Title: Don't Walk Away
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders/Nick Stokes
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Post-ep for the S11 CSI: Vegas episode "Cello and Goodbye," and a sequel to the Greg/Nick fic "One Too Many". Completely unrelated to the other Greg/Nick series that I write.
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 Nick Stokes, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Greg curled up on the couch, wishing that he had made it to bed rather than collapsing here in the living room. His head was pounding; the hangover that he knew was building up had just started to bloom. He would be in for another day of feeling like hell.

Did he feel like anything else, now that the man he had been sure he was going to spend his life with was dead? He hadn't even been able to go to Jonah's funeral; his boyfriend's parents hadn't wanted him to be there, or to acknowledge him as a part of their son's life.

He didn't want to feel anger towards them, but he couldn't help it. Yes, they had lost their son -- but he had lost the man he loved, the man he had planned to spend the rest of his life with. He had lost his future, the future that he had been planning with such joy.

Fresh tears filled his eyes at the thought, tears that he couldn't hold back. He had to clamp a hand over his mouth to stop himself from sobbing aloud; the last thing he wanted to do was wake Nick and send him running in here to find out what was wrong.

He knew what was wrong, Greg told himself, sitting up slowly and raising a hand to wipe the tears away as best he could. Nick knew what he had lost; he would understand as no one else would. But he didn't feel that he could go to Nick and use his shoulder to cry on.

He was ashamed of himself for spending so much time getting drunk; he should have been able to handle his emotions better than that. He had never done anything like this before, and he'd lost people close to him. But he'd never lost a lover. Not like this.

Nick would offer comfort; he knew that. But Nick could never understand how this felt. He hadn't lost the person he loved in such a horrible way -- and if he did, Greg was sure that he wouldn't be denied the right to pay his last respects.

Or would Nick offer that comfort to him? Greg had to wonder about that; considering that Jonah had been the man who Greg had been with after he and Nick had broken up, Nick might very well be glad that he was gone. He might be happy about this.

No, Nick wasn't like that. Greg shook his head, almost groaning aloud as a spike of pain seemed to pierce his head as he did so. Nick would never be joyful over someone else's unhappiness, especially someone who was close to him.

He might even expect things to go back to the way they had been before the breakup, before he'd met Jonah and his whole life had changed. It would be so easy to do that, to slide back into a world that was safe and familiar, a world where he felt protected.

But had he really been protected? When they'd been together, Nick had only been there when it had suited him to be -- not when Greg needed him. Nick might have loved him, but he loved his job more. He didn't want to go back to that kind of a relationship.

At the same time, he didn't know where else to turn. Nick had always been the person who understood him best, the person he had always turned to when he needed comfort, even before they had become lovers. Nick was his rock, his shoulder to cry on.

Still, Nick hadn't always been there when he was needed. He had always put his job first, and Greg second. And he didn't want to go back to that kind of life, Greg told himself. He couldn't go back to Nick unless he had changed a lot -- and Greg didn't think he had.

But he couldn't deny that he needed Nick, as a friend if nothing more. Right now, he needed someone to hold him, to let him cry in their arms, to at least try to understand how he was feeling. He just needed someone there, someone who would be by his side.

And that someone was Nick. There was no one else he wanted to cry to, no one else whose arms would be as welcoming. There was no one else he felt safe with, who he could confess all his deepest secrets to and know that they would be held dear.

If only he could trust Nick to put him first, in front of his job, then how different their lives could have been! Greg thought wistfully. But then, if he and Nick hadn't had those problems, then he would never have met Jonah and fallen in love with him.

That was over now, Greg told himself, trying to hold back fresh tears as the memories of the time he'd spent with Jonah began to run through his mind like a filmstrip. Jonah was gone. Nothing was going to bring him back. Their life together had been cut short.

He lifted his head as he heard footsteps padding down the hallway; Nick was coming back to the living room from his bedroom, where he'd apparently been sleeping. They were probably going to have to talk about what had happened, and Greg wasn't sure that he was ready.

