Disclaimer: If it's familiar to you, it doesn't belong to me.
A/N: A little plot bunny hopped into my head, so I gave it some TLC and it grew into this.
"Ah, just the man I was looking for," Sara said almost too cheerfully as she entered the locker room and saw Nick, getting ready to go home after a laborious shift.
"Really," Nick replied, a little scared by the tone she had used. He immediately knew she was going to ask a favor.
"Yep," she smiled at him, which worried Nick even more. It was definitely a favor, probably a big one that would interfere with his plans to sleep, lounge around the house, and do absolutely nothing on his well deserved day off.
"You're off tonight, right?" Sara asked.
"Yeah…"
Sara waited a few seconds before she spoke. "Okay, well this is kind of embarrassing."
What the hell is she talking about?
"Look, I'm a girl, and you're a guy," she began as she stared at her feet.
She couldn't be asking what I think she's asking. Sara? Nah. No way. Completely understandable though, of course. I mean, it is me we're talking about here. And it's not like I wouldn't say yes…
"And I've always considered myself intelligent, independent, capable..."
Well duh, I could have told you that.
"…and I'd like to say that I can do anything just as good as any guy could, but the truth is that there are just some things that I'm such a 'girl' at."
Eh? Okay, definitely not asking what I thought she was asking. Me and my big head. Way to go Nick.
"So anyway, I was wondering if you could come over and help me put together this new entertainment center I bought. It's one of those do-it-yourself things. I mean, they give you a bunch of pieces of wood and a bag of nuts and bolts and expect you to build this thing with an instruction manual that might as well be written in a foreign language. Plus I finally bought a DVD player and I need help hooking it up and stuff," Sara finally explained.
Nick just stared at her. He couldn't believe she said what she just said. Suddenly he burst into hysterical laughter.
"What?! What's so funny?" Sara looked at him, annoyed.
Nick couldn't stop laughing; he was doubled over on the bench, his eyes watering and his stomach muscles starting to hurt.
"Nick!" Sara glared at him when he didn't stop.
"That is such a load of crap!" Nick finally managed as his laughter subsided.
"What?" Sara scoffed.
"Please, give me some credit. If you wanted to spend time with me all you had to do was ask, you didn't have to make up that elaborate excuse. But I gotta admit that was a pretty good performance. You deserve an Oscar for that," Nick chuckled, trying not to burst into laughter again.
"What are you talking about?" Sara held her glare.
"Oh come on, Sara. There is no way you need my help."
"Why not?" she challenged.
"One, I've seen you disassemble and reassemble everything from computer hard drives to battle bots to entire cars. And two, never in a million years would you so easily admit that you weren't capable of doing something by yourself." Nick gave Sara a look, waiting for her response.
Sara stared back at him, not wanting to dignify him with a response. She narrowed her eyes at him, refusing to be the first one to break the silence. Nick only crossed his arms and smiled at her, waiting for her to say something.
"Fine," she finally admitted. "I only asked you because it's a really big entertainment center and I'm too lazy to do it all myself. Happy?" she smirked.
"So it's not because you want to spend time with me?" Nick teased.
Sara only glared at him, but her expression gradually softened. "Please, Nick? The thing is humungous and it would take me forever if I did it myself. I'll even feed you," she begged.
"Food?" Nick perked up.
"Hey, just pizza. I'm no gourmet chef. But I'll throw in some beer if you play your cards right."
"Pizza and beer? Say no more," Nick smiled.
"Okay. Five o'clock," Sara said as she turned to leave.
"I suppose a 'thank you' would be too much to ask?" Nick playfully chided as Sara opened the locker room door.
"Thank you," she called out as the door swung shut behind her.
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Sara's doorbell rang at precisely five o'clock. She opened the door to find a grinning Nick carrying a six-pack of beer.
"Just in case I don't play my cards right," he said as he held up the six-pack and stepped inside the apartment.
Sara rolled her eyes as she shut the door.
"So where's the food?" Nick immediately asked.
"Work now, food later," Sara instructed as she grabbed the beer from Nick to put it in the fridge.
Nick walked into the living room and saw the entertainment center, still in its box in the middle of the floor. He looked at the picture on the box and realized Sara wasn't kidding when she said the thing was big. It was practically a floor-to-ceiling unit, complete with a bookcase and a glass-paneled display cabinet. "You know, you could have just bought something that was already put together."
