AN: Okay, this has really been sitting on my harddrive for weeks. I've tweaked, I've deleted, I've overhauled. Nothing seems right. I don't know... this doesn't feel like me; reGARDless... thank yous go out in mega part to Lauren, Anni (bitch, bitch, bitch, moan and complain and you smile and assist), Melanie (why do I... :facepalm: man I can't have... bah...), Kirsten (awesome beta), Michelle and Sara. That's a lot of people reading this before it's posted eh? Again, not my worstests, not my bestests. This is a read-if-you-feel-like thing.
Just an aside... I love Anthony Hopkins... I can't... I... I... love YOU. Always have and dear god, always will.
She had a pair of boyshorts that fit in all the right places. Red and black; horizontal stripes. The cotton-spandex blend hugged her just right, and when she needed to feel sexy beneath her covers, she'd slip them on and allow her hands to skim down over her stomach, reminding herself that she was a woman.
Before she'd even get to thinking or fantasizing, she would be asleep. It was fruitless, her attempts to make it real in her head, make him live there, pleasure her in the space behind her eyes. Dreamless sleep would follow, twisted images filtering in from time to time–skittering away before the night would call her to wake.
She'd slide out of bed, vestiges of sweat evaporating–making her wonder if she'd even really excreted it, making her wonder what had gone on in her head when she had been unconscious of it. Bare feet touched the cool carpet, bypassing the bathroom, stepping onto the even colder hardwood of her hallway.
Always, a pot of coffee would be started and awaiting her when she got out of the shower. Sara put a new filter in, dumped a random amount of ground beans into the machine and poured water in the back. With one hand she pressed the 'on' button while the other was busy pressing into the skin of her back, busy teasing the edge of the stretchy shorts, busy teasing her own skin.
The tendons in her neck pulled and stretched, sore from how she had slept. Sara ran the front of her right foot up the back of her left calf, yawning. Mornings such as the one she was indulging in were rare to come by. Her morning: the sun hovering just above the horizon, teasing the land with its red-orange edge. The glow sent through her yellow curtains was enough for her to think of Gaughin and Tahiti and how those same curtains might sway with a breeze straight off the South Pacific.
French Polynesia would be a nice place for her skin to warm to the sun. It would be a good place to let loose, order fruity drinks, look at the crystal of the ocean and wonder how far down she would have to swim before the pressure crushed her skull.
Another yawn ushered her way down the hall and into the bathroom. It too was bathed in a stark gold. Her tank top came from her body easily, the sweat having absorbed quickly into the material.
Topless, Sara leaned forward and grabbed two towels off of her towel rack, slinging them over the rack in the shower.
Her arms and back caught residual rays of sun and warmed in its delicate touch. The moment was too quiet, too surreal and Sara shut her eyes to sigh, wondering how a moment so peaceful could make her feel so entirely dreadful.
The shorts slid down over her hips, the cool air just barely biting at her skin. Central air was a wonderful thing, but such a bitch to get naked in.
Cool blue filtered in through the plastic of the bathroom shade, painting her body in soft hues, a butter yellow slice of light cutting over the top of her shower curtains. The stark aqua of the curtains sent hues of the sea over her body and when she bent to turn the water on, the darker portions of the Atlantic and Pacific curved around her ass. Cold and hot poured from the spigot, melding into warm and once it was pleasant on her palm, she pulled the lever for the shower.
Hands immediately flew to her hair, helping to saturate the strands, pulling them apart from one another before they clumped. Lather, rinse, repeat; that was all she knew. Unlike other women, thoughts of lust didn't overtake her as hot, liquid silk ran down her body. She never fantasized in the shower, it was a pointless task. The water beating on her skin was a constant reminder of the present that she was rooted to.
Instead, her shower was with the express purpose of cleansing, of cleaning her hair and body of the grit she had gathered on her job. On the job...the job with him.
Fantasies were reserved for the evening, in the time spent in the break room, consuming coffee and sugared excuses for meals. Tempered feelings of lust were halted until she saw him do something: pull at his collar, lick his lips, toy with a pencil in a manner that was overtly suggestive as to how she wished he would touch her intimately.
In those moments when he would be reciting statistics, she would distance her sexual self from her scientific self.
One part of her would write down the details of the cases, would ask questions, catalogue reaction and reason. The other half of her would slip into the sensual, watching fingers slip over pagers of paper, imagining he was buried eight inches deep in her, needing her to cry out. There was simply no way that he was aware of what was happening to her, of what he was doing.
But it never registered on her face. A performance worthy of an Oscar, her longing lodged somewhere in her stomach and then lower. Legs would twist into a cross and then uncross and cross again. Sara would press her legs together hard, trying to stop it all, but light would be rushing through her brain, stealing away rational thought.
