Chapter 6

Author's note: This chapter is a bit not!ficcy in place, but I don't know what else to do with this, and feel that if anyone wants one, they should have the best conclusion to this story that I can provide. I wrote this a long time ago, and probably wouldn't write it now, but *hands*.

Greg had planned to meet Nick after work. To be leaning against Nick's truck when Nick got off shift, with plans for going somewhere to talk, but also plans to just hang out because it had suddenly felt like an age since they'd been together.

His phone had rung just before the start of dayshift, and it had been Grissom, telling him that two students at Antony E. Zuiker High School had skipped early homeroom in favour of shooting the place up.

The scene was in controlled chaos when Greg arrived. The rotors of LVPD and TV helicopters beat the air overheard, and he could hear the constant buzz of radio comms. Police cars and buses were parked in orderly rows, flashers on. He could see the LVFD and Desert Palms paramedics triaging students and teachers. The media was being held at bay behind crime scene tape, but that hadn't stopped them trying to interview the clumps of students who were standing outside the perimeter, holding each other up and looking back towards the school buildings. He counted at least 20 of the 30-strong LVPD SWAT team standing near the building, and noticed that there were four snipers on the roof of the school.

Warrick, Nick and Sara were standing just inside the tape, and he joined them, after flashing his badge to the officer holding the line.

"Griss is just getting clearance from the OIC for us to go in." Warrick bumped his fist against Greg's upper arm.

Greg set his kit down. "Who is the officer in charge? This is my first one of these."

"Someone from SWAT." There was no strain in Nick's voice, although his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. "They took down one of the two shooters, and then the other one threw his weapons down. They were thinking there might be pipe bombs, but I think they've secured the scene now."

"They took one of the shooters into custody?"

Sara nodded. "A sixteen year old boy."

"How many DBs?"

"SWAT think forty." Grissom appeared behind Greg. "They've confirmed that they've secured the scene, so they're ready for you guys to go in. I'm going back to the lab to process the shooter. Nick, you're the lead CSI on scene, and I've given your details to Zebra 1, and DHS."

Nick nodded.

(Some kind of massive linking scene, in which Nick is overwhelmed by the crime scene, but it also puts things in perspective for him. He sees families shattered, and realises that his family is Greg, and that he's Greg's family.)

Greg was leaning against the front of the building when Nick finally got off shift and emerged from the air-conditioned cocoon of the Crime Lab into the already stifling heat of the Nevada morning.

Greg wrapped his arms around him before Nick said anything, and it was strange to stand in front of their workplace like that. Greg's skin was warm from the sun and Nick could feel Greg's arms hot against his neck. Their breathing wasn't quite in synch and there was something slightly uncomfortable about the way their ribcages brushed against each other through their skin and clothes.

"Can we talk?"

Nick nodded, his nose rubbing against Greg's cheek. "Of course."

Greg drove them to one of their favourite desert trails. "I want some privacy," he'd said, and Nick had nodded again, trying to ignore a tickle of fear that he couldn't quite explain.

They sat on the tailgate of Nick's truck while they put on their walking boots. As Nick struggled to unsnarl his laces, Greg looked at him.

"I love you so much, and I'm so sorry that I behaved like a total asshole."

Nck's head snapped up. "I love you too, Greg. And I think that I did something wrong, too, but I'm kind of confused."

Greg shook his head. "Wilkie helped me figure out what's going on with me, but before I start talking about that, I want you to know that I know what I did, and I'm never putting my hands on you again except in love."

Nick's stomach rolled. "It's okay, Greg."

"The fuck it is." Greg's expression was stony. "You had to push me off you, and the reason that makes me feel like an abusive asshole is because I was an abusive asshole. I know that this is the cliché, but believe me when I say that is never happening again."

Nick swallowed. "I do believe you." He took Greg's hand in his. "I know your heart, Greg."

He ran a finger over the back of Greg's hand. "I've never felt safer than when I'm with you."

Greg choked back a sob.

"Talk to me, man." Nick urged. "What's going on with you?"

"God, Nicky!" Greg looked at Nick and his eyes were dark with misery. "I don't even know where to start."

Greg stood up and pulled Nick by the hand in the direction of the start of the trail, feet crunching over stone and dust.

