FIC: "Right Place, Wrong Time" by Regann - PG-13/R - Shawn/Lassiter (3/??)
Title: Right Place, Wrong Time (3/??)
Author: Regann
Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Rating: PG-13/R
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Notes: This is a long multipart fic that I had to be insane to even start. But I love the boys so much, I just had to! Oh, and this is dedicated to pookaseraph.
Chapter Warning: This is one of the chapters that earned the /R rating.
Summary: 17-year-old Shawn has a fake ID burning a hole in his pocket, a college party to crash, and a mission to stop being the only virgin in his senior class. Unfortunately, there's this big-earred, good-doing grad student by the name of Carlton who catches him in the act. The unfair nature of cosmic humor being what it is, thus begins something that'll come back to haunt them both ten years later -- when an adult Shawn Spencer decides to give psychic investigation a try.
Past Parts: 1 | 2
Right Place, Wrong Time (Part 3)
From the lot where Carlton parked his car, it was only a short walk across an edge of campus to reach the graduate housing. It was a little cluster of three- and four-floor apartment buildings with tree-lined sidewalks running in between. Once they entered one of the buildings, they climbed up three flights of stairs to reach the apartment he shared with Rodney.
“Ooh, the penthouse,” Shawn joked as he waited for Carlton to unlock the door.
He didn’t want to admit it but Shawn was starting to get nervous again. He’d been nervous earlier, too, but that had been because he felt his cosmically-ordained luck had only been a cruel illusion; now he was nervous because he thought it was still holding --- only in a slightly more unusual package than he’d anticipated.
While he tended to not actually believe in fate or destiny or god except for when it best suited his purposes, even he had to admit that it was a mighty fine set of coincidences that had led him to Carlton.
And if destiny was going to pick him out the perfect bed partner, Shawn figured Carlton was as near to it as the universe could find on such short notice. He was certainly fine with the choice.
Carlton threw open the door and Shawn followed him inside, taking in the apartment’s details. It was modestly furnished -- sofa, table, TV in the living area and basic laminate table in the dining area -- with a few posters taped to the beige-colored walls. Carlton beckoned him farther into the living-slash-dining room and closed the door behind them.
“Rodney!” he called out, laying his keys on the cluttered dining table. “Is it safe to breathe in here again?”
“I was never against you breathing!” came a voice from the back of the apartment, growing louder as its owner headed in their direction. “...I was just against you breathing so loudly,” Rodney finished as he entered the living area.
Shawn wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting but Rodney was a rather average-looking young man with light brown hair, skin far too pale for SoCal, and a strange clip to his words that he guessed came from being Canadian.
Rodney’s mouth was open as if he’d planned to say more but he snapped it shut at the sight of Shawn loitering in the living room with Carlton.
He drew up short. “Oh, I, uh, didn’t realize you brought company.”
“Oh, yeah.” Carlton turned and gestured toward him. “Rodney, Shawn. Shawn, my roommate Rodney.”
“What’s up?” Shawn asked by way of greeting, nodding.
“The sky, last I checked,” Rodney returned dryly, and Shawn could see why Carlton and his roommate got along.
Rodney was looking him over, eyes running up and down in a very sharp examination. Shawn didn’t know what he saw when he looked at him like that, but whatever it was made Rodney’s eyelids twitch as he finally turned back to his roommate.
Carlton must’ve sensed something, too, because he glanced at Shawn. “Phone’s on the wall outside the kitchen,” he explained pointing toward the bright yellow contraption on the other side of the living area. “Go make your calls.”
For a minute Shawn thought about protesting since he didn’t have anyone he could call unless he wanted Gus to come pick him up which he absolutely didn’t. Instead, he just nodded and busied himself calling fake friends who lived at fake numbers, most of his concentration dedicated to shamelessly eavesdropping on Carlton and Rodney.
“So, I guess you took my advice then?” Rodney murmured as soon as he thought Shawn was occupied. “Have fun at the party?”
“It was okay,” he answered. “Didn’t stay very long.”
“Is that where you met...?”
“Shawn? Yeah.”
“What did you do after you two left the party?”
“Dinner. The beach, for awhile.”
“Oh, I see...”
Shawn decided it was time to stop talking to his imaginary friends on the phone, so he sidled back to Carlton’s side. “Looks like you’ve got me for the duration, Carly,” he announced as he reached him, close enough for his shoulder to brush against Carlton’s arm. “Unless you think Rodney will mind me sleeping over?”
