Title: Better Late Than Never
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders/Danny Nagano
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Greg Sanders or Danny Nagano, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Greg slid onto a barstool, signaling to the bartender and nodding. It was quieter than he'd thought it would be tonight, he thought as he looked around the bar. There weren't many people here, but he didn't mind that. He just wanted to have a quiet drink by himself.

He had the night off work, and he was getting increasingly restless during his time off. He was so used to going to the lab and working at night that when he had a chance to actually spend the small hours sleeping like a normal person, he found himself unable to do so.

So, he would go out to one of the dozens of gay bars around Vegas, usually ending up in this one. He had always liked this place; it had a quiet atmosphere, not raucous and rowdy like the places he had frequented when he was younger and had first moved here.

He'd had his fill of loud clubs where intentions were conveyed more in movements and eye contact than in words. How many one-night stands had he ended up with that he wished he'd never even seen? Far too many to recall, Greg thought to himself, wincing at the memories.

Tonight, he just wanted a solitary drink, and time to think about his life. Why was it that so many other people could be happy with no more than what he had? he asked himself. Why was it that he was always looking for someone special -- and always striking out?

Nick would tell him that he was looking in the wrong places -- and that he should wait for it to happen, and not go out looking for true love. But it was different for Nick; he was straight, and he seemed to have women throwing themselves at him from every direction.

His world was different from Nick's. Oh, he'd tried to convince himself that he was straight -- he'd spent far too long doing that. And he had almost done it, until he'd met a man who he had thought was going to be his one and only, and had finally come out of the closet.

Greg had been surprised that his colleagues hadn't had a hard time with that; he had thought they would be shocked, but most of them had told him privately that they'd had their suspicions for a long time. He had been glad of that; it made less awkwardness for him to deal with at work.

At least there was none of that in his personal life -- though at the moment, he didn't have much of one, Greg thought with a sigh. It didn't look as though he'd have any kind of relationship; he had been alone for so long that he was starting to get used to it.

He turned his head when a young man came up to the bar and brushed against his arm, his dark eyes widening when he recognized the person standing next to him. It had been a couple of years since he'd last seen the guy up close, but he knew who it was.

When the man took his drink from the bartender and turned slightly in Greg's direction, Greg smiled and held out a hand. "Danny Nagano, right?" He didn't want to say more than that, just in case he was wrong -- though he was absolutely sure that he wasn't. He was good at remembering faces.

The other man smiled and took Greg's hand, shaking it as he raised a brow in question. "Yeah, that's right. And you're ....?" He tilted his head to the side, looking puzzled. Greg laughed again, shaking his head and wishing that Danny had remembered him.

But why should he? Greg asked himself. It wasn't likely that he would remember a CSI who he had barely spoken to when his father had been murdered -- even though Danny had been one of the suspects for a while before evidence had cleared him.

"I'm Greg Sanders. I work at the crime lab -- I talked to you once, back when your father was ...." Greg's voice trailed off; he wished that he hadn't chosen that particular way to open the conversation. His father's murder was more than likely something that Danny didn't want to be reminded of.

He had never quite been able to forget Danny, even though their acquaintance had been so brief that he couldn't honestly say he knew the man. There had been something about him that had struck Greg, a presence that he hadn't been able to get off his mind.

It took him a moment to realize that Danny was looking at him speculatively, as though he was wondering just why Greg had spoken to him. Greg searched his mind for something to say, something that wouldn't sound hackneyed and clichéd, something that would make Danny want to talk.

"I remember you," Danny said softly, his dark gaze meeting Greg's. "I remember talking to you like it was just yesterday. I guess I never quite got you out of my head. I wanted to go back to the crime lab and track you down, but I figured you .... wouldn't be interested."

Greg's heart seemed to leap in his chest; he hoped that his surprise didn't show on his face. So, he'd had the same effect on Danny as this man had on him. That was hard to believe, but since Danny was saying it, he wasn't going to deny that it was true.

