Title: Bleeding Love
Author: msmaggs
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: NC-17
AN: This is a post-episode fic for 9x5(Leave Out All The Rest
Warning: WiP
Summary: CSIs should know that all broken hearts eventually bleed out. A post-episode story for 9x5 focusing on my favorite dysfunctional characters dealing with case files and one too many crimes of the heart.
***
Taking a seat at the interrogation table, Jim Brass eyed the trembling eighteen year old murder suspect seated before him. "Tell me, Travis, why would a clean-cut kid with a 4.0 average and a football scholarship at USC, brutally murder the girl next door?" Narrowing his eyes, he rephrased the question, "Why'd you kill Maggie McMahon?" When he didn't get a reply, he barked, "Why did you kill your sweet little girlfriend, Mr. Wilson?"
"I didn't k…." The word caught in the terrified young man's throat. "I didn't do it." He anxiously ran his fingers through his blond wavy hair. "I swear."
"Do you believe him?" Jim queried, glancing at Stokes, who was leaning against the wall. "Because I don't believe him." In the hallway, he had asked his co-worker to play the role of good 'ol boy, good cop to his jaded bad cop. "We have enough to book him, so…"
"If you don't mind." As planned, Nick pulled up a chair next to the anxious jock and said, "I'd like to ask him a few more questions first."
"It's your breath to waste." On cue, Jim stood and huffed, "I'll be back."
Fully immersed in his role, Nick kindly asked the profusely sweating jock, "Are ya thirsty? We have a water cooler at the end of the hall."
Grateful for what he had previously been denied, Travis nodded, "Please."
The CSI motioned for the uniformed officer to take a walk. It was a routine he had played out with Jim and Officer Stanton dozens of times. "Could you grab him a big cup? Thanks." Returning his attention to the jock, Nick flashed a disarming smile. "You know I played ball in college too."
Forgetting the horror of his situation for a moment, Travis asked, "What position?"
"Receiver, like you." Nick's grin expanded. "Nothin' in the world beats catchin' a game winnin' ball and hearin' the crowd go wild. Nothin'. Not even sex."
Returning the CSI's smile, Travis said, "Best moment of my life was senior year, catching the game winning ball at the state championships."
"I bet you partied big that night." Placing his right hand over his heart, Nick sweetly said, "You know when I left for college, I swore to my mama that I'd always be the same respectful, dependable, God-fearin' small town kid she'd raised. I had every intention of keepin' that promise too, but after my first big game at A&M…" He shook his head and heaved a regretful sigh. "When I walked off the field to the roar of 83,000 fans, every one of them thinkin' I was a hero, hell, I forgot every promise I ever made to my mama and the Lord." He leaned closer. "Girls threw themselves at me after that. Reeeally nice lookin' girls, but not really nice girls. I'm sure it works the same today."
"Yeah," Travis quietly concurred.
"I think you and I have somethin' else in common. When we left home on our scholarships, we left girlfriends behind. Nice girls, who looked nice enough to take to the prom, but who looked nothin' like the chicks givin' it away for free on campus. My girlfriend's name was Suzie Walker, yours was Maggie McMahon, may she rest in peace." The seasoned CSI studied the suspect's eyes. "These last few months I bet you were livin' like a god on campus, bangin' every babe who tosses her thong at you, while poor little clueless Maggie was back here wearin' a purity ring and pullin' straight A's in high school. That's a recipe for disaster right there. What happened when you came back to town for homecoming this week, jocko? Did ya get pissed off when Maggie refused to give ya what you were used to havin' on Saturday night?"
His emotions returning with a vengeance, Travis squeaked, "I didn't plan on…"
"Killin' her?" Nick snipped. "You're sayin' she accidentally got cut up?"
"No, I didn't want to…I…I took her out to our secret spot on the field to..." Staring at a worn patch of floor, the guilt-ridden boyfriend, confessed, "I didn't want to tell her over the phone."
"Tell her what, man?"
"That I cheated on her. That I wanted to break up, that it was…over."
"Oh, it's over alright," Nick coolly replied, "your girlfriend is on a slab in the morgue. That's as over as it gets. Yep, no graduation day for Maggie, or wedding bells, or honeymoon." Watching the boy fall apart, he went for the kill. "She didn't die a virgin though, because you slept with her before you broke up with her…before you fought with her…" though gritted teeth he added, "before you left her to bleed out on a blanket under the stars."
"No!"
"No, you didn't sleep with her?"
"No!" Dizzy and confused, Travis corrected his answer. "I mean yes, I slept with her, but no I didn't kill her. She was alive when I left her there." Lifting his eyes, he pleaded for the CSI to believe him. "I thought if I slept with her that night that maybe I could go back to USC and not want the other girls, that maybe seeing Maggie once a month would be enough, but by the time we were done, I realized how stupid I was for thinking that and I couldn't even look at her. She knew something was wrong and when she pushed for an answer, I confessed everything that had happened at school, and then I told her what I had come home to say. She started bawling and begging me not to break up with her. We had music when we went to the field to fool around. Maggie had her shuffle in the player and she blasted Bleeding Love. When she started singing the words as she cried…I couldn't take it." Soaking his USC t-shirt with tears, he remorsefully said, "I had to leave."
"No, you chose to leave." His anger mounting, Nick snarled, "You took your high school sweetheart's cherry, then told her you had to break up with her because you wanted to screw sluts at USC without feeling guilty, and while she was reeling from the shock of all that, you decided that the best thing for you would be to leave a naked and distraught seventeen year old girl alone on a deserted field at midnight with no way to get home!" Nick glared at the bastard. "I bet your mama's gonna real proud of you when she comes back to town and hears that story."
"I know I should have stayed!" Travis screamed, "I'm guilty of not staying, of not making sure she got home safely, but I didn't kill her!"
"I don't know if you killed her or not," Nick flatly told the blubbering jock, "but I'm absolutely certain that you're responsible for Maggie not bein' alive today."
Accepting the truth, the young man groveled, "I'm sorry."
"Don't tell me you're sorry." Lurching out of his chair, Nick yelled, "Tell Maggie's parents you're sorry they had to ID their daughter's body at the morgue! Tell Maggie's kid sister you're sorry she's an only child now!"
The totality of his actions overwhelming him, Travis grabbed his gut. "I'm gonna be sick."
"Good!" Nick stood by and watched the boy wretch. "Here comes that water you were askin' for, Romeo." He nodded at the returning cop. "Sorry about the smell. I'll make sure janitorial is called ASAP." Brass, who had been watching from behind the glass, was already in the hall waiting for him.
"You really have a knack for making them puke."
"It's a gift." Shaking his head, the tired CSI grumbled, "He's guilty of bein' a horny, self-centered jock, and a shitty friend, but I don't think he's the killer, Jim."
"My thoughts exactly." Brass checked his watch. "Shit, it's almost nine. I have to go meet the new Undersheriff and play nice with others for an hour. Text me if the DNA results come in."
"Will do." Nick continued toward the building exit with his co-worker. "I really need some fresh air."
"I hear Montana still has some." Jim slapped on his sunglasses before stepping outside. "Maybe that's where Sara went."
"Hell, I don't think Grissom even knows where she went this time."
"He doesn't," Brass overshared before heading to his car.
Just as he was debating taking a walk for an hour, Nick saw Maggie McMahon's parents exiting the building, consoling one another. Quickly walking in the opposite direction, he sighed, "No rest for the grieving or the weary."
"Did you get some sleep?" Catherine remarked upon entering Gil's office and seeing her friend looking rested for the first time in a month.
Grissom removed his glasses and rocked back in his chair. "Twelve hours to be exact." Knowing his friend would jump to the wrong conclusions, he opted not to mention he slept at Heather's.
"I take it you heard from Sara."
"Yes, I did. She's doing well." His lover's words replaying in his head, Grissom quietly added, "She's on a research boat, pursuing her Ph.D, and she's…happy."
"I'm glad someone is."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Still aching over Warrick's loss, Catherine vented, "You're a zombie, Nick's shutting down, Greg won't shut up – he's dabbing his eyes in creepy counselor Alwick's office on a regular basis, Hodges is…Hodges, and Riley is too damn fresh and perky for me to stomach when I'm feeling ancient and exhausted." Dropping into a guest chair, she heaved a sigh, "Next time you talk to Sara, ask her if there is any extra space on the boat."
Grissom silently prayed for an opportunity to ask Sara that very question, but on his own behalf. "I will."
"I promise," Greg snipped into his cell phone while navigating the bustling lab hallway.
"Don't get snippy with me, Gregory."
"Mom..." Ducking into an unoccupied layout room, he sweetly said, "Look, you know I love you and you know there's nothing I'd like more than to be feasting on your home cooking on Thanksgiving, but it's just not possible. We're neck-deep in backlog, but the deal is we work through it now and then we all get a week off at Christmas. I've seen the memo, the department is bringing in a relief team. I have it in writing. I will definitely be home on Christmas."
"God willing." The always overly concerned mother let her darkest thought slip, "I'm sure Warrick Brown made the same promise to his family right before he was blown to pieces."
Closing his eyes, Greg forced the image of Warrick's autopsy photos from his mind. "We had an agreement. We agreed to focus on the positive, remember?"
"You're right, honey, I'm sorry." Connie Sanders moved on to an equally irritating subject. "How's your love life, sweetheart? Seeing anyone new?"
The exasperated son rolled his eyes. "Mom, I too tired to date my hand, no less a person."
"That's code for I'm still too hung up on…"
"We had an agreement about that too, mother."
"Honey, it's never going to work out. Can't you see that? I can. I bet Sarah Palin can see it from her house."
Rather than yelling at her to mind her own business for the millionth time, he opted for a convenient truth, "Sorry, my break is over, I have to get back to work."
"But you work the night shift and it's ten in the morning."
"Love you, mom!" He pretended not to hear her 'overworked and underpaid' lecture. "Tell dad I emailed him that stuff he asked for, and give Nana and Papa a hug for me. Bye!" After snapping his phone shut, he took advantage of the soundproof room and followed his counselor's orders, releasing his frustration in a primal scream. "Wow, that really does feel good." Before he could congratulate himself for getting a grip, Nick sailed into the room and ruined his peace of mind.
"Hey, do you know the song Bleedin' Love?"
"Too well." Greg stared at Nick, who was zoned out thumbing though a case file and ignoring him. "Hello?"
"Huh?"
"Why'd you ask me about the song?"
"Sorry, I've got a million things on my mind. That case, the high school girl on the football field. I was questioning her boyfriend and he said he left her on the field 'cause she started singin' along with Bleedin' Love. I thought maybe there might be somethin' in the lyrics."
"Maybe this will help you figure things out." Fishing out his iPod from his pocket, Greg said, "You'll find the song under the playlist titled 'Love sucks'." With that he strolled out of the room whistling the song's chorus.
"Hey, Greg!" Nick stepped into the hall. "Sanders!" When it was clear that he was being ignored, Nick returned to the layout room, took a seat on the floor, and stuffed the iPod's buds, into his ears. "Whatever." He shook his head as he scrolled through the alphabetized playlists: Acid Rock, Bob Marley, Country Crap, Greg is a Hopeful Romantic, Love Sucks, Mommy Wouldn't Approve, Schoolhouse Rock, Sex Grinds, Somebody Shoot Me, Our Songs.
Denying his curious mind, Nick forced himself to focus on the McMahon case and selected Bleeding Love. He discovered the song's first line was shockingly autobiographical. 'Closed off from love, I didn't need the pain. Once or twice was enough and it was all in vain. Time starts to pass; before you know it you're frozen…'
"If a relationship can't go forward, it withers."
Grissom paused the video to study Sara's eyes. "She really believes I want her to move on." And why wouldn't she after he had spent years pushing her away? "That's not what I want," he whispered to the grainy image on his laptop screen. "I don't want this job, the lab, my career." His fingertips grazing her cheek, he uttered the words Sara had been waiting to hear for nearly a decade, "I don't need any of this, I just need you."
But was it too late? Drowning in regret, he wished he could turn back time and be the man that Sara had always needed him to be, instead of a romantic coward who had disappointed her time and time again. Looking back, it was easy to see that her heartbroken departure was long overdue. She had been patiently waiting for far too long. She deserved better, and when he couldn't give it to her, she had no choice but to look for it elsewhere. On a boat. In the middle of nowhere. Anywhere but Vegas.
He hit play.
"You don't have to worry about me anymore."
Watching Sara force a smile, he could tell she was desperately trying to close old wounds.
'You cut me open and I keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love'. Nick continued scanning the lyrics he had jotted down, his eyes stopping at a particularly poignant line. 'But nothing's greater than the rush that comes with your embrace. And in this world of loneliness I see your face'. Suddenly case file analysis was replaced with happy memories playing like movies in his mind. "Shit." The next thing he knew he was helplessly scrolling to the playlist titled 'Schoolhouse Rock' and scanning the song list for Interjections! "Good times." By the time his favorite part of the song came on, the depressed CSI was grinning like a fool and enthusiastically tapping and signing along to the tune. "Interjections! Show excitement. Oh! Or emotion. Hey! They're generally set apart from a sentence by an exclamation point, or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong."
"Nicky!" Catherine called from the open doorway. Waving to get his attention, she asked, "Why are you holed up in here doing whatever that was you were doing?"
After tugging out the ear buds, he replied, "Hey, gimme a break. I just worked eleven hours. I was takin' five freakin' minutes to clear my head before I dive back into the pile of paperwork on my desk."
