[[1987]]
[This is not how Carlton Lassiter expected to lose his virginity.]
Depeche Mode's latest single is playing over and over again on the car stereo and the song itself is pure sex; Carlton's fingers twitch, his hands scrambling for stability on the slippery vinyl car seats, and somewhere he's aware that his own keening moaning is cutting through the song.
It's somewhere near three in the morning: past curfew, but that's hardly important now. In the dim glow of the streetlamp nearby Carlton can make out the hazy form of his lover: dark eyes glittering in the uncertain light and the brilliant foil of a condom packet ripping open. "Shh, Carlton, it's all right, I promise, this will be even better," he murmurs, shifting their positions a bit. "Lift your hips," he says, and Carlton obeys and the song's absolutely right, he thinks, inever want to come down never want to put your feet back down on the ground/I because he's floating, propped up on the vinyl car seat, bared feet against his lover's shoulders.
"Relax," and Carlton tries desperately to obey; it's a complete surrender, he realizes, painful and beautiful and the closest he'll ever come to infinite.
Through the moonroof he can glimpse a piece of the sky and the stars are infinite too, glittering like diamonds, like tears.
[[2007]]
Carlton Lassiter scowls down into his scotch, and he thinks about how much he hates everyone and everything but especially Shawn Spencer, the enigmatic infuriating so-called psychic who has somehow begun to eclipse that long-lost-lover in the dreams that a sober Carlton would never admit to having.
He hates Spencer and he hates this song and most of all he hates how Spencer is dancing along, next to the pub's jukebox, slow and sensual and when he turns that familiar dark-eyed gaze on Carlton, croons iI hope he never lets me down again/i directly to him.
Carlton growls, low in his throat, abandons the rest of his drink and heads for the door. Spencer's in the way, dancing and singing like it's still nineteen-eighty-something: he reaches out and snags Carlton's shoulder, angles his body closer to the detective's, inever let me down/i like an invitation like a promise.
He shoves Spencer away, a bit more forcefully than he'd planned, muttering "You're such a goddamn tease," under his breath: thinking of a million stupid touches and glances and cruel half-flirtations and the way he was awake all night once remembering the way the younger man felt sitting in his lap.
Carlton reaches for the door, but Spencer's quicker: he feels Spencer's warm hand cover his, and the other man's whispering in his ear "Who's teasing, Lassiter?"