SECOND DATE

Part two

Ooooh, I had a day off from work and was working on this story, when surprise, surprise! there were two WP movies on TV: Gunshy (my favorite) and Manhunter (aaah, those tight jeans… those big blue eyes… those looong lashes… and the voice, and… Sorry, I tend to babble when I think of that movie)

It amuses me now to remember how years ago, when I saw Manhunter for the first time, I was so impressed by WP's performance that I thought he was a psychologist turned actor (what convinced me of this was the fact that I'd never heard of him before that movie –or after, for that matter).

Then when I watched CSI for the first time, I thought, "Where have I seen this guy before?And then I thought, "Wait a minute… those blue eyes, those loooong lashes… and the voice…" Not the tight jeans, though. Bummer.

Second Date, part two

Fifteenth floor. Stop. Fourteenth floor. Stop.

"Come on, come on-" Greg urged. He was becoming more and more impatient; the elevator had been making stops on each floor and it looked like it would never reach the basement. It was understandable -it was Friday night, after all; surely every guest at the hotel wanted to come down to the disco.

Greg leant on the wall and closed his eyes. All around him people were in a festive mood, going from the disco to the bar and vise versa, or to the garden area. Just a few minutes ago Greg had been enjoying himself too –or trying to- until he started to feel funny.

He didn't feel funny anymore -he felt like shit actually. His head hurt, his gut hurt -if he didn't know better, he would have sworn he had one hell of a hangover.

It couldn't be, of course; he'd barely touched any hard alcohol. It must be the food; he'd had a big dinner at Le Seine and then he'd come back to the hotel bar where he'd sampled everything from tacos to shrimp-

"Ough," he muttered, "Don't even think of food."

He didn't think he could feel any worse...

... Until he glanced at the French doors that led to the garden and saw Grissom coming in.

Greg rolled his eyes in disbelief; what were the odds than in a hotel as big as this –a hotel so big that it was like a self-contained city- he would meet the one person he definitely didn't want to talk to? Now, instead of avoiding Grissomas he had originally planned, he would have to share the elevator with him.

Greg's initial reaction had been to look away, but now he turned and watched Grissom.

The older man had changed into jeans and a leather jacket, and he was carrying a pile of books and catalogs -a pile so high that he had to hold it down with his jaw. In fact, he was so intent on taking care of his books that he didn't see Greg until he was standing next to him.

Grissom was trying to reach the elevator button without dropping his books, when he noticed Greg's presence. Grissom didn't say anything, but then he didn't need to. His face was expressive enough.

It said, 'Oh, shit.'

The elevator got to the basement at last, and it filled so quickly that Grissom and Greg were forced to stand together at the back of the car.

Unexpectedly, it was Grissom who broke the silence.

"So." He said, without turning, "Did you enjoy dinner?"

"Did you enjoy room service?" Greg retorted sarcastically.

Grissom winced. That didn't sound like Greg... but maybe the young man had a right to be pissed off? Grissom decided to make amends.

"I didn't;" Grissom said. "Enjoy room service, I mean."

Greg ignored him.

"The food gave me heartburn," Grissom admitted, "The service was lousy," he added, "And it seemed that every show on TV was a rerun."

If he thought telling a list of his misfortunes would placate Greg, he was mistaken; the young man simply stared ahead.

"I ended up going down for a walk," Grissom said, "I was exploring the hotel grounds when I found a couple of boxes filled with material from the convention. They were throwing these into the trash," He said, lifting the books, "Can you believe it?" When Greg didn't answer, Grissom took a close look at him and noticed that Greg seemed to be barely holding himself together. "Are you ok, Greg?"

"Yeah." he replied defiantly, "Why?"

"You look like you drank too much."

Greg stood straighter.

"I'm not drunk." he said morosely, "I'm not talking to you, either."

Grissom prudently backed off.

They rode in silence until they reached their floor. Despite his earlier claim, Greg was the one who spoke first.

"You should have come with us," he said as he stepped out of the elevator.

Grissom followed Greg down the hallway, but he didn't notice that the young man was walking unsteadily. He was more concerned about not dropping his books.

"I mean," Greg said, "I was just trying to do something nice, Grissom."

"I know."

"I thought you might like to go out."

"Greg-"

"I don't get it, you know?" Greg interrupted, "I mean, it was only dinner. No big deal."

But to Grissom it was a big deal. He had learned the hard way that no one asked you out to dinner –and only dinner- at the end of a convention. And no one extended invitations to five-course dinners just to hear you talk. Those dinners led to drinks, and drinks led to worrying about whose room to go to.

