Fun With Italian and Ketchup
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I just make sure they have more fun then their owners allow.
Summary: How could a friendly team bonding activity turn so horribly…Messy. Yet end up so perfect
A/N: I love food fights, especially at other people's houses…. I have no mess to clean up. Sorry about this fic, I seemed to have tripped over a chunk of cheese and landed in a pile of fluff.
It was a slow night on a Thursday in the Las Vegas crime lab, the whole graveyard shift was sitting in the break-room. Sara and Grissom sat at apposing ends of the room, secretly inspecting each other, but averting their eyes when they were caught staring. Greg was trying to spin his pen around his thumb, but was oblivious to the scene. Catherine was trying to read her new Cosmo, but was too distracted by the flirty glances cast between Grissom and Sara. Warrick was the only one with an assignment that night, a simple 7-11 robbery, so he returned rather quickly. Noticing the awkward situation that Grissom and Sara were causing, Nick, wanting the relationship out in the open, announced "We need to do some team bonding."
Grissom looked up at Sara and then Nick, "You know Nick, that sounds like a good idea."
The entire team looked up at Grissom in shock of his openness to the idea. One by one, the rest of the group began to agree with Grissom.
"How about a good-ole-fashion barbeque at my place on Saturday at noon," Nick asked.
Chirping up, Greg responded "That sounds awesome! Nick, count me in!"
Warrick claimed, "You know I'm in".
After noting Warrick's response, Catherine immediately said, "Sound's Fun, I'll be there."
Having nothing to lose, Grissom said- while subconsciously staring at Sara- "I will go."
Just as Sara was about to chime in Brass walked into the room.
"Brass, are you up for a barbeque at my place on Saturday?" Nick asked.
"Sure, sounds great." He responded.
Nick moved his eyes to the quiet Sara, who was staring at Grissom again. "Earth to Sara," Nick jokingly bellowed.
Jumping out of her skin she fell out of her chair, severely bruising her ass. It was not the intended reaction Nick wanted, but it would suffice. The whole room burst into laughter. Sara, turning 13 different shades of red got back on her chair and started to laugh.
"So Sara, are you coming to my house on Saturday or will you be too busy daydreaming?" Nick questioned. Grissom honed in on Sara worried about her response.
"You Jerk! You caught me off guard! Yes I will be coming" Sara replied. Getting up, she went over to Nick and jokingly punched his arm. Grissom was relieved and it showed in his expression. Catherine caught it.
"All of you can have the rest of the night off." Grissom announced. "And we will all get Saturday night off."
"Really?" Greg asked.
"Yep. Ecklie won't have a problem with us taking the night off to bond." Grissom shrugged, "He's been threatening to ship us off on one of those ranch things where they make us clean up horse shit and call it 'bonding'."
"Thanks Griss," Warrick replied.
"In that case, move the time to 2:00, I want to sleep in" Nick deadpanned.
The team laughed and they slowly filtered out of the break room, until only Grissom and Sara were left. "I'll call you later," Grissom said. Sara smiled and nodded, she exited the room.
Walking back to his office, Grissom noticed there was someone else inside it.
"You know Gil, if you're seeing Sara, Saturday would probably be the best time to announce it." Catherine boldly said.
"What makes you think that I'm dating her?" Grissom said trying to cover his ass.
"It's kinda obvious there Gil. First of all, you two wouldn't stop staring at each other in the break room. And second of all, you've actually gotten a lot nicer around here." She replied.
"I probably should then, shouldn't I?" He questioned.
"Yeah, trust me. We would rather find out now, than being called at 11:00 in the morning after working a double shift, having no clue what's going on, and driving over to the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel to find out we are going to your wedding." She jested.
Grissom laughed, "Alright, I will."
Grissom got home about an hour after his conversation with Catherine. He immediately picked up his phone and dialled Sara's number.
"How's your ass?" Grissom questioned playfully.
"It's fine thank-you. By the way, I'm at the grocery store, so don't say anything too inappropriate. I would hate to offend the little old ladies around me." She laughed.
