Point of reference

I first became interested in 100 word segments because of writing "drabbles" in the CSI: Las Vegas fandom. These were my inspiration for this project:

Green – Health-wise – Group – G

Greg’s face reflected all of his suspicions and disgust, despite his intimate knowledge of all things swabbed, as he carefully shut the break room fridge door.

“Grissom’s at it again,” such simple words to inspire groans from all present in the room. “It’s green and…frothy. It might be growing.”

Neither Warrick nor Nick rose to confirm Greg’s analysis. They were still debating who would speak to Grissom this time when Sara and Catherine entered the room. Ignoring the boys’ squabbling, Sara grabbed her lunch and took a swig. Total silence met her as she asked, “What? You want some?”



Black – Buffed – Brass/Sofia – G

The leather shoes looked supple as Brass put away the blackened cleaning and buffing cloths, the little jars clinking as he placed them under the bathroom sink. He then swept the iron over his slacks quickly before pulling them on. Men didn’t dress as formally for the evening these days but he tucked his polo shirt in anyway. It was just drinks with a colleague, he told himself. But he combed his hair with care and patted on aftershave.

He knocked on her door promptly at eight and murmured a quiet “you look lovely Sofia” before taking her arm.



Brown – Wool – Grissom w/implied GSR – G

In the back of Grissom’s closet, behind the winter clothes he never used and the formal shoes rarely worn, there was a carefully wrapped package. Leaving the duvet in the guest room, he had long ago put a tan wool blanket inside. Perhaps not so long ago – not so long that the blanket still smelled of her and shared coffee. Not so long ago that she could pause just a moment with her arm over his shoulders.

These days the duvet rests in its plastic capsule and the wool blanket rests neatly folded across the foot of his bed.


Gold - Alloy - Brass - G

“You’ve got a real heart of gold, you know that?” the cuffed woman sneered at Brass as he ducked her head down into the patrol car.

“Actually,” he pointed to his name on the badge, “it’s an alloy of copper and zinc. You can look up ‘alloy’ when you get downtown.” He shut the door and thumped the roof of the car twice before turning to the amused CSIs next to him.

“Gee Jim,” Sara drawled, “I didn’t know that you had an interest in metallurgy.”

“I wonder who might’ve told me that.”

Grissom just shrugged and smiled.



Silver - Counting Game - Sara/Grissom - G

Sara sipped her coffee absently, a magazine forgotten in her lap. From the couch, her eyes narrowed as she counted the threads of silver in Grissom’s beard. Trouble was, she kept getting sidetracked by the curve of his lips or the gentle creases by his eyes. His hand briefly obscured her vision and she had to start over. One, two, three…. Grissom stood and Sara busied herself in her article only to feel a small tug at her scalp.

Sara looked up to meet Grissom’s gaze on a long silver hair held delicately between his fingers.

“Your first one.”



Pink - Working It - Warrick - G

Warrick was used to the murmurs when he walked into a crowded bar. Murmurs and no few admiring, and sometimes downright inviting, looks. It was a bit of a surprise to create that kind of stir around the lab, however. After people adjusted to his ‘do and seeing the top three buttons of his shirt undone, he got more comments if he covered up.

He adjusted the cuffs of his shirt and checked his collar before shrugging and heading into locker room. “S’up?” he greeted Greg and sat down. Greg looked him over and said, “Nice pink shirt man.”



Red - Cherry Drop - Sara - PG

Sara paused in photographing the playground, her gaze caught by the staggered bars. She remembered hanging upside down from them as a child, arms and hair swaying as she tried to work up the guts to do a cherry drop. Most of the girls in her class had already mastered the dismount.

Sweaty palms had clenched the bar before she released her legs as she swung and dropped – onto her face. Later, she had winced as the school nurse disinfected the cut on her cheek, the gauze turning red. “I fell,” she said. And for once it was true.



Orange - Comedians - Nick/Greg - G

“Okay, okay, I’ve got one. There are two sausages in a frying pan, and one rolls over and says to other, ‘Man. Is it hot in here, or is it just me?’ And the other sausage goes, ‘Ahh!’” Nick held his hands to cheeks before continuing, “‘A talking sausage!’”

Greg laughed and said, “Alright. You’ve brought this upon yourself. Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Banana.”

“Banana who?”

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Orange you glad I cut this joke short?”

“Why don’t I show you how glad I am….”

No more jokes were told but there was still laughter.




Yellow - Daisies - Catherine - G

Catherine remembered tickling Lindsey’s feet with daisies while humming “You are my sunshine”. She remembered Lindsey’s hands reaching for yellow center of the daisy, reaching for the sun and giggling.

Catherine remembered Lindsey coming home from third grade and announcing that each petal on a daisy was a flower. “When you get daisies, you’re getting hundreds of flowers Mom. Hundreds.”

Catherine remembered daisy chains crowning Lindsey’s head on a hot summer day, the water coalescing on glasses of lemonade.

She wondered when Lindsey had stopped liking daisies, when she stopped seeing the sun – but Lindsey was always her sunshine.


Purple - Primer - Sara Sidle - G

When she was a child, Sara had wanted to paint her walls purple. Instead she got posters from school – fantasy art, science, calming nature scenes…things that took her away.

Grissom offered her a job; Sara went apartment hunting. “Can you paint the walls?”

She painted the living room one morning after a double shift. The coffee poured down her throat as the paint was rolled on the walls. It went smoothly over the surface with no blemishes or holes to mar its surface. She brushed her hair away from her face, a trace of paint left on the smooth plane of her cheek.


Blue - Laid Bare - Grissom/Reader's pick - G/PG-13

It would be so easy to spend time unmeasured studying the blue of his eyes. To describe how they were the windows to his soul and opened new windows to your eyes. And because it would be so easy to do, you don't.

Besides which, nothing about him is ever easy; he demands too much of life for that. He has no rough edges that offer a fingerhold; he is smooth, polished planes that reflect back only you.

And if you can accept that, then you can accept what you see in his blue eyes everytime he calls your name.