This morning, he had been laughing at him for being a cliché. They were both exhausted by the time they got home, both sweating and aching and longing for bed. Yet he insisted on tidying the lounge first, rescuing the cushions from under the coffee table and in front of the TV, picking up Greg's shredded newspaper and putting it in the trash, all the while muttering about boyfriends and chimpanzee enclosures. Greg giggled at him whilst he was washing up, standing behind him and slipping his arms around and into the soapy water, resting his head on his shoulder so he could see what he was hindering. Eventually David threw the dishtowel at him and ordered him to be useful or be absent. Obediently he dried dishes, limiting his chuckles and mutters of 'stereotype' to every other plate.
It took an hour to get to bed, he could have gone alone but it was so rare for them to be home at the same time that he refused to waste the opportunity. He was too tired to think, too tired to move and too tired to complain about cold feet and the share of the duvet. He floated between sleep and wakefulness, warm and contented by the messages of familiarity that flowed from all his senses. David was already asleep, cocooning himself in the bedclothes with his fists clenched around them like a child, grunting when Greg tried to reclaim some for himself. Finally he gave up and curled himself around David's sleeping form, shutting out the world as the curtains shut out the daylight from the room.
By the afternoon he was awake and unmoving, although Dave slept on as he always did. Greg just slept less, he always had done, less than almost anyone else he knew. He could read, get up and watch TV or go for a walk, which was what he would usually do with this hour of stolen time. But today the compulsion was strong just to stay here, to watch over him as he was sleeping. The thought tickled the back of his mind, like the feelings his Nana had always told him were the family talent coming through him. The thought made him shiver in the warm room and he discarded it, filing it with the folk tales he would only believe when it suited him. Still he propped himself on one elbow and watched him sleep, counting his even breaths and barely thinking at all.
An hour later and David finally struggled into wakefulness, blearily rubbing his eyes and blinking at him like a mole flushed into the sunlight. Greg laughed at him again, gentle affectionate laughter as he stroked his short hair with one hand. The other was surreptitiously heading lower, until David caught it and held it between his own.
"We don't have time." He murmured, bringing the hand to his lips and kissing it before he released it to its rightful owner.
"I think you're giving yourself too much credit." Greg replied. He made another half hearted attempt to tackle him but David fended him off easily, rolling them until he was on top, straddling Greg's waist.
"Shower, food, work." He said, kissing Greg's nose and then rising swiftly to head towards the bathroom.
"Spoilsport." Greg grouched loudly, reluctantly getting up himself. David appeared around the bathroom door, toothbrush in hand.
"Fine. Shower, food, work, sex. Happy?" Greg flashed him a grin.
"Since when have I ever worked to a schedule?" He asked and moved quickly across the room and through the bathroom door before David could close it again.
By the evening, Greg was standing at a crime scene in the pouring rain. He rubbed his hand across his face to try and remove the droplets of water that were falling into his eyes and squared his shoulders against the deluge. Rain was the worst thing for evidence, except possibly snow. Rain washed the evidence away or mixed it together, making the certain uncertain and obscuring the probable. Greg sighed; he was starting to sound like Grissom, even inside his own head. At least the body had been moved, the coroner had taken it half an hour ago back to the dry of the morgue, smiling almost apologetically as he ducked into his car out of the deluge. Looking up, Greg saw another car was pulling up, it had familiar plates and a familiar person sitting grumpily behind the wheel.
"Hey." Greg said as David got out of the car, drawing his coat around him for all the flimsy protection it offered against the rain.
"Hello." He was already practically growling.
"What are you doing here?" David shrugged his shoulders, the rain was already dripping down his hair into his eyes and Greg had to resist the urge to wipe it away, a pleasant but uncomfortable reminder of the shower.
"Grissom sent for a trace analysis expert, something to do with a melted co-polymer and a forty foot concrete pole." Through his irritation Greg could hear a note of pride at being the one Grissom had asked for. He struggled against his own amusement and irritation, too used to David's hero-worship to let it bother him. But that didn't mean he would let the opportunity to tease him pass.
"So you really will walk through a flood for that man." He grinned and David narrowed his eyes.
"Jealousy's an ugly thing Sanders." He replied, moving to step round him.
