FIC: Sentinel of Sin City - NC-17 - CSI/Sentinel - Gil/Nick/Greg, Jim/Blair - 2/3
Title: Sentinel of Sin City
Author: Lakhesis
Pairing: Nick/Greg, Gil/Nick/Greg, Jim/Blair
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Nick Stokes’ dormant genetic propensity is brought to life after Walter Gordon buries him. The repercussions to his relationship and a coworker’s past are unpredictable.
***
The ringing of the telephone became difficult to ignore after about the tenth or twelfth time. It was something that had to be acknowledged, even if you hadn’t gotten to sleep until past four and it wasn’t yet seven.
Blair managed to knock the phone off the hook, but not quite get enough of a grip to pick it up. He was brought up short, cursing and wincing.
“Ow, fuck… Jim, let go the hair, man.”
As usual, they had entwined in their sleep. Cuddling was all well and good. A death grip on the short curls allowed under department policy was not.
Jim grunted, relaxing his fist and rolling over. Blair took the chance to free himself and finally reached out for the phone. He spared a moment for a last glare at the sleeping Sentinel before resigning himself to being the awake one.
“Sandburg. What?”
It was a polite and cheery morning greeting the likes of which Simon Banks typically heard from the elder of his dynamic detecting duo. Not that he could blame Sandburg for the grumpiness, he’d been woken up as well. At the same time, they were supposed to be keeping their situation private or he’d have to officially separate them on the job.
“Sandburg, I know you have difficulty with subtle but making it clear you’re sleeping together is not it.”
“Simon,” Blair whined in an amazing approximation of a much younger self, “I’ve only been asleep for about two hours… Because, I might add, the Mayor wanted a favor and you put the two of us on an all night stakeout. Why are you calling?”
“The Mayor needs another favor.”
“Aw, fuck no. I’m hanging up.” Blair had the phone almost all the way back to the set and only made out a couple of the words Simon was hurrying out.
“Las Vegas… Grissom.”
Sighing at his own curiosity, Blair lifted the telephone back to his ear. He shifted in the bed until he was seated at the side, bare feet hanging just above the chilly floor. He’d have gone ahead and sat up straight, but he couldn’t remember just where he’d left his slippers.
“Go ahead. I’m listening.”
Banks growled. The repressed frustration was barely audible in his tone. “The Governor called the Mayor, who wants you and Ellison to fly to Las Vegas and assist in a case.”
A sleep warmed hand slid across Blair’s lower back. He leaned into the touch, knowing that Jim wouldn’t have been willing to sleep through this even if he could have blocked out the noise.
“Why?” Blair asked, yawning widely.
“Because apparently some forensic hotshot named Grissom got the Governor’s nephew out of jail on a false charge years ago and he’s called in the favor.”
“Gil Grissom, the entomologist?”
“Fuck if I know, Sandburg. Your flight’s at noon and the tickets will be coming to Prospect by courier sometime this morning. Be on the plane.”
Blair’s eyes crossed as the bed shifted behind him. The hand that had been resting lightly against his back moved around his side to pull at him slightly.
“Yeah, yeah,” Blair muttered into the phone. “They speak, we jump, goodbye.”
He dropped the telephone on its rest with a sharp click, knowing that Simon would forgive the insubordination as a lack of sleep and frustration with the hoops they’d always be jumping through for the higher ups. Just because he tried to say publicly that he lied about his dissertation didn’t mean that everyone believed him. Being a cop involved even more political wrangling than he’d ever experienced in the academic world.
As Jim encouraged him to lie back down, mouthing at his ear and curling around him, Blair knew once more that the price was worth it.
***
Airplanes were a problem never anticipated by whatever evolutionary quirk had given the original tribes their Sentinels. Blair ushered Jim down the walkway, brushing off the helpful suggestions and concerns of the flight attendants and guiding their joint carry-on around hurried feet. Help and concern would lead to ambulances, emergency rooms, and bigger problems.
Right now, he just needed to get Jim away from the noise, the smells, the simple closed in torture of a metal can moving at high speeds through rapid changes in pressure and temperature.
“Trip home? Rental car, I promise.”
Jim nodded, focusing on the hand at the small of his back. The heat of Blair, his scent, the familiar rhythm of his heartbeat grounded his senses through the cacophony of an airport. In addition to the usual people/food/emotional miasma were the distinct tones of Las Vegas. Whirring, buzzing, jangling, as gambling took place even upon arrival.
“We’ll just get to the hotel, settle you down, help out, and go home. No complications, no worries.”
Blair’s voice was fading as Jim shook his head and looked up. There was a scent on the air, something familiar that called him to take notice. He scanned the crowd, seeking its origin, but wasn’t able to immediately identify the location.
In his observation, he did find one person taking too deep an interest in the pair of them. Standing singly, unescorted by family or friends, was a man. Older and slightly out of shape, leaning against a divider, he studied Blair and Jim with blue-eyed intensity. Those eyes narrowed as they caught Jim’s reverse attention. Unexpectedly, the unknown individual’s lips curved in amused recognition.
“Oh, wow, didn’t expect him to be here. Usually we get some flunky.”
Blair’s voice broke back into Jim’s thoughts, bringing with it the surroundings and banishing his sensory focus. The guiding hand at his back began to steer him through the crowd, directly towards the man who’d been studying them.
His younger partner released the handle on their rolling luggage to offer a handshake. His other never wavered from Jim’s back, knowing unerringly that he needed the baseline to tolerate this too crowded space. Up close, the familiar yet not scent was clearly coming from this man.
“Dr. Grissom, we didn’t really expect a personal escort.”
Grissom paused, one last too-deep stare at Jim, before focusing solely on Blair and returning the handshake. “This was a rather last minute request,” he admitted in a low voice. “Thank you for coming.”
Blair grinned, rocking back on the balls of his feet. “Not like I’d say no… Your input on my Master’s thesis really impressed the committee. They seemed surprised that I was able to obtain feedback from such a well-respected source.”
Grissom shrugged lightly, gaze skittering off into the crowd beyond Blair. “Your evaluation as to the impact of migratory swarms on tribal development was intriguing.”
Jim knew, suddenly and without doubt, that the good doctor was lying. But why would he be lying about the reason he responded to a student’s request for help that occurred years ago? There was a pause as if Grissom wanted to say something else and decided against. Pursing his lips, Jim resolved to keep a close eye on this one.
“I have a car waiting, if you have everything.”
Blair simply nodded, letting Grissom take the lead through the crowd. With their host a few steps ahead, he didn’t bother turning to Jim to whisper a question. “What the hell is up? You’ve gone tense.”
Jim didn’t reply, waiting for Blair to look at him. When he did, Jim simply shook his head. Despite Blair’s frown, it put off the question and answer session until later - until they were alone.
***
Grissom kept a low level of tourist oriented explanation and local interest commentary on the drive from the airport. Unexpectedly, he didn’t seem eager to share any details of the case they’d been called to assist.
Suddenly curious as to the reaction he’d gain, Jim spoke his first words to their host since their meeting. “What makes you think there’s Golden distribution in Las Vegas?”
He knew it was rude to change the subject so bluntly. He knew Blair would be interrogating him about it later. To Jim’s dismay, the sudden flood of fear/guilt/adrenaline justified everything.
Grissom was lying without even responding. He’d lied about his reasons for commenting on Blair’s paper years earlier. He’d lied about the reason the pair of them was in Las Vegas.
“Ah, you see…” Grissom began when his cell phone began to trill the pre-recorded prompt of a text message.
The tint of relief curled Jim’s nose as their host read his message. His hand began to edge towards his service weapon, not knowing if he and his Guide were even safe with this person.
“I apologize, gentlemen,” Grissom edged out with a gust of worry/panic/fear. “We need to make a short detour before the hotel.”