Arriving on a scene frustrated was one thing; arriving on a scene wet–saturated–was another.
She would slide up beside him, glance over his shoulder, and the wind would pick up his scent and carry it on a short breeze to her nostrils. A simple reaction of endorphins, pheromones had her fingers curling around her kit tight, once-cool metal cutting into her skin, threatening to blister.
She always gripped too hard when he was around.
He never noticed; no one did.
As she washed the eucalyptus out of her hair, one hand was placed against the slippery tile of her shower. Never having him, the one man she was sure she could make something with... it had her fingertips trailing over the bumps and grooves of the wall before her palm slapped loudly against her thigh.
Sara shut the shower off, hair dripping down her shoulders, droplets tickling down her sides. It was no surprise that there was a bright red handprint on her leg, where she had hit herself. Stinging, a wonderful stinging resounded there as she stepped from the slippery basin onto worn terrycloth. Her toes curled into the warmth of the mat beneath her feet and it took an enormous wealth of strength not to reach forth and clear the mirror of steam. That would only help to prove to herself another reason for his distance, a gaunt reflection.
Wrapping a towel turban-like around her damp hair, she secured another around her body and opened the door; watching as a plume of steam raced out and settled from gray to nothing on the floor of her hallway. Condensation was visible in the fading light from the living room and she was careful as she stepped out, rounding the slight corner to her bedroom.
In front of her bureau, she dropped the terrycloth shield–shivered as ice cold air raced up her spine, settling at the base of her neck, rattling her there. She picked through the drawers until she located a suitable pair of panties. Sliding them on, Sara bent her head to retrieve a bra.
She picked up the sound of silence from her kitchen, the absence of liquid noises registering in her ears. Her body was drawn towards the void of sound, the slim curves clad only in gray cotton undergarments.
It felt wonderful and free, making a cup of coffee in her underwear, retrieving the day's paper in nothing but Victoria's Secret. It was surely as risky as she would get, she assured herself and sipped the black mess that she called coffee.
A finger along the edge of the mug as she read about a nuclear spill in California, a finger between her lips as she reviewed the movie reviews.
One leg was tucked beneath her as she laughed along the personals in the Las Vegas review. On her second cup, relaxed from her shower, she was sure she'd be sauntering into work that evening in irregularly good spirits.
Body finally dry of residual drops from her hair, Sara smoothed her hands over her hips, skimming over the cotton at her sides. Thoroughly unsexy. The trim of the underwear carried the Victoria's Secret insignia, as did the bra, but the dull gray of the material made even her eyes hurt. Frills and silk had never looked nice next to her skin, simply purposeful, as if she was expecting someone to remove them with a certain intent.
Sara was on her way to her bedroom when three short raps at the door caught her attention. Stealing to the bathroom, she grabbed a towel just to have an extra barrier against the person beyond the door. The peephole let her catch a glimpse of Grissom standing on her doorstep, staring down at his shoes. It was an adequate bodily response, attempting to look nonchalant when in reality, the fact that Grissom was at her home was a bit out of the ordinary.
"One! One sec, just give me one sec!" she called, making no quick move to dress herself, simply walking off in the direction of her room.
There was shuffling on the other side of the door and a quick, "No rush!"
In her bedroom, she tossed on a pair of jeans and the first shirt she grabbed. Her hair was still wet and her feet were bare, but she went back out and allowed him in anyway. "Hey, what's up?"
Grissom stepped inside with just a bit of hesitancy and ran his eyes quickly over her body. "Am I interrupting something?" he pried gently. Sara shook her head and waited for him to speak. It took a few moments before he did; taking a deep breath, Grissom smiled at her and asked, "Wanna go get some coffee?" When he saw the half empty pot sitting cool in its cradle, he amended his statement. "Or some dinner?"
Sara regarded him quizzically. "Uh... I would say yes but... why?" She shook her head briskly, knowing that her words had come out too harshly. "I mean... you know I want to say yes," she nearly blushed, but managed to hold back. "Uh, want to… come in and explain why you're here?" Sara blinked at him and looked him over once, a smile slithering quickly onto her lips. "And why you're holding flowers?"
The door shut behind him just before she stepped back in front of him, crossing her hands over her chest easily. It wasn't a prompt and it wasn't a test, it was simply a declaration that she needed more than the simplest of explanations from him.
Grissom licked his lips and allowed his eyes to take over for a moment. His hand reached out to give her the tulips. Her hand grasped the bundle, the tissue paper crackling in her fingers as she moved to place the flowers down on top of a worn art history book that was resting precariously on the edge of her coffee table.
