Title: Meaningless - Chapter 2

Author: B0gw0ppit

Rating: M

Summary: Wendy couldn't believe she had been so stupid. Had it really all been meaningless? Wedges

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my dreams, my dog and my VW camper

Spoilers: A couple of small season 8 spoilers, but nothing plot-ruining at all.

Author's Note: Hodges isn't the only insecure one. Wendy is a bit insecure herself about her looks. I think maybe she had spots and greasy hair at school, and puppy fat, so her self-image is a bit out of kilter.

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The office Christmas party... an excuse for everyone to be who they really were, or weren't, for one night in the year, to throw off the tension that every day in the crime lab brought, and to enjoy themselves without fear of a case suddenly sending them into a new frenzy. Swing shift were handling the labs, their party had been the week before, so lab rats and CSIs alike were free.

Wendy sat at the bar, nursing her fifth Vodka and Coke, and indulged in her favorite pastime - watching Nick Stokes. He was her guilty secret, her little indulgence, the one crush that she would never divulge anyone, not even Jacqui. Just look at him, who wouldn't love that guy? Tall, dark, handsome, strong and silent, with a brooding quality that had women flocking to him in droves. And therein lay the problem. Nick Stokes could have any woman he wanted. Why would he ever look at Wendy?

She sighed, and looked away as the object of her dreams confidently approached Sasha in Accounts with a glass of wine in one hand and a beer in the other. She was perfect, like him. Tall, blonde, leggy, busty... Wendy glanced down mournfully at her own breasts encased in black lace and red satin. What was it that Hodges had called them... perfectly adequate? Yeah, that would be right - adequate, not perfect though, not like Sasha's. Compared to that blonde bombshell's bazookas her's were like two fried eggs. That would be the reason Nick had smiled at her indulgently earlier, smiled but nothing else when she had approached him brushed her hand seductively along his arm. He had gorgeous arms... muscular and tanned... Hadn't he realized just what it had taken her to do that? Didn't he know that he was supposed to take her in those arms and whisk her away to his bed for an unforgettable night of passion? Obviously not, because he had merely smiled, and moved on to speak to Greg. Of all people, Greg! Of course, Wendy Simms was not au fait with the minds of men. What she didn't realize was that he had not a clue about the way she felt about him. Her hints were too subtle, and Nick was a simple man of few subtleties. For him to notice Wendy liked him she would have had to hit him over the head with a spade, much like Sasha from Accounts had. Well, not a spade exactly, and not over the head, but she had made it very, very clear indeed as to what her intentions were, and a woman like Sasha was used to getting what she wanted.

"Hello Simms," a familiar smarmy voice cut through her thoughts, and she looked up. Think of the devil... not that she had been thinking of him exactly... or at least only in a completely random, roundabout way... "And how are you and your two friends tonight? I have to say, red becomes them."

Hodges was obviously the worse for wear, a soppy grin plastered all over his face and a half empty whiskey glass in his hand as he leered at her boobs. Wendy practically snarled at him, in no mood for his clumsy attempt at flirting.

"Hodges," she snarled, "are all smart guys so damned creepy?"

If anything his grin widened, and he gave her that cute head-tilt, narrowing his eyes at her. She looked back at him steadily, a strange fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach. She must have been really drunk, because she had to admit, he did have beautiful eyes...

"There you go again," he said happily, ignoring her barbed comment, "calling me smart. Go on, admit it, you like me. I can tell. All that sexual tension between us, I can sense it you know."

She rolled her eyes, and glanced back toward Nick, who was about to guide Sasha out of the door. Bastard. Gulping down the rest of her Vodka Wendy turned back to Hodges, the drink going straight to her head. At least, that was her excuse for what happened next. Hodges was leaning toward her, that silly smirk still on his face, trying to get a closer look at her cleavage. He really did have the most beautiful eyes, even when they were slightly unfocused...

"Hodges, am I ugly?" she asked, noticing even as she spoke that her voice sounded a little... fuzzy.

