Author's Note: Thank you for sticking with this little compilation of stories. I appreciate all the reviews. One of you asked me to save Greg's story for last, so that means Nick's is today. I hope you enjoy!
Busted! Nick Stokes Discovers GSR
It was the dead of summer. In the desert outside of Las Vegas. It was approximately 3 million degrees, give or take. Maybe only 2 million degrees if you found a spot of shade under a scrawny, dead-looking excuse for a tree. Unfortunately, neither Nick, Sara, or Grissom could enjoy the small speck of shade underneath this particular gnarled tree, as there was a dead body hogging it. Go figure.
About 30 minutes ago, the three crime lab scientists arrived at the scene to find Detective Akers and a rookie cop waiting for them. When Nick hopped out of the back of Grissom's lab-issued SUV (Sara had claimed shotgun before him (again)) and called out, "Hey Akers, whatcha got for us?," the rookie had immediately started retching.
Akers rolled his eyes and spared a glance for the uniform standing just a few feet from him. "Meet my new trainee, Austin Douglas. He's, uh, well, he hasn't built up the stomach for this just yet." Akers patted Douglas on the back. "Breathe in through the mouth, son. Staring at the vic isn't helping either." Douglas nodded weakly and turned away from the scene. Akers gave his backside a commiserating half smile, and then turned back to the CSIs.
"Well Nick, you can probably smell the answer to your question."
"Ah, yes, there's nothing quite like the aroma of decomp paired with hot, stagnant desert air," Grissom commented as he moved toward the deceased.
"Yeah, well, I've cleared the scene. Dave Phillips is heading here asap, but, I'm warning you, it could be a while. He's apparently out near Nellis Air Force Base. He's full, so he said he's got to drop off at the morgue before he even heads out here. I'd say you're looking at a solid hour."
Grissom, Sara, and Nick all gave each other exasperated looks. Generally speaking, decomps in the desert didn't come with a whole lot of evidence that wasn't ON the body, the body they weren't allowed to touch until the coroner cleared it. So why did they hustle out here?
Sara said, "Listen, Akers, if you've cleared the scene, you might want to go ahead and get the rookie out of here. Losing his lunch isn't going to help him avoid heat stroke out here. We're fine here."
Nick nodded in agreement, and Akers wasted no time collecting Douglas and climbing into their cruiser, which offered air conditioning, circulating cool air with only a slight aroma of smelly feet, which beat eau de decomp any day of the week.
With the officers gone, Sara, Nick, and Grissom followed their noses to the corpse some tourist with clearly superhuman vision on a flightseeing helicopter tour had noticed through his binoculars. By the time they had walked the ten yards from their SUV to their vic, all three were visibly perspiring. Sara had already pulled her now damp hair into a ponytail to get it off her neck. Grissom enjoyed watching her reveal her long, slender neck. Sara didn't enjoy watching Grissom sweat in his dorky straw hat, but hey, at least he was her dork in a straw hat. Nick pulled off his LVPD ball cap so he could wipe the sweat off his forehead with his forearm.
The trio stopped walking and stood looming above the rotting corpse at their feet, a little jealous that the only parts of their bodies in the minimal protection offered by the tree's shadow were their toes when the corpse was almost entirely in the shade. But, they were alive and she wasn't, so maybe they shouldn't complain.
"Whew! This one really is ripe. No wonder that poor rookie couldn't handle it." Nick shook his head and glanced back toward where the officers had been parked just minutes ago. Seeing their SUV parked there made Nick really long for the luxurious shade and air conditioning it offered. He remarked, "Tell me why I'm here again, Grissom? If I recall, Sara's lead on this case. There's only one body, so…?" Nick's question trailed off into nothingness.
Nick had just decided Grissom wasn't going to bother to respond when he finally did so. "Bugs, Nicky. We were told the body seemed to be at least partially decomposed, and therefore, a potential bug hotel. If I recall, you specifically asked me if you could join me on my next 'buggy little field trip'." Grissom raised his eyebrows as if to dare Nick to contradict him. Nick didn't.
"Damn, you're right. Next time, I'm not going to be so stupid. I need to put stipulations on my bug field trips."
