Title: The Top Ten Things Gil Grissom Absolutely Cannot Stand About Greg Sanders
Author: amazonqueenkate
Category: Humor, romance.
Spoilers: None, really.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gil/Greg
Summary: There are 10 things that Gil just cannot stand, and for very good reason.
Notes: Totally goofy. I blame it on being very, very tired.

10. He has awful taste in clothing.

There is nothing in the world uglier than a Greg Sanders shirt, and everyone in Las Vegas knows it. Gil's seen them all - plaid to polka-dot, striped to solid, lime-green to black-with-red-figure-eights - and he hates them all. Add in the faded jeans with the little holes and the tattered cuffs, and include the battered tennis shoes, and it's a recipe for unmitigated fashion disaster.

Of course, Gil himself does not dress all that well, and frankly, he's alright with that. He's not, however, alright with the fact that Greg dresses far, far worse, and that all attempts thus far to destroy Greg's godforsaken wardrobe have failed.

9. He has equally awful (if not worse) taste in music.

Gil loves music. He really does. He loves the nuance in lyric and in melody, the subtleties of harmony, the crescendos and diminuendos. He encourages his CSIs to sing if they want to, listen to music when appropriate, and even to dance to the beat of their own drummer, if and when they see fit.

But Greg Sanders' music of choice is all screaming. Screaming guitar, screaming lyrics, screaming synthesized piano chords. Quite frankly, all that screaming gives Gil a headache, and he's begun to wonder if having his hearing fixed was wise, because now, he hears a lot more of Greg's music than he really ever cared to.

8. He flirts with everyone.

Greg Sanders likes everyone. He's like a curious, friendly, gregarious little puppy who wants to spend time around everyone, and - when appropriate - hump their legs. In the proverbial sense, at least. So he's always throwing around jokes, sharking winks, throwing his arms around shoulders, and toying with verbal innuendo.

Gil's not entirely sure he likes all that time spend with innuendo and winking He thinks Greg needs to get a hobby, and stop flirting. Especially since, one of these days, Catherine is just going to pop him one in the chin and then there is going to be all sorts of blood to clean up and reports to file, and Gil doesn't really like paperwork any more than he likes Greg's flirting.

7. He likes to gloat.

No one's perfect, and Gil realizes this. He's okay with it. And when he admits openly to being wrong, it's always a mixed bag. Nick gets a knowing smirk about it; Sara cracks jokes. They all react differently to him being wrong, but as it stands, they still react. It's the same as always.

Greg likes to gloat. He likes to show off that he "beat the boss" at his own game, and he usually bounces around about it for at least a full hour. Gil's not entirely sure why this bothers him so much, but it does, and for that reason, he really hates it when Greg just has to go and gloat on him.

6. He's more verbose than anyone Grissom has ever known, including himself.

The only way Greg Sanders would make more money in the lab than his already exorbitant salary, or at least Gil thinks, is if they paid him by the word. Greg likes to talk, likes to hear the sound of his own voice, and will talk about any topic for whatever length required. Gil knows more about Greg's personal and family life just by walking through the lab than he's ever found out by direction interrogation, because he loves to talk and share and chatter.

When the chatter's about evidence, well, Gil might as well cancel his lunch hour, because he'll be there all day listening to Greg explain his process and the little minute details and the strange idiosyncrasies and the margin of error to twenty-five decimal places. And, while Gil does appreciate the thoroughness, he's also quite fond of lunch.

5. He loves post-it notes.

Gil's office has never been neat or organized, but lately, there have been a lot of yellow post-its popping up on his desk, chair, sink, fridge, and any other bare surface that adhesive can, well, adhere to. The first dozen or so post-its went mostly unnoticed, but now, it's beginning to get a bit on the ridiculous side, and Gil's beginning to wonder if Greg simply ran out of space in his workstation for his beloved post-its.

It's endearing, he supposes, but he does occasionally need room to work. Plus, it would be the end of both their careers if anyone other than himself ever read what was written on those post-its, anyway.

