Not bothering with a jumpsuit, Horatio snapped on his gloves and flicked on a flash light. Holding a bin up with his hand and his hip, he began picking up bomb fragments. Copper wires sheathed in green and red plastic, end caps, paper wrapping. Being glad of his help in this area, no one questioned him and he left with his full bin an hour later, driving back to the lab. Thinking of Grissom lying in that blood, stunned and momentarily deaf, gave Horatio all the fuel he needed even though he was coming up on 10 hours of straight worry and searching.
Back at the lab, he looked in on Grissom as he sat watching Nick. The kid was doused in sweat but still alive.
Kicked to the garage for want of available counter space, Horatio laid out each component and reassembled the device. There was nothing in the construction. No hint of a twisted psychopaths brain weaving intricate patterns into their work. He swabbed the paper wrapping before tearing of his gloves and rubbing his eyes.
Leaning against the doorway of the A/V lab, staring at Grissom absent-mindedly, Horatio was shaken out of his lack of thoughts by Hodges.
"Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine, styrene, butadiene and tributyl citrate." Hodges handed him a print out.
Grissom and Sara looked over their shoulders as Hodges listed off the chemicals.
"PETN and RDX in equal amounts, a binder and a plasticizer...Semtex H." Horatio sighed.
Sara raised her eyebrows. She was good at chemistry but not that good. Grissom shook his head and frowned as he turned back to the screen. He already knew what Horatio knew.
"Is that helpful?" Hodges asked hopefully.
Horatio turned icy blue eyes on him. "No."
Grissom didn't look up from the screen as Horatio stole a sip of his coffee. "Semtex, the explosive of terrorists worldwide."
"Don't leave home without it," Horatio rumbled wryly. "Got your bug yet?"
"Almost," Grissom drew out the word, watching ants move about the camera view.
An hour later, Horatio stood beside Grissom as they unearthed Nick, amazed at the barbarism some people were capable of. From what he had seen, there was not a man less deserving of this ordeal than Nick Stokes.
When Catherine cried out for everyone to leave the hole, that it was rigged with explosives, Grissom's eyes shot up to Horatio. The Miami CSI's mind formulated a logical thought based on the prototype of the plexiglass coffin he had seen and the grave before him. "Its probably rigged on pressure switches." He instinctively reached out a hand to Grissom who took it, crawling out of the hole and looking around
Grissom's mind worked with split second logic as well when he laid eyes on the earth mover sitting darkly idle a few feet from them.
He barked out orders and jumped back into the hole, causing Horatio's breathing to hitch in his chest. There was nothing for it. Grissom sat on the lid of the rigged coffin and calmed Nick down, like a father would a scared child. Horatio understood better than anyone else there. Looking down at his lover in that grave with Nick, he saw himself covered in Speedle's blood, cradling him.
He grabbed the rope right behind Grissom and heaved on his call. Catching Grissom as they were showered in dirt, he kept them both from pitching over backward.
Grissom felt strong arms steady him in the second ear shattering blast he'd been in that day. That night. What day was it again? That didn't matter. Nick.
The hospital was the kind of quiet places like hospitals and hotels get at night. It was quieter than normal but clicks and whirrs and beeps and the sounds of people trying to move soundlessly filled the air. It was background noise and Grissom couldn't hear most of it. His ears were still ringing.
He was slumped in a chair, dusty and tired eyed, looking at Nick. Looking at the welts that covered every inch of the young man's body. Looking at the IV drip that was rehydrating him. Part of him was irrationally afraid that if he looked away, Nick might not be there when he looked back. So he didn't move.
"I could stay with him. You could go catch an hour of sleep." Horatio offered from his own sentry-like position in a chair next to Grissom. Grissom had sent the team home a half hour ago, telling them he would stay. They were all dead on their feet.
It took a while, but eventually the smallest shake of Grissom's head could be discerned. "No," he croaked, "I'm not going anywhere where both of you aren't...not yet."
His sloppy sentence structure was a testament to how tired Grissom was, Horatio knew. He reached up a hand slowly, uncertainly, before he let it rest on Grissom's shoulder. It was instantly grasped and held as if for sweet life, pressed against Grissom's face as his eyes squeezed shut.
Horatio felt his own face contort as he looked at his lover. Grissom wasn't fighting tears, it was like he was crying without the moisture. Like his body was dry of them but could still shake and so that's what it did.
Strengthening his grip, Horatio met Grissom's eyes when they finally opened. The black, stone look of them was gone. His iris' were once again a soft shade of grey, so familiar to Horatio's baby blues. They leaned their heads together, both staring at Nick out of the corner of their eyes.
Catherine found them red eyed and slumped several hours later. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Horatio who stood to help Grissom up. She and Grissom fell into a hug when their paths crossed, so relieved, so grateful.
