Realizations

by EmiNayla

I guess I never realized that I actually liked him before he was gone. Slash, MxM, EricxRyan, Hardy Boys, Eric POV. Read and Review!

Pairing: The Hardy Boys, or EricxRyan. We love those two, don't we?

Rating: PG13, I think. I guess. Maybe.

Spoilers: General spoilers for the whole Miami-thing, really, but most notable spoilers for Burned and the eps that follow.

Notes: This... started out as a drabble, really, or generally just something I could write to get inspiration. And then I just kept typing and it went long. Very long. Haha, but that's how it goes.

Also, for the ep where Ryan gets back to work? I just made that plot up because I haven't actually seen that episode yet and I didn't want to spoil myself and from what I know, the story-line probably isn't any slash-friendly anyway.

Oh, and completely unbeta'd and while not hot off the press, it isn't reread for errors and stuff so well. I didn't have the energy.

Aaaalso, I think I like the first half of this better. I need to practise at fighting and kissing. Yep. But I'll leave it up to you to decide what you like.

Other: The first thing I put up for years! Gosh. Also the first story I submit in my word-series, or whatever I'll call it. Basically I love words so I'm collecting words that end with 'ion' that I like. I was thinking I'd write a story for each of those words. Feel free to give me more words, I love them! So far I've got Reflections, Distractions, Suspicions, Realizations (which is this one), Confessions and Addictions.

Enough of this, though, enjoy!

-

I guess I never realized that I actually liked him before he was gone.

It's one of those things, I guess. I couldn't believe it when he got fired, had never seen it coming, and then I saw him walking out of the lab with this look on his face and I knew something was wrong. It took a while but eventually I got the news from Calleigh, and I could just stare at her. I didn't know what to feel, really, as I never knew him that well, and I was never that good of a friend. Neither of us were – the strained relationship we had was just that, strained, and incredibly professional.

When I got to know why he got fired, I decided he was worth it. Goddamn idiot, gambling and gambling during work and loading up on tons of debts nonetheless. I was angry with him because I thought better of him and it was almost like he let us down. Then I moved on to indifference. I didn't know the guy and you can't miss what you don't know.

I remember catching him on TV, sitting in that fancy chair, wearing makeup that enhanced his features but still looked odd and wrong on him. When he came to the lab to share his discovery about the surveilance footage I didn't feel mad at him anymore. It was a bit uncomfortable but being with him again, in the lab, took me back to when he worked here just a couple of weeks before. The banter came back to me and I smiled at him, not feeling strange at all doing so. I was honestly impressed about his observation and I laughed in my mind at the look on his face when I told him I would get the credit for his work.

He left, getting rid of the visitor badge and holding it hard in his hand. I felt a bit sorry for him, then, since he couldn't even walk around in a place he knew so well without proving who he was. I watched him as he went until I couldn't see him anymore.

Later that day I caught him on the news again and I couldn't help but smile a bit at the screen. He wasn't a complete idiot, at least. When I saw him talking to H outside I knew he was coming back, and that it was just a matter of time. I was happy about it since the moment with the surveilance footage reminded me of what it was like with him around. While we weren't the best of friends a lot of things had changed between us after we both got shot. We were sort-of professional friends, sometimes switching to rivalry, to being concerned for one another. It was a rocky ride but I didn't want to get down.

A couple of days later I could see him at the lab, slumped in a chair with what appeared to be tons of paperwork. I was never a fan of those but it seemed so much worse for Ryan. I knew he had to go through everything he'd ever done – from the first parking ticket he issued to this deal with the gambling. He'd sit alone, lonely, with a pen and all of those boxes and papers. I wanted to go in to him and help, but I never could. The case was demanding and I had to focus on it and only it. However, each time I passed him, his back against me and a pale hand buried in his brown hair, I wanted to go inside and help and offter a friendly word.

In the end it was Natalia who did it first. Her being there seemed to have an effect on Ryan as he sat up straight and seemed more determined. At that point I decided not to go in and help even with the case closed. It somehow seemed like interrupting, and I didn't want to spend time with Natalia as well. She's a sweet girl and all but I could never stand being with her for too long. And it was Ryan I wanted to be with at the time – not her.

I felt sorry for him but there was also some part of me glad that he got to pay for what he did, and had to work through it to get back. The whole gambling business made me lose a lot of respect for him. Maybe he didn't have that much in the first case, what with his past connections to the media and attacking lab techs and police officers, but the fact that he cared for all of us, looked out for me when I had to re-learn everything it meant to be a CSI, it made up for all of that except the gambling. I wanted to know why he had done it.

