one resided on the right.
--Feverish hot skin under his touch.
Fingers curled like claws.
He carefully peeled the scrapings from underneath the nails.--
Just a few seconds of impact, of touch.
And it still hurt.
His throat felt sore, his neck ached, and his head was slowly turning into a miniature drum theater. It wasn't a migraine. He knew them. He knew them intimately. It was just a pressure headache, brought on by the sudden adrenaline rush of the attack, by blood vessels being briefly choked off, by the fight and the resulting struggle.
Not to mention the shock.
--Eyes that were cold and still flared with heat.
A face twisted in a grimace.
A body exploding out of the chair.--
It had never happened to him before. Not in all his life, not in all his career.
And he hadn't seen it coming.
That was what bothered him the most.
How many suspects had he dealt with in the interrogation rooms? How many had he processed? How many had been murderers? How many had killed in cold blood? How many had been serials?
Too many.
Never an incident. Out in the field, yes, a few times. Mostly due to carelessness.
--Fingers grasping for his throat, grabbing his neck, pushing him hard
against the wall.
Impact that jarred him.
Shock and adrenaline coursing through him.--
Nick had chided him on it several times, had once almost yelled at him for ignoring the threat and going in blind.
But that was him.
The scientist.
The man who wanted to know, who was so fascinated with a singular object that he tuned out the world in general.
A world that contained threats.
He sighed and tugged up the collar of his shirt.
The bruise was still visible.
--The Golden Hour... no pain, just shock.
Watching the struggle of police officers against the suspect, trying to
keep him down.
A moment of total paralysis as the suspect stopped moving.
Harsh breathing.
His own heart racing in his throat, blood pounding in his ears.--
Catherine had remarked on it, but he hadn't gone into the experience. It was too fresh, too difficult to understand.
He should have been safe. He had been in the company of police officers, inside the station, in a room where the suspect was supposedly contained.
No one had thought that this could happen.
It had.
He bore the marks.
It was the evidence of the attack, it was the glaring sign of the incident, and it was what he couldn't understand.
--A dead body in the interrogation room.
Paramedics swarming around them.
The coroner announcing the time of death.--
Gil Grissom suppressed a sigh and finally left the men's room, walking past the bustle of people that wasn't unusual in the crime lab, not even this late in his shift. A few more hours and he would be gone; a few more hours and he would be home and safe.
As safe as he had been in the interrogation room?
He pushed the voice away.
It wasn't that he should fear death. Not really anyway. He was a Phoenix and as such he could revive. It might take a few hours, but he would. He had done so before and that had been when he had been shot.
No, he shouldn't fear death, but he did.
Death meant changes, especially when it happened in a room full of witnesses who didn't understand his condition, who didn't know who and what he was.
--Too many unanswered questions.
Politics and science colliding.
The sheriff telling him this was bad for the department.
And his mind racing as to why and what had happened.
Above all was the jittery feeling in his body and the pain in his neck.--
Grissom pushed that even further away from his mind and concentrated on work. He had a job to do and he should damn well do it now.
Entering his office he sat down behind the desk and began reviewing evidence. Now and then his hand would brusher over the hot skin, the bruise, the mark. He would automatically snatch it away when the pain started, but it always came back.
Always.
* * *
Nothing much that concerned Gil Grissom went by Nick. He didn't tell it to the world, but he knew a lot about his lover that even Grissom wouldn't admit to. And he had heard about what had happened in the interrogation room.
Word travelled.
Nick Stokes was professional enough not to run to the older man and demand to know if he was all right. If he had been seriously injured the paramedics called to look at the bruised throat would have taken him to the hospital, protest or no protest from a supervising criminalist with an open case and even more unsolved questions than before.
So he had swallowed his concern, had inquired how Grissom was, and Catherine had told him 'shocked but fine'. Well, he had to work with that.
He did.
Until the end of the shift.
Nick came home after Grissom, parked the car, and headed into the house they shared. He hung up his jacket, dropped the keys onto the hallways table, and went in search for Gil. He found him in the kitchen, making tea, looking so very normal to the world.
The moment he turned, Nick knew there was hardly anything normal about this. Those blue eyes looked slightly glazed, there was a tremor going through the solid body in front of him, and Nick simply walked up to Gil and embraced him.
