#csi fic

Warrick.

Seriously, what was he supposed to say? “Hey bro, I’m stuck in a box can you come get me?” “Where are you?” “Help me, Warrick Brown, you’re my only hope.” “Are you guys even looking for me?” “Help me.” “Get me out of here.” “I’m gonna die down here.” “I need to tell you—”

The text came almost immediately, leaping across an expected lag.

Who is this, and where is Nick?

In quick succession, trying to type and send his thoughts to ease the panic Warrick was likely feeling, but also express what is happening, Nick responded:

Warrick, it’s me.I’m here.Somewhere.

Nick didn’t know how to ask for help. He never did. Made him feel…small, somehow. And especially here, and especially now where he was trapped in an endless ocean of dirt, stagnant. Unforgiving. In a way it was almost better to see it with the light on—The world was still as harsh and paralyzing as the sudden bursts of light were, but it was at least knowable. Now without the light, as the glowstick started to fade, all he could see were the cracks in the earth around him daring to pull him further into an uncertainty of what was real, and if he was still alive. His own reflection, distorted and shadowed behind all of the scratches.

I don’t know where and this is gonna sound fucking crazy but I’m trapped in a box underground.Got a fan giving me air but don’t know how long it’s gonna last.

He didn’t know how long it was going to last. He didn’t know how long it was going to last. 

I don’t know who did this to me. I don’t know why I'm here. 

He wanted to admit it. But not yet. Not now. 

He had kept track of time since he woke up, testing his mentality by checking with his internal clock that one hour was one hour, one minute was one minute. 

Because it felt far longer than the fourteen hours than it had been.

Or was it fifteen? Or more?

We can see you. 

His ears rang as his body quaked through a new wave of drowning terror. 

I’m sorry.

Sorry? What’re you sorry for? 

The light.

I shot the light. Connected to fan.

We were the light.

His breath hitched. He squeezed his eyes hoping the tears that mixed into a cocktail with a fresh shower of sweat was not visible to however they could see him. 

It was the only way we could see you. There was a

Nick waited. The sentence never finished.

Was a what?

There was a ransom. We paid it but didn’t get told your location. 

Who did this?

We don’t know. He blew himself up. 

Did anybody get hurt?

Gris got banged up a little. He’s okay.

Ok.

Shit, that didn’t make sense.

I mean not okay that he got hurt but okay that he’s fine.

I knew what you meant, buddy.

Sorry i’m just hungry

Bet you are. 

Bastard took the jerky I had in my pocket.

He had only joked it. He needed something to cope with, and the thought of getting a smile out of Warrick had given him hope that maybe things would be alright. They’re on their way.

I’ll get you a nice juicy steak over at the strip-o-rama when this is over

Nick smiled too, he somehow felt safer knowing that Warrick was watching him. 

---------

Nicky, it’s us. We’re coming to you.

He could hear them. He heard the thudding of a shovel, felt it hit the box. 

He started to get greedy with the air, took a few long, relieving sighs that he’d get out of this hell. 

He had lost track of time in this wave of euphoria, but it felt long enough for them to have reached him by now. 

He cracked open a new glowstick, screamed to let them know he was there, they were close, just come get me

Attacked by panic he started typing shorter, as short as the breaths he was taking.

Where r u

I’m here. I’m right here

He started singing his song out loud. His voice cracked out over the first inklings of the physical cracks forming around him. 

RICK WHEREHELP

I’m sorry.

Those damn words again. The earth split around him, a new level of pressure compacted down onto him, squeezing the air out of his chest. He forgot to turn caps lock off. 

I’M SCARED.

Me too.

---------

He paused the tape recording. A new incoming text. The ID was Grissom. 

You never did. 

The last three words he saw before he had to shut his eyes through short screaming bursts of pain, and shut his mouth to keep the ants from eating him from the inside out.

---------

The phone kept his mind alert with constant alarm, countless messages he couldn’t look at without having his eyes gouged by hundreds of tiny pincers. 

He knew someone must have been asking, prayed he was pressing the right buttons as he typed out

HurtsFireFuckingAnts

Hopefully it’d give them a clue. He remembered they weren’t as common in Nevada. 

The phone twitched out of his fingers in a sudden exploding spasm. 

He also remembered he just had to keep still. It won’t hurt as much, don’t bother it and it won’t bother you. 

What a load of bullshit, but he had to do something. 

He buried himself further, plugging his frigidly cold but burning body. He had to hold on just a little longer.

---------

He didn’t want to tell him. Didn’t want to get his hopes up, not like before.

Because now if there was a sliver of doubt that they chose the right X to follow, he’d never forgive himself if they made the wrong choice. He refused to accept that they didn’t. 

Catherine delivered the news through the pipe. They knew Nick couldn’t hear them.

