The shift supervisor of the Las Vegas Crime Lab was feeling very, very hassled

Title: Royal Pain

Author: ScathingSarcasm

Summary: Greg looked his straight in the eye at that, his stoic façade giving way to a tiny smirk, as if he had just solved a particularly difficult riddle. “I told you… my family doesn’t want this getting out.”

Warnings: Reference to minor character death, injuries and a little blood, though not gory. Mild cursing, and lots of medical jargon, and Gil/Greg SLASH. Don’t like, don’t read.

Rating: T

A/N: Yup, yet another story to draw completely unnecessary attention away from my more active works. You love me, dammit! Admit it. Oh yeah, and I’m aware that even though I try to write fics for medical shows such as HouseMD and Scrubs, almost none of the medical information I write will be accurate or in any way realistic, so… bare with me. ‘Kay?

Disclaimer: I don’t own CSI:Las Vegas, or any of it’s characters.

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The shift supervisor of the Las Vegas Crime Lab was feeling very, very hassled. His stride was brisk as he speed-walked down the hall, pouring over the file of his latest case. Or should he say, cases. Over spill from the dayshift, caused most likely by Ecklie’s incompetence in getting anything at all done, was swamping the nightshift employees. Everyone, CSIs and Lab Rats included, was pulling doubles and triples to deal with the influx of cases.

The good news was that most of them were easy cases that required very little effort; B&Es, robberies, muggings, etc. Still, they all needed to be taken care of, and they already had four homicides lined up, with more certainly on the way. It definitely didn’t help that Greg was practically the only competent DNA tech they had in the lab. A month prior to the sudden rush of work, Greg had requested some immediate time off, confiding that there was a problem in his family that he needed to be there for. He had been reluctant to divulge what, exactly, the problem was, but eventually told his supervisor (under considerable stress) that a close member of his family was on their deathbed, and he needed to be there to help with the arrangements.

Feeling a rise of sympathy for his protégé, he had allowed Greg all the time he needed, telling him he would call in a reserve DNA tech to take his place. The younger man had thanked him and, as far as he knew, caught a redeye to Norway the very next morning. The replacement tech, Michael Something-or-other, was not nearly as efficient as Greg was, and the entire team had been disgruntled at Greg unexplained departure; however, most of them gathered that Greg wouldn’t have left them hanging with out good reason, and let him off the hook. Sara, however, was being surprisingly unforgiving. Somehow, he wasn’t as shocked as he though he would be; ever since his initial gentle letdown of her feelings for him, she had been becoming not only more bold and public in her declarations, but defiant and bad-tempered.

Luckily, Greg had arrived back in the lab a little less than a month later, right before the surge in cases, looking a little worse for wear but ready get back to work. Sara had come down hard on him, and even now was prone to shooting disgruntled glares as him from across tables and slamming her samples down on his desk. She had even broken one once, and forced Greg to salvage the sample, blaming it on him. He had reprimanded her sharply for jeopardizing the case, but she had not seemed cowed in the least, nor did she apologize to Greg for her misbehavior. Greg, at first, had seemed put-off by her sudden hostility, but he was obviously had more important matters to concern himself with, most likely the death of his family member. He had taken to simply ignoring Sara when she got into one of her bearish moods. It was both effective and not, but the DNA tech failed to seem concerned over this. He was drowning in cases, and hadn’t been able to leave for even a few hours to catch some Zs; in fact, it had to be his third shift by now.

Of course, Greg wasn’t about to complain. That just wasn’t what Greg did; at least, not seriously. In the last 72 hours, the goofy lab rat had only left his glass domain to hand out results, go to the bathroom and fortify himself with an energy rush of Blue Hawaiian and skittles. It was time he got forced home to rest; just as soon as he finished his next case.

