Title: Easier That Way
Author: sandersyager
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG
Character(s)/Pairing: Greg Sanders/Warrick Brown, with implied Nick Stokes/Warrick Brown
Summary: It's easier to go home to someone who understands what it is you do all night.
Warnings: Vague spoilers for Grave Danger.
Notes: The prompt is "dangerous love." This takes place adjacent to the universe of the What You Need series I'm writing with edgecity.800 words.It doesn't rain often, and rarely when Warrick has a night off. Tonight, it rains. Heavy sheets of water loud against the roof of Greg's house, louder still against the skylights in the kitchen and living room.
Warrick wakes up with Greg, sharing a shower and coffee, a long kiss at the door. He doesn't pray, but the words he murmurs as he closes the door behind Greg are close enough. He hates the nights that one of them is on and the other isn't. Too much time watching Nick's back has made him a little wary, a little worried, a lot older than he should feel.
Even if he were working, there's no guarantee he'd be there if anything happened. No guarantee that he could stop it, but somehow nights like this worry him more. So, he keeps moving, keeps busy, starts a load of laundry, runs the dishwasher. He's pulling a clean sheet across the mattress when it hits him. Nick's right. Greg's turning him into a housewife, and it bothers him a lot less than he thought it would.
Greg's started to hint about maybe living together, about Warrick selling his apartment and moving into the house. He's considering it. They could stop alternating nights between two places, never really settling into being at either. Greg wouldn't have to scramble out of bed or run home after work to take care of his fish. Warrick could stop carting around half his closet in the back of his truck. All their CDs would be in one place.
It'd be easier in a lot of ways, and a hell of a lot harder in others. They've managed to keep their relationship quiet at work, but the change of address would raise eyebrows if not questions. There's no way they could stay off of Gil's radar, or Ecklie's, and even if Gil didn't split them up, Ecklie would demand it.
He tried talking to Greg about it once, when they started dating and were still more likely to get distracted by each other than finish a conversation. They'll have to discuss it again—preferably somewhere very public, because they're still prone to distraction—if Greg's serious about Warrick moving. There's no doubt in Warrick's mind that their sexuality wouldn't matter, it's the issue of being involved with a co-worker. In this line of work, relationships are bound to develop. Between the hours and the stress, it's easier to go home to someone who understands what it is you do all night, but it's also dangerous. Or could be.
He doesn't regret getting involved with Nick, but he definitely had second thoughts when Gil found out. He still remembers the hour long lecture about emotional distance and boundaries in the field, Gil's fear that something would happen to Nick—and let's face it, something always happened to Nick—and that Warrick would be unable to keep control of his reactions or his temper. He knows now that Gil was right, sort of, after... after Nick's kidnapping.
The irony is that they were all on edge, all afraid for Nick. Hell, even Hodges was shaky for weeks after. Warrick was the only one to lash out, though. He was also the only one to see Nick lift his weapon toward his head, and the one who sent him on the trash run in the first place, but he wonders sometimes if it would have been as bad if... It would have been bad anyway it went down.
Nights like this, when he's home and Greg's working, he worries while he makes the bed. He closes his eyes for a second when he sinks onto the couch and wonders where Greg is, which case he's drawn tonight and who's with him. Sometimes, and he hates himself for it, he hopes it's Nick. Nick, with his damsel-in-distress karma and the target on his back that's made him strong enough to go through hell and come out on the other side. Greg doesn't have that, and Warrick hopes he never will. It's not that he wants anything to happen to Nick, either, because, god, neither of them could take much more. It's that he knows that Nick, with his tendency toward needing a rescue, also watches his partner's back.
So, Warrick settles in with a random DVD and a cup of coffee—Greg's gotten him to trade beer for Blue Hawaiian, and he's not sure it's really a better deal—and he hopes that Nick and Greg are working together. He draws the line at calling to find out, but he does send Greg a quick text message around four, just because he can. Just because he misses him, and the steady drone of the rain doesn't make up for the silence of the house.
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