This is in response to James's challenge to write a story alluding to the Radio Times magazine cover which carried the caption "No sex, please, I'm a Mountie." Mild language warning, references to adult situations, maybe a PG-13 rating, to be safe. I'll give it a new title, so as not to step on Buffy's toes. :D
Laura Higgins
lhiggins@ttiadmin.tamu.edu
"Louis, I haven't got all day."
Gardino paused just long enough to shoot a glare at his partner before resuming the task at hand. One paragraph, just a few more hunt-and-peck lines and the most boring case of his career would finally be--
"Over."
"What?"
"*Over* five hundred dollars recovered." Jack reached over Louis' shoulder to stab a finger at the report curling out of the typewriter.
"Whaddya mean, *over*? It was five hundred bucks."
"Five hundred and two."
"So what?" Gardino snapped, hitting the "correction" key...again...to fix the word he'd misspelled while Jack was talking.
"So--this is the most meaningless case we've dealt with in the last year, and *that's* saying something, considering the miserable year it's been. And the best you can do with a case this *stupid* is make it look as good as possible in the report." Jack stabbed at the paper again. "*Over* five hundred dollars recovered."
"Fine. Whatever." Gardino thumped the correction key on the typewriter twenty-seven times, erasing the last sentence letter by letter...but at the twenty-eighth thump, nothing happened. The "f" in "five" sat sullenly on the page, unerased. "Damn. I'm out of correction tape again." Shoving his chair back from his desk, Gardino stalked off to the supply closet, feeling Huey's baleful gaze on his back. Stupid police reports. No one at the Academy ever said anything about knowing how to *type*, for chrissakes.
The door to the supply closet was closed, and Gardino was reaching for the doorknob to give it an impatient twist when he froze. Was that....?
He heard the sound again. Breathing.
Heavy breathing. Coming from--
Yes. Definitely coming from...in there.
"Oh..." came a voice, out of all that breathing. A woman's voice...Elaine's voice. And Elaine wasn't the only one breathing in there. Gardino leaned just a little closer to the door.
"Hey!" Huey's voice was suddenly in Gardino's other ear. "Are you coming back to finish this or not?"
"Sssshhhhh." Gardino batted one hand in Huey's direction to reinforce the message. Huey opened his mouth to speak up again anyway, but before he could ask what the hell his partner was doing standing there like a doorstop that voice came from the supply closet again.
"Oh...God..."
Definitely Elaine. And she sounded...strained. Breathless. Huey leaned in a little, too.
"What's going *on* in there?" he whispered at Gardino. Louis shrugged, a smirk settling on his face. Whatever it was, it was a hell of a lot more interesting than that report.
"Oh....mmph...Fraser, just a little...yes!"
*Fraser?* They mouthed it at the same time. Jack wondered if his own eyes had bugged out as far as Louis's.
"Are we having a meeting, gentlemen?" They both jumped, then turned as nonchalantly as they could manage to face Welsh.
"No, sir," Louis stage-whispered. "We're just, uh..." He trailed off, looking at Jack for help, but Huey was gazing into the air somewhere past the Lieutenant's shoulder and didn't seem likely to speak up anytime soon.
As it turned out, he didn't have to.
Welsh heard it this time. "What's that?" he demanded, cocking his head towards the closed door.
"Uh, what's what, sir?" Gardino knew even as he spoke that the evasion wouldn't work. The breathing inside the supply closet was getting noticeably louder.
"Who's in there?" Welsh scowled, whether in concentration or irritation Gardino couldn't tell.
"Elaine. We think." Huey cast a glance at Gardino, who had given up trying to be circumspect and had his ear pressed to the door. "And Fraser."
"Fraser?" Welsh's eyebrows climbed another inch. "The Mountie is in there? With Elaine?"
"Ssshhh." Gardino hissed urgently. Huey blanched, but Welsh hardly seemed to notice that he'd just been shushed. Muffled sounds of movement drifted out from the closet...
"Elaine...could you please--" Fraser's voice sounded, if anything, more out-of-breath than Elaine's. "...just...take...hold...ow!...that's it, right there...ow...ow ow ow ow...good..."
"Kinky," Gardino whispered.
"Hey, what's goin' on?"
"Ssssshhhhh!" All three men hissed at Ray Vecchio, not sparing him a glance. The vague noises of something or *someone* moving in the supply closet had taken on a definite rhythm. And a definite...tone. Almost...metallic, somehow. The distinctive hollow sound of something knocking against--
"File cabinets. They're on the file cabinets." Gardino announced in a triumphant whisper. Maybe being around the Mountie for over a year had its benefits...case solving by sound effects wasn't a bad skill to pick up.
"*Who's* on the file cabinets?" Ray hissed back. When no one answered him he shoved in to find his own spot against the door.
"Oof! Fraser, watch where you put your elbow..."
"..Sorry..."
Ray's eyes widened and he snapped straight in shock, but that pulled his ear away from the door. Quickly he whipped his head around to look at the others, but no answers seemed to be forthcoming from any of *them*. He pressed his ear back to the door, sordid curiosity outweighing his guilt.
"Elaine..." Fraser's voice was sounding very strained, indeed. "...I'm--almost...okay, now, now!..." Elaine's gasp followed behind Fraser's. Four mouths gaped outside the closed door. Near-silence from inside. Only breathing again. They sounded winded.
Ray and Gardino and Huey and Welsh exchanged one glance before finding remote spots on the walls to focus on.
"...Thanks, Fraser." Elaine seemed to have gotten her voice back again, though it still sounded as though she'd been running up and down stairs.
"My pleasure, Elaine," Fraser answered, between breaths.
"Yeah, no kidding," Gardino muttered. Ray glared at him and had opened his mouth for a withering, if sotto voce, retort when something cold and wet touched his hand.
"HEY!" Ray clapped his mouth shut, but it was too late. Three men and one recently-arrived white wolf stared at him wide-eyed.
"Hello? Ray?" Fraser called from inside the closet. They scattered.
"Strange," Fraser said, turning back from the door. "I could have sworn I heard Ray just now."
"He's probably waiting for you," Elaine said, somewhat reluctantly handing over his uniform tunic and watching the white shirt and suspenders disappear as it was buttoned up to his chin. "But look!" She opened the closet door the rest of the way and beamed in satisfaction as it swung all the way around to stand flat against the wall. "It opens all the way now. There's so much more room in here!"
"It does seem like more space," Fraser agreed. The big metal filing cabinets stood neatly arrayed against the far wall, covering up the back door to the closet, which had been painted shut for years, anyway.
"Thanks again, Fraser. I couldn't have moved them by myself--and it was no use even asking anyone around *here* to help me."
"Any time I can be of assistance, Elaine." He smiled at her and picked up his hat. "I'd better go find Ray."
Ray made sure he didn't make eye contact with Fraser until the Mountie was right in front of his desk. "So, you ready to go?" he said a little too heartily. He was pretty sure he saw Diefenbaker roll his eyes.
"Yes, Ray. I hope I didn't keep you waiting long."
"No, no," Ray hastened to say. "I was just here working. No problem." He grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and led the way out of the precinct, moving fast so there was no chance of seeing or worse, having to *talk* to Elaine. "Wanna stop for a burger or something?"
"Um--yes, that sounds very good, actually. I'm quite hungry at the moment."
"Yeah, no kidding," Ray said under his breath.
"Pardon?"
"Nothing."
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Laura Higgins, slightly red-faced...
lhiggins@ttiadmin.tamu.edu