It was only after his phone started ringing on Sunday that Nick noticed he was alone in bed.
He grumbled at the sound of the buzzing at first, his cell phone rattling against the bedside table, and then rolled over to nudge Bobby. When his elbow connected with air, he blinked bleary eyes and sat up slowly, staring at the empty space beside him. The black-out curtains glowed brightly around the edges, alerting him that it was very clearly not a time he should be awake. He groped for his phone just as it stopped buzzing and held it up to look at the clock, and no sooner had the numbers registered – three-thirty p.m. – than the display switched back to incoming-call mode.
As soon as he saw it was Bobby, he flipped it open.
“You’re not here,” he greeted somewhat wearily, flopping back against the pillows. “Why aren’t you here?”
“And good morning to you, too, sunshine,” Bobby teased on the other end. His familiar drawl was comforting against Nick’s ear, and he could feel his eyelids getting heavy again at the sound of it. “I purposely tip-toed around earlier. They needed a ballistics tech this afternoon, so I made a deal with the devil to work now and get tonight and all day tomorrow off.”
“Mmm, Ecklie is good at deals. So, I’ll miss you tonight?”
“Unfortunately.” There was a touch of disappointment to his voice. “Listen, I need you to do me a favor.”
Nick forced at least some sleep-muddled corner of his brain to wake up and try to pay attention. “Hm?”
“Scott just called – ”
“Lisa?”
He could practically hear Bobby nod, and that was enough to alert the rest of his body. He forced his tired muscles to swing his legs out of bed and wriggled his toes on the cold hardwood floor, taking full advantage of the cool shock of the wood against the bare soles of his feet. In the last year, he’d gotten used to Bobby’s ex-partner and world-class idiot shirking his parental responsibilities and leaving Bobby saddled with their daughter. “You know,” he thought aloud as he stood up and started looking for clean pants, “you’re a ballistics tech. You could take him out behind the crime lab and – ”
“Please do not tempt me when I’m ticked at him already.” Nick smirked at the tense edge to Bobby’s familiar voice. “Hodges is off looking for a monkey wrench, and Ronnie offered to modify one of his son’s Nerf weapons to do ‘lethal damage,’ whatever that means.” His sigh crackled across the line. “Scott and Lisa are apparently at the 7th Street Park. I told him you could be there by four.”
Nick buttoned his jeans. “I can’t very well give him a piece of my mind if you pick a public park, you know.”
“That was exactly why I picked the park, thanks.”
He smiled and shook his head, knowing very well that Bobby couldn’t see him. “You’ll at least be home when I leave, won’t you?”
“Should be,” Bobby confirmed, and then paused. On the other end, Nick could hear his familiar voice replying to an unfamiliar one – probably some day-shifter that he’d never met – and when the low drawl returned, there was a rushed edge to his tone. “Gotta go. I just got handed a variety pack of crime scene bullets.”
“I don’t envy you.” He smiled softly and could suddenly envision the scene over in the ballistics lab; Bobby with one hand on the phone and the other clutching a number of evidence bags as he tried to deal with two parts of his life at once. Nick really didn’t envy him, but he certainly still sympathized. “I’ll see you tonight. Solve some cases.”
Bobby snorted. “That shouldn’t be as charming as it is, you know.”
He nodded. “I know,” he replied, and kept smiling even after he hung up the phone.
==
The 7th Street Park was, far and away, Lisa Dawson’s favorite park, and Nick found on his drive over that he could not easily count the number of times the little girl had begged her “buddy Nicky” to take her there. Even now, in the cool late winter and before spring fully came to Las Vegas, the playground equipment was practically bursting with children. Nick could hear the elated hoots and hollers even as he pulled into the parking lot, and by the time he parked his truck, he’d already spotted Lisa. She was standing on the top-most playground platform, her golden curls caught in the sun. As he watched her, she started waving her hand feverishly, and it was only after he climbed out of his vehicle that he realized she was waving at him.
“Nicky!” she shouted when he made it to the edge of the playground, shooting off the edge of the slide like one of Bobby’s bullets and running up to greet him. Woodchips flew everywhere as he bent down and indulged the girl – now nearly five-and-a-half and heavier than he wanted to admit – in a hug that pulled her right off her feet. “Dad said that you were coming!” She frowned as he set her down. “Did Daddy really have to work?”
