Kinky 4
Title: Kinky (WIP)
Author: Fromgrissom
Fandom: CSI Vegas
Rating: PG13 this chapter but NC17 over all
Pairings: Grissom/Sara, Yo!Bling, some Sara/Thayer
Disclaimer: Don't own CSI -le sigh-
Spoilers: Nothing past S6.
A/N: Previously... Grissom's mom begins her fiendish plot to get her son to see what's right in front of him, ie Sara. Grissom has been having some troubling nightmares. Sara and Thayer have struck up an unlikely friendship.
Chapter Four
“In fear of sounding like a walking cliché…This could have been me.” Her matter-of-fact tone meant that it took Warrick a long five seconds to raise his gaze from the body he was processing. This time there were too many bodies to fit side by side on the bed, instead the only brunette in the group has been sat with her back against the end of the bed and her head resting on her knees. When Warrick didn’t pick up on her cue, Catherine began to elaborate. She tried to ignore the disappointment inside her. There had been a time, not six months ago in fact, when he would have seized upon the slightest hitch, the smallest tremble in her voice, not stopping until he found the root cause. Despite what she had told him, the truth was it had never been a fantasy. Their relationship had been all too real, albeit unacknowledged by either of them, and just as real was the void Catherine felt now that Warrick was married.
“My boss at the club was trying to get me to escort. I had a couple of regulars who were interested, willing to pay the big bucks.” There was something about the way she said it, a softness that only seemed to exist around him that made Warrick pause. He made a valiant attempt to gather his wits before he responded.
“What stopped you?” This time Warrick’s gaze did meet her own. For one fragile moment the connection that had been lost returned. For the tiniest of moments Catherine allowed herself to believe that Warrick felt it too.
“I was almost done with my studies to become a CSI. Figured it wasn’t worth hassle. Should have realised that no one would see much difference between stripper and hooker anyway.” The shrug was pure Catherine, as was the vulnerability shining in her eyes, except Warrick was the only one who knew and recognised the latter trait.
“I do.” Warrick held her stare for one long, expectant minute before he snapped his eyes back to the victim as if he had been caught in the act. Maybe he had. “Manager’s getting us a copy of the phone records for the room. I asked him if he remembered the guy who rented it. Average height, average build.”
“Doesn’t pay to remember details in a motel like this.” Catherine was suddenly glad of the years of practice that allowed her to put all personal stuff out of her head at a moment’s notice. She wouldn’t allow Warrick Brown to become an exception.
They continued to process the scene in easy silence. Catherine bagged numerous hairs from the sheets before moving onto the bathroom. No sooner had she begun to sprinkle the print dust than she realised the enormity of the task. Most killers hid through elimination; elimination of evidence, prints, even witnesses. This guy had used camouflage. The enormous amount of prints in the bathroom made it impossible to tell which ones were linked to the crime. Catherine took as many as she could anyway. They could be useful if they found one to compare it to at one of the other scenes. She tried not to imagine further scenes; more young girls so brutally slain, but the killer’s pace was so fast and furious, yet still obsessively methodical. It was always harder to get a handle on the ones who seemed to be one step ahead, she told herself as she worked her way through the prints.
Warrick allowed himself one glorious moment to look at her while she concentrated on the print she was lifting. He ignored the clench in his chest that screamed his mistake to him whenever he looked at her and often when he didn’t. He tried to see a friend, but he saw a confidante. He tried to see a colleague, but he saw a partner. He tried to see an attraction, but he saw a bond. Shaking his head he interrupted his own thoughts as much as hers.
“How’re you getting on?” Catherine nodded at the pile of prints neatly sealed and labelled.
“You find anything?”
“Blood and hairs mostly. Should be enough to ID the vics though.” Warrick faltered then. He felt like he wanted to say something, to admit something, but when the words burst forth they took him by surprise.
“Do you ever think about what would have happened if we hadn’t got there in time..?” Don’t mention Nick. Never mention the grave. Catherine sighed in relief, pretending this was safer territory than her earlier thoughts, but all the while understanding the intrinsic link between the two subjects better perhaps than Warrick did.