Before Carlton could reply, Rodney did. “What, me? Oh, no, of course, no, that’s fine. I mean -- well, it’s only fair, right?” He pointed back toward the bedrooms. “I’m just gonna go, grab some stuff, head off to Galina’s for awhile.”
“Galina’s?” Shawn asked as Rodney disappeared down the hall.
“His project partner,” Carlton explained absently. “She lives over in one of the other apartment buildings, but...”
Rodney came back down the hall with a backpack slung over one shoulder. “Guess I’m off, then.”
“You don’t really have to...” Carlton began again, watching dazedly as his roommate grabbed the other set of keys from the dining table.
“No, it’s fine!” Rodney assured him, tucking the keys into his pocket. “I mean, you did the same thing for me, after all.” He nodded to Shawn. “Uh, nice to meet you, Shawn.”
“Yeah, you, too, Rodney,” Shawn said with a little wave.
Just before he stepped into the hallway, he shot a quick grin in Carlton’s direction, “Have fun, you two.”
And, like that, he was gone and silence rattled through the apartment.
“That was cool of him,” Shawn declared as he sank down onto the sofa.
“Yeah, but he didn’t have to leave,” Carlton said, coming over to the sofa as well. “I mean, it’s not like we need “alone time” or someth...”
Shawn heard him trail off and worked hard to school his expression. It had been instantly apparent to the roommate what could be happening between them, which was why he’d taken off. Shawn had first started calculating his chances when Carlton had pulled him out of the party and been convinced of them by the time they’d reached the apartment.
Apparently, those same things were just becoming clear to Carlton himself.
The color was rising in his face and Shawn found it immensely appealing -- not to mention, relieving, that he wasn’t the only one a little off-kilter.
“Oh.” It was Carlton’s turn to laugh nervously. “When I told him...he must’ve thought...well, you know...”
“What? That we’d been on a date?”
“Exactly,” Carlton nodded. Eyeing the way that Shawn was sprawled on most of the couch, he gingerly perched on its far end.
“You bring home a lot of boys, Carly?” he teased.
“No!” he said emphatically. “Nothing like that.”
Shawn’s eyebrows rose in speculation. “A lot of girls?”
“No,” he said again, though not quite as emphatically. “I came here to get an education, not get laid at every turn.”
“Well, that’s understandable,” Shawn said. “Although that is why I’m out tonight.”
“Something else I ruined for you, huh?” Carlton snorted. “There’s a long list now.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Shawn asked breezily. “I think you might actually be able to help me with this one.”
Carlton looked at him askance, startled. “Yeah? How?”
It was his chance; Shawn could feel it in the rush of adrenaline that suddenly hit his veins. He’d been deciding all night, weighing, figuring. He didn’t think his instincts were off, didn’t think he’d have to worry about good, upstanding Carlton beating the shit out of him even if he did turn out to be wrong about the vibes they’d been exchanging.
But he didn’t think he was. Wrong, that is. Shawn didn’t think he was wrong in thinking that he was exactly the kind that Carlton brought home -- or at least the type he should be bringing home. Rodney’s easy acceptance of events had given him the last bit of proof he needed.
Ignoring his sweaty palms and jittery insides, Shawn slid his way down the couch until he was sitting almost on top of Carlton, denim-covered hip to denim-covered hip. Carlton didn’t say anything but watched him incredulously, his blue eyes demanding the explanation that his mouth didn’t ask for.
It was ironic because it was his mouth that got the explanation in the end, in the form of Shawn’s nervous, wind-chapped lips pressing against it. Shawn waited a heartbeat and, when Carlton didn’t shove him away, burst into action, scrambling up on the couch until his whole body was leaning into Carlton’s. He had enough experience with this, with both sexes, that he could ignore his nerves and fall into it, could be on the offensive confidently, hands reaching and grabbing for Carlton’s head to hold him in the kiss, fingers running through dark hair, mouth insistent.
He was tentative, at first, hesitant, but Carlton wasn’t immune to Shawn’s ministrations. His mouth pushed back against Shawn’s and Shawn felt hands tighten in the trailing tails of his flannel shirt. But just as Shawn was sure he’d done everything right, Carlton’s hands were pushing him away, not meanly, but firmly, until there was room enough to breath between them.
“I, uh, don’t think I can help you with this one,” Carlton said, voice hushed. “Sorry.”
“I think you were doing a pretty good job ‘til a minute ago,” Shawn countered, unable to mask the needy whine in his voice.
“Yeah, well...I wasn’t thinking,” he told him.
