Title: Favors
By: Read 300300
Rating: PG-R
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Disclaimer: Sorry, Santa said no, so they don't belong to me.
Response to: Telephone Challenge (4595 wds.)
Summary: FirstTime. Nick asks a huge favor from an old friend from Texas and an unknowing Greg gets caught up in the whole mess.

Nick read through the translation of the piece of paper that he had found by complete accident once more, his eyes widening with every word as he let the meaning sink in. Hurriedly, without thinking, he pulled his cell phone out and dialed the first number that he could remember.

"Hey, man, I need a favor... Yeah, a big favor."

~*~*~*~*~

Greg sat at the bar, drinking what must have been his third cherry Dr. Pepper. The past twenty-four hours had been horrible, starting when his alarm clock didn't go off when it was scheduled. So he was late to work, and the rest of the day had gone downhill from there. Nick had been avoiding him without cause for the past few weeks, and then the second that they were alone together, the man had freaked. Absolutely freaked! Then he ran off and left Greg standing there, wondering what had happened to the friendship that they used to share.

In some ways, Sanders blamed himself; after all, nothing had gone wrong until he developed feelings for the older man. Now, they never spent time together anymore, and when they did, Nick looked like he was about to bolt. The weirdest part was that Greg didn't think that he had been acting any differently, and certainly, he had never told anybody about his growing attraction. How Nick had found out, he didn't know.

Now, it was his night off, and he really didn't want to be alone.

In truth, he had only gone to the club to be around people; had he wanted alcohol, he'd have gone to Dot's, a little liquor store about a street away from his house. He liked people watching almost as much as he loved talking, and in some respects, he felt as though talking was only an excuse to watch reactions play across people's faces. Sometimes when he was here, he went out to the dance floor, but tonight wasn't one of those nights. He felt too down to attempt to find someone to talk to.

He nearly jumped when two hands landed on his shoulders, so engrossed was he in attempting to figure out precisely what drink the bartender was mixing at the moment.

A sultry voice whispered in his ear, "Play along...Just go along with it, Greg."

And then suddenly there was a tongue working its way up the edge of his ear and into the little crevices towards the center of it; Greg fought against his instinct to pull away from the unknown touch and instead leaned into it, following the order he had been given, if only so that he could see how the scenario would play out.

The hands moved their way down his shoulders, caressing his arms gently and applying a light pressure that sent shivers through Greg's spine; he had to admit that being touched felt amazing after eight months without any type of sexual contact.

And that ear thing was starting to feel wonderful.

When those strong hands met his and moved to pull him up, Greg couldn't help but follow, finally getting his first look at the man who had been touching him so intimately. In the darkness of the club, he could barely make out the medium frame and the muscles, but he had to admit that the guy was hot.

He flinched when the bright light struck his face, only now realizing that they were in the bathroom; he went to open his mouth to question what was going on, but those arms were wrapped around him, and the deep voice was back to its whispering.

"Put on a good show for the nice man."

Greg did just that once he realized that the man was referring to the guy who was taking a leak in one of the urinals, letting the other man's hands roam over his back as he was pushed into a stall. Vaguely, he realized that the stall door was locked and that the stranger at the urinal had finished his business very quickly before hightailing it out of the bathroom.

He had never been more shocked in his life than when the man who brought him into the bathroom pushed him away and began wiping his mouth off with some spare toilet paper.

"Eww! Eww, eww.... My wife is so going to kill me!" He made a face as he ran a hand through his long blonde hair. "Sorry about that, Greg, but we had to make it look believable."

"Who are you?" Greg asked, only now realizing how foolish it had been to come with the stranger. "How do you know my name?"

"Who I am is not important. A friend of a friend of Nick's sent me; he told me to give you these." The man handed over a cell phone and piece of paper. "He also told me that you weren't to go home, contact anyone else besides him from your office, or go into work for any reason. Unless you're told to do so, of course."

"What's this all about?" He threw back, not really believing this man he had never met before. Having opened the note already, he could tell that it was Nick's writing, but he didn't believe anything beyond that. "How do I know that I can trust you? Or that Nick sent you?"

