Break room Etiquette by Chibiness87
T rating for one or two light cuss's, nothing OTT.
A/N: I don't write WIPs as a rule... but this one has been bugging me for a couple of weeks now, and i finally gave in. Thanks to Butterfliedgr for the beta on this.
Disclaimer: If they belonged to me, i would be on strike... (Not mine)
Chapter 1- No experiments in the fridge.
Sara opened the fridge door and stared. There was no way he had done it again. None. Because that would make Gilbert Grissom an idiot. And if there was one thing Gilbert Grissom was not, it was an idiot.
A finger poke later made her reconsider that opinion of her boss. He had. Right. Ok then. Obviously, subtlety had failed. It was time for the big guns. The yell could be heard throughout the halls of the crime lab.
"GILBERT GRISSOM. GET YOUR ASS IN THE BREAK ROOM NOW!!"
The remaining members of the night shift were drawn out of the various rooms of the lab, leaving the techs to deal with their samples, and trooped as a group to the sidelines of the break room. They exchanged glances with each other before looking at the obviously irate younger female member of the team. A few seconds later, the entomologist answered his summons, such as they were.
"Sara?"
"Oh, don't you "Sara?" me! It's way past "Sara?"! What the hell is that in the community fridge?!"
Grissom froze. Oh crap. He knew there was something he had meant to do before the rest of the team had arrived for shift. But before he had made it to the break room, he had been caught by Ecklie, and after him all thoughts as to what was in the fridge had left his mind. Leaving one Sara Sidle to find his experiment. Not good. Time for damage control. First step; plead innocence.
"What's what?"
"Oh no. Not this time buster! You left your experiments in the fridge. Again!"
"No, I didn't," he replied, trying for innocent eyes.
Unfortunately for him, Sara had been able to read his guilt for years. It was just a pity it was from first hand experience. So she knew his play for innocence was just that. A play.
"Don't even think of using innocent eyes on me. They may work on some new rookie who doesn't know you, but I'm not them!"
Grissom suddenly became aware they were not alone in the room.
"Sara? Can we discuss this in my office please?"
"No. No. we will discuss this right here! This affects everyone, Griss. Not just me! Hell, the others have probably had to put up with this stuff longer than I have. They've worked for you longer!"
Behind his back, Catherine, Warrick and Nick were nodding along with her assessment. Greg was still looking at Sara with something akin to awe. He was technically still on probation as a CSI, and Sara had been the one to spend the most time with him, teaching him the various ins and outs of being a CSI.
Nick was scribbling something on a piece of paper. Finishing, he held it up for Warrick to see. $50 she gets rid of us and kills him and we never find his body. In response, Warrick simply raised his eyebrow. Pulling the pen from Nick's grasp, he wrote, Do I look stupid to you? I like my money being mine, thank you!
Still unaware of the events behind them, Sara and Grissom had stopped passing words back and forth and had moved on to glaring at each other. Like so many times in the past, it was Grissom who looked away first. His gaze landed on the Petri dish that had started all of this off in the first place, where Sara had placed it on the bench.
Risking a glance back to the irate brunette, he was met with a sharp glare. Oh yeah, no doubt about it. Sara was pissed.
"Well, what would you have me do? I need this for a case. It's to determine…" Before he could get into it, Sara interrupted him.
"I don't care. Remember Christmas? That nice present the night shift bought you? You remember what it was?"
Oh yeah. He was in the dog-house now. It was true. The night shift had apparently had enough of finding his experiments throughout the labs various fridges, and had bought him a decent sized mini-fridge for his office, so he could experiment to his heart's content. Talk around the lab said it was Nick who had been the one to come up with the idea. That didn't actually surprise him, truth be told. Nick had confronted him on the subject a number of times in the past. So much so that it had become an unwritten rule. One he had, apparently, forgotten all about and broken.
"A fridge," he finally muttered in response to Sara's question.
"Right. And, pray tell, where is that fridge now?"
Grissom cringed. "My office," was the small confession. There was no point in denying it. She had been in his office a mere hour ago. There was no way she would have failed to notice it, what with being the one to set it up for him in the first place when he had claimed he was too busy.
"And, if I was to go there right now, would I find anything in it?!" Sara asked, sure the answer would be No.
"Actually, yes. That's why I put that," he nodded to the Petri dish, "in this fridge in the first place. There was no room in the one in my office."
Sara raised her eyebrow, and before he could stop her, she marched to his office. Taking a second to watch her hips as she all but sashayed down the halls, he suddenly realised he was about to be in even more trouble with her than he currently was.
"GRISSOM!" Yup. He was officially dead meat. Before hurrying down to face her wrath, he turned to the other 4 members of his team, taking in their expressions; from Catherine's proud smirk to Greg's awe, and sighed.
"If I don't make it to dawn, I want my body to go to the body farm," he told them seriously. A minute later he was face to face with Sara once more.
"You bellowed?" he asked.
"WHAT. IS. THAT?!"
Back in the break room, Catherine was straining to hear Grissom's answer to Sara's yelled questions. She was actually surprised Grissom hadn't shut her down yet, but then that would involve him having some idea of how to react around her. And a small part of her was secretly impressed that Sara had the balls to stand up to him. A second later, she wondered why she was so shocked. This was Grissom and Sara, after all.
Apparently Grissom had answered, because Sara's response was clear enough to be heard down the corridor.
"Your LUNCH?! You keep your lunch in your fridge, but put experiments with OUR lunch?! Does that see even a little bit backwards to you, Griss?!"
Another silence, then Sara once more.
"I don't care. We did NOT buy you that fridge so you could keep your lunch in your office. It's for whatever experiment is your flavour of the week, got it?!"
A door slammed, and a few seconds later Sara came back into the break room, with what could only be Grissom's lunch in her hand. Placing it with the rest of the teams' food, she gave a small smirk of satisfaction. Never let it be said she took matters lightly.
Walking up to Nick and Warrick, she tugged the paper and pen away from them, before leaving the room once more. Catherine glanced at the guys.
"Guess the shows over. And we've got work."
"Yeah," they muttered, following the older woman out of the room.
The next night, Nick walked into the break room, stopping when he saw the familiar chicken-scratch handwriting on a note taped to the front of the fridge door.
All experiments placed in here at risk of destruction. You have been warned.
Nick smiled. Typical Sara.
Pulling the door open, his eyes picked up the Petri dish almost immediately. Slamming the door shut, the yell he emitted could be heard down the hall.
"Dammit, GRISSOM!!"