Okay, so this chapter is weird. Not last chapter weird, that was just...w/e, but this just came out all sortsa different than what it was supposed to, especially after a call to TDCSI (thanks, btw).
For those of you being driven right up to the edge of insanity with all of this 'when are you gonna let 'em do it!?' business...the answer is simple- soon enough, dearies. In reading the chapters, you can probably tell we're nearing the end, and if we haven't earned that awesome M rating yet, well, we have to do it somehow, now don't we?
Sober wasn't quite the word that Sara and Grissom would use to describe anyone else on the yacht, but the state they were all in was far better now than the one they were in before.
Grissom felt that drunks doing demolition work was bordering all right, but drunks doing construction was simply moronic, and they'd be having none of it on Ecklie's boat…especially if all of their careers relied on the quality of the work that was done to it.
So as the sobering time went by, Grissom and Sara continued small talk between themselves, Greg dumbly continued to make up verses to his stripper song to Catherine (when he sang 'the one with the saggity boo-oo-oobs' to himself and she overheard it, it earned him a can of soda being flung at his face), Nick…well, no one knew where Nick had went off to, and Warrick spent the time by himself, huddled over the toilet as the second wave of vomiting hit him hard.
Since Nick was missing and Warrick's body was still trying to rid itself of its stomach, the other four sat down and ate a quick dinner before they got back to work. Grissom and Sara sat next to each other in between Catherine and Greg for safety purposes and the small meal went as smoothly as one could possibly go, considering who was having it.
After they'd eaten, Nick still had yet to return, and noises rivaling that of a lion mauling a puppy were still coming from the bathroom Warrick was in, so the remaining group decided to get back to work. In no way did Grissom trust Greg and Catherine to be alone together with power tools around- they were assigned to the upper deck, and he and Sara would finish things below…and no, Greg, that's not what he meant.
As soon as they got downstairs, Sara and Grissom ignored the wail that followed the smack they heard from above and went about their business; Greg would simply have to learn to keep his musical talents to himself. They took note of Greg's handy work and appreciated that he actually did what he was told. All that was left to do was patch the giant hole in the wall by the stove…and then replace the stove itself since it obviously wasn't of much use anymore after having been set on holy grease fire.
Or that's what they thought.
They had been proud of Greg and his cleaning skills, had been proud of the fact that he'd done as instructed, pleased with him and the thought that he'd only left a couple of things to do in the kitchen…until they got up to the hole in the wall to measure it one last time before cutting the replacement piece and saw that he'd shoved everything he'd swept up into the wall to be sealed into it.
"I'll kill him," Grissom said in a flat tone, his arms flopping down to his sides. Reaching into the wall and pulling out a piece of one Ecklie's two thousand dollar vases, Grissom dropped it back in the wall and nodded."Yup, I'm gonna kill him."
A loud shattering noise from above canceled out Sara's original response to that and replaced it with "I think Cath's got that handled for you."
"Sara, you can be as calm as you'd like about this, but Ecklie is going to kill me. He's going to come back to his precious little boat, see that even though we fixed the big 'ol fire hole, he still hasn't got a life boat, and now there's a CSI missing! I'm dead!" he yelled.
When Sara became momentarily gutsy and assured Grissom that there was no way he was going to die anytime during that weekend in a manner that was in any way related to something nonsexual, and that that very sexual death would be caused by her, he lost all ability to speak coherently, said, "C-crack is s-seven," pointed upstairs and headed that way to get away from her before he said something really stupid.
Sara left everything in the wall, took the measurement and headed upstairs to give it, you know, the measurement, to Grissom, all the while with a smug look smeared across her face.
Looking around, she noticed that Catherine and Greg were both gone. And with Warrick preoccupied in the bathroom, he wouldn't be bothering them anytime soon.
Meaning they were alone.
Together.
With lots of sexual frustration to get rid of somehow.
Ooh.
Basically stalking her way over to Grissom, who was bent over in the most delectable way at the saw Nick had set up on the dock pre vanishing act, she saw no blood anywhere on the deck of the yacht, so she felt no need to immediately fear for the lives of her missing co-workers. Taking all of the effort those thoughts would have taken and putting it into messing with Grissom, Sara leaned into him and whispered, "sixty-nine."
Eyes wide, Grissom shot straight up. "Excuse me!?"
Her smile somehow both innocent and smug, she repeated herself. "Sixty-nine, Griss."
"W-that…"He licked his lips, scratched his head, cleared his throat and everything else he could think of doing to pass little increments of time so that he didn't have to talk. What the hell was she expecting with everyone gone?
Well, probably the same thing he was thinking about right then, but…damn time to the fiery depths. Anyone could come back at any moment.
"Inches," she said. "Sixty-nine inches. Big, yeah?" she whispered in his ear as she leaned closer, her cheek just missing his, like it was a conspiracy that she was talking about.
"Yeah," he choked out. "Yeah, it is."
"One would think it's too big."
"Yeah."
Pulling back from him, she said, "So I'm wondering if we have enough drywall."
