"Just Another Moment" - I-A (Sara)
By Midnight Caller
Disclaimer: I think it's pretty obvious at this point that I don't own these characters. They clearly own me.
Summary: Companion piece to Just Another Moment pt.1
Spoilers: Hunger Artist
Rating: PG-13
Thanks: To Nutmeg, Eolivet, and Devanie, three of the most talented writers I have ever known.
*****
Light.
The hypnotic, cyclical throbbing of an entire city's pulse.
On. Off.
Awake. Asleep.
In love. Spiteful.
Alive. Dead.
Somehow, in the great balance of nature, it all fits. In this mishmashed, automated, somewhat civilized organism, crammed to the gills with neon glare, asphalt, money and greed, there is a rhythm by which everything lives. And the pulse beats on, countless times, every single minute, of every single day, like the ebb and flow of tides. Thirty million visitors come and go, leaving behind thirty billion dollars in a wake of 'ifonly's and 'justonemorespin's. The money quickly enters the city's bloodstream, balancing the output. Ebb and flow. Wax and wane. The pulse continues to throb.
A marquee flickers. A bullet rips through flesh, opens a wound, takes a life. A lover's heart changes course. A note bleats out from the bell of a saxophone. A wheel stops on black, not red. A phone call goes unanswered. A heart breaks, the scream instantly engulfed by the rhythm of the city.
As for me... well, I go to work. When I'm done, I go home. That is my rhythm. Or at least it was until a short time ago. I know my body was in tune with some kind of beat, my internal metronome waking me at the same time every day, and then craving sleep between 20 and 24 hours later, finding some time in there to eat and bathe. After all, I'm a woman; my whole biology revolves around rhythm and timing. My brain has simply been playing along.
Correction: I thought my mind was in sync with my body, but as I slam on the brakes for the third time that night, stopping just short of the bumper ahead of me, I realize my brain has disregarded my body in search of something far more intriguing. Something oblivious to regulation, dismissing the quasi-organic nature of my surroundings. In all my years, I never thought it would happen. I never thought work would be unable to wipe away the distraction, the constant, nagging sensation, the itch yearning to be scratched, the quiet, yet persistent metamorphosis of my entire being.
Damn.
Las Vegas Boulevard is jammed, and I'm in love.
**
I don't normally drive around this much. Usually it's straight from CSI back to the apartment with "Sidle" messily stenciled onto the mailbox. Maybe it's the case, Ashleigh James's mangled face flashing in and out of my mind, the image coming and going, ebbing and flowing. I shut my eyes for a moment, and stare directly at the memory of her wounds, at the self- hatred, the utter loneliness, the fear. God, that overwhelming fear of losing control. Losing that edge. That fear of being swallowed alive and losing yourself in --
A loud HONK brings me back, and Ashleigh vanishes. I know she'll still haunt me, though. They all do. I take my foot off the brake and ease the car forward.
I run a hand through my hair, reminding myself to be extra careful; my timing is skewed, my rhythm wavering back and forth between workaholic and completely unaware of anything but ... him. I blink again, trying to concentrate on anything else. God knows there's enough to distract me here.
Tonight, as the neon streaks by and the muffled discussion of hopeful gamblers and wishful newlyweds brushes past my ears, I stare through the road ahead of me and try and tell myself that I don't know where I'm going, that I'm just wandering the streets of Las Vegas in search of answers I already know.
Eventually, the glare dies down and I'm passing streetlamps, their washed- out halos pumping out concentric fluorescent beacons out to space. To me. To anyone searching for anything in this town, which is pretty much everyone.
I pull into the space as if it's my own, and shut off the engine. In the near silence of the car, my keys waver back and forth, clicking against the steering column. When I realize I'm breathing in time with the sound, I grab the keys in my hand to quiet them.
I sit back in the seat and look up through the windshield. I shouldn't be here. I don't even live here.
Taking in a deep breath, I let it out slowly through my mouth, and close my eyes. I shouldn't be here. I don't even live here.
God, it's late. And I'm exhausted. Could I even make it back home, or would I be consumed by the refuse and blaring lights, the racket and chaos, the sadness, the endless stream of happiness, of couples in embrace, of people in love?
I look back through the windshield. I don't live here. But the comfort and warmth I'm craving at this very moment is so overwhelming it doesn't seem to matter. I don't live here.
But he does.
I pull out my cell phone, and dial the number. If he's not there, then this will be real easy. I'll just drive around until the sun rises and makes me feel just slightly less alone, and then I'll collapse on my sheets, hoping Ashleigh waits at least a few nights before haunting my dreams.
