Disclaimer: I don't own Psych or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.
Rating: T
Spoilers: Through current episodes
A/N: Once upon a time, about five minutes before this story was posted, there existed a prologue - a prologue that took me nearly a week to write. It was a concise explanation of the plot monkey behind this apparent Carlowe ship-fic, and I decided that it made everything too much of a gimmie. So now there is no prologue. Hopefully there is still a plot monkey.
Chapter One: Pit Bulls and Parolees
Marlowe Viccellio was excited. And nervous. And more than a little apprehensive. And happy. Incredibly happy. But scared. For fourteen months her life was perfectly structured with few to no surprises - up every day at the same time, fed at the same times, exercised at the same time. Now her life would be her own again, and that was a little bit frightening. Of course, one of the surprising things she'd learned about herself while incarcerated was that she was a lot tougher than she'd ever thought she was. A survivor. She was going to be all right, wherever life took her from here. That was what her boyfriend kept telling her.
Her boyfriend. The thought of him gave her all sorts of happy, apprehensive feelings. He said he'd be there to pick her up when she walked out the doors a free woman, and he'd take her home. Their home, the one he'd bought specifically to share with her. A big step, moving in, particularly in light of the fact that they'd never actually had a complete, uninterrupted date where there wasn't a surly guard barking "No touching!" at them every time they tried to get close. It was a step she was eager to take regardless. But it was still a little frightening. Once he had a chance to get to know her, really get to know her…what if he found out he didn't like her as much as he thought he did? He was a fighter, a gunslinger. He admired her for her guts and her left hook, but left to her own devices in a world where she didn't have to fight…well, Marlowe had always seen herself as more than a bit of a milquetoast. If he started to see her that way, too…
Well. She was just going to have to make sure he never did start to see her that way.
She gathered her few possessions at the final checkpoint and the female guard at the door shook her hand before buzzing her out of the prison into the stark, suddenly enormous world outside the fenced-in yard. Marlowe blinked in the brilliant sunlight and gave her eyes a moment to adjust. The whole world seemed full of extraordinary color, and thankfully only a small portion of it was industrial concrete gray or prison jumpsuit orange. But the only color she really wanted to see was the intense cool-water blue of his eyes.
He…wasn't there.
She felt needle-claws of panic sink into her heart. He was having second thoughts. He didn't want to be stuck with her, why would he? He was a strong, handsome man with a terrific career and there had to be better options for him than an ex-con who was going to have to spend the next year continually checking in with a probation officer. Or maybe something happened while he was at work. A shooting. Maybe he was in the hospital. Maybe he was in the morgue.
"Hello, Marlowe." His voice was a splash of refreshing sanity to her panicked brain. She turned and saw him climbing out of the driver's seat of his Ford Fusion, reassuringly uninjured, smiling, and looking just a little bit shy. "I hope you didn't have to wait long. I didn't mean to be late, but Spencer decided to choose today to stage a major psychic hissy fit at the station, I think because he knew I was supposed to be here to pick you up. Making me late would be just the kind of 'joke' he'd think was enormously funny."
She couldn't speak. She tried once or twice but nothing happened. She held out her arms to him.
He moved to embrace her, but at the exact same instant, just before they reached each other, both of them recoiled instinctively. They looked at each other and burst out laughing. No one was going to tell them not to touch, this time. They hugged and Marlowe shut her eyes tight, drinking in the warm, solid, comforting reality of him. Overwhelmed, she tightened her arms around his neck and threw her legs around him. She climbed him like a tree and kissed him, heedless of any audience this very public display of affection might draw, even when she became aware that several inmates in the prison yard nearby were shouting out catcalls.
"Yeah, Viccellio - take that pig down, girl!"
They broke the kiss at that and he put her down. He tugged at the collar of his crisp sky-colored shirt as though it were too tight, but he had the top three buttons undone to showcase that glorious hairy chest. He cleared his throat. A blush was creeping up from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears. "Well, I, uh…thought maybe you'd like to go shopping, er, for some new clothes and such. You probably need a lot of practical things, like a new toothbrush and all that, and I know I could have got that sort of thing for you but I thought maybe you'd rather pick everything out yourself since you know what you like best and all. But I'd, uh…I'd like to get you something special, too. Like a new dress and some jewelry, something like that. To celebrate. And I'd like to take you out to dinner tonight."
And she would like to make him in to dinner tonight. She smiled up at him. "I don't need anything special, Carlton. Except for you."
For a rather pale man, he was capable of turning remarkably red. He cleared his throat again, and she was reminded of Gregory Peck as Captain Horatio Hornblower. "Well. I'd still like to get you something nice. If I could afford it, I'd get you everything nice. I hope you don't mind settling for what you can get on a civil servant's salary."
