Warrick shoves his hands in his back pockets, surveying the room. It's just a bar, like any other bar. Pool tables, dart boards, rock music on the radio, the obligatory slot machines blinking along the back wall. Not a scrap of latex or leather or eight-inch heels in sight. If it weren't for the rainbow flag tacked to one wall next to a row of mirrors, he wouldn't even know.
"So. This is what a gay bar looks like," he remarks.
Catherine snorts as she walks past him. "You've seriously never even been inside a gay bar."
"You implying something?"
She rolls her eyes. She's drawing stares here as much as she does anywhere else, and it doesn't seem to bother her a bit. Warrick wishes he could be as cool. "I'm implying that this is Vegas. Everybody tries everything once."
"Not me." Then the rest of her statement hits him. "Wait, are you saying that you--?"
Catherine tosses a grin over her shoulder as she winds her way through the crowd toward the bar. Warrick shakes his head and whistles low, under his breath.
The bartender says that the guy they need to talk to is here somewhere, but he doesn't get any more specific than that. The place is local, off the Strip and not nearly as crowded as the tourist traps, but it's still a Saturday night. There are at least two hundred people in here, which means that they get to work the crowd.
Great.
Catherine doesn't seem bothered at all, but he guesses that after being an exotic dancer, a place like this isn't really that freaky. It's really not freaky, and he doesn't have a good reason to be freaked out--he's got his tac vest on and nobody's so much as looked slantways at him--but he is anyway.
He's talking to a pretty girl with fire-engine-red hair and wishing there was any point in flirting with her when something makes him look over at the pool tables. Later he can't even say what catches his eye. A trick of the light, a sudden movement, maybe just the disco ball reflecting off the mirror. Something.
And that's when he sees the dark-haired man leaning over to set the rack on the table nearest the mirrors. The guy's back is to him, but that doesn't matter; posture and movement are just as distinctive as faces, when you know a person well enough. Warrick steps away from the redhead, brow furrowing, staring. Trying to get a better look without being too obvious.
"Found our guy," Catherine says in his ear, and he jumps. She gives him a quizzical look. "You see something?"
Suddenly, he doesn't want her to know. Doesn't want to know himself. "I thought I saw someone I knew, but--"
He wants to take her arm, steer her away, go talk to the guy who (might have) witnessed the beating of a nineteen-year-old college kid up at the campus, but it's too late because she's already peering over. Warrick follows her gaze involuntarily, and the pool player chooses that moment to turn, laughing, to face someone they can't see. It's Nick.
"Shit," Catherine says in a low voice.
"Maybe it's just--" Warrick begins, then stops. What, a mistake? How do you end up in a gay bar by mistake? And it isn't just a place to hang out and play pool with some buddies, either, because Warrick remembers talking to Nick yesterday morning, right after their shift. He was jealous, he remembers. It's rare to get a Saturday night off. A treat.
"You got a hot date?"
Nick grinned, ducked his head, closing his locker door. "What makes you think that?"
"Man, it's a Saturday night and you're not working the graveyard. You got to have a hot date. If you don't have one, go find one. My girl's got this friend who loves Southern boys--"
Nick was laughing outright now. "No, man, that's okay. I got plans."
A hot date. Jesus. Warrick feels like his brain is turning inside-out. Is it that guy? That other one? The blond football-player type or the one with glasses or--
As far as he can see, it's none of them. The blond guy has a hand on Nick's shoulder and they're obviously friendly, but it doesn't look like--that. Nick doesn't look any different than he does when he's talking to Warrick. But how would he know? He didn't even know Nick is--
"Warrick," Catherine hisses. "Warrick, let's go."
"Just hang on a minute," he says absently.
"This is wrong." Her voice is unexpectedly fierce, and he looks at her, startled. "If he wanted us to know, he'd have told us."
"You know," he realizes. She looks away. "You knew he was--you know who he's here with. Don't you."
"It was an accident that I found out." She pushes her hair out of her eyes. "He doesn't even know that I know. And it's none of my business--or yours. Let's just do our jobs, okay?"
Warrick opens his mouth, but before he can get a word out he hears another familiar voice nearby, cutting easily through the crowd noise.
"Excuse me, coming through, get out of the way, that's a seven dollar beer and if you don't move you'll be wearing it and paying for it--"
"No way," Warrick mutters, just as Sanders breaks through the crowd next to the tables. Greg Sanders. DNA Greg Sanders. Greg Sanders of the terrible shirts and the hidden pornos and the constant flirting with every female in sight. His hair is somewhat tamed with gel and he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt that isn't entirely horrifying. And no doubt about who he's here with, either, because he goes straight over to Nick's table, sets the glasses down, and puts one palm on the back of Nick's neck just as the other man is lining up his shot.
Nick jumps about a mile in the air, turns, laughs. His face is soft in a way that Warrick doesn't think he's ever seen before, and he feels like the worst kind of voyeur, but he also can't seem to look away. Over the noise of the crowd, he can just hear what they're saying.
"Your hands are frozen."
Greg grins, leans over the table, surveying the game. "Sorry."
"And you screwed up my shot."
"But I bought you a beer. A good beer. Microbrew." Greg proudly displays the beer in question.
"I told you, I'm never going to start liking that crap."
"Yeah, but it cost me seven dollars and you're going to feel bad if you don't at least try it."
