Thanks Lauren and Sara. And yes, the first sentence is still there. Damn it all. Merci beaucoup, Marlou.
It appeared that summer, in all of its oppressive glory, had gotten jealous of spring, ushering it quickly out the door and situating itself with bravado over the city of Las Vegas. Sweltering heat was its unwelcome gift, a gift that seemed, as of late, to just keep on giving.
It was on a particularly scorching morning that Catherine and Sara were placed on a hit and run out on a deserted stretch of the I-15.
They'd adorned their forensics caps, along with long-sleeved pullovers to protect their skin from the sun. The CSIs liberally applied sunscreen, just in case, and set out to process the scene. It was forty-five minutes before the two women rid themselves of the constricting fabric and set about finishing the scene in their tank tops.
The hour drive back to the lab was possibly one of the most uncomfortable in their lives, the air conditioning both soothing and upsetting their singed skin. It didn't help that the seats were leather and their shoulders stuck to the seats just as it stuck to the fabric of their long-sleeved tops when they put them back on.
After dropping their evidence off at the various necessary locations, the two women made their way into the break room for coffee.
Grissom saw the two of them come in and nodded a hello from his desk as they passed by his office. Everything seemed fine, until he heard painful yelping coming from the general vicinity of the break room; it drew him out of his office.
What he encountered nearly made him laugh, had it not been for the bright red hue of Catherine's skin. She was seated at the table, hair held away from her neck, as Warrick delicately smoothed aloe over her burnt skin. She cringed, swore and shot him a look.
Bending her head she swore once more in pain and looked back up to Grissom. "There is really no part of me that doesn't loathe you right now, Gil." Though his stance stayed straight, his eyes withered a little and he looked to Warrick, who simply shrugged and smoothed the aloe over the nape of Catherine's neck.
It was then that he noticed Sara, dunking a tea bag in and out, in and out of a mug of steaming water. Her shoulders were just as bright red as Catherine's was. Slowly, glancing from Cath and Warrick over to the unmoving Sara, he moved to where she was standing, feigning retrieval of a cup of coffee.
On the way past her, he sniffed the air, wondering if she too had put on the balm with Warrick's assistance. There was no scent of the substance on her and for some reason, that made him sad. She saw him walk by, looked up and smiled at him and added sugar to her tea.
He spoke on impulse. "Sara, could you take a seat please?" His eyes were guarded, focused on the cup of coffee he was pouring for himself.
She flitted her eyes to him, to her tea, to the table and then back to him. "Uh, okay." He could tell by the tone of her voice that she was expecting something bad.
Gil took his time preparing his coffee and working up the last bit of courage he still needed to touch her. Walking with his mug over to where she was seated, he placed it alongside hers. He was insane, he was irrational and he didn't care; he was in love.
"Mind if I use some?" Grissom gestured to the bottle of aloe on the table and both Catherine and Warrick shook their heads, so he took it, bringing it in front of the both of them. Sara looked up at him in confusion but he just gestured with his head for her to turn back around.
She did as he wanted and watched as the bottle disappeared from her line of vision. A moment later, warm hands landed on her sore shoulders, smoothing the balm over it. Sara gasped audibly and Warrick and Catherine glanced at them, but other than that, didn't pay them much attention.
His slightly calloused hands spread the cream over her back slowly, the pace more for his benefit than for hers. Sara reigned in a sated sigh when he smoothed over her neck, allowing her head to fall forward, rewarding Grissom with an unobstructed view of her neck.
Warrick and Catherine had left moments before, and both Grissom and Sara silently acknowledged how intimate the moment was.
Sara walked from the break room ten minutes later, burn soothed, heart aflutter; The day went on like normal; criminals caught, evidence processed, true feelings hidden by a friendly veneer.
Seven o'clock rolled around and a sharp set of knocks resounded throughout Sara's quiet apartment. She ambled to the door and let him in.
He, as usual, came bearing gifts and a small smile. This time, his gifts were in the form of movies; more specifically, the Silence of the Lambs trilogy, which they planned to watch straight in a row for six hours. A noble task to undertake, and one, Sara hoped, that could also serve as an excuse to return the kiss that he had bestowed on her a month ago.
It wasn't that they were purposefully avoiding doing it again, they just hadn't had the chance to get together. The lab was long overdue for an overhaul and everyone was pulling overtime like there was no tomorrow. The evidence had been relogged and old evidence that had been signed off on was destroyed, making more room for the incoming evidence. The entire filing system was reorganized and the trace lab was being rearranged to accommodate the new equipment that Cavallo had been so kind to splurge on.
No, they hadn't seen each other, socially, for going on a month; it was killing them both.
In the kitchen, she was puttering around, cursing under her breath, constantly squirming and dropping her shoulder as she retrieved two Coronas and the salsa and chips. Grissom watched all this with bright eyes from his position, perched languidly on her sofa.
Her face screwed up and she concentrated, once again dropping her shoulder and rearranging herself. It took him only a moment to realize what she was doing. With her fair skin, more acclimated to Cambridge and Harvard than to Las Vegas, the burn was probably irritating her more than it would Catherine.
"Sara, I won't be offended, you can take off your bra."
She turned quickly to him and grinned bashfully. "Oh thank god. This is killing me." Sara retreated to the bedroom and came back a moment later, adorned in a larger, bulkier sweatshirt.
He wasn't going to look at her, he wasn't. He knew what she looked like, with or without bra, just from seeing her daily. But, predictably, his eyes were drawn to her form, long and lean and so feminine he wondered, if only for a moment (more, if he admitted to himself) what it would feel like to just sink into her skin.
Allure clung to her and she stalked to him tiredly, a bowl of chips with the salsa resting amidst them resting in one delicate hand, two beers clutched precariously in the other.
Margaritaville came to his mind for no good reason. Wasting away, surely he was, but alas, he had no tattoo to show for anything.
Glancing at her quickly as she spun around, clearing her coffee table, he noticed a mark of black ink peeking out from the hem of her shirt. Even as he processed the fact that she had a tattoo, Grissom became rather intrigued and made a mental note to ask her about it sometime in the future.
She was still a mystery to him, and there were so many reasons why that was slowly becoming unacceptable to him. But he ignored it as she sunk down next to him on the sofa and started the first film.
Since the movies had started, Sara had leaned back on the end of the couch, close enough to Grissom to feel his body heat cascading over her in waves. It was so relaxing, she didn't even notice when his hand dropped onto hers on the couch cushion, absent-mindedly stroking it. Sometime around two o'clock, a sleepy Grissom unwillingly drifted off.
Sara, ever aware of people, decided to watch him for a moment. The little creases in his eyes has smoothed out and the weight of the world, which seemed to always hang around his shoulders had fallen away. He looked at peace, there on her couch, so right, like he belonged there.
And maybe he did.
Catlike, she uncurled herself and brought her face up close to his, once more watching him for a moment; then she whispered his name. Grissom's eyes fluttered open and she gave him a moment to reacquaint himself with his surroundings.
Sara's face, barely four inches from his, was smiling down at him, her body perched so close that if he desired he could pull her straight into his lap.
Instead, he stayed incredibly still as her lips descended on his for the briefest, sweetest of kisses. She pulled back, smiling, eyes wide as she watched the shock register on his face.
"It's time to go home." Sara said, pecked him once quickly, and got up to clean up the mess they'd made.