Title: Starlight
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Author: black_dahlia63
Rating: PG
Summary: Nick and Greg try to cope after the kidnapping.
Spoilers: Grave Danger
Disclaimer: not mine

"Hey, I'm home," Greg called as he locked the apartment door behind him, removing his denim jacket and slinging it over his shoulder as he walked along the hallway. "The others are all meeting up for breakfast, you want to go?"

"I'm fine here."

"They want to see you."

"I said no," was the quiet but firm answer from the figure by the window who was still wearing the pyjama bottoms he'd been wearing the previous evening when Greg had left for work. "I'm not hungry, anyway," Nick went on, and he didn't turn round as he spoke. "I don't want breakfast, I don't want them fussing over me…"

"Hey," Greg said. "Hey," and he walked across the room to place his hands on Nick's shoulders, his chest tightening when Nick flinched imperceptibly. "Nicky, I'm sorry," he murmured, before pressing his lips against the back of his lover's neck; Nick had been told the previous afternoon that the department didn't feel he was ready to return to work full time, and he'd taken the news badly. "Did you manage to sleep?"

"No."

"Come to bed," Greg said, running his hands down Nick's arms. "I can hardly keep my eyes open, man." He heard a soft "okay" in response, and after planting a kiss between Nick's shoulder blades he stepped away from him and began to undress. He thought of how things had been before, of how they'd barely gotten the apartment door closed sometimes before they'd been tugging at each other's clothes…hell, there had even been one night when they hadn't made it into the apartment at all; he could still remember the time when Nick had grabbed him and pushed him against the side of the truck in the parking lot beneath the apartment building, clothing moved just enough to allow access – and although the fear of someone catching them had made Greg's heart pound, he'd come so hard he'd thought he would pass out.

It hurt to remember this, though, because it made him think about how things were now. Nick wouldn't even undress completely any longer, shielding himself with underwear or pyjama pants instead; there had been no sex since the kidnapping, and Greg didn't even dare touch his lover in bed. He'd tried to at the beginning, hoping that the familiarity of the warm tangle of limbs would pull Nick out of the dark place where his mind had been taken - but he'd quickly realised it wasn't going to work. Nick had woken from nightmares, not knowing it was Greg holding him instead of four walls of Perspex and tons of earth, and he'd panicked; once, he'd lashed out with enough strength to give Greg a bloody nose, and the stricken look on Nick's face when he'd realised what he'd done had been one of the most painful things Greg had ever seen. So the two of them would lie at opposite sides of the bed, like strangers instead of the lovers they'd been for three years before, and every day Greg would swallow his pain and hope things were going to get better – even though he was getting more and more afraid that they wouldn't.

He finished undressing, climbed into bed and rolled onto his side to stare at the wall as the blinds were drawn and footsteps moved around to the other side of the bed. The mattress creaked again as Nick settled on it, the gap between the two of them seeming as though it was miles wide; the darkened room was silent then, and in this sudden hush Greg pulled the covers over himself. He allowed his eyes to close, exhaustion taking over, and he drifted into sleep with the sound of his lover's breathing echoing in his ears.

**************

"I'm going for Chinese, Greg, you want anything?"

"I'm good," he said, not looking round from the table where he was examining a dress removed from a murder victim several hours since. "I need to get this taken care of."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"Greg…"

"I am," he said, staring down at his hands. "It's Nick who isn't."

"If he isn't, you're not," was the answer. "You need to talk about it?"

"Not really," he replied. "Go get your supper," but out of the corner of his eye he could see that the figure in the doorway wasn't moving. "I'm trying," he said, abandoning all hope of focusing on the work in front of him. "I'm trying to help him, and he won't let me," and the words were followed by a sigh. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he went on, pushing his chair back and rising to his feet. "It feels like he's shutting me out, man, you got any idea how to deal with that?"

"You need to keep being there for him," Warrick said as he leaned against the door frame with his hands in his pockets. "He's not shutting you out, he's protecting you."

"Who are you all of a sudden? A psychiatrist or something?"

"No, I'm not, but I've known him even longer than you have," was the immediate response. "If he lets people get close to him, the last thing he wants to do is hurt them – if he can't deal with what happened, he isn't going to dump it on you," and something must have shown on Greg's face then, because he saw a wry smile touch his colleague's lips for a second or two. "Look, I might not have been cool with you guys getting together in the beginning," Warrick went on, and Greg recalled the other man's awkwardness when he'd realised that Nick and Greg were dating, "but I know the two of you are solid, and this isn't going to break you."

"Wish I had your faith," Greg said softly. "He won't even let me touch him."

"He will, when he's ready," Warrick told him. "And you need to look after yourself, man, 'cause you won't be in any shape to help him if you go on like this," and he raised an eyebrow as he stared directly at Greg. "Now, what are you going to have to eat?"