"You're not really gonna make me do it, are you? I have to warn you: I'm a horrible singer!" The man sighed heartily with disgust before he began singing, "Once around the mulberry bush, Satan chased Kenny G. Kenny thought it was all in fun, until he was made to sing Country..."

"Okay." Well, that solved that one quick enough. Only Nick had been privy to his rant about Country music that included his very own versions of children's songs.

"Look, we've been in here too long already. I have to go. Someone will contact you about your instructions. Until then," he reached over and mussed Greg's clothing and hair before doing the same to his clothes, "act like we've just... you know."

Greg nodded, not really knowing what to say as the man unlocked the stall door and walked out, once more muttering about how his wife was either going to strangle or eviscerate him.

He looked back down at the note, reading it once more.

Greg,
Don't go anywhere with anyone, unless you're told to. Listen to whoever tells you where to go and do what they say; they're acting on my orders.

Nick

He nodded dumbly before folding the note up and sticking it in his pocket. With a million thoughts running through his head, he went back out into the club and sat back down at the bar.

One hour, two drinks, and just about every version of ‘What is going on here' possible later, the phone rang.

Startled, Greg picked it up and answered it, "Hello?"

"Go to Cherry's on the corner of 4th and Epice. When you get there, go to the manager and tell him that the purple ducks hate the Clash. He'll give you something. After he does, stay in the store until you get the next call," the girl's voice was rushed and shrill.

Greg heard a click, and after only a few brief moments of hesitation, he stood and made his way to the car as he tried to remember how to get to 4th St. from the club.

Whatever this was, it had to be important or else Nick would never have gone through somebody else. And if Nick was in some sort of trouble, then Greg would do whatever it took to help him.

~*~*~*~*~

Ah, so this must be Cherry's, Greg decided, having finally found where Epice met 4th a half hour later; it was a dingy, dimly lit building and the sign was missing the ‘C,' but it was the only thing that even looked remotely like it could have been what the man was talking about.

Taking a deep breath, he walked into the building, only to be surprised first off, that it was a very clean, very bright store on the inside.

Then, he got a look at what was on the shelves and stepped back in shock. Nick had sent him to an... an adult store? What was he thinking? Greg shook his head before deciding that he should probably go along with the order and talk to the manager. After all, he was here already, wasn't he? And nothing bad had happened yet...

Just to be on the safe side, he reached into his pocket and fingered his pocket knife, ready to pull it out and defend himself if he had to; he still didn't know what was going on, and he didn't want to take too many chances.

He walked over to the cash register and leaned forward a little so that he could read the girl's name tag.

"Uh, Candy?" He asked, wondering not for the first time that night if he had left the real world and entered some weird B-grade horror movie.

"Yes, sir?" She tossed her hair back with her right hand.

"Do you know where the manager is?" He asked quizzically, cocking his head to the right a little bit.

"If you want to make a complaint, you have to fill out the forms on the back shelf," she said tiredly as she shifted her feet.

"No, I just need to speak with the manager for a few seconds." At her nonplussed look, he elaborated, "Nick sent me."

"Nick sent you, you say? Hang on a second," she turned around and walked through a grey door marked ‘Employees Only,' her heels clicking on the tiled floor.

A few minutes later, she returned with a middle age man, one who looked fairly... normal. If Greg had seen him anywhere else, he would never have associated him with anything like this.

"Hello, I'm Mr. Novander."

"Purple trucks don't like the Clash?" Greg blurted out what he thought he remembered from the phone call.

"Purple ducks, you mean?"

"Something like that." Greg nodded.

"Yes, well, I was told to give you this." He extended his hand and gave Greg a key.

Greg looked at the key. "What's this?"

"It's a key, genius."

"But what's it for?" He sharpened his tone.

"You know, you use it to open locked things."

"But-" Greg finally scowled and gave up when he saw the other guy was going to keep on playing this game.

Muttering under his breath about 'that damned Nick Stokes' and his 'damned pranks' and his 'damned purple ducks' Greg took the key and started to walk out the door, only to be stopped by the guy.

"Where do you think you're going? You haven't been given permission to leave this establishment!" Novander quickly moved and grabbed Greg's arm, dragging him forcefully back into the store.

"Excuse me? I have every right to leave when I want to; I don't need permission," he spat out.

"Not without Nicky's permission. Nicky says you stay here, then you stay here," he was very adamant.