“Your daddy does important things, Leesy. You know that.” A young man wandered slowly up to him, and Nick frowned. With his hands in the back pockets of black Dockers and a black leather jacket left open over a tight red t-shirt – not to mention the dark sunglasses and tussled brown-black hair – Nick suddenly understood why the nickname of “Luscottfer” had stuck so well. At least, physically. He flashed a charming smile and offered out his hand. “I’m Scott Newman, so I suppose that makes you Mr. Stokes.”
Nick’s frown deepened for a split second before he forced it away and warmly clasped the hand offered to him. “Nice to finally meet you,” he lied, forcing the most even smile could. “Bobby’s said a lot about you.”
Scott’s smile didn’t fade as their hands parted. “And Leesy, too, I’m sure,” he replied. He reached down and ruffled Lisa’s hair, causing the girl to giggle and bat at his hand. “Hopefully it wasn’t all bad. Bobby and I didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.” He chuckled slightly. “Actually, the terms were poor enough that one of his friends – David, I think his name was – threatened to brain me with a bottle of Draino.”
It took every iota of well-bred Southern manners – and a few borrowed from Bobby, as well – to keep Nick’s face from bursting into a full-on smirk. He did, however, allow himself a small smile. “That’s David for you.” He shrugged. “And breakups are hard. There’s always bad blood, right?”
“Sad, but true.” Scott shook his head. “We tried to make it work, but some things just aren’t meant to be, I suppose.” The sun passed behind a cloud, the sky darkening suddenly, and he flipped up his sunglasses. Nick was surprised at the dark blue of his eyes; with the red-on-black outfit, he’d almost been expecting fire-engine red. “Anyway, I should let you go, especially since I have to work.”
Lisa frowned and hugged him around the legs. “I don’t want you to go to work,” she lamented, burrowing her face against his Dockers. “Music people can wait. I wanna see you some more.”
“I’m in the music industry, and my hours are ridiculous,” Scott explained distractedly to Nick, who watched the scene with a mixed feeling of appreciation and awkwardness; he’d never before seen Lisa and Scott interact, and he felt almost guilty for interrupting. He crouched down and landed a kiss on Lisa’s cheek. “Listen, Leesy,” he assured her quietly, “next weekend, we’ll go to the zoo. Maybe Daddy will even come with.”
She sent him a dubious look. “And Nicky, too?” she questioned suspiciously.
Scott glanced up, meeting Nick’s gaze carefully. He smiled slightly, almost a bashful expression, and Nick couldn’t help but smile back at him. “We’ll see, honey,” he assured Lisa, and kissed her cheek again before rising to his feet. “Anyway, I should let you two go,” he repeated, and held his hand out again. “It was nice to meet you, Nick. Give Bobby my regards, if you will. I was hoping to see him today and figure out some details about custody.”
“I’ll tell him.” Nick shook his hand again. “Take care.”
“You too, Nick,” Scott replied, and then – with another ruffle of Lisa’s hair – wandered in the opposite direction.
Nick couldn’t help but smile after his retreat, Lisa’s hand slipping into his. “Dad’s cool,” she decided, her fingers squeezing Nick’s.
He blinked down at her, and then smiled. “Yeah, he is,” he admitted, surprised at the sound of his own voice saying those words.
==
“Today, friends,” Jacqui Franco announced later that evening, standing on a chair in the break room and waving a half-filled coffee mug above her head, “was a grave day in the life of Nicholas Stokes. Today, he met… Luscottfer.”
Sara, Greg, and Warrick all sent one another confused glances from where they stood in the back of the break room, and standing alongside them, Nick resisted the obvious urge to smack himself squarely in the forehead. He’d nearly let himself forget about the whole happening at the park until he’d caught the lab technicians sending him sympathetic glances through their glass walls. When Hodges had patted him on the shoulder – an actual show of human compassion – he’d figured his chances of forgetting the incident entirely were about zero.
And when Jacqui climbed on the chair, he knew it was all over.
“The Hell is this all about?” Warrick questioned, but Nick just sighed and dropped his eyes to the floor.
