It's not what you think
CSI: Las Vegas (Around Season Five, shortly after Nick was rescued)
Rated: (T-M) NC-17
Pairings: Nick Stokes/Greg Sanders
Since writing 'I'd Come For You'. I thought I'd try my hand at another thriller type of story. This one is slightly AU though. The story starts ten years prior for the main event.
Summary: Nick Stokes has just been rescued from the terrible incident of the coffin to be thrown into another life/death threatening situation. He must solve the unusual crime of revenge, planned years in the making from a wacky scientist with his hands on some supernatural powers.
Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or any of its characters.
Warnings: Adult content and M/M slash relationship. Swearing/Violence/Angst for most of the CSI characters and some others that I made up.
CSI Team:
Nick Stokes – Catherine Willows – Sara Sidle – Warrick Brown – Gil Grissom (No Greg)
Prologue: Introduction of Cassandra Nelson
Cassandra Nelson walked into the bank with her pay cheques secure in her purse. She looked around at the busy bank, waiting for a teller to be free to serve her. She counted over thirty customers waiting to be served and only five tellers, so she was going to be there a while.
Why do they never have enough tellers to serve all the customers? There's twelve windows posted around the bank, but only five of them are in use? Cassandra thought to herself as her over active brain was calculating everything around her.
Huffing loudly in frustration, Cassandra Nelson raised her watch to check the time. It had taken her twelve minutes to even get halfway through the crowd of customers.
Just as a bank teller opened up one of the vacant windows to take some more customers, a group of people in dark clothing and ski masks entered the bank bearing guns. Both the customers and employees ran screaming for cover as they shot off a few rounds into the ceiling to get everyone's attention.
"Everybody Shut Up!" One shouted loudly.
"Get down on the Floor!" Another ordered, rounding everyone up away from the doors, waving their weapons around to terrify everyone even more.
Cassandra ducked down to the floor as instructed, watching two of the armed men heading back out the bank to a parked van up front; pulling open the back doors to unload their equipment. They started unloading nondescript cardboard boxes through the double doors of the bank, before they sealed the doors so no one could get in or out.
One of the bad guys jumped on onto one of the desks, checking everyone was down. "Everybody get down and stay down! We're here for the banks money not your money. If you do exactly as we tell you, no one will get hurt!" Clearly the leader and he was slightly more muscular then others. "Stay Down!" He ordered a few customers who raised their heads to look around. They immediately shot back down to the ground, hearing the anger in his voice.
This was a man not to be messed with.
The leader nodded to one of the shorter robbers; they looked female from the slender body curves beneath the black clothing they were all wearing, probably used to hide their identities from the bank personal and security cameras so they couldn't be traced.
Cassandra thought they were very professional for common thieves.
"I'm gonna need your phones and pagers, along with anything else electrical you have on you!" The female robber ordered, holding out a black bag. Her voice was muffled but she was definitely a woman.
Cassandra dug her phone out of her purse, handing it over as she walked by her. She watched as the other customers and employees did the same, clutching her purse close to her chest as if it was a lifeline.
The female robber handed over the bag of phones to her boss then helped the others with the equipment, taking it off towards the vault in the back. The robbers seemed to have planned the whole heist very carefully. They all knew what they were doing and they stuck to it.
The hostages all remained quiet for the longest hour of their lives. The robbers didn't seem to want to hurt anyone, giving the hostages a peace of mind so they could relax and let them get what they came here for.
Cassandra Nelson remained down on the ground against one of the counters with a hostage either side of her. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a security guard slowly pulling his gun from his ankle holster as the thieves had taken away his other. Cassandra tried to get his attention, subtly shaking her head at him so the robbers wouldn't notice, pleading him not to do anything with her sad eyes as she wanted to get back to her husband and daughter back home.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" One of the robbers caught on to his movements, running over to where he was. "Toss your fucking weapon now or I blow your fucking brains out all across this floor!" He ordered in a muffled voice, but it didn't make him any less terrifying.
The security guard sighed heavily, tossing his gun away as instructed. Cassandra sighed in relief.
"Everybody just stay quiet and stay down. The sooner we drill this vault, the sooner you'll get home to your families." Another robber informed them in a much calmer tone, his accent almost sounded English, but it was hard to tell.
The customers and employees did as instructed. They all sat silently as the robbers began to drill the vault locks once again.
Cassandra rested her back against the counter behind her, still clutching her purse tightly. She was going to pay her cheques in yesterday, but her daughter Sandra got sent home from school because she felt sick. Her husband Doctor Matthias Nelson told her that he could collect her from school but she insisted, so she missed her moment to get her pay cheques off to the bank.
She started to wish that she had trusted her husband to collect their daughter from school now.
The robbers didn't seem very violent (except for their language), but Cassandra just had a bad feeling that something bad was going to happen. She suddenly realised she had forgotten to pay the meter for her car.
