Nobody's Listening

Summary: Greg's been coming into work lately with his iPod headphones everlastingly attached to his ears. No one can figure out why…

Pairings: Nick Stokes/Greg Sanders

Warnings: Slash

Spoilers: None

Chapter One: Another Day at the Job

It had been a week, a single long week. In that long week, the youngest member of the CSI night shift had been trapped inside his home with nothing more than utter darkness to confide in. Like a child, he sat on his bed at night with the lights on, deathly afraid to fall asleep in fear that his life wasn't a dream and that he could wake up to the day before his Nana and Papa both tragically died in a car accient to a drunken teenager. He'd never forget that day when his mother called him at work. Work was already a buzz, but he never expected his mother to call with the devastating news that his papa and nana had both died.

Clutching the baby blue sheets that covered his scared legs, Greg's knuckles shook with fear waiting for something that wasn't about to happen, happen. For hours he'd sit there, gaping at the wall, willing anything to lift to his ears telling him that he wasn't going to be forever deaf for the rest of his lift. The doctor's said there was a small chance his hearing would come back, but that chance was slim to nothing.

To consume his time, Greg had watched his entire DVD collection with subtitles, and found himself an expert at reading lips and emotions. Maybe he could pull this off—returning to work deaf. For once in his life, he was happy no one came to visit him at the hospital in LA and even here in Vegas. He was happy he wouldn't have to explain another weakness of his to the team.

As seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours, and hours into days, Greg felt himself slowly able to convince himself he would return to work, where he truly felt wanted. So as he got up at 20 00, his nerves were slowly getting to him. When he reached the front door of the newly rebuilt building of LVPD's finniest CSI's he took a moment to adjust his iPod's headphones on his ears. Taking a long breath, he pushed the doors open and strolled openly in.

He passed the day crew cheerfully, waving as he did. No one could tell his hands were shaking when he waltz into the break room, not even stopping to put his jacket down in his locker. "¡Hola amigos!" Greg's Spanish was as fluent as ever, well as close as it ever was going to get with just listening to the others on the grave yard shift.

Nick, Sara and Warrick all looked up at the spiky haired blonde, shocked to see him at work. "Great, Sanders is back." Warrick commented harshly as he pushed Greg back onto the couch, next to Nick.

Cockily, he shrugged and threw his left arm around Nick's shoulders. "Yeah, but you missed me." Sara laughed under her hand as Greg continued to be himself around everyone.

"You know, it was a lot more quieter when you were on vacation, Greggo." Nick stated firmly. Peeling back Greg's arm from around his shoulder, Nick playfully shoved the boy into the armrest.

"But you missed me." Both male CSI's shook their heads. "Awe, Sara missed me, didn't you?"

"As much as I miss the dentist." Greg gave a long nod before shaking his head.

"Fine, see if I missed you guys. I'm leaving for—"

"You are not going anywhere." Greg froze when he collided with Grissom's solid body. "Greg, you Nick and Sara have a rape vic. in Henderson. Warrick, you and me are out in Jackson. We leave in five." Just as swiftly as he entered, Gil Grissom left with no further ado.

Warrick laughed, pushing past Greg he followed his supervisor out to the city's Denali. Even though Greg couldn't hear the laugh, the push and the smirk plastered over his face were enough to tell him that he wasn't wanted. Shrugging, he turned to see Sara and Nick talking but decided to ignore them when the lip-syncing of "Greg", "loser", and "be nice" arose from their lips. Even when he was right there, they were still talking rapidly about him.

"Who's driving?"

Both Nick and Sara froze in mid argument, with Nick on the losing end of the straws. "I will." He sighed in defeat, not really wanting to take the CSI want-to-be out into the field with them. "When we get there, Greg, you'll document everything. Me and Sara have everything else." Both Nick and Sara pushed past Greg roughly.

"Take your headphones out too." Sara snapped.

"But I can help!" Greg protested.

Sara stopped harshly on her heel, whirled around and personally removed the small white earpieces from the blonde's ears. "You'll do as you're told." She snapped viciously. Turning back around, she quickened her step to catch up with Nick, leaving the stunned lab tech in the middle of the hall. Even when he couldn't hear her verbal harassment, it still stung painfully.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to come back to work today…

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation—

Arriving on scene, Greg couldn't help but noticed that Grissom had left out a few details. Three dead bodies littered the living room while bloodstains traveled into the back room. The kitchen's china was shattered about the house, along with everything valuable.

"The family is the McBrian family. The girl who was taken in the ambulance was the oldest daughter, Laura. That's the mother, and father," Brass stated firmly as he pointed to each of the bodies. "The neighbors say they have a six year old son too. He's still missing."

"Kidnapping?" Sara questioned.

"Not sure." Brass commented.

"So, who called the crime scene in?" Nick asked as he continued to look around before his eyes landed on David who had confirmed that the bodies had been dead for about 8 hours.