“Now we learned laboratory technicians,” Jacqui continued on, prompting Hodges to mutter the words “sugar” and “never again” in close context to one another, “know that the horrors of Luscottfer are great. We have seen, with our own eyes, the Great Turkey Incident of Ought-One, and the Birthday Happenstance of Ought-Three. And I am here, on behalf of all those who have toiled before, and all those who will toil again, to offer my gravest of condolences to Nick.” She raised her coffee cup higher. “To Nick!”
If someone had dropped a pin in the break room, it would have been heard tinkling on the tile.
Archie rolled his eyes. “Jacqui, get down.”
“I am not hearing any cheering,” she informed him darkly, casting a glare in his direction. “I am not getting down until I hear cheering.”
“Your cigarettes are taped to the underside of the table the GCMS is on,” Wendy replied.
Within seconds, Jacqui was off the chair and out the door, the other technicians following soon behind her. Once they’d all passed the length of the break room and sent their most sympathetic of glances towards Nick, Sara frowned and furrowed her brow.
“You know,” she thought aloud, “I’d always suspected Jacqui Franco was insane. I just never expected this kind of proof.” She shook her head, as though ready to dismiss the entire issue, but then her sharp eyes snapped up and Nick could feel them narrowing in his direction. “Who’s Luscottfer, anyway?”
Nick continued studying the floor tile with a keen interest, though the interest was more in keeping his head down than it was the actual tile pattern itself. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Greg fidgeting ever-so-slightly, and knew the other man was probably trying just as hard as he to come up with a plausible cover story. Greg certainly had his own secrets – though what they were, Nick couldn’t be sure – and Nick suspected his friend wanted to help cover his.
Finally, he plastered on a smile and looked up. “Would you believe that this guy harassing me in the grocery store this afternoon was Jacqui’s ex?” he asked, meeting Sara’s gaze. Beside her, Warrick cocked an eyebrow. “He was a total jerk, and when I mentioned it in passing to Hodges, he just exploded. Small world, I guess.”
“Jacqui on a date would qualify as the eighth wonder of the natural world.” Sara shook her head. “Gives me hope.”
Warrick, however, kept eyeing Nick over Sara’s head, his lips pursed into a frown and his expression dubious. Nick supposed Greg’s continued fidgeting wasn’t helping matters. “Jacqui’s ex?” he repeated after a moment.
Nick nodded solemnly. “Big guy. I thought he might hit me.”
Smirking, and obviously satisfied by the answer, Sara chuckled. “Leave it to Franco,” she declared. Then, she stepped away from the countertop, leaving behind her coffee cup, and jerked her head toward the door. “C’mon, Greg. Doc Robbins’ supposed to be done with our autopsy around now.”
He nodded and briefly sent Nick a quiet glance. Nick shrugged a response. “See you guys later,” he said, smiling, and then followed Sara out of the break room with his usual undaunted perkiness.
Once they’d left, Nick, too, set down his mug. “I should go check in the garage,” he decided, avoiding eye contact as best he could. “I’m waiting on a car.”
Despite the little voice in the back of his mind that teased him for his unlikely cover story, he’d honestly expected Warrick to nod and let him go, and was thusly surprised when the other man reached forward and caught him by the arm. “Nicky,” he said, sounding somewhere near pleading. Nick caught his eyes and frowned at the concern there. “You really expect me to believe that line of bull?”
Nick shrugged off his hand. “I expect you to believe the truth,” he replied coolly, and then turned tail to flee the room before Warrick dared to ask what the truth really was.
==
“Nicky, there’s some cute guy waiting at reception for you.”
Catherine’s voice was half playful and half taunting, and Nick frowned as he glanced up from his dubious task of picking through a trunk full of old garbage. She smirked at him from her spot leaning against the doorjamb. “Now, next time you have cute guys showing up for you, I’d like some warning,” she informed him as he stood up and started across the garage. “And if he’s not single, can you find out if he has a brother?”
Nick’s frown doubled itself without his permission. “Did he say who he was?”
“No, but then, I didn’t think to ask.” She shrugged. “He’s about your height, dark hair, great body.…” Her smirk faded away, and she cocked an eyebrow. “You know him?”
His mouth went dry. “Kind of,” he admitted, and then walked right past her.