The pair in the backseat, Blair having declined the shotgun position to stay with Jim as he acclimated to the new city, shared a glance. Jim’s eyes were hard, untrusting. Blair finally seemed to pick up the undercurrent from his Sentinel, shifting to watch their passing environment more closely.
***
When Grissom parked the Explorer at a residential street and rushed from the vehicle without a word to his guests, Blair turned to Jim.
“What’s going on?”
It was a sit rep question, uncontaminated by panic or concern. He knew that Jim had more information, more input, about what was going on than he did and wanted to share in it.
“He’s lying,” Jim edged out, watching the man open the door to the house. It hadn’t appeared to have been locked, so he clearly was expected. The car doors weren’t locked, so they weren’t trapped yet.
“He’s,” Jim began to explain further when he tilted his head. Blair held silent, rubbing at the closest forearm to ground the other senses as Jim listened to what was happened inside the house.
The voices lacked the tinny quality of long-distance observation, sounding almost as if they spoke inside the car. There were heartbeats, three, though only two voices.
“How long?” Grissom asked.
“Nearly three hours,” a male voice replied. He could hear the hurried click of too rapid swallowing.
“You tried…” Grissom began to ask.
“Everything!” his companion yelled as the two voices moved farther into the house. “He’s not responding at all.”
“Nicky?” Grissom inquired softly with the following sound of callused skin rubbing smooth. There was silence from Grissom before a faint, “Do you have any idea what caused the zone-out?”
The shock of that simple question flung Jim’s hearing away from the house and back to the car. He blinked, jaw hanging slightly open as he focused a slightly dazed stare on Blair.
“We weren’t called here for a case,” Jim explained. “He’s a Guide…”
Blair blinked in mutual shock.
“…with a zoned Sentinel,” Jim completed his summary of what was happening inside the house.
He was cursing a moment later as Blair hurried across the yard. The sound of the vehicle's door slamming was still echoing in the interior, temporarily deafening Jim.
Jim winced as he stepped into the heat of the morning, grumbling about Blair's disregard of his hearing. There was a tinge, a slight hesitation, that spoke of the insecurity of having another Sentinel around... but it was nothing more than a faint echo of thought.
A quick motion had his cell phone out of his pocket and in his hand. He hadn't expected an answer this time of day. Simon was probably still recovering from the all-nighter, like he and Blair should have been doing. The bitterness may have colored his voice slightly as he left the voice message.
"We're here, but the situation’s a little more complicated than first glance. I need a full background on Gil Grissom. Get me all the details you can find, but you might want to look it up yourself."
Jim always felt rather stupid being as vague as possible, but this was going on a department-owned recording device. Cutting off abruptly, he continued towards the inside.
"Who are you?" a voice asked inside the house. The person Grissom had been speaking with, Jim identified.
Blair didn't answer immediately, his usually voluble responses overridden by the urgency with which Grissom interrupted.
"He's been out for almost three hours. Combination of senses hasn't worked. Any suggestions?"
From the front door, Jim could almost taste the older man's desperation. Whoever this new Sentinel was, he was important to both men inside the house. Exactly why was unclear. It was even uncertain as to exactly how they'd known where to find Sandburg. For it was definitely Sandburg they wanted if the newly awakened senses of their subject weren't under control.
Jim's distraction tuned out the conversation. Following the scent of his own guide, he crossed through the home. Cataloging his surroundings with an automatic instinct, he identified a flimsy and variable presence of Grissom but the strong residence of two other men. One was presumably the Sentinel. The other was likely the person to whom Grissom had been speaking.
He stepped into what was clearly a bedroom. Blair was hovering at the side of the bed, directing Grissom on the other side.
"No, no, it was good to get him laid out," Sandburg reassured. He was speaking to a man even younger than himself, short wildly styled hair sticking out in every direction with the occasional blond among the dark brown. "If he'd stayed sitting up, it's very easy for muscles to cramp or to have a loss of balance for days afterward."
Jim flinched at the sight of the man lying supine on top of the covers. He could see the rucks in the duvet, making it obvious to enhanced sight that someone had been sitting on the edge before they were dragged backwards... by someone standing on the bed from the almost imperceptible footprints in the cover.
"Okay, now, Gil."
Jim shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest as he took up a silent position by the door. It figured. Less than five minutes in a crisis situation with almost total strangers and his guide was already on a first name basis.
"I want you to climb on the bed. Lay down next to Nick getting as much physical contact as possible."
This was definitely growing more complicated by the second. Jim wrinkled his nose at the paralyzed discomfort flowing from Grissom. Grissom's gaze skittered over the dark-haired young man before returning to Blair. Rather than comply, he gestured towards the as yet unknown young man.
"Greg, do as he says."
Blair's forehead crinkled as Greg instantly complied with his supervisor's direction. As Greg settled comfortably partially on top of Nick, curling into him with familiarity, the two newcomers began to understand.
"Oh," Blair uttered Sentinel-soft. "Oh, God," he followed, pained eyes flicking over Grissom in acknowledgement before he turned his attention to the two men now on the bed.
"Okay," he began again. Jim could hear the false light overloading the sadness in his voice, but truly doubted the others had any sense of it. "Now, Greg, you may have tried everything... but I can guarantee you that I've never once let a Sentinel stay in a zone."
Jim's snort drew the men's group attention to him. Blair frowned, before shrugging slightly in acknowledgement. Jim's nod recognized that this wasn't the time for a lengthy discussion on past errors.
Occupied in the interplay, neither of the Cascade natives noticed Nick's eyelids flutter at the short noise from Jim. Greg was too busy looking to Grissom for reassurance and Grissom far too occupied in showing nonverbally that he did trust these two men.
"Tell me again what happened just before he phased out," Blair encouraged with a low voice.
Greg, clearly acting on previous instructions, stayed in his place lying on the bed. He rubbed along the line of Nick's bare arm. The lightweight sleep pants and tank top reminded Jim too clearly of the days in which his skin had barely been able to tolerate the lightest cottons.
"He had just taken a shower... Hot, finally, the water temperature had been bothering him."
Jim nodded again in understanding. He remembered, too, what it had been like to think anything above lukewarm was trying to boil off his skin.
"He sat down on the side of the bed, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. It was," Greg hesitated and fell silent.
Jim tilted his head, scenting the guilt and conflict flowing off the man. Were they all lying? Vaguely, he wondered if he’d been quite as much a pain in the ass to Blair in the beginning as this was becoming. Truthfully, he probably had.
Blair crouched, bringing himself more on level with the man. "You're a trained observer.... What did it remind you of?"
Greg's eyes glanced over to Grissom before he focused solely on Blair. "It was like he was looking for something. Scenting the air, like the search dogs."
Frowning again, Jim didn't particularly care for the comparison but he did know what it was intended to mean. Blair simply nodded reassuringly, even as the picture grew startlingly clear in his mind.
Grissom leaned forward, setting one knee on the bed as he reached out to Greg. His hand on the young man's shoulder had him drawing a deep breath. Near boneless, the last of the tension disappeared from his frame as he draped completely on the zoned Sentinel. "It's going to be okay, Greg. We will get this under control."
Jim stared at Grissom until the man raised knowing eyes to meet his gaze. It surprised him the level of understanding and regret he found there. Nick and Greg were clearly lovers; even a newcomer could see that. A Sentinel, like himself, could acknowledge that connection in every aspect of the interaction and their home itself. Grissom, though, was the conundrum. Jim could practically see the agonized emotion swirling around him. He wanted to go to the Sentinel. He wanted to fix this. All the same, he wouldn't. It was almost as if...
Almost growling in suspicion, Jim uncrossed his arms and stepped forward. It had taken months of research and weeks of discussion to realize why his sentinel-guide partnership with Blair had fractured, almost permanently, over Alex. That this man would understand his own situation clearly, yet not take action on it, infuriated Jim beyond reason.