Sara laughed and said, "You better watch it; you know Grissom's going to take you on ALL the bug-finding field trips from now on just because he can!" She was, in fact, irritated that Grissom had invited Nick to join them on the case. Those occasional hours driving to and from desert scenes with Grissom were some of the only hours she ever had alone with him.
All three laughed as Grissom confirmed that he may, indeed, take Nick to all the decomp cases so that he could share his knowledge about insect evidence with his protege. After all, it was Nick who specifically came to him to ask to learn the art of creating entomological timelines.
"Gee, Grissom, thanks. I'll watch what I ask for next time!"
Grissom was no longer listening. He had crouched down next to the body. Nick wondered if the paltry shade offered closer to the ground was really worth seeking when it meant being only inches away from the putrid stench. Sara just yelled at him; "Grissom, you know you can't touch that body."
Seeming to completely ignore Sara, Grissom called out, "Hey Nick, go find me a collection jar, will you?"
"Lemme guess- bugs? Sara's right, you know. You can't touch the body yet."
"Why are you two making it sound like it's my first day on the job and you're the bosses? Just because I can't touch the body, doesn't mean I can't use tweezers to remove something ON the body."
"Well, that's a pretty fine line, don'tcha think?"
"Just get me the collection jar, Nick." Grissom had used his boss/teacher voice, so Nick dutifully walked away to rummage through the field kits in the trunk of their SUV.
"Sara, look," Grissom directed in a somewhat excited voice.
Sara squatted down next to Grissom. The smell really was just awful. Unsurprisingly, there were bugs. Plenty of them. Lots of them. "I've seen bugs, Griss. Why the excitement?"
"Look at this one." Grissom pulled tweezers out of his vest pocket and used them to point to a black and gold beetle emerging from the corpse's nasal cavity. "The gold-necked carrion beetle, Nicrophoris Tomentosus. These beetles thrive in forests. It's not impossible to find them in a desert environment, but it's more likely this specimen traveled with the body to this dump site."
Sara nodded in understanding. Gil reached to the bridge of the corpse's nose with his tweezers. He just managed to gently capture the beetle with his tweezers before it managed to re-enter the skull. When he moved swiftly to catch it, Grissom lost his balance ever so slightly. Cue three minutes of chaos.
As Grissom wavered on his feet for a moment, Sara was concerned he'd overcorrect and land on the victim, so she leaned in to grab his arm. She grabbed the arm not attached to the hand holding the tweezers. As Sara pulled on this particular arm, Grissom swung out the other arm, the one holding the tweezers, to help himself keep his balance. As the tweezer-holding arm swung upward, the beetle being held between the arms of the tweezers was accidentally released. Momentum carried the bug in an arc through the air. Said bug landed, rather inconveniently, on Sara- on her chest, just above the neckline of her tank top.
Promptly dropping Grissom's arm to rescue herself from this flesh-eating bug, Sara shrieked, "You just threw that thing on me! Get it off!" As Sara rose back to standing so as to be able to swat the offending insect off of herself without losing her balance, said insects crawled into a nice, dark little spot it found- the snug little space between Sara's CSI vest and her tank top. Sara's eyes popped open wide.
Grissom had managed to stand up without squashing the corpse, and he took one look at Sara panicking over a little beetle and laughed heartily. Turns out, that was a bad choice.
"Grissom!" Sara shrieked. She quickly unzipped her vest, divested herself of it, and threw it to the ground. Unfortunately, the beetle seemed more attached to her tank top than it was to the vest, as there it was, still on her chest. Also unfortunately, the vest had pushed the beetle up just a bit higher on Sara's chest as it was ripped off. It was now precariously perched on the very top of her tank top's neckline. The thin line of fabric made a pretty good tightrope for the adventurous beetle, which was now slowly walking across the edge of the tank top just at that spot where it was not physically touching Sara's skin due to the valley between her breasts pushing the fabric away.
Grissom was thoroughly enjoying watching Sara come undone over a bug, but he didn't want his beetle evidence being squashed by a panicked Sara and he also probably didn't want to be in trouble with Sara later, so he told her to stop moving so he could get the bug. He moved a little closer to her, tweezers in hand.
"Gil Grissom, so help me, if you squash that thing on me, you are going to pay!" Sara was trying to hold still, but really, those stupid little sticky legs were tickling her and that thing was too close for comfort. It had human in its little belly. Gross.