The so-called “cute guy” was studying one of the framed inspirational posters in the reception lobby when Nick arrived, which – thanks to the flip-flopping of his stomach – occurred in record time. “Hey, Scott,” he greeted, and Scott whirled around to face him. “Bobby’s not here tonight, you know.”
Scott’s smile was warm, and he held up a paper bag. “I’m so sorry to bother you at work, Nick,” he greeted, shaking it slightly. “Lisa left her sweater in my car, and I wanted to get it back to her. I didn’t want to wake up anyone at the house, so I thought I’d stop by here.”
“Oh.” Nick blinked before reaching forward and accepting the bag, his lips creasing into an almost-involuntary smile. “Well, thanks. I’ll be sure to get it back to her.”
“Thanks,” Scott nodded, tucking his hands into his pockets. There was a brief, awkward pause between them, the stranger rocking on his heels slightly. “Say, Nick, do you want to get breakfast or something, sometime?”
The question caused Nick to blink, surprised. He frowned slightly, his brow creasing, and studied Scott; his face was honest, smiling, and his blue eyes were almost enticing. Nick forced himself to frown further. “Breakfast?” he repeated when his mind failed to give him better words.
“Breakfast,” Scott confirmed with a slight nod, still smiling softly. “We can trade stories. I can offer you some tricks of the trade. Just a casual meal between friends.”
Nick narrowed his eyes, frowning further, and for a moment, found himself without an appropriate response. With the night-shift receptionist on the phone a few feet away, and Catherine – snoop that she could sometimes be – undoubtedly looming in nearby, asking for more details seemed to be a bad idea, especially given that Scott was, for all intents and purposes, a secret. But then again, dragging Scott into another room and asking for further clarification didn’t seem like a wise idea either. “Tricks of the trade?” he repeated.
A hand landed on his shoulder, squeezing slightly. “I’ve been in your shoes, Nick,” the other man assured him warmly. “Sometimes, you need someone to talk to, especially when things don’t go according to plan.” His smile lessened slightly, and he sighed. “And trust me, Nick – not everything goes according to plan.”
For a long moment, Nick held his gaze, uncertain of what to say. The receptionist hung up the phone with a click and looked about ready to ask him if everything was alright. He took a deep breath, summoned up some sort of response, and –
“Well, well, well. Look what the hearse dragged in.” Nick blinked and glanced over his shoulder just in time to see David Hodges approach from the hallway, his hands in his pockets. His expression was serious and cold, except for the tiniest hint of a smirk touching the very corners of his lips. “I wasn’t aware they started letting you out of your sarcophagus at night. You’ve moved up in the world.”
Scott rolled his eyes, immediately unleashing his grip on Nick’s shoulder. “Nice to see you again, David,” he replied, holding out his hand. “How’s life?”
“Hellish, as usual, but of course, you’re the one with first-hand experience.” He completely ignored the hand held out to him. “But as fun as this little tête-à-tête is for me, I need to borrow Nick for a bit. I have trace evidence for him.”
“Of course,” Scott replied, dropping his hand to his side. “I should be going, anyway.” He pulled a card out of his jacket and set it on the reception counter. “Feel free to give me a call, Nick. I’d love to have breakfast.”
Hodges sneered at him. “I’m sure you would,” he replied, and then reached to grab Nick by the shirt. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
Nick wasn’t allowed to look back at Scott, but – as Hodges dragged him forcibly down the hallway and into the trace evidence lab – he reasoned that it was for the best. The technician tossed him in the general direction of a stool and then slammed the door behind them. “If you never do anything reasonable again in your meaningless little life,” Hodges began the conversation, turning on him, “forget anything that slimeball told you.”
He frowned, sitting down on the stool before Hodges decided to try physically menacing him into forgetting. “Didn’t you say the same thing about Bobby’s sexuality? And his having a daughter?”
“Do you want me to get a wrench? Or worse, some plumber’s putty?”
Trying to smile only proved he couldn’t, so instead, Nick shook his head.
“Thought not.” Hodges leaned against the evidence counter and regarded Nick carefully. For a moment, he felt as though Hodges’ scrutiny was some form of disapproval, but after a few seconds had ticked by without any sound, he realized that the far surlier man was simply at a loss for words. When the silence was broken, it was by Hodges’ sighing. “Look, Stokes, Scott’s bad news.”
