Rain By Carola
Rain.
Las Vegas was indeed a terrible place when the universal deluge was bursting forth above of it.
Drop after drop, he felt to slip something from him, slowly.
That one little joy, and happiness... with a water blow, all vanished, all went away, far away.
How much he would have wanted transform himself into water and disappear forever.
He never felt so down, so out of the world.
Not even himself knew what he was feeling. he only knew that in that moment his heart had been broken in many small fragments that never more would not have gathered.
He wondered with which face he would have returned in the office, and he would have explain the reason of his reaction.
Ten minutes before
Greg had just delivered to him the envelope with the DNA samples just analyzed, with the usual piece of paper with tracing and personal particulars of the owner.
The night before there had been a classic homicide, nothing to panic.
But that day the technicist had been decidedly fast.
With the envelope in his hands, while he was whistling a fun melody, said hello to Hodges, which was talking with Archie about how the laser swords of Obi Wankenobi and company worked, and a slap was pecked on his shoulder from part of Catherine, which was going to verify one anonymous called with Warrick.
He felt particularly happy, that night.
That morning he woke up smiling, and it seemed like nothing could make change his humour.
Although outside was raining, he believed that the day soon would have changed for the best.
But he had no idea how much he was wrong.
Few seconds were enough to destroy all his wish to smile.
"Why you don't understand, Gil, damn"
"Sara, calm down...what"
"I love you, Gil"
And crack.
A deaf noise.
The envelope slipped from his hands, awaking the attention of both of two.
He first met Sara's glance, then his supervisor's one, who looked at him astonished.
A step backwards.
"Nick"
Another one.
"Nick, wait"
And then, away.
What would have he told? That his pager started to vibrate without warning and he had have to run? It would have been a good idea.
But who wanted make fun of, it was so evident.
Especially after that exchange of looks.
"I love you, Gil!
His stomach turned.
All collapsed, it didn't exist a floor where to rest the feet in sure way.
He raised his head, sure that his tears would have confused with the rain.
"Nick"
But he seemed so...upset...sorry.
Lost.
"Wait"
Wait for what? For hearing a heap of bales, like always?
He felt his pocket vibrating. He put in it his hand shaking, catching with the fingers his cellular and removing it from is imprisonment.
On the display was blinking a name that never in that moment he would have wished to see.
Gil.
He ignored the call, while he was approached his SUV and he seating on the front cowling.
What a lousy day.
And thinking he was so...so deceived that things could go well.
He wondered why Greggo that day had been so efficient and he hadn't lost his time behind his usual messing music.
Cellular stopped vibrating, and he thanked the Sky.
He raised his head.
The rain seemed increasing. Little badly, he wasn't offended for it.
It was nearly a shape of consolation to be under there.
He sighed.
He was really persistent.
He watched the object that he still held tightened in his hand, thinking that maybe to answer and send it to the hell wasn't a bad idea.
Strangely, this time he hung almost at once. Maybe he had received the message.
..No it was him to receive one.
He opened the cellular and, hesitant, pushed that damned key.
-Where are you-
Ahah, good question.
-Let me in peace-
He wondered why he was answering. Maybe to keep silent and make him suffer would have been the best thing to do, and maybe more satisfactory.
Why he had to be the only to suffer?
Admitted and not granted that Gil Grissom was able to suffer, obviously.
He knew from years that Sara drooled in a shameless way behind him, and he never let anyone know about what he felt about her.
But those words...had put fear on him.
What if Gil returned Sara's feelings?
And what if Gil too, like him, was able to estrange his own feelings, his own emotions in order to avoid whichever embarrassing or counter-productive situation for its iron mind?
Now he was thinking about, he had always been a master in this kind of things.
In that moment he thought that he hated Sara.
He would had prefered to continue living in falsehood, rather than to make to in its heart one possible, painful truth.
Truth.
After all, who would had wanted to know that him, Nick Stokes, one of the most brilliant agents of the las vegas Crime Lab was...fallen in love with his supervisor?
He stretched one hand, picking up drops of a rain that was becoming more and more intense.
What he had to do.
If Grissom had taken the trouble to find him, surely he was on his tracks.
And once found...What he would have said to him?
Sorry Gil, but it's not my fault if you're blind?
What a big mess.
He passed one hand between his soaked hair, shaking it towards the asphalt and trying to remove some water drops from it, well knowing how much it was useless.
He took a look to the zone which was around him, sighing.
He was in the crossing between Flamingo and Koval.
Strange, just a little time before he would have sworn that he would not have replaced his foot here anymore. The creeps came, if he only carried his mind to some month before.
He sighed.
That day, even if he was terrified, he knew that HIM would have arrived...that he would have pulled him outside from that one damned coffin.
