Title: Walking a Thin Line
Author: Esynnaj
Author Email: vebesahchalarc@sbcglobal.net
Category: Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt-Comfort
Rating: FRM
Pairing: Warrick/Gil
Status of Story: Complete
Summary: Under what circumstances would Gil comfort Warrick?
Warnings: violence
Author Notes: Eby, your brief remark got me curious about Gil comforting Warrick. This is the result. Guess Karen isn't the only one whose remarks inspire me.

When Grissom slammed Warrick into the wall, it was for his own good.

He had just come out of his office with a zipped, plastic bag containing the evidence of a bloodied letter taken from a crime scene that was assumed to have been a suicide note written by a victim who had, supposedly slit his wrists. He was headed to return it to be secured in the property room, but had come to a stop when he heard raised voices behind him. Slowly half turning, head inquisitively tilting toward the noise, he'd begun jogging in that direction, as he realized one of those several loud voices belonged to Warrick.

It was a chaotic scene he arrived upon. Warrick was crazed, shouting and cursing at Officer Fromansky while stalking down the corridor toward him with a deadly gleam in his eye, his long strides taking him closer and closer to an act bound to get him suspended and possibly fired. Fromansky, not being a complete idiot so not about to facilitate a physical confrontation with the much younger, angrier and stronger CSI, was rapidly sidling away, side stepping in the opposite direction with his back up against the wall. With Nick and Sara tugging on his arms, attempting to hold him back, they still were not enough to halt Warrick's obstinate and bullheaded advancement. Catherine was doggedly standing before him with an authoritative finger in his face but Warrick was still struggling to get at Fromansky and was doing so with great success, seeming not to see her but he had only eyes for Fromansky, a look in those eyes that said he was out for blood. Both Nick and Sara together were not enough to stop his momentum, were barely slowing him down, while Catherine was helplessly giving way in front of Warrick's fury in order to avoid having him either shove her out the way or run her over.

This was when Grissom had rounded the corner and, taking the situation in with a single glance, had headed for Warrick without pause. He had come at them with enough splinters of blue steel in his eyes for Nick and Sara to release Warrick about the same time Grissom had grabbed his forearms and driven him backward up against the wall behind him. Staring straight into Warrick's eyes, Gil snapped, "Warrick, you need to stop and stop now!!"

Warrick's blazing eyes had come around to his with difficulty and began losing their fire, but when Fromansky shouted, "Yeah, that's right, you'd better keep 'em off me. That's what wrong with most of you colored people, why most of you never amount to much and have to use affirmative action to get what you don't deserve!!! None of you know how to act like you're civilized!!"

That was too much. That was way too much. Such a racist remark was totally despicable and unjustified. Gil was almost tempted to let Warrick go, so Fromansky would get the beat down it was time somebody gave him, but was not about to have Warrick getting into the kind of deep trouble that went with assaulting a fellow member of the police department. As an infuriated Warrick tried to lunge past him, Gil put a forearm across his chest then shoved him so hard back into the wall, it knocked the breath out of him, leaving him disoriented long enough for Grissom to snap the aside of, "Get that idiot outa here!!" at Catherine before turning back to snap at Warrick, "If you say one more word, move one inch, you're suspended for a week!!" When he got no response, Warrick continuing to glare at Fromansky without acknowledging Grissom's presence, he shook Warrick as he might have shaken out a throw rug, demanding, "Did you hear what I said?!!"

Breathing hard, his jaw clenched so tight, the muscles in his cheek were standing out and the veins in his temples were visibly throbbing, Warrick growled hoarsely, "Yeah, I hear you, man, I hear you. Let me go."

Snatching a glance around, Gil saw that Catherine had Fromansky by the arm and was leading him from the lab while obviously giving him a piece of her mind at the same time and only then removed his arm from Warrick's chest, still keeping a hand on him, just in case. Sara, stubbornly crossing her arms over her chest, began to gaze thoughtfully at Warrick as Nick sagged against another wall with a sigh. Ignoring them, Grissom faced Warrick once more and said quietly, "This can't keep on happening, Warrick. You can't continue letting your temper get the best of you. What nearly happened here is unacceptable."