“So I’ve heard,” he replied. Hodges lowered his eyes.
“I mean it. He’s an asshole of the highest degree, and I’m not just saying that because I hate everyone.” He paused, his eyes still on Nick. “Truth is – and if you repeat this, I will flay you from head to toe – I don’t mind you being around.”
Nick smirked. “Are you actually admitting fondness for another human being?”
The glare doubled and tripled until Hodges’ eyes were lowered to tiny slits. “No. I am simply saying that I would prefer your name be kept off the technician hit list for now.”
“Oh, of course. No actual affection.” Nick kept smirking and rose to his feet. “Hodges, I wasn’t brought up in a barn. I can spot trouble well enough to avoid it. And anyway – ”
“Sorry to interrupt, boys, but some of us have jobs.” Both men whirled around to see Catherine striding in through the other door to the lab, which Hodges had apparently forgotten to close in his rush to threaten bodily harm. “Hodges, got those results for me?”
Hodges sent her a look that very clearly communicated his deep-rooted hatred of her and all things associated with her. “Actually, I had to send them to Wendy in DNA,” he retorted, casting a dark look toward the DNA lab. He scowled when he noticed it was empty. “And apparently, she spirited them off. Be right back.”
As the other man stalked out of the room, Nick jerked a thumb back towards the hallway. “And I should go finish that car,” he said, whirling on his heel. He’d just managed to get his hand on the door when Catherine’s voice crackled like ice across the otherwise silent lab.
“Freeze, Nicky.”
Nick cursed his good breeding and froze as told, turning back around to face her. “What’s up?”
Catherine lowered her eyes. “I’m not buying the oblivious routine,” she informed him. She crossed the lab slowly, her footsteps and waving hips reminding him of the cats he’d had growing up; they’d been nasty things, always stalking their prey and then playing with it before the kill. “What was up with the guy at reception?”
He wasn’t completely sure what the so-called oblivious routine required, but he tried it for a moment longer. When Catherine’s steady gaze didn’t alter in any way, he blinked and flashed her a brilliant smile. “Oh, him?” he asked, as though so he’d seen so many strange men in the last hour that he’d needed a moment to narrow the field. “He’s just an old friend.”
“An old friend who Hodges knows and hates?”
Nick could feel his smile twitch. “Stranger things have happened.”
She watched him silently for a moment – Nick could tell by the way she was staring that she was waiting for his expression to shift – but then Hodges returned, carrying a printout in one hand and an evidence bag in the other. “So much for it being organic,” he muttered. “You’ll need to wait an hour for me to analyze this.”
Catherine nodded, her eyes never moving from Nick. “That’s just fine,” she replied. “Thanks.”
Hodges frowned at her. “You’re welcome, I think.”
When she finally stalked back out the way she came, her boots clacking on the tile floor, the technician cast a look up at Nick that, in some cultures, might have been considered sympathetic. “You lie about as well as a rug that’s been rolled up since the fifth century B.C.”
Nick sighed. “Yeah,” he said, and turned to leave the room, “I know.”
==
Picking through the car and its garbage-lined trunk ended up taking a few hours longer than planned, thanks to the impromptu mid-shift visit and Cath’s constant “checkups,” as she came to call them. By the time Nick was done, he’d worked an hour and a half overtime, arriving at Bobby’s just in time to wave goodbye to Lisa’s bus to kindergarten.
The house was silent as he let himself in, and he tried his best to be quiet as he moved about. He’d just finished making a sandwich when a pair of arms suddenly appeared around his waist and a soft kiss landed on the back of his neck.
He smiled despite himself. “You should be in bed.”
“I was waiting for you,” Bobby drawled, his voice comfortable and languid in Nick’s ear. His chin landed on Nick’s shoulder, and he tightened his grip. “Missed you.”
Nick couldn’t help but chuckle. “Can’t survive half a day without me? Hope I never go on a hunting trip, then.”
“You’d have to take me. I’m the man with the guns.” The arms around his waist slackened, and moved to grab him by the wrists. Nick very nearly dropped his yet-untouched sandwich on the floor. “C’mon.”
