Title: Rambo
By: Eleanor Lavish
Pairing: Archie/Bobby
Rating: PG
Summary: Archie wonders if he's always this obvious. Bobby has great hair, as per usual.

It had been three hours since Grissom and Sara had left to investigate a B&E, and Archie had spent the last thirty minutes trying to find something, anything to occupy his time. Well, anything that wasn't paperwork. He wasn't that desperate yet. Downtime in the lab could be oppressive, but he didn't dare start on the video project for the day shift when the Brain was due back any time with audio from the crime scene. Archie would never admit it, but Grissom scared the crap out of him.

He was on his fourth round of solitaire when he heard the familiar twang of "FIRING TWO!" from down the hall, followed by two sharp gunshots. He knew it was coming, but he jumped anyway. He jumped again a minute later when a curly head poked into the media lab.

"Hey!" Bobby's grin was always infectious, but tonight it was downright gleeful. "You have to come see this!"

Archie followed him around the corner to where a huge piece of a tree trunk had been placed upright in ballistics. Bobby was gently pulling a bullet from the base of the trunk.

"Look at this," Bobby took Archie's hand and dropped the warm bullet into the palm. "Have you ever seen anything like that?"

"Um...no?" It was a bullet. It was pretty large, and gold in color and..."Hollow?" The end of the bullet was stripped away to reveal an empty core.

"Not originally. This is from the gun Nicky brought in a few hours ago. Three bullets left and I thought the weight was off from regular 45's, so I tried a test fire. The center was wax. Melted upon either impact or firing. Proably a bit of both, which is why the trajectory is off. Like the liquid wax is jogging it off course."

Archie laughed. "Wax bullets?"

"Hey," Bobby grinned back. "After meat bullets, nothing seems weird. They'll be cool to test out though."

Archie spent the next five minutes trying to follow a speech on metallurgy and firing speed that might as well have been in Klingon. Actually, Klingon he probably could have followed. The confusion must have shown on his face, because Bobby stopped abruptly and smiled again. "You have no idea what I'm talking about here, do you?"

"Was it that obvious?"

"Yeah, but I guess I get the same look when you try to talk sound filters." Bobby's drawl was more pronounced than usual. It sounded slow and relaxed like iced tea. Archie glanced past him to the clock and stifled a yawn. "Better not let Ecklie catch you falling asleep on the job. I know something guaranteed to wake you right up."

Bobby's brown eyes were dancing now, and Archie wondered for the millionth time how someone as...sweet as Bobby Dawson came to work ballistics in Las Vegas. Bobby and guns just didn't seem to fit, except they did. Bobby almost never made a mistake. Which is why Archie was stunned when Bobby picked up a small handgun and wrapped Archie's fingers around it.

"Hey, Bobby, I don't think..."

"You've never fired a gun before, have you." It wasn't a question, and Archie began to wonder if he was always obvious, or just around Bobby Dawson. "Come on, it's easy."

"Bobby," Archie could hear the tightness in his voice. "What if Ecklie?"

"Ecklie is in bed at home, I'd wager. And I won't tell him if you won't. Besides, this one's mine. Consider us off the clock for a minute." He took position behind Archie facing the tree trunk and reached down to raise Archie's hand. "Don't worry about aiming for anything in particular other than the trunk. Use both hands to keep it steady."

Archie's other hand came up to hold the gun like he'd seen in the movies. It was small, but not light, and cold in his hands. He felt... cool. Like Aragorn-cool. Or like James Bond if he were really into computers. Bobby was really close behind him now, and Archie started slightly when he felt a warm thigh pressing his legs apart.

"You can't stand all straight like that," Bobby's voice was light and close, and Archie leaned slightly into the breath on his neck. "You've gotta brace yourself a little more." Bobby's hands gripped Archie's hips firmly and twisted him about twenty degrees left. Archie was damn sure he'd never been this close to Bobby Dawson. Not in the break room, not in the locker room between shifts. He would have remembered that Bobby smelled like apples and coca-cola.

"Okay." Archie wondered how many filters he would need to strip Bobby's voice of all that sugar. Not that the sugar wasn't nice. "Go for it.... FIRING ONE!"

Archie pulled the trigger.

It was like a little bolt of lightening hit and pushed him backwards into Bobby. It was loud and fast, and his shoulder hurt a little and his hand was shaking. Wow, what a fucking wuss you are, his brain relayed to him after a few tense seconds. He didn't register how close Bobby still was until tanned hands drew the gun out of his grip.

"Not exactly what you imagined, huh?"

"Not... really. Um, no." Archie felt himself flushing in embarrassment. Bobby did this every day, and they were in the lab, and it was one shot. Into a tree. It shouldn't have been that... scary.

"Never is. Everyone thinks they're gonna be Rambo." Bobby was still smiling, but it was softer.

Archie tried smiling back. "I would never in a million years think I was Rambo."

"No, I guess you wouldn't." Bobby cleared the gun with a sharp snap and sat down on his stool. Archie lingered by the doorway. "Everyone should fire a gun at least once, though. It's a 'Know thine enemy' thing."

"You think guns are the enemy?"

"I keep 'em close for a reason. I firmly believe that people kill people but... okay. Look at it this way: A computer virus wipes out your whole harddrive, you can't be mad at the virus, right? You're mad at the guy who made it."

Archie nodded. Bobby was always good at finding analogies that worked.

"But you have to admit—all the damage was done by the virus. Without it, you just have some pissed off guy sitting in his living room."

Archie smiled. "So, people kill people, but guns help?"

Bobby laughed out loud. "Yeah! Pretty much."

"So, why do you do this, then? Ballistics?"

"Why do you do what you do?"

"Are you kidding? Have you seen my lab? My friends are so jealous they can't think straight. Best job ever."

"Ah." Bobby looked him in the eye and for some reason Archie held his breath. He'd always thought of Bobby as one of the most open people at CSI, but as he watched, it seemed like a curtain lifted. Like a little sadness and a glint of anger were allowed to show for a quick second. "I do it to catch the bad guys."

It wasn't a shocking statement, but it hung there in the air. The way Bobby had said it, Archie couldn't help but wonder if somewhere in Bobby's past there were bad guys who'd gotten away. The idea of Bobby in pain twisted something deep in Archie's gut, and he resisted the urge to reach out and pull Bobby from the stool and hold him close. Archie closed his eyes and leaned on the doorframe.

When he opened them again, Bobby was smiling, standing inches from him. His eyes were soft again, and his lips were too, easing Archie's apart with a slow swipe of his tongue. As Archie leaned in to taste Bobby and sweetness and coca-cola, his fingers twining in the curls at Bobby's neck, Archie wondered again if he were really that obvious.

Or was it just Bobby Dawson?