Title: Caffeine Cuddle
Author/pseudonym: Juli
Fandom: Diagnosis Murder
Pairing: Jesse/Steve
Rating: G
Status: New, Complete
Archive: Contact me if you're interested
E-mail address for feedback: challisgal@yahoo.com
Series/Sequel: None
Other websites: None
Disclaimers: "Diagnosis Murder" and its characters belong to Viacom and CBS. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes. No money is being made from it and no copyright infringement is intended.
*********************************

Only reflexes honed by years of being a big city cop saved Steve Sloan from a collision.

The tall detective had taken one step into the Malibu home he shared with his currently absent father when a sense of movement coming from the left warned him. Pulling back, Steve watched from the safety of the doorway as a rapidly moving blur that looked suspiciously like his lover sped by.

Steve watched while Jesse flitted from corner to corner of his father’s living room, the young doctor humming tunelessly as he swiped at furniture and knickknacks alike with a soft cloth. Their jobs had kept the two men very busy over the last couple of days, and while Steve’s natural inclination was to stride over and pull Jesse into his arms for a long overdue embrace, he held off. Temporarily, anyway. A few more minutes of anticipation wouldn’t hurt, besides, he loved to watch his lover move. Jesse was a little self-conscious and tended to clumsiness when he knew he was being observed, but alone like this, he was poetry in motion. Even while he was doing something mundane like... housework?

“Jess, what are you doing?” Steve asked as he finally entered the room.

Jesse looked up from the books he was rearranging on their shelf and smiled a greeting. “Oh, hi, Steve. I’m dusting. Your dad’s due back tomorrow and this place was starting to look untidy.”

The detective was confused. He knew full well that his father was due back the next day and was looking forward to his return. Not only did he miss his dad, but Mark Sloan’s absence was one reason he’d seen so little of his lover -- Jesse had been kept busy covering for the older doctor at the hospital where they both were physicians. But, even if he was looking forward to having his paternal roommate back, Steve still hadn’t felt moved to start cleaning the house. “Dusting?”

“Yeah, dusting,” Jesse replied, coming over and kissing the taller blond before beginning his task again. “You know... little airborne particulates settle onto your furniture and belongings and you have to wipe them off occasionally to keep from building up. Although, here at the beach, we get a lot of sand tracked in. I better vacuum too.”

“I know what ‘dusting’ means, Jess,” Steve explained, keeping an uncertain hold on his patience. “I’m just wondering why you’re doing it. The housekeeper comes in day after tomorrow. It’s not like this place is a pig stye.”

“I know, I know,” Jesse responded, moving from one built-in book shelf to the other, having to stand on a step-stool to reach the upper shelves. “I was just thinking, when I got home from the hospital, how clean everything there is. And it wasn’t here. I mean, you couldn’t write your name in the dust yet, but you know how it is. You get used to the sterile environment of the hospital and anything less just won’t do. Mark’s been away at the conference at the Mayo Clinic too. They’re world famous -- I bet their facility is spotless. Wouldn’t want him to come home and be unhappy at how his house looks. So, when my shift was over, I came over here to wait for you just like we agreed and I decided to pass the time by spiffying the place up a little.”

Steve approached his busy lover and got a good look at the young man. Not only had Jesse been covering his rounds and Mark’s too, he’d been on call for nearly two weeks straight. Although naturally energetic, even Jesse had his limits and the strain was starting to show. Steve did some quick mental figuring and winced. Jesse had probably been up for two days straight. Frankly, the detective couldn’t imagine how the younger man was still on his feet, let alone doing a Martha Stewart routine.

Reaching his shorter mate, Steve gently took Jesse’s chin in hand. Pulling his lover’s face towards him, the younger man’s reddened eyes gave the detective a clue as to what was fueling this sudden housekeeping storm.

“Jess, how much coffee have you had this afternoon?”

Jesse fidgeted but didn’t pull his head from Steve’s gentle grasp. “Three.”

The older man looked skeptical. “Three? You got this jittery from three cups of coffee?”

As close as they were, Steve could see his lover’s eyes widen in comprehension. “Cups? You meant how many *cups* did I have?”

“Yeah, I meant cups,” Steve clarified, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “What did you think I meant?”

