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addictedtostorytelling · 6 months

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Hello, I am asking about GSR because I love your thorough and thoughtful answers. I'm rewatching early CSI, and I know that the opinions of the producers towards GSR were not always favorable early on - they'd planned to can the whole relationship after S3, if I recall correctly, but WP & JF campaigned to keep them going. So I'm wondering, for early GSR, do you think that some of the claim that Grissom always loved Sara is retconned to fit the later plot? Or do you think that Grissom was written/acted to have been in love with her the whole series, and just keeping it under wraps, as the character later claims? Can we canonically read S1, S2 & S3 William Petersen acting a Grissom who doesn't know what to do with his feelings of love for Sara, or is it more likely that he was at the time meant to be acting as not sure how to handle her being so interested in him while his interest was not as strong? It seems like by S4 Butterflied that the writers & WP had decided Grissom was currently and had been in love with Sara. Would appreciate your thoughts!

hi, @nostromosigningoff!

thank you for your kind words! i'm glad you like my answers.

in response to your question:

up front, i will say i do not believe that the idea grissom expresses in episode 04x12 "butterflied" (and also at later points, such as in "immortality") that he has always been in love with sara represents a retcon.

for something to be a retcon, it has to contradict a previously established canonical plot point, thereby breaking the continuity.

for example, in s1, catherine is established to have a sister (who often helps to care for lindsey), but in later seasons, she is depicted as an only child; her sister being written out of existence is therefore a retcon.

so since it is never established that grissom definitely is not in love with sara pre-s4, then it can't be a retcon to have him say (or at least imply) in episode 04x12 "butterflied" that he has been in love with her the whole time he's known her.

it's not a rewriting of explicit history.

there is room within the narrative for what he says to be true and (within the universe of the show) to have always been true.

and, ultimately, i think the show makes it pretty clear that grissom does in fact have feelings for sara from the start, not only through explicit textual acknowledgment but also through certain acting choices billy makes, staging decisions, overarching themes, etc.

that said, the question of "was he (outside of the universe of the show) always intended to have been in love with her and only her from the beginning?" is, admittedly, a little more complicated, the answer running along the lines of "yes and no."

more discussion after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

first, some clarification: despite the fact that the showrunners eventually questioned the viability of gsr at the end of s3 (after grissom had declined sara's dinner invitation in episode 03x22 "play with fire"), they were not (in general) unfavorable to romantic gsr prior to that point.

while anthony zuiker had never intended for csi to be a show that focused primarily on the characters' home and love lives (and instead wanted to keep the drama firmly situated in their work), gsr had indeed been conceptualized of as a romance—and a mutual romance, at that—from day 1*.

* or technically "day 2," since jorja fox was only hired and the character of sara sidle only created after they had already filmed the pilot.

jorja fox was cast as sara with the understanding that her character would be "the love interest for gil grissom"—and note the wording she was supplied, which suggests that grissom has an interest in sara (and not that sara has unrequited feelings for him). she knew going into the job that her character was meant to match up with the show's leading man and be the object of his attraction.

to that end, many scenes throughout csi s1, s2, and s3 were written and/or directed and acted with the gsr romantic angle explicitly in mind—with the feelings evident on both sides.

multiple episodes of the early seasons heavily feature and develop the notion that grissom does have both a sexual attraction and an emotional connection to sara, beyond anyone else, and only really make sense within that context (e.g., episodes 01x03 "crate n' burial," 01x10 "sex, lies, & larvae," 01x23 "the strip strangler," 02x16 "primum non nocere," the entire grissom jealousy arc of early s3, etc.).

moreover, within these episodes, sara is not always shown as being the "pursuer." there are plenty of times when grissom expresses his attraction to, feelings for, and devotion to her unprompted, such as, for example, in episode 02x16 "primum non nocere."

this example is especially relevant to our question, as grissom's "since i met you" quip not only establishes his attraction and emotional connection to sara but also specifies that it has been a "from the moment he met her" deal. since when does he care about beauty? literally from the moment he met her and realized how beautiful she is.

the fact that he does so proves: he's not just a boss stuck in the awkward position of having a subordinate with unrequited feelings for him; he has feelings of his own, which he often expresses independent of her saying or doing anything to provoke him to.

while he is undeniably conflicted about his feelings and unsure of what to do about them, the fact is that he does have them.

and much of the tension between grissom and sara in the early seasons is based on that reality—both explicit narrative cues (such as catherine bringing the issue up to grissom in episode 02x15 "burden of proof," prodding him to deal with whatever lingering romantic feelings exist between him and sara so they can effectively work together) and billy's acting choices make that point clear.

the problem is that neither grissom nor sara can ever just fully walk away from their connection; that deep down, neither one of them wants to.

so.

outside of the universe of the show, the situation was that the showrunners had this ship that had been written as being romantic from the beginning, with mutual feelings on both sides, which they had then teased for so long and complicated in so many ways that after three seasons—which is the traditional point at which most tv "will they or won't they?" couples have their slow-burn arcs resolved—they were questioning if it was still viable (and particularly as the ship was polarizing and not universally popular with the fans).

after all, by this time, they had already had grissom and sara acknowledge the attraction head-on (see episodes 03x02 "the accused is entitled" and 03x22 "play with fire") and had had grissom turn down sara's direct romantic overture toward him, so it was time to either "drive or get out of the car," so to speak.

it was never the case that the showrunners (as a collective) had hated gsr or been against it as a romance from the get-go. it had also never been the case that they viewed it as a one-sided, "sara is in love with him but he is indifferent to her" thing, either.

whatever else may be true, grissom was consistently shown to have feelings for sara (which oftentimes complicated their interactions).

it's just that after the rigmarole of s3, there was some question of "now that we've gotten grissom and sara to this (fraught) point, should we bother to continue their romantic relationship? or is our audience burnt out on all this angst? do people actually still want to see them together?"

the writers were inclined to think no, especially because (as stated) gsr as a concept had always been divisive among fans.

however, both billy and jorja understood gsr to be so central to their characters that they advocated for the romantic storyline to continue (and eventually see some consummation).

over the course of the hiatus between s3 and s4, they lobbied to maintain the ship (or, in other words, to go with the original plan), and eventually, they persuaded the showrunners to stick with it, which meant that s4 began with romantic gsr "still on the table."

as talked about in this excerpt from the csi: crime scene investigation companion book,

because billy and jorja were successful in their campaign, there was essentially no gap in coverage with gsr being written as romantic throughout the series; that throughline persisted from episode 01x02 "cool change" on, even after the events of episode 03x22 "play with fire."

now.

all of the above said, a couple of things should be noted:

first, csi was always a show with multiple writers who, though they functioned as a team, were nevertheless not a monolith in terms of how they conceptualized of the show, its characters, their storylines, etc.

that so, mileage would often vary with csi storytelling depending on which particular writer was the primary one for a particular script or even longer story arc.

though gsr was conceived of as a romance from the beginning of the series, prior to them "going canon" with the big reveal at the end of s6, there were various writers who put their own spins on the ship. some of them applied little effort to developing the romance angle as main text on the show, adhering to the zuiker "focus on the criminalistics" mandate to the letter and leaving it mostly to billy and jorja to inflect their performances with attraction/interest "between the lines" as they would in the absence of more explicit treatment in their scripts. however, others would alternate based on their own whims or what the story of the day called for, sometimes teasing the romance explicitly and other times downplaying it and/or leaving it understated (especially in favor of other potential grissom ships, like kessom). still others consistently played to and developed the romance, pushing that overarching story along and establishing it as a series mainline (the most reliable captains of this last camp, for my money, being david rambo and sarah goldfinger).

there was also variation, even among those writers who did place gsr romance on the center stage, in terms of how they portrayed the dynamic, and particularly with regards to the question of grissom's characterization within it. some wrote more toward grissom being confused, others toward grissom being repressed and afraid, others toward him being manipulative of sara's feelings, others toward him being conscientious of power structures and professional considerations, etc. they also had multifarious interpretations of the exact nature of the romance itself, especially in terms of what grissom and sara's pre-vegas history might be, the type(s) of attraction at play and how that might manifest, what exactly the characters' hang-ups and motivations with regards to each other were, the level of intimacy between them, etc.

that being the case, we can't really speak of all of the writers and showrunners sharing a common attitude toward or understanding of gsr without oversimplifying the matter.

the truth is, views among the writing and production staff on the show toward gsr were as various as they were/are within the fandom.

carol mendelsohn, for example, has spoken of the fact that there was never a consensus in the writers' room about whether or not grissom and sara had slept together prior to sara moving to las vegas. she personally felt that they had, though other writers/producers felt they hadn't.

while there was a baseline understanding across the production that sara was meant to be grissom's love interest and that there was some kind of nebulous ~history between them, there were lots of different ways members of the production team interpreted and depicted that relationship beat (which is why the gsr storyline sometimes feels so inconsistent, even within the course of a single season).

another thing we have to keep in mind when talking about intentionality re: gsr romance is that while we as fans often talk of ships "always being endgame," more often than not, showrunners and writers don't operate with that kind of certainty in place.

with the exceptions of shows where the main romance is the be-all, end-all central plot point, with the whole story revolving around particular characters getting together/staying together/having an eventual happy ending, in most cases, most tv romances do not come with a guarantee of endgame status. writers prefer to keep their options open, writing toward what is most interesting and playing on chemistry wherever they may happen upon it.

they also sometimes are constrained by production realities (such as studio mandates, shifting actor availabilities, cast dynamics issues, etc.), which make it so they can't necessarily just "write what they want."

that so, while it is accurate to say that the writers always conceived of gsr as being mutually romantic in nature—as per the character notes jorja was given by the production team and the fact that when billy and jorja first met, they did so with the understanding that they were going to be scene partners/playing love interests going forward—it is not accurate to say that they always believed (much less knew for a fact) that grissom and sara would wind up together in the end/become the flagship of the show, spanning all fifteen seasons and a movie/get married and live happily ever after, and particularly not from the beginning of the show.

sara was meant to be grissom's primary love interest from the beginning, yes—and certainly their dynamic was written with mutual feelings/interest on both sides.

however, "primary" does no mean "only," and neither does it necessarily mean "forever."

that so, before the character was really solidified, particularly in early s1, the writers had occasionally fitted grissom into some interim romances and tried to present him more as the archetypal "cad about town" than would later be the case.

they also, as the show progressed, sometimes teased and explored other romantic options for him than sara, mainly with heather kessler, writing those interactions in such a way that (had they wanted to, and particularly had the audience reacted favorably) they could have slotted heather in as grissom's "primary romantic option" rather than sara instead.

so for as much as sara was created to be grissom's love interest from the beginning and for as much as gsr was written as a romance (with feelings on both sides) from sara's first appearance on the show, gsr was not necessarily intended from the beginning to be endgame.

in the writers' views, it was one option of many potential ones—a main option, a consistent option, an option they poured a lot of narrative time and attention into developing over the course of the show's first three seasons, yes, but an option all the same; one possible choice among many.

it wasn't until s4, after billy and jorja's intercession, that they really decided to make gsr endgame, knocking all other possibilities off the table.

that choice on their parts was, of course, cemented in episode 04x12 "butterflied."

so.

getting back to your original question of "was grissom always written/acted as being in love with sara from the get-go or was he originally meant (prior to s4) to have been more uncertain?" here are my thoughts:

as established, both billy petersen and jorja fox knew from the beginning that their characters were meant to have some kind of romantic connection, and the writers were definitely conceiving of gsr that way.

it is also true that gsr was not intended to be one-sided; grissom was written and depicted as being an active participant from the beginning, just as sara was.

but as also established, the particulars of the connection between grissom and sara were very much "not pinned down."

it wasn't as if the writers wrote up a "gsr dossier" and handed it over to billy and jorja and said, "here is the entire history your characters share together, complete with notes about how exactly they feel about each other and what beats and nuances you should play with them going forward. also, you should know that we intend for them to eventually get married and be together forever, so make sure to foreshadow that as much as you can."

to the contrary: both billy and jorja have often spoken of the fact that given the preponderance of "blanks" in their character histories and how little information the writers gave them to go on regarding grissom and sara's past dynamic, they often consulted with each other to come up with what we fans might refer to as "headcanons" about what they believed had happened between grissom and sara in san francisco, as well as to make sense of what was currently going on between them at any given point during the early seasons of the show. they relied on each other to "get on the same page" and to create internal cohesion in their performances.

it wasn't something that was just handed to them.

they were also in the same boat as members of the audience when it came to wondering what the future held for grissom and sara as a couple while the show was still running.

while they knew their characters were romantically entangled, they didn't know to what end.

at the beginning, there was so much ship teasing.

but would grissom and sara ever get together? if they did, would the relationship be long-term?

they didn't know.

they were just going along with the story as it was being written.

and, as discussed above, the writers themselves didn't have some huge, overarching plan to start out with. they knew from the onset that sara was an emotional touchstone for grissom and someone he was deeply connected and attracted to, but they weren't necessarily married to the idea that grissom and sara would themselves get married.

as stated, "endgame gsr" was one possibility among many, and, particularly at the show's onset, when there were no guarantees of how long csi would even be on the air, it was a long-shot, far-off-into-the-future, we'll-get-there-if-we-get-there possibility at that.

there were a lot of moving parts in play and nothing was set in stone.

so.

all of the above being the case, can we say definitively that every second billy played grissom on screen, his intention as an actor was to depict grissom as being deeply in love with sara? can we say that he always fully understood grissom's motivations and knew that grissom was scared of the depths of his feelings for sara (as opposed to just being unsure of how to deal with her intensity)?

no.

while it's a safe bet to say billy was always aware that grissom and sara had history and that there was a possibility that they would eventually become a couple from the start, we can't say that he always knew exactly what was going on with them. there might very well have been times when he felt like the attraction was more one-sided or when he doubted anything would ever transpire between them; even when he perhaps thought that the writers might take grissom down other roads for romance instead (i.e., pair grissom with heather).

that said, did he, as an actor, nevertheless always seem to keep those initial notes on grissom and sara's connection "in his back pocket" so that grissom's emotional attachment to sara and attraction to sara played a consistent role in his characterization?

yes.

and did he regularly depict grissom emotionally reacting to sara (even if the nature of his reactions was more ambiguous), such that we as viewers can easily believe grissom's later claims that he has always been in love with sara when we view them from an in-universe perspective?

absolutely.

the facts that billy and jorja did come up with their own takes on gsr and talk through that "secret history" together and that billy so often ad-libbed some of the most romantic gsr lines ("since i met you," anyone?) and that billy did imbue grissom's reactions to sara with such emotion all strongly suggest that even if he didn't know for sure—based on a "word of god" dictum from the showrunners—what the exact nature of grissom and sara's relationship was or that they would for sure end up together, he was playing romance between them, and it was a consistent, deliberate acting decision on his part.

