The Thousand Cuts

Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Grissom/Sara
Category: Angst/Romance
Archive: Please ask first I might say yes.
Disclaimer: CSI belongs to CBS and Alliance-Atlantis Productions. No infringement intended.

Feedback: Love it, but no flames please I'm fragile!!

Author's Note: Of course, many thanks to Mossley, not only for beta-ing this (no small task!), but for inspiring me to write it in the first place.

Warning: This fic is NC-17 for two reasons. First of all, yes, there are relatively graphic sexual situations in places. But there are also rather graphic descriptions of violence and some very intensely emotional scenes.

Summary: This is primarily the story of two very different men, and the pain and love in their lives; one of the men is a serial murderer who is a sexual sadist, so be forewarned that he's not one of my likeable villains.

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Chapter 1

"I guess there is a first time for everything," Gil Grissom muttered, looking contemplatively at the body. The deceased was a Caucasian woman who looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, and was tied crucifixion-style from two branches of a tree. What was more unusual was the plethora of small incisions all over her nude body, none more than an inch in length.

Sara lowered her camera and moved to stand beside Grissom. "Death of a Thousand Cuts," she said quietly.

"An ancient Chinese torture. It's been recently resurrected in some of the conflicts in Eastern Europe," Grissom noted.

"It can be an excruciatingly slow death," Sara added. "The victim can last days, even weeks."

Much of the blood had been absorbed by the earth beneath her feet, but there was still a congealed puddle from the more recent flows, as well as the inevitable purge of body waste. Her skin was ghostly white, but small rivulets of dried blood painted streaks of contrasting color down her body, following contours on their various paths towards the pull of gravity.

Sweeping her flashlight in arcs across the ground below the victim, Sara caught a glint in her peripheral vision. Honing in, she let a smile spread across her face as she moved slowly and carefully toward the shiny object.

"What'd you find?" Grissom asked, standing over her with his own flashlight trained on her hands.

"X-Acto knife. Apparently wiped clean," she answered, picking it up with a pair of forceps, the slick metal handle making it difficult to hold steady.

"Be careful with that," Grissom instructed.

"I'm trying to. That's why I'm using the forceps - in case there are any prints left," she answered with some exasperation.

"I meant because it's sharp," he retorted, his tone almost as cutting as the blade. "Do you have anything that could contain something like that? I don't want you to get stuck."

"Aw! How thoughtful! Or is it that you just don't want me to get any of my blood on it and mess up your evidence?" she asked, an eyebrow raised.

Grissom shot her a disapproving glare, resuming his search of the surrounding area as she dug through her field kit to find a container solid enough to keep the blade from slicing its way through the evidence bag.

"Speaking of thoughtful, our assailant was kind enough to leave the victim's drivers license tacked to the tree. That's an unusual twist - wanting us to know who the victim is right away," Grissom said, carefully removing the tack and bagging it.

Holding the license under the flashlight, Grissom read off the information, "Carlita Burns, lived in Vegas, thirty-two years old."

"Hmm. Same age as me. Do you think we have a new psycho in town?" Sara asked, as she resumed the search along her own section of the grid.

"Conceivably," Grissom allowed.

"What else could it be ... conceivably?" Sara asked.

"Could be ritual torture. Could be torture for information."

"Either way, someone tortured this woman to death," Sara intoned solemnly as she bent to gather a sample of the blood on the ground beneath the woman's feet. "Someone strong enough to lift her up and tie her to these branches, with her feet a good half-meter or more off the ground."

"Not necessarily," Grissom answered distractedly.

Sara looked questioningly at him as he positioned himself almost directly under one of her bound hands, then bent to examine the ground underneath.

"Leverage. She could have been pulled up by ropes thrown over the branches. Then the assailant bound her hands to the tree. Or there could have been more than one assailant," he mused aloud.

"All of these leaves and dead grass didn't give us a good medium for impressions," Sara noted, bending down next to Grissom to examine the ground.

An engine's noise grew louder in the dark, suddenly falling silent a few dozen meters in front of them. A vehicle door swung open with a low-pitched squawk, then slammed shut. Boots crunched heavily on the dried vegetation and gravel.

