Title: Chain Lightning
Author: Korbjaeger
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: R
Spoilers: Feeling The Heat, Lady Heather's Box, Grave Danger
Pairings: Warrick/Catherine (friendship/flirtation), Greg/Archie, Nick/Warrick
Summary: Answer to csiflashfic "Phobias" challenge: An electrical storm brings everyone's phobias out to play...
Disclaimer: Characters not mine, just raiding CBS's stash temporarily...
A/N: Yes, I stole the title from the Steely Dan song. Angst, almost-smut, and hot chocolate. How can you lose?

***

Lindsey pulled her knees up tighter, wrapping the comforter around her like a cocoon. Even though the sofa in the living room was a more reassuring perch right now than her bed would have been, the storm was still there, with the thunder, the lightning and the incessant sound of the rain. At least here, despite the darkness due to the power outage, it wasn't quite as claustrophobic. Not so much like a place to be rescued from.

She heard her mother enter the room and tried to put up a calm front.

"Don't you have to go to work soon?"

Catherine could tell from the girl's trembling voice that she was terrified. "Not for over an hour, it's barely nine. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," the girl snapped, far from convincing.

"Gas stove, I could put on some hot chocolate or something."

Lindsey shrugged. "Sure. Sounds good."

Catherine smiled faintly and went to the kitchen. She knew that storms like this brought back horrible memories for her daughter. It had been pouring like this the night Eddie was killed, and Cath herself had barely been able to reach Lindsey in the trapped car in time to save her. It was admirable that she was trying to tough it out, Catherine thought, using a battery-operated emergency light on the kitchen wall to retrieve the supplies she needed. Lindsey had talked about her feelings already, before puberty and that hormonal wall between mother and daughter had come slamming down. Good thing. Lindsey already knew where she stood, and that her mother was there for her, even if she didn't want to run to her like a scared little kid. She'd be okay.

As Catherine lit the flame under the pan and adjusted it to low heat, she heard a knock on the door. She moved swiftly to the front door and checked through the peephole. With a grin, she opened the door.

"Hey, Warrick!"

Warrick managed a partial smile, still trying to brush and wring the wetness out of his thick hair. "Hey, Cath. Power's out here, too?"

"Uh-huh," she said with a sigh, opening the door wide in invitation. "What brings you out on such a lovely night?"

He smirked as he came in, and gave her a quick rub on the upper back. "I was going to go in early, gonna be a busy night. Nick's car's acting up, so I was going to give him a ride. Sara's on her way in. I tried to get through to Greg, but no answer on either his land line or his cel. He off tonight?"

"No, not unless something came up." Catherine closed the door. "Take your jacket?"

"Thanks." Warrick shed his waterproof jacket, which Catherine hung on the nearby coatrack.

"No, far as I knew, he was planning to come in tonight. If he had an emergency, he'd have called Grissom, and Grissom would have let me know."

Warrick nodded, then glanced into the living room. "Hey, Lindsey!"

Lindsey looked up and smiled timidly. She'd always liked Warrick.

"Hey, Warrick!"

"What's up, Miss Thang?"

Lindsey wrinkled her nose at him. "Nothing. Mom's making hot chocolate."

"I'm making enough for all of us," Catherine offered.

"Well..."

"Come on, you're not rushing out again immediately, are you?"

Warrick thought for a moment, then his eyes twinkled as he gave Lindsey a sideways look. "'Scuse me, sounds like your mama needs some help in the kitchen."

Lindsey actually giggled as he left the room.

Catherine stood, hands on hips, by the stove. "Oh, yes, won't you please help me lift this huge, heavy old spoon so I can..."

"Relax," Warrick chuckled, his voice soft enough not to carry to the living room. He slid an arm around her shoulders and gave her a playful peck on the cheek. "This how you normally spend a power outage? I figured you for the let's-play-Monopoly-by-candlelight type."

Catherine caught his mischievous grin and gave him a look, popping him softly on the rump. "I thought it was time to give Linds a little TLC," she replied. "You know how she gets when we get one of these big storms."

"I know. I remember a couple years ago, she had a pretty bad panic attack."

