Disclaimer: If I owned CSI, that pornstache never would've graced Nicky's face. It did, ergo one can reasonably conclude that I do not own CSI. The title is ruthlessly stolen from a Magnetic Fields song as I can't title anything to save my life.

classification: GSR

100,000 Fireflies: part 1/2

I spend my evenings alone talking to your picture, babe
Love is wrapped around my heart like a boa constrictor, babe
-- The Magnetic Fields

The rain slashed across the windshield in unrelenting sheets; it didn't rain often in the desert, but when it did it made up for lost time. Sara huddled against the side of the car, silently keeping one eye on the driver. The driver, in turn, kept his full attention on the dim road, gripping the steering wheel and occasionally flexing his knuckles. He seemed intent, almost doggedly so, and Sara wondered idly what engrossed him so completely. She was never privy to his private universe -- no one was, she reminded herself -- but even after five years curiosity still stirred her thoughts.

Moments, minutes, later, Sara was shaken out of her own aimless thinking as the car slowed to a stop. She looked up to see a police officer approaching the car; Grissom rolled his window down obligingly.

"Road's washed out ahead; you'll have to turn back," the officer shouted over the wind and rain.

Grissom seemed to ponder for a minute before answering "We're with the Las Vegas Crime Lab. Is there a detour established?"

The officer shook his head, his flashlight bobbing up and down. "No, sir. Best you can do is turn around and stick it out for the night. It'll take hours for the road to reopen."

Grissom turned to Sara deferentially; Sara noted dimly that it was the first time he had acknowledged her existence in over an hour. "Sounds like we have to head back to town."

She nodded vaguely. The car was now heading back in the opposite direction, toward a tiny patch of lights. The town they had driven through was a 'town' only by the most liberal definition -- it possessed a gas station, a Denny's, and a few rambly, single-story motels, remnants of 1940s.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the parking lot of one of those antiquated motels. Sara peered out the window at the garish neon sign.

"'Desert Oasis Motel.' Nice." She turned to Grissom and raised an eyebrow, the faintest smirk playing on her lips.

Grissom, apparently, was in no mood to play along. "It'll do for tonight. The other option is sitting on the side of road, waiting all night for a detour," he responded flatly. "You stay here. I'll get us rooms."

Sara obeyed, watching Grissom dart through the rain to the bright office. She cleared the fog off the window with the back of her hand and watched as Grissom spoke with the clerk. How many of his commands had she thoughtlessly followed? How many had she followed because he was her direct superior, and how many had gone unquestioned because she longed for his approval? Sara tried to brush this to the back of her mind as the hazy figure of Grissom returned to the car.

Grissom slid back into the car, soaking wet, and dropped a key on her lap. "Room 107."

Sara picked it up and blinked at his curtness. Grissom, oblivious, pulled the car forward to the strip of rooms, parking in front of room 107. The 7 dangled upside down by one screw and Sara noticed a dark brownish stain on the inside of the curtain. Classy place, she thought to herself.

"Sara -- I'll grab your things from the back if you want to go open the door. No reason for both of us to get soaking wet out here."

Sara nodded and obeyed, again, getting out of the car and dashing the few feet to the overhang. Pushing the door open cautiously, she was met with the room that lived up the seedy promises of the sign and the dingy curtains. Sara suppressed a shudder looking at the bed -- dark brown shag carpeting and discolored green paisley bedspreads didn't inherently imply that the sheets hadn't been washed between the last five or six or seven guests but it certainly suggested it.

Grissom was now standing behind her carrying her kit and a small messenger bag. "It's not much, I know, but you know the lab's reimbursement policies."

Sara glanced over her shoulder and was surprised to find a sly, tiny smile greeting her. She grinned back involuntarily and turned to take the bag from his outstretched hand. "Thanks," she murmured.

"I don't suppose you left the house this evening with an overnight in mind."

Sara flipped open her bag. "I have the bare essentials," she replied. Toothbrush and tampon,she thought, only one of which she needed. It was going to be a long night.

"Is Nonoxynol-9 one of those bare essentials?" That smirk again -- faint as it was, she was sure she saw it.