'You called them 'little' and 'old', your lucky they don't start beating you down with their celery sticks." He chortled. He figured he better stop dancing around the dirt on the carpet and just come out and spill it, "Oh yeah, I think we should come out at the barbeque."
Stopping dead in her tracks, she yelled into the phone, "WHAT?"
"Shh!!! You might hut give an old lady a heart attack." He laughed, "Well, it's not like we can keep this a secret forever. I think it would be better if we told everyone before the rumours start spreading."
Agreeing, Sara said, "I suppose your right. I have to go defend myself with a carrot now. Love Ya."
"I love you too" Grissom replied and hung up the phone.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
The Friday night shift went relatively quickly. And Sara stopped in Grissom's office, making sure nobody else was in earshot, she asked quietly "Do you want to drive? Or should I?"
Grissom noticed her nervousness and smirked, "I'll drive, I'll pick you up at 1:30," Sara turned around and was leaving his office, "Sara, you need to relax about this. It will go over better than you think" He assured her.
She smiled shyly, "You Promise?"
"I promise." Grissom noted, "Sara, you ok?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
She was too tired to understand the meaning of the "it will go better than you think" statement, so she went home and crashed on her couch.
God, what was she so worried about? She always thought Grissom would be the one with the public confessions, not her. She contemplated it for a long time, and chalked it down to the fact that she enjoyed the mystery, the secrets, and the fact that she was happier at work and no one else except for Grissom understood why.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
She woke up at 12:00 on Saturday, and showered. She threw on a nice pair of jeans with a new brown shirt. She was ready to go by 1:00, so she sat and watched CNN until she heard a familiar knock at the door.
Grissom kissed her tenderly on the lips when she opened the door. "You ready to go honey?" Grissom asked.
"Ready as I'll ever be," she supposed, "I'll meet you out in the car, I just have to grab my veggie burgers, just in case Nick didn't remember".
Grissom laughed, Nick probably did remember. Sara was paranoid. He went back out to his car and decided they should talk about their plan of attack on the way there. Two minutes later, Sara hopped into his car and they started to drive.
"So, how should we do this?" Grissom asked.
"I think after dinner would be a good time to explain everything. Having people choke on their food because of us could be considered to be a bad omen. How are you going to explain showing up with me?" Sara replied.
"Your car wouldn't start so you called the person that lived the closest to you for a ride." Grissom replied swiftly.
The couple talked about work on the rest of the way there.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at Nicks. Sara grabbed her veggie burgers and Grissom grabbed his Snickers Salad and walked into the back yard. Nick had set up two picnic tables in his backyard while the table with food and drinks ran parallel against his house.
"Well if it isn't the gruesome twosome," Nick joked, "I told you not to bring anything." He looked at what Sara had in her hand and laughed, "What Sara? You thought I was going to forget to buy your rabbit food?"
"Well, your history has shown that you tend to forget. Like the time we went to the diner and I got up to go to the bathroom, and I asked you to order me the usual. And you ordered me the meat platter." She laughed
She wouldn't win this argument, "Well, maybe that's what my usual is. You never specified who's usual you would like. And I don't tend to forget, I choose not to remember." Nick laughed, "Oh, Grissom you can put that over there next to Greg's punch."
Grissom gave him an inquisitive look raising an eyebrow, "Are you sure that's punch?"
"Nope." Nick replied. Grissom smirked.
Grissom wandered off and talked to Brass. Sara wandered over to Greg to grill him on the ingredients of his 'punch'. Grissom and Sara kept their distances, physically, but every now and then, they would stare at each other.
Warrick finally yelled at Nick, "Can we eat yet???"
"I just finished flipping the last burger. Food time!" Nick responded. Everyone grabbed a seat. Sara sat across from Grissom, in-between Greg and Catherine. Next to Catherine sat Brass, across from Hodges (who felt the need to invite himself.) Warrick sat next to Hodges, next to Warrick was Grissom, and next to Grissom was Nick.
Nick had put all the salad dressing and condiments on the table. And began to pass the meat tray around and gave "the rabbit" a separate plate with tofu burgers on it.
