CSI: Miami
Horatio/oc
Disclaimer: I own nothing of CSI: Miami, I do not know anyone connected with the show or with CBS and they do not know me, all of which is a shame.
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Sharon
By the early evening, the summer afternoon showers that had relieved the pressure of the day's heat were like wet dreams, leaving damp stains and comfortable memories. Joining many of Miami's citizens who came out to enjoy these sun dusted moments, Horatio Caine sat lounging on a park bench, relishing the sounds of the children in the playground, trying to forget the lab, if just for an hour.
To force himself to be in the here and now, to keep his mind from wandering back to those tantalizing bits of evidence, he turned his eyes to the people around him, seated, walking, and playing. Among them, the children and their mothers, the elderly, the tired office workers, he spied a familiar face, in a familiar pose. Officer Sharon Katpin, the police sketch artist, was sitting huddled over a pad, repeatedly looking up and down. With each look down, her pencil darted over the page, with each look up, it froze, waiting for the next bit of information to give it direction. Following her gaze, Horatio saw the dark headed object of her concentration, a little boy seated on the sand, about two, fascinated by the up-and-down action of a seesaw, his brown face filled with wonder.
"You don't get enough time to draw at work?" To hide his embarrassment at startling her, he knelt down to pick up the papers she'd dropped. Before she hastily snatched them from his hands, he couldn't help but see that the sheaf contained at least one sketch of him and, from her move to cover them, suspected there were several others as well.
"Lieutenant Caine! Hi! Yeah, well, it's nice to draw my view of real life, not from someone else's memory, you know.
"I couldn't help but notice one of the subjects in the drawings. I'm flattered." Sitting beside her, he had to bend forward a little to see past the curtain of soft brown curls, as she dipped her head.
"You're not angry? I mean, because I drew you?" She studied his face, looking for something. "I mean, some people don't like to be examined closely enough to be drawn, consider it to be a kind of invasion of privacy. It's just that, well…" her voice nervously trailed off, as she tugged her trim walking shorts down to the middle of her thighs, her bare legs flashing appealingly, one over the other.
The fact that she was even more attractive out of uniform wasn't lost on him. Suddenly examining his shoes, he realized how pleased he actually was to have been noticed by her. They'd worked around each other for years now, and he couldn't help but admire the way this veteran officer worked with witnesses, how she would casually engage them in conversation and pull out forgotten observations, thus being able to put just the right facial details on her sketches, ones that often made for quicker and more positive identification. He'd become very 'aware' of her since her recent transfer back to MDPD. Well, perhaps being the prettiest thing in the whole department, besides Calleigh Duquesne, of course, had something to do with it.
Taking a chance, enjoying the opportunity to feel a bit boyish, Horatio tried to sound casual as he inquired, "Are you doing anything this evening?" The evidence in the lab would wait for tomorrow.
It turned out that she did have plans and invited him to come along, which was how Horatio got to revive a nearly forgotten love for bowling that night. To his chagrin, he only achieved an average of one-thirty-one after four games, not his past average of one-sixty-four by any stretch, and he hoped that it was, at least, partly because he was so very conscious of the all too lascivious leers from Sharon's girlfriends every time he stepped up.
"They were verifying that I have good taste in men," she'd joked afterwards. "They don't go ga-ga over everyone, I'll tell you that. Well, the two that are married sometimes do, just to be silly, but the others don't."
Horatio privately admitted that watching Sharon's behind as she bowled, hadn't been too hard on the eyes, either. More, he realized that being with her, he hadn't thought once about work. Before saying goodnight in the parking lot, he asked to see her again.
To play it safe, or so he thought, he took her bowling, for their first real date, the following week. At first, everything went well; he upped his average to one-forty-five and he happily discovered they had a mutual interest in analytical psychology. But then, as they were saying goodnight at her apartment door, she reminded him of her artistic interests by shyly asking if he would pose for a 'real portrait', sometime soon.
"Sure, only, do you think we could do it in the evening or late afternoon? Even with industrial strength sunscreen, I don't do too well for extended periods in the sun, especially at this time of the year."