And now.
He felt alone. Under the rain, like a drowned rat, waiting for something that maybe never wouldn't have arrived.
"Gil"
"Sara, leave, please"
"But"
"I said leave"
He exited from his writing desk, leaning his hands on the shoulders of the girl and sweetly pushing her out of the room.
"Gil, damn, listen to me!", she cried, stopping her step and risking one ahead.
He stopped, and he looked her in her eyes.
"I saw and heard enough..." burst him, looking at the ceiling.
"Don't you say anything, damn!" she said, drawing the attention of colleagues in zone.
"I say that now you resume your job, and I go searching Nick"
"But...Gil"
"Sara... - he said, making two steps ahead and stopping in the door - There are things you must understand. For how much you desires one thing, you often can't have it. You can't do anything, is in this way that things go. - he turned for meeting again her glance - Now my priority is to find Nick. He is ALWAYS my priority, ok"
She stayed astonished for a few seconds, looking at him without seeing him. Then she stammed.
"Are..are you saying that...you..Nick...you"
He closed his eyes, nodding, then in silence he covered the corridor, catching the looks of his colleagues, and he left the department, letting a shocked and angry Sara catch a glimpse his figure get on his car.
How he could be so blind to not see the evidence? It was since he was born that he made this job, the he searched the truth where it was hidden, that removed words from criminals mouth with pliers, but he always removed them.
How hadn't he have notice him?
He had been so fool.
he was so persuaded that he wasn't able to donate something to the next one that he had made the twisted idea that all were like him, that all didn't feel nothing, that all.
can't love.
Instead...he had been always by his side for the greater part of the time from years, and he never understood.
How much you are slow, Gilbert.
You had suffocated your feelings time before, you were in order to die from the pain when he was six feet under, attending of his moment, you were in order to say that man that not, you were not intimate, but you would have wanted...
You were in order to say that you loved it.
But you had continued holding all within, in a corner of your heart.
How much you had been stupid.
It was a comings and goings for the roads of the Strip, entering in every possible street, from the I-15 to Freemont Street, returning on the Flamingo.
"Where are you, Nick?"
He wanted to strike the world.
Maybe he would have been to return to the lab...or at least to go home and change his clothes, he didn't wanted to get a cold.
He put again on his feet, starting to walk long the big parker.
His scene.
He go along the same steps he made that time, with the same hurry, with the same calm.
The memory was still here.
Alive, intense. On his skin.
Maybe...yes, maybe it was on that day taht he realized that Gil Grissom was more than his supervisor.
"Put you hand on my hand"
How much I would have wanted tighten it.
"Say 'I promise"
I promise.
I will make all for you, I will be still here if it's what you want, I will be your shoulder, the one will comfort you, i will be anything you want...
"It's useless..." he murmured.
It still made an other step, approaching himself the slab where there was that one damned evidence.
It grazed it with a finger, feeling the varnish to crumble under the fingertip.
And while meories started to swell his heart of pain, he found himself wishing to be still six feet under.
Probably it was a pure and simple egoist feeling, and it was inusuale for him to feel something like that.
But he could say that in that moment he was just his.
He didn't deign nobody of the attention that he employed to find him.
And when he had found him, he had felt safe, even if he was still in danger.
He let go himself, falling in his knees and imploring God that all could end soon.
He conitnued to idle.
He had controlled all the zone, without find any traces of Nick's passage.
but he couldn't be really far.
It was passed just an half hour from when he saw him escaping in front of his eyes, and considering the traffic in the Strip, by forces of things he-couldn't-be-far-away.
Red traffic light.
He stopped, while he watched the windscreen wiper going up and down...nearly it hypnotized him.
Where could have he gone?
He passed his hand on his forehead, catching the skin with the fingertips and massagin it.
Think, Gil, think.
He rested the hand on the wheel and drumming.
Green traffic light.
He sank the foot in the accelerator, without thinking about who was around.
HE was his priority.
He sighed, and suddenly he felt himself invaded from panic.
The Flamingo.
He didn't think of it.
It was illogical, but.
There was no harm in trying, perhaps he would have been lucky.
He made reversal and took the opposite road, pecking the curses of the drivers behind him.
He had just sent fucking his rationality, leaving place to the rashness.
God, he had needed Sara to open his eyes...and his heart.
And while he continued to harass his mind for his foolishness, he put the direction indicator and he feed the Koval.
The rain had taken to increase of intensity, embracing any thing, or person was outside.
Strip's lights filled up the dark sky of a warm shading, of colors of the sun, that raised until clouds, touching hidden stars.
Las vegas wasn't made for the rain, and it tried to fight it, remaining active although the ugly time.
The air was full of the sound of clacson that, a few kilometres ahead tried to melt the traffic.
