Title: Waiting for Gil to Get Home
By: Esynnaj
Category: Angst, Death, Established Relationship, Hurt-Comfort
Rating: FRM
Pairings: Warrick/Gil
Status of Story: Complete
Summary: Warrick tries to get back "home" to Gil while Gil gets back home to him.
Story Notes: It's the Warrick bashing Kaelleigh asked for, with Gil coming to the rescue. I have borrowed from her fic, "Got to Get Home" without first asking her if I could, but this was a surprise just for her and I couldn't very well say I want to piggyback from one of your stories without giving the surprise away, now could I?

There was a distinct comfort zone in the darkness. Once you found it, then it really wasn't such a bad place to be. It was certainly better than the agony you had to suffer out there in the light. So when Warrick had stepped into the shower and was fiddling with the knobs to adjust the water to its most comfortable temperature and the memory of being in a shower with Evan at school and laughing as they had snapped each other with towels had hit him and he had realized with a chill that he would never see Evan alive again, he had simply shaken his head with his eyes growing wide and unseeing, murmured, "Uh-uh, no, Gil's gone, Evan's gone, that little girl's gone and Mama's gone. I'm all alone and I am not gonna, I just cannot deal with anymore of this shit."

So he had sank to the floor, sliding down against the shower wall and gone internal, turned his vision inward where it was safe and dark and nothing could hurt him, where, since he had to be alone, he could be alone in peaceful, black silence. Only there had been, far away, the light of cold and cruel reality was at one end while familiar shadows drifted at the other end in a different sort of darkness that had a clinging, cloying permanence. Warrick sat there, still and unmoving, while he made up his mind which way he would go. Because whatever decision he made, it would be the one he'd have to live or die with forever.

He'd still had some awareness of reality left to him when his friends had come to remove him from the shower, had even tried to assist them as best he could with his mind shutting down, while they had been trying to get him out and warm him up, had still being able to feel a tiny core of amusement at the mere notion of Catherine seeing him in the nude. He'd even been glad because they had wrapped him up in a robe and he had been able to stop shivering. But that still hadn't been enough for him to want reengagement with a reality that had become sheer, emotional exhaustion.

The little Randliar girl had died in his arms. For the brief time she had lived after they had found her stuffed in a shed under a riding lawn mower, that child had tried so damned hard to live. Her eyes had bored piteously and desperately into his while he had been frantically tearing away a towel that had been wrapped around her little throat so tight that it had left bloody ridges and while that idiot Abernathy had started tugging at him, hollering that he was disturbing evidence. That asshole was lucky Warrick hadn't had the time right then to do more than shove him away. This was because that little girl's eyes had been pleading with him to help her live. The eyes had been saying I wanna be a lawyer, a doctor, a clerk in a gas station. I wanna have babies and a husband or be a spinster librarian, all and any or that. But I, most of all, want to live. My own Uncle Max raped me and strangled me and left me for dead, half naked in a shed, and I had been struggling to breathe out here all by myself for hours and I did all of that all alone and I still want to live and I deserve to live, don't I? Yes, you do, baby, yes, you do, Warrick had been whispering, crazily, to himself the whole time he had fought for her life, had been trying to breathe his life into her, fighting God and Satan for her, fighting a specter of death who was already hovering over her, a specter Warrick had seen too many times gleefully waiting to take innocents like this one, waiting to take those Warrick loved.

But he had failed. He had failed miserably. He hadn't been able to do a goddamned thing except extend her time of suffering. He had cradled her while the light had gone out of her eyes, while the demons had won again and taken another victim down. Then he'd had to go back to the lab, knowing he had to now had her case to follow up on as well as that of the little Anderson boy whom everyone had first thought accidentally drowned in a neighbor's swimming pool but who really had been killed in the soapy water filling his lungs then tossed into the pool because of some still unknown murderer's attempt to cover the tracks of his or her homicide.

Back at the lab, already not in the best of moods, he'd run across and almost gotten into a fight with Officer Fromansky, a man truly should have been put in a sack and drowned at birth. Each time he thought about the incident, his hand still itched to get around Fromansky's neck and choke until the light went out of his eyes like it had in that little girl's eyes. It just didn't make sense to Warrick that she was dead and Fromansky wasn't. That never would or could make sense. What in the hell kind of world was it when a little girl who'd never hurt anybody had to die and a bastard like Fromansky got to keep on living? Warrick couldn't make sense of that and he was dead sick and tired of trying.

He had fallen apart during that early morning after work but Gil had been there to put him back together, had held him until he had gotten himself under control. He had been very embarrassed about his breakdown but Gil had talked him through it then had kept talking to him concerning further controlling his moodiness as well as his temper over the next couple of weeks. This had been nothing new for him. Loved ones had been doing that for him since he had been a child. Since then, he'd been doing fade out numbers whenever real life had become too difficult for him, trying to tumble over cliffs of darkness from which he had to be pulled back. There was one particular conversation he remembered having with his grandmother not long after his mother had died that still stuck with him.