"Uh, ahem" she cleared her throat. "Er, uh, well, the sort of posing I had in mind wouldn't require us to be outside, Horatio." The violet-blue in her eyes became more vivid against the flush in her cheeks. A rising pitch in her voice made the next remark sound almost hopeful. "Unless, of course, you're a nudist?"
The next day, at her apartment, her first comment that was she knew he'd be "beautiful without clothes." To his inquiry as to why, she answered, "Well, I suspected it long ago, but watching you bowl was what confirmed it for me. You move with a powerful grace that shouts good muscle balance. You're a joy to watch as you throw a ball, did you know that?"
Never before had he been aware that his blushes didn't stop at his neck.
Two hours later, she released him from the comfortable position they'd both decided they could live with, sitting on the couch, one leg folded under him, the other on the floor as he leaned casually against the back cushion, his head slightly tilted to one side, his gold-red hair attractively engaging the afternoon light from the window on his right. She'd taken a chair opposite him, a few feet away, her pad on her knees.
As soon as she'd suggested a break, glad to be able to move, he rose to stretch, only to see her face spread into a delighted smile as she murmured, "Oh, my!"
"Excuse me?"
"Uh, look at the time! I didn't realize we'd been at it so long. I'll fix some coffee while you get dressed." She hurried off.
As soon as she disappeared, Horatio let out a gust of relief. As detached as she declared she was, as an artist, he'd had a hell of a time controlling himself. Being naked with a woman he found so striking and not acting on it had been almost more than he could bear.
They tried for another sitting for the next week, but work and personal business interfered, and again over the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, they enjoyed lunches together a few times, and even managed to dine on the run, once, on hot dogs from the stand at the park, before Horatio had to return to the lab.
Then, life settled down for them both and they continued meeting at her apartment. After the second posing session, dressed again, Horatio found Sharon in the kitchen, puttering over coffee and 'fixings'. Assured she'd be "done in a second," his eyes fell on her drawing pad on the counter. Curious about the progress of the portrait, he lifted the cover and couldn't help but approve of how she saw him. Wondering what other projects she might be working on, he lifted the clean sheets to reveal several loose papers underneath, each filled with colorful detail. The first was the child she'd been sketching in the park, but the next one left him stunned; clearly it was one of him, nude, but it was one for which he hadn't posed. He was on a bed, on his knees, between a woman's raised legs, facing her. The woman's face was unfinished, merely a blank oval, but he was pretty sure he knew who she was; there was no doubt as to what they were doing.
"Oh! Jeez! Horatio! You're not supposed to have seen that!" Something like fright, and most definitely embarrassment played up the color in her face from her hairline to below the scooped neckline of her blouse. Grabbing the pad, she held it protectively close to her ample chest, turning away to lean into the counter, her head lowered.
Bowing his own head contritely, he whispered, "I'm sorry. That was an invasion of your privacy. I had no right."
Several seconds paced around the clock before he heard her heavy sigh. "Well, I guess turnabout is fair play. I mean, I've pretty much gotten a full view of a few of your secrets, haven't I?" She looked up over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised, a smirk on her lips.
Relieved, intrigued, Horatio cocked his head to one side. "Is that picture, perhaps, wishful thinking on your part? Is the woman I'm with, you?" He didn't think it was possible for anyone to turn that deeply red and not bleed out of their pores. "Hey, its okay. I have to confess, my mind has been there, a couple of times." One hand pushing the pad down, the other drawing her towards him, he pulled her into a warm embrace and kissed her. From the way her arms gripped at his back, he knew their coffee was going to get cold.
A few minutes later in the darkened bedroom, pulling her shirt over her head, she murmured, "So much for artistic detachment."
Helping her with the front clasp bra, his hands swept in to rescue the two released victims, gently caressing and comforting them. "Does this mean no more posing?"
Her hands found his increasing manhood. "Not on your life! Just means an opportunity for more realistic detail."
And since detail was of special interest to Horatio, he decided to see how many of hers he could inventory to catch up with the one she'd obviously taken of him. Although, his inventory wasn't so much of the physical parts of her, but of what made her sigh, what made her gasp, what made her back arch in ecstasy, her legs open in welcome.
An hour later, Horatio didn't let the realization that he was in the very pose depicted in the sketch distract him one bit.