Title: Clear
By: kennedy
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG
Note: Beta'd by the architecture-foam loving Catlover2x.
Summary: Greg is excited to learn that the boring B&E he and Nick have been assigned is at 'one of the most haunted places in Vegas'.

***

Greg Sanders could be hyperactive at the best of times, but tonight he was driving Nick Stokes up the wall. As Nick steered them to the crime scene Grissom had assigned them to earlier in the shift, Greg bounced around in his seat. His fingers drummed excitedly against the dashboard, and his eyes flitted between the passenger window and the windscreen as he drank in his surroundings. Nick finally had enough, and delivered a stinging slap to the hand closest to him.

"Oww!" Greg protested, shaking his hand and then inserting the insulted fingers into his mouth as if to cool them down.

Watching the slender fingers being tenderly sucked upon almost caused Nick to veer off the road.

Greg laughed around his hand as Nick composed himself. "Keep your eyes on the road, Nicky."

"You distracted me. Deliberately." Nick shook his head slowly, unimpressed.

"Me? I distracted you?" Greg teased, watching his partner become even more affronted. "Do I have to remind you that you just slapped me as if I was your willing love slave at Lady Heather's?"

"If that were true, I would have slapped you harder." The corners of Nick's mouth tugged upwards but he restrained it.

Greg's mouth fell open. "Shocked. I'm shocked."

"Maybe you'll sit still for more than five seconds now."

As they pulled up to a red light, Nick reached down and took the offended hand, and stroked over the fingers with his thumb. "Why are you so full of beans anyway? It's just a B&E we're attending. Nothing exciting."

"It may just be a break and enter, but it's where it is that's exciting."

The light changed to green, and Greg was disappointed when Nick released his hand. "Okay, you got me."

"Only one of the most haunted places in Vegas, baby!"

Nick snorted. "Did you ask for this case, G?"

"No, why?"

"Just remember how you almost bowled Warrick over for the case with the psychic?"

"Cross my heart, Grissom assigned us without my doing," Greg said solemnly.

Nick gave a small groan. Suddenly Greg's behaviour was making sense. "Okay, spill."

"What?" Greg had started bouncing again, anticipating their arrival at "˜one of the most haunted places in Vegas'.

"I know you want to share the details, so spill. How do you even know about this place?"

Greg rolled his window down slightly so the cool night air could calm him down. "Years ago, when my mother came out for a visit I took her on one of those Haunted Vegas tours. This house was on it. We couldn't go in, it was one of those stupid bus deals where you could only hang out the window to snap your photos and go ooh and aah."

"That way you could be further removed from any reality," Nick couldn't resist saying.

Greg's eyes narrowed. "Don't be going all Scully on me, Nick."

"I'm not. Some of the tales of prairie spirits my grandfather used to tell me would have made your toes curl."

"But did you believe them?" Greg asked suspiciously.

"I did... back then. When I was five," Nick grinned wickedly.

Greg whacked him on the leg. "Don't be a pain."

"Okay, Mulder. Continue."

"Do you know how hot you are when you call me Mulder?"

Nick laughed. "You are such a geek, Sanders."

"That was even hotter, Stokes."

Exasperated, but amused, Nick rolled his eyes. "Finish the damn story!"

"Oh yeah... anyway. It's a gangster's house. He was murdered in it."

"You're not trying to tell me we're going to Bugsy Siegel's house, are you?"

"Nah, he wasn't that famous. Just one of those many two-bit operators that tried to make a name for themselves in Vegas after Bugsy died. Don't you know anything about the history of this city?"

"I'm more interested in the history of the Hoover Dam."

"Figures. Anyway, he was shot right in the eye. Just like Bugsy. It was the style of execution at the time. They never found his killer of course. Maybe that's why he's still hanging around... just waiting for someone to solve his case."

"The poor guy... luckily Greg the Ghost Whisperer got called in tonight."

Greg gave him a heated glare. "I don't know why I bother with you."

"It's a B&E, G." Nick laughed to himself, amused by the rhyme. And the flustered look on his partner's face just added to the comedy. "Nothing more."

"My mom liked the tour, anyhow," Greg said, by way of defense. "But maybe that was due to the gin and tonics she had beforehand."

"Here we are," Nick announced, looking through the windshield at the modest 1950s stucco villa before them. "Oooh, spooky," he mocked.

"Not listening," Greg scowled, and threw open the car door.

Nick watched him stomp away petulantly, smiled, and turned off the ignition.

------------------


"The scene's clear," the officer accompanying them informed Nick as he and Greg began surveying the ground floor living area.

"Great," Greg said enthusiastically, crouching on the floor as he opened his kit.

