csi fic: chocolate kisses and candy hearts
TITLE: Chocolate Kisses and Candy Hearts
SUMMARY: Valentine’s Day, circa season one. Follows Just Another Morning but you don’t need to read that to understand this story, although there are some similar themes.
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own CSI.
A/N: atruwriter requested a Sara/Nick friendship series after I posed Just Another Morning. So this story second in a series that has yet to be titled (any suggestions?).
+++
K-Mart at seven in the evening was oddly quiet. Usually the store was busier, but Sara supposed the unusual quietness of the evening was a result of it being Valentine’s Day. Certainly the candy aisle she was in was dead.
Holiday-themed packaging stared at her. The pickings were a bit slim, but the main candy groups were all present and accounted for. There were six shelves half-filled with candy packaged in red and pink and silver foil.
A red shopping basket lay at Sara’s feet, its bottom already covered by a layer of candy packages. There was two bags of Peeps and a bag of cinnamon hearts. Cinnamon hearts weren’t Sara’s favorite. They were however traditional and she was in a traditional mood today. So the cinnamon hearts stayed.
Besides, all the candy was half-price. She could spring the two bucks.
She had a mental list of the candy needed. The last item on her list was a bag of half-priced Hershey kisses. The solid chocolate ones were preferable. She’d take the chocolate and vanilla striped kisses if she had to though.
None of the lower shelves had what she was searching for. The top shelf was loaded with a variety of candy, a refill sort of self. The candy was packed densely and right in the middle were the bags of kisses. Sara took a step closer to the shelving unit and raised herself up on tiptoes. She was just a little shorter than the shelving unit. Stretching she could reach the top shelf without too much effort.
It was as she grabbed a bag that everything went wrong.
She heard footsteps and instinctually inched closer to the metal shelving unit. As she shifted position, her hand swiped the apparently unstable bags of kisses. The bags rained down, fifteen or so silver packages tumbling down to the off-white colored floor. Sara winced at the loud thud the bags made as they landed, and started mentally calculating how much she’d have to pay to purchase the spilt candy.
Sara turned to apologize to the person behind her. She had heard at least one bag hit a body other than hers. The bags never seemed heavy when she had picked them up before. Falling from a distance of just over six feet apparently made the bags heavier.
She faced the poor person she had accidentally attacked with bags of candy kisses and was treated to the second shock of the night.
“I was just going to say hello,” Nick said dryly. He was standing maybe two inches from her, dressed casually in jeans and a red long-sleeved shirt. The shopping basket in his hand was just a shade lighter than the shirt Nick wore.
Sara smiled wanly at her coworker of just over six months. She had just sent candy raining down on one of her few friends at work. It was a wonderful conclusion to a lousy Valentine’s Day spent by herself, coped up in her apartment, ordering items from a catalogue just to get a little human contact.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. My ego might be a little bruised, but physically I’m fine.” Nick’s voice was a little wry. “You?”
“I think I’m more shocked than hurt.”
Nick nodded. He shifted his basket to his other hand. “That’s good.”
Sara surveyed the small mess around them. Just over half a dozen bags were on the floor, the candy probably squished from their flight. Cheap chocolate was hard but not invincible. Candy could crack and it could even break.
“I feel bad-“ she started to say. Nick held up a hand, stopping her speech.
“Don’t be. It was an accident.” He bent down and picked up three bags. He tossed them into his basket. He glanced up at her. “Want any?”
Sara held up two fingers, deciding to be more extravagant than she had originally intended to be. She figured she should buy more than one of the bags of candy she had caused to fall to the floor, even if the action had been accidental.
Nick squatted again and retrieved two silver bags. He dropped them into her basket, which had somehow avoided the falling debris.
“Can you grab me a thing of Peeps?”
The Peeps were at a safe level, nice and low and no stretching required. She picked a random bag and handed it over to Nick. Their fingertips touched briefly in the quick exchange, skin against skin for just a second.
Sara reached down and hefted her basket. “I see you’re doing a Valentine’s Day candy run too.”
Nick stepped around the bags on the floor to head down the aisle. “My sisters taught me to partake in inexpensive Valentine candy.”
