Disclaimer: I do not own or profit from the CSI franchise. It's a shame, really.
Nick pulled into the parking garage at the lab after a fabulous 4 day weekend. He had requested the time off to visit his family in Houston, and Heaven knows, if he had been in Vegas for those 4 days, he would have been called in, probably for every last one of those precious 4 days. Nick loved his job, but really, it was damn near impossible to get a day off. As he got out of his car and strode into the lab, he was reflecting on his time in Houston- his mom's face when he surprised her with his presence was priceless, even if it did mean nearly suffocating as she hugged him, his little niece, Katie, showing off her plies and tour jetes, which were apparently ballet moves she had just learned, his sister's homemade apple pie, a couple games of tackle football in the yard with his dad, his brother Ben, and some of the guys from college, and watching reruns on Nick at Night with Ben, who kept night-owl Nick company after everyone else had long since gone to bed. It was his brother who had goaded Nick into growing a mustache like Tom Selleck's as they were watching their 6th episode of Magnum P.I. After enough good-natured prodding and back-and-forth bantering about it, Nick gave in. And now, 3.5 days into the 'stache, Nick felt pretty good about it.
Oh my God! No freaking way did Nick just walk in here with a mustache! Sara nearly ran into the doorframe of DNA as she stared backward at Nick, whom she had just passed in the corridor. She was fighting a raging desire to laugh out loud. Thinking that would perhaps be a bit tactless, she bit her tongue and walked into DNA to cover her near miss with the doorframe, trying as she did to think of something to say to Wendy to explain her presence. As it turned out, there was no need to cover her incident because Wendy immediately said, "Did you see what I just saw? What's up with the mustache? Wow." Sara being Sara, she wanted to ask Wendy how she thought that as a newbie at the lab, she had a right to make fun of Nick when she had only even known him for a week, but considering she really wanted to make fun of him, too, she bit back her retort and settled for, "Yeah, couldn't tell ya what's up with that; it's definitely new." Wendy smiled and stuck a slide under a microscope. Sara figured she'd better get to the break room before Grissom decided to pop in and hand out assignments.
"Hey Nick!" hollered Greg as he stuck his head out of the break room to hail his buddy in. Greg withdrew his head from the hallway, but did a double take, launching his whole form into the hallway to stare at his approaching colleague. "WHOA! What's up with the 'stache man? You're so totally rockin' it!" Sticking his head back into the break room, Greg shouted out to Catherine and Warrick, who were engaged in yet another conversation in which Catherine was trying to wheedle info out of Warrick about his rash decision to elope, "Yo, break it up you two and get a load of this! Seriously, check it out!" Greg had managed to yank Catherine out of her seat by the hand just as Nick walked in, desperately wishing he had a razor with him after hearing Greg's outburst. What was I thinking, not shaving this thing off? I am in for the razzing of a lifetime. Just grin and bear it, Pancho.
"Wow, Nicky, lookin' good," Catherine commented as she looked up at Nick after scowling at Greg. "Yeah, mustache boy," Warrick chimed in, "Is that a Texas thing?" Both Catherine and Warrick were grinning, obviously fighting the urge to laugh.
"Ha ha, funny, Rick. No it's not a 'Texas thing,'" Nick replied sarcastically as he drew air quotes. "If you must know, my brother, Ben, talked me into it. We were watching some Magnum P.I. reruns and he kept going on and on about how I'd fit the CSI role a lot better if I had a mustache, so here it is, and as Greg said, I am so totally rockin' it." "Yes, Nicky, you sure are," said Catherine, still grinning, as she reached up to feel the coarse hair above Nick's lip. She couldn't help but let out a small chuckle as she did, and Nick scowled at her. "Oh, Nicky, I just didn't see you as a mustache kind of guy. You're such a sweet baby-faced Texas kid. I'm missing that already," Catherine replied. "What? A baby-faced kid? Catherine, come on! I've worked here for 10 years; I'm hardly a kid, and I'm darn good at this job!" Nick retorted. "Hang on, Nicky, Catherine wasn't trying to make you mad," Warrick interrupted, "you just look different, man, that's all." Catherine tried really hard to wipe the smile off her face, only succeeded in bringing the grin down to a smirk, and tried to placate Nick with, "I'm sorry Nicky, it'll just take some getting used to" as both Sara and Grissom walked in to the break room.
