TITLE: Subtext
RATING: PG-13 (T) for some really corny sex euphemisms
CATEGORY: Humor, Romance, Fluff, General
PAIRING: GSR
A/N: So...some of you might have noticed my very brief absence of...oh...6 months. Well, I'm back, and though this is not my best work, pretend you like it, or I will run away crying and never come back. You know...for real. This one goes out to all my Locard Ladies, who bugged me to death, and I love them for it. It should also be noted that the Luminous Lauren Beta-ed this for me...and I promptly lost the beta-ed copy of the story she emailed back. So...this is...basically not beta-ed, but not for lack of effort. Thanks doll.
SUMMARY: (An in-depth look at the GSR scene during "Bite Me".) In the end, it's really all about what isn't said. In the end, it's all about the subtext.
"Or maybe she was suffocating him and he couldn't breathe." Sara froze, staring at him blankly as his words sliced through her: an insult, an accusation, and a damnation all twisted up in one little sentence. It tore through her skin, sliding between her ribs and furrowing deep inside her heart like shrapnel, bringing with it a pain so sharp that it took her mind a moment to catch up.
But when his words did manage to bleed out of her heart and get soaked up in her head, she relaxed a little. His tone was biting, and his words were wounding, but his meaning was simply full of fear.
She'd noticed an increase in that sort of statement within the past two months. She'd actually half been expecting poisoned barbs to start flying at her more frequently, and was really just grateful they were still relatively spread out in their delivery. And in the end, Sara had come to the decision that if it was part of the package that came with dating Gil Grissom, she'd take all that and more.
Since he'd accepted her offer to breakfast 2 months (2 months 3 days and 8 hours ago, not that anyone - especially Sara- was counting) the two of them had continued to ease into uncharted waters, avoiding the monsters warned on all the maps when they could, and smoothly swimming over them when they couldn't go around. After the first month (1 month, 1 day and 11 hours) Grissom had even officially termed what they were doing as 'dating,' slipping it into to his evening greeting before he took her out for dinner and a movie - a silent one, of course.
Their relationship had thus far passed along in a warm, easy manner that was disconcerting both of them a little, after all the troubles they had imagined in their heads. Statements like that from Grissom were the only bumps in the road, though to Sara, they more often felt like holes she could break an ankle tripping in if not watching the ground in front of her very closely. He didn't drop them very often, and when he did, they were always within the flow of some other conversation, a counter melody to the one they were already singing about movies or work- subtext in print so small Sara was sure she often misread it. It was getting easier though, after two months, 3 days, and 8 hours (okay, so maybe she was counting) to know the meaning of his words, even if she couldn't speak his language back to him fluently yet.
"Or maybe she was suffocating him and he couldn't breathe."
Grissom was afraid of one thing with Sara, and she knew it. He had a lot of different categories under this one fear, like 'She'll Leave Me For Someone Younger' or 'I Don't Know What to Do About This,' but everything really fell under one big heading that had Gil Grissom quaking in his shoes: 'What if I Fall in Love With Her?' Sara, though she hadn't much experience in the matter, could plainly see the giant flaw with Grissom's fear of her, being that he already had fallen in love with her, and simply didn't know it yet. Having finally seen this, however, Sara was prepared to wait patiently until that particular section of the ocean map could have 'Here Be Monsters' erased from it, and 'Nice Place for a House Boat' written instead.
Grissom didn't like to swim around a lot though, and spent an awful lot of time treading water. Letting loose a random, accusatory statement like that was his way of letting her know that he wanted to take the floaties off and try a little dog-paddling in the deep end for a while, but he wasn't happy with his decision, and he knew something bad would come of it, and he wanted her to know it too.
"Or maybe she was suffocating him and he couldn't breathe." Slowly but surely, Sara was becoming fluent in Grissomanian. What his cold words really meant was something like: 'What if I let you get too close and I can't handle it? Don't push me too far too fast or everything will be ruined. I want to go forward, but I'm afraid of not being able to turn back.'
