A/N: Hello my blueberry muffins! I hope you are well, thank you very much for the reviews :) This story is for 9Laura8 who suggested poor Greg gets poisoned by his coffee. I do believe you'll never stop coming up with ways to torture the poor guy ;) Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Summary – Sara is worried about Greg's coffee addiction, Nick doesn't see the big deal, and Greg just wasn't expecting to be poisoned.

Coffee Betrayal

He didn't even realise he was doing it anymore. It was just a natural reaction; if there was a cup of coffee in front of him, he'd just pick it up and take a sip, robotically. Sometimes, coffee was the only thing that could keep Greg going on those long and dreary shifts where nothing seemed to happen at all. It was the simple pleasures in life, like his blue Hawaiian, that made Greg smile at the comfort and familiarity of the sweet taste.

The stuff worked wonders; Sara had started calling it an addiction, but Greg liked to think of it as a catalyst of which without he wouldn't get nearly as much work done. Greg was still a bouncing ball of energy without the warm sumptuous liquid, but the coffee helped him work like a machine, and it was impossible to make him slow down when he felt like he was on such a rush.

Greg could easily tell when someone had dared to swap his Blue Hawaiian for some other bitter swill, and he sometimes grew agitated at having to tell people not to steal from him. He didn't mind as long as they asked, but he bought the stuff with his own hard earned cash, and the stuff was expensive!

It was one of those nights which just seemed to be going on forever, and so Greg had once again visited the break room to get his next Blue Hawaiian fix. Greg smelt the precious liquid with a soft smile; he was going to savour the taste, he'd been waiting hours for this. Just as the lab tech brought the mug to his lips, a hand suddenly appeared out of nowhere and snatched it away; it was Sara.

"Hey!" Greg exclaimed in outrage as he tried to grasp the cup back like a needy child "give it back" he pouted.

"No!" Sara said firmly "This is fifth cup you've had tonight, it's not good for you!"

Greg frowned "You've been counting?"

Sara just rolled her eyes "It's only because I care about you. People go into cardiac arrest for having a caffeine overdose you know" she said seriously.

Greg scoffed. "Sara, I'm only twenty six, I'm not worried about having a heart attack just yet" he said dismissively. "I appreciate the concern" he added when he saw the look on Sara's face "but there is really no need, I can handle it"

"It's an addiction, Greg" Sara stated "Granted, it's not as bad as drugs, but still it can affect your health, and the only way you can control it is consuming it in reasonable amounts"

Greg sighed and twitched his nose like a rabbit; he knew Sara was very set in her ways, and she did care about him, but it would be hard to convince her that it wasn't an addiction at all, and he could totally be in control.

"Hey, Greggo there you are!" Nick smiled as he entered the room with a box of evidence in his arms "Got a good hoard for you, might take a while though" he said as he put the box on the table.

"I'm just glad it'll give me something to do" Greg said "It's been a slow night"

"Well if you wanna get it all done you better get pumped up, coffee to go!" Nick said brightly as he took the cup form Sara and handed it back to Greg.

"Hey, I just took that off him!" Sara frowned.

"Why?" Nick asked.

"Because he's had enough tonight already" Sara said "Am I the only one who cares about his health!"

Nick rolled his eyes "He's not a Gremlin, Sara. If you give him coffee after midnight he's not going to split into two Greg's"

"Erm guys, you know I'm still here, right?" Greg said, but he was ignored.

"I'm worried about his heart!" Sara argued.

"Well don't worry, I'm sure it belongs to you" Nick teased.

The pair went on bickering and Greg just sighed, placing the coffee down on the counter and reluctantly leaving it behind as he picked up the box and headed out to his lab.

"What's going on in there?" Catherine asked as she joined Greg as he walked.

"Oh, mommy and daddy are fighting about me again, and mommy is winning, as always" he said and Catherine laughed.

"Sorry about that" she said and patted him on the back before turning off into the AV lab.

Greg got back to his own lab and started to rummage through his box; tonight was gunna be a long night if he didn't get his fix.

Greg was getting really sleepy. This was not a foreign sensation for him, but he usually didn't realise just how tired he was until he got home to his apartment and his bed was in sight. However now, without his coffee pick-me-up, Greg was starting to feel the strain. His eyes were beginning to droop closed, and his elbows were lifting most of his weight from just smacking down on to the table.

Just 5 minutes Greg thought as he finished the next batch of evidence, and folded his arms on the table and rest his head in them, closing his eyes with a content smile. He didn't get to rest for long though, as moments later, there was a soft tap on the glass behind him, and Greg looked up with a groan to see Nick enter the lab.

"Hey, brought you a little something" Nick whispered as he feared someone would hear. That someone was Sara, as Nick produced a cup of coffee from behind his bag.

Greg instantly smiled, and leapt from his chair, taking the cup and taking a long gulp, but still revelling in the taste. "Thank you so much" he said, finally stopping to take a breath.

"Don't mention it, and don't tell Sara" Nick said seriously "how do you not just burn yourself gulping that down?"

Greg shrugged "I'm a pro" he said. "Actually, it tastes…kinda different. Did you get this from my pot?" he asked.

