Fic: Dig the Hole Wide and Deep
Oct. 22nd, 2007 04:38 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
jayceepat.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
nickngregTitle: Dig the Hole Wide and Deep
Rating: PG-13 for a few bad words
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Warnings: None
Summary: Papa Stokes to the rescue.
Spoilers: None
A/N: This is a sequel to ‘Putting Down Roots’ which you can find
here
Previous parts of this story can be found here
The ambulance had come and taken Nick and Alan away. Greg, Bobby and Steve were sitting around the living room in varying stages of depression ranging from mildly severe (Steve) to mildly severe with overtones of depression (Bobby) to full out panic (Greg).
They had thought of and immediately discarded 10 or so different ideas and had been silent for the last 15 minutes except for an occasional deep sigh. Finally Steve said, “Look guys, it’s almost 3.00 pm and you both have to work tonight. I’m tired; I know you two must be ready to drop. Why don’t you take a shower (they were all still covered in Nick’s blood) and Greg, you want to crash here? I’ll wash and dry your clothes while you’re sleeping and maybe when we aren’t so tired, we’ll be able to come up with something.”
“Come up with what Steve? We’ve been wracking our brain for close to an hour now. What can we come up with?” Greg was ashamed of himself for whining at Steve but he was tired, frantic with worry about Nick’s physical, condition, his mental condition and most of all, protecting him from discovery.
“I don’t know Sanders. I really have very little experience in this superhero shit! It’s not like I crash a torture club, wave a gun around and impersonate a police officer every other week-end. Oh and while I’m at it, let’s add to the list, taking down three Cro-Magnan’s with bloody whips, try to figure out how to get a booby-trapped dildo out of some guy’s ass, a guy I really don’t know that well and then carry the bloody bastard out of the torture club and bring him home with me. HAVE I MISSED ANYTHING?”
Steve’s voice had been rising with each sentence and he was at full out yell by the time he got to the end. Greg looked at Bobby who was staring at his spouse in wide-eyed amazement. Evidently, Steve didn’t raise his voice too often. Bobby looked back at Greg and visibly swallowed. When Steve yelled even louder, “WELL, HAVE I?” both men hastened to assure him that he had pretty much covered all the bases.
“God, I don’t know what to do. Maybe he could have an illness in the family.” Steve was grasping at straws and feeling just a touch of embarrassment over yelling at Greg the way he had. He knew Greg had to be out of his mind with worry and he knew for a fact that if he had been in Greg’s shoes and Bobby had been in the ambulance, it would have taken half of Vegas to keep him away from him. Only Greg’s frantic need to keep Nick’s secret had kept him there in the house with them and that alone made Steve realize, they just had to come up with something.
Greg was muttering to himself, “Illness, accident maybe one of the sibs…..”
Bobby wasn’t muttering out loud but he was pacing back and forth and it was obvious he was talking to himself by the way his hands were waving around. Suddenly he stopped dead in the middle of the floor. He turned to Greg at the same instant that Greg turned to him. They each pointed a finger at the other and said together, “Judge Stokes!”
Steve yelled, “GOD DAMNIT. WILL YOU TWO STOP THAT?” In a quieter voice he added, “You both have been doing that all morning and you are just fuckin’ freaking me out. When did my calm, laid back house-mate get on the same wave length as his heavy-metal loving co-worker?” Neither man paid any attention to him what-so-ever. They were sitting together on the couch, talking a mile a minute.
Neither one could possibly understand what the other was saying and yet…the next thing Steve knew, Bobby was up, had him by the sleeve and was pulling him out of the room. “What the hell?” was Steve’s bewildered response.
Greg looked at Bobby and said, “Aren’t you even going to stay and give me moral support?”
Bobby shook his head firmly, “Hell no I’m not. At least you’ve met the man. I’m going to take my own personal back scrubber off to the bedroom and we are going to get cleaned up while you convince the good Judge. We’ll give you 30 minutes and if you haven’t gotten anywhere by then, we’ll come back and help out.” With that, he dragged Steve down the hall. As soon as he got out of Greg’s sight, he started undoing buttons, Steve’s, not his. By the time they hit the bathroom, he had Steve stripped and most of himself.