My hand is shaking as I bring the phone to my ear, waiting. It rings once... twice... the digital pulse traversing the airwaves as it rings yet again, and just as I'm about to hang up, he answers. His voice is gravelly, the vocal chords on the brink of consciousness. I woke him.
"Hello?"
My breath catches in my throat, and I panic, hitting the "end" key.
Crap.
Why didn't I just say it was me? Say I need to see you, need to touch you, need to sleep next to you so I don't fall victim to the suffocating stench of loneliness and heartbreak that comes so close to killing me every day.
Please. Please just don't let me be alone right now. Or ever.
When I open my eyes again, the dark sky has begun to fade into the pale blue of dawn near the horizon. I stifle a yawn and realize I have never slept in my car before.
Without even thinking, I open the door and climb out, stretching my back and arms before staring at the townhouse again. For a while I just stand there, my eyes focused so intensely on the walls of the building that for a moment I'm convinced I can see through them.
I shift onto my left foot. Then my right. I tap the keys against my palm.
I don't think he hears me enter the house, or his room.
I find the sight of him asleep comforting in and of itself, and I stand in the doorway, just watching his form rise and fall, hearing him draw a breath, and then exhaling as it exits his body. In and out. Ebb and flow.
Biting my lip, I wander over to the side of the bed, and then carefully crawl on top of the blanket, being as quiet as I can. I slide over and press against his body, closing my eyes. He's so warm, so alive, and I resist the urge to wake him and ask him to do what I know would change everything. And so I turn onto my side, just listening to him breathe.
A while later, as I waver in and out of sleep, I feel him watching me. I know I should turn over, face him, and explain why I'm here, but I can't. I'm too tired, too drained, and too overwhelmed with how safe and content I am when he's simply in the same room, much less inches away. I'm in love with how he makes me feel.
I reach my hand over to his, and gently pull his arm around me. There is tension in his limbs as I touch him, and I just hope that he'll let me stay here next to him, without explanation, without reason, just to know I'm here because I need him in ways I'm only now discovering for myself.
Eventually, his arm relaxes, and just when I think I've maybe stepped over a forbidden boundary and have endangered ever getting close to him, he runs his finger over my knuckles, gentle and warm. My entire body seems to sigh with relief, and I enter the darkness, embracing the sleep and dreading the dreams.
It isn't Ashleigh's face that finally awakens me, or the way she looked, cold and frozen on the autopsy table, her body both at peace and yet so distraught and sorrowful. What wakes me is her futile, calculated effort to be perfect. The fact that a soul would go to such extreme measures that it results in the deterioration of its host, its keeper, the shell it fills for the short while it's alive. Does the soul realize the burden it places on the body?
The tears are close; I can feel the burning behind my eyes, the pressure building in my sinuses, the awkward lump crawling up the back of my throat. Before I can even think straight, I turn over to face him. He's still asleep, his face relaxed in a way I've never seen before.
The tears are still begging for release, but I swallow them down, losing myself in the memorization of his mouth. Of his cheeks. His nose. His closed eyes. The way his mussed hair sprouts from his head and swirls around his forehead before spilling onto the pillow. By the time my eyes make their way to his ears, the tears give up and make their way back down, deep inside, for another place, another time.
I blink a few times, making sure they're gone for good, and then look back up. His open eyes startle me at first, and I suddenly speak to keep myself from physically closing the distance between us.
"Grissom... I'm sorry for hanging up on you. I just wanted to make sure you were here."
He says nothing, just looks back at me with such understanding I think for a moment that the tears will return.
I blink them back, and then shiver under his arm.
"Are you cold?" he asks softly.
"I'm a little chilly."
"Second drawer on the left. You'll find a sweatshirt in there."
I offer him a smile, and don't know how to tell him without words how much his kindness means to me. My eyes are draw to the hair I memorized earlier. I reach up and run my fingers through a few curls, hoping he doesn't notice the way my hand lingers slightly too long.
Slipping out from under his arm, and find the sweatshirt. It's incredibly soft, showing slight signs of wear. Yellow letters read "UCLA" across a blue background. Smiling, I slip it over my t-shirt, loving the feel of it on my skin. I can't help but notice it smells like him.
He watches me walk back over to the bed, and I pause, wondering if now is the time or the place to really take the step I want to take... have wanted to take for so long. My body decides well before my brain has time to stop it, and within moments I'm under his sheets, pressed against his skin, his boxers, his direct warmth.
