Okay, writing this little story I realized two things: one, I'm so-not-made for writing smut, I have to deal with it. Two, it had been so much fun. I wanted to write something sexier than my usual stuff, but somehow it came out delirious and boyish: and with a full spoon of Brainy Romance. I tormented a bit my adorable Carlton, but that's one of my favourite sports after all. Alas, probably I would react in the same way. Pre- slash, but you could ignore it. Set somwhere in the second season; I deeply apologize fro any mystake. Enjoy!
P.S.: I'm fond of surly guys talking like Civil War gentlemen. Deal with it.
Slipping (Out of Place)
Carlton had always loved going undercover.
He loved the preparation, the thrill of acting, the blazing instant when you finally pick up your badge and your heart drums against your ribs like millions of thunders. It requires method, and nerves, two things he always excelled in. Unfortunately it requires also improvisation and effortlessness, two things he was not exactly infamous for. Still, he kept hoping. And buying fake mustaches to put in the last drawer on the right, because you kept being a cop after so many years only if you're really gaunt or really romantic.
Then came today, and Carlton painfully remembered why his undercover missions were almost always ordeals. While undercover you needed to pretend to be someone different; to swerve for a moment with the certainty of smoothly finding your way back. And he managed not to slip in awkward places only with the Glock in hand and O'Hara by his side.
Fantastic premises.
The Greyson Affair had been an uncomfortable investigation from the beginning, but nothing he couldn't deal with. A series of murders, and that was intriguing. The victims all young men, and that was common. All working by nighttime for an erotic phone service.
And that was the unsetting part.
But he was a professional, a real detective. He was cool, mercilessly practical. He walked every day across horrors and chaos and still slept at night. He could manage it.
But this was definitively not manageable.
-You, you can't be serious, right?-
The chief and O'Hara kept staring at him. Smiling in the hard-eyed way that made escape impossible.
-We are absolutely serious, Carlton. It's the best strategy.-
-It isn't the best strategy!- Lassiter was not whining. Definitively.
-Carlton, don't be such a kid. You can't let a psycho on loose just for your prudery.-
He found himself pointing a finger toward his partner, the whining getting only worse.
-Why has to be me? Can't O'Hara do it? She's better at this kind of things.-
Juliet's hand landed on his rear head with enough force to make his brain wobble.
Vick ignored both the slap and his surprised squeak. -Apart from the fact that you would like to rephrase it, Detective Lassiter, no, O'Hara can't fulfill this mission. "Guilty Pleausures" is a homoerotic call service, and as you maybe had noted, your partner is a woman. We suspect the killer to be one of the clients, so we need someone from the inside. And as leading detective in this investigation, you're the most suitable option.-
-But...-
-Carlton, let's make it clear: I just tremble thinking about you handling such a part, but you are a damn good hound and paranoic enough to smell a suspect. And you have a beautiful voice, too.-
O'Hara had passionately nodded, smiling at him with a mix of pride and mischief. He wasn't sure if feeling flattened or outraged.
-But I...we... we can't...Oh, well.-
So now Carlton Lassiter, Head Detective of SBPD, found himself sitting at the conference room desk, waiting for a dangerous sicko to ask him to be his meretrix.
Magnificent.
He looked up, not bothering to hide his pout. O'Hara and McNab were on the other side of the plexiglas window to monitor the calls, and were addressing him a fall of grins and victory signs. Oh God. The only good thing was that Spencer was nowhere to be seen. And to see him, here. In such a sorry predicament.
He grimaced.
It was not like the young man would be horrified, or disgusted, or any of the reactions he would expect from his mother's relatives. At best, it was the opposite: Spencer would be possibly pleased, surely amused and soprattuto perfectly at ease. It was behind Carlton how he managed to be so comfortable with bedroom topics, to handle innuendos and allusions without sending everything crashing on the floor along with dignity. As if his body too was a toy a canvas to say something snarky and witty to the mankind. As if no matter what he tried and how he acted and how he lived he always, invariably kept his balance.
Kissing, flirting, sex? Just a way to enjoy time. To keep life amusing.
Spencer didn't understand. He wouldn't ever understand what Carlton threw in a kiss, what ridiculous amount of soul he put in a flesh to flesh touch. Sex and body were tricky things for detective Lassiter: because they tended to have a meaning no one understood and to make him feel both out of time and out of sense.
