Title: Mad World
Author: High_Striker
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nick & Warrick, Nick & Gil (one-sided)
Summary: Everything is falling apart, everyone is slipping away from each other, and there doesn’t seem to be any hope left for anyone.
Warning: Spoilers from Season 1 through to unaired episodes of Season 9, and there is no Tina.

He expected surprise, anger even, but never once had he expected indifference.  

It’s that one reaction that hurts more than he’d imagine it possibly could have.  The reaction he had always thought and worked to convince himself that didn’t matter.  

The others were predictable, reasoned, and expected.  Riley didn’t know what they’d all lost over the past years, so her surprise that he, the great Gil Grissom was leaving would be a surprise, even more so since she’d wanted to train under him specifically.  Greg had been surprised as well, which he found slightly endearing, at least there was hope there that he still had some of his naivety.  He found himself wondering how much longer that would last, especially now that Greg had seen that even Grissom was susceptible to burning out.  It could be years, months, days, or even hours, there was no way of knowing, no way to know if the next case might just push the young man over the edge.  He almost wished he’d kept Greg in the lab, wished that someone’s innocence and positive outlook on the world might be preserved, saved even.  

He wasn’t stupid enough to think that Catherine hadn’t seen it coming from miles away.  She’d probably known it was coming long before he did.  And he’s glad for that, glad that she understands, and that he can rest easy knowing that the Graveyard Shift is in very capable hands.  After so many years, he thinks he finally sees where she stands, how he was wrong to chastise her for being brave enough to try and make a life for herself that went beyond the walls of the lab.  If he’d been half as brave, the mess that his life had become probably could have been avoided entirely.  But he didn’t have that courage, he had once, before he’d been the graveyard shift supervisor, and it had bit him in the ass.  He’d never really recovered, never taken risks, always following the safest path, and that was exactly what had landed him here.  

There are so many things he regrets as he thinks back, so many things he wishes he could change, because he knows that it’s his own fault that he’s landed himself where he is.  A little humility would have done him a lot of good, something he sees all too well now, as it feels as if he’s drowning in it now.  

But he couldn’t accept that there were things beyond his understanding, and Nick’s heart had been the one thing he’d wanted most and had understood absolutely nothing about.  

He was relatively certain that nearly everyone in the lab had had a crush on Nick at some point, and he had definitely not been the exception.  Since Nick had been hired by Brass, he’d felt a strong attraction towards the younger man.  It was something he’d been surprisingly bold about from the start.  They’d flirted, at least that’s what he’d convinced himself of, because while he had been flirting, Nick had acted no differently towards him than anyone else.  

Except for Warrick.  Everyone had seen how badly Nick was pining for the Vegas native.  It had been so terribly obvious to everyone, at least to everyone except Warrick.  Catherine had gone so far as to flirt with Warrick in front of Nick just to make the Texan act out on his feelings due to jealousy.  It hadn’t worked, but it had still been an attempt.

Warrick had been the epitome of a Ladies Man, and no one in the lab even once expected Nick’s feelings to ever be returned.  That was a factor that Grissom had tried to turn in his favor, despite that it made him disregard everything that Nick must have been feeling.  Of all people, he should have understood what Nick felt.  After all, he’d been pining away for Nick just as Nick had been for Warrick, and he knew what it felt like to know that what he wanted and thought he needed was so far out of his reach.

So his efforts to try and win Nick’s affections backfired.  He didn’t see it at the time, but he could see now how low he’d sunken.  Especially after he’d become Nick’s supervisor.  Looking back it was all too clear how he’d played Nick’s feelings and insecurities against him, and while he’d done it to try and win the man’s heart, he’d ended up decimating Nick’s confidence and self reliance instead.  Something that got drastically worse the moment the Hopkins girl entered the picture.

He’d punished Nick for months after she had been murdered.  In all honesty he’d never stopped punishing Nick.  It hadn’t even been about Nick being a suspect.  No, it had been all about his anger and jealousy, because Nick had chosen a prostitute over him, and that Nick, while gay, had chosen a woman over him.  It had hurt, it still hurt, but he’d wanted Nick too much to care about what Nick felt or to care about what he was doing.  As a result he’d destroyed any hopes of ever winning Nick’s heart.

And then the unimaginable had happened. 

Warrick had done a one-eighty, and before Grissom knew it everything had changed.  He’d first noticed it in the hallway outside of the interrogation room where Nigel Crane had been held and questioned in, when he’d told Nick that it hadn’t been personal and that Nick was just a random victim.  Warrick had pushed him up against the hallway after they’d left Nick alone in the room, and he discovered how intimidating Warrick could be as he was berated for being an asshole.  Warrick had been right about that much, and Grissom could only bring himself to watch as Warrick went back into the room and wrapped his arms around Nick in a tight hug that was immediately reciprocated.

After that moment, the changes began to take hold.  Nick was stronger, happier, and there was a growing confidence there that couldn’t be denied.  He’d noticed immediately that Nick was looking to him for approval less and less.  And when Warrick showed up in his office after a stressful case he’d already known the moment was coming.

