Response to Challenge #1. Tandem admin posting!
Title: Incidental
Author: Knightmusic
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Challenge: #1: Thanksgiving
Summary: Gil hosts Thanksgiving dinner for his team. When Nick shows up unnanounced, he ends the evening learning more than he thought he would about his boss. And vice versa.
Author's Note/Warnings: I really wanted this to be porny. Really! I just couldn't make it go in this scene. I may be forced to write an addendum...
Disclaimer: If I owned this show, they wouldn't be able to show it during prime time on network television. Somewhere there are people who are glad I don't.
Grissom pursed his lips in concentration. He’d finally managed to narrow it down to three, but that still meant two of the possibilities were wrong. There were still many variables left to be considered before he could come to a conclusion: personality, mood, accessibility. But he was running out of time, and it was beginning to look like the final word would be his own opinion.
Most people didn’t realize how important the music selection was to a dinner party.
It was important to him that everyone enjoy themselves while they were his guests, and that applied to the music as well as everything else. His heavier classical collection had been discounted early on as being either too esoteric or complex and involved for background music, one could hardly hold a conversation over the top of La Boheme, and his contemporary collection disqualified itself for related reasons.
He looked at the three disks in his hand and finally put back the Rachmaninoff and the Vivaldi. Feeling pleased with his finale choice, he smirked a bit as he put the final disk in to play.
And it wasn’t a moment too soon. He answered the knock at the front door.
“Hi,” he said, smiling, to Warrick and Sara. “Come on in.”
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Sara said. “You said not to bring anything, so-” she handed him an arrangement of flowers, “we brought the centerpiece.”
Grissom accepted them, but gave her an amused look over the top of his glasses. “I didn’t say you couldn’t bring anything,” he said.
Warrick snorted. “No, you said, ‘If you want,’” he did a fairly accurate impression of his boss. “Which means, ‘I’ve already taken care of anything you might think of.’ Same thing.”
Grissom didn’t bother to correct or deny the statement; Warrick had actually interpreted him correctly, but he didn’t need to be told that. Instead he went to find a vase for the flowers.
“You can put your coats in the closet,” he said over his shoulder, finding a knife to cut the ends off the flowers before putting them in water. There was another knock at the door.
“Sara, would you mind getting that?” he said, since she was already over there.
“Sure,” she pulled the door open and Brass stepped in.
“Fashionably late, I hope?” he said.
“Don’t think either of those terms suit you, Brass,” Warrick said, looking up from the CD case he was inspecting. Brass snapped his fingers in mock disappointment. Warrick waved the case. “This is a good disk, Gris. Got the same one.”
“Is that what’s playing?” Sara asked, stepping over to get a better look. “I like it.” Warrick nodded.
“Bobby McFarrin and Chick Corea. They get up to some really wild stuff,” he said. They listened for a bit.
“Nice,” Brass agreed.
In the kitchen, Grissom smiled, feeling very pleased with himself. “I like it,” he said, and started bringing dishes out to the table.
“Can we help with anything?” Sara asked, sticking her head in. Grissom looked back and nodded at the counter.
“Sure, grab a couple of those and bring them in.” Sara picked up the cranberries and potatoes and followed him.
“You expecting anyone else?” Brass asked, following suite and helping Grissom and Sara. Grissom shook his head.
“Catherine said she and Lindsey might drop by to say ‘hi,’ but they were going to spend the day together, and Greg and Nick are with family.”
“Their loss,” Warrick said. “Man, Grissom, that is the most involved cranberry sauce I’ve ever seen! Whaddid you put in there?” Grissom looked at the bowl and then back at Warrick with his mouth quirked to one side.
“You’ll have to try it and find out,” he said and went back in for the turkey. He’d just gotten it out of the oven when another knock came at the door.
“Thought you just got done saying we were it for dinner,” Warrick said, puzzled.
“I thought so,” Grissom said, setting the pan down and going to the door. “Nick,” he said, surprised, when he opened it. “I thought you were going back to Texas.”
“Yeah, well, this year my sister decided to host the festivities. North Carolina’s just a bit to far to travel without taking some of my vacation. I hope it’s not a problem that I’m here?” he sounded a bit self-conscious, and Grissom wondered why.
“No, not at all,” Grissom said, ushering him in. “It’s an open invitation Nick. It’s not just for CSI’s who are on call during the holidays.”
