Disclaimer: I don't own them, I didn't create them, and I don't profit from them. As always, my offer for coffee to George and Jorja is open.
Author's Note: This is in response to a Snickers' challenge and is nothing but pure fluff for my fellow Snickers.
"I can't get no-o-o-o satisfact-i-o-n." Nick was butchering a classic Rolling Stones song as he worked at trying to see if the roll duct tape he and Sara had found a crime scene they'd processed earlier that evening matched the piece of duct tape used to gag their victim. "Nyowrn, nyowrn, na, na, nyowrn, nyowrn, nyowrn." The guitar riffs were especially bad.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say that was some kind of Indian rap." Warrick walked into the layout room wincing at Nick's rendition of the song.
Nick glanced up, missing the barb. "I'm on a roll."
Warrick rolled his eyes at the pun. "Greg's making a run to 7-11 for Slurpees. You in?"
Nick straightened up and nodded. "Yeah, just make sure he doesn't get that diet chocolate soda flavor. That stuff is nasty." Nick rolled his neck a bit. "Did the maintenance guys give any idea when they might have the AC back up and running?"
Warrick shook his head on his way out the door. "Probably just in time for dayshift."
Nick chortled and went back to work, blinking as a bead of sweat dripped into his eyes.
"Look what I found." Sara sounded a bit too happy as she came into the layout room a few moments later.
Nick glanced up to see in her holding a portable fan with a clip attachment. He opened his mouth without even thinking. "I love you." He sincerely hoped that she intended to clip it right onto the edge of the layout table he was working at.
Sara smirked at his cheeky comment and replied with one of her own. "Well, I never knew that all it took to get you to confess your undying love to me was to procure a fan. I suppose I could have skipped kissing a lot of frogs that way."
Nick rolled his eyes and tried to restrain the color in his cheeks as he felt his stomach flutter at the idea of him and Sara together. "Where did you get the fan?"
She looked smug. "Grissom sent me to Home Depot, they were on sale."
Nick raised an eyebrow. "All of them or just the pink ones?"
"Well, if you're going to get picky about the color, I could just take this one over to Hodges and let you have the one with the Power Puff Girls on it." She waggled her eyebrows at him.
"Pink is great. I love pink." Nick smirked at her as he took the fan, clipped it to the edge of the layout table, plugged it in and turned it on.
Sara furrowed her brow. "Did anything pan out with the duct tape?"
Nick glanced up. "Not yet. Did you get the results back from trace yet?"
"Hodges said that the synthetic fibers came from the same type they use to make the bodies of those build-a-bears at the mall. The variation in color leads him to believe that it was a tie dyed one." Sara informed him with amusement.
"Tie dyed." Nick smirked. "So how is Hodges so familiar with Build-a-Bear?" No one seemed to know much about the gruff lab tech.
Sara tried to keep a straight face. "Apparently he bought a pair of them for his significant other for their anniversary, one green and one tie dyed."
"Hodges has a significant other?" Nick looked at her doubtfully. "His people skills are only slightly better than Grissom's, the sucking up aside."
"Well apparently, Harold thinks he had a softer side." Sara informed him smugly.
Nick raised an eyebrow in understanding. "Ok, so now it makes sense why he was so insulted when I asked him if I could set him up on a date with Candice."
Sara lowered her voice conspiratorially. "I think pretty much anyone would be insulted to get set up with Candice."
Nick furrowed his brow at Sara. "Hey, she's not that bad. I'm sure she's perfect for someone other than me."
Sara couldn't help but giggle as she teased him. "Admit it, Nick, you liked her until she made that comment."
Nick looked embarrassed as he raised an eyebrow at Sara and whispered. "And just who the hell told you about the 'I bet it fits like a glove' comment?" His voice was slightly falsetto as he tried to imitate Candice. The only two people who could have said anything were Warrick and Greg, and at the moment, he was putting his money on Greg.
"Go easy on Greg." Sara tried to keep a straight face. She decided to try and change the subject. "Uh, so are you still interested in helping me set up my stereo system after shift?"
"Yeah." Nick tried to restrain his grin as he thought about getting to spend time alone with Sara. One of these days he was going to have to let her know how he felt about her.
A commotion in the hallway drew their attention and Sara glanced at Nick with a smile. "It looks like the Slurpees are here."
Nick dropped what he was doing and followed Sara down the hallway towards the break room where Greg and Archie were doling out the Slupees. Nick noticed an extra bag sitting on the table and gestured towards it. "What's in there, Sanders?"
Greg picked up the bag and held it possessively. "Grissom wanted Fortune Cookie ice cream instead of a Slurpee and I got myself Oreo Cookie ice cream."
Sara smiled widely and held out her hand. "Greg. Why don't you let me take that to Grissom?"
Greg raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "Nice try, but he requested that I deliver it personally."
"So, Sara, I hear you bought a new house in the Sedona Ridge development." Archie interjected as Greg picked up the bag with the two cartons of ice cream in it and headed out of the break room.
"Yeah, I just moved in last weekend. I'm just trying to unpack." Sara was still trying to figure out how she could sweet talk Greg out of his ice cream.
"I put an offer on one in that neighborhood. It's the one near the entrance with the Honeybucket out front." He smiled at her.
"Oh? My house is just around the corner from there. There's still a few houses in the cul de sac that aren't finished yet." Sara glanced over at Nick who was trying to decide which Slurpee flavor to grab.