What a thing to remember at a time like this. She slightly chuckled to herself, trying to lighten the mood.
Another long hour passed by, the hostages were beginning to fidget from their positions on the floor. The room was hot and stuffy, getting even stuffier by the minute from the panicking people. Cassandra thought that the robbers clearly weren't very high-tech as it had been two hours.
In the movies they drill through the locks in no time! Cassandra noted to herself as she fiddled with her long brown locks of hair.
The hostages nearest the doors suddenly started screaming as gas poured in through the doors. "Shit! It's the freaking cops!" One of the robbers shouted, running through the bank towards the vault to warn the others. "C'mon! We gotta move."
"I'm going as fast as I can." A robber spoke with a much clearer British accent; obviously the brains behind the operation as he was the only one working the drill equipment, but he had taken his ski mask off revealing his sandy blonde hair.
The hostages near the doors started to cough violently as more gas poured in, under the doors. Cassandra started to feel her eyes burning in their sockets, causing tears to pour down her cheeks, smudging her makeup.
The robbers began to move the hostages away from the doors, preparing their guns for a full on attack. "Grab some hostages!" The leader ordered.
"Stand Up!" One ordered Cassandra.
She dropped her purse to the floor, climbing to her feet as she tried to obey his every word and not aggravate him as the hostages who did that on the movies always got shot.
The robber pulled her against his chest, using her as a shield as he made his way towards the front door. "Any of you fucking pigs come in here and we start killing the hostages!" He clearly shouted out of the doors. The other robbers grabbed their own hostages, positioning themselves around the room so they couldn't be targeted by the snipers on the rooftops without the cops taking out a few hostages themselves.
Cassandra looked through the smoke as it began to clear, spotting some police cars posted around the street, a large SWAT truck parked on the far corner and some news crews stood behind the yellow tape reporting the terrible tragedy going down in this very bank.
Cassandra saw this sort of thing happening on television all the time, but she never thought in a million years that she'd be witnessing it with her own two eyes from the other side.
Behind a television set she felt safer. The reporter talked about how many hostages died and all the bloodshed, but Cassandra always felt immune to it. She couldn't feel compassion for those fallen victims as she didn't know them, but witnessing it first hand was a whole new experience.
Now she was the one people were watching on television, saying to themselves: 'I'm so glad that's not me.'
The robber pulled Cassandra back through the doors, watching the police officers outside cautiously. He nodded round to his boss, watching as they continued to drill the lock of the vault. "Please don't hurt me." Cassandra pleaded the man holding her. He looked at her tear stroked face, feeling empathy for his victim.
This was supposed to be a simple smash and grab job, but it was turning out completely different from their original plan.
"Put down your weapons and release the hostages!" A voice from outside shouted. "I'm Detective Brass . . . no one has to die here. Just release the hostages!"
Cassandra squinted her eyes together to peer through the smoke. She could just about make out the speaker; a man no older than her with brown hair, wearing a smart suit. The robber behind her held her tighter so she couldn't struggle free as they watched the SWAT team members ducking through the police cars, cautiously making their way towards the building.
"Hurry Up!" He shouted back to his comrades, hurting Cassandra's ears from his hoarse scratchy voice. It was like nails on a chalkboard to her. "C'mon Man! They're coming!"
"One second!" The English guy shouted back frustrated. "Okay I've got it!"
The leader and the woman entered the vault together, loading up their large black duffel bags with as much cash as they could grab.
Cassandra shrieked as a loud gunshot whizzed into the bank, shattering through the glass window and striking down one of the robbers.
"Shit they got Tommy!" The guy holding her shouted, pulling her closer so if they shot at him they'd have to shoot through Cassandra first to get to him. "C'mon!" He shouted to his comrades, trying to get them to speed up.
Cassandra and the other hostages shrieked in terror once again as a series of flash bombs flew through the shattered window; disorientating everyone and causing their vision to blur. Everyone ducked low covering their hands over their ears as the loud gun shots ripped through the glass from either side, blasting between the bank robbers inside and the SWAT team outside.
The robber holding Cassandra lost his grip, she managed to wriggle free from him dropping to the ground, immediately clasping her hands over her ears to drown out the loud noises of the heavy gunfire from either side of the battle field. She crawled away on the fragments of broken glass, ripping into the delicate skin of her knees and elbows, making her way back to her purse, looking down at the picture of her husband and daughter, just as the leader grabbed her from the floor, pulling her to her feet against his body to use her as a shield.
Cassandra opened her eyes wider as she looked on at the SWAT team bursting through the windows and doors of the bank, shooting in every direction. One officer aimed his gun at the leader holding Cassandra, taking his shot right as the leader pulled Cassandra in the way of the speeding bullet.
Cassandra froze on the spot. The leader fell back to the ground, his body shaking violently as the blood poured out of his exposed throat. Cassandra watched as a brown lock of her hair fell to the ground from her coat. She felt a tight burning pain in her left shoulder that was only increasing.