She followed him down the aisle, because that was what a person did when they were in a conversation. “Oh?” she said, causally trying to pry for a bit of information. She knew next to nothing about Nick’s family. They weren’t close friends, just causal acquaintances joined by a shared activity.
In their case, it was work that led them to be friends of the causal variety.
“It’s a Strokes family tradition,” Nick said. He shifted his head towards her and smiled conspiratorially. “My father hated it. He said my mothers and sisters were a corrupting force, poisoning his two sons.”
Sara laughed lightly, the laughter coming naturally. She preferred laughter that way. “I bet,” she replied once she had finished laughing. It was the required response, the response convention demanded. It felt normal though, not forced at all, and Sara enjoyed that feeling. She didn't get it often in social situations. She tended to be the awkward, timing-off girl. Not tonight thankfully.
“The Strokes girls would approve of your purchases.”
“Oh, would they now?”
Nick nodded solemnly. “Marshmallows, cinnamon, and chocolate-all approved by their handbook,” he said somberly. The smile on his face belied his tone.
She tried to peer into Nick’s basket. It was swinging back and forth in a gentle motion, on Nick’s right side. Sara was to his left. The basket was nearly solid and hid its treasures from her.
“What about you?” she asked curiously. “Would your sisters approve?”
“Yep,” Nick replied smiling. “I’ve got Peeps, chocolate kisses, and candy hearts.”
“I always hated those candy hearts,” Sara said with a grimace. The candy hearts tasted like chalk and had the corniest sayings on them. They held little appeal. She had bypassed them. The cinnamon hearts, while not her favorite, were at least edible.
Nick shrugged causally. “I like them.”
“They taste like chalk,” Sara retorted with a shake of her head. Her ponytail swished back and forth, a comfortable weight against the back of her head.
“They have cute sayings.”
Sara allowed her grimace to deepened, but she wasn’t being serious. The conversation wasn’t serious. It was light-heartened teasing, something she didn’t engage in nearly as often as she should. It feel annoyingly good. “Cute sayings don’t override the horrid taste.”
“I still like them.”
“To each their own,” Sara quoted and smiled, the mock grimace now gone.
“Very true,” Nick said, his words ending the conversation. They were nearing the checkout tills, their encounter coming to a natural end.
She was prepared for Nick to part from her now. Instead he asked, “So, how was your Valentine’s Day?”
“I spent the morning sleeping and watched some X-Files reruns in the late afternoon,” she confided. She omitted the time spent on the phone, purchasing two sweaters and a pair of pants she didn’t really need. She didn’t need to appear pathetic. She was okay with her life. It wasn’t anything to sing about, but it was hers and she was content with what she had.
On occasion she wanted more. But that was normal, wasn't it? Everyone wanted more at some point in their lives. It was just a fact of being human.
“Sounds like fun.”
Sara swallowed heavily. “What about you.”
“Slept, ate some pizza, watched the sports highlights. Basically what I do every night.”
They were at the checkout tills. There wasn't a line-up at the one checkout counter open.
“You done? We could share our candy,” Sara suggested impulsively.
While she was usually content with her life, she couldn’t deny being lonely. Vegas had yet to become home and she had few friends to spend time with in the city. It was Valentine’s Day and being lonely until she headed into work just didn’t really appeal to her.
Hence her impulsive, semi-invite directed at Nick.
“What did you have in mind?”
“Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown is on at nine.”
Nick smiled. “Gotta love that Charlie Brown.”
“He does have a certain attraction,” Sara conceded. She wasn’t a huge fan of Charlie Brown holiday specials, but there was something timeless about the cartoons. Maybe it was how Charlie Brown rarely came out on top. Usually the main character of a show won in the end, got the girl and the wonderful life. Charlie Brown tended to gain nothing, stuck in a static life.
“My place?”
“Sounds good,” Sara said. “I just need to grab one more thing.” She pointed in the direction of the cooler section to clarify what she needed to grab. Nick headed in that direction, something she hadn’t counted on, and Sara followed.
She took the lead once they reached the section. She found what she wanted immediately, having been to this aisle numerous times before. She grabbed the six-pack of chocolate-flavored frappuccino drink.
