Fic: BFF (1/6) A continuation of Facing Up...
Title: BFF (1/6) A continuation of Facing Up….
Author: Dee
Rating: R
Word Count: 2178
Pairings: Gil/Nick
Characters: Gil, Nick, some team members and an OMC
Warnings: Fluff and (very) AU
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: In my dreams they are like, totally mine!
Beta: jayceepat and podga for their invaluable help in the Americanisation of the fic and their insightful comments - which I may well have ignored! I thank high_striker for his wonderful icons. I am indebted to them all. Any errors are mine.
A/N: This is Part Two of an ongoing saga…in seven parts so far. It will help if you’ve read ‘Facing Up’, which I posted back in February.
BFF - A continuation of Facing Up….
Part One
It had been nearly a year since the face off between Gil and Nick in Nick’s condo. It was about eleven months since Nick had started therapy.
Nick felt, at times, as if he’d been hammered with a blunt instrument forcing him, with the weight he’d been carrying on his shoulders, onto his knees. But that load was beginning to lighten; he was off loading it to Gil and the therapist, Ed, or more properly, Dr Edward Stephens.
Nick tried to be as open and honest as he could be with Ed. He thought it would be pretty useless to go to so much trouble and then hold back - so he was wholeheartedly embracing it, no matter how much it hurt. When he felt as though his load was too heavy to bear, he thought about the old motto, “no pain; no gain.” Nick’d had enough of his old life, he knew he was screwed up and he wanted to be straightened up; to be okay and live without skeletons rattling around his closet just biding their time before they popped out.
When things got bad, which, in truth, was fairly often, he sought out his (now close) friend, Gil. Gil was even an ‘alternative’ therapist for Nick. Nick would tell Gil what he’d said to Ed, how it had made him feel, what Ed had said back and how he’d interpreted it, so that Gil could add his views to the equation.
Gil did not want to undermine anything Ed said to Nick, so most of the time he endorsed his findings. Occasionally he’d add a little extra to the mix, because after all, he did know Nick a lot better than the stranger who listened to, and advised, Nick. Although Ed now seemed less a stranger and more a supportive friend.
Whoever said, ‘it would get worse before it got better’, was certainly telling the truth. Nick never missed work though, even when there were times he felt like crawling under a large rock and staying there. He was prescribed a mild anti-depressant but wouldn’t have taken them if Gil hadn’t insisted. He felt no different for taking it, but Gil said he’d have been much worse if he hadn’t - and Nick could see the logic of that when he thought about some of the traumas he’d heaped on Gil’s front doorstep.
Gil, as far as Nick was concerned, was everything to him, friend, mentor, therapist; he listened to more whining from Nick than he’d heard probably in his entire life but there wasn’t one moment when Nick felt he was intruding on Gil, or being a nuisance.
He’d originally said to Gil that he thought that was what he was doing, ‘intruding’, but Gil would have none of it, he wanted to help and that’s what he’d do - for as long as he was needed he’d be there.
They could see the humour in it, in the past both men admitted debunking therapy as an expensive hobby when a couple of beers, and (for Nick) a workout and (for Gil) a forensic science journal, would do the trick.
Now, they shared moments of Nick’s life that, initially, Gil had felt uncomfortable about, but, he reasoned, if Nick was prepared to tell him, he was prepared to listen.
This caused Gil a lot of amusement, in private, since he knew that if Catherine ever suspected what was going on between them she’d have a major breakdown all of her own. But he was also feeling that he’d been responsible for piling even more pressure onto Nick’s broad back.
While he’d never admit it to Nick, it was his own guilt in this debacle that made him become Nick’s confidante and he’d fulfil that role as often and for as long as he was needed.
Given Gil’s reputation in respect of interpersonal skills he was amazed at his own patience; he also realised, with some astonishment, that it wasn’t a chore to be endured, but had become a welcome diversion in his sterile life. For all his amusement at Catherine’s expense he knew that she would be staggered beyond belief at his role in Nick’s life. More especially that Gil was actually capable of providing such support.
He did have doubts and worries about it though. Gil wondered, as he became more and more involved with Nick, whether he would, or could, support anyone else in this same manner. Was it just Nick that had somehow ‘awakened’ latent skills within Gil - or would he rise to any challenge from any ’colleague’ or ‘friend’? He didn’t know the answer to this question and felt safer not exploring the subject. While he wasn’t exactly afraid of the conclusion he may have drawn from such an exploration - it made him feel uneasy.
