DISCLAIMER: Murder in Suburbia and its characters are the property of ITV. No infringement intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Part of the ‘One cliché, Many Fandoms’ series.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

That's my Line
By zennie

 

Scribbs woke with a heavy but not unpleasant feeling in her limbs and a tickling sensation on her neck. She grinned down at the sight of her slumbering partner, who had, at some time in the night, broken almost all of her rules about sharing a bed. To whit, Ash was curled around Scribbs, a leg thrown over Scribbs' thighs, an arm tucked securely around her waist, and heavy breathing was emanating from her perch on Scribbs' shoulder. No stray limbs, indeed, Scribbs thought to herself, before realizing that she needed to figure out some way to extricate herself from this position. If Ash woke up, she would be mortified, and it would take a good fortnight to tease and cajole her out of the resulting funk.

Scribbs was just figuring out which part of her body to slide out from under Ash when a change in Ash's breathing signaled that the other woman was waking. A throaty 'mmmm' and a tightening of the arm around her waist was the least of Scribbs' worries as a soft pair of lips brushed her neck.

"Um, morning? Ash?" she ventured.

"Mmmm, morning," Ash muttered before sliding up for a kiss.

Scribbs closed her eyes as she enjoyed the novel but entirely pleasant experience of being kissed by her DI. The moment, however, was short-lived as the other woman stiffened; when she opened her eyes, the dark eyes staring back at her were wide with shock and horror.

A few minutes later, Ash was wielding her brush like a demented woman, and Scribbs was trying to talk her down before she ended up bald. "Look, it was just…"

"I know what it was. It was a kiss. A kiss. I kissed you."

"Yeah, but…"

"But nothing. I kissed you. And I enjoyed it. What does that say?"

"That I'm a good kisser?"

Ash stopped brushing her hair long enough to glare at the blonde. Then she continued the assault on her hair. "About me, Scribbs. What does it say about me?"

"About us, you mean?"

"You were just going with the flow. Like you do—" "Ash…" "For you, this is just a one off, a lark. It's not like you were the one who started it." "Ash!" "You were the kissee, not the kisser. But I kissed you, so there must be…"

Scribbs finally managed to shut her up by spinning her around and kissing her. The hairbrush slipped from Ash's hand, hit the edge of the counter with a crack, and skidded off across the bathroom floor. But Ash found something else to do with her hands, sliding them around the shorter woman's waist and pulling her close. Scribbs' hands were wound in silky strands of dark hair, prolonging the contact.

When she broke the kiss, Scribbs waited until Ash's eyes fluttered open before saying, "Now I just kissed you and enjoyed it. What does that say?"

"That I'm a good kisser?"

"HEY! That's my line."

Ash shrugged, grinning. "It was a good line." She lowered her head until their foreheads were touching, a sigh signaling a shift back to seriousness. "Look, Scribbs, I think we should…"

"I know, I know, forget it ever happened," Scribbs interrupted.

"Well, I was going to say, go to dinner tonight for a proper first date."

Scribbs' head popped up to look at her partner. "Yeah?"

Ash smiled and nodded her head. "Yeah." She released her hold around Scribbs' waist and rescued her hairbrush from the floor, turning back to the mirror. "Really, Scribbs, you shouldn't jump to conclusions. It doesn't speak well to your investigative skills. Now, the rules for…"

Scribbs settled back onto the bed, propping her head on her hand as Ash enumerated the rules for first dates, workplace romances, and public displays of affection, wondering idly how many she could manage to break in the first week.

The End

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