"I don't think of you as 'settling' at all, Carlton," she said honestly, "except that you make me feel settled."
She was a little surprised, by the fire engine color of his cheeks and ears, that smoke wasn't rising from around his collar by this point. He smiled shyly and gestured at the car idling by the curb. "Your chariot awaits, madam," he joked.
"Hold on, let me take a good look at you," she said. He wasn't dressed as she might have expected if he'd come straight from work. He wasn't dressed like she'd expected him to be at all, actually, and she suspected he'd gotten advice from someone, possibly that little blonde partner of his. Under a jet black blazer that emphasized the salt in his gorgeously salt-and-pepper hair, the sky-blue shirt, almost exactly the same color as those amazing eyes, was tucked neatly into a pair of suspiciously new Levis and the heavy black engineer boots under the boot-cut cuffs were also disarmingly casual (and obviously new, as well). He looked, in a word, edible. She imagined trying to focus on shopping for socks and underwear while standing next to that and couldn't quite envision managing to do it without being kicked out of the store and at least threatened with charges of public indecency.
"Maybe…we could worry about shopping later?" she suggested, imbuing her voice with as much sultry seduction as she could put into it. Their first and only actual "date" had ended in sexual frustration and her arrest, and the only part of it she begrudged was the frustration. She'd waited more than long enough to satisfy the animal hunger he awoke in her. Even another hour would be pushing the limits of her patience.
He seemed to pick up on that. "Let's go home," he said, a little breathlessly. He held the car door open for her and fairly leapt the hood to get around to the driver's side once she was in. Home. A home she would share with this amazing man who should by all rights have given up on her fourteen months ago, when he first discovered what she'd had a hand in doing.
She watched him drive in silence, his attention fixed on the task at hand - maneuvering the hybrid safely through late-afternoon traffic to the older, higher-end part of town where the condominium complex he'd moved to was located. Even something as simple and everyday as that, just driving home, was an act he performed with an attentiveness and focus she marveled at. And in a short while he would turn that single-minded laser focus on her. She felt her excitement triple. She couldn't quite stop herself from grabbing his leg, high up on his thigh. He shifted in his seat but didn't take his eyes off the road.
"I don't really think you should be doing that," he said, a little regretfully. "My heart's already beating a thousand miles an hour. Too much of that and I'll never make it home alive."
"You don't have a siren on this car, do you?" she said, half-jokingly.
He reached under his seat and pulled out a portable emergency services flasher. "Actually…"
She started to giggle. "That would be a horrible abuse of your authority, Detective."
"But this is an honest-to-goodness emergency," he said, smiling. "A life may actually depend on my getting your clothes off in the next ten minutes."
"Make that two lives."
"Dear sweet God," he breathed reverently, but though he tossed the cherry light into the back seat his foot did come down just a little bit harder on the accelerator. "This is the place," he said at last as they pulled in sight of 1101 Prospect Gardens, the imposing apartment building with a hinky reputation. It looked haunted, from the outside, but Marlowe couldn't care less if it played host to a legion of restless spirits. They could be no more restless than she was right at this moment, and somewhere in that building awaited the double bed that was the key to her salvation. If there'd been a bit in her mouth she probably would have snapped it in half with anxious champing as he pulled the Fusion into the dark parking garage next door and wound slowly up the concrete ramp to his reserved spot.
He parked the car and turned off the ignition but instead of fumbling to unbuckle his seatbelt like she was doing, he just sat there. His face was a grimace of pain.
"Carlton, what's wrong?" she asked, suddenly afraid that his joke about his life depending on getting here fast was all too serious. "Is it your heart?"
"What? Oh, no. No, Marlowe, I'm fine, I just…every time I'm in this damned garage I get a splitting headache. The new building manager is supposed to be checking for carbon monoxide leaks and such but he doesn't seem inclined to swift action."
She ran a hand through his hair. "Poor baby. Come on, I know just the thing to cure you of all aches and pains."
He grinned, though he still looked drawn and maybe just a little bit haunted himself. "I just bet you do."
She grinned back and fumbled for the door handle. "Nah ah ah," he said, and stopped her. He got out of the car and came around to the passenger side. He opened the door for her and held out his hand to help her out. The gesture was ridiculous and courtly and incredibly touching. It made her feel like a princess or a movie star despite the plain, ugly prison-issue street clothes she wore. He folded her arm through his and led her to the elevator. When the doors closed behind them she leaned in close and whispered in his ear. "Is there a security camera in here, do you think?"
"More than likely," he whispered back.
"Damn."