"You don't see that every day," Coroner David Phillips said, his eyes tracking up and down the suspended body.

"Thank God," Sara rejoined.

"I think I'm going to need help getting her down without compromising any evidence," David finally said, after looking all around the body.

"It'll take too long for more of your people to get here," Grissom said. "We can help you."

"How are we going to do this?" David asked.

"Do you have a tarp, or some plastic sheeting?" Sara asked.

"Yes," David nodded.

"Good. Bring it when you get the gurney and the body bag ... and some tape."

"I don't know if I have any tape," David called back over his shoulder.

"Well, we do," Sara said, digging through her kit for a roll of evidence tape.

"You plan on us wrapping her while she's suspended, then lowering her onto the gurney?" Grissom asked.

"Seems like the best way to preserve the evidence, since we're going to have to manhandle her a little to get her down," Sara answered.

"I don't suppose you brought a ladder, too?" Grissom said, smiling.

"Damn! I knew I forgot something!" Sara said facetiously, walking over to the tree, looking up at the branch that was almost two feet over her outstretched hands.

Grissom stood with his arms in his jacket pockets, watching with a half-grin, waiting to see how Sara decided to handle her shortcomings. In a moment, David arrived with the gurney and supplies.

"Bring them over here," Sara said, waving David over. He pushed the rattling gurney over the bumpy ground, stopping next to Sara. "Hold it still. I don't want to fall and bust my butt," Sara said, climbing up on the top of the bed.

Standing on the gurney, she was able to easily reach the limb, pushing herself up until she could swing a leg over. Gingerly, she scooted herself out on the limb towards the bound hand.

"David, climb up on the other side, and let's wrap her in the plastic," Sara instructed.

The young coroner looked around uncertainly, his eyes settling on Grissom, who merely shrugged.

"Come on, David. Just lock the wheels or get Grissom to hold it, and climb up. If I can do it, you can do it," Sara challenged him.

David did as he was told, the hesitation showing in his every move. Grissom stood next to the gurney to give David some false sense of security as he climbed on top of the bed, then hoisted himself up onto the other limb. He moved outward at a snail's pace, eliciting a frustrated huff from Sara.

"Hey, I weigh a lot more than you do. I don't want this limb to break," David whined in his own defense.

"Grissom, toss up that plastic sheeting," Sara said, holding out an open hand. Taking it up and shaking it out straight, Sara threw the sheeting over the victim. David snagged it from the other side, and they centered it as best they could.

Sara ran some evidence tape down the plastic that draped from her arm, securing it as far down as she could safely reach, then chunked the roll to David, who nearly lost his balance trying to catch the tape. Sara fought back the urge to snicker at the look of terror on David's face as he fumbled between the roll of tape and the tree branch with his hands. David finally settled down and taped his end of the sheeting down the side.

"Grissom, why don't you start taping together the bottom section?" Sara asked. The two sat uncomfortably on the rough tree limbs as Grissom ran a seam of tape along the bottom of the sheeting, then up each side, to the point that David and Sara had stopped.

"Now what do we do?" David asked.

Grissom opened up the body bag and laid it across the gurney, maneuvering it under the corpse. Her feet and calves were mostly resting on the bed already, with her body now at an angle, centered over the gurney. "Cut her loose, and lower her down. I'll help from here," Grissom instructed, moving around to the other end.

"Try to make sure the ropes fall into the sheeting," Sara told David. They grasped her forearms as securely as they could, given the plastic covering, and began to cut through the ropes.

"Hold on tight with your legs, David. She's going to come down suddenly," Sara warned just before the ropes gave way, yanking them both down towards their branches. They leaned over, holding on with their free hands and their legs, lowering the body to the point where Grissom could hold her up at her ribs.

He lowered her onto the gurney, then zipped up the body bag around her. Grissom then turned to look at the two still sitting on the tree limbs. "Well, are you coming down?" he asked mock-impatiently.

They scooted backwards along the branches, until they were back near the trunk of the tree. David lowered himself until he was hanging by both hands, his feet only a foot or so over the ground. Letting go, he landed heavily, then walked over to Sara's branch.

