The air was filled with soft music of the classical kind. Violins strung a calming melody, drums vibrated barely perceptibly, horns lamented the passing of another day, and flutes caressed the ear with their harmonies. Sunlight streamed through the semi-open venetian blinds, bathing the room in whiteness and shadows. The aroma of coffee was in the air, in contrast to that of orange juice freshly squeezed.
The table was stacked with books and papers, adorned by a single potted plant of the non-blooming variety, and crackers in a jar sat next to it. Now and then, the music was interspersed with the clicking of keyboard keys as the sole occupant of the house worked his way through the papers and books, storing their extracted data on the hard drive of the laptop.
Gil Grissom, dressed in leisurely black pants, a black, short-sleeved shirt, and wearing loafers, was concentrating on his paper, brows furrowed, glasses on his nose, as he thought about the next paragraph, the next chapter, the whole subject of why, how and when.
This article was going to be published in a renowned forensic journal next month and he hadn't had the time to do much with it lately. While there had been time throughout his past life, time off work, away from work, not at work, lately that had changed. Work was still the same. The same hours, the same problems, the same overtime.
But now a new factor had entered the perfect equation that had been his life: Nick Stokes.
Nick Stokes, his colleague. His friend. His lover. His partner. The man he loved and was in love with. The man he had spent more time with than with any other human being in the past. The man who had worn down all his defenses against human contact and had slowly but surely unearthed what Grissom had tried to hide ever since childhood: his self.
Nick had shown him life. Life as perceived by the world, not by Gil Grissom. Life, as it was happening around him, without the bitter tang of crime attached to it. It was like coming out of a shell that had grown so hard, he hadn't been able to feel the outside tapping against it.
But he loved what he had become.
Just like he loved Nick.
But because he had started to live, his life had been turned upside down. Where he would normally have written a paper within a week tops, he now needed at least four. His contributions to magazines and journals had lessened. He no longer craved seminars and conferences to be among his peers, to discuss forensic entomology, to discover new, interesting fields of knowledge, to have deep-routed, philosophical debates. All that was still of interest, yes, but it no longer was his priority.
His priorities had shifted.
Slowly but steadily, and very final.
Grissom sat back from his article and stared at the screen for a moment, then saved the file to the hard drive.
He had wanted to get this finished for days and Nick must have picked up on it. For a week now, they had seen little of each other off shift. Nick didn't stay overnight, he didn't just drop by unannounced, and he didn't pick his lover up for an impromptu drive out into the wilderness for some little change of scenery, as he called it.
Grissom had spent a week living his old life, or close to it anyway, and it was getting to him. He had finished what he had wanted to finish, but it didn't leave him with the sense of satisfaction he had felt in the past.
Exhaling, he reached for his coffee and drank the lukewarm liquid, then slowly placed the mug onto the table again. Gil checked the time and decided to call it quits. The article wasn't getting any better and all he had to do was read over it again, then send it off.
And there was something else he needed to do far more urgently than his typing.

* * *

Nick Stokes had spent the last week para-gliding, hiking, going out with a friend who had called that he was in town, and doing the mundane household things that daily life required. None of it had had the thrill of before. Of course, household work wasn't really a thrill, but at least it had been fun doing it with Grissom. Now, at his house, he was alone and except for the TV, no one kept him company.
Some people at work might have argued that Grissom was about as much company as a TV, but they didn't know the real Gil. Nick did. And his lover was a lot more fun than TV; not just sexually. That was great in its own ways, very erotic, fantastic even; but there was also the personal stuff. Like talking. Like cooking a meal together. Like sharing the morning newspaper. Like grumping about dried insects in the fridge.
Life with his lover and partner.
Well, Nick thought as he rearranged his bookshelf, Grissom had needed the time alone. He really did. The man wasn't used to being crowded like this. Gil was used to having his own life, his own time, and not a twenty-four hours partner. They worked together, they slept together, they ate together… Nick had seen the signs before Grissom had had to come up with an excuse to not have him over for a while.
So Nick had initiated the downtime. It would do the relationship more good in the long run if Grissom could have his solitary time as he wanted it. And last week, he had desperately wanted it.
Deciding that the shelf looked okay, Nick walked through the living room and to the huge sliding doors that led out into a desert garden. Maybe he could do some more work there. The garden was just over a year old and he was still adding to it, following recommendations and his own taste. Nick had gone for the low-maintenance, low-water-use landscaping, and he liked it. Friends had joked if he wanted a rubble-and-stubble moonscape garden, but Nick hadn't been deterred.
Heat-tolerant flowers like verbena, lantana, gazania, bush roses, salvia, and society garlic colored the little piece of back yard. He had planted a Chinese pistache just two months ago, just across from the sago palm, and it looked wonderful.
Maybe he could drop by the gardening center later on, get the nandina shrub Mandy had told him would fit nicely. She was one of the sales personnel at the center and had helped tremendously when the criminalist had decided to turn the yard into a desert garden.
Yeah, going out there sounded like a plan.
He could actually go there right now, get the plant, then do some garden work.
Nick turned away from the terrace and headed for the door out front instead. He had just grabbed his car keys when he heard the lock click and the door was pushed open.
"Gil?" he blurted, surprised to see his lover standing there.
"Hey, Nicky." Grissom gave him a quizzical look as he saw the keys in his hands. "Going somewhere?"
Okay, that had sounded… disappointed? Nick's mind reeled.
"I… ah… garden center, actually. Uh… what are you doing here?"
Grissom was silent for a moment and Nick felt something inside of him twist briefly. Had something happened?
"Are you okay?" he demanded. "Has something happened? Are the guys all right?"
Grissom smiled at his words. "Everything's okay, Nicky. I just… thought I'd come by."
"Oh."
"We do that occasionally," Gil reminded him gently.
"Yeah. I mean, sure we do. But… you wanted to work on your paper. I thought you'd be busy." Nick gestured helplessly.
"Yes, I wanted to do that."
"So… you done?"
"More or less. I still have to go over it one more time."
"Okay."
Grissom stepped forward, into his lover's personal space, and reached out with one hand to wrap it around the muscular neck. Nick willingly went into the kiss, his own arms automatically coming around Grissom, pulling the older man to him.
"It was too quiet," Gil whispered when they parted.
"But you like quiet. You need quiet to work," Nick argued. "You'd want it quiet."
"Not like this. I've typed my articles with you comfortably on the couch and watching TV or reading a book, Nicky."
"I didn't want to distract you," Stokes explained. "I saw that you needed to be alone, that you wanted the peace and quiet. You wanted to get this paper done and off to the editors."
"Yes. Yes, I wanted that." Grissom brushed his lips over Nick's, hands roaming over the slender man's back in an intimate caress. "Sometimes it's not about what you want, but what you need. And I need you, Nick."
Nick's eyes spoke volumes and there was a brief tremor coursing through the younger man.
"There are times when solitude is best spent in company," Grissom added with a little half-smile.
"Rousseau? Socrates? Descartes?"
"No. Grissom."
Nick chuckled and kissed his lover's nose. "Who else?"
Gil still held him, unwilling to let go, and Nick was unwilling to be let go of. So he stayed in the embrace, comfortable, loved, and very much needed.
"You wanna come with me to the garden center?" he murmured after a while, giving the closest ear a little nibble.
"You wanna come with me to the bedroom?" Grissom asked instead.
"I hate it when you answer a question with a question," was the husky complaint.
Gil kissed him again, this time with more hunger, and Nick melted into the kiss, hands digging into the black shirt.
"Garden center?" Gil whispered at the next breathing interval.
"Bedroom," was the moaned reply.

