Title: Animal Planet, chapter 5
Author: anmani
Pairing: Nick and Greg, involves the entire lab
Genre: AU(Fantasy), humor
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Grissom gets a mysterious letter.
Disclaimer: They belong to the CBS and not us.

Grissom circled the mob once and then started to head for the main entrance. He wanted to know if what had happened to them had happened to everybody in Las Vegas or if it was restricted to the lab. The repercussions should it have happened outside the lab too, was more than he cared to consider. That scenario would demand the group to break up and the fight for survival would become hard.

The Cavalier and he were both hunting dogs and the other shepherd dogs. The cats would go off into matriarchate societies and the tabby would be in trouble, because in the wild a castrated tom had no use. The panther would go off hunting on his own and only seek company of his breed a few times a year. The stallion would be off to find a team of mares to run with.

They would be scattered to the winds and the lab would be no more than a vague memory. It saddened Grissom deeply as he realized how much he stood to lose. ‘Please let it be that text.' It was the last thing he'd done before the transformation. If he was lucky it could all be reverted by reading the text out loud again. That only posed one problem; none of them were able to talk anymore.

His heart rate quickened when he saw the glass doors leading to the outside and he could smell fear in the air. The Collie produced another heart wrenching shriek and once again everybody focused on Nick to see what had happened now. The first thing Grissom noticed was the blood on the floor and then the front paw that was raised off the floor. The pup started whimpering and the sassy cat was pushed out of the way by the owl.

Grissom looked at Nick and his immediate surroundings and noticed a wastebasket close to the unfortunate dog. An object too long to actually fit in the wastebasket was sticking out and on the end sat a few black hairs. ‘That boy should be wrapped in cotton.' If there was trouble around it would find Nick as sure as Amen after Sunday's prayer. The Border put down his paw and stood to show everybody that he was fine.

The fear still lingered in the air, but Nick's incident had dissolved it somewhat. The glass doors drew Grissom like a magnet and he prayed that someone would walk past any second now. Nobody did of course.

With his snout pressed flat against the glass he stared at the world outside and then a car drove by. To Grissom's relief it was driven by a human and as he watched more cars drove by. Grissom had carefully stayed away from the sensor activating the door, not wanting to let the outside world in until he was sure that was still all normal. So when the doors slid open he jumped in surprise.

It was of course the pup who ran out onto the pavement. A few feet out, a huge white flash engulfed the small dog and screaming the Border followed suit. The first flash had only just died when Nick produced another and the ringing in Grissom's ears was piercing every thought to smithereens. When he could see again both men were laying naked out on the sidewalk, Nick was on top of Greg shielding him from the world.

A gasp echoed through the crowd and Grissom knew he had to act fast. Barking loudly he ordered everybody to stand back and hoped that at least the panther got the message. Warrick moved to stand in front of the doors effectively blocking the way outside and bared his impressive set of fangs. Nodding Grissom leapt outside and was blinded by the flash.

The cold surface beneath him was painfully rough and the breeze chilled his skin in the most precarious places. Grissom had never considered himself as shy, but then again he had never been placed naked before the entire lab. He did a vain attempt to shield his privates from public viewing before tuning into the world again. He wasn't able to hear what Nick and Greg were talking about, but given recent events he guessed they would have a lot to discuss.

Grissom mentally went over the state of his body and apart from soreness throughout he felt alright.

"Are you guys ok?" His voice was dry and speaking not as easy as it used to be.

"No." Nick's answer was a sob, more than an actual word.

"We'll be fine." Greg sounded far more in control of his voice than he had been.

"I think I know what happened." Grissom offered, getting everybody's attention. His fingers found his nose and rubbed the bridge and it felt so much better now that he was able to actually do it.

"I read out loud a letter I had received and then there was a flash and I became a dog."

"You've been reading too much Harry Potter." Greg chuckled but stilled when Nick's face contracted in pain.

"What's wrong Nicky?" His young CSI was shaking and in obvious pain. Looking closer Grissom was able to see several bruises all over Nick's body even without his glasses.