The sound hadn't been loud enough to carry through the room. Blair looked back in confusion, recognizing Jim's dissatisfaction but not knowing its source. He hadn't heard his utterance, just seen him move from the corner of his eye.
The sound had been loud enough to be heard by a Sentinel. It was threatening enough to demand a reaction.
Greg yelped as Nick's arm came up across him and the pair rolled across the bed. Once, twice, with Grissom jerking back from the bed to keep from being knocked down. Bruised and startled, Greg stayed down at the far side of the bed from Blair close to the wall when Nick finally released him. Nick, however, stood in a rolling movement as he pulled Grissom behind him to lean against the wall above Greg. His other hand searched the nightstand for a weapon as he warded the pair back.
Blair was still blinking at the sudden revivification. He made no reaction other than to reach back with one hand as Jim stepped up to him. Ellison leaned into the hand, but made no move, other than a slight crouch to bring his ankle holster within closer reach, that could be described as threatening.
Slowly, recognition of his surroundings came back into Nick's eyes. As he focused, he never took his eyes off Jim.
Jim blinked, his fingers twitching his cuff out of the way as Greg shifted. Bumping into the nightstand as he moved, the drawer of the table Greg hit edged open the faintest amount.
Suddenly, you had two Sentinels with pistols drawn and aimed - at each other.
"Holy fuck," Blair breathed out in near awe. Was this what Jim looked like when protecting him? He'd always been able to acknowledge that the experience itself made him rather appreciative of the Sentinel. But to watch it from the outside, to see the instinct in action, was beyond appreciation.
"Jesus, Jim," he uttered, turning his attention away from the people they'd clearly come to help for just a moment. "Stand down. He's not exactly a threat."
Jim sighed, even as he never took his focus off what was clearly a threat despite his guide's assumption. "He has a gun pointed at us, Darwin. How is that not a threat?"
Coming back to himself, Grissom raised his hand. He lowered it on the back of Nick's neck, fingers splaying over the central column of spine in a mimic of the grip a mother cat would take with her mouth on a kitten.
"That's enough, Nick," Grissom spoke firmly but quietly. "Put the gun down."
Nick's aim wavered, his arm dropping. He shifted to put the weapon on the nearest surface. As he became aware of his location and that of the men immediately around him, he offered his hand down to his partner.
"Greg? Are you okay?"
Greg winced as he straightened out and stood. "Just fine."
Although his expressions as he straightened up belied the statement, no one called him on it. Grissom took the moment of reconnection to step away, distancing himself from the pairing. Jim had put his own weapon away, helping Blair to his feet. It was a room of couples, with the elder scientist watching, knowing, yet unable by circumstance to participate.
"I apologize for the ruse that brought you to Las Vegas, Detectives Ellison, Sandburg," Grissom began. "As you can see, I had very few other options available to me."
***
It had become apparent, far too quickly, that everyone involved was exhausted. Nick, barely having recovered from his zone-out, was in no condition to participate coherently in the necessary discussion. Surprisingly, no one had protested putting it off till early evening. After all, the Cascade arrivals had gotten very little sleep as well even if they didn’t typically work the night shift.
The vehicle had been uncomfortably quiet as Gil drove his guests to the hotel. He had offered politely to go inside and see that they were settled. Ellison’s unequivocal ‘We can handle it’ made his displeasure clear. They may have been there for good reason, but they had been lied to in order to facilitate their presence. Blair had just rolled his eyes and promised to be ready at the arranged time.
Gil broke his usual late morning routine at the thought of Blair Sandburg. Typically, he treated himself to tea and a book before bed. Today was definitely a day for liquor.
The squat, heavy bottomed glass was touched with a finger and a half of decent Scotch. It wasn’t the best in his cabinet, but it was suitable. It wasn’t the worst, either, which he reserved solely for those occasions where he felt the need to get drunk. No matter what anyone might think of him, the things he saw pressed in occasionally and were alleviated the fastest with a dreamless night.
The books in front of him, both recent publications and very old hand-written journals, were of little to no help. None sought to explain his current situation. The complications he faced couldn’t have been uncommon, yet they weren’t discussed. At least not in his references. Once again, he gritted his teeth against the desperate yearning for his father’s very valuable library. Not only was it long gone, it was well nigh inaccessible.
The knock on the front door disturbed Gil’s musing. He crossed his abbreviated living area with dull curiosity. Most of his neighbors, even the salesmen, knew the resident of this home worked nights and slept days. The blackout blinds could hardly be missed from the outside, even on a condo such as his.
But the face through the peephole, and he certainly hadn’t enough to drink to forget to look, made him hurriedly open the door. The complication, his complication, present in the flesh.
“Greg,” Gil greeted carefully.
He wasn’t given the chance to step back. Greg stepped towards him and sidled past into the foyer that emptied to his kitchen and living room open area.
“Please, do come in,” Gil added quietly with a sarcastic lilt as he closed the door. On the other hand, he mused as he turned to face the young man, perhaps he’d consumed just enough alcohol on a stressed body to loosen his tongue that dangerous inch.
“I know what’s going on, Gris…”
He hadn’t expected this. At least, not this quickly. Not that Gil had any intention of mentioning that to the agitated and vaguely defensive man.
Gil crossed to the waist high service bar that separated his kitchen from his living room. It was simple to set the glass on the other side, leaving it to be washed later. Right now, he needed his full concentration. The pause, however, had not been taken by Greg as a chance to reflect.
Greg was pacing, a pair of short strides between the desk with its blanket of research and the edge of the coffee table that fronted Gil’s simple furniture. “I just want to know where my place is in all this… Preferably before Nick goes all ‘It’s been great, but there’s the door.’”
Gil raised his hand to adjust his glasses before realizing that he’d taken them off and left them beside his reading. The aborted movement became a rough scrub of hand across his brow. “Wouldn’t it be best to talk to Nick about this?”
Because there was simply no way he was ever going to be ready to act as a relationship counselor.
“Nick’s asleep,” Greg tossed off as a curt rejoinder, not ceasing his pacing.
From the near frantic energy being released, one might think he was the Sentinel in this equation. Unfortunately, Gil found it difficult to classify the young man. Nick was a Sentinel. Gil had long known he was a Guide. What was Greg?
Other, of course, than Nick’s lover and partner.
“Then shouldn’t you be home with him, also asleep?”
Gil rather hoped the words didn’t carry any overtones. He thought he’d uttered them carefully enough that they would be bland and untainted. Apparently not, as Greg’s movement halted and his head swiveled as his sharp gazed focused on Grissom.
“I love Nick, but he gets everything so easily,” Greg’s words seemed a non sequitur. “He doesn’t even flinch in the face of something that, as a scientist, I would classify as a genetic abnormality. He’s waiting, content with the idea that Grissom’s going to snap his fingers and make it all okay.”
Gil flinched, knowing quite how well he was set up to fail at that. He waited, patiently observing, as Greg stepped closer to him.
“I understand genetics. DNA is immutable. I could no more be a Sentinel in Nick’s place than I could be a woman from birth. The codes are already written, already laid down.”
Greg had stopped his approach practically within Gil’s personal space. The older man didn’t move back, waiting to find out where he was going with his commentary. Greg had been, to a private admission, his protégé. He’d taken a half-wild laboratory dreamer and turned him into a vibrantly dedicated field investigator. While he occasionally mourned the Peter Pan of the DNA labs, he found himself always marveling at the practically efficient field work.
“The thing I don’t understand,” Greg emphasized his discontent with a quiet, fierce voice, “Is why, if I can’t be Nick’s Guide, the other half to his Sentinel, it has to be you.”
Gil’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand. Even when Greg had failed his initial field evaluation, he’d never sensed this deep well of bitterness.
