Fic: the night will have no stars (CSI, Nick/Greg,R)
Title: the night will have no stars
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: R
Word count: 3036
Summary: Weddings make everyone nostalgic. Part of the Paris series.
A/N: For jengeorge, because I promised approximately one million years ago to write her 'hot old people sex'. (This is...sort of that. It's more sentimental than hot, I'm afraid. I blame the weather.)
Nick reached up to adjust his tie in the mirror, frowning thoughtfully as he straightened and then re-straightened the knot. A pair of hands slid down his sides and he glanced over his shoulder, grinning when he found Greg looking back at him.
“When’s the last time you got all dressed up like this?”
“Same time as you, I guess. Your cousin’s wedding, maybe?’
Greg made a noncommittal humming sound and slid his hands under Nick’s jacket to flatten against his stomach. “It’s a shame, really.”
“What’s that?” Nick asked, turning to catch a glimpse of Greg’s profile up close.
“That you don’t get dressed up more often. You still look sexy in a tux.”
Nick grinned and leaned in to press a kiss against Greg’s cheek. “Thanks, G. You don’t look so bad yourself.”
He turned away from the mirror, away from the lines around his eyes and the evidence of all the years that had passed since he first walked into the forensics lab in Clark County and laid eyes on the loud, brilliant lab tech with the crazy hair. Greg had lines around his own eyes now too, and his hair had more gray in it than brown these days, but his eyes still shone with that same spark Nick remembered, and he could still make Nick weak in the knees just by smiling at him a certain way.
His slid one arm around Greg’s waist, pushing his other hand through Greg’s hair. “You ready for this?”
“What, for our kid to get married? It’s about time, don’t you think?”
They’d had this same argument at least a dozen times since Ben announced that he’d finally gotten around to popping the question. And it wasn’t as though Nick disagreed; it had taken Ben a long time to settle down, sure, but as far as Nick was concerned there was nothing wrong with making sure his career was on the right track before he let himself get distracted with a wife and kids.
Greg, on the other hand, reminded Ben every chance he got that if he didn’t make a move sooner rather than later, a great girl like Adrianne would find someone who would. And sure, Adrianne was great, but so was Ben, and maybe Nick was a little biased, but in his opinion Ben was worth the wait.
Somehow they’d all managed to make it to Ben’s wedding day, though, so there was no point in rehashing that same old argument. Instead of answering Nick leaned in for a slow kiss, laughing against Greg’s mouth when a hand slid down his back to land on his ass.
“We don’t have time for that now.”
“Says who? The wedding doesn’t start for half an hour.”
“Exactly. The wedding starts in half an hour, G. They’ll be expecting us in the church soon.”
“I remember a time when you didn’t need anywhere near half an hour to get the job done,” Greg said, the hand on Nick’s ass squeezing hard enough to surprise a gasp out of him.
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” he said, but his dick had taken an interest when Greg’s hand started moving south, and when Greg pressed a little more firmly against him he gave up trying to talk sense and slid a hand into Greg’s hair.
“I’m just saying there were plenty of times you dropped by in the middle of a work day, and we got lots accomplished with a fifteen minute break and a little alone time in the supply closet.”
“Yeah, until the day that grad student walked in on us,” Nick said, and even all these years later he blushed at the memory. “Do you think we scarred her bad enough to make her drop out?”
“Are you kidding? That story was the hit of the lab Christmas party that year. She told anyone who would listen. A couple of the interns tried to talk me into getting you to reenact it on camera.”
“Scientists,” Nick said, rolling his eyes as Greg tugged him a little closer.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re all crazy,” Nick answered, murmuring the words against Greg’s neck.
“Look who’s talking,” Greg said, but Nick could hear the affection in his his voice, and his mouth curved into a grin against Greg’s cheek.
“I must be crazy to put up with you all these years,” he said, just to make Greg laugh, then Nick leaned in to swallow the sound with a kiss.
