Title: Confessions
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders/Ryan Wolfe
Series: 1) Catch Me I'm Falling, 2) Sparks, 3) Holding Steady, 4) More Than Ready, 5) Talk About It
Fandom: CSI: Vegas/CSI: Miami
Rating: R
Author's Note: Mentions of rape.
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Greg Sanders or Adam Ross, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Ryan closed his eyes for a moment as Greg leaned into his embrace, trying to prepare himself for whatever the other man was going to tell him. He knew that it wouldn't be easy to hear, but he also knew that it was past time for Greg to talk about it.

Besides, if he was going to be involved with Greg, he had to know about his past, the bad as well as the good. And he had to tell Greg about his own past, a little voice piped up in the back of his mind, almost making him wince .That wasn't going to be easy, either.

It felt comfortable to have Greg here in his arms; what the other man had to say might not be easy for him to hear, but it wouldn't be easy for Greg to talk about, either. Whatever it was, he'd kept it bottled up inside for a long time; he obviously needed to get it out into the open.

He ws prepared to hear that Greg had been raped, though those weren't words he wanted to come to his ears. Whoever had done it, whoever the bastard was who had hurt this beautiful man, Ryan already wanted to hunt him down and kill him.

How could anyone want to hurt Greg? He was so sweet, so giving, so open. But that was the kind of person those kinds of predators looked for, he told himself with an inward sigh. Greg was just their style; he knew that all too well from the victims he'd seen.

"Comfortable, sweetheart?" he asked softly as Greg settled back into his arms, his back pressed against Ryan's chest. He reaised a hand to stroke the other man's hair, bowing his head to press his lips gently to the slender column of Greg's throat.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Greg told him, taking a deep breath. "I guess I should start at the beginning," he said, his voice very low. "This was a long time ago, before I started working as a CSI. I didn't have a whole lot of experience then -- either with guys or girls."

Ryan nodded, stroking his fingers through Greg's hair. "We all do some crazy, stupid things when we're young," he said softly, feeling that Greg sstill seemed very young and inexperienced to him. "Nobody can blame you for that. Everybody makes mistakes."

"He was definitely a mistake," Greg told him dryly. "But at first, I thought he was kind of Prince Charming. He was a few years older than me, good looking, suave, sexy. And I was stupid enough to think he cared about me. That I was the only person he was seeing."

"Did you catch him with somebody else? Is that why he --" Ryan broke off, not wanting to make Greg jump ahead of himself. This wasn't his story to tell; he had to sit back and listen calmly to what Greg told him, no matter how it might make him feel.

But Greg shook his head, sighing. "No, I'm the one who found out something about him." His voice was more unsteady now; this was obviously hard for him to talk about, and Ryan wanted to reassure him that he wasn't going anywhere, that he wouldn't be abandoned.

"I'd gone over to his house, and he wasn't home," Greg said softly, the words coming out more slowly now. "At least, I didn't think so. Not until I heard a weird noise out in the wood shop behind his house. He was into woodworking as a hobby. At least, that's what he told me."

Ryan didn't want to think about what Greg might have heard -- or seen. He almost didn't want to ask just what had happened; it sounded as though Greg had walked into something that no one in their right mind would want to have any kind of access to.

"I went out to the shop -- and I found him throwing a shirt away," Greg said softly, shaking his head. "He had an explanation for it, but I wasn't really sure I believed him. And I was even more sure that I'd seen blood on that shirt. But I didn't want to believe it."

Ryan swallowed hard, wondering if the bastard had tried to kill Greg, and it come down to rape as a way to exert power and control. He was fairly sure that was where this was headed, and he almost wanted to tell Greg to stop, but he knew that he couldn't.

"Everything seemed okay after that," Greg continued, his voice betraying the tension he felt. His body was tense, too; he'd stiffened in Ryan's embrace, and it was obvious that this confession about his past was making some bad memories flood back over him.

"We went back to the house, and he started making dinner," Greg went on, closing his eyes. "I don't know when he drugged me -- it must have been in the wine. It wouldn't have been hard for him to slip something in my drink. But at some point, I passed out."

Ryan nodded, feeling a sense of dread creep through him. What had that bastard done to Greg? Whatever had taken place, it obviously hadn't been fatal -- and it hadn't been enough to convince Greg that he was no longer interested in men, Ryan told himself, feeling relieved.

"When I came to, I was ...." Greg's voice trailed off; he took a deep breath, his hands clenching into fists in his lap before he continued. "I was naked and tied face down to a table in the woodshop. He'd gagged me so I couldn't scream."

Ryan could feel his muscles tightening, dreading to hear what else Greg had to say. He'd known that this would be bad, but he hadn't expected the kind of cruelty that he was sure he was going to hear about. His heart almost seemed to stand still, waiting for Greg's next words.

"I hadn't thought anything could hurt that bad," Greg whispered, his voice breaking on the last words. "I'd always thought that the first time I made love with a guy, it would be special. I never expected that somebody I trusted and cared about would rape me."