“You are a coffee addict,” Nick commented idly as they walked back towards the checkout tills.
“And that’s a problem?”
“Starbucks is just so commercial.”
“It tastes good,” Sara argued. It was coffee and chocolate mixed together. It satisfied her need for caffeine and fulfilled the daily quota for her sweet tooth. It could be considered an indulgence, but she was okay with that. Most people had at least one indulgence. It wasn't like Nick had no indulgences.
“It’s mass consumerism. It’s expensive and you could just as easily make it yourself.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “How much money do you and Warrick spend on video games, all with the same general theme?”
“They aren’t the same,” Nick said defensively.
Sara rolled her eyes, feeling like she had reverted ten years in age. But it felt oddly good and so she tried not to overanalyze the situation. She was always over thinking. Her resolution had been to stop over thinking things. “Some are incredibly similar," she said, refusing to concede the point.
In truth, Sara didn't care if Nick and Warrick wanted to spend fifty bucks to pay a video game. If video games were their life indulgence that was fine with her. She just wanted to make a point and yet she wasn't sure why she felt the need to make this point. She just did, an urge impossible to deny, and so she gave in.
She hated when she did that. It tended to make people wary of her.
“Just buy your coffee,” Nick said, giving up defending his video game purchases. He was smiling, though, which meant the teasing had been done in good fun and everything was still fine between them. At least for right now everything was fine between them.
“That’s all I wanted.”
They got to the checkout and paid for their stuff. Nick gave her directions to his place and twenty minutes later they were on his couch, candy spread out on his coffee table. Charlie Brown mooned over the redheaded girl as they ate candy. She drank two of her frappuccino drinks while Nick consumed two cans of Coke. She followed Nick’s car to work. They were buzzed on sugar and caffeine. Grissom assigned them to work together and they crashed at the same time.
The day ended much better than it had begun, Sara concluded, as she drove home on the morning of the fifteenth. Nothing to write home about, but a nice enough day overall. It was Valentine's Day, a day that deserved to be nice.
A week later, Nick invited her to see a film playing at the second-run theater. They were making the transition from causal acquaintances to actual friends.
And there was something nice about that.
+++
The End
SUMMARY: Valentine’s Day, circa season one. Follows Just Another Morning but you don’t need to read that to understand this story, although there are some similar themes.
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own CSI.
A/N: atruwriter requested a Sara/Nick friendship series after I posed Just Another Morning. So this story second in a series that has yet to be titled (any suggestions?).
+++
K-Mart at seven in the evening was oddly quiet. Usually the store was busier, but Sara supposed the unusual quietness of the evening was a result of it being Valentine’s Day. Certainly the candy aisle she was in was dead.
Holiday-themed packaging stared at her. The pickings were a bit slim, but the main candy groups were all present and accounted for. There were six shelves half-filled with candy packaged in red and pink and silver foil.
A red shopping basket lay at Sara’s feet, its bottom already covered by a layer of candy packages. There was two bags of Peeps and a bag of cinnamon hearts. Cinnamon hearts weren’t Sara’s favorite. They were however traditional and she was in a traditional mood today. So the cinnamon hearts stayed.
Besides, all the candy was half-price. She could spring the two bucks.
She had a mental list of the candy needed. The last item on her list was a bag of half-priced Hershey kisses. The solid chocolate ones were preferable. She’d take the chocolate and vanilla striped kisses if she had to though.
None of the lower shelves had what she was searching for. The top shelf was loaded with a variety of candy, a refill sort of self. The candy was packed densely and right in the middle were the bags of kisses. Sara took a step closer to the shelving unit and raised herself up on tiptoes. She was just a little shorter than the shelving unit. Stretching she could reach the top shelf without too much effort.
It was as she grabbed a bag that everything went wrong.
She heard footsteps and instinctually inched closer to the metal shelving unit. As she shifted position, her hand swiped the apparently unstable bags of kisses. The bags rained down, fifteen or so silver packages tumbling down to the off-white colored floor. Sara winced at the loud thud the bags made as they landed, and started mentally calculating how much she’d have to pay to purchase the spilt candy.