“But he didn’t. He’s safe. We found him.” Warrick nodded mutely although none of his questions felt answered. He continued to watch Catherine as she packed away her kit without making any effort to hide it. To her credit, she didn’t comment on it. Finally she straightened up and looked him square in the eye a shot with understanding that was one hundred percent proof.
“We should organise a party.” Warrick’s smile at this took a long time coming, but slowly it curled, slowly he took what had been there all along; support, and he realised in that moment that the gap that was filled with a diamond ring had never been empty in the first place. No wonder he felt suffocated.
“Tis the season.” He finally found his voice to agree.
CSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSI
Grissom called the meeting to order. In less than 3 hours he needed to have a press release as well as something to placate Ecklie who had been hanging around like a bitch on heat all day, one whiff of evidence enough to have him hump the leg of whichever unlucky CSI was processing. Even Hodges seemed to have lost his usual patience with him, if his tight lipped suggestion that he would beep the lab director with any updates was anything to go by.
With tremendous relief Grissom closed the door to his office, allowing himself to enjoy the privacy of his inner sanctum for a small moment before he turned to face his gathered team. They all knew the stakes. They always did, but there was an unspoken rule that the bigger cases, the ones followed more closely by the media or the sheriff’s office got upgraded from the layout room to Grissom’s office. The significance of the move was not lost on any of his CSIs. Still, the chatter continued as Grissom made his way to his seat. He pretended not to notice Sara sat next to Thayer laughing and joking when not two nights ago she had done the same in his own house. She was giving him that same smile, throwing it to him as if it meant nothing.
“So when will you go out with me?” Thayer whispered audaciously and practically under Grissom’s nose. Sara caught his ice blue glare even if she missed the tensing of Grissom’s hands into fists of tight white rock.
“Thirty second of Never.” She hissed back entirely too playfully as he cleared his throat to call silence. He wondered if any of the others had noticed the interaction and if they thought it was as wrong as he did. He noticed a covert glance in their direction from Greg that he filed away for future scrutiny as he opened the meeting.
“As you are all aware, we are now officially investigating these cases as a serial. Due to the volume of people involved, CSIs as well as victims, it seems logical to pool all our resources in order to catch the guy. So far our only links are the blood from scene two at scene one and the costumes from scene three that was from the same distributor as the costume from scene one.” He paused to venture a glance at Sara, who nodded her confirmation of her findings. “So all we know for certain is that all the subsequent murders took place before the first. There’s no logical timeline and we are still waiting for two of the vics to be identified.” Warrick nodded his own confirmation at this. Two of the vics from the motel were still Jane Does. The other two had been tracked down through their fake names with their escort agencies, and it seemed as if none of the girls had been hired from the same company. It was still beyond him how four bodies could lie dead in a hotel for nearly a week without questions being asked, even if the room was paid up for the whole time.
“You’re telling me that this guy has killed ten people in four days, all of the brutally tortured, and yet we are no closer to nailing him?” Anyone in their right mind could have seen the end of Catherine’s tether approaching from a mile off, anyone except Grissom, who carried on oblivious.
“Well judging from the pattern, the next victims are already dead.” As soon as it left his mouth he knew it was the wrong thing to say. Suddenly everyone’s laps became immensely interesting.
“Oh good, then we can just relax and wait for them to be brought in.” Pissed with a side order of sarcasm. Grissom braced himself as he tried to back pedal.
“I know it’s frustrating…” He started but she interrupted quickly as her rage finally won out over her respect. It wasn’t every day she would raise her voice to him in front of a colleague, let alone the entire team. This was something more.
“It’s not frustrating, Gil. This is total bull shit. This guy is running rings round us and it’s all we can do to keep count.” Catherine got up quickly from her seat and left Grissom’s office with a satisfying slam of his door. Warrick waited a long moment before following her, a part of him making a future decision there and then. Grissom gave an audible sigh before assigning people their various tasks, and then breaking up the meeting. He walked to the door, intending to look for Catherine, but instead unintentionally interrupted Thayer and Sara in the corridor.
“Come on, Sara. When’s your night off?” Thayer boldness earned him yet another smile and Sara opened her mouth to reply, but Grissom found himself cutting her off before he knew what was happening.