"It hurts all over." The normal so tough guy was reduced to mere sobs. Greg looked Grissom in the eyes and without words a conversation of understanding passed between them. Greg brought up the hand shielded from the lab and gently caressed Nick's face.

The act was pure love and Grissom felt a deep sadness over his own lack of love.

"It feels like I've dislocated every joint in my whole body." Nick complained and Grissom could easily follow that string of thought, his own joints felt arthritic and his jaw was the worst.

"Well a dog has the joints a bit different from us. I guess that why we feel dislocated." He offered the explanation as a mild comfort, but the bruises on Nick's neck were giving him a hard time. They were there because he had needed to establish leadership over Nick.

"Were you serious about that letter?" Greg asked caught somewhere between belief and disbelief.

"I can't really see any other explanation, but there's no science to confirm the possibility of such events." Grissom sighed and shook his head. The lack of ears flapping against his skull confused him and he let out a chuckle. Greg moved away from them and bounded back towards the lab blinding them all when another flash engulfed him.

"No. Greg!" Nick screamed and tried to stand, but his knees gave in and he dumped to the ground in a heap of limbs.

"Easy Nicky, stay down." Grissom put a hand on the young man's shoulder and the human warmth sent unfamiliar signals to his brain. It dawned on him that Nick would follow Greg to the end of the world and back.

"Greg can you hear me?" The Cavalier was sitting just outside the entrance to lab. The pup got up and moved towards him with a nod.

"Is there some kind of border?" Grissom figured that the dog's senses would be more likely to pick that up than his own human ones. The Cavalier moved tentatively closer.

Three feet away the pup jumped back as if it had been electrocuted. The whimper from the pup was reflected in Nick's sobs.

"Warrick can you find some blankets for us. But find a way to throw them out here." The panther growled in an affirmative way.

"Jim can you see if our clothes were left where we got transformed?" The Doberman nodded as well and headed inside. The stallion followed his colleague and Grissom wondered why they had become the animals that they were. Since he had read the spell he wondered if it was his perception of the person.

If that was the case he had some serious thinking to do.

"You attacked me?!" Nick hitched out quietly.

"I'm sorry Nick, but I had some very powerful Alpha instincts. I just couldn't let you… mate with her." Grissom looked down not sure what else to say, mostly because he wasn't really interested in Sofia. Granted she was an attractive woman, but nothing what he normally cared for.

"And I'm a Beta. I get it, but why didn't Greg…?" Nick looked at him with those big dark eyes and he carefully chose his words.

"He is probably an Alpha in the making." Nick's pupils dilated even further and gave his eyes a black appearance. But his young CSI nodded after a few moments.

"Yeah I guess so. I'm sorry." Nick looked miserable and the hand that Vartann had trot on was swollen and his forearm had a long shallow cut.

"No need to make excuses for him. He was running on instincts as much as the rest of us. I'm the one who's sorry Nicky." A series of barks interrupted his thoughts and he turned his attention to the dog barking.

"Jim was our clothes where we were?" The Doberman nodded and wagged his tail like crazy. The Cavalier had walked off and it took him a moment to see where the little dog had gone. Grissom saw the Saint Bernard following the small puppy.

The pup had walked to the corner of the building and was obviously locating the borderline, SuperDave was staying close to the building and Grissom couldn't really blame him for it.

"Greg does the border go all the way down there?" A confirming nod and a puppy-bark answered him. The panther and the stallion returned to the doorway. Vartann was carrying a wastebasket and Warrick roared to get his attention.

"Is that the blankets?" Warrick nodded and Greg came bouncing back showing Vartann how close he could come to the invisible border. The stallion put the basket down and turned around. For a moment Grissom was confused, but then Vartann bucked and kicked sending the wastebasket flying towards him and Nick. It only took him a few seconds to wrap them both in the coarse blankets.

Nick was shivering and Grissom considered calling Greg back to take care of Nick, but decided against it. Instead he turned to the menagerie of animals standing in the doorway of the lab.

"I guess that I need to read that letter out loud again with everybody in place." Grissom stood up and spoke. There came the general sound of agreement from the mob and he was desperately trying to work out how to do that.