"Look, I... what the hell is going on?" Greg finally let the words burst out. "Why can't I leave?"

"Man, nobody messes with Nicky. It's my own skin if I let you leave."

Greg noticed with some apprehension that the man looked very scared. He inhaled sharply; what the hell was going on with Nick? It was looking more and more like Nick wasn't the person he had been led to think he was.

"Okay," he sighed, "I get it; I just want to know what's going on."

"All I know is that someone new came in today and asked me if I would do something for Nicky, and I was told to give the key to whoever came in talking about purple ducks and the Clash. I can't let you leave until they call you..." Novander let go of him. "But man, I don't want to make them mad. Nicky protects us here."

Nick did what?

Greg just nodded, filing that piece of information away for later.

"I mean, Mr. Gresh is a good man, doing everything he does for us," the man spoke again.

"Mr. Gresh?" Greg questioned.

"Yeah, Nicky Gresh, at least that's what his I.D. says. Of course, his I.D. also shows him as being white, so who knows what his real name is?" The man threw his hands up. "Well, I have to get back to work, but you stay here. Look around; pick something out or whatever. Just stay here."

Greg took a deep breath as he went over what he could piece together in his mind. Apparently, one of Nick's friends had come in and somehow had been gotten mixed up with a mob runner, and now he was thrown into what could potentially be a bad situation. His stomach curdled as he realized that Mr. Novander would be very upset when he found out that he wasn't working for the real Nicky Gresh.

Well, it seemed to Greg that all he could do would be to hope Novander never found out about it. And until he could get away, the only thing he could do was to look around the shop.

Slowly, he began perusing the store, not really looking for anything in particular. He flipped through some of the books, took a look at their somewhat impressive collection of floggers, but he didn't really stop until he got to the dildos.

It was with some shock that he realized that he hadn't gotten laid in almost eight months.

Well, he thought, since I'm here anyway...

He started at one end of the shelves and worked his way to the other, looking at the different toys that they provided, discarding each one because of color or size. There was even one that he put down because it was curved at a very odd angle and yet still managed to be made with a series of spheres and cubes.

Finally, he picked up one that looked fairly enjoyable and relatively cheap. He held it in his hand and rolled it over, checking the weight and flexibility of it. It was a fairly good choice, a bit different from anything else he had ever used, but still comfortable enough.

Idly, he wondered whether it was larger than he was.

Hmmm... maybe a half-inch smaller...no, an inch. Definitely an inch...

He jumped when he heard Candy laughing; only then did he actually look down and realize what he was doing! Apparently, he had held the right next to his own cock as he was considering the size differences, and from Candy's view, it looked like he was.... Oh, no....

Greg froze and blushed before lifting the skin-colored implement up so that she could see it; unfortunately, that only made her laugh harder. Something in her laugh gave him the feeling that a lot of men had been in his position before.

"You can have that one on the house," the blonde smirked.

Greg was saved from having to answer by the ringing of the phone.

"There's a cab waiting outside for you; take it to the Wal-Mart on 27th street and... buy tomatoes."

Buy tomatoes?

Briefly, Greg wondered at that and then gave up. Too many things just didn't make sense, such as why he couldn't just take his own car. But as his choices at the moment were to either get into the cab where he would go to Wal-mart and buy tomatoes, stay at the shop with the man who thought he was doing a favor for a mob boss, or get into his car and risk pissing off whoever was giving orders.

Out of those, he would choose buying tomatoes; if anything, he would probably come out of that experience with the least amount of pain. After all, what could go wrong with buying tomatoes?

~*~*~*~*~

Greg went to pay the cabby, only to find out that it had been prepaid to take him specifically to the Wal-Mart near Nicky's house; he was a bit grateful for that, for if something bad happened here, then he would at least know the neighborhood.

As he got out of the cab, he realized that he was still holding the dildo in his hands, and oh, how wonderful that would be if he got arrested for it. He knew he had to do something with it; there were little kids around and he didn't want them becoming any more corrupted because of him. In their own time, the world would brutally rip away their innocence, but for now, Greg wasn't going to add to that.

But where could he put it? Obviously not in his pants' pocket; he did not even want to think about what that would look like! Well, the only other place to put it was in his jacket pocket. Quickly, he jammed it into his jacket before looking around to make sure that nobody had noticed.