“Sara, can I talk to you for a minute.” He managed to use his most supervisory tone to get rid of the other man, but panicked as soon as she began to excuse herself to Thayer as he had no legitimate reason for detaining her. He asked her to close the door behind the retreating backs of the others to buy himself more time. She took a seat and waited politely for him to speak. Grissom opened his mouth a few times, willing his tongue to create words his brain couldn’t think up. Sara’s face suddenly flashed with understanding.
“Is this about the other night? Cos I am so sorry I stayed so long. It’s just Anne- I mean your mom- was just so kind to me. We got talking and… I didn’t mean to stay so long… She just has so many fascinating stories…” Grissom silently thanked the powers that be as Sara rambled. Not only had she gifted him a legitimate reason for breaking up her conversation with Thayer, but also a means to spoiling his plans for a future date. He waited for her to run out of steam before continuing.
“No apology needed. I thought we’d covered that at least ten times on the night.” He joked, but then tensed up, realising how intimate that sounded; as if they were friends, not supervisor and subordinate. “Anyway, what I wanted to ask, on my mom’s behalf, was whether you would like to spend some more time with her. I noticed you had some free time on the rota, and Mom is always left alone during the day. She finds it hard to work around my schedule. But you said you never sleep…” He tailed off, suddenly feeling for all intents and purposes that he had asked her out. He felt like he had caterpillars squirming in his gut. Manduca sexta larvae perhaps, the tobacco hornworm was capable of increasing its weight ten thousand fold in as little as three weeks, or better still something from the Pyralidae family as it would need gills to breathe in the liquid environment… At the first hint of Sara’s smile he released a breathe he hadn’t realised he was holding.
“Of course, Griss. I’d love to. Just let me know what time she’s expecting me and I’ll be there.” She treated him to a wide grin before she left the office, a visible bounce in her step. In spite of himself Grissom smiled. What a chump he had been for thinking her special smiles were given to anyone else. How foolish of him to fail to recognise it as exclusively his. The casual curl of the lips she deigned to bestow up Thayer paled miserably in comparison. Her smile for him was special.
It took a full fifteen minutes for Grissom to remember that this was a bad thing.
Author: Fromgrissom
Fandom: CSI Vegas
Rating: PG13 this chapter but NC17 over all
Pairings: Grissom/Sara, Yo!Bling, some Sara/Thayer
Disclaimer: Don't own CSI -le sigh-
Spoilers: Nothing past S6.
A/N: Previously... Grissom's mom begins her fiendish plot to get her son to see what's right in front of him, ie Sara. Grissom has been having some troubling nightmares. Sara and Thayer have struck up an unlikely friendship.
Chapter Four
“In fear of sounding like a walking cliché…This could have been me.” Her matter-of-fact tone meant that it took Warrick a long five seconds to raise his gaze from the body he was processing. This time there were too many bodies to fit side by side on the bed, instead the only brunette in the group has been sat with her back against the end of the bed and her head resting on her knees. When Warrick didn’t pick up on her cue, Catherine began to elaborate. She tried to ignore the disappointment inside her. There had been a time, not six months ago in fact, when he would have seized upon the slightest hitch, the smallest tremble in her voice, not stopping until he found the root cause. Despite what she had told him, the truth was it had never been a fantasy. Their relationship had been all too real, albeit unacknowledged by either of them, and just as real was the void Catherine felt now that Warrick was married.
“My boss at the club was trying to get me to escort. I had a couple of regulars who were interested, willing to pay the big bucks.” There was something about the way she said it, a softness that only seemed to exist around him that made Warrick pause. He made a valiant attempt to gather his wits before he responded.
“What stopped you?” This time Warrick’s gaze did meet her own. For one fragile moment the connection that had been lost returned. For the tiniest of moments Catherine allowed herself to believe that Warrick felt it too.
“I was almost done with my studies to become a CSI. Figured it wasn’t worth hassle. Should have realised that no one would see much difference between stripper and hooker anyway.” The shrug was pure Catherine, as was the vulnerability shining in her eyes, except Warrick was the only one who knew and recognised the latter trait.
