The Chi of the Last Great Oreo
AN: Impromptu, endless thanks go out to Leslie, for so many reasons, but mostly just because she puts up with all my crap. :)
Disclaimer: Doooon't own them, don't don't, don't don't...
Rogue Lee Ishii 12:12 PM: -Oreos
-Certificate of Participation
-Someone saying, "Your chi is off."
-Someone observing that Manhattan (on a map) looks like a penis
-French Horn
RootOfAsphodel27 12:12 PM: ...Uuuhg.
A french horn, Karen? God, I hate you.
"Sofia, I think your chi is off."
Sara and Greg had been ignoring the stormy figure huffing around the breakroom for as long as they could, but when she'd let out a particularly angry noise, Greg could take it no more. From the look she shot him, however, his approach may not have been the wisest.
"What gave you that idea, Greg? This 10 pound case I'm lugging around, or the useless scrap of metal inside it?" Sofia's strange accent was heavily laden with a sort of condescending annoyance. Sara kept her nose right in the spine of her forensics journal, pretending to ignore them as she ate an oreo out of the bag that was sitting on the table.
Greg, on the other hand, frowned. "That's a french horn, isn't it? What's so bad about a French horn? My aunt could play the horn, and I guess it's not exactly ideal for jamming out the rock," he grinned, "but don't diss the piece, man, it's got good sound."
Sofia peered at him down her nose for a long, itchy moment. Breathing as quietly as possible, Sara turned a page, and hunched over further, seemingly trying to disappear withing the high-gloss paper. Two more oreos disappeared from the bag. "I don't care how it sounds Greg, but I think the fact that it keeps me from walking straight would throw off my... 'chi' a little, don't you?" She finally finished filling up her coffee mug, and shifted the case to her other hand, before picking up the drink and taking a sip. "I'm taking this to evidence." She shot them both another unpleasant look, and stalked out, instrument in tow.
Greg's eyebrows were trying to disappear beneath his wild hair as he looked at Sara, wide-eyed. "Oook, what's with Ms. Bad Karma this evening? I'm still feeling the nasty vibes."
"You shouldn't provoke her like that, Greg," came Sara's mumbled response, not looking up. She reached for another oreo, but he snagged it out of her hand, shoving it unceremoniously into his mouth with a triumphant expression. "Hey!" she let out an indignant noise, and grabbed another.
When he had swallowed, he gave her his defense. "Oh, come on Sara, I didn't provoke her, I just...made an observation." He grinned cheekily when he heard her snort. "After all, isn't that my job? To observe things?" The magazine rustled, but still, she did not appear out from behind it. "Aw, Sar, plllease? Share with the Greg-man!"
Finally, Sara peeked at him over the top of the journal, scanned around the break room quickly, and dropped the magazine to the table to reveal her wide grin. "Alright, Greg, chill. She got stuck with a music store robbery after her trick roll turned out to be a bust. All the instruments in the shop that were displaced have to be logged in as evidence now, and...it's a big store, and a messy robbery." She fought to tamp down on her grin, but it didn't quite work.
"Man, I can't believe she's so worked up about carrying that thing to evidence though," Greg said, shaking his head.
Sara rolled her eyes a little. "Well, that's not the first thing she's had to carry in, Greg, but your busted fan belt made you miss the earlier fun." She herself had finished an easy B and E, with an instantaneous confession from the perp, and had been given no new case, instead delighting in watching the indignant labor of her coworker.
Greg made a face at the thought of his car breakdown, that had resulted in him missing the first half of shift. A swirl of self pity made him snag another little cookie out of the almost empty bag. "So I guess she's been doing this for a while?"
"You should have seen her when she came in with the tuba."
The two were still sniggering rather evilly when Grissom entered, frowning as he heard them laugh. "What's going on?"
It didn't take a genius to figure out he wouldn't be happy to know they were laughing at Sofia's expense, and they began to think frantically of an excuse. Greg's eyes rested on the open journal Sara had dropped, and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Manhattan looks like a penis."
Two sets of eyes stared at him for an incredulous moment, and he felt the tips of his ears burning in bright embarrassment. Finally, Sara blinked, and asked slowly, "What?" Which wasn't very conducive to his lie about why they'd been laughing. He shrugged weakly.
"Uh...yeah. In your journal, the map of Manhattan...it looks like...a penis." Sara and Grissom looked down at her journal, both curiously taking in the fact that this was actually...true. "Uh...I have...paperwork or...something." Greg was up out of his seat and down the hall before any more attention could be paid to him, grabbing a final oreo on his way out.