He blinked as Bobby started pulling him away from the kitchen. “I’m hungry,” he noted, casting a forlorn glance back at his abandoned sandwich. He glanced at the man in front of him, dressed only in his boxers and a t-shirt, and couldn’t help but frown slightly. “Bobby, listen – ”
“You can eat later.” Nick rolled his eyes as Bobby tugged him fully into his bedroom. The blackout curtains had already been drawn, and the glowing yellow-white light cast odd shadows across the space. The hands on his arms shifted to his waist, and Bobby’s lips pressed against his neck. “I told you. I was waiting for you.”
The hot breath against his ear caused a sharp chill to run up his spine, and it took most his effort to bring his arms up to Bobby’s shoulders and force him away. Bobby frowned up at him, and he sighed. “It was a long day.”
“I can fix that,” Bobby offered, but Nick just shook his head and started back to the kitchen. He half-hoped that the other man wouldn’t follow him, and would just go to bed, but the footfalls behind him dashed those hopes. He picked up his sandwich, picked out a beer from the fridge to compliment it, and then went into the living room.
He’d just changed the channel from PBS to ESPN when Bobby sank into the couch next to him. “Tough case?”
Nick took a bite of his sandwich, considering. Hodges’ words echoed in the back of his mind, but – as much as he hated to admit it – so did Scott’s. He knew that the run-in both at the park and the lab would upset Bobby, or at least cause him to start silently seething, neither of which seemed like positive outcomes.
Slouching back against the couch, he tried to focus on Sports Center. “I waved to Lisa’s bus when I got here,” he said instead.
A slight smile touched Bobby’s lips, and he leaned his weight against Nick’s side, a comfortable pressure. “She was sad you weren’t here to make her lunch. I don’t cut the bread right, or something. Oh, that reminds me.”
Nick had very nearly chuckled at the bread comment, but the sudden change in tone made him frown, instead. “Hmm?”
“I volunteered to help out at a couple of guns-for-cash exchanges, and the first one is this Saturday.” He paused, his smile charmingly apologetic. “Scott’s busy that day, and I know you’re scheduled to work Friday and Saturday nights, but it’s during the day and I need someone to watch Lisa.”
“Oh.” He blinked at the question, almost surprised. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d watched Lisa on his own. “I’ll talk to Grissom, see if I can get Saturday night off.”
“Good.” Bobby smiled, an expression that spread from his lips and cheeks and into his eyes, and Nick couldn’t help smiling back. A soft kiss landed on his lips. “You finish your sandwich. I’m going to go get into bed, and you can join me when you’re ready.”
There was just a touch of suggestion to his tone – nothing set-in-stone, but nothing absolutely out-of-the-question – that made Nick’s blood stir. “Okay,” he agreed, and smiled while watching the motion of Bobby’s thin boxer fabric as he walked away.
It was only after he put his plate in the sink and his beer bottle in the recycling bin that Nick paused and frowned at his reflection in the dark face of the microwave, Scott’s words about “tricks of the trade” echoing in his head.
He went back to the couch and, when Bobby found him there a few hours later, claimed that he’d fallen asleep watching Sports Center.
==
When Nick checked his mailbox at work that night, he was surprised to find Scott’s business card just under a brochure for a fiber analysis conference in Maryland. The phone number had been circled in red ink, and – when he flipped it over on impulse – someone had added a cell phone number to the back of the card.
Nick replaced it in his box, unsure what to do with it, and headed off to work.
The analysis of the evidence in the car – fingerprints, wrappers, used soda cans, fibers and hairs – had come back as a giant goose egg, leaving him with the tedious task of reviewing crime scene photos, one after another. He worked straight through his break, squinting and peering, and was only pulled from his concentration when someone knocked on the door.
“Confused?” Bobby smiled as he asked the question, moving to stand next to Nick. Nick sighed and set down the magnifying glass he’d been using, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “You’re going to make your eyes worse.”
“I thought you liked men in glasses,” he retorted, nudging Bobby in the side. Bobby nudged him back, just slightly, and kept smiling. “Listen, I need to work through my lunch. You want to get breakfast after shift?”
The smile immediately faded, Bobby’s eyes traveling down to the collection of photographs. “Actually, that’s why I stopped in here,” he admitted, turning one upside down. “Ecklie asked if I could stay until noon. The Days ballistics guy is sick again.”
Nick blinked. “Oh. Okay.” He shrugged, looking at the picture Bobby had flipped. “That’s fine.”