“I do.” Warrick held her stare for one long, expectant minute before he snapped his eyes back to the victim as if he had been caught in the act. Maybe he had. “Manager’s getting us a copy of the phone records for the room. I asked him if he remembered the guy who rented it. Average height, average build.”
“Doesn’t pay to remember details in a motel like this.” Catherine was suddenly glad of the years of practice that allowed her to put all personal stuff out of her head at a moment’s notice. She wouldn’t allow Warrick Brown to become an exception.
They continued to process the scene in easy silence. Catherine bagged numerous hairs from the sheets before moving onto the bathroom. No sooner had she begun to sprinkle the print dust than she realised the enormity of the task. Most killers hid through elimination; elimination of evidence, prints, even witnesses. This guy had used camouflage. The enormous amount of prints in the bathroom made it impossible to tell which ones were linked to the crime. Catherine took as many as she could anyway. They could be useful if they found one to compare it to at one of the other scenes. She tried not to imagine further scenes; more young girls so brutally slain, but the killer’s pace was so fast and furious, yet still obsessively methodical. It was always harder to get a handle on the ones who seemed to be one step ahead, she told herself as she worked her way through the prints.
Warrick allowed himself one glorious moment to look at her while she concentrated on the print she was lifting. He ignored the clench in his chest that screamed his mistake to him whenever he looked at her and often when he didn’t. He tried to see a friend, but he saw a confidante. He tried to see a colleague, but he saw a partner. He tried to see an attraction, but he saw a bond. Shaking his head he interrupted his own thoughts as much as hers.
“How’re you getting on?” Catherine nodded at the pile of prints neatly sealed and labelled.
“You find anything?”
“Blood and hairs mostly. Should be enough to ID the vics though.” Warrick faltered then. He felt like he wanted to say something, to admit something, but when the words burst forth they took him by surprise.
“Do you ever think about what would have happened if we hadn’t got there in time..?” Don’t mention Nick. Never mention the grave. Catherine sighed in relief, pretending this was safer territory than her earlier thoughts, but all the while understanding the intrinsic link between the two subjects better perhaps than Warrick did.
“But he didn’t. He’s safe. We found him.” Warrick nodded mutely although none of his questions felt answered. He continued to watch Catherine as she packed away her kit without making any effort to hide it. To her credit, she didn’t comment on it. Finally she straightened up and looked him square in the eye a shot with understanding that was one hundred percent proof.
“We should organise a party.” Warrick’s smile at this took a long time coming, but slowly it curled, slowly he took what had been there all along; support, and he realised in that moment that the gap that was filled with a diamond ring had never been empty in the first place. No wonder he felt suffocated.
“Tis the season.” He finally found his voice to agree.
CSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSI
Grissom called the meeting to order. In less than 3 hours he needed to have a press release as well as something to placate Ecklie who had been hanging around like a bitch on heat all day, one whiff of evidence enough to have him hump the leg of whichever unlucky CSI was processing. Even Hodges seemed to have lost his usual patience with him, if his tight lipped suggestion that he would beep the lab director with any updates was anything to go by.
With tremendous relief Grissom closed the door to his office, allowing himself to enjoy the privacy of his inner sanctum for a small moment before he turned to face his gathered team. They all knew the stakes. They always did, but there was an unspoken rule that the bigger cases, the ones followed more closely by the media or the sheriff’s office got upgraded from the layout room to Grissom’s office. The significance of the move was not lost on any of his CSIs. Still, the chatter continued as Grissom made his way to his seat. He pretended not to notice Sara sat next to Thayer laughing and joking when not two nights ago she had done the same in his own house. She was giving him that same smile, throwing it to him as if it meant nothing.
“So when will you go out with me?” Thayer whispered audaciously and practically under Grissom’s nose. Sara caught his ice blue glare even if she missed the tensing of Grissom’s hands into fists of tight white rock.
“Thirty second of Never.” She hissed back entirely too playfully as he cleared his throat to call silence. He wondered if any of the others had noticed the interaction and if they thought it was as wrong as he did. He noticed a covert glance in their direction from Greg that he filed away for future scrutiny as he opened the meeting.