see, for example, his comments about his ad-lib of grissom calling sara "honey" in episode 03x22 "play with fire": "[the producers] said, ‘he can’t call her honey.’ but that’s exactly what would happen. he’s afraid for her—he’s afraid for everybody—but it is specifically for sara. he knows the stress she’s been under with him. with her shock, she doesn’t even know until later on that he called her honey. he doesn’t know that he called her honey. only the audience knows."

he may not have been able to say for sure, "i know sara is the love of grissom's life and that he's going to marry her someday, so i'm gonna play him that way in every episode." but he knew enough to recognize the importance of that connection and to consistently depict it, leaving the door for development open.

he also knew enough (along with jorja) to advocate for the continuance of the gsr romantic storyline at a time when the showrunners were doubtful of it.

and because he did, grissom's later in-universe claims that he's been in love with sara the whole time are emminently believable, regardless of what kinds of questions were being asked behind the scenes regarding the viability of gsr from a production standpoint.

so that's the thing: when i look at grissom and sara's story, i see nothing in it that contradicts the idea that they've been madly and mutually in love with each other since 1998—and, in fact, i think their story only really makes sense when viewed through that lens.

even for as indecisive and tempestuous as grissom can be about his relationship with sara in the early seasons, never for one second do i doubt that he has feelings for her.

there is no episode i can look at and go, "yeah, at this point, gsr was completely off the table. they just added it in later."

if grissom was just wholesale uncomfortable with sara's romantic attentions on him and not sure how to deal with them, then episodes like 01x10 "sex, lies, & larvae," 01x16 "too tough to die," 01x23 "the strip strangler," 02x05 "scuba doobie-doo," 02x15 "burden of proof," 02x16 "primum non nocere," 02x23 "the hunger artist" (which, lest we forget, explicitly features grissom seeking out sara while a love song plays), 03x02 "the accused is entitled," 03x09 "blood lust," 03x22 "play with fire," 04x03 "homebodies," and 04x07 "invisible evidence" would never have happened—or at least wouldn't have played out the way that they in canon do.

and mind you: all of those episodes take place before episode 04x12 "butterflied" stakes its claims to the longevity, singularity, and depths of grissom's love for sara.

in those episodes, grissom's romantic feelings for sara are all made main text—acknowledged not only through william petersen's acting choices but in dialogue, staging, and even through the show's soundtrack.

they are deliberately shown.

and what's more: nowhere in the show is grissom depicted as having that same sort of consistent, almost unavoidable emotional connection with anyone else, either.

though of course fans can and do argue about what he may feel for heather or even other potential love interests besides sara, the fact is that just by sheer volume and duration, his connection with sara is his longest, most intense relationship on the show by far.

even if one does believe he may at some point have feelings for heather (which, of course, i don't), it would always be a situation of "and" not "instead of" where sara in concerned.

his love for sara is a thread that runs through the whole tapestry of the show.

it's never the case that he stops having feelings for her in favor of having feelings for anyone else. he also never really moves on from her, even when he declines her romantic overtures at the end of s3.

so at the end of the day, though neither the showrunners nor the writers nor the actors may have known with surety from the beginning that sara would end up being grissom's one true love and the only woman he ever had any real feelings for, and while at various points during the production there definitely were other options they considered, what the show ends up actually depicting (all doylist intentions aside) is that sara is the object of grissom's heart from day 1.

it's not a retcon for the writers or grissom himself to say he has always been in love with sara, because there is consistent evidence of it, both internal and external to the show, from the start.

it's not something that was shoehorned in or decided upon long after the fact.

the option was there from the day jorja fox signed her contract.

and it was given consistent enough narrative attention, both by the writers and by the actors, that by the time it is explicitly stated, it doesn't at all "come out of nowhere" or contradict anything already established in the show. rather, it confirms what has already been implied for a very long time prior.

so tl;dr? while the showrunners may not necessarily have been sold on a gsr endgame from the start, that also isn't to say that they were against it, either, or that eventually "going there" went against their original intentions.

gsr had always been on the table, and billy, for his part, consummate knower of his character that he is, was always, from the beginning aware of that possibility and depicted grissom accordingly, leaving that door for a gsr romance open, so that now it seems very clear looking back that the love was there all along.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #nostromosigningoff #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: gsr #meta: production #let's talk shop #csiverse

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impulsive-astrophile · 4 years

Text

Post-ep fic recs for days

@muldaaah as promised, here’s a post-episode fic rec list!

It’s not comprehensive by any means, but it will probably be pretty long! Nothing past the end of s7 as that’s where I stopped. (if there are any eps I don’t include that you would like me to, let me know)

Recs will be sorted into categories (in bold, linked to their corresponding tags on AO3 for a comprehensive list for that ep) by episode, will not include tags, and can be found under the cut to save your dash. All recs have MSR and are hosted on Ao3 unless otherwise stated.

As always, make sure you read the tags on the work before reading to make sure it’s content you want to consume!

Pilot (01x01)

Pilot Sex (series)

Summary: What if Mulder and Scully fucked in the pilot episode?

Rating: Explicit

Words: 22397

Fire (01x12)

Sick Day

Summary: An early MSR post ep piece of "Fire" of Scully taking care of Mulder.

Rating: Gen

Words: 617

Beyond the Sea (01x13)

My Lover Stands on Golden Sand

Summary: "So who are you leaning on, Scully?" asks Mulder gently. "I'm fine, Mulder," she says, and he tightens his arm around her. "It's okay if you're not," he whispers... and that's all it takes for her to break down.

Rating: Teen

Words: 3428

Fearful Symmetry (02x18)

Shampoo

Summary: Smutty Post-Ep for "Fearful Symmetry"

Rating: Explicit

Words: 3145

Paper Clip (03x02)

It's Cold Outside (multi-chapter)

Summary: For the Easter Fic Exchange: Mulder finds himself trapped at Maggie Scully's house during the course of recreating a family holiday with the rest of the Scully clan. And there's a blizzard. What else could happen? (Set Season 3 shortly after 'Paper Clip').

Rating: Mature

Words: 11302

731 (03x10)

Prayers Answered

Summary: SUMMARY: This is my entry into the Fandomonium First-Time-Smutfic Challenge; my episode: 731.

Rating: Explicit

Words: 7978

Got You(r) Back

Summary: "Mulder, you look like crap." "Aren't doctors supposed to have a warmer bedside manner?" "Aren't FBI agents supposed to have some concept of risk management?" Missing scene after S3E10 "731." Mulder's pretty beat up. Scully looks after him.

Rating: Teen

Words: 4933

Syzygy (03x13)

Cosmic Hearts

Summary: A month after the events of Syzygy, Mulder and Scully face the feelings that were brought out on that case.

Rating: Teen

Words: 3018

A Little Frustration Between Partnerd

Summary: A Tumblr prompt for the first time Mulder talked dirty to Scully and her reaction to it. Set during Syzygy. Rating: Explicit Words: 542

Truly, Madly, Scully (multi-chapter)

Summary: Mulder and Scully hastily leave Comity and its once-every-84-years craziness borne from the syzygy of Mars, Uranus, and Neptune. Driven by the tempestuous Scully in the middle of the night, she and Mulder end up in a motel where Mulder will soon discover another form of syzygy: his Truly Madly Scully.

Rating: Not Rated

Words: 12516

Make a Change (multi-chapter)

Summary: Indulging into their vices, some unspoken truths become uncovered between Scully and Mulder. But then there's the aftermath. (Set during Season 3, Post-Syzygy. Tags will be added as needed.)

Rating: Explicit

Words: 11308

Chasing Fire

Summary: She could stop this right now, and their partnership would remain beyond reproach. There would be a few awkward weeks, but they'd put this night in the box labeled 'Things Never to Talk About,' and they'd move on. Like they always do. Except, she'd die an old, lonely maid because there would never be another man who could set her soul on fire the way Mulder does. She'd always be chasing that fire.

Rating: Explicit

Words: 8316

Shipper’s Digest 313: Syzygy Convergences (multiple works, not hosted on AO3)

Summary: It's been a while between digests, so I thought I'd dip the proverbial back in with this smut companion for that beloved Season 3 episode, Syzygy. Enjoy.

Rating: Explicit

Words: ~27622

Grotesque (03x14)

Fall Back Together

Summary: Post-Grotesque, our heroes engage in some bondage with the intention of relaxing and reconnecting. When it doesn't go to plan, they must navigate their way back to each other before the chasm deepens. This is maybe 5% porn, 5% dungeon emergency, 40% ode to meditative bondage, and 50% gross domestic aftercare.

Rating: Mature

Words: 4660

Keeping Them Away

Summary: Keeping the nightmares away. This time.

Rating: Gen

Words: 781

Pusher (03x17)

Enjoy The Silence (multi-chapter)

Summary: The horizon paled on the other side of the house, they fell asleep again, waiting for words to come back.

Rating: Explicit

Words: 9068

esoterica

Summary: There are times she thinks that she could love him. (Or: Chocolate and a Supermarket Scene.)

Rating: Teen

Words: 3927

Quagmire (03x22)

The Replacement

Summary: Mulder gets Scully a replacement dog after Queequeg; post ep: Quagmire.

Rating: Gen

Words: 1351

Wetwired (03x23)

the creature in the deep (multi-chapter)

Summary: In the aftermath of Scully’s mind control via television, she and Mulder depart to Norway to investigate the Kraken.

Rating: Teen

Words: 17548

Unruhe (04x04)

Rest

Summary: It was Mulder’s name she screamed, voice ricocheting off the walls. It was Mulder’s name she kept thinking about, promising herself he would come for her and promising herself that she would remember his name if he came too late. She had poured all her confidence in him, telling herself to keep talking because he would get there any minute. This dependency scares her a little bit. But she’s not the only one who has that dependency. She can also hear Mulder’s voice in her head – the way he banged on the side of the trailer, bellowing her name like his life depended on it. She could still his frantic calls as he smashed through the door, gun raised and pupils wide.

Rating: Gen

Words: 1983

The Field Where I Died (04x05)

Once More With Feeling

Summary: I can't live without you again.

Rating: Gen

Words: 12245

a roll of stars and fade to black

Summary: A rewrite of "The Field Where I Died".

Rating: Teen

Words: 9688

But Always Together.

Summary: This is basically me giving a giant middle finger to "The Field Where I Died." Mulder and Scully, throughout the ages.

Rating: Gen

Words: 2028

Searching Souls (not MSR)

Summary: Scully is drunk and annoyed. Mulder is amused. Clearly the perfect time to psychoanalyze the nature of past lives. Post-ep scene for "The Field Where I Died"

Rating: Gen

Words: 2243

Paper Hearts (04x10)

Will you take me as I am?

Summary: Angst. Written as an extended/alternative ending for Paper Hearts, which is one of my favorite episodes.

Rating: Gen

Words: 1934

Small Potatoes (04x20)

2:47 AM

Summary: N/A

Rating: Teen

Words: 2394

Demons (04x23)

It Lingers

Summary: The aftermath of trauma and the lingering effects of Mulder’s risky attempt to recover the truth about Samantha’s abduction leads to a revelation from Scully about her own coping mechanisms and flashes into a past she doesn’t fully remember...and the path to which they lead thereafter. For Miss Rachel (red2007) - I hope it is everything that you're looking for (and more?).

Rating: Teen

Words: 10014

Li(f)e

Summary: "Why did you do this," she said into the darkness, feeling the powerlessness and dread crash against her conscience.

Rating: Teen

Words: 1020

Demons

Summary: After the events in "Demons", Scully takes care of Mulder.

Rating: Teen

Words: 1474

Detour (05x04)

A Kitten to Build a Dream On

Summary: Mulder finds a kitten on his way to work, but he's running late for a meeting with Skinner, so he has to take it with him to the office. A day of adorable feline chaos ensues.

Rating: Teen

Words: 6885

Living

Summary: 18. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” 4. “Shut up and kiss me.”

Rating: Explicit

Words: 2431

Fault Lines

Summary: If she'd known how much time she would spend playing twenty questions with him on long drives, she never would have taken this assignment. (Mulder & Scully, in the car and on the plane, arguing all the way home from Leon County, Florida.)

Rating: Gen

Words: 1705

Chinga (05x10)

Calling You

Summary: Yet another phone conversation between Mulder and Scully in "Chinga". This is one is just a little different.

Rating: Explicit

Words: 1814

All work and no play...

Summary: The relief he feels lasts a grand total of four hours. Four hours where he has the office to himself, not having to think about justifying anything to anyone, not engaged in any arguments about anything, not even fighting over who gets to pay for lunch… god he’s bored.

Rating: Gen

Words: 2882

Kitsunegari (05x08)

The Aftermark

Summary: "How many more pushers were there in the world, waiting to turn him against his partner? What was Scully safe from, who could she trust with her life, if not him? " An episode tag for 5x08, "Kitsunegari", because there is not enough post-trauma cuddling on this show.

Rating: Teen

Words: 1708

Kill Switch (05x11)

Cling to me

Summary: Scully is being all clingy and Mulder is annoyed. Or is he?

Rating: Gen

Words: 1132

The Pine Bluff Variant (05x18)

Don't Ever Be Sorry

Summary: Mulder and Scully post Pine Buff Variant. MSR.

Rating: Gen

Words: 1276

Sanctuary

Summary: Mulder, entangled with the New Spartans and wracked with guilt. Scully, suspicious and worried. How do they cope in the aftermath of this case?

Rating: Mature

Words: 6748

All of This (a round) Us

Summary: A broken finger, a bottle of whiskey, and a conversation. Scully sets a bone.

Rating: Teen

Words: 2240

Invariable (not MSR)

Summary: Mulder is a man of many talents, but lying to Scully is not one of them. An episode tag for 5x18, "The Pine Bluff Variant".

Rating: Gen

Words: 1773

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

Summary: Post-ep for The Pine Bluff Variant. Scully wants to get Mulder away from the scene of the coverup.

Rating: Teen

Words: 2016

Stolen Moment

Summary: Written for the XF Missing Scene Challenge. This is a (slightly) NSFW scene for “The Pine Bluff Variant”.

Rating: Explicit

Words: 2014

Folie a Deux (05x19)

Committed

Summary: Mulder finds himself living out a longtime fear of being held in a psychiatric hospital. Spoilers for Folie a Deux

Rating: Teen

Words: 4235

Triangle (06x03)

Side Effects

Summary: After Mulder's doped-up declaration of love, Scully takes him home to rule out brain damage.

Rating: Explicit

Words: 5532

Walls crumble down

Summary: Mulder finally says "I love you" to Scully in his hospital bed after his adventure in the Bermuda triangle. How does this affect Scully? How does she react to this?

