Free Willy
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Disclaimer: If it's familiar to you, it doesn't belong to me.
A/N: Response to the Snickers group challenge. Hope it satisfies. (Ha ha. Get it? ;-) )
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sara trudged into the kitchen and saw Nick seated at the table eating a bowl of cereal. She wrinkled her nose when she saw what kind of cereal it was. "Aren't you a little old to be eating Froot Loops?"
"Old?"
She grabbed a Vanilla Coke from the fridge and sat down. "It's kind of a kiddie cereal, don't you think?"
"No," Nick replied, defensive.
"Yes it is," she challenged, for some reason feeling argumentative. Probably because she loved pushing Nick's buttons. He was cute when he was mad. Well, cuter than normal.
"No it's not."
"There's a weird looking cartoony bird on the front of the box. That's real mature," she smirked as she sipped her soda.
"It's a toucan," Nick grumbled as he crunched away on the colorful oh's.
"What is it even made of? Corn? Rice? Bran? You can't even tell, it's mostly just sugar."
"Good cereals aren't always boring and colorless. And bran is for old people! Stop being such a...uh...a pickle-puss!" Nick blurted the first childish thing he could think of.
Sara burst out laughing, doubling over in her seat, almost snorting her soda through her nose. "Pickle-puss?!" She finally managed after her laughter had somewhat subsided. "What does that mean?" Her giggles continued.
Nick glared at her. He was trying to be mad at her, and she was laughing at him. "I don't know, I just made it up!"
Sara raised an eyebrow. "You don't know what it means, but you do know that I am one?"
"You bet I do."
Sara smiled as she got up from her seat. "I love you too." She gave him a quick kiss and headed for the bedroom to get ready for work.
~*~
Nick and Sara walked quickly down the hall toward the break room, knowing that one, Grissom would not be happy that they were late, and two, they couldn't tell him the real reason for their tardiness, which was that Sara felt bad about teasing Nick, so she had "apologized" and they had gotten carried away.
"Sorry we're-"
"Stop!!" Warrick shouted as he stuck his arms out, preventing the two from entering. He bent down as he examined the floor, obviously looking for something. "Ah hah. Here it is." He picked something off the floor and put it in his mouth.
Nick and Sara both gave him disgusted looks.
"I hate hard contact lenses," he griped as he pulled the lens out of his mouth and plastered it onto his eye. "They always pop out. So what's the excuse this time?" he turned to Nick and Sara.
"We overslept."
"Overslept my ass," Warrick muttered under his breath, causing Catherine to giggle.
"Okay, let's get started," Grissom indicated the fun was over. "Cath, hit and run just off the Strip, the rest of you, 419 out in Pahrump. Special request." he handed out the assignment slips and quickly shuffled off back to his office.
Warrick sighed. "Looks like we got a long drive."
Nick approached Sara from behind and whispered in her ear. "Maybe we can convince Warrick to drive while we keep ourselves occupied in the back seat," he teased flirtatiously.
"Keep it in your pants, Stokes, we're on the clock," Sara quipped.
"What? What else are we gonna do?" he grinned.
"I don't think Warrick would appreciated it," she smirked.
"He won't mind," Nick replied. "Hey Warrick, can you drive?"
"Oh, hell no," he shook his head as he poured his leftover coffee down the sink, immediately catching on. "Wasn't this morning enough for you two?"
"C'mon, just this once. It's a ninety minute drive!" Nick pleaded.
"Forget it," was all Warrick said as he headed out.
"Please?" Nick continued his begging as he followed Warrick down the hall.
Sara turned to Catherine and gave her a look.
Catherine raised her arms in defense. "Hey, don't look at me, he's your husband," she said as she left.
~*~
"Hey Greggo," Nick greeted as he entered the DNA lab. He noticed the magazine Greg was reading. "Wildlife Conservation?" he looked at him curiously. "What, did your subscription to Surf Pro run out?"
"No. There's this super hottie, Erin, who works days in A/V, and I'm trying to find some stuff to talk to her about. She's a big time tree hugger environmentalist. She even has a tattoo on her shoulder that says 'Save the Rainforest.' Kinda weird."
"That's nothing," Nick said. "There was this one guy I went to college with, he was such a 'Save the Rainforest' freak that he had a tattoo of a rainforest across his entire back. It had a river running through it, and all kinds of endangered animals and everything."
"Now that's weird," Greg quipped.
"Hey, remember that movie, what was it called, where this guy's wife is killed, and he has short-term memory loss or something, so he tattoos notes to himself all over his body?" Nick asked.
"Memento," Greg quickly answered. "That's one of my favorite movies. Too bad the wife died. She was hot," he grinned. "Anyway, I think Erin likes me. Even though she yelled at me for not using dolphin safe tuna."
Nick rolled his eyes. "So what's the word on my blood samples?" He got back to the task at hand.
"Didn't get to them yet. I'm pretty backed up tonight. Sorry."
"Yo, Nick," Warrick poked his head in the doorway. "Our VW bug just got here. I'm gonna start processing."
"Yeah, I'll be right there." Nick turned to Greg. "Page me," he said as he headed for the garage.
~*~
Nick and Sara sat on the break room couch, waiting for Greg to finish processing their blood samples. Everything was calm and quiet as they drank their coffee until, out of nowhere, Sara suddenly let out an ear-piercing scream. She immediately lifted her legs off the floor and curled them underneath her as she grabbed Nick's arm and huddled against him. "What the hell was that!?"
"What was what?" Nick winced, Sara's scream having caused his ears to start ringing.
"Under there," Sara pointed to the unoccupied couch across from them. "Something crawled under there. It looked like a rat."
Nick rolled his eyes. "We don't have rats in this lab. It's practically sterile. You're just being paranoid," he rationalized, referring to Sara's fear of rats.
"I am not. I swear, something crawled under there! And it looked like a rat!" Sara insisted, still huddled against Nick.
Suddenly Greg came sprinting in. "Have you seen Willy?" he asked, breathless.
"Why are you looking for Willy when you have our samples to process?" Nick smirked.
"He escaped," Greg replied.
"Is Willy a rat?" Sara asked, frantic.
"Yeah. He's a pygmy rat. My neighbor's out of town and I'm rat sitting. It's a really rare species and if I lose him I'm dead."
"Why'd you bring it to the lab?" Sara practically shrieked.
"I didn't want to leave him at home. He'd get lonely," Greg answered. "Have you seen him?"
Just then Willy decided to come out of hiding, scurrying out from under the couch. Sara let out another scream as Willy dashed across the floor, out of the break room and down the hall.
"Come back Willy!" Greg yelled as he ran after the rat.
"I think Willy wants to be free." Nick laughed at his own joke.
~~The End~~