Title: Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes
Author: Klee Wyck
Pairing: GSR
Spoilers: None
Rating: T
Disclaimer: As much as I love them and their respective body parts, they do not belong to me. Sadly.
Summary: This is an action song, good for warming up. While singing, touch both hands to the head, then the shoulders, then the knees, and then the toes, in time with the words. Then on the second verse, miss out the word "Head," but still do the actions. On the third verse, miss out the word "Shoulders," and so on. Finish with all the words back in, but singing as fast as possible!
A/N: Just a little something I wrote, in my head, to maintain my sanity, while on vacation. Vacation being an extremely relative term. Extremely.
Head.
The weight of the average adult human head is about five kilograms or 12 pounds.
Johnny comes back from school crying and says, "Mommy all the kids in the school say I have a big head."
His mother replies, "No you don't Johnny. You have a hideously deformed head. The other children are merely hiding the truth to protect your feelings."
He'd always felt his head was large, too large, for his body.
As a child he recalled more than one well-meaning adult and more than one intentionally cruel child commenting on the size of his head.
His:
Melon.
Noggin.
Noodle.
Cranium.
Dome.
Gray matter.
Pumpkin.
Bean.
"Your head is perfectly perfect," his mother had signed to him, on more than one tearful occasion, as she kissed his curls and stroked his face. "It's full of brains. Chock full."
He'd laughed at the time, but stored that knowledge away for later, safe and whitely fluffy, like a security blanket to take out for comfort, when needed.
Chock full.
Of brains.
Brimming.
With brains.
Jam-packed.
With brains.
Bursting at the seams.
With brains.
Overfilled.
With brains.
Crammed.
With brains.
Whatever.
His head was large, all right, but as his body grew it kind of caught up and everything kind of evened out, eventually.
But, he never forgot.
"Wow…that kid has one large head."
"Gosh…he'll be a smart one…I hope."
"Big head. Big head."
He liked to wear hats, whenever he could. Wide-brims were especially adept at camouflaging a sizable pate.
Brains, he reminded himself, whenever he needed to. Big, big brains.
And then Sara.
Sara didn't care.
Sara liked to stroke his head.
Sara like to touch him, all over, whenever possible.
Including his head.
Long fingers entwined in his hair.
Palms pressed tight against his cheekbones.
Nails, short as they were, digging into the back of his skull, urging him deeper, deeper.
It turns out he had enough brains to realize she wasn't only interested in his…mind.
Shoulders.
The muscles and joints of the shoulder allow it to move through a remarkable range of motion, making it the most mobile joint in the human body.
A blonde and a brunette are in an elevator, when a dude with really bad dandruff walks in.
"He needs to be given head and shoulders," says the brunette.
The blonde says, "I know how to give head but how do you give shoulders?"
If she had the money, she always said, she'd get a massage every week. Maybe twice a week, if she could afford it.
In the meantime, she made Grissom do it. He had amazing hands, strong and broad hands, amazingly adept fingers, and he never complained when she asked him to rub her neck, the base of her skull, her shoulders.
But he never offered, either.
She simply plopped herself in front of him when he was sitting reading on the couch and she sat there, grinning, until he mock sighed, put down his book, and attacked her muscles.
She always groaned appreciatively, at least, and he never stopped until she told him to.
"You can stop anytime, you know."
"That was great. Thanks."
"Your hands must be getting tired."
"Grissom. That's good. Stop. Now."
All her stress and anxiety seemed to seep into her shoulders, pushing down and down and down until she was sure she could actually feel the extra weight there, pulling on nerves and tendons. At work she would rotate her shoulders, one and then the other, again and again, hoping to alleviate the pressure, to slough off the pain herself.
It never worked.
Only Grissom's fingers could make it all better and she almost hated asking, but she didn't have the money to fritter away on a massage therapist, so.
So.
"I really appreciate this, you know," she always said.
"I know."
"I mean, I wouldn't have you do it, if it didn't help so much."
"I know."
"I mean—"
"Sara."
"Yeah?"
"I love giving you massages."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Okay. Okay. It's just—"
"I like hearing you ask. And I like when you plop yourself down in front of me like you do. It's cute."
"Cute."
"Yes."
It was the first time in her life anyone had referred to anything she'd done as cute.