“Thanks, Nick.” He reached over and squeezed Nick’s forearm briefly. “Stop by before you go home?”
Nicked nodded distractedly, forcing a little smile as Bobby patted his arm and then wandered out of the room. He watched the familiar figure even as he disappeared down the hall, brow furrowed.
When he left to go home, he took the business card with him.
==
It was almost exactly the same time the next night, when – on his way from the trace lab to the conference room – a booming voice grabbed Nick’s attention and stopped him in the middle of the hallway.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Nick flinched at echo booming around him, and turned around very slowly. Bobby loomed in the doorway to the A/V lab, clenching some sort of paper in his fist. A brief consideration of his escape routes revealed that there were none, so he gritted his teeth and watched as his obviously-irate better half stalked towards him.
“I asked you a question!” Bobby announced. In the other rooms nearby, a variety of other individuals – including the five other night-shift CSIs, two detectives, and a handful of overly curious laboratory technicians – poked their heads out to see the cause of the ruckus. “Are you out of your ever-loving mind?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Bobby thrust the sheet of paper at Nick’s chest, and Nick nearly stumbled backwards from the force of the blow. A brief examination later, he was scowling in confusion. “Where’d you get this?”
“From ‘Scottman-three-five-two’ at G-Mail dot com,” Bobby informed him bitterly. He glared up at Nick, his face set into what looked to be a permanent scowl. “Now, tell me, how did Scott get a picture of you eating breakfast? Because I don’t think he found it on the internet.”
The black-and-white, grainy photo was poor quality at best, but Nick couldn’t very well deny that he was the one in front of a plate of pancakes, grinning like a maniac. He squinted at the picture of another moment and then sighed; the quality of the photo was exactly the same as the quality of the photos Greg sometimes sent him from his cell phone, and come to think of it, Scott had been fiddling with his phone at breakfast. “He said he’d gotten a text message, and I believed him,” he muttered.
“Maybe he did, if it said ‘Nick Stokes is an idiot’!” Bobby snatched the piece of paper away from him and crumpled it into a ball. “Do you know what the subject line said? It said ‘Got your boy-toy.’” He tossed the ball away. “What were you doing out with him, Nick?”
Nick watched the ball of paper bounce twice on the tile and then roll to a stop against the wall. “Look, he stopped here the other night,” he explained roughly. “He wanted just wanted to talk, give me some ‘tricks of the trade.’ He didn’t seem like such a bad guy….” He paused, frowning, and narrowed his eyes. “And what about you? You’ve hardly been around, anyway!”
Bobby’s eyes widened, and for a moment, all he did was gape up at Nick, his jaw slackened. When he did recover, his glare was more intense than before. “Not such a bad guy?” he demanded, his tone touched by amazement. “Congratulations, Nick.”
“For what?”
“For single-handedly proving the ‘CSIs are smart’ stereotype wrong.”
Nick scowled. “Oh, this is all my fault?” he shot back. His fists clenched involuntarily at his sides. “You’re never around, always busy and working. It’s no wonder I was duped into talking to your ex.”
Bobby tossed back his head and laughed aloud. “You talk to Scott and suddenly, a favor or two is asking too much.” He shook his head. “Scott’s a pathological liar, Nick. He’s asked me about you every time I’ve seen him for the last three months. He wanted to meet you and try to get under your skin.” He sighed, casting his eyes down at the ball of paper. “Looks like he did a good job.”
Frowning back, Nick, too, cast his eyes down at the ball of paper. “You could have told me,” he muttered.
“Right back at you!” Bobby retorted. His voice was ice-cold, and brimming with anger. “I’m not even surprised you believed him, because you’re that naïve, but I am surprised you didn’t tell me. I thought we were past this ‘secret’ business.”
“I….” Closing his mouth, Nick simply shook his head. “I’m sorry. I should have talked to you about it.”
“Yeah, you should have,” the other man spat back, and then whirled on his heel and stalked back down the hallway. The door to the ballistics lab slammed shut so hard that the walls flanking it shuddered.
For a moment, Nick considered following after him and trying to explain – or at least, calm him down – but then, he realized he had an audience. A large audience, actually, or at least large enough that he was suddenly inspired to vote against making any larger of a scene. Instead, he opted to stride down the hall in the other direction, and soon found himself in the locker room.
