Tribute: I don't know whether it's appropriate content to 'dedicate' to the memory of any loved one, but some of you may know that Ashleigh203 lost her gorgeous dogs Libby and Harper in a tragic accident this week. Ashleigh is one of the most beautiful souls I have met through the journey of creating Baby Teeth and a few weeks ago honoured me with agreeing to beta the eBook version that I am preparing for release when the fic is finished. It's devastating to lose anyone you love, let alone the animals we share our hearts with :( please send your love and prayers to her if you can. I know we are all suffering and grieving in our own ways about all manner of things, so please let's share some love with each other and make our lives a little brighter.
Disclaimer: Once again, CBS, I am asking you if you would please lend me one (1) Crime Scene Investigation for the weekend.
Rating: M. Go watch TV kiddos, mama has bedtime stories to read.
Trigger/Content Warning: Oh yeah, this one's smutty.
Author's Note: I bloody love all you beautiful people who read (and specifically review) this fic with openhearted kindness and support, and I'd particularly like to send love to van22114, tessafox, mauricia Sisk, and of course Ashleigh203 who have been by my side for the long-haul with this one. This fic could not continue to exist without them, and it is the coolest thing ever to see how you interact and support and bring such respect and humility to this space. It feels like you are close friends, now, and I have learned so much from you all!
I'm also so grateful for the different perspectives you all shared with me on the topics raised last chapter - OnceUponACrimeScene, I think you nailed where I was coming from. I actually briefly considered throwing a pregnancy scare into the episode covering 7x5 Double Cross (as a vessel for raising ALL of the existential questions, including how these wants and needs interact with Grissom's latent faith) but then figured it was a bit too on-the-nose and I was not sure I was ready to cross the bridge of their opinions on kids at that point.
What I really love is that we've come to this place where I trust YOU all so much as well, such that your perspectives feel true to me too, even if they might differ slightly from the direction this is in. Van, I totally hear you with the 'not being a fishing expedition' perspective on the Sugar Cane Ranch scene in 7x21. I went back and re-watched it after your review and totally see your point! Even though I believe tessafox's aspect too (which is the same as mine). For a writer, having community and having smart, kind, well-humoured, trusted confidantes is such a gift and you are all that for me. I can't thank you all enough.
I'll admit I'm still having a hard time with Baby Teeth right now. Ha, pun not intended there (a rare occurrence). As we round out Season 7, and move into the 'endgame', I'm trying to pinpoint where my loss of motivation is in this. I'm hoping it's just tiredness/burnout IRL, a focus on other things. A few... odd moments with other CSI fans (none I've named here) have left me feeling a little weird and I'm trying to figure out what to do with that and not let it affect me or my writing. I also really appreciate how many of you acknowledge the trust and delicacy of being so raw with the topic at hand, so I know you'll understand how it can really shake your confidence when not everyone does. (I've been spoiled by how great you all are, I know.).
I want to reiterate how much I just genuinely want to bring some joy and share the GSR love and I am not here to take up space or offend anyone or pretend I know anything (because I don't).
Maybe it's performance anxiety (pun definitely intended here) because I just know how much you all mean to me at this point and I don't want to let you down.
Yeah, it's probably that.
I'll keep forging ahead anyhow, always lending a trusting ear to the doorway of your thoughts on how we can make this better.
xoxo BB
Baby Teeth
Chapter 46
Sara held the letter aloft, arm resting against her knee, for a full minute after her eyes were done scanning the page and making sense of the spidery back ink. Her heart was thudding, slowly but heavily, in her chest - she could see the tremor in her hand from the blood pressure. She was aching. He had written this letter months ago, months before his break down during sex, months before the conversation they'd had in the car when she had soberly professed her love for him.
He'd been sitting on a god-damn sonnet and hadn't shared it with her. Well, until now.
She was aching. Aching with love, and affection. Aching to tell him she felt the same. Aching for the doubt she'd had back then and how she'd learned to traverse it. Still, that was necessary.
Back sore from slouching against the headboard, she sat forward and swung her legs off the bed. With purpose, she took one last look at the letter and then left it on the covers, stripping her tank top and sweats as she moved towards her dresser. In a moment of weakness, of wondering, she'd returned to the sex shop they'd first bought the bindings at - a year ago, now - and bought a set of lingerie for a moment like this. It had been during their separation, when she was most uncertain about the future between them. Little did she know, he'd been writing out sonnets in her name.
