The Day After
Tomi Sama

Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Pairing: WarrickxNick
Warnings: Slash, fluff, and vomiting.
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI and I make no money doing this.
Note: This is my first CSI fic, mostly because I've seen like… ten episodes. I just got into it, but I guess I couldn't wait. XP I liked this pairing, mostly because they're one of the few characters I can recognize by name and face, along with Grissom, Catherine, Sara and David. For some reason, I can't picture Greg… Oh well. I guess that's the curse of trying to learn CSI, Maimi and New York characters in the week. XP So sorry if their out of character… that's why. But I just watched Grave Danger a few nights ago, and this was all I could think of.

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I didn't want to go, to be honest. I road in the ambulance with Nick to the hospital, and I stayed there, watching him like I always had done… but eventually Catherine told me I had to go home. I exhausted myself worrying about him, and he was safe now. She told me to go home and sleep. I went, and now I didn't want to go back.

"Nick's awake!" Catherine sounded ecstatic through the phone line. She knew I didn't want to come back and see Nick like that and she added, "Sometimes something good happens when we do things against our will." It was ten the next morning, and I didn't sleep all night and now I felt rotten for abandoning him there… alone with Catherine.

I had been withdrawn the whole case, constantly people were asking me what was wrong and what was I suppose to tell them? I'm crying uncontrollably because I loved Nick? I've loved him since the first time I saw him and now he was gone. This was personal for me! And so I lied. I told them I was just a coin toss away from being buried like Nick had been; which was true.

But I wish it would have been me. I wished with all my might the whole time that it was me in there. If I was dead, if they couldn't find me or if I would have shot myself, at least it wasn't Nick… dealing with the trauma he was sure to have.

Grissom already said he was going to have at least a month off.

So it was with a heavy, guilty heart that I drove to the hospital. And it was with anger I found Nick in a room all alone, refusing to look at me with silent tears streaming down his face.

How could they leave him alone?

How could she have left him alone?

How could she have left us alone, together?

I walked up to him and sat down on the chair next to his bed, the chair I'd sat in last night, the one I refused to let Catherine have. Even in my friend's near-death-experience I wouldn't let Catherine be closer to Nick than I was. I bared my teeth with Nick behind me, like a guardian wolf, and Catherine understood.

"H-How are you?" I felt pathetic. Small talking to the person I'd had open conversations with about everything; everything but my love for him.

Suddenly, I saw his shoulders shake and I knew he was sobbing. I stood up and leaned over him, putting my hands on his shoulders. "Nicky?"

"I-I'm s…so ashamed."

I didn't understand. I pulled on his shoulders; pulled him too me. He sat up willingly and wrapped his arms around my stomach, his head finding my shirt and quickly drenching it with tears.

"Shh… Nicky, its okay." I put my chin on his head. How could someone be buried in dirt, be eaten alive by ants, not bathed all night in a hospital, and still smell so good?

"I'm so stupid." He sobbed, the words muffled by my shirt. "I-I can't stop crying."

I smiled a little and wrapped my arms around his back, pulling him closer. "If it makes you feel any better, I couldn't either."

Nick looked up at me, surprised for a second, but he stopped crying at seeing how bloodshot my eyes were. I could tell he hadn't expected I would have cried for him, but there was a lot Nick Strokes didn't expect about me and what I was going to tell him… eventually.

"I can't believe…" Nick said, putting his head on my collarbone, avoiding eye-contact with me, "I can't believe I…" I waited, knowing his words would come back to him. "I was shaking when you pulled me out…"

"We pulled you out… all of us."

I felt Nick push closer. "I only remember seeing you there… And Grissom once when he put his hand on the plastic…"

I smiled. Nick continued with his story. "I was shaking and crying. I don't really remember but I do remember you in the ambulance."

I held my breath. I held Nick's hand in the ambulance… I was near tears and I didn't think Nick would remember anything. Like the one time we got drunk at Greg's and we made out. Nick never remembered that… how could he remember this?

"And… And…" Nick was sobbing again. His grubby fingers were digging into the small of my back, and I thought my shirt was ripping. I patted his back and hummed. My mother use to hum to me when I was hysterical. I remember feeling the vibrations in her chest would calm me down. Sure enough, Nick stopped crying. But it was a few minutes later when he said his next words, in a whisper so quiet I could hardly hear him.

"When I woke up and you weren't here… I though…"

He sat up, again, looking me in the face like he could see something I couldn't. I looked away. Ashamed. I should have been here. I shouldn't have let stupid Catherine talk me into going home. I shouldn't have left Nick alone…

"Rick?"

I looked down. He had an IV in his arm once, and I'm sure he was drugged on anti-psychotics or something. I would guess pain-killers, but the bites didn't look too bad, but the IV was out now and…

"Warrick, why are you crying?"

I hadn't realized I was until he'd said something, and once he'd said my name out loud I couldn't help myself. I jumped off the bed and into the bathroom. I could hear the groan of the crappy hospital bed as Nick got up to follow me, even over my own gagging. I felt like I was trying to throwing up my heart.

I'd been to hundreds of crime scenes and I've seen it all. Blood, guts and shit, and none of it scared me. What scared me was the feeling of throwing up. The dry heaving.

I felt a hand on my back, and knew it was Nick's. As soon as he touched me, it wasn't dry anymore. I hadn't eaten in fifteen hours, yet something came up. Water, I guessed. It scared me.

Nick's hand remained on my back, rubbing in small circle motions, and I knew that I was done for a little while. My arms rested on the seat and I put my head down on my arms, sobbing.