The next time I saw him, it wasn't around the lab, but on a computer monitor. I had never expected him to appear on one of those and it was a shock for me. I was prepared to throw everyhing I had thought of him to the ground and stomp on it, but Natalia interrupted with the logical reason he was on there and I mentally picked up those thoughts again.

Then, when he was at the lab, again as a visitor, I could see him with the suspect from the lab I was working in. I watched him; the way he looked, stood and talked. He casually leant against a doorframe. When he turned to leave, he saw me, and he gave me a look and a slight smile which I found myself returning. He left the building and I watched him do so.

A week passed without me seing him. It felt weird, because even though he was fired he was around. Not in a way that made it feel like he never was fired in the first place, but in a way that made me realize I had never actually lost him. I would see him every other day and be reminded of him, but now I hadn't been reminded of him for more than a week. It upset me and I wasn't sure why, but it did, so it was great to see him outside the yellow crime scene-tape talking to H. I felt happy at the sight and I knew once again that he wasn't lost for any of us.

I saw him on a computer screen that day again, but this time it wasn't because his prints had been found but because he was on a blog. I could only laugh at the comment following the picture; "seen with older guy, cute, very serious". I found myself thinking about that comment for a while, agreeing and disagreeing with it. Older guy, yeah – for her. For us, he had always been younger. Not that much by age (he was four years younger than me) but more so just with... him.

When he first started working at the Miami-Dade crime lab, everyone thought he was younger than he was. He had had this haircut – his hair had been long, bangs down to his eyes, making him look almost childish. But adding more to that young appeal was his personality. He was so vibrant and alive and had not yet grown bitter and sad because of everything CSIs see each day. He was new to the job and so enthustiastic about it. At the same time, though, here had been this air about him. I knew he wanted to prove himself, that he wasn't a replacement for Speed. He had first taken the locker at the far end, the broken one, rather than taking Speed's old locker. As we accepted him he took Speed's locker instead. I always thought that the gesture was almost... sweet, in a way I couldn't really explain. He was concerned about what we thought of him but he didn't want to offend us by barging in and taking Speed's place, which he didn't. They were so very different, Ryan and Speed.

Ryan was serious most of the time, at least around me. I had seen him smiling around everyone, though, and after he got shot and we became better friends, we talked and joked around as well. Somehow, though, there was always this seriousness to him. I guess he's incredibly conscious about his appearance, and he's still in some sense the new guy who doesn't want to be a replacement and just do his job.

When he came to the lab later that day because of the struggle he had gotten into with one of the girl's stalkers and I got to see him up close again, it felt extremely good and in a way sort of refreshing because we joked again and he looked at me and smiled and laughed. It changed in a moment due to my comment about "couldn't grab a handful of hair just in case?". I had meant it as a joke but I realized it had been tactless when I saw the look in his eyes and heard him say something like "Very funny, Delko. A girl was being attacked!"

I realized I didn't want him to be angry with me. I'm not sure what I said but after I said it I left the room, and I heard Ryan's voice exclaim "You know, I was starting to miss this place". Somehow it didn't sound like him, more hollow than his voice usually was, but maybe I was just hearing things. Calleigh's voice was as chipper as ever when she said "Don't let him fool you, we're all very excited to have you back here".

The question was when we were actually going to have him back.

The next case we worked was that of a group of prisoners escaping on their way to jail. I saw Ryan around the crime scene, looking stern and relieved and tense all at once, his arms tightly to his sides. I wasn't sure of what he was going there, but I eventually learnt from Natalia that he had gotten someone on the firing range to work with her shooting. I was glad that he was such a friend to her, glad that he helped her out, and I was thinking that no matter what happened he was someone that always had our backs.

Then, of course, I learnt that he worked for the defense and was questioning the way Natalia had handled the evidence. She was so damn sure he had set her up for it, and she was so mad at him, ranting about it to both me and Calleigh. I desperately wanted her to shut up. I didn't want to hear it – I didn't want to think that way about Ryan, didn't want him to have done such a thing, to have betrayed our trust just when he had gained it again. Eventually, when she breathed his name again with that kind of anger behind it, I just couldn't take it anymore.

"Natalia, please, stop it!"

She looked up at me, her eyes narrowed a bit. She probably expected silence from me since I had been silent about it the whole day, but I just didn't want to hear it. I was sure it was a coincidence, which I told her. She looked at me skeptically and opened her mouth. To argue, I could tell that much from the look in her eyes, and I just shook my head and grabbed my results and left.

The next week was incredibly hard on me. The whole thing with Speed and losing him all over again was too much for me to handle, and I'm so incredibly glad that Dan isn't around anymore. I was too worked up about it all to think and feel and breathe anything other than the memories and ghosts and shadows of Speed, and trying not to. I didn't know if I was going crazy or not. When it was all over I found myself worn out by his grave. H was with me and I appreciated it, needed it. When I calmed down I found myself thinking of Ryan. I felt so lonely, to have lost my best friend once more. I felt hurt and betrayed. I wanted Speed to be alive, and it was then I realized that if Speed hadn't died, I would probably never have met Ryan.