"Well this is very nice, thanks Nick." Grissom said.
"It's no problem, we need to do this more often!" Nick said. Everyone agreed.
Catherine glared at Grissom as if to say, Gil, come-on and tell us about you and Sara or else I will start to ask some very prodding questions that will make you feel very uncomfortable. Suddenly, Grissom got very nervous.
Flustered, Grissom grabbed the mustard. He didn't check to see if the lid on the mustard was twisted completely before shaking it, but he shook it violently. Unfortunately, the opening was facing towards Sara who got splattered with mustard.
"Oh sorry. I- uh,-I" Grissom stuttered. He decided he didn't want this to turn into another one of his awkward moments, especially in front of his colleagues who already had suspicions about him and Sara. He looked back at Sara who was still sitting there stunned. Everyone looked over to see what was going on, they were all on pins and needles. "You know, yellow looks good on you. You should wear it more often."
Everyone's jaw dropped. They had never heard Grissom say ask for a death wish, especially not to a mustard-covered Sara.
"Oh, you are so going to pay for that Gil." Sara responded making the teams' mouth's drop further. They had never heard Sara call Grissom, Gil. She quickly grabbed the Italian salad dressing off the table.
"Grissom, you ever listen to Pink Floyd's The Wall?" Greg asked quickly, as Sara slowly began to rise. Grissom nodded, "Well, You better run. Run like hell."
Grissom decided to follow Greg's advice and got up and began to run. Sara chased after him with the salad dressing. They circled the picnics tables. Everyone except the chaser and the chased began laughing hysterically.
"I don't know what funnier," Catherine cried, "watching Grissom run, or watching Sara chase after him with Italian dressing." She had tears streaming down her face.
"I take it this means their dating then?" Nick roared. Everyone was howling but still being circled by Grissom and Sara.
Brass laughed, "Are they even mature enough to date?"
Grissom, overhearing the last comments, decided to take this time to show off his dry wit, "You know guys; this is the story of my life. I give her a nice compliment her on something and she chases after me, I don't even have anything to defend my self with."
"Hey! I heard that!" Sara yelled at him jokingly. She sped up and squirted Grissom with the dressing. His back was drenched with sticky dressing.
The team was laughing so hard, their abs were sore.
"Ok, Now YOU have it coming young lady!" Grissom swiped a bottle of ketchup off the table and started chasing Sara. Round and Round they went while the team was dieing laughing.
In an effort to prove his masculinity to Sara, Greg decided that he will rescue Sara from the treachery of Gil Grissom. In one foul swoop, he arose and got in between Grissom and Sara.
"Greg, you touch her, and you're going to get it!" Grissom joked.
Not swayed by Grissom's threat, Greg caught up with Sara and put his arm around her trying to protect her from the on-coming ketchup.
"OOO! You're going to get it now Greg Sanders." Sara laughed. She turned around and dumped her Italian dressing all over Greg's head, stopping him dead in his tracks. Grissom finished him off with a ketchup blob on top of his head.
Everyone was laughing so hard, they thought they might go into convulsions.
"Oh, so you think this is funny, eh?" Greg asked, glaring at Catherine. Catherine nodded, she was crying because of the intensity of the laughter. Greg went over to Nick's smorgasbord of food and grabbed a handful of Grissom's Snickers salad.
"How do you like this?" Greg asked while smearing the white substance all over Catherine's hair.
Brass, Nick, Warrick, and Hodges were howling at the insanity of what was happening. "Alright boys, your turn." Catherine yelled. She grabbed the jar of miracle whip and started throwing the mayo at Warrick. Warrick got up and grabbed the bowl of punch and dumped it on Brass and Nick. Brass grabbed the ranch and Nick grabbed the relish and started covering Hodges with them.
Hodges then turned around and threw chilli at Sara and Grissom. Grissom turned around and got him with barbeque sauce.
The team played chuck and duck until there was nothing left to throw, everyone of them soaked to the bone with random food items.
