FIC: "Right Place, Wrong Time" by Regann - PG-13/R - Shawn/Lassiter (20/21)
Title: Right Place, Wrong Time (20/21)
Author: Regann
Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Notes: Note rating for this chapter!
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 over ten years later -- when an adult Shawn Spencer decides to give psychic investigation a try.
Past Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19
Right Place, Wrong Time (Part 20)
Shawn hadn't yet had a chance to nose around Carly's new digs and he wasn't getting that chance now, either. From the moment he and Carlton had crossed the threshold, they'd been lip-to-lip, hands rushing and fumbling as Lassy tried to careen them down what Shawn assumed was a hallway toward the bedroom.
He didn't have any problems with Lassy's game plan; the execution, however, was leaving him with bumps and bruises as he collided with a wall and then with some kind of end table that only a girl or a neat freak would think to situate in a hall. And while he didn't mind it a little rough, he preferred to get his bruises from bedroom acrobatics and not the warm-up.
By the time, Carlton kicked open the bedroom door -- and, yes, he was totally impressed by that little manly display -- things had slowed down. There was less scrambling and more lingering, especially Lassy's hands on any part of Shawn he could reach. Shawn followed his lead and let his hands slide slowly down Carlton's chest, scraping at the hair and skin he knew lay beneath the pristine white dress shirt.
As they finally broke apart from another long marathon kiss, Shawn's quick eyes skimmed over the room, catching on details of how the room differed from its predecessors: more pillows, less plaid, and a plastic rectangle tossed onto the bedside table.
It was the fateful fake ID that had first brought him to the attention of one Carly Lassiter.
Shawn had only needed about 45 seconds to catalogue everything before he was once again focused totally on the idea of getting Lassy naked and in bed. But sometime in those precious seconds, Carlton had slowed from gentle to gently-extricating which made Shawn's heart, stomach and libido plummet all at once.
"Shawn." His voice was rough and breathy. "I just..."
He groaned and buried his head against Carlton's shoulder. "Please, please, please, no talking! Just sex!"
Carlton laughed, only the slightest tinge of nervousness in the sound. "Don't you think we still need to settle a few things?"
"Absolutely not," he assured him between nips at the pale column of skin rising above the necktie. "I love you, you love me, I want to have sex and you definitely need to have more sex, it's obviously win-win, what more is there to settle?"
He could feel all the resistance -- that last, desperate control that Shawn had always been skilled at breaking -- melt from Carlton as he renewed his hands' exploration of Shawn's body. "When you put it that way..."
"Smart, aren't I?" he gloated.
"Smart ass, anyway."
Shawn decided he could live with that, as long as Carly kept up with the roving hands and lips. Impatient when he seemed to be content to explore under and through his thin T-shirt, Shawn took matters into his own hands and stepped back for a moment, stripping it from his body in one long motion. It was a little sexy trick he'd picked up a while back and he assumed from the way Carlton's eyes glazed over as he tossed it away that it was just as mind-numbing to police detectives as it had once been to vacationing New York socialites in Cozumel.
While he knew it was faintly undignified, Shawn bounced when he finally landed on the bed, tugging Carlton toward him as he went. He got kind of a thrill realizing how different this was from every other times they'd ended up in bed together. He was no longer a green but enthusiastic kid looking for his first lay or even a besotted teenager dopily following his crush's lead but instead a guy who'd had enough adventure in the last ten years or so to modestly consider himself skilled if not expert in all matters of good sex.
There was also a different feeling in the air that hadn't been there the last time he and Carlton had tumbled into bed together, something part of him wanted to label as euphoria even as another part of his brain was deciding that Gus's Word-A-Day calendar at the office was having a bad effect on him.
Shawn was snapped out of his rambling -- dare he say, nervous? -- thoughts by Carly's strong, restrained fingers brushing over his face, temples to cheeks to lips. He looked amused when Shawn's startled eyes found his.
"You still with me, Spencer?" he asked quietly.
He nodded. "Just a little a psychic trance there," he grinned.
Carlton snorted his disbelief, though it was a more indulgent sound than Shawn was used to from him concerning his abilities. "Learn anything useful?"
"Of course," he said, working loose the tie dangling enticingly right within his reach. He removed it with a flourish that sent it sailing across the room. "It told me that things are gonna be a lot more interesting once I get you naked and in this bed."
"Do these lines of yours actually work?" Carly laughed, earning himself a pout from Shawn.
"You're here and almost naked, aren't you?" Shawn said as he quickly unbuttoned Carlton's shirt, remembering to check the cuffs before pushing the fabric off his shoulders, only to encounter the thankfully-empty shoulder holster.
"Point," he conceded. Carlton helped by shrugging out of the holster, reaching around to hang it on the bed post on what Shawn assumed was 'his' side before losing the shirt completely.
Shawn idly wondered where and when Carlton might have stashed his gun but decided that it was a mystery better left for another day because he had more pressing matters to deal with. His fingers skimmed down pale, naked flesh to Carly's belt which he undid with sure motions, the jangle of the buckle like fire in his blood. It joined the tie and the shirt and then Shawn's hands slid lower, over the tented fly. "I see you're packing a different piece today, Carly," he noted. "I approve."
