Title: Snap
Author: somthng__wicked
Rating: PG-13
Fandom and Pairing: CSI: Vegas, Greg Sanders/David Hodges
Claim and Prompt: 'Need', First Time. My table (with my two whole completed stories) can be found here.
Warnings: None, just some swearing.
Notes: This takes place about four months after the lab explosion.
Sometime early in season four. Special thanks to caten who is both my inspiration and my beta.
Summary: Things come to a head.

I haven't got all night.

Greg rolled his eyes as he looked down at the text message on his cell. He wasn't surprised in the least when he saw it was from the the trace lab. Greg moved his head to the side to try to alleviate some of the tension he could feel twisting the muscles of his neck. Hodges really was a major pain in his ass.

Just to be difficult, Greg waited another two minutes before slowly making his way from the breakroom down to the trace lab. His back was bothering him again tonight, but Greg was doing his best to hide it and continue pretending that everything was okay. The last thing he needed was people in his face again asking him if he was okay and if there was anything they could do to help him. The last person to make that mistake had been Jacqui two nights ago. Greg had felt the fragile grasp he had on his control snap as he turned to her and basically told her to mind her own fucking business.

Greg really hadn't been in a very good mood lately.

Just before stepping into the trace lab, he shoved his trembling hands into the pockets of his jeans and nodded towards Hodges. "You have my results?"

The other man didn't even look up from his microscope. "I certainly didn't page you to be social."

"Thank god for that," Greg replied in an equally sarcastic voice. The muscles in his neck tightened even further. "What have you got?"

Hodges was still staring at a sample that he had in the microscope. "You should have come when I paged you. Now I'm busy and you're going to have to wait. Hence why I said I didn't have all night."

Greg's right eye twitched and he clenched his hands into fists, fingernails digging into the palms of his hands. "I'm not going to stand here while you process another damn sample. Give me my results. Now," Greg demanded in a firm voice, starting to feel the anger creeping to the surface again. He'd been feeling irritated constantly of late, the aggravation like an army of ants marching beneath his skin, pushing him closer and closer to the edge with every minute that ticked by.

Greg was momentarily satisfied when Hodges looked up at him in surprise, one eyebrow arched before the tech managed to school his features back into a facade of apathy. "Careful, Sanders," Hodges taunted, a smirk curling his lips, "your cracks are showing."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Greg snarled, taking a step closer. He tried to tell himself to calm down, to ignore the jabs, because he knew for a fact that Hodges was just trying to get a rise out of him. It wasn't working, though. Greg was too on edge, too emotionally raw to be able to exert any kind of control over his reactions.

The smirk on Hodges' lips became even more vindictive. "Don't tell me that being blown through a glass wall caused you to lose IQ points as well?"

Snap.

Before he was even aware of what he was doing, Greg was around the table and in Hodges' face, finger poking painfully into the other man's chest. "Do NOT start with me, Hodges," Greg said in a low voice that was trembling almost as much as his hands were.

It pissed Greg off even more to see a flicker of triumph and Hodges' blue eyes.

"I believe I just did," Hodges replied in an equally low, albeit steadier voice. Those eyes locked onto Greg's and refused to look away. "What's the matter, Sanders? No comeback? You know what they say, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen... or DNA lab as the case may be."

Greg really, really, really wanted to wipe that smug expression off the tech's face. Preferably with his fist.

"No response? Wow... are you sure you didn't land on your head when you got blown up? Normally you at least try to keep up with me..."

One of Greg's hands wound itself around the lapel of Hodges' labcoat and pulled the other man even closer. "Don't you DARE stand there and talk to me about anything being 'normal'," Greg snarled. His composure evaporated completely and he no longer had any control over the words that spilled from his lips.

"How about we blow you up... nearly kill you... scar you for life... and then make you come back to work in the exact same spot night after night where you nearly died. Let's blow you through a glass wall and see how fucking normal you feel when you can't get your hands to stop shaking or the nightmares to stop long enough so you can actually manage to get more than two hours of sleep at a time.