"Ashley Lurch, the neighbor next door. Apparently Mrs. McBrian was supposed to drop Ryan—the youngest off—for day care this morning. When she didn't, Ashley came over and found the house like this and called 911.

Desperately trying to keep up with their mouth's Greg shook his head clear. Turning towards David, he knelt down next to the man. "Anything yet?"

"No, but we'll know more when we can get the autopsy done. See here," David pointed to a small hole on the mom's neck. "Gail seems to have a gunshot wound to here neck. And see here," rolling Gail's head to the side, David showed an identical wound on the other side of her neck.

"Through and through?"

"Most likely."

"Thanks." Standing, Greg turned to Nick and Sara.

"Okay, Sara you have the outside. I'll take the main floor, and Greg—"

"Upstairs?" Nick and Sara both nodded. Slowly ascending the stairs, Greg couldn't help but noticed small dirt particles on the carpet. Snagging a sample, he took the first room on his right.

The master bedroom, the only room in the entire house where a child should NOT be allowed to go play in, it should be against house rules. Greg had learned the hard way from his mother when he had gotten bored one day and decided to play explorer. How was he supposed to know what porn, a vibrator, body chocolate and condoms were used for? He was four for crying out loud! But no, his mother took pride in videoing her son play doctor with his teddy bear. Greg thought he had saved his teddy from the spider bite, but Mrs. Sander's didn't have the heart to tell her son that he was doing it wrong…

Shaking the on coming blush that arose from his cheeks, he took discrete in printing the clean room. One thing he did notice was that the room was cleaner than a hospital. No dust particles, no blood, no hairs, no dirt, no nothing. He finished quickly and moved to the joint bathroom. Checking the drains and documenting his entire findings with millions of photos, Greg turned towards the daughter's room.

Walking in, he could instantly smell that far off stench of sex. As much as he led on, he wasn't the playboy everyone thought him to be. It'd been a while since he'd had that aroma surrounds him, but he could smell it every day when he would visit his parents. Lord only knows that they bowed down in church, thanking the day that their son moved out of the house. As of then, Greg took caution of where he sat in his childhood home.

Photo's of Laura remained tacked up on her walls. "Wow, in the marching band, a soccer player, a swimmer, and a hockey player and she looks like that? Damn," he stated under his breath whilst he took a few pictures of the high school athlete. Turning to face the room, he decided to go straight for the gold. Lifting back the bed sheets, he could still see the wet stains on her perfectly white sheets. Lifting a few hairs and fibers from the sheets, he turned around swiftly when a small tug on his shirt caught his attention.

"What—" A small boy, around the age of six latched onto Greg's mid section, balling his eyes out. Unsure of when to do, Greg pulled the child out into the hall. He was covered form head to toe in blood from an unknown source.

"Where's Laura?" He sobbed. Greg instantly recongized the small boy from a picture downstairs.

"Ryan, do you know who did this?" The small boy shook his head but pointed to his parent's room slowly. Greg followed his hand for a second before his eyes returned to the boy's lips.

"No… But he's in mommy and daddy's room." Greg's eye's widened when he realized that he was upstairs with a killer. Out of habit, his hand went to his hips, feeling for a gun. Cursing, he stood.

"Do you know where?" Ryan slowly nodded while Greg thanked his Papa Olaf for forcing him to take karate lessons when he was smaller.

"The closet." Mommy…

"Okay, stay outside the room, and behind me. Understood?" Ryan nodded slowly, clutching his Spiderman doll closer under his arm. I checked the damned closet. No one was there!

Slowly padding his way across the room, Greg bladed his stance when he stood before the wooden closet doors. With his latex gloves still on, he reached for the door handle slowly. Knocking with his other hand, he stood the side of the door, and knocked harshly, hoping that Nick or Sara could hear him. "LAS VEGAS CRIME LAB! OPEN UP!" Yeah, that sounds SO scary… After a long moment, the door swung open to eject a man, clad in black and bloodstains.

He took a single look at Greg before he launched at the youngest CSI. Quickly rising his leg up, the blonde round house kicked his attacker to the ground. He seemed to spring back up in time to land two blows to Greg's already traumatized head—one to his nose, the other to his upper temple. Blocking the final blow, Greg opened his eyes to see Nick throwing his attacker down. The next thing he knew the guy was his handcuffs, and Nick was turning to face the officer.

"I THOUGHT YOU SAID THE HOUSE WAS CLEARED! WE LOST A CSI BACK A FEW YEARS AGO OF THIS MISTAKE! Don't let it happen again." Nick gave the cop one final glare before he turned to Greg. "You want help?" Reaching forward, Nick's finger's barely brushed through the blonde's hair before he jerked away.

"Don't, I'm evidence." Nodding, Nick took a step back.

"Hey, sorry about earlier. Me, Sara and Warrick were just arguing and you caught us at a bad time."

Greg slowly nodded, knowing Nick was talking, but didn't have the courage to look up at him.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation—

Kira: Alright all, I've edited chapter one, and the rest will soon follow. R&R!

-Dark Angel Kira