CSI: Happy Birthday, My Love: one shot
A/N: This was an idea I actually got from a JCPenny commercial a few months ago. I don't want to give anything away, maybe you'll recognize the commercial, maybe you won't, but I thought it would make a cute one shot with Nick and Greg. Also please note, this is PURE FLUFF and was written for Twins1729 on their 21st birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY girls!!! Hope it's a good one! And I hope you like your story!
"Greg! Where's my results?!" Sara screamed upon storming into the DNA lab.
"Um..." Greg paused to take in the sight of an angry CSI standing before him, unsure if he wanted to give her the truth. "It's not ready yet?"
"Well, hurry up! This case won't wait all day!"
Sara turned on her heal and stalked out of the lab.
Greg breathed a huge sigh of relief. This day was not going well at all and he couldn't wait for it to be over.
"Hey G, how's things?" And then things like this happened to change his mind.
He smiled up at Nick, despite the lack of happiness throughout the lab. Here was someone who could always cheer him up. He didn't even have to say anything. He just had to be there.
"Not so good," Greg confessed, feeling his cheeks turning a light shade of pink at the sight of Nick. "I think Sara's mad at me."
"I'm sorry, the whole team's kinda cranky from pulling a double, and I think the case will make it a triple."
"Then how come you're not upset over your results?"
"You haven't given them to me yet, doll."
Greg smiled brighter than before, wondering what a straight laced Texan such as Nick meant by using a nickname like "doll" for him.
"That's why Sara's mad at me. But, you're in luck, Tex. Since I got yours first, you get your results first. Just don't tell Sara or she might kick my ass."
"I promise I won't," Nick said with a grin. "I value my quick DNA results after all and I wouldn't want to jeopardize that for the future, now would I?"
"Oh, no, you certainly wouldn't," Greg laughed a little, glad that Nick always seemed able to help him relax no matter what was going on around him.
Greg handed over the sheet that had been sitting in the printer. He hoped his blush wasn't too obvious though Nick wasn't commenting on how flushed he might have looked. That had to be a good sign. Right? He sighed inwardly. Why couldn't he just tell Nick what he needed to tell him? At least one of those things would make him happy, even if the other didn't. This was his big chance, right here, and right now...
Nick was grinning as he looked over the sheet Greg had given him.
"Yeah, we got him! Thanks Greggo! This ties our suspect to the scene. I love you man, you do good work!"
And with that, Nick was out the door and Greg had fallen harder than he ever had before. He felt a little lightheaded. Did Nick realize what he'd just said? Or was it just because he'd done a good job and gotten Nick the results he wanted?
Greg sighed, pulling out the notebook he'd hidden in the lab. Poor Nick thought he'd hidden porn in here. Well, he was wrong. Greg just didn't want to admit it. Because maybe Nick would see him as more of a man if he admitted to the porn and not the notebook. All the porn he owned were fantasies in his brain. Mmmmm... fantasies that included one hot Texas stud... but he couldn't think about those right then. He had other issues to deal with, including an angry Sara, and he did not need to add an erection to that ever growing list. He opened the notebook to the last page he'd filled in:
Things to get Nick for his birthday:
ring (never gonna happen)
bracelet (never mind. He's too straight.)
me (yeah, right - too straight, remember?)
book (birds? What book of birds DOESN'T he own?)
movie (Jet Li? Or Clint Eastwood?)
Greg sighed again. Today was the big day. It was Nick Stokes's birthday and he still didn't know what to get him. Or, if he should get him anything to begin with. He couldn't even bring himself to simply wish him a happy birthday, never mind get him something. Sure they were friends, but Greg was still just a lowly lab tech, even if he was the best DNA Analyst in the whole country. He never hung out with the team that much. In fact, he couldn't remember a time at all when he had. But he couldn't deny that there was something there between him and Nick. There had to be, right? If there wasn't, why did Nick, of all people, insist on giving him such (for lack of a better term) "gay" nicknames?
If only Greg could find a way to tell him how he felt, the agony he lived through everyday could end whether Nick returned his feelings or not. Not knowing was killing him, driving him crazy every time he saw the other man. And he just kept falling for him.
He flipped the page over in his notebook and picked up a pen. Oddly enough, the pen was red. At the top of the blank lined page he wrote:"Happy Birthday, My Love" before he began to pour his troubled heart out onto the page while he waited for Sara's results to print:
This day, you do not know
has been the hardest of them all.
Lonely, I sit in my lab
and wait to serve bitter colleagues,
you, the nicest of them all.
I thought real hard
but couldn't think of a thing
you needed, or wanted.
We talk little, yet I find myself
falling deeper and deeper into love
everyday, every hour, every minute.
You tease me with these nicknames
and these lines you feed me.
Do you really mean them?
I'm not so sure.
I don't know if you realize
I would do anything for you,
give you anything you asked for.
But I don't know what you want
and all I have to give
is me.
He was no poet but it did feel good to get it out onto paper. Now, if only there could be a way to tell Nick. Yeah right. If he couldn't even wish him a happy birthday how on earth was he supposed to say 'I love you'?