It had been a rape and murder case.  The officer hadn’t followed through with the warrant, and the team had been given a mere twenty-four hours to find enough evidence for a conviction.  He remembered how stressed and infuriated Warrick had been, and he’d also remembered how Nick had managed to help calm Warrick down.  So when Warrick had shown up in his office, he wasn’t surprised to hear that the two men were dating.

There had been a single chance then, for him to try and win, to try and split them up.  It would have been as simple as bringing up concerns about professionalism and the lab’s integrity.  But he hadn’t been able to go through with it.  He’d passed word on to the higher ups, and he’d defended them.  Sadly, he’d known at the time that he’d done it for Warrick’s sake more than anything else.  Punishing Nick for not loving him was hardly something new to him.

It had been something of a relief after that.  He’d given up on his feelings, accepted that he’d never hold the place in Nick’s heart that belonged solely to Warrick.  And there had been a period where the two had shared a respectful, professional relationship.  Only, somewhere along the line it had turned into a one way street, and he’d stopped reciprocating the respect that Nick deserved .

It wasn’t fair to pretend that he had no idea what that point in time had been.  He knew all too well, as it had been the single worst mistake he’d ever made in his entire life.

Apparently everyone in the lab was pining after someone, or it seemed so to him when Sara entered the picture once more.  He’d always dismissed her feelings, because he didn’t reciprocate them, and he hated how he felt pitied her, because the way she acted towards him was far less self deprecating than he’d acted towards Nick.  But then she’d gotten her DUI, or rather he’d gotten her out of the DUI, and from there on she became a project in his mind.  Someone he could help, as if in some way helping her would undo the damage he’d done to Nick.  And as he focused more and more on trying to solve Sara’s problems for her, he’d begun to abandon the rest of the team, but most of all Nick.

Sara hadn’t been a fool either, she’d seen from the start that he had strong feelings towards Nick, and she’d done her best to convince him that Nick wasn’t the man everyone knew that Nick really was.  It had caused tension, and there was clear bitterness on Sara’s part because she’d never forgive him for ‘stealing’ the promotion that never was.  And in the end, the team was split up.  Because he was focused so intently on Sara, that he’d left the others high and dry, and he’d begun his own demise as a supervisor.

Then there was what had to be the worst night of their lives.  The night that changed everything once more.

There was no forgetting that night.  It would haunt his dreams every single night, and he’d see those lips moving so slowly.  He’d see the pain and tears in those deep brown eyes, everything tinted in a sickening green glow, and he’d read those lips say those words over and over again until he wondered if he wasn’t losing his mind.

“I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

He’d always been a ghost, no one had ever hit him before, but seeing those words pass Nick’s lips felt like someone had sucker punched him right in the kidney.  That was the crux of it all.  So much time had been spent punishing Nick, when Nick deserved nothing but care and respect.  For those words to be followed by an even more heart wrenching goodbye to the man Nick loved more than life itself, was even more unbearable.  It left him in more shame than he’d ever felt in his entire life, and even after Nick had been rescued, that shame had left him incapable of facing Nick in the hospital, let alone for the following four months in which both Warrick and Nick were absent from the lab.

He’d seen so clearly that Nick had made the right choice in Warrick, and while both men were forever changed from that one night their love was still as clear as ever.

But the damage done was irreparable.  The team was brought back together, but there was a schism that simply couldn’t be repaired.  Everyone was drifting away, his friendship with Catherine and even Brass was gone, as if it had never even existed.  Greg was moving forward, but when he was attacked, there was a cloud hanging over him that Grissom worried would never go away.  Sara was sinking again, and was clinging to him more than ever before, to the point where he eventually succumbed to her advances because he didn’t want to lose her along with everyone else.

Except that clinging to her only succeeded in pushing everyone even further away than before, especially between himself and Sara.  He was losing her even more quickly than he had been before.  There had been a slight hope in him after Brass had been shot.  Hope that after nearly losing another friend they’d all see how much they needed each other.  But that wasn’t how it played out.  After that Sara was practically a lost cause, and Greg was as depressed as ever.  Catherine, Warrick, and Nick remained close to each other, but they were quite closed off as neither himself, Sara, or Greg tried to reach out to any of them.  Instead they’d practically ignored Nick’s emotions and his progress after he’d been abducted.  Only Warrick was brave enough to speak to Nick about that night.

Then Catherine’s daughter was kidnapped, followed by his sabbatical, and then by Catherine’s decision to side with Keppler over the team.  All of which had lead to everyone being even more distant from each other, and he honestly thought that Nick and Warrick were the only two capable of remaining close.  Everyone was slipping away from everyone else, things were changing fast, and then Sara went missing.

The search for her was dedicated, everyone cared, but it wasn’t the same as it had been with Nick.  There was a sense of incredulous disbelief that yet another member of the team was facing imminent death.  And then she’d left the car, their best chance of finding her, and Grissom never even got the chance to thank Nick for finding her out in the middle of the desert.

