[fic] You Don't Have To Ask: Reaching The Breaking Point | CSI: Miami | Speed/Ryan/Eric
Title: You Don't Have To Ask
Chapter: 02. Reaching The Breaking Point
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Characters/Pairing: Speed/Ryan/Eric
Rating: PG-13 for language and sex talk...or something?
Word Count: 2,050
Warnings/Spoilers: Um...A/U...since Speed is alive XD That's pretty much it for this chapter
Disclaimer: I don't own *sad*
A/N:For tanzensiemit
I realized that the joke from the last chapter never got explained...the reason Speed said 'cuz your face is still claen' is because if the night staff catch you sleeping, they draw on your face.
I mean, I would, and I'm night staff...Wal-Mart or not lol
It had been a couple weeks since Speed had come back to work. He fell right back into place without any troubles.
He’d even come to know Ryan pretty good, though Calleigh had reminded him that he could only look and not touch on more than one occasion.
“Hey Ryan,” Speed said, popping his head into the trace lab.
“Yeah?”
“You seen Eric?”
“Last I saw him he was in ballistics with Calleigh.”
“Kay, thanks.”
“Oh, hey Speed!”
“Yeah?”
“Tell him I need to talk to him when you see him.”
“Will do.”
Speed left the trace lab and headed down towards ballistics. The one thing he had really noticed about Ryan was his attachment to the Cuban. At first he had thought nothing of it. Eric had been the same when he first joined the team and he had taken the rookie under his wing.
But now he was beginning to wonder. There had already been a couple of instances when Speed had asked Eric out for drinks, only to learn that Eric and Ryan had already made plans. Of course he had always been welcome to join, but it was starting to grate on his nerves.
Eric had specifically told him he wouldn’t get heavily involved with a coworker, in case things ever went south. That was another reason why Speed had never perused his deeper feelings towards the man.
Of course he knew Eric would be with other people, they’d gone bar hopping together often enough to know that.
But now Speed was beginning to think the person who had ‘spoken for’ Ryan, as Calleigh had put it, was Eric.
So where did that leave him?
Speed had decided it was time to confront Eric about this.
“Eric.” Speed said, entering the lab where Eric was watching Calleigh try and match striations.
“Hey Speed.”
“Can we talk for a sec?”
“Uh...yeah. Sure thing.”
Calleigh glanced up at Speed with a cocked eyebrow, but he wouldn’t look at her. He simply turned and waited out in the hall for Eric to wait for him.
“What do you think’s up?” Eric whispered quickly.
“I dunno,” Calleigh lied. She had a pretty good idea.
Eric shrugged and went to join Speed out in the hall. Speed led him down to a more secluded hall with very little traffic.
“What’s up Speed?”
“Are you sleeping with Ryan?”
“What?”
“Just answer the question Eric.”
“Yeah...yeah, I am.” Eric replied, frowning. “It’s not like we’re breaking any rules.”
“I know that.” Speed laughed, “You think I wouldn’t know that? I was just checking. I’d thought so, but I wasn’t sure.”
“What made you think about it?”
“Because I know you Eric. And that boy has unintentionally given you away to me. Of course, with those flashy eyes of his, I don’t doubt you would have ever been able to resist the temptation.”
“You’re not mad are you?”
“No, should I be?”
“Well, no. I just thought...because before...nevermind.”
The almost guilty look on Eric’s face broke Speed’s heart. Because really he was mad, and he knew Eric knew it.
Eric had been underhanded, and now he felt bad about it. He knew how Speed felt. There was once a time he may have felt the same. But Speed was a heartbreak risk; one Eric wasn’t able to deal with. Twice the man had been shot, and each time it had scared the crap out of Eric.
If he ever got too attached...
Eric had gotten close to Ryan in an attempt to distance himself from Speed. He wondered for a fleeting moment if that had been a mistake.
“I gotta get back to Calleigh,” He muttered lamely, turning around and walking away. Speed sighed as he left.
He never bothered to tell Eric Ryan wanted to talk to him.
***
In the weeks that followed, Speed distance himself from Calleigh and Eric. He only talked with them when the case called for it, he politely refused when they asked him out for dinner or drinks after shift, and the thing that got to them most, he stopped being the flirtatious tease they’d come to love over the years.
Most of his free time was spent with Alexx or Horatio, even Valera was seeing more of the man.
Calleigh was quick to blame Eric for the sudden reclusive attitude their friend had taken.
“What did you say to him?” Calleigh demanded, after cornering Eric who had just come out of the shower.
Eric backed into a wall, wide eyed, holding his towel tight around his waist.