"He's right, actually," Grissom observed after a collective moment, clearing his throat.
"Yyyeah..." Sara quickly shut the journal, closing out the article about Manhattan serial killers, and hopefully, any continuance of the conversation. It didn't quite work.
"So, phallic symbols send you spiraling into giggles, now?" Fighting the blush that dusted her cheeks, she looked up to find his eyebrow arched playfully. The embarrassed flush intensified
She was going to have to kill Greg after shift. "Um..." she was spared having to answer when he chuckled a little, startling her with the unfamiliar sound.
"She tripped on her way in. With the tuba, I mean. I had to take my amusement elsewhere, and hid in my office for a while." The mischievous expression on his face was almost boyish, and that, coupled with the image of Sofia forced another breath of laughter out of her, though she stifled it quickly.
"I'm sorry. I know we need to be more...supportive of her, until you find a replacement and she can leave." She shot him an apologetic glance, looking away quickly. "I did remind Greg of that."
There was a moment of silence, and Sara jerked away in surprise when his big form suddenly collapsed into the chair beside her that Greg had vacated. "The question is, will it have any impact if you were laughing too hard to speak clearly?" His legs stretched out under the table, and his arms crossed in a casual position. When she chanced a look, she could see the humor still lurking in his eyes, a once familiar expression that had only recently reappeared. A smile fought its way onto her face.
"Probably not, but it is Greg, so how much difference would it have made anyway?"
He gave a small grin back, but then his gaze turned serious. "I may have to speak to him about it." At her troubled expression, he continued. "If the thing about Manhattan was the best he could come up with, he certainly needs to work on developing his creative thinking skills." She covered her mouth to muffle another laugh, and his grin erupted widely then. "But I guess I can forgive you, after all it was your idea that convinced Sofia to stay for a while, until I can find another suitable CSI."
Sara shrugged this off with a small nod, thinking back to the conversation they had - one of many during her suspension - about supporting his CSIs more, particularly what he might do to help secure Sofia's loyalty to the Graveyard Shift. Eventually she'd suggested he take her to dinner, or someplace outside of work, and talk to her one on one to see how things were going, ignoring the fact that the irony was almost pathetic, and she didn't really care for the woman anyway. He'd ended up using her idea to prolong Sofia's stay, although it was too late to keep her as a CSI.
Not that he'd enjoyed it, though. Ohhhh no. Immediately after the meal, Sara had received a very long, rather negative email on the finer points of dining with Sofia. In other words, he'd whined incessantly about how she flirted with him, and how unpleasant the whole affair was in general. Of course, being Grissom, it had been a bit more subtle and dignified, but the overall idea was the same.
To Sara, though, it was a huge step forward. Not the complaining, (though it was an added bonus) but the fact that Grissom was slowly beginning to interact with members of his team again, and he was talking with her again, in a way he hadn't in over a year. They were even joking once more, proven by Greg's idiotic lie, although he made no innuendos whatsoever, and Sara was very careful to keep it strictly friendly, refusing to risk going down that road again, unless...well, at any rate, it was amazing progress.
"I have something for you." His brows raised in curiosity at her statement, but she only smiled and began to rise from her seat.
"Hey, wait," she paused in a stooped position, glancing at him, and his eyes strayed over to the bag of oreos. "Are any of those left?"
She fought an eye roll, wondering when his arms had been paralyzed, making him unable to check for himself. But, since it was Grissom, she indulged him. As usual.
Reaching over, she frowned when she looked into the bag, seeing only the empty bottom. "Sorry, Griss, I guess Greg snagged the last one."
He shrugged, giving a little sigh. "Oh well." That intensely curiously look was back. "So what do you have for me?"
For a moment, Sara was confused, but then it clicked in her memory. "Oh, right!" She stood away from the chair, and walked over to the counter, stretching up onto her tiptoes as she reached for something resting on top of the cabinet over the coffee machine. When her fingers finally found it, she pulled it down, turning around in a smooth movement, to find Grissom staring at her in a way he hadn't in quite a while. In that focused, intense way that sent a small flutter through her stomach, as much as she tried to keep it out.
He blinked then, as though realizing what he was doing, and cleared his throat as his gaze backed off a little. "What is it?"
Again, Sara was lost, too busy trying not to give in to the flustered state this Gil Grissom managed to put her in. And of course, it wasn't working. "Wha?" She glanced around a little, finally realizing he meant the crisp white piece of paper she now held. "Oh, uhm, here." She put it down on the table, and slid it over to him, face down. "It's..."
