Title: Threading the Conch
Author: Buffy
Rating: PG (for a few words)
Summary: Warrick makes some discoveries about Grissom, with a little help
Notes: This is my first Gil/Warrick fic, but not my first slashfic. Takes place after the team was split, before "Grave Danger"

***

It felt good to get out of Vegas for the weekend. Warrick loved his job, and liked his coworkers, but he just had to get away once in a while. When an old high school buddy had called and invited him to see him play at a club in LA, Warrick had jumped at the chance.

The club had been great, and the jazz had flowed. Rod had even gotten his wife to come up and sing some blues. Sunday morning found them going with her to see a show opening up in a small gallery a friend of hers owned.

"So what kind of art is this gonna be?" Warrick had been exposed to some odd concepts of what `art' was out in Vegas, so he was feeling cautious.

"It's a mixed show, so probably a little of everything. The show's called `Sound of Silence'. It's being put on by one of the community centers, it's all work by people who are deaf, from little kids to the elderly."

* * *

The artwork from the kids was pretty typical and cute. The free-form sculptures were . . . different, but it was the paintings and drawings that really caught him. Many of them depicted places or situations that were filled with sounds, like concerts or busy streets, or people singing or laughing. But these images somehow captured the silence that the artists lived in. The color and texture seemed to make the paintings live instead, but Warrick wasn't sure if that was an actual fact or his own preconception making that happen.

Three paintings in a far corner stopped him in his tracks. The first thing that hit him was the colors. They were bright, rich colors that pulled your eye. But the subject kept his attention: obviously the same boy, at three different times in his life.

In the first painting, the boy was young, maybe four or five years old. It was a close-framed image of the boy's face, and the hand held in front of it. The hand was open flat, and it took Warrick a moment to identify what the boy was staring at on his palm: a pill bug, tightly curled into a ball. The split lip and shoulder sling just visible added to the boy's expression of concentration made him look older than he should have. The title on the painting was "The Gentle Soul Learns Defense (4)".

The second painting showed the same little boy, this time from a distance. The boy was crouched by the side of the road staring intently at what looked to be a piece of road kill. The sunlight brought out golden tones in his iced-tea colored curls, and the bruise around one eye made his eyes bluer. Titled "The Dying Asks the Reaper Why (7)".

In the third painting, the boy was much older. This time he looked to be sixteen or so, shown from the side sitting at a desk. Off to the side, almost out of sight, was a bed with a suit tossed carelessly on it. Sitting on the edge of the desk was a corsage, slightly crushed. The boy's focus was on a large spider crawling on his hands. It was harder to tell in profile, but his expression seemed distant and unemotional. It wasn't until he read the title, "Arachnids Don't Break Your Heart (17)", that Warrick realized why the boy had seemed so familiar. He looked at the mini-bio of the artist to confirm it. Right there in black-and-white, "Martha's favorite subject is her son, Gilbert." There was more, but he didn't really register it. That little boy, showing obvious signs of abuse, was his boss, Gil Grissom.

A soft hand on his arm brought his mind back to the present. The woman attached to the hand had to be Martha Grissom. She had her son's blue eyes, that is, he had hers. And although she kept her silver hair just past shoulder-length, it showed the same tendency to curl as Gil's. Warrick remembered his manners, and thanked god he'd learned ASL as he signed a greeting.

Martha cocked her head with a smile as she replied, "It's good to finally meet you, Warrick. My son has told me a lot about you."

"I'm sorry I can't say the same, Gil's a little tighter-lipped about you to us, I guess."

"No doubt he is. May I ask what you think of my work?" When she saw his hesitation, she reassured him, "Just between you, me, and the wall."

Warrick was glad that she spoke as she signed. He wasn't quite fluent enough to keep up with her signing, and though her pronunciation was a bit blurry on certain sounds, between the two he was able to understand her completely. "The paintings are beautiful, strong. The colors grab you, and you pack a helluvan emotional punch in a small space."

Martha chuckled. "Answering without saying anything that can be used against you, just as good as Gil. Tell me, what do these paintings tell you about their subject? What do they tell you about that little boy?"

"Well, I'm guessing that the numbers in the titles are . . . his age in the painting?" Martha grinned and nodded, pleased that he'd picked up on the little bit of information. Warrick continued, "Then either he was a pretty klutzy little kid, or there was a bully in the neighborhood. Not to mention the fact that he's always had that damned expression that makes you think he's Solomon or something."