Sara turned to apologize to the person behind her. She had heard at least one bag hit a body other than hers. The bags never seemed heavy when she had picked them up before. Falling from a distance of just over six feet apparently made the bags heavier.
She faced the poor person she had accidentally attacked with bags of candy kisses and was treated to the second shock of the night.
“I was just going to say hello,” Nick said dryly. He was standing maybe two inches from her, dressed casually in jeans and a red long-sleeved shirt. The shopping basket in his hand was just a shade lighter than the shirt Nick wore.
Sara smiled wanly at her coworker of just over six months. She had just sent candy raining down on one of her few friends at work. It was a wonderful conclusion to a lousy Valentine’s Day spent by herself, coped up in her apartment, ordering items from a catalogue just to get a little human contact.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. My ego might be a little bruised, but physically I’m fine.” Nick’s voice was a little wry. “You?”
“I think I’m more shocked than hurt.”
Nick nodded. He shifted his basket to his other hand. “That’s good.”
Sara surveyed the small mess around them. Just over half a dozen bags were on the floor, the candy probably squished from their flight. Cheap chocolate was hard but not invincible. Candy could crack and it could even break.
“I feel bad-“ she started to say. Nick held up a hand, stopping her speech.
“Don’t be. It was an accident.” He bent down and picked up three bags. He tossed them into his basket. He glanced up at her. “Want any?”
Sara held up two fingers, deciding to be more extravagant than she had originally intended to be. She figured she should buy more than one of the bags of candy she had caused to fall to the floor, even if the action had been accidental.
Nick squatted again and retrieved two silver bags. He dropped them into her basket, which had somehow avoided the falling debris.
“Can you grab me a thing of Peeps?”
The Peeps were at a safe level, nice and low and no stretching required. She picked a random bag and handed it over to Nick. Their fingertips touched briefly in the quick exchange, skin against skin for just a second.
Sara reached down and hefted her basket. “I see you’re doing a Valentine’s Day candy run too.”
Nick stepped around the bags on the floor to head down the aisle. “My sisters taught me to partake in inexpensive Valentine candy.”
She followed him down the aisle, because that was what a person did when they were in a conversation. “Oh?” she said, causally trying to pry for a bit of information. She knew next to nothing about Nick’s family. They weren’t close friends, just causal acquaintances joined by a shared activity.
In their case, it was work that led them to be friends of the causal variety.
“It’s a Strokes family tradition,” Nick said. He shifted his head towards her and smiled conspiratorially. “My father hated it. He said my mothers and sisters were a corrupting force, poisoning his two sons.”
Sara laughed lightly, the laughter coming naturally. She preferred laughter that way. “I bet,” she replied once she had finished laughing. It was the required response, the response convention demanded. It felt normal though, not forced at all, and Sara enjoyed that feeling. She didn't get it often in social situations. She tended to be the awkward, timing-off girl. Not tonight thankfully.
“The Strokes girls would approve of your purchases.”
“Oh, would they now?”
Nick nodded solemnly. “Marshmallows, cinnamon, and chocolate-all approved by their handbook,” he said somberly. The smile on his face belied his tone.
She tried to peer into Nick’s basket. It was swinging back and forth in a gentle motion, on Nick’s right side. Sara was to his left. The basket was nearly solid and hid its treasures from her.
“What about you?” she asked curiously. “Would your sisters approve?”
“Yep,” Nick replied smiling. “I’ve got Peeps, chocolate kisses, and candy hearts.”
“I always hated those candy hearts,” Sara said with a grimace. The candy hearts tasted like chalk and had the corniest sayings on them. They held little appeal. She had bypassed them. The cinnamon hearts, while not her favorite, were at least edible.
Nick shrugged causally. “I like them.”
“They taste like chalk,” Sara retorted with a shake of her head. Her ponytail swished back and forth, a comfortable weight against the back of her head.
“They have cute sayings.”
Sara allowed her grimace to deepened, but she wasn’t being serious. The conversation wasn’t serious. It was light-heartened teasing, something she didn’t engage in nearly as often as she should. It feel annoyingly good. “Cute sayings don’t override the horrid taste.”
“I still like them.”
“To each their own,” Sara quoted and smiled, the mock grimace now gone.
