Home of Greg Sanders Slash Fiction
Chapter Two
The first note that Nick Stokes finds says: "This is advance notice that we're kidnapping you this morning. Just you, not Greg. Sorry to pry you two apart, lover-boy, but we never get to see you these days. We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore! Bring your wallet." He recognises the handwriting immediately.
It's taped to his locker, and Nick reads it a second time before folding it in half and slipping it into his pocket. It's the ragged end of a long shift, and while he really wants to go and home and be coddled, he hasn't seen his friends in a while and hey, getting out once in a while is good for a guy his age.
The next note is stuck under the windshield wiper of his car, and he finds it after he spends a half-hour walking around the building looking for Warrick or anyone else who looks like they're in on whatever it is that he's planning. He tries phoning him and immediately gets his message service - phone must be turned off.
The second note says: "A good place to get kidnapped is at Fran's, especially if you happen to be in the booth at the back, by the pool tables."
He grins, slips the second note in with the first, and climbs into his truck. He looks at his wallet, decides he needs to hit a bank machine, and then thinks, Oops, I had plans today, didn't I?
He thinks for a few seconds, knows that he's promised Gil and Greg a morning in, slobbing around and eating ice cream out of the bucket with three spoons, and he wonders if he should bail on Warrick. Then he thinks that he sees Gil and Greg almost every night, and between Warrick's sudden and demented determination to excel at his job and his own increasingly insular habits, he hasn't seen the guy for weeks.
He pulls out his phone, hits the first speed dial he's got programmed, and lets the truck engine warm up while he waits. "Hey," he says when Gil picks up.
"How was your day?" Gil asks. Nick can hear the sounds of cooking happening in the background.
"Not too bad," he says. "Listen, uh - are you guys going to shoot me if I ditch you for a bit?"
There's a pause. "I won't," Gil says solemnly, and Nick can hear the gentle humour in his voice, "but I gather that Greg's been practicing at the range and God knows he likes a moving target."
"Ha ha," Nick says and rolls his eyes. "Warrick and probably Sara want me to meet them, shoot some pool, you know."
"Sounds like fun," Gil says. "Drive safely. Call a cab if you have too much to drink."
He wants to say, Right, Dad, but he knows that Gil isn't nagging him, but finding an oblique way to tell him that he loves him. "What," he says instead, "you won't drive out and pick me up when they finally kick us out at noon?"
"At noon," he hears Gil say as something sizzles wonderfully in the background and Nick can almost smell the onions, "I plan on being in bed with Greg. So no, Nick, I won't get up, get dressed, find the car keys, find out where you are, and deal with traffic, just to save you cab fare. Especially not if Warrick and Sara are waiting with you."
"Too bad," Nick says, "I kinda have this kink about your truck..."
"Have fun," Gil says, laughing, "I'm hanging up now."
Nick listens to the dial tone for a moment, then lets his phone fall onto the seat beside him. He will have fun, he realises. It's been way too long since he's done anything without his lovers being there.
He throws the truck in gear and drives out of the parking lot, whistling.
It's dark inside the bar, but Nick has been here often enough that he could navigate the maze of tables, chairs, random support columns and pool players with his eyes closed. He loves that in Vegas, eight in the morning is a prime time to get loaded and start a bar brawl. He eases his way through the people to the back, to the booth where he and Warrick first starting hanging out together, way back when.
Warrick and Sara are having a friendly fight over the dregs in a pitcher of beer, and Nick feels a little flush of affection pop into existence in his chest. He's missed these two, he realises, and feels a pang of regret that he's been such a bad friend lately.
Well, not anymore, he decides, puts a big smile on his face and slaps Warrick on the shoulder at a critical moment of pouring. A generous amount sloshes into Sara's glass.
"Hey!" Warrick says, turning and glaring at him.
Sara grabs her glass before Warrick tries to correct the sloppy rationing. "Hey stranger," she says, smiling up at him. "Long time."
"Yeah, well," Nick says sheepishly, knees Warrick in the hip to force him down the booth, and slides in next to him. "Sorry about that."
"It's okay," Warrick says. "You can buy us another round to make up for it."
