Title: Dangerous Liaisons
Rating: PG-13 for language and bits of violence
Category: Drama, AUf
Genre: Slash
Pairing: G/Sam
Summary: A mistake from his past forces Callen to turn to his team for help. But will they want to?
Spoilers: None that come to mind. This is an AU and takes places prior to the backdoor pilot.
Disclaimer: NCIS, NCIS LA, and the characters therein do not belong to me, and no amount of wishing seems able to change that.
Warning: Discussion of depression and suicide but nothing graphic or detailed.
A/N: I've played fast and loose with a few things here, most notably geography, technology and the timelines of the two shows. Also, I probably murdered criminal procedure but good. But this, all 30,000+ words of it, is more about the characters than the plot so hopefully you can forgive. There is a lot of talking and thinking in this story. Also, even though it's G/Sam, the MCs are really G and Nate.
A/N 2: You guys got a nice long chapter here so enjoy it while it lasts!! It was just... I couldn't break this scene up, and not only because y'all would probably kill me if I did ;-) You'll see what I mean.
-9-
At eighteen hundred the next afternoon, after nearly forty-eight hours without a word from either Callen or the blackmailer, Sam walked into Nate's office looking less rundown than he had since they found Callen's resignation. "Don't say anything but I've got an idea where to find G. I don't know if I'm gonna have any luck. Maybe I'm grasping at straws but…"
"Let me know if you find him?" Nate asked.
"If I can. I'm… cell service is shoddy up there so… If I don't find him, I'll be back tonight and I'll give you a call."
"Thanks." Nate wasn't much for praying, and he wasn't much for relying on luck, but he crossed his fingers as Sam left and said a prayer not for the first time in two days.
Not two minutes after Sam walked out, Kensi appeared in Nate's doorway with her arms folded across her chest. "That wasn't a suicide note."
"Excuse me?"
She shrugged. "Callen's not going to kill himself."
Nate raised an eyebrow. "Any… particular reason you've come to that conclusion?"
"Because if he kills himself I can't kick his ass for being stupid enough to resign and scare the hell out of us in the process."
"Well, if he's not going to kill himself then there's no reason for you to be worried about him, right?"
"You're deliberately missing the point here, Nate."
"I know I am. Kensi—"
"Don't. Say. Anything." She turned on her heel and left.
#
G poured himself another glass of expensive Scotch and dropped a few bills on the counter; the least he could do was pay for the drinks if he was using Sam's electricity.
He stretched out on his side on the couch and pulled the hand-knit afghan over him. The Scotch burned its way down his throat, the warm buzz it brought with it more than welcome. Even in the midst of a California summer, there was still a noticeable chill in the air up in the mountains. He was trying to use as little electricity as possible; he didn't want to turn on the heat.
He could, he supposed, but he'd have to leave Sam some money for utilities and he was running low on cash. He should have taken more out when he hit the ATM before leaving LA but he hadn't been thinking. And he didn't want any activity they could track until he was ready to move on. He just needed a couple more days to figure out what he was going to do next.
He'd been up here once before, about a year ago, and was honestly surprised he'd found the way on his own. They'd come for a week of fishing, escape from the big city—Sam hell-bent that G learn what a family vacation could be like, since he'd never had one. It'd been fun, even though they'd cut it short by two days when a case demanded their return to LA. They'd had to kill a couple hours after getting the call, neither sober enough to drive when it came in. He smiled at the memory and took another long draw from his glass.
G hadn't taken a vacation since then, or before. He pretended it was Gibbs' influence—hard to work with the man and not pick up a few habits, good and bad. But the truth was, he'd never had anyone to vacation with so there just wasn't a point.
He'd fallen asleep easily the last two nights—mental and emotional exhaustion winning out over the constant swirl of thoughts inside his head. Tonight, though, it wasn't that easy. He rolled over, letting his foot fall to the floor with a thud he felt through his sock-covered heel.