And they really didn’t have time for this, but when Greg kissed him back Nick decided not to worry about it. It was just a kiss, after all, and anyway chances were somebody would come looking for them before the ceremony started, so at least they wouldn’t have to explain to Ben that they’d missed his wedding because they were making out in the choir room.
Nick laughed at the thought, and when Greg hummed against his mouth and slid his tongue past Nick’s teeth, Nick let him in. They were edging toward a little more than ‘just a kiss’ territory, but Greg’s hands were moving up and down Nick’s back now, under his jacket and distracting him in all the right ways. Besides, they still had a little time, and nobody was going to miss them yet.
“You’re going to get us thrown out of our own kid’s wedding,” Nick murmured, but he pushed his hands under Greg’s jacket to flatten them against the small of his back.
“You started it,” Greg said, punctuating the sentence with a kiss to the bottom of Nick’s chin.
“Keep telling yourself that, G,” Nick answered, but he tugged Greg even closer, pushing a knee between his thighs and when Greg moaned and thrust against him Nick let out a husky laugh. “You do that at the reception and we really will get thrown out.”
But he didn’t stop, and when Greg rocked against him again Nick pushed a hand into the back of Greg’s pants to cup his ass. It got him a gasp, then Greg’s mouth was on his and kissing him like it was his last chance, dick hard and thrusting against Nick’s thigh like they were a couple of horny teenagers.
It wasn’t the first time Nick wished he’d known Greg as a horny teenager, but he hadn’t thought about it in a long time. Years, probably; not since Ben was still in high school and Nick used to watch Greg sit at the kitchen table with him going over and over the same math problem with a level of patience Nick wouldn’t have thought Greg was capable of. A lot of things had changed when Ben came into their lives, but one thing that had never changed was the way they fit together.
Like they were made for each other, Nick thought for probably the thousandth time. Not that he ever said that kind of thing out loud, but he’d been pretty convinced it was true since Greg first left Vegas and Nick couldn’t stop thinking about him. He didn’t think much about what his life would have been like if he hadn’t gone after Greg, and he wasn’t about to start now, not when Greg was breathing hard against Nick’s mouth and rocking against him like he couldn’t help himself.
He heard Greg moan his name right before someone knocked on the door, and before Nick even had time to pull his hand out of Greg’s pants the door was opening and Ben was leaning around it to blink at them. “Dad, we’re...oh my God. Seriously? Like the two of you haven’t scarred me enough already?”
His eyes clamped shut as he spoke, but his whole face was bright red, and Nick felt almost guilty for their timing. He eased his hand out of Greg’s pants and pushed him away as gently as he could, and when he saw the look on Greg’s face he had to work hard not to laugh. And yeah, he got it, because he’d felt Greg moving faster and faster against him, and Nick knew how close he’d been. But he’d tried to point out that they didn’t have time, so really Greg didn’t have anybody to blame but himself.
“Stop overreacting,” Nick said, and he wasn’t even sure which one of them he was talking to. “We’re both still wearing all our clothes, aren’t we?”
Ben frowned, but he pried one eye open to look over at them. His expression told Nick that they weren’t going to get any points for keeping their clothes on, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Whatever. The service is about to start, if you can pull yourselves together long enough to come to my wedding.”
The door closed again before he could answer, and Nick frowned at the spot where Ben had just been for a second before he glanced at Greg again.
“He gets that from you, you know.”
“What?” Nick asked, reaching up to straighten his tie while Greg tucked his shirt back in.
“The drama queen routine. You always were kind of a prude.”
Nick raised an eyebrow and reached out to grip the lapels of Greg’s jacket, dragging him forward until they were chest to chest. “Oh yeah? Seems like you weren’t in that supply closet all by yourself back in the day.”
Greg tilted his head like he was considering whether or not making out in a supply closet at Greg’s job counted as adventurous, then he grinned and leaned in to press a firm kiss against Nick’s lips.
“Point taken. So do you think anyone will notice if we sneak off during the reception and find a closet to make out in?”
Nick grinned back at him for a second, hands on Greg’s hips and holding him far enough apart to make sure they didn’t get distracted and miss the wedding for real. “Guess we’ll find out.”
