Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:12:24 -0500 (EST)
From: RobGnVA80 (at) aol (dot) com
Subject: CSI-Nick-and-Greg-8

A note from the Author: if you are enjoying this story, please let me know!
I also welcome your input of course. I would like to know that people are
reading it!  Thanks, Rob.

---

This story is a complete work of fiction and all characters are copyrighted
to CBS and or Universal Studios. This is in no way a representation of the
sexuality of the actors or the characters.

This is about the CSIs Greg Sanders and Nick Stokes but will tangentially
involve several other characters from the show. I'm not sure exactly where
this is going to go (aside from the obvious, a romance between Nick and
Greg). I may jump around in time somewhat (e.g., flashbacks), and I'll try
to stick more or less to the themes of the series and reference a few
episodes, but no promises... it's obviously a parallel reality, though even
on the show those two seem very friendly.

Special guest actor (not the fictional character; though of course this
actor has been fictionalized, and in fact I play a little fast and loose
with his timeline) this episode. Same disclaimer applies: the portrayal of
him is completely fictionalized. I do not know him or anything about his
personal life.

Here's another great Nick/Greg montage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiIJ3SXillQ&feature=related

---

Nick and Greg, Chapter Eight

Greg awoke to the smell of coffee, and a handsome guy in just underwear,
sitting on the bed next to him and grinning. 'It doesn't get any better
than this,' he thought. 'Nick is sitting here and he made coffee.'

"Hey kiddo, sorry to wake you, but the boss-man called."

"What? I didn't hear my phone. What time is it?"

"It's only ten am, and I sent Griss a text back on your phone that you were
on your way. He promised us both we would be out when the swing shift comes
in at 4 so we can get some sleep and get back on our night schedule, but he
has results on our Celeb case."

"'Our'?" Greg's brows furrowed as he took a sip of coffee, secretly
thinking how cute it was that Nick had sent a text message on his phone for
him.

"Yep, Grissom told me he's listing you officially on it as in training."

"Wow, cool. I guess I should get ready." Greg sat up and set the coffee
aside. Then he looked into Nick's eyes. "I, um..."

"What?" Nick smiled that amazing smile where his whole face lit up, his
cheeks creased a little. His eyes glimmered.

Greg about died. "Shit."

Then Nick took him in his arms and hugged him tight, a kind of manly hug,
rubbing his back hard. But then he said it, again, just like that. "Greg. I
don't know how, or why, but I know that I love you. I just want to keep
saying it." And he kissed Greg tenderly on his neck.

 'Damn damn damn. I do not deserve this guy.' "Nicky, you know I feel the
same way." He had trouble talking. "I just thought it was a crush, but
now..."

"Greggo, believe me, I am as amazed as you." Nick whispered. "I think back
to all those times in the lab, I had these feelings deep down, and I really
wanted to hug you, to hold you, and now we can do it." Nick crawled into
bed with him, nuzzling his neck and just holding him tight.

"Hmm, and I thought you were just messing with me, teasing me. You were the
tough guy, the Texas frat boy. I was the nerdy lab tech. Sometimes I even
wondered if you knew I was gay and you were just playing with me. But I
know I was just being paranoid!" He said quickly when Nick looked hurt.

"Greg..." Nick sighed. "Maybe that's why I like you so much, cause you are
different from me. You're so smart, and you may be a nerd -- and I think
that is kind of sexy too - but you are also cute as hell."

"I can't tell you how many times I watched you walk down the hall,
strutting along in your sexy jeans showing off your hot ass. You DO know
how you walk, don't you?" Greg smirked then. "I died a little every time,
thinking 'there goes a god, and my punishment is I have the delicious
punishment of working with him every day and seeing but I can't touch.' I
had to play it cool, while inside I was like, oh god I get to work with
Nick! Do you know what that's like?"

"Well, as you know, I like to touch you."

"And I almost DIED every time! Can I hold you for a change? It seems like
you always are spooning me. I want to - "

But Greg didn't even get to complete his sentence, when Nick grabbed him
and wrestled him over, then flipped over himself. "Hug me baby, I'd love
it."

Greg couldn't suppress a little happy sigh as he snuggled up behind Nick,
and put his arm around the hunky CSI. "I can't believe how nice it is to
just cuddle like this."

Nick smiled to himself, and put his hand gently over Greg's. "I know."

Greg was overwhelmed by Nick up against him like this, and started to kiss
his neck while caressing Nick's strong pecs.

"Greg, um, if you are gonna do that..."

"I can't help it."

Nick twisted around to face Greg, and their intense gazes met. Nick put his
arms around Greg and eased him closer.

Greg let out a little involuntary 'oof' as Nick pulled them together. "So
much for spooning." He said, trying to put on his usual sardonic voice.