Heat instantly flamed up in Warrick's eyes again as he snarled, "What's unacceptable is that bastard still being on the force when he's a racist, abusive asshole, that's what's unacceptable!! Don't talk to me about what's unacceptable!! He's what's unacceptable!!"

"Right now, that's completely irrelevant. What's important is..."

"What in the fuck do you mean that's completely irrelevant?!! It's always been dumb shits like him who've made black folks not trust cops, Gris!! Here's a cop that should've gotten his badge pulled years ago!! But, after all the dirt he's done, he's still around to..."

But Grissom imperiously held his hand to stop Warrick's words, interrupting him with, "No. We're not going to talk about it right now, not while you're still so upset. What you're going to do now is go down to the locker room, change your clothes and go home. And I do mean go straight home, no detours to find Fromansky, no detours to do anything. Just go home."

With a dangerous green glint in his eyes, Warrick inhaled deeply then said, staring right into Grissom's eyes. "Gris, don't talk to me like I'm a child. First Fromansky tells me I'm uncivilized, now you're talking to me like I'm a two year old. I don't have to..."

Feeling shaky with the letdown of his flow of adrenalin, Grissom snapped, "I wouldn't have to talk to you as if you were a two year old if you'd stop having as if you were two years old. You already know how Fromansky is, so it doesn't make sense for you to let him get under your skin!! There are not any good enough reasons for you to be acting as infantile as you are!!"

Upon hearing Nick gasp and noting the shocked look that came across Warrick while catching a similar one even on Sara's face, Gil regretted his words as soon as they had been spoken. He was about to apologize but Warrick had shouldered past him and gone striding swiftly down the corridor toward the locker room before he could say anything. Staring after his back, Grissom asked wearily, "What happened here?"

Rather than directly answering the question, Sara, very quietly said, "He did have good reasons for what he did. Excellent reasons in my book, as a matter of fact."

"Oh, is that so? And what would those reasons be?"

When Sara said nothing, just leaned back on the wall near Nick, looked at him and said nothing, Gil blinked in momentary confusion for a moment. When she stood up from the wall and simply walked away, the look of confusion tripled. Nick said, watching Sara's retreat, "We'd just come in from that last case at about the same time Fromansky was going out when he laughed, said something to these other two cops who were with him then called out to Sara that, if she was looking for you, you were in your office. When Sara turned and asked him if you wanted to see her, he just laughed some more and said no, but figured since it seemed like she was always looking for you, he'd give her a heads up so she'd be able to get that look of a lovesick, old maid cow off her face before you saw her."

Gil stiffened, his head snapping up, his eyes surprised, as he looked at Nick, said in a shocked voice, "Fromansky said that to Sara?"

"Yeah, and that was what first pissed Warrick off. Sara was going for him when Warrick stepped in front of her and informed Fromansky if anyone had an old maid look to 'em, it was Fromansky with his dried up, wrinkled up, puckered up asshole looking face. That got Fromansky madder 'n hell, so he started dogging Warrick about being a gambling addict. But Warrick didn't take the bait, just laughed, said, uh-huh, whatever, Fromansky and he turned away. Fromansky still wouldn't let it go, even when the other two cops tried to pull him back. Knowing how Warrick is about the cases he's had to work on where kids were killed, he said thought he'd start advising families to request another investigator if their kid came up missing and Warrick was on the case, because the kid always turned up dead. We grabbed Warrick then and he was still pretty cool. Everything would've been all right if Fromansky had just stopped talking. But that sonafabitch was on a roll. He walked up on Warrick, said he couldn't see how a deadbeat like Warrick had been able to keep his job as long as he had unless, as rumors were all saying, he happened to be fuckin' a supervisor. It made Warrick go nuts. He totally lost it, went totally ballistic, and we couldn't stop him. I don't know what might have happened if you hadn't showed up."

"Oh my God," Gil whispered.

"That's not all. That last crime scene turned real sour, Gris. It went bad right with Warrick in the thick of it."

"What... happened? Please don't tell me the missing little girl wasn't found alive."