"Don't snap at me, I'm just the messenger."
"Sorry."
Strutting over, she handed over an assignment slip. "Day shift is working an 'all hands on deck' and a call just came in. Grissom wants you, me, Sanders, and the perky blonde to take it."
"No way. I can't handle another case."
"Wait, I didn't even tell you the best part, Mr. Clean - it's another S&M freak show. Two DBs and a whole lot of leather." Her squeamish pal's predictable look of disgust didn't disappoint. "There's a chance it's connected to our unsolved S&M case." She tapped her watch. "Meet me out back in five. I want to ride with you, not the newb."
"I'm drivin'."
"Yes, Master," she teased, trying to get him in the spirit of the case.
"Ha ha," Nick grumbled, unamused. Once his coworker was gone, he returned his attention to Greg's iPod, opening the 'Our Songs' playlist. Much to his surprise, disappointment, and relief, every song was still there. "Shit." He gently banged his head against the wall. "Shouldn't have looked."
***
Vartann stood on the steps of the upscale suburban home waving at the approaching CSIs. "Shoulda wore your waders, it's a bloodbath in there."
Removing her sunglasses, Catherine teased her favorite cop, "Thanks for ruining the surprise."
"Yeah," Riley stepped in front of her female co-worker. "Shame on you, Detective, I bet you spoil movie endings too."
Recently divorced and eternally attracted to blondes, Vartann didn't miss a beat. "Go to the movies with me on Saturday and you can find out for yourself, CSI Adams."
Miffed that the newbie kept usurping her role as the center of male attention, Catherine rolled her eyes in Nick's direction.
Curving her lips into a naughty smile, Riley flirtatiously answered, "How can I say no to a man who owns handcuffs?"
"I own handcuffs," Greg announced with a chuckle.
"Yeah, but you don't know how to use 'em." Vartann gave the geek an alpha dog pat on the back. "But nice try, Scout."
"Okay, people." Nick tugged a pair of gloves from his pocket. "Comedy hour over, we have a job to do. Riley, you're on the outside."
"Tell me something I don't know." Grabbing her kit, she accepted the assignment with a smile. "I'm on it."
"Right this way folks." Vartann motioned to follow him through the picture-perfect living room and down the hall. "All the action took place in the master bedroom with the killer exiting through the French doors leading from the bedroom to the back patio. The female vic is 37 year old Donna Clarkson, the co-owner of the house. Married to Michael Clarkson, who is not the male vic. They have two kids, both dropped off at school at 7:45 this morning by Mrs. Clarkson."
"And the husband?" Catherine queried, always suspecting the husband when a dead wife is found.
"He's in route," Vartann confirmed. "He's an ER doc at Summerlin. I've already confirmed he arrived at the hospital for a 6 a.m. shift and never left the ER floor. Our male vic is Kevin Vasser, 52, whose residence is right next door. His wife has also been accounted for. She's a preschool teacher at Summerlin Christian Academy and was in her classroom since 7:30 this morning."
"So much for the 'spouse did it in a jealous rage' easy solve," Greg remarked before peering into the bedroom. "Whoa." Even by Vegas domestic violence standards, the murders were grisly. "The spouses didn't do this in a jealous rage, but someone did." The male victim had been carved up while tied to the bed wearing only a black leather gag and a dog collar, and the female victim shoved through the large glass mirror attached to her antique vanity table.
"Hey," David Phillips was jotting notes in the corner of the room. "Carotid arteries completely severed on both vics, so I'd say exsanguination is a safe bet."
"Yeah." Nick carefully placed his kit on a clean patch of carpet. "Looks like the woman was sliced before she was shoved through the mirror."
"She looks posed." Catherine noted the busted bottles of designer perfume littering the table and floor.
"I think he watched her die." Greg pointed to male vic. "Because he didn't vomit after his throat was slit."
"The husband just arrived and is apparently out front losing his mind," Vartann announced after lowering his radio. "I'll be back."
Grabbing a framed photo of the family at Disneyland, Catherine said, "Unlike the balding, overweight vic, the husband has the whole package – tall, dark, and handsome."
Greg peered at the picture. "So you're wondering why the babe was bedding a beast when she had a beauty?"
"Maybe she wasn't sleepin' with him," Nick answered. "Maybe she couldn't dominate her husband and he couldn't get kinky with his conservative wife, so they decided to be each other's freakshow on the sly."
"Or..." After snapping a photo for evidence, Greg held up five $100 bills. "Maybe she's a high-priced neighborhood hottie for hire?"
"Suburban trick gone wrong?" Catherine mused, completely numb to the gore surrounding her. "Reminds me of that case about a year ago where the wife was doing neighbors for cash while her Army husband was serving in Iraq."
"I worked that one." David stood and rotated his stiff neck. "The john was caught dead wearing frilly pink satin panties, lipstick, and a blonde wig."
"Hmmm, what would Freud say about that being a vivid memory for you?" Greg snickered.
The straight laced coroner anxiously cleared his throat and confessed, "I notice lingerie because I buy my wife a piece every month." When he saw his comrades were skeptical, he explained, "When I first started working with Doc he told me the secret to a happy marriage is to buy your wife flowers every week, lingerie every month, and jewelry on Valentine's Day, your anniversary, and her birthday."
"There you have it boys, the top secret formula for marital success." Catherine grinned at the perpetual bachelors in the room. "Now all you need to do is find desperate women willing to tolerate your quirks, emotional baggage, and crappy work schedules."
Snapping photos of the dead wife while listening to the shocked husband shrieking in the living room, Nick said, "No offense to Mrs. SuperDave, but having a wife lost its appeal for me a while ago."
"Hell, being a wife is far worse than having one." Staring at the formally happy couple's blood-spattered wedding portrait, Catherine recalled her initial optimism on matrimony. "Dave, I hope you and your wife are the exception in this town of unhappy endings."
"Uh, where's the new plucky girl?" The happily married man was tired of his jaded co-workers bringing him down.
"Nick banished her from the house," Greg answered without glancing up from the corpse. "I think he was afraid we'd banter about sex toys if we worked in the same room."
Holding up a blindfold and a pair of clamps, Catherine teased, "And we all know how toy talk makes Nicky squirm."
Ignoring the bait, Nick asked, "Did Vartann say who discovered the bodies?"
"I heard it was the pool boy," Dave answered, as he walked out of the room. "He saw the French doors were open and took a peek."
Snapping off his gloves, Nick said, "I saw a pool service truck parked on the street, so the pool boy must still be here. I'll be back."
"You're back." Heather greeted Gil with an inviting smile. "Your timing is perfect. I'm between clients and I just made a fresh pot of tea."
Grateful for the warm welcome, Grissom entered the house.
"Did you feel rested?" she asked, shutting the front door.
"Most definitely."
"I'm glad I could help." Strolling down the hall, Heather assured the world-weary man, "I meant what I said, the bed is yours for as long as you like."
"And your company?" he asked with a curious lilt.
The dominatrix turned psychologist grinned. "My company is yours for as long as I like."
"The pool boy is all yours, Stokes." Officer Mendez pointed to the dazed young man sitting in a patio chair. "Name's Zach Litwell. Says he was hired by Mrs. Clarkson last year. Two neighbors confirmed his truck pulled up at nine and they saw him run screaming from the house a few minutes later."
"Thanks." Nick pulled up a chair. "Hello, Zach, I'm Nick Stokes with the Las Vegas Crime Lab." He noted the boy's grey muscle shirt and faded jeans weren't bloody, but the outside edge of his right shoe was clearly stained. "I need to ask you some questions and get some information from you."
"I already told the cops I just found the bodies, I didn't kill them."
"I know you didn't kill 'em, because whoever killed them got covered in blood spatter and you only have blood on your shoe."
When the boy finally peered out from under his floppy tuft of platinum blonde hair, Nick curiously asked, "How old are you?" His guess was not a day over seventeen.
"Twenty-one."
"Do I look like I'm workin' the rope at a club?" Nick rephrased his question, "Tell me the age on your official Nevada state driver's license."
The officer nodded, "I was skeptical too, but I ran his ID. He turned twenty-one a few weeks ago and his record is squeaky clean, save one parking ticket. I also checked…" When his radio squealed, the cop said, "If you're okay, they need me at the tape." Even though it had been years since the buried alive incident, he still hated leaving Stokes alone at a scene.
"I'm fine, thanks for askin'." As Mendez darted off, Nick refocused his attention on the pool boy. "How long have you been working for Mrs. Clarkson?"
"Cleaning pools?" the young man jittered.
The response sent up a red flag. "Why? Was she payin' you for work other than cleanin' pools?"
Averting his eyes, Zach shook his head, "N…no."
Easing back in his chair, Nick rambled, "Life in Vegas sucks without a pool and jacuzzi in your backyard. Neighborhoods like this, everyone has a pool. My job takes me all over and in my travels I see a lot of pool service trucks parked on the street. Your truck…" He pointed over his shoulder, "is top of the line. So are your watch, jeans, and shoes. Your hair is dyed blonde, your nails are manicured, and I bet every of inch of you is waxed. If mommy and daddy were rich, you wouldn't be cleanin' pools, and what you make cleanin' pools isn't enough to pay your upkeep, so getting back to my original question, was Mrs. Clarkson payin' you for work other than cleanin' her pool? Inside jobs maybe?"
Terrified of being busted, Zach shrieked, "You think I was her boy toy?"
"No," Nick chuckled at the thought. "No, but I think there's a good chance that she was payin' you to be a toy in whatever kind of game she had goin' on with dead Mr. Vasser in there. I don't know, but maybe as the husband of a Christian preschool teacher livin' on the DL, he didn't feel it was wise to hang out in gay bars lookin' for a twink to fulfill his kink."
"Interesting theory."
Nick shot the kid a look. "C'mon, Zach, we both know you didn't come here to clean the pool this morning. You didn't take any pool cleaning supplies out of your truck and you didn't change out of your nice shoes before you entered the backyard. Admit it, you were here for another kind of job."
"I don't have sex for cash." His voice cracking, the former street boy quietly said, "Not anymore."
"Where'd you grow up?"
"Utah."
"When did you come to Vegas?"
"Senior year. My mother's boyfriend kicked me out and I knew a guy who was going to UNLV who said I could stay with him. When that didn't work out I couldn't go back home, so…you know." He shrugged. "I did what I needed to do until I didn't."
It was a story that Nick had heard from too many young men and women over the years. "And what prompted the career change? Did you just wake up one day full of self esteem and decide you were done being exploited by perverts? Because even though that's the kind of story I want to hear, it's not one I hear very often in this town."
"One morning I woke up in the ER with a busted face, six broken bones, and a skull fracture. The need for a career change was pretty obvious."
"Consider yourself lucky that you woke up in the ER, because the other option was the morgue."
"That's why I started cleaning pools with a crew and after I saved up enough, I bought some supplies at Walmart, slapped a sign on my beater, and went independent. That's how I met Mrs. Clarkson." The image of her dead body jarring him back to the present, tears pooled in Zach's eyes. "She took care of me. She was way nicer than my mom had ever been. She fed me breakfast and lunch, washed my clothes, and…"
"And you paid her back by givin' it away for free to her neighbor?"
"No, no it wasn't like that. Mrs. Clarkson didn't take advantage of me, she was helping my career."
"Your pool boy career?"
"No, my acting career." Trusting the investigator, Zach shared, "It was a legal acting job, because I was playing a role and not having sex with the guy. That's what Mrs. Clarkson said. She checked it out with her accountant and everything. It was easy money, because Mr. V always wanted the same scenario. All I had to do was get naked and tease him while Mrs. Clarkson humiliated and punished him for his impure thoughts. I made more money in thirty minutes than I did dancing on the bar at Q all night, and you know how busy the Q is on a Friday night."
"Can't say that I do."
"Right." Zach smirked. "Don't ask, don't tell."
Ignoring the bait, Nick said, "Know anyone who wanted Mrs. Clarkson or Mr. Vasser dead?"
"She seemed pretty scared about her husband finding out about the business. She always talked about taking things really big. We were gonna be business partners. She said there was a huge need in town for role play businesses ever since Lady Heather's shut down. I hate to talk bad about someone who's dead, but Mr. V had some heavy-duty baggage and Mrs. Clarkson said there were thousands of guys like him who would gladly open their wallets in exchange for a safe place to let their freak flags fly - married men and women, conservatives, people in the public eye…guys like you." Leaning closer he whispered, "You were right about the extra job paying my bills. I don't know what I'm gonna do now that…"
"Hey, Zach, read my badge. It says Forensics not Animal Services." Nick shook his head as he jotted notes. "I don't take in lost puppies." Not anymore.
"More tea, Gil?" Perched on the edge of the sofa, Heather held up the china pot.
"No, thank you." Grissom relaxed against the cushions.
Noting the time, Heather said, "Sorry, I can't stay, I have a gentleman due to arrive in ten minutes."
"I thought you specialized in couples therapy?"
"I do, but when a couple isn't making any progress together, I find it most effective to counsel them individually for a while."
Thinking of his relationship with Sara, Gil softly asked, "Why do you think some couples can't progress together?"
"Usually it's one of two reasons." Setting down her cup and saucer, Heather looked her patient/friend in the eyes. "One or both of them has a secret or problem they can't discuss in front of the other, and as long as that roadblock remains, no progress can be made. We either work out the issue during individual sessions, or if it's something they can't or don't want to change, like a fetish, then I try to get the person to the point where they are comfortable confessing their secret to their partner."
