Title: Truth and Dare
By: rispacooper
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Summary: Drunkenness and childhood games! Fluff! Sexiness!
Warnings: Tequila and boyskissing
AN: Somewhere early in the series…say early, early S.3. (And I have no proof Greg had asthma, but he implied once his mom was overprotective).

The bottle of tequila hadn’t been full when they had started, but Greg is still pretty sure that there is a lot less of it now then there had been before.

He holds up the bottle to the light to better scrutinize its contents and then nods. There is definitely a significant difference. A serious reduction in the quantity of sloshing brown liquor. Optimist or not, the bottle is obviously more empty than full.

Counting shots on his fingers after setting the bottle back down on his coffee table Greg must conclude that he had had maybe two shots more than was wise, especially considering where he is and who he is with—namely, on his living room floor with Nick Stokes—and considering the three beers he had downed at the party before ending up here. Optimist or not, this is definitely not wise.

Of course, that had been a totally dead party. DOA. RIP. Tag ‘em and bag ‘em. Dead. Dead Dead. Greg’s high school physics parties had been more fun and the beer had been so cold and just the right kind of pick-me-up to make the time pass.

He was never going to any parties for anyone on Days again. Especially not a backyard barbecue birthday party, and not by himself. He’d known only a handful of the people there, and most of those had been lab techs or CSIs who, as always, were way out of his league.

That Sophia was hot, but talking to her was like talking to Grissom, or Grissom’s intimidating, icy girlfriend.

When Nick had shown up, it had been like a gift from Heaven—or, as it turned out—Catherine, who had asked Nick to represent Graveyard since he had already had the night off. Three cheers for Nick had turned into three beers for Nick as well, and then some conspiring in a corner on how to escape—which had possibly been the greatest moment in his life ever, warm and blushing and close and listening to Nick make a noise that could only be described as giggle, no matter how unmanly it was—before finally just sneaking away from the group arguing TNG versus Voyager and out into the night.

“Into the night?” Nick’s voice cut into the memory of Nick’s arm heavy around his shoulders, urging him up his own driveway—his house had been closer—and Greg realizes that he had said that last part out loud, and that he’d also thrown his arm out dramatically to punctuate it.

He blinks over at Nick—it’s a very bright room, his living room—and drops his arm. Too late, because Nick cracks a grin. His face is on the flushed and shiny side too, Greg notices, wishing he were a little more resentful.

“You’re drunk!” Nick points out, laughing, so Greg gets a second to glower and then he’s laughing too. Tequila is magic potion. Magic, evil potion.

Nick laughs so hard he slides back against the bottom of the couch and rests his head on the seat cushion for a moment. His eyes looks dark and wet, like the room really is too bright, and when he smiles and finally sighs, there are lines around them that mean Nick is still laughing on the inside.

Greg sits up straighter just to prove that he’s not that drunk, though he’s not really sure when he’d ended up cross-legged in front of his coffee table.

If he turns his head, he’ll see the bottle, the two shot glasses, the mess of salt, the plastic salt-shaker, and the plate full of lime wedges that would make him a liar. So he turns his head just enough to contemplate the fruit.

Nick had insisted they stop for lime, do it right.

Greg had only mentioned the leftover tequila because…because it had seemed a shame to let it go waste—the tequila, not the opportunity. Because they were just hanging out here; there weren’t any opportunities to be taking, or thinking about. Nope. Though just to mess with him and all his noble thoughts, Nick moves onto his hands and knees and crawls out from the space between the couch and the table just to sit down on the carpet across from Greg.

He’s…on his hands and knees on Greg’s floor. Nick Stokes is on his hands and knees crawling around on Nick’s floor, and Greg swears, the next time Colleen wants to feel sorry for herself about her boyfriend and decides to make margaritas at his house, she is taking her leftover, cheap tequila home with her.

He can’t breathe for a second, then suddenly his lungs switch into overdrive and he’s going to hyperventilate watching Nick start to untie his shoes.