“What?”
“Tim, Eric! He’s been avoiding us, and you have been avoiding him! What did you say to him?”
“I...I didn’t say anything.”
“Eric...” Calleigh growled in that threatening voice that always made Eric feel like a scared child.
“He...he asked me a question and I answered him.”
“About Ryan?”
“Yeah.”
“Eric, you are an idiot, you know that?!”
“I’ve begun to realize.”
Calleigh sighed and backed away from the Cuban.
“What am I supposed to do Calleigh?” Eric asked, in a half hearted demanding tone. “It’s Speed...and he’s...he’s a risk. Ryan isn’t.”
“So you’d break your best friend’s heart to save your own?”
“What would you do?!”
“I...I don’t know,” Calleigh admitted with a sigh.
*
“Hey Speed.”
Speed glanced up from the computer he’d been working on to look at Ryan.
“Hey.”
“You got anything on those tapes yet?”
“DC just left to go find some of his other software. We can’t quite get everything...”
“Oh.” Ryan said, pulling up a seat beside Speed.
“Get anything from trace?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Ryan said, pulling out a slip of paper from his pocket. “The unknown substance was pancake batter.”
“Really?”
“Well...it could be waffle batter too, but yeah.”
Speed shook his head at the comment, unable to stop the small smile that appeared.
“Ah, a smile. There’s something we haven’t seen in a while.” Ryan said with a grin. Speed glanced over, the smile fading.
“Aw, c’mon Speed. What’s your problem lately? All I heard from everyone was how much fun you were to be around. You were like that when we first met, but now...”
“Now what?”
“I dunno, forget I said anything.” Ryan said, shaking his head. Speed noticed the darkened look on Ryan’s face and he sighed.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Things have been rough on me. But you don’t deserve me taking it out on you.”
“Nah, it’s okay. I know what you mean.”
“Huh?”
“Nail to the eye, remember?”
“Oh yeah, Alexx had mentioned that.”
“I don’t think Eric and I ever fought so much.”
“Yeah, well Eric’s hot headed, and deserves it once in a while.”
Speed couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice, and Ryan looked at him in surprise. Speed had looked back at the computer screen though, and never caught the look. Ryan studied Speed, a lopsided half-frown on his face as he thought.
“Hey, you wanna grab some drinks after shift?”
“Not really.”
“C’mon Speed. You gotta socialize at some point.”
“I socialize.”
“Speed, Alexx and H don’t count.”
“Don’t let Alexx hear you say that.”
Ryan grinned, “C’mon.”
“Fine.”
Ryan beamed. He stood and patted Speed’s shoulder. “Great, well I’ve gotta get over to DNA. See ya later.”
“Yeah, later.” Speed replied, not looking up from the computer screen.
***
Eric had been passing by the lay out room all day, glancing in at Speed, and walking away. Speed had noticed, but never left his evidence. If Eric wanted to talk to him, he could come talk to him.
Eric walked passed again. Speed finally looked up at him.
“Eric.”
Eric popped his head in. “Yeah?”
“Do you want something?”
“Why?”
“Well, you’ve only walked by like twenty times. What do you want?”
“Oh...nothing really...”
“I know you well enough to know when you’re lying Eric.”
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“What?”
“Yeah, and Calleigh too. You’ve been avoiding us since...since our talk.”
“What, you mean the one where you told me you were involved with Ryan after specifically telling me you wouldn’t get involved with office romances. And this isn’t even the first time, because I know about your thing with Natalia.”
“Speed, you don’t get it.”
“What? What don’t I get Eric?! The fact that you can lie to my face, or the fact that you’ll sleep with me and dump me?”
“Speed, you’re a risk!” Eric snapped.
“What?”
Speed couldn’t remember when he had stood up, or when he and Eric had come to stand at a face off.
Anger was seething from every pore. He couldn’t recall ever being so angry, especially not at Eric. Eric seemed equally angry, though not all of his anger was directed at Speed. At lot of it was with himself.
“You’re a risk.” Eric’s voice had lowered from a yell to barely above a whisper. His features softened and he looked sad. “You’ve been shot twice, you’re always out there on that bike of yours, you have a general disregard for everything...I can’t deal with that. It’s hard, going from the guy on top to hopelessly in love with a risk taker. I don’t get how chicks do it. But I can’t.”
He turned on his heel before Speed had a chance to retaliate, and walked away. Speed watched him through the glass walls before sitting back down.
What had just happened here? Speed wasn’t sure which part of Eric’s speech had shocked him the most. He was having a hard time wrapping his brain around it.