She liked it.
Knees.
Since in humans the knee supports nearly the entire weight of the body, it is the joint most vulnerable both to acute injury and to the development of osteoarthritis.
Old man Joe limped into the doctor's office and said, "Doctor, my knee hurts so bad, I can hardly walk!"
The doctor slowly eyed him from head to toe, paused and then said, "Mr. Joe, just how old are you?"
"98!" Joe announced proudly.
The doctor just sighed, and looked at him again. Finally he said, "Sir, I'm sorry. I mean, just look at you. You're practically 100 years old, and you're complaining that your knee hurts? Well, what did you expect?"
Old Joe said, "Well, my other knee is 98 years old too, and it don't hurt!"
Hers were bony.
"Knobby-kneed," she said once, as he traced their outlines delicately with his index finger.
"No," he disagreed.
She nodded, emphatically. "Oh yes. I've been told, with great authority, many times."
"Hmm." He kissed them then, tenderly, left, right, lingering, his breath tickling her a little. He smiled against the skin. "Lovely, knobby knees."
She'd loved her knobby knees ever so much more since then and vowed to wear shorts as often as possible around him.
His knees were magic
He could predict the weather with his knees.
"You're joking," she said.
"Unfortunately not," he said, rubbing the left one absently. "Started when I was nine. They would ache terribly about two hours before it rained."
"Huh. And here I thought that was just a myth."
"Actually, when people feel pain during a weather change, it is often not precipitation or humidity causing the problem, but changing barometric pressure. As storms approach, barometric pressure — the weight exerted by air — falls, resulting in many people experiencing an increase in aches and pains. A decline in barometric pressure may make inflamed joints swell, which in theory could stretch the thin tissue lining the capsule surrounding a joint."
"Huh."
"Doesn't come in too handy in Las Vegas."
"No, I suppose not. Still."
"Still."
"It's pretty cool."
"I always thought so."
She shifted so she could look at his magic knees. They looked…perfectly normal. She lay her hands on them.
"These days they just ache," he said.
"Why?"
He looked at her.
"Because I'm old."
She rolled her eyes, but she could see he wasn't buying it.
"You're not old."
"I'm not young."
"You're doing all right, in my books."
He looked at her.
"Really?"
"Better than all right."
She kissed him then, hard, hands sliding up, up.
"Gentle," he teased.
"Always," she said.
Toes.
Morton's toe is the common term for the second toe (second from innermost) being longer than the great toe.
If God wanted us to touch our toes, he would have put them on our knees.
"Huh," he said one afternoon as they lay together on the couch watching television. Her feet were in his lap and he was rubbing them.
"What?"
"You have Morton's toe."
"I have what?"
"This toe," he tugged on it. "It's longer than your big toe. You've never noticed?"
"Uh huh." She eyed him warily from the other end of the couch. She tried to pull her foot free, but he had a firm grip on it. He was studying her toes pretty intently. She was starting to wonder if he had some sort of fetish.
"Proper treatment of Morton's Toe starts with selecting proper footwear," he said. "Footwear with a high and wide toe box is ideal for treating this condition. It may be necessary to buy footwear a half size to a size larger to accommodate the longer second toe."
"All right," she said slowly. "I've never had to do that."
"The constant pressure placed on the longer second toe while walking or standing can lead to callus formation under the second metatarsal head due to this excessive pressure."
Okay," she said. "And what? I'm a freak?"
"Not in the least." He leaned down and kissed her long second toe. "And even if you were, I'd still love you."
"Thank goodness," she said. "I was starting to wonder."
Sometimes she touched him when he was sleeping.
Not completely ethical, she thought, as she ran her hand down the side of his face, cradled his cheek, lingered on the slight indentation in his chin. Maybe not completely ethical.
But she didn't care. She couldn't keep her hands off him.
And he slept so soundly, and she didn't, and she'd get bored, waiting for him to wake up.
For a long time she just watched him, but then she started actually touching him. If he knew, he never asked, and she never told.
Her little secret.
Eyes.
Kiss. Kiss.
Ears.
Kiss. Kiss.
Mouth.
Kiss.
And nose.
Kiss.
And mouth, once more.
Just because.
Kiss.
Fin.
