****

"Are you done flirting? Can we go now?"

"I'm not..."

"Who is this guy anyway? He looks  familiar."

"CC? Collin Crane. He was two years after me in high school." And had the most incredibly haunting green eyes... beautiful whispy brown hair that looked like it had been tossed by the wind. And he smelled like marshmallows, which reminded Mat of campouts... "He's cute, don't you think?"

Dillon scowled fiercely. "No, I don't think. And you'd better hope Pop doesn't hear you talking like that."

"He knows I'm gay, Dill." Mat had come out directly after returning to his hometown after college, and it had gone over fairly well with almost everyone. His parents were supportive... Pop Giraud though... he had rolled his eyes and told Mat to keep his private life private if he knew what was good for him. It had seemed like sound advice at the time, given the conservative nature of their small town, but...

Driving into the next big city for a night out, not dating locally... it had grown old quickly. "I'm not going to hide who I am."

"Neither am I, Mat. And I'm not saying you should. I'm just saying that discretion is a virtue. And that kid... He's not discreet. Dating him would be like painting a big Gays R Us sign on your front door."

Snorting, Mat punched his brother in the shoulder lightly. "Right. It's not like he's wearing drag and eyeliner."

"No, but he's got... one those little soft voices and he... look. If you put him in a room with fifty other men and said pick out the gay, he'd get the most votes."

"Dill... quit being a dick." Mat bit his lower lip and stared ahead through the windshield for a minute. They were heading into town. "Are we going back to the station for some reason?"

"Yeah. Got a call while you were chatting up pretty boy back there."

"He is pretty, isn't he?" Mat contemplated CC's eyes, the deep green pools, his delicately colored cheeks... the way his rosy mouth seemed always to be pulled down in a frown. "I need to go back over there before our shift ends. What's up at the station?"

CC Crane was just the type of person Mat had always been attracted to, the kind of man who needed someone to look out for him. Every time Mat saw him, he seemed so sad and lonely... It made Mat want to wrap him in his arms and ward off the world.

"Just a quick meeting about some bank robberies that have been happening in nearby towns. They've got a description of a couple suspects they want people to be on a watch for." Dillon's grip on the wheel tightened, and Mat could hear him grinding his teeth. "Mat... don't." Dillon's voice was quiet and sober.

"Don't what?" But he knew... Don't fall in love. Don't imagine there's more than there is. Don't be a romantic fool.

"Being a cop, joining the force, that's how we do good in today's society. Playing super heroes is a kid thing... you can't save Collin Crane. There's no arch enemy to defeat, and..."

"I'm not playing super heroes. I think he's cute, I know he's smart..." Mat bristled at the familiar lecture. Immediately he leaped to CC's defense, and his own.

"He works in a convenience store." The scorn in Dillon's voice rankled. His brother twisted the steering wheel abruptly, drive into the station parking lot.

"He was reading a book on quantum physics last week." Mat had been surprised when he caught that glimpse of CC's reading material. "That's over both your head and mine."

"He set his own car on fire," Dillon pointed out reasonably, shutting off the car engine. "That does not argue for intelligence."

"That could happen to anyone. It was an accident. He was smoking." Mat ignored the fact that he'd actually never heard of it happening to anyone else.

"He's a slob. There were marshmallows all over his car."

"I like marshmallows." Or at least, he liked the way CC smelled of marshmallows.