Sighing, he walked through the automatic doors. After taking a left and walking down an aisle, he snagged a free sample of rotisserie chicken and made his way to the fruits and vegetable section. He passed the apples, cherries, and grapes before he realized that all of the vegetables were lined up on the wall across from the fruits section.

He moved over there, snatched a plastic holding bag, and put five tomatoes in it; his goal was to get out of the store as quickly as possible, and he figured five had to be good enough. If they had wanted more, then they should have specified.

He was really getting tired of just following these inane orders. Now he was stuck with a bag of tomatoes, a key, and a million questions! To top it off: he had to buy the tomatoes with his own money!

Angrily, he marched to the counter, intent on just buying the damn produce and getting out of there.

The clerk flashed a smile at him as she rang up his purchase; normally, he would have smiled back, but he just wanted this night to be over. Too many weird things, and definitely not enough time to figure any of it out.

"That'll be $3.59."

"Fine, fine," Greg went to grab his wallet from his jacket pocket.

"Oh my god, he's got a gun!" The teller yelled, ducking under the counter after slapping a red button on the side of the cash register. Everyone around began screaming and trying to run out of the story; Greg just stood there in shock.

He didn't.... what was she talking about? Time seemed to slow as he tried to figure it out. He didn't even notice the chaos surrounding him.

Suddenly, security was everywhere, men with guns pointed at him, and all he could do was to stare in confusion at the uniformed guards. There were four of him, and they had obviously pegged him as the perpetrator.

"Put your hands in the air!" One of them yelled, a balding man who looked like he meant business. "Move them slowly and keep them where we can see them."

"I don't have a gun!" He cried, not only confused but very scared. Those guns that were trained on him looked very real and very big; he didn't even want to contemplate what one of those could do to him. He knew all too well; he'd seen too many bodies that had been riddled with bullets not to understand what just one of those little bullets would do to his flesh.

"Put your hands in the air," the older man barked, seemingly nonplussed by this statement.

Greg backed up slowly, stopping only when his back hit the check-out station. He brought his hands up, following their order just how they had been described.

"Now slowly take out the gun and put it on the floor."

"I don't have a gun! I work for the Las Vegas Crime Lab; I'm one of your own!" He reiterated, "All I have is a pocket knife in my back right pant's pocket."

"Empty your pockets! Slowly!"

Greg nodded before reaching his left hand down to grab his wallet; he dropped it on the floor before retrieving his keys. The last time he put his hand in his pocket, all he encountered was the dildo. He blushed nearly scarlet; it was bad enough that his day had ended like this, but now it was about to get even worse.

Suddenly, it struck him! This was what the woman thought was a gun!

Slowly, he pulled it out and dropped it on the white tile, watching as it rolled a little to the left before the wallet stopped it.

"Greg!"

He turned his head; there was Nicky, and he looked horrible.

"Officers," Stokes turned to them and flashed his badge and official I.D. "Drop your weapons! There's been a mistake."

"You know this man?" The bald guy asked.

"Yeah, he's with the Crime Lab too," Nick looked haggard. "He's okay."

"Okay? What kind of ‘okay' man carries a dildo around with him?" One of the other guards spoke up.

"Shut it!" The eldest one barked, dropping his gun; Sanders breathed a sigh of relief when all of the others did too.

Greg slumped, the stress of the day finally taking its toll on him as he sank down to the floor. He leaned against the check-out station and closed his eyes, taking in another deep breath. He'd never had a loaded gun pointed at him before, much less four, and he never wanted it to happen again.

Suddenly, a pair of arms snaked around him and he couldn't even bring up the energy to fight them off; then, he realized that he didn't have to. It was Nick that was holding him and double-bagging the things that he had dropped. He sighed, not even noticing that the security guards had cleared the area so that the store could close for the rest of the night and that he and Nicky were now alone.

"My friends told me what they did to you; it was an accident," Nick whispered. "They were supposed to just distract you for an evening, not make you fear for your life. I don't think I explained it too well to them, but I can't believe they ever thought I wanted to send you down to Fourth Street."