"Let's give you second and third degree burns over eighty-percent of your back and see how fucking normal you feel being faced with chipper, cheerful people every single fucking night who have the audacity to ask you how you're feeling while people you actually considered to be your friends can't see with their own two fucking eyes that you're falling apart right in front of them." Greg wound down to a close, chest heaving, hands shaking almost violently as he realized what he had just said, how much of himself he had given away. Greg had no idea when he had come to be pressed nose to nose with Hodges.

"I can see," Hodges replied in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

Greg was nearly stunned to realize that the emotion he saw behind the other man's eyes was actually concern. Not pity. Not fear. He saw understanding and it nearly undid him.

The grip Greg had on Hodges' labcoat shifted slightly as he closed the scant distance between them and pressed their lips together.

He could feel how startled Hodges was, his entire body going rigid almost immediately. Greg nearly pulled back at that, but then he felt arms going around him awkwardly. The motion was followed by Hodges beginning to move his lips over Greg's, responding to the kiss. Greg's hesitation melted away and he pressed closer almost desperately, clinging to the other man like a lifeline as he deepened the kiss, his actions begging Hodges to let Greg in, to give him the comfort he so desperately needed.

One of them whimpered, it didn't really matter who, and then they were pressed so tightly together it was impossible to tell where one man began and the other ended. The entire world faded away as they lost themselves in each other, nearly a year of tension and denial giving way to understanding and desire.

It could have been thirty seconds or thirty minutes later when they pulled away from each other, Greg wasn't sure which and it really didn't matter. Silence greeted them in place of the buzz of conversation that normally permeated the halls of the lab. Greg could feel eyes on them, and was pretty sure that everyone was watching them.

Hodges cleared his throat and pulled away from Greg, smoothing down the rumpled front of his labcoat. He systematically glared at every single person who was staring slack-jawed into the trace lab. "Don't you people have work to do?" Hodges snarled at them in his most scathing voice.

Just like that, the spell was broken and the familiar hum of activity began to build around them. Greg was still staring at Hodges, trying not to feel hurt that he seemed unaffected by what had just happened. He watched as the other man walked over to the printer and pulled out a sheet of paper which he handed to Greg. "Your results."

Automatically, Greg reached out for the printout and held it dumbly in his hands. It took a few seconds, but he somehow managed to find his voice again. "That's it?" Greg was incredulous.

"I never said there was anything spectacular about that sample," Hodges said with a shrug.

Greg could still feel his lips tingling. "That's not what I was talking about and you know it."

"You kissed me."

"You kissed me back."

Hodges seemed to ponder that. "This is true. I did."

Greg stood silently for a full minute. "Well?" He couldn't keep the impatience from his voice.

"Well, what?"

Greg was back to wanting to punch him. "What do we do now?"

"We go back to work," he said simply and then seemed to rethink his response when Greg was unable to keep the hurt off his face. "And then we meet in the locker room after and see what happens."

Greg's shoulders slumped forward a little as he relaxed at that response. He nodded. "Okay... we can do that," he agreed and then moved to leave the trace lab. He frowned, stopped walking and turned back to Hodges. "Why were you being such an ass to me?"

"How do you feel now?"

"You know, Hodges, I really hate it when people answer a question with a question."

Hodges rolled his eyes. "Humor me."

"Fine," Greg nearly pouted and then stopped to assess his current state of mind. His muscles felt more relaxed, the irritation had faded to a bearable level and his hands weren't shaking as bad as they normally did. "I actually feel... better," he answered, sounding and feeling bewildered.

Hodges actually smiled. It was a smile Greg had never seen on his face before. "That's why I was being even more of an ass than usual. Now get out of here before you distract me with another one of your childish tantrums."

Greg couldn't wipe the grin off his face for the rest of the shift.