His resignation had been rash and, in hindsight, probably stupid. Too little, too late. His friends… his partner were already implicated. Hell, by taking off he'd probably only made things worse. It was only a matter of time before the story broke and there was a warrant out for his arrest. Maybe his next stop should be somewhere outside the country. Maybe he should pay Gibbs a visit in Mexico.
Or maybe he should just turn himself in. Turn himself in to someone other than Sam.
It had been a long time coming, long enough he'd almost put the thought out of his mind. When Tony came out of nowhere, searching for Derring's pulse and his weapon—the pulse gone and the weapon still where it belonged, where it posed no threat to G—he'd been ready to turn himself in.
It was worth it, whatever happened, knowing that bastard was off the streets. Derring couldn't hurt anyone else anymore and if it meant he lost everything, it was worth it. He risked his life every day to put criminals away; what did it matter if it was through death or a prison sentence?
He couldn't let Derring walk; he wasn't wired that way. Whatever it took to get the job done. Whatever he had to live with after the fact.
He'd told Nate it was a choice and he supposed it was, in a way. He hadn't lost it. He'd known what he was doing; he'd made the decision to pull the trigger, to fire a kill shot rather than blowing out Derring's kneecap or some other incapacitating part of his body. But it hadn't been a choice. There hadn't been any other option.
It didn't make it easy.
He flexed and tightened his hand, balling the afghan in his fist.
Nate had wanted him to talk. He hadn't believed that G had dealt with what he'd done; he knew he still carried the guilt. Nate had known it even when he couldn't admit it to himself. G had thought he put it behind him. He'd really believed that. But every time Nate insisted on talking, every time that son of a bitch called, it was like reliving it over and over again. And the honest truth was that he didn't know how much more he could take.
Nate meant well, and maybe he'd been right about G needing to talk about it. He never had, to anyone. He'd never had the guts to tell anyone what he'd done. But every time he so much as saw Nate, it was like the man twisted a knife in his gut.
And every time he saw Sam, the knife pushed even deeper. Sam was the only person—other than, apparently, Nate—that he could imagine talking to about this. And at the same time, Sam was the last person in the world he could talk to about this. Sam was a good person, fundamentally; he was the kind of person G wanted to be, the kind that G tried to be—the kind people thought he was.
But Sam would never understand. The law was the law. Rules were rules. He lived in a black and white world, and G's was painted in shades of gray that Sam could never see—that didn't even exist in Sam's world.
He'd been honest with Nate, and with Sam. He didn't want Sam implicated, and he didn't want Sam to have to choose between duty and loyalty. But he'd left out the selfish part.
He couldn't stand to look in Sam's eyes and see disgust.
It took him two tries to return his glass to the coffee table without dumping the meager contents all over the carpet. He rolled back onto his side and shifted the throw pillow under his head. Tomorrow morning, he'd turn himself in to the FBI. Sam was going to find out either way. At least G wouldn't have to face him when he did.
He closed his eyes and dug his fingers into the sofa cushion when the world spun a little. He must have had more to drink than he'd thought. Or it was just finally catching up to him. Maybe it'd help him sleep.
He'd almost dropped off when a sound outside had him rolling off the couch. He grabbed his off-duty pistol from the coffee table and rose up on one knee, blinking against the influence of alcohol and sleep. He flipped the safety off and aimed at the door.
Instead of breaking glass, he heard the soft scrape of a key in the lock. The door swung open and the light came on, and G let out the breath he'd been holding and replaced the safety.
Sam.
G rose slowly and returned his gun to the table while Sam sagged against the doorframe, his right arm hanging by his side, his own service weapon—identical to the one G had turned in—loosely held in his hand.
"Christ, G. You scared the shit out of us."
G dropped onto the couch and let his head fall back. "I just—"
"Left a resignation letter that reads like a suicide note and disappeared."
G's head came up and he stared, mouth open, at his partner. "What?"
"No other way out?" Sam quoted back to him. "You got Nate—and everybody else—convinced you're planning to blow yourself away." Sam glanced at G's gun. "I was kind of wondering myself."
