Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters and I am not making any money by writing this story.
Author's note: This story does allude to the forth season episodes, but without the Nick and Sara conflict that didn't appear in the next episode anyways.
Special thanks to Psyched for beta reading this for me!
Chocolate Spackle
Sara cries out, startled, as an avalanche of stuff and dust falls out of the closet onto her.
"Honey, are you alright?" Grissom calls from downstairs.
"Grissom, what the hell is in this closet?" Sara sputters as she attempts to clear the dust billowing around herself.
"I don't know. I don't remember putting anything in there," he responds climbing the steps.
"Well, you obviously put a lot of stuff in here and a long time ago by the amount of *cough* dust."
Grissom appears in the doorway and laughs at the dust covered Sara. "Didn't I warn you about opening closets and coverts?"
"Yeah, after the bowling ball almost fell on my head." Sara rolls her eyes, "What is this stuff?"
"High school memorabilia."
"And you put it in the guest room closet because…."
Grissom shrugs, "It hasn't bothered me since I put it there."
Sara sighs loudly. When she had moved in with Grissom three months ago, she had been ecstatic. However, she had discovered that he harbored a secret. Despite appearing to be a neat and organized man, Grissom stored his belongings in the oddest of places. Like the bowling ball in the top kitchen cabinet. Since when did Grissom bowl and why the kitchen? "Are you going to help clean this up?"
"You made the mess."
"And it's a good thing I did. Can you imagine my parents opening that door?"
"Sara, your parents aren't coming for a month. I think this disaster could have waited a couple of weeks."
"In a couple of weeks, I'll be allowed to work overtime again. I won't have time to clean."
"I'll go find some boxes to put this stuff in," Grissom doesn't even try to make an argument about the overtime. It wouldn't matter; she wouldn't listen anyways.
Sara begins to look through the various items on the floor: year books with no well-wishing messages, note books with faded but neat handwriting, a few science trophies, and various articles of clothing including a football jersey. She picks up the jersey, curious. She gives it a good shake watching the dust storm that erupts. Grissom the enigma playing football? She sets it aside with the rest of the clothing that would obviously need dry-cleaning before packing away.
"Where do you want me to put these?" Grissom startles Sara out of her thoughts.
"Over there. I can't believe you kept all this stuff."
"I really don't know why I did," Grissom responds quietly.
Sara smiles weakly at him, remembering that Grissom's high school experience hadn't been the best. However, any further sympathy she can give him is stopped by a tremendous sneezing fit.
Grissom begins to chuckle, lightening what had become a depressing atmosphere.
"Grissom this isn't funny," she responds between sneezes, "I think I inhaled too much dust." Sara runs out of the room, eyes puffy and nose running.
"Are you alright?" Grissom calls after her.
"Just get rid of the damn dust!"
Grissom doesn't even try to argue with that. He picks up his various school items and investigates the cleaning supplies Sara had brought in. However, he completely overlooks the pile of clothing sitting in the corner.
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That night Sara arrives at work feeling only marginally better. Taking a shower had helped some, but it had taken most of the evening to clear her nasal passages. The sight she sees when she enters the break room doesn't help her mood. Catherine has cooking supplies spread all over the place.
"Hey, Sara," Catherine calls out, "Snacks for a sleep over tomorrow night," she continues pointing at the mess.
Sara smiles back politely. Catherine lately had become the all American Mom. As good as she thought that was for Lindsey, it was starting to grate on her nerves. Every case Catherine took seemed to point out her "mommyness."
"Chocolate sandwiches," Catherine adds, "Do you want to try one?"
"Sure," Sara responds plastering a smile on her face. However, the smile quickly disappears when she takes a bite, "Catherine, bread and chocolate don't mix."
"Come on, chocolate not good? Don't you agree Grissom?"
Sara turns around to see Grissom standing in the doorway. He has his deer caught in headlight look. Grissom hated being stuck in the middle of any of their disputes. Luckily Nick and Warrick save him from having to answer the question.
"Hey Cath, whatcha got there?" Warrick asks.
"Chocolate, the key to my heart," Nick responds boyishly.
Grissom lets them talk for awhile. He enjoys watching them laugh and even Sara joins in to a certain extent. However, the invisible barrier that separates him from the rest of the team still remains. Whatever loneliness he had felt has been wiped away by Sara. His beautiful Sara. He brings himself out of his revelry, "Hey, we do have work to do tonight."
The team members mumble their apologies. They look like children with their hands caught in the cookie jar.
