TITLE: Cure for Misery

AUTHOR: Demon Faith

CATEGORY: Slash: Nick/Greg, Fluff

SPOILERS: ‘Viva Las Vegas’, minor for ‘Play with Fire’

RATING: PG

SUMMARY: Money, marriage and misery – just another day in Vegas.

DISCLAIMER: I own not the pretty Vegas lab boys. Damn shame. Though TPTB ain’t doing too bad, so we’ll let them keep their riches and toys.

NOTES: Yes, the N/G is back! This is actually a request fic before I give up slash and fanfiction in its entirety for Lent. For Nic – Happy Sorting Month, and I am a failure for misspelling Gryffindors.

“Hand that over.”

Nick looked up from the couch with a lazy smile.

“Give me one good reason and I will.”

“Misery pay.”

Greg threw himself dramatically onto the couch and held out his hand to Nick.

“Well, I don’t know Greg.” Nick sat up, angling himself towards Greg with a brief glance at the door. “What’s in it for me?”

Greg raised an eyebrow, also eyeing the door. “Well, you get to alleviate your boyfriend’s abject misery at being an utter failure and still keep the gloating smile cos you were right and it didn’t last.”

Turning his back towards the taunting door, Nick carefully reached between them and intertwined his fingers with Greg’s, pulling his hand up to brush against his lips. “We’ll find you a replacement.”

“You’d better find me a new job.” Greg tilted his head back against the yielding cushions, sighing. “They’re all laughing at me, aren’t they?”

“Cath complained that there was no music. Sara thought it was far too neat. I thought she was lacking intellectual curiosity, charm, wit and just wasn’t quite as pretty as that slob we had before.”

“I don’t want to be a lab tech, Nick. I want to be a C.S.I.,” Greg said, pulling his hand away from Nick and folding his arms across his chest.

“And you will be. Just find someone exactly like you and we’ll be fine.”

“Can’t,” Greg sulked. “You’d probably run off with them.”

Nick smiled. “Nah, no worries. Half of Vegas thinks I’m marrying Sara.”

Greg sat bolt upright and eyed him incredulously. “You and *Sara*?”

A shrug and a smile. “Hodges thought you were hot for Chandra.”

They both sat in silence for a moment, wondering if their co-workers were blind or just stupid.

“Y’know, we could…”

“We talked about this already.”

“Well, I don’t know, Greg, maybe it’s…”

“A really bad idea? Of cosmic proportions?”

“Aliens and Elvis. That’s a pretty convincing crowd.”

“Well, he isn’t The King, but Hodges is worth a dozen aliens.”

“I think he’d be proud of that.”

Greg shuddered. He took a moment to look at Nick, really look at him and those big doe eyes, silently pleading with him to be truthful about them, set them free.

“You know we can’t…”

“Who says, Greg?”

The words hung in the air, taunting him. Over a year now they’d been seeing each other, ever since that too-close-call with an exploding lab. Nick wanted commitment, security, forever. Greg had never known what he’d wanted but if this meant he slept easier, laughed more often and could face work with a smile, he would reach out and take it with both hands.

He wasn’t sure when that idle whim had burned into lust, solidified into love, but suddenly he was in a long-term relationship with a male co-worker and it felt *right*.

And he wanted to shout it from the rooftops of CSI: “I love Nick Stokes!”

But he couldn’t, and they both knew that. It was Nick’s little fantasy, to tell people, to hold hands in public and for no one to stare. Greg lived in the real world and they both had careers on the line.

It didn’t stop him indulging Nick’s fantasy once in a while.

“Maybe another day, huh?”

Nick dipped his head. “Yeah, another day.”

The door opened and Warrick sauntered in, heading for the microwave and Greg plastered on a grin. He leaned on Nick’s shoulder, head close in conspiracy and Nick looked up with a cute little smile. Greg could have kissed him right then.

“You don’t get out of it that easily, Stokes – my money, if you please.”

Laughing, Nick pulled the bill out of his pocket and folded it into the top pocket of Greg’s lab coat. “You owe me,” he whispered and stood, heading back to work.

Greg leaned back on the couch and sighed. A nice wage, good eye candy and seeing his adorable Texan boyfriend every day – maybe he didn’t have it so bad after all.