Title: Word Play
Author: Minttown1 (minttown1@aol.com)
Rating: PG-13
Category: VRH
Archive: Sure, but I couldn't imagine why.
Summary: Sara spends the night at Grissom's during a power outage and they play some games.
Dedication: For Devanie/AllthingsMSR/Forensiphile, for being an amazing supporter of my writing efforts and a great wall to bounce ideas off of. And to Sammie, for introducing me to the joys of Scrabble.
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI or any of these characters or even the game Scrabble. (I own a copy, but I mean the actual rights...) They are owned by people much more important than me. But can said people write great fan fiction? Well, neither can I.
~*~*~*~*~
"Can I go home yet?" Sara asked.
"No," Grissom replied simply.
"Grissom, I can handle a power outage. And it's not citywide, obviously." She gestured to the window. "I can go home."
"You're staying."
"I am here by choice, like most evenings. If you change that, then this becomes illegal and not just unethical."
He raised an eyebrow and handed her the silver plastic pouch that was home to his Scrabble tiles.
She arranged her seven tiles on the wooden rack and handed the pouch back to him. "You should have the version with the cloth bag," she told him.
"Why?"
"Because. Gil Grissom should have the good version of Scrabble. The whatever edition."
"Okay." He arranged his tiles and watched her think.
"Do Communist dictators count?" she asked suddenly. She had Stalin and an R.
"No words that are always capitalized," he said, lighting another candle next to the board.
"Fine." She placed the word strain on the board and selected six new tiles. "I just got three U's," she complained to him.
"Don't tell me what your tiles are."
"Why? Are you going to count tiles or something? That's too much, even for a crossword enthusiast living in Las Vegas."
"The letter distribution's written on the board," he said, almost defensively.
She laughed at him, but it was affectionately. "It doesn't matter," she said slowly. "I'm leaving soon."
"No, you're not," he said seriously, putting the word mentor in front of the R in strain.
"Grissom, I can handle the lights being out by myself."
"I know."
She looked disgusted at first her tiles then the board. Her eventual contribution was slugs.
"Bacteria, ballistics. Are you trying to ruin the game, Sara?" She ignored him, so he put friend through the N in strain and over two triple letter score squares. "Twelve."
"Okay. Another step in your progression, then," she said. He watched her slowly and deliberately place the two necessary tiles to build the word sex from slugs.
He built vexing from her X and disappeared into the kitchen.
"Yeah, isn't it?"
"What's the score?" he asked, either not hearing her comment or choosing to ignore it.
"Twenty-four to forty-nine. Vexing alone was worth twenty-seven."
"I thought so," he replied.
"Growl," she said as he came back in the room.
"What?" he asked, startled.
"It's my word. Above slugs," she explained.
"Oh." He handed her a wine glass and sat down beside her, immediately forming the word harm with his tiles.
"Harm?" she asked.
"Fourteen points. It's the best I could do."
She looked at her rack of tiles again, then looked happily at the board. "I just got forty-eight."
"How?"
"Czar. Double on the R, triple on the word."
"Very good," he said sincerely. He looked at his tiles. "Can I have one of your U's? I know you have at least two left."
"Hey! And, no, that's cheating," she told him smiling. "Anyway, what happened to Mr. By-The-Book?"
"He started sleeping with one of his co-workers."
"You and Catherine?" she asked in mock shock.
He ignored her. "I'll give you one of my Y's," he offered a moment later.
"I don't know. It's probably just the wine and candlelight, but okay." They exchanged the tiles.
"Thank you." He hid the tiles he was laying from her view, which was difficult now that she was leaning on his shoulder. She smiled when she saw the final product, beauty. He leaned forward to get his wine, an arm around Sara to keep her against the side of his body as he did so. "I just wanted the triple letter score on the B," he explained.
"That's all?" she asked.
"Yeah."
She pulled away from him and put her new Y at the bottom of sex. "Sexy. Fifteen points for a total of one hundred. Now I'm going home." She stood up.
He grabbed her hand. "Sit down, Sidle. You had one more turn than me."
She sat beside him, smiling, closer than last time. "Go ahead. You need...seventeen points to tie."
He sat looking at his tiles and the board. Finally she got impatient. "Grissom, stop trying to get exactly seventeen points! I'll stay, okay?"
He looked over, startled. "I wasn't. I was just trying to find a way to win without using the word keg."
"Oh." She felt a little silly, but it was nothing that a kiss on her forehead could not take care of. His rare random gestures of affection still made her feel amazing, and she wondered how anyone survived without someone to love. She wondered how she did for so long.
He added an E and a D to her strain. "Ten points, triple word score. One-hundred-thirteen points. I win."
She leaned against him again. "No, we both--" They jumped when the lights came on, and her knee knocked the board halfway across the table. "The whatever edition has a plastic grid on it to keep your tiles in place," she told him matter-of-factly.
"The deluxe edition. It's in a box somewhere," he admitted.
"Oh. Well, it's time for me to return to real life," she said, almost regretfully as she stood.
"Are you coming back tomorrow?" he asked when she reached the door. She turned back around to find him suddenly fascinated by the wine in the bottom of his glass.
"Let's see. The real world, or here with you?," she asked quietly. "I'll definitely be here."
"We can play Monopoly," he offered, secretly relieved.
"I somehow doubt, that, Gris." She opened the door and stepped onto the porch.
"You never know."
She smiled back at him, almost shyly, then pulled the door shut.
He finished the wine in both their glasses, and made the word rational out of the disorganized tiles. Above the first A and the L he wrote Sara and Gil, and idiot appeared from the I in Gil. He tried to rebuild beauty from the A in Sara, but he was short a T. He rummaged in the bag until he found one.
Some rules were worth breaking.