"Uh-huh" Nick nodded "I had to make sure Sara wasn't around though…I kinda feel like your drug dealer"

"Well I'm not paying you if that's what you're implying" Greg said before taking another sip. He frowned. "No, this is definitely not my Blue Hawaiian"

Nick scoffed "Man, you're turning into a snob!"

Greg tried to smile, but it soon turned into a grimace as he stumbled from a sudden bout of dizziness. He suddenly felt really nauseous and there was a sharp stabbing pain in his abdomen.

"Whoa, are you okay, buddy?" Nick asked concernedly as he placed a hand on Greg's shoulder for support. The young man was starting to tremor violently and he looked like he was fighting drowsiness.

"No…no I don't feel too good" Greg mumbled and he suddenly doubled over in pain and vomited harshly on the floor.

"Shit" Nick breathed as he took hold of Greg and lead him to sit down "It's okay buddy, take deep breaths, okay?"

Greg tried to nod, but only made his dizziness worse, and he soon found his world fading to black, and he knew no more. Nick managed to catch a now unconscious Greg before he fell to the ground.

"G? Greg, can you hear me?" Nick asked desperately; the kid had just been fine, what the hell went wrong? "Someone call an ambulance!" he yelled and then turned his attention back to Greg. "C'mon Greg, everything will be okay, you'll be okay"

Nick had been impatiently pacing up and down as he waited at the hospital for the doctors to run some tests. He was wracking his brain to think what could have been the cause to Greg's sudden ailment. His thoughts were soon interrupted when Sara arrived.

"What the hell happened to him?" she asked.

"I'm not sure" Nick said "I mean I…" and then it dawned on him, and he gulped. "Greg got sick after he drank the coffee I gave him"

Sara's face darkened "What?" she dangerously. "You mean, after everything I said earlier you went and gave Greg coffee anyway!"

"No, no it's not a caffeine overdose I'm sure!" Nick tried to defend himself; although the felt guilty "Symptoms were way different, fast acting, more violent"

"That's because it was poison" Greg's doctor said as he approached the CSIs "Mr Sanders' coffee was spiked with a finely reduced concoction of Cicuta or 'water hemlock', it's a very poisonous plant on consumption."

"Someone poisoned Greg?" Nick said in disbelief.

"Well, you gave him the coffee, didn't you?" Sara said accusingly.

Then Nick turned angry "Don't you dare even insinuate I would do something like that to Greg!" he snapped "He's like my younger brother, and I can't believe some bastard did this to him!"

Sara sighed, calming a little "You're right, I'm sorry"

"Anyway, we managed to pump the poison from Greg's system, but it's important he rests for a while" the doctor explained.

"Alright, thank you" Nick said. "You stay with Greg" he said to Sara "I'm going to find out who did this"

After going back to the lab and doing some research, Nick found that water hemlock only grew in a certain area of Vegas. He also could assume that whoever poisoned Greg's coffee worked in the lab, how else would they be able to access the building going unnoticed? After looking into the details of some employees, Nick found that only one of them lived in the area were the hemlock grew.

Robert Harper- sounds really familiar. He worked in the toxicology lab – so he'd know how to handle poison; Nick thought – and his time sheet showed he was at work today. And then Nick remembered, Robert's brother had been put in jail a couple of days ago all thanks to some key evidence Greg had found in his field training.

"Sounds like motive to me" Nick mumbled as he went to track Robert down.

He came across the young man pouring himself a cup of coffee in the break room.

"Is that one poisoned too?" Nick asked as he approached Robert; the lab tech just looked confused "Mind you, you'd be pretty stupid to poison yourself"

"I don't know what you're talking about, man" Robert said, although he appeared nervous.

"Oh, I think you do" Nick said with narrowed eyes as he snatched up Robert's hand "Fingernails are a little dirty, been gardening recently?"

"Get off me!" Robert said struggling to break free.

"Don't even try" Nick said through gritted teeth "I know what you did to Greg, and I know how to prove it. If I were you, I wouldn't bother showing up for work on Monday"

Robert just gulped.

Nick went back to the hospital after taking a sample from Robert's fingernails and leaving him in custody. When he got to Greg's room, the younger man still looked tired and pale, but he seemed to be talking to Sara more or less normally. Nick explained what had happened and needless to say Greg and Sara were shocked.

"Well, thanks for finding out what happened" Greg said with a small smile.

"It's my job, buddy" Nick said, as he sat beside his friend and clapped him on the back "that jerk could have killed you, and nobody messes with my bro"

"And I'm sorry again about…" Sara started, but Nick waved her off.

"It's okay, I know" he said with a small smile.

"Guys, I'm never drinking coffee ever again" Greg said seriously. Nick and Sara just laughed. "What?" Greg frowned.

"Ten bucks says you have a cup in your hand by the end of the night" Nick said.

"Yeah, even though I warned you…" Sara said with a smirk.

"I was poisoned, Sara, it wasn't my fault!" Greg argued, and then pouted.

"If you're just gunna sulk then we'll leave" Nick teased. "Sara, wanna go get some coffee?"

Sara just smirked back at him "Pass."

Haha well, never thought I'd write a 2,000 story just talking about coffee XD I found Nick and Sara's argument at the beginning particularly fun to write ;)

Keep the prompts coming, I love them all!

Please Review :) xx