Martha laughed outright at his last statement. "He was born looking like he had the answers to the world's mysteries, and he's only gotten worse as he's gotten older. As to the bullies, there were several. His father was an alcoholic, abusive son of a bitch. I wised up when Gil was 5, after his father put me into the hospital overnight and all I could do was worry if he'd kill Gil while I wasn't home to protect him. After that, yes, there were some bullies closer to Gil's age in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, Gil's intelligence brought him to the attention of some of the older children who didn't like being shown up in school by someone years younger than them."

"I'm guessing that last one is after he got stood up for a big dance. Probably got stopped cold when he went to pick her up."

"/Very/ astute. A pretty cheerleader strung him along on the promise of being his prom date, until she didn't need him to tutor her in science so she could graduate. When he got to her house, her mother kindly informed him that her daughter had already left for the dance with her boyfriend, a young man on the football team."

Their conversation was interrupted when Rod and Theresa had come over to tell him they were leaving. Mrs. Grissom wouldn't let him go until he promised to meet her for breakfast before he left town the next day, and Warrick didn't really mind all that much. Something strange was going on, and he wanted to find out what she was up to.

* * *

Martha Grissom was already at the diner when Warrick arrived the next morning. She waved him over to the booth, and already had a cup of coffee just the way he liked it waiting for him. When he shot her a questioning look, she simply gave him the same infuriatingly, innocently all-knowing grin that Gris gave when he pulled out some weird bit of useful information. The waitress's arrival stalled conversation, and when she'd left with their orders Mrs. Grissom beat him to it.

"Like I said, I've heard a lot about you from my son. His team is his family, to him. But I'm sure you're wondering why I was telling you so much about Gil, about his history and his private life."

"Well, yeah. I mean, he obviously doesn't want us to know about it. Heck, I didn't even know your name, or that you were deaf until I saw your work in the show."

Martha looked incredibly sad for a moment, before a look of determination filled her face. "How much do you know about Greek mythology, Warrick?"

"Not much, bits and pieces from my literature classes in high school and college."

"Let me tell you a story, then. King Minos of Crete had a beautiful wife, and a beautiful bull. The bull was supposed to have been sacrificed to Poseidon, but his wife loved the animal, so he'd kept it instead. As punishment, the god took advantage of the queen's-feelings and actions towards the bull and caused her to have a child by it. The child was a monster, a man with a bull's head and a taste for human flesh. King Minos was horrified, and ordered the greatest engineer and craftsman in Greece to build a place to hide and contain it. Daedelus created the labyrinth. He was the only one who knew the path in and out, though he gave the king's daughter a magic ball of thread that would trace the path for someone."

"Daedelus, isn't he the one who made wings to fly? His son flew too high, and the wings melted, and the kid fell into the ocean."

Martha clapped her hands in excitement, "Exactly! Well, Gil is like Minos, the Minotaur, and Daedelus all in one. He commanded, was walled up in, and designed his own labyrinth. But his is more an emotional one."

It hit him, then, the significance of the designs on the frames. In the younger portraits, the frames had a fairly simple design of square spirals burned on, while the last one had a fairly intricate maze-like design. She'd put the labyrinth she saw Gil building into the art, in a very subtle way. Of course, that brought up a question. Warrick frowned as he asked, "Why would he think he needs one?"

"For one thing, he's always been afraid of showing signs of his father's violence. That's why he always did so badly with the bullies, he was afraid to fight back, afraid he'd like it too much and become a bully himself."

Warrick considered the implications of that, comparing that to the behaviors he'd seen in Gil. "Ok, I can see that. He still keeps a seriously tight rein on his temper. But that's not enough for the defense mechanism's he's got going on."

He could tell Martha was pleased by his reaction, even as it obviously brought up a sore subject. "That would be because of the first three great loves of Gil's life, not counting that high school crush that broke his heart the first time." She paused, considering him, "I doubt it would shock you to know that two of the three loves were men, would it."

Warrick shot her a crooked grin as the waitress buzzed past their table to set down their food, "To tell you the truth, I'd be more surprised if you said he was completely straight. He's a scientist to the soul, and if nothing else he'd experiment before defining himself."