"Sorry, but she was dead and stashed under a riding lawn mower in a shed behind the house. The mother thinks an uncle, her ex-husband's brother, who had visited earlier in the day did it. He was the only one with her while the Mom and an older daughter did some afternoon shopping. Doc Robbins says he believes the little girl was raped before she died. We're pretty sure she was. When Warrick found her, she was nude from the waist down, with what appeared to be semen between her legs. The towel used to strangle her was still around her neck" Very softly, Nick added, "She was still alive then, Grissom. She stopped breathing in Warrick's arms before the ambulance got there. We tried CPR and the paramedics did all they could do, but she... never came back. But, for some reason, Warrick wouldn't give up. He just... didn't want to stop trying to get her to breathe again. We had to make him let go of her. He kept saying how she had to have laid all alone in that shed for hours and he hoped she had been unconscious the whole time and not scared and how, if we had gotten to her in time, she might've lived."

After taking a deep breath through his nose, Gil murmured. "After all that, he's got to come back in here to deal with a bastard like Fromansky, then with me calling him infantile without making any effort to first find out what had set him off. No wonder he walked off like he did."

"Well, you're right about he can't keep losing his temper the way he does. If he wasn't such a good CSI, he would've lost his job by now. But, I can't talk. All of us have done shit that should've made us lose our jobs at one time or another. But all of us have been able to keep 'em without fuckin' a supervisor." Nick was smiling a little, but that changed to his being startled when Gil sent a quick glance his way then immediately looked elsewhere. "Uh, none of us have fucked a supervisor to keep our jobs, have we?"

All Grissom said was, "Go on home, Nicky. It's been a rough night and you must be tired. I'm going to go talk to Warrick for a minute."

But Warrick was already gone, had changed, gathered up his things and cleared out in record time. Deeply troubled, Grissom dropped off the evidence in property before returning to his office to finish up a few last minute details then head home himself. He had just about done that when there was a soft knock at his door with Catherine already opening it while peering around it. She stepped in, closed the door and said quietly, "I need to talk to you about Warrick. He's working two child death cases, Gil, and getting way too wound up. He's been edgy and in a bad mood for a week, ever since you assigned him the case with that boy who drowned in that swimming pool."

"Why are you saying that?"

"Well... he might've been all right if it'd been a simple case of accidental drowning and he could've finished up with it fast. But the autopsy revealed there was soapy bath water in the boy's lungs. Somebody killed him elsewhere then dumped him in the pool. To make matters worse, the pool belongs to a family that lives over four blocks away. The little boy knew some of the children in that family, but only because they went to school together and wasn't good enough friends with any of them to hop their fence to go for a swim. From all we've been told about him, he was a good child who wouldn't have done that."

Gil stood up and closed his eyes with a sigh. "So the case's gone from accidental to a homicide."

"Yep, it has. That means Warrick's got to be involved with it for a much longer time. He was over with Doc Robbins getting a full report on the autopsy this evening when you called us down and sent us out to the missing girl crime scene, which didn't go very well."

Grissom nodded without opening his eyes. "I know. Nick told me about it."

"Did he tell you the little girl died in Warrick's arms?"

"Yes. He did."

"Did he also tell you how, after Warrick realized the little girl was still breathing and was unwrapping the towel from around her neck, how one of those stupid cops, Abernathy, the one with an urge to get transferred over here, grabbed onto him and tried to stop him. He had the nerve to tell Warrick that he was ruining evidence, probably thinking that would make 'em look good in my eyes. We'd all thought the girl was dead, up to then. Warrick shoved him away so hard, he slipped and fell down. As soon as he got back up on his feet, he started in on Warrick, yelled about filing a complaint. But he shut-up when Warrick started giving the girl CPR and she started breathing on her own.

"All of us had thought she was dead when he brought her out the shed. We nearly missed she was still alive, Gil. I had taken her pulse myself but gotten nothing and I thought she was dead. Warrick was about to lay her down on the ground when he saw her chest move a little. It doesn't matter that she died anyway. What really matters is he tried so goddamned hard to keep her alive, was so determined to make her breathe, and she died anyway. Warrick's real ripped up about that, like he always is when a kid's killed, and deservedly so. On top of that one, though, he's got this other kid killing to clear up. I'm beginning to think all of this might be a little too much for him. He can't continue going around losing his temper like he does. He and I did have a talk about it, but that doesn't seem to have done any good. He just sometimes isn't able to deal with some of the shit we have to work on like a professional. Gil, he's gonna lose his job if he doesn't straighten up. He never would have gone off on Fromansky like he did if he wasn't wound too tight."

