LOUK Fan Fic: The Wire (Or Getting There from Here)
Title: The Wire Author: charlsie_esq Fandom: Law & Order: UK Summary: Matt starts thinking out of the box Characters: Team Law and Alesha Phillips Pairings: Matt and Alesha Rating: G Beta: The amazing diamondrocker, who has my most humble thanks! Warning/Spoilers: N/A. This is AU and would occur some time between Series 4 and Series 5 Disclaimer: Dick Wolf and ITV own everything of value. Musings are all mine. Inspired by these:
The Wire
Matt wasn’t sure when it had become the case but he had been certain, until that very moment, that Alesha wasn’t interested in him and that he had been neatly fixed in the “Friend” box.
He’d been flirting with her for months. Months. She always ignored it. At first, he’d thought that she had a thing for James, but then nothing had happened there, so he guessed that he had been wrong.
In the meantime, they’d become close friends. There were more than a dozen cases they had worked on in the last few months and during that time, they’d developed a series of inside jokes. He noticed the looks their colleagues gave them when they seemed to be laughing at something not particularly funny together . . . or even when they just looked at each other and nodded.
But all the gossip was wrong. They were just friends. She didn’t think of him in that way. Or so he thought, until this exact moment.
Matt had drawn the short straw. It was his turn to wear a wire. The first three attempts to affix the transponder to his chest had failed, and after a few minutes discussion it was agreed - by everyone but him - that he should shave his chest.
“I really don’t think that’s necessary,” he had huffed. He wasn’t bothered by the shaving, but rather he was thinking of the itching that would ensue when the hair grew back. “Really, I think you just need to use more tape.”
Natalie Chandler was annoyed by the delay and was irritated at Matt for holding up the process even more. “Just do it,” she ordered, then stood up and left the room.
A few minutes later, his continued protests falling on deaf ears, a young uniformed officer brought him a disposable razor. “The Guv says you need this?”
Matt stood up and took the razor, feeling defeated.
“Best get on with it, Mattie.” Ronnie said it soberly, but Matt could tell he was enjoying this spectacle.
He sucked his teeth, started unbuttoning his shirt and went into the Gents. The humiliation continued as the word spread around the station that he was being forced to shave his chest, a few people unabashedly poking their heads in and out of the room to see for themselves. To add insult to injury, he heard laughing on the other side of the door.
When he returned to the locker room, for some reason everyone had left the room and Alesha was there -- alone. He stopped in his tracks. “What’s going on?”
She smiled at him. “New instructions from the DPP. They told me to come in here and brief you.”
Just then, the tech came back into the room with more tape.
Matt didn’t want Alesha there. He wasn’t even sure why but he just wanted the whole ordeal to be over with. “Why don’t you wait in the interview room and I’ll come in there as soon as we’re finished here?”
The tech jumped in. “No, she can help.”
“What? No.” Matt was shaking his head.
“Help with what?” Alesha perked up.
The tech was a short, bald, portly man in his 50s, who wasn’t even paying attention to Matt’s protests. “D.S. Devlin, if you would hold your arms out… And Miss. . . .?”
“Phillips.”
“Thank you. Miss Phillips, if you would just hold this on his chest so I can set the wires.”
Alesha looked at up at Matt with a wicked smile. She knew this would bother him and he could tell that she was relishing in his embarrassment. “Of course.”
Matt didn’t comply. “Are you sure I can’t just hold it myself?”
“No. To do it right you need another set of hands. It’ll just take a moment.” The tech started measuring out new pieces of tape. “You’ll need to take off your shirt completely.”
Alesha picked up the transponder and smirked. “Come on Devlin, don’t be shy.”
Matt closed his eyes. He was absolutely irritated. He took off his shirt, stretched out his arms and looked up at the seam where the ceiling met the wall.
He didn’t notice when Alesha caught her breath. What he did notice when he looked down was that her cheeks had gone all red. He kept his gaze on her but she wouldn’t look up at him. Her eyes traveled from one arm to the other across his chest, then back again, stopping for a second to look at his stomach. She closed her eyes for a second and then opened them again.
“Is this what you needed?” she asked the tech, her voice shaky.
Matt tilted his head a bit, his brows crossed. Was this a chink in her armor?
The tech broke his concentration with new instructions for Alesha. “I need you to take the other hand and hold the skin taught where I apply the tape.”
Just then, she looked up into Matt’s eyes. Alesha seemed to shiver and immediately looked back down at her hands. She glanced over to the tech. “What?” she shook her head distractedly. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
The tech took her free hand and put it on Matt’s bare skin. “Just pull a little there.”
Matt couldn’t help himself. For a brief second, he allowed himself to smile - he had made her lose her train of thought - but before she could look back at him, he straightened his face and took a deep breath. His chest moved up and down under her hand and she dropped the transponder.
“Oh! I’m so sorry.” Alesha picked the transponder back up and put it back on his chest, this time keeping her gaze firmly averted away from his. And she had gone from a flush to beet red.
As promised, it was all over in a few minutes. Alesha took one hand away from Matt’s bare skin and the other off the transponder that was now securely taped to his chest.
She walked over to the door, still pointedly avoiding making eye contact with him. “Okay, I’ll . . . I’ll see you later,” she stuttered a bit, throwing him an inelegant wave.
“Didn’t you have to tell me something?” Matt was the one standing in the room half dressed, but somehow she seemed to be the one exposed.
“Right, yeah, I’ll meet you outside yeah?” she stammered, awkwardly.
“Okay.” He tried not to smile.
She pulled at the door unsuccessfully - twice - before stopping to curse under her breath, push the door open and then hurry out.
Matt kept his gaze at the door. His mind was racing now. Maybe he had been too hasty to decide, maybe she didn’t just think of him as a friend. Maybe she liked his flirting? Maybe this wire was the best thing to happen to him in a long while.
“You can put your shirt back on now.” The tech was packing his gear into a case. “And will you be sure to thank Miss Phillips for her assistance?”
“Oh, I’ll be happy to,” Matt smirked - he was looking forward to what was going to happen once he walked through those doors and met the undeniably affected women waiting for him on the other side.
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