“Why,” Greg asked, eyes seeking some unknowable answer in Gil’s face, “does he get you too?”
There was a moment as Gil stared in shock. Just a second, a speck of time, in which all his defenses fell and he digested those words. It was apparently enough.
Greg made an indecipherable noise as he reached out. Unexpected strength pulled them together as both arms wound around Gil’s neck. His lips had found no difficulty in coaxing Gil into a kiss in the midst of his mental disarray.
But suddenly finding himself contemplating whether Nick could grasp the sweet sharp taste of Greg Sanders brought Gil back to himself. He raised his arms, grasping Greg’s wrists lightly behind his own neck, as he prepared to free himself from the tenacious embrace.
Beyond his control, his mouth continued to explore. Greg was determined, voracious as he devoured. Gil responded, trading unheard words and thoughts as tongues battled and soothed in the same caress. His will faltered, hands sliding from wrists to elbows until they finally cupped the slightly boney shape of shoulders under a loose shirt.
As Gil slid his hands down Greg’s sides then back up his chest to ghost along his collarbone, Greg whimpered. When Gil made his capitulation clear by cupping that determined point of a chin in his palms, Greg sighed.
Changing the tone of their clasp, Gil brushed his closed lips against Greg’s damp and swollen mouth. The other man’s attempts to resume their frenzy were tempered by those quelling hands still cupping his face. He calmed, as Gil’s eyes reassured that this wasn’t going to end. Greg seemed to understand that he wouldn’t be left out in the cold. He could see that this wasn’t one sided.
Gil simply had no energy left to pretend that he didn’t want Greg Sanders.
“This could go so very wrong,” Gil whispered, unable to deny the problems they faced.
There was a glint of something, some ineffable knowledge in Greg’s eyes as he replied, “We’ll make it right.”
He moved his fingers, hand sliding along till they somehow found that tender sensitive spot in the hollow of Gil’s throat. “So very right,” he echoed in contradiction with a faint, fey grin.
Eyes darkening with his growing passion, Gil snatched Greg’s hand from his throat. There was a moment of startle-eyed panic before the young man yielded. It was relatively simple to turn him, to draw him back.
Gil breathed into the perpetually messy hair, the scent of gel and Greg in an odd miasma that refused to sort out. Nick would have been able to identify the individual strains, could be trained to know the specific care product by its scent, but Nick wasn’t here.
Greg rested his hands, shaking slightly, on the arm that crossed his abdomen and held his back to Gil’s chest. Unimpeded, Gil’s other hand roamed. Greg was slight, bony in places, with an odd combination of the muscles and leanness an itinerant gym attendance had given him. Fingers flexed, cupping the growing bulge beneath his trousers.
“He can smell you when you’re aroused,” Gil stated with a quiet certainty, voice soft beside Greg’s ear. “You’ll go back to him and he’ll know there’s been someone.”
There was a third person here, even if not physically. Gil had no illusions, no pretensions that Greg would leave a person like Nick for a person like him… even if he could avoid the man he was quickly becoming certain was his Sentinel. The possessive echoed in his very soul, calling him to a service bound into his very DNA.
“He’ll even know it was me.”
Gil shifted as Greg groaned and dropped his head back onto the support of a shoulder. It made such a tempting target that he slipped his tongue into the curve of an ear. The clear shiver made it obvious that Greg was far from repulsed.
“He’ll be able to smell me on you… even after a shower. Perhaps even taste me in you.”
Greg was groaning now. Gil made no attempt to disguise the movements of his hand. He held the younger man to him with one arm, sliding it down to assist in the loosening of belt and unzipping of the fabric barrier. Eager, Greg’s erection thrust into Gil’s hand. There was nothing between the skin at that point of contact and the electricity of the touch had them both breathing heavily.
Gil began to masturbate Greg with long, even strokes as he continued to speak. “I could fuck you, so deep that a trace remains hours later. It’s in their very nature for Sentinels to be sensory oriented. Can you picture it? You on your knees with his tongue in your ass?”
The way Greg was squirming indicated that he’d not only pictured it, but had experienced it as well. One thing that their line of work was good for was eliminating barriers. Nothing seemed kinky after a few years on the night shift in Las Vegas. Rimming was hardly a blip on the radar.
Intentionally, Gil kept his strokes slow and even. He wanted his partner so aroused that delay wouldn’t be tolerated, but he wanted to feel Greg come as he spent himself inside the younger man.
Unintentionally, his own oddly conflicting jealousies seeped into his words.
“Do you think he would like finding the taste of me there, Greg? The taste of a Guide in his lover’s ass?”
Greg’s lips had been moving in a soundless plea that now gained a voice. The words, repetitive and insistent, pulled at Gil.
“Do it, please. Please. Do it, now.”
Gil had long discounted the mystical implications that surrounded Sentinels and Guides. If asked, he would have said that it was purely a genetic fallacy. Certain individuals with the predisposition for having the advantage naturally sought out the company of those with the predisposition for knowing how to control such an advantage.
How Greg possibly fit into that equation was a grey area. Murky and dark, that uncertainty threatened to swamp them.
It was a blur of static and sensation as they hurried the short distance to Gil’s bedroom. While it certainly seemed as if Greg was leading, that couldn’t be possible. He’d never been to Gil’s bedroom before. How could he know where to lead this oddly chosen lover? He’d certainly never been in Gil’s nightstand drawers before, yet he found the lubricant he kept for his personal ease without hesitation.
Gil blinked and it seemed as if Greg was instantly spread before him in nude temptation. On his back, against the subdued design of Gil’s sheets, he held his spread legs back and open. The offer was unmistakable.
Knowing only that he didn’t have the will to resist what they both clearly wanted, Gil found himself kneeling between those wide open legs. He met Greg’s concentration with a look of intensity. That he was still fully clothed didn’t seem out of place as he popped the button of his slacks and eased down the zipper.
The urgency pulled at him. Carefully, he eased his leaking cock through the slit in his boxers. The fabric rubbing at his base and across his balls was maddening. Only the chill of the thick liquid as he poured it directly on his member staved off the growing need for release.
Greg was pulling him close with insistent and hurried hands even as Gil made an attempt to insert slick fingers in the young man’s ass. They barely brushed the flexing pucker before slipping away. Greg’s fisted grip in his shirt had him losing his balance, catching himself with hands flat against the bedspread.
He shifted his hips, looking to ease back and trying to go more slowly. Then, the alien sensation of those deftly competent slim fingers caught him just below the crown of his erection. A sharp indrawn breath and Gil was nudging inside Greg, guided there by the young man’s own hand.
The head went slowly, squeezed tight by guardian muscles. Even as Greg loosened around him, Gil knew that the penetration wasn’t perfectly easy on someone even as active as Greg. That he accommodated Gil so quickly, so easily, so insistently was a near miracle.
Sharp heels digging into his lower back brought Gil closer. Lip curling back in a near growl, he thrust shallowly. Burying himself evenly and deep, the pressure against his back eased when he was fully seated.
“Do it,” Greg finally insisted. “Fuck me.”
The demand was spoken clearly, a spark of blue seeming to glow in the chocolate depths of Greg’s eyes. Gil lost it, thrusting and fucking into Greg’s body without reserve. Some part of his mind insisted that he would have been able to stop if his partner protested. The rest was sincerely glad that restraint wasn’t required. Greg met each movement with pure enthusiasm.
Denial brought him to the brink far more rapidly than age would have otherwise permitted. Grunting, Gil did indeed spend himself deep inside Greg. The fluttering of the muscles around his cock echoed the spasms of white coating Greg’s naked belly and the edges of Gil’s dangling shirt.
As he panted into Greg’s neck, Gil could hear the fluid syllables of a foreign language. It reminded him suddenly, oddly, that Greg had been raised by his Norwegian grandparents. He shifted his head, only able to focus on the absently empty features of his new lover before exhaustion took him under.