"I'll start dusting for prints," Nick said.

"You do that," Greg said, half-dismissively, adding under his breath, "Good luck finding any."

"Did you know that a gangster lived here in the fifties?" the officer asked conversationally. "He was murdered here."

"Really?" Greg asked, although this was more sarcastically aimed at Nick.

"Yeah!" The officer couldn't help looking around himself in awe, although he knew well enough not to touch anything and contaminate the scene. "Well, on the second floor, anyway."

"I've heard them say he never really left," Greg hummed as he started taking photographs of a busted jamb on the main window.

The officer laughed goofily. "You've done the Haunted Vegas tour."

"You caught me out," Greg admitted, smiling at him.

Nick rolled his eyes as Greg continued his unconscious flirting. He wished he had a video camera to record him so he could playback just how much of a weapon Greg carried with him in his unnatural charm, as Greg always seemed wholly unaware of it.

"It's a fun ride," the officer said.

"Never thought I would be in here one day," Greg moved behind Nick and documented what he was printing. To rile him, he pointed the camera below Nick and fired the flash off in his eyes.

Nick swore under his breath, wincing and trying to blink away the residual effects of the flash as he lifted the last set of prints. "I'm just going to check out the upstairs and see if there's anything up there," he announced.

Greg gave him a bright, fake smile. "Go right ahead! By yourself!"

Nick couldn't help but chuckle as he headed up the stairs. He knew Greg well enough by now, after many years of friendship and with two years of a relationship under their belts to know he wasn't being serious. That all he was trying to do was get a rise out of his boyfriend, and Nick liked to play the game now and match him point for point. He knew Greg wasn't deliberately flirting with the officer, and that he was playing the jester to make it all the more sweeter when they got home "“ whether it was through blisteringly-hot love-making or something as sweet and simple as sharing a pizza on the couch while entwined with each other.

He knew it. He had barely reached the second floor, when he saw Greg snap into professional mode "“ zoning the police officer out as he continued working.

The second floor was empty, as Nick expected it to be due to the fact that the officer would have made sure it was clear before allowing the CSIs to enter the scene. He gave a cursory look over the windows at the top of the staircase, but there were no signs of disturbance. He moved along the hallway, and a quick search of each room time and time again proved that they had probably not even been entered by the perp. At the end of the hallway was another set of windows, and he was making his way toward them when the lights went out.

He jumped involuntarily.

"G?" he called out.

There wasn't any response.

Sweat began to bead on his brow, and he could feel his body temperature rise. "Greg?"

Silence.

This isn't funny.

He reached into the pocket of his vest and brought out his trusty Maglite. He activated the switch, but no light came from it. He swore and tapped it against his palm, but still it remained dark.

There wasn't any light coming through the windows. It was an overcast night, and the house sat far enough off the main road so that no streetlights reached them. He took a step, but collided with a small table and fell to his knees.

"Greg!" he yelled again, but there still wasn't any response.

I'm going to kill him! Was it possible that this was his payback? That Greg was taking advantage of this blackout to freak him out for dismissing their earlier conversation?

No, Greg wasn't like that.

A far scarier thought occurred to him: The perp's come back. They've cut the wires. That's why Greg isn't... Greg!

He was about to enter full-blown panic mode. He jumped to his feet, and reached out to feel one of the walls so he could guide himself in the dark.

The acrid smell of smoke filtered through his nostrils. Cigarette smoke, but stale. Not the smell of a freshly-lit cigarette, but of someone who was a heavy smoker and whose hair and clothing were permeated with it.

Nick quietly unclipped the gun on his holster, and drew it out silently. He didn't know what good it would do, as he couldn't see anything anyway... but it made him feel a little bit safer. He said a silent prayer to himself that Greg was okay...

Then somebody was pressing up against him in the darkness. The speed and abruptness of the contact made Nick drop the gun, and he felt as if he had lost all ability to breathe. He grappled with the perp, but felt like he couldn't grasp him properly to defend himself. He sank to his knees, fighting for air.

The lights snapped back on.

And Nick found himself in an empty hallway again.

He looked around, trying to catch his breath. Footsteps sounded at the bottom of the staircase, and he quickly reached for his gun.

"Nick!"

It was Greg's voice "“ but how? He tried to speak his name, but couldn't get his voice past his teeth as he could only grunt.

"Nicky!" Greg's voice was more panicked this time, and Nick watched as he appeared at the top of the stairs and immediately ran to him.

"What the hell..." Greg dropped beside him. "Nick, what happened?"

"I thought... he said... the scene was clear..." Nick croaked.

Greg's eyes darkened with concern. "Nick, what's going on?"

