Author: Angie
Email: AngieSuth@aol.com
Title: Bug Alert
Characters: Toby/CJ
Rating: PG13
Summary: She showed no surprise at all at the intrusion of a semi naked man in a totally naked woman's shower.
Disclaimer: Not mine at all.
Spoilers: Oh hell no. Not this time.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
A/N: Oro – here's to no more bugs. Unless you have a Josh in the next room.
Kate said this was corny. I don't like corny. She said it was good corny. I'm not convinced, but I'm not going to argue with Kate. Cos you don't argue with Kate.
And Rhonda. Of course!
*
Toby lay in bed listening to the sounds of movement coming from the next hotel room. He liked having a room next to CJ; he liked it when the walls were thin enough for him to hear her singing her crazy songs to herself, he liked the feeling that he was sharing some part of her personal space that was not up for public consumption. Not that he was some kind of voyeur, no - he never pried, never went out of his way to disguise his presence – he just liked her being in the next room.
*
"A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck . . ." CJ hummed to herself as she limped towards the bathroom. God, she felt old some days, but today the sun was shining, they were in California and Toby was lying awake (she suspected) in the next room. Listening to her. She knew he did, because she did the same thing and it kind of freaked her out and strangely comforted her, that they had got to the same part of their lives with the same things unspoken between them.
"Oh, that's good!" The warm water pounded her aching body and she let it trickle down her without moving for the shampoo as she normally did. The feeling of water on her legs; she smiled. The sensation of something creeping up one of them; she screamed.
*
Toby got out of bed and stretched. He'd played 'Name That Tune' and guessed it straight away; CJ was a sucker for musicals and he knew most of her repertoire by heart. He heard the shower start through the thin walls and decided that was his cue to get ready himself. He liked their synchronicity, even if he would deny it to his dying day, and more than once over the years he had caught himself wondering what it would be like to share more than the same office space. He was stripped to his boxers when he heard her scream.
Toby didn't stop to think. He ran out of his room and shoulder-charged the flimsy door to the adjoining one. The door crashed open without protest and he registered that it must have been unlocked, something he would be having strong words with CJ about once he'd made sure of her well being. Her hotel room was the exact mirror image of his and he made straight for the bathroom and the shower, opening the cubicle door without pausing to think.
CJ was cowering, in a tall woman kind of way, in the corner of the shower, pointing with a shaking finger at a cockroach. The cockroach seemed to be having a fine time.
"Toby . . . get it out of here!" She showed no surprise at all at the intrusion of a semi naked man in a totally naked woman's shower. "It was crawling up me!"
"Why didn't you squish it, CJ?" Toby looked hard at the bug, willing his body not to betray his excitement at the sight of CJ in all her considerable glory.
"Toby. Look at me." CJ seemed to find nothing odd in her request.
So he did.
"Do I look like I am wearing shoes? What was I meant to 'squish' it with?"
Now Toby couldn't take his eyes off of her, and she, at last, noticed that he was standing dripping in her shower wearing a pair of soaking boxers. Boxers that hid nothing. CJ bit her lip. By the time she had dragged her eyes away, remembering the cause of her distress, Toby was beyond caring.
"The roach, Toby, where has it gone?" CJ scanned the shower and saw the bug disappear down the drain. She was certain it waved a leg as it went. She stopped worrying about it when she felt his arm slide around her and his lips on her neck.
"I suppose you'd better stay," she moaned as his lips trailed lower, "in case he comes back with reinforcements."
*
The following morning, Toby lay in bed listening for movement next door. On cue, he heard CJ humming to herself as she got out of bed. He stretched and had just settled down for an extra five minutes of random lascivious thought when he was startled by a knock on the door. Curious, he padded across the room and turned the handle.
"CJ? Is everything okay?" Toby looked at the woman standing before him dressed in a robe and carrying an overnight bag. He stood back to let her into the room.
"Well, Toby. It is at the moment, but I decided to preempt disaster." She stopped by the side of the bed and untied her robe, letting it slip from her shoulders.
"I thought I'd shower with you today. Then you could check me out periodically for creepy crawlies." She smiled at him. "And I could do the same for you."
Toby put out his hand and touched her bare hip. "The only bug I'm likely to catch today is you, CJ." He leaned in to kiss her shoulder. "In fact, I think I've caught it already."
"Let's get ourselves clean, Toby." She pulled him towards the bathroom. "It's taken us a little while, but you can consider me caught too."
The End