"Ah -- no. I'll just make sure not to... ah... touch anything. At all." She sighed.

"Good plan," Grissom said, placing a hand on her shoulder before turning to leave. "I'll be right next door in room 108." He nodded toward the room to her right.

"Right. See you in the morning."

Grissom nodded again and disappeared. The driving rain had managed to blow under the short overhang while the door was open, leaving a wet puddle on the shag carpet. Sara pushed the door shut against the wind and kicked her shoes off, being careful to avoid the soggy entryway. She sighed and looked around the room again.

"I'm here now -- might as well make the best of it," she said softly to herself, knowing full well that there was little she could do to 'make the best of it.' She was out of her comfortable surroundings, unable to work, unable to relax. Not to mention the ...tantalizing proximity of a certain someone would be enough to keep her up all night. Sara shook her head vigorously, as if trying to dislodge the thought. It would creep back in again, she knew, but for a minute she managed to not think of Grissom performing mundane evening activities -- brushing his teeth, changing, reading in bed. Half of her fantasies, she admitted to herself, were this unremarkable; the quiet intimacy of sharing any of these things with Grissom was more arousing than many of her most elaborate imaginings of declarations and trysts in the lab.

Sara shook her head again; the thoughts were infiltrating again already. She made her way to the bathroom and turned on the hot water in the shower, nearly as hot as it would go. Dropping her clothes on the floor, she slid one leg into the shower, wincing slightly at the heat. As it acclimated, she eased the rest of her body in. Sara ignored the splotchy red patches the hot water left on her skin. There was something purging about the mild burn and it felt good to rinse off a double shift's worth of mud and cold rain.

She would have stayed there all night if she could have but the water was slowly cooling and losing its cathartic power. The motel had graciously provided her with just one thin towel. She pulled it down from the bar and wrapped it around herself. It was about as absorbent as a sheet of paper, she noted, grabbing the small hand towel to dry her hair. In uncharacteristic messiness, she dropped both towels on the bathroom floor before slipping back into her panties and tanktop. Dirty clothes are better than no clothes when you don't know what, exactly, you're about to sleep on.

As she stepped out of the bathroom, Sara couldn't help but notice the low bass traveling through the wall. Grissom must be watching TV. Despite her logical brain's protest, curiosity got the better of her, as it often did. She padded up to the double door that separated their rooms and cautiously opened it, pressing an ear to the thin door on Grissom's side. ...He was watching the news. She shifted around to angle her head toward the sound. ...BBC News and World Report. This was no great insight, of course; he was probably watching whatever was on PBS. It added to her mental image, however -- a little detail to embellish the private life of Gil Grissom.

Reluctantly, she pulled herself away from the door and lay down on the bed. Staring back down at her from the ceiling was a large, irregularly shaped water stain. It roughly matched the hue of the carpet, she noted with distaste. Sara switched off the light and rolled over onto her side. The unrelenting rain still pelted against the thin glass windows, fitting weather for her current state of mind. She noted with mild irony that the rain was the reason for her predicament in the first place. She was too old, too wise, too mature to feel this way -- she wasn't a high school girl with a crush on her chemistry teacher. She was an adult, wanting an adult relationship. She should also be adult enough to handle a little rejection without feeling so awkward and, she noted bitterly, vaguely stalkerish.

Sara squinted her eyes shut tightly. There was no escaping it tonight, but she vowed that little by little, she would train her own feelings into accordance with Grissom's -- platonic friendliness and erotic indifference. She repeated this to herself and blinked back a few tears. Sound travels easily through thin walls, she reminded herself, and he doesn't need to hear me crying. Sara curled around her pillow and in defiance of the tears, took several deep, slow breaths to calm herself down. She hugged the pillow tightly and changed her mantra. Starting tomorrow, it will begin to get better. She repeated this several times before sleep overtook her and she drifted peacefully away.

End 1/2

Part 2 will have less angst -- promise. ...Or, at least, a bit less angst + happy ending. As this is a work in progress (and my first CSI fic of any sort), feedback is appreciated in any form. Thanks for reading! foxtoast.