He arrived in the lab, finally tearing his attention away from the case file, or rather, his thoughts of a certain goofy tech. The center of his thoughts, Greg didn’t even look up from peering down a scope to acknowledge his entrance. He cleared his throat pointedly, and the younger man raised his head in response. At least, he thought he was a younger man. At the moment, Greg looked like he had gained ten years on his life. His eyes were bleary, bloodshot and had acquired seemingly permanent black rings. His entire thin frame sagged with wariness, and his normally healthy peach-toned skin had been bleached a sickly white by the florescent lights overhead. Obviously, this sudden workload wasn’t helping his grief in the least. He frowned in concern at the DNA specialist, but quickly snapped but to business. This was not the time to go all ‘concerned supervisor’ on him. There was work to be done, just a little more, and then he would be able to let go of all pretenses and send Greggo off to bed; hopefully for a good solid twelve hours of rest.

“Hey Greg, do you have the results for that McNeil case?”

Greg gave a weak smile at him, pushing his rolling chair away from the microscope and focusing all his attention on Grissom. “The one with the seven semen swabs and unidentified substance on the… uh… stimulator? The purple stimulator?” Leave it to Greg not to loose his quirky sense of humor after working for three days straight and being in mourning.

He sighed in a half-exasperated, half-amused way. “Yes, Greg. The purple ‘stimulator’.”

“How could I forget? Orgy-man’s been very busy. And, apparently, incestuous. Two of the samples have seven elleiles in common with your suspect.”

Grissom looked surprised and bewildered all at once. A rarity. “Familial DNA? As in, brothers, fathers, sons?”

“Yup. I looked into the guy’s history – his father is dead, for twenty years, and no sons. But he’s got three brothers, all who live within Las Vegas city limits. So, I guess he invited over his bro’s to get some.”

“And the unknown substance?”

“Lube. Anal lube, to be precise. I identified the brand, it’s ‘Doc Johnson Spike’s Ultimate Anal Lube’. I’m guessing the boys weren’t just playing with the girls that night.”

The entomologist grimaced. “Too much information, Greg.”

Greg stared at him for a moment, seemingly shocked. Then, he frowned, almost disappointedly.

“Does that sicken you? You never struck me as homophobic.”

“No, no, no.” he rushed to explain, not really sure why it was so important to him Greg understood, “That’s not it at all. I just don’t want to hear about anyone’s sex life. I feel that should be between the people, male or female, two or more, etcetera etcetera, and only between them.”

Greg nodded understandingly, disapproving frown leaving his face. He blushed at his outburst, realizing whom exactly he was talking to. Grissom let it slide, but tucked away the tech’s defensive reaction into the back of his mind for a rainy day. Greg took the hint and stood, the older man noting that he seemed a bit shaky on his feet and accordingly, slipped subtly behind him. This way he could catch him if he suddenly lost what strength and feeling remained in his legs after sitting for hours at a time.

Suddenly, a splotch of bright color caught his eye. He gasped.

“Greg… you’re bleeding.”

On the side of Greg’s pristine white lab coat, crimson red blood was seeping slowly through the fabric. The spiky haired labrat stiffened in surprise, reaching a gloved hand down to touch his side. He blinked confusedly, staring at the resulting blood-coated hand he came away with. Grissom rushed to his side, forcing him into his chair and demanding, “Take off your shirt.”

Greg, trying to brush it off, went for cheap humor. “Hey, I resent that you think I’m that easy. It takes a little bit more to-.”

“Let me see!”

“Okay, okay!” Greg complied, “but can we go somewhere a bit more private? The walls are glass, y’know…”

The older man frowned, but nodded, pulling the pale man gently to his feet and yanking him down the hall and into one of the rarely-used coroner’s storage, sitting Greg down on a metal slab. The man resignedly pulled off his lab coat and shirt, exposing long expanses of lean chest and lightly muscled arms. Marring his side, a long, deep scratch raked down from just below his elbow, curling sideways to just shy of his belly-button.

The older man examined the wound concernedly. “Jesus Christ, Greg, how did this happen? Why didn’t you get it treated? Did someone do this to you?”

Greg smiled at the concerned slew of questions, holding up a placating hand to stem the flow of love-… concern. “I don’t – and didn’t - know to the first and second, no to the third.”

Grissom just stared at him with unamused blue-grey eyes until he cracked.