"Sara, Nick- DB in the desert. Brass is waiting for you. Warrick- convenience store robbery. Catherine you're with me, DB in a hotel room."
Nick, Warrick, and Sara shuffle out of the room studying the information on their assignment sheets.
"Are you going to answer my question?" Catherine asks when they are alone.
"What" Grissom asks confused.
"About the chocolate," Catherine responds like he should know.
"If I try one will you drop the subject?"
What the hell is he so grumpy about? Catherine hands him one and then starts to clean up her mess.
Grissom bites into it almost like he's trying to analyze it with his tongue. "Do you actually plan on feeding this to a group of kids?"
Catherine's face falls, "Nick and Warrick liked them."
"You do realize how much sugar has to be in this?"
"Grissom," Catherine laughs, "It's a sleep over."
Grissom raises an eyebrow, "Let's go."
"Alright, Grissom were you ever a child?"
"Catherine," Grissom starts letting her know she's pushing it.
"Okay, okay," she gives up.
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"Hey, Nick," Sara calls out.
Nick walks over to see what Sara has found, "Footprints, nice!"
"Let's find out where they go?"
They walk along, flashlights weaving across the footprints, "So how are you and Grissom doing?"
"Fine, not that it's any of your business."
"Hey, just trying to be a friend, we all know how Grissom can be sometimes."
"Sure," Sara responds, not quite believing him.
Nick continues with a mysterious smirk on his face, "Plus I was thinking…"
"What?" not sure she really wants to know.
"Melted chocolate, kinky."
Sara shakes her head, possibly a little embarrassed, "You've been hanging out with Greg too much!" She crouches down at a set of tire tracks.
"What Sara Sidle doesn't have a wild sex life?"
"Nick, I can't believe you just said that!"
"Sorry, you're right. Let's get back to work."
"We need to cast these. I'll photograph, you get the plaster."
"We're cool right? I was just joking."
"Yeah, cool. Grissom can be, well, sensitive."
They both smile and get back to work.
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"I made breakfast," Sara calls from the kitchen as she hears Grissom enter the house.
"Thanks, but I really need some sleep."
"I'll put it in the fridge."
"Sorry, it's been a long night."
"And morning. You want to talk about it?"
"No, come to bed with me."
Sara smiles, "Yeah, I'll be up in a minute."
Grissom shuffles up the stairs exhaustion and age obviously showing. Sara watches him with a smile on her face, but is still concerned. She wonders what had been in that hotel room. There wasn't much that would bother him enough that it would follow him home.
Grissom crawls between the covers, trying not to picture the mutilated body of the dead teenage girl. Children really got to him and so the nightmares form as he drifts off to sleep.
Sara comes in and wakes him up, "You were having a nightmare."
"Yeah," trying to shake the disturbing images from his mind.
"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" she asks still really concerned.
"No, please just come to bed," Grissom pleads
Sara slides into bed and spoons up against Grissom offering him what little comfort she can.
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Sara walks down the steps, looking for Grissom.
"Sara, I'm in the kitchen," Grissom calls out an answer to Sara's question before she can ask it.
"You didn't sleep very long," her voice still tinted with concern.
Grissom shrugs trying to maintain some of his cheerful mood he had gotten with a few hours of sleep. He returns to stirring the chocolate melting in the crock pot. Smiling, he takes one of the unmelted chocolate wafers out of the bag and offers it to Sara, "Chocolate?"
"Chocolate? You are not making chocolate sandwiches."
"No, chocolate grasshoppers," he responds, the twinkle returning to his eyes.
"Grissom that is just as disgusting" then she starts to laugh.
"What?" Grissom asks, confused at her change in stance.
"You have chocolate all over your shirt."
Grissom looks down and shrugs, "This isn't as easy as it looks."
"Covering grasshoppers in chocolate is hard?" she asks skeptically.
"You want to try?"
"As long as I don't have to eat them."
"Have you even tried one?"
"No and I don't intend to."
This would have been a reasonably normal activity, well at least for Sara and Grissom, if Grissom hadn't accidentally flung chocolate onto Sara. An action, of course, she had to return, which leads to an out and out battle. Afterward, the floor is dotted with chocolate, along with the walls and they themselves. It ends with them hiding on either side of the kitchen island.
"Sara, I don't think this was a good idea."
"Why?"
"Melted chocolate is hot!"
"And Nick said chocolate was kinky."
"When did he say that?"
"In the desert last night."