My body has taken over now, and I reach an arm around him, drawing him closer to me. His hand is warm on my shoulder, and he runs it lightly down my arm, down my back, and then up to my shoulder again. When I run my fingers along his waistband, he returns the favor, and I quietly thank whoever's listening just for the mere existence of this man, and I quickly squelch the terrifying thought that I might have never known him.
In the back of my mind, I wonder how just a simple touch can revive the energy that is drained every time I must witness the harm human beings are capable of inflicting upon one another. He said it himself: Every day we meet people on the worst day of their lives.
Normally, that pain flows through me, throbbing and pulsing through my veins like a sluggish, degenerative poison, ever so slowly ripping me apart from the inside out. But lately, I feel as though the toxin is thinning, losing power, and so my blood rushes past, ignoring the contaminant on its way to nourish the rest of my body. I feel the blood rise to the tips of my fingers as they graze against his skin, and my flesh pulses fervently when he returns the touch, his hands running up my back and across my stomach. The sinuous liquid continues to surge, out through the aorta, in through the ventricle. Coming and going. Ebb and flow.
I lie there with him as day slowly creeps into the room. Light falls across the bed, and the chirps of early risers flutter through the open window. A dog barks, and a car door slams shut. The muted horn of a train wails somewhere in the distance, and then it's quiet again. There's just breathing, and the hushed movement of skin against cloth.
It's in this moment that my eyes finally fall from his eyes to his lips, and I slowly lean my head toward him until I close my eyes, the sensations all that more concentrated in the ends of my nerves. The electricity is buzzing faster now, my blood increasing its flow, and then my lips meet his, so lightly they barely even touch.
I can't hear anything now except the blood rushing through my ears and the sharp intake of breath as our tongues meet. His hand is firm on my back, pulling me closer, and I grip his arm, holding on as I adjust to this new rhythm; the cadence of two bodies, not just one.
After our lips part, he follows my lead as I begin to drift off to sleep. As my eyes slip shut, I know the darkness brings pain, the dull, venomous ache of human iniquity. But then, I feel the poison start to drain, disappearing into nothing more than a forgotten vapor. Perhaps, someday, it will leave me completely.
(tbc...)
Disclaimer: I think it's pretty obvious at this point that I don't own these characters. They clearly own me.
Summary: Companion piece to Just Another Moment pt.1
Spoilers: Hunger Artist
Rating: PG-13
Thanks: To Nutmeg, Eolivet, and Devanie, three of the most talented writers I have ever known.
*****
Light.
The hypnotic, cyclical throbbing of an entire city's pulse.
On. Off.
Awake. Asleep.
In love. Spiteful.
Alive. Dead.
Somehow, in the great balance of nature, it all fits. In this mishmashed, automated, somewhat civilized organism, crammed to the gills with neon glare, asphalt, money and greed, there is a rhythm by which everything lives. And the pulse beats on, countless times, every single minute, of every single day, like the ebb and flow of tides. Thirty million visitors come and go, leaving behind thirty billion dollars in a wake of 'ifonly's and 'justonemorespin's. The money quickly enters the city's bloodstream, balancing the output. Ebb and flow. Wax and wane. The pulse continues to throb.
A marquee flickers. A bullet rips through flesh, opens a wound, takes a life. A lover's heart changes course. A note bleats out from the bell of a saxophone. A wheel stops on black, not red. A phone call goes unanswered. A heart breaks, the scream instantly engulfed by the rhythm of the city.
As for me... well, I go to work. When I'm done, I go home. That is my rhythm. Or at least it was until a short time ago. I know my body was in tune with some kind of beat, my internal metronome waking me at the same time every day, and then craving sleep between 20 and 24 hours later, finding some time in there to eat and bathe. After all, I'm a woman; my whole biology revolves around rhythm and timing. My brain has simply been playing along.
Correction: I thought my mind was in sync with my body, but as I slam on the brakes for the third time that night, stopping just short of the bumper ahead of me, I realize my brain has disregarded my body in search of something far more intriguing. Something oblivious to regulation, dismissing the quasi-organic nature of my surroundings. In all my years, I never thought it would happen. I never thought work would be unable to wipe away the distraction, the constant, nagging sensation, the itch yearning to be scratched, the quiet, yet persistent metamorphosis of my entire being.
Damn.
Las Vegas Boulevard is jammed, and I'm in love.