G shook his head slowly. "Christ, Sam. I didn't even think—"
"Yeah, kind of noticed that." Sam stopped in front of him, the coffee table between them. "You really weren't?"
"No."
"Because… and I'm too tired to fight you on this so I'm not asking, exactly but… whatever you did, what this guy has on you? Is it something probably gonna land you in prison?"
"Yeah." That was safe, not anything Sam didn't already know. And Sam's mind would never go, on its own, to the idea that G had murdered someone in cold blood. Sam trusted him too much for that. Ironic.
"And you're willing to do that? You're just gonna let them lock you up?" When G nodded, Sam shook his head. "You can't stay in the same apartment for six months, G! How you gonna survive years in a cell?"
G swallowed. He drew one leg up to his chest and wrapped his arms protectively around his knee. "Maybe I won't." It was the reality of it, and they both knew it. He was law enforcement, a fed. People would line up to take a piece out of him. "I knew what I was doing when I did it, Sam, and it was worth it. Still is." Sam didn't need to know that, as easily as sleep had come the last couple of nights, he'd woken up a half-dozen times in a cold sweat, the clang of prison bars ringing in his ears.
"G, I'm gonna find out anyway."
Unable to escape Sam's close scrutiny, G did the next best thing and just looked away. "I'm not putting you in that position Sam." He would stick to his story, the one less likely to make him sound like a coward. It wasn't a lie, just not the whole truth.
Sam parked himself on the couch, legs apart and head back against the cushion, hands splayed on either side of his thighs. All he needed to do was reach out, make contact with Sam on his own terms.
And blow what was left of his life out of the water in the process. He tightened one arm around his knee instead and grabbed his drink, not quite empty, with the other. He tipped the contents down his throat quickly and heard Sam sigh.
"I knew suicide wasn't your style, G, but that note… and the way you've been lately, jumping at shadows… you don't seem like you anymore. I thought—"
"I'm sorry." He kept his eyes fixed on the north wall of the log cabin, where a photo of Sam and his brother, Sam in his dress blues, stood out from the other family photos. Sam, all honor and class, the same person then as now—just maybe a little more battered for the time that'd passed. He fancied himself important enough to Sam that the revelation that his partner was a cold-blooded killer would be another body blow, and at the same time hoped it wouldn't change a thing.
He wanted Sam, wanted to reach out to him so badly it hurt, but he couldn't do that to his best friend. Not before, when he couldn't afford the damage to their working partnership, and not now when his life was falling apart around him.
"I know you been talking to Nate," Sam said after a second. G tried to identify the strange note in Sam's voice. He sounded tired—not that G could blame him. He really hadn't meant to give the impression that he'd gone off the deep end but, now that he thought about it, he could understand. He needed to apologize to Nate. But there was something else, something beyond exhaustion or frustration. He sounded almost… jealous. "I know he knows."
He shrugged and eyed the bottle, still out on the kitchen counter. Not missing Sam's pained sigh, G headed for the kitchen and returned with the bottle in hand. He managed to pour half a tumbler's worth down his throat before Sam intervened. "Why Nate, G?"
"I needed advice, Sam. And he's… protected. Safe. He's a shrink; they're not going to send him to prison for keeping his mouth shut. You, they might. Would." They would. He believed that; he was hiding behind that belief.
"I'm you're partner. Partners trust each other."
"It's not trust, Sam." He finally straightened his leg, stretching his knee, unconsciously—or maybe consciously—mimicking Sam's position. His right hand settled less than in inch from Sam's. "We protect each other. S'what we do. Y'have to let me protect you this time." He slid his hand toward Sam's, allowing their fingers to brush, and steeled himself for his partner to pull away.
He didn't.
"I don't need your protection, G." Sam straightened a little and maybe even moved closer to G. Or maybe he didn't; maybe he imagined it. Wishful thinking.
G glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. His dark red t-shirt stretched, unintentionally tight—G had never had that problem—over his chest under his black leather jacket.