Bobby was turning on the water while taking off the remainder of his bloody clothes. Steve was too surprised to be of much help on any level. He just shook his head at the love of his life and said, “Christ Dawson, did you just now realize how dirty we are?”
About that time, Bobby reached out of the shower, grabbed Steve by his dick and using it as a handle proceeded to pull him under the water. “Oh, you’re feeling dirty . OK, I can take care of that.”
Bobby kissed his partner of 14 years and told him to stop talking and start fixing. They only had 30 minutes and he really did want to get clean somewhere in that time frame; along with a few other things. Aggressive sexual behavior has long been a human response to danger and Bobby didn’t ever remember being this aggressive.
Meanwhile, in the living room, Greg was staring at Nick’s cell phone. When they had retrieved their cars at the club prior to rescuing Nick through the back door, he and Bobby had stopped by Nick’s car. Greg knew Nick kept a spare key in a box hidden under the back passenger side door. He got the key and looked through Nick’s car quickly making sure there was nothing to identify it as belonging to him in case the Neanderthal’s did get loose. He’d found Nick’s wallet, keys and cell phone hidden in the false bottom of the center glove box. He thanked God now that he had taken them.
He went through Nick’s stored numbers until he found one that said ‘Pancho’. He punched the speed code and tried to get some moisture in his mouth so he could talk if/when Judge Stokes answer.,….”Oh hi Judge Stokes. As you can tell, this isn’t Nicky…uh…this is Greg Sanders. I’m a friend of Nick’s. I work at the lab with him. You probably don’t remember me.”
“Greg, of course I remember you. Nick speaks of you often; you and Warrick. What can I do for you and why are you using Nick’s phone?”
For the next hour, Greg begged, pleaded, explained, threatened, cajoled and flat out cried. In return, he was cursed, yelled at, threatened, asked to explain several times the exact nature of ‘Ball and Chain’ and what exactly was his son doing at a place like that. At one point, Greg found himself suggesting that maybe Nick was working under-cover since cowboys and leather were a popular item at that particular club. He looked up into two pair of stunned faces. Bobby and Steve turned and looked at each in amazement. Surely Greg didn’t say that to Nick’s father…Did he? Oh Shit, yes he did.
At that point, Bobby took the phone from Greg and in his thickest southern drawl said, “Judge Stokes, this here is Bobby Dawson. I’m the ballistics expert at the lab and I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure of meetin’ you but I know from the fine man your son is that you must be a man of courage and principles. Now, I know Greg probably has confused you but you see Sir, Greg is the youngest new CSI in the lab. You understand how being included in the raid this morning, especially after we got the news that an officer was inside and in danger has been a terrible shock to him. If I had known he was goin’ to call you on his own, I’d have been here with him from the beginning. Now we really don’t know how come Nick was inside that club BUT we do know he was hurt bad and a lot of those bad’uns got away.”
Greg looked at Steve and they both mouthed ‘bad’uns’! Is that even a word? They immediately turned their attention back to the phone. They did not want to miss a word of this. If the situation hadn’t been so desperate, they would have tried to record the conversation for posterity.
“We also don’t know for sure who was in on the surveillance. You know how it is when you keep tryin’ to pull a raid and the durn varmint’s are squeaky clean when you get there? You start to wonder if maybe someone is tippin’ them off?”
Greg knew if Bobby’s accent got any thicker, they would require an interpreter. He wasn’t getting every word as it was. He wasn’t too sure what Bobby had said just before the word varmints.
“The thing is Judge Stokes, no matter what happened, folk’s are goin’ to talk and Vegas may like to pretend it’s just so hoity-toity (OH MY GOD, BOBBY DID NOT SAY THAT!!! Steve had slid off the couch and was pounding silently on the rug) but when it comes down to gossip, this place is worse than Aunt Bee’s quilting circle. That’s why we don’t want anyone to know that Nick was anywhere near that place until every last bad guy is rounded up and corralled for good.”