The doctored blushed. “Pots.”

Steve closed his eyes in frustration. If Jesse’d had three pots of coffee in just that afternoon, there was no telling what he’d been subsisting on for the last several days. Probably coffee and candy bars from Community General’s vending machines. No wonder that the young man was rushing around like crazy. Even when he finally got a break from his hospital work, his body was too wired from caffeine to let him rest.

“Oh, c’mon, Steve,” Jesse reacted to the older man’s nonverbal chastisement, pulling from Steve’s hold and going back to his previous activity. “I’m a big boy, I know how to take care of myself. With Mark out and all those extra patients from that airplane accident last night, there was no time for anything else. I know what I’m doing. And for that matter, if I want to spend my time off dusting, I will.”

Steve opened his mouth to say that, with the housekeeper in their employ, it was unnecessary, but decided at the last minute to keep quiet. Jesse was wired at the moment, but Steve knew from past experiences that the younger man’s body would crash soon. And when it did, there was no doubt that Jesse would crash hard. In his current mood, however, the doctor wouldn’t take too well to being nagged and would push him further away if he wasn’t careful. So, if Steve wanted to be available to Jesse to help ease the caffeine let-down when it came, he had to play his cards just right....

“I know, Jess, I’m sorry,” The bigger man apologized, deliberately allowing his shoulders to slump. To complete the affect, he rubbed at his temple with his fingers. “It’s just been a bitch of a day. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. You’re a doctor, I know you know how to take care of yourself.”

Jesse responded as his lover expected, with compassion. “Hey, you all right?” The doctor’s voice was full of concern as he dropped the dust cloth and went to Steve’s side.

The older man almost confessed when he felt Jesse’s hand touch his arm in concern, especially when he looked down into blue eyes full of trust and worry. But, his deception was for Jesse’s own good and, even if it made him feel guilty, he stayed with it. “I had to tell a woman that her husband died in that airplane accident that kept you guys at Community General so busy. The couple would have been married fifty years next month.”

“Oh,” Jesse breathed. As a doctor, he’d had experience breaking news like that to the loved ones of the deceased and knew how hard it could be. “That stinks. Is she going to be okay?”

“She... got a little bit emotional,” the detective hedged.

Strictly speaking, he was telling the truth, Mr. Saunders had died in the crash and it had been Steve’s duty today to confirm that fact with his widow. What he wasn’t admitting to Jesse was that the two had been headed for divorce and apparently Mr. Saunders had been something of a bastard. Not only was Mrs. Saunders was *not* upset to hear of her husband’s demise, she was all but dancing a jig to discover that now their assets wouldn’t be split up. As a human being, he found that sort of reaction disgusting, but a veteran cop like Steve had developed callouses. He’d learned long ago that it took all types to populate the world.

Jesse took his lover’s silence as emotional trauma. “I’m sorry, Steve. I know how hard dealing with that kind of scene can be. Is there anything I can do? You look zonked, maybe you should lay down for a while.”

Steve all but crowed in triumph, but managed to look needy. “Would you come with me? I always rest better when you’re in my arms.” The bigger man’s admission not only got him a kiss on the cheek, but Jesse also took him by the hand and led him to the bedroom.

The exact spot Steve had wanted his lover all along.

Jesse made Steve sit on the end of the bed while the doctor knelt and took his shoes off for him. Then, toeing off his own sneakers, the smaller man crawled up onto the bed after him. Soon, the two men were curled up on the mattress together, Steve’s larger body protectively spooned up behind Jesse’s smaller form.

“Better?” Jesse asked.

Steve reached around his lover, resting one big hand on the other man’s stomach. “Much,” the detective said, beginning to rub slow circles on his mate’s tummy.

“Good, now try to relax.”

Steve stifled a snort of laughter, wanting to make a comment about the pot calling the kettle black, but wisely remained silent. Instead, the detective kept up his caresses, deliberately making them comforting instead of arousing. Sure enough, in only a couple of minutes, he felt his lover’s caffeine wound-up body yield to exhaustion. Nuzzling behind Jesse’s ear, he settled himself to follow the younger man into slumber.

There would be time for a more strenuous reunion later. For now, he was content to hold his lover in his arms, knowing it was what they both needed.

~the end~