**
I don't normally drive around this much. Usually it's straight from CSI back to the apartment with "Sidle" messily stenciled onto the mailbox. Maybe it's the case, Ashleigh James's mangled face flashing in and out of my mind, the image coming and going, ebbing and flowing. I shut my eyes for a moment, and stare directly at the memory of her wounds, at the self- hatred, the utter loneliness, the fear. God, that overwhelming fear of losing control. Losing that edge. That fear of being swallowed alive and losing yourself in --
A loud HONK brings me back, and Ashleigh vanishes. I know she'll still haunt me, though. They all do. I take my foot off the brake and ease the car forward.
I run a hand through my hair, reminding myself to be extra careful; my timing is skewed, my rhythm wavering back and forth between workaholic and completely unaware of anything but ... him. I blink again, trying to concentrate on anything else. God knows there's enough to distract me here.
Tonight, as the neon streaks by and the muffled discussion of hopeful gamblers and wishful newlyweds brushes past my ears, I stare through the road ahead of me and try and tell myself that I don't know where I'm going, that I'm just wandering the streets of Las Vegas in search of answers I already know.
Eventually, the glare dies down and I'm passing streetlamps, their washed- out halos pumping out concentric fluorescent beacons out to space. To me. To anyone searching for anything in this town, which is pretty much everyone.
I pull into the space as if it's my own, and shut off the engine. In the near silence of the car, my keys waver back and forth, clicking against the steering column. When I realize I'm breathing in time with the sound, I grab the keys in my hand to quiet them.
I sit back in the seat and look up through the windshield. I shouldn't be here. I don't even live here.
Taking in a deep breath, I let it out slowly through my mouth, and close my eyes. I shouldn't be here. I don't even live here.
God, it's late. And I'm exhausted. Could I even make it back home, or would I be consumed by the refuse and blaring lights, the racket and chaos, the sadness, the endless stream of happiness, of couples in embrace, of people in love?
I look back through the windshield. I don't live here. But the comfort and warmth I'm craving at this very moment is so overwhelming it doesn't seem to matter. I don't live here.
But he does.
I pull out my cell phone, and dial the number. If he's not there, then this will be real easy. I'll just drive around until the sun rises and makes me feel just slightly less alone, and then I'll collapse on my sheets, hoping Ashleigh waits at least a few nights before haunting my dreams.
My hand is shaking as I bring the phone to my ear, waiting. It rings once... twice... the digital pulse traversing the airwaves as it rings yet again, and just as I'm about to hang up, he answers. His voice is gravelly, the vocal chords on the brink of consciousness. I woke him.
"Hello?"
My breath catches in my throat, and I panic, hitting the "end" key.
Crap.
Why didn't I just say it was me? Say I need to see you, need to touch you, need to sleep next to you so I don't fall victim to the suffocating stench of loneliness and heartbreak that comes so close to killing me every day.
Please. Please just don't let me be alone right now. Or ever.
When I open my eyes again, the dark sky has begun to fade into the pale blue of dawn near the horizon. I stifle a yawn and realize I have never slept in my car before.
Without even thinking, I open the door and climb out, stretching my back and arms before staring at the townhouse again. For a while I just stand there, my eyes focused so intensely on the walls of the building that for a moment I'm convinced I can see through them.
I shift onto my left foot. Then my right. I tap the keys against my palm.
I don't think he hears me enter the house, or his room.
I find the sight of him asleep comforting in and of itself, and I stand in the doorway, just watching his form rise and fall, hearing him draw a breath, and then exhaling as it exits his body. In and out. Ebb and flow.
Biting my lip, I wander over to the side of the bed, and then carefully crawl on top of the blanket, being as quiet as I can. I slide over and press against his body, closing my eyes. He's so warm, so alive, and I resist the urge to wake him and ask him to do what I know would change everything. And so I turn onto my side, just listening to him breathe.
A while later, as I waver in and out of sleep, I feel him watching me. I know I should turn over, face him, and explain why I'm here, but I can't. I'm too tired, too drained, and too overwhelmed with how safe and content I am when he's simply in the same room, much less inches away. I'm in love with how he makes me feel.
I reach my hand over to his, and gently pull his arm around me. There is tension in his limbs as I touch him, and I just hope that he'll let me stay here next to him, without explanation, without reason, just to know I'm here because I need him in ways I'm only now discovering for myself.