“Go back to doing that then,” Shawn advised, trying to loosen Carlton’s hold that kept him at arm’s length.
“This isn’t what I had in mind, you know, when I offered you a place to stay!” Carlton said, his hold still strong as he pushed Shawn far enough away that he could wriggle from under him and rise to his feet.
“I know and it’s nice that you’re such a nice guy,” Shawn told him, also jumping up from the couch. Carlton was agitated, pacing in the few steps it took him to cover the length of the couch. “But this is what I had in mind when I asked for a place to sleep. I was kinda thinking the “with you” was implied.”
“Shawn...”
“Look, okay?” Shawn was in his face, standing toe-to-toe; it suddenly reminded Shawn how short and wimpy he was but he pressed on, hoping surprise would continue to give him the advantage. Now that he’d actually done it -- kissed Carlton -- and felt him return it, he wasn’t backing down. “What’s the big deal? Do you not do guys or something? Because you were definitely liking it a minute ago!”
“No, it’s not that exactly, but...we can’t do this.” Carlton took Shawn by the shoulders and held him away from him, fingers deliberately wrapping around Shawn’s thin arms.
“I don’t see why we can’t,” Shawn fired back, still way too whiny for his taste but his frustration was reaching peak levels. He couldn’t quite understand Carlton’s problem: he obviously liked him and he obviously didn’t seem to mind making out with him and they were alone, so couldn’t he just give in?
This, Shawn decided in that moment, was why girls preferred bad boys. Good boys had way too many inhibitions.
“We just...” Carlton shook his head and stepped away. “It’s been a long day, probably for both of us. I think we should just...go to sleep and forget about this.”
“Well, I don’t want to!” Shawn crossed his arms and glared petulantly.
Carlton softened, the steely mask slipping a little. “You can have the bed tonight, I’ll take the couch. Just let me grab some blankets and stuff.”
Shawn watched his back as he headed down the short hall and, as he watched Carlton duck into one of the bedrooms, inspiration struck.
Steeling down the hall in the stealthy way his dad had taught him, Shawn dumped his shoes in the living room and crept through the open door. Carlton’s back was to him, reaching up into a small closet for what Shawn assumed was “blankets and stuff.”
Going on instinct, Shawn just plunged in -- he took hold of Carlton’s arm and pulled until the startled young man spun around to face him and then Shawn ruthlessly abused that advantage. As they both hit the neatly-made bed in a tangle of arms, legs and mouths, Shawn couldn’t help but grin into the sloppy kisses he was landing on Carlton.
He was pretty sure he’d just won the battle and the war.
**
Like with so many of the things that had happened that night, Carlton wasn’t quite sure how he ended up in bed with a very enthusiastic Shawn kissing him like it was going out of style except that one minute he’d been pulling spare blankets from the closet and then the next he was flat on his back.
Even as he tried to resist, to break away, Carlton found feel himself losing the battle. Shawn was pushy, enthusiastic and very tempting -- and it had been a long, long time since he’d last gotten laid. But it was more than that, too, and that was what made it difficult to give in or pull out.
He genuinely liked Shawn, something he’d been surprised to realize over the course of the evening. He was funny, a little dopey, but honest and bright and ecstatic about everything around him and smart and fun, just like he’d promised at the start. It’d been a long time since Carlton had found anyone as endearing as he found Shawn.
That was part of the reason that he was having trouble with the 'having sex' part. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to -- it wasn’t like he hadn’t been checking out the kid’s ass hours and hours earlier, back before he’d even realized he was using a fake ID -- but that as soon as there were some kind of feelings involved that were deeper or purer than rampant lust, things inevitably got complicated.
Carlton didn’t like complicated. It was why he hated feelings and generally didn’t bother with them. They were just too much trouble.
It was too bad he couldn’t turn them off as easily and readily as he dismissed them.
For all the intellectual reasons he wanted to stay as far away from Shawn as possible, the rest of him just wasn’t listening. Instead of pushing Shawn off of him like he knew he should, Carlton was suddenly turning them both over in the bed until he was the one on top, towering over the kid as he finally dragged his lips away to catch his breath.
“You seem to be doing pretty well, now, Carly,” Shawn panted through wet, bruised lips, very smug and satisfied.
Carlton couldn’t think of anything appropriately snappy. “Are you sure about this?” he finally asked, his voice gruff and hoarse.
Carlton could feel a shiver ripple through Shawn’s body. “Oh, yeah, hell yeah, sure, sure, very sure, way past sure!”