“You…you’re…” he starts, wheezing in a way that would have had his mom screaming for his inhaler, and Nick looks up from removing his other boot and carefully sets them both next to the table.

“What?” Nick cracks his toes and wiggles them a little like his boots had been a little tight and Greg stares at the white and gray fabric of his socks until Nick moves again, kneeling with his legs underneath him and trying to get comfortable. Like he’s going to stay a while, maybe all night.

Greg swings his gaze back up to Nick’s face and Nick brings his gaze up too. And whatever Nick was looking at—Greg’s old, jeans, stretching along the inside of his legs, his bare feet, the fact that he’s sitting on the floor in the same pose he’d probably used in preschool—Greg can’t really seem to focus enough to tell.

Nick’s eyebrows come together for a second, then he brings a hand up to scrub through his hair. Nick likes his hair to be no muss, no fuss, combed to one side or worn short. Now that it’s messed up, there are little chunks of it sticking up everywhere, and a few strands over his forehead. It all just adds to whole Clark Kent-thing Nick has going on, something only made worse—or better—when Nick opens his mouth and then shuts it, like he’s trying to think of what to say.

Probably a “We’ve had enough, I should call a cab” or a “Can I sleep on your couch, G?” And those would be right and all, Greg just doesn’t want to hear them yet.

“You look hot,” Greg blurts out and then winces. Nick blinks once or twice. “I mean, it’s hot in here, isn’t it?” he covers smoothly right as Nick’s expression freezes in an almost-smile, his eyes going wide when Greg turns away from him. “I’m going to just…” Turning the AC on seems like too much. “…Open a window.”

It’s a scramble to get up, and then it takes him another few minutes to crack open his front window, since he almost never uses it. The air that slips inside isn’t very much cooler, but Greg sighs into it for a moment, willing it to sober him back up, or at least let him hang onto a little of his dignity.

He’s almost in control again when he turns around.

Nick is on his knees again, stretching up toward the entertainment center, where Greg had his MP3 player hooked up to some speakers. He’s stretching so much his black t-shirt is out of his jeans, riding up to his belly button, then higher. His jeans are too tight, as always, and dark. Next to them, Nick’s skin looks surprisingly pale, not that Greg was expecting Nick Stokes to be the type to sunbathe nude.

Though if life were fair, he would be, Greg decides, and lets himself sink back onto the carpet, not entirely sure he isn’t melting, since every inch of him feels like it’s burning. He puts a hand out, fairly certain he ought to be doing something right now that isn’t staring at Nick’s skin…or his ass…or the way his tongue is sticking out, just a little, while he tries to reach the MP3 player.

“I thought…maybe some music…” Nick explains without looking up, as though Greg isn’t already nodding his head.

“Yes, Nick, whatever you say, Nick,” is what he would be saying, if he were ever any good at saying relevant or important things out loud. But even with the tequila, he can’t really manage more than a “mmm yeah” that makes Nick frown curiously over at him.

But his finger finds the right button, and the player brightens with color and light a second before the music comes out of the speakers and Greg remembers that the last time he’d had the music playing he’d been cleaning, and whenever he cleaned he liked to listen to…

“Loveshack?” Nick reads off the screen and plops back down into a sitting position. He stares over at Greg with absolute surprise all over his features—a surprise that wouldn’t be showing if Nick hadn’t had too many shots too, Greg reminds himself—and then falls back and barks out a laugh at the same time.

“Oh man,” he breathes while it gets to what is really the best part of the song, when they’re bangbangbanging on the door, baby.

If his face hadn’t already been warm with tequila, Greg knows he’d be blushing. So he just crosses his arms and narrows his eyes and waits.

Knock a little louder, sugar. The song will not stop, and Nick snorts.

“Oh man,” he says again and holds his sides as he laughs some more. Giggles some more, Greg thinks tightly, and someday someone is going to tell him that he giggles like a girl. “Punk metal rebel outcast Greg Sanders listens to 80’s pop music...I can’t wait to tell Warrick.”