"If the partner can handle the secret, the couple progresses."
"Yes, but sometimes the secret is a deal breaker." She smiled as she stood. "Not every woman can handle the fact that her husband wants to wear a diaper and be swaddled."
Recalling the Eiger case and his awkward trip to the Forever Baby store with Nick, Grissom nodded. "Maybe some things really are better left unsaid."
"That line of thinking is exactly how I made a fortune at the Dominion."
"But now instead of enabling secrets, you're in the business of extracting confessions."
"Yes, and I've been incredibly successful." At the door, she turned and smiled. "Except with you of course. Everything I know about you, I've learned from your eyes, not your words."
Grissom joked in reply, "And what are they saying to you now?" Suddenly fearing an accurate answer, his smile faded.
"I'm not sure exactly." Turning to leave, she added, "But they're definitely not saying stop."
***
"You okay, Willows?" Vartann inquired, after watching her snap at Riley and send her packing.
"Yeah." Flicking her hair off her shoulders, Catherine pretended not to know why the observant detective was asking. "Why?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe it was the way you just chewed up and spit out the new girl for breakfast, then sent her back with David when you clearly could use an extra set of hands at the scene."
"I'll get more twice as much done without her annoying me." Catherine smirked as they strolled to the neighbor's house. "And you should thank me for giving her a hard time, detective. Now she'll be extra needy when you take her home on Saturday."
Trying to appeal to the sensibilities of a forty-something woman jealous of her younger co-worker, the skilled ladies man said, "For the record, I would bed you in heartbeat, Willows, but I wasn't sure you'd say yes if I asked and I hate getting rejected by beautiful women."
When they reached the door, Catherine lowered her sunglasses and grinned at Vartann. "Spouting transparent bullshit like that, it's obvious that you have no choice but to date blondes."
"Ouch." Vartann knocked on Mrs. Vasser's door. "Willows, when Nick starts his predictable bitching at hour seventeen, I'm gonna tell him he's pulling a triple because you got into a catfight with the new girl."
"Where'd everybody else go?" Nick asked when he returned to the master bedroom and only saw Greg. "This is gonna take forever with just two of us in here."
"CSI Willows went alpha female and ordered Riley to return with David to the morgue." Kneeling on the floor to peer under the bed, Greg said, "Vartann is next door taking a statement from an understandably very traumatized Mrs. Vasser, and Cath went with him to snoop around. Pictures are done, but I just started collecting."
"Okay." Nick pulled on a fresh pair of gloves. "Findin' anything good under the bed?"
"Yeah, check this out. I found a man's wedding ring covered in blood." Greg carefully picked it up with tweezers. "I know the vic was wearing his, because I saw it when I was taking photos of his bound hands. And the husband had his on when I took his prints a few minutes ago." Studying the braided band, he asked, "Could it be the pool guy's?"
"I sincerely doubt it, because Zach the pool boy is a 21 year old twinkie who looks seventeen and…"
"Seriously?" Greg reflexively asked, "What's his JT rating?"
The old inside joke made Nick belly laugh. "I'd say eight, but you'd say nine, because I know how much you like Season 3 Justin's longer hair."
"Yes, yes you do." Greg joined in the laughter. "To this day, Mandy and Wendy still can't figure out your random three months of long hair. I just heard them talking about it last week. For the record, Wendy wishes you would let it grow out again, and Mandy's only preference is that you avoid excessive facial hair. Apparently your porn stache plays a key role in a recurring nightmare she has."
"Ha! The porn stache bet." Nick's laughter filled the room again. "I forgot about that."
"It's good to hear you laughing."
"Yeah, I guess I haven't been laughing much lately." Warrick's death was still taking its toll on a daily basis and his stress level was still well off the charts. "It still feels kinda wrong actually."
"Rick wouldn't want all of us to be moping around."
"Yeah, I know." Nick shrugged. "I'm just havin' a hard time with..." He pursed his lips, but the words got out anyway. "It's hard bein' here when…you know…you probably are thinkin' the same thing, because…" He couldn't bring himself to speak of their close calls with death. "Why him and not us?" Feeling he had said too much, he abruptly changed the subject. "I'm gonna work on these bloody sneaker prints. I can see a New Balance logo on one of 'em. They're definitely not Zach's, because he was wearing black leather concha boots, which are on their way to Hodges, who of course bitched about havin' to pull another double, like he's the only one bein' asked to do anything extra. That reminds me, I need to get Ecklie to sign off on my OT overage. If I don't get that in today, I won't see the money in my next check. I was gonna use that extra cash to pay my share of my parents 50th anniversary present. Shit, I forgot to buy eggs."
To anyone else the erratic change of conversational direction would have been jarring, but since Greg was intimately familiar with the Stokes emotional playbook, he recognized a classic deflection maneuver when he heard it. "I have eggs. How about after we finish up here, we go back to my…"
"Bad idea."
Greg nervously rushed to explain, "I'm not suggesting we…"
"No."
"C'mon, it's obvious that you need someone to talk to and you know I'm…"
"Hey!" Nick barked in frustration, "I said no and I meant it, so drop it."
Shifting his gaze to the soiled carpet, Greg resumed looking for evidence. Oh, I'm dropping it, Tex, don't you worry. Silence and the smell of blood dominated the air as he cursed himself for caring. I was just being a good friend and showing concern, but of course you don't see it that way, but who gives a shit what you think, you're a basketcase. I have enough mental problems of my own, so I don't have time to help you with yours anyway. From this moment on, I'm done. I don't give a rat's ass about you or your ten tons of baggage. I know you and my mother won't believe me, but it's true. That was the absolute last time I will ever offer you anything. If we're working a scene together in the desert and you forget your water bottle, you're on your own pal! I'm not offering you as much as a sip of mine! Not even if you're coughing up sand! Not even if you…
"G…"
"What? Am I breathing too loud for you to concentrate?"
Keeping his eyes on the bloody shoe print he was measuring, Nick quietly said, "I know I've been a little off since Rick's death, but you don't have to worry about me. I'll be fine. Really."
A hefty dose of sarcasm accompanied Greg's reply. "Of course you will, tough guy. If only the rest of us mere mortals could be as resilient and independent as you."
Upon seeing Greg's miffed gaze, Nick felt compelled to apologize. "I was a prick. I'm sorry."
"Are we talking about five minutes ago or eight months ago?" Instantly regretting the remark, he backpedaled, "This is our exhaustion talking."
"Yeah."
"Since there's already plenty of blood on the carpet, let's not rip open old wounds, okay?"
"My thoughts exactly." Nick filled with relief. "I'm runnin' real low on friends, and can't afford to lose another one, so if it's okay with you, I'd like to rewind five minutes and give you a different reply."
"Go for it."
After a calming breath in and out, Nick gave his amended response, "Thanks, G, I really appreciate the offer, but I'm gonna have to say no."
"That's much better." Greg reinforced his statement with a smile. "And don't worry, if you ever do need to spend time with a friend, I'll always open my door for you." He decided to toss in a joke for good measure, "Just my front door." When he heard Nick chuckle, his smile expanded. "Hey, I need to grab some coffee and find a restroom. Want me bring you something?"
"Yeah, a bottle of water would be great, thanks."
When he reached the bedroom door, Greg asked, "Do you still need my iPod?"
"Not really, no." Nick reached into the pocket of his vest for it. "I can text Archie and ask him to download everything off the vic's shuffle for me." He held out the player. "Here."
Since he was across the room, Greg opted to wait. "I'll grab it when I get back."
As soon as he was alone, Nick pulled up the 'Our Songs' playlist, intending to do what Greg should have done eight months ago - delete it. But his fingers ended up selecting Coldplay's Clocks instead. Against his better judgment, he planted the iPod buds in his ears. Lights go out and I can't be saved…
Rolling onto his side, Gil clicked off the bedside lamp and resumed staring at the ceiling. Alone in the dark listening to the tick of Heather's antique wall clock, sleep seemed unfathomable, and he wondered how a man who had slept alone for years, could suddenly forget how.
Lost in a flood of bittersweet memories, Nick was frozen in front of the sneaker print he was supposed to be processing. Confusion never stops, closing walls, and ticking clocks. Come back and take you home, I could not stop that you now know. Come out upon my seas. Curse missed opportunities. Am I part of the cure or part of the disease?
Closing his eyes, Gil imagined Sara on the research boat. She was on its deck, a cool ocean breeze ruffling her hair. She was smiling, just like she had been in the video. He tried to imagine being with her, and when he was finally on the deck facing the love of his life, he was shocked to see her smile fade. She didn't expect to see him. No, she didn't want to see him. While he had been landlocked in Vegas, she had been racing across open water and the distance between them now represented relief instead of heartache.
Don't Panic by Coldplay was a song Greg first played for Nick about six years ago, but the memory remained clear as day…
"Stokes, the problem with that country crap you listen to is that everything is spelled out." While Nick was trapped for the next five minutes waiting for DNA results, Greg decided he would use the time to try and expand the cowboy's musical tastes yet again.
"Country crap?" The Texan took great offense. "Country music has millions of fans."
"Yeah, well, so does George Bush, but that doesn't mean he's worth listening to." As his co-worker laughed, Greg resumed his lecture. "When a dog dies in a hillbilly song, the lyrics always go something like this…" He mocked his friend's twang and crooned, "My coonhound got run over by an eighteen wheeeeeeler on highway four-sixty-fourrrrrr, so I'm buyin' a big case of Budddddweiiiiiiser and drinkin' until I diiiiiie. Then holdin' Skippy's leash I'll put my pedal to the medal, and crash my black Ford pickup..."
"Time out!" Nick made a T with his hands. "No respectable hillybilly would name his coonhound Skippy. The dog would be called Skeeter or Red."
"Calling a red dog, Red illustrates my point even better!" Flipping on his CD player, Greg said, "Where is the joy in music if there's nothing left up to interpretation." He wiggled his eyebrows. "You expanded my horizons last month, so I'm returning the favor."
Nick lowered his voice to a chiding whisper, "Hey, we agreed what drunkenly happened in Pittsburgh, was gonna stay there." For the hundredth time, he cursed Grissom for asking him to take Greg along to the Forensics conference to present the DNA portion of the lab's highlighted casefiles. Then he cursed himself for believing that Greg would be cool with everything meaning nothing upon their return to Vegas.
Ignoring the comment, Greg pressed play and let the notes of Coldplay's Don't Panic flood the room.
Seconds into the song's instrumental opening, Nick hit the pause button on the player. "You may like music left up to interpretation, but I like it when things are spelled out crystal clear. Kinda like this - Pittsburgh was a lot of fun, but I don't have the urge to go back there, because I prefer to continually explore new places."
The sound of the printer churning out a DNA report snapped Greg back to reality. "Sounds like we have a verdict." He glanced at the report and then handed it over. "You'll be happy to know that the sample you provided clearly matches the suspect's DNA. The guy's guilty."
"Yeah." Nick glanced up from the report. "Thanks." On the way to the door, he released the CD player's pause button. "And sorry for bein' such a prick."
Turning up the volume on the iPod, Nick smiled, recalling how much Greg loved the irony of Don't Panic being the song that propelled them from friends to partners two years later, and eventually went on to become their anthem.
Holding two coffees, Greg ducked under the crime tape and nodded at Officer Mendez. "Who's that talking to the vic's husband?" The well-dressed couple were consoling Mr. Clarkson on the front lawn.
"His brother and sister-in-law," the cop replied while enviously eyeing the Starbucks cups in the CSIs hands. "I radioed Vartann, he said to keep them around until he's done next door. The husband definitely needs the company after just making a call to the school principal to say what happened and tell him that his sister-in-law would be picking up the children instead of his wife. The kids are only nine and seven, imagine how devastated they're gonna be."
"Honestly, I can't think beyond the DBs anymore." Continuing up the front walk, Greg sighed, "It makes me too depressed."
"That's exactly how Grissom ended up being a robot, Sanders," Mendez half-joked as he watched the CSI trudge toward the front door. "Be careful or you'll end up as lonely and weird as him."
"Too late," Greg muttered under his breath.
"Excuse me, officer!"
When Greg turned, he saw the three family members approaching him. "Actually, I'm with the Crime Lab, if you need to talk to an…"
"I'm Megan Clarkson, the children's aunt and Michael's sister-in-law. They'll be staying with my husband Steve and our kids, so they'll need some clothes and their..."
"How long before we can go inside?" Steve Clarkson asked, while wrapping his arm around his brother shoulders and giving him a supportive squeeze. "Besides the kids' stuff, there are few sentimental things Michael really wants to have with him."
"I'm afraid it's going to be quite a while before we can release the scene," Greg answered, hating to be the bearer of more bad news. "When the detective returns, give him a list of critical items, and as long as they're not evidence and we're able to clear them, we should be able to bag them up and release them to you."
Wiping a fresh crop of tears, Megan choked out, "I'm talking about teddy bears, not murder weapons."
As he watched the sister-in-law run her left hand across her damp face, Greg noticed her gold braided wedding band glinting in the sunlight. It was an exact match to the bloody ring he had just bagged as evidence. Slowly he turned to confirm what his gut was already telling him. "Do you normally wear a wedding band, Steve?"