"Really?" he asks, his eyes huge. "I can really do that? You'd let me?"
"Smartass," Warrick says, but he says it with a smile and Nick smiles back at him.
"So," Sara says, leaning forwards on the table, partly to be heard against the backdrop of bar noise, partly to safeguard her half-full glass that Warrick is eyeing uncertainly. "How're things with Greg?"
Nick grins. "They're good," he says. "Really... good."
"That's it?" Sara demands with a wicked little grin. "You disappear into domestic bliss for two months and all we get is 'really good'?"
He ducks his head. "Okay," he says, "things are great. Man, I'm sorry I haven't been hanging out with you guys much - it's just so easy to get caught up in stuff, you know?"
"Sure," Warrick says. "Well, I assume so - it's been so damn long since I've had more than one date with the same girl, the whole thing is kinda fading in my memory."
"What you need," Nick explains, "is a relationship. Not just a date - the real thing."
Warrick scoffs. "Says the guy dating two people?"
Sara's eyebrows climb. "Say what?" she asks.
Nick winces and covers with a sneeze. He'd forgotten to swear Warrick to secrecy on that one. "So Sara," he says brightly, "anything on the horizon since Hank?"
"Nuh-uh," she says and her grin slides smoothly from calculating to predatory. "Two people, Nick? Who's the second?"
"Yeah," Warrick says, "who's the second?"
He knows he's blushing. "I'm not getting into this," he says. "It's long and complicated and I'm just not going there, okay?"
There's a moment of studied looks at the table. "All right," Warrick eventually says, leans back again. He lifts up his empty glass, holds it out to Nick pointedly. "A guy could die of thirst around here, you know."
Nick sighs, grabs the pitcher and stands up. "Same again?" he asks, looking down at Sara.
"Sure," she says.
"Warrick?"
"Sounds good."
He pushes back through the people, to the bar, and plunks the pitcher down in front of the bar girl. "Another one of these," he says, "whatever it was. And another glass."
She takes the pitcher and busies herself with the tap, and Nick takes the opportunity to glance back at the booth, at Warrick and Sara leaning in and talking. Sara looks over at him once, thoughtfully, and he turns away at that. Counts to ten in his head and watches the pitcher fill under the nozzle.
He shouldn't have talked to Warrick, he thinks, shouldn't have told him anything.
But that's what friends do, right? They confide in each other. They tell each other about the stupid messes they've made of their lives and they laugh at themselves.
He wants to be angry at Warrick again, all of a sudden. The flare of anger he felt when he and Greg were first outed to everyone at the lab - the guilty way Warrick wouldn't quite meet his eye for weeks afterward - he wants to work up a good head of steam and let it out in a mad rush.
Except he can't. He understands Warrick's reaction, understands the need to share something confusing with someone else, and he really had been asking for it, hadn't he, letting himself get caught necking with Greg in the parking lot in broad daylight. Besides: he's here now to mend fences, not to take an axe to them. Anything harsh he had to say, he should have said it ages ago.
He sighs, accepts the pitcher and the glass and tries another smile on the barmaid.
The problem is, he decides, that Gil is rubbing off on him. He can't hang onto anger anymore, not like he used to. He lets it wash over him and then he keeps going. Life is too short and too miraculous to waste it on bad feelings.
He winces at the Hallmark sentiment and is smiling again when he gets back to his friends.
"What's so funny?" Sara asks, taking his burden from him and topping up her glass again before letting Warrick wrest the pitcher from her.
"Nothing," he says. "Just had a mini out-of-body experience there."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. It's like I was hovering above myself, seeing what a jerk I've been lately. It was humbling."
Warrick quirks a smile at him. "Not a jerk, exactly," he says. "Maybe a bit of a snob."
Nick raises his eyebrows. "Snob?" he asks. "Little ol' me?"
"Well," Sara says, "you've been hanging out with Grissom and Catherine an awful lot."
"Not to mention Brass and Doc Robbins," Warrick adds. "You too good for us mere mortals?"