She had maneuvered her leg over, and then allowed herself to swing down. Her limb was a bit higher, and she was still a few feet from the ground. If it had been Nick there instead of Grissom, they might have had a little fun with it, swinging like monkeys in the tree for a few seconds. But she doubted Grissom would be able to tell the difference between having fun to relieve the stress and horror of the scene, and being immature.

"Let me help you," David said courteously, holding his hands aloft, but not touching her. Sara smiled and nodded, and David grasped her at her ribs, holding her up as she let go of the branch. She let her hands fall down to his arms, sliding them up to his shoulders as he lowered her. He eased her down as slowly and gently as he could, considering his lack of leverage, until her feet were solidly on the earth.

"Why, thank you, David," Sara said a little flirtatiously, as he blushed and jerked his hands away from her body. She waited another second, which seemed like an eternity to David and Grissom both, before she removed her hands from his shoulders. Her toothy smile flashed brightly in the garish light from Grissom's flashlight.

David hurriedly pushed the gurney back towards his van, leaving the criminalists to their work.

"You shouldn't tease him that way," Grissom said, a little peevishly.

"You're one to talk," Sara shot back, changing her gloves to continue the search for clues.

Grissom stared after her blankly, stunned into temporary silence. Normally, he would have let it pass, unwilling to engage in a confrontation that could require open and honest communication about his flirtations. However, he was growing weary of the increasing bitterness between Sara and himself.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked beseechingly rather than angrily, lightly grasping her arm.

"Don't touch me, Grissom," Sara said quietly but firmly, pulling her arm away unobtrusively, in case they were being watched.

"Oh, I see. I can't touch you, but David can," Grissom said as he pulled his hand away from her, not even attempting to hide his jealousy.

"At least he knows what he wants," Sara shot back at him.

"I know what I want," Grissom said defiantly.

Sara let out a derisive huff, turning to head back to where she left off searching.

"Sara!" Grissom called out, trying to get her to stop without touching her.

"What!" she called back.

"Can't we talk about this?"

"No. We're at a crime scene, Grissom, in case you forgot."

"I haven't forgotten. The evidence isn't going anywhere. The officer is sitting in his car, a hundred feet from us. There's no reason why we can talk about this for a few minutes," Grissom said.

"Because it's not a 'few minutes' talk," Sara said, shaking her head. "Let's just finish our job here. We can talk some other time, if you still feel the need later."

"It's not going to just go away," Grissom told her.

"You might be surprised," she retorted ominously.

"You say things like that, making veiled threats, then walk away. Just for once, will you stay and talk about it?" Grissom asked.

"I walk away because you never say anything back to me," she answered heatedly.

"Maybe I'm not like you, Sara," Grissom said with a sigh. "I have to have a little time to think about what to say. Maybe it comes naturally to you, but it doesn't to me."

"It doesn't come all that naturally to me, either. I've just had plenty of time to think about it," she said, looking accusingly at him. "And so have you. You've had years to think of what to say."

"Have I never said anything right in all of those years? Have I never said anything you wanted to hear?" Grissom asked plaintively.

Sara looked over at him, her frown morphing into a gentle smile of concession that softened the stony lines of her face. "Yes... yes, you have. More than once. And they were worth the wait." She looked down, almost shyly, as she recalled some of his more telling comments to her.

Grissom smiled back, feeling like the wall of ice between them could still be thawed, if only they could keep talking.

Sara decided to relent, and give him yet another chance to finally open up to her. "Okay, let's try something different. I'll ask you a question, and you can think about it before you answer."

"What's your question?" Grissom asked nervously.

"I'll tell you at the end of shift. I don't want you thinking about anything other than the case until then. It's only a couple more hours. I think you can wait," she said, gathering her equipment.

"That sounds fair," Grissom conceded, while marshalling the packets of what little evidence they found into a larger manila envelope. Despite what he had said, Grissom thought that she might as well have asked the question right away, to relieve the suspense. Now he would spend the next two hours trying to deduce what her question would be.

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