Hello All, this is my first FanFic, Constructive Criticism please, if you don't have anything constructive to say why bother saying it except to be mean. Tons of thanks to Mel Olle for encouraging me to give it a try and for helping me sort out the story idea and for the Beta! You're the best!
Summary: A long time for the CSIs and detectives. There is a small bit of GSR, but not the point of the story.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. Boy I wish I did...
A Long Night
By Chiianna
Grissom was running late. He knew they would all be waiting for him in the break room for their assignments. It wasn't often that he was late. He knew there was a lot to do tonight. He didn't want to do his paperwork, but he knew that he had to. He hoped it would at least be a quiet night.
Greg had been in early and already stopped to ask Grissom a few questions about a case that he had finished working the night before, and about a conference that he wanted to attend. Grissom could tell that Greg was just hyper; he knew it would be a long night if he didn't send Greg out on a long case, tonight.
Doc Robbins did not have a body to examine yet, he figured he might as well finish up some paperwork from the night before. As he sat at his desk, and turned on his computer, going to open the case file from the night before he was quite surprised to see that an image of a sheep was crawling around. The more he tried to find some way to stop it the more sheep that kept walking around, before he knew it, there was about 50 of them all making 'baaah'ing noises.
Looking at the calendar on his desk, Doc Robbins realized what day it was, April Fool's Day. "It is going to be a long night isn't it…" the doc said to the empty room. Picking up the phone he called Archie to try to come fix the problem.
Archie didn't get the good Doc's call, because he was in the break room fixing some coffee. Being the first one into the break room for the shift , meant that he got stuck cleaning the coffee pot. He debated for a moment in leaving it for someone else to take care of, but he hadn't really gotten much sleep and really needed a cup of coffee. Day shift had yet again burned the coffee in the bottom of the pot, causing him to give serious thought to organizing a fund for a private "night shift only" coffee maker. The burnt coffee taste took a lot of scrubbing to get out, before he could even make the first pot of coffee.
With the pot in hand, Archie stood at the sink, as he reached to turn the water on he found himself getting very drenched very fast. Water was streaming out of the spray hose right at him. Dropping the pot in the sink, by some minor miracle it did not break, he rushed to shut off the water.
Picking up the hose, he discovered that electrical tape had been wrapped around the black plastic spray head so that it was stuck in the on position. Archie groaned, already trying to think of a way to figure out who did it and how to get revenge. Saving the tape that he pealed off the spray head, he finished making the coffee. He could see if a print could be found on the tape. But first he needed to get dry and hopefully by then , the pot of coffee would be finished brewing.
Catherine and Sofia walked into the break room. They had been finishing up a report on the case they had worked together the night before. The smell of brewing coffee clued the two ladies in on that it was safe to go into the break room.
Each grabbing a coffee cup from the counter, they were upside down as to show they were clean cups to be used. Even though everyone was responsible for cleaning the cups they used, it didn't always happen that way. Neither one paying much attention to what they were actually was doing, Sofia filling Catherine in on an interview that she had missed earlier in the day. However, when they were splashed with water all over their shirts, Catherine let out a shriek loud enough to bring Warrick and Nick racing in, seeing the two ladies shirts considerably soaked, they started laughing, which didn't put them in the good graces of the ladies.
Catherine looked at Sofia, who then distracted the boys with yelling at them for laughing, Catherine filled her cup up with water and proceeding to toss the water strait at the still laughing duo. Leading Nick and Warrick to try and chase Catherine around the break room, only to get busted by the boss moments later.
"Sorry Catherine, you're on your own" Sofia said as she walked out the door passing Sara, Greg and Grissom as they walked into the break room.
Grissom cleared his throat; it was going to be a very long night… "Shall we get started" He said glaring at the three trouble makers.
"Warrick and Nick have a DB. Catherine, after you dry off, you and Greg are on a DB at the Luxor. Sara you have that case to finish up from last night. "
Brass was already on the way to the first crime scene of the night. He had stopped to talk to Grissom on his way out, complaining about his problems with the motor-pool, and how he had been arguing with them over the cars that they had been lending out to him. The last one he had to have towed back in because it broke down.
The entire drive there, Brass kept hearing this strange whistling sound. Brass started muttering to himself about how it was impossible for him to have done something bad enough to deserve all this bad car karma.
