Something Like That

Chapter 2: Surprising Revelations -- Part 1

Disclaimer: NOT MINE! CSI belongs to CBS, Mr. Jerry Bruckheimer, etc etc...You know the drill ;) Lyrics are from "Dirty Eyes" by AC/DC and ofcourse the first line of this chapter is a homage to Lab Rat Greggo...oh how I love thee!


"…89 spots of blood to be swabbed, 89 spots of blood, take one down and store it for DNA, 88 spots of blood to be swabbed. 88 spots of blood to be swabbed, 88 spots of blood, take one down and…"

"Greg! If you don't shut up and stop pouting, I'm gonna come down there and personally kick your ass!"

"Hey! You can't tell me to shut up. I'm working diligently here and if I choose to sing while I'm working, to keep myself from going crazy, then it's just too bad for you. Suck it up Stokes! And who says I'm pouting?! I'm sooo not pouting! I lost one game of rock, paper, scissors, that does not mean I'll pout about it…it's just a game!"

"Did I say you were pouting about the game? And you're rambling again, which just screams GUILTY."

"What?! That doesn't even make sense!"

"Dude, it's fine and dandy that you're singing to distract yourself, but when it's driving me crazy, it's not good. I need to concentrate here and you singing the most annoying song on god's green earth is not helping me concentrate! And man, I don't need to be in the same room as you to know that you're pouting." Also the fact that I can just picture you with that sweet pout is not helping me concentrate either, he silently added while going through the bedroom for any evidence.

"Whatever man, I'm being thorough. I mean come on! All this blood can't have been from just the dogs…you've said it yourself before, murder is messy. And it doesn't matter if this time it was an animal that was killed, there had to have been a struggle at some point which may have left us a piece of the perp behind." Greg was not taking any chances.

Judging by the blood spatter on the walls and across the furniture, he could tell that it was one very disturbed individual that carried out the killing, there was no way the pets were alive after losing that much blood. He silently wondered why the perp would even bother taking the dead animals with him, when he could just as easily have left them behind because they hadn't even bothered cleaning up the blood…unless the animals were seen as a trophy of some kind. He shuddered at the thought and quickly packed up his samples and took another glance at the living room.

The room was a mess alright. The sofa cushions had been overturned, as if the perps had been looking for something underneath them, and the stuffing had been torn out of some of them. The carpeting was bloodied but didn't show any other signs of a struggle. These guys were clean when it came to material evidence…so far, no fingerprints, wayward fibers, or any other out of place object had turned up. The only wall that hadn't been bloodied was the one studded with the children's plaques which showed their achievement in sports and academia.

He silently walked up the stairs to the first floor, contemplating the meaning,if there had been any, about the untouched wall and barely saw Nick walk out of the first room to the left. A loud crash was heard across the house, followed by noisy and colourful swearing from both sides as the boys scrambled to their feet from forcefully bumping into each other.

"Mother f-!"

"Godammit!"

"Greg, don't take the Lord's name in vain! What the heck were you doin' sneaking around outside the home office?!"

"I was not sneaking around! And you should be one to talk about swearing…atleast my mom didn't hear what just came outta your mouth. If you weren't so engrossed in your work Mr. Stokes, you would have heard me pack up my kit and walk up the stairs, to help you might I add?!"

"Ok, ok, sorry…it's just that I didn't hear anything from you for a coupla minutes and I thought somethin' had happened or somethin' so I was gonna come check up on ya, to see if you hadn't collapsed or anything…I mean, I figured that's the only way you coulda shut up, 'cause god knows I've been trying to shut you up for the past 3 hours and it hadn't worked so far…"

"Shut up Stokes. The rambling thing works on me 'cause I'm cute, but it don't suit you." Greg smirked as he brushed past Nick to get to the master bedroom. His stomach fluttered at the fact that he'd been able to fluster Nick just by being silent and he was also elated, even if he didn't want to admit to it, that Nick had been worried about him.