"I have to go back?" Nick looked at him with sad puppy eyes and Grissom felt his heart crumble.

"I think so. But I need to find a way to read it while being a dog." Grissom spoke loud enough for the rest to hear him. After a hushed silence the bunny hopped over towards him and he held up a hand to warn Hodges against jumping the line. Seeing Hodges naked was not on the top of his wish list and besides he didn't want anyone else to suffer the pain that his own body was telling him about.

Hodges ignored the warning and Grissom snatched the extra two blankets just as the flash appeared. The moment he was able to see he threw them over the now very naked Hodges.

"Ouch, that was unpleasant." Hodges wrapped the blanket around him and looked up at his boss.

"I tried to warn you David." Grissom didn't mean to sound that annoyed, but Hodges was an expert in annoying him.

"Why don't you read it out here and record it." Hodges wasn't useless Grissom knew that, but it still surprised him whenever he came up with the right ideas.

"Do we have a recording device that an animal can operate?" Grissom put the question to them all and had they been human there would have been a myriad of hushed whispers.

The black cat meowed and paced back and forth in front of Warrick. The panther got the messaged and disappeared into the lab following the black cat and once again the stallion followed suit.

"Don't forget the letter! It's on my desk!" Grissom shouted after them.

The Cavalier was all over the place doing a lot of weird things and Grissom figured that Greg was probably just testing his doggy-form to the limit before it was too late. Nick sighed deeply and Hodges was talking, but he wasn't really listening.

‘Is this how I see them?'

‘What does it mean that Greg is a potential Alpha?'

‘Why did I not see everybody as dogs?'

‘Why did nobody become bugs?'

‘Maybe it isn't my perception then?'

A growl from the doorway put a stop to his musings and Grissom turned his attention to Warrick, Sara and Vartann. Once again the stallion had a wastebasket in between his teeth. Grissom tried to block out the endless stream of words coming from Hodges and concentrate on the stallion's actions. The wastebasket landed a little to his left and he rushed to pick up its contents before the annoying tech had a chance to do so.

He fished out the letter and an old tape recorder with big clumsy buttons. "Nick, David, you better get back inside. I don't know if anything will happen, but just in case." Grissom pointed his right hand towards the lab while he gave Hodges a stern look. The tech shrugged his shoulders and leapt across the line blinding them all. Nick stared with wide eyes at the grey bunny bouncing across to the doors.

The pup had moved as close as he could to them and was yelping loudly.

"Nicky, you can do it and you have Greg to love you." Grissom knew that Nick craved the reassurance that he had given Greg earlier. The knowledge of them being a couple both made him happy and sad; happy because Nick needed somebody to take care of him and sad because of his own lack of love.

"This is so weird." Nick muttered and still with the blanket tucked safely around him, did a careful duck and roll through the invisible barrier towards the lab. Grissom closed his eyes when Nick started moving and slowly counted to ten. The ringing in his ears was soon replaced by hissing and he opened his eyes expecting another cat fight.

"Sara and Catherine will you stop that and get back inside. Everyone back inside now!" It pissed Grissom off that he had more power as a dog than as a human. He felt blatantly ignored by the two females and was about to launch a verbal attack on them when Warrick lifted Cath by the neck and Brass did the same with Sara. The vulture gave him a mean glare and then disappeared inside followed by the Yorkshire Terrier, the ferret and the snake.

The owl looked at Grissom with its big round caring eyes and then hoppled towards the morgue followed by the huge dog. Sofia stuck her snout in the sky and wandered off as well. Something scurried inside and Grissom was pretty sure that it was that rat again. ‘So maybe it was one of us after all?' He hoped he would find out afterwards and motioned for the remaining animals to get back inside. The stallion was the last one to turn around and he felt lost and alone.

I give you the power
The power to transform
The power to control
The power to form
These are the powers I give you
I give you the power
The power to learn
The power to rule
The power to love
These are the powers I give you
I gave you the power

Grissom felt nothing as he read the words to the tape recorder and with great relief he pushed stop and put the recorder and the paper back in the wastebasket and kicked it back towards the lab. Bracing himself for the transformation he took a deep breath and then followed Nick's example. Blinded and deafened he shook his head and felt the flap of ears against his skull. ‘It worked!'

