Author's Note: Reporting from Albuquerque. Here's your update. Betaed by LaughableBlackStorm.

The door opened and he stepped out of the dawn light and into her home. She smiled warmly to greet him, but it was different from her normally wicked smile. She put a hand gently on his back and guided him into the living room, where Greg counted four others. Lyle was not among them.

"Where are Lyle and Gemini?" he asked as Camellia led him to his usual arm chair, before quickly exiting. He gestured at someone he didn't recognize. "And who's this guy?"

"Hey, Conejo, we welcomed you with open arms," Frank said. "Be nice to Roger."

Greg cocked an eyebrow as Roger kneeled at the table, dividing a white powder into several lines. He looked up and smiled, his face red, his eyes bloodshot. He had a blue tie which hung undone around his white collar and his brown curls were disheveled. "Hello, how are you?"

His words were formal and business-like, even as he handled the cocaine.

"I'm fine..." Greg said slowly.

"Liar," said Camellia as she reentered the room. "You need your medicine."

Greg took the mug and looked down in it. "This is weaker?" he checked. "Like I asked?"

"Half as strong as it was before, sugar," Camellia assured him. "And therefore only half as effective."

"Good," said Greg, lifting the cup to his mouth and taking a small sip. She was right, it was weaker than before. He sighed as the warm liquid slashed down his throat. He frowned. "You guys didn't answer my question. What happened to Lyle and Gemini?"

"They'll be back eventually," Camellia assured him, sitting next to Misty, who put her hand on Camellia's knee.

"But what happened to them?" Greg pressed, even as Roger snorted a line of cocaine and he focused on the strange man. "What do you do, anyway?"

Roger looked up, his eyes wide, his pupils pin pricks, and sniffed. "CPA," he said quickly, shaking out his head.

"That explains it," Greg muttered. He took another sip of his tea.

"So how is it?" Camellia asked, pushing a strand of hair behind Misty's ear.

"I'll let you know," Greg replied. "You ever gonna tell me what's in it?"

She smirked enigmatically and shook her head. "I told you, cariño. It's a secret."

"Is that your drug of choice for the evening?" Toxic asked with a suggestive raise of the eyebrow that Greg couldn't quite comprehend.

"Mm..." he said as the familiar tingles began to loosen his muscles and knead his mind into dough ready for baking.

Toxic's smile widened. "So the last trip was too much for you, huh?"

"A bit," Greg replied.

"You didn't like it?" Toxic pressed.

Greg didn't understand why he was so interested. "I liked parts of it. Parts of it were fun. Others, not so much." As his mind grew hazy, something occurred to him, and he turned his head to Camellia, who seemed far more interested in Misty at that moment. "We had sex, didn't we?"

She laughed. "They always only remember when they're wasted again."

"Was it good?" Toxic inquired, casting a knowing glance at Cam.

"With me, baby, you know it always is," she replied, staring right back at Toxic as Misty kissed her ear.

Flowers were beginning to sprout from the green carpet and vines decorated her white ceiling. Greg imagined he was in a jungle, surrounded by exotic animals during the mating season. Greg was still in control of himself, or at least he felt in control... he was simply hallucinating. It reminded him vaguely of the Valium, which seemed capable of relaxing him and his muscles and even causing hallucinations, and yet he generally remained completely lucid, unless another drug was involved.

Another drug... What the hell is in this tea?

Someone passed him a joint. He didn't know who. It was probably the panda. Regardless, he took it and inhaled without thinking. Months ago, the reflexive action for him was to pass without thinking. But times were changing, and so was Greg. The tea, like Valium, made him vulnerable to suggestion. If someone told him to go skydiving, he would do it without fear.

"Feeling bold?" something whispered in his ear, and he nodded vaguely because he didn't know where it was coming from. He looked left at a panther with spiked fur and curious eyes, before reaching out and petting that stiff black fur with tips of white.

"You remind me of my Liver."

"You're kinky, man," the panther purred, nuzzling Greg's neck and making him laugh.

"Quit it..." Greg said half-heartedly.

The panther's paw was on his chest and he reclined in the chair. "Maul me," he dared the beast.