***

Remember those walls I built Well, baby they're tumbling down And they didn't even put up a fight They didn't even make up a soundI found a way to let you in But I never really had a doubtHit me like a ray of sun Burning through my darkest night You're the only one that I want Think I'm addicted to your lightI swore I'd never fall again But this don't even feel like falling Gravity can't forget To pull me back to the ground againFeels like I've been awakened Every rule I had you breakin' The risk that I'm takin' I'm never gonna shut you outYou're everything I need and more It's written all over your face

Rating: Teen

Words: 3447

Accord

Summary: A mostly Scully-sided look at the few moments beyond the final scene of Triangle and a simple, possibly canon-compliant gesture.

Rating: Gen

Words: 1159

Standing on the Precipice

Summary: Summary: If he dies, she’ll kill him. Or: How does Scully go from being gun-ready-to-go-off woman-on-a-mission to rolling her eyes at Mulder’s confession at the end of Triangle? Because surely nothing says I love you more than that whole scene.

Rating: Teen

Words: 1973

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas (06x06)

How Maggie Stole Christmas

Summary: Mulder hasn't really celebrated Christmas since Samantha was taken and unbeknownst to Scully, he receives an invite from Maggie to celebrate with the Scully family!

Rating: Teen

Words: 2930

Arcadia (06x15)

Into the Woods

Summary: A missing scene from Acadia; a direction the story ultimately didn't take.

Rating: Explicit

Words: 3988

Alpha (06x16)

Alpha

Summary: Their edges overlapped, bled, blurred together. Territorial, intimate. They laid claim to each other and then moved through their lives as though nothing had changed. What were they ever going to do with this? A domestic post-episode tag. “Alpha,” season 6.

Rating: Teen

Words: 1750

The Unnatural (06x19)

Rainstorms and Revelations

Summary: After an evening spent playing baseball together, Mulder and Scully make their way home in a rainstorm.

Rating: Gen

Words: 3143

Biogenesis, The Sixth Extinction, and Amor Fati (06x22, 07x01, and 07x02)

Voices In the Dark (Amor Fati)

Summary: A post-ep of "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati," Mulder and Scully cuddle and talk in the early morning hours for a bit after he wakes from a nightmare. Fluff pretty much.

Rating: Teen

Words: 1108

Ophelia (Triptych) (all three eps!)

Summary: Love, distance, and mental illness

Rating: Teen

Words: 7720

replantation (Biogenesis)

Summary: She’s positive that she’d felt him, the moment that she saw him on the camera feed, pacing in circles and screaming, the sound raw and harsh and still ringing in her ears. He’d looked directly into the camera, directly at her, and she’d felt him, like an extension of her own body, brutally severed and left twitching with muscle spasms against the padded wall. [which Scully gets to him, regardless of the consequences.]

Rating: Teen

Words: 2524

The Goldberg Variation (07x06)

Ready

Summary: After the Henry Weems case, Mulder and Scully end up grocery shopping together

Rating: Teen

Words: 1048

The Amazing Maleeni (07x08)

Magic, Stars, and Desires

Summary: Takes place immediately after the end of The Amazing Maleeni. Mulder and Scully spend the day enjoying their time together. Flirting and fun is on the menu.

Rating: Mature

Words: 4201

Sein Und Zeit (07x10)

Dark Reflections

Summary: "It's been a hard night for him."

Rating: Teen

Words: 6523

You Make Me Feel Like I'm Not Good Enough

Summary: Missing scene for Season 7's Sein Und Zeit.

Rating: Gen

Words: 636

Luctus

Summary: “It’s been a hard night for him.” spoiler alert: this isn't a drabble

Rating: Explicit

Words: 2509

Shoved; Then Jumping

Summary: She didn’t want to think, didn’t want him to think — didn’t want to separate awkwardly, go about picking up strewn clothing and making apologies. So she didn’t.

Rating: Explicit

Words: 2475

Scully’s Brüste

Summary: This vignette takes place during Season 7, Episode 10 of the X-Files, “Sein und Zeit”. After the scene when Mulder breaks down crying in his living room in the dark with Sculy comforting him, and sometime before the scene the following morning when Skinner knocks on his door. This is something that may have happened...

Rating: Explicit

Words: 1313

Just Keep Breathing

Summary: A missing/ post scene from Sein Und Zeit. Scully tries to calm Mulder down after the death of his mother.

Rating: Not Rated

Words: 860

X-Cops (07x12)

nothing to hide

Summary: This, for once, isn’t their usual dialogue.

Rating: Gen

Words: 651

Stargazing in L.A. (multi-chapter)

Summary: Now that Mulder has found some closure regarding his family history is he ready to move on with the rest of his life? A short story based on Mulder and Scully's visit to L.A - what will they do with their evening off following their starring role in 'Cops'. Angst-free happiness.

Rating: Explicit

Words: 7044

All Things (07x17) - [this one’s very popular, I just haven’t read many of the fics yet]

in all things.

Summary: "Something had flicked a switch within her at that Temple and she realised that all things had led to this life, this man, this moment. From now on she was going to decide her own future and own it, and that meant fully embracing what she had with her partner. Her partner in all things."

Rating: Mature

Words: 2142

Brand X (07x18)

Wasted Breath

Summary: Post-"Brand X," what if the tobacco beetles left something behind?

Rating: Gen

Words: 5799

His New Mouthwash

Summary: Mulder can't get the taste of nicotine out of his mouth after Brand X. Scully helps him.

Rating: Explicit

Words: 635

#fic recs #xf fic recs #xf fics #fics #mine

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gsr-immortality · 4 years

Text

communication pre-canon 2

The Accused is Entitled 03x02

Featuring the accusation of a famous actor for murdering two women, the CSIs have to work in the spotlight both at the scene, and in court. GSR is forced to have its moment in the spotlight when Sara is questioned under oath about her involvement with Grissom, and is outed by his mentor for having a relationship with Hank the EMT.

Again, through the lens of communication, this episode is very revealing.

While it is later revealed in the seventh season finale that Grissom has loved Sara since day one (and I’m inclined to think Sara felt the same) their mutual fear of rejection and mutually assured destruction kept their feelings at a frustrating distance throughout the series. This episode succeeds at bringing this problem to the forefront.

During the highly publicized trial, the defense enlists the help of Dr. Phillip Gerard, Grissom’s mentor. While Sara is on the stand, she is taken aback when questioned about her relationship to her supervisor, as her actions in 02x05 scooba doobie doo are brought to light in front of the team. Revealing that she was touching him in a compassionate manner, she argues she was merely brushing chalk from his face.

Grissom later defends Sara when Dr. Girard comments on Sara’s actions at the crime scene. The victim’s bra was moved briefly and replaced - for which Sara properly filed a report. Dr. Girard then drops the bombshell that Sara was dating the EMT who moved the bra, something she failed to disclose. Sara immediately tries to backtrack on the use of the word “relationship” and Grissom is momentarily stunned by this revelation. The awkwardness between the two is palpable.

Grissom excuses himself from her presence as quickly as possible after this revelation, despite having just jumped to her defense. This interaction makes it painfully clear that while Sara really liked Hank, and the rest of the team was at least partially aware of the relationship, Sara had kept everything from Grissom. You can see by the stunned expression and body language Grissom retreats into, that he may have had a moment of clarity and realization that he’s waited too long to be forthcoming about his feelings for Sara, a sentiment she later echoes in the season finale 03x22 Play With Fire. In this episode Sara garners the brief courage to ask Grissom to dinner and see what happens. Grissom says he doesn’t know what to do about their feelings for one another to which Sara replies “you know by the time you figure it out, it really could be too late” leaving Grissom to ponder this as he turns off the light in his office and follows her. Once again leaving us with an incredibly ambiguous finale leading into the next season.

Play With Fire gets an honourable mention here as it’s also the first episode to showcase a pet name. After an accidental explosion in the lab injures Sara, Grissom is the first to approach her and assess her injuries, noting the injury on her hand he says “honey, this doesn’t look good.” Once again, a comment made without time to think in a stressful situation. It seems the two can only control their feelings when actively trying to.

#csi #csi las vegas #csi crime scene investigation #gsr #grissom x sara #sara x grissom #grissom sara romance #sara sidle #jorja fox #gil grissom #william petersen #cbs #otp #otp: gsr

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hollygl125 · 4 months

Text

On January 15:

Am I declaring another GSR holiday? Maybe. Why not? This is my Tumblr account, so I guess I’ll do what I want to do. Is it already over in pretty much every time zone except mine? Yep, that too. (Edited to add: it’s over here now, too, by the time of posting.)

January 15 is a pretty significant day in GSR history—perhaps the most significant. (Surely the first day of the AAFS conference would be in the running in the fictional world. But in the real world I’d say January 15 beats out most.) First, twenty years ago, on January 15, 2004, we got “Butterflied” (04x12). Then, exactly five years later, on January 15, 2009, we got “One to Go” (09x10), the episode that really should have tied it all up with a bow (and, for a time, did).

Last week I made a GIF-set for Sara’s introduction in “Cool Change” (01x02) then a day or two later I continued my CSI rewatch with “Invisible Evidence” (04x07). Inevitably I watched the (“Pin me down”) scene repeatedly before continuing with the episode. I know season 04 is the GSR angst season (*insert “TM” I can’t type here*). But, spending that much time with “I don’t even have to turn around” and “Pin me down” in such quick succession, I was particularly struck by the sadness of these two people having gone from friends (or “friends,” if you get my drift, of course) who were, despite the tragic circumstances surrounding their reunion, pretty darn happy to see each other to, in about three years’ time, colleagues who could barely have a normal, non-awkward conversation. (See: “I’m always over-talking around you.”) Viewed in retrospect it’s an enjoyable though angsty loop in the GSR roller coaster ride, but it feels really sad when viewed from the perspective of the time.

At the end of season 03, Grissom turns down Sara’s dinner invitation (“Play with Fire,” 03x22). In “Invisible Evidence,” “Pin me down” aside, he’s kind of a jerk to her (when she’s concerned about the murder she’s already investigating, he gives her the terse “It’s not a negotiation”). He lets her down again in the next episode (“After the Show,” 04x08), when he lets Catherine take over Sara and Nick’s case just because the suspect thinks Catherine is “the pretty one.” Sara doesn’t know it until much later, but she suffers another (metaphorical) blow at his hands in “Eleven Angry Jurors” (04x11), when he recommends Nick for the ultimately-cancelled promotion to Lead CSI (whatever the heck that is) over Sara. Of course, at the same time, Sara and Grissom get some ridiculous cuteness in that episode, as seen here, when Grissom makes a corny pun over a bee (of course a 🐝) corpse and checks to make sure Sara thinks he’s adorable. (Newsflash: she does!)

(As an aside, on which I will possibly ramble more at a later date, I tend to see Grissom up to this point as a wounded animal—occasionally accidentally lashing out at his would-be rescuer, Sara—who is simply unequipped and unprepared for the situation in which he has found himself, so I think he is trying his best but does not really realize how deeply wounded he is.)

Then we continue on the GSR roller coaster with the beloved and angsty “Butterflied.” CSI being a show about forensics, this really could have been the kind of relationship that always simmered under the surface but never came to much of anything for the presumably star-crossed lovers. We know the writers planned to let the whole thing disappear after Sara’s failed dinner invitation. But WP and JF liked playing the relationship! (JF has, repeatedly I am sure, said it was her favourite part of the show!) They didn’t want it to go away! So instead in the first half of season 04 we get first “Pin me down” and then the David Rambo-penned “Butterflied,” which finally confirms (as we all knew all along!) that Sara does not just have some unrequited schoolgirl crush on her boss and mentor. This is the real deal, and Dr. Grissom has been suppressing some deep feelings for the young and beautiful Ms. Sidle—really deep feelings, as seen in the original script for Grissom’s “Butterflied” monologue.

I don’t actually remember watching “Butterflied” for the first time. At the time most of my attention was focused on my first year of [professional] school. I was definitely a more casual fan and not down the rabbit hole (although I am the kind of person who manages to ship couples on shows she’s never even watched). The first episode of CSI for which I have a clear memory of having an emotional reaction was “Bloodlines” (04x23), because I felt pretty upset by Sara’s almost-DUI.

On the other hand, I have a very clear memory of first watching “One to Go” (09x10), which originally aired fifteen years ago today (yesterday now), although I did not first watch it on that day. I was in Pakse exactly fifteen years ago, or so my photo evidence tells me; so I assume I would not have managed to watch the episode live in Laos (I didn’t even have a laptop with me), but I must have watched it soon after I got home at the end of the month, and I was wholly unspoiled for the experience.

I don’t know whether anyone at the time had hints of whether JF was showing up at all for WP’s last episode. (Fi? Anyone?) But as far as I am aware they all pulled an ER/George Clooney and didn’t let anyone in on the last scene. (GSR has echoed Doug on the docks on more than one epic relationship occasion. And yeah that song is so perfect that it’s on my GSR fic playlist for the first post-“Immortality” reunion chapter.) They held JF’s name from the initial credits so as not to give her appearance away. So there we were in the last scene, with Gil Grissom walking through the “Costa Rican” rainforest, and Sara Sidle still nowhere to be seen, and I vividly remember thinking, “Please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to… Sara!!!” I’m in tears just thinking about it—I kid you not.

Anyway, I am sure that scene in Costa Rica is ingrained in the hearts and minds of GSR fans everywhere, but—just in case you needed to see another version—I made a two-part GIF set for it, which you can find here and here. I think “Wild Heart” by Bleachers is a perfect song for Grissom going into the rainforest in search of his beloved, so it makes me pretty emotional (and of course “Unbound” by Robbie Robertson is a GSR classic).

On another note, this weekend I also made a season 04/CSIV GIF-set (not linked because it’s currently sitting in my drafts, uncertain as to its fate), and I have to say I find it really pretty remarkable that we got to see our two lovely science nerds go from a cute-turned-angsty under the surface maybe-relationship to a real relationship, to our awkward bugman going on a heroic journey (“from the isolated figure we first meet him as to the one who, when he leaves us, believes, above everything, in love”) and following his beloved into the rainforest, to places we don’t talk about (okay, I could have skipped that part), to sailing off into the sunset together, to being the world’s cutest old marrieds. It really was a roller coaster ride, but I think it’s pretty special (and I feel pretty privileged) that we got to experience it all.

I’ll stop rambling now. Usually I proofread everything I write about twenty times to make sure I haven’t missed any typos or accidentally written anything that could offend anyone, but tonight I’m posting this immediately before going to bed. So, if you’ve actually read this far, please be polite in pointing out my typos, and please know that I really didn’t mean any offence (to anyone, on anything).

Those are my (very rough) thoughts; obviously your perspective may differ! 💛 Happy tumbling!