Suddenly, she knew their problem. He had commanded her to show him her love, instead of telling him; she had complied, and he'd been overwhelmed. Now, it was his turn; he had to learn how to tell her, instead of letting his fear control him and hoping that showing her would be enough. It wasn't about changing him. She loved his taciturn nature, the way he adorably fumbled over the most important things he had to say. But the fear had to stop. He had to believe she would hold his words in her heart with as much care and respect as she held her feelings for him.
Sara had shoved the lingerie set - in its own satin laundry bag - in the back of her underwear drawer, and mostly forgot about it, feeling mildly ashamed for buying it at a time when she had no idea who she'd be wearing it for. It was a combination of silk straps and lace; harsh lines and soft vessels for skin, leading to the most suggestive uses for it. Of course, the straps meant it was also completely tangled from being shoved into the bag. Half fumbling to get out of the underwear she had worn to work that day, half wrestling with the tangle of straps and lace that she knew would drive him wild, if she could just get it on... it felt like it took an age before she was standing, only slightly self-consciously, clad only in those straps and lace.
She threw her worn clothes in the laundry basket and pulled the tie from her hair, letting it fall loose around her shoulders, but leaving the tie around her wrist.
Taking a few deep breaths to calm the racing in her heart - partly from the obstacle course, partly from the fact she was possibly all-too-eager to put her work to waste and have him rip it off her right away - Sara pushed her shoulders back and returned to the bed to pick up the letter. She walked out of their bedroom, in the direction of his office. Hank is going to be sleeping in his kennel tonight, she thought to herself, approaching the office door - ajar - with trepidation.
She knocked softly, pushing the door open and resting in the frame. Gil didn't move his focus, eyes intently on the wall of the miniature model in front of him. Sara was too hot and bothered to really comprehend what he was doing. She counselled herself in patience as she leaned against the frame and crossed her arms, the letter held open at her elbow. "You okay, darlin'?" he asked, not looking up from where his fingers were carefully holding the join of two walls together. She could see the superglue, tacky, shining on his fingertips. You're gonna have to wipe those off, she thought.
"Uh, yeah," she started. "Gil, what's this?"
Finally, as though in slow motion, he looked up at her. If his jaw could have dropped to the floor like in an old Looney Tunes cartoon, she was certain that's what it would have looked like - he peered over his glasses at her, eyes raking her body from her chest to her feet and then back up to her face. She unfolded her arms and waved the open letter in front of her. "Uh, it's," he cleared his throat, slowly placing the x-acto knife in his hand on the workbench, wiping his fingers on an old rag at his elbow. "It's a letter I wrote, uh, you, from Williams. W-when I was on sabbatical."
"Uh-huh," Sara answered, her tone making it clear that she knew perfectly well when he had written it. Mouth still opening and closing in a comically gormless way, a bit like a fish, she pushed off the doorway and took a few steps closer to him.
"Um, what's... this?" he gestured up and down her body. She could almost see the heat rising in his face as he sat back from the desk, pushing his chair away from it, eyes never leaving her.
She didn't answer, instead leaning over a little to look under the desk. "Hank," she called in the voice she reserved for him. "Wanna go outside?"
As though already anticipating the request, Hank heaved his body up from the dog bed at Grissom's feet and lumbered out the door and down the hall. Sara reached behind her and clicked the door closed, still facing Gil, whose expression had transformed from deer-in-the-headlights to shark-on-the-hunt.
"We're going to play a little game," Sara growled, smiling wickedly at him as she moved closer.
Gil quirked an eyebrow, echoing her smile. He swallowed, licked his lips, and waited for her to continue.
"You're going to recite this sonnet," she shook the letter in her hand, to indicate which one she meant, "To me, without missing a beat." Now close enough to touch him, she leaned forward to grab his shoulders so she could mount him where he sat, bare legs either side of his hips. She could feel his growing hardness beneath her, and he winced as she deliberately shifted her hips on top of him, applying pressure where she knew it would most affect him.
"That, uh, sounds... simple enough," he muttered, eyes flickering from her lips to her chest, the straps across her breasts deliberately open around her nipples.