"Nicky, if you're in trouble, I can help you... whatever you need, money, whatever, I don't care..." He breathed, not remembering when he had felt this emotionally tired. He felt like he was on one big roller coaster that never wanted to quit.

"Why would you think I was in trouble?" Nick pulled back a little, looking into Greg's deep brown eyes.

"Well, the whole thing... it was like some weird running-from-the-government thing; I didn't know what I was supposed to do or how I could help you or what was going on and then that guy thought that you were a mobster or a gangster or something and... then I get nearly shot because some girl named Candy who works at the porn store you sent me to gave me a dildo. What's this all about, Nick? What's going on?"

"I... well, Jonathan messed everything up. He was told to make sure you didn't go home, not tell you not to. I didn't want you to fall asleep or anything... He was supposed to follow you from work, give you that note and tell you to go to Cherry's at nine. When he passed told his people to do it, he mixed everything up and they thought that you were supposed to be kept where I said at all costs and they thought the best way to do that was to make you think something was really wrong. That wasn't what they were supposed to do at all! They were just supposed to take you to Cherry's."

"Yeah, he did, he sent me to that porn store right around then and-" He interrupted.

"Wrong Cherry's. The Cherry's I was talking about was the club and sushi bar thing, and the key was supposed to be for one of the rooms in case you, you know, weren't into the whole club thing. Apparently, Jonathan passed on the favor to someone who passed it on to someone else, and the entire meaning got lost in the process," Nick laughed hollowly, as though he couldn't believe his friend's idiocy.

"Greg, you were supposed to stay there and relax, get a little liquored up if you wanted to, and then the cab was supposed to take you to my place. I figured that was best, you know, so that you wouldn't be driving under the influence. Then, well, a slight problem came up and they were supposed to detain you for another twenty minutes, but the cabby wouldn't wait, so.... Well, that was when I found out where you really were, and I wasn't about to let you stay down on Fourth Street. So I told them to get you out of there."

"And they chose Wal-Mart," Greg finished.

"Yeah, they did and.... Then I heard about this on the police scanner, and I freaked. I thought maybe you'd gotten hurt by some weirdo, so I rushed over here and there you were... guns pointed at you and everything."

"Okay, I get that it's, you know, just chance that the guy at Cherry's thought you were Nicky Gresh and that I was given a dildo that can pass for a gun and... and... everything, but jeesh! Nick, why? Why go through all this trouble? I still... don't understand at all."

"I, uh, well, I picked up this letter that you dropped a few days ago, and I, uh, happened to notice what it said." Nick pulled out the half-finished letter from his pants pocket and showed it to the younger man rather than asking for an explanation. He figured he'd get the whole explanation later.

"Uh, Nick... that's in Norwegian," Greg knew it was stupid, but he felt like he had to point it out.

He was surprised to see a light red tint Nick's cheeks.

"I've, uh, been brushing up on my Norwegian., and well, I couldn't figure all of it out, but I got enough to know that some bastard had pretty much broken your heart."

"Nick-"

"No, I... well, so I put it through this free translation thing, and I kind of figured out that it was me. I mean, how many other male coworkers from the Lone Star state do you have?" Nick half-grinned. "And tonight was supposed to be to apologize for being that bastard."

"So I nearly got shot because you wanted to apologize?" Greg had to clarify.

"No, you nearly got shot because I wanted to ask you out on a date but was too chicken to do it. And speaking of chicken, I made dinner for you. It's back at my house, and your car's there too, if you still wanted...I mean, I know tonight was probably horrible and that I really fucked things up, but-"

"Sure, Nick," Greg smiled, "Chicken sounds nice."

"Great!" Nick smiled nervously. "You feel up to leaving? I think they're trying to close down the store for a few hours."

"Yeah, sure," he moved to stand and grabbed the bag with his stuff in it from Nick once he was upright. "Oh, hey, here's your cell-phone"

"Uh, actually, that's your new cell phone. I guess they forgot to tell you that it's your early birthday present from me, since yours is kind of outdated. I made sure that your number was transferable and the bill's paid off for the next three months."

"Uh, wow," Greg smiled again. "Thanks, Nick....You didn't have to."

"I know."

As they walked out to his car, Nick spoke again, "So, just how was it that this Candy girl decided to give you a dildo, of all things?"