"Yeah, but where would the fun be in that?" Sara replied with a smile as she sat down on the floor and started to open the box.
"So you finally bought a DVD player?" Nick asked as he picked it up, still in its box.
"Yeah," Sara replied distractedly, pulling out pieces of wood and placing them on the carpet.
"Are you ever gonna be home to use it? Maybe we should hook it up in the lab, you'd probably be more likely to use it there," Nick chuckled at his own joke.
"Are you gonna flap your yap all night or are you gonna help me?" Sara smirked.
"You know, I slept through lunch. And I don't work well on an empty stomach," Nick grinned.
Sara rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. "Fine. Anything to shut you up." She got up and started looking for her cordless phone.
Nick smiled as he watched her wander around the apartment. When he decided she'd suffered long enough he cleared his throat. "Ahem."
Sara turned around and Nick reached over and lifted a pillow from the couch, revealing the phone sticking out from between the cushions. Sara glared at him as she grabbed it and hit one of the speed dial buttons as she sulked off into the kitchen.
"Hi, I'd like to place a delivery order…yeah…can I get a large veggie with extra mushrooms and no-"
"I want onions," Nick called out when he heard her ordering.
"With onions only on one half," Sara corrected herself. "No, mushrooms on the whole thing, onions on just one half…no everything except the onions on the entire pizza…no, just on one half…" Sara reiterated, starting to get annoyed.
Nick laughed to himself when he heard Sara getting frustrated. She always expected people to be just as quick and smart as her, which was rarely the case.
"You see what I have to go through for you?" She came back to the living room when she was finished ordering.
Nick only grinned at her.
They got to work and didn't stop when the pizza came, continuing to build in between bites of pizza and sips of beer.
"Hey, hand me that Phillips," Sara pointed to the screwdriver next to Nick.
He tossed it to her.
"Ow! Hey, I said hand me that Phillips." She rubbed the spot on her leg where the screwdriver had poked her.
"It's not my fault you can't catch," he mumbled as he tried to join two panels of wood together.
"It's not my fault you can't throw," she shot back with a glare that he didn't see because his attention was focused on the wood pieces in front of him.
After a few more hours of working they finally managed to assemble the entire thing on the living room carpet, and the only thing left to do was to lift it up and push it against the wall.
"What's this for?" Nick held up a small piece of wood that was leftover.
"Uh, I don't know." Sara looked down at the entertainment center with a puzzled expression. "Everything looks like it's there."
He examined the piece of wood. "You know, if you sand down these corners and round 'em out a little, this could be a good spanking paddle." He had a mischievous glint in his eye. "Can I have this?"
Sara rolled her eyes. "No." She swiped for the wood but Nick pulled away.
"Why not? You don't need it," Nick reasoned.
"Well I might. Give it." She grabbed onto the wood and started to tug, but Nick's grasp was firm.
"You don't need it," Nick repeated as he tugged back.
"Yes I do."
They continued to struggle until Nick gave a final mighty yank, the wood slipping from Sara's grasp and the edge of it slicing the skin on her palm in the process.
"Ow! Son of a…Nick!" She looked down at the red welt on her hand and then glared at him.
Nick glanced at her palm and was relieved to see it was only a scratch and wasn't even deep enough to draw blood. "Sorry." He gave her an apologetic smile. "Are you okay?"
"No." She shot him an evil eye, intent on trying to make him feel bad even though they both knew it was just a harmless scratch.
"Want me to kiss it and make it better?" he teased with a smile.
Sara scoffed as she looked at her palm and tried to rub the lingering pain away. "You're gonna have to do a lot more than that." She suddenly realized her somewhat Freudian slip and looked up at Nick, hoping he hadn't caught it.
He took a step toward her and raised a single eyebrow. "Like what?" His voice was quiet but held a slight teasing, yet almost challenging, tone.
Sara swallowed as she stared at Nick's lips and the small smile that was forming on them. Without taking her eyes off them, she reached both hands behind his head and pulled him toward her, capturing his mouth with hers. Before either of them knew what hit them, they had fallen back onto the couch, all rational thought fleeing their minds as tongues tangled and hands roamed freely, finding their way under shirts and reaching bare skin.
"Nick, the entertainment center," Sara said as they broke apart for air. But her protest was weak and it wasn't fooling either of them.
"Relax, it's not going anywhere," he smiled.
And Sara knew he wasn't either, at least not for the moment, when he leaned in to kiss her again.
The End