Eventually, his arm relaxes, and just when I think I've maybe stepped over a forbidden boundary and have endangered ever getting close to him, he runs his finger over my knuckles, gentle and warm. My entire body seems to sigh with relief, and I enter the darkness, embracing the sleep and dreading the dreams.
It isn't Ashleigh's face that finally awakens me, or the way she looked, cold and frozen on the autopsy table, her body both at peace and yet so distraught and sorrowful. What wakes me is her futile, calculated effort to be perfect. The fact that a soul would go to such extreme measures that it results in the deterioration of its host, its keeper, the shell it fills for the short while it's alive. Does the soul realize the burden it places on the body?
The tears are close; I can feel the burning behind my eyes, the pressure building in my sinuses, the awkward lump crawling up the back of my throat. Before I can even think straight, I turn over to face him. He's still asleep, his face relaxed in a way I've never seen before.
The tears are still begging for release, but I swallow them down, losing myself in the memorization of his mouth. Of his cheeks. His nose. His closed eyes. The way his mussed hair sprouts from his head and swirls around his forehead before spilling onto the pillow. By the time my eyes make their way to his ears, the tears give up and make their way back down, deep inside, for another place, another time.
I blink a few times, making sure they're gone for good, and then look back up. His open eyes startle me at first, and I suddenly speak to keep myself from physically closing the distance between us.
"Grissom... I'm sorry for hanging up on you. I just wanted to make sure you were here."
He says nothing, just looks back at me with such understanding I think for a moment that the tears will return.
I blink them back, and then shiver under his arm.
"Are you cold?" he asks softly.
"I'm a little chilly."
"Second drawer on the left. You'll find a sweatshirt in there."
I offer him a smile, and don't know how to tell him without words how much his kindness means to me. My eyes are draw to the hair I memorized earlier. I reach up and run my fingers through a few curls, hoping he doesn't notice the way my hand lingers slightly too long.
Slipping out from under his arm, and find the sweatshirt. It's incredibly soft, showing slight signs of wear. Yellow letters read "UCLA" across a blue background. Smiling, I slip it over my t-shirt, loving the feel of it on my skin. I can't help but notice it smells like him.
He watches me walk back over to the bed, and I pause, wondering if now is the time or the place to really take the step I want to take... have wanted to take for so long. My body decides well before my brain has time to stop it, and within moments I'm under his sheets, pressed against his skin, his boxers, his direct warmth.
My body has taken over now, and I reach an arm around him, drawing him closer to me. His hand is warm on my shoulder, and he runs it lightly down my arm, down my back, and then up to my shoulder again. When I run my fingers along his waistband, he returns the favor, and I quietly thank whoever's listening just for the mere existence of this man, and I quickly squelch the terrifying thought that I might have never known him.
In the back of my mind, I wonder how just a simple touch can revive the energy that is drained every time I must witness the harm human beings are capable of inflicting upon one another. He said it himself: Every day we meet people on the worst day of their lives.
Normally, that pain flows through me, throbbing and pulsing through my veins like a sluggish, degenerative poison, ever so slowly ripping me apart from the inside out. But lately, I feel as though the toxin is thinning, losing power, and so my blood rushes past, ignoring the contaminant on its way to nourish the rest of my body. I feel the blood rise to the tips of my fingers as they graze against his skin, and my flesh pulses fervently when he returns the touch, his hands running up my back and across my stomach. The sinuous liquid continues to surge, out through the aorta, in through the ventricle. Coming and going. Ebb and flow.
I lie there with him as day slowly creeps into the room. Light falls across the bed, and the chirps of early risers flutter through the open window. A dog barks, and a car door slams shut. The muted horn of a train wails somewhere in the distance, and then it's quiet again. There's just breathing, and the hushed movement of skin against cloth.
It's in this moment that my eyes finally fall from his eyes to his lips, and I slowly lean my head toward him until I close my eyes, the sensations all that more concentrated in the ends of my nerves. The electricity is buzzing faster now, my blood increasing its flow, and then my lips meet his, so lightly they barely even touch.
I can't hear anything now except the blood rushing through my ears and the sharp intake of breath as our tongues meet. His hand is firm on my back, pulling me closer, and I grip his arm, holding on as I adjust to this new rhythm; the cadence of two bodies, not just one.
After our lips part, he follows my lead as I begin to drift off to sleep. As my eyes slip shut, I know the darkness brings pain, the dull, venomous ache of human iniquity. But then, I feel the poison start to drain, disappearing into nothing more than a forgotten vapor. Perhaps, someday, it will leave me completely.
(tbc...)