Title: Dark To Light
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, 6) Confessions, 7) Fate's Plan, 8) Exposed, 9) A Matter of Feeling, 10) Loving Every Minute of It, 11) Street of Dreams, 12) One of Our Own, 13) Cold Storage, 14) Life Or Death, 15) Hole in My Heart, 16) Someone To Pull the Trigger, 17) Every Beat of the Heart, 18) No Promises, 19) Perfect Morning, 20) Everything Works If You Let It
Fandom: CSI: Vegas/CSI: Miami
Rating: PG-13
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 came awake suddenly, sitting up and blinking in the darkness, wondering what it was that had jerked him so precipitously out of slumber. It only took him a moment to realize that Greg was tossing and turning beside him, in the throes of a nightmare.

"No .... don't .... please .... it hurts .... it hurts," he moaned, his eyes tightly closed, oblivious to Ryan lying in bed next to him. "Stop .... please .... please ..... stop!" The last word came out in a high-pitched shriek, almost startling Ryan.

Bending over his boyfriend, he grabbed Greg's shoulder, shaking him in an attempt to wake him up. "Greg! Baby, wake up! It's just a dream, babe, just a nightmare. Wake up!" Ryan shook Greg more urgently, his grip on the other man's shoulder tightening.

But Greg didn't awaken right away; he screamed again, the sound reverberating through Ryan's mind. He shook Greg again, more violently this time, knowing of no other way to wake his boyfriend and get him out of the nightmare that had apparently taken him prisoner.

It took Greg a few moments of being shaken to wake up; when he did, his dark eyes snapped open, staring up unseeingly at Ryan. His cries had turned to soft whimpers, his hands clutching at Ryan's arm as though the other man was a lifeline.

"Shhh, baby, it's okay," Ryan murmured, sliding both arms around Greg and pulling him close, nuzzling his cheek against the silken softness of Greg's hair. "I'm here -- you're safe. There's nothing to be afraid of, Greg. You were dreaming, babe. It's over. Just a dream."

Greg was sobbing against his shoulder, his thin arms wrapping around Ryan's waist and hodling hm so tightly that Ryan wondered if his ribs would crack. But he didn't want Greg to let go, not if his boyfriend felt that he needed someone to hold on to.

"The nightmares keep getting worse, don't they?" he asked quietly, stroking Greg's bck. "It's almost every night now, baby. We've got to do something about them. I keep worrying that you aren't getting enough sleep because you're always having such bad dreams."

"Yeah, they k-keep g-getting worse," Greg admitted, gulping. "I d-don't know why, Ryan. I hardly ever had dreams about ....." He gulped again, sobbing again for a few moments before he could continue speaking. "About what h-happened to me until the l-last f-f-few weeks."

"Because I made you talk about it," Ryan whispered, a wave of guilt washing over him. "I made you bring it all back out in the open, after you'd been trying to forget about it for so long. I'm the one who made it worse. I'm so sorry, Greg. I should have kept my big mouth shut."

Greg lifted his head from Ryan's shoulder, raising a hand to wipe at his tears. "No, you shouldn't have," he said, his voice surprisingly firm. "I couldn't keep hiding for the rest of my life, could I? And you had a right to know everything about me before we got involved."

"Baby, I --" Ryan swallowed hard, unsure of what to say. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words would come; all he could do was place his hands on either side of Greg's face and gaze into the other man's eyes, hoping that words would eventually break through his silence.

Greg shook his head, a few more tears sliding down his cheeks. Seeing those tears broke Ryan's heart; he wished that he could chase all of Greg's nightmares away, make them cease to exist. He wished that he could wave a magic wand and take any pain that Greg had ever suffered.

But he couldn't. All that he could do was hold Greg, kiss him and love him, and be there for him whenever he was needed. That would have to be enough. He couldn't erase the past, but he could make sure that their future together was a long and happy one.

"Come on," he said softly as an idea popped into his head. "I feel like making pancakes. Blueberry pancakes. I don't know about you, but I'm kind of hungry. We barely ate last night because we were too busy arguing over what we thought of that movie."

