Well I am an avid supporter of the Greg/Nick ship and this is my first CSI fic so please be nice. Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer for whole story: I do not own CSI...if I did Greg and Nick would have been a canon couple a long time ago!
Nick carefully placed the pipette back in the stand and stood up stretching his hands above him to loosen up his muscles. He had been sitting in the lab for three hours straight testing time and time again for blood on every miniscule bit of clothing taken from the vic's house. He was positive he had just used up the lab's entire supply of Luminal.
"Tired?" Asked an amused voice from the doorway, he turned quickly to see the laughing face of Sara Sidle, his co-worker.
"Ha-ha, you have no idea how long I've been in here," Nick replied sarcastically, "I need coffee."
Sara smirked at him and said, "Greg's just put on a fresh pot, you're in luck."
Nick froze in the doorway and said hesitantly, "actually, you know maybe I should just stay here for a while and…maybe test more thoroughly."
Sara's smirk widened as she said triumphantly, "I knew it, you're avoiding him! What's the matter Nicky?"
Nick grimaced as he thought of the lab tech who had been plaguing his thoughts for the past few weeks. He and Greg had always been good friends but lately he had noticed Greg giving him more attention than was usual between guy friends. There was the occasional lustful look he often caught in Greg's eyes and more often than not he had turned around to see Greg quickly shifting his gaze as if covering up after checking him out.
Nick was used to this sort of behaviour in women, but he wasn't too comfortable with being looked at like that by a guy. No one else had seemed to notice Greg's sudden new behaviour and so Nick was trying to write it off as his overactive imagination but every time he was around Greg he couldn't help but think that every time Greg looked at him he was imagining a completely different scenario in his head.
Nick had questioned why he had felt so uncomfortable with this behaviour from a man and had come up with nothing. He was pretty sure he wasn't homophobic as he had plenty of gay friends. So why did he feel so damn uncomfortable?
"I'm not avoiding him Sara," and as if to prove his point he walked purposefully out of the lab towards the break room with Sara following close behind. "You don't have to come with me Sara; I am going to go in."
"I know, I want coffee as well Nick," she replied but he knew she just wanted to check out any awkward tension between the two men.
Nick pushed open the door to see Greg sitting alone at a table flicking through a magazine and clutching a steaming mug of coffee. He looked up as Nick and Sara entered and flashed them both a grin, was it Nick's imagination or did the grin turn into a slight leer when focused on him?
He shrugged off this thought and nodded at Greg before striding over to the coffee pot.
"So Greg, you guys had any fights lately?" Sara asked, subtlety be damned.
Greg frowned in confusion and said, "no, everything's fine. Why?"
"Oh no reason," she replied in an overly innocent voice before grabbing a mug and walking out of the room.
Nick gulped as he realised he was now alone in the break room with Greg who had turned around in his chair to look at him.
"So Nick, what made Sara ask if we were fighting?" He asked.
"No reason," Nick replied shortly avidly avoiding Greg's gaze.
"Nick?" Greg asked cautiously, "is something the matter, I kinda noticed lately that you've been avoiding me."
Nick gulped and sat down opposite Greg determined to prove to himself and Greg that everything was just fine and dandy between them.
"Look Greggo, everything's cool alright," here he resorted to that age old excuse, "I'm just tired, I haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately."
Greg nodded in acceptance and took a deep gulp of his coffee. Nick watched as his eyes closed in bliss as the caffeine hit his system and looked on as he swept his tongue across his lips to gather up any drops…wait. Rewind….he did not just think that! He had not just watched Greg as he drank his coffee while thinking sensuous thoughts. Nick nodded, that's right. It hadn't happened.
He realised he was still looking at Greg and nodding to himself and Greg was watching him with an odd expression on his face.
"You alright Nicky?" He asked a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
Nick jumped up out of the chair and backed hastily out of the room nearly tripping over his own feet while saying, "I just remembered…err…there's a…um…thing!"
He turned around and walked quickly to the locker room where he sat down heavily on a bench and leaned back against the lockers. What the hell was that? Was that the reason Greg's new attentions were affecting him so badly? Was it because Nick actually liked them?!
No but that couldn't be, he was Nick Stokes and he was damn well straight. Straight as a long straight thing, like a tree! Yes he was Nick Stokes and he was a tree. Nick frowned, that wasn't right. Sighing he flopped his head down into his hands and shut his eyes tight. Was it possible that he might actually fancy Greg? They had been friends for a long time and he definitely trusted him.
"Nick are you alright?" He looked up suddenly to see Sara standing there.
"Are you stalking me?" He asked with a feeble attempt at humour.
Sara smirked and just sat down next to him, "is there something you want to talk about?"
Nick stared at him, trying to gauge her response to what could possibly be him coming out.
"Look, I like women okay?" He said. Sara just looked at him and nodded. Nick had the feeling she might already know what was coming. "They're soft and curvy but then there's…not women."
Sara smiled encouragingly at him and said, "You mean men Nick?"
Nick squirmed in his seat and said, "well yeah but I don't know. It's only recently right? There's this one guy and he seems to like me, I mean he does all the stuff women do to get my attention right? Just in a more man-ish type of way."
He was interrupted here by Sara who queried innocently, "who? You mean Greg?"
Nick looked at her quickly, startled and said, "What? Greg? No, I don't….what?"
"It's okay Nick…so you like Greg and you think he likes you…what are you going to do?"
Nick stared at the opposite locker in bewilderment, "I don't know Sara! I only found out I could possibly be gay ten minutes ago! I guess for me to be sure I'd have to try…dating him. And that's sure as hell never going to happen."
Nick slammed his head back against the locker behind him in frustration and they sat there together in silence thinking.
Any passer-by walking past the entrance to the locker room would have been puzzled to see Greg Sanders punching the air in mock victory and mouthing 'yes!' as if he had just heard something very interesting from inside the room.
Well I hope you enjoyed please review with any suggestions. Perhaps a poll will incite more reviews, just a random question to learn a bit about your views:
Apart from Nick being with Greg (obviously lol) who do you think he would be better paired with?
A) Catherine
B) Sara
C) ...other?