Title: Vanquishing Fear
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders/Gil Grissom
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1, 52_challenge
Prompt: 52, Nightmare
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 Gil Grissom, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

"No!" Greg's cry rang out in the silence of the bedroom as he sat bolt upright in bed, pressing his hand against his chest. He couldn't breathe, couldn't speak; for a few moments, he was back in that dark basement room where he'd been held captive, tied down, helpless.

He squeezed his eyes closed, gulping in air; the nightmare was already receding, but parts of it stayed in his mind, refusing to be pushed away. All he wanted was to sink into oblivion, to let the memories fade away, to forget that they had ever happened.

Gil was sitting up beside him, drawing Greg into his arms, holding him and rocking him as though he was a child. "Shhh, sweetheart, it's okay," he murmured, raising a hand to stroke Greg's hair. "It's all right. You're safe, Greg. I'm here. Nothing's going to happen to you."

Greg nodded, slumping into Gil's arms, forcing back the tears that rose unbidden behind his closed eyes. He wasn't going to cry, he told himself fiercely. That wasn't going to do him any good; crying wouldn't make the past undo itself, or keep the memories at bay.

"Another nightmare?" Gil asked, pressing a kiss to the top of Greg's head. He hadn't needed to ask; Greg was sure that he knew. He was just opening the door to a conversation, in case Greg wanted to talk about the bad dreams that had been plaguing him more and more lately.

"Yeah," he managed to whisper, wishing that the lingering horror of the dream would dissipate. But it didn't; it stayed in his mind, flashes of memory rising to the surface. He wanted to bury his face in Gil's shoulder and run away from those memories, pretend that they didn't exist.

He couldn't do that, of course. Those memories would follow him everywhere; he had no idea when they would choose to strike, surfacing at an inappropriate time. If only they were nothing more than remnants of a bad dream, instead of things that had actually happened.

He had thought that he was doing so well as far as dealing with those memories went, until the nightmares had come back with a vengeance. Was he ever going to be able to get away from those memories, to let those horrible hours he'd spent as a helpless captive fade into the background?

At the moment, he didn't think so. It felt as though those hours were going to haunt him for the rest of his life, even though he was trying his best to put all that had happened into the past and move on with his life. He simply couldn't get away from them.

"If you want to talk about it, I'm here," Gil whispered, one hand moving up and down Greg's back. "And if you don't, then that's okay. But I think you need to talk to somebody, Greg. I know you've been to a therapist, but maybe you should think about going back."

"It's too hard to talk to a stranger about it," Greg murmured, shaking his head. "I can't even talk to you about what they did to me, Gil. How am I supposed to talk to somebody I don't even know? It's not that easy to open up about something like that. Not to a stranger."

"I know it's hard to talk about being victimized, but you can't let what happened keep controlling your life," Gil told him, placing a hand under Greg's chin and lifting the younger man's face to his own. "I want you to be able to move forward, Greg. You can't do that if you're mired in the past."

Greg nodded slowly, heaving a sigh. "It's so easy to say that when you're not the one dealing with all of those memories," he whispered, not looking at Gil. "I know you want to help, but you don't know what this is like. It's not that easy to just talk about it and then forget it."

Gil felt a wave of remorse wash over him; he knew that what Greg said was true. He wasn't the one who had been kidnapped and raped; he wasn't the person dealing those memories. He could only imagine what Greg had gone through -- and he didn't want to imagine what it had been like.

He wrapped his arms more tightly around Greg, pulling his boyfriend close against the warmth of his body. "I know I can't begin to imagine what you went through, Greg," he murmured against the younger man's hair. "But I'm just trying to help. I wish I could do more."

What he really wanted was to turn back time, and have such a horrible experience never happen to Greg. He didn't blame his boyfriend for having nightmares; anyone who had been through such an ordeal would have them. He just wished that the events triggering them had never taken place.

"I know you just want to help me," Greg said, resting his forehead against Gil's shoulder. "And you do, Gil. You help just by being here, and loving me. But this isn't something that's just going to go away, even if I talk to a therapist. I've already talked to one. They didn't help."

"Then we'll find a better one," Gil said, feeling helpless and frustrated. He had known that the trauma Greg had suffered wasn't just going to go away, but instead of getting better, it seemed to be eating away at him, from the inside out. And Gil didn't know how to stop it.

All he could really do was to be here for Greg, to give him support in any way he could. If there was anything else that he could do, he would leap at the chance .Anything to take away the melancholy and bring back the happy-go-lucky, insouciant Greg that he'd first met in the crime lab.

That seemed like a lifetime ago now, those days when Greg had been so young and irreverent. That part of him was still there, but it was buried now, and Gil despaired of it ever being set free again. That was a part of Greg that he loved, and he didn't want to see it die.

The Greg that he'd first known and loved would come back to him, Gil told himself firmly. It might take some time, but eventually, Greg would be able to vanquish his fears, and the nightmares would be banished forever. He had to believe that would happen.

He didn't want Greg to be trapped in those nightmares for the rest of his life. The young man he loved deserved much better than that, and he would do everything in his power to assure that Greg would be able to slay his demons, and emerge victorious from that battle.

Gil held Greg until the other man relaxed in his arms; Greg finally sighed and looked up at Gil with a slight smile. "Let's try to get some sleep," he murmured, resting his head against Gil's shoulder. "Hopefully, I won't have any more nightmares tonight."

"I hope not, sweetheart," Gil whispered as the two of them lay back down and Gil pulled the covers over them. If any more nightmares tried to come for Greg tonight, he would do his best to fight them off -- tonight and every other night, until they finally disappeared for good.

***