Too distraught to wonder why the man was asking, the wife answered, "Yes, but he lost it when he went for his morning jog. They were custom made and I was devastated, but then this happened and I can't believe I thought the world was ending over a ring and now my nieces have no mother and I've lost the woman I think of as a sister. Life was perfect when I woke up this morning," she sobbed, "I can't believe this is happening."
"C'mon, honey," Steve took his wife by the hand. "Let's go around the corner to the strip mall and get something cold to drink."
Blocking the suspect's exit, Greg coolly asked, "Were you by any chance wearing New Balance running shoes when you lost your ring this morning, Mr. Clarkson?"
As the suspect released his wife's hand and bolted into the house, Greg yelled, "Mendez! I need backup!" Then racing down the hall after the killer, he screamed, "Nick! Suspect coming your way! Block him!"
But all Nick heard right before he was blindsided and tackled were Coldplay lyrics. And as his gun was being yanked from his holster the words 'we live in a beautiful world' were ironically filling his ears.
"Move and I shoot! Put your hands behind your head!"
Stunned and confused, Nick froze with his back to his attacker.
Primal instinct taking over, Steve Clarkson pointed the pistol at the word Forensics on his hostage's jacket. "Hands up now!" Seeing another man enter the room, he screamed, "Get out and shut the door!"
When he saw Nick kneeling with his hands locked behind his head, Greg panicked and lurched forward.
"Get out and shut the fucking door!" Clarkson roared as he shifted the gun to advancing investigator. "I already sliced up the only woman I ever loved, so putting a bullet in a stranger's head will be the easy part of my day!"
"Greg!" Nick's senses returning, he ordered, "Think about it, he only needs one hostage." He hoped the message was clear – if both of them stayed in the room, the odds of one them dying quickly were high, and if the killer had any common sense, he'd choose to shoot the person furthest away and retain the hostage he had under control. "Greg! Get out!"
Without a gun or a plan, Greg saw no alternative, but to leave and get help. "Don't panic," he said in a shaky voice as he backed out of the room. It wasn't an instruction, but a reference to the song they shared. The song they always played and contemplated when it felt like the world was about to end.
The jarring sound of his cell phone ringing sent Grissom bolting up in bed. In the darkness, he fumbled to answer it. "Grissom…"
"Nick's been taken hostage by the prime suspect in a double homicide."
Only months after Warrick's death and Sara's departure, the last thing Grissom wanted to imagine was losing another family member. "Where is he?" he asked as the memory of watching Warrick die in his arms terrorized him. "I'm on my way."
***
Done with talking, Steve screamed into the CSI's radio, "Don't tell me I have a wife and kids, I know I have a wife and kids! I also know they hate me because we don't have a fancy house and can't afford expensive trips to Disneyland and Maui! Now this is it, I'm done talking! I've turned off our cell phones, ripped the phone out of the wall, and if any of you contact me again, I'll do something drastic!" To make sure he didn't get another call, he threw the radio at the wall, shattering it. "There!"
"Wait!" Greg screamed into his radio, desperately trying to get Nick's captor to stay on the line. Turning to Vartann and Mendez he snapped, "Now we have no visual or audio."
Vartann chose to focus on facts, not emotions. "Four patrol cars are within minutes of here, and Grissom is on his way too. I've got one uniform on each side of the house, one on the front door, and Catherine is watching the French doors of the master bedroom." Checking his watch, he added, "Tactical will be here in thirty at the earliest. They're bringing sharpshooters and a negotiator to..."
"Thirty minutes?"
"It's the best they can do. The entire unit is deployed at a high school lockdown in North Vegas. A student with a homemade bomb is holding classmates and his teacher hostage. They're going to have to redeploy some guys from there, but we're on the opposite side of the city at the edge of the urban sprawl. And let's not hold our breath, because the Sheriff knows where his bread is buttered, so he's not going to jeopardize a happy ending at that school."
Fearing he'd lose his mind waiting, Greg exclaimed, "I can't just stand here without audio or visual contact."
"What's the alternative, Sanders? Run in there and get one or both of you killed? I heard the guy loud and clear, he's a loser who hates his crappy life and bitchy wife. We can't reason with him when he's in an agitated state, he has to be calmed down before we can get anywhere. Now we could bust down the door, but it's never a good idea to startle a nutcase when his finger is on the trigger of a loaded gun pointed at the back of a guy's head."
"I just don't see why we can't at least…"
"No." Vartann planted his hands on his hips. "I'm still in charge of the scene and I say we're following procedure and staying put, because it minimizes the number of personnel and civilians in danger." Knowing there was more at stake personally for Greg, the detective pulled him aside. "Look, I know this is difficult for you after losing Warrick this year, but the best thing you can do for Nick is to stay calm and not do anything to jeopardize his safety. He's been in these kind of situations before and can handle the pressure." He gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Come on, stay positive. Stokes knows that he has to calm the guy down and win his trust. Even if we can't hear…"
"Maybe we can." Greg rushed toward the Denali with Vartann on his heels. "Tech companies are always giving us new equipment to test in the field. They like geeks to troubleshoot stuff before giving it to cops. The latest batch had surveillance stuff in it. Wendy and I tested it out a few weeks ago, when we saw Hodges was singing in the Trace Lab. There's a directional microphone that captures the audio, and everything is transmitted remotely to a digital recording device, from there you can listen to the output live, store it, and download it." He chuckled, "If you ever need to torture a suspect during questioning, you can borrow my copy of Hodges yodeling ABBA songs."
Vartann wished he had thought to activate Greg's geek mode ten minutes ago, because high-tech talk apparently occupied his mind enough to keep him from panicking.
Popping open the hatch, Greg searched for a black case. "There." Grabbing it, he excitedly pitched his idea, "We spied on Hodges by inserting the microphone through a vent. We can do the same thing inside the house. I can feed it into the master bedroom vent from a vent in the next room."
"If Clarkson sees…"
"It totally Big Brother microscopic."
"But if hears you…"
"He won't!"
"I think it's too risky."
Feeling Vartann was ultimately responsible for the entire situation, Greg retorted, "Risky? Like giving Mendez the okay to let a guy under the tape before he's cleared?"
"Don't worry, I'm not going to pretend this isn't my FUBAR, Sanders." His guilty conscious influencing his judgment, Vartann said, "Before you go inside, make sure you take everything out of your pockets and take off anything that can make noise."
"Stealth mode. Got it. I'll be in and out in two minutes." Anxious to get audio proof that Nick was alive, Greg tossed his vest and kicked off his sneakers.
Sticking with what had worked for him in similar situations, Nick calmly attempted to talk the gunman into surrendering. "It doesn't have to go down like this, man. Let me help you out of this mess. I'm sure there were extenuating circumstances that led you to do what you did. Everybody makes mistakes. You don't look like a vicious killer to me, you look like..."
"A teddy bear with a stick body. That's how my loving wife describes me to her friends."
Because of the guy's thick, curly hair, sweet round face, big brown eyes, and tall, lean marathon runner's physique, Nick couldn't dispute the description.
In an agitated rant, Steve explained, "She says she describes me that way because she thinks it's cute, but I know she says it to humiliate me!" He switched the pistol to his left hand for a moment, so he could wipe the sweat off his right. "Then she tells them I'm thin because I'm 'one of those vegans'. I hate how she says vegan like it's a dirty word. It's kind of like how some people get that funny sound in the voice right before they say 'black' or 'gay' like it's code for 'I don't like them because they're inferior, but I'm not crazy enough to say it out loud because one of them might hear about it and kick my ass'.
"Steve…"
"You know because the vegans, blacks, and gays have track records for asking for crazy things like compassion, equal rights, and tolerance, and if they don't get their way they start marching and causing problems!" Pacing the floor, he ranted, "Because peaceful demonstrations are so much worse than shooting defenseless wolves from helicopters and clubbing innocent baby seals in the head!"
"Steve…"
"That bitch swiped my early voting ballot because she knew I was going to vote for Obama! She filled it out and mailed it in! I'm on record voting for a pro-life moose hunting, wolf shooter!"
Trying to regain control, Nick shouted over the rant. "Hey, Steve! That's what I'm talkin' about, abuse is an extenuating circumstance. The DA is a reasonable person, I'm sure you'll be able to cut a fair deal."
"Deals only go to celebrities, rich people, and criminals who have something to offer. I'm a broke loser who killed two people and took a cop for a hostage." The shocking confession startled the normally mild-mannered veterinary technician. "I still can't believe it really happened." At the time, it had seemed like just another domination scenario.
"Why did you kill 'em?"
"Because mean people suck!"
"I agree. And mean people can make even the nicest, most compassionate people very upset…even make 'em do things they wouldn't normally do." Nick saw an opportunity for a different approach. "If you were under extreme duress at the time of the murders, your lawyer could try for an insanity defense and…"
"Of course I'm insane! What sane person wakes up one morning, watches Animal Planet, goes for a run, and then butchers two people?"
"Look…"
"Hey!" When the CSI attempted to turn around, Steve decided it was no longer safe to keep him unrestrained. "Slide to that corner and sit with your back to the bed. I'm going to handcuff you to the frame so you can't make a run for it."
Deciding to try 'the friendly hostage' approach, Nick warmly replied, "Sorry, I'm not a cop, so I don't have handcuffs for you to use."
"I didn't say I need cuffs, I said move!"
After reluctantly moving to the designated spot, Nick watched the lunatic shove the dresser away from the wall and remove what appeared to be a back panel.
"Donna kept everything back here, so Michael wouldn't find it."
As the guy stepped closer to cuff him, Nick debated whether he should take a chance and try to disarm him.
"Don't even think of trying anything, because I'm feeling really, really tense right now."
Since being restrained was better than being dead, Nick complacently held out his right hand and let the nutjob cuff him to a bed rail.
Grabbing a second pair of cuffs, Steve finished securing the CSI.
"It's working," Vartann gave a thumbs up to Greg, who was just returning from the covert operation. "Nick's cuffed to the bed, but he sounds fine and he's got the guy talking. Listen. It's coming through crystal clear."
Comfy?
Yeah, actually, thanks. The carpet's plush, I'm restin' against a cushy mattress, you didn't stretch my arms out too far or tighten the cuffs too much. This is a much better arrangement than when I woke up and discovered a psychopath with a grudge had buried me alive in a coffin with a limited supply of oxygen and a ton of fire ants.
Wait a minute. I remember that story about a CSI getting kidnapped and buried alive. That's why the name Stokes rang a bell. Wow. What the hell possessed you to keep your CSI job after that nightmare?
We have a really good dental plan.
Greg beamed with pride. "He sounds great, totally calm."
"I told you he would have everything under control. He's a good talker."
"Vartann!" Grissom shouted as he rushed from his car. "What's the status?"
"He's okay." Greg pointed to the recorder. "We don't have a visual, but I used this field test equipment to establish audio."
Remembering Steve's comment that 'mean people suck', Nick decided to try a little empathy. "All joking aside, I kept my job because I like hangin' out with dead people."
"And some folks think bondage is a disturbing fetish."
"Not that kind of hanging out. What I mean is, living people sometimes get on my nerves." Nick shrugged. "You know…they get in my space when I want to be left alone, and they try to tell me what to do, when I prefer be in control 24/7. When I'm exhausted, or depressed, or have a ton of stuff runnin' through my head, I don't have to worry about a corpse nagging me to talk about my feelings. They stay put when I need 'em to, and when I start craving a little space, a corpse can't follow me out of the room. And unlike living people…I know a corpse will still be there when I return from a break."
"Do you think he just said that, because he thinks it's what the guy needs to hear?" Feeling vulnerable, Greg glanced over at Grissom for a second opinion. "Or do you think he really meant it? Have you ever heard him say something like that before?"
"No." On edge from the crisis, Grissom spoke with unusual candor. "Honestly, I think he's describing me."
"I don't think so." Greg was certain that Nick had just verbalized his reasons for not wanting to live with him.
After pondering the CSI's odd statements, Steve remarked, "That's why I work with animals. Take dogs for example, they love you unconditionally and accept you for who you are, even your flaws. Sure they give you a reminder bark if you're late feeding them, but they'd never scream or berate you for it."
"I have a dog," Nick announced, trying to forge as many connections with his captor as possible. "A coonhound."
"What's his name?"
"Skippy."
Feeling further out of touch with his family, Grissom glanced over Greg. "When did Nick get a dog?"
"He didn't." Greg's thoughts turned to hilarious memories of composing 'An Ode to Skippy the Coonhound' to mock his partner's love of country music. What had started as a spontaneous joke one day years ago, eventually ended up becoming a full length composition with vocals by 'Greg Billy Bob Bobby Ray Sanders' and an authentic jug band playing backup. A CD, complete with a customized cover and label, was his Christmas gift to Nick last year…along with twelve romance coupons to be cashed in for 'anything, anytime, anywhere except at work or in a Denali (because Nicholas Stokes is a model employee and a very responsible guy yadda, yadda, yadda)'.
I hope you didn't get your dog from a puppy mill.
No, a friend of mine found him hurt on the side of Highway 464 and brought him home.
Even the dire circumstances of the situation couldn't stop Greg from expressing his joy with a toothy grin.
"My wife hates animals," Steve ranted, "she thinks dogs are dirty because they lick their parts and sniff each other's butts. Like humans wouldn't lick their own parts if they could, and isn't it totally hypocritical to be against ass sniffing, while she's demanding I kiss her ass 24/7!" Mentally and physically exhausted, Steve took a seat across from his hostage. "She won't even allow goldfish in the house. What kind of monster has a problem with goldfish?" His tone grew icy as he heard his wife's voice in his head. "The house she paid for with her parents' money, like she doesn't remind me of that ten times a day. If it's not that, she's bitching about how we could take fancy vacations and have nice things if I had graduated at the top of my class at med school like my brother, instead of flunking out of Veterinary school and becoming a Tech."