There was a light veneer of dust on her coffee table and there were no dishes in her drainer. There seemed to be a slight depression in the cushions of her sofa and he wondered who had sat there since him, if anyone. The splash of purple clashed with the darker plum of her walls and for a moment, it made him sad. It looked disgusting next to the yellow of the sofa with the slight bodily impression in it.
But upon skimming over the thought again, he realized that it was simply sickening to think of anyone else sitting there... and certainly not in the capacity that he had. He ran through all of the "ifs" and all of the "ands" and all of the "buts" but he seemed to be more immediately affected by the way she was standing before him, by the way her eyes were just a bit suspicious. "I sat and thought today; just sat and thought," he began, but realized that the words he spoke weren't the ones he wanted to speak; his eyes narrowed as he thought about the big picture, and where he wanted to belong in hers. "About a lot of things, about people belonging together, about what you said…"
"First time for everything," Sara silently mused.
Before, during the way-back-when, something had struck him about her. It wasn't her
face or her appeal or her intelligence. The thing that caught him was the unspoken ability of her to latch on and stay, keep with him.
Determination; Sara Sidle had a sense of determination that was unmatched by anything or anyone he had ever met.
And sometimes it hurt him to look at her. And sometimes it hurt him, just not having her. Sometimes, it just hurt and he was tired of hurting, tired of keeping it all tucked safely away inside. It was eating at him. He'd wake in the middle of the night, guilt gnawing at his insides over words he'd never spoken. He'd smile guiltily when she would flirt with him and wonder how risky she would be if she ever got her way and somehow situated herself more permanently in his life.
And then he realized that he wanted her there, in his life, in whatever capacity that she was willing to be there. He knew – yes, knew – that it would be awkward and there would be fights (a lot of fights if he really allowed himself to think about it), and so far from any kind of perfect he'd ever envisioned. But at least… she would be there. With him; there with him. Laughing with him, watching television with him, sleeping with him, getting… naked… with…
His faced twitched; his eyes narrowed.
"When, when is it over? When you or I leave here, leaving the other behind," he tried to reason, confused. "It just occurred to me that this blissful ignorance, this... pretending... hasn't made it better." Grissom sighed and continued to look directly at her, wondering if this had been another woman, if she would have been laughing at him. "It just won't
be over if one of us leaves, Sara. None of this will end if the other is gone, it will just go on and on..."
Her hair began to curl around her face, the waves setting in. Sara stood stock still – not from fright or surprise – because she didn't really know what to say. In her head, in her dreams, she'd gotten that far. In her head, she'd allowed herself to dream him to her door and into her bed, but never speculated about what he would say or the real depth of his emotion. "I, I never wanted it to go away." Confusion was his companion then, as he blinked and attempted to work her statement out. "This pain, Grissom, however nonexistent you think it is, I mean, it's still you making me feel this... this... fucking shitty."
Not wanting to sound lowly, not wanting to appear weak or at her will but also needing her to see that he was trying to break through the pretenses and speak to her from as close to his own heart as he could get, Grissom reached out to her. Literally.
For a moment, Sara regarded it with the innocence of a young child, wondering what harm it could possibly possess.
Drawing her eyes to his, finding the color there the same as when he'd entered, she slowly extended her own palm, brushing his fingers with hers... so lightly.
The sky was indigo, slipping into a bleak blue or black when she actually took his hand and he drew her slow into his body. A sanctum for her, solace for him.
She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, felt the blood thrumming there, hot and thick. "This is it; this is how simple it could be," she reasoned with him and pressed down into his flesh a little harder.
There was a smile on his lips, lightening the mood substantially. "This?" he began, curling his fingers down just sliding against the warmth of her skin. "Is simple?"
Sara pulled back to stand before him, the touch of her hand still lingering on his skin. "You don't get it, Grissom."
There was a sweet, sad smile on her lips, "It could be... it could be this simple."
A moment passed between them, leaden with so many things, and while he said nothing, did nothing, she could see that some of his well-placed reserve began to slip away. "It could be you and me, sitting together, doing nothing. It could be that simple. I'd be perfectly satisfied with that simple."
A breath he'd been holding for far too long escaped the confines of his throat, whooshing out with a bit of noise. Sara just watched him fidget in his own skin while he determined what he wanted to do. There was a nervousness that was wracking his whole frame, while at the same time, she saw the willingness in his eyes, the desperation to believe what she was saying. "We could just sit here and do nothing?"
"I just want to be near you," she said, dipping her head a bit to solidify her words.
Grissom began shaking his head, hands fists at his side. "No, no."