He almost laughed at Shawn’s enthusiastic reply. “Well, as long as you’re sure...”
“Oh, just shut up and kiss me again, why don’t ya?” Shawn wheedled, his grabby hands tugging Carlton’s shirt and pulling him down. Finally he gave in and did just that, doing a little grabbing on his own. He shifted them again so that they were side by side and he could more easily yank off Shawn’s flannel shirt.
Carlton tossed the ugly flannel away as soon as he’d pulled it from him; just as he was reaching for the hem of the Whitesnake T-shirt, Shawn wriggled around until he was sitting up and shucked it in one, long motion. His hair was in wild disarray but Carlton didn’t think it hurt the overall image of him sitting there, propped against his pillows, only half-dressed.
“You could stand to lose a few layers, too,” Shawn murmured as he reached for Carlton, pushing up the shirt to reveal inch after inch of skin. Carlton helped by shrugging out of it and tossing it aside.
After Carlton showed a little of the finesse that came with being a quarter-century old and introducing Shawn to the erogenous zone that was his nipples, his hands began to wander down over the pale skin of Shawn’s stomach to the waistband of his faded jeans. He was working on the button and fly when he noticed that Shawn had went still beneath him.
“Something wrong?” he asked as his hands slowed, spooked by the boy’s unnatural stillness.
“No, no, everything’s fine,” he said but Carlton could hear the tinny echo of panic in his voice. It took him a moment but enough blood rushed back up to his head that he managed to put two and two together and the realization slammed into him.
This was the last thing he wanted to have to deal with.
“You have done this before, haven’t you?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“Um, yeah, of course. Depending on what you mean by ‘this,’” Shawn told him.
“I mean, this. This! Sex. With a man,” he snapped back, no real heat behind his lust-fueled frustration.
Shawn licked his lips nervously and Carlton had to blink in order to keep his mind on the conversation at hand. “Then, maybe not.”
Carlton groaned and rolled off of Shawn, landing face-first against his bed pillows.
“What? Hey, no, why are we stopping?” Shawn demanded to know, shifting to face him. He propped himself up on his elbow and watched Carlton intently; he knew because he could feel the kid’s eyeballs on the back of his head.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Carlton told him, as he moved again, mostly so he wouldn’t smother. He mirrored Shawn’s position, facing the kid straight-on with an accusing glare.
“So, what? Sex is like a job with you?” Shawn snorted. “There’s x amount of experience needed to qualify?”
“No, but I don’t make it a habit of taking nervous virgins to bed, either.” Carlton countered grouchily. “You should’ve said something earlier!”
“Why? So it would’ve been that much harder to get you to sleep with me? I don’t think so.” Shawn leaned forward until they were nose-to-nose, lips brushing just above Carlton’s cheek. “I’m not seeing the big deal here.”
“That’s half the problem,” Carlton whispered across his skin, unable to stop from trailing his lips across Shawn’s face, to his ear.
“It’s your own fault,” Shawn said -- well, tried to say. It came out more like a breathy hiss as Carlton’s teeth latched on to his earlobe. “I had it all figured out.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeaaaaaaaaaah.” Definitely a hiss and definitely a sound of pleasure. “There I was, right where I needed to be to get laid. D’ya know how easy it would’ve been to find someone to screw me at that party? Like candy from a baby!”
This time, it was Carlton who shuddered. “Except you’d be the baby in this scenario.”
Shawn pulled back a little to stare at him. “Do we really need all this talking? I didn’t think there’d be this much talking once I actually got someone in bed.”
“Shawn...”
“Ah! Ah! Ah!” Shawn pushed forward and sealed his mouth shut with his, cutting off Carlton’s next admonishment. “I just wanna get laid, Carly,” he explained when they came apart for air as he scrambled up on his hands and knees, straddling Carlton, pinning him flat on his back. “No talking, no questions and definitely no worrying about the poor little virgin, alright?”
If Shawn had said a million other things then Carlton might’ve been able to shut the whole embarrassing thing down and walk away without ever touching him again, without ever regretting it. But it was there again, in his voice, in his face -- that underlying seriousness, that earnestness he’d heard on the beach. Something about it turned the smart parts of his brain into mush and made him want to obey Shawn, give into the smile and the cheesy lines and childish charm.
And, at that moment, Carlton couldn’t remember ever wanting someone more.
His hands drifted up Shawn’s denim-clad legs and back to the fly of his jeans. “Let me know if you need me to slow down.”