This realization had me thinking for the better part of the night and the following morning – I think it was even there in my dreams, since I could recall something about a fight with Speed and Ryan in it.

I heard from Alexx much later that Ryan had asked her for a job. It would have been weird but oddly great to have him around as an ME.

I hadn't seen him for over a week again. I thought that maybe if I had with the whole mess around Speed's card, maybe I would've felt as good as when I saw him again at the crime scene. It took a while for me to catch on to but he was not outside of the yellow tape, but inside of it. On the scene. Which meant that he was back.

I stared at him for a while, watching him do his job, and it was his job this time, something he was good at and knew how to do rather than some job he just took for the money and struggled with. It looked so natural when he picked up and bagged evidence, focused on whatever he could see in the light of both the sun and his flashlight. I knew he rembered as much as he could so he could go over the scene countless of times in his head. His great attention to detail is one of the things that makes him such a great CSI.

I approached him almost carefully, but I knew he knew I was there already.

"Hey, Wolfe", I said casually, his last name nothing that belonged in my mouth. I wanted to call him Ryan, but I had called him Wolfe for years and just changing that would be awkward. Though he called me Eric at times it was somehow expected of me to use his last name rather than his first. Even when he had been shot with that nail, I had shouted "Stay with me, Wolfe". Maybe if I had said Ryan instead, he wouldn't have slipped away from me like he did, leaning against the window and staring straight ahead. I had been so sure he was in shock.

I still remember that day in so clear detail it was like a movie I had seen every second of my life. His face, voice, wound, eyes, all of that so incredibly sharp to my memory, even though I didn't really want to remember it. That day and that incident had been a turning point both of our lives because it was a reminder of how short your life can end and how easily we could lose each other. Our relationship had changed from that of rivalry to a sort of friendship that was fierce and passionate and cold and so many other things. The most notable thing about it was that it wasn't anywhere near as calm and easy and stable like my friendship with Calleigh or Speed before he died. Ryan and I pushed bottons and comforted each other in between in a way that was new and thrilling and I didn't want to lose it.

"Hey Eric", he answered and glanced up at me before standing up and looking me over. I felt both uncomfortable and at ease beneath his gaze.

"I see you're back", I offered, and he gave me a teasing smile.

"And I see your observation skills are flawless."

I had to laugh in response to that and we worked the scene together.

Later that day, at the lab, I saw him working with Natalia. I saw the looks she gave him and how he skillfully ignored them. It made me angry and frustrated, how she still held such grudges against him when he was back with us and she should be happy both for him and for us who worked with him. I understood that she didn't really like him but I was sure she'd come to understand that it had just been a coincidence and that he had meant nothing but good from the start. I had this urge to defend him against her.

Over the course of the next couple of days that urge got stronger. I also found myself wanting to be around him more than I had before, appreciating his presence. I would just watch him sometimes and he'd give me this look that I didn't really know how to decipher, but we got along well and I started to feel like we could be friends. Real friends.

We started eating together, started talking. I got to know so much more about him, not only about his world, but also in the way he moved and just... was. For starters, it was just things, normal things, like work and books and movies and all that, but eventually we went deeper than that and he trusted me with his fears, how he felt about his disorder, which even though it was slight affected him a great deal. It was like some sort of trading. If he told me something embarrassing, I told him something embarrassing, and while we got closer each day, our friendship could still convert to rivalry. I liked it that way.

We kept bushing buttons. Ryan and I worked this case together, with a dad and his brother beating up the son, Josh. It was incredibly hard to work it because while we see a great deal of pain and suffering and loss and evil and not-so-evil every day, I think it's the most hardest when it comes to kids. Children are so innocent and they never, ever deserve anything like that. Ryan, apparently, shared my opinions. I always thought that the cases took harder on Ryan since he hadn't been around as much as the rest of us. He'd toughened up since he first started but still his emotions would show in his green eyes when he looked at the body that used to be Josh.

When we had figured out that it had been the father and his brother who killed him, we went to take them in. I drove and Ryan was sitting next to me in the passenger seat, staring out the window in a way that told me of everything he was feeling.

"He was only 9 years old", he said suddenly, his voice dark and his fingers over his eyes as he spoke. I looked at him and I wanted to touch him, reassure him of something, just to make him feel better, but I knew there was nothing I could do. He looked sort of fragile, slumped in the seat, covering his eyes from the world and his other arm above his stomach like he was going to be sick.

