Tantalising Tantalus
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Warrick/Sara, implied Nick/Greg
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Notes: For the Crime Takes a
Summary: Someone makes a wish.
“This sucks.”
It wasn’t the first time that night that Warrick had said it, nor the second, nor even the third. In fact, he’d lost count of the number of times that he’d said those words, and he dimly realised that he wouldn’t blame Sara for starting to get impatient with him. When she said nothing though, just shot him an amused look, her lips twitching ever so slightly, he shook his head, putting down his fingerprint brush and fixing her with a curious look.
“You haven’t complained once tonight,” he noted, and she didn’t look over at him, didn’t pause in her examination of the solid oak of the bar, eyes narrowed in concentration as it tracked the path of her flashlight.
“I figured you’re doing enough for both of us,” she said, her voice kinder, more amused, than her words indicated, and he bit down hard on his lip, knowing that she was right.
“I’ll give you that,” he allowed, and she snickered, but didn’t otherwise comment. She just kept right on working, as if it was any other scene, any other day of the year, and he found himself crossing his arms, frowning at her. “Come on… you’re telling me you’re not pissed off to be working tonight?”
“Nope.” Her reply was airy, unconcerned, and he knew his look conveyed his frank amazement. She must have sensed it, because she looked up from the bar, her face splitting in a wide smile. “How could I be?” she asked, and he knew he was being set up for a zinger, saw it coming just before she delivered it, her face innocent as could be, “When I get to work with such a sunny personality?”
“Ouch.” Hand over heart, he grinned at her, his first real smile of the evening and she held his gaze for a moment before going back to her examination.
Not that he was going to let that stop him. Warrick might be an investigator at a crime scene, but he had a far more interesting mystery to solve. “It’s New Year’s Eve,” he pressed. “The biggest party night of the year… and you’d rather be working.”
Sara straightened up and shrugged, snapping off her flashlight with an abrupt, almost violent, gesture. “I’m not a big fan of New Year’s Eve,” she said simply, her voice light, but her face blank, all traces of her seconds-earlier amusement vanished. “OK, I’m done here,” she announced, and if it was possible for words to slam a door closed, then these did so rather effectively. “There’s nothing here. You?”
Warrick shook his head, because he’d had as much luck as she had. “Nothing,” he agreed. Then, changing the subject back, he tilted his head. “You really would rather work New Year’s Eve?”
Sara’s smile was tight and forced, almost a grimace, but then she shook herself, schooled her face into a more genuine approximation of interest. “You’d really rather face the meat market out there?” She threw his own question back at him, inclining her head towards the wooden partition across the latter third of the huge ballroom, on the other side of which was a party going strong, music and chatter clearly audible through the thin material. The management of the Tangiers weren’t going to let a little matter of a robbery derail their New Year’s plans; hence Warrick and Sara had spent most of the day processing the other two-thirds of the room, so that it could be used for the party, leaving this third still to do that evening.
“Hell yeah.” His response was immediate and empathic, because Warrick had long since worked out what his problem was. Were he to be working a scene in a different location, or be stuck in the lab, then he mightn’t mind working New Year’s Eve. But to be in a hotel, so close to the party, listening to it going on, and not being able to participate, was another matter all together. Turning towards the partition now, he allowed himself to wish, not for the first time, that he could join in the revelry. “Sounds like it’s a good one too.”
Sara snickered, the sound closer than it had been before, and he looked over to see that she’d taken steps towards him. “Sorry Tantalus…” she said. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
The name shocked Warrick out of his curiosity, and he turned a raised eyebrow on her. “Tantalus?” he repeated, and it was her turn to look at him curiously when she nodded.
“Tantalus,” she said. “The king who was condemned to stand on an island surrounded by water, only for the water to recede every time he tried to take a drink… you and your Greek mythology; I thought you would have known that.”
“I did know that,” Warrick told her, rubbing a hand along his jaw. “I just didn’t think you would.”
Sara flashed him a quick grin. “It was that or Cinderella,” she told him, and the words surprised a laugh out of him.