The ring of a phone made him nearly shoot off half desk. He tentatively removed his hand from the shoulder holster.
A phone. The phone. The operation, oh crap, yes, the operation.
He looked up, reaching for the receiver with all the slowness of the world. Behind the glass O'Hara was mouthing the first and only advice she gave him.
Just go there and be at ease. It's like, like reading one of those kinky erotic novels, only that you're the author. Think kinky, Carlton. Think kinky. You're doing it for justice.
Repressing a groan, Carlton picked up the phone.
-Hello, I'm, err, Alexander. How can I help you?-
No, not good. Think kinky think kinky think kinky. -...I mean, how can I satisfy your darkest cravings?-
He lowered his voice, thinking hard about Humphrey Bogart's tone, but the outcome remembered more of an hormonal bear.
A few seconds, a breath over the phone.
-Mmm, Alexander? How intriguing.-
The voice was low, in the fake way only young idiots used. Carlton rolled his eyes.
-Uh, yes. I suppose so. Welcome to "Guilty Pleasures", where all your desires come true. What do you want?-
-Harsh. I like it. So Alex...Can I call you Alex?-
-No.-
-Why no?-
-Because...- Carlton's mouth suddenly decided to go on its own. Nothing good had ever came from it. -...because I'm Russian. I'm called after the great Tzar, I can't joke with my name.-
-I see. You are one of those all-serious guys, aren't you?-
He couldn't say if the caller was pleased or pissed. Unsure, Carlton coiled the phone wire around his fingers, feeling more inadequate that he had ever felt since the puking ordeal in first grade.
-Mmm, yeah. And I, I'm hot too, you bet.-
-Hot? Seriously?-
-Y-yes. Isn't it correct?-
-Man, is that what they teach you? C'mon, you can do better than this.-
-Ehy, give me a sec, okay?- Carlton felt a twinge of anger sparkling in his stomach; straightening his shoulders, numbing the embarassment. He welcomed it. - I just have to collect a moment.-
-What? Push it, Alex, gimme the shaky legs. What are ya wearing?-
-What, what I'm wearing?- Oh God, what I'm supposed to wear? -You mean, now?-
-Yes, usually it works this way. So?-
-I...well, I'm wearing...nothin special, actually.-
-Holy crap, Alex. This is getting pathetical. I want the excitement, I want the magic. Don't ya have one ounce of imagination in your whole body?-
And there, something triggered in Carlton's mind.
Imagination. It's like one of these kinky erotic novels.
He suddenly saw the tidy pile of the library's Victorian novels, the romantic, garter-laced embraces that fired up his twelfth-years-old nights. The poor excuses of plots, the lushy pen-and-ink illustrations of interiors and palaces. Yes, he remembered them. He could do them.
Method. Nerves. Memory.
It's a game. Go and play.
And so Carlton Lassiter closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and started to play.
-We are in the Amber Room of St. Petersburg.-
A moment of silence. -The Amber what...?-
-Shut up.- He commanded sharply. -We are in the Amber Room, there are lush carpets and pelts scattered all over the wooden floor and the air smelled of gun oil and haunt dogs. Gas lights shone over the falling snow behind the windows. I'm sitting in a leather armchair, cleaning a gorgeous Napoleonic Age fucile with a hundred percent cotton cloath.-
-You should review your plot priorities, Alex...-
But he wasn't listening, not anymore. Lassiter stretched down on the chair, slowly crossed his legs. -I'm cleaning the barrel now, up and down, up and down. With vigour, and firmness, because the cloat should kiss the metal, your hand should feel every scratch and rise there, to the tiny curve where the bullet bursts out and arches beautifully in the sky.- His voice almost moaned.
Another silence. Shorter.
-And what are you wearing, Alexander?-
-The Kremlin Guard uniform, of course. Gold frogs, horseman boots and wool jacket of the deepest red.-
He swirled dramatically on his seat, landing both elbows over the desk. - And under it, nothing.-
-Oh, yes, yes. And what are you doing?-
-I keep polishing it, the barrel cold and hard under my touch, and when I arrive at the trigger I hear the door shutting behind me.-
There was a muffled thud from behind the plexiglass, more than one; giving it a quick glance, he glimpsed a white paper pulled against the glass. But that was not important. Carlton loosened his tie, brushed his chest from the shoulder to the stomach to the belt and someone could have seen him, but that was not important. He kept talking fast, head a blur of wordy metaphors and framings.
