TITLE: Secrets in the Saucier
AUTHOR: jenbachand
PAIRING: Grissom/Sara & Mandy/Nick
RATING: Teen
SPOILERS: Somewhere before Sara left the first time.
DISCLAIMER: I made no money from the writing of this fic.
SUMMARY: A tale of love, hate, sex, mystery, murder and pricey cookware.
NOTES: So this has been sitting in my writing folder for 2 years. I started it, got sidetracked by graduation and always meant to come back to it. Yeah. So in an effort to get my writing groove back on, I dusted it off and finished it up. Much thanks to losingntrnlatn for the beta work.
Shall I tell you a tale? One of love, hate, sex, mystery, and most of all, murder.
No, we shall not begin at the beginning; how I went from conception to creation. I shall start on the day I came out into the big bright world, the day I was removed from dark and warmth, and cast out into the light.
The day I was placed on a pedestal.
I am a Le Creuset, two and one quarter quart saucier, lemongrass in color, with a suggested retail price of one hundred seventy dollars.
I sat on that pedestal in the Henderson, Nevada Williams Sonoma. I was bright and shiny, heavy in hand, and pleasing to the eye. I was craftsmanship and quality in cookware defined. Newlyweds and affianced couples would ooh and ah over me. Soccer moms would pick me up and attempt to wield me. None of them, I felt, were worthy of me. None, until they came in.
An older man with a younger woman. Not that she was any spring chicken, but enough younger to notice. Their age was not what interested me, it was how they interacted. They really and truly loved each other. Not a demonstrative love, but just glances and touches and little things. She thought I was pretty, and he thought I would show too much wear over time, so he persuaded her into purchasing my blue brother.
How would a pot notice all this you wonder? Well, you just have to believe that parts of me were, at one point, part of something living. And my spirit carries on. But that has little to do with my tale.
Then I was purchased by that man. The one who came in with one woman, had me gift wrapped, and then I was unwrapped by completely different woman. Two more different women could not be found. But my new owner, she seemed happy with me.
But not so much with her husband.
I was used by the family, but spent most of my time hanging from the rack above the kitchen island. It was a perfect spot for observing the family of four. The Brown family was comprised of a mother, father, daughter, and son, all residing under one roof.
Not happily though.
The wife was suspicious of the husband's activities, and he responded as many men in his situation do, by lashing out at the wife about her shortcomings.
The fighting was almost daily. Until the day he told her she was his Starter Wife, and she would be hearing from his attorney as he left the house.
It was the first day she really looked broken. If I was not a pot, I would have comforted her, but wishes and horses, and all that.
No, I was only a pot, so instead I was pulled down and dinner was made. Life moved on. I could only hope Mr. Brown suffered a heart attack while having sex with that blonde tramp.
One day the door bell rang, which was odd, because the whole family always entered through the back door. I was being removed from the damp warmth of the dish washer when the chimes rang. I was sat upon the stove while the lady of the house went to see who was at the door.
I never made it to the rack above the island.
"You need to come over here to discuss this," Mrs. Brown nearly screamed into the phone. "Tonight while the kids are at practice, I'll drop them off and meet you here."
I sat on the stove all day. It was nice to have a different perspective on the house. But when Mr. Brown arrived, it all went south.
That was when I became a weapon.
Mrs. Brown, tired of her husband and his attitude towards her, picked me up from the stove and struck him in the head. Without question, nine pounds of enameled cast iron swinging through the air is indeed deadly.
Instead of calling the police, claiming he had attacked her, and she was forced to defend herself, she left. She picked up the kids, and returned to the house. At which point she went into hysterics with the children present at the sight of the body.
A number of people arrived shortly after that. So many people in and out of the house. But the most surprising was the woman. It was HER. The one I wanted to go home with. The one who thought I was pretty.
She picked me up with gloved hands, gave me an experimental swing (eerily recreating the evening's earlier actions) and placed me in a plastic bag. She looked quite unhappy. I wondered what had happened to her since we had last met.
Later I was taken out of the plastic by another woman. She swirled some dust and a brush all over my handle. If it was within my ability, I would have laughed at the tickling sensation, but being a mass of ferrous material limited the range of my expressions of emotion.
After several more actions by Mandy (a very handsome young man had stopped by to ask if she wanted lunch, hence my knowledge of her name), I was set aside within my bag once more. It was during my internment in plastic that they came in again. The couple. She didn't look as sad now that her mate was with her, but she still exuded an aura of discontent. They parted ways at the door with him moving on and her remaining in the room.
"It's a very nice pot," my dream owner stated. She picked me up, turning me over in her hand.
Mandy looked amused, "It's a very nice pot, Sara. A little heavy, and according to what Nick said, a lot pricey."
"It's not so bad. I have one just like it in blue." Sara set me back down. "I wanted this color though."
"Well, I have some bad news… Or is it good news? Anyway, the only prints on it are Mrs. Brown's. She definitely applied that very expensive pan to her husband's skull." Mandy handed Sara a folder.
"The kids said their parents had recently split up. The divorce papers had been delivered earlier in the day. I guess he went over to discuss things and she'd had enough," Sara stated while flipping through the stack of notes as she revealed the final details of the crime.
A few days later I was placed in a box. It was back to the darkness for me. And quiet. After having lived in a store and a home, the quiet was an unwelcome change. It gives one far too much time for thinking.
I sat in that dark box for months. Wrapped up in my plastic bag. Sitting. Waiting. Thinking.
And then one day my box was opened. Mandy and Sara were peering in at me.
"That's it." Sara said pulling me out. "The family signed off on the contents of the investigation going up for auction. I've made all the arrangements for the listing. One cast iron skillet. It'll be the last lot too. You should have no problem winning it."
"I don't know, seems a bit, I don't know, morbid." Mandy was weighing me in her hand though. "It is a lovely pan though."
"It's a $170.00 pan. Trust me, if I didn't have one just like it at my house, I'd buy it myself." Sara put me back in my box. But my exile would not last for long. The next day Mandy and her lovely young man took me home.
Now I hang in new house. The rack is filled with a hodge podge mix of pots and pans, but the people who inhabit this place are what make it very special. Even if my new owners tend to get a little more…uhm…enthusiastic in the kitchen than is probably safe. Shhh, here they come.
"Nick, I thought you wanted to heat something up for dinner." Mandy asked when he started kissing her neck as they reached the counter.
"I didn't say anything about dinner."