"There was someone up here!"

Greg jumped to his feet, and immediately started looking through the surrounding rooms. This was the impetus for Nick to break his almost fugue-like state and take off after him.

"You're not armed, you idiot!"

Greg turned back to look at him, and the hurt was immediately apparent in his eyes although he covered it up quickly. It quickly flitted through Nick's mind Maybe this is why we shouldn't be paired up on cases. Because Greg had jumped in without thinking, because he was concerned about Nick. And he hadn't remembered procedure.

In silence, they checked out the other rooms one by one but there was no one to be found. They came out into the hallway once more, and Nick felt his apprehension grow.

"I'm telling you, there was someone up here!"

"Nobody passed me on the stairs, and there's nobody hiding up here," Greg said calmly, and without judgement.

"Don't even say it," Nick warned. "They could have gone down while we were in one of the rooms. Anyway, where were you? I called for you!" he added, changing course to deflect the attention elsewhere.

Greg looked stricken. "When the power went out, we went looking for the fuse-box."

Nick shook his head, and pushed past him to head back down to the ground floor.

Greg watched him walk down the staircase. Alone in the hall, he waited, and then asked the empty air, "Hello?"

There was no response. Sheepishly, he followed in Nick's wake.

------------------------------


Nick didn't say a word on the way back to the lab, but Greg could tell he was still shaken as he allowed Greg to drive. Nick hated relinquishing keys to anybody, even if it was a company car.

The fingerprints that had been collected were fed through AFIS, and Mandy had grinned mercilessly when she handed the results back to them. "You guys caught a lucky break. These must be the dumbest crims ever."

So dumb that they managed to finish work on the dot. Nick was feeling well enough by then to take back control of the keys and drive them home.

Tired from their shift, they had stripped off and gone straight to bed. Nick lay with his back to him, but Greg had had enough of his silence and forcibly turned him over to face him.

"Let's talk," he said, his tone suggesting there would be no alternative.

"I'm tired," Nick whined.

"Me too. But I want to talk."

So Nick found himself talking, giving the rundown on what had happened on the second floor. He had displayed his customary downcast eyes and flushed cheeks which were a dead giveaway that he felt embarrassed and unsure of himself, but Greg had merely listened and gently stroked his arm.

"So, what do you think?"

Greg paused for a moment, which was unlike him. "I don't think we have an answer."

"Which leaves us?" Nick asked.

"Okay, there are three possibilities. One, the perp returned to the scene of the crime"“"

"They claimed in their interview they didn't do that."

"And perps are so reknowned for telling the truth. Okay, possibility two. I put the whole haunted house scenario in your head. The power went out, and while the officer and I were searching for the fuse box we couldn't hear you yell. You were concerned, imagined that perhaps the perp had returned, and..."

"Conjured myself up a struggle in the hallway?" Nick didn't sound convinced.

"Well that only leaves door number three, Nicky, and you're not going to like it."

"The gangster ghost?" Nick shook his head and rolled over away from Greg again. "Night, G."

"Hey!" Greg rolled him back. "Who's to say it's not possible?"

"I say." Nick said steadfastly. "Get a grip, Greggo."

"There are lots of strange things in this world. We see them every day."

"But they're irrefutable. We may not understand why they've been done, but in the long run we know why they've occurred. What you're saying makes no sense." Nick wanted no more than to kiss Greg to shut him up, but he had a feeling Greg would just keep talking regardless.

Greg sighed. "All we know is, something happened to you. I don't doubt that. You know I would never doubt you."

"Thank you."

"Even when you're acting like an ass."

Nick thumped his head against Greg's chest. Greg laughed, and grabbed him by the hair and held him in.

"Were you scared, baby?" he teased.

"Yes," Nick admitted, muffled against his chest.

Surprised, Greg released him.

Nick threw himself back against his pillow. "When I didn't hear you, I thought maybe... the perp had got to you."

Humbled, Greg imagined himself in that position and how it would have killed him to think Nick had been taken down. "Hey, luckily I was stumbling around in the dark with whatsizname."

"I'm telling you, though. Next time your mom's in town if she wants to go on that damn tour again, she's going on her own."

Greg smiled. "Not even if I liquor you up on gin and tonic?"

Nick laughed. "No!"

Greg bit his lip, and reached out to grab Nick's hand. Their fingers intertwined, and Greg had the epiphany of cheesiness he always had in such moments. "I know one other thing that's irrefutable."

Nick beat him to it. "Us."

"Yeah. Us."

As he pressed his lips against Greg's, he could feel them turn upwards even as he responded eagerly.

"I love you," Greg breathed. "Mulder."

***