"I'm not jealous. I know you could never give up my charm." Greg smiled at him and David gave a half smile back.
"You pay half the mortgage, your charm is contractual." He said. Greg still stood in his path. "Any chance I might be allowed to do my work? So I can get out of here before the Ark arrives?" Greg stepped back with an exaggerated gesture.
"See you later, honey." He whispered to him as he passed. David narrowed his eyes at him again, but said nothing.
Within the hour the task was rapidly deteriorating from difficult to hopeless. The rain kept coming, in great sheets that swept across the sky and obscured everything. No-one could remember the last time it had rained this much and Greg could almost see the evidence disappearing into the storm drains. He'd lost sight of David some time ago, concentrating on his work and oblivious to the world until Grissom tapped him on the shoulder and caused him, to his slight embarrassment, to jump.
"We're having a meeting." Grissom had to shout to be heard over the wind and gestured for Greg to follow him. He led to him to a shop front with the meagre shelter of a canopy that made it at least relatively dry. Nick and Sara smiled at him as he joined them, David, looking bedraggled and out of place, didn't raise his eyes. Grissom spoke, punctuated by the flapping canopy and drumming rain.
"We need to speed it up." He said, gesturing towards the scene. "Or the rain will leave us nothing to work with." Nick shrugged.
"We're going as fast as we can. I've got a truck full of wet evidence I need to analyse before it deteriorates, but I can't leave to take it back to the lab." Grissom nodded and looked as Sara
"You?" He asked.
"Same problem." She replied. "Hodges got the trace from the pole inside, but I can't work as fast as the rain out here." Greg just shrugged when Grissom turned to him; they all knew what the issue was.
"Hodges, can you take the evidence truck back to the lab?" David almost jumped when he was suddenly addressed.
"Uh sure." He sounded eager but torn, wanting to do his bosses bidding. "But my car's already here…"
"I can take it back." Greg jumped in and gave David a sly smile. Dave's car was his pride and joy; he gripped the dashboard like a security blanket every time he let Greg drive it, which was as rarely as he could possibly manage.
"Umm…" David hesitated.
"Good." Grissom cut across him before he had a chance to speak again. "Then we can concentrate on the scene. Nick, we're going to have to move closer to the shelter of these shops where things might be better preserved…" Grissom was still talking but Greg's attention was caught by the looks Dave was shooting him. There was going to be hell to pay when he got home but he didn't care. When the meeting broke up David passed him, dropping the keys into his waiting hand.
"Break it and I break you." He growled.
"Promises, promises." Greg replied, smiling.
By what he supposed was technically the morning, Greg wasn't sure if he should be furious or terrified. He didn't know who he should be directing those emotions at either, so he hopped nervously from foot to foot; clutching the towel he had been drying his hair with when he got the news. It had taken them a ridiculously long time to tell him. He'd already been at his locker, searching for dry clothes, when Nick had appeared in the doorway and told him the car hadn't arrived yet. He remembered being momentarily confused, trying to work out what Nick was talking about, and then almost shutting his hand in the door of his locker as he banged it closed. Nick was saying something, pointing out that Hodges could have just stopped off, or got lost, or found some mysterious traffic jam that somehow they had missed. He could have been saying anything, Greg's brain had ceased to process anything whilst it tried to control the wild ideas the first piece of information had seeded. He blinked slowly, trying to drag himself back to reality even if he really didn't want to go.
"Has he called in? He should have been back an hour ago." Nick shook his head reluctantly, as if that was a piece of information he didn't want to reveal.
"Dispatch hasn't heard from the Denali since Grissom told them it was leaving the scene. But there's no guarantee he would radio in, he's not a C.S.I."
"Nah he'd radio. Or at least call the lab." Greg's eyes were darting around the room, noticing that the colours seemed to be more vibrant, the angles sharper, as if the world was already taking on a nightmarish quality. He sat down heavily on the bench and Nick sat down beside him, putting an arm around his shoulders.