"God, no," Nick says. "That just... I don't know. It just happened. Greg and I went out for breakfast and we went to Manny's and they were there, so we couldn't just leave, could we? And then I don't know, we just had fun together." He shrugs. "There's no weirdness there, when it's me and Greg together. You know? No one even blinks when I touch him. It's kind of nice."
Warrick and Sara exchange a look. "Yeah," Warrick says after an awkward pause, "sorry about that."
There had been a time, a while ago, that he had tried to work Greg into this group, tried to find some way of enjoying everyone's company simultaneously. But it hadn't worked: Greg and Sara grated on each others' nerves, Warrick had tried to overcompensate for his initial reaction by being too buddy-buddy with them, the whole thing had felt forced and strained and the one time that Nick had kissed Greg - just a quick touch of his lips to his cheek - there had been a thunderous and embarrassing silence at their table.
Nick grins at him, works his arm around his shoulders and squeezes. "It's okay, man," he says, "we're cool."
"Yeah?" Warrick asks haltingly.
"Yeah."
"I mean," Warrick continues, "we like Sanders. Honest," he reiterates at the funny look Nick gives him. "It was just... strange. I mean, you've always been this ladies' man and all..."
Nick shrugs. "Things happen," he says. "I just go with the flow."
"That's a good way to be," Sara says. "I wish I could swing that."
"What do you mean?" Warrick asks.
She sighs. "Oh, you know - the whole Grissom thing." She's blushing, but trying to pretend she isn't.
Nick watches her drain the better part of her glass of beer and says nothing. Everyone at the lab knows she follows Gil around with her tongue between her teeth, but he's never heard her admit to it before. He wonders idly how much she and Warrick had to drink before he got there.
"It wasn't that bad," Warrick says, and Sara gives him an icy look. He laughs, holds up his hands. "Okay, okay," he says, "it was pretty bad. But you got over it, right?"
She sighs again, pushes a lock of her hair behind her ear. "I don't know," she admits. "It's... it's not easy, you know? I mean..." She glances up at Nick apologetically. "You know what I first thought, when I found out about you and Sanders?"
He shakes his head.
"I thought, 'At least it's not Grissom'." She smiles ruefully. "How sad is that?"
Nick has no idea what to say to that, so he wisely says nothing and drinks, instead. Waits out her silence, another trick he's learned from Gil.
"I always kind of thought you had a thing for him," she continues at length.
"For Grissom?" Warrick asks. "Nick?"
"Well..." She shrugs. "Yeah. And sometimes it kind of seemed that Grissom had a thing for you, too, Nick."
"Really?" Nick says, because it's obvious he's expected to say something.
"I guess it made me, I dunno, a little jealous, maybe? That you had this thing with him and I didn't. But now-" She shakes her head. "I don't know what I was thinking. Grissom would never get involved with his subordinate, I know that now."
"Huh."
"Grissom?" Warrick asks. "And Nick? Man, Sara, you must be crazy..."
"Well," she defends, "it was easier than thinking he just wasn't interested in me. You know?" She drains her glass and pours another one.
Nick clears his throat. "You're, uh, you're not still interested in him, are you?"
"No," she says, then, "maybe," then, "I don't know. It's stupid, I know."
"Oh."
"It's just that he's a pretty amazing guy, you know?" She looks from Nick to Warrick and back again.
"If you say so," Warrick says with the way-out-of-my-depth look he gets whenever Sara and Catherine start talking about 'girl stuff'.
"Nick?" she says, turning to him. "You're into guys, you know what I mean. Right?"
"I, uh," Nick says, licks his lips, mind racing. "I honestly don't know how to answer that."
"I know, I know," she says, "he's the Boss-Man, not supposed to think of him like that."
"Um."
She swirls the beer in her glass, watches it. "So you're a better person than me," she says, "so sue me."
"Now come on, Sara," Warrick says, leaning across the table and letting his hand fall on her forearm, resting on the table next to her glass. "That's not fair to yourself, and you know it."
Nick knows he's supposed to jump in with Warrick here, say something supportive and bring Sara out of her slump. But he's stinging a little, truth be told, that Sara still thinks she has a chance in hell with Grissom, that she's still banking on some random time in the future when he comes to his senses and gets on his knees for her.