***
Author: Lakhesis
Pairing: Nick/Greg, Gil/Nick/Greg, Jim/Blair
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Nick Stokes’ dormant genetic propensity is brought to life after Walter Gordon buries him. The repercussions to his relationship and a coworker’s past are unpredictable.
***
The ringing of the telephone became difficult to ignore after about the tenth or twelfth time. It was something that had to be acknowledged, even if you hadn’t gotten to sleep until past four and it wasn’t yet seven.
Blair managed to knock the phone off the hook, but not quite get enough of a grip to pick it up. He was brought up short, cursing and wincing.
“Ow, fuck… Jim, let go the hair, man.”
As usual, they had entwined in their sleep. Cuddling was all well and good. A death grip on the short curls allowed under department policy was not.
Jim grunted, relaxing his fist and rolling over. Blair took the chance to free himself and finally reached out for the phone. He spared a moment for a last glare at the sleeping Sentinel before resigning himself to being the awake one.
“Sandburg. What?”
It was a polite and cheery morning greeting the likes of which Simon Banks typically heard from the elder of his dynamic detecting duo. Not that he could blame Sandburg for the grumpiness, he’d been woken up as well. At the same time, they were supposed to be keeping their situation private or he’d have to officially separate them on the job.
“Sandburg, I know you have difficulty with subtle but making it clear you’re sleeping together is not it.”
“Simon,” Blair whined in an amazing approximation of a much younger self, “I’ve only been asleep for about two hours… Because, I might add, the Mayor wanted a favor and you put the two of us on an all night stakeout. Why are you calling?”
“The Mayor needs another favor.”
“Aw, fuck no. I’m hanging up.” Blair had the phone almost all the way back to the set and only made out a couple of the words Simon was hurrying out.
“Las Vegas… Grissom.”
Sighing at his own curiosity, Blair lifted the telephone back to his ear. He shifted in the bed until he was seated at the side, bare feet hanging just above the chilly floor. He’d have gone ahead and sat up straight, but he couldn’t remember just where he’d left his slippers.
“Go ahead. I’m listening.”
Banks growled. The repressed frustration was barely audible in his tone. “The Governor called the Mayor, who wants you and Ellison to fly to Las Vegas and assist in a case.”
A sleep warmed hand slid across Blair’s lower back. He leaned into the touch, knowing that Jim wouldn’t have been willing to sleep through this even if he could have blocked out the noise.
“Why?” Blair asked, yawning widely.
“Because apparently some forensic hotshot named Grissom got the Governor’s nephew out of jail on a false charge years ago and he’s called in the favor.”
“Gil Grissom, the entomologist?”
“Fuck if I know, Sandburg. Your flight’s at noon and the tickets will be coming to Prospect by courier sometime this morning. Be on the plane.”
Blair’s eyes crossed as the bed shifted behind him. The hand that had been resting lightly against his back moved around his side to pull at him slightly.
“Yeah, yeah,” Blair muttered into the phone. “They speak, we jump, goodbye.”
He dropped the telephone on its rest with a sharp click, knowing that Simon would forgive the insubordination as a lack of sleep and frustration with the hoops they’d always be jumping through for the higher ups. Just because he tried to say publicly that he lied about his dissertation didn’t mean that everyone believed him. Being a cop involved even more political wrangling than he’d ever experienced in the academic world.
As Jim encouraged him to lie back down, mouthing at his ear and curling around him, Blair knew once more that the price was worth it.
***
Airplanes were a problem never anticipated by whatever evolutionary quirk had given the original tribes their Sentinels. Blair ushered Jim down the walkway, brushing off the helpful suggestions and concerns of the flight attendants and guiding their joint carry-on around hurried feet. Help and concern would lead to ambulances, emergency rooms, and bigger problems.
Right now, he just needed to get Jim away from the noise, the smells, the simple closed in torture of a metal can moving at high speeds through rapid changes in pressure and temperature.
“Trip home? Rental car, I promise.”
Jim nodded, focusing on the hand at the small of his back. The heat of Blair, his scent, the familiar rhythm of his heartbeat grounded his senses through the cacophony of an airport. In addition to the usual people/food/emotional miasma were the distinct tones of Las Vegas. Whirring, buzzing, jangling, as gambling took place even upon arrival.
“We’ll just get to the hotel, settle you down, help out, and go home. No complications, no worries.”
Blair’s voice was fading as Jim shook his head and looked up. There was a scent on the air, something familiar that called him to take notice. He scanned the crowd, seeking its origin, but wasn’t able to immediately identify the location.
In his observation, he did find one person taking too deep an interest in the pair of them. Standing singly, unescorted by family or friends, was a man. Older and slightly out of shape, leaning against a divider, he studied Blair and Jim with blue-eyed intensity. Those eyes narrowed as they caught Jim’s reverse attention. Unexpectedly, the unknown individual’s lips curved in amused recognition.
“Oh, wow, didn’t expect him to be here. Usually we get some flunky.”
Blair’s voice broke back into Jim’s thoughts, bringing with it the surroundings and banishing his sensory focus. The guiding hand at his back began to steer him through the crowd, directly towards the man who’d been studying them.
His younger partner released the handle on their rolling luggage to offer a handshake. His other never wavered from Jim’s back, knowing unerringly that he needed the baseline to tolerate this too crowded space. Up close, the familiar yet not scent was clearly coming from this man.
“Dr. Grissom, we didn’t really expect a personal escort.”
Grissom paused, one last too-deep stare at Jim, before focusing solely on Blair and returning the handshake. “This was a rather last minute request,” he admitted in a low voice. “Thank you for coming.”
Blair grinned, rocking back on the balls of his feet. “Not like I’d say no… Your input on my Master’s thesis really impressed the committee. They seemed surprised that I was able to obtain feedback from such a well-respected source.”
Grissom shrugged lightly, gaze skittering off into the crowd beyond Blair. “Your evaluation as to the impact of migratory swarms on tribal development was intriguing.”
Jim knew, suddenly and without doubt, that the good doctor was lying. But why would he be lying about the reason he responded to a student’s request for help that occurred years ago? There was a pause as if Grissom wanted to say something else and decided against. Pursing his lips, Jim resolved to keep a close eye on this one.
“I have a car waiting, if you have everything.”
Blair simply nodded, letting Grissom take the lead through the crowd. With their host a few steps ahead, he didn’t bother turning to Jim to whisper a question. “What the hell is up? You’ve gone tense.”
Jim didn’t reply, waiting for Blair to look at him. When he did, Jim simply shook his head. Despite Blair’s frown, it put off the question and answer session until later - until they were alone.
***
Grissom kept a low level of tourist oriented explanation and local interest commentary on the drive from the airport. Unexpectedly, he didn’t seem eager to share any details of the case they’d been called to assist.
Suddenly curious as to the reaction he’d gain, Jim spoke his first words to their host since their meeting. “What makes you think there’s Golden distribution in Las Vegas?”
He knew it was rude to change the subject so bluntly. He knew Blair would be interrogating him about it later. To Jim’s dismay, the sudden flood of fear/guilt/adrenaline justified everything.
Grissom was lying without even responding. He’d lied about his reasons for commenting on Blair’s paper years earlier. He’d lied about the reason the pair of them was in Las Vegas.
“Ah, you see…” Grissom began when his cell phone began to trill the pre-recorded prompt of a text message.
The tint of relief curled Jim’s nose as their host read his message. His hand began to edge towards his service weapon, not knowing if he and his Guide were even safe with this person.
“I apologize, gentlemen,” Grissom edged out with a gust of worry/panic/fear. “We need to make a short detour before the hotel.”