Shawn grinned a filthy, flirty smile that a virgin shouldn’t even have been capable of. “Right back at ya, Carly.”
To Be Continued...
Author: Regann
Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Rating: PG-13/R
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Notes: This is a long multipart fic that I had to be insane to even start. But I love the boys so much, I just had to! Oh, and this is dedicated to pookaseraph.
Chapter Warning: This is one of the chapters that earned the /R rating.
Summary: 17-year-old Shawn has a fake ID burning a hole in his pocket, a college party to crash, and a mission to stop being the only virgin in his senior class. Unfortunately, there's this big-earred, good-doing grad student by the name of Carlton who catches him in the act. The unfair nature of cosmic humor being what it is, thus begins something that'll come back to haunt them both ten years later -- when an adult Shawn Spencer decides to give psychic investigation a try.
Past Parts: 1 | 2
Right Place, Wrong Time (Part 3)
From the lot where Carlton parked his car, it was only a short walk across an edge of campus to reach the graduate housing. It was a little cluster of three- and four-floor apartment buildings with tree-lined sidewalks running in between. Once they entered one of the buildings, they climbed up three flights of stairs to reach the apartment he shared with Rodney.
“Ooh, the penthouse,” Shawn joked as he waited for Carlton to unlock the door.
He didn’t want to admit it but Shawn was starting to get nervous again. He’d been nervous earlier, too, but that had been because he felt his cosmically-ordained luck had only been a cruel illusion; now he was nervous because he thought it was still holding --- only in a slightly more unusual package than he’d anticipated.
While he tended to not actually believe in fate or destiny or god except for when it best suited his purposes, even he had to admit that it was a mighty fine set of coincidences that had led him to Carlton.
And if destiny was going to pick him out the perfect bed partner, Shawn figured Carlton was as near to it as the universe could find on such short notice. He was certainly fine with the choice.
Carlton threw open the door and Shawn followed him inside, taking in the apartment’s details. It was modestly furnished -- sofa, table, TV in the living area and basic laminate table in the dining area -- with a few posters taped to the beige-colored walls. Carlton beckoned him farther into the living-slash-dining room and closed the door behind them.
“Rodney!” he called out, laying his keys on the cluttered dining table. “Is it safe to breathe in here again?”
“I was never against you breathing!” came a voice from the back of the apartment, growing louder as its owner headed in their direction. “...I was just against you breathing so loudly,” Rodney finished as he entered the living area.
Shawn wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting but Rodney was a rather average-looking young man with light brown hair, skin far too pale for SoCal, and a strange clip to his words that he guessed came from being Canadian.
Rodney’s mouth was open as if he’d planned to say more but he snapped it shut at the sight of Shawn loitering in the living room with Carlton.
He drew up short. “Oh, I, uh, didn’t realize you brought company.”
“Oh, yeah.” Carlton turned and gestured toward him. “Rodney, Shawn. Shawn, my roommate Rodney.”
“What’s up?” Shawn asked by way of greeting, nodding.
“The sky, last I checked,” Rodney returned dryly, and Shawn could see why Carlton and his roommate got along.
Rodney was looking him over, eyes running up and down in a very sharp examination. Shawn didn’t know what he saw when he looked at him like that, but whatever it was made Rodney’s eyelids twitch as he finally turned back to his roommate.
Carlton must’ve sensed something, too, because he glanced at Shawn. “Phone’s on the wall outside the kitchen,” he explained pointing toward the bright yellow contraption on the other side of the living area. “Go make your calls.”
For a minute Shawn thought about protesting since he didn’t have anyone he could call unless he wanted Gus to come pick him up which he absolutely didn’t. Instead, he just nodded and busied himself calling fake friends who lived at fake numbers, most of his concentration dedicated to shamelessly eavesdropping on Carlton and Rodney.
“So, I guess you took my advice then?” Rodney murmured as soon as he thought Shawn was occupied. “Have fun at the party?”
“It was okay,” he answered. “Didn’t stay very long.”
“Is that where you met...?”
“Shawn? Yeah.”
“What did you do after you two left the party?”
“Dinner. The beach, for awhile.”
“Oh, I see...”
Shawn decided it was time to stop talking to his imaginary friends on the phone, so he sidled back to Carlton’s side. “Looks like you’ve got me for the duration, Carly,” he announced as he reached him, close enough for his shoulder to brush against Carlton’s arm. “Unless you think Rodney will mind me sleeping over?”
