"What bugs you most?"

A CSI fan-fic story, started May 2003; WIP, but I was bitten in a recent plot bunny attack (October 2007) and decided to dust this one off and see where it goes. It is a much longer companion piece to the "Better Brass biography" posted over at the "jimbrass" Yahoo group.

The usual disclaimers: none of the CBS or CSI characters belong to me, and I make no money doing this kind of thing. I am not affiliated with CBS or CSI in any way.

Spoilers: this is set sometime between Seasons 4 and 5 (so lots of water under the bridge since I started this fic). Greg Sanders is still in the lab.

Rating: T for adult themes and language in later chapters.

Pairings: Jim/Catherine; Bobby/OFC.

Chapter 03/??

"Very Zen"

(A Tuesday night in mid-May)

Jim Brass sat in his office with his jacket off, necktie loosened and shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows. He stared at the computer screen, flipping pages with a click of the mouse button. Something was missing from the database reports and he racked his brain trying to dredge it up: aliases, credit card fraud, ATM receipts, vehicle records, something…anything to track down this guy and make progress on the case.

We'll get you eventually, moron, he whispered to himself, fending off frustration with an effort of will. You moes always screw something up.

He was about to head down the hall to give himself a break and a change of scenery to clear the cobwebs when the phone on his desk rang. He instinctively turned away from the monitor to give the caller his full attention, and readied a pen over his ever-present notepad.

"Brass, homicide."

It was Claudia, the night shift front desk coordinator. He heard the amusement in her voice as she spoke. "Howdy, Captain. Your niece is on line two."

Brass raised his eyebrows, wondering what the staff had going tonight. Nothing inappropriate, but he knew they were understandably curious about his family relationships; they had to be better than what he had with his estranged daughter. But, Brass and Ellie were trying to get back in touch, if uncomfortably. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless; at least she didn't hate him anymore, and that was saying something. Jim's ex-wife, Nancy, had really done a smear campaign on him while Ellie was growing up. Some of it was deserved, but damn, not all of it.

"Thank you, Claudia," he said and pressed the button for the correct line. "Yo, Mickey Brown Eyes!" said Brass, sitting back and putting a lot of the old Newark, New Jersey precinct in his deep voice. "Long time no see."

"Yo, Jimmy the Knucks!" he heard her laugh as she replied with the same deliberately thick accent. "How the fu…heck are ya?"

Mickey caught herself in time; serious swearing in front of her uncle, or her parents for that matter, wasn't something she thought would go over very well, no matter how old she was. Not unless she really, really needed to, and was really, really angry or really, really drunk.

"Not bad. How'd your bug-talk go this morning? Is there a new textbook thing in it, or what?" Detective "Jimmy the Knucks" Brass grinned and shook his head as he spoke, realizing that she was probably blushing a little on her end of the line. He used to do the same thing when talking to his mother from college, and had to remember to censor himself a bit; another Brass family tradition carrying on into the next generation.

"I think pretty well, but I'm not ready for the book deals. That's a lot of work, and most of it is unappreciated and unpaid. There might be some really good consulting contacts come out of this one though," she said. "We'll see. Folks are always so all-fired enthusiastic about trading phone numbers and email addresses at meetings, you know, business and school contacts. Then most of the cards get stuck in the bottom of a suitcase for the laundry gnomes to find. Go figure that one out."

Brass grinned into the phone again as he heard her drop the Jersey and head back to the heat and humidity of the Southeastern U.S. with her voice. Though she and her older brothers and sister had all been born in Massachusetts, they grew up in South Carolina and Florida as U.S. Navy kids, and he was still amused sometimes by the way they sounded (and they him; the teasing was a two-way street, ya'll). His sister, Margaret had certainly not lost her Boston-area intonations when she moved, and it got stronger whenever they spoke on the telephone.

So did his, for that matter. He couldn't help it. Somebody could simply mention Faneuil Hall, Fenway Park or the old Boston Garden, and he was back there, heart and soul. Jim and Mags' older brothers Pete (with the Boston Fire Department) and Johnny (an economics professor at BC) still lived in New England. The brothers often teased Jimmy that he'd attended some Hollywood school to tone his accent down a bit. Of course, he hadn't.

"Just don't take any bugs back home," he joked. "You sound chipper, like you're finally on Vegas time."

"Oh, yeah. Finally is right. I hit the tradeshow tables today after lunch for all the free coffee cups and penlights I could carry for my lab guys back home. And then I found the Starbuck's cart. Mm-m-m. Can I take you to breakfast tomorrow after work?" she asked.

Brass laughed and sipped at his own coffee, high-test, fully "leaded". "You're the guest out here, Bozo, remember? Sure. I get done about seven, unless the bad guys run late."

"Cool beans. I'll swim laps at five and head over after," she told him.

"Ugh, gross. Swimming at five in the morning, on purpose? That is sick, Mouse. Sick, sick, sick." He made a face and she could almost hear it.

Mickey had to giggle, in part because he was teasing her with her own vocabulary. "Old habit, Uncle Jimmy. Really old."

Brass had a memory of some snapshots his sister had sent to him years ago; he'd have to try to find them again. All four of the Kaye nieces and nephews had been age-group swimmers, and he remembered that they'd done really well at it. One of his nephews, Michelle's oldest brother Jack Jr., had swum through college but dropped it for medical school. He was a pediatrician now, somewhere in Florida. Tampa, that was it.

"Hey, you still compete?"

"Nah, not since high school. I just do it for the exercise and tan lines. I wrote most of my doctoral dissertation in the pool, in fact. Swimming's good therapy for writer's block, very Zen."

"No wonder the pages got all wet," he said with a quiet snort. "And that's what took you so long in grad school, right? Sheesh, after what your mother told me, I thought you were smart. I dunno...FSU, number one party school in America, twice in the 90's..." Brass clucked his tongue in admonishment.

"Whatever," said Mickey, laughing at his bad joke. "No donuts for you, Mr. Policeman."

"That's Mr. Police Detective, kid; get it right. You make me sound like I'm still a rookie cop on foot patrol," he corrected with good humor. "Alright, be good, Sweetie. See you between six and seven in the a.m.?"

"Aye aye, Captain. Night, Uncle Jimmy."

"Good night, Mouse," he told her, chuckling as he hung up the phone. Oh, that girl's crazy, God love her. Brass made a quick note to himself in his pocket calendar (another old habit, really old) and headed toward the lab area to look for Grissom or Catherine Willows, the two senior-most CSI's who were working with him on the Matthews case. Maybe they had something.

TBC