"Why?" he asked with a half-chuckle. "What would you do if there wasn't?"
"Something that would make Paris Hilton look like a rank amateur."
"Crap on a cracker," he exhaled, and punched the button for the ground floor again, as though that would speed their decent. She giggled and hugged his arm tightly. She felt lightheaded and a little bit dizzy, and she didn't think carbon monoxide was the culprit.
When the doors opened and expelled them onto the ground level she had to trot to keep up with his long-legged pace as he made a break for the front doors of the towering apartment complex. Another too-long elevator ride to the fifth floor while she glared around, looking for the hidden camera, and finally the doors opened on heaven, or at least the hallway that led to the corner condominium where heaven awaited. He fumbled with the keys a moment too long. The next door over opened and a small family - man, child on plastic Big Wheel tricycle, and heavily-pregnant woman - stepped out.
"Howdy, neighbor," the man said brightly. "Nice day, isn't it? Who's your new lady friend?"
"Oh. Hey. Hi," Carlton said, through teeth gritted in a rather unpleasant facsimile of a smile. "Uh, Eddie…Rose Marie…this is my girlfriend Marlowe Viccellio. She's moving in with me. Marlowe, these are the Farrows, Eddie, Rose Marie, and their son Tony."
"Nice to meet you," Marlowe said, though she was no happier than Carlton to be stalled on the threshold.
Rose Marie Farrow gave her a quick once-over. "Welcome to the building, Marlowe," she said. Her lip was curled in a way that said she saw something faintly hilarious but was too polite to laugh. "That's an interesting outfit you're wearing."
"Isn't it just?" Marlowe said brightly. "It's what they give you to wear when they let you out of prison."
She heard Carlton's strangled whoop of laughter. He managed at last to finesse the key into the lock and popped the door open. "So hate to cut the introductions short, but it's been a long fourteen months and we're anxious to get settled in," he said. "See you 'round, neighbors." He pulled her inside and slammed the door shut behind them.
"Jiminy Christmas eating a cracker," he said. He leaned against the door as though to barricade it. "I swear, those people have uncanny timing."
"What was the deal with the kid?" Marlowe asked. "He looked…deranged."
"He's definitely got problems," Carlton said seriously. "Exactly what those problems entail, apart from a tricycle obsession and a nervous tick with his finger, I don't know. And I swear, she's been nine months pregnant the whole four months I've lived here. Either we're looking at a perma-preggers situation here or she's going to drop freakin' octuplets, and if that happens I say screw the lease, we're finding someplace else to live."
Marlowe giggled. "Maybe it's one of those prosthetic baby bellies. Maybe she's just trying to use the 'expectant mother' parking spaces at the grocery store."
He smiled. "Well. You're home now. What do you think? I had the place repainted and all, but anything you don't care for just let me know and we'll fix it up the way you like it."
She looked around herself appreciatively at the condo with its understated palette of beiges and earth tones, warm and inviting and masculine. His sense of style had surprised her at his original condo, too - yes, there was a certain emphasis on weaponry in the art and design of the place, but the overall effect was considerably more Martha Stewart Living than Guns & Ammo, even with the hand grenade-shaped candles on the dinner table. "I wouldn't change a thing," she said. "It's perfect. You're perfect." She stepped up to him and slid her hands beneath the lapels of his jacket across the expanse of his chest and shoulders.
"I'm crazy about you," he said, taking her in his arms. "I felt like I was losing my mind, waiting for you. But I would have waited 'til the end of time, if that's what it took."
"The wait is over," she breathed against his neck. "This is our time, now."
"Oh God, Marlowe…" He buried his hands in her hair and kissed her with all the pent-up passion he'd held in reserve for fourteen grueling months. She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt and unbuckled his belt. And then someone knocked at the door.
"Crap," Carlton moaned raggedly. He threw open the door with a snarl.
A tall, slightly portly gray-haired balding man stood framed by the jamb, a friendly, rather manic smile on his face that did not falter even a trifle in the full glare of Carlton's ferocious greeting. "Detective Lassiter! Shawn told me you brought your young lady-friend home from the 'joint' this afternoon, so I thought I'd stop by with a little housewarming present for the lucky girl."
"God, Woody, not one of your balloon animal-organs," Carlton growled.
"No, something even better. A perfectly preserved Mustela nigripes under glass." He brought the dead ferret in its glass dome out from behind his back and handed it to Marlowe. "Enjoy, dear lady."
"Oh, how cute. Thank you," she said. Carlton could only gaze in wonder at her. "I'm Marlowe Viccellio, as I guess you already knew. You are…?"