There was a long silence on their end. It was pretty obvious that Judge Stokes was talking a lot on his end. Finally Bobby said, “We need for you to call a man named Conrad Ecklie. He’s the assistant lab director. He’s also a political toady, I’m sure you have to deal with his like all the time in your position. The good thing is, he will probably piss his pants with joy when he hears a Texas Supreme Court Judge wants to ask him a personal favor as one law-enforcement professional to another. Ask for an unpaid leave of absence for Nick for 6 months. I leave it in your capable hands as to the reason but as much as Nick loves and talks about his brother and his sisters; no one here would be a bit surprised if he took off if one of them or their kids was hurt and needed him.”
More silence. Then Bobby’s whole body slumped. He started nodding and said, “Yes sir Judge Stokes. Those of us who count Nick as a friend are grateful to you for compromising your principles like this to help us protect him.” There was another burst of noise on the other end of the phone and then Bobby responded, “Yes sir, I know he’s your son and you would do anything for him but you’re also an officer of the court and I know this must be hard for you. We will keep you in touch, I promise sir. I’m going to give you back to Greg now because he has the number for Ecklie and the doctor that’s takin’ care of Nick. Thank you again sir.”
Bobby handed the phone back to an astonished Greg and collapsed in a heap on the couch next to Steve, who managed to stop laughing long enough to pull his worn out lover into his arms and plant a big, wet juicy one right on his mouth.
Greg looked at them and then down at the phone and at a particularly loud burst of noise, hurriedly placed the phone back to his ear and said, “Yes sir Judge, I’m here. I’m just trying to get to my cell to get Ecklie’s pager. He’s never in the office on Saturday so you will have to page him and I don’t know if Bobby told you but Nick was due to work tonight so we need to get word to Ecklie as soon as possible. Yes sir, here it is.” Greg recited Ecklie’s pager and then gave Judge Stokes his office and his cell phone numbers. Then he gave him Alan’s pager and the name of the clinic where they took Nick.
When Nick’s father asked Greg what Nick’s condition was and how they gotten him to the clinic, Greg panicked again for just a minute, then he rallied. By God if Bobby could spin a yarn like he just had, he could also rise to the occasion. He told Judge Stokes that Nick had been badly beaten (didn’t mention a whip of course) and he didn’t see much because the doctor had started working on him right away. He said, the doctor was used to working with law-enforcement and had arranged for an ambulance to take Nick to the clinic under an assumed name until they figured out who was the mole if there was a mole. When the judge asked him what about Nick’s insurance, Greg said, he didn’t know. Everything had happened so fast they hadn’t bothered about the usual stuff. They had paid for the ambulance in cash. When Stokes asked him what Nicky was doing carrying that much cash on him, Greg never even thought and said it wasn’t Nick’s. He and Bobby and Steve had hit their ATM’s to pay for the ambulance in cash. There was a long silence on the phone and for the first time Greg heard a note of respect and surprise in the Judges’ voice when he said, “The three of you came up with the money in cash to get him medical attention.”
Greg told him firmly that Nick would have emptied his bank account for any of them, it was the least they could do for him. Judge Stokes was a little choked up when he said, “OK son, (SON????). You go get some sleep, I’ll make some calls and Greg…”
“Yes sir?”
“Mrs. Stokes and I are very grateful to you and your friends. We will never be able to repay you but we will see to it that you get every cent back and we will take care of all Nick’s bills until he is able to return to work.” With that, the judge hung up and Greg fell in the closest chair.
*****************************
When Greg signed in for work that night he was still a little vague about the details of the time between hanging up and getting up. He thought he remembered being undressed and bathed. He thought he remembered unfamiliar hands washing his hair and the water turning red. God, how had he gotten Nick’s blood in his hair? He remembered being woke up and told to get dressed and come to the kitchen for coffee. He remembered breakfast at the table with Bobby and Steve. He remembered asking them if he’d done anything he shouldn’t have because he could swear he remembered a naked body pulling him out of the tub and up under the shower to rinse off. When told there was a naked Bobby trying to get him clean enough to get into bed for a couple of hours of sleep before work he asked again if they were sure he hadn’t groped anything or anyone he shouldn’t have. When told no, the old Greg came out and he said simply, “Damn the luck. Missed a perfect opportunity to see the Dawson ass in all it’s glory.”
Steve rumbled deep in his chest and for one brief moment, Greg thought he was growling at him and he was checking to see if he would fit under the table, then he realized Steve was laughing out loud.