It was a tradition, and one that Grissom had given up a long, long time ago. Until this time, that is. The fact that he had been willing to go to this dinner just to be close to Greg still bothered him.

"-and I had to apologize for you-" Greg was saying as they reached their hotel room. "You should have done that yourself." He added sternly.

"You're right," Grissom said quietly.

"Not that the doctors were surprised," Greg glared, shoving a hand in his pocket, "It seems you have a reputation for not socializing with your colleagues." He frowned and tried the other pocket. "Unless it's for a cockroach race, of course-" he added, and now he was patting every pocket in his suit.

"You lost your key?" Grissom asked.

"I didn't lose it-" Greg said morosely, "I have it somewhere-" And then he froze, "Or maybe I left it in my other suit."

"Let's use mine," Grissom said, handing his pile of books to Greg, who misunderstood and thought Grissom was raising his arms to give him access to his own pockets.

"Ok," Greg said, and reached into Grissom's pocket to search for the key.

Grissom froze.

They were close –very close- and Greg's hand felt warm…hot, almost.

"I've got it." Greg said triumphantly and looked up, only to find himself staring into stunned blue eyes.

Greg realized what he had done but didn't apologize. Slowly -very slowly- and without taking his eyes off Grissom's, he withdrew his hand from Grissom's pocket.

The key made a tingling sound against its ring, but it didn't distract him.

Grissom had that look on his face again; the one that spelled out, I'd like more of that.'

Greg gulped hard. He wasn't feeling too good, but he didn't want to miss this chance.

"We could have had dinner together, Grissom." he said slowly.

Grissom held his books a bit closer, as if they were a shield. Greg smiled and took an unsteady step closer.

"It was only dinner. There was nothing to be afraid of-"

Maybe not, but Greg had a feverish look about him that seemed scary now. He didn't smell of alcohol, so maybe he wasn't drunk, but there was something off about him... And whatever it was, Grissom found it mesmerizing; so mesmerizing that he didn't step back when Greg leant forward.

Greg smiled faintly as his lips touched Grissom's. It was over very quickly –he only wanted to give Grissom a taste of what things could be like – but it was pleasant and Grissom did not recoil in disgust.

That was a good sign.

Greg pulled back a little; he wanted to say something cool like, 'Did you like that, spider boy?' or 'Do you want more of this?', when suddenly he moaned, 'Oh, God' and threw up.

"Do you want more water?"

The voice floated somewhere from above. Greg started to shake his head, but it still hurt, so he stopped.

"No." he said huskily, "Thanks."

"Are you cold?" the voice asked, and before Greg answered, a large towel was draped on his shoulders.

"Thank you," he mumbled.

Greg would not open his eyes. He was mortified and not looking at Grissom made it a bit bearable.

He had done some regrettable things in the past, but tonight he had surpassed himself. He could argue that kissing someone was ok –even if it was your boss- but, oh, dear God, puking all over him?

Greg still couldn't believe it had happened.

And things went downhill afterwards: In his haste to avoid Greg's puke, Grissom had stepped back and accidentally dropped his books- the ones he'd so tenderly taken care of. Then, instead of picking the books up, Grissom had had to take care of Greg:

He'd hurriedly opened the door and hauled the sick man straight to the bathroom, where he held Greg's head while he threw up what looked like every meal he had consumed in the last three days; and then Grissom had cleaned up the mess, removed Greg's soiled clothes, gotten him some medicine-

"Oh, God." he moaned quietly.

"What is it?"

Greg winced; Grissom was still there, monitoring his reactions. He better be careful.

"Nothing." He mumbled. He'd never felt so humiliated.

"How do you feel?"

"Like shit." He said.

"Drink this." Grissom said, taking Greg's hand and putting a glass in it.

Greg drank without looking and handed the glass back. Once he heard Grissom step away, he reluctantly opened his eyes and then squinted until he got used to the lights. He was sitting on the floor, next to the toilet, and from that spot he could see his rented suit lying in a heap, and Grissom's puke-covered shoes-

Oh, God. He was going to moan again, but stopped. He didn't want to have Grissom hovering over him anymore; he had done more than enough and, frankly, watching over a subordinate who's just lost his cookies wasn't part of a Supervisor's job description, was it?

