His head nestled gently against Xavier's shoulder, Greg listened very carefully to everything Xav was saying. It was all important, and he needed a few moments to internalize everything before he was going to be ready to explain everything to his mate. "It was overwhelming when I walked into the hotel room," he admitted. "Even more than the smell of his blood or the booze. The whole room just... it felt like pain. But more than that, it felt like a familiar pain... Like something I felt once before myself. And..." he paused there, still struggling with the feelings that had long been buried, lost in the happiness that finally being with Xavier had brought him. It would never fully be forgotten, though, no matter how much happiness he had now.

Greg was fighting the urge to just put aside those feelings and try to forget about them again, but that just wasn't the right thing to do. Now that they'd been reawakened inside him, it was clear that Xavier needed to know about them, if only because they were mates. He was quiet for a moment or two more before he spoke, and when he did, he was struggling to make eye contact with Xavier, something that was extremely uncommon for Greg. "I know what Luka was feeling because I tried to hurt myself once, too. I... I never told you, because I didn't want you to feel badly about it, but I did. It's the only time I ever used the shit that I sold at the time. I did a ton of coke and drank myself stupid, and... Xav, I had a gun in my hand and put it to my head, and literally passed out from the drugs and booze just before I could pull the trigger. And I did it because all I could feel was that I had to keep living in a world that didn't have you, and without you, it just wasn't fucking worth it."