Warning: AU situations
WHERE THERE'S A TOWN, THERE'S A SHERRIF
The first time Zane met Jack Carter was when he was being hauled into the sherrif's office on forced-recruitement. His mother kept saying that he was lucky GD took him in instead of being sent to jail but he knew that given the right opportunities he could've charmed, fooled, bribed and/or black-mailed any judge and jury into setting him free.
"Don't want him," the sherrif protested and the petulance on his handsome face made Zane grin.
And when he handed the sherrif the handcuffs he escaped from, Zane was instantly rewarded by an aggravated look which made him crack a wider smile on his face. Knowing that the FBI would still be keeping an eye on him, he thought that it would not be such a bad idea to hang out in Eureka for a while as he plans out his next escape. Especially since he could have fun with the local police force during his stay there.
But it didn't take him long to find out that he was not the only one who could rile the sherrif into childish fits. The co-head of GD was every bit of a man that Zane hated. Nathan Stark was handsome, egocentric, smart and powerful. Women flock around Stark and to his annoyance it only took a condescending remark on Carter's depth of intelligence to steal the sherrif's attention away from him.
Jo Lupo was a welcome and sexy distraction for him, however, from the testosterone-filled bantering-cum-flirting between Carter and Stark. And she was easier to handle if given the right silk langerie and talk of armed weapons. But everytime he feels confident in Jo's warmth and affection, Carter manages to wrench Zane's attention back to him. The young man figured it first happened when Carter caught up with him at the cabin in the woods outside of Eureka where the sherrif started talking to him about community and how he needed one blah-blah whatever. Zane felt as if he was in one of those cliched coming-of-age movie where he was the misunderstood bad boy and the sherrif as the big brother/mentor-type authority figure.
But at that time, Zane really did feel chastised and he realised that he couldn't remember ever feeling that way before.
From that day on, he felt as if all he wanted was Jack's approval - by dating Jo, being attentive to Zoe and working hard to earn his keep in GD. He still wasn't able to master the art of snarking though when going head-to-head with Stark because everytime their verbal insults ended it always made him feel less of himself even in those rare occassions when he had the last word. He thought that his life would've been a smidgen better if the bearded man was not around but when Stark was actually gone, Zane wished him back again because it affected Jack in ways Zane would not have expected. On the outside, Jack was still his usual self - lively, funny and clever - but missing an edge to all of those attributes. It was as if with Stark missing, so was sherrif's zest that used to pop up whenever being around the other man. So Zane did all that he could to distract Carter from remembering too much by wedging himself into the sherrif's life.
It was easy, really, what with being Jo's boyfriend and when he was appointed as GD's director of Consumer Research Products, he has been meeting Jack more often than before. Particularly at times when he was called in to work together with the sherrif to solve the variety of Eureka's incidents (Jack preferred to call them mess-ups. To-mayto, To-mahto.).
The first of these incidents was when Zoe's project partner made a sun that went out of control and if not for his heat resistance formula and knowledge of the rocket launcher, Eureka would have caught fire before being reduced to become a desert. Like with what happened during the big-bang experiment, he bonded with the sherrif, getting to know him better by saving Eureka together. It was exhilirating. Even as their skin began to burn, he could not help but crack a joke just to see that adorably frustrated look directed at him, and if the sherrif was concentrating more on the young scientist than at the burning ball of fire in the sky, Jack would have realised that Zane was flirting with him with how heavily the young man was laying on the ribbings.
Zane felt like he was in pre-school again, pissing off this little girl with pretty dark eyes, black curly hair and a bad attitude during recess, who everyone said was weird but who he thought was pretty and cool.
But the sherrif was not a pretty little girl with dark eyes, black curly hair and a bad attitude. Carter was friendly, laid back but stern, annoyingly righteous and a pure all-American male (he's probably the only person in Eureka who spends R&R every weekend on the couch watching sports and drinking beer instead of tinkering with some sort of experiment) with light brown hair and bright blue eyes.
