Chapter 2

Eric yawned as he entered the lab, it was 6 in the morning and he had been called in to be at the lab two hours earlier than usual. Horatio was meant to be in court for the day and Eric had been asked to be in charge, seeing as Calleigh did it last time and Ryan was still too new. He headed through the labs towards the locker room, and to his locker where he opened it and placed his things inside. He looked up the isle and frowned when he saw a battered locker swinging slightly, he moved over to push it closed, and as he did it, Eric noticed the same jacket in there he had seen Ryan in yesterday. Ryan never wore the same one, unless he wasn't able to wash it, which in itself was highly doubtful. He frowned and looked around, did that mean Ryan had forgotten it or had he just not gone home last night?

The Cuban moved out of the locker room and started looking through the labs, using the advantage of the glass to see if he could see the young CSI, Eric finally stumbled upon Ryan in the computer lab with whirl text in front of the youngest CSI. Eric moved into the room and opened his mouth to say hey, before he stopped himself, Ryan hadn't looked up as he entered, slowly he moved over and noticed the lids closed over those beautiful emerald green eyes.

*Beautiful? * Eric stopped did he just think that Ryan's eyes where beautiful? No, it was too early and it was the shock of seeing Ryan asleep, yea was it. Eric; however, frowned again, that meant Ryan hadn't been home yet, and a few clicks on the computer, showed it went to auto run that began yesterday at 7 in the evening. Now the hard part was and Eric's dilemma was how to approach and wake the sleeping man, who looked way too adorable for his own good. Should he leave Ryan and let someone else be the one to wake him? He blinked before he moved from the lab, quieter than he came in and came up with a plan. Eric opened his phone and found Ryan's phone number, as soon as Eric knew he was out of site, he pressed the call button.

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Ryan's head shot up at the shrill noise echoing in the lab, he fumbled with his phone attempting to open the godforsaken nanomachine.

"Wolfe", he tried not to make his voice sound rough and like he had just woken up.

Eric froze what was he going to say now? If anything Ryan needed to go home to get some more sleep, but how could he say with without giving himself away? "Erm we don't have any case's so far, so H said to give you the morning off, we'll call you if we need you", Eric said off the top of his head as he walked aimlessly around the lab.

Ryan blinked and looked around, he cursed in his head as he came to the realisation that he fell asleep in lab. He looked around to make sure no one was looking "..Thank *coughs* yea, I'll get some more sleep then", he said quickly before hanging up, he looked at the computer, the damn thing was still running though all the materials that it knew, and nothing was coming up yet. He got a sticky note and left it there on the screen saying it had something to do with his case and to please let it run without disturbing it. Before leaving the room, Ryan's OCD came into play and he organised and cleaned up his area. He then rushed out of the lab, ducking passed people that might recognise him and got changed into his home clothes, grabbing his keys and wallet, Ryan hurried out of the building.

Eric watch the smaller man rush out of the lab, he smirked a little inside at seeing him in a tizzy as he always seemed so calm. He couldn't help but look at his ass as he left the building, Eric shook his head as he watched it go out of sight.

"You need to get over that", he said to himself as he saw Ryan's Hummer in the traffic, he put his phone back into his pocket and moved over to the rest of the lab to see what his day would bring him.

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Ryan yawned and stretched as he stripped the bed, he had got back at 7 and was in his own bed, fast asleep by quarter past, he couldn't believe that he had fallen asleep, what if Eric hadn't phoned him, what if H had seen him. God he didn't want to think about it, falling asleep on the job, not a good look for anyone, specially in the lab where anything could happen threw Ryan's OCD out of the loop. Throwing his bed sheets into the wash, he reached into the cupboard to pull more out, he placed them on the bed. Once he was sure they where on perfectly, he left and headed to the shower, the sun's heat outside had made it hot in his room and was making him sweat, he couldn't handle being sticky for too long so the shower was turned on to a low heat. Carefully he stripped his boxers off, and stepped into the stall, letting the water run down his hair and back. The steam rose and swirled around, but Ryan wasn't watching it, he was in his thoughts, his mind back on the case.