“Very true,” Nick said, his words ending the conversation. They were nearing the checkout tills, their encounter coming to a natural end.
She was prepared for Nick to part from her now. Instead he asked, “So, how was your Valentine’s Day?”
“I spent the morning sleeping and watched some X-Files reruns in the late afternoon,” she confided. She omitted the time spent on the phone, purchasing two sweaters and a pair of pants she didn’t really need. She didn’t need to appear pathetic. She was okay with her life. It wasn’t anything to sing about, but it was hers and she was content with what she had.
On occasion she wanted more. But that was normal, wasn't it? Everyone wanted more at some point in their lives. It was just a fact of being human.
“Sounds like fun.”
Sara swallowed heavily. “What about you.”
“Slept, ate some pizza, watched the sports highlights. Basically what I do every night.”
They were at the checkout tills. There wasn't a line-up at the one checkout counter open.
“You done? We could share our candy,” Sara suggested impulsively.
While she was usually content with her life, she couldn’t deny being lonely. Vegas had yet to become home and she had few friends to spend time with in the city. It was Valentine’s Day and being lonely until she headed into work just didn’t really appeal to her.
Hence her impulsive, semi-invite directed at Nick.
“What did you have in mind?”
“Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown is on at nine.”
Nick smiled. “Gotta love that Charlie Brown.”
“He does have a certain attraction,” Sara conceded. She wasn’t a huge fan of Charlie Brown holiday specials, but there was something timeless about the cartoons. Maybe it was how Charlie Brown rarely came out on top. Usually the main character of a show won in the end, got the girl and the wonderful life. Charlie Brown tended to gain nothing, stuck in a static life.
“My place?”
“Sounds good,” Sara said. “I just need to grab one more thing.” She pointed in the direction of the cooler section to clarify what she needed to grab. Nick headed in that direction, something she hadn’t counted on, and Sara followed.
She took the lead once they reached the section. She found what she wanted immediately, having been to this aisle numerous times before. She grabbed the six-pack of chocolate-flavored frappuccino drink.
“You are a coffee addict,” Nick commented idly as they walked back towards the checkout tills.
“And that’s a problem?”
“Starbucks is just so commercial.”
“It tastes good,” Sara argued. It was coffee and chocolate mixed together. It satisfied her need for caffeine and fulfilled the daily quota for her sweet tooth. It could be considered an indulgence, but she was okay with that. Most people had at least one indulgence. It wasn't like Nick had no indulgences.
“It’s mass consumerism. It’s expensive and you could just as easily make it yourself.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “How much money do you and Warrick spend on video games, all with the same general theme?”
“They aren’t the same,” Nick said defensively.
Sara rolled her eyes, feeling like she had reverted ten years in age. But it felt oddly good and so she tried not to overanalyze the situation. She was always over thinking. Her resolution had been to stop over thinking things. “Some are incredibly similar," she said, refusing to concede the point.
In truth, Sara didn't care if Nick and Warrick wanted to spend fifty bucks to pay a video game. If video games were their life indulgence that was fine with her. She just wanted to make a point and yet she wasn't sure why she felt the need to make this point. She just did, an urge impossible to deny, and so she gave in.
She hated when she did that. It tended to make people wary of her.
“Just buy your coffee,” Nick said, giving up defending his video game purchases. He was smiling, though, which meant the teasing had been done in good fun and everything was still fine between them. At least for right now everything was fine between them.
“That’s all I wanted.”
They got to the checkout and paid for their stuff. Nick gave her directions to his place and twenty minutes later they were on his couch, candy spread out on his coffee table. Charlie Brown mooned over the redheaded girl as they ate candy. She drank two of her frappuccino drinks while Nick consumed two cans of Coke. She followed Nick’s car to work. They were buzzed on sugar and caffeine. Grissom assigned them to work together and they crashed at the same time.
The day ended much better than it had begun, Sara concluded, as she drove home on the morning of the fifteenth. Nothing to write home about, but a nice enough day overall. It was Valentine's Day, a day that deserved to be nice.
A week later, Nick invited her to see a film playing at the second-run theater. They were making the transition from causal acquaintances to actual friends.
And there was something nice about that.
+++
The End