“Besides, it looks like there’s more than enough food,” Sara said, giving the table a meaningful glance.
Nick smiled and looked relieved. “Well, and I brought wine,” he said, handing a bottle of red and white to Grissom. “Figured it was the least I could do for showing up unannounced.”
“Well, thank you very much, Nick,” Grissom said, setting the bottles down and finding another chair.
Part of the reason for background music was to cover up awkward pauses in conversation, but it seemed an unnecessary precaution. His guests were in good spirits and happy to enjoy each other’s company. Gil said very little, being much more interested in listening to what everyone else was saying. Even when conversations broke off between Sara and Brass and Nick and Warrick, he managed to keep abreast of both of them.
After dinner, Brass and Warrick bolted almost instantly for his TV, flipping the game on. Nick followed, looking relaxed and happy but not particularly focused. Sara followed Grissom into the kitchen, categorically refused to listen to his protests and arguments that she was a guest, and helped him with the dishes.
“Do you even know who’s playing?” Sara asked.
Grissom shrugged. “No,” he said. “Did you think I would?”
Sara grinned. “To be honest? It wouldn’t have surprised me either way. There are times when I think you know a little something about everything.”
Grissom smiled a small, smug smile. “That is my goal.”
“I’d say you have a lot of useless knowledge in that head of yours, except I know it’s not useless.”
“No knowledge is useless.” It wasn’t as though she didn’t know this, and he knew he didn’t really need to say it. The point was how she responded.
“True,” she said, the corners of her lips tightening into a familiar smile. “But not all knowledge is useful. But remind me to be on your team if we ever play Trivial Pursuit.”
“I never play on a team,” Grissom said. His competition was limited to game boards.
Sara snorted. “Figures.”
Grissom made coffee, and Sara snagged Warrick to come in and help dish up pie, saying that she refused to be the one to serve the men. He’d rolled his eyes at her, but acquiesced. Brass turned the game off, his curiosity apparently satisfied, and Nick appeared to have fallen asleep in Grissom’s chair.
“Think we should leave him,” Brass said. “Between the turkey and all the wine he had, I don’t think any of us are going to move him for a bit.”
Grissom had noticed Nick refilling his glass a few times. Nothing about it set off any alarm bells, and Grissom had certainly had his share during dinner as well. He couldn’t say that Nick didn’t seem to have the right idea about how to spend the post-dinner hour. He made sure that there was extra coffee and pie for when he woke up.
After dessert the dishes were cleared away; this time Brass shooed him out of his own kitchen to take care of it. They milled around for a while longer, long enough to have a nice chat with Warrick about his music collection. It wasn’t long before, due to their own feelings of lethargy, the three thanked him for dinner and began to make their way out.
Nick was still sound asleep on his chair. Brass paused by the door and jerked a thumb at him.
“You want some help with him?” he asked. Warrick and Sara stopped short, ready for instructions. Grissom cast an inquiring look at Nick, then shook his head.
“No, he can stay there until he wakes up,” he said. Warrick and Sara turned away quickly, looking as though they were stifling laughter.
“Lucky him,” Warrick mumbled. “See ya, Gris,” he said, louder.
After they left, Grissom stood there for a few moments, regarding Nick. Having someone fall asleep in his living room wasn’t a common occurrence for him, and while it didn’t bother him, quite the opposite, he liked it for some reason, it did puzzle him. People rarely felt that at ease in his presence.
There wasn’t much cleaning up to be done, but he finished up what little there was. In the living room, the current disk in his player finished and the next one rotated into place. He paused for a minute, listening to see what would start.
It was the Rhapsody. Rachmaninoff. That disk rarely left his player. Like most people, he had a particular fondness for the eighteenth variation, but the whole piece was delightful and tended to fit any occasion.
Despite telling Brass that he’d let him wake up on his own, he really shouldn’t let him sleep like that on his neck. He shook Nick’s shoulder gently and he jumped a bit, blinking himself awake.
“Gris?” he asked, looking around. “How long have I been out?” He quickly put together that everyone else had gone. “Sorry,” he said, pushing himself out of the chair and trying to pass embarrassment off as amusement and only having marginal success. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you,” he offered, and Grissom waved him off.
“Don’t worry about it, Nick. Dessert?”
“Uhm, yeah, sounds good,” Nick said.
“What kind?” Grissom asked, heading into the kitchen.
“Uh, what?” Nick asked.
