Work Text:
Sara’s day is not going well. In fact, it downright sucks.
It had all started when she’d finally scored a win over her chronic insomnia, only to oversleep instead. Getting ready in record time, she’d hopped into her car with just enough time left to make it into work before assignments were passed out, her clothes rumpled and her hair in disarray, only to discover that she was nearly out of gas. Stopping for said gas had cost her ten minutes she didn’t have, and when she’d finally skidded to a complete stop in front of Grissom in the break room as he was handing out assignment slips, he’d eyed her disapprovingly from behind his glasses as he’d held one out to her.
“Possible 419?” she’d asked, glancing over the small amount of information recorded on it.
“There may be a body,” he’d replied, as if she didn’t already know exactly what the code referred to.
“May be?” she’d echoed.
Grissom’s expression had shifted into something irritatingly impassive. “Details are scant. Vegas PD requested CSI presence. Take Greg with you.”
If she hadn’t already been ready to scream, that would have done it.
“Fine,” she’d told him, watching as everyone else began packing up to head out. “Where are you going?”
“Triple homicide at the Bellagio.”
Ignoring Warrick’s sympathetic look (and Nick’s gleeful one), she’d watched as the rest of the team sashayed off to their arguably much more exciting case in the city, leaving her all alone to solve the mystery of Schrödinger’s corpse out in the middle of nowhere. Alone, that is, except for Greg “I’m an excellent navigator” Sanders, who ended up practically vibrating with excitement in the passenger seat beside her all the way to their alleged crime scene.
As it had turned out, there hadn’t exactly been a body at all, and Greg had lived to regret his earlier enthusiasm. She’d even thought for a moment that he’d hightail it right back to his lab and give up his starry-eyed dreams of field work altogether after the experience they’d shared. Instead, she’d been grudgingly impressed when he’d put on his game face and had gotten on with it. Once David had walked them through their “exam” of the “body” and Greg realized how much they both stunk, she’d patiently instructed him to go buy his own lemons.
So here she is, exhausted and frustrated as hell, waiting in an endless line behind people who obviously don’t know the meaning of ten items or less because the self-checkout kiosks are out of service. Again.
Working the graveyard shift is supposed to come with perks, Sara thinks irritably now as she not-so-patiently waits her turn. One of those perks is supposed to include getting to run errands while the rest of the world is at work. Instead, it seems to her that the entire population of Clark County had chosen to shop at this particular store on this particular weekday morning just to piss her off.
To make matters even worse, the man in front of her keeps turning around to stare meaningfully at her, wrinkling his nose in disgust. At this point, it’s already been three times in five minutes, and Sara promises herself that if he does it again before she makes it to the register, she’ll allow herself to murder him.
She knows how to do it, too. She’d be able to murder him right here in this grocery store full of people and still get away with it. Locard be damned.
When the man turns around a fourth time, she gives him a well-practiced glare and lets her imagination run away with itself. Cause of death? Blunt force trauma to the head. Murder weapon? A plastic bag full of lemons.
Unfortunately for her, she doesn’t have the chance to carry out her plans because it’s his turn to checkout, and he takes his sweet time making small talk with Pollyanna (actual name: Stacey) behind the register. Sara forces herself to keep from joining the conversation and expressing faux astonishment that it is, in fact, hot in Las Vegas this time of year.
When it’s finally her turn, Sara thrusts her bag of lemons at Pollyanna, causing the previously cheerful young woman to raise a cool eyebrow at her. The silent transaction is mercifully short, but it doesn’t stop the girl from yelling “Have a nice day!” at Sara’s retreating back in a tone that implies that she’ll soon become the subject of an I had this bitchy customer story.
Once home, Sara grabs a knife from her kitchen’s cutlery drawer and stalks toward the bathroom, dropping her purse and keys and leaving a trail of shed clothes behind her. By the time she reaches the shower, she’s stark naked, still clutching the bag of lemons and knife.
She’s just beginning to loosen up, letting the hot water work its magic and wash away her many frustrations, when the bathroom door opens.
“You’re letting the steam out!” she protests hotly.
“Bad day?” Warrick purrs, his eyes alight with merriment. Despite not being invited, he quickly disrobes and slides into the shower behind her. He begins dropping kisses on her shoulder, deftly removing the lemon wedge from her hand at the same time. “You taste better than you smell,” he comments, having shifted his attention to her neck.
“Thank you,” Sara says dryly, tilting her head to the side to give him better access. Her breath catches a little when he hits a particularly sensitive spot. “That kind of sweet talk how you get all the girls?”
He chuckles as he squeezes the lemon wedge over the top of her head and finger-combs the juice through her hair. “Nah, I never had much luck with sweet talk. Turns out what really works is torchin’ a dead pig in front of a girl and disproving spontaneous human combustion.”
“You didn’t disprove anything,” she argues. “It could still exist. You just demonstrated that it wasn’t the cause of her death.”
“You’re still not gonna give this up, are you?” he asks affectionately. “So stubborn.”