Gild Grissom wasn't prone to desperation or open need, but right now he clung to Nick, held him tight, and the tremors increased. He wasn't prone to tears either and none came. There was just the harsh breathing, the clinging, and Nick let him.
When he finally drew back, Nick gently pulled him over to the couch, made him sit down, and looked at the injury for the very first time. He barely touched it as he ran light finger tips over the bruised, hot skin.
"You in any pain?" he asked calmly.
"I took something," was the level answer.
"Good. How are you, Gil?"
Grissom was silent, gazing at him, and Nick saw the struggle in his lover to keep himself from brushing off the one person who was so close to him. Finally Grissom sighed.
"It happened so fast, Nicky. So terribly fast. One minute I was scraping his nails, the next he was onto me. So violent... so sudden... One minute... and then he was down." He stopped and looked at his fisted hands.
Nick rubbed over one tightly curled fist and finally Gil opened his hand, let their fingers entwine.
"It took four men to take him down. He was strong," Gil whispered. "No one can explain what was wrong with him. No one. It was... freakish. His sister asked if this was how he touched me, my life. It was, Nicky. It was."
Nick listened. He sat and watched and listened and Grissom talked. He tried to be the support his lover needed, even if he had no smart advice, no wise words. It was best to just let him talk. Get it off his chest.
They sat there, drinking tea, talking, Nick listening, until Grissom ran out of words. He wasn't out of emotions, though. This would take a while, Stokes knew. It would be with his lover, it would continue to go around and around in his head, until he had finally worked through it.
"What if I had died?" Gil asked softly.
Nick just met the blue eyes, realizing the true question. What would they have done? How much would have been revealed?
"You didn't, Gil. You didn't," was all he said. "And believe me, I'm glad. Not because of the paranormal stuff but because of the human thing called love and fear. Once was enough."
He leaned forward and kissed him, a gentle touch of lips against lips. Grissom responded, one hand coming to run up the side of his lover's ribcage.
"You didn't," Nick repeated. "Forget all scenarios, Gil. You didn't die. It was an accident. You came out of it with one hell of a hickey..." He grinned lightly at the scowl.
"You've been talking to Catherine," Grissom chided.
"Yeah, well..." He grinned more and stole another kiss.
The older man chuckled. "Thanks for listening," he finally said.
"You know it's what I do best," Nick replied.
"It's one of your many wonderful traits."
"Make me blush."
A smile. "I love you, Nick."
Nick pulled Grissom into an embrace, held him as he ran caressing hands over the tired man's body. "I love you, too," he whispered.
* * *
The lean body close to his was warm and alive, testimony of his own living status. He was alive, bore only the bruises of the close encounter, but the memories were still hard to process. Too many unanswered questions, a case that would never be solved to his satisfaction. He had a killer, he had two victims, but he had no motivation.
Medical?
Mental?
Outside influence?
It would probably never be explained.
Grissom stroked over his lover's lithe form, enjoyed the feel of hard muscle under the soft skin, traced the outlines of those trained muscles, and smiled to himself.
He was alive.
Nick moved sleepily but didn't wake.
Gil liked to watch him sometimes. Nick was his lifeline, was his anchor, and despite his outer control, he was sometimes reeling on the inside. Nick was there for him, filled a hole in his soul he had never noticed until the young criminalist had stormed into his life. They were connected on so many levels, so many planes, and he couldn't think of being without him.
That's love then, he mused with a faint smile.
It felt good.
It was what he concentrated on to chase away the remnants of the attack. It was what he relied on.
Love and belonging, Gil thought. Belonging here, with this man, to this man, sharing so much more than just physical pleasures. They weren't so much alike on the outside, but the inside was different. Underneath the surface, the façade they showed to the world, was something only one other person knew. There was so much more to Nick than a handsome face, a beautiful body, and hot sex. He was still discovering the depths of his lover's mind and soul, and Grissom loved every minute of it.
His eyes roamed around the semi-dark bedroom of the apartment that was labeled 'his'. The house contained two separate apartments, both large, both independent, one on each floor. Still, it felt like one home. They lived together, slept together, ate together, but had enough space to be by themselves if either needed the space.
Outside appearance, inside truth.
A few years ago it would been a novel experience - this relying on emotions to keep him sane and functioning. Especially emotions like love and everything else he felt when he just looked at the young man at his side. Now it was... normal.
Normal felt good.
It felt so very, very good.
~fin~