He stared blankly at the evidence that was spread out before him. Without bothering to clean it up, he stood and headed to his one and only sense of comfort.
Alexx.
It took him less than 2 minutes to make his way down to the morgue.
“Alexx.”
The coroner looked up from the autopsy she was in the middle of.
“Timmy! What have I told you---?”
“Sorry!” Speed said quickly, backing back out the door. It wasn’t the first time he’d burst in during an autopsy, and he wasn’t ready to get chewed out again.
He turned and grabbed a smock and a mask off the wall. He pulled out a pair of spare gloves he had in his pocket and headed back in.
“Better.”
“Alexx, are you pulling that guys intestines out?”
“Yes I am. Poor baby had a---”
“I don’t want to know.” Speed muttered, skirting around the table to face Alexx. He glanced down, decided it was a bad idea, and kept his eyes steady on Alexx’s head.
“So what brings you down here baby? I’ve given Ryan all the results from your case.”
“I know, I just...I needed to talk.”
“Talk away baby.”
“It’s about Eric...”
Alexx looked up from her slicing through large intestinal cords.
“What about him?”
***
Ryan wasn’t normally one to chat away about anything that popped in his head. Speed had learnt early on the man was more reserved than most; he liked to keep private things private.
He also learnt that the young CSI was a very happy drunk.
So while Ryan blabbed away with a cheerier air than he’d ever seen before, Speed simple sat and stared at him. His argument with Eric earlier had been nudging him all day, refusing to be forgotten about.
Alexx had agreed that what Eric had done was underhanded. Of course the woman knew her boy too well, and she had warned him not to try and seek revenge the same devious way.
Speed couldn’t help himself. It was the way he was.
“Hey Ryan, stop talking for a minute.”
“What?”
“I want to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
The second thoughts were there and gone within the same moment. “Are you with Eric?”
“With?”
“Like...seeing him?”
“I see Eric everyday.”
“I mean like...sleeping with him.”
“Oh, we sleep together yeah.” Ryan said with a nod and a silly little grin. Then he paused and looked at Speed, the little grin turning into a more seductive smirk. “But we were never...exclusive. I know Eric too well for that.”
“Don’t we all, my friend, don’t we all.”
“Hey Speed.”
“Hmmm?”
“You...you wanna head to my place? It’s like, two blocks from here.”
Speed grinned. Things were going just as he had intended them.
Chapter: 02. Reaching The Breaking Point
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Characters/Pairing: Speed/Ryan/Eric
Rating: PG-13 for language and sex talk...or something?
Word Count: 2,050
Warnings/Spoilers: Um...A/U...since Speed is alive XD That's pretty much it for this chapter
Disclaimer: I don't own *sad*
A/N:For tanzensiemit
I realized that the joke from the last chapter never got explained...the reason Speed said 'cuz your face is still claen' is because if the night staff catch you sleeping, they draw on your face.
I mean, I would, and I'm night staff...Wal-Mart or not lol
It had been a couple weeks since Speed had come back to work. He fell right back into place without any troubles.
He’d even come to know Ryan pretty good, though Calleigh had reminded him that he could only look and not touch on more than one occasion.
“Hey Ryan,” Speed said, popping his head into the trace lab.
“Yeah?”
“You seen Eric?”
“Last I saw him he was in ballistics with Calleigh.”
“Kay, thanks.”
“Oh, hey Speed!”
“Yeah?”
“Tell him I need to talk to him when you see him.”
“Will do.”
Speed left the trace lab and headed down towards ballistics. The one thing he had really noticed about Ryan was his attachment to the Cuban. At first he had thought nothing of it. Eric had been the same when he first joined the team and he had taken the rookie under his wing.
But now he was beginning to wonder. There had already been a couple of instances when Speed had asked Eric out for drinks, only to learn that Eric and Ryan had already made plans. Of course he had always been welcome to join, but it was starting to grate on his nerves.
Eric had specifically told him he wouldn’t get heavily involved with a coworker, in case things ever went south. That was another reason why Speed had never perused his deeper feelings towards the man.
Of course he knew Eric would be with other people, they’d gone bar hopping together often enough to know that.
But now Speed was beginning to think the person who had ‘spoken for’ Ryan, as Calleigh had put it, was Eric.
So where did that leave him?
Speed had decided it was time to confront Eric about this.
“Eric.” Speed said, entering the lab where Eric was watching Calleigh try and match striations.
“Hey Speed.”
“Can we talk for a sec?”
“Uh...yeah. Sure thing.”
