nickngreg | (no subject)

Sorrysorrysorrysorry.

Title: Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One Before
Author: Lizz
Rating: PG-13 for now
Spoilers: Um, nothing specific
Warning: Very plottish, a twisted murder, and gayness but I guess you knew that already
Summary: A particularly intricate case takes two CSIs to many, many places they’ve never been before. A case!fic and a roadtrip!fic that finds places to squeeze in hotboysex!fic-ness. No, seriously.
Disclaimer: Don’t own, obviously, just abusing for my own amusement.
A/N: Hahaha, I call the last one more of an introduction than anything because it’s only three pages, and this one is barely four. Well, you know how it goes. Actually, if it’s in Times New Roman size 12, then it’s almost six pages so we’ll lie. Anyway. Sorry it took so long to get out, I’m a dork who realized that maybe I shouldn’t be a such a flake sometimes.

Chapter Uno

They stayed at the crime scene for hours, trying to collect whatever evidence they thought they could find. They took all of the sand that was around the victim and especially all of the sand with blood in it, but still they doubted that they would find much of anything. The body had already been dead for a few days before the helicopter had found him, maggots already beginning to take residence in the body and especially in the stump of his arm, crawling through every orifice. David would have a hell of a clean-up time.

It didn’t matter much, so Greg wasn’t even sure why they bothered with this scene at all. It obviously wasn’t the crime scene, it was just where the guy died. The real question was where the hand had been cut off and where this guy had been tortured. And it obviously wasn’t here, or this guy had some serious blood clotting ability. Like, Super Clots! To the rescue! Don’t worry ma’am, this spill will be cleaned right up, just give us a second to combine into our Clotting Zoids! Schwoosh!

“Whatcha thinkin’ about over there?”

Greg’s head whipped to attention, staring at Nick like a deer caught in the headlights. He coughed.

“Oh, you know. What kind of a person would cut off somebody’s hand.”

Nick nodded. “I know what you mean.”

And they went back to work.

There came a point where they could only collect so much “evidence” and they had to pack it in and drive back to the lab. Almost immediately after they got in they were dragged into the autopsy room by David, who seemed way too eager for a man who had most likely been up for forty hours straight.

“Howdy Doc,” Nick called out as he pulled on the gloves and scrubs. Greg shimmied into the garbs and followed his partner over to the table. He wasn’t sure if he could ever get used to the idea of the cut up body. Not that he really had a choice.

“The man died from dehydration, no surprise there. His skin very obviously tented when pulled and we found very little moisture in his body. We found a great amount of dirt in his lungs as if he tried to eat it or even drink it. Dirt was also found in great quantities underneath his fingernails and inside his hand wound. The wound was found to be given perhaps two to three weeks prior to death based on the amount of tissue repair.”

“Do we know who he is yet?” Greg spoke up. The coroner shook his head.

“DNA is working on his fingerprints, going through CODIS. We’re still waiting for a hit. However, there were a few things that make this case more interesting.”

The Doc lifted up the sheet and the two CSIs leaned in closer to see. All at once the two men grimaced and Greg looked away.

“The testicles appear to have been severed off. There was evidence of anal rape as well as several recent scar tissue to most of his body. This seems to have been made with a blade. The cuts were shallow and were probably a bit older than his hand wound. A good portion of the cutting was done to his penis. Due to the areas where the cuts are as well as the direction from which they seem to have come from it is very unlikely that these were self-inflicted.”

Nick shook his head.

“Somebody wanted this guy to suffer.”

Greg stared at the man’s face. He looked so young, probably his own age. After a few moments he squinted. His face looked familiar. He tried to imagine the face smiling with more color to it, less drawn.

“Have I seen this man before?”

The Doc looked up.

“You know, Greg, I was just wondering where I had seen him before while I was doing the autopsy.”

Nick turned his attention from the mutilation done to the body to the face.

“Hey, yeah, he does look familiar. Do you think he’s a missing person or something?”

They looked at each other, a dawning coming over their faces. As quickly as they could, Nick and Greg sped out of the room and into the lab room where one of the newer technicians was busy running CODIS.

“Are you covering the John Doe in the desert?”

The lab tech looked up at the two men.

“Uh, yeah. This can take awhile, though, so you guys…”

“Narrow the search down to missing persons.”