"All right, Warrick, Catherine, Nick, Greg, you've got a double 419 at the Luxor. Brass is there; he'll fill you in on the details when you arrive. Sara, you're with me; we've got a B&E in Henderson. Catherine, call if you need assistance; the B&E shouldn't take too long." As usual, Grissom had walked in without anything more than a cursory glance at his team before handing out the night's assignments. He did notice that Catherine's, "Got it, Gil" was a little giddy and that Greg didn't even argue when Nick said he was driving, but instead said, "No problem; I'm right behind you, Magnum!" He looked up and saw Nick's new facial hair just as Nick was passing by him on his way out the door. Grissom figured the mustache must have been the source of Catherine's glee, but made no comment himself.
As soon as the rest of the team had left the break room, Sara let out a snort, which soon turned into an all-out fit of the giggles. Grissom stared at her, dumbfounded, for a moment, and then said, "So, are you going to be able to make it to my car or am I going to have to process the B&E alone?" "Sorry, Griss," Sara gasped, "I've just been holding in that laugh too long. Did you even see Nick?" Grissom replied, "Yes, I saw him, but what's so funny?" "Oh, please, Grissom, you can't be serious? What's so funny? Let me see, maybe the new mustache! Nick looks ridiculous!" Grissom was starting to regret choosing Sara to team with him tonight. He wondered what she had against facial hair as he ran his hand along his jaw line, feeling his beard. Sara seemed to realize what he was thinking because she exclaimed, "There's nothing wrong with your mustache! Actually, your facial hair makes you look distinguished." Her cheeks were a bit flushed as she continued, "My first thought when I saw Nick was that I should appeal to you to tell him that the lab has a no facial hair policy to make him get rid of the 'stache, but then I realized that you have one, too. Yours just looks good, so I forgot about it." At that moment, Grissom almost asked her out to breakfast after shift, came the closest to actually voicing that request as he ever had, but logic got the best of him at the last second, and he merely replied, "You know, we should probably head out." "Yeah," Sara sighed, rolling her eyes. "I'm gonna need the drive time to figure out a way to convince Nick to get rid of that thing!" Grissom marveled at how women could never let go of anything as he watched her long legs stride out into the hallway in front of him.
At the Luxor, Nick was in a pretty foul mood. He had endured his teammates' endless teasing in the car with as much good-humor as he could manage, but he was pretty tired of the jokes now. He groaned as he saw Brass making his way toward them through the crowd that had gathered around the yellow tape. "Hey guys, we've got a double 419. The vics are both female, show girls. They were performing in Fantasy, but never made it back on stage after intermi… Whoa, Nick, you know, Tom Selleck was originally cast to play Indiana Jones, but the producers realized that had his mustache been in the film, the Germans would have surrendered when he went looking for the Ark. Ha, I crack myself up! Anyway, the girls never went back on stage after intermission. A stage hand found them in a dressing room. There're no apparent injuries, so I'm thinking OD. I'm sure you'll solve this case in record time with Magnum on your team here," Brass finished his monologue with a smirk. Greg and Catherine were too busy hiding the fact that their faces were red from suppressing their laughter and had tears of mirth streaming down their cheeks to respond and Nick was too busy fuming, so Warrick took the lead. "Thanks, Brass. Have the bodies been moved or touched?" "Not according to the stage hand," Brass replied, adding, "The coroner should be here in a minute." Warrick led his team into the dressing room after replying, "Thanks, Brass."
After glancing at Nick's stony expression, Catherine wiped her face, cleared her throat, and began processing the scene by taking photographs of the victims. Greg followed suit and got himself under control. Once David had ascertained TODs on each vic and removed them from the scene, Catherine, Warrick, Nick, and Greg processed the scene efficiently and much more quietly than they typically would have done. Greg and Catherine tried not to meet each other's eyes too often.
Sara and Grissom returned to the lab with multiple bags of evidence, memory cards of photographs to be printed, and a suspect in for questioning about the B&E they had just processed. Grissom went to help Sofia question the suspect, so Sara was delegated the task of logging the evidence. After dropping off a few fingerprints to Mandy, she took some samples of foreign materials she had found on and around the freshly broken kitchen window at the burglarized house to Hodges. Then, she sequestered herself at her computer for the next several hours, printing and documenting the photographic evidence of the scene. She had almost forgotten about Nick's new mustache when he arrived back at the lab, accompanied by Catherine, Warrick, Greg, and their evidence. Sara couldn't help but laugh to herself when she saw Nick and his ridiculous mustache.