The wastebasket wasn't that easy to carry in his mouth as he had anticipated and the distraction of Vartann's aftershave still lingering on it certainly didn't help. After much trouble he got to his office and gently lifted the recorder on to his desk with his teeth. Grissom took a moment to collect his thoughts and then jumped up on his chair. The play-button was large but he was still extremely careful when he pushed it down. The office filled with his voice and ended with a flash and a bang.

When he opened his eyes again things were a bit blurred and he reached out for his glasses that were on the desk. Moving his arm was harder than he had thought and he could hear moans and groans of pain coming from the hallway. Grissom dressed as fast as possible with clumsy fingers and aching joints. Should he ever have to choose between a week in bed with the flu and this he would take the flu. As soon as he was able to he called Sara and Catherine into his office.

The two women arrived simultaneously and both wore a mask of guilt.

"I'm sorry." Sara sounded coarse like she had just had a bad cough.

"Me too Gil." Catherine's voice wasn't any better.

"I know that your feline instincts had a lot to say, but still…" Instead of angry he felt deflated and he pulled off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose wondering how to continue. A knock on the doorframe demanded his attention.

"So I guess I must be ovulating." Sofia stated and Catherine doubled over laughing. Grissom knew that he sported a very confused look and he was so exhausted that he didn't even bother hiding it.

"You certainly made trouble for the boys." Sara stated dryly and left the office.

"Hey Sara wait up." Sofia turned and followed her.

"So was this our inner animals in action or what?" Cath giggled and wiped her eyes.

"I don't know, I have never heard of anything like this outside fairytales." The lack of scientific theories had bothered him ever since he had looked into the specimen jar and seen a dog's reflection.

"Well in these Harry Potter days… I think that people can accept more." Catherine was laughing hard and struggled to talk. Grissom wrinkled his lips and huffed dismissing the idea.

"Besides… you know I had that dead Jamaican girl a couple of months ago right." He did remember Catherine's case because it had been quite bizarre. "Yeah something about voodoo and a witch cult wasn't it?"

"Yeah the works, she was into everything magic. Her dad chanted something when I interviewed him and their dog behaved really strange while he did it." Grissom wrinkled his face even more; magic was not something he could believe in.

"I'm not convinced, despite the fact that I have just spent a few hours as a dog."

"Yeah well… instincts you know." Brass' voice reached his office and Grissom squinted to see who it was Brass was talking to.

"Thanks a lot. It wasn't exactly like I planned to become a rat." Det. Cavalieri snapped back and Catherine lost it completely and Grissom couldn't help but to let out a laugh himself.

"Good thing I didn't step on you then." Vartann had caught up with his colleagues.

As the detectives neared both he and Catherine sobered from their laughing spout.

"Hey Grissom what was all that about?" Vartann popped in followed by Brass, but Cavalieri continued down the hall.

"I really have no clue. I read this letter and then it was like a flash-bang had landed in my office." Grissom held up the letter for the others to see.

"Not much science in this… huh Gil?" Jim said sarcastically and all Grissom could do was shake his head.

"I need something to wash this dry throat down with." Brass stated and Catherine nodded in agreement. Warrick came sauntering down the hallway and Grissom couldn't help but see the cool feline appearance.

"Hey boss, what was all that about?" The green eyes shone brighter than what he recalled.

"I have no idea." The more he thought about the more clueless he felt.

"Hey Warrick why don't you come with us for a beer?" Catherine made an open invitation for them all.

Brass and Warrick took her up on it and he sunk his aching body into his chair. Vartann stood and looked somewhat uncertain at the chair in front of him.

"You know horses don't lie down nor do they sit." Grissom couldn't help the chuckle that Vartann's comment caused.

"And dogs don't wear glasses."

serenity151979's companion piece for the last chapter is here:

Chapter 5 - Nick's POV