"It does, doesn't it?" she smiled, and then reached for his hand, guiding him to place his fingers at her centre, feeling the break in the fabric there... specifically for his purpose. He complied, eagerly, rubbing her where there was already wetness gathered. She leaned closer to him and whispered, "Only, you're not allowed to cum until I've finished... and you've finished." She pulled back to look him dead in the eye and meet the look of both surprise and desire there. He nodded, slightly, and she smiled. "Well. Go on, then."
He closed his eyes for a moment, clearly struggling and realising the complexity of the task she demanded of him. Fingers hesitating as they stroked her, he frowned and then began, "Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took..."
Sara sat forward as he twitched his fingers upwards, sinking them into her. She shuddered lightly, and he moved his thumb to press on her clitoris as he continued, "...And each doth good turns now unto the other..."
She moaned as she came the first time, the letter slipping from where her hand gripped his shoulder and fluttering to the floor. She reached between them and unzipped him, roughly, yanking him free from his boxer briefs and raising herself over him. She waited until she had positioned the tip of his penis between her legs, and knew he could feel her warmth there, before looking back to him with an eyebrow raised. "I didn't say you could stop."
"Uh," he cleared his throat, already breathless. "When that mine eye is famish'd -fuck -" she lowered herself onto him, letting him fill her body, and smirked at how it looked like he was about to pass out. "..for a look," he choked. "Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother."
"Good," she drawled as she began to grind against him. "Keep going."
"With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, uh, f-," he grunted, trying to keep his eyes open and hold her gaze as she rode him, merciless. "And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time mine - uh, fuh- eye is my heart's guest, And in his thoughts of love doth share a part."
"You'd better hurry up, Gil, I don't know if either of us are going to-" she warned.
"-So either by thy picture or my love, Thyself away are present still with me;" he cut her off, loudly, cadence rapidly accelerating as her movements sped up. "For thou no farther than my thoughts canst move... oh my god, I don't think I-" Sara stopped, frozen, on top of him. Grissom groaned, loudly, as if to complain that he wasn't sure that was the best thing for it either. "And I am still with them, and they with thee," he ground out. She smiled, slowly moving her body on his again, shifting the angle of her hips so she was pushing him in and out of her at an angle. "Hngh," he grunted, looking up at her with pleading eyes.
Sara just looked back at him triumphantly as she continued moving. "Keep going," she commanded. His hands had fallen to the sides of her thighs, weakly holding her in the effort of maintaining focus and control both in his words and in his body. She grasped his right hand and brought it back to her, slipping his fingers and hers inside the straps of her split thong, rubbing at her clitoris as she moved.
"Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight," he said, voice almost a whisper, eyes wide and glassy as he looked up at her in awe. Sara pushed harder, riding him faster, as he held on for the last few words. Just as he began the last line, she came - just as she had instructed - falling forward and crying out his name as her body tensed and pulsed around him. Barely holding on, Gil spluttered, "Awakes- ohmy- heart, uh,to heart's and... eye's... delight - ohmygod, Sara-"
Grissom convulsed as he came, grabbing her body and crushing her to him tightly, reaching out with one hand to steady himself on the desk so he didn't fall out of the chair. Eventually, Sara leaned back and combed her hand through her hair, brushing away the whisps that had stuck to her forehead with the perspiration gathered there. She took a breath, leaned forward, and kissed him. "I love you, Gil Grissom."
"Sara, I-" he started, and she could see he was reaching for it.
"Say it," she told him, once more drawing on her most commanding, confident voice - even as her heart flip-flopped and shuddered in her chest. "Just say it, if you feel it."
Gil grabbed her then, pulling her close to kiss her once more, hips twitching as he moved inside her again. He held her face close to his. "I- love you, Sara," he whispered. She beamed, barely having the opportunity to let him feel the force of her joy as he crushed his lips to hers again. "I do. I love you." he added, almost in awe, as though he'd never realised he could say such a thing. He had tears in his eyes.
Sara leaned in, both her legs and arms wrapped around him, and declared, "I love you too." she held him for a while, their bodies cooling, waiting for her heartbeat to slow before she sat back and extracted herself from her position on top of him. He grabbed a tissue from the workbench and handed it to her so she could press it between her legs, and she did, before leaning back down and pecking him on the cheek. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?"
Grissom was focused on cleaning himself up, and zipped and buttoned his jeans before he looked up at her with a wry smile. "That all depends on what you mean by 'hard', m'dear."
TBC