“Believe me, I’m grateful.” He was about to say something else to her, but she’d already turned away from him, was packing up her field kit with practiced ease, and he was suddenly struck by how little he actually knew about her, for all they’d been working together, been friends, for so long. Oh, he knew plenty of surface things – she was a vegetarian, she didn’t need a lot of sleep, she had some thing with Grissom that defied explanation – but as for what made Sara Sidle tick, that was still a complete and utter mystery to him.
“So, let me get this straight,” he heard his own voice saying, further emboldened when, still crouched by her field kit, she looked up at him, face open, waiting for him to speak. “You hate New Year’s Eve… but you like Greek mythology?”
“So?” It wasn’t a door closing, he decided, just a simple wondering why he was asking the question.
Except he didn’t seem to know that himself, so he settled for confirming it. “Just checking,” was all he said, but it was enough to have her shrugging, and he saw something flash in her eyes, something that looked an awful lot like pain. For the briefest of seconds, he was sure that she was going to close herself off from him, refuse to answer the question, and guilt flashed through him because the last thing he’d wanted to do was to make her feel uncomfortable. Sara had spent too much of the last year wandering through the lab looking like death warmed up, and, this evening at least, she’d seemed to be the old Sara, the one that he’d been getting along with so well, back before she’d found out that Hank was a cheating bastard, back before the lab explosion, back before whatever the hell it was she had, or didn’t have, with Grissom went to hell.
In that split second, he found himself wondering when he became such an expert on the moods of Sara Sidle.
Then, she stood up, lips twisting as she looked down at the ground. “New Year’s Eve… bad memories,” she said, but didn’t elaborate further. “Greek mythology… it’s amazing what you can find on TV when you can’t sleep… and amazing what you’ll read when you’ve exhausted all the science books in your local library.”
There was a part of Warrick that wanted to inquire further, ask her just what those bad memories were, if they were the reason that she couldn’t sleep. Common sense prevailed however, with the sure and certain knowledge that Sara would never stand for such questioning. So he just nodded, breaking the serious atmosphere with a quip. “And to think… we all thought Stokes was the one watching too much Discovery Channel.”
Sara laughed, a real laugh that chased all the shadows from her eyes. “I’m going to tell him you said that,” she threatened, an empty threat if ever he heard one, because ever since they’d seen the Christmas rosters, Nick had heard far worse.
“Believe me, that’s him getting off easy,” Warrick told her. “Wonder where he is tonight?”
Sara tilted her head, as if trying to remember. “I’m not sure… had he and Greg settled on somewhere?”
“And Sanders…” Warrick suddenly remembered another bone of contention he’d been nursing lately. “He passed his field proficiency, what, five minutes ago? How’s he get to be off on New Year’s Eve?”
She didn’t reply in words, but an enigmatic smile hovered around Sara’s lips that fairly screamed “I know something you don’t know.” Which, considering she never listened to lab gossip, had Warrick more than a little curious. “What?” he asked, the question greeted by a quick shake of the head, a too-innocent blink of the eyes.
“What?”
“Don’t give me that, Mona Lisa… what’s with the smile?”
Another shake of the head, a widening of the enigmatic grin. “No smile.”
Warrick blew air out between his lips. “Picture that… what did Sanders have to promise to get tonight off?”
Sara’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug, and she didn’t change her story. “Just lucky I guess.”
“Or hoping to get lucky…” Warrick muttered. “I swear, I hope the ladies of Vegas know what they’re letting themselves in for…”
Which was when things began to get really interesting, because Sara didn’t say a word, just turned neatly on her heel and became very interested in the clasp of her field kit. However, she didn’t turn so quickly that Warrick missed the look on her face, the way she bit down on her bottom lip, obviously trying to keep back a burst of laughter. She said nothing though, and her silence, coupled with the expression on her face, told Warrick everything he needed to know.
