Disclaimer: Don't own it.

classification: fanfic challenge.

Required elements:
--GSR
--Grissom has never had sex
--He has to admit it to one person, at least
--Brass has to tell the story of how he lost his virginity

(This was on the more difficult side because I personally think virgin!Grissom is way OOC. I tried to come up with something that might be almost-believable, though. Where did Catholic!Grissom come from, anyway? All I remember from canon is that he believes in God, not that he belongs to any specific faith/denomination. Correct me if I'm wrong?)

"Another round for the birthday boy!" Warrick shouted over the din of the barroom.

"Whoa, guys, I think Iím about at my limit," Nick said, holding up a hand in surrender.

"You're only on number five," Warrick retorted. "I know you can do better than that. Know how hard it was for me to get everyone out here for your big 3-5?"

"Even Grissom!" Catherine broke in with a chortle before returning to attention to her martini.

"Yeah, even Grissom," Warrick echoed. "So drink up, my man."

Another whiskey sour appeared in front of Nick as the waitress leaned over the table and asked around for drink orders. Sara declined, but Grissom requested a gin and tonic, sending Catherine into another spate of laughter and an only partially intelligable comment about being a "party man". Brass and Greg both held steady; Greg, in particular, was having trouble keeping up. His four beers were already impairing his speech and he sat quietly next to Sara, leaning lightly on her shoulder. Sara didn't know if the alcohol was the cause or just a convenient excuse.

"So Nick," Catherine leaned halfway over the table to address him. "Now that you've had some time to mull it over, what's your biggest accomplishment of the last 35 years?"

"Making CSI level 3?" Warrick offered.

"Losing my virginity to the Homecoming Queen," Nick replied, smiling broadly and looking straight at Catherine.

"He really is plastered," Greg murmured into Sara's shoulder.

Warrick was guffawing. "I'll certainly drink to that," he said, raising the remainder of his last drink and draining it.

"Homecoming Queen, huh?" Brass snorted, laughing almost too hard to get the words out. "I can beat that." He, too, drained the last of his beer.

"Oh?" Catherine's left eyebrow shot up in surprise. "Well, we can be the judge of that. Let's hear it."

Brass choked on another laugh before breathing deeply. "I was fifteen. She had just turned eighteen, dead ringer for Lana Turner."

Nick made a small noise of disbelief.

"Hey, I'm just telling it like it is," Brass retorted, both hands raised in an admission of honesty. "She was my best friend's sister, and the summer before she left for Woodstock, she took me for a drive in her parent's pickup truck and deflowered me in an open field."

Catherine had just about lost it. "Summer of '69?"

"That's the one," Brass answered with a wink.

"Well, all apologies to the birthday boy, but I think we've got a winner. ...Unless, of course, Grissom can top that one?"

Grissom, who hadn't been following the conversation, was startled by the sound of his name and the subsequent five pairs of eyes than all turned on him in unison. Greg -- the lone exception -- was now huddled even closer to Sara, he noted with vague irritation.

He blinked between the four faces, pointedly avoiding Sara's, before Brass spoke up. "Yeah, Gil, got something better hidden in your past?" He was rosy-faced and exuberant, which only served to annoy Grissom even more.

"A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell," he offered plainly.

Nick and Catherine both snorted back a laugh. "Please, Griss," Catherine chided. "Now you've got us all curious."

"I am not going to regale you with stories of my sexual history."

"We don't want stories," Catherine replied, placing emphasis on the 's', "Just one -- the first one."

Warrick and Nick both laughed in unison with Brass. Sara wore a more apprehensive expression as she watched Grissom flush, despite not having had more than half his drink.

"Look, there's nothing to tell. I've never had sex."

Nick and Warrick stopped laughing, but Catherine merely rolled her eyes. "Fine, Griss, have it your way. Don't tell us."

Sara noticed Grissom release a deep breath before he slid out of the booth. "I think it's time for me to get going," he said, tossing a pair of five dollar bills on the table.

"Wait, Grissom!" Sara called over the table. "I'm going with you! Last time I caught a cab with these guys they got out first and stuck me with the bill."

Grissom turned around to see Sara smiling at him, lopsided, before wiggling past Warrick and Nick to get out of the booth. The unexpected loss of Sara's support caused Greg to flop over unceremoniously onto Warrick, who made a fuss over trying to prop him upright before relenting and leaning him the other direction onto Catherine.

"Sara, I --"

"C'mon Grissom. I'm on your way home. No big deal, right?"