“I need something happy to make me clean.” He hates cleaning. It’s a waste of time. “The B52s are masters of 80’s New Wave. And everyone was a kid once. I bet you listened to them too.”

“Tiiiiiiiin roof. Rusted!” Nick sings along quietly for an answer, his voice rough, and peeks around to wink at him.

Greg is definitely melting. Or on fire. Something. He can’t quite answer Nick’s friendly, warm smile, but can’t really look away from it either. He scoots closer to the coffee table and shivers as the cool air from the window finally hits him.

“So what did you listen to in high school that was so cool? AC/DC? Zeppelin? Probably head quarterback and on the honor roll too.” He’s not grumbling. Nick couldn’t help it if he’d been close to perfect his whole life and Greg had been skinny and in braces and covered in acne until he was nineteen. He’d made up for it once he’d hit college. Really. He’d moved to Vegas and worked very hard at being cool and interesting so that people like Nick Stokes might…end up doing tequila shots with him on his living room floor.

“Nope.” Nick sucks in a breath as he does an easy sit up then shakes his head for good measure. “I was…quiet. I didn’t want to be noticed,” he admits, then jerks his head up to frown over at the tequila bottle.

“You didn’t want to be noticed?” Greg repeats in surprise. “Why not?” He would have loved to have been noticed, to be noticed. He sighs and Nick directs a serious look his way.

“It just seemed like a good idea,” he explains shortly. “What is this? ‘Truth or dare’?”

“Dare,” Greg tosses back automatically, ducking his head from Nick’s dark, heavy stare. He always picks dare. Dare is a lot easier and a lot less embarrassing than Truth. Dare can even make you seem cool, sometimes. But his heart thumps into a faster rhythm anyway, not really out of fear, because of course they aren’t really going to play ‘Truth or Dare’, and if they were, Nick wouldn’t really dare him to do anything weird. He knows that. Because this is Nick Stokes. And Nick playing a kid’s game with him is as impossible as Nick leaving his good girls, and women detectives and CSIs, and prostitutes that sleep with him for free to fool around with Greg on Greg’s living room carpet and maybe sleep next to him in the bed down the hall and have breakfast in the morning.

Impossible, like he said—thought—before.

“I liked Footloose.” Nick’s hand goes back to his hair and then slides down to the back of his neck. It’s not the lights in the room making his face so shiny, and Greg knows he’s smiling—more for the image of Nick embarrassed at the memory than the idea of Nick secretly trying to dance like Kevin Bacon, though that’s funny too. He’d bet that Nick had danced more like Chris Penn’s character anyway. “Now play the song you are most embarrassed to listen to.”

“I…?” It would be good to speak here, Greg is pretty sure. But one second he’s contemplating Nick doing Angry Dance in a barn, and the next second Nick is crossing his arms and give him a challenging look that can only mean that Nick is…that they are going to play Truth or Dare right now.

It has to be a joke. Or the tequila. Because not even Nick Stokes can be oblivious to what Truth or Dare means when adults play it, even if so far he has apparently been oblivious to all of Greg’s stares and tongue-tied sarcasm and lame attempts to get Nick to play games just like this in the lab all the time.

Now he wants to play, with no safety net of interrupting coworkers and clear glass walls to keep Greg from completely losing his shit and daring himself to jump Nick’s bones.

Greg shuts his mouth, which was open of course, licks the taste of tequila from his teeth, and falls forward onto his hands and knees to stretch up just like Nick had done. They are closer now, something he can feel even if Nick can’t, Nick warm next to him, holding his breath while Greg stretches a little more than he needs to while he tries to think of the most embarrassing song he can admit to listening to.

“The real one, Greg,” Nick adds, reading his mind, and Greg twitches and presses the play button before he can rethink his decision.

It’s bad enough owning Madonna; her early hits are pure pop confections at best, her mediocre voice drowned out by synthesizers most of the time, but when “Angel” starts, Greg sits back down and keeps his eyes on the carpet.

