TITLE: Stuffy, Hot, Fractious

AUTHOR: Demon Faith

FANDOM: CSI: Miami

PAIRING: Speed/Eric

WORDS: 776

NOTES: Why do I always get drawn in when the challenge is extended! sigh. This drabble (particularly the title) describes me right now – why is Cardiff, of all places, having a heat wave?

writerschoice: summer

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He couldn't stand it any longer. He was going slightly mad.

Miami, as a rule, was a warm, sunny place. He was used to this. He could deal with this.

The air-conditioning had broken. He was going to die.

Like a dog imprisoned in a car, he pressed his nose to the window and panted, but that didn't help. He had drunk all the soda and juice and milk; the fridge was bare and the water ran from the tap in a lukewarm trickle. He had taken to chipping away at the freezer just to place something cool on his tongue.

He couldn't go outside. Not since he'd almost run into Calleigh on the stairs. They'd decided it wasn't safe anymore, and now H was lurking around Eric's building all the time in some kind of melancholia. He couldn't blame him.

Stuck in his boiler of a prison, he couldn't even open the window to feel the breeze. No one was home and everyone knew that. The entire city knew that. And he could tell this because he'd found out from the news.

CSI stabbed. Not even a year since that fatal shooting – did everyone remember that? When Tim Speedle had been gunned down in a jewellery store (and his ID photo blown up on the screen, in case anyone had forgotten his face). And here we are again, with Eric Delko – his best friend, did you know? – lying in intensive care on the cusp of death.

And he was trapped in his apartment.

All he could do was watch the newsreader's face, lined with false pity, intoning his beautiful lover's fate as the story slipped further and further from the breaking news until it was simply a line: No news on CSI Delko.

This could only end one of two ways, of course. Either Eric…slipped away, absent from life as he had once believed his best friend to be, or he pulled through, recovered and…came home.

To his empty apartment. With his friends crowded around him, making sure he was okay, refusing to leave him alone. Except he wouldn't be alone, though no one knew that, no one could know that.

Whatever happened, he knew he had to go. They were naïve to believe this charade could last and now it was coming to an end. He had stopped watching the television; he would leave without knowing, it was better that way.

He'd wait in Mexico for his next assignment and no one would ever need to know he still lived. Not that it mattered – without Eric, it would barely be true.

He had gathered his things and he was ready to escape. With one last look around – the first time he'd been there, when he'd realised he was in love, when he'd returned from the dead, where they'd shared their first kiss, first made love, first believed in hope – he moved to open the door.

The handle was already turning.

He leapt back and hurried to the bedroom, closing the door but for an inch where he could monitor the situation. He could pretend to be a robber and move fast enough to maintain the illusion. Except these were CSIs he was dealing with, because they would be here to clear the apartment, to…

Eric walked in.

His heart stopped, his world ceased to turn – everything flickered like an old movie on a reel and for one absurd moment, he believed in hope again.

Tyler followed him.

"Should I set them down here? That okay?"

"Yeah, that'll be…fine," Eric winced and eased himself onto the couch. He longed to touch him, comfort, but he had to stay behind the door. He had to run.

"Well, I'll leave you now. Remember…Calleigh will be here later. In case you have…a friend round."

In a second, Tyler was gone and his heart was beating out of his chest. He knew. Tyler knew and Eric was smiling, so he had told him and…what had just happened?

"Tim…?" came the soft hesitant whisper and he couldn't hide any longer. He pushed open the door and ran to kneel at his lover's feet, regarding him with teary desperate eyes.

"Hey," he rasped out, and kissed Eric's knuckles tenderly, unsure where to touch him, if he would break.

Eric just smiled wider, pale and weak, yet so beautiful, so…tangible.

"I should go," he muttered but Eric looked alarmed so he didn't say any more.

"Open a window, Tim?" said with his mouth and 'we'll work it out, together, stay' with his eyes.

"Yes."

He threw open the window and breathed freedom, letting the breeze cleanse the air and bless their promise.