"Greg." Nick kept staring into Greg's gentle brown eyes.

Greg felt himself starting to shake and fought it back. "Nick." He managed
to smile.

"I'm glad we have each other now. I never thought... well." He ran his
fingers through Greg's wild hair.

"What? You'd be in bed with a guy? And a nerdy guy at that?" But Greg
winked at him.

---


When they were both dressed and at Nick's front door, the hunky CSI gently
pulled Greg to him. "Looks like we'll be working together again today." He
looked into the tech's brown eyes. "I just wanted to..."

But Greg grabbed Nick, and passionately kissed him hard, holding him with
all his strength, just for a few seconds. Then he let go and stepped back,
smiling but also looking kind of embarrassed.

"That works too." Nick grinned.

Greg slipped a scrap of paper in Nick's vest pocket, "Don't read it now,
maybe later today when you are bored. Okay?" His brown eyes were soft and
sort of pleading.

"Okay. I hope you aren't breaking up with me."

Greg rolled his eyes. "Yeah right!"

Nick grinned. "I'm sorry, I guess that was teasing again. My bad."

Greg looked down, unsure of what to say.

"G, come here." Nick gently pulled him in to a hug. "You are so sensitive,
and that is what I love about you. You hide it from everyone else but you
let me see it. I never mean to hurt you."

"I know, sorry I am such a wuss."

"Don't apologize. You're sensitive and that is great. Shit I wish we could
go back to bed."

---

"Arch, man, you look tired!" Nick clapped his hand on the audio/video
tech's shoulder.

The handsome young Asian shot Nick a little glare. "Good morning to you
guys too! Anyway, I went through the video at the casino, in the elevators;
and checked the room key-cards."

Meanwhile Greg was silently telling himself, 'Don't be jealous just cause
Nicky puts his hand on another guy's shoulder. Archie is straight anyway.'
He couldn't believe that the thought even went through his mind. Then, even
as he was thinking this, after Archie turned back to the computer, Greg
felt Nick's hand on his back. He slid a glance and a little smile over at
Nick in time to catch a wink.

"So I spent a few hours watching the casino footage. So this is Mitchel
Musso, the kid from that Hannah Montana show on Disney Channel?"

"That's him." Greg said a little too quickly.

"He looks different; older, shorter hair? Not that I watch Hanna Montana!
Anyway, it does seem like quite a few people recognized him, as you can see
here, and here for example, people asking for autographs, which he seems
happy to give. His blond friend does not seem so happy, however."

"Yeah, I can see Jason's eye-rolling even on this low-quality video." Nick
said.

"I'm kind of surprised, since I assumed his fans would be tween girls, but
here are 20-something women, even a few guys. Maybe parents? No one under
21 is even allowed near these tables."

"Yeah and he does look different, with the shorter hair and all. His new
show is just now being hyped on Disney." Greg clamped his mouth shut again.

"You mean this show?" Archie grinned, looking back at them as he hit a
button and a youtube video came up. "I thought the promo was funnier in
Swedish. It looks like some kind of strange Indiana Jones adventure comedy
thing."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_U2VavYyNY

"Actually, he's gotten kinda hot, if you like that sort of innocent nerdy
little Disney boy look." Archie said, with a little smirk. "He can
definitely do the slapstick. I think it's also possible he may have also
had a little work done. His nose looks different."

Nick cleared his throat. "Archie, regardless of whether Disney boys in
skintight surfer gear turn you on, let's get back to the surveillance
video."

Archie just grinned. "Yes boss! So here is where it gets interesting. There
are these two women, they look maybe even thirty-something, who at first
are hovering around the table, obviously looking at the kid, talking to
each other, looking at his boyfriend-can I call him that?"

Greg realized that he'd taken a half-step away from Nick just as Archie
turned to look at them again.

Nick cleared his throat... again. "He confided in us that was their
relationship, but naturally its completely confidential."

"Of course. I can hear the tween hearts breaking all over the world
now. Anyway, the whole time, over two hours, Jason and Mitchel never
displayed any kind of PDA, no sign they were more than just buds beyond
Jason putting a hand on Mitchel's shoulder once in awhile. Then these two
women kind of lurked around, went out of range, came back, then finally
asked for autographs, which he gave them. Then things started to go
south. They tried to hang around. Look."

"Oh yeah, one is trying to hit on Jason while the other is trying to flirt
with Mitchel. This can't end well."

"Yeah and I would not want to piss off the one after Jason; she looks like
a tough customer." Nick said.

"Looks like Jason tries to get rid of his right off; Mitchel tries to be
nice but finally a floor manager sees that she's interfering with him
playing and asks them to leave. They go out of range but I picked them up
circling around. Not long after that, Jason apparently says goodnight to
Mitchel, and here-" Archie froze the image. "Jason leaned in and gave him a
quick kiss on the cheek. But off to the side are the two women, who
obviously see it."