Ready or not, he'd have to talk to Nick sometime -- and it might as well be now. He just hoped that his former boyfriend was prepared to deal with a lot of tears, because he knew tha the couldn't talk about his feelings for Jonah without breaking down.

He managed a small, wan smile when Nick came into the room; Nick returned the smile, but Greg could tell that he was apprehensive. Maybe he didn't want to talk about the time that they'd spent apart, but they both knew that they would have to face that conversation at some point.

It might as well be now, Greg told himself, sitting up and taking a deep breath as Nick sat down on the couch next to him. The other man turned to look at him, taking Greg's hands in his own and squeezing them gently, then twining their fingers together.

"You feeling sober enough to talk?" he asked, his voice soft and gentle. Greg could feel the tears coming back, threatening to overflow at the sound of Nick's voice. How could he have ever doubted that this man would give him the comfort that he so badly needed?

Greg nodded slowly, wondering if he could manage to get any words out. A part of him wanted to talk about Jonah, about his feelings, and cry on Nick's broad shoulder -- but another part of him was terrified that the other man would walk away if he tried to do that.

Nick wasn't going to walk away from him, he told himself sternly. It didn't matter that he had been with another man for a while now, or that his physical relationship with Nick no longer existed. This man was his friend. Nick wasn't going to take that away from him.

"I .... I ...." He didn't seem to be able to get any words to come out; as much as he felt he needed to talk, to let his emotions out, the words were stuck in his throat, trapped there by his own fear. Greg swallowed hard, trying to summon up the courage to say something.

And when he finally did, the words weren't the ones he had been expecting. "Don't walk away from me," he whispered, the words sounding more like a hoarse croak than a human voice. "I've already lost one person I care about. I don't want to lose another."

"What?" Nick sounded genuinely surprised by his words; without saying anything more, he moved closer to Greg on the couch, pulling the younger man into his arms. "If you think I could ever walk away from you, then you're crazy, Greg. That's not going to happen."

Those words undid him; the fragile self-control that he had kept on his emotions was lost, the tears set free. They poured down his face, the sobs coming along with them, sobs that he buried against Nick's shoulder as he other man held him and stroked his hair.

"I-I keep feeling like you're just going to walk away from me and say that something's coming up at work that's more important," he managed to gasp out between sobs. "A part of me says you won't, but another part says that it's what you've always done."

"I don't plan on ever doing that again," Nick said quietly, stroking a hand through Greg's hair, the other hand moving up and down his back, trying to soothe him. "Never again, Greg. I'm here for good this time. My job is never going to come before you again. Not ever."

"Promise?" Greg whispered, raising his tear-streaked face from Nick's shoulder. "You'll be there whenever I n-need you, and you won't run off to work and s-say that it's more important?" His voice shook as he spoke; he couldn't believe that Nick was making that kind of a statement.

Nick nodded gravely, bowing his head to brush a gentle kiss across Greg's forehead. "I promise, Greg," he said softly, his dark eyes meeting Greg's. "I know that you aren't ready for a new relationship with me right now, but I promise that if you ever are, things are going to change."

Greg sniffled, still unable to believe that Nick meant what he said. He had heard those words before; it wasn't easy for him to take them to heart. And it wasn't the right time yet for him to consider renewing their relationship, as Nick said.

But it was a thought for the future. And at least he knew that Nick wasn't going to walk out on him now; he could only hope that if the phone rang and it was Catherine calling Nick in to work, he would say that he couldn't make it, that he was dealing with a personal emergency.

That had never happened before, a voice in the back of Greg's mind piped up, a voice that was unwanted and largely unheeded. Nick had always made work his first priority; Greg had never come first. But maybe, just maybe, things would actually change.

He didn't know where the future was going, or even if he would be back with Nick in time, Greg thought as he rested his head on the other man's shoulder again and felt Nick's arms tighten around him. But for now, this was enough. Only time would tell if it would become more.

***

Next story in series - Heart of Glass.