Before Carlton could reply, Rodney did. “What, me? Oh, no, of course, no, that’s fine. I mean -- well, it’s only fair, right?” He pointed back toward the bedrooms. “I’m just gonna go, grab some stuff, head off to Galina’s for awhile.”
“Galina’s?” Shawn asked as Rodney disappeared down the hall.
“His project partner,” Carlton explained absently. “She lives over in one of the other apartment buildings, but...”
Rodney came back down the hall with a backpack slung over one shoulder. “Guess I’m off, then.”
“You don’t really have to...” Carlton began again, watching dazedly as his roommate grabbed the other set of keys from the dining table.
“No, it’s fine!” Rodney assured him, tucking the keys into his pocket. “I mean, you did the same thing for me, after all.” He nodded to Shawn. “Uh, nice to meet you, Shawn.”
“Yeah, you, too, Rodney,” Shawn said with a little wave.
Just before he stepped into the hallway, he shot a quick grin in Carlton’s direction, “Have fun, you two.”
And, like that, he was gone and silence rattled through the apartment.
“That was cool of him,” Shawn declared as he sank down onto the sofa.
“Yeah, but he didn’t have to leave,” Carlton said, coming over to the sofa as well. “I mean, it’s not like we need “alone time” or someth...”
Shawn heard him trail off and worked hard to school his expression. It had been instantly apparent to the roommate what could be happening between them, which was why he’d taken off. Shawn had first started calculating his chances when Carlton had pulled him out of the party and been convinced of them by the time they’d reached the apartment.
Apparently, those same things were just becoming clear to Carlton himself.
The color was rising in his face and Shawn found it immensely appealing -- not to mention, relieving, that he wasn’t the only one a little off-kilter.
“Oh.” It was Carlton’s turn to laugh nervously. “When I told him...he must’ve thought...well, you know...”
“What? That we’d been on a date?”
“Exactly,” Carlton nodded. Eyeing the way that Shawn was sprawled on most of the couch, he gingerly perched on its far end.
“You bring home a lot of boys, Carly?” he teased.
“No!” he said emphatically. “Nothing like that.”
Shawn’s eyebrows rose in speculation. “A lot of girls?”
“No,” he said again, though not quite as emphatically. “I came here to get an education, not get laid at every turn.”
“Well, that’s understandable,” Shawn said. “Although that is why I’m out tonight.”
“Something else I ruined for you, huh?” Carlton snorted. “There’s a long list now.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Shawn asked breezily. “I think you might actually be able to help me with this one.”
Carlton looked at him askance, startled. “Yeah? How?”
It was his chance; Shawn could feel it in the rush of adrenaline that suddenly hit his veins. He’d been deciding all night, weighing, figuring. He didn’t think his instincts were off, didn’t think he’d have to worry about good, upstanding Carlton beating the shit out of him even if he did turn out to be wrong about the vibes they’d been exchanging.
But he didn’t think he was. Wrong, that is. Shawn didn’t think he was wrong in thinking that he was exactly the kind that Carlton brought home -- or at least the type he should be bringing home. Rodney’s easy acceptance of events had given him the last bit of proof he needed.
Ignoring his sweaty palms and jittery insides, Shawn slid his way down the couch until he was sitting almost on top of Carlton, denim-covered hip to denim-covered hip. Carlton didn’t say anything but watched him incredulously, his blue eyes demanding the explanation that his mouth didn’t ask for.
It was ironic because it was his mouth that got the explanation in the end, in the form of Shawn’s nervous, wind-chapped lips pressing against it. Shawn waited a heartbeat and, when Carlton didn’t shove him away, burst into action, scrambling up on the couch until his whole body was leaning into Carlton’s. He had enough experience with this, with both sexes, that he could ignore his nerves and fall into it, could be on the offensive confidently, hands reaching and grabbing for Carlton’s head to hold him in the kiss, fingers running through dark hair, mouth insistent.
He was tentative, at first, hesitant, but Carlton wasn’t immune to Shawn’s ministrations. His mouth pushed back against Shawn’s and Shawn felt hands tighten in the trailing tails of his flannel shirt. But just as Shawn was sure he’d done everything right, Carlton’s hands were pushing him away, not meanly, but firmly, until there was room enough to breath between them.
“I, uh, don’t think I can help you with this one,” Carlton said, voice hushed. “Sorry.”
“I think you were doing a pretty good job ‘til a minute ago,” Shawn countered, unable to mask the needy whine in his voice.
“Yeah, well...I wasn’t thinking,” he told him.
“Go back to doing that then,” Shawn advised, trying to loosen Carlton’s hold that kept him at arm’s length.
