What the hell did Calleigh think she was doing? Eric frowned, watching the scene unfold in front of him and not liking it one tiny bit. He couldn't remember what he had wanted from the trace lab but regretted stepping in as soon as he saw her.
Her and Sam. Sam Fucking Belmontes.
Sam looked awful, Eric noted. Absolutely horrific. His eyes were bloodshot, and his skin was sickly pale. Every few minutes, he'd run his sleeve over his bulbously inflated nose. Hello, evidence contamination. But Eric didn't say anything, chose to stand there awkwardly, arms crossed, lips pursed. Neither seemed to notice him, which only deepened his frown. He was standing right there, and while Sam had always been a little bit stupid, Calleigh was normally perceptive as hell. Not today, and Eric couldn't help wonder what was so attention-consuming about a dirty, germ-ridden Sam.
And Calleigh. Well, she seemed perfectly content standing there, touching his arm, touching his sleeve, and didn't she know that his snot was probably all over it? Eric made a mental note to inform her of that fact later. She was wearing a worried look on her face, the same worried look she gave Eric whenever he was late for work, whenever he gasped a breath of air after being underwater for too long, whenever he'd had a rough day and she could just tell. The look belonged to him, and the fact that Sam was being subjected to the same look placed an unsettled feeling in his chest.
Finally, unable to bear it anymore, Eric coughed, loud and forced, a little too forced, because his throat really did get scratchy after that and he fell into a fit of real coughs. Karma at its best, he thought dryly, knowing that he looked like quite the idiot standing there clutching his chest and trying to regain his breath.
Calleigh looked up. "Eric, you're going to contaminate the evidence."
Oh, so now she cares about contaminating the goddamn evidence. Sam's snot dripping into her trace sample was okay, but Eric's saliva from four and a half feet away, aimed at the floor: unacceptable! Eric rolled his eyes.
"Are you sick, too?" she asked, still touching Sam's arm, still getting his disgusting nasal fluids onto her hand.
Eric grimaced, but before he could say anything, Sam piped up.
"I'm not sick, Calleigh," he protested, running his sleeve over his upper lip.
Yeah, he wasn't sick. God just decided to give him a tomato nose for kicks. Right.
"Of course you are, Sam," Calleigh replied in that worried voice that, the last time Eric checked, was saved for him only.
"Calleigh, I'm fine. I'll tell you what. If you stop worrying about me, I'll put a rush on this sample," Sam offered with a smile. He lowered his voice and added, "Just for you."
Great, now he was flirting with her. It was like a gory traffic pileup; Eric simply couldn't bring himself to look away. He wished there was as switch that would turn his eyes and ears off, because he was starting to get nauseous.
"Oh, Sam, you know just what to say to please a girl," Calleigh replied, beaming.
And she was… she was enjoying it?! Eric wondered if he really was as transparent as he felt. He cleared his throat to reestablish his presence. Calleigh and Sam both looked up.
"Eric," Sam said with a somewhat knowing smile, "I was almost done with your evidence when a beautiful lady showed up with the sole purpose of distracting me…" He trailed off and glanced at Calleigh, whose mouth turned upwards into a smile.
Eric had to get a hold of his own gag reflex. Probably not the best idea to throw up all over the trace lab. Though, in that moment, he kinda wished Sam would, just so Calleigh would jump away, disgusted. Yeah, there's a nice thought.
But he didn't. Of course he didn't. It was Sam, the Chilean wonder. Wasn't it just yesterday that Valera was cooing over his 'cute accent'? Eric thought the accent was mighty irritating, himself. It hadn't really bothered him before today, but now that Sam was talking to Calleigh, flirting with Calleigh, causing her to act like Eric didn't exist, well, that was just too much. Accent or no accent, Sam needed to keep his hands away from her. Didn't he know that…
That what? That nothing, that's what. And Eric felt a pang of something. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on, the same something that kept him rooted to the floor and made him hate Sam's accent and gave him belly flip-flops whenever Calleigh stood a little too close.
No flip-flops now, though, because nobody was standing too close to him. There was a knot though, a sinking knot at the pit of his stomach, twisting and twirling and making his stomach feel like a slinky that'd seen one too many staircases.