He doesn't like the spike of jealousy he feels at that, because he knows that it is never, ever, ever going to happen. He knows that, knows that whatever enigmatic persona Gil projects at work he's never been that into women, knows how awkward Gil feels when Sara crosses the unspoken line between them, knows how passionately he wants her to let go and move on.
He thinks about that flare of possessiveness he feels, and wonders why he doesn't feel the same way about Greg. He thinks, five'll get you ten that Gil and Greg are in bed right now, having all kinds of fun without me: why doesn't that piss me off?
...aside from the bit where it's too damn sexy a thought to be anything but good...
"Earth to Nick," Warrick says, and elbows him.
"What?" He blinks, looks at Warrick and then across at Sara. "Sorry," he says. "Spaced out there for a moment."
"No kidding." Warrick narrows his eyes again. "You okay?"
"Me?" Nick works his muscles into a smile. "Course I am." He picks up the nearly-empty pitcher again. "Another one?" he asks brightly.
When Sara gets up and weaves her way to the ladies room, Nick leans back and watches her progress. "How much has she had to drink?"
Warrick stretches to follow his gaze. "Not that much," he says with a frown.
"She had anything before you guys came here?" Nick asks.
"Don't know," Warrick says. "Why?"
Nick chews on his lower lip for a moment. "You know she got pulled over for DWI a while back, right?"
"Yeah..."
Nick looks back at Warrick, holds his gaze.
"You think that wasn't a one-time thing?" Warrick asks.
Nick shrugs. "I don't know," he says. "But she's pretty wasted."
"Maybe." Warrick drains his glass, looks at the empty pitcher. "Maybe we should call it a night."
"Can you get her home?" Nick asks.
"Sure." Warrick pulls out his wallet, and Nick stops him with a hand on his wrist.
"Kidnappers never pay the ransom, remember?" he says and takes his own wallet out. "It's on me."
Warrick grins. "I should kidnap you more often," he says.
"Yeah," Nick says, "you should." He counts out some money, leaves it on the table next to the empty nacho plate and basket of fries they shared, works the wallet back into the pocket of his jeans.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Warrick asks after a while, out of nowhere.
"Tell you what?" Nick asks, not really thinking about Warrick. He's still watching the door to the ladies room, as much as he can see of it through the people in between.
"About you and Greg, man," Warrick says, and his voice is plaintive enough that Nick turns back to the table and faces him. "Why'd I have to find out the hard way?"
Nick sighs. "It was... complicated, Warrick."
"I thought we were friends."
"We are friends," Nick says, "but this wasn't just me. I'd have been outing Greg, too, and I couldn't do that to him."
"I guess so." Warrick's not convinced.
"And I was scared," Nick admits. "Shit-scared. I still am." He takes a deep breath. "Things can go to hell so quickly, man. What about the next time I need backup, huh? Are the uniforms gonna be there? Or are they going to take one of their homo-detours, get there a little too late to be of any use? It happens, Warrick. I hate it but it's true."
"Shit."
"Yeah, well," Nick says, "that's life. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you."
Warrick gives him a half-smile. "It's all right," he says. "I get it."
Nick returns his smile.
"So," Warrick says after another pause, "you gonna tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
"Greg. Is he Fling, or Serious?"
Nick thinks about it. "I'm pretty serious about him," he says as Sara emerges from the bathroom and takes a slightly wobbly look around to get her bearings.
"That's not an answer," Warrick says.
Nick stands up. "It is to me," he says, and he means it. It's not a question of Serious and Fling anymore. It's a question of Serious One and Serious Two, and really, the only distinction is a chronological one.
"You sure you can't tell me about your other - date?"
He grins down at Warrick, still slumped against the back of the booth. "Sorry, man," he says. "I have to think about Greg, remember?"
Warrick groans, rolls his eyes, pushes himself to his feet. "Sure, whatever," he says, but there's no rancor in it.
"You okay with Sara?" Nick asks.
"Golden," Warrick says. "I'll make sure she gets home okay."
"Thanks," Nick says. "I owe you one."
"I'll kidnap you again later," Warrick promises. "You can make it up to me then."