"Too true. The first was Johnny, a sweet, wonderful boy. He and Gil met their freshman year in college. Johnny was older, of course, but he was wonderful for Gil. Always laughing, joking, he pulled Gil out into the world. It was wonderful, until midterms spring semester, when Gil figured out that Johnny was using him just like the cheerleader had. And Gil found out that he wasn't the only one Johnny had used like that. Turned out that one of Gil's best friends, a sweet girl by the name of Jane had been tutoring Johnny, too. She was also the one giving Johnny advice about how to get through to Gil. Like Ariadne, she was used and dumped."

Warrick winced as Martha paused to eat some of her pancakes. To get played like that a second time, and by a first love. Damn, no wonder Gris was so big on playing cryptic and letting you sink or swim on your own.

"Now the second one was Denise in junior year, with flowing auburn hair and high ideals. Her hair was her one feminine charm at the time, she was a radical feminist: always wore pants, never shaved her legs or underarms, and could quote Mary Wollstonecraft and Gloria Steinem. She challenged Gil, intellectually. They'd have long theological debates over obscure topics. But she was emotionally abusive to him, towards the end. She berated him for wanting to join a misogynistic bureaucracy by becoming a CSI with the police, though she despised the female stereotype, she taunted him about his lack of interest in just about any sport or physical activity not involving science; and when she found out about Johnny, she made some very nasty comments involving his bisexuality and some nastier implications about his manhood."

"Why would he let her? Whenever he and Cath rehash the old arguments about her marriage, he always points out that she could have left at any time, that she had friends who were willing to help and support her. What is that, a `hindsight is 20/20' thing?" He couldn't help getting angry on Gil's behalf. Sure, Grissom was weird, but he couldn't believe that the girl hadn't know that going in, even if Gris hadn't been as obviously eccentric back then.

"He let her because it was nothing new, even if he knew it was wrong. I asked Gil the same question years later, and he told me that even though in his mind he knew that she was just saying things in order to hurt him, some part of him believed her because he'd been hearing things like that since he was very young. Apparently growing up his classmates had said similar things often enough that a part of him had begun to believe it. All she did was reinforce the old walls and defenses; she didn't really do much new."

"Damn, that's rough. I know what he means. Doesn't matter how much love and support you get at home, or how much you /know/ those other kids are just using you as a handy target, that shit gets to you after a while."

"I think she permanently damaged his trust in women. Oh, he trusts women as friends, Catherine is a perfect example, but he has never quite trusted another woman enough to make a go of a romantic relationship."

"What about the last one?" It was like looking at a car accident, he knew he didn't really want to see the flaming wreckage, but he couldn't turn away from it either.

"The real winner: Alex, short for Alexander. Not as handsome as Johnny, or as intelligent as Denise, but not really deficient in either category. And amazingly enough, he was in law school. Gil was going for his masters at the time, and they met in the library on campus. I had such hopes for Gil, he had dug into his defenses so deep, but I just wanted him to be happy. But things changed, Gil's letters stopped saying much at all, even though he still wrote the same amount."

Warrick put down his fork, the eggs and bacon that he'd already eaten starting to churn, "Tell me it's not what I'm thinkin', please."

Martha shook her head sympathetically, "I thought the same thing at the time. It made me wonder if my parents had felt the same after my marriage."

"How long?"

"Three months. Gil stayed with him for three months after the first strike. But before he left Alex had managed to match Gil's father for causing Gil injuries."

"Son of a /bitch/! Tell me Gil pressed charges, at least!"

"Didn't have to. The last time, when Alex took Gil to the emergency room babbling apologies for breaking his ribs, Alex lost his temper with the doctor on duty. Thought that the doctor was flirting with Gil and took exception. Hospital security wasn't gentle in subduing him, and apparently the doctor was the son of an extremely homophobic city councilman. The judge was quite harsh in sentencing Alex, and I doubt he'd ever be able to practice law in LA, despite the size of the city, because of that little brawl."

Warrick had to grin, "Karma, man, karma. And I'm betting after that, Gil not only finished putting up those defenses, he booby-trapped them and strung barbed wire, too." He drained his coffee cup again, signaled for the waitress, and waited until she'd refilled his cup to bring up his question. "I get that Gil's got some wicked guards up against love, but I don't get why you're telling me all this. Yeah, the team's close, but why tell /me/ about all this? Why not tell Catherine or Brass years ago?"