#gsr #otp: gsr #sara sidle #gil grissom #sara x grissom #grissom x sara #💛: survivors in the night #my thoughts and feelings on the two lovely science nerds

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addictedtostorytelling · 1 year

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Hello, I have a question because you think that in the scene of the minced meat-hamburger 02x15 Sara wants to leave Las Vegas and go to the FBI but instead in s3 she sends her solo in the cases and rejects her 3x22 dinner continues with "hopes" in Las Vegas.

hi, anon!

i'm afraid i don't understand what your question is.

do you mean to ask if there is a link between sara requesting a leave of absence from the lab in episode 02x15 "burden of proof" and how grissom treats her in s3?

or are you asking why sara remains in vegas after asking for the leave of absence and then later, at the end of s3, being rejected by grissom?

or is your question something else?

if your question is the first one i've listed here, i don't think there is a link between her request and his subsequent treatment of her in s3, as that issue is one that is essentially "put to bed" by the end of the episode, when he sends her the green plant. rather, the way he treats her in s3 has to do with myriad other factors, including his jealousy over her relationship with hank peddigrew during the first half of the season and his own worsening deafness during the second half of the season. i outline his reasons for rejecting her dinner invitation here, if you're interested.

if your question is the second one i've listed here, then i think the truth is that sara remains in vegas in both instances (both after the events of episode 02x15 "burden of proof" and after the events of episode 03x22 "play with fire") essentially for the same reason: because even for as much as the lack of traction in her relationship with grissom frustrates her and at times even breaks her heart, she feels connected to him in a way she does nobody else, to the point where, at the end of the day, she would still prefer to have some of him rather than none of him.

with no other ties to anyone else in the world, he is, for better or worse, the closest thing she has to a "home."

sure, she could always find work elsewhere—though, as grissom points out to her in episode 02x15 "burden of proof," any job she would take outside of the las vegas crime lab would be a downgrade from the one she has there—but what she couldn't find would be that kind of human bond, that sense of belonging with someone.

after having been alone her whole life, she can't bring herself to walk away from the one person she's ever truly been bonded to, even if the nature of their relationship is not the way she might like it to be at present.

honestly, when she puts in the request for the leave of absence, it isn't even really that she wants to work for the fbi*; it's that she is upset by the current state of her and grissom's relationship.

* maybe at some point before she started working for the lvpd, she might have been interested in perhaps working in the federal system. but afterward, not really. she's just saying that she is because she doesn't know what else to do re: her impasse with grissom.

she moved to vegas with the expectation that they would be a couple, but after a year and a half living there and working under him, not only are they not in a romantic relationship but he is acting more aloof from her than ever.

as i talk about here,

for him, the hamburger is just hamburger, but for her, it’s more.

he’s looking at their conflict, thinking, “okay, so i’m working on an experiment involving raw hamburger, and sara comes in when i’m already mostly done with it. i don’t have time to slow down because the case is hot, so i ask her to handle the clean-up so that i can move on to the next thing, which is something that is 100% within my purview to do, as i am her supervisor, and she’s my subordinate. she gets upset about the assignment i’ve given her because it disagrees with her personal sensibilities, which—whatever. i don’t really get it, because to me science is science, but that’s her prerogative not to touch raw meat if she doesn’t want to, i guess, so i tell her she can have nick deal with the clean-up instead. to me, that’s the long and short of the matter, but to her, it must not be, because the next thing i know, she’s putting in a request for a leave of absence, accusing me of not respecting her. did the hamburger really offend her that badly? i don’t understand why she’s so upset.”

meanwhile, she’s looking at it, thinking, “i moved to las vegas believing that when i got here, grissom and i would be a couple. obviously, that’s not how things have panned out, though. since i’m a big girl, i’ve tried to deal with the disappointment—to play by grissom’s rules and respect his boundaries, holding out hope that maybe someday he’ll change his mind, yes, but not pushing him into anything or giving voice to my heartache. i get why he has trepidations, of course. i get what’s at stake for him. and that’s why i don’t lobby for more than he’s willing to give. i feel like so far i’ve been pretty good about adapting to the reality of our situation. still. that’s not to say that it doesn’t hurt when he’s callous with me—when he treats me like there was never anything between us, even though we both know that’s not true. for a year and a half now, i’ve stood by, making the best of his mood swings. some days, he treats me like i annoy the hell out of him, to the point where i wonder why he even keeps me on the team. but other days, he’s back to being prince charming, giving me all sorts of reasons to hope. honestly, the whole runaround is exhausting, and i wish he would come down one way or the other all of the time. this raw hamburger debacle is just the latest and worst in a string of slaps in the face from him. we shared that night watching over the pig carcass together last year, and i thought it was a big deal, that it meant something to both of us. but now he can’t even be assed to remember it, and he can’t be assed to even respect me as a person. i memorize and analyze and overanalyze and pore over every little exchange that passes between us. i live and die by how he treats me, weathering the bad days, living for the good. but obviously that’s not how things are for him. obviously, i’m not that important. it’s probably time for me to recognize that discrepancy. i can’t keep waiting around for him to figure things out. i’ve got to do something to clear my head and get over him once and for all.”

and that’s the big difference between them:

at this point in his development, grissom is refusing to look at the bigger picture stuff because it scares him and complicates his project of trying to pretend that his and sara’s relationship is solely professional. for him, it’s much easier just to assume their individual interactions happen in a vacuum and ignore larger patterns. he doesn’t want to acknowledge the grander implications of what’s going on between them, so he doesn’t; he compartmentalizes.

him telling catherine that sara is “emotional” is part of that compartmentalization: it’s easier for him to pretend that sara is having an irrational response to the situation than it is for him to admit that he’s the one who’s making things weird by pretending that there aren’t any personal aspects to this interaction, even though there very clearly are.

but sara not only doesn’t want to take that approach; she literally can’t.

she can’t help but think about their every interaction in terms of what it means within the larger arc of their relationship. to her, overtones and implications are everywhere. it’s all big-picture. it all counts toward the whole.

and that’s what she tells him when she confronts him in his office: that she’s not just upset about the hamburger thing; that this incident of him being dismissive of her isn’t isolated. to her, his disrespect toward her has become chronic ever since she moved to vegas. he’s been so hot and cold with her, so inconsistent, and, after a year and a half, she can’t take it anymore.

what ultimately stops her from making good on her threat to move on to the fbi is that at the end of the episode, grissom takes action to show her that he does actually care about and notice her on a personal level; by sending her the plant, he proves that their relationship isn't solely professional and never has been.

once she has that assurance, she then is willing to settle back into their typical vegas modus operandi.

it doesn't hurt matters that grissom then spends the entire tail end of s2 being incredibly sweet to her.

as for why she doesn't leave town after grissom rejects her at the end of s3—even in the absence of some grand, affirming gesture from him—it's because, at that point, i think she's resigned to her lot in life.

after three years in vegas, she is fairly certain grissom is never going to come around to having a romantic relationship with her, despite what she had hoped for for so long.

so she has a choice: she can either stay in vegas where she cannot have his love but does have her dream job and at least can be in his presence OR she can go elsewhere, where she won't have his love but also won't have her dream job or be in his presence.

and so, despite how pathetic she realizes it is, she decides to stay in vegas, because even without having a romantic relationship with grissom, she would rather just be close to him and have the job he gave her than to go back to being totally alone.

going off to work at the fbi or some other crime lab (or even leaving the profession entirely) doesn't really appeal to her because to do so would require her to walk away from the one person she has any kind of ties to at all.

so even though remaining in his presence while feeling certain that she will never have him in the way she truly wants breaks her heart, she still considers doing so the best option she has.

thankfully for her, her choice to remain in vegas and continue working with grissom does eventually pay dividends, as in s5 he finally comes around, paving the way for them to finally have the kind of relationship she has always wanted.

anyway, sorry if i have completely failed to answer your question.

if you want to send another ask clarifying what you meant, please feel welcome to!

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: sara #02x15 #03x22 #let's talk shop #csiverse

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addictedtostorytelling · 2 years

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Hello 👋

This question is a little weird but do you think that Grissom and Sara's sex life is vanilla? By your perspective, how do you see their sex life? Do you think Sara being younger than Grissom, ever feel not satisfied? A friend of mine said that Grissom seems a little kinky but I don't know lol have any thoughts on this?

Thank you 😊

hi, anon!

so i'll say up front, we have very little canonical evidence of what grissom and sara's sex life is like, except that we know they're both very satisfied with it (see episodes 07x21 "ending happy" and 11x13 "the two mrs. grissoms") and that sara sometimes seems to be the initiator of their sexual encounters (see reboot episode 01x04 "long pig").

given the dearth of information otherwise, all i can really give you here is my own personal unsubstantiated headcanon, such as it is.

as preface to my thoughts, i'll direct you here and here for my take on grissom's sexuality and how it plays into his and sara's relationship.

more discussion after the "keep reading."

so as talked about in the posts linked above, i read grissom as being demisexual, which means that he only feels sexually attracted to people he has an emotional connection with, and in his case specifically whom he is romantically in love with. since by his own admission, sara is the only person he's ever romantically loved (see episodes 07x21 "ending happy" and 16x02 "immortality" pt. ii), then that means she's also the only person he's ever truly been sexually attracted to.

this point forms the basis of my headcanon for what his and sara's sex life is like.

simply put, i think that for grissom, sex is very much about sara—that the thing that turns him on is making her feel good.

essentially, to "get his," he has to "get hers" first.

that so, i tend to think he's a very attentive lover to her and also that he is very content to follow her lead (particularly as she is somewhat more sexually experienced than he is, despite being younger).

that's not to say he never initiates but just that he's very comfortable having sara be in the driver's seat, so to speak.

as i talk about in the second post linked above,

given her previous experiences, sara likely comes into her relationship with grissom expecting not necessarily “more of the same”—because i think she views grissom as being much more mature and trustworthy than any of her previous boyfriends were overall—but certainly for him to behave in ways that gel with what she understands is “typical straight guy sexual behavior,” such as, for example, for him to be the “pursuer” in the relationship and to be the one to initiate their encounters, to have a highly active libido, to be assertive/aggressive in bed, to like to be made to feel big/strong/powerful, etc.

in contrast to what she expects, what sara actually gets with grissom is a partner who is more than happy to let her lead—i mean, even just in the nonsexual part of their romantic relationship, she is frequently the one who has to “make the first move” (see episodes 03x22 “play with fire” and 05x12 “snakes”)—and who, while definitely an active and eager participant in their sexual encounters, is not overly assertive/aggressive whatsoever. instead, he is highly attentive and takes an almost studious approach to figuring out what she likes. he is also unselfish, vulnerable, and not at all domineering. he doesn’t obsess about adhering to gender stereotypes and acting “macho” in bed at all times in the way some guys do.

that said, ultimately, even though grissom's approach to sex is different from anything sara has encountered previously, i think she pretty quickly realizes—immediately, really—that what she has with grissom is so much better than what she had been used to before, not only because he is such an attentive lover and so in tune with her but also because it is with him that she experiences "making love" for the first time and realizes how beautiful it can be to be with someone she actually has a deep emotional connection to.

just like she is grissom's first and only romantic love, he's also hers, as well.

now.

as for what kind of sex grissom and sara have, i imagine they’re for the most part very tender with each other. while that’s not to say they never just fuck, i think they’re really fond of making love—which is a new experience for both of them, coming into their relationship.

i don't think they're into anything even close to actual bdsm, as due to sara’s family history, she probably has a strong aversion not only to violence in and of itself but especially sex mixed with violence, and grissom would rather die than do anything to make her uncomfortable or cause her to feel unsafe around him.

to that end, while canon shows us that they've got a little bit of a thing for softly restraining each other—see the duct tape scenes in episodes 01x03 "crate n' burial" and 04x13 "suckers" and the "pin me down" scene in episode 04x07 "invisible evidence"—i imagine that it’s not in the sense of “i’m going to tie you down so i can inflict pain on you” but rather in the sense of “i’m going to tie you down so i can lavish you with attention while you direct me where to go.”

i also personally don't really think they're into things like dress-up or staging elaborate fantasy scenes (just because they're both a little bit too practical to loosen up like that) or kinks other than the whole “tie me up” one.

that so, i guess by the standard definition, to my mind, they are pretty “vanilla.”

of course, i also don't think there's anything wrong with “vanilla.”

like this text post says, vanilla sex can be beautiful, especially between two people who love each other.

i also don't believe that vanilla sex necessarily equates to "no fun"—because “vanilla sex” can actually encompass a lot of different types of sexual acts, and, especially with them, i think they delight in finding new ways to rev each other up and get each other off.

for similar reasons to why i can’t see them being into bdsm, i also can’t see them being into any kind of derogatory dirty talk in the bedroom (no name-calling or humiliation or insults); however, i do think they talk to—and laugh with—each other in bed and sometimes even play “keep talking to me until you can’t” kind of games.

the fact that they're not as beholden to the traditional gender roles or the socialized aspects of sex as other couples may be probably allows them to experiment with what they both like until they perfect what they do together.

given that even outside of sexual situations, they're a physical couple, it's easy to imagine that they have a highly developed sexual lexicon with each other in the bedroom; that they know each other's bodies and cues incredibly well and trust each other so much that even without the use of props or accouterments, they end up having an amazingly good time.

hands down, i think both of them would say that the other person is the best sexual partner that they've ever had, no contest.

as for whether or not sara as a younger woman ever feels dissatisfied with grissom as an older man, i think there's at least some evidence in canon to suggest that's very much not the case.

as stated above, not only does sara claim that she and grissom have “great sex” (see episode 11x13 “the two mrs. grissoms”), but she also seems to have the expectation that he could keep up with her all night, even as late as the events of reboot episode 01x04 “long pig,” which indicates that at age sixty-five, he's still able to satisfy her.

to that end, grissom himself also makes several comments over the years which indicate that he's—how shall we say?—“still going strong” sexually, despite his age (see, for example, episode 04x12 “butterflied,” when he not only appears genuinely confused by catherine's statement that some guys need leverage in order to have sex but also is completely unfamiliar with the usage of the erectile dysfunction treatments greg mentions when they're talking about propecia).

also, even if there ever were a time when he wasn't feeling up to having sexual intercourse, he's skilled enough in pleasing sara in other ways that it wouldn't be a problem.

then, in terms of whether or not grissom is kinky, i personally don't think so.

as previously discussed, i think the biggest thing that gets grissom going is just sara herself and how she responds to him.

while he has an anthropological interest in the diverse spectrum of human sexual behaviors (hence why he displays such fascination with concepts like furry fandom and bdsm), i don't think he himself actually goes out for that stuff.

though he understands that for some people sex is all about power play, for him, that's not what's at the heart of it. he views sex as an expression of love and connection (see episode 07x21 “ending happy”).

again, that's not to say he and sara never do any down and dirty fucking, but that is to say that he's personally not interested in dominance/submission dynamics and also that he doesn't have to look far for sexual inspiration because the thing that inspires him most is just that the woman he loves and is sexually attracted to loves and is sexually attracted to him in return, which honestly seems like a kind of miracle to him every time he thinks about it.

just looking in her eyes, feeling her body, knowing that she trusts him to make her feel good—that's the be-all, end-all for him.

so.

all of the above said, how do i see grissom and sara's sex life?

i think they have sex a lot—pretty much daily, schedule allowing.

it’s a calming, anchoring thing for them, especially after work.

i also think that sara is typically the initiator of their sexual encounters; however, grissom is an enthusiastic participant once she initiates.

i think they're “vanilla” and happy.

i think they feel close to each other when they're together and communicate really well through the act of making love.

i think both of them are incredibly satisfied in their sex life.

i also think they're very private about their sex life, considering that it's nobody's business but their own.

like i said, all of the above is pretty much my own headcanon, and ymmv a lot.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: gsr #my headcanons #let's talk shop #csiverse

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addictedtostorytelling · 2 years

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These two scenes have been bothering me for a while now...

