Title: Everything Works If You Let It
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
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.

***

Greg knelt on the kitchen floor next to Wolfie's food dish, petting the puppy as the little creature ate. It had only been a few days since Ryan had brought the little dog home, but he'd already captured Greg's heart. It was hard to believe he'd gone so long without a dog.

He'd had dogs and cats in his life when he'd lived at home with his parents, but ever since he'd moved out on his own, he hadn't really felt that he'd had the time to devote to a pet. It wouldn't be fair not to be around for a dog most of the time, either to the animal or to himself.

But now that Ryan had brought Wolfie home, Greg couldn't imagine being without the puppy. Between the two of them, Greg was sure that he and Ryan could give the little dog a good home, even if Wolfie had to get used to living in two different places.

Of course, that might not be such a hard thing to do, if Ryan's talk with the landlord of Greg's apartment complex went well. Greg looked anxiously at his watch, wondering when Ryan would be back. This seemed to be taking a lot longer than he had thought it would.

He'd heard just two days ago that the apartment next to his would be vacant by the end of the month, and he desperately wanted Ryan to be able to get it. They might not be able to live together, but the next best thing was being next-door neighbors.

That way, all they had to do was to walk a few feet to each other's front doors when they wanted to spend time together. No one would think that they were involved, if they could manage to keep their relationship on the down-low at work, and their lives could run smoothly.

What would it be like to have his lover living right next door to him? What if they broke up any time soon, and then he still had to not only work with Ryan, but live next to him on a daily basis? That would be incredibly awkward for both of them, to say the least.

But that wasn't going to happen, Greg told himself firmly as he stood up and headed back into the living room. They weren't going to break up. He and Ryan were going to be together for the rest of their lives; he didn't doubt that for one second.

If he didn't have Ryan in his life, what would he be doing now? Greg smiled wryly at the thought; he knew exactly what he would be doing, if he was honest with himself. He would be living the same life he always had, just as lonely as he'd been for the past few years.

He had tried to tell himself so many times that he wasn't lonely, but in the moments when he'd been lying alone in bed in the early hours of the morning after coming home from work, he'd known that he was lying. He wasn't just lonely, he was miserable.

How long had he tried to convince himself that he was happy in the life that he led? Yes, he loved his job, but work wasn't enough. He was the kind of person who was happiest when he had someone to lavish love on, someone to be by his side and to love him back.

He'd made the mistake of looking for that kind of love with women at one point in his life, but that hadn't worked out well. Besides, he never really enjoyed being with a female; they always seemed to want more from him than he was willing or able to give.

Besides, he'd always felt more comfortable with men. Even after that first horrible experience, he was still far more attracted to men than he was to women; he'd tried to pretend for years that he wasn't, but he had always had a secret life that his co-workers didn't know about.

They still didn't know that he'd lost his virginity to a rapist. It had been far easier to lie and say that he had waited until he was twenty-two years old to have sex for the first time than to admit that he'd been raped. That would have been opening up a can of worms.

Greg had no doubt that if he'd told them the truth, his friends would have insisted on tracking down the man who had done it. He hadn't been killed until a few years after he had started working in the lab, and the last thing he would have wanted at the time was for his secret to be revealed.

Ryan was the first person he'd ever told. He had kept it quiet, not speaking of the experience to anyone, even though he knew that it would have been best for him to see a therapist. He'd simply tried to deal with it on his own, as best he could, taking life one day at a time.

And for the most part, he'd succeeded -- except when it came to his relationships with the men he'd dated. He had never been able to let any of them get past the physical or emotional barriers that the rape had put up in his mind -- and none of them had really cared enough to keep trying.

But it was different with Ryan. There had been a connection between them from the first moment their eyes had met; this man was unlike anyone he'd ever known. Ryan touched his heart and soul in a way that he'd given up thinking anyone ever could.

He had resigned himself to having short, unfulfilling relationships, to never feeling that he was able to give himself to anyone completely. But Ryan had changed all that -- even though they still hadn't made love, Greg knew that it was only a matter of time before it happened.

Yes, he did feel a little apprehensive about that, he admitted. Still, that was understandable, given his past -- and Ryan's, too. Neither of them were going to just jump into bed with anyone -- even each other. And that would make their eventual coming together all the more special.

Greg looked up as he heard Ryan's key in the lock; his muscles tensed at the realization that the other man was back, and that he would obviously have news of what had happened at the rental office when he'd talked to the owner of the place. Greg just hoped the news would be good.

If it wasn't .... Well, there were a lot of other apartment complexes around this area. There was one just a couple of blocks away, another only about four blocks in the other direction. He desperately wanted Ryan to be right beside him, but if that didn't work out, there were other options.

"Guess what?" Ryan told him as he burst into the living room with a smile on his face. "You're looking at your new next-door neighbor." As soon as those people move out, they'll get to work on fixing the place up. I can move in there within the next two weeks."

"Two weeks?" Greg blinked, a little shocked, unable to believe that the turnaround would be so quick. "It took me almost two months to get in here! They must have really liked you." He couldn't believe how well everything as working out for the two of them; it almost didn't seem real.

"They did," Ryan told him with a laugh, picking up Wolfie as the puppy raced into the living room and jumped at him. "And the fact that I'm staying with you right now helped a lot. I don't think you know just what a good opinion the people in that office have of you, babe."

"It's just because I always pay the rent on time, and because I work for the crime lab," Greg said, shaking his head and laughing along with his boyfriend. "They feel safe having me here. I don't know why, since I'm not a cop -- but hey, every little thing helps, right?"

"I think it's because all those girls appreciate the fact that you're a good-looking guy with a great ass," Ryan told him, his voice mock-serious. "But they'd better not look at it too hard, or I'll have to cause some damage. That fine ass belongs to me."

"I don't want anybody looking at my ass but you," Greg murmured, moving closer to Ryan when he sat down the couch. Wolfie settled himself in Ryan's lap, rolling over onto his back and closing his eyes. The sight of the puppy made Greg laugh again.

"Look at him," he said softly, knowing that the puppy was going to sleep and not wanting to wake him up. "I think he knows that things are going pretty well for us. He's so contented. And now he won't have to live in two different places that are far away from each other."

"His two homes will be right next door," Ryan said with a smile, patting the puppy's head. "And we won't ever have to be far from each other, either. Even though I can't see us spending a single night apart. We'll just spend some nights here and some there."

"That works for me," Greg murmured, resting his head against Ryan's shoulder. "I really don't care where I am, as long as I'm with you. Even if you'd had to move somewhere that's not right around here, it would still feel like home to me just because you're there."

Ryan's lips brushed against his hair, the kiss as soft and gentle as a summer breeze. Greg closed his eyes, feeling more contented than he had in a long time. Yes, things were definitely working out for them, more quickly and more satisfactorily than he ever would have expected.

***

Next story in series - Dark To Light.