Calleigh had said something; Eric couldn't even figure out what, but Sam was laughing. He was laughing and even his laugh held his stupid little accent that got all the girls swooning. And it was hoarse because he was sick and wasn't admitting it, but Calleigh didn't seem to mind. Fucking Chilean charm.
"Go home, Sam," Eric said through clenched teeth. "You look like shit," he added, taking the jab because he could, because today, Sam did in fact look like excrement of sorts, and even Calleigh and her little crush couldn't ignore that.
Sam leaned against the table and looked ready to attack Eric, which was all too comical, because he appeared so frail. Eric almost wanted Sam to come at him, if only to play upon the childish notion that if you beat up a romantic rival, you got the girl. But Calleigh was never one to conform to tradition, and with Eric's luck, he wouldn't be surprised if the exact opposite happened in this case. He just wished Sam would embarrass himself, so maybe Calleigh would finally stop looking at him the way she was now: smitten. God, he hated that word. It was one of those truly ugly words, and quite frankly reminded him of something a dyslexic lisper would say when they encountered a pair of winter hand garments.
Eric sent little curses Sam's way; barf, barf, barf. Childish, maybe, but suddenly, Sam sneezed, and damn, Chileans had loud, graceless sneezes, because he managed to blow an evidence envelope clear across the table. Okay, not as good at retching, but Calleigh took half a step away, and Eric smiled. Maybe something was finally going right after all.
Calleigh finally managed to get Sam to hang up his lab coat (still covered in South American snot) for the day. She even offered to drive him home, which he refused, but Eric couldn't help but think that Calleigh had never offered him a drive home. Nope, never, not even when he thought he had pneumonia and nearly upchucked his lung.
After Sam stepped out of the trace lab (but not without another five minutes of playful banter with Calleigh, and Eric couldn't help but frown, because banter, playful or otherwise, that was his job, not Sam's), Calleigh spun around to face Eric.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" she snapped, and whoa, he hadn't been expecting that.
He wasn't sure how much more he could frown before his entire jaw just fell flat off his face. "Looked to me like Sam had more wrong with him than I did," he replied coolly. "Pretty tempting not to break out into a joyous rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer."
She didn't find it funny, apparently, because she crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared dangerously at him. "He's sick, Eric."
Really? And Eric had thought he was just clowning around. But he didn't think Calleigh wanted the lame joke or the sarcasm, so he didn't push it. Something was bothering him though.
"When I'm sick, you just order me to down an aspirin and take a ten-minute rest in the break room," he said, a little more enviously than he had hoped to sound. "But when Sam has the sniffles, oh, Sam, go home sweetie, I'll drive you, I'll get Speed to cover for you, I'll bake you a cake and feed it to you." He was mocking and he knew that she hated that, but he'd stepped past the Line of Appropriate Remarks long ago.
"It's different," she said simply, and it surprised him that she didn't berate him (though he deserved it), didn't tell him he was out of line (though he was).
"Yeah, you sure are treating him differently," he replied dryly. "I want to know why." He didn't really, especially not if the answer was something involving the words 'cute' and 'accent' precariously arranged in a neat little sentence, perhaps similar to the one Valera had offered him the day before. But surprises were plenty today, and Calleigh hinted at another one.
"Because I need you here. At work, at the lab, just around. It makes this job less cruel." She sighed, sounding a little resigned, and maybe a little staggered that she had let her guard down momentarily. She sighed again and took a step toward him. "Eric, Sam and I…" She laughed a little, tensely. "That's nothing like what you and I have."
He smiled faintly, and already, the little bunched-up slinky in his stomach was beginning to unravel, smoothed out by her sincere words. "I wasn't sure—"
"Don't you dare question that again," she said seriously, and what appeared to be a quick flash of hurt flickered across her eyes but fleeted before Eric could really get a good look and confirm that in fact, his jealousy, his uncertainty had upset her.
"I won't," he promised, and he probably would, but he'd remind himself of today, and maybe question it a little less. Maybe every time she offered him a glimpse into her emotions, he'd hold on to that, relishing every moment of it until the memory faded, and maybe then, she'd offer him a new one to replace the old, exhausted one, and they could continue playing this little game they love to play.
She turned to leave then, and Eric remembered something.
"You do know that the sleeve you kept touching was the same one Sam was using to wipe his nose, right?"
She smiled. "I was just about to retrieve the very large bottle of Purell from my locker."