What Brass found when he got there only served to confirm his initial thoughts, the bodies had been found because of the decomp smell that had been emanating from the house. It was not long before Warrick, Greg and Nick showed up. When the three CSI got out of the car, their well trained noses picked up the smell. All three started groaning, Brass stood there grinning "So which one of you pissed off Grissom, as I am sure you two can smell we have decomp in there."
Nick and Warrick just looked at each other and groaned, heading inside. Brass decided to stay far away from the smell as possible. Just in case this car broke down. He really didn't want to smell like decomp in the heat.
After they had finished processing the scene and interviewing the neighbors, Brass got back in his car to head back to the station house only to hear the whistling noise start back up. Getting further and further annoyed by the sound, Brass pulled over to look at the car.
He checked all under the hood, couldn't find a thing. He was now hot and sweaty, and still no closer to finding the cause of the problem. Maybe he could get Sara to look at the car real fast, so that he could at least tell the motor-pool what was the problem with this one.
Dave, Warrick and Nick all got back from the house, with the decomp body in it. Grissom took one sniff at the three and handed them each some lemons. The three headed strait for the showers, not wanting to deal with the smell any longer then they had to.
"Next time Nicky, we need to have a look out. I don't want to get a decomp just because we were having some fun on a day, Grissom seemed to be in a less then forgiving mood." Warrick said, as they were showering.
"Yah, but who are we going to get to do it after they hear about the decomp we got for it this time"
The three men continued to shower and even talked about the case a little bit as it took some time for them to get the smell out.
Nick was the first to reach for his towel. As he was drying himself off, he failed to notice the small fiber particles that stayed attached to his skin. It wasn't until he started to try to get dressed, that he realized that he was sticky all over.
"Hey guys, can I borrow one of yours soap." He asked the other two showering LVPD employees.
Warrick, who had just finished, passed his over the top of the stall to Nick. "Sure"
When Warrick toweled off, he discovered that he had the same problem.
"Hey Nicky, can are you finished with my soap?" Nick just handed back the soap in response.
Dave then called out "Are you guys having a problem with some sort of residue in your water, that's making your skin sticky?"
"Yep"
"Yah, and I think I know what may be causing it" Nick wrapped himself in his towel. Not wanting to get what ever this was on his only clean pair of clothing left. Barefoot he padded out to the locker room to find his tool kit, and grabbed the wrench out of there. Going back to his shower stall, he unscrewed the shower head, to find some yellow life savers still stick in there.
"Guys, there is candy in the shower head. That is what was making the residue. We use to do this at the Frat House all the time" Nick informed the others.
After fishing out the candy from the shower heads, the three men re-took their showers. Before they left the showers, the three men decided to replace the candy for the Day-Shift people.
Hodges was printing out a report that Grissom had asked for; he was torn between wanting to please his boss and being overloaded with work from the different cases that had come in over the last few days.
Sara had been by to see him about some results as well. Rumor had it that Sara was very important to Grissom, despite the amount of fighting they had been doing over the past few years, according to the rumor mill.
The printer was going non stop as he printed out test results, as well as that report from Grissom.
"Is that report done yet?" Grissom asked, startling Hodges who hadn't seen or heard him come into the lab.
"Just finishing up now. It is on the printer"
"What is this?" Grissom asked as he held up an image of a half naked lady that was printed on the same page, as part of the report Grissom had asked for.
"Hodges, you really shouldn't be using company time or resources for this kind of thing. Re-print the page and bring it to me in my office."
Hodges grumbled after Grissom had left, he did not even get the chance to explain himself. He hadn't been looking at anything of the kind, much less printing anything.
He reprinted the page, and stalked out Grissom's office to try to sneak the page in there, when Grissom wasn't in his office. He didn't want to get lectured even further by his boss.
He was going to get revenge on whoever it was that had place that image in the stack of printer paper in the first place. It was probably Greg, he was known for being a jokester.
After successfully sneaking that page onto Grissom's desk, Hodges stopped by the break room, shift was just about over.
Nick and Warrick were in there talking about their shower still.
"I should have known to be more careful, after all it is April Fool's Day. Frat house pranks were a common thing. Too many fall for something so simple, as something in the shower head is almost shameful."
"We need to get even. I don't know who did it, but we should fingerprint it"
Archie who had walked in to hear Warrick's comment chimed in "It is no use; whoever got me tonight was careful not to leave fingerprints."