"Hey everybody, have a seat." Grissom announced, "Now that I feel that we have appropriately, well maybe not appropriately… bonded. I have something I would like to share with everyone."
"Gil," Catherine responded, "I think we all know that you and Sara are dating… you kinda blew hiding it when you squirted her with mustard and she chased you around with the Italian dressing." Everyone laughed.
"Not to mention the fact you drove her here," Nick chortled.
Grissom chuckled, "Well I should hope that everyone caught on, or else I might need to find some new CSI's."
"Ha Ha, Grissom… what this really about?" Nick questioned.
"Well, since I've got such an observant group of CSI's," glaring at Brass, "as well as police captain, who I must say looks really good with barbeque sauce for hair. What might the next logical step be?" Grissom was pleased with the reaction he got out of his last statement and showed it with his smug grin.
Jaws dropped, and everyone turned to look at Sara. She was just as confused as everyone else.
"Wow, no one can come up with an answer?" Grissom asked. Everyone sat in stunned silence, worried that Grissom had completely lost it. "Sara, come up here for a minute."
Sara got up and looked back at Nick and Warrick as if to say, I have no idea what's going on here. Grissom continued, "Usually, after dating, people get engaged. I would at least expect some of you to know that," Sara's mouth dropped as well as everyone's at the table.
"Gil, what the hell are you doing?" Sara questioned.
Grissom turned all his attention to his food-covered girlfriend. He rested his palm on her cheek, slowly her facing and cleaning the mustard off her cheek and Sara's eyes welled up with tears. "Honey, I know I've been difficult. In fact, I've been an ass and a coward. But you didn't give up on us. Over the past few month's, I've loved you more than I thought possible. I've always loved you, I'm sorry I didn't do this sooner. I love you Sara Sidle. Will you marry me?" Grissom, suavely pulled a little black box out of his pocket. It was surprisingly still clean.
Sara was in absolute tears. "Oh my god! Yes! I love you so much." He grabbed her and embraced her. She looked up at Grissom longingly and kissed him. They were brought back to reality when Nick and Warrick started cheering. He slipped the ring on her finger and kissed her hand.
"I believe all of you owe me $20." Nick said, "Pay Up."
Everyone at the table started shifting and grabbing 20 dollar bills from their wallets and handing them to Nick.
"How the hell did you know?" Warrick asked Nick.
"I guessed," Nick replied.
"Wait, did you guys bet on if I was going to propose to her?" Grissom asked seriously.
They nodded in unison then laughed. Grissom smirked.
"Damn it Gil! You cost me 20 bucks! You were already supposed to be engaged!" Catherine joked. "I take it this means you are doing everything formally and there won't be any surprise call outs to the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel then?" Catherine asked.
"I don't plan on it, unless one of you decides to elope" Grissom replied nonchalantly, realizing him and Sara were still holding each other.
Sara broke away from Grissom's hold and asked, "Ok, who bet what?"
Greg replied, "Brass and I bet that you would reveal that you're dating."
Nick said, "I bet that you would become engaged."
"You already know what I bet. But you'll get a kick out of what Warrick bet." Catherine laughed.
Warrick had avoided eye contact with both Grissom and Sara, during this bet revealing.
"Go on War… tell them." Greg smirked as he ribbed Warrick.
Warrick began to uncomfortably shift and mumbled, "I bet that you were…" his voice trailed off.
Sara looked up, "I didn't quite catch that." She raised her eyebrow accusingly.
"Pregnant. I bet you were pregnant." Warrick breathed out.
There was an audible gasp from Grissom and Sara. Kids, god they hadn't even thought about them.
Catherine looked up, "You're not pregnant are you?"
"NO!" Grissom and Sara yelled in unison. They looked at each other and smirked. Leaning back against the table of food
"Hey Sara, You realize your still attached to Grissom, right?" Greg asked sarcastically.
"Well, Greg, seems to me that I am permanently attached now." Sara replied, breaking away from Grissom.
Brass got up and shook his friend's hand, "I'm proud of you," he said.
Catherine got up next to talk to Sara.
"Let me see that ring!" Catherine ordered.
FIN