Belief

The first sign that he wasn't alone came by way of lips and tongue and teeth.

It was easy for him to say that he wasn't surprised by it. After all. He was young, moderately brilliant, and he knew quite well that he was cute in the way that made girls want to kiss him and take him home to do things to him that probably weren't legal -- or at least he could dream.

Usually, it was to introduce him to their parents.

Every dream had its unfortunately reality.

Still. The incarnation currently unfurling by way of a tease at his ear and a sharp nip at his mouth wasn't one that Greg Sanders was about to turn down. No way. He'd been waiting nearly a month for this vacation, and he'd been waiting two full days for his lover to drive east from Vegas to join him. No amount of masturbation could possibly drive him away from wanting sex with Nick.

None.

Okay, well, maybe a little. Maybe if he did it with ketchup or something, even though that had been semen stored in ketchup packets.

Fascinating thought, really. Almost enough to make him lose track of the lips that were devouring his ear. Nick was teasing him, Texas bastard. Not saying anything, even though he knew it made Greg hot to hear that southern drawl shiver out along his skin. Well, that was just fine then. No teasing, no touching but the lips, that was okay.

He could be a man about it.

He just wouldn't do anything back.

Okay, that was easier said than done, especially when he felt the faint brush of nose against the side of his throat, nuzzling against the place where throat met jaw. That was worth the stifled whimper that he couldn't keep out of his throat, or from rising up to his lips. Okay, and that bite? Definitely worth the panting breath that he couldn't stop.

How Nick was doing it, he couldn't guess. Greg couldn't feel him anywhere except for his mouth and the occasional brush of nose, couldn't hear anything but faint, husky sounds of enjoyment that he had to admit might be himself.

Might.

If Nick wasn't going to say a thing to him, he wasn't going to admit that he wanted to scream when lips slid down to press just beside one nipple. No, two could play at that game. And he hoped that two would be playing at more than just that one game. Two would be nice. Or three.

Or four, but damn, he was sneaking up on thirty, and Nick was a little older, so sometimes four was just really wishful thinking.

Right at the moment, though, he could wish all he wanted. It felt so good, and fisting his hands in the sheets helped a lot. It kept him from grabbing Nick, anyway, making him nervous. Kept him from yelling out that he wanted his dick sucked.

Okay, yeah, well, that was his teeth nipping at his tongue, but what the fuck. Why not?

The walls were pretty paper-thin, after all, and he knew all about listening to things through walls. No one needed to hear that, to know about the fun they had, even if he wanted to yell it to the world sometimes.

It would've made Nick uncomfortable. Even if Nick was pretty damn comfortable with kissing, nipping, licking his way down Greg's stomach, making him heave and shudder with need. It was kind of fast for Nick... he was really a kissing man, all about doing things to Greg's throat that made him yell and whine and wake up the neighbors.

His neighbors. Nick's neighbors. It really didn't matter.

Tonight, though... oh, wow. Tonight was all about lavishing his navel, licking in it, licking the faint curve where hip creased to belly, making Greg reach up to cover his mouth. FUCK. Fuck, fuck, wow. Oh. Wow. That just made his eyes cross, and yeah, okay, so maybe he was a whole lot more into the oral thing than he'd ever really considered.

It was one hell of a way for Nick to go about convincing him. The best way, because Greg was all about evidence, and testing and having things proved to him. Oral, mouth, lips had never felt so good before. Tracing lines that were hardly there, muscles that weren't even visible from skin level.

Greg really really had to thank all of those anatomy lessons. Or Nick for taking all of those anatomy lessons. Or something.

He'd always figured his brain wouldn't go soft and mushy until after he'd made some kind of massive scientific discovery such as the world had never known. Apparently, Nick just hadn't totally clued him in to the wonder of Death-By-Mouth. Or Brain-Death-By-Mouth. Or.

Guh.

At least until after orgasm. Or cusp of orgasm. Mild brain death involved penis touching, and he hadn't even gotten that yet. Nick had to be enjoying it, but he didn't hear even the slightest chuckle or noise. Not even bedsprings, but then there was the slide of tongue over the muscle that arrowed towards his penis and he was dying dying dying or maybe not.