"Warrick, baby, I love you like I love nobody else but I've got to tell you the truth. It's because I do love you that I'll always tell you the truth. You're a child with no gray areas. With you, everything's got to be black or white, wrong or right and life is just not like that. There ain't no absolutes. The worst of us have good in us and the best of us have our bad points. You start looking for that perfect person and you'll always be lookin' for failure. You start thinkin' you're gonna make this world, all by yourself, turn out perfect, you're gonna fail, boy. I want you happy. I want that more'n I've ever wanted anything in my life. So you and me, we've got to get a middle ground in your life. That darkness you've got in you? I'm not gonna let it have you. Every damn time it comes for you? You and me, baby, we've got to send it send it back where it came from. You got too much potential, boy, and I mean to see to it that you realize it. You hear me talkin' to you? You are gonna be happy if I haveta die making sure that you do. In fact, I'm not gonna die until you are. If I haveta get up off my dyin' bed to make sure you're happy, I'll do that. Fact is, I'm gonna come back from the grave and haunt you, if I leave here and you aren't happy, until you are happy, and you wouldn't wanna put me through that aggravation, would you? I mean, here I'd be all glad and contented among the heavenly host when your silly ass would be going into the darkness, forcing me to leave God's side and come back down here to take care of you. That'd be righteously selfish of you. So don't you go doin' that to your old Grams, boy. Now, you do hear me talkin' to you, don't you, Ricky? I love you, boy. You'd better grow up into a good man and be happy for me."

There had been many other similar, very loving lectures like that through the years and they had gotten him through. And what else had gotten him through had been his friendship with Evan Johns. Best friends, they had been throughout their childhood, tight all the way through high school and part of college. They had been nerds in high school, lonely nerds, because they had been too smart for the cool kids, certainly not dumb enough to hang with the gangs, not particularly athletic so not into the kids who were into sports. They didn't have a crowd to hang with. They had been a crowd of two and that had been enough for them. At least, it'd been enough until Warrick had suddenly, in their senior year of high school, sprouted up six inches and grown into his big head that Evan had teased him so much about. It'd been at UNLV that they had begun to drift apart. For the first time in his life, Warrick was getting outside attention. Women were paying attention to him, flirting with him, and the flattery had turned his head. Unfortunately, Evan's growth spurt hadn't been about much. Even as an adult, he never topped more than five foot eight nor got the looks Warrick developed. Warrick's had new friends started making fun of him, wondering why Warrick kept hanging around with such a dinky, dorky guy.

He had drifted away from Evans for awhile, gotten caught up in the glittering glitz and glamour of big time gambling when he'd been able have a beautiful woman on each arm and wear two thousand dollar suits while Evan had married one good woman whom he had gotten pregnant and become a hard working, faithful husband and father. Then, Matt Phelps, one of several older men who had helped Warrick turn his life around, had gotten hold of him, arranged for him to get back together with Evan and a precious friendship had been renewed that had never again been lost. Both had finally finished up their stop and start education and graduated from UNLV at the same time.

Now Evan, like his mother and the little Randliar girl, was gone too, taken from life by a stupid teenage gangbanger with a gun who had been shooting at somebody else when Evan had been coming out a store after picking up diapers for his brand new baby daughter, from what Grams had told him. He had been another one of the usual innocent bystanders in the wrong place at the wrong time, a good man gone because some black kid had thought he was so big and bad with an AK in his hand. Now the kid was going to jail, had just turned sixteen and was going to be tried as an adult while his mama sat in the court room and cried. The kid, who was pretty good looking, was about be sent to prison where he'd probably be raped until he turned hardcore enough to protect himself and start raping other kids who'd be coming into prison for some avoidable crime and were young and pretty like he once had been.

Oh yeah, this was a helluva world to have to live in. Warrick wanted no more part of it.

Of course, he had Gil. But Gil was gone, across the world over in Australia someplace and not here when Warrick so urgently needed him. However, that was very par for the course. He should've expected that. You always lose the ones you need most. He'd lost both mother and father, so it was only logical for him to lose Gil, the only person in the universe he loved with all of his heart and soul besides his grandmother. Even more than he had Grams, Warrick tried to please Grissom. The man had been his mentor and had his respect before he had his love. While he had been gone and before Gil had left, Warrick had been trying so hard to follow his quietly and lovingly given advice about not letting his temper get away from him. It was never intentional whenever Warrick did that but he had only two methods of operations: he let it all out or he held it all in. Although he knew he'd been walking a thin line, holding on by just a thread, knowing no one else had the power to stop him once he got started, he had been praying he could keep it together during Grissom's absence.

He had tried sleeping in Grissom's room while Gil was away, had been wondering their condo with various pieces of Gil's clothes in his hand so he could sniff them to get the familiar scent of his man and pretend Gil was just away at the store or in the bathroom or at work, anyplace that Warrick could get to him fast, definitely, certainly not half way around the fuckin' world. But that hadn't really been working. It stopped working altogether while he had been in the shower and had thought about the towel snapping laughter he had shared with Evan who was dead now.

Thinking about Evan being dead had made him think about the little Randliar girl and how she had died in his arms.

That had made him remember his mother's death and funeral and think of how he'd have to go to Evan's funeral now.

He didn't want to do that.