"Uh-oh." Greg mumbled.

"Oh, it gets better. Or worse, I guess. We catch up to Jason getting on the
elevator to the penthouse. Of course you need a special key-card to access
those floors. Just as the doors are closing, guess who gets on?"

"Our girls."

"Yep. They try to act all giggly, but you can tell they are up to
something. Then in the hallway, it's bad. The Bellagio actually has cameras
in the halls on these floors. Here they are following him off, and you can
tell he's looking nervous but is probably too nice to say anything, then he
gets to his room...

"...they pretend to go past, then they rush him, and force their way into
the suite. Wow." Nick whistled. "That's a couple of crazy women."

"We need to find these women, but how?" Greg wondered out loud. "The prints
on Jason's neck were partials with no matches, and we got nothing anywhere
else in the suite but Mitchel, Jason and the maid. They clean those rooms
thoroughly."

---

Greg and Nick donned scrubs and entered the morgue examining room. Doc
Robbins and David looked like they were just about done with Jason.

"Hey Doc, Dave." Nick greeted them. Greg trailed along after and waved to
them.

"Good timing, gentlemen." The Doctor nodded to them both. "I understand
you're training for field work, Greg. Your first body?"

"Y-yeah." Greg mumbled, his gaze locked on the young man's face. The Doc
had pulled his scalp back down so he looked fairly normal, almost
peaceful. His shaggy blond hair had been combed back neatly.

"Sorry. He was a handsome young man. I understand his lover is a bit of a
celebrity."

"Yeah, Disney channel guy. Mitchel Musso. He was on Hanna Montana."

The Doc raised his eyebrows. "Oh? Some of my grandkids watch that. Gay
actors on Disney, imagine!" Then as Greg and Nick exchanged covert glances,
the Doc smirked and shook his head. "I wouldn't be surprised if half of
them were. Anyway. As you suspected, I would rule cause of death as
exsanguinations, from the longitudinal cuts on the wrists. The cuts had to
be ante-mortem for the amount of blood David described at the scene and the
photos, and the amount lost from the body. Now about the bruising around
the neck, I assume you lifted some prints?"

"Yes, partials, no hits in AFIS."

"And the knife was in the tub with him, no prints I guess?"

"Nope."

"There's definitely trauma to the trachea, enough to cause
unconsciousness. There was no evidence of water in the throat or lungs, so
drowning can be ruled out. There is some bruising on the forearms, possibly
defensive. And look here, there are some marks on the wrists that could
mean he was restrained, though they aren't very severe."

"It was either something soft like a tie or scarf, or he wasn't tied and
conscious very long." Nick volunteered. "We didn't see any evidence of a
struggle in the suite."

"He was a slender guy, weighs 140 soaking wet. Two people could have
overpowered him."

"And one of the women who followed him was a pretty big girl." Nick
commented.

"Women?" David raised his eyebrows.

"We're beginning to think maybe some of Mitchel's female fans did not like
a guy being so cozy with their boy." Greg added as they started to head
out.

"Wow."

"There's something else." Doc Robbins looked over his glasses. Greg and
Nick turned back around. "There was evidence of sexual trauma. He was
sodomized, probably by a foreign object. Definitely not from consensual
activity."

The two guys turned and looked at each other. Greg winced.

"He might have been raped... with an object?" Nick was incredulous.

"While he was alive. Somebody was really angry at this kid." Robbins said.

Out in the hallway, Greg muttered "I can't believe they would do that to
him, as if murdering him wasn't enough."

"Welcome to the field, Greg. People can be brutal and sick. It's a little
different to hear about it abstractly in the lab than when it's right in
your face."

"Something just seems out of whack here. It's so calculated, with the
strangling and the staged suicide, and now possibly this rape. How did they
know they had enough time to pull all this off? Even though in fact, they
had over an hour, Mitchel could have come up to the room at any time. Even
if they had someone in the casino watching Mitchel who could call them the
minute he left, it would only take him a few minutes to get to the room."

"Good point. Unless they heard Mitchel tell Jason he was going to come up
at a specific time."

"Or... they wanted Mitchel to catch them..."

"...And make it look like a suicide pact? Wow."

"But then they lost their nerve?"

---

They were barely back at the lab when Greg's cell rang. "Hello? What? No,
no, it's okay, I'll be there as soon as I can." He hung up and looked at
Nick.

"It's Mitchel, he wants me to come see him, alone. He sounded... kind of
out of it."

"I don't know if that's a good idea. At least you shouldn't go alone." Nick
frowned.