"Why'd you marry each other?"
"Stupidity." Thinking of the night that sealed his fate in hell, Steve droned, "I stupidly didn't use a condom and she got pregnant when we were eighteen. I had only known her for a month, and it was the first time either of us had sex. By the time I figured out she was a carnivorous, pet-hating, materialistic bitch, I was stuck, and I've been stuck in a miserable marriage ever since." Glancing over at the CSI, he asked, "Are you married?"
No.
Divorced?
No.
Engaged?
Nope. I had a friend who got hitched and I told him if he was still happily married in five years, I'd consider taking the plunge with someone myself, but his marriage, like most in this town, crashed and burned shortly after take off.
Ever live with anyone?
Yeah, on and off with the same person for a while, but not anymore.
Greg's smile faded when the memory of their last breakup popped into his mind.
What happened?
It's pretty personal, so I'd rather not...
Hey! I just told you I butchered two people, I don't think it gets more personal than that.
I suppose not.
Come on, it's just the two of us bonding here…man to man. I don't really have any friends that are human, and I could really use a buddy today. And let's face it, your secret is safe with me, because what are the odds of me getting out of here alive, even if I try to use you as my hostage?
For Greg, Grissom, and Vartann, the statement was a sobering reminder of the danger at hand.
Remembering how Nigel went off over him not being his best friend, Nick wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. "Sorry, I was just bein' shy. I have a real hard time talkin' about my personal life." He knew the best way to increase his odds of survival would be to make the gunman unable to shoot his new best friend. "Honestly, I've been real lonely lately and could really use a good conversation, so yeah, I'll tell you whatever you want to know."
Worried that extremely personal information might be overheard, Greg said, "Out of respect for Nick's privacy, I don't think all of us should be listening."
"You're right." Grissom nodded, understanding the basis for the concern. "As his supervisor, it should be my responsibility."
"Yeah, but I'm his best friend," Greg countered.
"I've heard enough." Grabbing his radio, Vartann headed toward the street feeling confident that Nick had the situation under control and would be pulling off another heroic and happy ending. "I'll come back when I have an update from Tactical."
Once they were alone, Grissom said, "What if you hear something upsetting?"
"When you care about someone who isn't telling you how they really feel, it's the not knowing that's gut wrenching. It's always better to know than to be stuck guessing."
Grissom imagined that Sara had felt the same way right before she left.
"Okay, Nick." Steve asked his most burning question first. "How many ant bites did you have when they pulled you out of the coffin?"
"Over a thousand." The mere mention of the fact made Nick's skin crawl. "But the bite itself isn't the worse part. The ant latches on and bites you once, but then it keeps poking you with it's stinger until its venom sac is empty. So each bite can represent a dozen stings and the more venom it gets in you, the bigger the blister."
"Just hearing about it give me the heebies."
"Hey, I'm all for changing the subject," Nick chuckled, trying to convince his captor that he was enjoying their new friendship.
"What was the most difficult crime scene you were ever at?"
"Most difficult?" Nick decided to answer Steve's questions truthfully instead of making up stories, because as his grandfather had told him many times – 'the best way not to get caught being dishonest, is to always tell the truth'. He also knew from years on the job, that people telling fictional stories tended to get caught through quirky body language and slips in consistency. "The most difficult scene was earlier this year, it was the scene of my buddy's death. It's really hard when someone you care about is the victim. I'm still struggling with it." Desperate to change to less morbid subjects, Nick forced a grin and said, "I hope you're gonna ask some easy, fun ones too."
Eager to recapture some of his lost youth, Steve excitedly asked, "How old were you when you had your first beer?"
Trying to keep his spirits up, Greg joked, "Cover your ears, Griss. He wasn't legal."
Sixteen. I got drunk at my brother's kegger.
I tried that once, but my brother caught me and kicked my ass.
My brother didn't find out until later when I puked, but when he did, he kicked my ass.
How old were you when you lost your virginity?
Eighteen. Senior year of high school.
Back seat or bedroom?
"Both," Greg mindlessly answered out loud, knowing Nick deflowered his first girl in the back of his mother's station wagon, and that he got deflowered by one of his brother's closest friends when visiting one weekend. To this day his brother never knew it happened or that he was good friends with closeted gay man. "What?" Greg remarked in response to Grissom's stare. "Like you don't know Sara's virginity story? It's a relationship right of passage to tell each other about your first times. It's one of the classic intimacy-building conversations right up there with 'did you have any pets as a kid' and 'what's the one superhero power you would choose to have and why?"
Grissom never thought to ask Sara any of those questions, and would have died of embarrassment if she had asked him to share his horrific first time experience.
"You don't know Sara's story, do you?" Greg didn't have the heart to tell him that he did.
I never dated anyone but my wife, and the biggest date we went on before she got pregnant was a movie and dinner at TGI Fridays. What was the best date of your life?
The best, huh.
Yeah, like if you could only choose one date to relive before you die, which one would it be?
Pittsburgh, December 7th thru the 12th, 2002. We went there for the North American Forensics Conference at the Omni William Penn Hotel, but ended up goin' to the stars.
Since Nick had on more than one occasion referred to that trip as the 'worst mistake of his life', it wasn't the answer Greg was expecting. "Whoa."
"My thoughts exactly," snipped Grissom. "The department paid for the best date of Nick's life?"
"Mine too." Grinning like a Cheshire Cat, Greg confidently informed his boss, "But trust me, Griss, it was worth every penny."
"I didn't even know you were together back then. If I did, I never would have sent you along."
"We weren't together when we left Vegas and we weren't together when we got back, but while we were there..."
What made the date so special, Nick?
Panicking, Greg looked at Grissom. "If he starts telling the truth, you can't listen in!"
"I disagree. I think I deserve to know exactly what I funded."
***
Omni William Penn Hotel - PittsburghDecember 9, 2002
After staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror for what seemed like an eternity, Nick decided to ignore common sense, gut instinct, LVPD Department Policy, and his grandfather's sage advice 'never shit where you eat'. Tonight instead of being his usual responsible self, he would throw caution to the wind and follow the irrational desire of an aching body part – his lonely heart. "I'm sure I'll live to regret this too," he sighed, while stuffing condoms in the front pocket of his jeans.
His cynicism wasn't unfounded. The last time someone had challenged him to stop being analytical and just fall into bed, he ended up a murder suspect. But since the only things Kristy and Greg had in common were puppy dog eyes and wanting some time with a guy who would treat them right, he was reasonably sure no one would end up dead this time. "You're a glutton for punishment, Stokes." Ready to continue what they had spontaneously started at Sparx, he said goodbye to his reflection and opened the door. "Miss me?" Instead of crossing the room, he opted to lean against the wall and entice his wannabe lover from afar.
Seeing the leading man of his fantasies sharing the same 300 square feet of reality, sent Greg into a lusty tailspin. "I…" With blood racing from his brain to a remote part of his anatomy, a coherent answer wasn't possible. "Uh…"
Sticking to the role they had decided he'd play for the night, Nick dramatically suckled the last drop of beer out of his longneck bottle, wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand, and then tossed the empty aside like a redneck bad boy. "Sorry to keep you waitin' so long."
A giddy laugh escaping his lips, Greg shrugged. "Hey, what's another fifteen minutes when you've been waiting over 24 years?"
"You gonna play some music?" For an encore performance, Nick removed his black t-shirt with porn star finesse.
"I have it cued up." Using his lap top as a CD player, Greg walked over to the desk and clicked on the mix. "I hope this works for you." Because the last thing he wanted to lose his ass cherry to were Nick's Deliverance-esque hillbilly songs.
"Everything's workin' fine except that shirt you're wearing." Anticipating the pleasure to come, Nick subconsciously licked his lips. "Take it off."
"Uh…sure." After tossing his tee, his eyes locked on the perfect chest and six-pack approaching.
Ten…kiss me on the lips.
The first line of the song catching Nick's ear, he pressed pause and folded his arms across his bare chest. "What's with the step-by-step instructions? Are all the songs gonna be tellin' me what to do?"
"No." Nervous tension making him laugh, Greg assured the control freak, "No, just the first song sounds like this." Straight to Number One – Dreamcatcher's Mix had the top spot in the love line up, because it was a guaranteed jumpstart to his libido. "I play this disc when I'm in a transcendental mood and need to drift away from reality for a while. It gets my head back in the right place."
"So you jerk off to it."
"That's been known to happen," the hard up lab rat candidly admitted. "Yeah."
"I hope your hand doesn't get jealous when I pinch hit. It might try to strangle me." Grinning, Nick clicked play on the laptop.
Nine…run your fingers through my hair.
"Run my fingers through that gel coated bird's nest of yours?" Pretending his fingers couldn't penetrate the spikey mane, Nick curiously said, "It already looks like we've tumbled twice, so what's your hair gonna look like after we really do?"
"Relaxed, hopefully," Greg remarked with a glint in his eye.
Eight...touch me.
"Gladly." After turning Greg to face the desk, Nick wrapped his left arm around his waist and slid his right hand until it found happiness exploring a mound of faded denim.
The erotic assault to his body quickly sent him into sensory overload. The fact that he could see everything reflected in the large wall mirror directly in front of him, didn't help the situation. "Gahhhh…" Squirming from the sight and feel of Nick's hand diving under the waistband of his jeans, he panicked that he'd finish while still wearing pants.
Slowly…
"Uh…" The stimulation from seeing and feeling everything becoming too much, Greg closed his eyes and dropped his head back against Nick's shoulder. "I need a minute."
"But I just got here." In a huskier voice, he added, "And I really like what I found."
"Seriously, I…"
"Just think about something else until the urge passes."
"I already tried that."
"See, this is why you don't do sprints to train for a marathon."
Slowly…
"Okay, okay." Sliding both hands up to his coworker's shoulders, Nick whispered, "You know there's still a tiny voice in my head sayin' we shouldn't be doing this."
Greg panted, "Twenty bucks says that tiny voice in your head is overruled by the large part of you frotting me."
"Thanks for the compliment."
Seven...hold it! Let's go straight…to number one.
Suddenly feeling like he'd die if he held onto his overripe cherry a second longer, the desperate half-virgin hastily shoved his Levis and gray boxer briefs to his ankles, and bent over the desk. "I'm ready."
Nick reached over and stopped the music. "Do you have a plane to catch that I don't know about?"
"No."
"Is it gettin' close to your curfew or somethin'?"
When he opened his eyes and saw his friend's reflection shaking its head, Greg asked, "What's going on?"
"I'm givin' you the yellow flag, Speed Racer…and callin' off the role play. Game over."
The news was highly disconcerting. "What?" He whipped around, forgetting his pants were at his ankles and almost falling. "Why?" he asked upon regaining his balance.
"Because if I just wanted to pound a guy's ass, I woulda used the bathroom at the club, and if that's really all you want, then you should go back there and find Leatherman." Stuffing his hands on hips, the disappointed romancer, griped, "You broke the vibe."
"Sorry for rushing." Feeling underdressed and overly stupid, Greg tried to joke his way out of the awkwardness. "It wasn't you. I was afraid to take my ADHD meds when I knew I'd be boozing, so I'm a little hyper. How about I pull up my pants, go for a walk, and we can just forget this monumentally embarrassing night ever happened."
"You can't put the genie back in the bottle once it's freed."
Thoroughly confused, Greg huffed, "But you just gave me the yellow flag and accused me of vibe breaking."
"We're starting over with a new vibe…a real one." Pressing their bodies together, Nick softened his tone and playfully tapped his nose to Greg's. "As an experienced CSI, I should've intuited that a guy who likes songs with step-by-step instructions needs a higher level of guidance."
Relieved that the awkwardness was ebbing, Greg excitedly overshared, "If I mess up the first time around, don't worry, I'm a very quick learner. When I was five, I learned the top 100 chess moves in six hours. Just tell me what you want me to do."
"I want you to kiss me back." After reigniting the fizzled mood with a fiery smootch, Nick rasped, "The real vibe is much better than the fake one. Mmm…how about you step out of this pile of prematurely shed clothing, fetch us a couple of beers from the ice bucket, and move to the bed."
Too thrilled to speak, Greg rushed to follow orders.
"Good boy," Nick teased, enjoying the playfulness.
But when Greg reached the bed, he froze under the pressure of another decision – should he climb on top of the comforter or under the bedding?
Immediately sensing internal struggle, the expert instructed, "Pull the comforter and blanket all the way off. That way you have somethin' warm and dry for afterwards, but more importantly…"
"But there are two beds, so couldn't we just move…sorry."
The lead CSI continued his field lecture, "More importantly, we don't want to mess up that stuff, because then housekeeping is involved in on our…" He caught himself just as he was about to uncharacteristically use the words 'love life'.
Greg fished for an answer, "Our what?"
"Business. In the morning, we ball up the sheets, spill some coffee on 'em and then housekeeping tosses the pile into the laundry cart none the wiser."
"Wow. Exactly how many times have you romped in a hotel?" Realizing the question was a vibe killer, Greg shut up and reached for the bedding. Immediately he was faced with more gut wrenching decisions – should he recline on his back, side, or stomach, and should he go for a natural pose or attempt something seductive?