The pair in the backseat, Blair having declined the shotgun position to stay with Jim as he acclimated to the new city, shared a glance. Jim’s eyes were hard, untrusting. Blair finally seemed to pick up the undercurrent from his Sentinel, shifting to watch their passing environment more closely.
***
When Grissom parked the Explorer at a residential street and rushed from the vehicle without a word to his guests, Blair turned to Jim.
“What’s going on?”
It was a sit rep question, uncontaminated by panic or concern. He knew that Jim had more information, more input, about what was going on than he did and wanted to share in it.
“He’s lying,” Jim edged out, watching the man open the door to the house. It hadn’t appeared to have been locked, so he clearly was expected. The car doors weren’t locked, so they weren’t trapped yet.
“He’s,” Jim began to explain further when he tilted his head. Blair held silent, rubbing at the closest forearm to ground the other senses as Jim listened to what was happened inside the house.
The voices lacked the tinny quality of long-distance observation, sounding almost as if they spoke inside the car. There were heartbeats, three, though only two voices.
“How long?” Grissom asked.
“Nearly three hours,” a male voice replied. He could hear the hurried click of too rapid swallowing.
“You tried…” Grissom began to ask.
“Everything!” his companion yelled as the two voices moved farther into the house. “He’s not responding at all.”
“Nicky?” Grissom inquired softly with the following sound of callused skin rubbing smooth. There was silence from Grissom before a faint, “Do you have any idea what caused the zone-out?”
The shock of that simple question flung Jim’s hearing away from the house and back to the car. He blinked, jaw hanging slightly open as he focused a slightly dazed stare on Blair.
“We weren’t called here for a case,” Jim explained. “He’s a Guide…”
Blair blinked in mutual shock.
“…with a zoned Sentinel,” Jim completed his summary of what was happening inside the house.
He was cursing a moment later as Blair hurried across the yard. The sound of the vehicle's door slamming was still echoing in the interior, temporarily deafening Jim.
Jim winced as he stepped into the heat of the morning, grumbling about Blair's disregard of his hearing. There was a tinge, a slight hesitation, that spoke of the insecurity of having another Sentinel around... but it was nothing more than a faint echo of thought.
A quick motion had his cell phone out of his pocket and in his hand. He hadn't expected an answer this time of day. Simon was probably still recovering from the all-nighter, like he and Blair should have been doing. The bitterness may have colored his voice slightly as he left the voice message.
"We're here, but the situation’s a little more complicated than first glance. I need a full background on Gil Grissom. Get me all the details you can find, but you might want to look it up yourself."
Jim always felt rather stupid being as vague as possible, but this was going on a department-owned recording device. Cutting off abruptly, he continued towards the inside.
"Who are you?" a voice asked inside the house. The person Grissom had been speaking with, Jim identified.
Blair didn't answer immediately, his usually voluble responses overridden by the urgency with which Grissom interrupted.
"He's been out for almost three hours. Combination of senses hasn't worked. Any suggestions?"
From the front door, Jim could almost taste the older man's desperation. Whoever this new Sentinel was, he was important to both men inside the house. Exactly why was unclear. It was even uncertain as to exactly how they'd known where to find Sandburg. For it was definitely Sandburg they wanted if the newly awakened senses of their subject weren't under control.
Jim's distraction tuned out the conversation. Following the scent of his own guide, he crossed through the home. Cataloging his surroundings with an automatic instinct, he identified a flimsy and variable presence of Grissom but the strong residence of two other men. One was presumably the Sentinel. The other was likely the person to whom Grissom had been speaking.
He stepped into what was clearly a bedroom. Blair was hovering at the side of the bed, directing Grissom on the other side.
"No, no, it was good to get him laid out," Sandburg reassured. He was speaking to a man even younger than himself, short wildly styled hair sticking out in every direction with the occasional blond among the dark brown. "If he'd stayed sitting up, it's very easy for muscles to cramp or to have a loss of balance for days afterward."
Jim flinched at the sight of the man lying supine on top of the covers. He could see the rucks in the duvet, making it obvious to enhanced sight that someone had been sitting on the edge before they were dragged backwards... by someone standing on the bed from the almost imperceptible footprints in the cover.
"Okay, now, Gil."
Jim shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest as he took up a silent position by the door. It figured. Less than five minutes in a crisis situation with almost total strangers and his guide was already on a first name basis.
"I want you to climb on the bed. Lay down next to Nick getting as much physical contact as possible."
This was definitely growing more complicated by the second. Jim wrinkled his nose at the paralyzed discomfort flowing from Grissom. Grissom's gaze skittered over the dark-haired young man before returning to Blair. Rather than comply, he gestured towards the as yet unknown young man.
"Greg, do as he says."
Blair's forehead crinkled as Greg instantly complied with his supervisor's direction. As Greg settled comfortably partially on top of Nick, curling into him with familiarity, the two newcomers began to understand.
"Oh," Blair uttered Sentinel-soft. "Oh, God," he followed, pained eyes flicking over Grissom in acknowledgement before he turned his attention to the two men now on the bed.
"Okay," he began again. Jim could hear the false light overloading the sadness in his voice, but truly doubted the others had any sense of it. "Now, Greg, you may have tried everything... but I can guarantee you that I've never once let a Sentinel stay in a zone."
Jim's snort drew the men's group attention to him. Blair frowned, before shrugging slightly in acknowledgement. Jim's nod recognized that this wasn't the time for a lengthy discussion on past errors.
Occupied in the interplay, neither of the Cascade natives noticed Nick's eyelids flutter at the short noise from Jim. Greg was too busy looking to Grissom for reassurance and Grissom far too occupied in showing nonverbally that he did trust these two men.
"Tell me again what happened just before he phased out," Blair encouraged with a low voice.
Greg, clearly acting on previous instructions, stayed in his place lying on the bed. He rubbed along the line of Nick's bare arm. The lightweight sleep pants and tank top reminded Jim too clearly of the days in which his skin had barely been able to tolerate the lightest cottons.
"He had just taken a shower... Hot, finally, the water temperature had been bothering him."
Jim nodded again in understanding. He remembered, too, what it had been like to think anything above lukewarm was trying to boil off his skin.
"He sat down on the side of the bed, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. It was," Greg hesitated and fell silent.
Jim tilted his head, scenting the guilt and conflict flowing off the man. Were they all lying? Vaguely, he wondered if he’d been quite as much a pain in the ass to Blair in the beginning as this was becoming. Truthfully, he probably had.
Blair crouched, bringing himself more on level with the man. "You're a trained observer.... What did it remind you of?"
Greg's eyes glanced over to Grissom before he focused solely on Blair. "It was like he was looking for something. Scenting the air, like the search dogs."
Frowning again, Jim didn't particularly care for the comparison but he did know what it was intended to mean. Blair simply nodded reassuringly, even as the picture grew startlingly clear in his mind.
Grissom leaned forward, setting one knee on the bed as he reached out to Greg. His hand on the young man's shoulder had him drawing a deep breath. Near boneless, the last of the tension disappeared from his frame as he draped completely on the zoned Sentinel. "It's going to be okay, Greg. We will get this under control."
Jim stared at Grissom until the man raised knowing eyes to meet his gaze. It surprised him the level of understanding and regret he found there. Nick and Greg were clearly lovers; even a newcomer could see that. A Sentinel, like himself, could acknowledge that connection in every aspect of the interaction and their home itself. Grissom, though, was the conundrum. Jim could practically see the agonized emotion swirling around him. He wanted to go to the Sentinel. He wanted to fix this. All the same, he wouldn't. It was almost as if...
Almost growling in suspicion, Jim uncrossed his arms and stepped forward. It had taken months of research and weeks of discussion to realize why his sentinel-guide partnership with Blair had fractured, almost permanently, over Alex. That this man would understand his own situation clearly, yet not take action on it, infuriated Jim beyond reason.