"Why not?" Now it was she who was desperate, her voice inflecting painfully at the end.
"Because it wouldn't be enough," he was quick to point out, the words nearly meshing together with the urgency with which he spoke. "I'd want it to be, but it wouldn't, it's not feasible."
There seemed to be no end to the barrage of defenses he had. He'd admitted what he wanted, but he still couldn't allow himself to have her. Too little would be too little and too much was out of the question. But the stalemate they were bogged down in now was killing her, and she was tired of attempting to make things right with him if he wasn't even going to try.
Exhausted with the circular nature her life had taken, fed up with his faulty excuses, she huffed, "Then why? Why are you here? Why tell me all those things if... if... why tell me any of that at all? Why bring… those?"
His fists opened and then reclenched as he allowed his eyes to slip closed. He squeezed them tight, took a breath, went to speak and then halted. Why had he thought that any of what he wanted would ever be easy?
Sara, ready to break, finally ready to let it all crumble to pieces, said, "Fine. You don't have to tell me why, just, I don't even –"
"Because you deserve to know the truth, just to know it. You deserve to know that you're loved and needed. You need to know that you're a beautiful woman, a smart woman, a resilient person that never ceases to amaze me. You need to know that I think you're dedicated and shocking and flawed, just an amazing human and you leave me in awe."
Though she wanted to be shocked, wished to register some of the things he'd said as an emotion on her face, she just stood there and watched his own face contort around the words. "And you infuriate me more than anyone ever has; I want to throttle you sometimes. But you infatuate me and… I don't know where it's going to stop."
She licked her lips and wondered how much farther they could delve into the conversation without one of them saying something incredibly stupid. "Well, then… just ignore it," she reasoned, ever kind, giving him another out. She'd given him so many that she figured one more wouldn't kill her. "Just keep ignoring it." It was more than he deserved, that she knew, but her heart and mind were captive to the seemingly stone statue who stood before her, she was a reluctant slave to it.
All she wanted was to be free; free with him, free to have him, to hold him. She wanted to be free to love him away from her psyche, nurture her feelings alongside his; she wanted it all.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," he sighed. "Get me this far, I've gotten this far and you offer an escape." He stumbled back onto the couch and sat down, head in his hands. "That's safe; that would be the safe route."
"Look, this is obviously harder for you than I thought. I can't keep you here, in my head, in my heart, whatever, but I understand… I'll just stop now, alright? Is that what you came to hear? I'll stop trying to make you… get you to… whatever. I'm not sorry about the way I feel, Grissom but I am sorry for the way I've made you feel."
He sighed and shook his head from side to side, palms still obscuring her view of his face. "I like the way you make me – no, I love the way you make me feel. It's me that's making me act, feel… this way. It is me."
"Well I like the way you are. Stop trying so hard to be something else… it's easy when you stop fighting, it really is," she began quietly, seating herself in the chair on the other side of the coffee table. "And if you haven't noticed, you're doing quite well in the communication department right now."
He nodded, and extracted his face from his hands, choosing to fold them in his lap, resting his elbows on his knees. "I guess I am."
There was silence between them for a few moments, an errant police siren whining in the distance. "But I'll stop, I will, the ball's in your court."
"Stop? With what?"
Sara smiled at him, sadly again, but with confidence lingering around the edges. "My pursuit… of you.
That caught his attention, and he sat up straighter, his sudden movement startling her a bit. "You can't do that, you know you can't do that."
"Why?" she retorted suddenly, her voice having taken on the tone he had expected her to speak with from the beginning: malice.
"Because you know I won't do anything," he said quickly, pain and agitation etched across his features. "I'll suffer with it and I'll kill myself with what could have been but I won't do anything, Sara… and you know it."
"You just did do something," she wanted to say. "You just did a lot."
The tick-tock of the clock in the kitchen picked up in both of their ears. Sara went to glance at him quickly, but his eyes caught hers and they held and the two of them sat in her living room, staring at each other. "That's not how things work, one sided. Doesn't work for me," she paused and plucked an invisible tuft of fluff off of her jeans. "And I can't be the only one doing this anymore." Sara's stony face looked at him and she dug her fingers into the fabric just below her knees. "It does hurt, contrary to what you might think, or what I might… uh, for lack of a better word, exude."
"How do you know I won't hurt you more? It keeps coming back to that," Grissom said, feeling oddly like he was sitting on a therapist's couch. "No, that's not it."