1. Why do you think Grissom asked Sara to work with him in the vault after he turned her down on s3? But then started acting awkward in s4?

2. Can you please explain Grissom's reaction when Sara asked if he wanted to sleep with him in the Kate Shelton case?

hi, anon!

the tl;dr answers to your questions are

grissom asks sara to work with him in episode 03x23 "inside the box" because he wants to "test the waters" to see where they stand in the wake of his rejection of her. however, in observing her up close, he realizes that he has caused her emotional pain and (in his mind) irrevocably altered the nature of their relationship, so afterward—during the summer between s3 and s4—he begins to emotionally withdraw from her, which is why we see him acting aloof from her come s4.

depending on if one believes that grissom and sara have ever had sex prior to when she moves to vegas or not, he is either shocked at her for dredging up their past sexual history (which is something they typically don’t talk about, and particularly not at work) OR he is affronted by her explicitly acknowledging the always extant but never yet acted-upon unspoken sexual tension between them.

more discussion after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

1. "why do you think grissom asked sara to work with him in the vault after he turned her down on s3? but then started acting awkward in s4?"

the events of episode 03x23 "inside the box" take place approximately one week after the events of episode 03x22 "play with fire" within the universe of the show.

though of course we don't get to see what happens during that said week, my guess is that grissom and sara don't have a lot of contact with each other, as grissom is dealing with the fallout from the lab explosion and sara is trying to keep her distance from him as she nurses her broken heart.

sara's response to grissom at the beginning of episode 03x23 "inside the box" shows that this contact is some of the first they've had since he declined her date offer: you can tell by the expression on her face when he tells her to follow him into the vault at the bank that she is a bit shocked that he would opt to spend time with her one-on-one, given what's recently happened between them.

to my mind, the reason why grissom does pick sara to partner with him in this episode is because he is curious about where he stands with her since he rejected her romantic overtures.

he knows the second the words "i don't know what to do about this" leave his mouth that he has fucked up with sara, perhaps more so than he ever has before, and his immediate impulse in the wake of making such a monumental mistake is to want to fix it.

but in order to fix it, he has to know how dire the situation really is.

is she angry with him? hurt? upset? okay?

since he hasn't really been around her much over the course of the week, he doesn't really know, and of course he has a vested interest in finding out.

i tend to believe this impulse to "take sara's temperature" is a largely subconscious one on his part.

however, whether it is subconscious or not, it is an impulse that is most definitely compounded by his complicated feelings surrounding his hearing loss.

with surgery looming and his hearing worse than ever, his instinct is to keep sara, who is not only his true love but also the one person on his team whose voice is in a register still perceptible to him, close, even given the fact that he recently rejected her. she is very much a security blanket for him, and at a time when he's feeling incredibly vulnerable, he needs her, so he reaches out, using his authority as her supervisor to call her to his side.

is this behavior on his part logical? no.

is it fair to her? certainly not.

it is, however, reflexive—something he does based on the feelings in his heart, before his head can think better of them.

so we see: once he chooses her to work with him, grissom interacts with sara in his typical way, playfully posing her riddles, showing approval for her work in putting the blasted lockboxes back together, and keeping himself in close physical proximity to her, acting very "normal”—as if he hadn't just smashed her heart into a million pieces the week before.

he does so (and, again, i believe he's acting on a subconscious impulse here) in order to gauge how sara will react to him. he wants to see if the status quo between them has been maintained or not.

and the thing is, sara does outwardly behave in her usual manner toward grissom.

it's not like she refuses to play his trivia games or stands far away from him or acts reluctant to talk to him. certainly, she doesn't express any anger or sorrow.

on a surface level, she seems “fine.”

but that's the other thing: gsr is never about what's going on on a surface level, and grissom himself knows as much.

sure, to the uninformed observer, grissom and sara's interactions while working in the bank vault might seem totally copacetic. but to someone who knows better—to grissom himself—there is just a slight degree of “offness.”

the vibes, as the kids say, are weird.

that so, while grissom is able to get along with sara just fine as they work on the bank vault explosion together in episode 03x23 “inside the box,” i think that as a few more days and weeks pass (into what for us as viewers is summer hiatus territory), he becomes increasingly aware that though she's putting on a brave face and trying to be professional, she is in fact gun-shy when it comes to him.

she may smile with her mouth, but there's no light in her eyes when she does so; her laughter at his inappropriate crime scene puns sounds forced; she doesn't ever volunteer herself to work with him anymore but instead just hangs back, willing to do so if called upon, but definitely not eager to pursue such an arrangement herself.

gradually, as he accumulates more evidence in this regard, it dawns on grissom that what happened between him and sara—that his rejection of her—has had its consequences.

and that's when he starts to think better of his current course of action.

once he clocks sara's heartbreak, he realizes that he is in danger of slipping back into old patterns: it has always been so easy for him to get sara's hopes up only to then let her down, but now for the first time since she moved to vegas, he's starting to recognize how unfair of him it is to treat her that way.

as i talk about here,

for as scared as grissom is of sara potentially rejecting him once she realizes his flaws, and for as much as him being scared prevents him from actually being with her in any "official” capacity, the fact is that he is still, just as much as ever, in love with her, and because he is, he is always (in spite of himself and his trepidations) drawn to her, like a moth to a flame.

and so we see a situation during s1 and s2 where grissom perpetuates a kind of cycle with sara, over and over again:

first he gets close to her (because that’s what his heart and his instincts are telling him to do).

then once he becomes cognizant of how close he actually is to her—which is something that tends to happen when sara makes some kind of move or gesture in acknowledgment of and/or response to their closeness—he panics, realizing that he is coming up against a line he dares not cross.

at that point, he retracts from sara emotionally/socially, trying desperately to reassert professional boundaries between them.

however, seldom does he manage to do so gracefully, and so he typically ends up hurting her feelings in the process.

of course, since he’s still in love with her, once he realizes that he’s hurt her feelings, he can’t stand to leave things that way, so then he attempts to make amends, acting very sweet and attentive to her to cheer her up and win back her affections.

from that point, one thing leads to another, and pretty soon, he’s getting close to her again (because that’s what his heart and his instincts tell him is right).

the cycle then repeats again from there.

throughout the course of this cycle, grissom straddles the line between being sara’s boss and being sara’s boyfriend, leaning into a more authoritarian role during the parts of the cycle when he’s acting in fear and a more supportive and affectionate one during the parts of the cycle when he’s listening to his heart.

he ends up largely splitting the difference—which in a way, works for him because it means that he gets to experience while not the best of both worlds, at least a livable part of both of them, in the sense that he can keep the balance of his life largely undisturbed while still enjoying sara’s company as long as they’re at work. though he may not get to fully share his life with her in the way he secretly very much wants to, he does kind of get a taste of what doing so would be like, which is as much as he can hope for without putting his career and his heart too much on the line.

however, by the end of s3, after he has explicitly rejected sara's offer of a real romantic relationship between them, he comes to recognize for the first time that he can't "have his cake and eat it, too."

he can't keep perpetuating this cycle.

whereas every other rejection he's ever given her to this point has been a "soft one," telling her to her face that he doesn't want to date her is something more definitive and final.

since that's the decision that he made, he needs to lean into it.

to continue to quote from the post cited above,

there have been plenty of other times prior to this point when grissom has disappointed sara and been aware of it.

i mean, that’s the cycle, right?

he knows he frequently fucks up with her and has come close to losing her more than once since she first moved to vegas.

it’s just that all of those other times, he was always able to course correct—to cover his gauche behavior toward her with sweet attention to her afterward, to express how sorry he was by buying her flowers plants, to undo professional slights with personal compliments, to find some way to prove to her that despite his flaws and fears he would always find a way back to her.

by comparison, this fuck-up feels final, like there’s no undoing it.

she asked him point-blank to take a chance on her—on them—and he told her no.

that’s not something they can come back from, he doesn’t think.

in his mind, he had one his last chance with her, and he just blew it, passing on the one thing he’d ever wanted because he was still too scared to put everything on the line.

that so, he comes to the conclusion that since there’s no way to take back his decision, all he can do is try—for both of their sakes—to make peace with it going forward.

if he can’t date sara because he is her boss (and he’s not ready for that status to change), then he just needs to be her boss, doesn’t he? he needs to do his best to establish professional boundaries between them and relate to her solely on the level of him being her supervisor and her being his subordinate. he can’t pull anymore of his old “acting like her boyfriend at work” shenanigans; he’s got to be 100% committed to remaining at an acceptable collegial distance from her.

—and not just because that’s what’s prudent for his career but also because that’s what’s fair to her.

if he’s never going to be brave enough to be with her, he figures, then he needs to stop stringing her along. he nearly lost his damn mind when she was dating hank, but, really, he had no right to be so jealous when he had had every opportunity to be with her himself but had always found reason to decline her—and he realizes as much now.

he knows he’s been a jerk.

if he isn’t willing or able to be part of her life outside of work, then he needs to give her the space to live however she wants to without him—to seek happiness elsewhere.

and in order for that to happen, he needs to relinquish all claim on her; he must truly remove himself from her enough so that she can move on and make choices that don’t involve him.

that’s just the way things have to work from now on, in his mind.

and that's why, come s4, we see a grissom who is very much in the mode of trying to artificially impose distance and redraw boundaries between himself and sara.

2. "can you please explain grissom's reaction when sara asked if he wanted to sleep with him in the kaye shelton case?"

this issue is somewhat more ambiguous than the other one.

the nature of grissom and sara's pre-vegas relationship is, of course, subject to debate.

some fans believe that they do sleep together prior to the time when sara moves to vegas. others believe that they don't.

whether or not one believes that grissom and sara's relationship was ever sexual pre-vegas, it's undeniable that the nature of their relationship does undergo a transformation once sara becomes a member of grissom's team.

they go from being "friends," per grissom's description in episode 01x02 "cool change," who socialize with each other outside of any professional capacity, to having that kind of annoyingly ambiguous, indeterminate "supervisor/boyfriend-subordinate/girlfriend (but only at work and not always consistently)" kind of dynamic that we see throughout the early seasons of the show.

as i talk about in this post,

there is no one episode in which everything changes all at once for gsr. instead, there are many episodes in which a few things change, and these episodes occur slowly, over time.

sometimes the changes in these episodes take, and other times, they don’t, so there is no clear delineation—no one occasion we can look to when we can say, “this is the point at which grissom starts treating sara differently.”

for as ambiguous as this change is in its nature, it is also ambiguous in the sense that it is something that happens without discussion, lacking any kind of formal definition.

at no point do grissom and sara actually sit down to talk about the fact that what they were while sara still lived in san francisco, they are no more now that she lives in vegas.

as i talk about here,

grissom and sara don’t have a breakup, either big or otherwise—and that’s actually the whole damn problem, as whatever they were in san francisco just kind of slowly and quietly morphs into what they become in vegas, and there’s no real discussion between them of what’s happening at any point along the way, and what happens isn’t even a linear process or something really definitive.

it’s not as if they go from being boyfriend and girlfriend to being exes.

it’s that they go from being “???” (amatory) to “???” (awkward) but also sometimes occasionally still “???” (amatory) and sometimes “???” (aggravated) and sometimes “???” (affectionate) and sometimes “???” (what the hell?!?!?!), and there aren’t any clear signposts from grissom, who’s calling the shots, to sara, who has no idea what they’re even shooting for anymore.

it’s the lack of definition and direction that causes the tension because they’re both still madly in love with each other, but neither one of them has any sense of if or when that love will ever amount to anything.

between the fact that the changes between them happen slowly and nonlinearly and the fact that said changes are never explicitly defined, their whole situation ends up being rather nebulous.

and while sara might want to confront grissom about what the hell is going on—as, after all, she moved to vegas with the expectation that her doing so would precipitate them getting together (see episode 05x12 “snakes”)—she doesn’t dare to actually do so, as she fears that if she were to, she might drive him away from her completely, which is something she very much does not want.

better, in her mind, to suffer through the uncertainty and inconsistency in silence, hoping that maybe eventually “the ship will right itself.”

however, sometimes, even despite her resolution toward stoicism, her feelings of confusion and hurt do still slip out.

—which brings us to the scene in question in episode 01x10 “sex, lies, & larvae.”

option #1

if one believes that grissom and sara had a sexual relationship pre-vegas, then of course the post-vegas change between them would also involve changes to their sexual dynamic.

and, in that case, one can interpret grissom's reaction to sara's rather provocative question in the scene we're discussing as having to do with the changed nature of their sexual relationship before and after her move to vegas.

if they used to sleep together before vegas but either haven't done so at all since she has OR have at least stopped doing so at some point afterward (like say a few weeks or a month or so after her move*), then sara's question draws attention to the fact of that change.

* by now, about two months have passed in show time since her move in total.

her "you want to sleep with me?" would fully imply "you want to sleep with me (like you used to)?"

—in which case we can view grissom’s gaping, slack-jawed, incredulous “did you just say what i think you said?” response as him being shocked that she would actually dare to give name to the thing that for so long both of them have avoided explicitly talking about.

they used to have sex.

then she moved to vegas, and they stopped.

they haven’t talked about the fact that they stopped.

but now she’s bringing it up—in an unmistakable way that clearly communicates her deep sense of hurt—forcing him to face up to the way that he’s treating her.

it’s an audacious thing for her to say.

and it cuts him to the quick.

he cannot believe that she’d actually make that kind of in-your-face statement to him so openly, breaking all of their rules about what they do and do not acknowledge between them in the process.

option #2

of course, if one does not believe that grissom and sara have ever had sex prior to when she moves to vegas, then this scene has different implications.

in that case, sara asking grissom if he wants to sleep with her is tantamount to her giving voice to what has always been an ineffable thing between them previously. they’ve been in love with and sexually attracted to each other since the day they met, but they’ve never (to this point) crossed that line from “friends” to “lovers.” most likely, they’ve never even openly talked about the fact that they might want to.

she’s shining a bright spotlight on all of the ust in their relationship, confronting him with something he probably thinks about constantly but seldom allows himself to acknowledge—i.e., how badly he wants to have sex with her.

it would be an affronting thing for her to say under any circumstances, just given the context of their relationship at the time.

but for her to say it at work and to be so unapologetic about it?

grissom is shaken to his core.

he cannot actually believe she’s going there.

of course, whether one subscribes to option #1 or option #2 in this scenario, it’s clear that sara knows the shock value of her words, regardless.

she wants to say something that will throw grissom off his axis because she’s triggered over the case* and upset about his (seeming) disregard for it; she’s trying to get a rise out of him because she is herself so wound up.

