Title: I Spy

Author: Scribe

Fandom: Nip/Tuck

Pairing: Pre-slash

Rating: R

Summary: Christian's thoughts on Matt.

Archive: List archives, WWOMB, others ask

Feedback: poet77665@yahoo.com

Status: Finished.

Sequel/Series: Playing Games Series

Disclaimer: I did not create the characters here, I don't own them. I derive no profit from this effort. I mean nothing but respect for the creators, owners, and the actors and actresses who portray them.

Websites: http://www.angelfire.com/grrl/scribescribbles and http://www.angelfire.com/grrl/foxluver

Notes: This series will take its titles from classic schoolyard games. I will include a link where
possible to a page about the mentioned game. For this one, the URL is http://www.gameskidsplay.net/games/other_games/i_spy.htm I don't know if Chris actually has a pool, but I gave him one. I'm doing my best to be accurate about the testing, but I may have slipped.

I Spy
By Scribe

Christian

Okay, how sick am I? I'm spying on a seventeen-year-old... Yeah, I know most people wouldn't find it that hard to believe with my reputation. How about if I told you it's a seventeen-year-old BOY? Oh, THAT got your attention. That's right--Christian Troy, cocksman extraordinaire,
watching a high school junior, and getting a little wood because the kid took off his shirt to help me clean my pool.

I'm trying not to. I've got two leaf skimmers, and we're working opposite sides (I will fucking BEAT that real estate agent who swore to me that the tree in the next yard didn't shed leaves, and if it DID, they'd never float all the way over to my pool). Yeah, I'm trying to focus on chasing those yellow-green suckers (gotta love Miami--can't even get a decent change of colors in the autumn), but I keep getting distracted by the smooth shift and flow of muscles under his skin. He's a sort of pale honey color. Very few people in Miami ever actually get pale unless they WORK at it. He told me last week that they gave them a choice of what they wanted to do during gym, and he settled on weights. It shows.

"...test the water now?"

Shit! Now I'm zoning out. What was he saying? I don't want him to think that I'm going senile early. He asked about testing the water... I look down, and the surface of the pool is pristine, all the garbage gone. "You remember how to use the kit?"

"Yeah. I'll do it."

He turns back, laying aside his long-handled net, and squats to reach the testing kit. Oh, dear God... That ass. He's wearing nothing but cut-offs--they're old and thin, and they hug him tighter than a mother's love. I'm so damn glad I put on a comfortable pair of baggy sweats before we started this. He glances over his shoulder, and calls, "Ph or chlorine first?"

"Your choice. It doesn't make much difference."

Matt gets the testing tube and the eyedropper, and begins. He moves around the pool, squatting to stick his arm as deep as he can into the water, then squeezes a few drops into the tube, empties the dropper, and moves on to repeat the process. "I say... your chlorine is too low, and your Ph is too high."

I can't help smiling. "How much?"

"One beer."

"Try again."

He sticks out his tongue at me, and I hold the skimmer across my crotch as camouflage in case the pants aren't loose enough to hide the fact that I'm half-hard. "Okay, you old fart. Um..." His eyes glitter. "I saw a box of Godiva in the living room."

I clutch my chest. "Ouch! Matt, that's my stash, to show over night guests how sensitive I am to the needs of women."

He laughs. "Yeah, right. And the next morning you convince them that they need liposuction."

I shrug. "Okay, you have it."

"The rest of the box."

"You gouger. Okay."

He grins and starts the test. I won't be pissed if I lose. I've seen Matt eat premium chocolates before. He appreciates them. He can take almost three minutes to eat a Praline Walnut. If he decides to start eating them before he leaves (and he's very likely to--he won't want to share with Annie or Julia), I'll have to make sure I have a throw pillow to hold on my lap.

I watch him as he runs the test, biting his lip in concentration as he measures out the drops of reagent. That is the most beautiful mouth I've ever seen--male or female. Oh, then things I've imagined about that mouth. Things that have convinced me that what others have told me is true: that I am a complete and utter bastard.