The one thing Greg did remember vividly was reaching for the phone the minute he managed to pry his eyelids open. Bobby was there in the room and stopped Greg from calling. He said if he was going to call about Nick, Alan had called about 30 minutes earlier. Nick made it through the surgery. They sutured some nasty tears in his rectum and they did do a temporary colostomy to let the tears heal completely. They also had to suture some of the whip marks to try to reduce the possibility of infection. Alan said the main worry was one bad lash mark right across Nick’s kidney. They had inserted a penile catheter and the fluid contained blood. They would not be allowing visitors for at least 24 hours. He was in ICU and being watched very closely.
Bobby also said Judge Stokes had already cornered Alan and told him he would be providing reports on Nick’s condition bi-weekly and he and Mama Stokes would be coming up in the next 2 weeks. Bobby said Alan was still shuddering when he called to talk about Nick. Bobby added that Alan and Gordon Meijer the owner of the clinic were overjoyed when Judge Stokes told them he would take full responsibility for Nick’s medical care and he expected his son to be given the very best the clinic had to offer.
Alan said Gordon was grousing about the call afterwards and going on about how yeah that’s what he says now but you just wait until he gets that first bill when his secretary knocked on the door, stuck her head in the office and told them she had just received an e-mail from a Judge William A. Stokes authorizing a $50,000.00 advance payment for medical treatment for his son with an American Express Platinum Card number. She had already verified the card and the money was transferred to the clinic’s account. The only problem was, they didn’t have a patient named Stokes and she didn’t know what to do with the money. Gordon almost knocked his chair over in his haste to get down to ICU and make sure their mystery patient, one Ferris Buehler, had the best of everything and that included 3 private nurses working 8 hour shifts to be at his side at all times. He also told them he wanted to be kept updated on Mr. Buehler’s condition every 4 hours.
Alan and Bobby had both laughed out loud at the name selected for Nick’s cover. Greg had filled out the paperwork for the ambulance personnel including the patient information. They didn’t know what name Nick was using until Gordon told Alan in his office. Greg said well, Nick was going to be taking some days off and it fit.
There was one more big hurdle. Had Judge Stokes managed to handle Ecklie? They would know when Grissom handed out assignments.
Fifteen minutes after Grissom called them all into the break room, Greg was almost limp with relief. Grissom had told them Ecklie had called him at home and told him one of Nick’s nephews had been critically injured in a motorcycle accident and he had left at once to be with his sister. His father had spoken with Conrad and told him, he would regard it as a personal favor from one law-enforcement professional to another (Greg rolled his eyes…just where had he heard that line before) if they would put Nick on unpaid leave of absence until further notice. Greg had one brief moment of terror when Warrick asked how come unpaid. He thought the lab provided compassionate leave at a percentage of their salary for family emergencies. Grissom said he’d asked Conrad the same question but Judge Stokes said that was Nick’s request. That way, there would be enough funds to hire a fill-in until Nick got back and it wouldn’t leave the shift short-handed or the rest of them worn out trying to do his job. Greg felt about 2 inches high when Ronnie, the newbie, said Nick must be a really sweet guy to worry about his co-workers at a time like that. It didn’t help at all when both Warrick and Catherine spoke up real quick and said yeah, Nick was one of the nicest guys you’d ever hope to meet and working with him was a great experience. Greg restrained his urge to bitch slap both Catherine and Ronnie when one said and the other agreed that being handsome enough to want to lick wasn’t a bad thing either.
Greg went to work his fender bender with injury which turned into a nine car pileup with 4 dead and 8 more requiring immediate medical attention. He had to call Grissom and tell him about the escalation and because of the fatalities and the number of vehicles involved, it meant he as a level one could not be primary on the case so he had to hand it off to Warrick. Eventually they all were out there working and had to holler out to the on-calls from both days and swing.
One thing about it, there’s nothing like blood, guts and piles of twisted metal to keep your mind on your work and not on your personal problems. Of course, Greg really didn’t think he had any more personal problems. Well except for getting Nick well and finding out what the heck he’d been doing at Ball and Chain in the first place and convincing him that they were more than friends with benefits and making him see that working with Alan was necessary to his health and well being and forcing him to realize that the two of them together could handle any problems this world wanted to give them. That wasn’t much was it?
