Nick scowled. The rain had washed away most of the trace from the crime scene. Any blood from the suspect was long gone. He shone a torch over the scene and felt sudden optimism as the beam bounced off something shiny on the path. "Hey, got something here," he called.

Grissom glanced towards him and his eyes widened in alarm. "Nick, wait!"

It was too late. Nick had already stepped forward onto the mossy path and immediately he found his body fighting for balance. His arms whirled madly as he fought to stay upright, his legs skidding dangerously. Several seconds passed where he was certain he was going to either land flat on his face or ass, or worse still, wind up doing the splits, but finally, the movements slowed and he found himself still upright, but only barely. He was pretty certain he only needed to fart and he'd fall over.

"That stuff can get pretty slippery when wet," Grissom said calmly, strolling over to the edge of the path.

Nick cursed under his breath. "Yeah. I got that. You wanna give me a hand here?"

Grissom shrugged and held out a hand. But instead of pulling Nick to safety, he opted to poke the younger man in the shoulder instead. In the name of science, a test of velocity and thrust. Just to see what happened, really.

What happened was Nick fell over, cursing his name. Gil fought and failed to keep the smirk off his face. "Sorry. I thought you had your balance."

"I hate you, man. That was uncalled for," Nick groaned.

"Sorry," Gil said again.

Nick raised his head slowly and wiped the rain out of his face, mock-frowning at the smile on his superiors face. Then without warning, he kicked at Grissom's ankles. Gil stepped aside smugly. A moment later, the smile was wiped from his face as his own foot slid across the wet moss.

Nick started to laugh at the comical look of surprise that crossed Grissom's face, only to have the wind knocked out of him as the man landed heavily on top of him. "Argh!"

Grissom tutted. "Really, Nick. That was very childish of you."

"Shut up. And get off me. I think you ruptured something."

Instead of rolling off him, Grissom reached into Nick's vest and pulled out a glove. "I see a ring," he said cheerfully, reaching over Nick's shoulder and picking up the item. "Maybe we'll get some blood from the setting." He stood up slowly and then reached out a hand for his subordinate. "Come on, Torville. Let's get back to dry land."