"I know, Ryan", I answered him quietly, glad I could use his name, which I liked to do. It fit on my tongue, like one of my favorite tastes. "But we'll take the bastards in and he'll get his revenge."

He was silent for a while and then he said "He won't have that much use of revenge when his life is gone."

I took one of my hands off the steering wheel and put it on his shoulder, hoping I could offer some comfort. He was at ease with the touch; didn't tense or shy away from me, just sighed and ran a hand through his hair in an exasperated way.

When we arrived at the brother's house which we had been to several times already, we saw them at the pool, sun-bathing as if nothing had happened at all. I got angry by seeing it, as Ryan, but the difference was that you could see his anger, see it in his clenched jaw and steeled eyes and feel it beneath his skin. I touched him briefly on the back before we made our way towards the men. His muscles were tensed and ready to attack and destroy, and still he somehow felt like a kid, scared of all the horrors that was reality these days.

"Mr Johnson and mr Peak, we need to speak to you about Josh", I said and they glanced at us from behind their sunglasses. Johnson was the father – Peak was his brother.

"What about him?" Johnson asked and sat up a bit in his chair, looking between me and Ryan. I watched Ryan out of the corner of my eye, his stance alert and I could tell he was trying to be discreet but he couldn't. Ryan would always be Ryan and you could tell who he was and what he was thinking and feeling and everything if you could read his eyes and mouth and skin well enough.

"We have reason to believe you two are the ones that killed him."

"So what, you're going to bring us in? Like you've got anything to hold us to it."

"As a matter of fact we do", Ryan said, voice almost a snarl. The policemen at the scene stood to the side, handcuffs ready and he gave them a swift nod. "We can talk about it at the station."

Arresting them was uneventful, but they talked. They were so heartless about the boy's death.

We interrogated them. Presented with all the evidence that tied them to the death, they gave up on it and confessed. The thing was that again, they were so incredibly heartless about it all. Neither of them seemed the least bit upset that a little boy was dead at their hands, that they were going to lose their lives to jail and that they would forever have blood on their hands.

As Ryan and I escorted them out of the station so they would get to custody, Ryan glanced over at me and then he asked Johnson why he had killed his son.

"He wouldn't shut up", was the answer. "He never shut the hell up after his mother died and he wouldn't shut up when I tried to make him."

Ryan stared. I'm glad I was standing beside him because I could feel his anger and his tensed muscles and I almost expected it even though I didn't want to see it coming. He shoved Johnson hard and raised his fist, cursing under his breath, but I caught his hand before he could actually hit the prisoner and put myself between the do. I could understand him but at the same time there was no way in hell I could. The officers took the evil pair away and I pulled at Ryan's arm, still holding it, still feeling his emotions and reading them on his face.

He sent a glare in the two men's direction before he janked his arm away from my grip and walked into the lab. I followed.

God, he was such an idiot! He had gotten into fights before, with our lab tech and a former colleague and so many others, and if he did towards a prisoner they could charge him with assault and he'd lose his job and be gone from us again, and I found myself dreading the mere thought of it.

I followed him into the locker room where he angrily sat down on the bench, head in his hands, fuming. I knew why he had chosen that room, and it was because of the solitude. People usually didn't come here except for the start and end of shift, and the end of shift was still a couple of hours away. Ryan was introverted and so extremely conscious about himself and he would never let anyone see him break down or vent or anything, so I was surprised he hadn't snapped at me to leave. He didn't make any move to do so, either. Maybe he was oblivious to the fact I was there.

I couldn't stand the silence so I took the few steps it took to get in front of him and gave his shoulder an almost-shove so he would look at me. He did. I stared at him for a few secounds, his eyes as expressive as ever, even though he tried to cover it all. There were so many emotions moving, though, anger giving way for frustration and frustration changing into pure exhaustion. I happened so rapidly and I tore my gaze away from his to look at that small tug at the corner of his lips, the angle of his eyebrows, the way his pale skin appeared even paler when he looked this way, head down and his whole body looking like it could break from a whisper but also like he could kill with a touch.

"What the hell where you thinking?!" The words left my mouth in a rush, falling from my lips with so little effort. His eyes narrowed a bit, showing more of that intense green that locked with my own dark brown, that green that reminded me of fresh grass and venom.

"Didn't you hear him, Eric?" he answered, his voice uncharacteristically low, not having any anger in it, just hopelesnes and I wanted to touch him again but I refrained from it.

"I did, but you shouldn't have hit him! Shut up, Ryan, I mean it! Did it ever occur to you that they can fire you for assaulting him?!"

He just stared and then he stood, making a motion of walking out of the room. I grabbed his wrist, slim skin covering the bones that made up his body. He was shorter than me, skinnier, paler.

