Pairing: Grissom/Sara
Rating: Adult
Author: foxtoast

A/N: This was written for the bestkeptprivate lyric wheel fic exchange. My prompt, these lyrics, were given to me by lingering_echo/GrisslyBear, who mistakenly thinks I am capable of writing angst :) Thanks to phdelicious for the beta and coley_merrin for the feedback. Any remaining errors are mine.




The heavy, persistent knocking echoes through her apartment. She stirs, settles, and closes her eyes again before a voice begins to compete with the knocking.

“Sara? Are you home?” It’s him, though she knew it was him before he spoke.

She relents, unfolds herself stiffly from the sofa, cracks the door open until the chain is taut.

“Is something wrong? I didn’t get a page from the lab.” It’s nonchalant. She’s proud of herself. He didn’t see the three nights in a row she cried herself to sleep, and he doesn’t need to hear it in her voice now.

In the thin sliver of light she sees him dip forward and reemerge, pressed against the door. He’s close enough now that she can see his eyes, the brightness drained and the softness melted completely away. She knows these eyes -- she’s seen them only once or twice before but she’s remembered them every day since.

“Can I come in?” He breathes, and his breath is sweet and sticky with scotch.

“Have you been drinking?” She asks in a low tone, almost accusing.

“Sara... Please, I need to talk to you.” He’s pleading now, though he doesn’t let it creep into his tone. Enough scotch to make him come here, she thinks, but not enough to truly lay him bare. Of course.

She hesitates for a moment, then shuts the door enough to loosen the chain. She steps back, swings the door wide, and he enters tentatively but doesn’t make it more than a few feet into the room. Suddenly he feels like an intruder returning to the scene of the crime.

“Sara, I --” he begins, then halts, stutters, and sighs. “I need to talk to you.”

”You already said that,” she replies flatly. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

He looks around as if just realizing it’s the middle of the night.

“It’s after 2:30,” she offers.

“Oh. I forget you sleep at night on the weekends. I’ve never been able to,” he replies lamely.

“Is there a reason you’re here?” She tries keep an even tone, but the resentment knotting in her chest drops her voice just low enough to sound like a warning, the bristling first growl of a cat, cornered but still assessing the threat.

Instead of answering he turns and bolts the door behind him.

She stands, weight on one foot, and waits for him to turn around and face her again. “Whatever this is about, Grissom, it can wait until Monday. And if it can’t wait until Monday it’s probably not a discussion we should be having. Given --”

...Given what, exactly? --

“Sara --”

”I think you should go.” She tries another tactic, cuts him off before he can say whatever it is he wants to say but shouldn’t -- not if he wants to be fair to her after everything that’s transpired.

He doesn’t go, though. He doesn’t say anything.

“Grissom,” she repeats, with far more resolve than she feels, now that the resentment has coiled so tightly around her heart that it’s beginning to become indistinguishable from the breathless, wound sensation that used to come with the anticipation of his touch.

It isn't the same, though; it can't be the same. The summation of all her logic, all her arguments, plotted and graphed, is that this is not desire she feels now. That it can't be -- not after those few fervid, maddening weeks in July -- is taken as the conclusion, not the hypothesis, and her orderly, scientific mind had managed to assign the evidence accordingly.

But now -- now she understands the difference between knowing and wishing, the untenable disconnect between heart and mind, desire and logic, and every other dichotomy she can think of that instantly favors the blistering heat in her core over the cool, rational arguments of all of the rest of her.

And she hates him even more for it, needs him gone now even more than before, because he’s done nothing or everything to break her and she’s still not sure which it is. She just knows she’s broken; she must be, to feel this way about this man.

But he doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t leave, and to Sara the seconds stretch infinitely as she shifts on her feet, lurching the physical coil around her heart at the same time. She has to fill the silence with something, and since it’s their first silence that she can’t fill with kisses, she fills it up with words, meaningless and dry in her mouth, even as she watches his lips and remembers because how could she ever forget?

“Whatever it is you think you have to say -- you don’t. I don’t need an explanation or an apology or... or... whatever it is you came here to say. It doesn’t matter, okay? It’s been three weeks and I’m over it.”

She can’t look at him anymore; she hopes it isn’t because they both know she’s lying.

And she runs out of words, but still he won’t give her any. He lets another leaden, quiet moment pass; then with unanticipated quickness he has her wrist, pulling her toward him, and he fills the silence with a kiss, capturing her bottom lip in his with a boldness that surprises even him when the pliant warmth of it finally registers.

