dipenates

Title: Find me in the River
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Fandom: CSI
Characters: Nick/Greg, the workforce of the Las Vegas Crime Lab night shift, some of the Stokes family
Length: ~32,000 (Chapter One: 3,536)
Spoilers: 2.03 - Overload
Summary: For Nick and Greg to get it together, Nick has to acknowledge some things about himself that he's been hiding for years. When he starts to come out to colleagues and family, a number of lives are affected.
Warnings: Child abuse. Domestic violence. Homophobic violence. Contains details of a number of crime scenes.

In the river I will stay

“There’s been a serious physical assault at Garrarufa, presumably a hate crime. The victim hasn’t regained consciousness.” Grissom’s voice was flat.

The atmosphere in Grissom’s office shifted, tension thickening the air. Nick was suddenly aware of his body and felt his muscles tremble slightly with the effort of maintaining his previously casual stance. A bead of sweat slid into the hollow of his spine. His colleagues weren’t helping. Their eyes were sliding all over the place like there was grease on the floor.

Greg’s jaw was rigid and Nick wanted to drag his thumb up Greg’s neck until it unclenched.

Grissom looked bleak. “Would it be inappropriate to ask you two to work this case? With Catherine?”

Greg snorted.

Nick looked sideways at him. “Nah, Griss, that’s cool. We know the place and a lot of the regulars.”

Catherine bit her lip. Thinking, presumably, about Lindsey and every parent’s worst nightmare.

Sara, in a rare flash of understanding, shot Catherine a sympathetic look. “Catherine’s got that case to prepare for court and we could be there until all hours. I’ll do it.”

“Ok.” Grissom made some notes on the list of open cases that was the top sheet on his clipboard.

“What is wrong with you, man?”

Greg didn’t shift his gaze from his open locker, where he was trying to get his tac vest off its hook. “Nothing.”

He yanked, harder, and something ripped but the tac vest didn’t come out in his hand. He kicked the locker shut. “Fuck.”

He sank down onto the bench. Nick straddled it and slid his hand down Greg’s back. Greg was breathing hard, like he’d just run a fast mile. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

Greg looked at him, eyes shining with tears. “Are you fucking kidding me, Nick? I mean, are you really oblivious to this?” His chest heaved. “That could be me lying in Desert Palms right now. Worse, it could be you.”

Nick licked his lips. “I know.”

“And we’re being dispatched like special envoys from Planet Pink to deal with the fallout.”

“I don’t think it’s like that.”

Greg made a disbelieving noise.

Nick smoothed his hand over Greg’s thigh. “If you were at Garrarufa right now would you rather see us or Ecklie?”

Before Greg could answer, Warrick cleared his throat and Nick realised that he had been leaning against the doorway of the locker room.

Nick was about to take his hand off Greg’s leg when Warrick sat down next to Greg and slung his arm casually around him.

“I get sent out to more racist assaults than any two other people in this lab combined.” Warrick’s eyes were locked on Greg’s, their faces inches apart. “I don’t think that Grissom is thinking about PR when he gives me those assignments. I figure that he’s smart enough about people to realise that the vics aren’t going to think I’m a white supremacist, which would take longer to get around to if he sent Nicky-boy here.”

Greg’s face was blank. “Yeah.”

“Can’t say I enjoy it, though.” Warrick’s voice held a tinge of bitterness. “I could do without the frequent reminder that some people want me to hurt just because of the color of my skin.”

“Yeah,” Greg said. “I wish people could be a bit more interested in the content of my character, too.” He looked at his hands, clenched into fists in his lap. Thought about Warrick's words. “We should probably get going. If we're going.”

As they gathered their things, as the tac vest in Greg’s locker came free, Nick nodded his thanks to Warrick.

“Thank God this happened early in the evening, “ Brass said, surveying the fifty or so clubgoers lined up against the wall. “If this had gone down a couple of hours later this place would have been packed.”

“Thank goodness.” Greg’s voice teetered at the very edge of sarcasm.

Brass looked away, uncomfortable. “I spoke to the guy's doctor at Desert Palms. They can’t rule out sexual assault.”

Nick’s face was like granite. “We need DNA swabs from all of these people.”

Greg looked incredulous. “You think someone from in here did this?”

Nick shook his head. “Protocol. You start from one end, I’ll start from the other.”

“Are you really here to protect and serve?” Greg faintly recognised a Garrarufa regular, face twisted as he sized Greg up. “Or just waiting til you can get home to shower the gay off?”

“Give him a break, Don.” The guy next to him looked Greg up and down. “He’s here almost as often as we are.”

Don looked at Greg, sharply. “Really? You’re a friend of Dorothy?” His voice was ironic.

Greg compressed his mouth into a thin line. “Really. Although I’m pretty sure no-one’s actually used that expression since 1972.”