"I intend to," the panther replied, and Greg felt as if he were in some perverse Disney movie.

He remembered stumbling to his feet and waving at the other zoo animals before he was pulled out above the canopy and the sky looked like the ocean and the ground looked like the sky and Greg wanted to jump to dive in, or dive to fall up. Either way, he was guided to a chariot, reclined in his throne, and then the rest were just fragments of flickering fickle fantasies.

His eyes were on fire. Or... no wait, perhaps not. He blinked. No, it seemed they were only closed, and the sunset filtering in through the window had caused a red glow behind them. He blinked a few more times, proud of himself because he was actually waking up before his shift started. And then, he took in his surroundings and his pride quickly diminished.

He had no idea whose bed he was sleeping in.

Groaning, he reached down and pulled the blue duvet up over his head. After a minute of hiding in the darkness, he ventured a look over the edge of the comforter, glancing left, then right, taking in his surroundings. He was relieved to see that the bed was vacant beside him, although he knew he hadn't slept alone. In fact, he had probably done very little sleeping. Flashes of the night passed before his vision, interwoven with hallucinations.

He put a hand to his forehead, still hiding under the covers. This wasn't the first time he'd woken up in a stranger's bed, although admittedly it hadn't occurred in a while. He spread out the puzzle pieces of his memories and tried to connect them, fitting them together as accurately as he could. He had flashes of wild animals and jungles and laughing and—drinks! Fantastic, so he'd mixed the tea with marijuana and alcohol.

He knew he'd have to come out from under the covers eventually.

With a sigh, he threw the duvet off of him and froze when he saw a figure leaning against the doorframe. He was probably about Greg's height and wore a t-shirt with AC/DC scrawled across it, along with a pair of red boxers. He had a cup of coffee in his hands and was watching Greg with curiosity.

"How'd you sleep?"

Greg sighed. "I have a headache."

"Cam's tea'll do that to you. Some coffee should clear it up for you." He nodded down the hallway. "There's more in the kitchen."

"No thanks..." Greg said slowly. "I'm very particular about my coffee." He pursed his lips. "What's... your name?"

"You don't remember my name?" He feigned offense. "Ouch."

"No," Greg said. "I mean, I know your name as far as what they call you at Cam's, but I don't know your real name. Like... you know I'm Greg."

He moved into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. "Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters," said Greg. "I like to know the names of the people I sleep with."

"People call me Toxic."

"Yeah, I know, but your mother doesn't call you that, does she?"

"My mother's dead."

Greg was quiet. He swallowed. "Sorry."

"Don't be. She was a heroin junkie. She deserved what she got." Though Toxic seemed perfectly fine, Greg was unnerved.

"Then... your dad?"

"Arrested for rape," Toxic explained. "Of my mother and twelve other women."

Greg flinched. "What a happy family you have."

"You know, I don't even know his name." He shrugged. "You sure you don't want any coffee?"

"That's tough, growing up like that."

"Aw, it wasn't so bad," Toxic said. "Had an uncle. Disowned my mother as his sister, but he tossed me a coin every now and then. Helped me go to college."

"What'd you major in?"

"Photography."

Greg nodded. "What kind of career does a major like that lead to?"

"I'm a tattoo artist," Toxic replied with a proud smile. "I do pretty good for myself, actually."

"Yeah, I can tell," said Greg, looking around the apartment. "You do more than just tattoos, don't you?"

"I hook folks up with Cam," Toxic explained. "And yeah, I get a small stipend."

"Stipend..." Greg echoed, his lips twitching. "See, that's how I know you went to college. You use words like 'stipend.'"

Toxic nodded. "I'm not just some slacker kid who gets high because his mom did. I know things. I stay away from really heavy stuff like smack. Never do coke, not like Lyle did... does..." He seemed confused with his tenses. "Or that CPA. Damn, was he going off. And he has a higher salary than I do."

Greg chuckled lightly. "I thought I knew what I was doing when I started the Valium."

"And now you're addicted," Toxic noted. "Do you care?"