"Get me a couple of spring rolls and some mu shu pork," Greg replied, and after he'd fished money from the pocket of his jeans he watched as Warrick left the room; once he was alone, he turned back to his work, hoping that by the time the food arrived he would have summoned up an appetite – but the pull to go home, to be with Nick in the hope that he'd finally get through to him, was lodged deep in his heart.

***************

A week later

"Where are we going?"

"You'll find out when we get there," Greg said as he guided his car through the crawl of traffic on the Strip. "It's a surprise," and he turned his head towards his passenger and smiled; he received a smile in return, but Nick's face was taut and his hands were clenched into fists against his knees, making Greg swallow hard before he looked away.

They had tried doing something about the space between them in bed three days previously, and although Nick had been hard for the first time in weeks he hadn't managed to stay that way. He'd shaken off the hand placed on his shoulder before climbing out of bed and disappearing into the bathroom, where he'd locked the door behind him – and it had been this, more than anything else, which had broken Greg's heart.

What could he have said? "It doesn't matter"? Would Nick have believed him if he had?

The hotels and casinos were left behind, and Greg kept driving; normally he would have had a CD playing, one of the ones that had always made Nick roll his eyes and crack jokes about Greg's taste – or lack thereof – in music, but tonight he didn't have the heart for it. The houses they passed became further and further apart, and eventually there were no more of them; the road became bumpy, but it was terrain he'd covered before, and it took him another ten minutes to reach his destination.

He killed the engine, unfastened his seatbelt and turned towards his passenger again. Nick had fallen asleep, his head tilted back, and Greg sat looking at him for a long time; he reached towards his lover, the need for contact almost overwhelming – but then the memory of that door being locked came to the forefront of his mind, and he moved his hand away again. He popped the trunk and then opened the driver's side door almost soundlessly before setting his feet on the ground; after a final glance at Nick, he moved to the back of the car and retrieved the blankets he'd put in the trunk an hour earlier. Walking around to the front of the car again, he laid the two blankets on the ground one on top of the other; once he'd done this, he lay down with his hands behind his head and looked up at the sky as a now-familiar weight pressed down on his heart.

***********

"Pancho! Put your hand on my hand!"

Nick woke then, gasping for breath the way he'd done in the box, the all too familiar dream still hanging in front of his eyes, and when the world started to come into focus again he allowed his hands to unclench.

How long had he been asleep? He didn't know, but it was completely dark outside now. Straightening up and looking through the windshield, he could make out a light-coloured square on the ground in front of the car; as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he realised he was looking at the blankets that were usually kept at the back of his bedroom closet – and when he looked at the familiar figure lying on the ground, something stung the backs of his eyes.

He undid his seatbelt and got out of the car, walking the few steps to where the blankets were spread out. Settling in the space next to Greg, he lay back and breathed in the warm air that washed across his face; they didn't look at each other, but Nick was acutely aware of his lover's presence nonetheless. Neither of them moved or spoke for some time, and then – just as Nick was allowing his eyes to close – he heard the voice of the man whose face had been foremost in his mind during those hours when he'd thought he was going to die.

"I used to do this when I was a kid," Greg said. "Whenever I got ragged on at school, if I needed to get away from things – I'd go in the back yard when mom and dad went to sleep, and I'd just lie there looking up at the stars," and a soft sound that wasn't quite a laugh escaped his lips before he fell silent again. Nick allowed his eyes to focus on the pitch black sky, and with every second that elapsed he could make out more and more pinpoints of light, until there were too many of them to count; for a long while, he was awed into silence, and then eventually he found his voice again.

"How far out in the desert are we?"

"Far enough," was the response, and something made Nick look away from the display overhead. Greg was still staring up at the sky, but trails of moisture were running from the outer corners of his eyes into his hair – and when Nick thought about the weeks since he'd been rescued, he realised this was the first time that he'd seen his lover cry. "Don't shut me out, Nicky," Greg went on, so quietly that Nick had to struggle to make the words out. "Even if you think it's gonna scare me, I need to hear it, 'cause I feel like I'm losing you and I don't know what to do…"

Turning onto his side and leaning across the space between them, Nick brushed the tears away with his fingertips before laying his palm across the side of Greg's face; he shook his head when he heard his name whispered again in a trembling voice, and he allowed his hand to curve round the back of Greg's skull. Here, he heard himself say as he drew his lover towards him and closed the distance between them; a deep, shuddering sigh echoed in the still air, and when Greg's head came to rest against his shoulder Nick felt something loosen inside his chest. He reached out with his free hand, felt it clasped and drawn beneath Greg's shirt where his fingertips picked up a slow, steady heartbeat…and it wasn't about sex, not now – it was about remembering what they'd been before, what would anchor them and bring the two of them through this.

He held his lover against his side, staring up at the same stars that had calmed Greg as a child; when the pull of sleep became too strong to resist, he closed his eyes – and he knew that although becoming the person he'd been before was still a long way off, he'd taken another step towards it. Their combined breathing filling his ears, he kept hold of Greg's hand as he spiralled down into sleep – and for the first time since he'd been grabbed on that street corner, if he dreamed he didn't remember it.

FIN