"Don't need yours either, Sam. Not this time." But God how he wanted it. He wished there was some way Sam could fix this like he wanted to. He wished there was some way he could, or Gibbs. But Gibbs had abandoned DiNozzo and the rest of his team and was sunning himself in Mexico, oblivious to the fact that G was hiding out in a mountain cabin like some fugitive.
He was a fugitive; the government just didn't realize it yet.
He realized with a start that their fingers, rather than the tips just barely touching like they had a moment ago, were now intertwined. He didn't remember moving his hand but he must have, because his was over top of Sam's, their palms pressed together. And Sam still wasn't pulling away.
"Used to be when things got rough and Nate got pushy, we'd go out and get drunk and you'd talk to me enough to make him happy and back off."
There was no mistaking Sam's tone now. Hurt bled into every word. He had a right, too. It was all true.
Nate took his job seriously; G could picture the look on his face when he saw his resignation. He really did need to apologize for that. And G drove him insane because he resisted even the routine mental health crap that DOD put them through. If he'd ever thought about killing himself—really thought about it, not the occasional fleeting glimmer he knew they all entertained once in a while, when things got real bad—he'd have gone to Nate or Sam or maybe both of them for help. He just never had the need, and he didn't need someone trying to climb inside his head. His life, such as it was, was his life and no amount of talking about it was going to change the fact that he'd spent his entire remembered childhood lost in the welfare system.
"Most of the time I've spent talking to Nate was his idea, not mine," he offered after a second. "I couldn't… I couldn't talk to you about it. And when I punched you, I thought he was gonna have a field day."
"He had you locked in his office for two hours."
"Yeah." Miserable two fucking hours. "Sorry about that." He could still see the bruising, just barely, in the dim light.
Sam's grip on his hand tightened. "You want to tell me what that was all about?"
"You like being trapped inside a six-by-six room?"
"Jail cell won't be much bigger than that," Sam said after a second or two and G flinched. He tried to pull his hand back—this was dangerous and he could feel the ice melting beneath his feet with every inch he moved forward—but Sam held on tighter. He imagined he could feel the adrenaline shooting through his veins and he tried again to get himself free.
Sam was stronger.
"You trying to convince me I ought to just shoot myself instead?" The words came out before he could stop them, the force they carried more damaging than the blow G had landed on Sam's chin three days ago.
Sam released his hand instantly and stood almost as quickly. G was on his feet a second later, the room spinning wildly and threatening to knock him on his ass. By the time he regained his balance, Sam was already on the other side of the room, the expression on his face a mask similar to the one G saw in the mirror every day.
"I thought you were dead, G. And you're gonna say shit like that?"
"I'm sorry." He closed his eyes, because not having to see Sam made everything a lot easier. Seeing him… touching him, at all, even as comforting as their interlocked fingers had been up until a minute ago, was too much to deal with. "I'm a little off balance." Literally.
"A little?" Sam's tone of voice snapped G's eyes open. "A little off balance? You freak out when I hand you something. You punch me in the face for trying to find out what the hell is going on with you, and I don't even know what to call what just happened here a second ago. A little off balance? G, you're like a fucking yoyo, back and forth, up and down. What the hell is wrong with you?"
"You are." Again, the words came out on their own, unbidden and unwelcome. Sam stared at him, mouth open. The light from the kitchen was too dim for G to make out his expression but he could picture it in his mind without the help.
"I'm your problem?" Sam sounded incredulous, as well he should have. "G, I'm wracking my fucking brain trying to figure a way out of this for you, and I'm your problem?"
"Yes." G scowled at the floor. It hadn't done anything to him, other than give him a place to land when he rolled off the couch at three o'clock in the morning after a nightmare, but it was better than adding insult to injury and scowling at Sam. "Coming here was a mistake. I'm sorry you came all the way out here. I'm sorry I scared all of you. I'm sorry any of this even happened." He moved out from behind the table, heading for his duffel and rucksack. He'd have to go all the way down the mountain if he wanted to get a ride out, but it would be worth it not to be trapped here with Sam.