Lost his cookies. Greg snorted. That's how his grandmother called it 'cause she was too polite to say puke-

Snorting only reminded him how much he hurt. He had stopped puking a while ago, but his guts still hurt. Actually, everything hurt -his head, his joints –even breathing hurt. His butt hurt too, but that was only because he'd been sitting on the hard tile for what felt like hours.

He didn't think he could feel any worse -until he noticed that Grissom had picked up one of his soiled shoes and was inspecting it closely. To Greg's dismay, Grissom used a Q-tip to pick up a small sample of vomit.

"Shit, Grissom," muttered Greg, feeling nauseous again, "You're not going to analyze my puke, are you?"

"It's evidence, Greg." He said calmly, "If someone slipped you something-"

"No one slipped me anything. Grissom; I only had a bottle of beer. It was the food."

"It couldn't have been dinner," Grissom argued, "You would have been sick earlier-"

"I ate some stuff at the bar."

"What did you eat?"

"A burger…" he said, "Some shrimp, a couple of tacos…"

"You ate all that besides dinner?" glared Grissom.

"Ah, leave me alone." He muttered

Grissom didn't insist. He felt sorry for Greg. He was a pitiful sight.

"I'm going to make a few calls," Grissom said, "Do you need anything?"

"A loaded gun would be nice," Greg muttered.

Grissom snorted.

After a while, Grissom returned to the bathroom and gave him some orange juice.

"The hotel manager won't admit any wrong-doing, but everything points to the finger food at the bar. The bartender says the hotel hired a new caterer-"

"What was it? The tacos or the burgers?"

"They'll have to do some testing." He said, "But there are twenty hotel guests complaining of food poisoning and they all ate at the bar."

"Great." Greg said weakly. "Misery loves company, is that what you're saying?" He closed his eyes, "I'll never eat tacos again."

"That's hard to believe," Grissom muttered to himself.

After a moment of silence, Grissom sat on the floor too.

"By the way," He said after a moment, "Guess who's in charge."

Greg opened his eyes, surprised at seeing Grissom sitting next to him.

"Who?" he asked.

"Dr. Connor."

"He must be enjoying himself," Greg said dryly.

"He wanted to put the hotel on quarantine." Grissom said with a smirk.

Greg chuckled and then he winced in pain.

"Please, don't make me laugh," he moaned. "It hurts."

"Sorry."

Greg looked up when he heard this.

"Grissom, I am sorry," he said, "You know, about your books and-"

"The books survived, Greg."

"-and about everything else." he finished, "I mean, it was disgusting, Grissom."

"Don't worry about it," he said kindly, "Hey, I saw worse when I was in College," he quipped.

"Yeah, but, still-" he mumbled, "You had to clean up, and-"

"I didn't do the hard work." Grissom said, "But you might want to leave a large tip for the cleaning lady who took care of the hallway." He observed Greg's demeanor and was relieved to discover that he looked much better now. He was about to comment on this when a new thought came to him. "What about the doctors?"

"What doctors?"

"Drs. Dawson and Morris," Grissom said, "If they ate the same food, they could be in trouble-"

"They're not." Greg said, evasively.

"Are you sure? If they ate any of the-"

"They weren't at the bar." Greg said curtly.

"Oh." Grissom frowned, "I thought they were with you-"

"They weren't." Greg admitted reluctantly. When he noticed that Grissom was looking expectantly at him, he added, "It was your fault," he glared, "If you had come with us things would have gone smoothly. But you didn't, and Dr. Morris got herself another date -a guy who was really serious about getting some action, if you know what I mean. He even brought some cocaine-"

"Cocaine?"

"Yeah." He scowled, "There we were at Le Seine, in a room filled with people who work at law enforcement, and he just waved the bag around! After that, there was no question about going dancing anymore; they just wanted to go straight to that guy's suite. And-"

"And?"

"And I chickened out." He admitted, and then he glared at Grissom, defying him to make fun of him for not taking advantage of the situation.

Grissom calmly looked back.

"You should have seen them," Greg snorted, "The three of them were acting like college kids during Spring break."

"Don't be too harsh on them," Grissom said after a moment, "Doing things out of character on the last day of a convention is a tradition. People have flings, they get drunk-"

Greg was skeptical.

"Have you ever done any of those things?"

Grissom chuckled.

"Once in Hawaii, me and my colleagues jumped naked into a pool, in the middle of the day-" He smiled proudly, "We were ordered to leave immediately."

Grissom didn't mention the fact that this had happened twenty years ago. It didn't matter when he'd done it but why… and he still didn't know the answer. Although he had theories.