A small whimper escapes her throat, but it is enough to part her lips wide enough for his tongue to find entrance. It strokes her own before darting back and he nips her lower lip and matches her whimper with a low, feral groan of his own as he presses against her.

It takes every ounce of Sara’s strength to snake her arms between them and push him backward, into the door. And now it’s his turn to feel the twisting discomfort in his chest, the feeling of all the sinews of his heart being pulled taut beyond what he can bear -- or what he thought he could bear before she came along and tested that endurance over and over again and proved that when it came to Sara, he could always, always endure just a little bit more.

And it’s his turn to want the distraction of words, however empty, and he watches her back as she seethes but says nothing.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come,” is what he finally offers, but now it’s all wrong.

“We both know that. But you came anyway.”

“I’ll go,” he says in a small voice.

Suddenly she’s facing him again. “Oh no you don’t!” She snaps, and it’s more venomous than she intends but less so than she feels. “You don’t get to show up at my apartment, invite yourself in, kiss me ...like that and leave.” Sara is livid, nearly shouting, her eyes red and rimmed with tears that threaten to fall with every blink.

“I thought you didn’t want --” he begins without confidence, unsure of how to finish.

“I didn’t want you to. I didn’t want you to, but you did anyway. You don’t get to run away now. You don’t get to play by your rules all the time anymore.”

Though she is barely audible over the incessant buzz of the air conditioner there is an edge to her voice that scares him and he nods a little dumbly.

“This is the only way I know how to do this.”

“Do what, exactly, Grissom? Apologize? Fuck me? Make love? All of the above? You’ll forgive me if I’m not very clear on what you’re trying to do here.”

He winces, but only at the truth of it, then grapples for words that never came easily, but don’t come at all now. A furrow settles between his eyebrows and the tendons in his neck flex, but he can’t come up with an answer.

“Do you remember what I asked you three weeks ago?”

Grissom blinks. Of course he remembers. “You asked me what we were doing.”

“And do you remember what you said?”

“Sara --”

”Do you remember what you said?”

“I didn’t say anything,” he admits, and feels as though he’s signed his final confession.

“And then?”

He repeats her name again; it’s all he can do with the twisting fear in his chest burning his lungs and his last three shots of scotch making the pounding of his own heart louder nearly than her voice. He didn’t think this through; he couldn’t think this through -- it was hard enough just to come here.

“And then you left, Grissom. And you didn’t call. For three weeks. And you’re so neatly compartmentalized that it didn’t even break your stride at work. Same old Grissom, nothing ever gets to him.” Sara stops, turns into the kitchen, and pours herself a drink just to give her hands something to do. Maybe then he won’t see the way she’s beginning to shake.

“And maybe I have no right to be angry with you. You didn’t make me any promises. I shouldn’t have assumed it meant anything when you offered to drive me home that night and I shouldn’t have assumed it meant anything when you kissed me, too. It didn’t mean anything when we made a habit out of it; it was Nick -- Nick made us all feel vulnerable, even you, and I can’t blame you for everything that happened. Maybe you needed to feel connected to something or maybe you just needed to feel anything at all -- I don’t know, but assuming it meant something -- that was all me.”

Sara drains her glass of sherry -- cooking sherry, it’s all she keeps in the kitchen -- and sees that he’s followed her into the kitchen, finally uprooting himself from the mat just inside the door.

“What did you expect, Grissom? And what are you trying to do?” She’s earnest now, needing an answer, even if it’s not the right one, because there’s a limit even to what Sara Sidle can bear.

“I didn’t expect anything,” he says, and the familiar, thwarted desire to take her in his arms and kiss her until she gasps for air fills him again as it often did in the days before he had any first hand knowledge of what it felt like to do so. “I’m trying -- I’m trying to apologize, to give you an answer if you still want one. It’s late, I know it’s late, but you deserve at least that much. You deserve so much better.”

”Don’t patronize me -- I deserve to be happy,” she replies, and brushes past him, back to the living room, wishing she’d brought the sherry with her.

Again he follows her and this time he does pull her shoulders against his chest and she lets him, because she thinks if he stays much longer she won’t even have the strength to stand on her own.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he murmurs, “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t Nick. It was you, because it always has been you. And I’ve never been any good at this but with you it’s harder than I ever imagined it could be.”