Narrowing his eyes at her, he laughingly threatened to fire her, but she brought up the fine point that there wasn't anyone else around to help him out.
"That wasn't funny, Sara. It's massive and disgusting. Massively disgusting."
"Your face when you thought I meant sixty-nine in a whole other way was completely priceless, though," she told him.
"Yes, I'm sure it was, Sara. But you remember what happens when people tell me to do things, right?" he said in the most fantastically warning way and ran a hand gently over her once bitten shoulder before taking what he'd just cut onboard.
--
After Sara had closed her mouth and followed him onto the yacht, it took them about an hour to fix the hole in the wall. Possessing skills grand enough to put serial killers in prison, but not having those quite up there with Bob Vila, it took a few tries to get the sheet of drywall hung right, the plaster was mixed wrong, then it had to dry, and by the time it finally did (because Grissom had put too much water in it, but who cares it's for Ecklie) they realized they'd had to leave the hardware store before they'd grabbed paint.
"Warrick!" Sara yelled through the bathroom door. "Hey, buddy?"
A groan of sorts.
"Hey, we're going back to the hardware store real fast, okay? Really fast, though," she promised.
Another groan.
Not liking the sounds he was making, Sara offered to pick him up something for his stomach and he made another noise, but it was more along the lines of something approving this time.
"I'll get two bottles, just in case. Oh, and we don't know where everyone went, but if they come back, make sure no one burns anything, kills, sinks this thing, maims anyone, gets arrested, parties, drinks, eats, goes to the bathroom, breathes, blows their nose, blinks, hires a prostitute…uh, anything, you know. Hold down the fort…yacht, whatever. Later," she said, thanked him and went to join Grissom outside.
Grissom was waiting for her at the Denali on the passenger side. He opened the door for her and instinct took over, causing shy smiles on both of their faces. She climbed in and was only a little shocked when he reached in to buckle her seatbelt. He struggled with it for a minute and she thought it was sweet.
"Grissom, I'll get it."
"I can do it," he looked at her and huffed, frustrated that a couple stupid pieces of metal and plastic were kicking his ass.
He messed with it more and more and Sara just wanted to get on the road. Distraction was in order…and she still hadn't gotten her kiss. Dipping her head down a little bit, she said his name.
"What?!" he nearly yelled and snapped his head up to look at her. When he did, the top of his head smacked her nose and the blood was instant.
--
He didn't know what made him feel like a bigger idiot- the fact that he'd nearly broken her nose, or the fact that as soon as he'd gotten in the driver's seat, he looked over and Sara had her seat belt on, apparently after only one try.
She said it wasn't a big deal and didn't run back to the yacht for anything, just wiped at it with Kleenex from her purse. When she tipped her head back, Grissom stopped her and tipped it forward, telling her that the blood would just drain down her throat if she did that.
And so Sara walked into the hardware store with her face down and bloody wads of Kleenex shoved in her nose. Obviously not the most attractive look of the season, but she didn't care in the least bit…because Grissom was holding her hand.
In holding her head the way she was, Sara couldn't see everything around her, and crossing streets and parking lots like that could be dangerous, and Grissom couldn't have that, so when they pulled into the lot at the store, he hopped out, hurried around to her door, opened it for her and grabbed her hand. A couple shy smiles and a reassuring squeeze of it later and they were walking comfortably across the parking lot, hand in hand.
--
Inside the store this time was a lot different than the first time. This time was quiet; this time wasn't spent ignoring sexual overtones from half-drunk fools they were babysitting. The time was first spent as a little awkward while Grissom waited outside of the restroom for Sara so that she could check her nose. Grissom had never really spent an awful lot of his life waiting outside of ladies rooms, so protocol on the matter wasn't exactly at the front of his mind.
After Sara came out, she may have been breathing a little different, but her nose looked like it would be just fine, so they made their way through the store without incident. The rest of the time was filled with idle chitchat and Sara verbally reminding herself every ten minutes to get some kind of remedy for Warrick's poor stomach.
"Speaking of our poor fellows," Grissom said, putting items on the conveyor belt. "Where do you think the other three went?"
"Nick, I'm not sure about," Sara replied. "Greg obviously made up a verse so bad that it required his immediate departure from the yacht before it lead to his departure from this world. Because he ran away, Catherine ran after him, Griss. She can't very well have her name sullied by Greg, the guy who holds Yogi Bear as a hero. Regardless of where they went, I'm sure it's as far away from the S.S. Travesty as they could get."
"Let's hope they got that lucky," he said and paid for everything before they headed out of the store.
Once they hit the parking lot, Grissom shifted the paint can and bags all to his good hand, and took one of Sara's with his other. When she gave him an odd look, he said, "What? I may have concussed you. This is precautionary," and gave a half-shrug.
"You concussed me? Yeah, right," she practically giggled, "You just wanna hold my hand, Grissom."
He groaned. "Why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Comment on things I do," he said. "Why is it that you can't just accept things from me? Why can't you accept that I'm doing this now because I'm trying, Sara?"