"Or don't you have any intention of actually staying here?"

His head turned to me abruptly and he gave me a snarling look. I hated that look on his face when it was directed towards me. It was like I was being hit for each second he had his eyes on me.

"Like it'd matter- it wouldn't have been the first ti-"

"It wouldn't have been the first fucking time I'd lost you!"

He stilled, both in movement and speak. I eased the grip on his wrist and took a hold of his hand instead, his fingers long and slim and unsure. I squeezed lightly and he didn't respond, staring at me with wide eyes, before he opened his mouth to speak.

"Lost me."

It wasn't a question, not an inquiry, and still it wasn't anything like a statement.

"Yeah, it's just – you... you keep me on that damn edge all the freaking time and I keep wondering if I'm going to lose you the next day. You were fired and you got... shot and-"

"It's not like I meant for any of that to happen", he breathed, then his eyes was covered with steel again, hard and cold and I couldn't reach him. "You got it to happen."

It was like a whip, that sentence, and I winced beneath it, it hurt like hell and pulled at his arm to get him closer, to caress or hurt, I wasn't sure, but in the end we were close and couldn't really look at him but I had to.

"Are you trying to make me feel guilty, Wolfe? Because-"

"You could have gotten those drugs on another-"

"I've had enough of it, I can't take-"

"I thought I was going to-"

"I thought you were dead!"

Death. Death and pain and misery. It was there constantly, numbing my feelings and yet making them grow. I learnt not to get personal with the victims over time. When you do, you just can't bear all the time each day, and getting another pile of it to carry through the next. I had never learnt not to get personal with my friends. Somehow, it seemed surreal that anything would happen to them. It'll never happen to me, you think, each day, when you see something on the news or in the paper, and then when it does you're so unprepared for it you can be and you break beneath all the sorrow.

That incident with the nail had scared me much more than I had never admitted to anyone before. Then when it was me, lying there on the hospital bed, watching Ryan watch over me, it was like I died from the knowledge that I could have.

"I care too much about you to lose you again", I said quietly, reaching out for him in my mind, pulling him close to make sure he was really there. What had in reality for now was his hand in mine, and he finally gave me this tentative squueze.

"I thought you were dead, back then", he returned, eyes softening somewhat and he took this deep breath that told me how wounded he was and had been throughout his life. It was ragged. "They said you were. And I-I just kept thinking that if he really is- if he's dead I'll-"

"Ssh", I silenced him, didn't want to hear it, didn't want to think or feel it again. "We're not, we're not dead and we shouldn't risk it." Except we had to. Every single day, and it wasn't fair, but someone had to do this job.

He gave a hollow bark that almost resembled a laughter, despite nothing was funny about this at all.

"If they fire me I'm not risking anything anymore."

"No but if they fire you, I'd never forgive you for getting fired for something that stupid. Damn it, Ryan, you have to snap out of it, you can't let your feelings control you."

"I never let them except when... when it turns out like this. With people like them."

I wondered why he looked so wounded and small and weak and he shook my hand off his and started pacing back and forth. I missed the contact immediately.

"Maybe you should. Maybe then you wouldn't have to hit people and take that risk." I believed what I said, even though that answer hadn't come until a bit later.

"I think that risk is worth it."

"It can't be worth if it you lose a part of your life to it!" Some of the anger for him was coming back. The idiot. That idiot I came to care so much about.

"My whole life has been risked more than once!"

"Yeah, and so has mine! It's all part of the deal when you get a job like this!"

"Not when your 'friends' get you shot!"

Why, why the hell did he keep bringing it up? Was he really that bitter with me about it, even though we had gone over it so many times? Was that the kind of things I'd be getting out of him when he was upset? I inwardly crouched for the next blow but I was angry with him, now, the goddamn idiot, and it was as good as a provocation.

"It was your own fault! You were the one who went in without even drawing your gun!"

"I wouldn't even have been there in the first place if you hadn't gotten drugs!"

He wasn't moving now, he was glaring at me again in that way that hurt me so deeply, his fists clenched to his sides and his whole body set for fight. I was standing on the opposite side of the room, almost mimicing his stance. I hadn't even been conscious about it.

"You know what those were for!"

"And yet you had to get them for her, during work, and it risked everything for you and me and you're just so careless!"

"Says the guy who didn't get his gun and couldn't even fire it!"

"Yeah, but you don't give a damn about anything, do you, sleeping around like you got a prize for it and losing your badge!"

"But at lest I didn't leak info to the press!"