"So, what you're saying is you think it's time I had a talk with him."

"That's exactly what I'm saying. You know him better than any of the rest of us do. You live with the man. You sleep with him. So, who'd be better than you to have a talk with him? You'd better cool him down and get him to stay cooled down, Gil. Otherwise, only place you're gonna see him is at home, cause, man, if Ecklie can keep piling up all this bad stuff in his record about how he can't control his temper, he won't be working for the department much longer."

"What went on with Fromansky wasn't entirely Warrick's fault. Nick told me he made derogatory remarks about Sara and racist remarks to Warrick."

"Fromansky did do that. And, as the highest ranking supervisor on the scene when it happened, I am going to file a formal complaint against Fromansky for what he said, not only to help cover Warrick's back, but also because Fromansky's a giant prick and it'd give me great pleasure to stick it to 'em. But I truly don't give a shit about him. It's Warrick I'm worried about."

"Don't be. He'll be just fine. I'll take care of him."

Catherine smiled. "I'm sure you will. After all, he is your favorite CSI."

When Gil got home, Warrick was in his music room, "doodling" as Gil playfully called it, on his electric keyboard, intermingling major and minor chords to create a bluesy and peaceful, unexpected and original sound. It was what he frequently did to relax, much as Gil might putter around in his bug room as a stress reliever. The sound was soothing and Grissom was reluctant to interrupt him. Playing always eased Warrick's tension and Gil knew he'd come out in a much better frame of mind that would make it seem as if he had never been upset. But Gil also knew that meant nothing. He'd still be riding too close to the edge of imminent explosion if left to the temporary measure of obtaining serenity through his music. The moment he stepped into the lab on the morrow, having to now deal with two child murder cases, it was guaranteed, the strain would return and he'd become potentially explosive, once again. So, bracing himself, Gil went to the door of Warrick's music room and said softly, "Please come out here, Warrick. We need to talk."

The music immediately came to a halt but Warrick did not move and his stillness felt nearly as dangerous as his outburst with Fromansky could have been.

"Did you hear me?" Gil asked.

"Yeah, I heard you," Warrick said in a low, tight voice. "But I wish you'd go away. That'd be best. I really don't feel like talking."

"Well, that's unfortunate because we're got to talk, no matter how you feel."

Warrick stood up jerkily and suddenly as if he had been pulled upward by a puppeteer's strings, the tense muscles in his back standing out through his thin shirt. He remained facing his keyboard, back to Grissom, as he said very softly, "Leave me alone, Gris. I'm not in the mood for your fuckin' fatherly advice right now."

"That's also unfortunate, since you've going to hear it anyway."

"No, the hell I am not!!!" Warrick whirled to send a very expensive tape recorder he had sitting on a shelf above the keyboard at a side wall, splintering it. "I do not have to hear any goddamned thing I don't want to!! I'm... tired of hearing shit I'd rather not hear!! I'm sick to death of seeing and hearing shit that doesn't have one single, solitary thing to do with me and is still tearing me up on the inside!! I can't take this anymore!!" He whipped around and faced Gil, who was shocked when it seemed that tears were in his eyes. "I wanted to kill that cocksucker, Gil!! I wanted him dead!! I've never wanted anybody dead like I wanted Fromansky dead!! It just ain't fair that he's still alive!! Not when babies have to die at the hands of sick bastards with, with... demons inside 'em!! I can't handle any more of this, man!! I just can't!! Not one of us got any fuckin' idea how much that little girl suffered before she died!! She was looking up at me, Gil, begging me with her eyes to help her live!! And I couldn't do it!! I let her die!! I let her die!! She wanted to live so fuckin' bad and I... I let her die!!"