"He said he really needed to talk to me. Nick, we both know he's not
dangerous. He sounded really... desperate. And I'm officially on this
case!"

"Okay, but keep in touch." Nick sighed.

Greg had barely been gone a few minutes when Nick's phone rang. It was
Brass. "Nick I just got a call from the Bellagio about a disturbance, in
the suite where that kid is staying -"

"Oh, god. Mitchel just called Greg, he's on his way there."

"Meet me at my car." Brass hung up.

---

When Greg got to the door to Mitchel's suite, the uni was standing there as
usual, but Greg could hear loud music even from way down the
hall. "Everything okay?" He asked the cop.

"I guess, except he's been playing that same song over and over again for
what seems like hours, sometimes really loud and sometimes I can hear him
singing along. He had a bottle of vodka and cranberry juice and ice
delivered a while back, so I'm guessing he's pretty toasty by now." He
smirked.

"Oh, shit. I guess no one bothered to update the hotel staff that he's
underage."

The cop suddenly looked concerned. "Hey, I had no way-"

But Greg had already brushed past him and was banging on the
door. Mitchel!!! It's Greg Sanders! Let me in!!"

Greg could hear the song lyrics booming through the heavy solid door.

/Maybe we can get away, And we don't have to wait to start forever, This
could be our only chance, We should take it!  Maybe we should get away!/

Greg turned to the cop. "Open it."

The cop fumbled for the keycard and managed to unlock the door. Greg eased
it open and was almost bowled over by the music volume. He sensed the cop
behind him as he moved into the room and waved him back. Scanning the room
he saw clothes strewn about, a laptop open on the table, half-empty bottle
of vodka, glasses, and there was the stereo. Where was Mitchel? 'Uh-oh.'
The doors to the balcony were open, curtains billowing, and the singer was
outside. "Mitchel! It's Greg! I'm going to turn this down!"

Mitchel showed no sign that he heard. Greg couldn't help but notice the
lyrics.

/No one said this gonna be easy, And believe me, I know what I want!  Just
take my hand!  Don't look back, you never have to Driving fast that they
can't stop you, I know you're scared, It's nothing to fear./

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwsVq-D5qho&NR=1

Greg got to the stereo and eased down the volume. Mitchel spun around
then. "Hey! What the hell! Oh, Greg!"

"Mitchel, please come in off the balcony." Greg edged up to the open
sliding doors. He had a really bad feeling about this.

"I wrote this song for Jason and me, about us getting away from L.A., to
where we could be ourselves and not worry about my fans, where we actually
hold hands like straight couples do. He was so excited but he was scared it
would ruin my career." Mitchel turned around then and leaned on the
railing, looking out over the Vegas skyline.

 "Mitchel, please come in."

"Naw come out here and enjoy the view with me. The fountain is so pretty."

Greg could hear the singer slurring his words. He hesitantly stepped out on
the balcony. 'Hell, Mitchel is a lot smaller than me. If I have to, I can
overpower him.' He got to within arm's reach of the singer. Even from here,
Mitchel reeked of alcohol. "Are you okay?"

"What the hell do you think?" Mitchel rounded on him angrily. "No I'm not
okay!"

Mitchel leaned farther back on the balcony and put one foot up on a lower
rung of the railing. His floppy hair ruffled in the hot Las Vegas
breeze. "What have I got to live for? My boyfriend is murdered, and this is
sure to get out and my career is over. My life is over!" He shouted almost
accusingly at Greg.

"Mitchel, you don't want to die!" Greg started to reach out to the kid. His
heart was pounding, and a million things were running through his
head. Mainly of course was that he was desperate to get this guy off the
railing and keep him from killing himself, but in the background were also
'Grissom is gonna kill me, if Mitchel doesn't take me down... what the hell
am I doing? Nick is going to hate me for this. I wanted to be out in the
field, but this is not CSI field work!'

Mitchel was crying now, no longer angry. "Greg, I don't know what to do. I
feel like I've lost everything." Mitchel's balance was starting to look
precarious, especially considering his drunken condition.

"Mitchel please! I'm sorry Jason is gone, but your life is not over! Please
just take my hand, come off the railing."

---

Nick pushed past the cop into the room and what he saw made his heart go
into his throat. The Musso kid was out on the balcony leaning backward over
the railing with one foot up on it, and Greg was just a couple feet away,
reaching out towards him. 'Oh god, the kid could grab Greg and if he goes
over, he could take him over the balcony with him. God, no please!'

He heard Brass behind him say "Ohhhh crap," before backing into the hallway
and calling for backup. "We got a possible 405Z in progress at the
Bellagio, we got a... CSI... attempting to talk the subject down..."

End of Chapter Eight.



(chapter Nine coming hopefully a bit sooner)