Even worse, suppose it was Gil's funeral he'd have to go one day?

He hated the darkness but, in the light of the world, the reality was, that was a real possibility. He might have to go to Gil's funeral one day.

He would never be able to go to Gil's funeral.

His imagination had started closing in on him, had convinced him that Gil had to be dead or else he would be right here, right here with Warrick where he belonged, to keep him from going into a very bad place, which was where he was surely headed. With that imagery of Gil lying, cold, dead and lifeless, in his casket filling his head, even as he had attempted to concentrate on the hot water that was being to burn him, Warrick's connections to reality had begun to shut down.

The last, pinpoint sight his eyes had actually seen had been his hand trying to turn the spigot off as his awful envisioning of the specter of death laughing while coming to take Gil away from him had overtaken him.

That had been when he had turned everything loose, had let go, let it be and darkness had fallen.

The darkness hadn't been too bad for awhile. He had meandered around in it for a bit, humming pieces of tunes he loved, making some up of his own, hearing some distantly from an unknown source. He had sensed love coming to him from outside himself, had felt others' loving touch, had heard their loving words and he had felt their concern, had even enjoyed his grandmother's gumbo, had known on some level his Grams had made it specially for him and would've thanked her if he had still been able to figure out how to form words.

But words had become irrelevant. He was busy trying to decipher what those shadows were at the other end of his darkness and finally concluded what they had to be was Evan and his mother and the little Randliar girl, maybe the little Anderson boy, maybe all the people who had died who should never have had to die, so had all ended up in a happy place, not a bad place. And they were trying to get him to come on down were they were so they could tell him how happy they were to be where they were.

Now, that wouldn't be so bad. He wouldn't mind staying in the darkness if it was going to be like that. It wouldn't be such a bad place to be after all. It might be real nice to stay here, especially since Gil hadn't come back to help him, which meant he had to be dead and might be one of the shadows too. He could be with Gil. All he had to do was join the shadows.

So Warrick had risen out of the blackest part of his darkness to start going toward those shadowy entities promising him permanent, catatonic peace. He had been nearly there when he'd heard...

"Ricky, I'm home."

He had stopped. And he had turned around because that beloved voice had come from behind him, from that too bright, too harsh light he had been determined he wanted to leave forever. But he couldn't leave Gil. He didn't want to leave Gil. He could never leave Gil. Gil loved and needed him as much as he needed and loved Gil. He had begun walking in the direction of that light. Icy tentacles of the shadows had reached out, tried to hold him back, offering him the peace of the darkness. But he had fought them off. He had to get home to Gil. He didn't want to be in the bad place anymore.

He had quickly found out life wasn't so bad. He had good friends who cared about him. In fact, they cared so goddamn much, that he rapidly got tired of them. The hospital room was soon overflowing with flowers and such a constant tramping of visitors that Gil finally had to put a stop to it so Warrick could get some rest. That he only wanted Gil was what he said and only Gil was what he got. Stoically facing down every single nurse who was advising against it, Grissom had a cot brought into his room and stayed with him until he had recovered enough to go back home. Once he was home, he was never alone, his Grams or someone always with him whenever Gil had to be at work until he was well enough to go back to work himself. Yeah, the world wasn't truly all that bad. All what he had to do was learn how to do was deal with the demons in it, those on the outside and those inside himself. And with Gil working with him, he had a real chance of doing just that.

Then, six months later, he awakened beneath a summer sky that was still twinkled with stars even as the sun was rising. Grinning, he rose from his sleeping bag to hit Grissom on the shoulder and say, "Hey man, you brought me half way around the world and down up under it for this walkabout of yours. So get up and get to it."

But Grissom only moaned, peeked out to read his watch and see it was still just five o'clock in the morning, Australian time. He reached a hand out his sleeping bag to grab an edge of it and pull it over his head as he mumbled, "Go back to sleep, bright eyes. Even our guide's not up yet."

"Yeah, but I'm up and you said you'd never leave me alone again, remember."

There was a moment of silence. Then Gil muttered, never removing any portion of his body from his sleeping bag. "Oh, that's just not fair, you throwing my words back in my face like that. You know I didn't mean them to apply in this particular context."

"I'm not throwing 'em back in your face. I can't even see your face. Where is it, by the way?" Warrick crawled from his sleeping bag to start digging down into Gil's to find his face. When Gil kept ducking away from him, he decided his next course of action would be to simply climb inside Gil's sleeping bag with him. But, while it was a large sized sleeping bag, it was not made for two large sized men to fit inside of it. With Warrick insisting on squeezing into it, both of them ended up laughing with no possibility of either of them going back to sleep.

Soon they had quieted down and were lying close together and enjoying breathing on each other, being with each other, glad to be in a world with the other one still existing so they could be with each other. "I love you, Gil."

"I know, Ricky. I love you, too. I'm glad you came back to me. I won't ever leave you, but don't you ever leave me like you did again either."

"I won't."

"But if you do, which I know you won't, always know I'll never ever let the darkness take you. Always remember, I'll come for you. Always know, no matter where I'm at, I'll find a way to get home to you. You always remember that."

"I will. I promise I will."