Nick laughs, accepts the beer, drinks. Without setting it down, he curls his other hand around Greg's neck and kisses him on the mouth. Warrick flinches. There are guys kissing all over the place in here, but somehow this is different. It's a comfortable kiss, familiar. This isn't, he realizes, a first for either of them.
When they break apart, Greg is grinning like a maniac. "So you liked it?"
Nick ruffles his hair, leaving it even more disheveled than usual. "No."
Catherine grabs Warrick's arm, firmly, and he blinks at her. The expression on her face is uncompromising. "We have a job to do, Warrick. Let's go do it."
"I--" he trails off. She's right. Unless he's planning to stay here and spy on the pair of them all night, there's nothing more to see here. "Cool. Let's go."
He still can't get his head around it by the time he has to go in to work the next afternoon. It makes him feel vaguely ashamed--like he's got a problem with gay guys. Which he doesn't. Or at least, he didn't think he did, but it still eats at him.
Nick. Gay. Jesus, how did he not notice? Sanders isn't that surprising, really. Guy's more than a little on the wild side, and while Warrick didn't know he dabbled, it's not that much of a shock. But Nick's like--as white-bread as you can possibly get. He was in a frat, for Christ's sake. He's an ex-cop from Texas who likes football and cheap beer.
And hyperactive, filthy-mouthed lab-rats. Men.
An hour into his shift and he still hasn't seen Nick. Grissom's got him finishing up on a liquor-store robbery across town, and Warrick feels a little guilty that he's relieved.
At least until his pager goes off and he realizes that he's going to have to go down to the labs to pick up the samples Catherine dropped off before she left at ten. He takes a second to tell himself that he's being a jackass, then heads down. It's not like he even knows Greg all that well, or would care that he fucked guys if the guy he's currently fucking didn't happen to be Warrick's best friend.
Greg's bopping around the lab to Black Flag, drumming his palms on the countertops in time to the beat. He grins at Warrick when he comes in, and there's something that looks suspiciously like a hickey just above the collar of his shirt.
"You got my samples?" Warrick yells over the music.
"What?" It doesn't seem to occur to Greg to turn the music down, but that's nothing new. "Oh, yeah, Catherine dropped them off."
Warrick opens his mouth to shout something back, but just then Grissom stomps into the room, glares at the pair of them, turns the boombox off, and stomps out.
"He really needs to get laid," Greg remarks cheerfully.
Warrick snorts, because it's both true and so not something he wants to be thinking about. "What have you got for me?"
"Epithelials from under your vic's fingernails are from an unidentified female. No hits in CODIS. Shirt tested positive for GSR, which means that--
"--he was standing right next to the gun when it went off," Warrick finishes. "Cool. Thanks, man."
"No problemo." Greg turns the music back on, although he keeps the volume a little lower, and starts drumming the countertops again. "I live to serve."
"Right." Warrick hesitates. Greg glances over at him, eyebrows raised inquiringly, and what's he supposed to say, hey, I just found out last night that you're gay and also sleeping with my best friend, and I just want you to know I'm totally cool with that?
"Right," he says again, and gets the hell out of there.
Of course, when he gets back up to Grissom's office, Nick's there. Warrick hesitates in the door for several long moments before Grissom, who doesn't look as though his mood has improved, gestures impatiently for him to come in.
"There's been a shooting," he says without preamble. "Convenience store out on I-15, multiple victims. Anonymous caller dialed it in. I want you two keeping your eyes open on this one, okay?"
"Sure," Nick says, and turns, grinning, to thump Warrick on the shoulder. Warrick flinches a little, involuntarily, but he doesn't think Nick notices.
Grissom narrows his eyes. "And if I hear about any wagering, I'm sticking you both on that explosion at the sewage treatment facility."
Nick raises his eyebrows. "Who's got it now?"
"Dayshift. I'm sure Ecklie would be only too happy for the help."
"I'm hurt that you feel like you have to threaten me." He slants a grin at Warrick.
It takes him moment too long to respond. "Yeah. Hurt."
And this time Nick does notice the hesitation. Out of the corner of his eye, Warrick can see his face crease, confused.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He doesn't have a problem with this. He doesn't. But he still can't think of a single thing to say as they pack up and head out. In the car, Nick puts on the radio, and Warrick hardly remembers to bitch about the country. He keeps shooting glances at Nick out of the corner of his eyes, though he doesn't know what he's expecting to see.
Finally, about ten minutes out, Nick reaches out and turns the music down. "Okay, what the hell, man?"
"What?"
"You've been weird all shift. Is something going on with your lady?"
God. That's what he thinks this is about? "No," Warrick says slowly. "Nothing like that."
"Then what is it?"
"Nothing, man. It's no big deal."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. I'm sure."
Nick sighs. "Because you've been looking at me like I just grew an extra head. It's kinda starting to get on my nerves."
He sounds so normal. Suddenly Warrick wants to laugh, because what the hell was he expecting? It's still Nick. Driving with one hand, squinting even though it's dark, and glancing over like he's concerned that Warrick's maybe lost his mind. Just Nick.
"It's nothing," Warrick says again, and this time he means it. "Just been a weird shift, is all."
Nick doesn't look entirely convinced, but he doesn't push it. "If you say so."
"I say so." Smiling, shaking his head, Warrick changes the radio station and turns it up until the pounding hip-hop beat fills the Denali. "Your music sucks, though."
Nick puts his head back and laughs.