The Milkshake Trilogy, Chapter Three: No Use Crying over Spilt Milkshake

Rating: PG

Warning: Contents are extremely silly and may contain fluff, cliché and terrible songs. No spoilers. Does not take season 6 into consideration (or any of the many other episodes I have not yet seen ;) ).

Shout outs to Emma, beta extraordinaire, who came up with the title for this chapter AND burned me the CD I am currently listening to.

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"Dude…you are screwed."

"I know."

"So screwed."

"I know!"

"Grissom is going to kill you when he -"

"I know, Nick! I know! You're not really helping here!"

Nick Stokes examined the carnage spread before him and let out a long, low whistle. "I think you're beyond help, Greggo. This is really, really not good."

Greggo had no immediate response to this except to turn an interesting shade of white. Nick was tempted to snap a picture, but had the decency to resist. The situation was dire enough as it was.

"Man, what were you doing drinking that in here anyway? You know the rules!"

"I know! I just…I wasn't thinking!Oh god, I've got to get this cleaned up." Greg looked around frantically, spotted a paper towel dispenser and lunged for it. Nick crossed his arms over his chest and made an enormous effort not to laugh as the young lab tech hysterically pumped the machine until it ran out of paper.

"Damn it, damn it, I am so fired, if Grissom finds out about this – " he pressed the mound of paper towels onto the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer and whimpered.

"Find out about what?"

Nick and Greg's heads snapped up like two puppets on the same string. Under any other circumstance, Grissom might have been amused.

"Um."

"Greg was just-"

"Is that…the GCMS?" The grave shift supervisor, looking very grave indeed, crossed the room in three great, angry strides. Nick stepped aside nervously and shot Greg a look that seemed to say, "Well, you had a pretty good life."

"I, um…"

"Is this milkshake!" Grissom trailed his finger through the brown puddle coating the surface of the GC mass specand glared at the young tech over the top of his glasses.

"Maybe. Um, probably." There was a long and painful silence. "…yes."

"What the hell is milkshake doing all over the GC mass spec? Do you have any idea how much these things cost!"

"…yes sir."

"How much, Greg? Exactly how much do gas chromatograph mass spectrometerscost?" He drew the machine's name out completely, emphasizing its importance.

Greg mumbled an unintelligible string of numbers and stared intently at his shoes. Grissom expelled a disgusted sigh.

"You are not leaving this lab until this is cleaned up, and then you're still not leaving, because you're going to report to my office, where I have a nice long list of chores that I haven't quite gotten around to because every time I turn around I have to deal with something like this! Am I clear?" Grissom didn't bother to wait for a response. Various frightened interns scrambled out of his path as he stormed from the lab.

"Not the bug cages," Greg whimpered.

"Oh, bug cages are the least of your worries. You'd better hope this thing still works." Nick eyed the young tech sympathetically and blew out a long breath. "Look, go ahead and start cleaning. I'll be right back."

He jogged down the hallway, nervously skirting past Grissom's office, and found the janitor's closet. When he returned with a stack of towels and a bottle of cleaning solution, Greg looked like he might kiss his feet.

"Whoa, down boy!" Nick chuckled and shoved the towels into Greg's arms as the young tech attempted to bear hug him. "Just get this cleaned up, okay? It doesn't look too bad. Grissom will forgive you. Someday," he added warily, nudging the empty milkshake cup with his shoe.

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. If he was really mad, you'd be fired. Or dead. Just be thankful you got away with bug duty."

"Stupid bugs." Greg hung his head forlornly and began spritzing a towel. "Stupid milkshake."