Title: Looking At A Picture
Author: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders/Ryan Wolfe
Fandom: CSI: Vegas/CSI: Miami
Rating: PG-13
Table: Un-themed 8, mission_insane
Prompt: 10, Picture
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.

***

Greg flipped a page in the photo album that he held, looking at the pictures that Ryan had collected when he had been with the CSI team in Miami. He didn't know why he'd felt the desire to see what Ryan's last team had been like; he didn't really need to know.

He'd met Horatio Caine when the man had come here to take Santos back to Miami; the man had given him a searching look, as though he'd somehow known that Greg was more to Ryan than just his partner, before he'd held out a hand in greeting.

He had liked Horatio; the man had seemed quiet and unassuming, but Greg had the feeling that he was a person who got things done -- and that he would bend the rules when he needed to. He'd seemed almost like a knight in shining armor.

Ryan had enjoyed working with Horatio; Greg knew that. He had nothing but good things to say about the red-haired man who had seemed so intense on the one occasion when he and Greg had met. It was the rest of the team who he'd had problems with.

Greg turned a page in the photo album, his attention arrested by a group of people who could only be the Miami CSI team, judging from how Ryan had described them. Ryan was with them, a little on the outskirts of the group, his smile seeming halfhearted.

The other people in the group were smiling into the camera, banded together as though they turned in on themselves. It didn't look like a team of people who welcomed any outsiders into their midst; they didn't seem at all like the Vegas CSI team.

The tall black man who had his arm around Ryan's shoulders looked friendly, but the rest of the team seemed to be pointedly ignoring Ryan. Greg felt that he wouldn't like any of those people if he met them, just from looking at their faces in the picture.

Ryan hadn't talked a lot about the people in his past, even the ones that he'd worked with closely, other than Horatio. Greg already knew that he hadn't felt completely accepted by the CSIs in Miami, even though he'd laid his life on the line for them more than once.

Horatio seemed to be the only person there who had fully accepted Ryan and made him feel that he was an important member of their team. That would have been a good enough reason for his boyfriend to have left Miami, even without all the other things that had happened, Greg reflected.

He had to admit that there had been times when he hadn't exactly felt accepted on his own team. When he'd first become a CSI, he'd had to prove himself time and time again before some of the CSIs who had been in the field for much longer than he had regarded him with respect.

How many times had he tamped down on hurt feelings, pretending that he hadn't heard some of the things that were said, or that he'd taken them as a joke? Even when they were meant to actually be jokes, those words had still had the power to hurt him.

Those days were long over, thank goodness. He knew that the other CSIs on the team took his work very seriously, and that they were proud of how he'd transitioned from the DNA lab out into the field. He knew that he was considered to be good at his job.

He had a lot of pictures of his own team, as well -- and lately, he had started to fill up a new photo album with pictures of Ryan. He had a lot of Wolfie, too, but the energetic puppy wasn't one for sitting still and being a model, especially when they were outside.

Ryan, however, was a perfect model. Greg had managed to snap a lot of photos of him when his boyfriend hadn't realized that any pictures were being taken; one of those photos of Ryan in a more pensive moment graced the night table by their bed in Greg's apartment.

He loved that picture; he would often pick it up and look at it when Ryan was out of the room. It was one of those photos that he could look at forever; he could always pick out something new about the expression on his lover's face whenever he gazed at the snapshot.

He'd much rather look at the real thing, of course -- but Ryan wasn't at his side every second of every day. There were times when his boyfriend preferred to take a shower alone -- and, of course, they weren't always together at work, either.

They were partners when they were out in the field, but there were times when their work in the lab put them in different places. Ryan had more experience working with trace, and he, of course, was still called the Vegas lab's king of DNA.

It was good for them to spend some time apart, he told himself, looking at the picture in the photo album again. It was good for Ryan to work with other people in the crime lab; if he didn't, then he might start to feel like an outsider again, and Greg didn't want that.

He wanted Ryan to be happy here. So far, everything seemed to be working out well in that respect; every person here respected Ryan's abilities, both in the field and in the lab, and they treated him as an equal, which was more than he'd apparently gotten from the Miami team.

"Hey, babe, what are you doing?" Ryan's voice made Greg raise his head, his eyes widening in surprise. He hadn't heard his boyfriend come into the room; he'd thought that Ryan was still in the shower, as he hadn't paid attention to the sound of the water being turned off.

"Just looking at a picture in your photo album," Greg told him as Ryan sat down and leaned over to peer at the large book open on Greg's lap. "They don't really look like the kind of people I'd get along with. I'm glad you're not working with them any more."

Ryan shrugged, sighing softly and shaking his head. "They're not bad people," he murmured, his gaze on the picture in front of him. "They just .... never really accepted me because they always felt like I replaced their friend who died. But they're all good CSIs."

Greg nodded, not wanting to pry into Ryan's past by asking question about his old team if his boyfriend wasn't in the mood to answer them. Besides, he didn't really have any questions. That picture told him all that he needed to know about his boyfriend's colleagues in Miami.

"You weren't really happy there, were you?" Greg said softly, daring to venture one question that he felt he already knew the answer to, even before it was asked. But somehow, he wanted to hear the confirmation from Ryan, so he'd know that he was right.

Ryan shook his head, reaching out to close the photo album with one decisive movement. "For a while, I was," he said softly, his gaze meeting Greg's. "And I liked my job. But I never really fit in there like I do here. I belong here, Greg. Here with you."

Greg swallowed hard, unable to answer for a moment. He nodded, resting his head against Ryan's broad shoulder and closing his eyes. He felt his boyfriend's arm go around his waist, pulling him close against the other man's body as he nestled into his lover's embrace.

There was no need for him to be looking at pictures of Ryan's past. It wasn't the past that was important now, but the future that Ryan would make here -- a future that would always include him. He had to look towards that future, not back into the past.

Greg sighed contentedly as Ryan pulled him close, sliding his own arms around his boyfriend's waist. The two of them would make their own photo album full of pictures that they could look back at -- memories that he hoped would be happy ones, and would last for all of their lives.

***