"You were here, weren't you?"

"You worried about how you're handling it?"

Catherine looked up at Warrick, startled.

Warrick nodded. "Mm-hmm. Cath, don't. You're doing a great job."

"I wish I could believe that," Catherine sighed, stirring the warming cocoa. "I always feel like I'm doing all I can, and yet...I should be doing more."

"What parent doesn't feel that way?"

Catherine looked at him for a moment, then smiled gratefully.

Warrick patted her softly on the shoulder. "I'm gonna try Archie and see if he's heard anything from Greg."


* * * * *

Archie answered his cel phone. "Johnson."

"Johnson, it's your worst nightmare."

Archie rolled his eyes. He replied in an artificially cheerful tone. "What's up, Warrick?"

"You heard anything from Greg?"

"Yeah, I'm at his place right now."

"Why the fuck isn't he answering his phone?"

Archie glanced over at Greg, who was sitting on the sofa, and stepped into the hallway. "He has one of those wireless phones that always goes out in a power failure...and his cel battery was low, and since we can't use the recharger right now..."

"Damn, what am I gonna do with that boy?"

Archie laughed. "Walkie talkies?"

"Look - he planning on coming in?"

"Yeah. Eleven?"

"Earlier if he can make it in."

"I'll tell him."

"Thanks, Archie, see ya."

"Later..." Archie disconnected the call and put his cel phone back in its leather "holster". "That was Warrick," he told Greg. "Wants you in earlier than eleven if you can."

Greg continued to sit, arms folded, in a corner of the sofa, staring at the floor. "That's nice."

Archie shook his head. The power had been out for some time now, and that wasn't helping Greg's reaction to the storm. He knelt on the cushion beside him.

"Come on, why do storms freak you out so bad?"

"It's lame."

"Tell me anyway."

"When I was little..." Greg stopped and sighed. He felt like an idiot. "I was, like, three, my family used to go camping at Yosemite every summer. You ever been there?"

"Once, when I was in my teens."

"So you know how the valley is, and when a storm hits it...it just echoes, and the lightning just lights up the whole sky. I was this teeny little kid, we were in a tent, I was terrified, crying and stuff...and worst, my sister actually thought it was cool." Greg looked up at Archie in the dim light. "Lame enough?"

"That's okay, you know I have a pretty healthy fear of electricity myself."

"Yeah?" Greg leaned forward, interested. "So how'd that happen?"

"It was ten, maybe more years ago...I was in high school and a bunch of us were dorking around with some electronic bits and pieces we thought we were gonna change the world with...you were a teenaged techno-nerd once, weren't you?"

"Techno? Uh...science, but I don't know about 'techno'."

"Anyway, you know how it is when you're sixteen, more balls than brains. I disabled a circuit bypass on the project I was working on and I got a shock that..." Archie laughed nervously. "Oh, shit. It literally knocked me out. I actually threw up later. If there was any light in here, I'd show you the burn scar..." Archie traced, with his left index finger, a line from the first knuckle of his right index to the base of his right thumb, curving toward his wrist. "It's faded a lot, like I say it was over ten years ago, but man! I'll never forget how bad that hurt. I felt like my whole arm was getting crushed. Seriously, I thought I was gonna die."

Greg cringed. "How many volts?"

"I dunno, a lot. It's not the voltage anyway, it's the amperage..."

Another bright flash lit up the sky outside, followed closely by a peal of thunder far louder than the last few had been. Greg curled up tighter, feeling a sick tightness in his gut. "Damn!"

Archie grasped Greg's shoulders and pulled him upright. "Hey! Hey, come on, we're safe! The lightning's not gonna come in here and get us!"

"I'm sorry," snapped Greg, "it's just a..."

"Reflex?"

"Phobia."

"Conditioned reflex? You're so used to being scared of storms that...here, look..." Archie leaned over the sofa, unlatched one of the window locks and cranked the window open several inches.

Greg looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Smell."

"What?!"

"Smell the air!"

Unconvinced, Greg took a whiff. "Yeah?"

"How is it?"

"Cold."

"And clean, right?"