“Is this Madonna?” Nick asks quietly, somehow not shocked at all this time. Greg looks up. Nick is not smiling. “Hmm,” he says, as though he’s just found another piece of evidence, and Greg pushes out a breath with the first words he can think of.

“Truth or dare?” He lifts his chin a second later, just like Nick had done.

“Truth.” Nick doesn’t even hesitate as he says it. Of course, Nick has nothing to hide. He’s private, sure, especially since Nigel Crane, but he’s not secretly a superhero or anything. Though Greg’s mind goes back to his earlier question and he pauses.

Nick shifts, just a little, and rubs at his neck again. He glances up, once, and then works his jaw and keeps his gaze level, just to remind Greg that it’s his turn.

The rules are that Nick has to honestly answer any question Greg asks him. And oh, does Greg have questions—a question—for Nick.

He’s drunk. It should be easy.

“Did you ever date anyone in the lab?” he wonders instead, after another long moment, and sighs. Despite the few early rumors about Nick and Catherine, the answer is probably no, he knows that already. It’s not really Nick’s style to sleep around where he works.

Nick’s eyebrows go up, like the question surprised him anyway, then he shakes his head. After a second he stops, then shakes his head again. “Truth or dare, Greggo?”

“Dare,” Greg says instantly, again, his chest tight even at the idea of having to answer the kind of direct questions Nick would ask.

Nick scowls but sits back. He looks Greg up and down, obviously thinking, and then grins, hot and slow. Greg swallows and tries to shift to hide any further reactions from his body to smiles like that one.

“Greg…” Nick draws out his name, clearly teasing. Greg might just die from what that does to him. “Recite the Periodic Table…” he goes on, his voice sly, and Greg has a second or two to try to understand the strange words that ought to be “Kiss me, Greg,” instead of, “I heard you telling Archie you could.”

Greg finally sighs, because listening for it still isn’t making Nick say anything remotely like that.

“Of course I can, it’s a party trick.” Nick just keeps on staring at him with his eyebrows raised, so Greg sighs again. “Hydrogen,” he starts and then continues, trying to remember when exactly he had told Archie he could do this. He’s all the way at “Curium” before he remembers that he told Archie that sometimes he recites the Periodic Table in bed to keep from getting too excited too soon. He chokes on “Nobelium” and then drags in a breath while Nick whistles.

“That was some performance,” Nick remarks softly while Greg is still fighting the need to kill himself.

“Well I love to…perform…” Greg answers weakly, and Nick coughs and moves, scooting back toward the table.

“Need another shot,” he explains, his voice on the dry side. He licks the inside of his wrist before sprinkling more salt over his skin.

“Truth or dare?” Greg wheezes, crawling mindlessly toward Nick and Nick’s tongue and only coming to his senses when Nick pauses.

“Truth,” Nick answers without looking at him, reaching for the bottle. He pours some tequila in both glasses but only takes one. He drags his tongue through the salt on his wrist and down his shot and Greg is suddenly talking at a mile a minute.

“I suppose it’s my turn now. So how old were you when you first…?” It’s the kind of stupid question a person is supposed to ask in games like this, only Greg kind of wants to know, and also he has to say something that isn’t “Spend the night with me”. Nick coughs around the wedge of lime in his mouth, but sucks all the juice out and licks his mouth before he looks back over.

“Seventeen.” One word, because Greg hadn’t really requested more information, and besides, it’s embarrassing enough when compared to Greg’s answer. He hadn’t even gotten to say “slept with a girl…or a boy?”, still wasn’t sure he was brave enough to ask about what Jacqui kept assuring him was a definite possibility.

“Oh.” Greg shrugs, like it doesn’t matter one way or the other. He has a feeling Nick is smiling again though. He hates tequila. “Dare,” he tries, before Nick can ask him.

“How long are you going to keep saying ‘Dare’?” Nick sounds irritated. Greg glances up and watches Nick scowling down at his empty shot glass.

