TITLE: Superimposed

AUTHOR: Demon Faith

FANDOM: CSI: Miami

PAIRING: Speed/Eric

WORDS: 392

NOTES: More "Not So Lost"! I was planning to write for this anyway, because it's a beautiful challenge. Here goes nothing!

writerschoice: images on a roll of film

------------------------------------------

The dark room was getting to him.

He tried to concentrate on his task, mixing chemicals, setting up trays, monitoring temperatures. This was a delicate business – one false move and everything was ruined. But he knew this process like he knew his own skin, comfortable and familiar and sane.

There were new scars. Eric would be upset.

He remembered the first time, when Eric had found the bullet hole and the autopsy scars. There had been soft reassurances and tears, heart-breaking tears. Speed would never forget that.

The horror of what had happened to him still lurked in the shadows of his mind, but he refused to think about it. The image before him swam into focus.

The safe light threw blood red over everything in the room, but especially his hands, always his hands. He couldn't think.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, taking himself to another time, another dark room, another life.

Eric would tease even then, asking about women and dates and where they were going out next. He wasn't supposed to be in the dark room – it was serious work and only those with cameras were permitted within its walls, but that never stopped Eric hanging out with Speed, keeping him company even though he probably had better things to do, lunch to eat, reports to write.

He was always there.

When Speed shut his eyes, he saw him. In the middle of the chaos of his existence, he could still see Eric, place his image over the things he photographed that he wished he'd never had to see. This was worse than CSI; this he was a part of.

How could Eric even look at him? How could he use Eric this way, sullying him with these…things? He didn't deserve this. Speed didn't deserve him.

Shut up. A kiss then, and Speed smiled, lost in his little world. Eric could forgive him anything, even the unspeakables that dwelt in the dark, and told Speed that it was destiny and they were together and nothing else mattered.

So, he'd leave the room of dark and red, leave those images drying on the line. In a few days, he would be back with Eric and the negatives could fade away as he was held and protected and loved.

And maybe soon he would start to live again.