Nick mentally slapped himself for allowing his accent to thicken, and his mouth to ramble on, which clearly showed that he'd been worried about his crush…um, best friend, he quickly amended himself. "Ya, well…see if I check up on you again. You know, I was just being cautious and lookin' out for ya, but it looks like I'm not needed," he huffed and faked a hurt look as he caught up with Greg just inside the master bedroom.

"Well, aren't we quite the drama King! Save it man, I know you were worried, and I think it's realllly sweet of you to care sooo much about me Nicky!" Greg cooed and batted his eyelashes for good measure to add to the joke. He hadn't flirted like this with Nick in awhile, and he was gonna take every advantage of this situation to make his conservative cowboy squirm.

A slight blush covered Nick's ears, as those bedroom eyes framed by those long, curly eyelashes were doing things to him that he was sure not a good thing to happen in public. "Doll, you shoulda known I woulda had your back. I'm hurt that you don't trust me enough," Nick was never one to back out and he was starting to enjoy this subtle flirting. He knew his friend wouldn't see it as such but even if it was one-sided, he liked to imagine they were doing this to flirt with each other and not one up each other as friends did for fun.

Greg was taken aback for a second by the Texan's bold flirting, but he figured that his friend was probably just teasing him and decided to get back to business. He really needed that beer, because when he started fantasizing about a certain cowboy flirting with him, he knew he shouldn't be doing anything that needed thinking—like operating heavy machinery or working a crime scene in his case.

"Ok, ok, I'm makin' it up to you after shift aren't I? Who's buying the beer and feeding you dinner? And I already said I was sorry…sooo, what you got so far up here?"

"Alright, you're forgiven but ya…so far, nothing probative. I checked the kids' rooms, nothing turned up. I checked the guest bedroom, nada. The home office was in shambles though, papers strewn everywhere, I bagged and tagged those so we can look them over later. The furniture was disturbed, and the drawers were gone through. It definitely looked like they were after something specific this time, 'cause none of the other rooms had been touched and I'm guessing whatever it was they were lookin' for was related to Mr. Brightside or his work in some way." He paused slightly to pick up the pillows on the floor and examine them.

"I called Brass to ask him if we can get a warrant for the computer, if Mr. Brightside isn't willing to give it up freely, to see if we can get anything from it. It's password protected so I couldn't check anything myself. I want to see if Archie can glean anything from the hard-drive, because that office computer is about the only thing that looks promising so far." Nick finished with a frustrated groan.

Greg carefully moved around the room, which was predictably in shambles with clothes littering the floor everywhere. The safe had been broken into, that much was obvious because the painting that had been concealing the safe had been wrenched off the wall in haste, and lay in pieces on the carpeted floor.

"Well, you certainly got a lot more than me to work on. All I got is blood, blood, and…you guessed it, more blood! The kitchen wasn't touched, as far as I could tell, and the backyard didn't turn up anything, the only room that was disturbed was the living room and the odd thing is the only wall in there that wasn't covered with blood is the one with the kids' plaques on it. And I don't even know if that's probative or not."

"Hmm, well let's hope that we get more outta this room, you print the safe and I'll check for anything else that looks out of place" Nick was already on his hands and knees, checking the carpeting.

Greg tore his eyes away from Nick's tempting ass, devilishly stuck up slightly in the air as he looked under the bed, and forced himself to get to work. He was not going to think about how hot Nick would look naked while in that position, he desperately needed to get away from this Texan or it was going to drive him mad. Unrequited love is a bitch! Greg concluded and proceeded to print the safe and what was left of the portrait that had been not-so-cleverly masking the safe.

Little did he know, Nick was probing under the bed for a reason that had nothing to do with collecting evidence.Well, it was more like hiding the evidence, he thought with a snicker. He hadn't had sex in months, and the close proximity to the sassy blond was giving him a hard-on that had been quite unexpected but not entirely unwelcome. He just wished he was at home, in bed, with preferably some lubricant and some soft music for company if he didn't get to have the real thing, which was Greg Sanders naked and lying under him in bed. He was so engrossed with this fantasy that he almost didn't hear the faint music that started playing…

Honey
Yeah honey
You do it
Woooo, do it good
Do it all right
Every night
When you turn off the light
It's outta sight
(alright)

You hypno-

The tune was abruptly cut off as Nick scrambled out from under the bed to answer his phone.