One thing that was immediately obvious to him was that this new, emotionally involved Gil Grissom was not on show to anyone else. His behaviour at work was exactly the same as ever - only he and Nick noticed the subtleties of their changing relationship.
As the months had gone by there was no doubting the strength of their relationship. Both men viewed it as a ‘friendship’. But neither man had ever had such a close friend as each had become to the other. Warrick and Greg were what Nick would term his ‘close friends’, but he would never dream of sharing the details or intimacies of his life as he did with Gil. It seemed to Nick that there was nothing that he couldn’t or wouldn’t share with Gil and that made him feel safe and secure.
Nick was sure that he was working better; his theories were sound, his investigations, while always thorough, were just a little bit keener. He wasn’t looking over his shoulder, metaphorically speaking, all the time, comparing himself and his abilities to his team mates. He thought this was because of his therapy sessions.
Gil, on the other hand, was absolutely sure that it was because he, Gil, was doing his job properly, pointing him in the right direction, calling it when necessary but, more importantly, giving him praise when it was earned. Gil thought that he gave him praise quite a lot of the time - not because he was overcompensating but because Nick was actually worthy of that praise. This surprised Gil and compounded his guilt, he hadn’t realised just how good Nick had become.
This became the normal state of affairs for the two men; work, Nick’s therapy and their ‘follow up’ sessions. They would share a meal occasionally, they’d had a picnic in the canyon while bird and bug watching, visited another bird sanctuary and even been out to Death Valley on a bug hunt - Gil was after a rare beetle and the rumour was that it had gravitated to the valley.
It was Nick’s wry observation that a ‘needle in a haystack’ had nothing on a ’beetle in a desert’. Gil had bowed to that analogy and had (temporarily) abandoned his mission, but stored the task for future investigation - and this was where Gil had become a little confused, because he’d assumed, automatically, that ‘future investigation’ would, as a matter of course, involve Nick.
Gil spent some time after his arrival home that evening considering his automatic assumption that Nick would accompany him on his task. He was certain he was closer to Nick than he was to anyone else in his life, and while he counted Catherine and Jim as good friends he wouldn’t ask, or expect, them to accompany him on a bug hunt. He thought it was because Nick was an outdoor type of person anyway - since he had a passion for birds and with that came an understanding of Gil’s passion for insects.
But Gil knew he was deluding himself, Nick was his closest friend not just now, but ever. He’d been a solitary child, not lonely at all, but had never formed the friendships children and teenagers around him did. Since he didn’t know what he was missing he’d never missed it and he was always absorbed in learning something new anyway.
Gil also knew that while Nick shared his secrets with him, he was also sharing his life with Nick. Not that there was a lot to know, truth be told, but he’d never shared much information, even trivial stuff, ever before. He was most amazed by how much he enjoyed it, how much more fun it was to share a funny story and have a person laugh with you, or retell a sad episode and have someone like Nick empathise with you - he was turning into a regular ‘touchy feely kinda guy’.
When Gil actually shared this information with Nick, one evening when they were having a barbeque and a few beers, he’d laughed heartily when Nick had deadpanned that Gil’s ‘touchy feely kinda guy’ was, like, a million miles away from normal touchy feely type people. Gil could see the absolute truth in Nick’s observation.
Nick, however, had become really annoyed with himself for implying that Gil wasn’t that type of person and at Gil himself for underestimating his own abilities. He pointed out to Gil that he was indeed that ‘new’ guy. He remembered and told Gil how kind Gil had been and had even hugged him when he’d had been so upset all that time ago.
The memory sobered Gil. He remembered it himself; he’d really surprised himself and had wondered where the know how to comfort had come from. It was his mother, of course, and as they ate the last of their barbequed food and drank their beers, he recounted tales of his mother and his boyhood to Nick. Nick felt privileged to be the confidante for a change; he viewed it as a fair exchange.
They were unbelievably busy at work - if it wasn’t triple homicides, it was major fires or major accidents. It was ‘major’ everything - no one could remember a minor incident and most of them were pulling doubles and even a couple of triples. As far as Gil could tell everyone was handling the pressure well, this was his team and they could and would do their best jobs, whatever the circumstances.