Grissom continued laughing. "Sara, I can't pick him up if you don't hold still." As Sara complied, Gil bent in closely, his face quite close to Sara's chest. He had his tweezers in hand and was just closing them gently around the beetle's shiny midsection when Sara shuddered, causing Grissom to lose his grip on the bug, which, of course, proceeded to fall right into the valley between Sara's breasts, inside her tank top.
"Gil! Get it out, get it out! You dropped a flesh-eating beetle in my shirt!"
"Sara," the ever-patient and highly amused Grissom replied, "it eats flesh of already dead things, not the flesh of highly agitated, beautiful, and very alive women." He smiled at her, but Sara was much too focused on the bug to notice. The only part of Grissom she was looking at was the hand holding the tweezers. "Sara, just reach in and pick it up. It's a tiny little beetle- barely more than half an inch."
"I'm not picking it up! It's your bug! Get it out!" Sara continued to squirm on the spot, not enjoying the sensation of six little bug legs crawling between her breasts. "Now!"
"Okay," Grissom sighed, "Hold still." Sara did as she was bade, at least for a few moments. Grissom again bent his face to Sara's chest, used two fingers on his left hand to pull the neckline of Sara's tank top away from her body, and peered into the space he had just created between her breasts and her clothing. "Sara, I don't-"
"Don't even tell me you don't see it! It's right there; I feel it!"
Grissom leaned in to look again. He tried to stick his tweezers into her shirt to reach the offending bug, but ended up poking her left breast on his way in.
"Ow! Don't hurt me with the damn tweezers, get the bug out!"
"Sara, what do you expect me to-?" He stopped talking as Sara shoved his hand off of her and yanked her tank top off over her head, leaving her standing there, in the middle of the desert, wearing only a bra with her jeans and gym shoes- oh, and with a bug on the bra.
"Sara," Grissom admonished, "don't distract me like that."
"Get the damn bug, Gilbert Michael."
Again zeroing his gaze right onto Sara's chest, Gil used his fingers instead of the offending tweezers, to pluck the feisty and lucky to be alive beetle from where its little legs were stuck on the lace applique of her bra just between her breasts. He might have snuck a finger just inside the bra for fun; how could she not expect him to enjoy watching her strip?
Sara looked at Gil with an "I can't believe you just did that" look on her face. Gil schooled an apologetic expression onto his countenance, but he blew it by saying, "Honey, I think my hissing cockroaches could come in handy at home. I rather enjoyed this." He gave Sara a half smile to match the mischief-making gleam in his eyes.
All of this took place in just under three minutes. At the 2 minutes, 53 seconds mark, just as Gil declared that his roaches might find employment in his bedroom, Sara and Gil heard the easily identifiable noise made by a person clearing their throat, uncomfortably announcing their presence. Shit.
Gil and Sara turned to face Nick, who had just witnessed at least the entire last minute of this escapade. It wasn't his fault they had forgotten he was there. It wasn't his fault they were too distracted to notice his return from the SUV. Sara quickly grabbed her tank top off the sandy ground and put it back on.
"Uh, here's the, uh, the collection jar you asked for."
Grissom cleared his throat, too. What to do in this situation? Well, his fall back plan for almost any uncomfortable situation was to simply ignore it, so Grissom casually said, "Thank you, Nick" as he held out a hand to take the jar. The beetle that just blew their cover was unceremoniously dropped into the jar. As he screwed the lid onto the jar, Grissom said, "Nick, why don't you travel 30 yards north, sweeping the ground for evidence. Sara, you go west. I'll go east."
Nick shook his head in disbelief. Did Grissom really think he was going to get off that easy? Nick grinned and replied, "Sure, boss, but hey, just so you know, our car ride back to the lab is going to be interesting… I might just have a few questions." He winked at Sara, who was giving him a rather mortified look, and began combing the ground for evidence.
It's possible that he spent the time "looking for evidence" while they waited for Super Dave actually wondering how he somehow missed the fact that Grissom and Sara were a couple and working on a list of pressing questions he needed answered on their way back to the lab. Nick was quite looking forward to making the two of them squirm, but, when all was said and done, he was happy for them, and said as much, though he added the caveat of no future strip sessions on the job if they wanted him to keep his mouth closed.