He’s nearly six feet down when the phone beeps, and within seconds a haunting text that came with the same calculation they both arrived to on their own, refusing to accept the reality. 

It had been 90 minutes.

It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t a warning. It was an apology.

TIME’S UP

---------

Sara brought him his phone when she got to the hospital. He had thrown it down when Grissom told him to get out of the hole, to walk away from his dying best friend who had been holding a gun to his own head—something that he’d have a hard time forgetting for years to come. He knew Nick would send a message accompanying the sheer horrific screams that were louder than the sirens around them.

He scrolled past it. He wanted to take this relief for what it was, and put off the crushing weight of truth off for a little while longer. He knew Nick did, too. 

They would never directly talk about it anyway. The deep cuts were rare in their relationship, and he’d do anything to help Nick forget as he fed into his subtle signs of repression of the impossible trauma that happened, that probably nobody else on the planet could even relate to. 

---------

He had gotten a new phone out of a random panic attack of paranoia that it wasn’t Walter Gordon that had kidnapped him and buried him alive, but his stalker Nigel Crane. A completely irrational, annually celebrated conspiracy that would keep him awake for days straight, gun at his side even while taking a shower. 

Maybe if he had gotten one night’s sleep before, he could have stopped what happened. 

Maybe Warrick would still be—

He had scrolled through Warrick’s phone record, desperate for anything that could indicate who murdered him. 

He found his deactivated phone number still in his messages. Whatever vein in his heart that was still left stopped pumping, a cold deep flatline shot as a looping arrow through his head. 

He’d stay strong. He knew the breakdown would come. He didn’t think it would be Grissom’s eulogy that would trigger it. 

He’d whisper the three words to the casket, echoes of the missing piece of him that was still buried six feet under in that last message he sent from that version of himself.

You looked up from your desk and through the glass window to see your boyfriend Nick in the opposite room. The man smiled and winked at you before diverting his attention back to the work at hand.

You sighed. God you’d do anything to kiss that man right now. This morning, well what the two of you would say was morning, he brought you ‘breakfast’ in bed. Previous to that the two of you had had an exhausting weekend with friends which had you falling asleep as soon as you both got home.

The day was finally over. The two of you practically ran out of the lab and sped home. As soon as the front door closed the man started to kiss you. Gently pressing you up against the door.

He shrugged off his jacket and felt you smile against his lips. 

He pulled away and kissed you on the forehead before walking away to the kitchen

You rolled your eyes and a slight smile pulled at your lips. You took off your own jacket and hung it up before heading towards the kitchen. You could already see Nick grabbing things from cupboards to make dinner. 

You grabbed yourself a drink “Want a hand?”

“Nah. Nah. I’m going to cook for you.”

“Who am I to argue with that?” you slid onto a stool at the breakfast bar and watched the man move around the kitchen in silence.

The man was hard at work cooking but every so often he’d give you a lingering look or a wink and every time you couldn’t help smile back.

He placed the dish into the oven before coming over to you. He stood opposite you on the other side of the breakfast bar and leant forward on his arms. “So.”

“So?” you replied with a raise of an eyebrow.

“You were pretty amazing this weekend.” his eyes were sparkling.

“And so were you Mr Stokes.”

He did his typical shy smile and looked away “I’m sorry for falling asleep in the middle of our conversation last night.”

You laughed, “Don’t be sorry. Anyway that breakfast sure did make up for it this morning.”

He inched forward towards you “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah it did.” you leant forward “But if this dinner is bad you’re going to have to make it up to me again.”

“I’ve never cooked you a bad meal.” he chuckled.

“Remember when you burnt the entire meal that one time and over seasoned it to try and cover it up?”

“Alright that was one time.”

Your lips were millimeters apart and you leaned forward to press yours against his. He leant into the kiss and raised his hand to your jaw to deepen it. The alarm on his phone going off is what separated the two of you.

“Looks like dinner is ready”

He brushed some hair behind your ear before taking the meal out of the oven and plating it up. He placed a plate in front of you on the breakfast bar and the other next to you. Coming around he pulled out the stool and angled it towards you slightly and brought it closer. 

He sat down with his legs touching yours as the two of you ate together in silence.

You both finished at nearly the same time, he took your hand in his and leant back against the stool back. “How was it?”

“Really good.” you admitted before leaning forward and capturing his lips in a kiss. His hands came to your hips to support you as you transferred your weight from the stool below you and leant into him.

He pecked your lips a couple of times in a row before pulling away ever so slightly, your foreheads leaning against one another and his one hand came to your cheek to lightly caress it. “We need to do the dishes.” he breathed out.

“The dishes can wait.” and with your words his lips were crashing to yours again with a smile and the two of you were moving away from the kitchen.

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