Helpless against his own inner turmoil and the tears that turmoil was causing to well up in his eyes then spill over, Warrick whirled away again, as if embarrassed by the fact of Gil seeing them. Blinded by his tears, he tripped over the bench on which he had been sitting and stumbling, trying to catch himself, ended up careening to the wall where he had thrown his recorder. He possibly could have stayed on his feet, but his legs weakened as his spirit did the same and he slid down the wall, the tears coming strong and being joined by heartrending sobs he could not keep in.

Grissom was stunned. He had never seen Warrick cry, not like this, not like he was a brittle vessel about to shatter into broken pieces. Gil had been preparing what he intended to say to him from the moment Warrick had walked away from him back at the lab, but now, none of those words seemed to be good enough. He was moving without thinking, going to the man he loved without the slightest notion of what to say to him. But he did the best thing he could have done. He went down to the floor with Warrick, put his arms around him and pulled him close. Then, cuddling Warrick as if he was a well beloved baby, Gil began to rock him, soothing him with a nonsensical, disjointed lullaby that was much more comforting than any stern speech he might have otherwise come up with. He caressed Warrick, running his hands up and down the broad back with intermittent pats that had a touch of anxiety in them because he hadn't expected Warrick's breakdown, and was concerned about him. He sat and rocked for a good ten minutes, listening to Warrick's sobs, feeling his tears soaking his shirt as Warrick clung to him, as if Gil was a life jacket and he was a drowning man. He wrapped himself around Gil with those long arms and legs, refusing to let go. He had felt as if he was falling over into a deep ravine of despair he'd rather not go, had chosen not to go, and had to use Gil for a lifeline.

And Gil was there for him, completely willing to be his lifeline, giving to him all of himself as he never had for anyone else by the simple act of holding him close while he cried, needing, more than he had ever wanted anything in the world, to bring serenity and tranquility back to the man who was the most important force in his life. Without speaking any words, he let Warrick know he would give up his soul for him, had, indeed, already given it up. Because it, as well as everything else he might ever be and currently was, belonged solely to Warrick Brown.

Grissom became aware the emotional storm was coming to its end by sensing the relaxation that was stealing through Warrick's body. It was loosening, its tightness slowly fading until Gil would've thought he had fallen asleep if not for Warrick's arms gripping harder whenever he tried to move away. Neither of them spoke for a good half an hour, just sat there in the corner on the floor, holding on to each other. Then Gil lifted Warrick's head with a forefinger under his chin, smiled at him and began kissing away the tears that were still on his face. Warrick laughed self-consciously at that as he said gruffly, "Sorry for being such a crybaby."

"Don't be. This may not be the right thing to say, but I enjoyed it."

Warrick laughed a bit more. "You enjoyed my misery, huh? Naw, man, that isn't the right thing to say."

"I'm afraid. I've never been given the opportunity to do anything like I just did. You've never let me... hold you and comfort you like you just did. This isn't how you do things anymore than it's how I do things. You always like to say you let everything out, Ricky, but you don't. What you do is think about things, waste all of your time trying to figure out other people's behavior on an emotional level, wondering why they do the cruel and thoughtless things they do, when there's never a rational reason for mankind's inhumanity to itself. All we can do is... do the best we can do and not let the demonic actions of others get under our skin. It turns us into their victims as well, Ricky. That gives them power over us. Whether you meant to or not, you gave Fromansky power over you today and I know that has to be the last thing you wanted to do."

Warrick finally was able to pull back from Gil, sitting up to lean back on the wall while blowing out a long puff of air then taking in a cleansing breath. Then he said, "Yeah, I know that. Pissing me off until I jumped his corroded ass was what he intended to do and he did that righteous. I fell for it like a ton of stupid bricks and I am really sorry for that. Not sorry enough to apologize to the shit-for-brains, but still sorry." He sighed and added, "I was sitting here thinking about up and leaving the department, I really was. There's too many asswipes like Fromansky in it getting away with shit that could get me and does get other black men like me without somebody like you in their corner put away for life. It's... getting rough seeing these babies die at the hands of adults off on a power trip and who just like to cause innocents pain. I can't take much more of it."