It was Jo who told him that he has a sort of a crush on Jack Carter not long after the two suns debacle. Zane received glares, unnecessary lock-ups and fines courtesy of the deputy for the smallest violations before he understood that Jo was hurt by his quick change in affection. So he sat her down and after they talked it out, Jo warned him that if he messes her boss's life, he'd find himself shoved in a container somewhere in the most obscure lab in GD that it would take more than 100 of Taggert's biologically engineered animals to track him down before he runs out of air.
Whether he was afraid Jo would do as she threatened or that he thought that something was wrong with Jo's thought processes after their breakup, Zane was quick to deny that he has some sort of romantic interest on the sherrif. Jo merely gave him a look that seemed to say 'I'm going along with whatever you're saying but all I want to do is smack you in the face until you agree' which Zane thought was better than the rest that he has been subjected to, like 'I really want to break you in half' look or 'if I glare at you long enough you might catch fire and burn to a crisp' look.
*****
Zane has always been quick to deduce a solution through formulas, algorithms and scientific theory but he would forever be astounded by how quick and easy Jack manages to pull him out of a mental gutter by walking him through the clutter with basic logic. In science and in life. This made him believe that the sherrif was the man who could to set him right not only as a scientist but as a person as well.
In short, Carter became someone who he could depend on like a big brother, but after Jo's comment and insistence about his feelings for the sherrif, Zane reluctantly reviewed all of his experiences with Jack Carter and found himself feeling befuddled.
From the very beginning, he has been comfortable being around the sherrif, joking and bantering, and this ease has extended to the physical - simple things, like their knees touching as they sat on the bar, talking about whether the Mariners will be playing the Yankees again this season.
But then there were also those times when he sees the sherrif sitting alone at the cafe or at the sherrif's office or in one of the labs at GD and he'd be quick and quiet to sidle close to the man, looming over Jack to watch in delight those clear blue eyes blinking up at him in surprise and pleasure at his sudden company and he would always give the sherrif a friendly squeeze on the arm as way of greeting instead of surrendering to the impulse of draping himself over the sherrif's broad shoudlers
Now at that moment, standing against the bar stool where the sherrif was perched on, Zane was hard-pressed not to hug the man who was looking disheveled and sulky, a look Zane preferred just because it made the sherrif look all the more cuter.
"Bad day?" Zane asked.
The sherrif groaned. "Don't... just don't."
Zane chuckled as the man began to tuck in his shirt before swearing when he found out that most of the buttons were missing. Carter gave up trying and rubbed his flushed cheeks rapidly trying to get rid of the lipstick mark on the skin.
"What happened?" Zane pressed, sitting beside the sherrif as Vince placed a Vincepresso on the counter.
"It's Fargo. Well, not really Fargo. We found that - that 'love pollen' emerged again in the West side of Eureka's underground system. When Fargo found out I had to drag him away and keep him locked up while GD cleans the area. Fargo and I got ourselves cleaned as well but I think there's still some stuck on me or something..."
The young man arched his eyebrow. "And you're still here because-?"
Carter sighed, proping his head on his palm. "I'm just so out of it today," he groused as he grabbed the coffee from the counter, wanting to leave but before he could turn towards the exit, hands grabbed at his shirt and sure fingers proceeded to deftly do up the remaining two buttons on his shirt.
"Straight to your office, sherrif, and no talking to lusty women, you hear," Zane told him, grinning up at the sherrif who was staring at him in confusion. "There, now you look... barely ravished," proclaimed Zane laughingly, making a show of smoothing the uniform by brushing his palms across the sherrif's chest, "Off you go now."
"You are one weird kid," Carter said after a moment, "Never do that to me again." And he left in a huff while Zane watched his departing figure until he was out of sight.
Maybe Josephina was right - that he really has a crush (alright, alright in a romantic sense) on Carter but like what happened with the deputy, he was too much of a wuss to start on anything serious. For now he's just content to admire the sherrif secretly and to continue to bewilder the man with more innappropriate touching until the sherrif decides to give him to Jo to be dealt with.
Zane is forever the optimist and a risk-taker, though, and he knows he can he can snatch a cuddle or two before he finds himself locked in an ominuous container as what he has been threatened with.
Like maybe, he can persuade Carter to start a game of touch football this weekend.
-end-