Seven days later, Nick was still unconscious and Greg was a basket case.
Rating: PG-13 for a few bad words
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Warnings: None
Summary: Papa Stokes to the rescue.
Spoilers: None
A/N: This is a sequel to ‘Putting Down Roots’ which you can find
here
Previous parts of this story can be found here
The ambulance had come and taken Nick and Alan away. Greg, Bobby and Steve were sitting around the living room in varying stages of depression ranging from mildly severe (Steve) to mildly severe with overtones of depression (Bobby) to full out panic (Greg).
They had thought of and immediately discarded 10 or so different ideas and had been silent for the last 15 minutes except for an occasional deep sigh. Finally Steve said, “Look guys, it’s almost 3.00 pm and you both have to work tonight. I’m tired; I know you two must be ready to drop. Why don’t you take a shower (they were all still covered in Nick’s blood) and Greg, you want to crash here? I’ll wash and dry your clothes while you’re sleeping and maybe when we aren’t so tired, we’ll be able to come up with something.”
“Come up with what Steve? We’ve been wracking our brain for close to an hour now. What can we come up with?” Greg was ashamed of himself for whining at Steve but he was tired, frantic with worry about Nick’s physical, condition, his mental condition and most of all, protecting him from discovery.
“I don’t know Sanders. I really have very little experience in this superhero shit! It’s not like I crash a torture club, wave a gun around and impersonate a police officer every other week-end. Oh and while I’m at it, let’s add to the list, taking down three Cro-Magnan’s with bloody whips, try to figure out how to get a booby-trapped dildo out of some guy’s ass, a guy I really don’t know that well and then carry the bloody bastard out of the torture club and bring him home with me. HAVE I MISSED ANYTHING?”
Steve’s voice had been rising with each sentence and he was at full out yell by the time he got to the end. Greg looked at Bobby who was staring at his spouse in wide-eyed amazement. Evidently, Steve didn’t raise his voice too often. Bobby looked back at Greg and visibly swallowed. When Steve yelled even louder, “WELL, HAVE I?” both men hastened to assure him that he had pretty much covered all the bases.
“God, I don’t know what to do. Maybe he could have an illness in the family.” Steve was grasping at straws and feeling just a touch of embarrassment over yelling at Greg the way he had. He knew Greg had to be out of his mind with worry and he knew for a fact that if he had been in Greg’s shoes and Bobby had been in the ambulance, it would have taken half of Vegas to keep him away from him. Only Greg’s frantic need to keep Nick’s secret had kept him there in the house with them and that alone made Steve realize, they just had to come up with something.
Greg was muttering to himself, “Illness, accident maybe one of the sibs…..”
Bobby wasn’t muttering out loud but he was pacing back and forth and it was obvious he was talking to himself by the way his hands were waving around. Suddenly he stopped dead in the middle of the floor. He turned to Greg at the same instant that Greg turned to him. They each pointed a finger at the other and said together, “Judge Stokes!”
Steve yelled, “GOD DAMNIT. WILL YOU TWO STOP THAT?” In a quieter voice he added, “You both have been doing that all morning and you are just fuckin’ freaking me out. When did my calm, laid back house-mate get on the same wave length as his heavy-metal loving co-worker?” Neither man paid any attention to him what-so-ever. They were sitting together on the couch, talking a mile a minute.
Neither one could possibly understand what the other was saying and yet…the next thing Steve knew, Bobby was up, had him by the sleeve and was pulling him out of the room. “What the hell?” was Steve’s bewildered response.
Greg looked at Bobby and said, “Aren’t you even going to stay and give me moral support?”
Bobby shook his head firmly, “Hell no I’m not. At least you’ve met the man. I’m going to take my own personal back scrubber off to the bedroom and we are going to get cleaned up while you convince the good Judge. We’ll give you 30 minutes and if you haven’t gotten anywhere by then, we’ll come back and help out.” With that, he dragged Steve down the hall. As soon as he got out of Greg’s sight, he started undoing buttons, Steve’s, not his. By the time they hit the bathroom, he had Steve stripped and most of himself.
Bobby was turning on the water while taking off the remainder of his bloody clothes. Steve was too surprised to be of much help on any level. He just shook his head at the love of his life and said, “Christ Dawson, did you just now realize how dirty we are?”