"Well, I'd better get back to work. I'll let you know if we're going to be neighbors." Archie waved as he turned and left the break room.
Nick smirked. "If I didn't know better, I'd say Archie was flirting with you." He sipped a blue raspberry Slurpee.
Sara smirked back. "Jealous?"
Nick chuckled and shook his head. "Archie has a girlfriend."
"I know." She waggled her eyebrows and reached over to find that only one Slurpee was remaining. She furrowed her brow. "Hey, I asked for something other than diet chocolate soda." She looked at Nick hopefully. "Wanna trade?"
"No." His response came out a bit too forcefully. He took another sip and felt guilty. "We could share though."
Half a Slurpee and several hours later, Nick pulled his SUV up in front of Sara's new house, chuckling in amusement at the butterfly shaped sprinkler stick in the neighbor's lawn. As he approached Sara's front door, he noticed that it was ajar. Stepping inside, he called out. "Sara?"
"In here!" Sara called from further in the house.
Nick made his way towards her voice and was preparing to give her a gentle lecture about leaving her front door open. "Your front door was open."
Sara glanced up from the middle of an array of boxes, her brow furrowed. "Oh, the new neighbors next door just left. I guess it didn't shut all the way."
Nick gestured towards the door. "I closed it."
She smiled at him and pulled herself off of the floor. "Thanks."
Nick looked at a row of boxes neatly lined up by height and smirked. "I assume this is your stereo system."
Sara smirked back and raised an eyebrow. "And your point?"
Nick chuckled and raised both hands. "No point, just an observation that you're organized." As he squatted down to open the largest box, a distinct ripping sound could be heard and Nick's eyes widened.
Sara looked at him in disbelief. "Was that what I think it was?"
Nick let out a groan and pursed his lips together as he stood up. "It was."
Sara started laughing. "Sorry."
Nick raised both brows at her. "I don't suppose you own a sewing kit."
"I might." She tried to restrain her laughter without much success. "Follow me." She headed upstairs to her bedroom and straight into her walk-in closet.
Nick followed her slowly, trying not to rip the seat of his pants any further. He found Sara up on a step stool looking through a box on a shelf in her closet.
She glanced over her shoulder at him as he walked into the closet. "How bad is it?"
He smirked. "I guess this means you want me to turn around."
Sara couldn't keep the smug expression off of her face. "I'd like to get some sort of idea of what we're working with here." Nick turned around and Sara furrowed her brow. "Oh."
"What?" Nick tried to look at the seat of his pants over his shoulder.
Sara stepped off of the stool and walked over to Nick, fingering the rip in his pants. "You tore more than just the seam. I need to see the inside of your pants to see if we can patch it."
Nick was trying so hard not to think too hard about Sara's hand on his butt that he didn't hear what she said.
"Are you going to help me out here, or do I need to undress you?" Sara seemed amused at Nick's sudden silence and stepped in front of him to unfasten his jeans.
Nick's eyebrows shot up and there was a waver in his voice. "Sara."
She glanced up at him with a quizzical expression as she undid the button. "What? I told you I needed to see the inside of your pants."
He looked at her intently and tried to keep his tone light. "I think I can take off my own pants."
She could tell he was uncomfortable, but wasn't sure why. "What, you've never had a woman undress you before?" She was clearly amused.
"Not under these circumstances." He cleared his throat as he unzipped his pants and let them pool around his ankles.
Sara snorted. She wasn't sure what she found more amusing; the fact that Nick hadn't bothered to take his shoes off, or the fact that all over his boxers were different types of wild birds. She coughed in an attempt to keep from laughing as she looked him in the eye. "Uh, nice undies."
Nick crossed his arms over his chest and tried to glare even as his lips twitched into a smile. "I didn't expect to be taking my clothes off when I got here. I was supposed to help you set up your stereo system."
Sara just pointed. "I need your pants."
Nick kicked his shoes off and bent over to pick up his khakis after stepping out of them and handed them to Sara. "Do you make this request of all your houseguests?" There was a distinctly flirtatious tone in his voice.
"So far, only you." She arched her brows suggestively and then brushed past him and up the step stool again to see if she could find a patch the right size.
As she fumble through the box, Nick found himself staring at her butt, and he found his thoughts drifting into areas that he thought were best to stay out of, at least until he'd worked up the courage to tell Sara how he felt about her.
"I think I found one." Sara turned around, forgetting that she was standing on the top step of the stool and tripped, launching herself forward and into Nick's arms, setting him off balance so that they fell to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.
Nick began to realize as he and Sara tried to disentangle themselves that he'd better say something to her about his feelings for her before Mother Nature did it for him. He did the first thing that came to his mind.
It took Sara a moment to process that Nick's lips were on hers, but once it registered, she returned the kiss with equal fervor.
A little while later, Nick was fingering a tattoo of an eggplant on Sara's derriere as they lay tangled on the floor of her walk-in closet. "How long have you had this?"
"Since I decided to become a vegetarian." She smiled. "It just seemed like I needed something to commemorate the occasion."
Nick looked at her thoughtfully, a smile playing at her lips. "Maybe I should get a tattoo on my butt too."
Sara raised an eyebrow at him and chuckled. "Oh, and why's that?"
"I think I need something to commemorate this occasion." He grinned at her as he pulled her against him and kissed her.
The End.
