Title: Untitled
By: Caroline Crane
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG

Greg wasn't nervous about meeting Nick's family. He wasn't, and the fact that he could hear Nick laughing in his head every time he thought it wasn't going to change anything. They couldn't possibly be as scary as Nick made them sound, even if there were, like, a billion of them.

That was what it looked like from here, anyway, and okay, maybe he was a little nervous. It was his first family reunion, and the fact that he wasn't technically part of the family didn't help. If his own family wanted to have a reunion all they had to do was show up in his parents' living room, and now that his grandparents were both gone that left him and his folks.

Nick's family, though – there were tons of them, kids running everywhere and parents chasing after them, a whole slew of Nick's sisters that Greg would never be able to tell apart even with one of his famous charts and a whiteboard diagram. Forget remembering the kids' names, because there were at least two dozen of them and they all looked exactly the same. How their own mothers told them apart was a mystery, and Greg was starting to wish he'd taken the out Nick gave him and stayed in Vegas.

As soon as he thought it Nick appeared, grinning that smug grin of his that let Greg know his panic was showing on his face. He forced his features back to neutral and slid over to give Nick room to sit down at the picnic table piled high with food Greg mostly couldn't identify.

"I told you they were a little overwhelming."

"They're fine," Greg lied. "I was just trying to figure out how you tell which kid goes with which sister."

"A couple of them are my brother's," Nick answered. He slid something in front of Greg, grinning when Greg glanced down and then back up at Nick. "Trust me, it'll make you feel better."

"I'm fine," Greg said again, but he took the ice cream cone and caught a drip of melting chocolate with his mouth. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me yet. You still haven't met my father."

And Greg knew it was an apology of sorts, or maybe a bribe to keep him from running the first chance he got. Because he'd heard the stories about Nick's father, listened to him talk late at night about growing up under the Judge's iron fist and all the reasons he'd left Texas in the first place. And he knew what Nick wasn't saying, that his father probably didn't approve of their relationship and just bringing Greg here was huge.

Huge and possibly dangerous, but Nick insisted that Greg was part of his family now and that was the only real reason Greg needed to be right where he was.

"How bad can he be?" Greg asked, grinning when Nick let out a derisive snort. He held out the ice cream cone, chocolate dripping over his fingers and onto the table. "Have some ice cream. I hear it makes you feel better."

Nick shook his head, but his fingers closed around Greg's wrist to hold him there, gaze fixed on Greg as he licked the cone. Greg swallowed hard when Nick let go, reminding himself that they were surrounded by Nick's entire family and he couldn't push Nick backwards onto the bench and tear his clothes off. No matter how much he wanted to.

"You know," Nick said, reaching up to wipe at the corner of his mouth, "you're right. I do feel better."

And now Greg was nervous and frustrated, but in a few hours this whole family reunion thing would be over, and he'd get Nick all to himself again. A little family bonding seemed like a small price to pay, considering.