"Stokes!" Nick yelled into the phone, louder than necessary and winced as he heard himself.

Greg had been caught off guard by the AC/DC tune coming from the straight laced Texan's cell phone and, after the initial shock had wore off, he had jumped to grab the phone lying a few feet away from the bed beside his crime scene kit. But he had kept staring at it to make sure that it was playing what it was playing, until Nick had grabbed it from his hands.

"Whoa there Nick, cell phone reception ok there?"

"Ya, ya, is that why you called? To ask me about my cell reception?" Nick was vainly trying to mask his embarrassment and find a reason to explain away his choice of ring tune to one Greg Sanders, who was blatantly staring at him with curiosity.

"Geez, no need to get defensive Nicky! You're the one who was yelling into the phone like you couldn't hear me or something…anyway, I've got a case down in Henderson which is pretty close to where you are already and I was wondering if you could lend me a hand? I already talked with Gil and he said it was ok, as long as you guys were done and could spare an extra hand." Catherine Willows was frustrated beyond reason right now, as she knew that everyone was running on low and Ecklie was refusing to hire anyone new because "they just didn't have the money for it right now."

"Well…we're almost there, we just have the master bedroom and the adjoining washroom to go through and we'll be done. How soon do you need me?"

"As soon as you can get here? Don't make me beg Nicky, because I will and it won't be pretty."

This surprised a laugh out of Nick, "Cath! You don't have to, I'll let Greg know and I'll be right there, can you give me the address?"

As he listened to Nick ask for an address he knew that it wasn't going to be good. He was sure Nick was leaving to go help Catherine, and he mentally slapped himself for not answering the damn phone. Why did he have to freeze? Why couldn't he just have answered it for Nick? He'd done so on multiple occasions before and this time he could have evaded Catherine's plea with a lie of some kind.

"Sure, ok. I'll be there as soon as I can," with that Nick hung up the phone and blushed lightly as he looked up at Greg. "Hey G, looks like everyone's short handed today. Cath needs a hand with her case and I told her I can help. You don't mind do you?"

"Nope! I already printed the safe and painting and I got nothin', so the perps more than likely wore gloves. I was planning to go through the drawers and the washroom. If she needs your help, go right ahead." Greg sounded a little dejected and didn't even bother to tease Nick about his choice in ring tune, but he couldn't be pissed because I was leaving him…could he? Nick quickly snapped out of his wishful thinking, and counted his blessings that he didn't have to defend his sudden change of musical tastes to Greg.

"Thanks G, I'm sure you can take care of the rest. I'll just help Cath collect the evidence and I'll come right back to the lab to help you with the rest of the case ok? I'll let the cops know that you're in here alone." Nick started packing up his kit to leave the house.

"Ok man, see you at the lab"

"See ya!" with a final wave goodbye, Nick quickly exited the room and headed downstairs to face yet another crime scene in the 4 hours he'd been awake since Grissom had called him in. He shook it off like a good soldier and rationalized that the demands of the job didn't really matter because he didn't have a personal life to go home to anyway.

With only the four walls of the bedroom to keep him company, Greg's mood quickly turned grim. He just wished that he could find the courage to ask Nick out, or at least tell the Texan how he felt about him. He shook off his sour mood and turned back heading towards the washroom…he had work to do, and he hadn't labored this much to become a CSI to only shirk his duty to hopeless fantasies!


A/N: Can you feel the sexual tension peoples?! LOL! I love Greg's eyes, and Nicky does too, hence the "Dirty Eyes" reference --giggles madly-- Thanks for reading guys, hope you liked it :) Concrit is encouraged, so if I'm doin' something wrong don't be shy to point it out, cheers!