Ryan had to blink rapidly to hold back tears; he didn't want to think about someone hurting Greg in that way, or the pain that he must have gone through. All he could do was tightening his hold on Greg, hoping that being held would be some kind of comfort to him.

"I thoguht it would go on forever," Greg whispered, his eyes closed, his voice trembling. "He kept taunting me, telling me that it would have happened anyway, that it would have just taken another few weeks at the most for me to spread my legs for him willingly."

His hands clenched again, so tightly that Ryan could feel the other man's arms shaking. "And you know what? It's true. I would have given myself to him. I would have let him take me to bed. And I would have ended up being one of his victims."

"He'd been .... killing people?" Ryan asked, almost unable to believe what he was hearing. "That must have been frightening for you to find out, especially in the situation you were in," he murmured, not knowing what else to say. He felt that the words didn't offer much comfort.

"Yeah," Greg replied, his voice still shaking. "He'd been raping and torturing young guys -- and he showed me their pictures. They all ...." He stopped for a moment, swallowing hard before he continued. "They all looked a lot like me. Seven of them."

Greg abruptly turned in Ryan's embrace, burying his face against the other man's shoulder. Ryan wrapped his arms around Greg, holding him close, hoping that being in someone's arms and knowing that he was safe would help him to go on and get the rest of the story out.

"When he was .... finished, he just got up and left me there. I think he was going to come back later and -- and f-finish me," Greg whispered, not lifting his head from Ryan's shoulder. "But one of the ropes he'd tried my wrists with was loose, and I managed to get my hand free."

Ryan said nothing, simply waiting for Greg to go on. After a few moments, he did so, his voice seeming to gain strength as he spoke. "I got myself untied and got off the table -- but it hurt like hell to move. And when I putting my clothes back on, I found .... body parts. In the trash can."

"In the trash?" Ryan asked, unable to believe that any killer could have been so stupid. "He didn't get rid of them?" But as he spoke, a thought occurred to him. "Maybe he meant to get rid of them later." He didn't want to think of just how those parts would be disposed of.

"I think he intended to make me watch," Greg said, his voice hoarse. "And I think that after he got rid of the last body -- I was g-going to b-be the next one." His voice was trembling more now, as was his body; he was shaking from head to toe.

"Shhh, sweetheart, it's over now," Ryan tried to soothe him, stroking his fingers through Greg's hair again. "It was a long time ago, and the cops have caught him by now. Haven't they?" he asked, realizing that Greg might still be terrified that this man would hunt him down.

"Yeah, they caught him," Greg whispered, gulping. "Two days after he raped me. I think they'd been closing in on him for a while, but he was apparently so rattled about me getting away that he made some kind of mistake that led them right to him."

"Is he in prison now?" Ryan asked, keeping his voice soft. He thought he knew that answer to that; if this man was in prison, then Greg would have more than likely have confronted him once he'd become a CSI, and that didn't seem as though it had happened.

Greg shook his head, his words coming out slowly when he spoke agian. "He's dead. He shot at a cop -- and he was gunned down by another one. I wasn't there, but I read about it in the papers. It was part of the reason I became a CSI, even though nobody knows that."

"Nobody but me," Ryan said softly, bowing his head to brush a kiss across Ryan's cheek. "Nobody ever asked you any questions about him? They must have known you were dating him." He was puzzled about that; surely if the police had been following this man, they would have questioned Greg.

"Yeah, they did," Greg said with a sigh. "But I couldn't tell them anything other than that we were dating and that he'd never raised a hand to me. If they were looking for somebody to incriminate him in any violent acts, I was a crappy witness. I couldn't tell them anything."

"Until the day he raped you and would have killed you," Ryan murmured, pulling Greg closer to him. "I'm sorry you had to keep that inside for so long, Greg. Nobody deserves to have to live with a secret like that. It can eat you up inside with every day that goes by."

"You sound like you know something about that," Greg said, his dark gaze fixed on Ryan, his expression inquiring. "If there's anything you need to talk about, you know I"m here to listen. It feels pretty good to get things off your chest. If you need to talk ...."

Slowly, Ryan nodded, knowing that it was his turn to spill secrets that he hadn't told anyone. Greg had unburdened himself, and even though Ryan's experience was much more recent than Greg's, maybe it was time that he made his own confession.

"Yeah, I think you're right," he said, hearing his voice tremble slightly on the words. "It was a big part of why I felt like I had to leave Miami, even though I never told anybody about it. But if anybody deserves to know, you do. I don't want there to be any secrets between us."

"Neither do I," Greg told him, sliding his arms around Ryan's waist. Within moments, their positions had reversed; Ryan was leaning back against Greg's chest, the other man's arms wrapped around his waist. trying to find the words to tell Greg what he'd never intended anyone to know.

***

Next story in series - Fate's Plan.