Greg was never one to shy away from an opportunity to tease anyone, and boy was he having fun with Nick. He knew he was irritating Nick, but he just couldn't give it up. He had the receptionist, Judy, page Nick to the front desk. Greg was watching from around the corner when Nick walked up to Judy and asked, "Hey, what's up?" Judy managed to squeak out, "Oh, Nick, so glad to see you. The 70s just called and said they're missing a porn star. Do you know anything about that?" before erupting into a fit of laughter. Greg popped around the corner cracking up, and grabbed Nick by the arm. "You know how much fun I'm having tonight, Nickster? If I had only known how much fun a mustache could be, I would have had you grow one ages ago!" "Gee, thanks, Greggo. I live to humor you," Nick replied with a roll of his eyes. Nick had to admit that it wasn't worth being angry at Greg. He was man enough to admit that he didn't actually look as cool as he thought he did with the mustache and, well, he loved a good laugh as much as the next guy; he just hoped he wasn't the brunt of the jokes for too much longer, and he sure as heck wished shift was over so he could go home and shave!
"Hey, Greggo, whaddya say we head to A/V to check out the surveillance footage from the Luxor's theater with Archie?" "Sure, Nick." In the A/V lab, after poring over the mind-numbingly boring video footage for over an hour and finding absolutely no helpful images, Archie couldn't resist saying, "Nick, I mustache you a question, but I'll shave it for later." He and Greg cracked up and Nick groaned, "Oh, man, Arch, is that really the best you could come up with?" and then joined in the laughter. When they all finally sobered up, Nick asked Archie if he really had a question. Archie replied in the negative, laughing again at the lameness of his joke. Shortly thereafter, the video footage ended and Nick and Greg headed to Trace to see if Hodges had finished processing the red and yellow fibers they had found on one of their vics.
"Nick, so good to see you," said Hodges as Nick and Greg entered the Trace lab. "Nick," Hodges continued in his pompous voice, "I just want you to know that I, for one, find your mustache to be appropriately manly. I applaud you for wearing it, and think that I might emulate your example and grow one myself. I cannot imagine why everyone is making fun of you about it. I mean, think of all the great men in history who have sported a mustache. You could be as great as Alex Trebek, Groucho Marx, Hulk Hogan, Cap'n Crunch, or Hitler. Think about it. Nick Stokes, CSI extraordinaire. Magnum P.I. could end up jealous." Nick couldn't decide what was worse- Hodges wanting to grow as mustache as a gesture of camaraderie or being compared to Hitler. The comparison to Hitler should obviously be worse, he figured, but really, even Hitler would have been offended if Hodges wanted to be his doppelganger. Greg had seen Sara approaching Trace and had yanked her in to witness Hodges' mustache monologue. The two were staring at Nick, waiting for a rant directed at the well-intentioned, but as usual, bumbling, Hodges. Unfortunately for them, Nick simply asked for his trace results. After listening to Hodges' info on the fibers, he turned to Sara and Greg and asked, "You guys ready for lunch break yet?" They replied in the affirmative and the 3 left Hodges to his microscope and headed to the break room, where they met Warrick, who was already munching on his sandwich and staring at some overnight ESPN programming. After microwaving his leftover pork chops, Nick plopped down next to Warrick and settled in to eat, reflecting on how long this shift had become all because of a stupid bit of facial hair.
Moments later, Sara looked up from her copy of Forensics Today and turned to the guys, telling them, "Whoa, Catherine's barreling down the hall… it looks like she's on a mission. Everyone duck and cover." Greg grinned and literally ducked and covered to make Sara laugh. Catherine stepped into the break room, strode right over to Nick, handed him a razor, and said, "Nicky, I know everyone's been on your back all day, including me, and it's totally up to you if you want to keep that thing, but I'm just letting you know that Ecklie has finally figured out what's up with all the laughter tonight and he's heading this way. Not that he can fire you over a mustache or anything, but I just thought I'd give you a chance to get him off your back before he gets on, if you know what I mean." "Ah, thanks Cath. Give me 10 minutes, guys."
Nick grabbed the razor, headed to the locker room, and came back 10 minutes later clean-shaven. The "pornstache" became office legend, and Greggo had to look elsewhere for kicks and giggles.