But he didn't feel the warm of a hug, the chattering of the cars, he didn't feel nothing.
Then, a braking.
"Nick"
And the world restarted to turn.
He jolted. He raised his head, hoping that it wasn't an illusion, then he turned, raising in his feet.
"Grissom..." he murmured, without but moving a step. it was like his muscles were atrophized. He saw him running toward him after having blinked the door of his car with violence, in order to find him two fingers of distance, the look upset, his hands on the shoulders.
"Are you alright!" he asked, shaking him a little.
"...Aren't you with Sara"
It had come spontaneous, without thinking too much.
"I don't see why"
"Because she loves you"
"But I don't love her"
Nick bent his head, watching the wet asphalt. He didn't love her, he didn't want her, he didn't desire her.
Was it true?
"Why do you run away like that?"
He shook his shoulders, freeing himself from that grip and going back of some steps.
Then he started laughing.
"Because I'm a fool... - then he said - because...because"
He passed one hand on his face, sighing.
What he must do? He had to say to him?
"Nick"
"I always tought to know how to hold at bay my emotions...I have always believed of being able to hold hidden that thought that killed me a little...day by day...and I always repeated myself 'Be strong Nick, you can make it'...You can remove it from mind, you can make it disappear, you can you can you can... I filled up myself of lies, I have filled up the others of lies...'How are you?', 'Fine, thanks! Don't worry!' - he said, ironical - When not, i'm not fine"
Grissom watched his back raising and lowering slowly, while felt his heart to writhe in a painful grip.
"I have lived - he continued, turning slowly towards his supervisor - this eight months with horribles memories...sleepless nights, panic attacks and foolish phobias...But no, it's not for this that I'm feeling this way...It's... - and his voice started to become trembling, while the tears began to collect on his eyes - It's been the think that I had in that moment of...dying there and...to have lost the occasion of being able to you to say... that what I had... - and it carried a hand to the heart, smiling with bitterness - not to have said to you...I love you, Gil...I had risked not to be able to never say it, never more, never more... and although this...after all the things you have made for me... and after I have returned living, in some way... I Still couldn't say it to you...and...AND HEARING SARA...hearing those words said from her...it has...it has"
He cound't go ahead. He passed one hand on his face, trying to make disappear the signs of his pain, unsuccessfully.
He decided to turn again towards the Koval, he had no intention to let Gil see him in that state.
"Sorry, Gil..." he murmured.
He wasn't neither sure that he would had heard.
But he assessed in the moment the world was stopped a second time around them.
He felt the arms of the older man warping his chest, and tightening him strongly.
He sobbed strongly, taking the hands of the man between his.
"You're not the stupid, Nicky...it's me. - And Nick shaked his head in denial - Do You know from how much time... I watch to you from far away? I felt myself empty... I did not know why...the day that Warrick called... that...you were flown from the window...Then I have understood...I never have been taken from the emotions...I have never had relations that could be defined important...and i had fear that if you had known it, you would be estranged...and rather than to lose you forever... I would have preferred to maintain that relationship there was between us...I dipped myself into job tring to not listen to what was happening to me...Then...May arrived...You could die...and I...could not make nothing...Thinking you were in the hands of that man...he watched me into my eyes...and he had described my state of mind in that moment...I was impotent...Useless... When I was a recruit, my supervisor asked me if it was better to have a regret or a remorse...I answered a remorse...But in that moment i realized that it wasn't true. If you were died, I would have stopped living...for the regret...not to be able to say to you that you were...special...because...I could not have continued living without of you"
He tightened him strongly, resting the head on its shoulder. He felt his fast breath, his heartbeat on the hands.
They stayed a little time in that position, then Nick turned himself towards Gil, and in his turn grided his waist, he approached his face.
"I...I love you, Gil"
He smiled, passing his hand between his hair.
"I love you too, Nicky"
And their lips met.
The supervisor tightened him stornger, like he was afraid to see him slipping away from him.
His lips were so soft...he felt his love trembeling from every pore...he finally felt that he belonged to him...One to the other, and viceversa.
"Sorry, Nicky..." he murmured in the boy's ear.
"No, Gil...Not excuse...God, I love you...I love you..." he whispered, embracing him and sinking his face in his shoulder.
In answer he kissed his forehead.
"Come..go home"
He sweetly wrapped his arm around his shoulders, approaching him, then they walked towards Gil's car.
He was happy.
That day he wokes up with the thought that something, that day, would be changed in best.
And so it had been.
Now Gil was by his side, and he knew that he would have faced all in best.
And if someone would ask him how he was, he would have answered sincerly.
He was well, now.
Indeed.
He could assert with certainty of being the happier person of the world.