Greg genuinely thought about it for a moment. "Not when I'm high."

He smiled. "Then that's all that matters."

Greg nodded slowly, relishing the clear-headedness and lack of Valium withdrawal symptoms, but not overly fond of the headache. "So..." he began, gesturing at the both of them. "What exactly does this mean?"

"Whatever you want it to mean," Toxic said casually, sipping his coffee. "It could be nothing, or it could be everything."

"What are you leaning towards?" Greg inquired.

"Personally, I really could go either way. I don't get attached, so I'm really apathetic about the whole thing."

That answer helped Greg make up his mind. "Let's not... talk about it then." He liked people to care when he slept with them. He shifted awkwardly, the usual shame washing over him like it always did when he accidentally went to bed with someone he didn't know and he ducked his head, searching for his clothes.

"Oh, right, you have to go to work," said Toxic, standing up. "You can take a shower if you like. I'm going to go roll a joint. You want one?"

"Is that all you do?" Greg asked. "Roll joints? Every time I see you, you're rolling a joint."

"Weed would be my DOC," Toxic said with a smile. "When it comes to dealing and indulging."

"DOC?" Greg echoed with a cocked eyebrow.

"Drug of choice, bro," Toxic explained. "Like yours is Valium."

"Ah..." Greg intoned dismally. He pulled the duvet more tightly around himself, because for some strange reason he felt lonelier than ever all of a sudden.

Waking up in a relative stranger's room who doesn't even care can make you feel a bit down on yourself, he reasoned bitterly. He rubbed his eyes, trying to wake himself up and chase away the headache. When his vision was clear again, he noticed that Toxic was gone.

Greg took him up on the offer of a shower, mostly because he couldn't remember the last time he'd taken one. He was doing too many drugs in a short time frame, and he didn't even know what one of them was. He felt the water pelt his face as he stared up into the spout, his hands gliding over them as he sighed in frustration. He turned to look at the products his new lover used and cocked an eyebrow at how many he had. Toxic hadn't looked particularly high-maintenance, then again with hair like that... Greg knew what it took to maintain hair like that. He wondered vaguely what had made him stop. There was a reason, he just couldn't recall it. He was losing more memories.

He seized the shampoo and lathered it in his hands before combing his fingers through his mop of hair. He massaged his scalp and smiled, because it helped alleviate the headache somewhat. The soap drizzled down into his eyes as he bent his head under the spout and the water bombarded him like bullets. His hair lay flat and lifeless, but clean against his forehead as the soapy water swirled around the drain.

In a way, there were qualities of Toxic that reminded Greg of himself a few years ago. They had similar styles, and tastes in music, if the AC/DC shirt was anything to go by. Not to mention the fact that Toxic seemed to be sporting a hairstyle Greg had outgrown.

Outgrown...

And then, Greg remembered why his fashion sense had changed.

"You look like a teenager..."

"... Are you really going to wear your hair like that in court?"

"Seriously, Sanders, do you really expect them to take you seriously?"

They were the words of Grissom, Catherine, and Hodges respectively when Greg was in the limbo between lab rat and CSI. So he traded in his AC/DC tee and Hawaiian shirt for darker, more somber colors and styles. He stopped putting so much gel in his hair, but refused to cut it. It was a reminder that he still could spike it, if he ever really wanted to. The funny thing was, they never really commented on the change. They just stopped commenting about how odd and quirky he looked. How odd and quirky he acted. How odd and quirky he... was. They stopped mentioning it altogether. They stopped waiting for the corny joke, because he stopped feeding them the punch line. They just treated him like any other colleague. An equal.

And Greg, in a stranger's shower, couldn't decide if that was better or worse.

He rapidly moved his hands around in his hair and finished up in the shower, dressing himself in the clothes he had been wearing the night before... clothes he had in fact been wearing for two days straight previously. He made a mental note to change when he got home.

Greg shuffled into the entry hall and heard Toxic scrounging around in the kitchen. He yawned and dug in his back pocket, pulling out his wallet and opening it up to find...

"What the fuck?! Where'd all my money go?!"

"Spent it on the tea," came Toxic's voice.