* * *

Nick enjoyed the afterglow of their love-making, feeling sated, warm and pleasantly sleepy.
A slow thought crawled across his semi-awake mind.
He confessed to needing me.
Wow.
Pleasure rolled thought him. Gil Grissom needed him. It was a wonderfully alien concept, one that sent thrills through him, that bathed him in safety and warmth.
Gil needed him. Nick Stokes. Grissom needed someone and had told him so. He had left his work because of this need.
Nick felt humbled, honored and shamed in one. How did he deserve this? How could Grissom feel so deeply for him?
Cracking his eyes open he gazed at his lover, who was looking at him in turn. The blue eyes held an unfathomable depth, a depth Nick had yet to explore but was getting to know piece by piece with each passing day.
Gil needed him.
Not just for sexual pleasure. For more. Company. Companionship. Friendship. Peace of mind. Yeah, that was it. Peace of mind.
I love you, he said wordlessly, holding the intense gaze. I love you so much and I have no idea how to express it. It's so stupid, so childish to say it, but I need you, too.
It wasn't dependency. It was something deeper, something Nick had never felt before, something he couldn't define, but he didn't want to lose it. Maybe he was feeling what every man in love felt, that giddy seventh heaven kind of thing, but he doubted it. He wasn't twenty any longer and he wasn't subject to hormonal rages. This was… different. This was Grissom.
The blue eyes holding his shifted without Grissom physically moving a single inch. Nick knew that shift, knew where that agile mind was taking his lover.
It was time to intervene before that runaway brain could create havoc.
 

Grissom watched the sleepily moving man at his side, eyes on the play of muscle under the tanned skin. Smooth, slender, sinewy, attractive. His lover.
It always came as a kind of sudden revelation that this wonderful, handsome man loved him. That Nick wanted to be with him. That he did it without an ulterior motive. Nick could have anyone. Any gender. Any time. He had chosen Gil.
He had never dared to hope to have Nick like this, in is bed, in his arms, in love with him. Loving him so deeply that it took Grissom's breath away. His younger lover had opened up and let him in, trusting him in matters so intimate and vulnerable, that Gil had felt shocked by their depths. He was Nick's first real male lover; Nick had offered him everything.
Eyes cracked open, looking at him, and Grissom felt warmth course through him, immediately followed by all those almost childish insecurities. Who could resist those eyes? That smile? All of the wonderful package that made up Nick?
The answer was simple: no one.
Gil was jealous of those unknown, invisible men and women out there, the people who looked at his lover and contemplated what they would do with him.
He was jealous - a new concept for him for sure, but it was just now rearing its ugly head.
Grissom loved Nick's looks, he had been attracted to them right from the start, and then he had come to know what was beneath that nice-on-the-eyes exterior.
And now he was jealous.
And insecure.
Not like him. So not like him.
"One day, that big brain o' yours will blow up'n leak outta ya ears," Stokes mumbled.
"What?" Grissom blinked at his lover, confused.
"You're thinkin' again."
Nick hadn't lifted his head yet, but one dark brown eye was looking at Grissom.
"I always think, Nicky."
"Yeah, and whenever you get that look on your face, it's about you, me, and wonderin' when I'm gonna up'n leave." A sigh brushed over the pillow and Nick pushed himself up. "And every time I keep tellin' ya the same…"
Grissom smiled, shaking his head. "Made of glass."
"In that regard, yeah, you are." Nick drew his lover into a gentle kiss. "I love you, Gil Grissom. I won't leave you. Ever. Not voluntarily anyway. Nothing can drag me away from you."
Grissom held him close, wondering what he had done to deserve this love, to deserve such devotion, to deserve Nick. This handsome, compassionate, passionate and warm person.
Sometimes it's not about what you want, but what you need. The words floated through his mind as he buried his head against his lover's neck.
And this was what he needed.