* Why would someone cut open a person and insert something else, why would someone do that and then leave them to die?...unless they didn't mean for them to die?* he looked up at his tiled wall and opened his mouth with realisation, "They didn't mean to kill the victim, whoever "they" are just wanted him for something…but what?" he said, the echo made him realise that he had been talking aloud, blushing, Ryan stepped out of the shower, letting the water run down his chest and thighs.

"First sign of madness", he said once more to himself before he slipped a towel around his waist, padding to the bedroom pulling out a fresh orange shirt and a black sweater vest, followed by a pair of Black Jeans. As he was pulling them one he felt like he was being watched, he shuddered and turned quickly to the window, but there was nothing there, but the feeling was still making the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He reached for his gun and held it in his hand as he turned around the room trying to pin where the feeling was coming from, he turned quickly and pointed his gun at his target.

"Meow!?", came the indignant reply, as green eyes looked at the black metal that was pointed so close to its nose.

" Blade...", sighed Ryan as he put his gun away, and picked up the sleek black cat. "You need to make more noise!" he tutted as he petted the soft fur behind Blade's ear.

"Meow" was all the answer that he got from the furry animal in his arms before he clambered up to sit on Ryan's shoulder. "Meow."

Ryan chuckled lightly and looked once more in the green eyes that where just a couple of shades lighter to his own, and headed to the kitchen. "I bet your hungry aren't you?" he fished a packet of cat food out of the cupboard and poured it into the clean bowl on the side, as he bent down to put it on the matt, Blade jumped from his shoulder and started to eat happily. Ryan watched him for a while, waiting for the coffee machine to work and start brewing.

He couldn't understand how this cat had come to be so close to him, sure he liked animals, but they could be so messy, and his OCD would make it impossible for him to be near them, the germs, hair and fleas. But when he had seen Blade looking at him with green eyes from the arms of his Uncle, looking small and helpless Ryan hadn't been able to say no, to either his Uncle or the cat, and having him around the place wasn't to bad, and he wasn't as messy as he thought he would be, and he only looked at Ryan a little weird when he had one of his cleaning fits.

A beep made Ryan stop his thoughts and pour himself a coffee, he sipped the black liquid, before wincing and quickly adding the sugar and cream. He glanced at the time he had a while left so he sat down and picked up a magazine that he had in his house, before frowning. Why did he have a woman's magazine in his house? Then he remembered that some old friends from patrol had come over a few days ago, maybe one of the women had left it behind. Shaking his head he started to look at the pictures as he sipped his drink.

Alexx moved around the Morgue, she had finished the boy's autopsy, and it was confirmed that the he had died from internal bleeding. She just hoped that the person that had done this would be caught soon.

"Alexx-" came a Cuban voice as Eric entered the room. "-you got anything new for any case's?" he was bored, Horatio had said that they never closed, but it didn't mean that there was always something to do.

"If your bored, I have a head trauma to check out" she said a smile on her face as she saw Eric shake his head.

"I'm not that bored," he answered and sat on one of the empty table "It's just nothing apart from the case that Ryan's working on is open, and he's not here to pass anything on"

Alexx nodded in understanding. "Well he was going to check hospitals to see if anyone had been brought in with cuts to the stomach, or missing kidneys" she said. "Is everything okay with Ryan? Where is he if he's not in?"

Eric nodded and moved his hands in a soothing gesture, "Everything is fine, I gave him the morning off, seeing as I know he didn't leave till late last night, so I thought I'd let him sleep in" said Eric stretching the truth a little bit about the fact he had caught Ryan asleep at work. "But maybe I can do that searching," he said more to himself than Alexx as he rushed to get out of the room, the image of Ryan asleep had shifted to Ryan lay in his bed asleep, with Eric next to him, and the last thing you need is Alexx to think that you're interested in anyone.

"Okay Honey," she replied and shook her head, a bright smiled graced her lips once he was gone. One of her friends was lusting after someone and she couldn't wait for find out who it was. Maybe Calleigh would know more, cleaning herself up, she headed upstairs to talk to the blonde gossip junkie.