It was nearly three weeks before Gil realised that he hadn’t seen Nick out of work during all that time - they had been extraordinarily busy but Gil was sure that Nick would have had at least two sessions with Ed and Nick had always reported back to him.
Gil tried Nick’s cell - it was switched off - not surprising, he wasn’t on call and was probably fast asleep, as Gil should have been. He left a message and went to his own bed. He was surprised that he hadn’t had a response from Nick by work time. Gil was uneasy but he couldn’t quite grasp why.
When Gil arrived at work Nick was already in the locker room chatting with Warrick. He didn’t interrupt. When assignments were handed out, for the first time weeks they were able to go solo on a number of fairly minor investigations. Gil didn’t have any opportunity to speak privately with Nick until shift was nearly over. Gil proposed a breakfast at a favourite diner. Nick had declined saying he was still sleep deprived.
It wasn’t exactly odd that he’d declined but Nick was always most apologetic for being unavailable and would eagerly suggest another time and date. But not this time. Gil thought that perhaps he was just too tired but, in truth, he hadn’t seemed, or looked, that way to Gil.
Gil couldn’t let this go; his two pieces of evidence were conclusive. In the past year Nick had never left a message from him unanswered and Nick had never blown him off over an invitation to a meal. If these two things had happened with months separating them he would’ve accepted them quite readily but both anomalies had been within a twenty four hour period and were completely out of character for Nick; the Nick who was Gil’s friend.
The journey home for Gil was…he couldn’t think of a word to describe how he felt as he pulled his truck onto his driveway. He sat in the truck staring at his garage door and thought of words that would explain his feelings. Worried. Puzzled. Apprehensive. Concerned. Upset. Injured. Abandoned. Sad. Lonely.
He pulled himself out of his reverie, ’for God’s sake what’s wrong with you, you’re pathetic’. But no matter how much he admonished himself for his thoughts he knew, absolutely, that he felt all of those things but most especially he felt ‘sad’ and ‘lonely’. They were new and strange feelings for Gil.
A very dejected man left his truck, locked it and made his way into his home. It wasn’t really a home, mostly it was where he ate and slept and did perfunctory things. It only felt like a home….it only felt like a home when Nick was there.
End of Part One
Author: Dee
Rating: R
Word Count: 2178
Pairings: Gil/Nick
Characters: Gil, Nick, some team members and an OMC
Warnings: Fluff and (very) AU
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: In my dreams they are like, totally mine!
Beta: jayceepat and podga for their invaluable help in the Americanisation of the fic and their insightful comments - which I may well have ignored! I thank high_striker for his wonderful icons. I am indebted to them all. Any errors are mine.
A/N: This is Part Two of an ongoing saga…in seven parts so far. It will help if you’ve read ‘Facing Up’, which I posted back in February.
BFF - A continuation of Facing Up….
Part One
It had been nearly a year since the face off between Gil and Nick in Nick’s condo. It was about eleven months since Nick had started therapy.
Nick felt, at times, as if he’d been hammered with a blunt instrument forcing him, with the weight he’d been carrying on his shoulders, onto his knees. But that load was beginning to lighten; he was off loading it to Gil and the therapist, Ed, or more properly, Dr Edward Stephens.
Nick tried to be as open and honest as he could be with Ed. He thought it would be pretty useless to go to so much trouble and then hold back - so he was wholeheartedly embracing it, no matter how much it hurt. When he felt as though his load was too heavy to bear, he thought about the old motto, “no pain; no gain.” Nick’d had enough of his old life, he knew he was screwed up and he wanted to be straightened up; to be okay and live without skeletons rattling around his closet just biding their time before they popped out.
When things got bad, which, in truth, was fairly often, he sought out his (now close) friend, Gil. Gil was even an ‘alternative’ therapist for Nick. Nick would tell Gil what he’d said to Ed, how it had made him feel, what Ed had said back and how he’d interpreted it, so that Gil could add his views to the equation.
Gil did not want to undermine anything Ed said to Nick, so most of the time he endorsed his findings. Occasionally he’d add a little extra to the mix, because after all, he did know Nick a lot better than the stranger who listened to, and advised, Nick. Although Ed now seemed less a stranger and more a supportive friend.