~
In the end they didn’t sneak out of the reception to make out in a dark corner of the hotel. In fact, they outlasted a lot of the guests, and by the time they hugged Ben and Adrianne one more time and headed up to the room they’d booked for the night, the only people left were the ones young enough to dance the night away without paying for it for the rest of the weekend.
Nick had no problem leaving Ben and Adrianne and their friends to have a good time without their folks hanging around, but Greg seemed to regret it a little. Like maybe he wished they were still young enough to party all night the way he claimed to have done back in Vegas, before they got together. Before the accident that cost him his job and nearly cost Nick his whole life, because without Greg it turned out he didn’t have much of a life to speak of.
But he still wasn’t thinking about that, not when Ben was finally on the way to starting his own life, and he and Greg were back to just the two of them rattling around their house out in the hills.
Instead he slid an arm around Greg’s shoulders to steer him onto an elevator, punching the button for their floor before they settled back against the wall and Greg leaned against him. Heavy, like maybe he didn’t have quite as much energy left as he wished he did. Nick grinned and turned to press a kiss to the side of his head, and when Greg let out a sigh and leaned a little harder against him, Nick tightened his grip on Greg’s shoulders.
“Do you ever wonder what life would have been like if we hadn’t adopted Ben?”
“No,” Nick answered, because he didn’t. Not once since the day they signed the papers that said Ben was legally their son had he wondered what their lives would have been like without him, or what his life would have been like without them. Back when Ben was still a kid, too young to be embarrassed when they called him Benji and kissed him good night, he didn’t let himself think about it, because he knew if he did Nick would never let him out of his sight.
Once he was older it felt so much like Ben had always been part of their lives that it was impossible to imagine him not being there. He was theirs, just as much as any of Nick’s sisters’ kids belonged to them, and how he and Greg and Ben had become a family didn’t really matter.
Neither of them said anything else until they got back to their room, and Nick assumed the conversation was over until Greg closed the door and reached for him. He tugged Nick’s tie open, then he slid his hands down the front of Nick’s shirt to push under his jacket.
“Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t stalked me after I left Vegas.”
“I didn’t stalk you,” Nick answered, supplying his line flawlessly as he let Greg push his jacket off his shoulders. “I just figured out what I wanted and went after it.”
Usually when Greg brought it up he laughed about it, teasing Nick about being so obsessed with him he couldn’t let Greg go. And it was kind of true, so Nick usually didn’t argue. He wasn’t arguing this time either, but for once Greg wasn’t laughing.
“I know,” he said instead, hands on Nick’s buttons now and working them open. “But if you hadn’t...”
“But I did, G,” Nick said, hands landing on Greg’s to hold them still while Nick leaned in to press a kiss to Greg’s cheek, then the corner of his mouth.
Greg turned into the kiss, arms sliding around Nick’s waist to drag him closer. Nick gripped his hips and backed him toward the bed, pausing long enough to get Greg’s jacket off and kick off his shoes before he eased them onto the mattress.
“I don’t suppose I ever got around to saying thanks. For being such a stubborn pain in the ass, I mean.”
Nick huffed a laugh and stretched out next to Greg, hands on him to work on getting rid of the rest of his clothes. “What else was I gonna do? Just let you walk out of my life?”
“You could have. A lot of people would.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a lot of people,” Nick answered. He tugged open the button on Greg’s pants, then he eased the zipper down, and when he straightened up long enough to tug on the sides Greg took the hint and lifted his hips to let Nick drag them down his thighs. “Anyway, that was a long time ago. Water under the bridge.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Greg answered, grinning again, but Nick had known him long enough to tell when he was faking it. “Guess this whole ‘watching our kid get married’ thing is making me sentimental, that’s all.”
“That and too much champagne,” Nick said, just to make Greg laugh. Nick laughed along with him, warm against the side of his neck and pressing his hand to the center of Greg’s chest to feel the shudder roll through him. “Still, our kid turned out pretty great, right?”
“Yeah,” Greg answered, his hands back on Nick to help get their clothes off. “We still make a pretty good team.”