* lest we forget, ipv cases always bring up her cptsd symptoms from childhood, just putting her on edge generally. when sara says she’s hearing kaye’s screams in the car and at the store, she’s not being entirely honest; she’s hearing her mother’s screams as kaye’s. she’s remembering her own lived history. having flashbacks. that’s why she’s so emotionally raw here. that’s why she can’t just let the case go, despite the fact that they are at an evidentiary dead end.

—and she fully succeeds in this objective.

regardless of if we think grissom is astounded because she just invoked the very taboo topic of their past romantic/sexual history OR if we think that he’s thrown by her giving voice to the same question he asks himself about her every night, the fact is that what she says temporarily causes his brain to short-circuit.

while of course what sara is really getting at is that it’s all well and good for grissom to tell her not to let the case get to her when he doesn’t have to be the one to help her deal with her reactions to it or wrangle her emotions himself, all he hears to start out with is the girl he’s in love with standing in the doorway to his office propositioning him in the middle of shift.

thanks for the questions! please feel welcome to send others any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: grissom #meta: gsr #csi #gil grissom #gsr #01x10 #03x23 #let's talk shop #csiverse

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addictedtostorytelling · 2 years

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I was wondering if you have any thoughts about when Grissom is nearly blown up in Grave Danger, and Sara's reaction to that? Obviously its not addressed in the episode but how do you think it went?

hi, anon!

since she's not there when the explosion takes place and everything moves so quickly afterward, in terms of the investigation still being in progress, i don't know that she has much time to fully freak out over the implications in the moment.

i'm sure she is retroactively worried about it when she first hears what happened and has an initial kind of "oh my god! the man i love could have died" reaction internally, but since at that point the team is still very much in the thick of trying to rescue nicky, racing down the ticking clock, i doubt that she has either the opportunity or the emotional wherewithal to process grissom's close call until much later—after the dust has literally settled and nick is safely in the hospital.

since i'm in the camp that believes that grissom and sara are already together by the time the events of episodes 05x24 and 05x25 "grave danger" pts. i and ii are taking place, i imagine that the morning or afternoon after the rescue, once everyone has gone home, she and grissom meet up at either his place or hers and end up engaging in some really passionate, needy lovemaking.

at that time, i think she probably communicates to grissom very strongly with her actions and body language (and possibly with her words, depending on whether or not we believe that they're "to that point" yet with dropping the l-bomb*) just how much she's glad that he didn't actually die.

* not that they don't already both feel it, but just that they might not yet have mustered the courage to say it.

she probably also puts special emphasis on taking care of and comforting him.

on the physical side of things, i'm sure she strongly encourages him to seek the necessary medical attention for whatever injuries from the explosion he may have been to this point ignoring in favor of finishing out the investigation and finding nick—if not just flat-out takes him to the urgent care her damn self.

insert parallel from episode 03x22 "play with fire" here.

meanwhile, on the emotional side of things, i think she's highly aware that while the investigation was underway happening, grissom had to be in strong, decisive leader-mode and compartmentalize his feelings, so now that the crisis is over, she provides him with a space where he can be vulnerable and "let it all out," admitting to how scared he was and how hard the whole situation was on him.

for the next few days/weeks, i think she probably makes a special effort to just be gentle with him and to make things easier on him at work, quietly doing anything that needs doing that she can do so that he doesn't have any extra stress.

she probably doesn't explain her actions; she just takes them.

and the fact that she does makes grissom feel incredibly cared for and known.

anyway, those are my thoughts.

ymmv, of course!

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my headcanons #05x24 #05x25 #let's talk shop #csiverse

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addictedtostorytelling · 2 years

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I was re watching season 5 episode 9 'mea culpa' and I just love the relationship of Greg and Sara, I think he still had a crush on her on that season, I mean look at how cute he is when he's watching Sara, the puppy eyes 🥺🥺 how long do you think it took for him to stop seeing Sara as his crush and develop this sister- brother kind of thing? Do you think in season 7- 8 she was still his crush? I would love to know your thoughts

Ps sorry for the bad english

hi, anon!

no need to apologize for your english! it's great.

as for your question:

honestly, i think greg always kind of has a little crush on sara that never completely goes away for as long as he knows her (post-s3, mainly in this kind of sense)—it's just that eventually he realizes that she doesn't think of him that way and never really will, so he gives up actively pursuing her and pining after her.

if one were to chart greg's feelings for sara over the years, i think we could lay things out as follows:

though he is probably physically attracted to her from the first time he sees her, greg first develops his actual, honest-to-god crush on sara circa the end of s1, around the events of episode 01x20 "sounds of silence."

between the end of s1 and mid-s2, he is in "active pursuit" mode, trying to get close to sara and win her affections.

during the events of episode 02x11 "organ grinder," with some encouragement from catherine, he finally makes his move, asking sara out to dinner with him. however, oblivious to his feelings and herself hung up on grissom, she completely fails to register his invitation as a date and eventually stands him up in order to continue working the case of the night with grissom.

at this point, greg realizes that sara isn't attracted to him in the same way that he is to her. this rejection bruises greg's heart and wounds his ego but doesn't diminish his feelings for sara on the whole.

shortly thereafter, sara starts dating hank peddigrew (see episode 02x14 "the finger"). greg then spends mid-s2 through s3 expressing jealousy toward her relationship with and comparing himself to hank.

though it's not something i can prove, i tend to think that greg's game plan at this point is to just kind of "hang out" until sara and hank's relationship inevitably falls apart—remember: greg has known since day #1 that hank was a douchebag never the right guy for sara (see episode 02x04 "bully for you")—wait for her to recover from the breakup, and then swoop in and woo her once she's "single and ready to mingle" again.

unfortunately for him, this plan gets interrupted when both he and sara are caught up in the lab explosion (see episode 03x22 "play with fire").

this event marks what i would call the turning point in sara and greg's relationship, in terms of his romantic pursuit of her.

unbeknownst to greg, while he is going through his own physical and mental recovery from this trauma (and is thus otherwise occupied), sara experiences some rejection of her own when she asks grissom out and his declines her offer (see episode 03x22 "play with fire").

this event kickstarts her s4 depression storyline.

between greg taking some time to get back on his feet following the explosion—it's a safe bet to presume he probably continues to deal with residual effects from the explosion for at least the first few weeks of the summer hiatus period between s3 and s4—and sara starting to trend downward probably just about the time he's really feeling like himself again, i think whatever romantic intentions greg may have had for sara previously just kind of get lost in the shuffle.

while he's still definitely attracted to her—she's beautiful, smart, kindhearted, fun to be around, etc., and she makes him feel good about himself; in some ways, she'll always be his dream girl—by the time the dust has settled, they're both just kind of different. greg's priorities have shifted, and, observant as he is, can probably tell that something is ~off~ with sara, too; that she somehow seems a bit sad.

so in s4, we don't see a lot of evidence of him pursuing her.

—and especially not because at this point, greg is also starting to transition from lab rat to field mouse, meaning that not only would he no longer be allowed to date sara even if she were into him (as they are now technically "two members of the same forensics team") BUT ALSO that even just on a social level he needs to change how he presents himself to her and the other members of the team in order to earn their respect. if he wants to be taken seriously as a csi, then in addition to giving up his wacky shirts and porn stash, he also needs to stop following sara around like a puppy.

particularly once she becomes his primary trainer at the start of s5, he has to be collegial with her.

that so, while he does still sometimes express attraction to her going forward, from this point on, he doesn't ever seriously try to win her affections again. he might make dumb jokes about having had occasional sex dreams about her (see episode 05x16 "big middle"), but he has no expectation that he and sara are ever going to be a couple.

—and especially not because i believe he realizes that there's some kind of lurking variable in the equation that is sara's love life that he is unaware of. though i don't think (despite what he later intimates to nick in episode 08x02 "a la cart") that he actually has any real idea that grissom and sara are together at any point prior to the big gsr reveal of episode 07x24 "living doll," i do think he notices that after she breaks up with hank, sara never mentions having another boyfriend again. what he makes of this "dry spell" for her in the romance department is difficult to say. maybe he thinks she has sworn off dating after having been cheated on. maybe he thinks she's hung up on someone she can't have. maybe he thinks she is casually dating but foregoing serious relationships. maybe he thinks she's in a secret relationship that she's not talking about at work. but whatever the case, i'm pretty sure he knows that no matter what, she's never going to come around to dating him, which is something he is by now okay with.

though his crush on sara never fully goes away—see, for example, his ability to identify her by scent alone in episode 07x04 "fannysmackin'," his sense of hurt over her leaving vegas without saying goodbye to him/explaining herself in s8, and even various flirtatious comments he makes to her throughout s10-s15 when she comes back to work at the lab, all of which speak to his lingering fondness for her—he gets to a place where he is very comfortable being her platonic best friend and has no expectations that their relationship will ever be romantic in nature.

particularly once he knows about her relationship with grissom, i think he fully recognizes that she is always gonna be grissom's girl; that for her, it's really him or no one (even in the wake of the divorce).

in the meantime, he himself eventually develops a crush on morgan brody, which becomes his active romantic interest throughout the later seasons of the show.

so in the end, i don't think it's ever fully the case that greg completely stops being attracted to sara, but i do think there is kind of a noticeable shift in how he approaches his relationship with her that starts kind of circa s4 and only becomes more pronounced as the years go on.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: greg #let's talk shop #csiverse

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addictedtostorytelling · 2 years

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How do you think Grissom would react if Sara was shot?

hi, anon!

uh, considering how he reacts all of the other times she's hurt and/or her life is in danger (see episodes 01x23 "strip strangler," 03x22 "play with fire," 05x21 "committed," 07x24 "living doll," 08x01 "dead doll," etc.), i think it's probably a pretty safe bet to say he'd completely lose his goddamn mind.

i mean, his specific behavior would depend on the particular scenario—i.e., if he happened to be present when the shooting occurred or only learned about it after the fact, how severe the injury was, what the state of his and sara's relationship was at the time*, whether or not she was in danger of dying, etc.—but he'd across the board be scared and heartsick and determined to help her.

* i mean, regardless of if they were together or not, he'd show the same amount of care. it's just that if it happened before they were dating, he might not be allowed to go with her in the ambulance or stay with her in the hospital, etc.

like.

he wouldn't be okay with the situation or be capable of playing it cool AT ALL.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #hypothetical scenario #let's talk shop #csiverse

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addictedtostorytelling · 2 years

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Hi! Do you know when in the series timeline Grissom gave Sara the entomology book? Was is before or after the infamous dinner rejection? If after, what do you think Sara’s reaction might have been? Wouldn’t the gift confuse her even further? Unless she didn’t think it meant anything but then again it’s Grissom so she knows everything means something!

hi, anon!

episode 04x17 “xx” takes place, in the universe of the show, on 03.11.04, so the most recent christmas prior to that date would be 12.25.03, which falls between the events of episodes 04x11 “eleven angry jurors” (12.18.03) and 04x12 "butterflied" (01.15.04) and therefore canonically AFTER the infamous dinner rejection (in episode 03x22 “play with fire,” 05.08.03).

whatever you do, don't think about the fact that in the original scripted version of his monologue in episode 04x12 "butterflied," grissom talks about wanting to buy sara a bracelet with her birthstone in it, suggesting that he gets her the entomology book as a "safer" option instead.

honestly, i don't think sara is confused about the gift at the time when she receives it, mainly because she has some mistaken assumptions about what it means (or doesn't mean, as it were).

as i talk about in this post,

that sara initially doesn’t think anything of telling nick and hodges about grissom’s christmas gift to her suggests a couple of points.

first, that grissom giving her christmas gifts is most likely a tradition.

sara displays no hesitation in telling nick and hodges about grissom’s gift to her, and the fact that she doesn’t implies that to her the gift seems like no big deal, like something normalized, a “given.”

grissom giving her gifts is therefore most likely a regular and probably yearly experience, something that happens like clockwork and without a lot of fanfare surrounding it.

were receiving a christmas gift from grissom a rare or novel or remarkable occurrence and not something that had happened to her at least every year since she had moved to vegas—or possibly for as long as she and grissom have been friends—she might attach more significance to the action and therefore be less casual in telling nick and hodges about it.

the blasé manner in which she relates that grissom has given her the textbook is indicative of her assumption that there is nothing out-of-the-ordinary going on.

second, that to her, grissom giving her christmas gifts is not necessarily something she views as being a romantically-coded gesture.

typically, both grissom and sara play anything relating to their romantic feelings for each other and/or their pre-vegas relationship very close to the chest.

(hence why, even as late as s8, the other characters on the show still don’t know the specifics of how long they’ve actually been together or what their san francisco history is.)

therefore, my sense is that if sara had any inkling that grissom giving her a christmas gift were something ~special~ and related to his feelings for her, she probably would not speak openly about him doing so to nick and hodges.

that she volunteers information about the gift to her coworkers strongly implies that she doesn’t (at this point) view grissom’s actions in a romantic light. she seems to be under the impression that a) grissom is just acting in his capacity as her boss, giving her something as his employee; and, b) he likely does the same thing for all of his employees.