“This isn’t what I had in mind, you know, when I offered you a place to stay!” Carlton said, his hold still strong as he pushed Shawn far enough away that he could wriggle from under him and rise to his feet.
“I know and it’s nice that you’re such a nice guy,” Shawn told him, also jumping up from the couch. Carlton was agitated, pacing in the few steps it took him to cover the length of the couch. “But this is what I had in mind when I asked for a place to sleep. I was kinda thinking the “with you” was implied.”
“Shawn...”
“Look, okay?” Shawn was in his face, standing toe-to-toe; it suddenly reminded Shawn how short and wimpy he was but he pressed on, hoping surprise would continue to give him the advantage. Now that he’d actually done it -- kissed Carlton -- and felt him return it, he wasn’t backing down. “What’s the big deal? Do you not do guys or something? Because you were definitely liking it a minute ago!”
“No, it’s not that exactly, but...we can’t do this.” Carlton took Shawn by the shoulders and held him away from him, fingers deliberately wrapping around Shawn’s thin arms.
“I don’t see why we can’t,” Shawn fired back, still way too whiny for his taste but his frustration was reaching peak levels. He couldn’t quite understand Carlton’s problem: he obviously liked him and he obviously didn’t seem to mind making out with him and they were alone, so couldn’t he just give in?
This, Shawn decided in that moment, was why girls preferred bad boys. Good boys had way too many inhibitions.
“We just...” Carlton shook his head and stepped away. “It’s been a long day, probably for both of us. I think we should just...go to sleep and forget about this.”
“Well, I don’t want to!” Shawn crossed his arms and glared petulantly.
Carlton softened, the steely mask slipping a little. “You can have the bed tonight, I’ll take the couch. Just let me grab some blankets and stuff.”
Shawn watched his back as he headed down the short hall and, as he watched Carlton duck into one of the bedrooms, inspiration struck.
Steeling down the hall in the stealthy way his dad had taught him, Shawn dumped his shoes in the living room and crept through the open door. Carlton’s back was to him, reaching up into a small closet for what Shawn assumed was “blankets and stuff.”
Going on instinct, Shawn just plunged in -- he took hold of Carlton’s arm and pulled until the startled young man spun around to face him and then Shawn ruthlessly abused that advantage. As they both hit the neatly-made bed in a tangle of arms, legs and mouths, Shawn couldn’t help but grin into the sloppy kisses he was landing on Carlton.
He was pretty sure he’d just won the battle and the war.
**
Like with so many of the things that had happened that night, Carlton wasn’t quite sure how he ended up in bed with a very enthusiastic Shawn kissing him like it was going out of style except that one minute he’d been pulling spare blankets from the closet and then the next he was flat on his back.
Even as he tried to resist, to break away, Carlton found feel himself losing the battle. Shawn was pushy, enthusiastic and very tempting -- and it had been a long, long time since he’d last gotten laid. But it was more than that, too, and that was what made it difficult to give in or pull out.
He genuinely liked Shawn, something he’d been surprised to realize over the course of the evening. He was funny, a little dopey, but honest and bright and ecstatic about everything around him and smart and fun, just like he’d promised at the start. It’d been a long time since Carlton had found anyone as endearing as he found Shawn.
That was part of the reason that he was having trouble with the 'having sex' part. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to -- it wasn’t like he hadn’t been checking out the kid’s ass hours and hours earlier, back before he’d even realized he was using a fake ID -- but that as soon as there were some kind of feelings involved that were deeper or purer than rampant lust, things inevitably got complicated.
Carlton didn’t like complicated. It was why he hated feelings and generally didn’t bother with them. They were just too much trouble.
It was too bad he couldn’t turn them off as easily and readily as he dismissed them.
For all the intellectual reasons he wanted to stay as far away from Shawn as possible, the rest of him just wasn’t listening. Instead of pushing Shawn off of him like he knew he should, Carlton was suddenly turning them both over in the bed until he was the one on top, towering over the kid as he finally dragged his lips away to catch his breath.
“You seem to be doing pretty well, now, Carly,” Shawn panted through wet, bruised lips, very smug and satisfied.
Carlton couldn’t think of anything appropriately snappy. “Are you sure about this?” he finally asked, his voice gruff and hoarse.
Carlton could feel a shiver ripple through Shawn’s body. “Oh, yeah, hell yeah, sure, sure, very sure, way past sure!”
He almost laughed at Shawn’s enthusiastic reply. “Well, as long as you’re sure...”