“The best.”
They weren’t as young as they used to be, but they still fit together the same way they always had, like they were made for each other. And maybe they moved a little slower now, but that just meant they could take their time. Nick could touch every inch of Greg, press kisses to all the spots he knew made Greg moan or shudder or dig his fingers a little harder into Nick’s muscles.
His hands were everywhere, sliding along warm skin and pulling Greg close, pushing his thighs up and apart to slide inside him with the ease of long practice. He listened to the groan he’d memorized a long time ago, leaning in to swallow the sound with another kiss. Greg arched up into him, one leg hooked around Nick’s waist and pulling him in deeper, and that was familiar too, but no matter how many times they did this, it never got any less hot.
Maybe that made Nick as boring and predictable as Ben had accused him of being all through high school. But Nick just figured it made him lucky, because he got to spend every night with the one person he wanted more than anybody else in the world. Every night for the past twenty-two years, and if his luck held maybe he’d get twenty more.
Nick rocked forward again and again, his arms aching with the effort to hold himself up so he could watch Greg squeeze his eyes shut and moan Nick’s name over and over. He pushed up and kissed Greg hard, burying himself as deep as he could get and moaning Greg’s name when he came.
Greg came a minute later, clenching hard around Nick where he was still buried inside Greg and coating his own fingers and Nick’s stomach with wet heat. When he relaxed Nick pulled out of him, rolling onto his side and dragging Greg close, pressing kisses to his cheeks and his jaw and the side of his neck.
“I love you,” he murmured near Greg’s ear, and he’d said it a thousand times - a million - over the years, but that didn’t make it any less true. “I’ll always come after you, G.”
Greg’s laugh was warm against his cheek, and Nick’s mouth curved into a smile against his skin. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise,” Nick answered, turning until their mouths were pressed together again.
“Good,” Greg said when they came up for air, his arms sliding around Nick’s neck and grinning at him up close. “Because it’s just the two of us again, and you know you can’t find your glasses without me.”
“I can live with that,” Nick said, and he meant it.
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: R
Word count: 3036
Summary: Weddings make everyone nostalgic. Part of the Paris series.
A/N: For jengeorge, because I promised approximately one million years ago to write her 'hot old people sex'. (This is...sort of that. It's more sentimental than hot, I'm afraid. I blame the weather.)
Nick reached up to adjust his tie in the mirror, frowning thoughtfully as he straightened and then re-straightened the knot. A pair of hands slid down his sides and he glanced over his shoulder, grinning when he found Greg looking back at him.
“When’s the last time you got all dressed up like this?”
“Same time as you, I guess. Your cousin’s wedding, maybe?’
Greg made a noncommittal humming sound and slid his hands under Nick’s jacket to flatten against his stomach. “It’s a shame, really.”
“What’s that?” Nick asked, turning to catch a glimpse of Greg’s profile up close.
“That you don’t get dressed up more often. You still look sexy in a tux.”
Nick grinned and leaned in to press a kiss against Greg’s cheek. “Thanks, G. You don’t look so bad yourself.”
He turned away from the mirror, away from the lines around his eyes and the evidence of all the years that had passed since he first walked into the forensics lab in Clark County and laid eyes on the loud, brilliant lab tech with the crazy hair. Greg had lines around his own eyes now too, and his hair had more gray in it than brown these days, but his eyes still shone with that same spark Nick remembered, and he could still make Nick weak in the knees just by smiling at him a certain way.
His slid one arm around Greg’s waist, pushing his other hand through Greg’s hair. “You ready for this?”
“What, for our kid to get married? It’s about time, don’t you think?”
They’d had this same argument at least a dozen times since Ben announced that he’d finally gotten around to popping the question. And it wasn’t as though Nick disagreed; it had taken Ben a long time to settle down, sure, but as far as Nick was concerned there was nothing wrong with making sure his career was on the right track before he let himself get distracted with a wife and kids.