"Then what? I'm hurting myself enough, Grissom, with all of this emotional baggage that I have for you… I can't… I can't…"
He was up off of the couch in seconds, his knees popping as he did so. Grissom thought about it for a half of a second, how the sound coincided with his age and then realized that… she was a bright woman; Sara Sidle knew just how old he was, probably down to the days, hours and minutes. And she scrutinized, well, everything, for a living so the fact that he wasn't exactly a prime male couldn't have escaped her. But even if she did actually want him for him it was –
And then he just stopped thinking about it and grabbed her shoulders. Truly shocked for the first time that evening, Sara tensed and set her jaw. "What?"
"Stand up," he ordered, voice oddly gruff, his tenor something she'd only heard once, when he'd told her goodbye for the first time. She shook her head, as if asking him why. Curls fell into her face and his heart clenched. He wanted to vomit, he wanted to scream. "Just stand up," he asked, and she did, slowly.
Once she was standing and had smoothed down her pants, she glanced up at him, half expectantly, half bored. "We role playing?"
He didn't respond to her, but instead leaned in and scraped his teeth against the skin of her neck. She gasped and groaned, tilting her head back to grant him easier access; moving worlds, that's what he was doing. He wanted her to be able to voice her concerns, tell him what she wanted, what she needed. What he needed was beneath his hands, his lips, and having it was amazing. Just a small fraction of her, that was all he had, but it was enough to stir his libido and fuck up his line of reason. "What do you want, Sara… come on, tell me," her groans screamed down at his higher demons, placating them, letting them know it was fine to touch her, it was okay to touch her, it was amazing to touch her.
Sara didn't say anything, just let her head go slack, just mumbled incoherent words that tickled his lips as he kissed her. "Nothing, I don't," her voice hitched in her throat, "Don't need anything, just, you're doing… you're perfect."
"Hmmm," he mumbled and nipped at a tendon on the left side, causing her body to go slack in his arms. Grissom chuckled and held her up, one hand straying to the back of her head, the other to her lower back. His index and middle finger slipped beneath Sara's shirt, teasing her there, and he felt sweat break out at his temples. "Niiiiiiiiice," she drew out and finally allowed her own hands to stray up and toy with his hair.
"Doesn't end like this," she added, though she was content to slide her hands underneath his shirt and press into his back. "This doesn't end things," she gasped when he nipped at her chin.
"What should I do then?" he hummed against her skin, feeling her arms steal down to wrap around his back.
"That, keep, ohhh god," he'd switched sides, licking a short path to the spot behind her ear before retracing his steps to suckle just below it.
There was no stopping it, there was no avoiding it. Already completely turned on, Sara stepped quickly forward and ground her pelvis slowly against him. "Shit, oh god, oh… gooooood."
Then he bit her, sunk his teeth in just enough to hurt a bit.
Her fingernails dug into his skin as she rocked against him, her frame shaking in his arms. She cried out softly, breathily and allowed her head to roll forward and fall against his shoulder. "Sara…"
"I'm, wow, it's just…"
"I can't believe that," he growled and pressed up hard against her, his erection settling more fully in between her thighs. Covered by layers of clothing, he still found the ability to find the groove in between her legs and managed to fall into a rhythm there. Lips fell back down to her neck and began biting, actually biting, just hard enough to make an impression, not hard enough to really be painful.
"Uhhhhhhghh, Grissom, please not –"
He stopped immediately, pulled back and glanced into her eyes. "Not what, what's wrong?"
"No," she gasped breathily and reached for his shirt, "Take off your clothes."
He grunted as she tried to tear at the button of his shirt, fingernails scratching at his neck and chest. "Sara, no, not that far," her grunted and reluctantly pulled his lips away from her skin. "Slow…" he hissed although she knew it was the last thing he wanted to do, to slow down.
Quizzically, she glanced up at him. Her lips were puffy and her hair had gone a bit frizzy and tousled. "What?"
"We were talking and then this, I'm sorry –"
"Griss, shut up, just let this go where it goes, how it goes. Who knows, we might both be surprised."
Grissom smiled and then huffed out a little breathless, "I'm already surprised." There was a moment where she just let her fingers trail through his hair, but then she kissed him again and his brief moment of actual clarity dissipated.
Eventually, she was able to work him out of his clothes and waited patiently as he did the same for her. As each piece of clothing was taken off, he felt as if he were tossing the article into a wishing well, hoping for the next piece of clothing to come off without difficulty.
"We're standing in my living room naked, Grissom," she whispered as she stepped forward to sling her arms around his waist. He wrapped his arms around her and looked down at her body.
"I know," he whispered.
"Maybe we should move this into the bedroom?" she reasoned, tickling down the side of his face, raking smooth fingers through his beard. He smiled and kissed her gently, pressing fingers into her neck. "Maybe you should take me in there show me why you really brought me those flowers…"