Maybe not, but his eyes were rolling back in his head, and his mouth was open and gasping, trying to keep all of the sounds inside all at once. It wasn't working out so well. Greg couldn't help the low-pitched keen that spilt from somewhere inside that he couldn't even fully recognize, a low, gravely kind of moan that lay somewhere between utterly bereaved and bemused and bespelled.

Nick was probably getting him on videotape. Or maybe audio, or something. To tease him with later and stick in unexpected places. Maybe he could say he was revving up for Halloween and pretending to be a ghost.

Lips teased at the base of his dick. Yeah, when it killed him he was going to have to haunt Nick in the afterlife. Particularly for the tender nipping bite of skin, right there, right beneath the head, and JESUS. Jesus, it was sensitive there, that nerve making his skin crawl, making his body twitch in reaction, and fuck. He couldn't hold back that howl, no way, couldn't keep himself together enough for that. Not anymore. Oh. Oh.

OH.

He was lucky that he'd kept his hands in the sheets, hips twitching, dick shoving up against soft lips. Nick wouldn't even let him in, so it was just a slick smooth slide of useless friction. Like kisses, except he knew when he was being teased. He knew that Nick was doing it just to drive him fucking crazy, make him scream, because Nick liked to hear him talk, liked to hear him babble.

"Baby, baby, fuck, oh, God, suck it, suck my dick, come on..."

Greg couldn't help it. He hadn't wanted to say anything. He just wanted Nick to swallow his cock, and then he'd try and be quiet again, except, wow. Wow.

Oh SHIT. Oh, SHIT. Nick didn't do that, not ever, ever, ever, licking, sucking, skin at the crease of his thigh, shifting down to Greg's ass, and God, he was too far gone to even try figuring out how the hell that was happening.

And.

Oh.

It was happening. Nick, who just didn't do that for reasons beyond Greg, was doing it. It was just feeling and tongue tracing behind his balls, him moving, anticipating the tentative dart of tongue there. A deft slab of meat twisting and squirming there, muscles moving just to make his ass feel like a little slice of heaven.

Damn the neighbors and their rights to a good night's sleep. There was no way anybody was sleeping, not when Greg was having the absolute best sex he'd gotten since leaving Berkeley. Not when Nick just didn't, and now he WAS, and that was a tongue up his ass. Greg planted his feet hard in the mattress and gasped frantically for breath, mewling in between hitches.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck oh my GOD, oh, fuck, oh, shit, oh, god, oh, Jesus, oh, PLEASE..."

Screw coherence. There was no way he could manage it, not when there was finally a tongue up his ass. He was going to owe Nick so badly, and he'd probably be paying little sexual favors for weeks, but it was worth it to just feel that good. Nick was a man with a talented tongue, because somehow it was still squirming, still teasing his ring like that was the only fucking he was going to get all night.

Just tongue.

And oh, God. Even if it was all he got, all he got for the rest of the WEEK, he'd gladly... gladly...

Nothing touching his cock. All tongue. All probing tongue and it went so... went so everywhere. His eyes were rolling back in his head, and he couldn't catch his breath, and he was going to asphyxiate, die on dry land from being unable to get in a good, solid belt of oxygen, and he didn't CARE. Didn't care, 'cause his dick was thumping against his leg demandingly, and it wouldn't take much, not much at all, ever, ever, and, FUCK.

No human's tongue was meant to slide over that spot, unless they were Gene Simmons, and that thought just was enough to threaten to kill his buzz. If the thought could've even formed in his head past a little blip. Then Nick's tongue did it again, and maybe he wouldn't even need his cock sucked.

Maybe he'd just lay there all sprawled open and die happy. Yeah. Die happy with Nick sucking his ass like nobody's business. Now he knew why Nick didn't do it. It was because he knew that it would kill Greg. That kind of pleasure was SO not meant for anybody human to bear.

And it was probably hard to do, stabbing his tongue up there again and again and again, like a jackhammer. It could kill them both. He could see them, collapsed like that, dead. What a scene for the cops. What a--

"Oh, Jesus, fuck, fuck!"

Coming.

COMING, fuck, coming, spilling, spewing, Jesus, God, and his brains were obviously leaking out his ears with it. His breath caught hard in his chest, harsh gasping feeling, balls so high they were fucking knotted against his body, and that hurt, but felt. So. So good. So good. Tongue. Tongue, lathing them, and maybe he screamed. Yeah. He screamed. Too much. So much.