He plopped down on the bench and sighed.
==
Nick couldn’t tell for sure if Bobby was still angry at him at the end of shift, though the sight of Hodges waving a fist in his direction certainly gave him some indication. So, when Greg grabbed him by the shirt just as he clocked out and demanded he join the other CSIs for breakfast, Nick smiled tensely and agreed. A short drive later with Greg in the passenger’s seat and babbling about some new song he loved, and they arrived at the diner.
The conversation was short and boring – weather, sports, cases – until their meals arrived. In fact, the very minute the waitress turned her back and started walking away, Catherine picked up her fork and waved it at Nick. “So, you going to tell us what happened with Bobby Dawson, or are we all going to have to guess?”
Despite the fact he should have seen the question coming, Nick dipped his head and poked at his eggs. “Nothing happened,” he replied, shrugging slightly. “We had a fight.”
“No, really?” Sara arched an eyebrow, and even under his heavy lids, he could see her smirking at him. “We thought that was conversation.”
“C’mon, man.” Warrick nudged him. “What’s up with you two?”
Nick broke the yolk of his sunny-side-up and watched the yellow dribble across the whites. Finally, he glanced up at his friends and forced a tiny smile. “We’re...involved, I guess.”
Greg smirked around a mouthful of pancake. “For a year,” he stressed.
The gasp that escaped Catherine’s lips made Nick’s ears burn. “A year?” she repeated, incredulous. “Nicky!”
Through some miracle of science, he managed to swallow just enough pride to cut into his egg and take a bite. From the looks of it, Catherine’s surprise was the most volatile of the reactions; Sara was leaning back and smirking knowingly, and Warrick seemed to have lost all ability of making a facial expression.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” his one-time supervisor was still pressing, wagging her fork. “We’re your friends!”
He took another bite of his egg, watching the beads of condensation run down the side of his glass. “Because I didn’t know how you’d react,” he admitted, brushing away a few drops of moisture with his thumb. “Greg found out accidentally, but after that…”
Sara snorted loudly. “Have you met yourself?” she questioned, and it made Nick look up and blink. “You’re not exactly hard to figure out, you know.”
Nodding, Warrick patted him on the shoulder. “Yeah, man. We figured you were gay. We just didn’t know you and Bobby were together.”
Nick’s ears burned even further, but he did manage a weak smile. “For the time being,” he replied, shaking his head. “He’s pretty mad at me.”
“Well, it isn’t exactly a good plan to chat up the ex,” Catherine retorted, dropping the head of her strawberry onto her plate. Nick creased his brow at the comment. “But Nicky, everyone who knows you knows how trusting you are. I’m sure Bobby does, too.”
“I’m not naïve,” he retorted, scowling at his runny egg.
“Yeah, Nick. You are.” He lowered his eyes at Sara, who shrugged and speared a piece of sausage. “It’s not a bad thing,” she defended. “You’re an honest, good guy, and you expect the best out of people. That’s not a weakness.”
“It just means that your bullshit detector needs an upgrade.” Greg smirked.
Nick balled up his straw wrapper and flicked it at the other man, who laughed heartily with his mouth full of chocolate-chip pancakes. Catherine and Sara smirked, too, and Warrick just shook his head.
“Thanks,” he said once Greg’s cackling subsided. “I mean it.”
“You always do,” Catherine replied, and gave him a strawberry.
==
When Nick arrived at Bobby’s after breakfast, he didn’t even bother slipping off his shoes on the mat or taking off his jacket. He strode straight through the house and into the kitchen. Bobby blinked at him as he entered, but certainly didn’t protest when Nick grasped Bobby forcibly around the waist and kissed him hard, full on the lips. Teeth and tongue met demandingly, and when they pulled apart, they were both panting.
Bobby curled his fingers into Nick’s shirt and stared up at him.
“I am so sorry,” Nick breathed, pressing his forehead against Bobby’s. “I’m an idiot.”
Bobby smirked slightly at the admittance, leaning forward to catch the corner of Nick’s mouth in a kiss. “I’m used to it,” he retorted warmly and – before Nick could respond in any way – kissed him back in a way that promised nothing short of perfect forgiveness.
