Title: For His Own Good
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders/Don Flack
Fandom: CSI: Vegas/CSI: NY
Rating: PG-13
Table: Un-themed 5, mission_insane
Prompt: 1, Moon
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 Don Flack, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Don sighed as he sat up in bed, looking down at Greg sleeping peacefully beside him. His angel. His love, his life, the man he wanted to spend all of his days with. The man who he had to send away from New York, out of his life, for his own safety.

He'd thought long and hard about this, and he knew in his heart that he was doing the right thing. He couldn't keep Greg with him, not if he wanted his boyfriend to be safe. To keep Greg alive, to make sure that he wasn't used as a pawn again, Don would have to let him go.

It would be the hardest thing he had ever done, and it would tear him apart. He would spend the rest of his life regretting that he couldn't have kept Greg by his side. But he wasn't going to allow his boyfriend to be placed in danger again.

Even if he found someone else to be with -- and Don didn't doubt that they both would, in time -- a part of him would always love Greg, would always belong to him. This young man had stolen his heart, and a part of it would always be faithful to him.

Just thinking about losing Greg was tearing his heart out. Don couldn't help but wonder if Greg knew that something was wrong; his young boyfriend was an unusually perceptive person, and Don hadn't been acting like himself much of the time lately.

But tonight, he had tried to keep his sadness hidden from Greg. He had wanted to give his lover a perfect night, one that the two of them would remember for all of their lives. A night that they would both always be able to look back on and treasure.

They had made love twice, first frenziedly, both of them so eager for each other that they had practically torn their clothes off. The second time, their lovemaking had been slow, sweet, and gentle -- and he would never forget the look in Greg's eyes.

Those dark eyes had held all the love in the world, and Don had seen the trust that Greg had for him staring him right in the face. How was he going to tell Greg that for his own safety, it was best for him to leave New York and put their relationship behind him?

It felt like the worst kind of betrayal. But for Greg's sake, he had to do this, no matter how much it hurt them both. Greg might be willing to take responsibility for anything that might happen to him if he stayed here, but Don wasn't.

He couldn't live with himself if their relationship was the cause of Greg's death. He would never be able to get over that. But he could live with himself if he let Greg go, and let him have the freedom to make a new life for himself and find happiness.

The moonlight seemed to brighten its rays as he looked over at Greg; it was shining full on the younger man's face, illuminating his handsome features. His body was limned in the silvery light; he looked like an angel fallen to earth and into Don's bed.

Greg was an angel, he thought with a soft sigh. An angel who he had been lucky to know and love, an angel who he couldn't keep in his life. He would never forgive himself if that angel's wings were clipped because of him; he couldn't take the chance of that happening.

The last thing he wanted to do was to send Greg away from him; his own heart would break in the process, and he doubted that anyone would ever be able to completely assuage the ache that he would always feel whenever he looked back on his time with Greg.

But it would be better to know that Greg was alive and safe, and that he had made a new life for himself, than to knwo that every day Greg was with him, he was in danger. That was a chance that he couldn't take, a risk that he wouldn't expose Greg to.

Part of him wished that he could simply leave the police force, stop being a cop and do something else with his life, something that would be safe, something that wouldn't put Greg in any kind of danger. But it was too late for that.

There would always be people out there who would come after him, even if he wasn't a cop. He'd been doing this for too long, and he had too many enemies. There was no way that he could be assured of Greg's safety, no way that he could keep them together.

Sending Greg away to keep him safe was the best he could do for the young man he loved. Even though it would break both their hearts, he was sure that Greg would recover. After all, he was young; he had his whole life ahead of him.

Don wasn't so sure about himself. He didn't believe that he would ever recover from losing Greg, even though it was his own idea for them to part. He knew that he would feel the pain forever, until he drew his last breath. He would never completely get over this.

But at least they had known each other, had loved each other. He would have these weeks to look back on, the time that they'd spent together to cherish. It wouldn't keep him warm on a cold night, but it would be a memory that he would always treasure.

Would that be enough to get him through the loneliness of life without Greg? It would have to be, Don told himself with a soft sigh. Because he wasn't going to put Greg's life at risk any longer. He couldn't live with himself if he did so. He had to do this, for Greg's own good.

This wasn't about him, or what he wanted. It wasn't about what would make him happy. It was about being sure that Greg was safe, that any enemy of Don's wouldn't come after him again and use him as leverage. Greg deserved better than that.

He might be willing to put himself in the path of danger, but Don didn't want that for him. Greg didn't deserve to have to look over his shoulder all of his life just because of who he was involved with. Don didn't want to see him live a life of caution.

Greg was destined for more than that. Don wasn't going to let him live his life in fear, always wondering if he could be used as a pawn by someone who resented his lover. He didn't want anyone he loved to live like that, least of all someone like Greg.

The moonlight seemed to grow brighter and spill into the room even more fervently as he looked down at his sleeping boyfriend. He wanted to sit here and look at Greg like this forever, to memorize every line of his face, to imprint those handsome features on his mind forever.

He didn't have to look at Greg forever to do that. Everything about him was emblazoned on Don's heart -- and even if he fell in love with someone else down the road, they wouldn't touch what he had shared with Greg. The love he felt for this young man would stay pure.

Would he ever love anyone else this deeply, this fervently? Don didn't think so. In fact, he was sure of it. There was no way he could have these kinds of feelings for more than one person in his life. He might love someone else, but never with this degree of passion.

It would be over between them all too soon, he thought sadly. He would bid goodbye to Greg, and even if they kept in touch, they would eventually drift apart, as people did when they weren't together any longer. So he had to enjoy this nearness while he still could.

He lay down next to Greg again, closing his eyes and sliding his arms around the young man to pull him closer. The moon shone down on the two of them, illuminating the twin tears that trickled down Don's cheeks, turning them into trails of gleaming silver.

***