And he leans to kiss her again because that’s the only way he’ll know it’s not too late, the only way she’ll know all that it is that he can’t quite put it into words yet -- that his answer is that they’re doing something beautiful and normal and perfect, nothing more and nothing less, and one more chance is all he needs because he’s never been so afraid of losing anything in his life.

She kisses him willingly; the soft warm of it seems to melt into him. He remembers how she felt those few weeks ago -- a submerged memory that quickly surfaces beneath the unrelenting assault of her lips. She was always a hungry kisser, never sated, fervently searching his tongue, lips, neck for something she never seemed to find until she found him moaning between her legs, searching for his own release.

His hands followed his lips, snaking through her hair and urging her forward, harder and deeper. When her tongue plunges into his mouth in response he lets his hands roam, down over her shoulders, skimming up under the thin jersey of her t-shirt. The needy ache in his groan only intensifies when he feels her tugging at the waistband of his pants, accompanied by the rasp of zipper teeth parting.

Sara’s touch is cool when it finally encircles him, already erect, and one hot surge of blood makes him throb in her hand. He’s still kissing her, though it makes him dizzy between the singe of her lips and the velvet touch of her fingertips.

And he can’t help it then; his lips part far enough from hers that she can’t follow the kiss and he breathes her name, full of longing.

“I need you,” he says, and it’s another confession.

“Show me,” she replies, lifting one hand to grasp his wrist and guide it back to the other, still wrapped around his cock. His fingers slowly curl around his length and she sets a rhythm, slow and agonizing.

“Show me how much you need me.”

He gasps when her hands leave him but his rhythm doesn’t falter. Without the slow, authoritative metronome of her strokes he speeds up.

“God, Sara, so much,” is all he can manage between each labored breath.

He tries to compensate for the loss of her touch, but nothing could ever match the intensity of her skin around his and the way she murmurs syllables that aren’t quite words but always convey a perfect meaning. He can hear her ragged breathing now, but disentangled from her it seems distant, dampened. His eyes clamped shut, he can’t see the way she watches him and licks her lips, noticing the beads of moisture beginning to leak from his head with every stroke.

“Sara, please,” he moans, “I can’t -- not much longer.”

And instantly her hands return to his heated flesh. His eyes snap open as she urges him backwards until the back of his knees collide with the sofa and he crumples backward. With those long, long legs she seems to tower over him and in one fluid movement she hooks her fingers under the waistband of her pants and shucks them to the floor. She straddles him now, her knees on either side of his thighs, holding herself high enough that he can’t quite reach.

It is her hand that encircles him again as she leans forward to recapture his lips. Lifting herself just enough, she guides the tip of his cock her entrance. With calculated deliberateness her knees relax and gravity pulls, easing him deeper until she’s on his lap and he’s buried as deeply in her as possible, though he still lifts his hips and clutches at her back; it’s an unrelenting desire, and it’s never deep enough.

Sara gives herself only a moment to adjust before her own forceful need becomes too demanding. Again she dictates the momentum, the strong muscles of her thighs lifting her in a rhythm only slightly less ardent than Grissom’s. He struggles to match her pace, desperate as he is, but the fluidity of her, the even pace she maintains, is just maddening and just fulfilling enough to make him follow without attempting to wrest control.

It is Sara who moans first, low and warm, leaning her weight on his shoulders and panting into his ear. The keening noise of her climax and the tightness of her core throbbing around his cock make Grissom falter. His hands shoot to her waist and press her down as he collides with her, a deep moan squeezed from his own chest. When she collapses over him he can reach her neck again; he plants a wet trail of kisses between her chin and her collar bone just as his own climax tightens deep within him. It surges forward, unyielding, and he spills himself within her, punctuating each hot pulse of his cock with a deep groan.

Spent, he too collapses. Sara follows, sliding forward, and sucks in a sharp breath when he slips out of her. Settled on his chest she can hear his heart racing, skin sticky and hot.

Grissom hugs her, brushes the clinging hair back from her face. “I missed you,” he says.

“I missed you, too.”

“About before --”

"Apology accepted,” she interjects and yawns.

“Good to know.”

Reluctantly she slides off his chest and stands on wobbling legs, dropping down to retrieve her pajamas. ”Are you staying? You don’t have to stay,” she adds quickly, “but... how did you get here, anyway?”

"Cab.” He smiles for the first time all night then. “I’ll stay. I'll be staying.” And he stands and takes her small wrist in his hand and moves to kiss away the smile that blooms, as always, in response to his own.