“Oh, just shut up and kiss me again, why don’t ya?” Shawn wheedled, his grabby hands tugging Carlton’s shirt and pulling him down. Finally he gave in and did just that, doing a little grabbing on his own. He shifted them again so that they were side by side and he could more easily yank off Shawn’s flannel shirt.
Carlton tossed the ugly flannel away as soon as he’d pulled it from him; just as he was reaching for the hem of the Whitesnake T-shirt, Shawn wriggled around until he was sitting up and shucked it in one, long motion. His hair was in wild disarray but Carlton didn’t think it hurt the overall image of him sitting there, propped against his pillows, only half-dressed.
“You could stand to lose a few layers, too,” Shawn murmured as he reached for Carlton, pushing up the shirt to reveal inch after inch of skin. Carlton helped by shrugging out of it and tossing it aside.
After Carlton showed a little of the finesse that came with being a quarter-century old and introducing Shawn to the erogenous zone that was his nipples, his hands began to wander down over the pale skin of Shawn’s stomach to the waistband of his faded jeans. He was working on the button and fly when he noticed that Shawn had went still beneath him.
“Something wrong?” he asked as his hands slowed, spooked by the boy’s unnatural stillness.
“No, no, everything’s fine,” he said but Carlton could hear the tinny echo of panic in his voice. It took him a moment but enough blood rushed back up to his head that he managed to put two and two together and the realization slammed into him.
This was the last thing he wanted to have to deal with.
“You have done this before, haven’t you?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“Um, yeah, of course. Depending on what you mean by ‘this,’” Shawn told him.
“I mean, this. This! Sex. With a man,” he snapped back, no real heat behind his lust-fueled frustration.
Shawn licked his lips nervously and Carlton had to blink in order to keep his mind on the conversation at hand. “Then, maybe not.”
Carlton groaned and rolled off of Shawn, landing face-first against his bed pillows.
“What? Hey, no, why are we stopping?” Shawn demanded to know, shifting to face him. He propped himself up on his elbow and watched Carlton intently; he knew because he could feel the kid’s eyeballs on the back of his head.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Carlton told him, as he moved again, mostly so he wouldn’t smother. He mirrored Shawn’s position, facing the kid straight-on with an accusing glare.
“So, what? Sex is like a job with you?” Shawn snorted. “There’s x amount of experience needed to qualify?”
“No, but I don’t make it a habit of taking nervous virgins to bed, either.” Carlton countered grouchily. “You should’ve said something earlier!”
“Why? So it would’ve been that much harder to get you to sleep with me? I don’t think so.” Shawn leaned forward until they were nose-to-nose, lips brushing just above Carlton’s cheek. “I’m not seeing the big deal here.”
“That’s half the problem,” Carlton whispered across his skin, unable to stop from trailing his lips across Shawn’s face, to his ear.
“It’s your own fault,” Shawn said -- well, tried to say. It came out more like a breathy hiss as Carlton’s teeth latched on to his earlobe. “I had it all figured out.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeaaaaaaaaaah.” Definitely a hiss and definitely a sound of pleasure. “There I was, right where I needed to be to get laid. D’ya know how easy it would’ve been to find someone to screw me at that party? Like candy from a baby!”
This time, it was Carlton who shuddered. “Except you’d be the baby in this scenario.”
Shawn pulled back a little to stare at him. “Do we really need all this talking? I didn’t think there’d be this much talking once I actually got someone in bed.”
“Shawn...”
“Ah! Ah! Ah!” Shawn pushed forward and sealed his mouth shut with his, cutting off Carlton’s next admonishment. “I just wanna get laid, Carly,” he explained when they came apart for air as he scrambled up on his hands and knees, straddling Carlton, pinning him flat on his back. “No talking, no questions and definitely no worrying about the poor little virgin, alright?”
If Shawn had said a million other things then Carlton might’ve been able to shut the whole embarrassing thing down and walk away without ever touching him again, without ever regretting it. But it was there again, in his voice, in his face -- that underlying seriousness, that earnestness he’d heard on the beach. Something about it turned the smart parts of his brain into mush and made him want to obey Shawn, give into the smile and the cheesy lines and childish charm.
And, at that moment, Carlton couldn’t remember ever wanting someone more.
His hands drifted up Shawn’s denim-clad legs and back to the fly of his jeans. “Let me know if you need me to slow down.”
Shawn grinned a filthy, flirty smile that a virgin shouldn’t even have been capable of. “Right back at ya, Carly.”
To Be Continued...