"Do you want to find out?"
"What?"
"If it is?"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"Having Nick's voice floating in the back of my mind isn't going to enhance the experience."
"Could we call a truce?"
Sara stands up and puts her spoon on the counter in response. Grissom meets Sara around the side of the counter.
"You're not getting bored are you?" Grissom asks seriously.
"Bored with what?" Sara asks innocently.
"I'm trying to be serious."
"I'm not going to complain about sex with Gil Grissom, no matter how traditional the position."
Grissom blushes at her bluntness, but that doesn't last for long as he pins her up against the kitchen counter, "How about we try an experiment?"
"Like what?"
"Kitchen counter"
"What has gotten into you?"
"Chocolate."
Sara's response is a muffled moan as Grissom begins to nibble the chocolate off her neck.
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A week later Sara stops on her way home from work to pick up the dry-cleaning. Unfortunaly for Sara the same girl is behind the counter as when she dropped them off. The girl reminds Sara of Greg except for her IQ number.
"Hey, you're the lady with the chocolate clothes!" the girl calls out enthusiastically.
"Yeah," Sara responds not nearly as happily, "Could I please have my clothes."
"Sure," responds the girl cracking her gum, totally unaware of Sara's annoyance. When she returns she just has to tell Sara, "I never knew chocolate could be kinky until I met you. My boyfriend and I had one wild night, if you know what I mean?"
"I'm glad I could help," Sara responds and quickly exits the drycleaners.
Sara gets into her vehicle and is glad the drive home will give her a chance to think. Grissom had seriously asked her before work about her favorite sexual positions. Sara had attempted to tell him what they were doing was just fine. Grissom just wouldn't take that as an answer. Sara had dismissed all of the kinky images that had floated through her mind, but Grissom would be waiting for answer when she got home. Why the hell is this so hard? I'm a full-grown woman completely comfortable with my sexuality. Sara sighs and parks the vehicle.
She walks into the house briskly and starts to climb the stairs, "Are you coming?"
"Where?" Grissom asks from the living room.
"To bed," and then she disappears upstairs.
Grissom gets up to follow her, curious, but not dense enough not to realize what is probably going to happen. He arrives in his bedroom to find Sara, obviously, naked under the covers.
"You're overdressed," Sara flashes a mischievous smile.
Grissom raises an eyebrow, but complies with her wish and then crawls under the covers.
Sara reaches for his hand and holds it like they are about to take a walk in the park. She relaxes into the bed.
"Sara, what's going on?" Grissom asks, confused by her conflicting actions.
"You wanted to have a conversation."
"This isn't where I pictured having it."
"Easier to implement the decision."
Grissom's eyebrows rise even further.
"Are you going to start?"
"I asked the question."
"Why is this so hard for us?"
"We're not exactly the most open of people."
"That's the understatement of the year," Sara responds with a small chuckle.
Grissom responds with a patented Grissom smile.
"Okay," Sara takes a deep breath and exhales, "Hot monkey love in the shower."
This obviously isn't what Grissom is expecting since he looks really confused.
"Haven't you ever watched Dharma and Greg?"
His face contorts further into confusion.
"It's a sitcom. You need to watch more television."
"I watch the Discovery Channel," Grissom responds quite seriously.
Sara has to bury her face in her pillow to stifle the laughter.
Grissom's complexion tints red as he realizes exactly what he had implied.
Sara pulls her head out of the pillow long enough to ask, "Are you going to suggest we test our handcuffs next?"
Grissom sighs and smiles at the form of a naked Sara laughing. He really had wanted to have a serious conversation, but he knows that no matter how hard they tried it would have silly undertones. "I'll race you to the shower."
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Sara wakes with a start and reaches for Grissom. However, the other side of the bed is empty. Grissom, meeting, early. Sara's eyes focus on the clock and she realizes she's slept in. She jumps out of bed and grabs whatever clothes match from the dry-cleaning without really paying attention to what they are. The rest of her actions are a blur as she showers, eats, and makes it to work in record time.
Entering the locker room still panting she finds Grissom there as well.
"I forgot to reset the alarm didn't I?" Grissom asks.
Sara nods putting her coat and purse in her locker.
"What are you wearing?"
"I don't know. Whatever was in the dry cleaning."
"You're wearing my high school football jersey."
Sara shrugs, "You were on the football team?"
"It was honorary. I removed a type of burrowing beetle that was destroying the root system of the grass on the football field."
Sara laughs, "I should have known."
The End