His friend smirked. Greg’s eyes slid past them to the couple to their left. A man with brown hair, who looked barely out of his teens, was huddled in to the side of his boyfriend. He had his eyes closed, and his boyfriend was whispering something in his ear.

Greg shifted so that he was standing in front of them. “I’m CSI Sanders from the Vegas Crime Lab. As Detective Brass announced, we’re collecting DNA from everyone here. It’s just a simple cheek swab.”

He uncapped an IntegriSwab. “If you could just open your mouth—“

The brown haired man gave him a nakedly terrified look and leaned backwards.

Greg frowned and kept advancing. “It’s ok, sir. It just takes a second.”

The brown haired man clapped his hand over his mouth and his boyfriend tightened his grip on his other hand. Greg ignored the CSI part of himself that was instantly suspicious of everyone within two clicks of a crime scene and realised that some strange authoritarian man looming over you with a swab, demanding that you open your mouth on command, would cause a surprisingly large number of people to freak the fuck out. Turning around, he waved Sara over.

“Officer, can you just give us a minute?” His boyfriend pleaded with Greg. “Please don’t arrest him.”

Greg smiled at the boyfriend in what he hoped was a reassuring way. “Nobody is getting arrested. It’s just that my colleague, CSI Sidle, is going to take over for me for a bit while I go and attend to something else.”

The boyfriend gave Greg a look of gratitude as Sara paused in front of the queue of clubgoers.

“Sara, could you take over here?” Greg hoped that she would get it.

“Sure.” She flicked her glance over the trembling brown haired man and took a step towards him.

Walking away, Greg watched over his shoulder as Sara pasted on a warm smile, made herself small and unthreatening, and coaxed the sample out of him.

“Good catch.” Nick looked approvingly at Greg. “That guy looked about two seconds away from a complete freakout.”

“Yeah, he looked really afraid of me.” Greg’s face was tense. “Can’t say that made me feel great about myself.”

Nick reached a hand out to him and then, realising how many eyes were on them, choked the gesture off.

“You know where that comes from, Greg.”

“Yeah.” Greg’s eyes were full of shadows.

Nick scanned over the small groups of tired patrons, buzz from their night out completely punctured by the harsh house lights and faint, but discernible, smell of industrial cleaning products. There were few things more depressing than a nightclub out of hours.

“Come on,” Greg said. “We need to finish up here if we’re going to make it to the airport on time.”

Nick was quiet, eyes far away. It had seemed like such a good idea to go and visit his new nephew and namesake straight after his dedication at their childhood church and the reception at the Stokes’ ranch. He wanted to see Annie but he couldn’t face his whole family, and timing his and Greg’s visit for this weekend would let them take part in baby Nicholas’s special event. Thinking, though, about the fact that his family was gathered in Texas while he stood under harsh fluorescent lights processing a crime scene made him feel cold. He could almost see the lanterns that his mother hung from the porch on special days stirring idly in the summer breeze and wondered if he would ever be truly welcome at the ranch again.

“Nicky—“ Greg’s voice trailed off. It had all been said.

Nick picked up the kit at his feet. “Has the security camera footage been secured?”

“Hot damn, this weather is unbelievable.” Nick stood his sister’s kitchen sink and filled a glass with water. The back of his white t-shirt was lined with sweat and Greg shivered slightly at the thought of peeling it off him and licking the salt from his skin.

“David and I were only in the garage for fifteen minutes and I need a shower in the worst way.”

“You’re from here,” Annie was smirking at him from her seat at the kitchen table where she was burping baby Nicholas. “And you live in the middle of the desert.”

Nick grinned. “Dry heat, Annie. Not like this darn swamp.”

Greg swallowed a snicker. Darn? It was one part adorable and one part sexy as hell that Nick’s accent had thickened almost as soon as they had arrived at Intercontinental.

Annie smiled down at her son fondly. “Time for you to go to sleep, little man.” She lifted her head up. “Do you boys want to go sit next to the fan on the porch and have a beer? Dinner should be ready in about half an hour.”

“Sounds perfect.” Greg smiled. “You’re a great host, Annie.”

Annie made a gee, shucks face. “I’m the worst at this out of all of us. The youngest girl always gets the least exciting hostess errands in any Southern family and I was only just about trusted to hand round trays of the delicacies my sisters could bake.”

“Kind of ‘where are your britches, Scout?’”

Annie looked at Greg. “Exactly.”

Nick leaned over his nephew as he lay sleepily in his mother’s arms and dropped a kiss on his head. The look on his face made Greg’s breath hitch in his chest. “Night, night, baby boy.”

“I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon enough.” Annie’s voice was dry. “Beer’s in the fridge, boys.”

“How did your talk with Annie go?” Greg had one toe on the floor of the porch and was gently moving the swing back and forward as the fan at Nick's elbow did its best to stir the warm air.