“Ok, geez. I don’t know how it happened, I honestly didn’t even notice it.” He gasped horrifyingly, “Oh god, what if I contaminated the samples? I could have compromised the entire case! All of them, I’m the only one who’s handled the evidence the last few nights, I’ll loose my job for sure, oh god…”

“Greg.”

“I can’t believe this, if I ruined his case Ecklie will have my ass…”

“Greg…”

“Hell, the Sheriff will chew me up… and spit me out… shit, I need this job, what am I gonna do-“

“GREG!” Grissom shouted, snapping Greg out of his own rant. The other man looked up at him, wide brown eyes panicked and blood starting to flow even faster down his side from the stress of his clenching stomach muscles.

He grasped the man’s narrow chin, absently noting his fine, delicate bone structure, most likely caused by his Norwegian heritage.

“Greg. I need you to calm down for me. Breathe in… hold it, and out… that’s right, in… and out. Good. Are you okay now?”

The tech nodded his head, dispelling the fog the deep, soothing voice had encompassed him in. He replied in a shaky voice, “Y-yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

He did his bast to nod agreeingly, keeping up a stead dialogue as he pressed Greg’s discarded shirt to the wound to distract him from the pain. “Good. Now, look, as long as we get this taken care of right away, it’s not life threatening. And I’m sure that if we know that any of the blood on the samples you processed is yours, it won’t be a problem. We can just isolate you DNA from the other’s, and you might get reprimanded, but you won’t be fired. I’ll make sure of it. Now, just let me see how deep the wound is. Doc Robbins will probably be able to sew it up for you…”

Greg, looking much relieved, allowed him to peel away the bloody t-shirt to get a better look at the cut, wincing slightly as it clung to the split in his skin.

He stopped short in his examination, eyes widening in realization.

“Greg… are those stitches?”

His voice was supremely calm, but the younger man flinched as if he had bellowed. Amber eyes looking panicked and almost frightened, he snatched the shirt from his loose grasp and hurriedly covered up his wounded abdomen – but in vain. He had already seen the neat row of black stitches, several of them snapped, marching up the sides of his laceration. He could almost feel his mind slipping into ‘crime scene’ mode, working through facts and theories to come up with the truth.

“That cut is deep and precise; too precise to have been a wild and unplanned attack. In fact, it most likely wasn’t an attack at all. It looks… like a surgical incision.” He penetrated the younger man with his gaze, willing (and in better part demanding,) him to speak the truth, “You’ve had a major surgery recently haven’t you?”

Unable to lie under that stern blue gaze, Greg only nodded hesitantly. He could only let out a groan.

“Greg! What could have possibly made you think coming to work in this condition was a good idea? And why wasn’t I informed in the first place? I’m your supervisor! Not only that…” he reached out and grasped the shocked man’s hand, desperately trying to convey his sincerity through his eyes, “I’m your friend. You had to have known you could trust me with this information?”

Greg’s hand trembled in his grip, but he said nothing, lowering his suspiciously watery gaze to the tiled morgue floor.

“So… when you took that month off, this is what was really going on?” he continued slowly, allowing the other’s hand to slip out of his grasp. His hand felt cold and empty without it.

Greg’s spiky head shot up at that, amber eyes anxious and pleading. “No! That’s not it at all. Someone in my family really did die… my Papa Olaf. I wouldn’t have lied to you about that! But, about a week into my leave, the opportunity for my surgery had popped up. My condition had started rapidly declining, so I had no choice but to do the surgery immediately. I… wasn’t exactly in any condition to inform you, and my family, well,” he hesitated in his slew of words, obviously unwilling to divulge more information.

“Yes?” he prompted, doing his best to sound encouraging despite the raging emotion he was experiencing at the moment.

“… let’s just say, they don’t exactly want the news of my condition getting out to the public.” Greg stated plainly, clearly not planning to divulge any more. He resisted the urge to pry further, instead reaching for his cell phone and pressing ‘4’; he had Doc Robbins on speed dial. After quickly informing his friend (quite vaguely) of the situation, he gave a hurried goodbye and hung up. Turning back to his companion, he asked the question that’d been burning in him all along.

“What, exactly, was the surgery for?” ‘What’s wrong with you?’