It was all over the place. The insults flying through the air, skillfully leaving our lips to land on the other's head. Everything was so intense, the shouting, the way we moved, the way he looked when he said all these things I bet he wasn't even thinking of. I know I wasn't. Thinking, I mean. It seemed like random words left my mouth and it was when I had said them I first realized what I had said, and then I heard what he said almost before he said it and everything was a mess because it shouldn't be like this. We were friends, we shouldn't be killing each other with words, slowly and painfully like torture, and we shouldn't move towards each other in anger and come to real violence.

We never did, but I thought we would. Instead I just grabbed him and slammed him up against the wall, and he groaned slightly when his back and the back of the head made contact with it, but I couldn't really care. I caught his wrists, held them up against the wall so he wouldn't hit or shove me, and I came up close against him, breathing harsh on his face. He looked up at me, glaring daggers, not belonging in his eyes at all, and then he growled at me in this low voice I had come to associate with danger.

"Let go of me."

I could feel his own breathing ghosting across my lips. He was that much shorter than me but I felt incredibly small beneath his eyes. His breath was warm and it felt almost sensual being that close to him.

"Take it back."

I wasn't sure for what I was asking him to take back, but I figured I meant all of those things I had heard and understood and hated and then, when his words had stabbed me so hard I was bleeding insults at him, they were gone from my mind, but the pain wasn't.

"Just let me go."

I shook my head briefly, looking away from him. Then silence fell between us. I didn't want to let him go, not at all, I wanted to feel him beneath my fingers and I wanted him to be there always, and if I let him go he could be gone tomorrow. He was that stupid, after all. He was an idiot and the enemy but he was my friend and I'd never be able to cope if he disappeared from me.

I have no idea how long we stood like that. It seemed like hours and seconds at the same time, and it was pain but it was a relief as well. After a while we breathed evenly and relaxed into the position. We were close, and I could look at him again, his brilliant green eyes searching for something on my face and I looked back at him, not sure of what I wanted to see on his. I took the moment to study him. His hair ... I sort of missed his first hair. Or well the first hair I had seen him in. He looked younger with it but I always thought it suited his face better, framed it and complimented his eyes when it was closer to them like it had.

His eyes, so green and dark and bright and emotional and cold. Sometimes in the lab I would feel them on me and when I looked, and he saw me looking at him looking at me, he smiled and I smiled back and it felt so good and incredible and complete. I had come to dream of green. I missed his eyes when they weren't there.

His skin was pale. I remember when we had worked a case concerning santería, and the way it paled even more when all of those things happened to him. I remember the panic in his voice when he described the living corpse, how his hands had gone cold and numb, and the look on his face when he stumbled over the dead body in the churchyard. "You okay, Wolfe?" I had asked him, and all he said was "I hate this case". In the chilly light of the moon he looked like the ghosts and spirits he had started to believe in.

I remember when he asked us where the coffin was. "I'd never touch that thing", I had said and Calleigh followed with "It wouldn't be good karma if I did". He had given us this half pleasetellmeyou'rekidding-smile and when he realized we were both dead serious about the whole thing he had looked almost horrified. I had wanted to comfort him even back then when we weren't that great of friends, but still friends, I had wanted to put a hand on his shoulder and eventually I had, smiling encouragingly and I remember how he hadn't taken distance from it, hadn't returned it, but had been comfortable about it.

It was like that now. We were both comfortable with it all even though it was so strange. I still held his wrists above his head, still leant onto him and still keeping my distance, and he just looked at me.

"Eric, let me go", he said agin, his voice soft and almost a whisper, and I thought that now we're okay, everything's right again, but I still couldn't bear to just let him go because he was reckless and maybe he'd be gone.

"Make me", I said almost tiredly, and sighed before I fully met his eyes again. Soft and green and remarkable and smiling just a bit. Then I could see him hesitating and he looked between my eyes rapidly, flickering, the green never becoming a blur and it puzzled me why it didn't.

He moved his hands somewhat but I had him pinned, and I could almost feel him surrender, but to what I didn't know. I tried to see what was going on in his head but never got the chance – the moment of a heartbeat later I was chocked to feel his lips on mine.

It was sudden and unexpected and I found that I couldn't even move away from him as he grazed with his teeth over my lower lip, causing this sensation to run through my body, making me light-headed and so much more conscious of the world all the same. I could see everything in sharp detail, hear everything I hadn't before and feel exactly where he made contact with me. It was enchanting and frightening because it was new and thrilling and oh god, it was Ryan.

It didn't last more than a few seconds and then I felt cold when he could break away from me, an easy feat in my shocked state, and I stared at him and he looked... I have no idea how he looked, to be honest, I couldn't tell at all what he was thinking and feeling because I was overwhelmed and I bet he was and I'm sure neither of us new how to tackle it. And then he left, with only a swift glance at me from over his shoulder. I followed him with my eyes until I couldn't see him any more.

I have no idea for how long I remained there. Hours or seconds didn't matter when I could still feel his lips against my own.