About that time, Bobby reached out of the shower, grabbed Steve by his dick and using it as a handle proceeded to pull him under the water. “Oh, you’re feeling dirty . OK, I can take care of that.”
Bobby kissed his partner of 14 years and told him to stop talking and start fixing. They only had 30 minutes and he really did want to get clean somewhere in that time frame; along with a few other things. Aggressive sexual behavior has long been a human response to danger and Bobby didn’t ever remember being this aggressive.
Meanwhile, in the living room, Greg was staring at Nick’s cell phone. When they had retrieved their cars at the club prior to rescuing Nick through the back door, he and Bobby had stopped by Nick’s car. Greg knew Nick kept a spare key in a box hidden under the back passenger side door. He got the key and looked through Nick’s car quickly making sure there was nothing to identify it as belonging to him in case the Neanderthal’s did get loose. He’d found Nick’s wallet, keys and cell phone hidden in the false bottom of the center glove box. He thanked God now that he had taken them.
He went through Nick’s stored numbers until he found one that said ‘Pancho’. He punched the speed code and tried to get some moisture in his mouth so he could talk if/when Judge Stokes answer.,….”Oh hi Judge Stokes. As you can tell, this isn’t Nicky…uh…this is Greg Sanders. I’m a friend of Nick’s. I work at the lab with him. You probably don’t remember me.”
“Greg, of course I remember you. Nick speaks of you often; you and Warrick. What can I do for you and why are you using Nick’s phone?”
For the next hour, Greg begged, pleaded, explained, threatened, cajoled and flat out cried. In return, he was cursed, yelled at, threatened, asked to explain several times the exact nature of ‘Ball and Chain’ and what exactly was his son doing at a place like that. At one point, Greg found himself suggesting that maybe Nick was working under-cover since cowboys and leather were a popular item at that particular club. He looked up into two pair of stunned faces. Bobby and Steve turned and looked at each in amazement. Surely Greg didn’t say that to Nick’s father…Did he? Oh Shit, yes he did.
At that point, Bobby took the phone from Greg and in his thickest southern drawl said, “Judge Stokes, this here is Bobby Dawson. I’m the ballistics expert at the lab and I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure of meetin’ you but I know from the fine man your son is that you must be a man of courage and principles. Now, I know Greg probably has confused you but you see Sir, Greg is the youngest new CSI in the lab. You understand how being included in the raid this morning, especially after we got the news that an officer was inside and in danger has been a terrible shock to him. If I had known he was goin’ to call you on his own, I’d have been here with him from the beginning. Now we really don’t know how come Nick was inside that club BUT we do know he was hurt bad and a lot of those bad’uns got away.”
Greg looked at Steve and they both mouthed ‘bad’uns’! Is that even a word? They immediately turned their attention back to the phone. They did not want to miss a word of this. If the situation hadn’t been so desperate, they would have tried to record the conversation for posterity.
“We also don’t know for sure who was in on the surveillance. You know how it is when you keep tryin’ to pull a raid and the durn varmint’s are squeaky clean when you get there? You start to wonder if maybe someone is tippin’ them off?”
Greg knew if Bobby’s accent got any thicker, they would require an interpreter. He wasn’t getting every word as it was. He wasn’t too sure what Bobby had said just before the word varmints.
“The thing is Judge Stokes, no matter what happened, folk’s are goin’ to talk and Vegas may like to pretend it’s just so hoity-toity (OH MY GOD, BOBBY DID NOT SAY THAT!!! Steve had slid off the couch and was pounding silently on the rug) but when it comes down to gossip, this place is worse than Aunt Bee’s quilting circle. That’s why we don’t want anyone to know that Nick was anywhere near that place until every last bad guy is rounded up and corralled for good.”
There was a long silence on their end. It was pretty obvious that Judge Stokes was talking a lot on his end. Finally Bobby said, “We need for you to call a man named Conrad Ecklie. He’s the assistant lab director. He’s also a political toady, I’m sure you have to deal with his like all the time in your position. The good thing is, he will probably piss his pants with joy when he hears a Texas Supreme Court Judge wants to ask him a personal favor as one law-enforcement professional to another. Ask for an unpaid leave of absence for Nick for 6 months. I leave it in your capable hands as to the reason but as much as Nick loves and talks about his brother and his sisters; no one here would be a bit surprised if he took off if one of them or their kids was hurt and needed him.”