Greg’s eyes slipped shut, his long ebony lashes fanning over his high cheekbones. He looked as if a supreme calm had overcome him. When he opened his eyes again, their golden sheen had dulled to a ruddy copper, oddly detached from any emotions he may have been feeling.

“Anything I tell you today… it can’t leave this room. If I trust you with this information, I have to know that it will remain confidential.”

He blew out an unsteady sigh. “Greg… you know I can’t promise you that. If this condition interferes with your work, it’s my duty to report it. Plus, I’m suppose to know anyway if you have any pre-existing medical conditions.” He let out a little gasp of realization, “Wait! I’ve looked at your medical files, they say nothing about this. So, either you obtained this condition some time in between the last time I saw your files – the Demetrius James incident – or…” he looked up sharply, “it wasn’t in you files to begin with.”

Greg looked his straight in the eye at that, his stoic façade giving way to a tiny smirk, as if he had just solved a particularly difficult riddle.

“I told you… my family doesn’t want this getting out.”

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Deft fingers snipped the excess surgical thread from a row of neat stitches (though not quite as perfect those that had been there before, he noted curiously), and Doc Robbins stepped away with a satisfied sigh.

“There you go, Mr. Sanders! Now, let’s not make this a common occurrence, hm? You should take better care of yourself, you’re almost as bad as Gil…” the coroner muttered as he tottered out of the room, leaving the two criminalists in his wake with a stilted silence.

He spoke up first. “Well, Greg? I’m still waiting for an explanation.”

Stressed from the ordeal of replacing his stitches despite the painkillers Doc Robbins had plied him with beforehand, the labrat let out a shaky sigh and turned his attention to him with a uncommonly disgruntled expression on his handsome face.

“Look, I understand that you need an explanation, but this is neither the time, nor the place to discuss this! I’m in pain, you have cases to cover and I have samples to run – “

“Oh, no! You are not working after this! Not only are you post-op, but you just ripped out half of the stitches in your side not half an hour ago, and you’re drugged up to the gills. There’s no way you could work effectively. You’re going home. Now.” He demanded his authority as supervisor wrapped around him like a shawl – or a shield.

“Are you kidding me?” Greg asked incredulously, “I can’t afford to take off any more work! I’ll get fired for sure, there’s no way Ecklie would let it slide.”

“Let that be my concern.” He replied resolutely. “As your supervisor, I can look the other way for at least a little while; the actual field work for this recent crime rush is dying down, but Ecklie will be drowning in paper work for a good while still. I can cover for you for a while, long enough for you…”

“To what?” Greg snapped, abandoning any sense of decorum or politeness he’d retained for the situation. To satisfy your curiosity? Or to recover? Believe me, Grissom, recovery is a long way off for me.” He stood abruptly, trying and failing to hide a wince as it stretched his newly-sewn side, but shrugging off the hand that shot out to support him. He backed off.

The tech took a deep breath, obviously trying to shake off his anger. When he opened his eyes again, they were calm and disturbingly cool. “Grissom, I really respect you.”

The sudden declaration stunned him and left him off balance. He had always been aware of Greg’s respect – his admiration, really – for him. The kid practically lived and died for him; up until now. Greg had never been so disrespectful before, or ever, come to think of it. Everyone else on the team had had their moments with him. He guessed that today was Greg’s ‘moment’. For now, all he really care about was getting to the bottom of this.

Greg continued, and he was immediately aware of a shift in the younger man’s demeanor; something had changed drastically in those few second he had surrendered to his thoughts. Now, Greg Sanders was exuding an aura of such seriousness and overpowering confidence that despite his technical position of power over his subordinate, he felt cowed and weak. “That’s why I’m going to give you an explanation, that, in the end, I really don’t have to give you. And please, don’t kid yourself; what I’m telling you right now, and what I’m going to tell you soon, is the truth. Nothing more and nothing less. Come to my apartment, I know you know where it is, after your shift. You’ll the answers you want.”

Then, the slender figure of a man he was sure he no longer understood left the morgue, pulling on his still bloody shirt and his own too-large, discarded lab coat as he went.