Greg considered it. "Yeah..."

"See, storms are good. They clear all the crap out of the air and make everything clean again, the rain feeds the plants and goes into our water system..."

"Well, what's so damn good about lightning, then?"

Archie gave him a patient smile. "It's just excess energy that has to be let off. Haven't you ever felt like that, you were antsy and couldn't get to sleep, or just restless and couldn't concentrate, and you had to get up and do something?"

"Sure...what, you're telling me this is nature's way of blowing off steam?"

"In a matter of speaking..." Archie shrugged. "Probably a really crappy scientific explanation, but meteorology isn't my thing, and..."

Another flash, this one almost on top of them, illuminating the living room and followed immediately by a deafening boom, telling them the strike had been very close by.

Greg pounded his fists into the cushion. "ARGH!!"

"Hey!" Archie raised himself upward and swung around, playfully straddling Greg's thighs, and grabbed the blond's shoulders. "Stop concentrating so much on the lightning. You've got yourself so tensed up it's not funny."

"Well," Greg grumbled, "I'd turn the TV on to distract myself, but as it happens..."

"What, all you need is a distraction? I'll distract you..." Archie leaned in, nose to nose with Greg. He began to massage Greg's tense shoulders, working toward his upper back. From there, he kneaded his way back to the shoulders, gently up the sides of his neck, finishing with his fingers buried deep in the long shag at the back of Greg's head, rubbing his scalp purposefully. "This help?"

"A little," Greg admitted. "Yeah...relaxing...thanks..."

Another flash lit up the world, and before Greg could react, Archie bent down and kissed him, keeping their lips in firm contact for enough time to pass until the tension lessened, the trembling stilled.

"Better?"

Archie's lips had brushed Greg's when he asked. It was serving as a much better distraction.

"Try it again?" Greg asked.

"Oh?" Archie chuckled impishly and kissed him again, this time their lips parted and let their tongues caress and reassure and claim their space, through the next flash and roar which now for some reason seemed quite a bit more remote.

Greg reached down, cupping his hands around Archie's derriere as they pulled back from the kiss. He felt a firm bulge against his abdomen, from near the fly of Archie's jeans, and felt himself growing firm as well. His fingers ventured further, beneath Archie's rear and toward more sensitive territory, eliciting a soft gasp as he found a particularly pleasant spot to softly stroke. He smiled. "Wanna take this elsewhere?"

"Mm-mmm," Archie replied, "I say we face this head-on. Right here, storm and all. Besides, we haven't broken the couch in yet."

"Oh, you want to break the couch in? I gotta be at work early."

"Fuck that. We can grab a little quality time and you can still get there by eleven. Tell Warrick your car had trouble." Archie kissed Greg under one ear, then applied a gentle suction as he slid his lips down the side of his neck. "Besides, you got me too revved up now, I ain't going in like this."

Greg moaned softly, enjoying the tingle Archie's kisses were inspiring. They were making their own electricity now, he thought, their own lightning, and letting off a little of the excess might be a real good idea...

Archie's cel phone rang again. He reached down and undid the clasp of the leather holder, but Greg found his hand and pulled it away. He grabbed the holder, slid it from Archie's beltloop and tossed it carefully onto the coffee table. "Let 'em call back," he whispered, unfastening the button of Archie's waistband, slipping his fingers inside and downward.

* * * * *

Nick grumbled as the number he'd called rang a fourth time and flipped over to the answering message.

"Hi, this is Archie Johnson. I'm unavailable right now. Please leave a message after the beep."

The obligatory beep. Nick sighed impatiently. "Archie, Nick. I'm trying to reach Greg and I haven't had any luck. Would you please call me? You got my cel number. Pronto, Archie."

He disconnected the call and laid his cel phone on the kitchen counter. The thunder seemed to have retreated into the distance, but the power was still out, and it was still dark, just...horrifically dark.

Even in familiar surroundings, the dark haunted him.

The surprise of a knock at the door was a pleasant jarring from his state of mind. He ran to answer it, knowing who it would be.

"Hey, Rick!"

Warrick strolled in. "Power out here, too?"