Okay, he's not a child any more. He's reached that narrow plateau between childhood and manhood. He's in that stage that's so brief that sometimes it seems like an illusion, a combination of innocence and awareness that is driving me absolutely nuts. I've never worried about my urges before. Well, except for that time the mother had her fourteen-year-old model daughter into the office, trying to talk us into giving the girl implants to 'improve her marketability'. I wanted to ask her if she was really comfortable in pimping her daughter, but I didn't. Sean might have. Oh, he wouldn't have used those terms, but he'd probably have said something. I DID turn her down, but the entire time I was having to fight to keep my eyes off that girl. She'd just come from a gig, and was still in full make-up and hair, and I swear that if I'd met her in a bar, I'd be running from the cops on a statutory charge. She looked about twenty-three. She was obviously one of those kids who have never really been allowed to be a kid. Probably supports her family. I knew that, I
despised her mother for what she was trying to do, but I still looked at her legs. I'm a shit, I'll admit it. But Matt...

Hell, we're practically related. If Sean and Julia were Catholic, I'd have been his godfather. I saw him while he was still damp, screaming his lungs out while I hugged his old man in front of the nursery window. Sean kept asking me wasn't that the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen? I lied to him--I said yeah, gorgeous. Truthfully? He looked like all newborns, sort of dark pink and squashy, with a huge mop of dark hair that looked like dyed milkweed. Now that hair is silky brown, and it's always falling in his eyes. I thought it was carelessness, till I caught him looking
in a mirror and carefully arranging the strands so that they fell in artful disarray. We may not be
blood, but it looks like we share at least a few things.

He's speaking to me. "Aha! Ph is too high."

"That's just half the bet won, Hot Shot. You have to be right on both counts, or no goodies." He starts the second test.

I never changed his diapers, or fed him, or cleaned up his messes. No, I'm not that domestic. But I've watched him grow up. It seems like I've been watching him forever, and I honest to God don't know exactly when the watching changed, when it went from proud affection to something very different. I think it started about a year ago, when he was just past sixteen. I noticed that I'd started to feel resentful when he came to me with questions about women. Not resentful that he was troubling me, taking up my time. No, I was irritated that he was asking me about how to act sexually with anyone else. That's when I realized I had the problem.

I've since become aware of how much time I spend thinking about him, and especially how much time I spend watching him. I know that if I ever caught another man looking at him the way I do, I'd want to strangle the asshole. This is so wrong on so many levels. Even if he's interested in his own sex, I'm close to a quarter century older than him. Oh, great--now I feel fucking ancient. But when he smiles at me, I feel young. I don't think I've EVER been this confused about my feelings for anyone. Must be love. I'm really in deep shit.

"You, my friend, are going to have to pony-up." He's showing me the test tube, and sure enough, it's showing low chlorine.

"I'm going to have to bring you to the track when you're old enough, get you to handicap some horses for me. Go get your winnings."

"I'll just adjust the levels, and..."

He'd have to squat down again to do that. If I have to look at his ass again, I won't be ready to hide the boner. "You go on in and collect. I'll do it."

That stops him in his tracks. I have a good work ethic in the operating room, but I'm fairly notorious for avoiding most forms of manual labor. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I want to do it. It'll relax me."

He snorts, obviously not believing that. But truffles are waiting, and if I want to do backyard chemistry, he's willing to let me. "Okay. If you hurry, I'll even save you the coconut bon-bon."

"You don't like coconut."

His smile is sly. "I know." As he walks to the house, he calls back, "Later on, can I swim?"

"You didn't bring a suit, and I lost mine." They'd just disappeared from beside a hot tub on a date. I didn't notice till I got home, then figured she might as well keep them as a souvenir, since I wasn't going to be seeing her again.

"So? I'll skinny dip. That isn't a problem, is it?"

I think about his slim, nude body cutting through the water, watching him dive from the side, seeing him wipe a wet sheaf of hair out of his eyes, the way his skin will glisten. It would be sheer torture.

"Sure, Matt. No problem."

The End