That would explain what the bags of suspicious green materials were and... Those were mushrooms. Greg was sure of it.

"I spent a hundred bucks on shrooms?!" he exclaimed.

"More than shrooms, bro!" said Toxic with a laugh, entering the hall with a cup of coffee in one hand and a joint in the other. "That's Camellia's cure-all tea. Sure, shrooms may be in it, but..."

"I've heard enough. Can you lend me some cash for a cab?"

"No need, we drove here in your car," Toxic told him. "It's parked outside. You'll find it."

"Fabulous..." Greg groaned, closing his wallet and shoving it back in his pocket. "I didn't know it was shrooms..." This worried him. Valium and marijuana, that was one thing, but psilocybin mushrooms was a whole other barrel of fish. And what else was in this miracle tea of his?

The good news was, he had a lab that would figure that out for him.

The bad news was, bringing drugs like this in with a flimsy excuse could get him caught. And what had Nick said about Ecklie and Grissom and keeping his job?

When he looked up, Toxic was gone again, and Greg had a strange sense of abandonment. With a tired sigh, he left the apartment.

He was closing the door of his locker when he heard someone else enter. Their shadow blocked the incoming light from the hall and caused Greg to look up. He tensed, because he had been expecting this confrontation since their phone call.

"Hello, Nick," Greg greeted.

"Thanks for being on time today," Nick whispered. His eyes were dark, his expression inscrutable, which was odd for Greg because normally the Texan was as easy to read as a book.

"Yeah, uh, well..." He forced a smile. "I remember what you said. About missing too much work. And stuff."

"Right," Nick said, nodding. "I'm glad. I'm glad you remember. I was worried you weren't paying attention." He licked his lips, which Greg knew was a nervous habit of his friend's. "And... no more weed?"

Greg blinked. This was related to Nick's confession about Warrick's drug habits. Greg knew the answer Nick needed to hear, even if it wasn't true. "Yeah. Sure. If it bothers you that much, no more weed."

"And you'll talk to me, then?" Nick probed. "Instead of relying on drugs or whatever?"

He thinks marijuana is the extent of my drug dabbling, Greg realized. He doesn't even suspect the Valium, despite what Molly told him. He trusts me too damn much.

"Sure," he said out loud.

Nick nodded and wrapped his arms around himself. "Good," he muttered. "Now come on, we have a new scene."

"Together again?" Greg inquired.

"You getting sick of me?" Nick returned, trying to sound lighthearted but Greg heard the insecurity in his tone as well.

"Nah," Greg replied. "I just thought, with my attitude lately, you'd be getting sick of me."

Nick smiled and headed out the door. "C'mon."

Greg contemplated his quandary as they made their way down the hall, past the various labs, and then they entered the interview hall and began to stride down it, passing a few empty ones, very few with a detective and suspect, and one that caught his eye.

It was the purple hair. He probably would have walked right on by if he hadn't recognized that neon color. And she was speaking to Brass with another person in the room he did not recognize. Her eyes were bloodshot and her arms were folded across her chest as she stared obstinately at Brass.

Greg stopped walking, his eyes glued to her face.

"What's the matter?" Nick asked, a few paces ahead.

Greg shook it off. "What? Oh. Nothing, never mind, it's just Brass, I, uh, haven't seen him in a while."

"You haven't seen a lot of people in a while," Nick pointed out.

Greg began to walk again when he heard shouting from the interrogation room they passed and he couldn't resist a glance. The girl was pointing at him, at Greg, and yelling with a smirk on her face. She had to be restrained by two cops who entered from the adjoining room. Greg immediately ducked his head and followed Nick, trying to keep a low profile.

He succeeded.

They went out to another crime scene.

They processed another body.

But Greg said very little, as his mind was elsewhere. What was Gemini doing in police custody? What had she yelled when she was pointing at him? Was it a drug bust? Could they tie him to it?

He was on edge all night, and Nick even commented on it, but Greg said it was just the caffeine.

"See, there's my drug of choice," Nick commented offhandedly. "Sure, it's addictive, but at least it keeps you awake on shifts like this."

