Title: Changed Man
Author: Aeon Cole
Rating: T
Fandom: CSI
Warning: Slash
Pairing: Gil Grisson/Nick Stokes
Author's Note: For the 20 First Kisses challenge on LiveJournal, prompt "injury."
Summary: Gil was a changed man.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with CSI.
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Gil Grissom was a loner. Ask anyone who knew him and they would say the same thing. He wasn't a people person. Even Gil himself had come to believe it. He preferred the company of his bugs to that of other human beings. After all, insects could be completely understood. They did specific things at specific times of the day or season. They always ate the same food, interacted in the same way. In a word, they were predictable.
People were not predictable, not in the same way that insects were anyway. Gil had always said that that was why he'd become an entomologist. He had to deal with people on a nightly basis. His job demanded it. But he had Catherine to take care of the actual personal interactions and he'd always envied her ability to deal with people.
He was better with the evidence. Lock him in a lab with a pile of evidence and he could sort through it, organize it, categorize it, and finally make it speak to him. His reputation for detachment at a crime scene had earned him the moniker of 'Tin Man.' Very few people understood that that detachment was only a façade, a defense mechanism.
He had no family, not since his mother had passed away. His team had become his family. After all he spent most of his time at the lab, working cases or just playing with his pet tarantulas in his office. The other members of his team had gotten used to it over the years. Grissom had no social life. He didn't date, had no family. Or so they thought.
Gil Grissom had built a wall around himself. One that he thought that no other member of his team could penetrate. Once everyone had found out about his mother, they had assumed that he was the way he was from being the only child of a deaf mother. Growing up in a silent world, without a father. Gil allowed everyone to think this.
The truth was different though. He kept his private life private for other reasons. Gil Grissom was gay. Or at the very least, leaned heavily in the direction of relationships with other men. And maybe even the word relationship was too strong, more like weekend flings. He'd never had a long term relationship with anyone.
But that had all changed six months ago when he'd pulled Nick Stokes out of that plastic coffin. It had taken him a long time to put a name to what he'd felt for his young colleague. It wasn't until Nick had been taken, when he'd been watching him on that screen, that he began to realize what it was. And later as he sat in Nick's hospital room with Nick lying there unconscious, all of the what if's ran through his mind.
He made his decision right there. He had no idea if Nick felt the same way about him, or if he was even willing to. The conversation was awkward at first until Nick reach over and took his hand. Gil's heart skipped a beat or two. He moved in closer and their lips met for their first kiss.
Six months later he was a changed man. Instead of sitting at home alone doing a crossword puzzle, he was sitting at home with Nick, curled together on the sofa watching a movie. After fifty years of life, he was finally living.
Fin