Greg nodded, a small smile starting to form on his lips. "Yeah, I could eat something. Even though it's the middle of the night and most people would think we're crazy. How many guys do you know who get out of bed to make pancakes at --"

He turned to look at the luminescent green numbers on the clock by the bed, laughing and shaking his head as he turned back to Ryan. "At two in the morning? It might make sense if we hadn't had last night off, but we did. And now our sleep schedule is all fucked up."

"So that just means that we're a little more tired than usual by the end of our shift tomorrow night," Ryan said with a shrug. "Come on, babe, you've done this before. It's not like we both aren't used to working kind of weird hours. And anyway, we work together."

"I don't know what I'd do if we didn't," Greg murmured as the two of them got up from the bed. "Knowing you have my back makes me feel safer whenever we're out on a case. Not that I don't usually feel safe, but being a CSI can get a little hairy sometimes."

"A little?" Ryan asked with a laugh and a grimace. He immediately wished he could bite his tongue off; the last thing he needed was to remind Greg of what had happened to him so recently. That had been just as much of a scare for his boyfriend as it had been for him.

"A lot," Greg said softly as their eyes met. "But let's not think about that right now, okay? I don't want that dream to linger. And I'm hungry. I demand pancakes!" He held out a hand to Ryan, the effects of the bad dream apparently forgotten, a smile curving his lips.

Ryan shrugged his t-shirt over his head and reached for Greg's hand, leading his boyfriend down the hall to the kitchen and turning on the light. It only took him a few moments to have blueberry pancake mix poured into a bowl and begin stirring it as Greg sat down at the kitchen table.

Within minutes, he was spooning the batter into round pancakes, then flipping them over as they quickly browned. Ryan had never thought of himself as much of a cook, but this was something he'd always liked doing -- and he thought that he was pretty good at it.

When he had a stack of pancakes ready, he piled them onto a plate and took them to the table, setting them down in front of Greg. His boyfriend looked up at him, wide-eyed, then back down at the food on the plate in front of him as though he couldn't believe it was there.

"Aren't you going to have any?" he protested as Ryan went back to the stove to turn it off. "You'd better, because I can't eat all this. I'm kind of hungry, but I'm not starving. And y'know, even though I usually have coffee with pancakes, that's probably not a good idea at this time of the morning."

"Why not?" Ryan asked him, arching an eyebrow as he went to the coffeepot and began measuring coffee into the filter. "We have to get back onto our normal sleep schedule after a day off, don't we? So being up at this time of the morning is normal for us."

He gasped in surprise as he felt Greg's arms slide around his waist; he hadn't realized that his boyfriend had gotten up from his chair. Ryan closed his eyes, feeling Greg's warm breath against the back of his neck, those soft lips on his skin.

"I love you for doing things like this," Greg whispered into his ear. "I love you for being here for me. I love you for loving me. I just .... love you." His voice was soft and husky, his lips soft and gentle against Ryan's skin, his embrace secure and comforting.

Ryan turned around in Greg's embrace to slip his arms around his boyfriend's slender waist and pull him close. "Thank you for letting me love you," he whispered, brushing his lips against Greg's hair. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world -- or with anyone else."

"I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here," Greg whispered, his voice breaking on the last word. "I'd have gone crazy by now, I guess. The rest of the team would probably be ready to send me to a loony bin -- or I'd more than likely have shut myself up in one."

"Well, I know one thing for sure," Ryan said with a soft laugh, trying to lighten the somber mood. "You definitely wouldn't be getting blueberry pancakes made for you in the comfort of your own home at two o'clock in the morning. Not unless you made them yourself."

Greg laughed along with him, hugging him again, the dark mood that had fallen over them dissipating. Ryan sighed in relief as he turned the coffeepot on and followed Greg back to the kitchen table; the darkness of a while ago had managed to turn lighter, and he wanted to keep it that way.

***

Next story in series - Into Temptation.