He let me cry, something nobody else had let me do peacefully, until I'd thrown up again. It wasn't until I flushed the toilet and he got me a glass of water (which he intended for me to drink, yet I washed my mouth out with) did he question me.

"Are you brushing your teeth?" I heard him laugh from the other side of the bathroom door. "Where the hell'd you get a toothbrush, Ricky? Your pocket?"

I don't know why that was what he picked on me about. His teeth were just as white and spotless as mine and yet he claimed I had the obsessive compulsive teeth cleaning habit.

"So what if I am, Nicholas? Maybe I don't want to taste this filth you made me gag up."

I didn't get an answer from him, so I washed the toothpaste out of my mouth and opened the door. He was on his bed, sitting, looking troubled. I tossed the toothbrush and toothpaste on the nightstand and sat next to him.

"Hey, Rick? Where is everyone?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. Why do you ask?"

"I haven't seen anyone but you since I woke up… Not even a nurse." He looked up at me, bothered at first but smiled fully afterwards. A full dimple smile. I loved his dimples. "I mean, I liked you being here and all but…"

"What?" I asked, shocked. "Even Catherine wasn't here?"

Nick shook his head.

"She was the one who called me and said you were waking up…"

"Well." Nick said, pushing me slightly, with his shoulder. "She must have left right after that, 'cause I didn't see her."

I sighed and got out my phone. Nick eyed it curiously, like he'd never seen one before. "Do you want me to call them and tell them to get their asses over here?"

I opened my phone, not waiting for Nick's answer. Suddenly, he put his hand over mine and said, "They'll make it over in their damn sweet time. Let's just enjoy this…"

I blushed as I practically dropped my phone. I never did have good control over myself when Nick was so close.

It was silent for a little while, again, before I felt Nick put his head on my shoulder.

"How's Tina?"

I hated when Nick brought her up. Honestly, Tina was a horrible cover up that wasn't supposed to go farther than me taking her out once or twice. Catherine asked why I was always wanted to be around Nick and the next day I got a girlfriend. Catherine asked why I partied so hard with Nick and the next day I asked Tina to marry me.

"Why do you ask?"

Nick smirked. "Normally, you say, 'Fine.' And then 'why do you ask.' Are things not fine?"

I sighed. Stupid Nick was too observant, but so was I. I noticed the smirk, and I knew that my stupidity was keeping him happy. He wasn't crying anymore.

"Not so fine." I said, blushing lightly as I looked away. "Someone's fine, but it's not her."

Nick looked too excited to hear the news. "You're not going to marry her?"

"I didn't say that." Nick's shoulders slumped. "But there's someone else, too."

Nick didn't ask, and I was glad. "Why don't you like Tina?"

Nick smiled. "I don't like any of your girlfriends."

I hadn't thought about it before. Surprise, huh? But now that he mentioned it, I never could get him to talk about girls like I wanted him too. I only wanted him too so people would think we were just friends, and not anything else. If we talked about girls… but Nick never wanted to talk about girls.

Suddenly, a realization struck me. Nick didn't want to ever talk about my girlfriends. Nick called out for me, as soon as he was out of the dirt. Once I let Catherine hold his hand, he kept groping at me, to find mine.

"Nick?"

Nick diverted his eyes. "I was thinking when I was buried and there is something I want to say."

"Is it a confession, Nicky?" He looked up at me, shocked. "While you were down under I thought a lot, too, you know."

I hardly could believe what I was doing. Nick hadn't implied anything and here I was, acting on my own thoughts. I had a hand on Nick's face, and he was looking down, embarrassed. I angled his head differently, and kissed him gently.

I freaked as soon as I felt his lips on mine. I could feel him shaking, and I knew I had done something wrong. I started to pull away, but I felt his arms wrap around me and pull me back in. He kissed me back.

I was crying again, as I pushed harder, pushing him onto his back on the bed.

"You could have waited, Warrick!" It was an awkward deer-in-headlights moment as I jumped like a cat off of Nick. He simply sat up, lazily as he looked at the intruder. There stood Catherine holding two cups of coffee, smiling affectionately at Nick and me. "I mean, he'd only just woken up."

Nick laughed and looked at me with a dazzling dimple smile. "It was a coming up celebration."

I grumbled playfully, but still had my eye on Nick. "More like coming out."

Nick pouted and Catherine giggled. "It's about time, that's all I say. You two have cost me a great deal of money, you know."

"You…" Nick started.

"I bet Grissom twenty bucks every few months for the past few years that the two of you would hook up on a given night after a drunken party. And I almost had it once." She handed a cup to each me and Nick and snapped her fingers. "I thought for sure the two of you would really be a couple after Greg's party, but apparently you were too drunk to remember the next morning."

"I remembered." Nick and I said in unison.

Catherine smiled. "All that's important now is that you're together and I have twenty bucks to offset the hundreds of dollars I lost to Grissom. My dad would be ashamed of my bad betting."

Catherine said her goodbyes and left us alone. However, I needed to get going to my Grandma's house and Nick knew I did. I wasn't sure what to do, exactly, but when I leaned over, Nick threw his arms around me and kissed me like he meant it.

"So… are you breaking up with Tina?" Nick asked hopefully after we'd stopped.

I smiled and said, "Of course. Now that I have you…"

He blushed, but gave me a dimple smile. I kissed him one last time. "I love you, Nicky."

"I love you too, Warrick."

And as I left, I was glad that I came. Even though I didn't want to. Catherine was right. Sometimes good things come when you do something against your will.