They walked half a mile before Greg spoke.

"For a long time – years, really – I remember Andy's and my relationship as being great."

Nick nodded.

"There was a lot of stuff that was good about it, but you hit the nail on the head when you said that a lot of young people are really impressed by getting to do stuff that's a lot older than them."

They walked up a steep slope, and Nick could hear Greg suck a breath in, and then exhale, shakily.

"Speaking to Andy a couple days ago brought up so much stuff." He wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. "He basically wrote off our entire relationship as an act of abuse that he perpetrated when he was too high to know any better; like I was a VCR he stole to support his habit."

Greg's voice was sharp with pain and Nick took Greg's hand in his, palm slick with sweat.

"Finding out about all of those other guys wasn't great, because I'd really misread our relationship at the time as being more important to him than it was."

Greg slowed his pace until they were standing still in the middle of the trail. He looked away from Nick.

"I've never talked about this to anyone, Nick. It's the most embarrassing, painful thing that ever happened to me, and I'd kind of pushed it away until this week."

Nick ran his thumb over the back of Greg's hand. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, Greg."

Greg turned to face him, eyes dark. "I want to. But it's hard."

"I get that."

A flash of understanding crossed Greg's face. "Yeah." He blew out a breath. "I guess that while I was with Andy I tried to pretend that I was a lot more experienced than I was. Socially. Intellectually. Sexually. It was so hard to talk with him about that kind of stuff, and he got angry when people mentioned the age difference. I felt this pressure to keep him interested by not being needy."

Nick pressed his lips together, and he could feel the tension along his spine.

"Amelia once said to me that she didn't like the way he talked about me, but I knew they didn't like each other and I assumed that she meant he sounded proprietal or something."

Nick nodded.

"And then one day I walked in on him talking with my mother, in our kitchen, about how my father and I had problems with intimacy. And they were on their second bottle of wine, but I'm not sure that excuses the fact that he told her that sometimes I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I cried after we had sex."

Nick had been in more training sessions than he could count about suppressing his first reaction, about concealing shock and judgment and anger, but he couldn't stop himself from gasping. "Oh my God, Greg."

"Yeah." Greg was red to the roots of his hair, and Nick thought that he shouldn't have to feel so ashamed. "He'd been talking about me with my mom and with Amelia. I had a long talk with Amelia and eventually she told me that he'd been discussing our sex life with her." Greg bit his lip. "Like, intimate physical details. Like, I wasn't great at sucking cock but I was getting better. That was something that I hadn't really talked about with her, and I was completely humiliated. From what she said I got that she had tried to shut Andy up, but he'd just carried on."

Greg shook his head. "She was totally skeeved by the whole thing."

"I'm totally skeeved by the whole thing," Nick said. "Baby, I'm so sorry."

They were standing a foot apart, and Nick couldn't read Greg's body language; couldn't tell whether Greg wanted him to kiss his hand, or stroke his face, or wrap him in his arms.

"Wilkie's such a fucking star, you know?" Greg said, and he didn't let go of Nick's hand. "I didn't tell him any of the details but he just kept nagging me until the pieces fell into place. Until I realised that, even though I'm so happy with you I can barely stand it, there's a part of me that's waiting for the other shoe to drop. That doesn't know how to be as open as I want to be."

Nick frowned. "Don't sell yourself short. We've talked about some hard stuff, you and me."

Greg tightened his grip of Nick's fingers. "I love you so much. You're always trying to see the best in me."

He shook his head. "The truth is that I got drunk, smoked a bunch of cigarettes, and screamed in your face because I didn't know how to find a way to both be a man and say 'I'm scared, and this hurts, and I don't know how to feel about what Andy said, and the phrase statutory rape makes me want to puke, and will you help me figure it out?' "

Nick threw his arms around Greg then, and pulled him into himself so that he could feel Greg's heart jackhammering in his chest. Could feel the warmth of Greg flat against his body.

"You better believe I'll help you figure it out." Nick said fiercely. "God, I love you so much."

"I love you too," Greg said, and his voice was shaky.

Nick wrapped his fingers around Greg's hip. "Home?"

Greg laughed, clear and familiar, and Nick's heart clenched in his chest. "Best idea ever."

[And then they lived happily ever after.]