Greg, on the other hand, reminded Ben every chance he got that if he didn’t make a move sooner rather than later, a great girl like Adrianne would find someone who would. And sure, Adrianne was great, but so was Ben, and maybe Nick was a little biased, but in his opinion Ben was worth the wait.
Somehow they’d all managed to make it to Ben’s wedding day, though, so there was no point in rehashing that same old argument. Instead of answering Nick leaned in for a slow kiss, laughing against Greg’s mouth when a hand slid down his back to land on his ass.
“We don’t have time for that now.”
“Says who? The wedding doesn’t start for half an hour.”
“Exactly. The wedding starts in half an hour, G. They’ll be expecting us in the church soon.”
“I remember a time when you didn’t need anywhere near half an hour to get the job done,” Greg said, the hand on Nick’s ass squeezing hard enough to surprise a gasp out of him.
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” he said, but his dick had taken an interest when Greg’s hand started moving south, and when Greg pressed a little more firmly against him he gave up trying to talk sense and slid a hand into Greg’s hair.
“I’m just saying there were plenty of times you dropped by in the middle of a work day, and we got lots accomplished with a fifteen minute break and a little alone time in the supply closet.”
“Yeah, until the day that grad student walked in on us,” Nick said, and even all these years later he blushed at the memory. “Do you think we scarred her bad enough to make her drop out?”
“Are you kidding? That story was the hit of the lab Christmas party that year. She told anyone who would listen. A couple of the interns tried to talk me into getting you to reenact it on camera.”
“Scientists,” Nick said, rolling his eyes as Greg tugged him a little closer.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re all crazy,” Nick answered, murmuring the words against Greg’s neck.
“Look who’s talking,” Greg said, but Nick could hear the affection in his his voice, and his mouth curved into a grin against Greg’s cheek.
“I must be crazy to put up with you all these years,” he said, just to make Greg laugh, then Nick leaned in to swallow the sound with a kiss.
And they really didn’t have time for this, but when Greg kissed him back Nick decided not to worry about it. It was just a kiss, after all, and anyway chances were somebody would come looking for them before the ceremony started, so at least they wouldn’t have to explain to Ben that they’d missed his wedding because they were making out in the choir room.
Nick laughed at the thought, and when Greg hummed against his mouth and slid his tongue past Nick’s teeth, Nick let him in. They were edging toward a little more than ‘just a kiss’ territory, but Greg’s hands were moving up and down Nick’s back now, under his jacket and distracting him in all the right ways. Besides, they still had a little time, and nobody was going to miss them yet.
“You’re going to get us thrown out of our own kid’s wedding,” Nick murmured, but he pushed his hands under Greg’s jacket to flatten them against the small of his back.
“You started it,” Greg said, punctuating the sentence with a kiss to the bottom of Nick’s chin.
“Keep telling yourself that, G,” Nick answered, but he tugged Greg even closer, pushing a knee between his thighs and when Greg moaned and thrust against him Nick let out a husky laugh. “You do that at the reception and we really will get thrown out.”
But he didn’t stop, and when Greg rocked against him again Nick pushed a hand into the back of Greg’s pants to cup his ass. It got him a gasp, then Greg’s mouth was on his and kissing him like it was his last chance, dick hard and thrusting against Nick’s thigh like they were a couple of horny teenagers.
It wasn’t the first time Nick wished he’d known Greg as a horny teenager, but he hadn’t thought about it in a long time. Years, probably; not since Ben was still in high school and Nick used to watch Greg sit at the kitchen table with him going over and over the same math problem with a level of patience Nick wouldn’t have thought Greg was capable of. A lot of things had changed when Ben came into their lives, but one thing that had never changed was the way they fit together.
Like they were made for each other, Nick thought for probably the thousandth time. Not that he ever said that kind of thing out loud, but he’d been pretty convinced it was true since Greg first left Vegas and Nick couldn’t stop thinking about him. He didn’t think much about what his life would have been like if he hadn’t gone after Greg, and he wasn’t about to start now, not when Greg was breathing hard against Nick’s mouth and rocking against him like he couldn’t help himself.