"I've wanted you ever since I first met you," Danny said, his voice low and husky. "Even though I didn't even know your name. But I thought I'd never see you again, so I tried to get you off my mind. I just couldn't do it. I think fate brought us together again tonight."

Greg couldn't speak; all he could do was nod, all of his attention focused on Danny. How could it be that this man seemed to know just what he was thinking, without him having to say a word? There was some kind of connection between them, unlike anything he'd ever known before.

It took a few moments for him to recover the ability to speak; when he did, his words came out in a croak at first. "Do you really believe in fate?" he asked, then shook his head and cleared his throat. "Sorry about that. I .... I guess you just surprised me a little."

"Yeah, I do," Danny told him, his gaze not straying from Greg's face. "I kept thinking that if you were meant for me, fate would bring us together again one day. And something told me to come out here tonight. Now I know why I felt like I had to be here."

"Because I'm here," Greg murmured, wondering if Danny could be right and fate was somehow throwing them together. "If this is fate, it sure did take its time. I haven't seen you for almost two years. That's a pretty long time for it to decide it wants to work in our favor."

"Fate works in mysterious ways, I guess," Danny said, smiling and tossing back the rest of his drink. "I just want to ask you one thing, Greg. Have you ever thought of me in those two years? Because I thought about you, even though I didn't know you. I even dreamed about you."

Greg blinked, unable to believe that he'd had such an impression on someone who he'd barely met, and then only in the realm of doing his job. He hadn't thought that he would capture anyone's imagination in that way, and certainly not someone like Danny.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd be interested in me," he mumbled, not sure of what else to say. "You didn't come across as being gay, so I tried to put you out of my mind. But honestly, I did think about you for a long time after we met. I wished I could have talked to you."

"Well, you're talking to me now," Danny told him with a smile. "It's long overdue, but at least it's finally happening. Better late than never, right?" he added, signaling to the bartender for another drink, indicating that the man fill Greg's glass as well.

"You can say that again," Greg laughed, raising his glass in a toast after the bartender filled it. "Here's to the start of something, whatever it might turn out to be." His hands were trembling slightly; he hoped that Danny didn't notice his nervousness.

"I think it's going to turn out to be something we both want," Danny said softly, leaning closer to Greg to whisper into his ear. "I want you to go home with me, but if that's moving too fast, I'll settle for dinner tomorrow night -- and maybe breakfast the morning after."

Greg couldn't help but laugh at those words, though he felt flattered at the same time. He hadn't thought that he was the kind of guy who would ever get a proposition like that -- and coming from someone like Danny Nagano, it was even more of an ego boost.

Danny was famous; he could have anyone he wanted. There were probably men -- and women, too, Greg told himself ruefully -- lined up around Danny, people who would kill for the chance he was being given now. How could he turn it down?

It wasn't moving too fast -- or was it? He wasn't sure that he was ready to just jump head first into what he hoped would be a long-term relationship -- or even the rest of their lives together. But wasn't that the best way to go? What good would holding back do either of them?

"It's not too fast," he said aloud, throwing caution to the winds. Why not live dangerously? Besides, he was ready for a relationship -- and there was an undeniable attraction between them that he wanted to explore. He would regret it for the rest of his life if he pulled back now.

"Want to go to my place, then?" Danny asked, leaning closer to Greg and speaking softly, the words clearly meant just for the two of them. "We'll see where things go tonight. If you don't end up spending the night -- well, there's always tomorrow. And a lot of tomorrows after that."

"I work graveyard shift, y'know," Greg told him, sliding off the barstool and taking the hand that Danny held out to him. "But we can work around that," he added, hoping that something so simple wouldn't make this man back away from him.

"We will," Danny answered, twining his fingers through Greg's as he led the way to the door. Greg's heart was leaping in his chest again; he didn't know where this night was going, but he was already sure that he liked the direction where it seemed to be taking him.

***