DISCLAIMER: Murder in Suburbia and its characters are the property of ITV. No infringement intended.
SPOILERS: Set after the second series episode 'Witches' and containing a few lines of dialogue from the show.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
THANKS: To fewthistle for the beta.
Tarte au Chocolate
By ralst
Ash and Scribbs stood in the driveway, watching as Stewart was loaded into the ambulance, the cold seeping in to their chilled bodies.
"Still, they reckon once he's had his stomach pumped, he'll be fine," Scribbs defended, embarrassed to have caused her former boyfriend to be carted away to casualty twice in one week.
"I take it this relationship is now at an end?"
Scribbs turned to her friend. "We agreed it was for the best."
"Very wise." Ash's gaze was fixed on the ambulance. "One more date and you would have killed him."
Ash turned her back on the departing ambulance and headed back towards the house, Scribbs soon following in her wake.
Re-entering the house, Scribbs threw her coat on the nearest chair and surveyed the disaster area that was her dinning room. "I spent hours on that meal," she complained.
Ash looked at the congealed food. "Looks lovely, Scribbs, I'm sure if it hadn't almost killed him, Stewart would have thoroughly enjoyed himself."
Scribbs ignored the jibe and began collecting plates and cutlery, before disappearing into the kitchen. Extracting her keys, Ash prepared to head home, a half eaten pizza waiting for her in the fridge.
The kitchen door swung open and Scribbs poked her head through the gap. "Tarte?"
"Slapper," Ash retorted. "What?"
Scribbs disappeared for a second before backing out of the kitchen, two plates balanced precariously in her hands. "Tarte au chocolate or tarte au citron?" she asked, turning to face Ash.
Ash held up her keys.
"They're Marks and Spencers," Scribbs pouted.
Ash's keys went into her coat pocket and her coat found itself a home on the back of a chair.
"Despite being reminded of a rather suspect make of car, I'll have the citron."
Scribbs cut a large wedge of lemon flavoured tarte and placed it before an eagerly awaiting Ash; tiny morsels of lemon cream coating her thumb and soon cleaned off with a well placed swipe of her tongue.
Ash decided not to comment on Scribbs' eating habits or the strangely non-platonic thoughts the manoeuvre provoked.
"You did well, Scribbs."
Helping herself to a wedge of her own, Scribbs didn't bother to answer. Her moan of delight at the first taste of chocolate heaven was answer enough. From that moment on it was a battle of the suggestive moans, as both women gave verbal thanks to good chefs everywhere.
Scribbs wiped the last of the chocolate sauce from the corner of her mouth. "Do you think Stewart would have liked it?"
"Trust me, Scribbs, two mouthfuls of this and he'd have been putty in your hands."
Scribbs rattled her spoon against the plate, as a familiar urge made itself known. "Does sugar make you horny?"
"You as in me or you as in the population as a whole?"
"Either, both." She pointed her spoon at Ash. "Does eating something terribly bad for you ever make you want to rip off your clothes and jump on the nearest available body?"
"If you're thinking of following Stewart to casualty, I'd think again." She shuddered. "Stomach pumps aren't exactly conducive to romance."
Scribbs eyed a second piece of tarte but pushed the thought aside as her gaze was captured by the sight of Ash leaning forward and exposing just the hint of cleavage.
"Scribbs?"
"Hmm?"
Ash swiped at her top. "Did I drop something?"
"What?" Scribbs' eyes met Ash's and a tinge of red infused her cheeks. "Oh, it's gone."
"Scribbs?"
"It's nothing."
Ash took in her friend's rapidly reddening cheeks and immediately jumped to - surprisingly accurate - conclusions. "You were looking down my top."
"I was not."
"Oh, my God, I'm the nearest available body."
"No, you're not."
Ash pushed her plate aside, a smug smile on her face. "You so want to jump me right now."
"I do not."
They stared at each other for several minutes, neither willing to admit defeat or mention what their discussion might mean for their working relationship. As usual, Scribbs was the first to break.
"It's the chocolate," she dismissed. "I'd probably want to jump Princess Ann if she were sitting where you are."
"Firstly, never compare me to Princess Ann," Ash counted on her fingers. "Secondly, I've seen you eat your weight in Mars bars and never bat an eye. Thirdly, I ate the lemon tarte."
"What has that got -" A smile edged its way onto Scribbs' face. "You want to jump me."
"I never said that."
Scribbs leant back in her chair, a lazy smile on her face and a touch of excitement in her eyes. "You so want to jump me."
"Scribbs, we are not having this conversation." Ash stood up to leave.
Scribbs stood with her. "Don't leave." She tried her best pout. "I promise to be good."
"You don't know how," Ash muttered, but returned to her seat anyway.
Ash watched the tabletop and Scribbs watched Ash, until finally the silence got the best of them both.
"Have you ever -"
"We could -"
They both stopped and urged the other to continued.
"Had sex with a women?"
"Move to the couch and get... What?"
"Head prefect," Scribbs mused, "you must have had the pick of the girls when you were at that posh school of yours. You can't tell me you never dipped your toe in the sapphic dating pool."
Ash ignored the question and retreated to the relative safety of the couch.
"No fumbles with the upper sixth before hockey practice?" Scribbs pushed. "No practising French kissing with the other girls after lights out?"
"It wasn't a boarding school."
Scribbs took the seat next to Ash on the couch, her thigh accidentally - but not quite - brushing up against Ash's as they talked.
"But you have kissed another woman?"
"I'm beginning to think there was something in that tarte." Ash moved an inch to her left and Scribbs quickly followed. "Perhaps Stewart laced it with something to get back at you for breaking his arm."
"We never got to practice kissing at my school. You hit puberty and suddenly every boy within a ten mile radius is trying to stick his tongue down your throat."
"A lovely testimonial to our comprehensive school education."
"I got drunk at a friend's hen night once and ended up snogging her chief bridesmaid but all I remember is throwing up in the toilets during the birdie song."
Ash considered whether it would be easier and, she grudgingly admitted, more enjoyable to just kiss Scribbs and get it over and done with, or sit and listen to her litany of drunken exploits.
"There was this stripper, exotic dancer, who used to come into the station every Friday night -"
Ash had meant the kiss to be quick, chaste and a one off. As the seconds rolled by and their tongues began to dance, that particular plan went out the window.
Several minutes later they pulled apart.
"Wow, they teach you a thing or two at those posh schools."
"Shut up, Scribbs."
Ash didn't bother deluding herself into thinking the second kiss would be chaste. She merely went where her hormones, and Scribbs' wandering hands, took her. Her squeal of surprise as she felt her skirt being raised was quickly drowned out by Scribbs' moan of delight as her hand found its way beneath Scribbs' bra.
"You have done this before," Scribbs murmured.
Ash's mouth soon followed the path laid down by her hands, a muttered 'shut up Scribbs' the last sound before her lips became absorbed in the task of sending her friend, colleague and, as of now, lover, into a state of oblivion.
She'd worry about getting to Marks and Spencers to stock up on tarte au chocolate in the morning.
The End