The bumbling antics of his buddy making him even more attractive, Nick sweetly suggested, "Just chill out on your back like you're watchin' TV in bed."
"I don't have a TV in my bedroom."
"Then just sit." Once the object of his affection was perched on the edge of the mattress, Nick pointed at him. "Stay right there." Grinning uncontrollably, he turned to unpause the music. "Good boy. Now that you've mastered 'sit', 'stay', and 'fetch', we can work on 'roll over' and 'come'."
Feeling confident enough to banter, Greg locked his eyes on his trainer's and deadpanned, "Sounds good to me, as long as I get a treat in the end."
"If I forget, you can always beg for it."
Six…lips.
"Wait, I thought ten was lips?" Nick said, trying to remember.
"No, ten was kiss."
Nick asked a purposely leading question, "So kiss and lips mean two different things?"
"Yeah." After sitting eye level with Nick's waist for a full minute, the inexperienced lover finally pieced together the clues and glanced up at his patient partner. "Want me to show you the difference? I'm asking, just in case it's not what you want…because of before when I jumped ahead and you got ticked."
Hearing intense vulnerability and seeing it in the puppy dog eyes staring up at him, Nick unexpectedly felt like he did upon hearing Kristy's tearful confession that she just wanted to feel something real after years of being numb. It was exactly how he had felt that night, and every night since comin' to Vegas…since leavin' college and the memories of his first love behind him…since that fateful day when everything went wrong.
Afraid he had made another faux-pas, Greg squeaked, "Is everything okay?"
"Everything's perfect." Brushing his thumb over the flushed face before him, Nick momentarily dropped his guard and shared exactly what he was thinking, "I just want you to know that I'm havin' the best time I've had in a long time." He chuckled, "I wanted to say that before you blew me, so there's no confusion. So it's clear…I've enjoyed everything leadin' up to this moment - the cab ride from hell, all the stuff we talked about on the plane, you makin' me laugh whenever I got bored at the conference. Seriously, even all the little annoying stuff you do, like not puttin' the caps back on the hotel shampoo and conditioner, isn't bothering me like it normally would."
"Why put the caps back on hotel shampoo and conditioner when housekeeping is just going to throw…"
"First you interrupt my role play seduction and now you're breaking the flow of my…"
"Your what?"
"Uhh..." Nick flustered, "Anyway, my point is…I'm havin' a great time with you. So, please remember that if I say somethin' different when I'm sober, or when we get back to Vegas, or if I turn into an insufferable prick out of the blue…it won't be your fault."
"Okay," Greg answered, though he was thoroughly confused.
Feeling vulnerable, Nick abruptly switched from confessing his true feelings to joking around again. "Bein' drunk and havin' fun with ya is really the only explanation for me agreein' to make what I'm sure is a huge mistake that will ultimately bite me in the ass…and not in a good way."
"There's a bad way?"
"We'll always have Pittsburgh, Greggo! The Tangerine Dream inspired scene on the plane, you askin' me to pop your cherry when Leatherman scared the hell out of you, and that incredible kiss that took us by surprise at the club" After pausing to listen to the new song that was playing, he continued, "The spectacular hummer you gave me while really fucked up vampire music was playin' in the background. What is this you're playin'?"
"It's called Flowers Become Screens."
"And that explains nothing." Grabbing the beer Greg had fetched and placed on the nightstand, he laughed, "But the moaning is kinda inspiring."
Snatching the remaining beer bottle, Greg toasted, "To tonight, which we promise to fondly look back on one day."
After chugging half his beer, Nick proposed a toast of his own, "To tonight…which will be remembered for more than just the two rounds of hot sex we had before goin' for number three in the shower."
"Three?" Greg burst into laughter, "You do remember I have to sit in a conference room with you and 400 geeks for eight hours tomorrow, right? And for the next four days."
"No pressure, Greggo. Seriously. It's totally cool if you're not up for...," Nick paused for dramatic effect, "…goin' to the conference tomorrow."
"It is tomorrow."
"That settles it then, we're sleepin' in." After unzipping his jeans and shoving them to the floor, Nick raked his fingers through Greg's stiffly gelled hair and moaned along with the music. "Flowers Become Screens, huh?"
"Admit it, you like it."
"You know what else I really like?" He moaned with relief when Greg intuitively stepped up to the plate. "Hmm…somethin' tells me you've done this once or twice…or a lot." Closing his eyes, he got lost in the pleasure and the swirl of the music. "Mmm." Suddenly he saw the next four days in a whole new light. "I say we blow off the rest of the conference."
"Grissom would totally fire us."
"Nah. I'll call and tell him we caught the flu. Griss won't want to waste time talkin' to the both of us, he'll be too focused on a case, or a bug, or pretending not to want Sara. He trusts me, so he won't suspect a thing. Mmm…he'll never know how we really spent our time or his money."
The date was special for a lot of reasons, Steve.
I want specifics, so I can live vicariously. What was her name?
Greta. She's Norwegian. They're a quirky yet lovable people. Greta loved to wear loud clothing, screw up her hair, listen to weird music, and leave the caps off everything. I'm her polar opposite, but in spite of our differences, Greta and I became really good friends. So, when our boss told us he was sending us to a forensics conference in Pittsburgh, we were happy to be going together. We had to present cases the first two days, which was grueling, and then just had to attend the seminars, meetings, and dinners, the other five. But we ended up missing the last five days, because we had both fallen hard and didn't want to be around other people.
Grissom scowled at his duplicitous employee. "Fallen hard with a flu bug, right Greg? That's what Nick told me over the phone six years ago."
"No, no he didn't. His exact words were "Overnight something happened, we couldn't sleep and we started sweating. By morning, our muscles were aching and neither of us had the strength to get out of bed. I think somethin' got to us in that nasty-ass cab we took to McCarran, or on that cramped plane ride, maybe we should fly business class next time."
"I can't believe Nick lied to me."
"I can't believe a talented Criminologist like you never pieced together the evidence."
Steve, it all started with the cab ride…
***
December 5, 2002When Nick's doorbell finally rang at 7:25pm, he rushed to open it, intent on blasting his co-worker. "What the hell, Sanders?"
"What?" While struggling to carry his laptop bag, two suitcases, and two garment bags, the lab rat entered Nick's townhouse wondering what he had done wrong. "I'm within the luggage limit."
"Look what time it is." Nick shoved his watch in front of Greg's face. "The cab is comin' at 7:30."
"It's 7:24."
"Exactly! You were almost late. You better not cut it down to the wire in the morning when we have to present."
"Right…right." Recalling the warning he had received earlier, Greg sympathetically smiled at his tightly wound friend. "Grissom and Catherine told me you get really tense when you have present at conferences. They said it starts as soon as you put your suitcases by the door and it doesn't stop until you're done presenting. That's why Grissom pulls strings to have your presentations scheduled at the beginning of the week…and why no one else signed up to go with you."
"People pay good money to go to these things, so they deserve a good lecture. I take my job seriously, man. If you do anything to make me look bad…"
"I won't. Scout's honor."
"Like they woulda let you in scouts."
"Surprise, surprise, you're not the only Eagle Scout in this room."
"You made it to Eagle?"
"My mommy made me finish."
"I'm sure California has lower standards than Texas."
"When I came out to my family after college, my Papa Olaf turned to my bawling mother and said 'It's your fault you're not going to have a daughter-in-law and grandchildren, Connie. You forced Gregory to spend his horny teenage years hanging out in the woods with bunch of hard up boys roasting wieners. He had no choice but to go primal.' We laugh about it now, but my Nana Olaf hasn't been able to eat a hot dog since. If you ever decide to come out to your family, feel free to use the Papa Olaf Eagle Scout theory. "
"Trust me, it wouldn't help." It was still hard getting used to someone in Vegas knowing he was gay. "I shoulda lied when you asked me."
"You were too drunk to lie." And you were dying to tell someone.
"Which reminds me – no boozing until after we're completely done presenting, and we're on the DL there, just like we are here, because…"
"I know, I know, Forensics is a small world, and Forensics people talk to cops, and cops talk to each other, and there are lots of homophobic cops, and we have to work with cops. See, your lecture is etched in my brain and I'm not going to do anything to piss you off, because Grissom is going to ask you for feedback on my performance." Placing his laptop bag with the suitcases, the CSI wannabe excitedly shared, "Griss said if I can make it through this week without losing it around you, or you pounding me, he'll know I have the patience, discipline, and professionalism to work in the field. He's already denied my request to begin field training twice, so if I blow anything this week, I'm lookin' at a life sentence of spunk, spit, and blood in DNA."
"How do you think the spunk, spit, and blood gets to DNA, genius?"
"By truck."
The CSI 3 rolled his eyes. "What I mean is, if you become a CSI, you won't be escaping the spunk, spit, and blood, you'll be the guy collecting it."
"Being out of the lab will make up for the suffering." Glancing around for what might be a bathroom door, he said, "I need to pee. Where can I pee?"
"Your apartment would be my first choice." Nick reluctantly pointed to the second door to the right. "Hurry up." He called after him. "And don't make a mess!"
"I'll be sure to straighten the hand towels!" The one time he visited Nick's old place, he received a five minute lecture for balling up a towel and stuffing it into the rack, instead of folding it neatly.
Nick decided to use his time wisely, counting his luggage to make sure it was all still there, and then checking his plane ticket, in case it had managed to leap out of his messenger bag in the last ten minutes.
"Mr. Stokes? I'm Joy Brennan from Heavenly Cabs – proudly offering the cleanest rides in Sin City."
"Yeah, that's why I picked you guys out of the phone book." When he glanced up, Nick was surprised to see a smiling middle-aged woman wearing a tacky blue floral sweatshirt and a silver cross big enough to ward off vampires. "You're the taxi driver?"
"You were probably expecting a smelly heathen foreigner instead of a squeaky clean white Christian woman." She knew the young man with an American flag and Texas A&M memorabilia on display in his living room would be grateful.
The politically incorrect comment throwing him off balance, Nick stammered, "Uh…I…" Remembering the post-9/11 airport security time requirements, he realized he didn't have time to piss off the cabbie and call for another.
"Are these your bags?"
"Uh…yeah, those are mine, but these are my…" Before he could finish, his smartass coworker yelled from the bathroom.
"I'll be right out, honey! I just have to straighten the fringe on the throw rug and fold the end of the toilet paper back into a perfect equilateral triangle, so you won't beat me!"
Nick rushed to explain, "That's my coworker jokin' around. We're going to a conference. It's the end of the year and the department is really over budget, so we have to share a ride. Normally I'd leave my truck at the airport, but they won't reimburse and I'm broke from buying my eleven nieces and nephews Christmas gifts. Christmas is a big deal in my family, so I don't mind spendin' the cash. After we get back from Christmas Eve service, we let the kids open one gift each. It's really sweet."
"Aww." Joy felt bad for thinking the very worst of such a thoughtful Christian man.
"Done!" Greg proudly announced as he flew out of the bathroom "With twenty-nine seconds to spare before the cab gets here. Oh, it's already here."
When she saw a baby-faced young man wearing a crazy pink paisley shirt, Joy knew her original instincts had been right, and that the Lord had brought her there for a reason. "I'll just grab your bags and…"
"Here." Raised as a southern gentleman, Nick lurched forward to grab his suitcase and garment bag. "My mama would smack me if I stood by and let a woman do all the work."
"Mine too."
Mama's boys, Joy thought, rolling her eyes. When are mothers going to learn that coddling their sons ultimately leads to damnation?
A few minutes later, after loading the luggage in silence, and checking to see if the coffeemaker was still unplugged, Nick locked the front door and twisted the knob three times to make sure it was locked. "Let's go!"
"Don't yell at me," Greg chuckled, "I'm the one leaning against the cab waiting for you." Shaking his head, he slipped into the back seat and slid over so his coworker had room. "What the…" There were religious buttons everywhere, a large color photo of Jesus, a stack of Bibles on the front seat, and religious music on the radio. "Is it legal to evangelize in a cab?" Turning to Nick he whispered, "Why did you pick this company?"
Leaning close, Nick replied, "Their motto is 'the cleanest cabs in Sin City', and I hate riding in filth. I didn't know the company's name was a play on words."
Watching the men whisper sweet nothings in her rear view mirror, Joy abruptly announced, "At this time I would like to remind you that public sex is illegal in Las Vegas."
Offended by the woman and her cab, Greg replied, "Yeah, and discrimination is illegal in all 50 states."
"I'm not discriminating," Joy cheerily informed the sinner, "I tell all my customers that information, along with smoking, drinking, and drug use are not permitted in this vehicle."
His gut twisting into a tighter knot, Nick muttered, "I just want to be on time for the airport."
Knowing his friend was already overwrought with presentation anxiety, Greg nodded and stayed quiet.
Turning down the music, Joy sweetly made an offer to the lost souls, "I have candies in the cup holders, take as many as you'd like. Same thing with the reading material in the seat pockets, it's yours if you want it."
"Thanks, I already have a Bible," Greg politely replied, hoping a non-aggressive response would shut her up. "My grandparents gave it to me before I went on my first youth retreat, I've read it cover to cover, and I still bring it with me every time I go to church with them." Although she probably wouldn't believe him, every word of it was true.
When Nick peered into the cup holder he saw wrapped peppermint candies, each with a note saying 'Ready to cool off from a sinful lifestyle? Salvation is only a prayer away' and bags of Red Hots with labels reading 'These candies are weak compared to the burn of eternal hellfire. Don't delay, ask the Lord for forgiveness today.'