4. He never cleans out the coffee filter.

Greg Sanders makes some of the best coffee you will ever have in Las Vegas. The entire Las Vegas Crime Lab loves the goofy chatterbox for that very reason. Greg always claims that there's a "Norwegian trade secret" that allows him to make such good coffee, while some of his coworkers speculate that he just buys the really expensive stuff and puts it in cheap packaging as his cover. Whatever the case, his coffee is probably the best in Nevada (if not the whole of the southwestern United States), and Gil is actually very grateful that such coffee-making talent is housed in a man who just happens to be on his payroll.

But Greg doesn't clean out the filter. He just leaves the rinds in there until he gets to it, and he never completely washes it out. And while he loves bugs and doesn't mind dirt and grime, there is something about old coffee rinds that just really bothers Gil.

3. He tries entirely too hard.

Dedication is something Gil Grissom admires in just about anyone. Even when he meets people who live so thoroughly for their jobs that they will eventually keel over and die from it, he admires the dedication. More than dedication, he admires true effort, and people who strive to do their very best all the time. It's a trait, he feels, that society has come to truly lack, and he appreciates it.

He does not appreciate trying too hard, and that's what Greg Sanders does. Oh, Gil knows it's for all the right reasons - Greg really wants to be a good employee, a good CSI, a good friend, a good confidant, a good whatever-it-is-this-week - but it's still irksome. If he'd just be a tad more genuine, he'd probably have a better success rate, and he'd annoy Gil less, too. A winning combination, in Gil's mind.

2. He talks in his sleep.

Greg Sanders sleeps very soundly, so soundly that World War Three could start in his kitchen and he wouldn't notice. He doesn't snore, he doesn't toss or turn, and he doesn't wake up in the middle of the night to pee or to try to solicit raunchy, entirely-too-late-at-night sex. He sleeps as long as he wants with none of the side effects of working with dead bodies all day, sans one: he talks in his sleep.

Sometimes, it's about nothing - a sports game, dinner, a movie they saw three weeks earlier. But other times, it's about the most gruesome details of a case. The first time Greg talked in his sleep, Gil attempted to wake him up. But, despite the fact that he was muttering about blood-soaked skin and the horrible death of an elementary school child, he slept very soundly. Gil, however, didn't sleep - he listened - and now, he finds that he's listening to Greg talk his way through the night at least once a week. Gil actually is deceptively fond of sleeping, and so, this habit is starting to bother him. Especially since there's no way to comfort a man who sleeps so soundly while he sounds so sad.

1. Grissom cannot, despite numerous attempts, live without him.

Gil Grissom has tried to ignore it. He's tried to put it out of his mind, to think about anything and everything else, to date other people. He's tried to yell, he's tried to cry, he's tried to drink, and he's tried to distract himself with massive jigsaw puzzles on his days off. He's tried desperately to convince himself that he cannot live with the crazy shirts, the horrible music, the flirting, the gloating, the verbosity, the post-its, the coffee rinds, the over-zealous effort, and the sleep-talking. He's tried to remind himself that it's his job on the line, that the conservative mainstream society that is America would never understand, that Sara still has a crush on him, and that Nick is all doe-eyed over the spiky-haired young man with the shirts and the music and the coffee rind thing.

But Greg Sanders doesn't know this. Greg Sanders doesn't know any of the thoughts that go through Gil's head because, every time they're about to make the transition from thoughts to words, Greg just flashes Gil one of his award-winning, maniacal smiles and suddenly not of the ridiculously cerebral arguments that had once been on the tip of Gil's tongue matter anymore. For that smile, Gil Grissom would put up with all the shirts, music, flirting, gloating, verbosity, post-its, coffee rinds, effort, and sleep-talking in the world. He'd put his job on the line, challenge mainstream America, allow Sara her tears and provide Nick with a private twinge of pain. He'd do anything, just to see Greg's elation each and every day for the rest of his life. In fact, without that smile, Gil's not entirely sure what he'd do with himself.

And, while Gil Grissom can't stand that feeling of helplessness, he knows that it's time he started getting used to it.