Title: The List
By: amazonqueenkate
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Pairing: Bobby Dawson/Nick Stokes
Prompt: 001 - Beginnings
Word Count: 1,654
Rating: Middle of the range.
Author's Notes: I know it's been a while since I've posted any Nick/Bobby. I moved across the country, started a new job, and had some personal life upheavals as well. But back I am, with fic. Glorious fic, and much more to come.

On a post-it note in the upper right-hand corner of his desk, half-hidden under the old college coffee mug he uses to hold pens, Bobby Dawson keeps the following list:

- Straight
- Conservative
- Too nice
- Has the reputation of being a "lady killer"
- Straight

The list, of course, isn't labeled. Bobby knows better than to label anything, given that Greg Sanders is just about the nosiest individual on the planet. He also knows better than to discuss it, which is why, when Greg sees the damn thing one night and comments, "Hey, this is new!", he brushes it off and changes the subject. Greg is only in the ballistics lab because he's bored, anyway. He might as well be bored and thinking about the best new television shows this season than bored and thinking about the deeper meaning of a post-it note list.

Bobby hasn't added anything to the list in six weeks when Greg spots it, but he figures he doesn't really need to. The repetition of the first item really served more as a self-reminder six weeks earlier, when he'd caught himself staring again. He needs to not stare, so he lets "straight" peek out from under the coffee mug and glare at him. Straight men do not appreciate their gay co-workers ogling their off-limits asses. And this particular straight man, Bobby's sure, is so straight that he counts as the closest distance between two points.

(To be fair, it was David that coined that particular phrase, but Bobby can't get it out of his head.)

Greg, however, is the nosiest person in the history of mankind, and is only distracted by television for approximately ten minutes. "So, who's straight?" he asks, and before Bobby can drop the gun he's fiddling with to stop him, Greg's got the post-it note peeled off the corner of the desk. "And conservative, nice, and a lady-killer? I've told you, Bobby - I'm a member of the green party."

Bobby rolls his eyes. "None of your business," he replies, and decides it's better to be obtuse than honest. He returns to the gun.

"No, really." Greg drums the fingers that aren't clutching his precious list against the top of the desk. He's still wearing his street clothes - Grissom had him in the field today, and God forbid he put his lab coat back on - and his heels are propped up on a nearby filing cabinet. He looks way too comfortable in someone else's lab. "Though I'm disappointed in you, crushing on a straight guy. You should know better."

"I do," Bobby mutters.

"And yet, you have a list." He spins around on the desk chair and wheels himself right over to where Bobby is standing. Bobby figures this will end one of two ways: either he'll cold-cock Greg with his fist, or he'll pistol-whip him with the half-assembled .38 in his hand. Neither bodes particularly well for their friendship, not to mention his job security. "You like this mystery man, don't you?"

He sets down the gun, if only to eliminate the pistol-whipping possibility. "How do you even know it's about a guy? It could be about the groceries I'm pickin' up after work." Greg bites back a laugh, and Bobby sighs. "Okay, it's not about groceries, but it's none of your business anyway."

"The eternal happiness of one of my friends is none of my business? I'm hurt. Genuinely wounded." He touches a hand to his chest.

"Yeah, your woundin's genuine, but I bet ya can't spell it."

"Oh, burn."

Greg's grinning at him, now, not that this surprises him as he returns to the gun. Greg's like this, he knows, because Greg cares. And why shouldn't Greg care? Greg certainly doesn't have a social life outside of work (unless his boasting about three strippers and a case of champagne last week was true, but Bobby doubts it) and his friends all work the night shift with him. Besides, everyone and their brother knows that Bobby's terminally single. It's a fact of life: the sky is blue, the desert's dry, and Bobby Dawson can't get any.

The adage, he figures, really is true: all the good men are either straight or taken.

Greg sticks the post-it right back down in the middle of the desk on a blank spot of fake wood grain between paperwork and - surprise! - more paperwork and shakes his head. "You know, not all men are as straight as they seem. I mean, sure, my picture-perfect masculinity would lead you to believe I am the paragon of the straight man, but I too have been known to dabble in other genres, so to speak."