More silence. Then Bobby’s whole body slumped. He started nodding and said, “Yes sir Judge Stokes. Those of us who count Nick as a friend are grateful to you for compromising your principles like this to help us protect him.” There was another burst of noise on the other end of the phone and then Bobby responded, “Yes sir, I know he’s your son and you would do anything for him but you’re also an officer of the court and I know this must be hard for you. We will keep you in touch, I promise sir. I’m going to give you back to Greg now because he has the number for Ecklie and the doctor that’s takin’ care of Nick. Thank you again sir.”
Bobby handed the phone back to an astonished Greg and collapsed in a heap on the couch next to Steve, who managed to stop laughing long enough to pull his worn out lover into his arms and plant a big, wet juicy one right on his mouth.
Greg looked at them and then down at the phone and at a particularly loud burst of noise, hurriedly placed the phone back to his ear and said, “Yes sir Judge, I’m here. I’m just trying to get to my cell to get Ecklie’s pager. He’s never in the office on Saturday so you will have to page him and I don’t know if Bobby told you but Nick was due to work tonight so we need to get word to Ecklie as soon as possible. Yes sir, here it is.” Greg recited Ecklie’s pager and then gave Judge Stokes his office and his cell phone numbers. Then he gave him Alan’s pager and the name of the clinic where they took Nick.
When Nick’s father asked Greg what Nick’s condition was and how they gotten him to the clinic, Greg panicked again for just a minute, then he rallied. By God if Bobby could spin a yarn like he just had, he could also rise to the occasion. He told Judge Stokes that Nick had been badly beaten (didn’t mention a whip of course) and he didn’t see much because the doctor had started working on him right away. He said, the doctor was used to working with law-enforcement and had arranged for an ambulance to take Nick to the clinic under an assumed name until they figured out who was the mole if there was a mole. When the judge asked him what about Nick’s insurance, Greg said, he didn’t know. Everything had happened so fast they hadn’t bothered about the usual stuff. They had paid for the ambulance in cash. When Stokes asked him what Nicky was doing carrying that much cash on him, Greg never even thought and said it wasn’t Nick’s. He and Bobby and Steve had hit their ATM’s to pay for the ambulance in cash. There was a long silence on the phone and for the first time Greg heard a note of respect and surprise in the Judges’ voice when he said, “The three of you came up with the money in cash to get him medical attention.”
Greg told him firmly that Nick would have emptied his bank account for any of them, it was the least they could do for him. Judge Stokes was a little choked up when he said, “OK son, (SON????). You go get some sleep, I’ll make some calls and Greg…”
“Yes sir?”
“Mrs. Stokes and I are very grateful to you and your friends. We will never be able to repay you but we will see to it that you get every cent back and we will take care of all Nick’s bills until he is able to return to work.” With that, the judge hung up and Greg fell in the closest chair.
*****************************
When Greg signed in for work that night he was still a little vague about the details of the time between hanging up and getting up. He thought he remembered being undressed and bathed. He thought he remembered unfamiliar hands washing his hair and the water turning red. God, how had he gotten Nick’s blood in his hair? He remembered being woke up and told to get dressed and come to the kitchen for coffee. He remembered breakfast at the table with Bobby and Steve. He remembered asking them if he’d done anything he shouldn’t have because he could swear he remembered a naked body pulling him out of the tub and up under the shower to rinse off. When told there was a naked Bobby trying to get him clean enough to get into bed for a couple of hours of sleep before work he asked again if they were sure he hadn’t groped anything or anyone he shouldn’t have. When told no, the old Greg came out and he said simply, “Damn the luck. Missed a perfect opportunity to see the Dawson ass in all it’s glory.”
Steve rumbled deep in his chest and for one brief moment, Greg thought he was growling at him and he was checking to see if he would fit under the table, then he realized Steve was laughing out loud.