Calleigh glanced up at Speed with a cocked eyebrow, but he wouldn’t look at her. He simply turned and waited out in the hall for Eric to wait for him.
“What do you think’s up?” Eric whispered quickly.
“I dunno,” Calleigh lied. She had a pretty good idea.
Eric shrugged and went to join Speed out in the hall. Speed led him down to a more secluded hall with very little traffic.
“What’s up Speed?”
“Are you sleeping with Ryan?”
“What?”
“Just answer the question Eric.”
“Yeah...yeah, I am.” Eric replied, frowning. “It’s not like we’re breaking any rules.”
“I know that.” Speed laughed, “You think I wouldn’t know that? I was just checking. I’d thought so, but I wasn’t sure.”
“What made you think about it?”
“Because I know you Eric. And that boy has unintentionally given you away to me. Of course, with those flashy eyes of his, I don’t doubt you would have ever been able to resist the temptation.”
“You’re not mad are you?”
“No, should I be?”
“Well, no. I just thought...because before...nevermind.”
The almost guilty look on Eric’s face broke Speed’s heart. Because really he was mad, and he knew Eric knew it.
Eric had been underhanded, and now he felt bad about it. He knew how Speed felt. There was once a time he may have felt the same. But Speed was a heartbreak risk; one Eric wasn’t able to deal with. Twice the man had been shot, and each time it had scared the crap out of Eric.
If he ever got too attached...
Eric had gotten close to Ryan in an attempt to distance himself from Speed. He wondered for a fleeting moment if that had been a mistake.
“I gotta get back to Calleigh,” He muttered lamely, turning around and walking away. Speed sighed as he left.
He never bothered to tell Eric Ryan wanted to talk to him.
***
In the weeks that followed, Speed distance himself from Calleigh and Eric. He only talked with them when the case called for it, he politely refused when they asked him out for dinner or drinks after shift, and the thing that got to them most, he stopped being the flirtatious tease they’d come to love over the years.
Most of his free time was spent with Alexx or Horatio, even Valera was seeing more of the man.
Calleigh was quick to blame Eric for the sudden reclusive attitude their friend had taken.
“What did you say to him?” Calleigh demanded, after cornering Eric who had just come out of the shower.
Eric backed into a wall, wide eyed, holding his towel tight around his waist.
“What?”
“Tim, Eric! He’s been avoiding us, and you have been avoiding him! What did you say to him?”
“I...I didn’t say anything.”
“Eric...” Calleigh growled in that threatening voice that always made Eric feel like a scared child.
“He...he asked me a question and I answered him.”
“About Ryan?”
“Yeah.”
“Eric, you are an idiot, you know that?!”
“I’ve begun to realize.”
Calleigh sighed and backed away from the Cuban.
“What am I supposed to do Calleigh?” Eric asked, in a half hearted demanding tone. “It’s Speed...and he’s...he’s a risk. Ryan isn’t.”
“So you’d break your best friend’s heart to save your own?”
“What would you do?!”
“I...I don’t know,” Calleigh admitted with a sigh.
*
“Hey Speed.”
Speed glanced up from the computer he’d been working on to look at Ryan.
“Hey.”
“You got anything on those tapes yet?”
“DC just left to go find some of his other software. We can’t quite get everything...”
“Oh.” Ryan said, pulling up a seat beside Speed.
“Get anything from trace?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Ryan said, pulling out a slip of paper from his pocket. “The unknown substance was pancake batter.”
“Really?”
“Well...it could be waffle batter too, but yeah.”
Speed shook his head at the comment, unable to stop the small smile that appeared.
“Ah, a smile. There’s something we haven’t seen in a while.” Ryan said with a grin. Speed glanced over, the smile fading.
“Aw, c’mon Speed. What’s your problem lately? All I heard from everyone was how much fun you were to be around. You were like that when we first met, but now...”
“Now what?”
“I dunno, forget I said anything.” Ryan said, shaking his head. Speed noticed the darkened look on Ryan’s face and he sighed.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Things have been rough on me. But you don’t deserve me taking it out on you.”
“Nah, it’s okay. I know what you mean.”
“Huh?”
“Nail to the eye, remember?”
“Oh yeah, Alexx had mentioned that.”
“I don’t think Eric and I ever fought so much.”
“Yeah, well Eric’s hot headed, and deserves it once in a while.”
Speed couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice, and Ryan looked at him in surprise. Speed had looked back at the computer screen though, and never caught the look. Ryan studied Speed, a lopsided half-frown on his face as he thought.
“Hey, you wanna grab some drinks after shift?”
“Not really.”
“C’mon Speed. You gotta socialize at some point.”