“What kind of pie would you like?” Grissom asked patiently. Nick still wasn’t really looking at him, and only lifted his head briefly to see his choices.
“Oh. Pecan. Thanks,” he answered.
Gil put the knife down and fixed Nick with an expression of concerned puzzlement. “Are you all right, Nick?”
“What? Yeah. I’m fine,” he said, pulling up a chair and dropping into it. He even pulled a smile for good measure. Grissom didn’t buy it. It was possible that he was still groggy from his nap, but he seemed more distracted than groggy. He dished up the pie and brought it over to Nick with coffee.
“Man, Grissom,” Nick said as he sat down. “You’re looking at me like I’m a science experiment.”
Grissom shook his head slightly, breaking eye contact. “I’m just trying to figure something out,” he said, taking a sip of his own coffee and regarding Nick over the rim of the mug.
Questioning witnesses and suspects was no where near Grissom’s favorite part of his job. But it was because he didn’t like it that he’d learned to be so good at it. And right now he could tell that something was on Nick’s mind, and he was itching to talk about it.
“If you tell me it’s none of my business,” Grissom said carefully, giving Nick an out if he wanted to take it, “I’ll respect that, of course. But it might help you to talk.”
Nick looked up and away, sighing. After a pause long enough to make Grissom think he had been ignored, Nick said,
“This is the first Thanksgiving I’ve ever spent without any family at all.” Grissom set his mug down and waited for him to continue. “I guess it’s just stranger than I thought it would be. I’m just so used to having family around - does that make any sense?”
“It does,” Grissom said in a calm, reassuring tone. Nick quirked half his mouth in a smile.
This wasn’t the core issue. This was something peripheral that Nick was comfortable talking about. And it looked like he wasn’t planning on going any further. Hesitantly, Grissom tried a prompt.
“But I can only imagine. I have a very small family.”
Nick’s head snapped around to look at him and Gil grinned inwardly. His team was so clearly curious about him, but they never asked him anything. He didn’t believe in keeping secrets.
Nick looked at him for a while and some of the trepidation started to melt off his face. “What was your family like?” he asked.
Grissom considered. “Polite,” he said. Nick stared at him, clearly unwilling to accept this as an inclusive answer. Gil smiled.
“I suppose you could say they were understanding too.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “What about holidays?”
“Holidays were always understated. My mother and I would go visit her parents. Sometimes my uncles would be there.”
“What about your father?”
Grissom shook his head. “They divorced when I was five.”
Nick nodded and looked apprehensive for a moment. Some things, like divorce and death in a family, made conversation awkward even years after the fact. But he managed to collect himself quickly.
“How many uncles?” he asked.
“Two,” Grissom said. “Both older than my mother. Although I only ever saw the younger one.” He grinned. “Robert was my mother’s favorite. He spent a lot of time at our house after my parents divorced.”
“Any cousins?”
“David, my other uncle, had two daughters. They didn’t visit often.”
“And you’re an only child, right.”
“I am. Robert never had children. He and his partner treated me like the son they never had.” He said all of this in a very nonchalant, conversational tone, but Nick’s startlement registered on his face after his final statement.
“Partner?” he asked. “You mean he was gay?”
Grissom chuckled at Nick’s blunt phrasing. “Yes, Nick, he was gay.”
Nick got very quiet. Gil doubted that he had been offended by the revelation about his family. He waited for Nick to speak again.
“It’s kinda funny,” Nick said, hesitantly, looking down and picking at his uneaten pie, “that we should get on that topic after talking about family.” He paused and Gil stayed quiet, letting him think.
“Cuz that’s kinda what’s been bothering me,” he said and looked up at Grissom. He looked ready to talk now, really ready, but was still a little unsure how much Grissom wanted to hear.
“Go ahead, Nick,” Grissom said.
“I think I might be gay,” Nick said after a long pause and a deep breath. “Well, not gay, strictly speaking. But I’ve definitely started being attracted to men. I don’t know that my family will take it all that well.” He looked at Grissom and seemed on the verge of panic.
“Nick,” Grissom said in his most reassuring tone. But that was all he could muster. Nick needed reassuring words and he didn’t think he had them.
“At least it’s good to know that you’re not rattled by it,” Nick said, half smiling. “I was a little worried about that.”
Grissom snorted. “Why?” he asked.
“Dunno,” Nick shrugged. “Cuz your opinion matters. Worst case scenario, right?”