“No… way…”
His hushed whisper carried across the room, even over the noise of the party next door, and she whipped back around, dark curls flying. In contrast to her amusement of seconds earlier, colour was draining from her face, her eyes wide. “You didn’t know.” It was a statement, not a question, and at his lack of response, she grew even more panicked. “Warrick, you can’t say anything…”
Her voice trailed off as he held up a hand. Certain things were slotting into place, and suddenly the world made perfect sense again. “Matter of fact,” he said, “It explains a lot.”
She visibly relaxed, shoulders slumping as she let out a sigh of relief. “And since you ask…” she told him. “Greg swapped days off with me… I wanted to work, he wanted to party… it seemed like a good idea.”
Warrick gave her what he hoped was a suitably dirty look. “You swapped shifts and didn’t think of me first? I’m hurt.”
That smile of hers made a return appearance. “Next time,” she promised, and the words were suddenly very loud in the room. It took a second to work out why, that the music had stopped on the other side of the partition, but when the lights dimmed, Warrick suddenly realised what was happening.
“The countdown,” he said, looking towards the partition. “Guess they have the whole ballroom set up on a circuit… can’t shut off this section…”
“Good job we finished processing,” Sara muttered, looking around them as the crowd gathered next door began chanting.
Warrick could only agree, and he knew that finished or not, it would be pointless for them to try to leave now. Carrying field kits and evidence through hordes of happy revellers was not an experience he was eager to have, and for the next few minutes at least, those revellers would render the hotel corridors and lobby impassable. “Might as well stay here-” he began, but that was as far as he got before the clock began to strike midnight, and the cheering from the room next door swamped his words.
That was also the time that Sara jumped at the sound of an explosion, almost like a gunshot, and he jumped too, looking around him in confusion. Confusion gave way quickly to clarity, when all manner of confetti and tinsel began floating down from the ceiling, a multi-coloured blizzard of paper wrapping itself around them, momentarily making Sara disappear from view.
When the storm abated somewhat, though with tinsel still swirling in the air, he was greeted by the sight of Sara, head thrown back towards the ceiling, where still more tinsel was still falling, her eyes wide with wonder, mouth open as she laughed. Her hands were spread wide, tinsel landing on the outstretched palms, and she looked for all the world like a giddy child chasing raindrops.
Warrick had been working with Sara for years, and not once had he ever thought of her as beautiful. But in that room, in that moment, he couldn’t think of her as anything else.
The realisation took his breath away, and he didn’t breathe properly again until the tinsel had more or less settled. It made the surface of the floor slippery as he took a step towards Sara, and she saw him nearly mis-step, looked down at what had been the carpet of their crime scene and laughed again. “Guess we really did finish on time,” she observed, any further words dying in her throat when she looked up to see him standing right in front of her.
Her cheeks were flushed with laughter, eyes bright, and he smiled down at her, chuckling when she gave herself a little shake, dislodging multi-coloured shapes from her shoulder. “What?” she asked, slightly suspicious, even if smiling, and he gave her his own Mona Lisa smile, reaching up to pick a purple star from the curls of her hair.
“Nothing,” he said simply, allowing his fingers to linger for just a moment longer in her hair than they really needed to, taking his sweet time in picking out the star, holding it out to her in explanation.
Her lips curled up in a smile, but in her eyes was a question, and he got the feeling that she felt it too, that they were standing on the edge of something, that something had ever so subtly altered in the air between them, had done so irrevocably. “Should I make a wish?” she asked, her voice husky, and Warrick’s hand dropped, the star floating to the ground, his fingers brushing the soft material of her shirt, the rough denim of her jeans, before finding the warm skin of the back of her hand. This close to her, he couldn’t miss the shiver that coursed through her frame at the contact; nor could she miss the grin that he knew showed on his face.
“Depends,” he replied, taking a step closer to her, ignoring the little voice in the back of his head that was screaming that they were on the clock, that this was Sara, and that this was a Very Bad Idea. “On what you’re wishing for.”
She tilted her head. “Can’t tell you… otherwise, it won’t come true.”
“Ah.” He considered it for the briefest of seconds, then throwing caution to the wind, he kissed her.
When she kissed him back, he didn’t know whose wish had come true.
Nor did he care.