Great, Greg thought. Toxic has his weed, Nick has his caffeine, and I have my Valium. What a happy little trio we make.

But at least Nick was smiling again. Talking to Greg as if this whole thing had never happened. As if Greg was the same person he was months ago, before he started the Valium. And Greg liked that. He wanted to keep that. Because a happy Nick was the best kind of Nick.

But still, he couldn't even focus on that. His mind kept drifting back to that purple-haired girl.

He decided to casually bring it up to Brass when they returned to the lab.

"That woman?" Brass said when Greg had inquired. The young CSI responded with a nod. "Aw, that's nothing. Name's Alexis Enderly, she's twenty-four. Busted for assault. She knifed a guy a while back."

"Is he OK?!" Greg asked breathlessly, thinking instantly of Lyle.

"Yeah, he survived," Brass replied. "Has a pretty nasty wound though. Both of them are addicts. In fact, she was on PCP when she stabbed him. She thought he was Bigfoot trying to steal her M&Ms or something like that. It makes perfect sense to her." He cocked an eyebrow. "You're worried, because she flipped out when she saw you in the hall?"

Greg felt a chill run down his spine as a bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face. "What? No, I..."

"Don't worry," Brass assured him. "She's detoxing. Courts put her in a program. We were just doing a routine follow-up." He smirked. "She thought you were Jesus."

Greg blinked. "She... what?"

"That's what she was saying. Kept pointing at you, yelling, 'Jesus, it's Jesus!' Very damaged girl, I'm afraid."

Greg nodded, rubbing some goosebumps prickling his arms. "Yeah... very damaged."

Brass turned around and headed down the hall. Greg, still slightly unnerved, was going to go on a quest for Nick when his phone rang and he answered instinctively.

"Sanders."

"Rabbit?" came a shaky voice. It sounded strange and far away. "I-I'm in a real b-bad way..."

He knew who it was. He didn't know the number, but he knew who it was. "Where are you?"

"Lake Mead," he replied. "I-I dunno wha-what to do..."

Greg nodded and looked at his watch. "Can you just... hold on for a few more hours? I really need to finish my shift here."

"No, man, I..." He paused. "I mean, yeah, yeah, I could... I guess I could do that."

Greg sighed as he saw Catherine turn the corner. "What are you going to do if I don't come out there right now?" he asked straightforwardly.

Catherine paused on her passage past him and cast him a curious glance.

"Um... I... I'm not sure. I need cash. I need... drugs, I need weed, do you have any weed?"

Greg chewed on his lip, his eyes locking with Catherine's. "What are you going to do with that?"

"Build a tree house and have a tea party, what the fuck do you think I'm gonna do with it—"

"OK, OK!" Greg interjected. "Just... calm down. I'll be there as soon as I can. Where are you again?"

"Highway 93," he replied. "Leadin' up to Lake Mead."

"Right," Greg said. "I'm on my way." He hung up and gave Catherine an apologetic look. "What can I do, Cath? A friend's in trouble."

She looked stern, one hand resting on her hip, her eyes wide in disbelief. She frowned and took a step forward. "Is this what's been going on with you lately?" she whispered. "Is your friend going through something right now? Is that what's been distracting you?"

Nick thought it was just marijuana, because he trusted Greg too much to think it could be anything worse. Catherine thought it was concern, because she always put Lindsey's needs before her own. Greg made note of this difference in assumptions.

"Yeah," he lied. "Yeah, that's it."

"OK then..." Catherine said slowly. "Because if you think we haven't noticed, we have. Grissom wanted to talk to you, but then Nick told him that he was handling it. Is he? Handling it?"

Greg opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat, so he settled for a nod. "Listen, Cath, I really have to go," he said. "My friend, he needs me."

She seemed heavily conflicted. "Greg, what am I going to tell Grissom? You've used up all your sick days and I—"

"Tell him anything," said Greg. "Tell him I was abducted by aliens, OK, but just... cover me. Can you do that please, for me, Catherine?"

She nodded, but she was not appeased. "OK... Be safe."

"I always am," Greg replied, and he was gone.