“We’re scientists,” Sara defends herself. “When you have a problem that you’re trying to solve and you eliminate all the other options, you might someday be left with…”
“The wick effect,” he supplies.
She sighs. “You have no imagination.”
Warrick doesn’t answer, and instead settles for squeezing the last lemon wedge over her shoulder and rubbing the juice into her skin.
“I think you’re sufficiently decorpsified now,” he informs her.
She relaxes back against his chest for a moment and looks up at him fondly. “Thanks.”
“You got it,” he says, aiming his kiss at her lips this time.
He tosses the used wedge into the corner of the shower floor. “So, decomp in an enclosed space, huh?”
She sighs. “Storage drum.”
He gives her a sympathetic wince, and Sara decides to play it up a little.
“Not that you would know,” she adds pointedly, “you got the good case.”
Warrick laughs as he reaches for her shampoo. “Was I supposed to save you?”
“No,” she admits. They both know that she’d rather die than have anyone fight her battles for her, especially against Grissom. “But this was my second one in less than a year, he could have assigned it to someone else.”
Warrick schools his expression into something more serious and pretends to glare down at her while he shampoos her hair. “Hey Gris,” he says, adopting a mock aggressive tone, “stop bein’ such a prick to my girl, here.”
“Your girl?” Sara repeats, surprised. They still hadn’t really defined whatever it was they were actually doing together, and he’d never talked like that before.
“Yeah,” he confirms. “You got a problem with that?”
He’s teasing her now, but she can’t help the warm feeling that spreads through her chest at the thought.
“And if I do?” she asks, playing along.
“You’ll get over it.”
She huffs a laugh at that. “Yeah,” she tells him, “I guess I will.”
Warrick smiles down at her and gestures to her head. “Rinse,” he instructs.
Sara ducks her head under the water and rinses the shampoo out of her hair as Warrick reaches around her for her body wash and then looks around the shower curiously.
“Where’s your poofy thing?” he wonders out loud.
She wrinkles her nose at him. “Those things are a breeding ground for bacteria.”
“There was one hangin’ in here last week,” he counters, amused.
Sara shrugs her shoulder and reaches just outside the shower to grab the clean washcloth she’d previously placed on top of her towel.
“The paper I read on the risk of contracting a bacterial infection from using those things freaked me out, so I switched.”
Warrick laughs the deep, infectious belly laugh of his that she loves.
“Of course you did,” he tells her fondly.
“I’ll email it to you,” she says, “you should read it, it’s interesting.”
“Okay,” he nods, still chuckling. “I will.”
“And I’ll take it from here,” she adds. “Let a woman enjoy the rest of her shower in peace, would you?”
“Oh, I see how it is,” Warrick complains good-naturedly, “help a woman recover from her close encounter with some funky corpse soup and she kicks you out of her shower.”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” Sara hums, grinning at him. “Go. I’m almost done.”
Warrick goes, and she peeks around the curtain long enough to watch him grab a clean towel of his own. He dries himself off, giving her a truly magnificent view of his deliciously muscular body as he does so, then wraps the towel around his waist and exits the bathroom.
Sara goes back to her shower and quickly finishes up. Once she’s dried off and dressed in clean, comfortable clothes, she heads back into her living room and immediately spots a familiar aluminum foil wrapped lump at her place on the table.
“I thought they didn’t open until lunch,” she comments curiously.
Warrick shrugs nonchalantly at her from the other end of the table as he unwraps his own sandwich and takes a big bite. “I know a guy.”
“Who?”
He swallows his bite of sandwich, then answers. “The owner.”
“How?” she asks, bewildered. “Haven’t you only ever been in there with me? Like maybe twice?”
“Maybe I developed a taste for falafel,” he replies.
When Sara fixes him with a suspicious look, he relents.
“Or maybe I stopped by on the way here after work because I couldn’t remember when they opened. And maybe he saw me through the window, recognized me, and insisted on making lunch for Ms. Sidle on the house.” He gives her an amused glance. “They’re big fans of yours in there.”
Now she’s really surprised. “Why?”
He shrugs again. “You’re polite, and patient, and you apparently tip really well, Moneybags. What’s not to like?”
Sara suddenly feels guilty about the fact that, despite being a regular visitor to her favorite restaurant, she wouldn’t be able to pick the owner out of a lineup even with a gun held to her head. “Oh,” she says, dumbfounded. “Wow. Did you thank him for me?”
“Profusely,” Warrick promises solemnly. He points to her sandwich, amusement still shining in his eyes. “Now, sit down and eat, would you?”
Sara gives him a playful salute and pulls out her chair, only to find all the clothes she’d left behind earlier on her way to the shower folded into a neat pile on the seat. Scooping them up, she sets them on her lap when she finally sits down, then meets Warrick’s gaze.
“You’re pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Someone’s gotta take care of you, don’t they?”
Sara rolls her eyes at him as she unwraps her sandwich, but the same warm feeling from earlier comes back and makes itself at home in the center of her chest. She takes a bite and sighs happily. “Thank you.”
Warrick gives her a wink. “No problem.”