Trapped. No matter what he did lately, he felt trapped. How the hell was he going to survive ten, fifteen, twenty years in federal prison?
The short answer was exactly what he'd said to Sam. He wouldn't. Maybe Mexico wasn't such a bad idea after all.
He bent, reaching for the shoulder strap on his bag, but a strong grip hauled him back upright and spun him around. He swayed a little and probably would have fallen backwards over his duffel if Sam hadn't held on.
"So help me God, G, I tore my damn hair out for two days looking for you. I'm not doing that again."
"Well, you don't have any hair to tear out."
Sam didn't appreciate the joke. More importantly, he didn't release G.
"Let me go."
"Not until you tell me what you're running from. 'Cause you don't run, G."
"Apparently now I do." He struggled in Sam's grasp but a limited intake of food and an excessive intake of alcohol, combined with the fact that Sam was stronger than him on a bad day anyway, rendered his efforts useless. "Sam, please…"
His grasp loosened but not enough for G to break free. At least, not enough for him to do so without hurting his partner, which he couldn't bring himself to do. Once was enough.
"G, you tell me what the hell is going on or I'm dragging you back down this mountain and calling Nate and telling him you've lost it."
"Nate already knows—" And damn him anyway, for poking around where he didn't belong.
"Nate knows what, G?" They were half in, half out of the kitchen and in the brighter light G could see concern in his partner's eyes—the kind of look Sam only ever shot him when he thought he wasn't looking. It was a Nate kind of look. He tried again to get free but Sam tightened his hold. "Nate knows what?"
"What?"
"Christ, G, where the hell is your head?"
"I have no idea," he answered honestly. Though he could, he supposed, say with certainty that it was on Sam.
"How much did you drink?"
G shook his head, then shrugged. "Don't know. Left you money to cover it."
Sam rolled his eyes. "Just buy me a couple drinks sometime."
"This is good stuff."
"Yeah, I can see that. Besides, I'm the one who bought it." Sam released one arm and tried to pull G back toward the couch. "Why don't you get some sleep and we'll talk in the morning."
"Nothing to talk about." G let himself be pulled. Sleep would be a good thing. More importantly, once Sam fell asleep, he could take off himself. He'd have to be careful but he was sure he could be quiet enough not to wake his partner.
But Sam stopped short and stepped in front of him again, face-to-face, chest-to-chest. "What does Nate know, G?"
G stared at him, his partner's expression so earnest, worried, that it made the guilt almost unbearable. What had he been thinking, coming here, coming some place Sam could find him? Of course Sam would find him here. "You."
Sam blinked. "What?"
G blinked. Had he said that? He certainly hadn't intended to. He tried to pull away, again, but Sam wouldn't let him go, again. He swayed and Sam resumed his two-handed grip. "What does Nate know, G?"
He stumbled backward and Sam came with him. The backs of his legs hit the couch and he stopped short. "Knows I…"
Sam rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath that G couldn't quite make out. "Knows you what, G?"
There was barely room to breathe between them and for the first time in a long time, that was okay. G flattened his left hand against Sam's chest, the same hand he'd been trying to push Sam away with, then curled his fingers in the thin material of his t-shirt.
"Want you." He couldn't stop himself from saying it, wasn't even sure he wanted to. He'd dug himself so deep a hole it didn't even matter anymore. "Love you." Before Sam had time to react, he leaned in and up, tilting his head back to bring their lips together.
At first Sam's entire body, right up to his lips, went rigid. Just as he was about to back away, apologize a half-dozen times and get his ass out of Sam's family cabin as fast as possible, Sam's lips parted under G's. G took the opportunity to deepen the kiss as Sam's grasp on his bicep loosened, one arm circling G to pull him in close.
He kissed Sam until he had no choice but to breathe—oxygen was, unfortunately, necessary to sustain human life, after all. He kept his eyes off his partner's face, down on their chests pressed together. "That." He swallowed. "That's what Nate knows."