“I socialize.”
“Speed, Alexx and H don’t count.”
“Don’t let Alexx hear you say that.”
Ryan grinned, “C’mon.”
“Fine.”
Ryan beamed. He stood and patted Speed’s shoulder. “Great, well I’ve gotta get over to DNA. See ya later.”
“Yeah, later.” Speed replied, not looking up from the computer screen.
***
Eric had been passing by the lay out room all day, glancing in at Speed, and walking away. Speed had noticed, but never left his evidence. If Eric wanted to talk to him, he could come talk to him.
Eric walked passed again. Speed finally looked up at him.
“Eric.”
Eric popped his head in. “Yeah?”
“Do you want something?”
“Why?”
“Well, you’ve only walked by like twenty times. What do you want?”
“Oh...nothing really...”
“I know you well enough to know when you’re lying Eric.”
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“What?”
“Yeah, and Calleigh too. You’ve been avoiding us since...since our talk.”
“What, you mean the one where you told me you were involved with Ryan after specifically telling me you wouldn’t get involved with office romances. And this isn’t even the first time, because I know about your thing with Natalia.”
“Speed, you don’t get it.”
“What? What don’t I get Eric?! The fact that you can lie to my face, or the fact that you’ll sleep with me and dump me?”
“Speed, you’re a risk!” Eric snapped.
“What?”
Speed couldn’t remember when he had stood up, or when he and Eric had come to stand at a face off.
Anger was seething from every pore. He couldn’t recall ever being so angry, especially not at Eric. Eric seemed equally angry, though not all of his anger was directed at Speed. At lot of it was with himself.
“You’re a risk.” Eric’s voice had lowered from a yell to barely above a whisper. His features softened and he looked sad. “You’ve been shot twice, you’re always out there on that bike of yours, you have a general disregard for everything...I can’t deal with that. It’s hard, going from the guy on top to hopelessly in love with a risk taker. I don’t get how chicks do it. But I can’t.”
He turned on his heel before Speed had a chance to retaliate, and walked away. Speed watched him through the glass walls before sitting back down.
What had just happened here? Speed wasn’t sure which part of Eric’s speech had shocked him the most. He was having a hard time wrapping his brain around it.
He stared blankly at the evidence that was spread out before him. Without bothering to clean it up, he stood and headed to his one and only sense of comfort.
Alexx.
It took him less than 2 minutes to make his way down to the morgue.
“Alexx.”
The coroner looked up from the autopsy she was in the middle of.
“Timmy! What have I told you---?”
“Sorry!” Speed said quickly, backing back out the door. It wasn’t the first time he’d burst in during an autopsy, and he wasn’t ready to get chewed out again.
He turned and grabbed a smock and a mask off the wall. He pulled out a pair of spare gloves he had in his pocket and headed back in.
“Better.”
“Alexx, are you pulling that guys intestines out?”
“Yes I am. Poor baby had a---”
“I don’t want to know.” Speed muttered, skirting around the table to face Alexx. He glanced down, decided it was a bad idea, and kept his eyes steady on Alexx’s head.
“So what brings you down here baby? I’ve given Ryan all the results from your case.”
“I know, I just...I needed to talk.”
“Talk away baby.”
“It’s about Eric...”
Alexx looked up from her slicing through large intestinal cords.
“What about him?”
***
Ryan wasn’t normally one to chat away about anything that popped in his head. Speed had learnt early on the man was more reserved than most; he liked to keep private things private.
He also learnt that the young CSI was a very happy drunk.
So while Ryan blabbed away with a cheerier air than he’d ever seen before, Speed simple sat and stared at him. His argument with Eric earlier had been nudging him all day, refusing to be forgotten about.
Alexx had agreed that what Eric had done was underhanded. Of course the woman knew her boy too well, and she had warned him not to try and seek revenge the same devious way.
Speed couldn’t help himself. It was the way he was.
“Hey Ryan, stop talking for a minute.”
“What?”
“I want to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
The second thoughts were there and gone within the same moment. “Are you with Eric?”
“With?”
“Like...seeing him?”
“I see Eric everyday.”
“I mean like...sleeping with him.”
“Oh, we sleep together yeah.” Ryan said with a nod and a silly little grin. Then he paused and looked at Speed, the little grin turning into a more seductive smirk. “But we were never...exclusive. I know Eric too well for that.”
“Don’t we all, my friend, don’t we all.”
“Hey Speed.”
“Hmmm?”
“You...you wanna head to my place? It’s like, two blocks from here.”
Speed grinned. Things were going just as he had intended them.