Throughout the day I didn't see him again. Perhaps he was avoiding me, maybe it was just the way things turned out, and I didn't know to be relieved or annoyed at the fact. I wanted to talk to him about it, of course, but I realized I would have to figure out what I was feeling myself.

The kiss... it had been different. Different because I was used to kissing women; different because it was nothing I had ever dreamt of. I hadn't disliked it. That much I knew right from the start, and that was what was bothering me, because I didn't know what I felt for Ryan. Or I guess I knew, but hadn't came to terms with it.

I believe that you know a lot of things without knowing that you know them. You just refuse to acknowledge them, or bury yourself in other emotions, or maybe you're too dense to notice.

It didn't matter what I did that day. Finishing up the paperwork, driving home, eating, watching TV, listening to music, even dreaming, it didn't matter what I did, my thoughts always drifted away to Ryan and what had happened. I found it more appealing each time I went i over in my head, wanting to experience it again.

Kissing Ryan – or rather, being kissed by Ryan – had been so much better than kissing a woman. Women were delicate, soft and smooth and tender, and Ryan had been strong beneath my hands, demanding and rough and real and when he kissed me, I had felt so alive and on the top of the world. It didn't matter that he was a man – what mattered was that he was Ryan. Ryan, who I had known for three years, Ryan who had always been keeping me on the edge, and Ryan who had been looking out for me and pretending he wasn't.

Ryan who had the most incredible eyes and a delicious name and a magical smile.

Although none of the events taking place that day seemed normal, nothing really felt out of place. I had felt at ease with Ryan for the past weeks, no matter the circumstances, and with the kiss he just caught me off guard.

I guess I needed that wake-up call to fully understand that I was deeply attracted to him.

How many times hadn't I touched him or wanted to do so, just so I could feel his pulse beneath my fingertips? And the times I had allowed myself to disappear in brilliant green were too many to count. I realized now that that had been what I was doing – back then, I don't know, I kept thinking that I wanted to know what he was thinking by searching for it there. The truth was that I had already known what he was thinking. It was in the past few weeks his thoughts had become important to me, his smile an addiction.

That night I slept peacefully and when I woke I was fully rested. By the end of the day, though, I found that my energy was drained from searching for Ryan. I would catch a glimpse of him and if I blinked, he'd be gone, and it frustrated me incredibly. No, I didn't want to give him any "space" – from what I knew about him, he'd only use it to shy away from me and everyone.

Calleigh noticed I was acting different. To be honest, I didn't think I did myself, aside from the many glances I cast over my shoulder.

"What's with you today, Eric? I can barely remember the last time you were smiling so much."

Natalia caught up on it, as well.

"Did you lose something? You know, the way you keep looking around is sort of obvious."

Yeah, well – I guess I was happy. I was happy because I knew what I wanted, even though I couldn't really put ut in words, and at the same time I was scared and excited and oddly sad. As for what I lost, I just couldn't find my own co-worker. It was impressive, actually, that he could disappear so easily in a building made off glass.

When I bumped into Alexx, she gave me a stern look but smiled beneath it. She asked me what I had done to Ryan, and when I opened my mouth to reply, she shook her head and me and said "Go find him and talk to him". Which was exactly what I had intended to, but turned out to be so much harder than I thought it would be.

The whole day revolved around the new case I was working on with Calleigh and finding Ryan. At the end of the day, when we had managed to get the woman (who had shot her friend) to confess and put her behind bars, I was ready to go home and deal with Ryan the day after. I saw him just then, though, sitting at the table in the break room and holding a cup of coffee in his hands. He looked down into the liquid, appeared to be deep in thought.

I loved that look on his face because it had this imperfect balance. It was relaxed enough to make him look like he was daydreaming, but if you looked hard enough there was this tightness of his eyebrows and around his mouth, a slight frown that reflected whatever feelings I was sure were rapidly passing behind his eyes, even thoguh he tried to shield them from the world.

I walked into the room and it was empty but the two of us and the steaming coffee cup. I sat down next to him and he looked up at me, tired and frightened and relieved.

"Hey Ryan", I said, leant back in my chair and looked at him. He was leaning forward over the table, clutching that white cup like a lifeline. It looked like he had had a rough day. "I haven't seen you around that much today."

"I saw you", he answered, voice kept low and he looked back at his hands, the coffee, the white porcelain.

"Were you avoiding me?"

"Yes, um, I was", he sighed, stumbling just a bit on his words, his lips moving as he spoke them and then he pulled them back in a vague grimace.

We were quiet for a while. He drank his coffee and I watched him doing so. His grimace grew bigger at the taste, and I couldn't blame him. The coffee in this place was horrible, but you drank it so you'd survive the day on a caffeine kick.