It took Sara all of 2.3 seconds to translate 'What Grissom Said' into 'What Grissom Really Meant,' which was enough time for her to be very glad he didn't speak in subtext very often. Having figured out the words to the best of her abilities, her next task was to work out a way to answer, or an action to give to soothe his fears. Work, having always been the standby for both of them, was the easiest thing to turn to to buy her some time. She pulled open the drawer of the night stand. Blessed by some sort of good karma, there was something interesting inside.
"There's a bottle of lube in here...half empty." She pulled it out to show it to him, still searching for a way to ease away whatever plagued him, which was difficult to do since she had no idea what it was. All she knew for certain was that it fell under 'What if I Fall in Love With Her?' but the category beneath that was always the tricky part to find, and there were quite a few to choose from. Plus, Grissom had never followed any particular procedure in his filing system of 'My Issues With a Personal Relationship With Sara,' and was prone to making up new categories as he went along.
He arched a brow at the bottle of lube, frowning as he spoke. "What would the purpose of that be if they're not even sleeping in the same room?" She squinted hard, but found no fine print anywhere within the question.
"You don't have to sleep in the same bed to have sex..." A red light somewhere in her head started to flash fast enough to induce an epileptic seizure. Ohhh. "...or romance," she added quickly, having finally plucked the last piece of the latest Grissom Puzzle out of the air, and snapped it in to make the picture clear.
"Or maybe she was suffocating him and he couldn't breathe." He wanted to let her in further, but not so far that he lost all his breathing room in one fell swoop. This was Grissom's way of announcing she was welcome into yet more of his world, but she couldn't have her pick of which side of the bed she got...
...yet.
In the 2 months, 3 days and 8 hours since they'd been dating (In fact, she'd been counting every glorious minute of it in song.), their relationship had not crossed the invisible boundary from 'a kiss goodnight on the doorstep' over to 'won't you come in for coffee?' A boundary which Grissom had drawn in the thickest red felt-tip marker he could find. After all, dinner was one thing: if Sara had dinner with someone else, Grissom was convinced he could just start ordering takeout again. But dessert was something entirely different: if they had dessert together and then she went and decided she liked someone else's cheesecake better, Grissom would not be able to handle not having her around to share his fork with anymore. Not that Sara ever would, which they knew, although Grissom had been too stubborn and too afraid to admit it up to this point.
There was another pause after her words, in which she watched him try and read her words in the subtext he was so familiar with speaking in, but had no practice at all in deciphering. The small flicker of warmth that suddenly appeared in his eyes was enough to let Sara know he was a quick study.
"I'm going to go see the doctor," he replied in his cool professional tone, meaning he would consult Doc Robbins about this new discovery. In subtext though, it wasn't a reply at all, but more a statement - a confirmation that she would now be staying for coffee after dinner...but only, of course, if she wanted to. She would see the doctor too, because even though she knew both of them were clean, this was not something either of them could take lightly. This was not something either of them could risk messing up.
This was too important. She knew, and he knew, that it wasn't just dinner and it wasn't just dessert or coffee. It was also romance. And though she knew he wouldn't say it, and she knew she'd keep it quiet, it was love, too.
Nodding back at him, she said "And I'll finish processing the room." It was a statement without any other meaning, but so very full of affection and compassion and the love he would not yet admit to, but she knew was there that the counter melody drowned out any other tune, filling them both with a sense of peace. A little smile on his lips and a dance in his blue eyes, he nodded in return before turning and walking out, leaving her to continue with her work, humming very, very softly. There was no need for singing, after all, because the words themselves didn't really mean anything. It was never about the words when you got right down to it.
It was all about the subtext.
Yeah...I told you there were really corny sex euphemisms. So, liked it? Hated it? Want to jump up and down on my face? Review and tell me about it! Thanks for Reading!