"All over town, I bet."

"It's off at Cath's and Greg's."

Nick shut the door. "You talk to Greg?"

"To Archie, he's over at his place."

"Those two little connivers, you notice them spending a lot of time together?"

Warrick chuckled, pulling off his jacket and tossing it into its usual "spot" over the back of Nick's sofa. "Yeah. No more than we d...used to."

Nick looked out the window to the darkened scene outside. Normally, he could see lights from the well-off-Strip, "college town" area, but now - nothing. Only candles in the kitchen and bathroom shed any light in the apartment. It wasn't much, but it was enough to see a little.

Total darkness was too unbearable.

Even in the dim light, Warrick could see Nick's discomfort - more, he could sense it. He moved over to the Texan and asked softly, "You okay?"

"I'm fine."

"No, I can tell when you're frontin', my man. Wanna talk?"

"What's the point?" Nick's voice betrayed his fear and embarassment. "Nothing anyone could do about it anyway."

"Maybe there is." Warrick put an arm around his shoulders. "Is it just the dark? Does it always get to you?"

"A little...not so bad now, 'cause you're here...but being alone. Alone, in the dark, indoors. That does it to me."

"Well, you're not alone right now," Warrick said, his voice soft, reassuring, bordering on flirtatious. "So what's the problem?"

Nick bowed his head, leaning slightly into Warrick's protective hold. "No, you don't understand. We could have fifty people in here, and I swear...I might as well be alone. That's how I feel."

Warrick moved around so that he was facing Nick, keeping one arm around his shoulders, and with the other hand, lifting his chin. "Why haven't you told me this before?"

"Why haven't we talked about it before?"

Stung, Warrick shook his head. "My fault. I know. That changes tonight. Nicky...I know you're still carrying around so much inside from when you got taken, and I don't even know if you've gone to anyone to talk about it, and that's my fault. I just assumed you were doing fine, and I should have known you weren't. I think I know why you feel so alone in the dark, man, and I'm here to tell you you don't need to feel that way. When you were in that box...you know about the video feed the guy had on you."

Nick swallowed, creeped out anew by the memory. "Yeah. I didn't find out until later...that's why the light in the box."

"Right. Well, every time that light came on, the video feed went up again, and we were watching you."

"We?"

"Me, Grissom, Archie, Sara, Cath...Greg...all of us. Our hearts were in that box with you, Nicky. I'm sorry you didn't know that at the time. It might have made the burden a little lighter...maybe not, I don't know...but you wouldn't have felt so alone."

Nick lowered his gaze. "You were worried."

"I was hurting. We all were. That's what Walter Gordon wanted - not just to harm you, but to hurt all of us. See...you may have been the only one in that box, but...in a sense, you weren't alone. Try to remember that. When it's dark, please remember, that's when you're the least alone."

Nick's dark eyes met Warrick's green eyes, both pairs sparkling slightly in the candlelight, betraying emotion they'd kept buried for so many months.

Buried.

Time to exhume it all.

Nick leaned against Warrick, letting the taller man pull him close, hold him tight, squeeze him breathless for a moment. He pressed a cheek to Warrick's half-managed stubble, letting tears of mingled stress, terror and relief trickle into the coarse beard hairs and letting hot, barely-restrained sobs shudder against Warrick's neck. He felt Warrick's long fingers weave their way through his shaggy hair, rubbing the back of his head gently, and felt a sigh against his chest that nearly broke his heart.

"What's it gonna take?" Warrick said, nearly whispering. "What can I do to make you see you're not alone? How do I do that?"

Nick tried to think of an answer. They could make love, he thought, but they'd done so in the dark before, and it was its own solace, private and seperate. They could light more candles, break out some whiskey, talk all night. Would it help? They could just stand here, cry together. At work he could look at Grissom and Sara and Archie and Greg and Catherine, and know they'd been with him in heart.

Or they could make this a two-way conversation for once.

"Warrick...what's it gonna take for you to stop being afraid you're going to lose me?"

Warrick squeezed him tighter, a shiver running through him, realizing the fear he'd tried to hide really was that obvious.

***