FANFIC: Sweet Cool Water by Caroline Crane 6/12

Posted with permission from the author. See notes in sidebar.
Title: Sweet Cool Water
Author: Caroline Crane
Rating: NC17 (See happy reading in sidebar!)
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Summary: A hard night on the job and an unexpected encounter with a familiar face force Nick to re-examine some things about himself.
Chapters: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12.

Part six

There were days when Nick hated his job. Most days he couldn't even imagine doing anything else, but some days made him wonder why he even bothered to show up. He'd been wondering that for awhile when he finally walked back into the lab, exhausted and dazed from spending the past few hours gathering every sample he could find from the crime scene. It wasn't the case he wanted to work on, but no matter how frustrating it was he knew there wasn't much more they could do about the case he couldn't stop thinking about. They'd gathered all the evidence and pieced together what happened, but all the evidence in the world couldn't give them a suspect without a DNA sample on file.

He knew as well as Grissom that they didn't have a case, but that didn't make it any easier to let it go. He'd spent most of the night trying not to think about all the images still floating around in his mind, but every time he thought he'd finally succeeded one of them would resurface out of nowhere. At one moment it would be a pair of wide, clear blue eyes staring up at him, then a trail of dried blood at the corner of a pink mouth. Other times he'd be engrossed in collecting evidence and suddenly remember a red, mouth-shaped bruise standing out against too-pale skin, and he'd remember the way he left Greg that afternoon, confused and probably frustrated that Nick wouldn't talk about what was going on.

He'd managed not to think about Greg for most of the night, but it was impossible to avoid him completely. He couldn't hand off his samples to another tech, and he couldn't explain to Catherine why he couldn't give the samples to Greg himself. So there was nothing he could do but walk into Greg's lab and hand over the samples, explain what they needed done and hope Greg wouldn't bring up what had happened between them.

It might be easier for them both to pretend it hadn't happened if they'd left it at one night, but there was nothing he could do to change that now. Besides, they were both adults, and this wasn't the first time he'd gotten involved with somebody he worked with. Granted, he worked more closely with Greg than the handful of women he'd dated from the police department, but it was almost the same thing. He told himself he believed that and squared his shoulders before he pushed open the door to Greg's lab and stepped inside.

For a moment he was so overwhelmed by the loud music pumping out of Greg's portable stereo that he couldn't focus on anything else, but when he finally caught sight of Greg his heart skipped a beat and he had to scramble to catch the samples he was holding before he dropped them. He'd been prepared for an awkward conversation, possibly a little anger, but he wasn't expecting Greg to be wearing the exact shirt Nick had almost suggested he put on that afternoon in Greg's apartment. The sight of blue cotton did something weird to his stomach and he almost turned around and walked right back out of the lab, but before he made his escape the music died and he looked up to find Greg watching him.

"Hey."

"Hey," Nick echoed, swallowing hard against the urge to turn and run in the other direction. "Got some work for you."

Greg nodded once and gestured toward the only open spot on his lab station. "If they're labeled just leave them there. I'll get to them when I'm done with Grissom's hair samples."

"I thought Gris was still working that triple."

"He is," Greg answered without looking up. "And before you ask, I can't tell you anything."

"I wasn't gonna ask." Nick paused and watched Greg for a few awkward moments. He knew Greg couldn't tell him anything about a case he'd been taken off, at least not without Grissom's permission. Still, they'd all worked the case that first night, and it was natural for him to wonder what was going on with it. "Why, is there something to tell?"

"I just told you I can't say anything." Greg let out a little huff of breath and Nick knew he was mad, but the last thing he wanted to do was have a conversation about what had happened between them while they were at work. Still, he couldn't help wondering if Greg was withholding information just to punish Nick; he wasn't usually that hung up on the rules, especially not where Nick was concerned. Then again, maybe he'd always gone the extra mile in the past because he was hoping something might happen between them, and now that it had he didn't have a reason to play along anymore.

"Whatever, man. Just get me those results as soon as you can."

Greg looked up at him then, and just for a second Nick thought he might say something about the way Nick had left his apartment that afternoon. Then Greg shook his head and looked back down at his microscope. "I'll page you when they're done."

Nick nodded even though Greg wasn't looking at him, lingering just a second longer before he shook himself and turned toward the door. He wasn't disappointed that Greg hadn't said anything about them; there wasn't even a 'them' to say anything about, he reminded himself as he walked down the hall toward the break room. Whatever was between them was over now, and they both knew it was better this way. So there was no reason to regret the way Greg had brushed him off in the lab.

He swallowed a sigh as he walked into the break room only to find Warrick and Sara in the middle of an intense-looking conversation. "I'm just saying it's a hell of a way to find out. No wonder he freaked."

"When who found out what?" Nick asked as Warrick finished speaking, glancing from him to Sara.