Following up on the young man's comments, Joy stated, "So you're a Christian."
"No. I don't like labels. I prefer to say I have a personal relationship with God."
No matter how far he moved into the corner of the taxi, Nick could feel the eyes of the Jesus poster bearing down on him.
The young man's response baffled Joy. "I don't understand. If you have accepted Christ into your heart, then why don't you call yourself a Christian?"
Unable to stop himself, Greg answered, "To borrow a quote, 'I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
Sickened by the statement, Joy asked, "What horrible, hateful, Satanist said that?"
"Mahatma Gandhi."
The Muslim name was all she needed to hear. "Why on Earth would you listen to what a terrorist says about Christ? The guy is probably related to Bin Laden."
While Nick was wiping beads of sweat off his forehead, Greg burst out laughing.
"Oh you think that was funny, do you?" Feeling sorry for the misguided boy, Joy kept fighting for his salvation. "You won't be laughing on Judgment Day."
Hearing the phrase sent a chill through Nick's body, and soon a parade of bad memories was marching through his head. You can fool yourself, Nicholas, but God is watching and He will have the last laugh on Judgment Day.
Done with irrational debate, Greg said, "Look, you're wasting your time, because no amount of lecturing, or scripture quoting, or guilt from you is going to affect me, because you are a stranger whose opinion means nothing to me. I know my parents and grandparents love me just the way I am. I don't believe God hates me for being who He made me. When I go home for Christmas, I go with my family to the same UCC church I grew up in and everyone welcomes me."
"Of course they do, they're Christians. Hate the sin, love the sinner."
"HA! You just quoted Gandhi!" Greg's laughter filled the cab.
Feeling the walls of the cab closing in around him, Nick lowered the window to get some air. God still loves you, Nick, he just hates what you're doing. You temporarily lost your way on the path to salvation, but the good news is, it's not too late to change. Everyone here wants to help you. You need to let us help you. "Stop the car."
When Greg saw his friend was as white as a ghost and sweating, he panicked. "What's wrong?"
"Stop the car!"
Joy huffed, "I can't stop in the middle of…"
"Stop the fucking car!" Nick screamed as he gripped his hair.
Jerking the taxi to the curb, Joy reprimanded her customer, "Profanity is not permitted in this vehicle!"
When the car came to a screeching halt, Nick threw open the door and jumped out, making it to a trash can just in time.
"Praise God." Tears of joy filled Joy's eyes "I think I got to your friend."
"I'll say." When he saw his friend doubled over, gripping his gut, and hurling, Greg rushed to check on him.
"That's right! Purge everything!" Joy yelled from the passenger's side window. "It's the demon inside you! Let it out!"
A wasted young man wearing an ASU sweatshirt, rushed to the cab. "I've got a demon inside me too!" He grabbed his crotch. "Right here in my pants! It just turned 21 today!" As his fraternity brothers broke into a spontaneous round of 'Happy Birthday Billy' for the fifteenth time that day, he heard a woman calling his name.
"Yo, Birthday Billy! For a hundred bucks you can put your big demon inside me!"
Turning to his band of brothers, Billy screamed, "I need a hundred bucks! Someone give me a hundred bucks!"
Desperate to save everyone, Joy grabbed her refill bucket of candy. Tossing the messaged mints and Red Hots into the air, she prayed that at least one of the depraved would get hit in the head and think it was a sign from above.
"What the…" When the birthday boy got nailed in the nose with a bag of Red Hots, he faced his brothers and threw open his arms. "You guys got me a plane ticket, a lap dance, and a piñata? This is the best birthday EVER! I love all of you! And Vegas! And candy!" Diving for a pack of Red Hots, he crashed head first into a newspaper vending machine.
Tuning out the typical Friday night madness, Greg focused on his friend. "You want me to grab you a Sprite or something?" Smoothing his palm over Nick's back, he said, "What do you want me to do?"
Lifting his head from the trash can, Nick only saw a blur of people. "I can't go back in there." His whole body shaking, he grabbed Greg's arm. "I can't."
"Okay. Don't worry, we don't have to get back in there." Having no idea what was wrong, but believing it was something serious, Greg guided his seemingly terrified friend to a bench. "Sit right here."
Gripping the edge of the bench, Nick rocked back and forth, desperately trying to breathe. "We can't miss our plane," he panted as the world around him spun out of control. "It's the last red-eye to…"
"Don't worry. We have plenty of time before our flight. You just sit there and I'll grab our stuff from the cab from hell."
The cab driver was nuts, Steve. One of those Holy Roller types who thinks she can bop around Vegas gettin' people to stop boozin' and gamblin' just by sayin' one-liners.
Like the guys who stand on street corners with the signs that say 'The End is Near'.
Exactly! Greta and I weren't in the backseat for two minutes, when the cabbie accused us of trying to fool around. She went as far as to remind us that public sex is illegal in Vegas. We both blushed a deep shade of red, because we were coworkers and never talked about hookin' up or seein' each other that way, but we both secretly felt attracted to one another, so it was really awkward.
What did you say?
Nothing. We slid to the ends of the backseat and stared out the windows. That's when the lady's lunatic driving started making me car sick. Her cheap perfume didn't help matters. I didn't want to seem like a wuss in front of Greta, because after the sex comment, I was kinda hopin' a seed had been planted, you know what I mean? If she's sittin' there wonderin' what it would be like to kiss me, the last thing I wanted her to see was a bunch of puke flyin' out of my mouth.
Hearing the Nick's captor laughing put Grissom at ease. "It's like he's lulling the guy with a good bedtime story."
"Yeah." Greg's thoughts turned to lazy days in bed listening to Nick weave hilarious tales about his childhood adventures, teenage rebellions, and college football antics. "He's a great storyteller."
So I crack the window, hopin' some fresh air would make me feel better, but we were in a cheap part of town, so as soon as I opened the window, the smell of boiling hot dogs and wino piss poured into the cab and did me in. I yelled at the driver to stop, jumped out, and found a trash can just in time.
"He is a very convincing liar." Grissom remarked, still feeling ridiculous for falling for the Pittsburgh Flu Bug bullshit. "Because I've known Nick for a decade and he doesn't get car sick. I don't think he's vomited from a bad smell since he was a Level 1."
"Actually, he really did end up jumping out of the car to get sick." Greg stared at the speaker like it was Nick and not just his voice. "The cabbie really did a number on his stomach." And his head.
December 5, 2002
"Seeing anything good out there?" Greg asked when he returned to his aisle seat with crackers and a can of Sprite. They had been in the air for over an hour, but Nick had spoken only a handful of words. Trying to joke his friend out of a funk, he said, "Red-eye flights leaving Vegas at 10:30 on a Friday night aren't popular, because everyone wants to flying into Vegas at 10:30 on Friday, but there's only like twenty people sleeping in coach when I thought there were at least fifty when we boarded. The rest can't all be mile high clubbing in the bathrooms, so I'm a little worried. You don't see any Twilight Zone demons out there, do you?"
"Nope, just some personal ones." Turning his head, he faced his friend and acknowledged his embarrassing behavior. "Thanks for takin' charge when I was shakin' like a dog shittin' peach pits. I owe you one."
Even though the mood was somber, Greg couldn't stop himself from laughing. "Sorry, it's the first time I've heard that nugget of hillbilly wisdom. It produces a powerful visual." After cracking open the Sprite, he presented the can. "I went up front and asked the Flight Attendant for this and they had some crackers for people who get airsick, so I grabbed a few packs. They have teething biscuits and pretzels too."
"No, this is just what I wanted." Nick reached for the can. "Thanks for thinkin' of me."
When his friend's fingertips brushed over his, Greg felt a familiar tingle in his stomach. "Any time." As much as he tried to deny his ever-building attraction to his coworker, those little moments of undeniable chemistry were always reminding him it was still there. "If you need to talk about whatever happened back in that cab, I'm here, and you have my word that I wouldn't repeat anything you told me in confidence."
"I don't need to talk, thanks." Without making eye contact, Nick reached for a cracker packet.
"I'm a really good listener and there's nobody around for ten rows. It's almost midnight, so I doubt anyone will be wandering around and…"
"Really, I'm fine." Nick returned to staring out the window.
"Cool." Greg reached for a magazine. "But if you change your mind…"
"Sanders!" But when he turned and saw nothing but concern in his friend's eyes, he softened. "Fine. If you feel like talkin', we can talk. Whaddya want to know?"
"I think we should talk about what happened back in the cab. Whatever was going on in your head, it looked pretty serious and I'm afraid if you go to the conference with all that tension still inside of you and then add the presentation stress on top of it…"
"How bad did it look?"
"Bad. Like you were having a serious panic attack or some kind of total PTSD freakout."
"That's exactly what it was" the tormented man quietly admitted.
"Do you get them a lot?"
"No, the last one I had was about a month after the Nigel incident when I thought this guy was following me."
"What triggered this one?"
"The stuff the cab driver was sayin'."
Greg shook his head. "You can't let people like her get to you."
"No, that's not it." After taking a deep breath, Nick anxiously said, "If I tell you this, you gotta take it to the grave, understand? And I'd know it was you who blabbed if you did, because only two people in this world know what happened and one is dead and other one hasn't said a word about it in since it all went down."
"I promise your secrets will always be safe with me."
"Okay." Nick pulled in a deep breath and tried to figure out how to talk about the best and worst thing that ever happened to him. "I think to give you the whole picture, I have to start with high school…"
***
December 6, 2002Cruising Altitude: 26,000 feet
After chugging two airplane bottles of whisky and using the restroom, Nick finally started talking, "I don't know about you, but I spent most of my high school days trying to pretend there was nothing wrong me. Any time I'd catch myself checkin' out a guy or thinkin' about doin' something to satisfy the urge, I'd do one of three things…find a girl to fool around with, whack off with a Playboy magazine, or I'd go out with my jock buddies to raise hell and feel like one of the guys."
"What did you do with the guys?"
"We usually started out at my friend Kevin's, his folks had this huge ranch. We'd drink out in their fields, or race tractors, or hop into a pickup and play mailbox baseball. I honestly believed all that self therapy was working and that one morning I'd just wake up and only think about girls."
"It was totally different for me," Greg announced after verifying there wasn't a drop of whisky left in either of the two tiny bottles in front of him. "It probably wasn't smart to slam two of these on stomachs lined with saltines when we're flying. We'll catch a wicked buzz."
"That's exactly why I drank 'em," Nick winked, "and why I asked the flight attendant to bring us thirds." His goal was to forget what happened in the taxi and avoid telling Greg why it happened. "What was it like for you when you were a teen?"
"I didn't have any feelings until sophomore year."
"That late?"
"I skipped ahead, so I was younger than I was supposed to be in 10th grade. I should've been in 8th."
"Right."
"Sophomore year I was attracted to girls and boys, and by junior year, I felt like a freak for not having a strong preference either way. I'd flirt with Staci Porter in AP Chem and Bobby Drake in AP Bio. One night I'd fantasize about takin' Staci to the prom, and the next night, I'd be dreamin' that Bobby and I were ripping each other's clothes off."
"But who did you sexually attract, guys or girls?"
"No one," Greg sighed. "High school, college, now…people like me, but they don't want to date me. My senior year of high school I asked my best gal pal why she thought I had no luck getting a boyfriend or girlfriend when everyone was always saying I was nice, cute, funny, and smart. Her theory was that I gave off a gender neutral vibe that was too effeminate to attract girls, but not queer enough to attract boys." He sweetly chuckled, "Besides that and my age difference, she also said it didn't help that I was a science geek with perfect SAT scores, president of the Chess Club, and an Eagle Scout with overprotective mother who was a teacher on campus."
"Ooh, yeah, that's a perfect formula for celibacy." An image of high school Greg popped into Nick's head. "So I bet you were the guy who helped jocks with their homework, befriended the misfits, and gave your shoulder to any girl who needed to cry about her boyfriend. At some point the girl would look into your eyes and sniffle 'you're such a good friend, Greg, I wish my boyfriend was more like you', but when you asked them to go out with you, they'd laugh, pat ya on the head like a puppy, and then go find a bad boy to swap spit with instead."
"Wow, it's like you were there."
"There's a guy like that in every high school…and every high school movie."
"Yeah, I empathized with Duckie when I saw Pretty in Pink, only I wanted to take Molly Ringwald to the prom and then hook up with Andrew McCarthy afterwards."
"I was the guy Molly Ringwald hooked up with after she was done cryin' on Duckie's shoulder about Andrew McCarthy dumping her after the prom." Lowering his voice to a whisper, Nick said, "And since I had somethin' to prove, I'd fool around with Molly until she wanted an actual relationship, then I'd tell her I didn't have time for a girlfriend with sports and work and all I had goin' on."
Greg shook his head. "That's when she'd come running back to the Duck Man, who would be standing there with a tissue box every time."
"Yeah" Nick reached over and patted his buddy on the chest. "Sorry, Duckie."
It wasn't the first time Nick had jokingly patted his chest to console him, he did it at the lab all the time, usually when he had just coerced a promise of rushed DNA results. Sometimes he'd do a chest pat, shoulder squeeze combo, and other times he tossed a wink or said 'thanks, doll'. The move always provoked pangs of attraction, but having him do it in semi-darkness, in a confined space, while exchanging secrets and discussing sex, was too much to bear. "Are you cold? I'm cold." Greg jumped out of his seat and popped open an overhead bin. "I saw some blankets up here."