Never like that before. Just, never like that. There were all sorts of great, grand orgasms, but never that good. Tongue went from his ass to his too-sensitive, twitching, cummy dick, and it made his legs shake, his heels slip on the mattress.

Fuuuck.

Eyes shut. Yeah. Wanted to open them. Wasn't gonna happen. No. Wanted Nick to lay down. But. Couldn't stay awake that long.

No.

Yeah.

Gone.

Waking up alone was weird. Frankly, it was more than just weird, it made the previous evening feel like something half-imagined or maybe even dreamed, and Greg didn't like that. He was a master of evidence, and everything was just...

Well, it was all just off. Bizarre, even, because there wasn't any extra suitcase by the door and he couldn't hear anybody in the bathroom, either. At the same time, he wasn't sticky and neither were the sheets.

That sort of undid the idea of mind-blowing ass-licking sex with Nick. If it was a dream, which all empirical facts seemed to be pointing at, it was a hell of a dream. It was a cerebral explosion of his frontal lobe and every secret want and desire he'd ever had apparently.

If that was a dream, even Freud would be telling him that he needed to get laid. If that was a dream...

Where the hell were the signs of little sailors? Because there was no way he'd dreamed that and not spewed all over the sheets.

Okay.

Logically, semen didn't disappear. Didn't disintegrate. He'd been in enough hotel rooms with ALS to know that the stuff showed up twenty years in the future smudged all over every available surface, and the sheets were dry. He was dry. A little sweaty, sure, but not crusty with cum. Maybe he hadn't come in his sleep? Pretty weird for a sex dream, but weird things happened. If he wasn't covered in it, left with remnants, then that was the only logical explanation. Maybe he hadn't managed to wake up his neighbors, either. So, nobody would be yelling and kicking him out while he was still waiting for Nick. That was a good thing, then.

Lots of maybes in his train of thought, but there wasn't anything else to do about it. It had just been a weird dream. Only explanation. So, Greg decided, he was going to crawl out of the bed and into the shower, go downstairs, and get some breakfast. Maybe what he really needed was less thinking about Nick and more thinking about fresh air and relaxing. Yeah. He could do that. It wouldn't be that hard. It was just a dream, after all...

Half an hour later, Greg wasn't really so sure. He'd been getting some seriously funny looks, and the hostess of the attached restaurant hadn't been able to keep her mouth from slipping into a smirk when she'd seated him. Maybe this out of the way little Colorado border town was really some kind of home to sexual predators and perverts who preyed on visiting CSI agents. Or something.

Or maybe there was something in his hair. Maybe they were having Something About Mary kinds of thoughts. Maybe he looked seriously funny to them, which was way more likely than the sexual predator thing. After all, he wasn't the type to be preyed on, even if... there wasn't really a type.

Yep, work followed him everywhere. Right down to wondering what quality of fingerprint that woman was leaving on his coffee cup.

"Hey, yanno, it's gotta be illegal not to brush your hair like that first thing in the mornin', man. You look like you just crawled outta somebody's haystack."

Thick Texas drawl, crawling right down his spine in the absolute best way possible. Damn. And just thinking about last night, imagined or not... Well. There was no way he'd be standing up anytime soon.

"Want some pancakes?"

"Yeah." Pancakes. No, he didn't particularly want pancakes -- he wanted to drop his fork, have Nick volunteer to get it for him, and then give all those people a REAL reason to leer at him. "I did brush my hair, it just..."

"Stands on its own after you put all that blue gunk in. I know." Jeans that tight and that black on an ass that good ought to be illegal.

Maybe he really should drop his fork.

"Sorry I'm so late," Nick apologized, flirting from underneath his lashes as he slid into a chair across from Greg. "Traffic was, uh. Murder."

"Uh-huh. Are you sure it was traffic, Nick, 'cause..." Jesus. How was he going to breach that? If Nick was playing a trick on him, he had to acknowledge it. If it wasn't Nick, if it was a dream, that just put him in a weird fucked up head place, didn't it?

Catch 22.

"I had a really wild, uh, dream last night. You know."

That seemed to perk Nick's interest for some reason. Something very weird was going on here.