Bobby rolls his eyes. "Greg, you got drunk off your ass last company Christmas party and announced to everyone that you wouldn't toss Warrick outta your bed. I think I figured that out." And that wasn't mentioning when Greg came onto Bobby later that night, but neither Greg nor Bobby mentions that anymore.

"I'm just saying. You never know." He waggles his fingers as though he's some sort of wizard, and Bobby wonders whatever happened to that damn swami hat of his. "Look for the evidence. It never lies."

"Okay, Grissom, thanks for that pointer." Greg makes a face at him, and he waves him away. "Get outta here. I got actual work to do, y'know."

Greg leaves and Bobby finishes up with the .38. He runs some bullets through the database, fills out a few forms, nothing out of the ordinary. Except all the while, his list is staring at him, stuck in the middle of his desk like some sort of religious relic. He figures that he can just peel it up, stick it back in the corner, and forget about it, but there's something fitting about its centrality. After four years of revolving around the list (though the first few months, all it said was "straight"), he might as well stare at the center of his universe for a little while longer.

At the end of shift, he replaces his post-it note under the coffee mug and wanders down to the locker room, just like he's done every day since starting the list and just like he knows he'll do every day after. When he makes it there, though, he finds that the only other living being in the cinderblock prison cell of a room is Nick Stokes, and his mouth dries up immediately.

But Nick smiles at him, so he forces himself to smile back and starts for his locker. "Hey," he says, aiming for "nonchalant" and getting "this day is the worst I have had in three years".

"Hey," Nick replies. "How's it going?"

Since "I want to kill myself" is never a socially acceptable answer, Bobby shrugs as he peels off his lab coat. "Not bad. Long day?"

"A little, yeah," Nick admits. He doesn't show it, though. Bobby curses his very existence.

The rest of the general locker room action - trading in lab coats, emptying pockets of I.D. badges and errant rolls of evidence tape (Bobby doesn't ask) - takes place in a heavy, awkward silence. At least, Bobby thinks it's awkward, and it's only after Nick closes his locker that he realizes Nick probably thinks it's just companionable.

He's so glad that Nick and Greg are the kind of friends who only discuss X-Box games and attractive women.

"Hey," Nick says as he's halfway out the door. Bobby's got his wallet in his mouth and his arms halfway into his street jacket. He feels like a fool and probably looks the part. "Greg went all flaky on me and cancelled our plans for breakfast. You wanna get something to eat?"

When Bobby tries to respond, his wallet falls right out of his mouth and onto the floor. He wonders if he could pistol-whip himself into submission, being as Greg is nowhere to be found. "Uh."

Nick shrugs. "If you don't want to, that's cool, man. I just thought you'd - "

"No, no, I'd love to," Bobby stammers out. He can feel all the blood in his body creeping into his face, and bends over quickly to snatch up his wallet. He's not blushing; he's red-faced from bending over too quickly. Yes. The perfect excuse. "I was just, uh. Long shift, delayed reaction."

The awkwardness of high school has nothing on this.

"Cool," Nick responds, and he smiles so brightly that the angels in heaven sing out in perfect harmony. At least, Bobby assumes they do, but he can't hear anything over the pounding of his heart. "I gotta go give this to Cath - " He holds up the roll of evidence tape he'd pulled from his pocket. " - but it'll only be a sec. Meet you outside?"

"Sure," Bobby agrees. He watches as Nick leaves the room, still smiling in a way that makes his stomach quiver. Well, his stomach and other parts of his anatomy, but he's not going to get his hopes up.

He starts towards the front door of the lab and then, on a whim, doubles back towards ballistics. The day-shift tech is fighting with one of the gun lockers and gives him a curt nod that distinctly says, "If you try to help me, I will consider it an affront to my manhood." Bobby nods back and goes straight to the desk and the omnipresent coffee mug.

He grabs a pen and makes a few small additions. When he's done, he admires his handiwork with a mix of fear (because he's about to go to breakfast with the list man himself!) and hope:

- Straight (?)
- Conservative
- Too nice
- Has the reputation of being a "lady killer"
- Straight (?????????)

Of course, Bobby knows that - in the long run - a handful of question marks don't change much. But hey, he figures as he heads towards the door, it's a start.