Fic: On Time, Chapter 4 (CSI, Nick Stokes / Greg Sanders)
Title: On Time, Chapter 4
Fandom: CSI
Pair: Nick Stokes / Greg Sanders
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Feedback: Always Welcome
CSI Las Vegas Main List
On Time, Chapter 1
On Time, Chapter 2
On Time, Chapter 3
“Wakey wakey.”
Nick snapped awake when he felt somebody prodding his shoulder. He opened his eyes and groaned. The curtains had been drawn to the side and the bright morning light was flooding into the room. Greg dumped a large paper bag to his lap.
“Get dressed, we gotta take you to the health check before leaving.”
Nick opened the bag and pulled out a pair of black jeans, black T-shirt, pair of boxers, socks and sneakers.
“What’s this?”
“Clothes.”
“I know that, but what happened to my clothes?”
“The one you had when we took you? I told them to burn them.”
“What?!”
“They were practically screaming 1959. Be a good boy and put those on. I’m pretty sure you had jeans and T-shirts even in your days.”
“We did but we didn’t wear them to work.” Nick pointed to Greg’s own jeans and his snugly fitting shirt. “Except those guys who worked on a farm or were involved in a biker gangs.”
“You had motorcycle gangs back then?”
“Yeah, every kid was imitating that Brando movie.”
“The Wild One?”
“How did you know that?”
“I know a lot of stuff about your times. We’ve gone back and forth on our expeditions, so I’ve seen some really weird stuff. Even weirder than a bunch of school kids trying to look tough in biker hats and leather jackets.”
Nick got up from the bed and pulled his pyjama top over his head.
“You never told me what you actually do here. Just go see different times and report back?”
“Actually, I’m a DNA analyst. They originality recruited me to study changes that occur to the gene pool over time. I got more and more involved in the field work and finally I started handling solo gigs.”
“You’re a what analyst?”
“DNA. Deoxyribonucleic acid, but that’s something you don’t need to know about. And speaking of jobs, I never told you how your last cased ended.”
“The girl in the park?”
“Yeah, she was killed by her old boyfriend. He followed her from their hometown and killed her. The press made a big deal out of the murder, and he killed two more girls the same way to distract the attention from the first girl. They caught him in August 1959, and he got a life sentence.”
“Who picked up the investigation?”
“Jackson.”
“You’re kidding….. That guy was a screw-up, he messed up everything he touched.”
“But he caught the guy. He even got a metal for it.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“The Mayer gave it to him personally-”
“I said I don’t want to hear!”
---------------------------------------------
Nick leaned against the wall of the elevator and breathed deeply. He had spend the whole carried looking at the sights with his mouth wide open.
“That definitely wasn’t what I thought future would be.”
“What did you expect? People doing their grocery shopping on flying saucers?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, people are pretty much the same, technology is just different.”
“Even Dallas itself looked like a different city.”
“We’re in Washington.” The elevator stopped and the doors opened with a loud ding. “This is our floor.”
Nick followed him down the corridor to the door of his apartment. Greg wiped his key card through the scanner and opened the door. Nick stepped in and looked around.
“Like it?”
“I guess, but…..”
“But it’s not the futuristic pad you expected.”
“Yep.”
“Just like I said, technology changes, style changes, but the everyday life remains the same. People eat, sleep, work, have sex.”
“On the street like that couple in front of that café?”
“They were just kissing.”
“That wasn’t just kissing. Is that even legal?”
“As long as they keep their clothes on and the lips are the only exposed orifices.”
“People never did that in my day.”
Greg gave him an amused look.
“I mean on the street! Or anywhere public.”
“You want a real shock? Check the living room window. The guy in the opposite building is always keeping his curtains open.”
Nick went to the window and almost screamed.
“I told you.” Greg grinned smugly.
“They’re…. I don’t even know what they are doing!”
“I could tell you but I’m not sure if you can handle it. You want some food?”
“After seeing that?”
“Yes or no?”
“I could eat. What do you have?”
“Follow me.”
Greg guided him to the kitchen and pulled the fridge open.
“I don’t need to explain to you what a fridge is, do I?”
“I’m not that ancient. My fridge always had nervous breakdown when the summer was at it’s hottest. And my air-conditioning too. Like a conspiracy.”
“We have…..” Greg scanned the content. “….. some Italian, Chinese, Thai-”
“What’s the deal with those boxes?”
“They’re all dehydrated. That way they can be packaged to a smaller container and you don’t need to keep the fridge so cold. It saves energy.”
“So what is that in the box? Powder?”
“Pretty much. We just pop it to the microwave and it dehydrates it again. Tastes just like the fresh food.”
“Micro-what?”
“Microwave. Sorry, I keep forgetting the generation gap in terminology.”
“I’m not old!”
“I didn’t say that. Actually I’m one year older than you, I’m thirty-three. So what do you wanna eat? I think I could eat some Thai….” Greg pondered.
“What’s it like?”
“You’ve never tried?”
“There’s wasn’t that much choices back then. The latest thing in food stuff was a tin with a new kind of opener.”
“You wanna try it?”
“Sure.”
Greg shoved two portions to the microwave, and tapped few keys.
“Wanna watch TV while we eat?”
“There’s program during the day now?”
“Yep. But we could watch other stuff too.” Greg bounced to the living room and grabbed the remote. He pressed few keys and program list showed up on the screen. “Okay, I set it to show last nights programs, I didn’t have time to watch anything anyway.”
“You can watch last nights programs?”
“Sure. What are you in a mood for?”
“What’s on?”
“Let’s see….. CSI: Kuala Lumpur, CSI: Madrid, CSI: Ankara, CSI: Vatican, CSI: Reykjavik, CSI: Kiev-”
“What’s that CSI part?”
“Trust me you don’t wanna know, those are all absolute rubbish. We got some game shows…. Wheel of Fortune?”
“Never heard of.”
“It’s pretty cool, if you screw up too many questions you get eliminated.”
“Can you try again?”
“Try again? I just said they are eliminated. Classic Network, they show old movies.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Some like it Hot starts in fifteen minutes.”
“How old is that?”
“It’s from 1959, it premiered couple months after you disappeared.”
“Who’s in it?”
“Jack Lemon and Marilyn Monroe.”
“You don’t mind watching it?”
“No, Jack’s always hilarious.”
TBC