"Yeah, I'll take one." Hearing his voice crack, Nick forcefully coughed into his hand to clear his throat. "I was just thinkin' it's freezing in here."
"Here." Greg tossed a navy blue blanket at his coworker. "Want another pillow?"
"Sure." Grinning, Nick caught the fluffy white rectangle. "It's easy to see why emotional chicks kept comin' back to your shoulder, G."
"Why?"
"Because I felt like shit on a shoe when we board this plane, but now that you've given me Sprite and crackers, offered to listen to my problems, and tucked me in, I'm feeling much better."
Fanning out his blanket, Greg blurted, "And just like old times, I'm horny from getting too close to someone who would laugh in my face if I asked them to touch me." Realizing he had spoken his thoughts out loud, he scrambled to joke his way out of the situation. "Gotcha! I just wanted to see if you were listening to me." Thankfully he had a reason to interrupt himself from overtalking. "Look! Chad the flaming flight attendant is bringing our booze."
"Another round for the boys in blue…blankies." Chad gave all four bottles of whisky to the Texan. "Extra round is on me, cowboy, no lassos attached." Winking he added, "I'm the only one working coach tonight, and I promise not to come back here unless you call me. Nighty night."
Once they were alone, Greg turned to Nick. "Does he think we're going to…"
"Fool around?" Nick laughed. "A couple of guys sittin' in the back of empty plane drinkin' whisky and pulling out blankets probably made him leap to that conclusion, yeah."
"That's so cool!" Greg excitedly explained, "He really thinks I'm with you, which means he thinks I'm good enough to be with somebody like you, which hopefully means guys in Pittsburgh will think the same way. Liberty Avenue here I come!"
"And when you get there, you'll be more than a little disappointed that it's not the gay Disneyland you see on Queer as Folk." He only started watching the show, because Greg constantly whined that he wanted to discuss the episodes with someone other than his mother.
"Just tell me where to find Brian Kinney?"
"I knew you were gonna say that." Nick chuckled.
Twisting open a third bottle of whisky, Greg floated back to reality. "I'm like a three on the Justin Taylor hotness scale. Brian wouldn't touch a guy with a JT rating of three."
"Don't sell yourself short, Greggo." Enjoying the high altitude buzz, Nick snarked, "I think Brian would at least let you drop to your knees in the steam room while he was waiting to find someone good enough to screw." He shoved his buddy and parroted his earlier words, "Gotcha! I just wanted to see if you were listening to me."
"What? Sorry, I tuned you out right after you gave me that visual of Brian in the steam room."
"Assuming for a minute Kinney was actually real. Why would you want to be with a moody controlling prick like him? I can't imagine it workin' out any better for you than it has for Justin, who I think should stay with Ethan and forget Brian every existed."
"I wouldn't be stupid like Justin and fall in love with Brian after one night of passion. And when season three starts, twenty bucks says Justin's back with Brian by episode six." Greg polished off his third bottle and dreamily sighed, "I just want Brian to be the first guy who takes me to the stars, so my first time is memorable."
Nick choked on his booze. "You mean you've never…"
"Only with a woman."
"You couldn't find a guy willin' to sleep with you, even when you were livin' in San Francisco?"
"I wasn't ready for sex when I was in college. Physically, I was always a late bloomer. I didn't even learn to ride a bike until the 2nd grade." When Nick wouldn't stop gaping, Greg snapped, "Hey, it's not like I'm Grissom's age. I only turned 24 this year. I'm hardly a…"
"Chill out, Cherry Butt." Nick patted his pal on the chest. "I think it's smart that you waited when you knew you weren't ready. I think everyone should do that. I wish I had."
"How old were you when you first…"
"Eighteen. My senior year of high school."
"Girl or guy?"
"Guy."
"Bottom or top?"
"Definitely not top." Nick bristled at the memory. "Remember when we were waiting for the DNA results on that ear I found at the pizza stand and we got into a heated debate over Brian and Justin's first time. I thought the guy was condescending bastard who got off on makin' it rough for the kid when it didn't have to be that way."
"Yeah."
"You said you were turned on by the scene. Well, now it makes sense why you felt that way. You've never been in that position before, but I have, and the guy I was with, he wasn't half as generous as Brian."
"Who was it?"
"My brother's Grad School roommate. I went to visit my brother for the weekend, but his fiancée won tickets to a concert for Saturday night, and they wanted to go. He felt bad and brought home a six pack and a pizza, tossed some porn videos on the coffee table and told me to stay in the apartment like a good little brother. I was fine with the arrangement, because I loved pizza and beer."
"Me too," Greg announced with geeky flair.
"Okay, good to know. Anyway, when I was done eating, I popped in one of the videos, hoping it would help me get hot for girls." Nick's voice grew chilly. "That's when Dan came home. I was glad he caught me watchin' naked chicks, because I figured he'd give me an atta boy slap on the back and tell my brother, which would be helpful in case anyone at home grew suspicious in the future. Tryin' to be cool, I said 'hey, Dan, my brother gave me these movies to watch. Aren't these babes are hot!' Or something dorky like that."
Greg tensed, sensing the bad part of the story was coming.
"Dan laughed, sat down on the coffee table in front of me, and said, 'So, I guess Billy hasn't figured out your gay yet. Don't worry, I've been livin' with him for five years and he still doesn't have a clue about me. I couldn't believe he just blurted that out, and that he had figured it out before I did."
"You must have been shakin' like a dog poopin' peach pits'." Greg was proud that he managed to work the newly acquired phrase into the right context.
"Yeah, and I didn't stop for hours. The next thing I know the guy's hands are runnin' up my thighs and he's askin' me what do I like to do, and trust me, 'Episode One Justin' sounded articulate compared to me back then…plus Dan was even hotter than Brian."
"Whoa."
"He asks me if I want him to show me everything I needed to know, sayin' that an older guy did the same favor for him and it really help build his confidence. I jump at the chance, and he takes me to his room, immediately dropping to his knees. I think I've won the lottery, because at that point, I've only had three BJs in my lifetime and they were all from girls tryin' it for the first time. Dan knew what he was doing, and I was so overwhelmed that it only took three minutes to finish me off. I didn't get to enjoy the afterglow though, because the next thing I knew I was on my stomach learning first hand what 'pillow biter' meant."
"Whoa."
"Yeah, and when I finally had the oxygen and the courage to say I wanted him to stop, he laughed and said, 'what are you going to do, if I keep goin'? Tell your brother that I gave you more sex than you came in here looking for?' He knew I couldn't say anything without outing myself. I was totally trapped, and I was frickin' lucky that he wore a condom, because there was nothin' I could've done about it if he didn't, the guy was six foot four and had played first string defense, and I was five ten and a high school running back. I was at his beck and call for hours doin' whatever he told me to do. Then when he'd finally had enough, he handed me a beer and said 'I told you I would show you everything a clueless boy like you needs to know, which is…it's pretty fuckin' stupid to say yes to a guy unless you know him well enough to trust him. Some day you'll look back on this experience and thank me. Now get your clothes and get out of my room, Little Nicky. Your homophobic big brother, who's obviously worried there's somethin' wrong with you, will want to see you sittin' on the couch droolin' over girls'."
"Seriously?" Greg wanted to hunt the guy down and kick him in the nuts. "After everything he did to your body, he screwed with your head too?"
"Yep."
"Dan the Man really thought that was the best way he could have taught you a lesson?"
"The best way for him, yeah." Nick shook his head at his own stupidity. "It was my fault I ended up in the situation. I said yes and went to his room. I wanted the experience, just not the one he ended up givin' me. When he offered, I was too stupid and horny to notice that he never said it would be a good experience."
"He should have listened when you said stop."
"Did Brian listen when Justin was sayin' it hurt? No, he shut him down and told him it was supposed to be like that, and Justin left there believin' he had the perfect first time. But it could have been better, even self-absorbed Brian eventually acknowledged that – the first time they do it after the gay bashing and Justin is still jittery from nearly bein' beaten to death. Justin asks him to go slow and Brian answers 'like the first time' and they decide to start over by makin' love."
"You know, for a guy who says he hates that show and only watches it so I will process his DNA samples faster, you seem pretty emotionally invested."
"It's the whisky talkin'." Greg's infectious smile prompted Nick's to return. "G…just promise me, if you're intent on givin' it up to someone this week, that you'll choose wisely."
"Maybe we should go cruising together for someone for me, and you can let your experience and gut instinct size up the guy and tell me yes or no."
Nick's laughter returned. "Are you askin' me to be the gatekeeper of your assginity?"
"Unless you'd rather be the keymaster?" That would be even better.
"HA! Ghostbusters is an awesome movie." Nick lifted his fourth bottle to toast to the deal. "I promise to look after your assets, Greggo."
Greg clanked his bottle to his buddy's. "Thanks." Chuckling, he disposed of his latest empty and asked another probing question. "What about your first time with a girl?"
"That was two weeks after the Dan nightmare." Nick slipped his empty bottle into the seat pocket in front of him. "I thought maybe a great experience with a girl right after a horrible experience with a guy would prove that chicks were the way to go."
"And?"
Nick shivered at the memory. "That was horrible too, but for very different reasons."
"What happened?"
"It was the first for both of us, so of course the whole experience was gonna be awkward, even though she was totally into it, but it went waaaaaaay beyond awkward. First of all, it was stressful, because I was tryin' really hard to make it perfect for her, while coverin' up my guilt."
"Why were you feeling guilty if she wanted to sleep with you and you were trying to make it perfect for her?"
"Because I knew Margie gave it up to gentlemanly, responsible Nick, the sweet guy she had known since kindergarten. She only said yes to me because I was safe and because she believed I'd treat her right, which technically was true, but…if she had known I had volunteered to bend over for a guy two weeks earlier, she wouldn't have touched me with a ten foot pole. That's why I felt guilty."
"You don't know for sure that she…"
"Oh, I know, believe me. She was terrified to lend a pen to the kid in our class who had to have a blood transfusion the year before, because she was worried he might have innocently caught AIDS, which she referred to as 'the gay plague'."
"Okay, yeah, she probably would have balked even if you told her you had safe sex with the guy." Considering the details Nick had shared 'safe' didn't sound exactly right. "Um…and if you and Margie were using a condom…"
"About the condom..."
"What? You have sex without condoms." His mother's lectures on the subject echoed in his head. "Are you crazy?"
"No, I'm not, that's why a jacket is always required on dates with me. C'mon, if I won't ride in a dirty taxi cab, do you really think I'm gonna ride a…"
"HA! Yeah, I believe you." That would have been a deal breaker, Tex. "So what happened with Margie?"
"When we were in the backseat trying to modestly untangle ourselves, it got awkward." Nick hated reliving the drama, but since Greg wanted to know, he kept sharing. "She moved too fast and the condom slipped off while I was right there."
"Uh oh."
"Yeah, a battalion of my little soldiers fell right into her foxhole."
"Doh!"
"We freaked. She cried. Then I cried because she was cryin'. We cried a lot, but not as much as we did when her period didn't show up on time."
"No."
"While we were doin' the pregnancy test, I remember tryin' to imagine my dad's reaction to 'I kinda messed up and got the seventeen year old pastor's daughter pregnant. Sorry.' And then I had this nightmare of Pastor John marchin' me down the aisle with a shotgun to my head. I also recalled how much my body hurt after Dan was done with me, but then realizin' a sore ass doesn't hang around for the rest of your life and cost a fortune to raise! I think that was the defining moment for me," he chuckled. "As I puked up my breakfast waiting for the stick to turn blue or pink, I knew I was gay."
"See, this is why I appreciate my sheltered and boring life." Greg didn't mean to laugh, but he did. "Sorry."
"What's the worst thing that ever happened to you?"
"On the Nick Stokes scale? Honestly, everything in my life reads like a paper cut."
"Here's hoping it stays just like that for you, Greggo." Nick smiled, "Because Lord knows we need someone at the lab to be carefree instead of bogged down by personal and professional drama."
"So did the stick turn blue?"
"No, and thankfully the mighty river ran red a few days later and we both started breathin' again." Nick chuckled, "After that scare, I didn't touch another girl unless she had proof she was on the pill, and then I'd used a condom with spermicide."
"Why did you touch them at all if you had figured out you were definitely gay?"
"Because of what Dan said about my brother, he had me really worried that my family was suspicious. After that, I had no choice but to date chicks." He snickered and nudged his buddy. "It's not like I was the dorky Chess Club President and people would expect me to be dateless. I was a football star, and I was hot."
"Still are." Grinning, Greg settled in for another chapter of Nick's life. "Keep talkin', Tex, keeeeeep talkin'."
Steve, you're gonna love this part. As Greta and I got to drinkin' and talkin' on the plane, she let it slip that she was a virgin and that she was hopin' to change her status on the trip.
Grissom glared at Greg, whose back was now turned to him. "You lost your virginity to Nick on the taxpayer's dime?"
"Pleeeeease stop listening."
"No." Grissom took great pleasure in seeing his sneaky employee squirming. "I'll consider this payback, unless you'd rather fork over the cash for the five nights at the Omni that were pleasure, not business? And that includes your per diems and room charges."
"In this economy?" Greg took a seat on the curb. "Thanks to George W. Bush, I can't afford discretion. Go ahead, McPervy, enjoy the naughty details."
***
***
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