Whoever said, ‘it would get worse before it got better’, was certainly telling the truth. Nick never missed work though, even when there were times he felt like crawling under a large rock and staying there. He was prescribed a mild anti-depressant but wouldn’t have taken them if Gil hadn’t insisted. He felt no different for taking it, but Gil said he’d have been much worse if he hadn’t - and Nick could see the logic of that when he thought about some of the traumas he’d heaped on Gil’s front doorstep.
Gil, as far as Nick was concerned, was everything to him, friend, mentor, therapist; he listened to more whining from Nick than he’d heard probably in his entire life but there wasn’t one moment when Nick felt he was intruding on Gil, or being a nuisance.
He’d originally said to Gil that he thought that was what he was doing, ‘intruding’, but Gil would have none of it, he wanted to help and that’s what he’d do - for as long as he was needed he’d be there.
They could see the humour in it, in the past both men admitted debunking therapy as an expensive hobby when a couple of beers, and (for Nick) a workout and (for Gil) a forensic science journal, would do the trick.
Now, they shared moments of Nick’s life that, initially, Gil had felt uncomfortable about, but, he reasoned, if Nick was prepared to tell him, he was prepared to listen.
This caused Gil a lot of amusement, in private, since he knew that if Catherine ever suspected what was going on between them she’d have a major breakdown all of her own. But he was also feeling that he’d been responsible for piling even more pressure onto Nick’s broad back.
While he’d never admit it to Nick, it was his own guilt in this debacle that made him become Nick’s confidante and he’d fulfil that role as often and for as long as he was needed.
Given Gil’s reputation in respect of interpersonal skills he was amazed at his own patience; he also realised, with some astonishment, that it wasn’t a chore to be endured, but had become a welcome diversion in his sterile life. For all his amusement at Catherine’s expense he knew that she would be staggered beyond belief at his role in Nick’s life. More especially that Gil was actually capable of providing such support.
He did have doubts and worries about it though. Gil wondered, as he became more and more involved with Nick, whether he would, or could, support anyone else in this same manner. Was it just Nick that had somehow ‘awakened’ latent skills within Gil - or would he rise to any challenge from any ’colleague’ or ‘friend’? He didn’t know the answer to this question and felt safer not exploring the subject. While he wasn’t exactly afraid of the conclusion he may have drawn from such an exploration - it made him feel uneasy.
One thing that was immediately obvious to him was that this new, emotionally involved Gil Grissom was not on show to anyone else. His behaviour at work was exactly the same as ever - only he and Nick noticed the subtleties of their changing relationship.
As the months had gone by there was no doubting the strength of their relationship. Both men viewed it as a ‘friendship’. But neither man had ever had such a close friend as each had become to the other. Warrick and Greg were what Nick would term his ‘close friends’, but he would never dream of sharing the details or intimacies of his life as he did with Gil. It seemed to Nick that there was nothing that he couldn’t or wouldn’t share with Gil and that made him feel safe and secure.
Nick was sure that he was working better; his theories were sound, his investigations, while always thorough, were just a little bit keener. He wasn’t looking over his shoulder, metaphorically speaking, all the time, comparing himself and his abilities to his team mates. He thought this was because of his therapy sessions.
Gil, on the other hand, was absolutely sure that it was because he, Gil, was doing his job properly, pointing him in the right direction, calling it when necessary but, more importantly, giving him praise when it was earned. Gil thought that he gave him praise quite a lot of the time - not because he was overcompensating but because Nick was actually worthy of that praise. This surprised Gil and compounded his guilt, he hadn’t realised just how good Nick had become.
This became the normal state of affairs for the two men; work, Nick’s therapy and their ‘follow up’ sessions. They would share a meal occasionally, they’d had a picnic in the canyon while bird and bug watching, visited another bird sanctuary and even been out to Death Valley on a bug hunt - Gil was after a rare beetle and the rumour was that it had gravitated to the valley.
It was Nick’s wry observation that a ‘needle in a haystack’ had nothing on a ’beetle in a desert’. Gil had bowed to that analogy and had (temporarily) abandoned his mission, but stored the task for future investigation - and this was where Gil had become a little confused, because he’d assumed, automatically, that ‘future investigation’ would, as a matter of course, involve Nick.
