Title: Outspoken
By: saras-girl
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Part of the 'Now That You Mention It' series of finding-out oneshots. Greg can be quiet, he really can...
A/N: just a little random break room conversation. I see this taking place around season six, Greg being in the field and all. Enjoy (hopefully)...reviews are much much appreciated as always :)

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Greg was being quiet. Someone, mentioning no names, had laughed at him earlier that day whilst lying next to him in bed, and asked him if he ever stopped talking. So he was being quiet. Pointedly flicking through a forensics magazine whilst everyone else talked and ate Chinese food. If anyone else around the table had noticed his silence, they weren't saying anything. Greg pouted and sighed. He wasn't listening, anyhow. Much…

"So she opens the door, after a really long time, and she's wearing this, this..." Warrick paused, thinking, hands on his chest, demonstrating the outline of a low cut garment.

"The word you are looking for is negligee," Catherine supplied, drily.

"Right," he nodded, dropping his hands back to rest on the break room table. Looked around at his audience before continuing. "This thing was, damn, it was just a little bit of silk and lace. Did not leave much to the imagination, believe me. She just looked at me and said – 'I'm sorry, Mr Brown, I was sleeping.' "

Nick suppressed a snigger and Greg looked up momentarily from his magazine, unable to stop himself smiling at the man he loved. It had only been four weeks since they had started dating but Greg had been waiting years, and it was love, he knew it. Not wanting to be caught staring by his blissfully unaware colleagues, he quickly ducked his head again, half losing himself in the forensics journal and, in spite of himself, half listening to the conversation around him.

"That's when I knew she was guilty," Warrick was saying with some satisfaction.

"Please." That was Sara, and Greg knew she was rolling her eyes without even looking at her. "Pass the noodles, would you?"

The carton was nearer to Greg's hand than Warrick's, and he reached out and handed it to Sara, wordlessly, eyes still fixed on the article in front of him.

New developments in fibre comparison technology...Ooh, interesting.

"Let me get this right, 'Rick," Nick's voice. Teasing. Sceptical. "Because she answered the door to you wearing a silk nightdress you knew she had murdered her husband?"

You tell him, Nicky. Flicked the page over. A double page spread on DNA Sequencing.

"No. Because she was flirting with me. And because she was lying. No one sleeps in those things. Fact."

Catherine snorted. "And you'd know."

"Hey, Catherine, didn't mean to offend you. Don't tell me you sleep in silk."

Greg smirked. Heard the barely veiled curiosity in the other man's voice. Yeah, you'd like to know.

There was silence in the room for a moment, broken only by the sound of clicking chopsticks and crunching. Greg got halfway into the DNA article before Catherine spoke again.

"On occasion," she admitted, a little defensively, Greg thought. Nothing wrong with that...

Warrick laughed.

"Women don't wear those things just to sleep in?" Nick sounded incredulous. Cardboard carton suspended halfway to his mouth, looking at Catherine.

Greg lifted the magazine a little closer to his face to study a small diagram. You wouldn't know, would you Nicky? The last woman you saw undressed was your mother, when she gave birth to you. Greg bit his lip to keep from smiling.

"That a statement or a question?" Sara's voice was playful.

"Er...ah...I don't know. Neither. I plead the fifth." Hmm, flustered Nicky...hot. Greg turned another page studiously.

"Come on then, Mr Big Shot," Catherine jumped in, unwittingly rescuing Nick. She was addressing Warrick now. "What do you wear in bed then?"

Oh, Catherine Willows, you flirt, thought Greg, his eyes drawn by an ad for a very fancy microscope. Hmm. He would have liked one of those when he was in the lab.

"Ah, the usual." He sounded embarrassed now. Serves him right. "T-shirt, boxers. Just, normal stuff."

"How about you, Nicky?" Sara jumped back in.

She was enjoying this, he could tell. Both of them were. He wondered if he could talk Wendy into putting an order in for the microscope just so he could play with it.

"Ahm...yeah...the same. T-shirt, pants."

Out of the corner of his eye, Greg saw Nick looking around the room, his face flushed. He was easily embarrassed when it came to stuff like that, Greg knew. With other people, anyway.

"Jeez, how boring," Catherine sighed. "I was hoping for some sort of revelation."

Greg was staring at the letters page of the magazine now, but he wasn't reading it. If only you knew, Catherine, he thought wickedly. Unable to stop a filthy smile creeping across his face. Nicky's lying to you. The only thing he wears in bed these days is me.

It's gone very quiet in here all of a sudden, Greg.

Slowly, Greg's smile faltered as he realised that the conversation around the table had completely ground to a halt. He looked up from his magazine and at each person around the table. Their expressions ranged from shock to embarrassment to barely contained amusement.

Oh god, no. I did not say that last part out loud. Fuck. I couldn't have done. Fuck fuck fuck.

As much as he struggled vainly to reassure himself of this fact, one look at his colleagues told him unequivocally otherwise.

Sara was biting her lip hard and her shoulders were shaking silently. Looking straight at him.

Warrick's eyes were wide with shock, though there was, Greg fancied, a smile threatening the hard line of his mouth.

His eyes fell on Nick next, fervently repeating 'oh, please don't be mad, please don't be mad, please don't be mad' over and over. Definitely in his head this time. He made sure his treacherous mouth was clamped shut. Nick's face was flaming and he was trying very hard not to look at anyone around the table. Greg felt a little stab of guilt. He knew how anxious Nick had been about the team finding out about them. He felt sure that this was far from the way he had wanted it to go. Him and his big mouth. So much for being quiet. Tentatively, Greg slid a hand across the table and rested it on Nick's forearm.

"Sorry," he whispered. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry – "

"Greg." Nick surprised him by looking up and right into his eyes.

"What?"

"Shush. It's ok. At least this way I didn't have to say anything. Now everyone knows. Probably a little more than they wanted to, but no matter."

Greg sighed with relief, allowing a small smile to creep across his lips. A thought struck him.

"What about Grissom?"

"Er...Greg?" He looked up at Catherine's voice. Noticed her for the first time since his accidental confession. She had her hand over her mouth as if trying to hold something in, and her eyes were fixed on something behind him. Greg knew, then. Not letting go of Nick's arm, he swivelled slowly to face Grissom. The supervisor stood in the doorway, his face unreadable.

"The unconscious is an interesting thing, isn't it Greg? Remember we talked about thinking before you speak?"

Greg nodded slowly. He didn't think he had been this embarrassed in his entire life.

"Experience tends to teach us more than theory, in any case."

His eyes were sparkling behind his glasses and it was all Greg could do not to bury his face in his hands.

"Break's over – I assume you all have work to do?"

There was a muffled clatter as everyone pushed their chairs back and emptied the room. Greg closed his magazine and watched Warrick slap Nick on the back as he followed him down the corridor. Nick laughed, and Greg smiled. He loved that sound. Silence was overrated.

FIN

Next story in series - Interfering.