"A certificate of participation?" He asked, the amusement bouncing a little in his voice as he stared at the proud gold lettering on the front of the paper. "For participating in what?"
She shrugged, forcing herself to be nonchalant. "I got an email the other day, informing me that you had to undergo the very trying task of eating with a certain co-worker." She'd printed it out right afterward, an absent, spontaneous notion that she'd never really thought she'd go through with. From his expression though, it might have been one of the brighter ideas she'd had in a while.
His gaze locked with hers as she sat back down beside him, continuing quietly, "I know it wasn't easy. I guess...I figured you deserved some sort of...recognition. For trying." His slow nod let her know he understood, and she tried to ignore the warm feeling spreading through her as a gentle smile widened on his face.
"Thank you, Sara." He titled his head, fingers tracing over his name and the date, written in pen, along with her signature at the bottom. "I...I am trying." His gaze slid back to her, but she looked away, instead, acknowledging him with a short nod of her own as she crinkled the empty bag of oreos between her hands. She hated when he said things like that, because it could mean everything, or nothing. And it usually meant nothing.
"Hey..." As she was folding and creasing the bag, her fingers suddenly landed on something solid and round. Un-wrinkling the top, she reached her hand down in, pulling it back with a triumphant smile, and an oreo. "There was one still stuck in the bottom! I guess I didn't see it before." She hesitated for a moment as she looked up at him, feeling ridiculous and strangely giddy, and then more ridiculous for feeling giddy in the first place. "Uh, here."
She held it out to him, and they both looked at it for a moment, watching as it morphed before their eyes into some sort of bizarre peace offering. A spontaneous truce of sorts, wrapped in a number of useless calories and tasty additives, that somehow offered so much more than a brief sugar buzz. The moment had shifted a little, the air clearing and settling, easing off the undercurrent of tension she hadn't even noticed. It had been lessening bit by bit since that night weeks back when he had shown up at her apartment, demanding answers, but suddenly, in this mundane instant, everything evaporated. Something was...different. "The chi..."
He looked at her strangely, hearing her mumble, but she only shrugged a little, smiling slightly and waving the outstretched cookie before him. "Take it. You know, the last oreo is usually fair game, so you'd better take it before I change my mind and eat it myself."
His hand drifted out towards hers then, lightly callused fingers sliding warmly over the back of her palm as a rebelling shiver shot down her spine. Slowly, he tugged the oreo from her grasp, pulling away with it held gently in his big palm. "Thank you," he said, his voice low and just a little rough, and Sara was forced to looked down to avoid the overwhelming swirl of something she saw swimming in his eyes. She thought he was thanking her for more than just the sweet, but that didn't mean either would acknowledge it.
Instead, she shrugged, smiling down at the table."Hey, that's a little less junk food clogging my system, right?" She could see him nod a little as she continued to stare at the table, and determinedly did not look at him while the oreo disappeared between his lips, though the mere concept was enough to thoroughly irritate her at her own body's lack of control in its helpless response.
After a moment, the silence became a sort of finality, and Grissom rose from his chair with a small sigh, dusting a crumb off his shirt. "I actually do have some paperwork I need to do, so, I'll leave you to your article." She looked up at him, and he grinned a little at the thought. "You might want to go find Greg, and make sure he's actually doing something, not just...hiding, or whatever he went to do."
Sara let a full smile show, bobbing her head in acknowledgment. "Alright, I'm probably going to clock out in a little while anyway, so I'll see you next shift."
He nodded at her as he pushed his chair in, pausing for a moment, before stooping down a little and gently sliding his certificate off the table, holding it gingerly between his fingers. As he made to straighten up, Sara looked back down and began to open her journal, ready to turn to a new article, but freezing when a puff of warm of air suddenly drifted past her hair to curl sensuously inside the shell of her ear. Damn.
"Thank you," He whispered to her again, so close she knew his lips were almost brushing her skin, and she had to fight the mad, dizzying urge to jerk away, or to lean in just a little bit more. "Thank you for not changing your mind, Sara."
And then he stepped away, straightening and giving her a little wink before he turned and strode out the door, cautiously skirting around an irate Sofia as he trekked down the hall to his office.
Sara, still frozen in the same position, couldn't bring herself to bother opening her magazine, instead staring dazedly at the cover and unable to fight the hopeful smile that slipped onto her face. Things were still unclear and off balance between them, but for once, she had something to hold onto. For once, she was finally sure of one thing about Gil Grissom...
He would definitely get the last oreo from now on.
Erg, my lack of creativity astounds me. Please give me feed back on this bizarre concoction! Thanks for Reading!