"Basking in the glory of it, I guess," she shrugged. "Because you never tried before."
"Okay…that stings," he said when they got back to the vehicle.
"Try being the one that wasn't worth the effort. That stings a hell of a lot worse."
"Well, I was talking about my hand," he held up the bandaged one. "You squeezed it a little hard…but what you said stung a little, too."
"Look, I'll stop commenting on things if you'll stop making excuses for the things you do. If you want to hold my hand, Grissom, then hold my hand. Unless you have dead whatever all over you, you don't need an excuse to touch me, Griss."
Good to know…
After realizing that he was staring at her because of her comment, Grissom shook his head. "Yeah…uh, c-great. That's great."
Of course she laughed at him as she helped put things in the back before they got in and headed off to get something to eat.
They stopped at the same sandwich shop, but Grissom informed Sara that it wasn't a date. She looked disheartened, but he immediately reassured her that the only reason it wasn't, was because he figured he had probably screwed up in considering their first stop there as their first date, so he wasn't about to do that again. Their second date was going to be next weekend, after all the yacht hell was over with, and it was going to be at an actual restaurant with actual menus…if she chose to accept his offer, that is.
And, of course, she did.
--
After they'd stopped and gotten some stuff for Warrick, they headed back for the horrible chunk of floating fun, only to find it still in its nearly abandoned state.
Having figured that's what they would be greeted by when they got back, neither complained as they gave the very thankful Warrick his medicine and got right to work.
After they changed, both put paper down and covered everything against the paint. Grissom filled a paint tray, then Sara got the rollers ready, and they got to work with painting. But they probably should have had two trays, because one gets crowded. And when the one gets crowded, it gets messy. When it gets messy, it gets slippery. When it got slippery, Sara ended up stepping in the entire tray of paint and falling.
Grissom laughingly helped her up and pulled her into a hug, one that she didn't let him out of, and one that he didn't care to be let out of.
Pulling back enough to look at her face, Grissom asked, "So…I get to touch you…whenever?"
"Are there people around?"
He quickly looked left to right and left again grinned. "Not a soul."
"Then pretty damn much, yeah," she breathed.
Shocked by the fact that Sara really just told him that, and that she obviously really meant it…he didn't do anything. He just took her in, studying everything about her face, which would have been enough on every other occasion, but now that he had her permission, it wasn't enough for him. It sure as hell wasn't enough for her, either.
"Griss, I'm going to-"
"Sara, don't say 'kiss.' We'll get interrupted," he warned.
With a throaty laugh, she told him, "I wasn't going to say that. I was going to tell you that I was going to shove my tongue down your throat."
"O-Oh. Oh, well, yeah. Let's do that," he grinned stupidly and nodded adamantly.
Just as she began to turn her head that little bit to make shoving her tongue down his throat possible…
"…and I said, 'Hodges, buxom is the worst word to describe Wen-' Oh…hey," Nick said, his conversation with Greg cut off as they stumbled in on Grissom and Sara.
Pulling apart as quickly as they could without looking suspicious, Sara pretended to have something in her eye and Grissom immediately went along with it. Greg, ever the knight in shining armor, rushed over to her to see what he could to.
"Where have you guys been?" she asked as Greg tilted her head every which way to get different lighting on her eye. "We thought you were dead, Greg."
Nick spoke first. "I found our life raft. Well, a life raft. I came back and kinda stole Cath and Greg from you guys so they could help me get it."
Grissom's suspicions immediately grew. "And why does it take three people to get a life raft, Nick?"
"Well, Grissom, that'd be because we stole it from the old lady that told Ecklie we had whores on here," Greg said, still looking in Sara's eye. "It took three people to carry it back through the woods so that we didn't get caught. That old lady is like a hawk, I tell ya," he snorted through a laugh.
"So where's Catherine?"
"Upstairs. She's just taking a break right now," Nick told them. "We kinda had to use her as bait for the old man…stripper charms and what have you. But, hey, we got a life raft."
Grissom rolled his eyes and stopped the story there.
"Both of you get upstairs now and get it cleaned," he demanded. "Ecklie's going to be back here in a few hours. No screwing around."
"Sure thing, boss."
Nick and Greg left, told Catherine their orders and got to cleaning. Grissom turned back to Sara and chuckled.
"What?" she asked.
"You jinxed us."
"No, you're the one that said the word, Grissom."
"Well, neither of us just said it," he grinned.
"Well, Heaven forbid I waste an opportunity."
Just as she began to turn her head tha-
"Hey- ah, never mind!" Nick yelled down the steps.
"Oh, hell! I'm going to my room!" Grissom threw his paint covered arms in the air and took off down the hall.
"To do what?" she yelled after him.
"What do ya think?!" he yelled back.
And I totally stole that ending from Family Guy because it's funny as hell and I couldn't help it. Besides, what's one more OOC thing to this story?
Though I know I totally just pissed a lot of you off...review and some junk, puh-lease!
thegreatbluespoon