Then they left as Catherine sat next to Nick and picked up his hand. Horatio kept a palm on the small of Grissom's back as they walked from the hospital. After a minute spent clumsily fishing his keys out of his pocket, Grisosm had them gently stolen by Horatio who nodded towards the passenger side. Once inside, he reached over and drew Grissom's belt across his body and buckled it. The thought had slipped the Vegas supervisor's mind.
Then he drove them to Grissom's townhouse, taking it slowly. His mind had slowed down considerably from the lack of sleep too.
Grissom let himself be undressed and laid down, drawing the covers over himself being his last act of willpower before he fell asleep. Horatio stripped and climbed in next to him, in the space that Grissom would normally occupy in the bed. He brought their bodies close together, holding him from behind, one arm curled beneath his pillow while the other hand held Grissom's.
Horatio kissed his back and remembered nothing more.
Grissom was jerked awake by the feel of someone grabbing his hand. Hard. His mind drifted to the surface of consciousness and he was aware of movement in the bed, thrashing. Looking over his shoulder, fully alert now, he saw Horatio sweating and tossing about, clearly having a bad dream. Grissom sat up and over his lover, catching his hands and calling to him, trying to get him to come out of it.
He did but not before a throaty rumble of 'Speed' left his lips. Blue eyes flashed open and found Grissom above him, his face a little worried but full of love. His hand pushed aside damp red hair affectionately.
"Hey, I got you." Grissom's voice could be incredibly soft when he wanted it to. In this moment, having never seen his lover so vulnerable before, he wanted nothing more than to comfort him. Horatio's blue eyes were almost white but gradually shifted to a darker hue as his breathing became less ragged.
Leaning over, Grissom brought their lips together, softly at first. The kiss became deeper though and he shifted to be more comfortable, putting weight on one arm so he could run his other hand over Horatio's chest.
Traces of the dream, composed mostly of memories of the day he had lost Speedle, were still awash in his mind and it took Horatio a second to respond. The need that could be felt in his lover's touches was familiar and he wrapped his arms around Grissom's shoulders, letting his tongue slip to meet Grissom's.
They made love for over an hour and Horatio felt all the closeness with Grissom he had been denied in the last 40 hours. No more stone-walling.
When they finally made it out of bed, showered and dressed, Horatio set about making them something to eat. Grissom, he knew, needed to go back to work. Crimes didn't cease to happen because you had a long case, a long night or a bad day. The lab was now short a CSI.
Grissom was aware of Horatio following him out the door but said nothing. Having him in the lab would be welcome. Horatio slotted himself into the routine of the night shift flawlessly, taking up the work that Nick would normally have done. The lab was more relaxed after the incident than it otherwise would have been because of his calming presence.
Sara thought vaguely that it was like having two Grissoms around. There was always a senior CSI around to ask the bizarre questions one could only answer after more than a decade of this work. Though Horatio was not as animated as Grissom could be when explaining some obscure bit of forensic knowledge, he exuded the patience of a teacher never the less.
He also found himself playing the role of counsellor more than once. In the aftermath of the brutal crimes committed against their friend and colleague, several of the CSI's and lab techs confided their fears and uncertainties to him. It was simply the kind of person he was, one to be trusted even though you didn't truly know him.
Grissom was incredibly grateful. The chaos of the week following Nick's abduction would have been hell were it not for his lover stepping up and shouldering so much of the burden. He did it without being asked. He did more than would be required of any temporary CSI they may have thrown into the lab. Not once did he walk away from an assignment, no mater how menial, throwing rank or claiming fatigue.
They had almost no time for each other apart from quick meals and the beginning and end of their day. More than once they fell asleep on the couch, wrapped in each other's arms, awaking to find the sun setting and their entire 'night' slept away. The night shift was hard on Horatio.
Harder still was being at the airport a week later, saying goodbye again. Their hug lasted longer this time, there being no emergency to rush to. When they pulled apart, Horatio left his hands on the place where Grissom's neck met his jaw, fingertips stoking wiry curls. Grissom's hair had gotten greyer sometime between last weekend and this, Horatio noted.
"I want to see you soon," Horatio whispered.
Grissom parted his lips to breathe in as he grasped Horatio's hand and kissed it. "The department'll make me take a leave soon. I'll book a flight."
They hugged again and then Horatio slipped away into the security line up.
Grissom felt like he'd been weightless one second then thrown into normal gravity the next. He shook a little. Horatio's presence had been so strong that, finding himself without it, Grissom felt unstable.
He sat in the Denali and stared at the rows of cars about him in the airport parking lot for a long time. Both men had spent a great deal of time at airports recently. Grissom frowned as he thought about his job and his life which, really, was his job. Well, that and cockroaches.
And Horatio.
He looked up into the blue sky at this thought, leaning over the steering wheel. He thought about how Horatio's eyes were never really that shade of blue, they truly were the colour of the ocean most days. He thought about his mother's wedding ring and how she had never taken it off. Then he looked from side to side at the rows of automobiles, glinting in the early Nevada sun. He started the engine and drove.