But Sara hadn’t really been saved.  She’d become less focused, less rational, and less emotional.  It was clear that she wasn’t coping, and that he wasn’t helping matters any.  Nick had tried to help her, but she hadn’t let him.  And they were all even worse off than before.  Catherine was mostly forgiven by both Nick and Warrick, but it was clear that Warrick was starting to get into his own problems, and he wasn’t eagerly accepting any help, not even from Nick.

Even after four years, no one had any idea where Nick stood with what had happened to him, and there was the same cluelessness with everyone.  Greg was fairly open with his therapy, but Brass, Catherine, and then Sara were all closed off on how they were coping.  Most of them weren’t really even coping, at least that’s what he suspected now.  But then he’d still been wearing his rose tinted glasses whenever he looked at the world, and he’d been too busy trying to fool himself into thinking that things were fine to realize that he wasn’t coping either.

And when Sara had left without a word to anyone, she had immediately cut herself off completely from the team.  She was shut out, and there was no way she’d ever be let back in.

Then they lost Warrick.

Nick and Catherine seemed to latch to each other, but he was left out with no one to catch him, not even Sara, who soon realized that they were through once and for all so she could save herself.  He couldn’t blame her for that.  She deserved to find some semblance of happiness in the cruel world they all lived in.

Nick was lost to him forever though.  He could have tried once more to win Nick’s heart, even after so many years he still yearned for having a place secured there like Warrick had, but it was too late, and he knew that no one could ever fill or even heal the gaping hole Warrick’s death had clearly left in Nick’s heart, no matter how much the Texan tried to hide it.

It was what got them all to this point.  Years of pain and anguish, of falling apart, and having to realize that all the illusions of family and closeness, that they wanted desperately to be there, simply didn’t exist.  And now he was doing just what Sara had done.

He was bailing ship in the hopes that maybe there could be some semblance of happiness in this world waiting for him.

But that wasn’t going to happen, because Sara could fool herself all she wanted, but he knows that if he ever wants any happiness, there is a chapter in his life that has to receive some closure.

Not so much for his sake, but for Nick.  He can’t bring himself to leave Nick all alone on a ship that is clearly sinking.  It’s clear to him now how Warrick meant the entire world to Nick, how Warrick was always there to help Nick through all the hard times they faced together, and vice versa.  He knows that love, still wishes he could experience it with Nick himself, and now hopes that Nick could teach him how to really love someone, and not just desire them.

He was pining, just as Sara had been, but he knows now that Nick never pined after Warrick, Nick had simply loved Warrick.

Maybe he’d always be ‘second place’ or maybe he’d never place at all, he felt like he could finally accept it if Nick didn’t return any of his feelings.  That that didn’t mean Grissom couldn’t still try and help Nick make it through the worst time of his life.  Grissom hadn’t been there before, hadn’t even tried to be there before.  

But things can change now.  Possibly for the better.  After all, there’s always some hope.  

He can’t quite manage to bring himself to knock on the door, because he can’t bring himself to see into what is now only Nick’s home.  Seeing the reminders he’s sure exist of Warrick’s presence will still be too painful for him, and while he feels like a wimp, taping the envelope to the door makes him feel marginally better.  He knows how much Nick has sacrificed of himself to help everyone else, even if he’s been unsuccessful at times.  And he knows that without Warrick, there’s no one for Nick to turn to now.  

The paper it contains doesn’t say much, but he hopes it’s clear enough.  

He hopes it’ll make a difference.  

***

The envelope almost goes unnoticed as he slips his key into the lock.  He hates coming here each morning after shift, hates everything about it now that he’s alone.  

There’s so much exhaustion in him from keeping up the charade of being strong that he almost doesn’t bother to grab the envelope as he moves inside.  He’ll collapse as soon as the doors closed, and he’ll let himself cry for hours over how much pain he’s in without Warrick.  It’s the same way he’s broken down every time he’s walked in his door after a shift.  The tears will fall and he’ll shake and tremble helplessly with no one there who could ever possibly comfort him.  

He’s on his knees, and the tears are already falling, but he feels a need to open the envelope, to see what was left behind for him.  His fingers tremble widely and he drops the slip of paper that was in the envelope to the floor.  It takes several minutes of pawing at it with his unsteady fingers to finally pick it up, and he has to wipe his eyes to be able to read what it says.  

There’s not much, just a few words, and a phone number.  He thinks for a moment that he should be angry, furious even, but he can’t muster up the energy, and right now, the words offer him a slight bit of hope when he feels like he’s being engulfed with despair.  

You never disappointed me.  

His fingers aren’t working much better, so he’s not surprised that it takes several dozen attempts to dial the number.  All he knows is that he needs some hope, he needs someone that may just be able to help him.  

“Grissom.”  

“It’s… it’s Nick…”  

The End…