"Yeah? You wanna tell me all about it, maybe...?" The way Nick fiddled with that fork was also going on Greg's list of things-that-ought-to-be-illegal. At least when he had a hardon.

He wanted his dick to be that fork. At least until Nick lifted it to his mouth and bit. Because he did, and that click of tooth and metal wasn't something he wanted to have be a click of tooth and penis. Not that his penis would click.

Greg shifted in his seat, and adjusted his hardon through the two layers of fabric. "Well, I dreamed that you were, you know. Uh. Orally pleasing me."

Two dark brows lifted. "Really, now."

Why was it that Greg felt like half the restaurant was listening to him? For God's sake. He was from California. He'd worked in San Francisco. He was accustomed to discussing sex over breakfast. Just.... Well, it felt kind of weird.

Maybe it was Colorado that made him feel nervous. "Yeah. It wasn't... exactly stuff I'd expect you to do, but maybe that was what made it stick in my mind." He leaned forwards, closing the space between Nick and himself just a little.

"Well, why don't you tell me all about it, darlin'?" There was a word that Greg didn't hear much of, and it was definitely one that made his breath stick in his throat. But...

He was still really confused. DID Nick know about whatever it was?

"Would you like some more coffee before you talk about the ghost, sir?"

What the fuck.

Nick twisted to glare at the waitress who'd almost startled him out of his skin. "What did you say?"

"Um..." Her eyes moved back and forth between them. "Well, you know. You were in the haunted room last night. With the ghost. Uh. The amorous one."

"There's no such thing as ghosts." Nick was honest to God pouting. They had to be shitting him. Just had to be. There wasn't anything that could do that, there just wasn't such a thing as an amorous ghost! "They just don't -- look, how about you not eavesdrop, and just top this off, okay? Thanks."

"Well, I just figured you might want to read some of the other accounts. We've been keeping track of them for nearly fifty years..."

And Nick did not look shifty. No. His lover was not looking like he knew way too much about what the girl pouring his really bad coffee was saying.

Oh, who the hell was he fooling? Yes, he did.

"See, darlin'..."

He plastered on an interested expression -- which was pretty genuine -- over his peeved look. Nick had probably booked that room on purpose, trying to shake his faith in science.

Bastard.

"Um, miss? You know, about that coffee, why don't you, ah, go get us some bacon, while you're at it?"

Oh. Pouting. Obviously she wanted to hear all about Greg's imaginary sex life even with his Something About Mary hair. "Yes, sir."

He waited until she was moving to leave before he turned a dark look at Nick. "Traffic? You did that on purpose."

"Well..." Right. That was Nick's guilty on-purpose face, so Greg knew it. "I thought you might like it. Found out about it, oh. 'Bout ten years ago. Seriously thought about bookin' Grissom a time or two, 'ccept he'd never be able to face the fact that there ain't nothin' for him to track down about it. You, though..."

Hm, and maybe he shouldn't be letting Nick caress his thumb over the web of skin close to his own, but it felt good. Even though he should've been angry at Nick. Even though he wasn't sure he even wanted to think about Grissom with a tongue up his--

Yeah, too late. "Me, though?"

Nick just grinned at him. "I knew you'd like it just about as much as it could be enjoyed, darlin'."

He could feel the flush crawling up his cheeks. "Well, it was pretty..." Mind-blowing. He'd had mind-blowing sex with a ghost? Damn, that was going to lead to a seriously creepy interest in the supernatural.

Hopefully, it wouldn't turn into a weird desire to hang around the morgue.

On the other hand, well, they all spent WAY more time there than was good for any human being. Especially Sarah.

He wondered if the ghost went in for giving it to girls, too.

"Yeah." Heavy-lidded look there, and a smirk that really just made Greg's whole body tingle. "Whadda you say about abandonin' breakfast and goin' back upstairs, darlin'? You can tell me all the dirty details. And..." Nick leaned close, the whisper spilling over Greg's cheek. "...maybe we could do it again."

Or do it the first time. Or whatever it would technically be by the time they got upstairs.

"Yeah." He swallowed down the huskiness in his voice, and grinned. "Yeah, let's go. They know where to bill the coffee."

After all. They could always come back down and eat pancakes a whole lot later.