"I told you that Gil had built a labyrinth around himself. Well, after Daedelus escaped him, King Minos devised a test to find him. He didn't want Daedelus to spill his secrets, after all. So he sent to all of the other kings in Greece, telling them that whoever was able to run a silk thread through a conch shell from end to end would receive a large amount of gold as a prize. Minos knew that only Daedelus, or someone equally clever, would be able to do it."

"I still don't get why you're telling me this stuff."

"I was testing you at the gallery, when I asked you your opinion and interpretation. I needed to know if you would be able to thread the conch. Needless to say, you passed. Warrick, my son may have blinded himself to all the evidence of it, but from some of the stories he's told me, you and Sara both have feelings for him. Sara would be too abrasive, even if there wasn't the emotional scarring from Denise. But you are sensitive enough, and tough enough, to deal with Gil.

"Sara obviously has a crush on Gil, but that's not enough. And nothing Gil has told me points to Nick or Greg having romantic feelings towards Gil. But you, you don't let him stay safe. You challenge him; you ask him the tough questions. You keep close, even when he's being a bastard. You remember telling him that sometimes evidence is a double-edged sword?" She waited until he dug up the memory of that particular event, "Very few would have said that to him, especially in that way. And I know that Gil at the very least /could/ have interest because you're the only one he's taken on a roller coaster with him.

"I'm telling you all this to give you a ball of thread. I'm trying to help you navigate the labyrinth. I'm a mother, even if my son is almost as gray as I am now. I just want to see him happy, really happy. If I've misjudged the situation, please feel free to pass the information on to someone who would be able to use it, and I apologize for the misunderstanding."

Warrick was stunned. He'd kept his own bisexuality under wraps because he worked with cops, and while most of them were all right, it only takes one homophobe to cause a /major/ problem. That from just secondhand stories from Gil, Martha had not only been able to tell that he was not adverse to such a relationship, but that he had an interest in Gil was almost frightening. "Jesus, how do you do it? Gil does the same damn thing, he knows shit he has no business knowing, and clobbers you with the knowledge when you least expect it."

Martha didn't take offense; in fact she dissolved into laughter loud enough to cause heads to turn in other booths. "Call it mother's instinct, in my case at least. As for Gil, he's just that observant. His teachers hated it, too."

* * *

Warrick was thankful that the swing shift Monday night had been fairly quiet. The revelations he'd been hit with at breakfast just wouldn't go away. Although he'd been able to push them off to a distant corner of his mind, there was still a kind of mental static as he processed them. But by the time swing shift was ending and the graveyard shift was trickling in, Warrick had come to a decision.

He found Grissom in the break room, chatting with Catherine and Brass. He hovered near the doorway, waiting for a break in their conversation to speak, "Hey, Gris, thought I'd let you know your mom has some wicked talent." He almost grinned at the puzzled look he got from all three, "Saw some of her work in an art show in LA over the weekend. Met your mom, too, talked with her some."

"You met Mama Grissom? What's she like?" Brass had a huge grin on his face, obviously hoping for some good dirt on his friend.

"Very cool lady, and he's definitely her son." Warrick turned his attention back to Grissom, carefully choosing his words now. "She told me a few things, made a few observations. Just thought I'd let you know three things: one, I may be a gambler, but I win and lose on my own luck, I don't cheat or ask for someone else to do it for me; two, I'm not a hypocritical radical idealist; and three, if someone I care about is in the hospital, you can be sure it's not something I did on purpose that put them there. Thought it might make things easier for you know that when I ask you out to go see a friend of mine at a jazz club next weekend. Let me know about the date tomorrow, alright? And your mother says to say don't call her, she'll call you." Warrick moved slow enough not to be suspicious, but he still moved quickly when he left the room, not giving Gil a chance to respond. He grinned as he heard Catherine's response "Damnit, I was sure it'd turn out to be Nicky. And Jim, you and I both owe Doc twenty; the other party figured it out first."

Brass's voice was thick with laughter, "What can I say Cath, I bet on the dark horse. And Doc actually owes me ten, he bet thirty it'd be Greg." Warrick laughed as he considered the situation. With luck, by tomorrow Gil would have had time to figure out what he'd been talking about. Courting Gil Grissom was going to be very interesting. But he was betting that the rewards were going to be worth the effort.