"Sure you can," Gil said, watching Warrick carefully. He was still trembling, but Grissom dared not touch him. He was getting his grit back and Gil sensed Warrick was ready to be strengthened, not comforted. "You have to, Ricky. All of us have to. If we don't, the ones who're hurting your babies get away with it. They won't pay for their sins. I don't have the kind of faith that believes there's a higher power that punishes wrong doers in his or her own good time. I do appreciate those that do, but I'll never be one of them. What I do believe, if there is a higher force, people like you and me have been put in a position where we can get justice for those who wouldn't have it any other way. If you quit doing that for them, Ricky, then their deaths will mean nothing. They will have suffered without obtaining vengeance. We have to get that for them. I know you, Ricky. Even if you weren't a CSI, you'd be doing that wherever you were and whatever else you might be. So, you might as well do it here, with me. I need you at the lab. I have to see you there. I don't know... how if I could get through the day if you weren't there. Sometimes, all that is necessary is for me to hear your voice, when I feel as if I'm coming apart, and I get the strength to pull everything back into place. Sometimes, when it seems as if I won't be able to solve a difficult case, all I've got to do is come down to the locker room, look at you wearing just a T-shirt and, suddenly, everything gets brighter and the pieces begin to fit like they should."

Warrick laughed, just a bit, and gave Gil's shoulder a friendly bump with his own. "So me in just a T-shirt does that for you, huh?"

"Oh, absolutely. Catherine can frequently talk me through things to help me keep my equilibrium, but you do that without saying one word to me. I need that, Ricky. I need you working beside me. We're in this thing together. You prop me up and I will do the same for you. So there's no possible way I can allow you to ever give the slightest consideration to quitting. That would ruin the team. I'm a better supervisor; and a happier man; with you by my side, both on and off the job." With that having been said, Warrick leaned back on him for that, thanking him for the compliment without words. Grissom had to add, "We've still got to do something to put the brakes on this tendency of yours to turn into an uncontrollable wild man whenever you're pissed off, however. It simply won't do for you to always be prepared to ram your foot up the ass of Fromansky and his ilk, whether they work for the department or not. No matter how valid the justification, your temper's going to get your ass in a sling not easily out of one day if you don't start; and start now; doing all you can to control it. There're too many other asses better off in that sling and I want you on the job to put them there."

"If that's what you want, that's what you get." Warrick grimaced. "Next time I see Fromansky, I'll pretend he doesn't exist, take a page out your book and act like I don't hear what he says. If I don't do that, I'll end up on a gun range like you did that time he was going around giving you the evil eye. And, if I do that, I'll probably end up shooting the muthafucker, not just thinking about it."

"Hmm, we don't want to go there, we really don't. Now let's get up off this floor. It may be carpeted, but I've sat on it long enough." He stood up and held down his hand to help Warrick to his feet but did not release his hand once he was also standing. "Better now?" he asked, smiling up into Warrick's face, while unconsciously and casually swinging their joined hands back and forth.

"Yeah, I'm better."

"That's good, because I'm feeling a tad horny," Gil said as he tugged Warrick toward his bedroom.

"Are you now?"

"Yes, I am. Have been for awhile now, but couldn't bring it up until you felt more inclined to... doing something. Ricky, do you remember the first time I pushed you into a wall while we were at work?"

"Yeah. Oh hell yeah. I fronted you off in public and you, very clearly, didn't like it and expressed how much you didn't it. I've never forgot how mad you were. That is exactly why I've never done it again. So, see? I can learn to control myself, you know."

"I didn't bring it up for you to say that. This's something I've never told you before, but that got me... terribly excited. Afterward, that was the first and only time that I ever had to go into my office, lock the door and beat off. I wouldn't have been able to get through the rest of the day, if I hadn't. You'd started making hard for me not having you in my life even then. Now that I do have you and can just say, I'm horny and take you to bed, you don't know how much of a relief that is. I still have to come home with my dick hard and my underwear damp from having to spend the whole work day around you. But now, I can do something about it besides just have fantasies, like I always used to, about being with you."

"You don't have fantasies about me anymore?" Warrick teased as Gil began to unbutton his shirt.

"Why should I? There's no need for me to fantasize about you anymore. I've got the real thing now, up close and personal, and I am never letting you go."