Ryan had complained about that coffee so many times. "Someone will die from poisioning one of these days", he had said, and I had smiled at him, chuckling as he continued, "or suffer a heart attack from the sheer disgust of this."

I smiled when I recalled it and then it faded when I saw him glancing at me through the corner of his eye. The one that had once been pierced by a nail.

"Why?"

The question was loaded with many questions instead of one. Why were you avoiding me, why did you kiss me, why did this happen, why are we discussing this, why did I fall for you, why, why, why. It was an annoying word, but at least not as horrifying as the dire two – "what if".

He met my questions with silence, rising and going to the sink with his cup, putting i in the dishwasher and leaning against the sink, eyes on the floor, arms crossed over his chest in a defensive way.

I met his action with silence as I simply rose and went to stand in front of him, but not very close. I knew he liked distance. You weren't allowed to enter his personal space unless permission had been given. Wasn't it like that with everyone? If someone is standing too close for comfort, you just end up getting distracted, unfocused and frustrated.

"Ryan, look at me." He did look up, but not at me. He focused on a point near my upper arm, it seemed. But at least he compensated by answering.

"I'm not really sure. Don't you hate me, or something?"

The question threw me off guard completely, much like the kiss had yesterday. Maybe he was worried because I hadn't responded, because I had only been seen with girls before him, because he was too pessimistic to actually live and think that life offered you something good every once in a while. Maybe he had suffered too much to believe that he'd ever gain something again. I thought that if you suffer for a bit, you should also be happy for a bit. It's karma.

"Why would I?"

He made a vague gesture with his hands between the two of us, before sighing and looking up at me, eyes narrowed and unsure. "Because I - I kissed you."

I wanted to tell him that I had liked that, but I wanted to cover all the grounds, as well. I wanted to make sure of what this was to him.

"Why did you?"

Silence for another while. I was content with that, though. I could spend hours just watching the little movements of his hands and the way he flickered with his eyes if I could. We just stood, eyeing each other, and then he opened his mouth again.

"You told me to make you, right? It was, um... You told me to act more on my... ony my feelings, because I never do, and then I thought screw it, screw it because I'm tired of not taking chances, and it felt right for me but it didn't for you so let's just forget about it and – and it'll be fine, right, it won't-"

And then he just shook his head and looked away and I went closer to him and reached for his chin and made him look at me with a sure movement of my fingers. I wanted to touch his lips with them, wanted to kiss him, but it would have to wait just a bit more.

"You talk too much, Ryan", I said with a smile and his eyes widened at it. He did, at least when he got nervous. He would either be so silent you'd wonder if he was capable of speaking at all, or he'd talk so much and so fast you'd lost train of his words if you allowed yourself to drift for just a couple of seconds. "I don't want to forget about it."

I hesitated for only a split second before I leant forward and brushed his lips with my own, gently, briefly, soft and caring and I hoped he would get it, would feel it through my touch. It was a question and I waited for his answer, felt hurt when it didn't come, and then I was going to pull back I finally felt him responding, yes, and the answer was yes as well and I was in heaven. It was so innocent, that kiss, nothing like our first, but this time we were both in it.

I shivered when he took a hold of my arms and then he pulled away to look at me. I guess we were both doing the same thing – searching for truth, unsure of if it was there at all.

"Eric, I... do you mean this?" He swallowed and ran his tongue swiftly over his lower lip and I watched the movement like a predator watches prey. I looked up at his eyes in time to see them look over my shoulder and back to my eyes. "Because if you don't, if you can't, I don't want to be a part of this, I'm not going to be some experiment so you can figure out if like men instead of those skinny girls you're always around."

I wasn't that sure of what I could do to erase the doubts from his mind. He was worth what he wanted – I hoped I was what he wanted.

"I mean it, Ryan."

"I've never seen you with a guy before." It was almost accusing.

"It doesn't matter." I grabbed one of his hands in my own and squeezed reassuringly. "You know it doesn't matter", I added as an afterthought, and then I leant in to kiss him again.

It was slow and sensual and then there were tongue and teeth and harsh breathing. He finally understood, gave in, melted into me, and I'm not going to say that I felt complete because I didn't – there had never been a part of me missing. What I did feel, however, was perfection. This was how it should be, and I felt life was at it's peak.

To know the next day that I could kiss him whenever I wanted, touch him and stare at him, and knowing that I always would be able to, was a feeling that made me feel high. Almost as high as when I felt his body against mine, soft or hard or anything because either way it was just right.

Just like everything else felt perfect when he was with me.

-fin-

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I hope you enjoyed it. Please review it if you read it, as it will give me inspiration to write more, and I'd love any and all critisism I can get from you guys. nn