“As you are all aware, we are now officially investigating these cases as a serial. Due to the volume of people involved, CSIs as well as victims, it seems logical to pool all our resources in order to catch the guy. So far our only links are the blood from scene two at scene one and the costumes from scene three that was from the same distributor as the costume from scene one.” He paused to venture a glance at Sara, who nodded her confirmation of her findings. “So all we know for certain is that all the subsequent murders took place before the first. There’s no logical timeline and we are still waiting for two of the vics to be identified.” Warrick nodded his own confirmation at this. Two of the vics from the motel were still Jane Does. The other two had been tracked down through their fake names with their escort agencies, and it seemed as if none of the girls had been hired from the same company. It was still beyond him how four bodies could lie dead in a hotel for nearly a week without questions being asked, even if the room was paid up for the whole time.
“You’re telling me that this guy has killed ten people in four days, all of the brutally tortured, and yet we are no closer to nailing him?” Anyone in their right mind could have seen the end of Catherine’s tether approaching from a mile off, anyone except Grissom, who carried on oblivious.
“Well judging from the pattern, the next victims are already dead.” As soon as it left his mouth he knew it was the wrong thing to say. Suddenly everyone’s laps became immensely interesting.
“Oh good, then we can just relax and wait for them to be brought in.” Pissed with a side order of sarcasm. Grissom braced himself as he tried to back pedal.
“I know it’s frustrating…” He started but she interrupted quickly as her rage finally won out over her respect. It wasn’t every day she would raise her voice to him in front of a colleague, let alone the entire team. This was something more.
“It’s not frustrating, Gil. This is total bull shit. This guy is running rings round us and it’s all we can do to keep count.” Catherine got up quickly from her seat and left Grissom’s office with a satisfying slam of his door. Warrick waited a long moment before following her, a part of him making a future decision there and then. Grissom gave an audible sigh before assigning people their various tasks, and then breaking up the meeting. He walked to the door, intending to look for Catherine, but instead unintentionally interrupted Thayer and Sara in the corridor.
“Come on, Sara. When’s your night off?” Thayer boldness earned him yet another smile and Sara opened her mouth to reply, but Grissom found himself cutting her off before he knew what was happening.
“Sara, can I talk to you for a minute.” He managed to use his most supervisory tone to get rid of the other man, but panicked as soon as she began to excuse herself to Thayer as he had no legitimate reason for detaining her. He asked her to close the door behind the retreating backs of the others to buy himself more time. She took a seat and waited politely for him to speak. Grissom opened his mouth a few times, willing his tongue to create words his brain couldn’t think up. Sara’s face suddenly flashed with understanding.
“Is this about the other night? Cos I am so sorry I stayed so long. It’s just Anne- I mean your mom- was just so kind to me. We got talking and… I didn’t mean to stay so long… She just has so many fascinating stories…” Grissom silently thanked the powers that be as Sara rambled. Not only had she gifted him a legitimate reason for breaking up her conversation with Thayer, but also a means to spoiling his plans for a future date. He waited for her to run out of steam before continuing.
“No apology needed. I thought we’d covered that at least ten times on the night.” He joked, but then tensed up, realising how intimate that sounded; as if they were friends, not supervisor and subordinate. “Anyway, what I wanted to ask, on my mom’s behalf, was whether you would like to spend some more time with her. I noticed you had some free time on the rota, and Mom is always left alone during the day. She finds it hard to work around my schedule. But you said you never sleep…” He tailed off, suddenly feeling for all intents and purposes that he had asked her out. He felt like he had caterpillars squirming in his gut. Manduca sexta larvae perhaps, the tobacco hornworm was capable of increasing its weight ten thousand fold in as little as three weeks, or better still something from the Pyralidae family as it would need gills to breathe in the liquid environment… At the first hint of Sara’s smile he released a breathe he hadn’t realised he was holding.
“Of course, Griss. I’d love to. Just let me know what time she’s expecting me and I’ll be there.” She treated him to a wide grin before she left the office, a visible bounce in her step. In spite of himself Grissom smiled. What a chump he had been for thinking her special smiles were given to anyone else. How foolish of him to fail to recognise it as exclusively his. The casual curl of the lips she deigned to bestow up Thayer paled miserably in comparison. Her smile for him was special.
It took a full fifteen minutes for Grissom to remember that this was a bad thing.