(most likely, grissom probably even gives her a gift for christmas ‘03, when she is dating hank, as, had he failed to give her a gift at a time when she was in a relationship with another man, his doing so would have strongly indicated that his gifts were romantic and not professional in nature.)

that sara appears surprised when nick and hodges reveal that they’ve never received christmas gifts from grissom supports the idea that prior to this point she had no clue that she was receiving any kind of special treatment.

why sara is under the mistaken impression that grissom gives christmas gifts to everyone and not just her and that him giving christmas gifts to her is not necessarily a romantic gesture, we can’t be sure. has grissom purposefully misled her about the nature of the gifts, either outright stating or at least implying that she was not the only recipient of his generosity among their coworkers at the lab? or has sara made an incorrect assumption based on her own modesty (i.e., grissom has neither stated nor implied that he also gives gifts to the other team members, but sara nevertheless assumes that he must be doing so because it’s in her nature to second guess how much grissom cares about her and to what degree she is special to him)?

so, basically, since grissom has probably always given sara christmas gifts every year since she moved to vegas (if not since they’ve known each other), and since he never explicitly said "i'm giving you gifts because i'm in love with you, by the way," she just kind of assumes that he's just being a nice boss and getting everyone on the team, including her, a little token of appreciation for christmas.

while she might wonder about the significance of the gifts themselves—i.e., “why did he get me this particular item? is there any meaning in x, y, or z thing?”—she has no idea that she's the only one he gets a gift for and therefore assigns no special meaning to the gesture, in terms of considering it inherently romantic.

only when sara tells nick and hodges about the gift and they aver that they haven't received anything similar does it really seem to dawn on her that grissom is giving her special treatment.

at that point, i’m sure she does become confused.

however, given that the events of episode 04x12 “butterflied” have already taken place by this point (i.e., by the time the events of episode 04x17 “xx” are occurring), i also think she probably, at least on some level, understands why he’s behaving in that way (i.e., because he’s in love with her, even if he’s too afraid to actually be with her).

that so, i think her primary emotion in response to finding out that she’s the only one he gives gifts to isn’t so much confusion as it is heartache.

him giving her personal gifts every year is just another sad emblem of the fact that even though they’re in love with each other, they’re not actually together and probably will never be. it’s another reminder that for as much as they both want to be together, they’re both afraid to step any closer.

i’m sure thinking about it breaks her heart.

i doubt she ever confronts him about it—it’s just one of those personal things that there’s no real way for them to talk about without acknowledging more than they’re willing to acknowledge—but maybe the next christmas she gets him something somewhat more personal than what she might normally give him.

and, yes, i assume she gets him presents in return.

(of course, christmas ‘04, during s5, is the last christmas before they officially start dating, so from then on, they can start getting each other whatever gifts they want and being open about what those gifts mean; no more pretending a spade isn’t a spade and all.)

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: gsr #meta: sara #04x17 #let's talk shop #csiverse

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addictedtostorytelling · 2 years

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Sofia obviously had a thing for Grissom. If she made a move on him, it would've been around the time he and Sara were getting a lot closer. How do you think he would've handled that whole situation? Do you think he and Sara ever talked about it later? In episode 6.11, you can tell Sara is secretly enjoying her victory over Sofia.

hi, anon!

i guess imo it's not 100% certain that sofia does have a romantic/sexual ~thing~ for grissom*.

* imo, it's also not 100% certain that sara is "enjoying her victory over sofia" in episode 06x11 "werewolves;" i read her more as trying to hide the fact of her relationship from grissom in itself than, like, gloating or anything.

that said, if we go with your scenario where sofia does indeed have a thing for grissom and she makes a move on him, i think his most likely response would just be to decline and/or rebuff her without offering much in the way of explanation, much like he does when he (initially) turns sara down in episode 03x22 "play with fire" (i.e., "do you want to get dinner?" "no").

only if sofia pressed (a la sara) might he offer any further kind of commentary as to why he was disinterested, and at that point he'd probably still keep things fairly vague, allowing her to fill in the blanks for herself—for example, he might say something along the lines of "i just don't think it's a good idea."

if she really demanded to know why, he might say something about how he prefers to keep his work and social life separate (which isn't exactly a lie, even given his relationship with sara) OR that he just wasn't interested in her that way, despite appreciating her friendship.

as for whether or not he'd ever tell sara were such an exchange to take place, i honestly don't know that he would, not because i think he'd be trying to hide anything from sara (and especially not because he wanted in any way to deceive her) but because i just don't think he'd feel that there'd be much for him to say to her about the matter: sofia asked him out, he said no, and that's the beginning and end of things. as long as sofia gracefully accepted his declination and behaved professionally toward him and everyone else on the team surrounding him thereafter, what had happened would have no real bearing on anything going forward, and especially not on sara and/or his and sara's relationship.

for that reason, he just wouldn't consider involving her.

the only reasons he might talk to sara about it were a) if sara were somehow to become aware of what had happened (either because she witnessed the exchange for herself or heard about it from sofia or another source) and brought it up to him; b) if he felt like the exchange between him and sofia were somehow relevant to his and sara's relationship; and/or c) if sofia's behavior toward him and comportment while they were working together markedly changed in the wake of his declination of sofia's advances and he felt that he should explain why it had done so to sara.

if they did end up having that conversation, and particularly a little bit after the fact of his and sofia's exchange, sara might be discomforted that he had waited to tell her and definitely would be annoyed at sofia (and likely would act noticeably icy to sofia going forward). however, i think grissom's behavior toward her would soon assure her that he hadn't purposefully concealed his interaction with sofia from her for any other reason than because he hadn't viewed it as being particularly relevant to them and that he had no sexual/romantic interest in anyone but her, meaning that sofia was never really "a threat," so after a while, she would chill (much like she does in episode 05x14 "unbearable," once she realizes that there's nothing going on between grissom and sofia there).

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#hypothetical scenario #let's talk shop #csiverse

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addictedtostorytelling · 3 years

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Hi! This may be a silly question but who do you think said ‘I love you’ first, Sara or Grissom?

hi, anon!

grissom, definitely.

obviously, i can’t really substantiate my claim using evidence here, but just given the way i understand these characters, i have a hard time seeing sara as the one to broach the subject; i think she’d be too reticent to do so and would need grissom to go first before she would feel comfortable expressing those kinds of deep feelings.

here’s how i imagine things going down:

(what follows here is just straight-up headcanon.)

because grissom and sara are in love with each other long before they ever officially get together, when the coalescence finally does take place, i believe that it’s the sort of thing where they end up having sex “in the heat of the moment,” with all of those years and years of pent up love, attraction, and emotion overwhelming their inhibitions.

while this “coming together” is something they’ve both wanted to do for a long time, it is not necessarily a decision that they discuss in a measured way beforehand.

they also don’t discuss it immediately afterward, either.

not having discussed the feelings behind the actions before the actions themselves are taken leaves some questions for sara in particular about what said actions mean.

she knows what she wants them to mean, of course, but given that she has been burnt in the past for trying to take things too fast with grissom (see episode 03x22 “play with fire”), i think she would be cautious here, and especially with the stakes being as high as they are.

even if she has a hunch, she’s not about to assume anything.

unless grissom gives her explicit confirmation, she’s not going to let herself get her hopes too high, you know?

but therein lies the problem, because, given grissom’s views on sex and love, i tend to believe that on his side of things, he is laboring under the belief that it must be clear to sara that he wouldn’t have had sex with her were he not actually in love with her.

in his view, the act itself is evidence of his feelings.

for him, nothing could be as demonstrative his gestures in this particular regard. the act was itself the threshold, and now that they’ve crossed it, he just kind of supposes that they’re both on the same page about being in love and together as a couple.

but on sara’s side of things, she requires explicit verbal confirmation to know the significance of the action—i.e., she needs to actually hear grissom expressly say the words “i love you, sara” in order to be assured that their physical act of intimacy means what she wants it to mean.

she’s desperately in love with grissom herself, but she’s scared that he might not fully reciprocate her feelings or at least not feel what she’s feeling to the same degree as she does.

essentially, she’s ready to spend the rest of her life with this man before the physical act of intimacy even occurs, and she knows he’s got some attachment to her, but she’s not sure if he is completely on the same page as she is.

she would hate to guess and be wrong, and particularly as she fears that if she “jumps the gun” and says the l-word before he does, she’ll scare him off.

that so, i think she keeps her feelings to herself until she can be sure that he’s in as deep as she is.

but between grissom (erroneously) believing that sara already knows where he’s coming from and his typical noncommunication, i’m convinced that it probably takes a while before he actually says the words, not for lack of feeling but because he feels like the sentiment is already being expressed in other ways (such as through his gestures, their acts of physical intimacy, the very fact that they’re having a relationship in itself, etc.).

of course, when he does finally say the words, i think it’s the kind of thing where he does so with no fanfare or warning—he just kind of folds them in to some run-of-the-mill, everyday task, as if it were no big deal.

think the same vibes as the “since i met you” moment here, with grissom just kind of absentmindedly speaking his heart and sara being completely taken aback, like did he just say what i think he did?

though in a happy, over-the-moon way.

of course, i also imagine that once grissom finally says the words and sara recovers from her shock in the moment, she immediately responds in kind, eager to make sure that they are (finally) 100% on the same page.

anyway, like i said, no way to confirm anything here. all just headcanon.

i’m planning to write an exchange like the one i’ve described here into my fic eventually.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my headcanons #csi #gsr #otp: gsr #let's talk shop #csiverse

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addictedtostorytelling · 4 years

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Hello again :) Another CSI question/thought! I've wondered recently if part of Grissom's brusque rejection of Sara in "Playing with Fire" has to do with the fact that she'd been reckless & impulsive following the explosion a few scenes earlier. I'm imagining Grissom thinking to himself that her asking him out is just another impulse following her brush with death - that it was less about her being in love with him and more about her dealing with her own mortality. Thoughts?

hey @nostromosigningoff!

so i'll start off by directing you to this previous meta, which lays out my take on grissom’s response to sara’s dinner invitation in episode 03x22 “play with fire” in full.

as i talk about in that post, i do think that sara’s reckless behavior earlier in the episode and the fact that grissom has “almost lost her” not once but twice over the last forty-eight hours influence his reaction to her asking him out—though not in the sense that they cause him to doubt that her intentions in so doing are genuine or to think that what she is doing is simply another impulsive and kneejerk reaction to her having had two recent brushes with death.

rather, how these “close call” experiences affect grissom is by making him realize just how far gone he is in terms of his feelings for her and recognize just how unbearable losing her would be for him at this point.

to quote a bit from that discussion:

just as sara’s near-death experience during the lab explosion gets sara to start considering the possibilities—as jorja fox frames things, “the idea that she could’ve died before she would’ve been able to say what she wanted to say thrusts her into that room [to ask grissom out] at the end” (see here)—it also shakes grissom to his core, confronting him with his deep attachment to sara and causing him to feel vulnerable in a way that he is emotionally unequipped to deal with.

he has spent so long trying to pretend that sara is “just” his subordinate and that their relationship is strictly professional, but then she is at the epicenter of this huge, fiery explosion, and though ultimately she walks away having suffered only superficial injuries—thank god!—he still can’t help but consider how easily she could have been seriously hurt or even killed.

his reaction to those thoughts—to those “there but for the grace of god, goes sara” scenarios playing over and over again in his mind—is undeniably and unavoidably visceral.

thinking back on what happened, he feels heartsick, dizzy, gutted, and like he almost lost everything in the blink of an eye. he can’t fathom what he would have done, how utterly he would have been ruined, had she not been okay. the whole situation puts his heart in his throat, making it impossible for him, in that moment, to lie to himself.

he is forced to acknowledge, if only to himself, just how much he loves sara and just how much he cannot bear the thought of losing her.

—and that feeling only intensifies in him when he learns about her reckless behavior at miguel durado’s apartment, whipping out her sidearm and charging into a room that the cops hadn’t cleared, coming face to face with a dangerous perp who very well could have shot her.

the ordeal just reinforces to him how he’s already in too deep and how for all of the denials that he makes to himself and to her, the truth is that he loves her and that he would be completely destroyed at her loss.

of course, whereas sara’s reaction to her near-death experiences is to decide that if at any minute her life could be cut short, then she doesn’t want to waste any more time holding back from what she feels, grissom’s is to become fixated on that possibility for loss.

he doesn’t go, “life is short. i’d better make sure that i take a chance on getting together with this girl while i still can.”

rather, he reasons, “if almost losing her had such a profound effect on me, then truly losing her would for sure kill me. i can’t risk that kind of outcome—and especially not when i know that i’m not good enough for her, so in all likelihood whatever relationship i allowed myself to have with her wouldn’t go the distance. eventually, she would see through me and realize what a miserable, pathetic, inadequate man i am. she’d leave, and then i would actually die. better not to take the chance. better not to put myself out there. i’ll just love her from afar.”

so the way i understand that scene, grissom isn’t worried that sara doesn’t love him and/or that she is only asking him out on an adrenaline-fueled whim; rather, what he is worried about is that even though sara loves him and is asking him out in earnest, there is no guarantee that she will continue to love him forever—and that when the love runs out on her end, he will be utterly devastated.

he won’t be able to live without her.

that so, he ultimately declines her invitation as a form of self-preservation. while never being with her will undoubtedly hurt him, he thinks that being with her only to lose her will hurt him even more. he can’t stand the thought of watching her love for him diminish and fall away over time, so he opts not to ever indulge in it—because she cannot reject him if she never technically has him; because she cannot come to hate him if he never allows her to see him too up close.

these impulses in him all stem from his oldest underlying fear: that he is somehow patently unlovable, and especially by someone so perfect as she is.

while he knows that sara loves him at the moment, he thinks she is only able to do so because she does not yet fully understand him—because she hasn’t had the chance to observe all of his flaws and failings yet; because she still stands at such a distance from him that she is able to idealize him from afar.

if he truly lets her in, he believes that there is no way that her admiration will stand.

he thinks she’ll grow to disdain him.

and lots of that belief has to do with how he views himself in general—as being too old for her, too socially immature, too dark and misanthropic, etc.—but a lot of it also has to do with the fact that, at that moment, he is grappling with the loss of his hearing, and he is certain that once he is deaf, there is no way that a relationship between him and sara could be viable in the long term.

to quote again from the linked post:

(heads up for some discussion of internalized ableism here)

he erroneously thinks that his only real value to catherine, warrick, nick, and sara, given his social deficiencies otherwise, is as their boss and team leader; he doesn’t know that they’ll have much ongoing interest in him after he becomes incapable of filling that role. he imagines that they might forget about him—or that even if they remember him, their opinions of and esteem for him will change for the worse.

he hates to think that they might pity him.

—and especially sara.

in his private moments of despair, grissom wonders: if she were to learn the truth about his disability, would she cease to view him as a viable love interest and instead start to see him only as an old man? would that light in her eyes when she looks at him go out? would her attraction to him fade, replaced by feelings of sorryness?

he considers: he couldn’t stand it if she condescended to him; it would be one of those losses that he just isn’t equipped to bear…

and even if sara were willing and able to take on everything that a relationship with him, as a newly deaf person, might involve, would he be selfish to ask her to do so? would he be “using her” in some way?

presumably, grissom’s father never knew his mother before she was deaf, meaning that he married her already knowing (at least in part) what to expect. but grissom’s deafness is so new; sara wouldn’t have that perspective. she’d be joining with him just as he fully lost his hearing, after only knowing him as a hearing person before.

if he became unable to work—whether as a criminalist or an academic—then she might end up being the only source of income between them. would she resent him for being unable to provide for her?

again, he likely compares himself to her other potential love interests—to younger men who are able to hear, who could offer her “more traditional” relationships.

there would be so many question marks for him regarding how his hearing loss might potentially affect his and sara’s relationship, even down to how it might change their historic dynamic.

as i see things, it is no coincidence, then, that just before sara walks into grissom’s office to ask him out to dinner, he is shown looking through his rolodex for his ear doctor’s number.

with all of these points in mind, i think that the reason why grissom ultimately declines sara’s offer is because he figures it’s better living with the pain he already knows than with the pain he can only imagine.

yes, living a life without a more tangible and official connection to sara will be miserable, and certainly it isn’t what he wants in his heart of hearts. but it’s the life he has already been living for years, and he is by this point familiar with that particular brand of loneliness; he has already to some extent accepted and become resigned to it.

the alternative—having her and then losing her; loving her and being loved by her but then ultimately suffering her rejection—would be something else entirely.

he can barely stand to consider the agony.

certainly, he can’t bring himself to risk living it.

so he takes the safe route.

he can’t lose what he has never actually had.

so he says no.

more discussion after the “keep reading,” if you’re interested.