“Well, you never needed to worry about that,” Grissom said, standing up. “You gonna finish this?” he asked, picking up Nick’s pie plate. Nick shook his head.
“I do know a thing or two about what you’re going through,” Grissom said, bringing the plate and mugs into the kitchen.
“Whoa, what?” Nick said, following.
Grissom leaned against his refrigerator. “It’s like I said. My family was very understanding. Especially when I told them. I’m sure yours will be, too. Give them time.” They stood there for a while as Nick blinked, looking completely blindsided.
“Have you thought of a way to tell them?” Grissom asked.
Nick shrugged. “I’ve mostly thought about the part after I tell them. That’s enough to dissuade me so far.”
Grissom gave him a pointed look. Nick tried to hold it, but eventually pulled his head away and made an exasperated noise.
“Don’t give me that, Gris. I will tell them. If I have to. There’s a chance it won’t ever be an issue.”
“As long as that’s a chance you’re willing to take,” Grissom said. “But you’re running a risk.”
Nick made a dismissive noise. “It’s not going to change anything if I tell them now or wait until I’m ready to bring home a boyfriend.”
Grissom shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. You’re risking yourself as long as you refuse to be completely honest.”
“Yeah, well, honesty doesn’t always impress people,” Nick said, looking away.
“It impresses me.”
“And wouldn’t it be great if everyone was just like you,” Nick said. There was no sarcasm in his tone, which surprised Grissom. He actually sounded genuine.
“Nick,” Grissom said, walking over to where he stood, arms braced on the edge of the table and head hanging down. “What’s the real issue here?” he asked gently.
“I told you,” Nick mumbled, still not looking at him.
“No, I don’t think you have,” Grissom craned his head to meet Nick’s down turned face. “Nick, you’ve been dropping hints since I woke you up. If there’s something you need to talk about, I think you should say it.”
Nick didn’t look up right away. When he did, it looked like he was steeling himself against an impossible task.
“Do you wanna go get a drink?” he asked, expressionless.
“Excuse me?” Grissom said. That certainly wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “If you want something, I’ve got -”
Nick waved him off. “That’s not what I mean. I mean,” he paused and looked like he was considering backpedaling. “I wanna know if you’d like to go out with me.”
Grissom wasn’t stunned into silence very often, and this was as close as he’d been in a while. He had to admit that in light of everything they’d discussed so far, the inquiry wasn’t without context.
“Nick, are you saying…?” he trailed off, gesturing with his hands.
“Yeah, I am,” he said. “Gotta figure there was a reason I knew I was into men. You’re it.”
All of a sudden Grissom felt nervous. He had one shot at getting this right. This wasn’t just important to Nick, he realized as a wealth of thoughts hitherto deemed out of the realm of possibility descended upon him. This was important to him as well.
Everyone on his team was important to him: all hand-picked and dear in their own ways. But for years he hadn’t let himself think that one might be just a little more important than the others. He ignored it when Nick had started to become more special to him.
He couldn’t tell if time seemed to be going faster or slower right now. Nick was waiting for a response, looking like the wrong word could easily destroy him, and Grissom was drawing a blank.
“I’d rather stay here,” he heard himself say, and Nick’s face fell. He realized that he needed to do something fast before Nick got the wrong impression and this ended horribly. They were already standing so close to each other. It was hardly any movement to catch Nick’s face with his hand as he was turning away.
And once he had done that much, it was the most natural and easy thing in the world to kiss him.
He could tell that Nick was surprised, but he recovered admirably. Good at thinking on his feet, that was his Nick.
His Nick? God, he hoped he got this right.
Nick reached a hand up to the back of his neck to cradle his head and stroke through the short hair. Gil didn’t think he’d ever felt anything so wonderful.
“So,” Nick said when they pulled away. “I take it you’re not the dating type?”
“Not at all,” Grissom said through a broad smile. “But there’s nothing out there,” he punctuated the statement by gesturing at the door, “that I want.”
“I can live with that,” Nick said.
In the background his favorite variation of the Rhapsody, the eighteenth, began to play, and Gil kissed him again. Because really, with that for ambient music, and this kind of company, there wasn’t much else he could do.
*additional author's note: For those who are curious, the Rhapsody is Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and has been featured in movie soundtracks underscoring romantic moments. If you don't know the piece, just take my word that really, when that variation comes on, it would be a good idea to have someone on hand to kiss.