"There's something about these Conventions-" he said, "Maybe it's peer pressure, or the fact that we're away from home, but… suddenly we start to believe we can do anything." he said thoughtfully. "All the things that we wouldn't even dream of doing, seem possible." he paused, "We tell ourselves, 'It's just this once. Nobody will know…' But sometimes our conscience intervenes-" he said, looking pointedly at Greg, "And we chicken out."

Greg snorted.

"If I hadn't chickened out, I would have probably had an awesome time with the doctors."

"You don't know that. You followed your instincts." Grissom said softly, "You have principles. I admire that."

They were silent for a moment.

Greg cleared his throat.

"Grissom, about the –um- the kiss. You're not pissed off at me, are you?"

"No." Grissom said quietly, "I understand."

Greg frowned.

"What is it that you understand?" he asked.

Grissom opened his mouth and then closed it.

"I don't know." He admitted at last, "I always say 'I understand' whenever I want to end a conversation."

"Oh. So… you don't want to talk about it-" Greg muttered. "That's ok," he said, "I understand."

Greg realized what he'd just said, and couldn't help a chuckle.

Grissom smiled too. He looked closely at Greg. "Would you like to get some sleep?"

"Right now I'd be happy just to sit on a softer surface," Greg said sheepishly.

"Maybe you should sleep on the couch," Grissom said, "It's closer to the bathroom."

"I guess that would be wiser," Greg nodded, "Hey, we don't have to get up early tomorrow, do we?"

"I don't think so." Grissom said as he rose from the floor, "They're suspending the closing ceremonies." he looked down, "Do you need help?"

"No." Greg said without moving, "You go ahead."

Greg wanted to get up and walk by himself; he didn't want to bother Grissom anymore.

By the time he made it to the living room, Grissom had already brought a pillow and an afghan for him.

"Thanks," he said, lying down, "Thanks, Grissom." He said, taking the afghan from his boss. Their hands brushed. They looked at each other.

Grissom slowly released the afghan and then he turned off the closest lamp.

"Call me if you need anything." He said.

Greg watched as Grissom moved around the room, turning off the other lamps and moving the furniture so Greg had a clean path to the bathroom in case he needed to go.

"Grissom." he called out just as Grissom was about to turn off the last light, "Did you like the kiss?"

There was a brief pause. In the semi darkness, Greg could see Grissom's profile, but not his expression.

"Yes," Grissom said at last, "I did."

"Really?" There was a pause, and then he added deliberately. "That's good to know."

Grissom froze. Greg's words seemed filled with possibilities.

Grissom knew that anything he said now could open a door -or shut it down- and the realization gave him an odd feeling of power. He had said it himself, just a while ago - All the things that we wouldn't even dream of doing, seem possible. We tell ourselves, 'It's just this once-.'

But he hadn't done anything this spontaneous in a long, long time, and yes, he had a conscience.

"Actually," Grissom said in a lighter tone, "The first part of the kiss was ok, but I wasn't too crazy about the rest."

"Ah, shit," Greg sighed. "You'll never let me forget that." He shook his head sheepishly, "It was like some kind of Aversion Therapy, right? I've probably traumatized you for life. From now on, every time someone tries to kiss you, you're going to worry about getting vomit all over you."

"Probably," Grissom smiled. He didn't add that being kissed was something that rarely happened to him.

"So," Greg said, "If I hadn't, you know, puked all over you-" Greg's voice trailed off.

"My conscience would have intervened, Greg." Grissom said firmly. "Maybe yours, too."

They were silent for a moment.

"Maybe it was fate's way of sending us a message, right?" Greg said, "You know, 'Don't go there, you two,' or 'Keep your hands off your boss' "

Grissom smiled.

"Probably." He said.

"So…" Greg said, "What happens now?"

"Nothing, Greg." Grissom said, "Remember," He added with a touch of humor, "What happens at a convention, stays at the convention."

Greg watched as Grissom quietly entered his room.

Once the door was closed, Greg distracted himself by thinking of things to do.

Leave a large tip to the cleaning lady who had taken care of the mess in the hallway.

Return his rented suit and pay a fine.

Make sure Grissom's books were really ok.

Buy Grissom a new pair of shoes.

And mostly, thank God for giving him such an understanding boss.

Grissom closed the door and leant against it for a while.

Now that he was finally alone, he could think of the events of the day –but mostly, he thought of the kiss, and the brief moment in which he had actually believed he could do anything he wanted.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

And then he silently cursed fate for doing this to him.

TBC

Coming up…

Third date's the charm!