Gil spent some time after his arrival home that evening considering his automatic assumption that Nick would accompany him on his task. He was certain he was closer to Nick than he was to anyone else in his life, and while he counted Catherine and Jim as good friends he wouldn’t ask, or expect, them to accompany him on a bug hunt. He thought it was because Nick was an outdoor type of person anyway - since he had a passion for birds and with that came an understanding of Gil’s passion for insects.
But Gil knew he was deluding himself, Nick was his closest friend not just now, but ever. He’d been a solitary child, not lonely at all, but had never formed the friendships children and teenagers around him did. Since he didn’t know what he was missing he’d never missed it and he was always absorbed in learning something new anyway.
Gil also knew that while Nick shared his secrets with him, he was also sharing his life with Nick. Not that there was a lot to know, truth be told, but he’d never shared much information, even trivial stuff, ever before. He was most amazed by how much he enjoyed it, how much more fun it was to share a funny story and have a person laugh with you, or retell a sad episode and have someone like Nick empathise with you - he was turning into a regular ‘touchy feely kinda guy’.
When Gil actually shared this information with Nick, one evening when they were having a barbeque and a few beers, he’d laughed heartily when Nick had deadpanned that Gil’s ‘touchy feely kinda guy’ was, like, a million miles away from normal touchy feely type people. Gil could see the absolute truth in Nick’s observation.
Nick, however, had become really annoyed with himself for implying that Gil wasn’t that type of person and at Gil himself for underestimating his own abilities. He pointed out to Gil that he was indeed that ‘new’ guy. He remembered and told Gil how kind Gil had been and had even hugged him when he’d had been so upset all that time ago.
The memory sobered Gil. He remembered it himself; he’d really surprised himself and had wondered where the know how to comfort had come from. It was his mother, of course, and as they ate the last of their barbequed food and drank their beers, he recounted tales of his mother and his boyhood to Nick. Nick felt privileged to be the confidante for a change; he viewed it as a fair exchange.
They were unbelievably busy at work - if it wasn’t triple homicides, it was major fires or major accidents. It was ‘major’ everything - no one could remember a minor incident and most of them were pulling doubles and even a couple of triples. As far as Gil could tell everyone was handling the pressure well, this was his team and they could and would do their best jobs, whatever the circumstances.
It was nearly three weeks before Gil realised that he hadn’t seen Nick out of work during all that time - they had been extraordinarily busy but Gil was sure that Nick would have had at least two sessions with Ed and Nick had always reported back to him.
Gil tried Nick’s cell - it was switched off - not surprising, he wasn’t on call and was probably fast asleep, as Gil should have been. He left a message and went to his own bed. He was surprised that he hadn’t had a response from Nick by work time. Gil was uneasy but he couldn’t quite grasp why.
When Gil arrived at work Nick was already in the locker room chatting with Warrick. He didn’t interrupt. When assignments were handed out, for the first time weeks they were able to go solo on a number of fairly minor investigations. Gil didn’t have any opportunity to speak privately with Nick until shift was nearly over. Gil proposed a breakfast at a favourite diner. Nick had declined saying he was still sleep deprived.
It wasn’t exactly odd that he’d declined but Nick was always most apologetic for being unavailable and would eagerly suggest another time and date. But not this time. Gil thought that perhaps he was just too tired but, in truth, he hadn’t seemed, or looked, that way to Gil.
Gil couldn’t let this go; his two pieces of evidence were conclusive. In the past year Nick had never left a message from him unanswered and Nick had never blown him off over an invitation to a meal. If these two things had happened with months separating them he would’ve accepted them quite readily but both anomalies had been within a twenty four hour period and were completely out of character for Nick; the Nick who was Gil’s friend.
The journey home for Gil was…he couldn’t think of a word to describe how he felt as he pulled his truck onto his driveway. He sat in the truck staring at his garage door and thought of words that would explain his feelings. Worried. Puzzled. Apprehensive. Concerned. Upset. Injured. Abandoned. Sad. Lonely.
He pulled himself out of his reverie, ’for God’s sake what’s wrong with you, you’re pathetic’. But no matter how much he admonished himself for his thoughts he knew, absolutely, that he felt all of those things but most especially he felt ‘sad’ and ‘lonely’. They were new and strange feelings for Gil.
A very dejected man left his truck, locked it and made his way into his home. It wasn’t really a home, mostly it was where he ate and slept and did perfunctory things. It only felt like a home….it only felt like a home when Nick was there.
End of Part One