“As long as you keep saying ‘Truth’,” Greg snaps back and Nick turns his scowl on him.

“Fine.” Nick’s answer could have been straight off the playground. Right up until he adds to it. “Take off your shirt.”

“What?” Greg can’t breathe. It’s the tequila, it has to be. He’s got alcohol poisoning and he’s hallucinating. Only Nick Stokes is still glaring hotly at him from a few feet away, in his socks, on his knees on his living room floor, daring him to strip in a juvenile attempt to get Greg to pick Truth.

Greg snatches the shot glass Nick filled him for and downs half of it, without lime or salt, then slams it back on the table. Tequila splashes on his fingers and burns his lips when he licks them clean. His chest burns too, warm again when he slides his buttoned shirt from his arms and then curls his fingers around the edge of his t-shirt.

“Greg…” Nick starts and Greg tries to flash him a smile, even while he’s throwing his t-shirt to the side and exposing his thin body for the world—for Nick—to see. He’s too skinny and only getting skinnier according to his mom. And it’s been a while since he last had a chance to tan.

“Greg,” Nick says again, and the heavy sound of his breathing is the only thing louder than the way Greg’s heart is pounding. Nick is staring at him. Greg looks up at him and lets his smile get wider, faker, but hopefully Nick doesn’t see that.

“Well you got my shirt off, Stokes,” he tries a laugh and Nick swallows and interrupts him, his voice low.

“Truth.”

“Why didn’t you want to be noticed in high school?” Fair is fair. His bare skin is burning from the way Nick is looking at him, just because he can’t be muscular and handsome and perfect like Nick and…

“If they’d noticed me, they would have noticed how I was…different…and things were hard enough.” Nick puts his hands flat on the floor and finally takes his gaze away. He clears his throat and the sound is loud. Not gunshot loud, but attention-getting, startling, and Greg stops fighting the urge to cover himself and crosses his arms.

“Different?” That’s two questions really, but Nick shrugs and goes on anyway.

“Different,” he repeats, his voice getting harder, and looks over at Greg without raising his head. “Not all of us grew up in California, G.”

Greg actually snorts, and it has to be the tequila. But like growing up in California made it any easier.

A second after that and he realizes that Nick Stokes just…sort of…came out to him and Greg had laughed at him for it.

Nick’s fierce look is enough to remind Greg why it’s a never good idea when he opens his mouth. So he sort of falls forward and reaches out with the hand he’s not using to hold himself up and just…pats…pets…strokes Nick’s arm. It’s enough to make Nick stop moving at least, to make him stay when he’d obviously been about to leave.

They both stop, and then Greg feels the grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. Jacqui is a very smart woman.

Nick isn’t going to like him smiling like this, so Greg does his best to control it and then sits carefully back down, next to Nick by the coffee table this time. He ought to thank Nick for telling him, or say that he was different too, in case the Madonna hadn’t clued Nick in. But his heart nearly breaks a rib beating so hard when he thinks about it that he takes his hand off Nick and puts it on his chest, willing his heart not to kill him before all this was over at least.

“Dare,” he says finally, when his breathing slows and Nick eases back against the table. Nick instantly tenses again.

“Greg…” There’s that warning in his voice again, rough, private, just the way Greg likes it. The way he remembers sometimes, when he wants to get too excited, too soon. If he could say things like that out loud, he might tell Nick that.

“Dare.” Saying it again brings Nick’s head up. Greg has to lick his dry mouth before he can look up too, and the last shot of tequila hits him when he meets Nick’s gaze. He sways, dizzy and floating when Nick slowly smiles at him.

“Do another shot,” Nick orders, and Greg has a second of confused disappointment before Nick goes on. “A body shot.”

Body shot. The image from countless Spring Break videos hits him hard. A second later and his next thought has him hot all over. There’s only one other body here, Greg reasons, then reasons again to be sure, and twists back onto his knees.

