Fandom: CSI
Warnings: Slash
Pairing:
Greg/Grissom (although it is rather one-sided)
Rating: PG
Summary: Greg has a crush.
Notes: This takes place late Season 2 or early Season 3.
Just a Little Incentive
by Annie D
the_80s_chick@lycos.com
"Have you seen Grissom?"
Greg raised his head just long enough to ascertain the mood of the voice's owner. "I thought he was still in Ohio."
Nick made an irritated sound. "Catherine told me his flight was today. We need him on the Botes case."
The other man's muttering faded off a half-second before the tap of his shoes, and when it did, Greg let out a slow breath of exhalation that, to some ears, would have sounded very much like a sigh.
It had been over a week since Gil Grissom had last graced the Las Vegas crime labs with his presence, and it was bringing the night shift to a slow boil. Of course all would be quick to insist that Warrick was doing a great job, but it was also very much the truth that Warrick was no Grissom. It was bad enough that Eckley was enjoying the chance to poof his chest feathers a little more than usual, but that wasn't the worse of it.
Greg was pining. Not that anyone had noticed, because the microscopic scrutiny of the CSI was always on the evidence and not on non-evidence (i.e. everything else), for which Greg was grateful. It was embarrassing enough to pretend not to notice whenever his foot made its inevitable way into his mouth, but he knew it would undoubtedly be worse to be called to explain why he was suddenly super-diligent and hadn't been prancing around the labs over the past week – and huh, wouldn't you know it, that was exactly the same length of time that Grissom had been away.
The people of Las Vegas' Crime Labs were divided into two main sects: those who detested Gil Grissom, and those who admired him. While there was some slight overlapping in the slightly minor sect of those who feared him, it was undeniable how wide the differences in opinion on the Master of the Night Shift CSI were. However, all were united in the certainty that they'd never ever be able to understand him.
Greg Sanders was okay with that. Sure, he hadn't been at first, because he was the sort who enjoyed stripping down information to their simplest forms where they were much more manageable. Sara was easily broken down to individual units, as were Catherine and Nick and Warrick – and yes, indeed, Greg had been successful with them just by dedicating a week or so to each. But then he'd hit something of a stump, and that stump had the name Grissom on it.
At first Greg had found it perplexing, because his world was a world of discrete and self-sufficient pockets of information, all readily catalogued. But the more he tried to analyse Grissom, the more he found he couldn't.
So he'd started to think of it as a challenge. Find the mould into which Grissom would fit, and all the answers would be, well, answered. He'd worked quietly and diligently, making observations and gathering information and scouting the challenge every chance he got. Weeks turned to months, and then, one day as he was hunched over a particularly complicated sequence printout, he sat up sharply in a way that would have had more impact if he were sloshing water out of bathtub.
All the while he'd been looking at people as blocks of information that when strung together would form an individual. Grissom, however, was not only the blocks, but also the string. The histones to the curling nucleotides, as a DNA geek would put it. Orbitals to the electrons, as a nuclear chem geek would put it. A whole new level of informative storage, of which Greg had not been able to figure out because he'd never had to decipher such a thing before.
Well, it all made sense in Greg's head, anyway.
And by the time that particular resolution rolled around, so did the second whopper. The focus with which Greg had given his Grissom project was a spectacular specimen of single-minded dedication, and he could only recall ever being so into something once – and that had been when he'd taken up the assignment to write about Watson and Crick in junior high, but that was another story. Anyway, once he did think about the bits of information that made up Gil Grissom, he beheld something strangely captivating… In a blocky, informative way… That perhaps only a curious almost-CSI would appreciate.
Down to its simplest form, Greg realised that he'd somehow developed a crush on his boss.
With that revelation fresh in mind, he'd looked down at the sequencer printout in his hand, quietly congratulated himself for taking it so calmly, and then let out a sound very close to a scream when Catherine knocked at the door of his lab. Thus the moment was destined to forever be frozen in stark detail in Greg's memory.
Well, Greg would be the first to admit that he was the sort to crush easily. Not that he did it on purpose, of course; it was just that he kept finding himself surrounded by amazing – and severely crushable – people. One wouldn't think so, considering he spent most of his waking time in the geeksville of the Crime Labs where the normals dare not tread. But Greg wasn't all that normal either, so it all balanced out in the best possible way.
Sara, the obvious premier crush. During her first few months just about every person with a Y chromosome in the labs would have happily allowed themselves to be wrapped around her little pinkie. Catherine, more of a daring thing. She wasn't as easily accessible as Sara, but who could deny the dorky yu-hyuk moment whenever thinking of her glittery stage days? Jacqui and Mira the lab techs, who were nice enough to him, although the interaction there was a little too elementary school for his liking.
As for Grissom…
The eccentricities. The intelligence. The focus. The inbuilt nobility. The determination. The utter lack of social skills. Sure, Grissom wasn't an obvious crushable person, but that was the whole point.
Once fully aware, Greg embraced all manifestations of his crush. Relishing whenever Grissom paid attention to his little titbits of trivia, bouncing with enthusiasm whenever Grissom asked for his help, practically glowing with pride whenever Grissom paid him a compliment. It was fun and wonderful and added a little sunshine to the drab whiteness of the lab, as crushes are wont to do.
It also meant that when the crushee disappeared off the immediate radar, the crusher was reliable to pine. So that was what Greg was doing. Pining. Of course he conveniently did not take point to recall that he'd never pined over any of his previous crushes before, but that was just the way Greg was.
He pined as he ran another sample through the sequencer. He pined as he heard Warrick and Sara arguing loudly down the hall. He pined as he got a phone call from his sister who yelled at him to not forget to pick up the stuff she needed from the grocery store on the way home. He pined as Catherine came in to his labs to pass him cotton swabs for analysis on the Menezes case.
And he pined right up to the moment he heard the knock on the lab doorframe and looked up to see Grissom standing there.
"Hey, you're back." Greg's hands jumped up to take on the classic surprised posture, and he mentally swatted himself for yet another display of uncoolness – and by that, he meant uncoolness by CSI standards. Well, at least he was predictable.
Grissom nodded without noticing Greg's sudden back-uprightness, and entered the labs to pass him a small envelope. "Analyse that for markers, will you?"
"No problem, boss." Greg started to turn his focus to the samples, but paused mid-movement when he noticed that he'd suddenly merited Grissom's look of curious speculation. "What?"
"You just signed," Grissom said.
Greg looked down at his hands. "No, I didn't."
The older man tilted his head one way just as a corner of his mouth curled the other way. "Yes, you did. New hobby, Greg?"
"Little sis has severe otitis media. They say she'll be completely deaf by the time she's six, so I'm helping her learn."
Grissom blinked slowly, that strange little contemplative look on his face that all in the labs knew not to even bother trying to decipher. Greg settled for shrugging casually, which Grissom seemed to find appropriate. He nodded once, curtly, and then turned to leave.
Standing in the threshold, Grissom raised one hand, and signed smoothly //Good work, Greg//. Then he was gone.
Greg stared at the empty space that had seemed to have a Grissom-shaped hole. Wow. That little exchange was a privileged moment, and Greg knew it.
And if the inner giggles of his stomach were any indication, he had an even bigger crush on the man – not that he had thought it possible.
Greg grinned to himself, and started whistling as he set up the samples for study, marvelling on how wonderful it was to have a crush to bring one through the day.