Title: Crime of Passion
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders/Ryan Wolfe
Fandom: CSI: Las Vegas/CSI: Miami
Rating: PG-13
Table: Crimes, mission_insane
Prompt: 9, Passion
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Greg Sanders or Ryan Wolfe, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Ryan rose to his feet and looked around the crime scene he and Greg were at, grimacing as he did so. "I didn't expect it to be this messy," he said under his breath, looking over at his boyfriend. "I've seen a lot of bloody scenes, but this is one of the worst."

He was sickened by how two people who had supposedly loved each other had ended up like this -- and from what they knew so far, they'd done it to each other. He knew that he'd be angry if his lover cheated on him, but he couldn't imagine anyone doing this.

The amount of blood when a person was shot point-blank at very close range wasn't something he liked dealing with, Ryan thought with a sigh. He couldn't imagine what would bring a person to do something like this -- and to their lover, of all people. It didn't make sense to him.

Just the thought of anyone hurting Greg like this, taking a gun and killing him in cold blood, was enough to make Ryan feel panicked and want to grab his boyfriend and run out of here. But he suppressed the urge, only looking over at Greg to see how his other half was doing.

Greg slowly rose to his feet, camera in hand. "I don't know that there's a lot of use taking pictures of this whole scene," he said, his voice sounding hollow. "There's so much blood all over everything, any clues we could get might be too obscured for us to see."

"But you know we've got to take pictures anyway," Ryan said, keeping his voice soft. He had to speak in a soft voice, he told himself wryly; if he didn't, he risked throwing up. Scenes like this weren't new to him, but he never got used to being in the middle of them after the fact.

Greg nodded glumly, continuing with what he was doing. Ryan kept up with his own investigations, putting anything that he thought would be useful in bags to take back to the crime lab and examine more closely later. He hoped they wouldn't have to be here for much longer.

It seemed like forever before they had finally done all that they could do, and more police had shown up to remove the bodies. Ryan glanced over at Greg as they made their way outside to the Denali; his boyfriend looked pale and tense, but relieved to be out of that house.

"What do you think possesses somebody to commit a crime of passon like that, anyway?" Ryan said quietly once they were in the Denali and leaving the crime scene. He'd let Greg drive, simply because he was sure that his boyfriend wanted and needed the distraction at the moment.

Greg had told him once that when he'd been to a particularly bad crime scene, driving back to the lab could help him unwind, because he didn't have to think about what he'd just seen. He could concentrate on the traffic, and even though it didn't make him forget, it helped him focus.

"I don't know," Greg said softly, his voice trembling a little. "I can usually get through scenes like that without feeling like I'm going to fall apart, but .... Ry, I kept thinking of something like that happening to you. And it scared the hell out of me."

"You're not planning on committing a crime of passion and murdering me violently in cold blood, are you?" Ryan asked with a forced laugh, trying to lighten the mood a little. He regretted doing it when Greg turned his head to look at him as he stopped for a red light.

The look on his boyfriend's face was somewhere between shocked and horrified. "Do you actually think I could ever do anything like that to you?" Greg whispered. His face had gone as white as a sheet, as though he actually thought Ryan's words had been serious.

"Baby, of course I don't," Ryan hastened to say, placing a hand on Greg's shoulder. "I know you could never do anything like that. Not just to me, but not to anybody. The only way you could kill somebody is if it was in self-defense. You're not that kind of person."

"I just ...." Greg's voice trailed off, and he didn't speak for several long minutes as he navigated the traffic on the road back to the crime lab. Finally, he sighed and turned back to Ryan when he stopped for yet another red light. "I can't understand why people do things like that to somebody they love."

"We don't know the whole story," Ryan said thoughtfully, shaking his head. "Maybe she was cheating on him. Or he was cheating on her. From what I saw, it looks like she's the one who shot him. At least, from the direction of the blood spatter."

Greg nodded, looking thoughtful. "That's what I thought, too. But there's really no way to tell, since they both had powder residue on their hands. It looks like they .... well, shot each other. Maybe they were both cheating, and neither of them could take it any more."

"That's a reasonable explanation," Ryan agreed. "But we're not going to know for sure until we've been back to the house and looked around some more after the bodies are taken away. And not until we've looked at all the evidence at the lab, and done some DNA and trace testing."

"It's these kinds of crimes that get to me the most," Greg said, his voice trembling again. "I used to wonder, if people who've been in a relationship for a long time can do things like this to each other, commit a crime of passion in cold blood ...."

His voice trailed off again; Ryan was fairly sure of what he was going to say. "You feel that if people who've been in a committed relationship for a long time can turn against each other like that, then what chance do you have of finding somebody to spend your life with, right?"

Greg nodded, glancing over at him as he turned the wheel to pull into the crime lab's parking lot. "Yeah, that's exactly it. I used to tell myself all the time that if relationships end up like that, then I'm better off not being in one. But that was before I met you."

"I used to feel the same way," Ryan said softly, reaching for Greg's hand again as the other man pulled the Denali into a parking space and turned off the engine. "But the second I met you, I knew that I didn't have to worry about spending my life alone. I knew you were the one."

"I knew the same thing when I looked at you for the first time," Greg said softly, his gaze focused on Ryan. "I knew that you were the answer to all my hopes and dreams. And I knew that I was never going to let you go, if I was lucky enough to have you feel the same way about me."

"Neither of us has to worry about the other committing a crime of passion, Greg," Ryan said with a soft laugh. "I know it sounds like a cliché to say this, but we're not the kind of people who're going to get that carried away by anger. Especially since we both work in law enforcement."

They both knew that they couldn't embrace or kiss here in the parking lot; there was too much of a chance that they would be seen by another CSI, or someone else who worked in the crime lab. All they could do was smile at each other, and clasp hands where they couldn't be seen.

But even that small touch gave them both a feeling of comfort; each of them knew that the other was there for him, through thick and thin, no matter what might happen. That was a reassurance they both needed after what they'd seen tonight.

Silently, they both got out of the Denali, going to the back to remove their evidence. It was going to be a long night at the lab, processing all of this and trying to come up with good theories as to what had happened. Ryan sighed as he picked up his evidence kit, waiting for Greg to close the door.

This was one night when he couldn't wait to get their job done and go back home. All he wanted to do was to make love to his boyfriend, erase the images of the horrible crime of passion they'd both seen the grisly aftermath of, and revel in the knowledge that it would never happen to them.

***