"Doctor Woodrow Strode, at your service, madam," Woody said grandly, and bowed over the hand she offered him. "I'm the county coroner so I work with Detective Lassiter quite often. And I just want to assure you that what happened between him and me was a complete accident, an aberration, and in no way a threat to your relationship. I am certain you'll be very happy together."
Marlowe blinked three times rapidly. "What…happened…?"
"Thanks for the dead rat, Woody, but you've really got to go now," Carlton said firmly. "Take care now. Bye bye. See you in the morgue." He slammed the door firmly.
"Carlton, what did he mean, 'what happened between you?'" Marlowe asked in bemusement.
"Woody is a first-class shit-bird whackaloon," he said. "You can't listen to anything he says. Now…where were we?"
She grinned and stepped back up to him. "Right here…" She pushed open his unbuttoned shirt and ran her fingers through the springy hair on his stomach and chest and nuzzled him while his hands stroked along her spine. And then someone knocked at the door.
"Son of a bitch," he snarled. "Whaddaya want?"
A pineapple wrapped in a huge pink ribbon briefly obscured two faces pressed close together behind it. The offering dropped a few inches to reveal Shawn Spencer and Burton Guster, who burst into song. "We welcome Marlowe from the clink, it doesn't matter what we think. A week or two of Lassie fun, and she'll go back for Murder One."
Carlton drew his pistol. The men shrieked, tossed the pineapple in Marlowe's general direction, and fled screaming for the elevator. She tried not to laugh - it was funny, of course, or would be except for Carlton's beleaguered expression as he slammed the door. She put the pineapple on the end table next to the ferret under glass and wrapped her arms around his neck again. He was shaking, probably with the effort of not committing double homicide. She made comforting cooing noises to him to calm him down. Slowly his nervous trembling subsided and he began to respond to her gentle ministrations. A few sweet, lingering kisses and they were just about back to where they were before. And then someone knocked at the door.
"Ignore it," he growled, as though she'd made any move to answer it. Whoever it was knocked again, louder this time, and called out. "Lassiter?" - a sternly authoritative woman's voice.
"Chief Vick," Carlton whimpered into Marlowe's mouth. With the same heartbreaking expression as a whipped puppy, he broke away and opened the door.
Chief Karen Vick held a bottle of red wine. She stood next to Juliet O'Hara, who held a bouquet of summer flowers. Behind the two women stood Henry Spencer, carrying a six pack of Dos Equis beer. "Hello, Carlton," Vick said. "We won't stay. We just thought we'd stop by to welcome Ms. Viccellio."
"We passed Shawn and Gus on the way up," Henry said. "By the looks of them, Gus is probably glad he wore dark pants today. Did you draw on 'em?"
"They deserved it," Carlton said defensively.
"Carlton," O'Hara sighed.
"They did," he repeated.
"Knowing them, they probably did," Henry said.
"Oh, here," Vick said, and thrust the wine into Carlton's hands. "A little welcome-home present for both of you."
"And these are from me," Juliet said, presenting the flowers to Marlowe. "So glad to meet you under better circumstances than last time, Marlowe."
"Last time being the time you put me under arrest," Marlowe pointed out.
"Technically Carlton arrested you," Juliet said, with a nervous chuckle. "I just took you to the station for booking."
"You're the arresting officer in my records, O'Hara," Vick said.
Henry handed over the beer. "Here. A couple of these and no one will care who arrested who anymore. Now why don't we get out of here and let these two lovebirds get back to business?"
The two women seemed to notice Lassiter's disheveled, unbuttoned, unbuckled state for the first time at the same time. "Oh. Yes. Er…nice to meet you, Ms. Viccellio. Goodbye," Chief Vick said. The trio turned away and walked rather quickly toward the elevators. Carlton didn't close the door immediately. Instead he stood in the doorway and stared down the hall after them.
"What are you doing?" Marlowe asked.
"Waiting to see who else pops by," Lassiter said miserably. "I expect there'll be someone. McNab. Miller. Dobson. My Mother and Althea. Olympia freakin' Dukakis. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir."
She looked at him. She thought in that moment he looked a lot like the pit bull her brother Adrian had kept for some years when they were younger. A good dog, and long-suffering, but occasionally provoked past his endurance by the cheeky squirrels that chittered maddeningly at him and stole from his food dish. The strained, half-desperate, half-crazed expression on Carlton's face was nearly identical to the look Butch would wear when once again the fuzzy bandits scored his food and raced out of reach up a tree to pelt him with acorns, adding insult to injury.
"Come inside, baby, and lock the door," she said, with a tug at his hand. "Anyone else that drops in can stand outside and wait while I make sweet love to you. They can wait all damned night, if that's what it takes. And I think it will."