He heard Greg moan his name right before someone knocked on the door, and before Nick even had time to pull his hand out of Greg’s pants the door was opening and Ben was leaning around it to blink at them. “Dad, we’re...oh my God. Seriously? Like the two of you haven’t scarred me enough already?”
His eyes clamped shut as he spoke, but his whole face was bright red, and Nick felt almost guilty for their timing. He eased his hand out of Greg’s pants and pushed him away as gently as he could, and when he saw the look on Greg’s face he had to work hard not to laugh. And yeah, he got it, because he’d felt Greg moving faster and faster against him, and Nick knew how close he’d been. But he’d tried to point out that they didn’t have time, so really Greg didn’t have anybody to blame but himself.
“Stop overreacting,” Nick said, and he wasn’t even sure which one of them he was talking to. “We’re both still wearing all our clothes, aren’t we?”
Ben frowned, but he pried one eye open to look over at them. His expression told Nick that they weren’t going to get any points for keeping their clothes on, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Whatever. The service is about to start, if you can pull yourselves together long enough to come to my wedding.”
The door closed again before he could answer, and Nick frowned at the spot where Ben had just been for a second before he glanced at Greg again.
“He gets that from you, you know.”
“What?” Nick asked, reaching up to straighten his tie while Greg tucked his shirt back in.
“The drama queen routine. You always were kind of a prude.”
Nick raised an eyebrow and reached out to grip the lapels of Greg’s jacket, dragging him forward until they were chest to chest. “Oh yeah? Seems like you weren’t in that supply closet all by yourself back in the day.”
Greg tilted his head like he was considering whether or not making out in a supply closet at Greg’s job counted as adventurous, then he grinned and leaned in to press a firm kiss against Nick’s lips.
“Point taken. So do you think anyone will notice if we sneak off during the reception and find a closet to make out in?”
Nick grinned back at him for a second, hands on Greg’s hips and holding him far enough apart to make sure they didn’t get distracted and miss the wedding for real. “Guess we’ll find out.”
~
In the end they didn’t sneak out of the reception to make out in a dark corner of the hotel. In fact, they outlasted a lot of the guests, and by the time they hugged Ben and Adrianne one more time and headed up to the room they’d booked for the night, the only people left were the ones young enough to dance the night away without paying for it for the rest of the weekend.
Nick had no problem leaving Ben and Adrianne and their friends to have a good time without their folks hanging around, but Greg seemed to regret it a little. Like maybe he wished they were still young enough to party all night the way he claimed to have done back in Vegas, before they got together. Before the accident that cost him his job and nearly cost Nick his whole life, because without Greg it turned out he didn’t have much of a life to speak of.
But he still wasn’t thinking about that, not when Ben was finally on the way to starting his own life, and he and Greg were back to just the two of them rattling around their house out in the hills.
Instead he slid an arm around Greg’s shoulders to steer him onto an elevator, punching the button for their floor before they settled back against the wall and Greg leaned against him. Heavy, like maybe he didn’t have quite as much energy left as he wished he did. Nick grinned and turned to press a kiss to the side of his head, and when Greg let out a sigh and leaned a little harder against him, Nick tightened his grip on Greg’s shoulders.
“Do you ever wonder what life would have been like if we hadn’t adopted Ben?”
“No,” Nick answered, because he didn’t. Not once since the day they signed the papers that said Ben was legally their son had he wondered what their lives would have been like without him, or what his life would have been like without them. Back when Ben was still a kid, too young to be embarrassed when they called him Benji and kissed him good night, he didn’t let himself think about it, because he knew if he did Nick would never let him out of his sight.
Once he was older it felt so much like Ben had always been part of their lives that it was impossible to imagine him not being there. He was theirs, just as much as any of Nick’s sisters’ kids belonged to them, and how he and Greg and Ben had become a family didn’t really matter.
Neither of them said anything else until they got back to their room, and Nick assumed the conversation was over until Greg closed the door and reached for him. He tugged Nick’s tie open, then he slid his hands down the front of Nick’s shirt to push under his jacket.
“Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t stalked me after I left Vegas.”
“I didn’t stalk you,” Nick answered, supplying his line flawlessly as he let Greg push his jacket off his shoulders. “I just figured out what I wanted and went after it.”
Usually when Greg brought it up he laughed about it, teasing Nick about being so obsessed with him he couldn’t let Greg go. And it was kind of true, so Nick usually didn’t argue. He wasn’t arguing this time either, but for once Greg wasn’t laughing.
“I know,” he said instead, hands on Nick’s buttons now and working them open. “But if you hadn’t...”
“But I did, G,” Nick said, hands landing on Greg’s to hold them still while Nick leaned in to press a kiss to Greg’s cheek, then the corner of his mouth.
Greg turned into the kiss, arms sliding around Nick’s waist to drag him closer. Nick gripped his hips and backed him toward the bed, pausing long enough to get Greg’s jacket off and kick off his shoes before he eased them onto the mattress.
“I don’t suppose I ever got around to saying thanks. For being such a stubborn pain in the ass, I mean.”
Nick huffed a laugh and stretched out next to Greg, hands on him to work on getting rid of the rest of his clothes. “What else was I gonna do? Just let you walk out of my life?”
“You could have. A lot of people would.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a lot of people,” Nick answered. He tugged open the button on Greg’s pants, then he eased the zipper down, and when he straightened up long enough to tug on the sides Greg took the hint and lifted his hips to let Nick drag them down his thighs. “Anyway, that was a long time ago. Water under the bridge.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Greg answered, grinning again, but Nick had known him long enough to tell when he was faking it. “Guess this whole ‘watching our kid get married’ thing is making me sentimental, that’s all.”
“That and too much champagne,” Nick said, just to make Greg laugh. Nick laughed along with him, warm against the side of his neck and pressing his hand to the center of Greg’s chest to feel the shudder roll through him. “Still, our kid turned out pretty great, right?”
“Yeah,” Greg answered, his hands back on Nick to help get their clothes off. “We still make a pretty good team.”
“The best.”
They weren’t as young as they used to be, but they still fit together the same way they always had, like they were made for each other. And maybe they moved a little slower now, but that just meant they could take their time. Nick could touch every inch of Greg, press kisses to all the spots he knew made Greg moan or shudder or dig his fingers a little harder into Nick’s muscles.
His hands were everywhere, sliding along warm skin and pulling Greg close, pushing his thighs up and apart to slide inside him with the ease of long practice. He listened to the groan he’d memorized a long time ago, leaning in to swallow the sound with another kiss. Greg arched up into him, one leg hooked around Nick’s waist and pulling him in deeper, and that was familiar too, but no matter how many times they did this, it never got any less hot.
Maybe that made Nick as boring and predictable as Ben had accused him of being all through high school. But Nick just figured it made him lucky, because he got to spend every night with the one person he wanted more than anybody else in the world. Every night for the past twenty-two years, and if his luck held maybe he’d get twenty more.
Nick rocked forward again and again, his arms aching with the effort to hold himself up so he could watch Greg squeeze his eyes shut and moan Nick’s name over and over. He pushed up and kissed Greg hard, burying himself as deep as he could get and moaning Greg’s name when he came.
Greg came a minute later, clenching hard around Nick where he was still buried inside Greg and coating his own fingers and Nick’s stomach with wet heat. When he relaxed Nick pulled out of him, rolling onto his side and dragging Greg close, pressing kisses to his cheeks and his jaw and the side of his neck.
“I love you,” he murmured near Greg’s ear, and he’d said it a thousand times - a million - over the years, but that didn’t make it any less true. “I’ll always come after you, G.”
Greg’s laugh was warm against his cheek, and Nick’s mouth curved into a smile against his skin. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise,” Nick answered, turning until their mouths were pressed together again.
“Good,” Greg said when they came up for air, his arms sliding around Nick’s neck and grinning at him up close. “Because it’s just the two of us again, and you know you can’t find your glasses without me.”
“I can live with that,” Nick said, and he meant it.