Cassandra dropped to her knees on the fragments of glass in front of her, slowly keeling over to the floor to her final resting place as she watched the blood pouring out of her body like a tap. Her arms and legs began to feel cold. The sounds around her became muffled and her sight blurred into a bright burning light.
She knew right then that she was dying. She was going to be one of these unknown victims on the six o'clock news that people watch . . . but don't feel.
She was just Collateral Damage.
Ten Years Later
"It's good to have you back Nick." Sara softly smiled, raising her beer bottle to celebrate his return. Nick nodded doing the same with his. Warrick and Catherine joined in, clinking all of their beers together before they all took a swig, celebrating Nick's return to the job.
"So what day are you coming back to work Nicky?" Catherine asked curiously. Nick had taken some time off since the coffin incident. He toured Europe alone, even returned home to his parents in Dallas for a family visit before he decided to come back to Vegas and get on with his life again.
"Yeah. It'd be really great to have you back on the team. We gotta get the old gang back together again." Sara added with a wide smile, nudging him softly.
"Yeah, I'm comin' back to work soon. Grissom's talkin' to Ecklie about it tomorrow. I have to see a therapist and a PEAP councillor once a week though. They think I'm emotionally damaged or somethin'." He half smiled round at his closest friends. "I'm fine guys. As bad as that coffin was . . . I do actually feel stronger now."
"Really, so how come you haven't hit on any women all night?" Warrick smirked at his best friend.
Nick looked round at the bar, thinking there were slim pickings around here. There was a rather large woman sat alone wearing a large biker jacket. A much younger girl with her boyfriend and a good looking waitress, but Nick noticed that her ring finger was occupied and it was clearly new by the way she kept varnishing it with her finger after placing each order down. "Maybe I just don't feel like datin' right now." Nick shrugged then climbed to his feet grabbing his jacket.
"Nick, where you going man?" Warrick asked. "The nights still young."
Nick dropped some money onto the table, checking for his valet ticket in his jacket pocket. "Home, I'm kinda tired. I'll see you guys later." He pulled his jacket on, waving them off as he head out the bar, handing over his ticket to bring his truck round.
Just as he was about to climb into his truck he spotted a young man in a police uniform running through the middle of ongoing traffic after a kid in baggy track suit bottoms and a long jersey top that looked far too big for him.
Nick decided to assist the young officer.
He took off running after them, flanking the suspect from the side, forcing him down to the pavement as he tried to duck into an alley. The young officer ran up, panting heavily as he rolled the suspect over, cuffing his hands behind his back while he was still on the ground.
"Thanks." He breathlessly panted, looking up at Nick with the most gorgeous grin he'd ever seen.
"You're welcome." Nick looked at the young officer's uniform, reading his name off the side. "Sanders."
Officer Sanders smiled back at him, pulling his suspect to his feet. "You're Nick Stokes, right?" He asked curiously.
"That's me, how'd you know?" Nick asked curiously as he didn't recognise him. He was sure he'd recognise a smile that cute.
"Saw you on the news." Sanders replied. "Were you really buried alive?"
"Yeah." Nick awkwardly nodded, stuffing his hands on his hips.
"Shame." Sanders sighed, pulling his suspect off down the alley.
"Why's that a shame?" Nick shouted after him, before he disappeared from his sight. Sanders just licked his lips, winking at him slyly as he walked away.
Nick smiled to himself, feeling warm tingles in the pit of his stomach. What was it about the young officer's smile that made him melt like that?
"Down! Get Down Now!" The nervous security guard ordered with his gun raised at the darkened figure coming towards him. The suspect raised their arms slowly either side of their body, slowly turning around to face the security guard. The guard couldn't make out any of his facial features as it was completely covered by a black ski mask. He could only see his vibrant green eyes staring right back at him, sticking out of the only hole in the mask.
"On the ground! Get Down!" He ordered again. The suspect didn't comply just took a few steps closer towards him, not intimidated or scared at the fact there was a gun pointed right at his head.
"On the ground! I'm not gonna tell you again! Get Down!" He demanded again, his hands started to quake with fear as the suspect wasn't doing as asked.
The suspect shook his head; before the guard had time to react the suspect knocked the gun from his hands, slamming his other hand into his throat, leaving him choking and gagging on the floor while he proceeded with his mission in stealing some money for his master.
He escaped through a window in an office, pulling the large bag of cash over his shoulder then ran down the street to a parked truck. He tapped on the side of the van, greeted with the sight of his master.
"Did you get it?" The man inside the van asked.
"Yes sir." The man presented his master with the bag of cash. "What now Master?"
"Now we return to the lab." Doctor Matthias Nelson spoke.
Please Review if you liked it
First Uploaded May 9th = Re-edited 6th September 2010