She was looking up at him through her heavy lashes. His heart skipped a beat as he placed a hand on her shoulder and steered her out of the bar. She swayed slightly, but maintained her balance. Even so, Grissom guided her carefully to his car, opening the door for her and helping her in.

They rode in comfortable silence before Sara shifted in her seat to face him. "It's true, isn't it?" she said steadily.

"What is?" Grissom replied. Playing stupid would only delay the inevitable, but delay bought him time. ...Time to what, exactly? Leap from a speeding vehicle just to avoid telling Sara the truth?

"That you've never had sex."

Grissom tightened his grip on the steering wheel and flickered his gaze toward her briefly before fixating on the road again.

"No, it was just the only thing that would keep them quiet."

"You're lying."

Her bluntness startled him. He paused, picking his words carefully. "How do you know that?"

"I know you well enough to know when you're lying, Grissom," she answered simply.

He didn't reply.

"To be honest... It -- it explains a bit. About you." Suddenly shy, she turned to look out the window.

Increasingly uncomfortable with where the conversation was going, Grissom kept quiet but sped up.

"Can I ask, though?"

"Ask what?"

"Why?"

Grissom let another moment of silence fall between them. "It's complicated."

"I would assume so."

He sighed, finally resigned. He wasn't going to get out of telling her either way, and secretly sharing it with someone -- someone who'd both believe it and accept it -- was a relief. "When I was sixteen, I dated a girl from church. Ellen, was her name. I loved her. Dearly. Ellen was what my mother called a 'good girl'. To her, sex, or sex drive, was sinful. She saw it as her duty from God, for both our sakes, to make sure I never... seduced her."

Grissom stopped long enough that Sara almost prompted him, but she thought better of pushing him.

"One day, it was a Saturday night, I talked... I pressured Ellen into letting me-- letting me perform oral sex on her. On Sunday afternoon, her mother was struck and killed while crossing the street. She didn't speak to me for a week and a half. When she did, after the funeral, she told me that... God had punished her. That it was her fault her mother died. Because she was weak and didn't stop me."

Sara turned back to look at him again. In the low light of passing street lamps, she could see the pain still evident, still lurking after more than thirty years.

"I thought, if she thought she were to blame, I was doubly so. It was really my fault because I didn't control myself, even knowing how she felt. I felt like I'd ruined every beautiful thing she'd ever known. I made a promise to God that I'd never do anything like that ever again. At least, not until I was married."

"And you just... stuck to it? For all these years?" Sara said, trying not to sound surprised.

"The promise? Well, no, not really. But shortly after Ellen's mother died I became an intern at the LA County Morgue, where I stayed through college. By the time I realized that it wasn't my fault and that God really had nothing to do with it I was in my late twenties, surrounded by death on a daily basis. It's hard enough to go on a first date in your early thirties and tell a beautiful woman that you work in a morgue. Telling her you're also a virgin is next to impossible."

Grissom sighed; Sara's heart tightened in her chest. It all made sense now, but she mourned the fact that the newfound order in her universe came at such a steep price for Grissom.

"But, I've had other things in my life, you know. I haven't... I mean..." Grissom fished awkwardly for words. "If it never happens for me, that's okay. I've come to terms with it. I don't want people to pity me because my life took a different course than usual."

Sara wasn't sure what to say, so she placed a hand on his arm and squeezed lightly. The muscle below her fingers twitched involuntarily.

"You're fifty, Grissom, not dead," she said after a moment, trying to lighten the mood just a little.

A pause. "We're here."

"Huh?"

"Your apartment. We're here."

Sara looked out the window in mild surprise. Grissom left the car idling and looked over at her, almost willing her to get out so he could go home and lick his wounds in private. To his surprise, Sara reached over and twisted the key out of the ignition.

"Why don't you come up?"

"Up?" he echoed lamely.

"Look," she began softly, "I don't think there's anything wrong with you, if that's what you're worried about."

"It's not that," he replied in a small voice.

"And don't think your ...lack of experience is a valid excuse, either."

Grissom looked up at her in surprise. She met his gaze with a soft smile. "Come on. Since you've shared a secret, would you like me to share one of my own?"

A faint, sweet smell of alcohol drifted off her, not altogether unpleasant. She was achingly close, and he bit his lip, ignoring the thin sheen of perspiration. "Sure?" he said, hoping his breathing wasn't as heavy as it seemed in his head.

She leaned foward and nearly whispered, "I've always sorta fantasized about having you all to myself." Her smile was sly now, and playful. He smiled back in spite of himself and relented, letting Sara's small hand slip into his and lead him upstairs into her apartment.

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