He looked up at her face in surprise, and straightened up, almost falling off the stool on which he was perching so precariously.

"No..." he replied warily, sensing a trick question. You never could tell with women. They were always saying one thing and meaning another.

Wendy was looking at him expectantly, making him panic slightly. What did she want him to say? If he told her the truth, that she was beautiful, gorgeous, sexy, hot... would she punch him? But if he said she was... perfectly adequate... would that be wrong too? Oh God... He swallowed uncomfortably, his eyes automatically flickering down to her breasts again, not because he wanted to look at them... although obviously he did want to look at them... but not because of that, just because if he kept looking into her eyes he might do something really stupid like kiss her, because he was drunk. Usually he would never even dream of kissing her... well, obviously he would dream of it... but wouldn't think about actually doing it, because his rational mind would tell him, long before the thought crossed his mind, that to kiss her would be tantamount to chopping his own balls off, and even though they weren't likely to see any action any time this century with his track record, he would still really like to keep them if he could thank you very much.

David Hodges might act like an arrogant pig with an attitude, but deep down he was an insecure little boy desperate for love and knowing he was never likely to get it. He wasn't popular and funny like Greg, nor was he gorgeous and manly like Nick, he wasn't even enigmatic and mysterious like Grissom. And he never would be any of those things, so the likelihood of anyone falling in love with him was very slim. Add all that to the fact that he would never, ever, if he lived to be a hundred, understand women, and honestly, he had realized long ago that he was destined to live his life alone.

But today was the Christmas party, and if you couldn't let your hair down and make an idiot of yourself then, when could you? He had had a lot to drink, not so much as to be completely inebriated, but enough to bring down some of his carefully built defenses, defenses that he had nurtured over the years and fortified so that he would never again experience the pain of being in love. Because Hodges had been hurt, and badly, and he was damned if he was ever going to let anyone do it again.

"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen," he blurted out before he could stop himself, blue eyes meeting brown as he flinched slightly, expecting the blow.

Wendy, for reasons not even known to herself, felt her heart flip as she met that ocean-colored gaze, a result perhaps of her bruised ego and those flattering words that any woman would appreciate hearing when she was thinking little of herself.

"Really Hodges?" she asked, leaning closer to him and resting her chin on her hand on the slippery surface of the bar. "You really think I'm beautiful?"

Hodges gulped nervously, still waiting for the punchline... literally, but his rational mind had long since retired to bed complaining of the noise, and so it was left to his instincts to act as they thought best. And best for any red-bloodied male animal was to get laid, obviously. He nodded, pouting a little as he dropped his gaze to her mouth for an instant before looking back deep into those bottomless brown eyes. He was way past the point of worrying about getting hurt now, his instincts placing him firmly in the moment and refusing to allow him to think about tomorrow.

"You're gorgeous, sexy... gorgeous..." he said, repeating himself, for once at a loss for verbal supremacy. "Perfect..."

Wendy smiled, and even while she was wondering how she had never noticed before what a beautiful mouth he had, she wasn't about to let him forget his faux pas of a few weeks before.

"Perfectly adequate?" she murmured softly, and wondered how she had come to be this close to him, any nearer and she would be kissing those surprisingly sexy pouting lips...

Those lips turned up at one corner into Hodges' trademark smirk, and her heart flipped again. Why had she never noticed before that he was gorgeous?

"No," he replied, his voice husky, "not adequate, just perfect."

Wendy closed her eyes, and the next second his lips were on hers, and they were kissing hungrily, like drowning men gasping for air and each other's mouths were the oxygen they craved. Tongues flirted and teeth clashed, and arms and hands tangled as they tipped clumsily together. For what seemed like hours neither could bear to stop, and when at last they had to come up for air Wendy's hair was wild and Hodges' eyes had that glazed look of a man on drugs.

"C'mon," he panted, straightening up and grabbing her hand. "Let's get outa here."