_______

to my mind, there are only really a few times throughout the duration of the show when grissom actually doubts sara’s affections for him: 1) when she first starts dating hank; 2) after grissom has declined her dinner invitation at the end of s3, throughout s4 and early s5, when he has good reason to believe that he has broken her heart and that she therefore wants nothing more to do with him; and 3) leading up to and throughout the entirety of their divorce.

otherwise, i think he feels fairly assured of sara’s affections for him.

—which makes sense, given that baby girl is never exactly subtle about how she feels.

as sara states in episode 04x07 “invisible evidence,” she is “always over-talking around [grissom],” saying things that make clear how much she is attracted to him and which intimate the possibility of a sexual/romantic relationship between them.

and that’s to say nothing of her nonverbal cues along those same lines—for example, in the way that she absolutely lights up whenever he compliments her or says how much he needs her, in how physically responsive she is to his touch or even just standing in close proximity to him, in terms of how in tune she is with his moods, etc., etc., etc.

though most of their coworkers don’t realize that grissom reciprocates sara’s feelings, sara’s feelings in themselves aren’t really a secret around the lab; at the very least, both catherine and warrick are aware of her “crush” on grissom (even though they may view it as being unrequited on his end).

and even for as socially obtuse as grissom can sometimes be, he isn’t unaware, either.

of course, unlike catherine and warrick, he realizes that what sara feels for him extends beyond some schoolgirl infatuation.

she's in love with him, and he knows as much.

but, unfortunately, for him, that’s exactly the problem—because what he is scared of isn’t that his feelings for her aren’t reciprocated but (in point of fact) that they are.

grissom is afraid of having sara reciprocate his feelings because he is afraid of the potential consequences of giving into his feelings and being with her, which is something that is far more likely to happen if she is also interested in having a relationship with him and is herself actively pursuing that possibility.

he worries that if he is with her, he will lose his job, his reputation, and even his sense of self. he also worries about having to relinquish control over his routines and lifestyle in order to accommodate having a partner.

but that’s only the half of it.

because the thing is that on some level, grissom would be willing to make those sacrifices if doing so were to guarantee him and sara a happy ending.

as is revealed in the original script version of grissom’s monologue from episode 04x12 “butterflied,” grissom fantasizes almost constantly about how wonderful it would be to share a life with sara:

“all you think about is her. you want to be with her. eat with her. laugh with her. make love to her. go into infinity with her. without doors. no boundries. no restrictions.”

so for as much as both the possibility that he might have to sacrifice his career and the unknown itself scare him, there is still a big part of grissom that is tempted to take the plunge—that thinks that the pleasure of being with sara would outweigh any potential pain that would come as a side-effect thereof.

that part of grissom knows that he could handle being demoted, fired, having to move away from las vegas, being blackballed from the forensics community, becoming a laughingstock, giving up lifelong bachelorhood and the comfort of his routines, etc., etc., etc. if doing so would only mean that he could be with sara and bask in her love forever.

there's the rub, though.

because the thing is, grissom isn’t sure that sara will love him forever.

he knows that she’s been into him since the day they met—and especially if we consider that it is entirely possible that they may have had some kind of sexual/romantic relationship prior to when she moved to vegas—and he’s seen how devoted she is to him, even through all of their ups, downs, and runarounds since she’s become his employee.

while learning that sara is dating hank peddigrew startles grissom and causes him to momentarily question if he has perhaps finally lost her affections for him after all, it doesn’t take him long to determine that though she is hank’s girlfriend in name, she is still his girl in every way that matters—as she is so anxious to downplay her relationship with hank in his presence (to the point where she can barely even say the word “boyfriend” in relation to hank, even after they’ve been dating for months); as she makes it clear that grissom’s expressions of jealousy over her relationship with hank are getting to her; as she still comes running every time he calls and expresses deep trust in him and no one else, confirming their special connection even during the thick of her and hank’s relationship; as after the initial awkwardness between them once grissom learns she is with hank finally wears off, they so quickly revert to their usual dynamic, with all of the romantic cues and charged moments and undertones of obvious mutual attraction.

while throughout that year, grissom undoubtedly experiences moments of concern or even outright panic, when he thinks, “i am in danger of losing her for good; whether or not she actually loves him, she may choose to be with him over me just because he is on paper a better fit and is infinitely more available to her than i am. i may have to console myself to the fact that these stolen moments of connection at work are all i'm ever going to get with her anymore and that even they may peter off, the longer she is with him (or whomever may come after him), and the longer i am unwilling/unable to step up and finally declare that i want to be with her myself,” i think that, in general, probably at least by the events of episode 03x09 “blood lust,” he has some idea that while sara’s hand is hank’s, her heart is still his; he probably recognizes that she is simply going through the motions of having this other relationship because he remains unavailable to her himself.

and though part of grissom does genuinely believe that sara might be better off finding some way to be happy with hank (or, if not hank precisely, then at least another guy like him, who can give her all of the things that grissom himself cannot), i think that for all of his good intentions and wanting what’s best for her, in the end, he can never exactly bring himself to root for his rival.

as i talk about here,

grissom has never particularly felt as if he is “good enough” for sara: in his mind, he is too old and too romantically inexperienced to be worthy of her. losing his hearing only cements his views. he asks himself what she would ever want with an old, deaf man who knows nothing about matters of the heart. part of him thinks she might be better off with a younger, healthier alpha male like hank.

but, then again, it’s still not easy for him to watch the person he loves leave him for someone else—especially because he knows that for him it’s her and no one else.

torn between his feelings of inadequacy and his love for sara, which remains as strong as ever, he stops short of actually making a move on her, though he continually shows her through both his words and his deeds that he wants and needs her.

of course, the good news for grissom is that his read on where sara’s loyalties lie ultimately proves correct.

she dates hank for over a year, but she never really falls for the guy. she is always more or less using him as a “grissom placeholder.”

accordingly, when her relationship with him eventually implodes (see episode 03x17 “crash and burn”), she is rather more embarrassed than heartbroken; she isn’t upset about losing hank, just about being made a fool of.

though the show doesn’t allow us to see much in the way of how grissom reacts to learning that sara’s relationship with hank is over, one can imagine that he probably considers this outcome inevitable and feels some sense of relief that such is the case. once he realized that sara was still in love with him even though she was dating hank, he likely had a sense that her relationship with hank wouldn’t ever amount to much, and while he certainly can’t celebrate the fact that hank treated sara so poorly or so misused her trust, he also can’t be sad to have things “go back to normal” between himself and sara, either.

and that’s the thing:

though he has to ignore some of his deeper yearnings and impulses in order to do so, he can convince himself, if he tries hard enough, that he is content with his and sara’s status quo—wherein she is essentially his “work girlfriend,” and he gets to call the shots on how their relationship manifests and to what extent they are physically and emotionally intimate.

while he still thinks about being with her all of the time and in his heart of hearts longs for them to be a couple, he rationalizes to himself that remaining in this state of limbo with her, where they’re both clearly in love with each other and have a bond but never actually act on those their feelings or officially enter into a relationship, is the best he can do—the most he can risk without losing out.

and the thing that he’s most afraid of losing out on isn’t his job or his autonomy or the way the world looks at him.

it’s her.

at the end of the day, he worries that, though sara loves him now—though she has been in love with him for over five years—her love is only viable for as long as she remains at a distance from him.

so convinced is he of his own deficiencies—of the “facts” that he is too old for sara, too inexperienced in love to know how to be a good partner to her, too cowardly, too inherently misanthropic and insufficiently human, too disabled, too selfish, too incapable of reading social cues, too unable to do right by her—that he believes that if they actually try to make a life together, one where they spend serious time together without any of the barriers which stand between them in their current supervisor-subordinate dynamic and truly see each other up close beyond the relative safety and insulation of their interactions at the lab, she will come to realize that he is not what she actually wanted, and her affections for him will dim and eventually snuff out completely.

he doubts his own abilities to satisfy her as a lover, as a partner, and as a human being and fears that if he is truly vulnerable in her presence, she will find him lacking and eventually become repulsed by him, thinking him at best piteous and at worst repugnant.

and he’s worried that this drop-off will happen after the fact—that after he has sacrificed his career and reputation to be with her, and after he has gone completely deaf and come to rely on her for support, and after he has given up his usual boundaries and made it so he cannot stand to live without her—so that he doesn’t even really know himself beyond his connection to her—then she will reject him.

he is scared to death that he will sacrifice everything to be with her, and then she’ll fall out of love with him.

that’s what he talks about in his “butterflied” monologue:

“all of a sudden, we get a second chance. somebody young and beautiful shows up, somebody we could care about. she offers us a new life with her, but we have a big decision to make, right? because we have to risk everything we’ve worked for in order to have her. i couldn’t do it—but you did. you risked it all, and she showed you a beautiful life, didn’t she? but then she took it away and gave it to somebody else. and you were lost. so you took her life. you killed them both, and now you have nothing.”

(emphasis added)

when sara comes to grissom in episode 03x22 “play with fire,” asking him to take a chance on them, he knows that her offer is a legitimate one—that she is telling him that they could have that beautiful life together, the one that they’ve both dreamt of for so long.

he doesn’t doubt that her intentions are genuine—that, in that moment, she actually wants to be with him; that she is acting on feelings for him that she has harbored for years.

what he doubts is that those feelings can continue forever.

he thinks that once he and sara finally get together, it’s not a matter of if she falls out of love with him someday but when.

and that’s why he can’t risk everything else.

like i said, if he thought that by giving up those other attainments—the career and the rep and the sense of autonomy—he would be guaranteed a “happily ever after” with sara, he would be infinitely more willing to take that chance and make the leap.

but given that he thinks sara’s love for him must inevitably come with an expiration date—that there’s no way she’ll be able to love him forever once she really knows what she’s getting into with him—he cannot bring himself to take that chance.

the way he sees things, it’s better to forego the opportunity than it is to take it, only to eventually lose out in the end.

and that reasoning on his part has nothing to do with him thinking that sara is being impulsive.

to the contrary,

it’s worth noting that [when sara asks grissom out in the wake of the lab explosion in episode 03x22 “play with fire”] what she’s asking for isn’t just a shared meal between colleagues.

those types of low-key engagements, grissom is fine with, as is proven by his willingness to occasionally join the team for breakfast at the diner (see episode 01x23 “strip strangler”) or even at times to have catherine over to his place for drinks following a rough shift (see episode 02x15 “burden of proof”).

later on in the series, he’ll occasionally meet up with brass and catherine at restaurants (see episode 05x15 “king baby”) and invite sofia out for a meal to discuss her future at the crime lab (see episode 05x14 “unbearable”)—no big.

social calls such as these ones don’t rile him, even when they place him in one-on-one situations with beautiful women, like catherine and sofia, for the simple reason that there are no real stakes—because they are just meetups between coworkers, with no expectations attached to them (see here).

but though grissom has shared many meals with sara in the past (see episode 02x15 “burden of proof”), what sara proposes to grissom here isn’t just another informal sit-down between two members of the same team. she is asking grissom for something personal, for something romantic, for what they’ve both been denying themselves of ever since she moved to vegas.

—and the fact that she is scares the hell out of grissom.

maybe if they weren’t already in love with each other, her invitation would be one thing.

but the fact that he is already in so deep with her—that, as he says in the original version of his monologue in episode 04x12 “butterflied,” he fantasizes about being with her and making love to her and sharing his life with her all of the time (see here)—raises the stakes considerably.

what she has proposed isn’t just a “hey, i think you’re cute, and you think i’m cute, so let’s see if there’s anything here to be had” type of thing.

it’s the type of thing that’s going to change their lives forever if they do it.

when she senses how fearful grissom is, sara tries to downplay the gravity of what she’s offering (“why not? let’s—let’s have dinner. let’s see what happens”), but grissom already knows: if he goes out with her once, he’ll want to go out with her again; he’ll want to date her; he’ll want to have a real relationship; he’ll want to marry her; he’ll end up risking his career and the stability of his life; he’ll turn everything upside-down for her sake; he’ll hand over his heart to her, completely, irrevocably—

—and then she’ll break it.

and he won’t be able to deal.

so.

all of this is to say that, for my money, grissom isn’t worried that sara is asking him out because she is dealing with her own mortality; it’s not a situation where he’s going, “shit. i'm so in love with her, but i know she’s not as into this as i am. she’s only doing this because she almost died.” he's not picturing a scenario where he says yes, and he’s in it to win it, only for her to be lukewarm about the whole engagement and start withdrawing from him after just a few dates.

instead, what he’s thinking is that if he says yes to this one date, it’s going to lead to the whole shebang—to the relationship, to the commitment, maybe even eventually to marriage, and most of all to happiness—to transcendent, life-altering happiness, of a kind that he has never known before. to live that beautiful life with her will transform him. he’ll give up so many of the things he was previously and become something and someone new entirely. and for him, that will be all he ever wants (“an entire lifetime that comes down to this single frame of life”). but for her, it won’t be enough. he won’t be enough. especially not after he loses his hearing. especially not when he becomes an old man while she is still in the prime of her life. and so someday sooner or later, she’ll leave him, maybe for another man, maybe just so that she isn’t tied to him anymore. in any case, when she does, he will be left the shell of a man. he'll still be truly, desperately, achingly in love with her and by now addicted to the special brand of happiness she has taught him. he’ll still be this new, transformed creature, the one who is now incapable of living on his own. but she’ll go away and leave him alone with even less than he had before they were together. with less than nothing. and he’ll die then—maybe not physically but in every other way that matters.

that's what scares him: not that sara doesn’t love him, but that she does love him, and she will love him, but then she’ll take that love away.

anyway, i'm repeating myself a lot now.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #nostromosigningoff #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: grissom #let's talk shop #csi #csi cbs #gsr #gil grissom #sara sidle #hank peddigrew #03x22 #csiverse

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