The sound hadn't been loud enough to carry through the room. Blair looked back in confusion, recognizing Jim's dissatisfaction but not knowing its source. He hadn't heard his utterance, just seen him move from the corner of his eye.
The sound had been loud enough to be heard by a Sentinel. It was threatening enough to demand a reaction.
Greg yelped as Nick's arm came up across him and the pair rolled across the bed. Once, twice, with Grissom jerking back from the bed to keep from being knocked down. Bruised and startled, Greg stayed down at the far side of the bed from Blair close to the wall when Nick finally released him. Nick, however, stood in a rolling movement as he pulled Grissom behind him to lean against the wall above Greg. His other hand searched the nightstand for a weapon as he warded the pair back.
Blair was still blinking at the sudden revivification. He made no reaction other than to reach back with one hand as Jim stepped up to him. Ellison leaned into the hand, but made no move, other than a slight crouch to bring his ankle holster within closer reach, that could be described as threatening.
Slowly, recognition of his surroundings came back into Nick's eyes. As he focused, he never took his eyes off Jim.
Jim blinked, his fingers twitching his cuff out of the way as Greg shifted. Bumping into the nightstand as he moved, the drawer of the table Greg hit edged open the faintest amount.
Suddenly, you had two Sentinels with pistols drawn and aimed - at each other.
"Holy fuck," Blair breathed out in near awe. Was this what Jim looked like when protecting him? He'd always been able to acknowledge that the experience itself made him rather appreciative of the Sentinel. But to watch it from the outside, to see the instinct in action, was beyond appreciation.
"Jesus, Jim," he uttered, turning his attention away from the people they'd clearly come to help for just a moment. "Stand down. He's not exactly a threat."
Jim sighed, even as he never took his focus off what was clearly a threat despite his guide's assumption. "He has a gun pointed at us, Darwin. How is that not a threat?"
Coming back to himself, Grissom raised his hand. He lowered it on the back of Nick's neck, fingers splaying over the central column of spine in a mimic of the grip a mother cat would take with her mouth on a kitten.
"That's enough, Nick," Grissom spoke firmly but quietly. "Put the gun down."
Nick's aim wavered, his arm dropping. He shifted to put the weapon on the nearest surface. As he became aware of his location and that of the men immediately around him, he offered his hand down to his partner.
"Greg? Are you okay?"
Greg winced as he straightened out and stood. "Just fine."
Although his expressions as he straightened up belied the statement, no one called him on it. Grissom took the moment of reconnection to step away, distancing himself from the pairing. Jim had put his own weapon away, helping Blair to his feet. It was a room of couples, with the elder scientist watching, knowing, yet unable by circumstance to participate.
"I apologize for the ruse that brought you to Las Vegas, Detectives Ellison, Sandburg," Grissom began. "As you can see, I had very few other options available to me."
***
It had become apparent, far too quickly, that everyone involved was exhausted. Nick, barely having recovered from his zone-out, was in no condition to participate coherently in the necessary discussion. Surprisingly, no one had protested putting it off till early evening. After all, the Cascade arrivals had gotten very little sleep as well even if they didn’t typically work the night shift.
The vehicle had been uncomfortably quiet as Gil drove his guests to the hotel. He had offered politely to go inside and see that they were settled. Ellison’s unequivocal ‘We can handle it’ made his displeasure clear. They may have been there for good reason, but they had been lied to in order to facilitate their presence. Blair had just rolled his eyes and promised to be ready at the arranged time.
Gil broke his usual late morning routine at the thought of Blair Sandburg. Typically, he treated himself to tea and a book before bed. Today was definitely a day for liquor.
The squat, heavy bottomed glass was touched with a finger and a half of decent Scotch. It wasn’t the best in his cabinet, but it was suitable. It wasn’t the worst, either, which he reserved solely for those occasions where he felt the need to get drunk. No matter what anyone might think of him, the things he saw pressed in occasionally and were alleviated the fastest with a dreamless night.
The books in front of him, both recent publications and very old hand-written journals, were of little to no help. None sought to explain his current situation. The complications he faced couldn’t have been uncommon, yet they weren’t discussed. At least not in his references. Once again, he gritted his teeth against the desperate yearning for his father’s very valuable library. Not only was it long gone, it was well nigh inaccessible.
The knock on the front door disturbed Gil’s musing. He crossed his abbreviated living area with dull curiosity. Most of his neighbors, even the salesmen, knew the resident of this home worked nights and slept days. The blackout blinds could hardly be missed from the outside, even on a condo such as his.
But the face through the peephole, and he certainly hadn’t enough to drink to forget to look, made him hurriedly open the door. The complication, his complication, present in the flesh.
“Greg,” Gil greeted carefully.
He wasn’t given the chance to step back. Greg stepped towards him and sidled past into the foyer that emptied to his kitchen and living room open area.
“Please, do come in,” Gil added quietly with a sarcastic lilt as he closed the door. On the other hand, he mused as he turned to face the young man, perhaps he’d consumed just enough alcohol on a stressed body to loosen his tongue that dangerous inch.
“I know what’s going on, Gris…”
He hadn’t expected this. At least, not this quickly. Not that Gil had any intention of mentioning that to the agitated and vaguely defensive man.
Gil crossed to the waist high service bar that separated his kitchen from his living room. It was simple to set the glass on the other side, leaving it to be washed later. Right now, he needed his full concentration. The pause, however, had not been taken by Greg as a chance to reflect.
Greg was pacing, a pair of short strides between the desk with its blanket of research and the edge of the coffee table that fronted Gil’s simple furniture. “I just want to know where my place is in all this… Preferably before Nick goes all ‘It’s been great, but there’s the door.’”
Gil raised his hand to adjust his glasses before realizing that he’d taken them off and left them beside his reading. The aborted movement became a rough scrub of hand across his brow. “Wouldn’t it be best to talk to Nick about this?”
Because there was simply no way he was ever going to be ready to act as a relationship counselor.
“Nick’s asleep,” Greg tossed off as a curt rejoinder, not ceasing his pacing.
From the near frantic energy being released, one might think he was the Sentinel in this equation. Unfortunately, Gil found it difficult to classify the young man. Nick was a Sentinel. Gil had long known he was a Guide. What was Greg?
Other, of course, than Nick’s lover and partner.
“Then shouldn’t you be home with him, also asleep?”
Gil rather hoped the words didn’t carry any overtones. He thought he’d uttered them carefully enough that they would be bland and untainted. Apparently not, as Greg’s movement halted and his head swiveled as his sharp gazed focused on Grissom.
“I love Nick, but he gets everything so easily,” Greg’s words seemed a non sequitur. “He doesn’t even flinch in the face of something that, as a scientist, I would classify as a genetic abnormality. He’s waiting, content with the idea that Grissom’s going to snap his fingers and make it all okay.”
Gil flinched, knowing quite how well he was set up to fail at that. He waited, patiently observing, as Greg stepped closer to him.
“I understand genetics. DNA is immutable. I could no more be a Sentinel in Nick’s place than I could be a woman from birth. The codes are already written, already laid down.”
Greg had stopped his approach practically within Gil’s personal space. The older man didn’t move back, waiting to find out where he was going with his commentary. Greg had been, to a private admission, his protégé. He’d taken a half-wild laboratory dreamer and turned him into a vibrantly dedicated field investigator. While he occasionally mourned the Peter Pan of the DNA labs, he found himself always marveling at the practically efficient field work.
“The thing I don’t understand,” Greg emphasized his discontent with a quiet, fierce voice, “Is why, if I can’t be Nick’s Guide, the other half to his Sentinel, it has to be you.”
Gil’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand. Even when Greg had failed his initial field evaluation, he’d never sensed this deep well of bitterness.
“Why,” Greg asked, eyes seeking some unknowable answer in Gil’s face, “does he get you too?”