The tech gave them a strange look and shrugged, changing the search to only missing persons. Within thirty seconds a match popped up on the screen.

“Brandon Nicholson, age twenty-eight, resident of Little Rock, Arkansas. Missing for three months, last seen by his fiancé as he drove off to work.” He looked up at the CSIs who were busy grinning at the screen. “You guys are good.”

He printed the paper off and they left, looking at the paper together.

“I’ll call the Little Rock police and get all the information I can find from them and you go find everything else about him: dental records, medical history, everything. I want to know how this man got from Little Rock to Las Vegas.” Nick sped off towards a phone, leaving Greg alone in the hallway staring at a name on a piece of paper.

Brandon Nicholson…

……

“So,” Grissom started as he sat down at his desk, Nick and Greg before him. “What did you find out?”

More silent conversation happened between the partners on the case, them giving each other several looks and small hand gestures before Nick finally started speaking to a bemused Grissom.

“Brandon Nicholson’s disappearance was apparently a sudden one that his fiancé was very confused about. Police finally decided that he ran away and stopped looking for him. They did investigate all of the other options, which to them were murder, murder, and murder by ‘his little bitch’ but concluded that she was ‘too difficult to investigate,’ whatever that means. The police there didn’t seem like they had much in the way of intelligence, if you know what I mean.”

Grissom nodded and turned to Greg.

“Oh! Uh, well, Mr. Nicholson was a school teacher of two years. He taught second grade. His teeth were pretty messed up, but he came from a poor family. He got sick a lot, mostly with the flu and little things like that. He disappeared on the day before his wedding so, uh, we’re not sure if that means anything. He had a clean police record, just got a few tickets for speeding but, you know, who hasn’t?” He grinned around the room, but it appeared that laughing at a time when they were talking about the life of a dead man wasn’t allowed. Oh. Um. Well. Okay. Thankfully, Nick coughed and began to speak, and Greg made a mental note to send him a basket of muffins some time in the near future.

“The thing is, though, that there have been a string of other, similar cases in Little Rock where bodies turned up without hands, feet, or genitals, with their faces still clearly there. It got worse every time.”

“Like somebody was building up for this man.”

“Right.”

“Well, boys,” Grissom said as he stood up and got ready to leave the room. “Something tells me that you two will be paying a visit to Little Rock some time soon.”

With that, Grissom was gone. Nick and Greg continued to stare at the spot where he had been but five seconds earlier, the former flabbergasted, the latter more amused.

“So is that guy always a drama queen to you guys or what?”

Nick turned around and stared at Greg for a second. The former lab tech opened his mouth to take what he had said back when Nick started cracking up, a smile splitting his face. Greg just grinned.

……

“So we’ll be getting some high-class services, right?” Greg asked in his Patented Smooth Talker Dirty Walker voice to the woman at the desk. “I mean, it’s me, Gladys. You only want the best for me, right?”

The woman giggled and Greg could have sworn he saw Nick roll his eyes.

“You know I want the best for you, Greggy, but you also know the truth. The budget is just tighter now and all.”

“Oh, well, Coach will be fine,” he replied, oblivious.

“No, Greggy, you don’t get what I’m saying at all. We can’t pay for a plane, so you guys will be driving.”

Nick waited fifteen seconds before literally dragging his shocked co-worked away with a “Thank you, ma’am, hope ya’ll have a nice day,” and a sigh. They sat down in the chairs in the waiting area and Greg finally seemed to shake himself out of it.

“A car.”

“It’s not that bad.”

An impish smile crossed his face, and he turned to grin at Nick.

“’Thank you, ma’am, hope ya’ll have a nice day’?”

“’Oh Gladys, love of my life, it’s me, Greggo!’” the other man countered. This seemed to wipe the smirk off of Greg’s face, who frowned and rolled his eyes.

“Hey, a guy’s got to do what a guy’s got to do.”

“Right, Greg-o. Whatever you say.”

Nick stood up and held his hand out to help Greg to his feet. He clasped the hand and stood up, memorizing the feel of the hand on his subconsciously.

“Want to join me for breakfast?”

Greg shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”

One breakfast and one long goodbye later, Greg decided maybe a road trip wouldn’t be so bad later on. After all, you never know what could happen.