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, particularly strong from Heeeeere's Lassie.

Chapter Twelve: Drive By

A messy kitchen still awaited her at home, and lunch's burrito supremo seemed like a lifetime ago, so Juliet ran through a drive through and bought herself a fruit parfait. She decided to eat outside, on the beachfront benches near the station where she often took lunch. Carlton was the one to turn her on to the spot, in the early days of their partnership. He took lunch there nearly every day, if the weather was nice and they weren't in the car. She hadn't known him well enough at the time to realize that he didn't come for the beauty of the ocean. In truth, she still wasn't entirely certain why he ate there. He hated eating outdoors - he considered every chittering squirrel or screeching gull to have larcenous intentions or loaded bowels - and he didn't seem interested in the bikinis. The only possible explanation? Watching for crime.

Juliet went for the scenery, and be damned to crime.

But she had no eye for it today. Her mind was spinning. She couldn't be one hundred percent certain but…she thought that the Chief had inexplicitly signed off on something she hadn't wanted to say in so many words. Had she actually been giving some sort of tacit approval to a…a relationship? Between Juliet and Carlton? The idea was ridiculous…

…and surprisingly intriguing.

Sure, she'd often thought that Carlton harbored ill-concealed…feelings…for her, but she'd never actually seen him as a romantic prospect…had she? Of course he was her partner, and inter-office relationships were not entirely kosher with the department - as he'd learned the hard way, which only added another layer of "don't touch" to the equation - but…well…he was a good-looking man and a hell of a fine cop, and that was pretty sexy. He was also the best friend she'd made in six and a half years in Santa Barbara.

But he was a hard man to know, and he could be a bit unpredictable in certain ways. Which was to say, you could always count on him to do the right thing and say the wrong thing, but in between there were a lot of ways he could surprise you. His entire relationship with Marlowe Viccellio was a good example of that. Who would have ever thought that Carlton Lassiter, hardliner on all things pertaining to the letter of law, would pursue a relationship with a convicted felon?

She thought about that long and hard while she spooned up yogurt, blueberries, and granola crunchies. Maybe it wasn't such a surprise after all, once you broke it down. Marlowe committed her crime out of love and loyalty to her desperately ill brother, and that, Juliet thought, was the sort of extenuating circumstance Carlton could understand if not outright condone. If all other options were exhausted and Lassiter were in a similar predicament…Juliet thought he'd go to just about any extremity to help someone he loved. He'd pretty much done that already, and for Juliet. He never told her that Chief Vick had tried to stop him from rushing to her rescue when Yin held her captive and Abigail's whereabouts were still unknown, but she'd found out just the same. That kind of insubordination could end a career, and he hadn't hesitated to put his on the line. For her.

Carlton's career meant everything to him. Or at least she'd thought it did. Apparently some things were more important to him. The idea that she might be one of them was both touching and terrifying.

Someone pulled into a parking spot nearby, windows down and radio blaring a song from Train.

"On the upside of a downward spiral, my love for you went viral and I loved you every mile you drove away. But now here you are again so let's skip the 'how you been' and get down to the 'more than friends' at last. Oh, but that one night is still the highlight. I didn't need you until I came to, and I was overwhelmed, and frankly scared as hell, because I really fell for you.

"Oh, I swear to you, I'll be there for you. This is not a drive-by. Just a shy guy, looking for the two-ply, Hefty bag to hold my love. When you move me, everything is groovy. They don't like it? Sue me. Mmm, the way you do me. Oh, I swear to you, I'll be there for you. This is not a drive-by."

She was getting used to the karmic nature of music. She barely twitched as her brain cropped up associations between the ridiculous but peppy lyric and her serious and stolid partner - who could, at times, be at least a bit ridiculous and even, from time to time, a little peppy. Certainly peppery. Grumpy. Easily frustrated and quick to anger. Callous but caring. Wounded but still fighting.

She was starting to feel sloppily sentimental. Focus on the negatives, Juliet, remind yourself why Carlton really wouldn't work out any better than Shawn. In six and a half years, how many times has he noticed a new outfit or hairstyle? How many times has he bought the morning coffee? How many times has he allowed Shawn to irritate him to the point of complete irrationality?

There was a problem with her attempt to accentuate the negative. In six and a half years she was fairly confident that he'd noticed every new look she'd tested out, he'd simply pretended to be oblivious because of that whole "no inter-office romance" issue. And no, he didn't often spring for coffee but how many times did he treat for pastries? And for every one time Shawn succeeded in making Carlton act as childish as Shawn was normally, there were another ten times where Lassiter merely withstood the barrage of drivel, stoic and quietly dignified, like a tired but patient bull being teased by a Jack Russell terrier.

So what, then, were the positives? Well, there was the whole good-looking thing, that was nice. He was fit, too - she knew he wanted to eat sugary foods and not work out, but he kept the sweets to a minimum and jogged daily, not out of vanity but because he wanted to feel good and be fit for the physical side of the job. He'd even stopped taking sugar and cream with his coffee, a major sacrifice. But he was a man who could do that kind of thing because he had determination and persistence, and once he made a resolution he stuck to it. Unlike some people.

Okay, stop thinking about Shawn Spencer. Bad for the blood pressure. Worse than three creams and four sugars in your coffee, that's for sure. Just focus on Carlton for now.

So. Tall and strong and fit, good-looking, with the sexiest eyes she'd ever seen not on a movie screen. A voice that could, at times, send a shiver down the spine and turn the legs to jelly - either in fear or desire. Occasionally evasive, but otherwise completely honest - at times brutally so. Honesty looked like an intensely sexy quality at this point. He had little charm and a lot of brashness, but that, too, worked in his favor in the wake of Shawn Spencer. He cared, despite his best efforts to hide it, about her and about humanity in general. He could growl and cuss all he wanted to, but she could see it - every time they came to clean up the aftermath of human tragedy, she could see the soft heart lurking beneath that crusty exterior. And while he had no problems whatsoever with speaking his mind, loudly and at length, he was in the final analysis a quiet man, not a loudmouthed showboat. She smiled as she remembered, in her first year with the SBPD, Chief Vick describing quiet as who Lassiter was, rather than what. She wished she'd listened to the Chief that time, instead of plowing ahead with her ill-advised surprise party, but even though the whole thing was a catastrophic disaster she didn't regret it as much as she probably should. She'd learned things about her irascible partner in the process of completely humiliating herself and turning his life upside-down, and that was worthwhile.

Was he relationship material? Well…she was starting to wonder about that. Now wasn't the time to pursue anything, of course, but…later? After both of them had time to settle back into a natural emotional groove in the wake of their failed relationships? Hmm…

It was difficult to keep her mind from straying to the tactile memory of her fingers in his thick salt-and-pepper hair, so heavy and silken and luxurious…

Eventually she realized her spoon was scraping the bottom of an empty container. She stood up, tossed the cup in a nearby garbage can, and went back to her car. She felt jazzed, in a way she didn't quite understand. Maybe all she needed was a drive.