"We don't know anything yet." He said in a soft voice. "Don't panic too early, ok?" The shudder that went through Greg caught him by surprise and Nick pulled him into a proper hug, patting him on the back like a child. Greg stilled, listening to Nick's heartbeat thumping soundly in his chest and he closed his eyes, breathing deeply. It took a second for him to realise that he had felt Nick's head move and that he was looking up, past Greg. He opened his eyes and turned his own head to follow Nick's gaze. Catherine was standing in the doorway and she seemed to be trying to tell Nick something without him seeing. He sat up, moving out of Nick's embrace.
"What's happened?" His voice sounded strange to his own ears, taut and panicked. Catherine sighed and glanced at Nick who nodded his head.
"Brass just got a report of a traffic collision out near Henderson. The officer who responded just reported that the vehicle involved is registered to C.S.I. It was the one Hodges was driving."
"Is he ok? Was he injured?" Greg's voice was rising but he couldn't help it. He felt another option on his tongue but left it unsaid in case it made it real. Catherine shrugged almost hopelessly.
"He wasn't there. The vehicle was abandoned."
"What?" Nick spoke for the first time.
"They said it looked like there might have been a struggle. We'll know more when we get out there." Nick rose and Greg followed suit, but Catherine shook her head gently.
"You can't Greg, you know that." He felt a sudden stab of anger that whited out the panic for a second.
"What am I supposed to do? Sit here on my ass while he could be dying somewhere?" He moved towards Catherine while he was speaking and she closed the gap between them, holding his arms like an unruly child and making him look at her.
"I know how hard this is." She said firmly. "Of everyone here, you know I know how hard this is." Her hands rubbed his arms soothingly. "But if this is going to count you have to let us do it." He nodded, biting his lower lip and feeling suddenly like he was going to cry. Catherine slipped an arm around his shoulders. "Stay here. The second we have anything, I'll let you know, I promise." Greg nodded again and sank down on the bench. Nick squeezed his shoulder and they both left the room. He stared at the lockers for a while, unseeing. Then he allowed his head to drop to his chest, closing his eyes and willing himself to wake up from a nightmare.
It took an hour for any information to come to him. It came in the form of Sara, who came from the trace lab to find him slouched in the lounge, fiddling idly with a soda can. She gave him half a smile but had the good sense not to try to be cheerful. Greg looked up at her with anxious eyes.
"Catherine called." She said.
"Anything?" He asked, Sara shook her head and sat down next to him, patting his arm.
"They didn't find him." She replied. His eyes fell to the floor, even though he hadn't expected anything he felt the tiny fluttering wings of hope crushed.
"Was there... anything else?" He asked, afraid to meet her eyes again. Sara looked slightly more relaxed, having gotten the most difficult question out of the way.
"Catherine said there wasn't much blood." She said matter of factly. "He wasn't badly injured in the crash. It looked like he was pulled from the car, so maybe somebody got him out."
"Or whoever hit him took him too." Greg said, slightly more sourly than he intended. Sara winced.
"Yeah, or that. The evidence was gone from the Denali."
"The evidence?"
"From the crime scene Hodges came out to. The one he was driving the car back from."
"So most likely whoever hit the car took the evidence, which means they were probably connected to the first crime scene." Sara sat up sharply as Greg suddenly leapt to his feet.
"Where are you going?"
"To do my job."
"You know you can't examine anything to do with this case, not if you want a conviction at the end of it."
"I can't do anything with Dave's case. But I'm still an assigned CSI to the first case, nothing to stop me working on that."
"Until Grissom finds out." He smiled at her, strangely excited by the thought being able to do something to help.
"Then I've got 'til then." He replied. She raised her eyebrows at him but stayed silent.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" She asked finally. Greg was hopping from foot to foot again.
"I have to do something." He said, a note of hopelessness entering his voice. Sara looked at him for a second, considering.
"Fine." She said, standing up.
"Where are you going?" Greg asked nervously.
"I'm coming with you. If you're going to get away with this there'll need to be two of us documenting." For the first time since the news broke Greg felt half a smile forming.
"Thanks." He said sincerely. Sara simply tugged on his arm to draw him from the room. As they walked Greg caught a glimpse of the trace lab, then put his head down and studiously ignored it. It would be better to concentrate, to think about it as little as possible. But a single nagging thought kept tickling the back of his mind. This morning, he'd been laughing at him.