Nick took a sip from his bottle. “Ok. She’s been in touch with Caitlin and Lizzie, and she thinks things have been about as good as they're likely to get.” He sighed. “She got pretty upset.”

“About your brother Bill?”

“Yeah, she’s a new momma and pretty much repulsed by the idea of anyone hurting their child.” Nick turned his head away. “She was also apologising to me for not doing anything to stop my Daddy.”

Greg almost spat out his beer. “What?”

“Exactly. I don’t know what she thinks she could have done. Like all 95 pounds of her was supposed to drag a grown man off me.” Nick’s voice was strained.

“Why is it always the people who are least to blame who feel so responsible for other people’s shitty behaviour?”

Nick shrugged. “I don’t know, but they do. Have you noticed how little they’ve talked about Nicholas’s dedication party?”

“Yeah, you had to basically pin Annie down over lunch.”

“It sucks that they feel like they can’t talk about it just because we didn’t go.”

Greg drew in a breath. “Did Annie say anything about how Alex and the rest of your sisters have reacted?”

Nick made popping sounds with his finger and the mouth of the beer bottle. “Yeah, she seems to have worked the crowd like a pro. She’s wasted every second that she’s not doing the dirty work for some corrupt politician.”

He sighed. “Alex seems genuinely indifferent, but doesn’t want to fight with Daddy. Beth shoved an ex-gay organisation leaflet into Annie’s hand when they were alone in the kitchen, so I’m guessing she’s not joining us at Pride anytime soon. Mel and Jessica are basically horrified by Daddy and Bill but they’re also really close to Momma, who seems to have shed more than a few tears over all of this.”

Greg thought about that. “Are you going to get in touch with Alex, Mel and Jessica?”

Nick shrugged. “I guess so. I still don’t know what I want, you know? I mean, I love my family but I’m not sure how much effort it’s worth to get invited to a couple of family holidays that are going to be, in the best case scenario, pretty awkward.”

“You don’t have to decide today, baby. Or ever.” Greg ran his fingers across the bottom of Nick’s hairline, feeling the warm slickness of Nick's skin. “I’m glad that Annie’s so awesome.”

“She is. Thanks for making yourself scarce so I could talk to her, G. Did you have fun looking through David’s record collection?”

Greg nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, he’s got some pretty cool stuff. He DJd for his college radio station through his postgrads.”

Nick was quiet for a moment and Greg could hear the sharp throb of cicadas in the heavy air. “I like that song about the river you guys were playing. With the saxophone.”

Greg looked at him. “The Groove Armada?” He hummed a bit of the melody and Nick nodded. “That was the soundtrack to so many sunrises when I was in college.”

Greg smiled, remembering bleary early mornings in apartments with records all over the floor and spilled tequila on coffee tables. Of raking through people’s stash boxes looking for downers to take the edge off an ecstasy comedown. Of smoking way too many cigarettes with girls with smeared eyeliner and chipped nailpolish.

“You had a really different college experience than I did.” Nick was watching him carefully.

“Well, we couldn’t all spend every weekend at keggers with our frat buddies.”

“Yeah.” Nick’s laugh was empty. “The frat house was certainly educational in teaching me how to play it straight.”

Greg swung his legs up so that they were resting on Nick, making the porch swing move slightly. Nick ran his hand lightly over Greg’s calves.

“You don’t seem that straight to me, cowboy.” Greg’s voice was husky. “In fact, you seem downright queer.”

Nick grinned, despite himself. “That’s the single worst Texas accent I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard some bad ones.”

Greg’s thumb slid over the condensation on his bottle. “I’m kinda serious, Nicky. I find it awe-inspiring that you come from what you do and you are who you are.”

Nick shrugged. Greg looked at his profile; the one eye he could see glittering in the half-light.

“When we get back to Vegas,“ Greg said carefully, “can we move in together?”

Nick’s head turned towards him. “What?”

“I love you, Nicky. I love the relationship we have. I love spending time with you.” Greg laced his fingers through Nick’s, hands slippery with moisture from his beer bottle. “Call me selfish, but I want more of it. I want to wake up with you every day, and go grocery shopping with you, and pick out an apartment with you, and make my life with you.”

“Grocery shopping, Greggo? Is this so we have more in our cupboards than vodka, microbrews, peanut butter and tortilla chips?”

Greg blinked. “Is that a yes?”

Nick ran his hand up the inside of Greg’s leg to his crotch. “It’s a ‘hell, yeah’. I love you, man.” His voice shook slightly, like a sound engineer had applied reverb to it. “I totally fucking adore you.”

Annie shut the door to the porch hastily behind her.

David looked up from his place at the table. “Aren’t they still out there? Should I go find them?”

Annie reddened slightly. “Um, they’re there. They were just smooching, so I figured I would give them a minute.”

She raised her eyebrows at David’s look. “What? We’re having enchiladas and they can stand for a couple of minutes without ruining.”

THE END