He puts one hand on the floor and the other carefully onto Nick’s shoulder. Nick’s breath catches but he doesn’t say anything, which is good, because if he had said stop, Greg’s pretty sure he really would have had a heart attack.

It’s difficult to move in closer without his bare skin touching parts of Nick, leaving him to wonder if Nick had wanted that, and then all he’s thinking about it is his tongue on Nick’s skin, once, twice, along his neck, under his ear, until the skin is hot and damp, and Nick is shivering.

He has to pull away for the salt, shivering just like Nick at the cold of being apart, coming back to spill salt down Nick’s shirt. He’ll have to take it off to get the salt out.

Greg’s fingers let go of the shaker and he’s not even a little concerned about it all ending up in his carpet and having to clean again.

Nick’s skin, salty, warm.

Nick makes a noise under his mouth and Greg grabs at his chest, forgetting the tequila for a moment while he searches for every trace of salt.

“Greg,” Nick whispers again when Greg finally pulls back and blindly reaches for the shot glass. The burn is nothing this time, he ignores it while he fumbles for the lime that he completely forgot about in his quest to lick Nick’s throat and holds it up to Nick’s mouth.

His lips brush Greg’s fingers, hot and dry, and then Greg is gasping, sucking down the sweet and sour of the lime, the traces of Nick’s mouth.

He has to pull away, catch his breath, spit out the lime.

He can see the quick heaving of Nick’s chest from the corner of his eye, and looks up for a second. A moment later and he’s leaning in toward Nick again, stopping when Nick speaks, private and rough enough to get Greg that excited, just like that.

“Truth or dare, Greg?” Nick is still capable of thinking, or at least pretending that he is. Greg curls his fingers to hang on and stay on his feet—on his knees—and realizes that he’s gripping Nick’s arm.

He blinks, recalling now that he’d never really sat back, that he’s still leaning in toward Nick’s face, that Nick has a hand on his hip. There’s breath on his face, warm, scented like citrus, Nick is breathing hard and asking him questions and this would be a good time to answer them, yes, he is pretty sure about that now.

He ought to say something at least, but when he wets his lips he can taste Nick’s mouth more than lime, salt, or tequila. His brain sort of sparks at the memory and Greg closes his eyes.

“Truth,” he murmurs and opens his eyes real fast, but it’s too late, the word is out, as loud as his MP3 player which is now going through his entire collection of Madonna songs. ‘Like A Virgin’ Oh God, please don’t let Nick ask about his first time. “I mean…”

“What do you want, Greg?” Nick is direct, and Greg shouldn’t be startled, but he is. He looks up, which is a mistake, because they are still close and he is thinking that he just sort of, almost kissed Nick and that Nick didn’t really seem to mind, had in fact sort of asked him to do it, dared him, and how nervous was Nick anyway that he’d had to get Greg drunk and play a stupid schoolyard game just to get Greg to sort of, almost kiss him when Greg had obviously been wanting to do that for over a year now?

Nick must be really insecure, Greg decides after a moment of scrutiny that makes Nick duck his head, which is ridiculous, because Nick is close to perfect as far as he’s concerned.

“Spend the night with me,” he gets out as quickly as he can, heart thumping, his body twitching nervously no matter how much magic, evil tequila is floating through his veins. Nick’s eyes come back up to him and Greg drops his, knowing there’s no stopping his babbling now. “And the morning too. Have breakfast with me. I promise, no more Madonna or hits from the 80’s. Or tequila, ever again. You can even…you can even sleep on couch…or the bed, and I’ll take the couch…. It’s just…”

The bottle is still on the table, and Greg stops abruptly the moment he realizes that except for a small trace in the bottom, it’s completely empty. He has definitely had more than he should have.

Once he’s quiet, the hand on his hip slides away. Greg shivers, but the hand returns a second later, petting over his side. He expects the kick against his ribs this time, but not the soft way Nick speaks.

“Dare,” Nick says it like it’s his name, and Greg lifts his head right as Nick leans in to kiss him.



The End