When Greg stood up to get Sara's test results as the printer finally spit them out his eye caught on the clear white board where something was written in a neat script he didn't own. He turned from the printer and read: "I love you, Nick." with a heart at the end in red ink. He gasped, staring at it for a moment, clutching his notebook to his chest. No one else had been in the room to write that. And he didn't know anyone with such neat script.
He dashed to the board and grabbed the eraser, making sure the note was gone. He turned his back to the board, leaning heavily against it. A large breath left his body and he realized his heart was pounding. He looked up, through the windows of his lab to see if anyone had noticed but everyone seemed to be going about their normal business. No one could know about this! He had to keep it a secret, no matter how hard it was. He wouldn't be caught dead admitting his feelings for a straight guy who would probably beat him up if he found out. No way. Not to mention, what would the rest of the lab say?All the gossip that would circulate...
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something taped to the wall across from his door that hadn't been there before. He looked to see what it was and his eyes grew wide. Was someone playing an evil trick on him? The sign looked like something a child would have made for a friend or crush on Valentines day, with a red heart, pink arrow struck through it and the initials "G.S. + N.S."
His heart continuing to pound and his breath coming faster and faster, he ran for the sign and pulled it off the wall, looking around him yet again, to make sure no one had noticed. No one had. This had to be the worst day of his life. First he couldn't find a present for Nick's birthday, then he couldn't find a way to tell Nick how he truly felt, and now someone was playing a nasty trick on him. Someone already knew. Someone had to know! But how? And who?
Slowly, his hands beginning to shake, he walked back to his lab intent on calling Hodges, when he saw something else down the hall. He spun around, and was met with a large white banner with red lettering that read "Greg loves Nick."
A whimper escaped his lips as he dashed down the hall at top speed and stopped in front of it, blocking the words with his body. He looked at it and realized it was tied to the thin metal strips between the ceiling tiles. He couldn't get it down by himself. Not without a ladder. He began to panic as he turned back around to face the rest of the lab, still blocking the words, his arms outstretched.
"Greg? Are you ok? What's going on?" Catherine asked, coming down the hall to his right. "What are you standing in front of?"
He knew he was going to hyperventilate soon if he didn't calm down, but he wasn't sure if he could calm down.
"Uh... nothing. Nothing at all!" he squeaked as Hodges rounded a corner and began walking in his direction with a confused look on his face. Warrick was following Hodges with Grissom, and Greg's breathing became more erratic. He knew his face was a bright shade of red by now, and there wasn't a single thing he could do about it.
And then he realized exactly where in the lab he was. The break room was straight ahead to his left. Everyone had been headed in that direction originally, and Nick was already there, sitting at the table, staring into his hot cup of coffee. The beautiful Texan looked a little lonely, as if everyone of his friends had forgotten what day it was. But then Greg saw a look of surprise cross his features as he moved his cup to the side. Something had begun to write itself on the table in front of him. He didn't understand what was going on. All he knew was that it had to be stopped. He had to stop whatever it was before his secret was spilled. Because the signs were leading him to Nick. For a reason. Just as the "y" in "Happy" was written Greg was screaming "No!" tearing into the break room, abandoning the banner. He leaped into the air, and landed on the table, sliding towards Nick on his stomach. He stopped right in front of the CSI, his notebook covering the words he couldn't find a way to tell him earlier. Fear now coursed through him. He didn't know how Nick would react to all this, but for sure it couldn't be good. He would find out now, no matter what.
But Nick didn't look up at him. Instead, he pushed Greg's notebook to the side and read the words now etched into the table "Happy Birthday, My Love", the same title Greg had given his poem.
Nick started to look up but his eyes caught on the notebook, on the poem Greg had just written. Greg felt his whole body going weak as he heard the door opening behind him and several people coming in to stand in the doorway. Nick took the notebook from his hands and spun it around so he could read what it said. When he was finished he looked up at Greg, who was still on the verge of hyperventilating.
"That's all I ever wanted," Nick whispered, his eyes shining. "I just couldn't find a proper way to tell you for real."
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah, I'm serious. But G, you gotta calm down or you're gonna hyperventilate."
"You could give me CPR," Greg hinted, barely aware of what he was saying.
"I think I could manage that..."
"Right now?"
"Yeah, right now."
Nick's hands reached up and cupped Greg's face in them, as their lips brushed together. Greg could feel his heart still hammering, but with Nick's mouth covering his, his breathing became steady again.
"Happy Birthday," he whispered when they parted. "I'm sorry the poem sucks."
Nick gulped down air and kissed him again, teasing his mouth open. Their tongues battled for dominance and Greg's brain felt like electric circuits were running circles in it. He was more alive now, than he ever had been before and he wondered why on earth he'd waited so long to say something.
"It doesn't suck." Their lips collided again. "I'm gonna frame it..." Nick didn't look lonely anymore. His face was lit up brighter than Santa's house at Christmas, as if the electricity running through Greg was lighting him up. "...put it on my wall."
Somewhere in the distance Greg was aware of a crowd cheering, but the only thing that really mattered was the man wrapping his arms around him as he stood up, holding their bodies close with Greg now kneeling on the table.
"You like it that much?"
"I love it."