Title: Precious
Author: scathingsarcasm
Rating: PG (le gasp!)
Pairing: Gil/Greg/Surprise!
Disclaimer: I do not own CSI, or any of it's characters/plots/etc. If I did, there would be much more boylove. 24/7!
Warnings/AN: None. A bit of angst. This is the lightest peice I've done in... gawrsh, idk. Ever. Still, enjoy!
Category: Songfic
Summary: Sometimes, fragile things break, and we have to piece them together again.

Song: Depeche Mode, "Precious"
(I don't own this, either.)

Precious and fragile things

Need special handling

My God what have we done to You?

Greg always looked so pale these days. Once upon a time, he had beautiful peach-toned skin that blended with the smattering of light brown freckles that decorated his face. One of them would tease him over some inconsequential thing, and that peaches and cream skin would be tinted with the lightest just-before-dawn pink. Now, Greg never blushed. He never had a reason to, because there was no more gentle teasing in a sun lit bedroom, tangled in the sheets and cradled in between his two lovers. There was no more Sunday morning dinners of chocolate chip pancakes, their soft, sweet aroma tickling his senses from his spot across the table from his darker lover, who would be sipping slowly, contentedly from a mug of Greg Hawaiian Blue. Those days were gone.

We always try to share

The tenderest of care

Now look what we have put You through...

We were pulling you in two different directions. We both knew that – knew if we didn’t stop, you would eventually have to leave us both alone. But we just couldn’t stop. We had to push you as far as you could go. Call it scientific curiosity.

At first, though, we tried to make it work. We knew it was all about you, and though we were friends, and though we both cared about each other in our own way, we did not love each other. You just couldn’t understand that, though – and I don’t blame you for that. You loved us both so much. Indescribably so. When you said this, both of us were skeptical, so you used an analogy. You said if either one of us had come to you, and told you we had killed a dozen people, women, children, whatever the circumstances, you would hide us away. You would protect us from justice. You would serve our time for us, or take the death penalty for us. And if somehow we were captured, you would break us out of jail. If somehow we got the death penalty, you would kill yourself and storm the gates of Hell for our souls.

What could we say to that? I said I would do the same for you, and he just kissed, hard.

Things get damaged

Things get broken

I thought we'd manage

But words left unspoken

Left us so brittle

There was so little left to give

By the time we realized we had pushed too hard, you were already spiraling. But even after we saw you slowing down, breaking down, both of us held back. As different as we two are, in ways we are startlingly similar. We cannot for the life of us say what needs to be said. We just let the words rot in our mouths, always unspoken. You stopped wearing those outrageous shirts of yours. Black Flag no longer blared through the halls of the lab, shaking the glass walls and secretly invigorating every downtrodden spirit within a five mile radius. You never smiled anymore. Yet still, you never dismissed either of us. Any time we needed your warm presence (for you hadn’t lost that yet, I don’t think you ever will,) you were there, silent and pale and worn-looking, but never fleeing from our damaging presences. By the time we reeealized what that silence was doing to you, there was so little left to give.

Angels with silver wings

Shouldn't know suffering

I wish I could take the pain for You

One I dreamed you were an angel. Your beautiful face was framed with wispy tendrils of blue sky, and you glided on silver wings through clouds of white. Faintly, I could remember the sounds of waves, soft crashes, your contradiction. Of the salty spray of the sea on my face. That was the embodiment of you.

I wish I could take away all that pain I gave you – we gave you. I would take it upon myself, all by myself, if it meant to see a smile light your wonderful face again, my dearest boy.

If God has a master plan

That only He understands

I hope it's Your eyes He's seeing through

I may not believe in the Roman Catholic faith anymore, but there is a God. I only hope that he sees us through your perspective… your ever-loving, forgiving eyes. You could never hate another being on this earth – it just wasn’t in you. If there ever was a plan for all this, I hope that all your suffering will bear you fruit.

Is it selfish to hope it includes me as well?

Things get damaged

Things get broken

I thought we'd manage

But words left unspoken

Left us so brittle

There was so little left to give

I want to go back. Before the days you said “stop, I can’t do this anymore!”. Before we tugged at you soul, and it tore in two. Before you fell to the ground, sobbing your golden brown eyes out into your pianist’s fingers as we stared dumbly at you from our fighting stances, each of our hands grasping our lapels. Your heartbreaking gasps tore holes into my beating heart, and I lost my hold an the other man’s shirt, and fell to my knees before you. I vaguely heard the thump of him behind me. Paying it no mind, I crawled slowly forward, and tried to take your shuddering form into my arms. You shrank away from my clumsy hands, skittering back and wrapping your own arms around yourself. I had never noticed when they had become so thin. Your dulled eyes fixated on me, and I had a disgusting thrill inside my heart that you were only focused on me, instead of splitting your attentions between myself and the man behind me. It was all banished away when you said those words, I felt the world, my world, fall out from underneath me.

“I just can’t do this anymore. Why are you making me chose?”

I pray You learn to trust

Have faith in both of us

And keep room in Your heart for two

That day, that moment, I turned to the man behind me. The man who I had always thought a clode friend, who had now become such a bitter figure in my life. I looked, and he was gazing at me too. Our eyes met, emerald green against icy blue, and for once it wasn’t a battle, not even a glare. In that suspended moment in time, we set aside the past, and started anew. I looked at this man with not any love, still (yet), but never more animosity. He looked at me as well, with an equally neutral, almost curious gaze.

I smiled at him. He smiled back. And we both, together, turned to our younger lover. He looked at us with such awe and wonder, confusion and a little fear, my heart ached. I knew that this black slate had come at a price. I had lost that animosity for the other man, the no-longer-an-intruder, but I had also lost Greg, my beautiful, pure lover’s, trust and faith. I could still see, though, that deep seated love, buried in his heart yet showing so painfully, wonderfully clear on his face, his love for me. For us.

That dawning realization on his face was without a doubt the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my long life. The euphoric smile, the tears of now-happiness cascading down his peaches and cream, pink-tinted face. He threw himself at us, and our strong arms cradled him once again into a protective embrace. He lifted his head, and whispered softly,

“God, I love you both so much, Warrick, Gil… I love you…!”

We shared a contented smile. We would make this work, with everything we had left to give.

Things get damaged

Things get broken

I thought we'd manage

But words left unspoken

Left us so brittle

There was so little left to give