There was a moment as Gil stared in shock. Just a second, a speck of time, in which all his defenses fell and he digested those words. It was apparently enough.
Greg made an indecipherable noise as he reached out. Unexpected strength pulled them together as both arms wound around Gil’s neck. His lips had found no difficulty in coaxing Gil into a kiss in the midst of his mental disarray.
But suddenly finding himself contemplating whether Nick could grasp the sweet sharp taste of Greg Sanders brought Gil back to himself. He raised his arms, grasping Greg’s wrists lightly behind his own neck, as he prepared to free himself from the tenacious embrace.
Beyond his control, his mouth continued to explore. Greg was determined, voracious as he devoured. Gil responded, trading unheard words and thoughts as tongues battled and soothed in the same caress. His will faltered, hands sliding from wrists to elbows until they finally cupped the slightly boney shape of shoulders under a loose shirt.
As Gil slid his hands down Greg’s sides then back up his chest to ghost along his collarbone, Greg whimpered. When Gil made his capitulation clear by cupping that determined point of a chin in his palms, Greg sighed.
Changing the tone of their clasp, Gil brushed his closed lips against Greg’s damp and swollen mouth. The other man’s attempts to resume their frenzy were tempered by those quelling hands still cupping his face. He calmed, as Gil’s eyes reassured that this wasn’t going to end. Greg seemed to understand that he wouldn’t be left out in the cold. He could see that this wasn’t one sided.
Gil simply had no energy left to pretend that he didn’t want Greg Sanders.
“This could go so very wrong,” Gil whispered, unable to deny the problems they faced.
There was a glint of something, some ineffable knowledge in Greg’s eyes as he replied, “We’ll make it right.”
He moved his fingers, hand sliding along till they somehow found that tender sensitive spot in the hollow of Gil’s throat. “So very right,” he echoed in contradiction with a faint, fey grin.
Eyes darkening with his growing passion, Gil snatched Greg’s hand from his throat. There was a moment of startle-eyed panic before the young man yielded. It was relatively simple to turn him, to draw him back.
Gil breathed into the perpetually messy hair, the scent of gel and Greg in an odd miasma that refused to sort out. Nick would have been able to identify the individual strains, could be trained to know the specific care product by its scent, but Nick wasn’t here.
Greg rested his hands, shaking slightly, on the arm that crossed his abdomen and held his back to Gil’s chest. Unimpeded, Gil’s other hand roamed. Greg was slight, bony in places, with an odd combination of the muscles and leanness an itinerant gym attendance had given him. Fingers flexed, cupping the growing bulge beneath his trousers.
“He can smell you when you’re aroused,” Gil stated with a quiet certainty, voice soft beside Greg’s ear. “You’ll go back to him and he’ll know there’s been someone.”
There was a third person here, even if not physically. Gil had no illusions, no pretensions that Greg would leave a person like Nick for a person like him… even if he could avoid the man he was quickly becoming certain was his Sentinel. The possessive echoed in his very soul, calling him to a service bound into his very DNA.
“He’ll even know it was me.”
Gil shifted as Greg groaned and dropped his head back onto the support of a shoulder. It made such a tempting target that he slipped his tongue into the curve of an ear. The clear shiver made it obvious that Greg was far from repulsed.
“He’ll be able to smell me on you… even after a shower. Perhaps even taste me in you.”
Greg was groaning now. Gil made no attempt to disguise the movements of his hand. He held the younger man to him with one arm, sliding it down to assist in the loosening of belt and unzipping of the fabric barrier. Eager, Greg’s erection thrust into Gil’s hand. There was nothing between the skin at that point of contact and the electricity of the touch had them both breathing heavily.
Gil began to masturbate Greg with long, even strokes as he continued to speak. “I could fuck you, so deep that a trace remains hours later. It’s in their very nature for Sentinels to be sensory oriented. Can you picture it? You on your knees with his tongue in your ass?”
The way Greg was squirming indicated that he’d not only pictured it, but had experienced it as well. One thing that their line of work was good for was eliminating barriers. Nothing seemed kinky after a few years on the night shift in Las Vegas. Rimming was hardly a blip on the radar.
Intentionally, Gil kept his strokes slow and even. He wanted his partner so aroused that delay wouldn’t be tolerated, but he wanted to feel Greg come as he spent himself inside the younger man.
Unintentionally, his own oddly conflicting jealousies seeped into his words.
“Do you think he would like finding the taste of me there, Greg? The taste of a Guide in his lover’s ass?”
Greg’s lips had been moving in a soundless plea that now gained a voice. The words, repetitive and insistent, pulled at Gil.
“Do it, please. Please. Do it, now.”
Gil had long discounted the mystical implications that surrounded Sentinels and Guides. If asked, he would have said that it was purely a genetic fallacy. Certain individuals with the predisposition for having the advantage naturally sought out the company of those with the predisposition for knowing how to control such an advantage.
How Greg possibly fit into that equation was a grey area. Murky and dark, that uncertainty threatened to swamp them.
It was a blur of static and sensation as they hurried the short distance to Gil’s bedroom. While it certainly seemed as if Greg was leading, that couldn’t be possible. He’d never been to Gil’s bedroom before. How could he know where to lead this oddly chosen lover? He’d certainly never been in Gil’s nightstand drawers before, yet he found the lubricant he kept for his personal ease without hesitation.
Gil blinked and it seemed as if Greg was instantly spread before him in nude temptation. On his back, against the subdued design of Gil’s sheets, he held his spread legs back and open. The offer was unmistakable.
Knowing only that he didn’t have the will to resist what they both clearly wanted, Gil found himself kneeling between those wide open legs. He met Greg’s concentration with a look of intensity. That he was still fully clothed didn’t seem out of place as he popped the button of his slacks and eased down the zipper.
The urgency pulled at him. Carefully, he eased his leaking cock through the slit in his boxers. The fabric rubbing at his base and across his balls was maddening. Only the chill of the thick liquid as he poured it directly on his member staved off the growing need for release.
Greg was pulling him close with insistent and hurried hands even as Gil made an attempt to insert slick fingers in the young man’s ass. They barely brushed the flexing pucker before slipping away. Greg’s fisted grip in his shirt had him losing his balance, catching himself with hands flat against the bedspread.
He shifted his hips, looking to ease back and trying to go more slowly. Then, the alien sensation of those deftly competent slim fingers caught him just below the crown of his erection. A sharp indrawn breath and Gil was nudging inside Greg, guided there by the young man’s own hand.
The head went slowly, squeezed tight by guardian muscles. Even as Greg loosened around him, Gil knew that the penetration wasn’t perfectly easy on someone even as active as Greg. That he accommodated Gil so quickly, so easily, so insistently was a near miracle.
Sharp heels digging into his lower back brought Gil closer. Lip curling back in a near growl, he thrust shallowly. Burying himself evenly and deep, the pressure against his back eased when he was fully seated.
“Do it,” Greg finally insisted. “Fuck me.”
The demand was spoken clearly, a spark of blue seeming to glow in the chocolate depths of Greg’s eyes. Gil lost it, thrusting and fucking into Greg’s body without reserve. Some part of his mind insisted that he would have been able to stop if his partner protested. The rest was sincerely glad that restraint wasn’t required. Greg met each movement with pure enthusiasm.
Denial brought him to the brink far more rapidly than age would have otherwise permitted. Grunting, Gil did indeed spend himself deep inside Greg. The fluttering of the muscles around his cock echoed the spasms of white coating Greg’s naked belly and the edges of Gil’s dangling shirt.
As he panted into Greg’s neck, Gil could hear the fluid syllables of a foreign language. It reminded him suddenly, oddly, that Greg had been raised by his Norwegian grandparents. He shifted his head, only able to focus on the absently empty features of his new lover before exhaustion took him under.
***