The one thing Greg did remember vividly was reaching for the phone the minute he managed to pry his eyelids open. Bobby was there in the room and stopped Greg from calling. He said if he was going to call about Nick, Alan had called about 30 minutes earlier. Nick made it through the surgery. They sutured some nasty tears in his rectum and they did do a temporary colostomy to let the tears heal completely. They also had to suture some of the whip marks to try to reduce the possibility of infection. Alan said the main worry was one bad lash mark right across Nick’s kidney. They had inserted a penile catheter and the fluid contained blood. They would not be allowing visitors for at least 24 hours. He was in ICU and being watched very closely.
Bobby also said Judge Stokes had already cornered Alan and told him he would be providing reports on Nick’s condition bi-weekly and he and Mama Stokes would be coming up in the next 2 weeks. Bobby said Alan was still shuddering when he called to talk about Nick. Bobby added that Alan and Gordon Meijer the owner of the clinic were overjoyed when Judge Stokes told them he would take full responsibility for Nick’s medical care and he expected his son to be given the very best the clinic had to offer.
Alan said Gordon was grousing about the call afterwards and going on about how yeah that’s what he says now but you just wait until he gets that first bill when his secretary knocked on the door, stuck her head in the office and told them she had just received an e-mail from a Judge William A. Stokes authorizing a $50,000.00 advance payment for medical treatment for his son with an American Express Platinum Card number. She had already verified the card and the money was transferred to the clinic’s account. The only problem was, they didn’t have a patient named Stokes and she didn’t know what to do with the money. Gordon almost knocked his chair over in his haste to get down to ICU and make sure their mystery patient, one Ferris Buehler, had the best of everything and that included 3 private nurses working 8 hour shifts to be at his side at all times. He also told them he wanted to be kept updated on Mr. Buehler’s condition every 4 hours.
Alan and Bobby had both laughed out loud at the name selected for Nick’s cover. Greg had filled out the paperwork for the ambulance personnel including the patient information. They didn’t know what name Nick was using until Gordon told Alan in his office. Greg said well, Nick was going to be taking some days off and it fit.
There was one more big hurdle. Had Judge Stokes managed to handle Ecklie? They would know when Grissom handed out assignments.
Fifteen minutes after Grissom called them all into the break room, Greg was almost limp with relief. Grissom had told them Ecklie had called him at home and told him one of Nick’s nephews had been critically injured in a motorcycle accident and he had left at once to be with his sister. His father had spoken with Conrad and told him, he would regard it as a personal favor from one law-enforcement professional to another (Greg rolled his eyes…just where had he heard that line before) if they would put Nick on unpaid leave of absence until further notice. Greg had one brief moment of terror when Warrick asked how come unpaid. He thought the lab provided compassionate leave at a percentage of their salary for family emergencies. Grissom said he’d asked Conrad the same question but Judge Stokes said that was Nick’s request. That way, there would be enough funds to hire a fill-in until Nick got back and it wouldn’t leave the shift short-handed or the rest of them worn out trying to do his job. Greg felt about 2 inches high when Ronnie, the newbie, said Nick must be a really sweet guy to worry about his co-workers at a time like that. It didn’t help at all when both Warrick and Catherine spoke up real quick and said yeah, Nick was one of the nicest guys you’d ever hope to meet and working with him was a great experience. Greg restrained his urge to bitch slap both Catherine and Ronnie when one said and the other agreed that being handsome enough to want to lick wasn’t a bad thing either.
Greg went to work his fender bender with injury which turned into a nine car pileup with 4 dead and 8 more requiring immediate medical attention. He had to call Grissom and tell him about the escalation and because of the fatalities and the number of vehicles involved, it meant he as a level one could not be primary on the case so he had to hand it off to Warrick. Eventually they all were out there working and had to holler out to the on-calls from both days and swing.
One thing about it, there’s nothing like blood, guts and piles of twisted metal to keep your mind on your work and not on your personal problems. Of course, Greg really didn’t think he had any more personal problems. Well except for getting Nick well and finding out what the heck he’d been doing at Ball and Chain in the first place and convincing him that they were more than friends with benefits and making him see that working with Alan was necessary to his health and well being and forcing him to realize that the two of them together could handle any problems this world wanted to give them. That wasn’t much was it?
Seven days later, Nick was still unconscious and Greg was a basket case.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}