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)