-Oh, now you're right in front of me. "Who are you, sir?", I ask, and you answer "I'm the Count of Ungary, the fiercest warrior of our kingdom", and I say, "Oh, so you want to prove your strength with me, the apex of the Tzar's guards?"-
Another bang. He ignored it.
-...And then you tear off my jacket, hard, and my belt, and grabbed my shoulders with all the force of savage wolves ravaging in the winter moonlight, passion and lust gleaming in your eyes. We fight, oh yes we fight, twisting, biting, making each other a man like no woman would ever be able to, until...- Carlton rubbed his legs together across the fabric, bit his lip.
-Yes, Alex, until what?-
He pressed the receiver even nearer, eyes half-closed, words carrying him away in a glorious blaze.
-Until your hands slids over my panting body down to...-
And in that exact moment, the thud from the window returned.
Carlton looked up, scowling, wondered vaguely what the Hell that people wanted. Saw O'Hara pointing to the phone, holding the paper. Finally read it.
"It's Shawn."
For a moment, Lassiter's brain just didn't elaborate the information. Then he glimpsed his frantic colleagues, their horrified expressions, and reality crashed on him.
The caller was not a maniac.
The caller was Spencer.
The caller that he waspassionately talking with about his undisclosed fantasies.
The receiver fell on the desk with a loud bang.
I've just. I. I've just. With Spencer.
Oh fuck.
He gave a strangled sound.
Ticket for Canada, Mexico is too hot.
Shawn Spencer closed the call, his best friends's guffaws ringing in the Psych Office. Gus had given up his prudish disapproval after thirty seconds of Lassie's conversation, and was now shamelessly sneering on his armchair.
-Oh, oh, that was...that was just crazy.- He brushed off a tear, preventing himself from falling at the last moment. -Where the heck did he pick up all the Russian setting anyway?-
-No idea. I've always said there are very weird lands between Lassie's ears.- Shawn answered.
-Eh eh...Don't get me wrong, buddy. This has been very inappropriate and also very deplorable in a civic way. We're not even on the case.- He got a raised eyebrow from Shawn. -...well, not yet. But if we put aside morality, this has been the best. Phone joke. Ever.-
-I don't think that exists something like a morally irreproachable Phone Joke, Gus.-
Gus couldn't stop his white-teethed grin, but he managed to frown. -Shawn, you actually forgot to sound like an idiot. Is everything okay?-
-Uhm? Oh, yes, 'f course. Just replaying my exploit in my head. It's fine.-
And really, everything was fine. It was a fair Spring evening, he had turned a sticky office-time in a triumph and he had managed to do it without anyone getting hurt or fired. Lassie would be furious, of course, but then Psych would find a debatable trail and there would be an emergency and he would be too busy being the good leader he was to be really mad.
And yet.
And yet, Shawn found himself brushing the Iphone case for the tenth time. He had played: with his body, with boundaries, with the Pilgrim-like, harsh purity of his favourite detective, sure that no harm would be done and no evidence would be left. They were chewing-gum: they returned to the old form even after munched. He had played on that border a zillion times.
And yet, he felt like this time something in their happy, complicated push-and-pull had slipped out of place. Or in another place.
Lassie's voice was warm. True. Lean muscles under his hands, pale skin tensing.
He shoved his phone in the pocket with way too much force.
Oh fuck.
Suddenly he realized Gus's mouth was moving at speedlight. In his direction, supposedly.
-...Shawn? So, what do you think?-
-Duh?-
His best friend sighed, grabbing the Secret Liquorice Pack from his drawer. Too pleased by the combination sugar plus hilarity to comment.
-I was wondering what face Lassie will do when he discovers that it was you...because he will so discover it was you.-
Shawn bit his lip. He had heard the receiver crashing on the desk, Lassie would never talk to him with that voice again. He was amused in a very mild way.
-Yeah, I think, think you. Are right. Yes. Pass me a little liquorice, can you, Gus?-
In the next five minutes Shawn Spencer ate four liquorice rolls: he had done it only after especially awkward and especially avoidable mistakes, and today it had been one Hell of an avoidable mistake. Because today he had slipped. In the wrong place. For a stupid reason. Without the tiniest clue what the heck it should mean.
And above all, he had slipped on a fictional red jacket.