"Hey, man," Warrick said when he saw Nick. He pushed himself off the counter he'd been leaning against and reached into the fridge for a bottle of water before he answered. "The father of one of those kids – Jessie Walker's dad. Guess he didn't know his kid was gay."

"Just because he was at the club doesn't automatically make him gay," Sara pointed out, and Nick would have grinned at her incessant need to play devil's advocate if the conversation wasn't already making him sick to his stomach. As soon as Warrick said the kid's name he pictured big blue eyes against too-pale skin, a green t-shirt riding up enough to show ribs that jutted out against Jessie's stomach. He was a small kid even for his age, and Nick remembered thinking when he first saw him that there was no fake I.D. in the world good enough to make this kid pass for twenty-one.

He half-heard Sara and Warrick arguing back and forth about the kid's father and his assumption that Jessie was gay, but they all knew the father was right. The fact that he was there could have had an innocent explanation, sure, but they'd all seen the way those kids had been murdered. They'd seen the semen on them and they knew the coroner had found trace amounts of the same DNA on all three of them, all of it from an anonymous donor.

The minute he'd looked at those kids he'd known they were too young to be at the club, and the worst part was that the club owner wouldn't even get shut down for letting them in. Nobody cared about a few dead gay teenagers – not even their own parents, from the sounds of it. The most that would happen was that the club got shut down for a week for serving minors, lost a little revenue, and then opened up again. By then everybody would have forgotten about those kids and moved on to the next case.

Only Nick was pretty sure he'd never forget; he knew he'd never erase the image of those eyes from his memory, or the image of three bodies lined up side by side in that alley as though they'd been shot by a firing squad. He'd never forget the marks on their neck from where each of them was suffocated, and he wouldn't forget that they'd never caught the bastard who'd drugged them and raped them in the first place.

"Hey man, you okay?"

Warrick's voice cut into his reverie, and Nick looked up too fast. The room spun briefly before he managed to focus again, and he knew he probably looked even worse than he felt. "Yeah," he answered, but his voice broke on the single syllable and he had to clear his throat before he tried again. "Yeah, I'm all right. Just tired."

"You look like hell," Warrick said. "You should bail early and get some sleep. It's a slow night, I'll cover with Gris if you want."

"Nah, I'm okay," Nick answered, suppressing a shiver at the thought of going back to his place alone. When he was home without anything to take his mind off it the memories were even worse; at least at work he could concentrate on something else, even if he wasn't working the case that had been haunting him for days. "Just need some coffee."

He managed a weak grin as he walked over to the coffee pot and reached for a cup, hoping they wouldn't notice the slight tremor in his hand as he poured the coffee and then set the pot back down. When he turned around again Warrick and Sara were both watching him, but as soon as he caught them they both cleared their throats and looked away.

"Trace should have those results by now," Sara said, pushing herself off the counter and heading for the door.

"Yeah, I'll come with you," Warrick answered, nodding at Nick before he followed her out of the break room.

Part of Nick was relieved to be left alone for a few minutes, but the rest of him couldn't help worrying about what Warrick and Sara thought of the way he'd been acting lately. He wasn't being careful enough, and this whole thing with Greg was just making everything worse. This was the reason he couldn't get involved in a serious relationship, especially not with a guy he worked with. He'd told himself that at least a hundred times since he first joined the Dallas P.D., and over the years it had become a good excuse to keep himself from getting too close to anybody.

Lately, though, he found himself thinking about Greg in a way he knew he shouldn't, and even though he knew it was just because of the case he still worried that someone was going to notice. Listening to Warrick and Sara talk about Jessie Walker's father was enough to convince him that he couldn't come out to anybody at work, and dating Greg was just way too close for comfort. It was best that it ended now before anything really got started.

It was just too bad he couldn't stop thinking about how nice it was not to go to bed alone.

What he should have done was find some girl to spend a few nights with; that, at least, was safe, and he didn't have to worry about any messy feelings getting involved. Only he hadn't been looking to run into someone he knew at that club the first night he slept with Greg, and once he realized what he was doing it was way too late to stop it.

Maybe he should have taken Warrick up on his offer to cover for him; he hadn't been sleeping very well, and he wasn't really doing anybody any good at the lab. He and Catherine had done as much as they could on their case, and waiting around for the results from Greg wasn't going to make a difference. He already knew exactly what the results would be; another dead end, and another wall for him to bang his head against for awhile. Only this one didn't make him feel sick just thinking about it, and it didn't remind him of all the reasons he hadn't had a serious relationship since college.

He swallowed a mouthful of coffee, cringing at the bitter taste that burned his throat on the way down. He dumped the rest of it down the sink and tossed the cup in the garbage can, running a hand over his face and taking a deep breath before he headed back to the lab to find something to do. The problem was that he had no idea where he was going, and he knew no matter what he did to occupy himself he wouldn't be able to stop thinking about those kids.

Part seven