"Archie is right, Warrick, we are all CSIs here, who is going to leave a trail that easy for us to follow."
Hodges decided to join the conversation "Well process of elimination, the four of us had pranks pulled on us, who else. At least none of yours was as embarrassing as mine."
"Now you go to tell us, what happened" Warrick said as he leaned forward.
"I should have kept my mouth shut, there was an image of a barely covered lady that a page of a report for Grissom got printed on, and I didn't see it until after Grissom did as I was swamped trying to get all the results I needed to get too finished."
The other three men started laughing at hearing what happened to Hodges, who continued "Ok, now I told mine, you three have to tell me what happened to you"
Warrick took pity on Hodges, who looked like someone had killed his pet dog. "Nick and I got a decomp case, then when we went to shower there was candy in the shower head which made us all sticky. The more we tried to clean it off the worse it got until we realized what was going on. Dave was in there too, as he had some of the decomp get on him. What about you Archie, what happened?"
"Some one rigged up the spray head on the sink over there to spray the person standing there when they turned on the faucet. Doc Robbins also got hit with sheep invading his computer. I had to go over there and clean the program off for him."
"So who hasn't been hit, Greg, Sara and Grissom right?" grumbled Nick.
"Yah sounds right Nicky, my money is on Greg" Warrick commented.
Hodges agreed with the two men adding "Yah that sounds like our most likely suspect"
"Now the question is how we get even" Nick pointed out.
Just in a moment of silence, Grissom walked into the break room sending the four men scattering. It was time to go home anyway.
Sara had agreed to look over Brass' car for him. She got changed into her overalls.
Checking under the hood, and generally poking around at stuff. She couldn't find the cause at first. She even got under the car and checked it out. All she found out was that she was going to need a shower after this.
She was just about ready to tell Brass that she would have to start taking it apart to find the problem. She discovered the cause of the noise.
There was a hallowed out potato with a whistle shoved in the exhaust pipe of the car.
Laughing, Sara pulled it out and walked over to where Brass was sitting "Here's your problem, you've been the subject of a practical joke by someone. This was stuck in your exhaust pipe very cute whoever came up with the idea."
Handing the potato to a grumbling Brass, she walked out of the shop area "I am going to go take a shower, see you later"
Sara walked to the locker room. It was the quite time between shifts where everything was rather empty. Day shift had been in already, the rest of the Graveyard shift had gone home already.
Grabbing her spare change of clothing, Sara really wanted to get the grime off first. Leaving her clothing on the bench, she stepped into the shower.
Grissom thought back on the day. It had been harder then he thought to keep his face neutral, especially when it came time for his prank on Hodges. The man was trying too hard to please him. It was so easy to get him stumbling over himself in shock. Next year though, he would have to come up with something better then pranks that involved a lot of water. Those were kind of hard to set up.
Grissom had been hiding out. He grabbed her clothing and brought it back into the locker room part of the facilities. He had locked the door, and stuck a sign that said 'Experiment going on inside', and waited for her to get out of the shower.
Grissom heard the shower shut off, just as he noticed the La Perla label on her undergarments and he heard Sara curse. Even though he knew it was coming, he wasn't prepared for the site of Sara only in a towel. His brain was on overload.
Sara yelped when she saw Grissom sitting there next to her clothing. Her eyes went wide as he got up and walked over to her. She was mad and curious at the same time. Grissom's hands came up to cup her face.
The kiss was soft and tentative at first but soon became very heated. After the need for air became too great, they broke apart.
"How about you get dressed and come over to my place" Grissom said as he pulled off her towel. "I am sure we can find something to do"
Sara just mumbled as Grissom had attacked her neck. He whispered in here ear "I originally had a better plan then just to steal your clothing, for the life of me though, I can't remember what it was. I should have known the site of you in just a towel would be my undoing."
Much later on, in the morning; a very naked Grissom and Sara where in his bed, snuggling with each other.
Sara asked "So it was you, you're the one that was pulling the pranks. You realize everyone thinks it was Greg"
"Yah, it was me. I figured people would see me as an unlikely source. I didn't do anything to Greg in hopes of creating some suspicion. It isn't easy setting up pranks on some of the best CSIs in the country. Now we really should try to get some sleep"
The End.