Carlton cut off the rest of the line with his hard mouth on Shawn's. "I thought you were the one who didn't want to talk," he said after they'd broke apart, breathing heavily.
"Who knew compliments made you cranky?" he asked. His hands had since slid into Carlton's pockets, and he tossed the badge he found there onto the bedside table but when his other hand closed around the handcuffs, he paused, twirling them on his finger thoughtfully. "Ooh, these will definitely come in handy later."
"Handcuffs?"
Shawn shrugged, still twirling them on one of his fingers. "What can I say? I'm a man of many kinks."
"Of that, I have no doubt," Carlton admitted, seizing the handcuffs and throwing them on the nightstand beside the badge. He was obviously getting impatient with Shawn's teasing because he grabbed him and tumbled them down to the bed in a tangle of mostly unclad bodies that Shawn heartily approved. He ended up on top -- naturally -- straddling Carlton, hands resting against the headboard as he leaned down to ravage his mouth.
"I'm sure you got a few of your own. Let me guess," he murmured between kisses. "B&D? S&M? C&B? Breath play, electro play, cosplay, plain ol' role play?"
"I don't even know what half of those are," Carlton protested, reaching up to catch Shawn by the hair, dragging his mouth down to his again, ending the discussion.
Shawn might've been easily distracted but he had the kind of memory that allowed him to recall his point no matter how persuasive Carlton's sexual chicanery. "Admit it, you know you've been dreaming about handcuffing me to one of those benches at the station and having your way with me! I can see it in your eyes."
From the way that Carlton's eyes glazed again and something wicked flared in their depths, Shawn decided that his teasing might not have been too far from the truth and the thought gave him a little thrill that was positively masochistic in nature. He figured he should probably rein in those kinky impulses of his one day but he wasn't planning on that day being any one in which he had Carly under him in bed.
A wicked gleam of his own twinkling in his eyes, Shawn pulled away and dangled his wrists in front of him, one crossed over the other.
"Come on, Detective," he teased. "Cuff me."
To his utter delight, Carlton -- eventually -- obliged.
**
Carlton awoke to the sound of the most annoying cell phone ringtone he had ever heard in his life. He didn't remember adding that particularly terrible tune to his phone in the first place but he couldn't escape its shrilling whine, so he blindly rummaged around in the messy pile of clothes in the floor next to his bed until his fingers closed around the lumpy shape of the phone.
He was barely awake enough to flip it open. "Lassiter," he growled.
"Lassiter?"
It took him a moment to work through the sleep-induced brain-fog and place the incredulous voice. "Guster?"
"Lassiter!" Guster still seemed surprised. "Where are you?"
"I'm at my house, where you are?"
"I'm at the office." A pause. "I'm looking for Shawn."
Carlton knew that things were hazy but the conversation just wasn't making logical sense. "Then why the hell did you call me?"
"I didn't," Gus snapped. "I called Shawn."
At Guster's statement, Carlton finally looked at the cell phone he held in his hand. He knew immediately that it wasn't his -- it was the completely wrong shape and color.
"Oh." He could hear Guster's smugness through the speaker. "He'll call you back," he said before snapping the phone shut and tossing it onto the bedside table.
With sleep no longer clouding his mind, Carlton vividly recalled the past -- he glanced at his alarm clock -- several hours of his evening which had begun when he'd found Shawn sitting on his porch. He noted a surprising lack of a certain other person in his bedroom and had a quick, fleeting fear that Shawn had disappeared in the time when he'd been asleep but the fact that Shawn's clothes were still strewn across his bedroom floor dismissed that worry. Carlton pulled himself out of bed and reached for his bathrobe, only to find it missing. Rolling his eyes, he changed directions and instead grabbed a pair of sweats from a drawer, pulling them on before heading down the hall.
He'd only taken a few steps before he heard the unmistakable sound of Shawn's voice coming from his kitchen. Shawn was on the phone, leaning up against the island, tapping his fingers idly the marble countertop as he talked.
Carlton also noted that Shawn was wearing his missing robe.
"I know it's a little late, Mr. Soong," he was saying into the phone, "and a little out of your area but...by the way, how's Kiki and her little dog?" He stopped talking, listening to the person on the other end. "That's great! Half-hour, tops? Cool, see ya then." As soon as he hung up the phone, he turned to grin at Carlton. "Carly! Great timing! Dinner's on the way."
"It's almost midnight. Who delivers in this neighborhood at this hour of the night?" Carlton asked. He knew many of the places around the university stayed open until the wee hours of the morning, but...he was suddenly hit by another thought. "And why would Guster be looking for you at the office so late?"
Shawn raised an eyebrow. "Well, I have connections with the best Chinese takeout in town, to answer your first question," he told him. "And to answer your second...huh?"
"Never mind." He waved it away. He'd eventually relay Guster's message, when he felt like it.
Shawn was smiling at him as he slunk -- no other word for the way he slid his body -- toward him. Carlton thought he was going to be pounced on again but instead Shawn just moved into his personal space, content with their physical proximity. Carlton found he was, too.
"How long have you been awake?" Carlton asked.
Shawn shrugged, the movement slow, letting his robe-clad arm slide against Carlton's bare chest. "Long enough to go through all your drawers, order a couple of porn flicks on your pay-per-view cable and, oh, send out some embarrassing mass emails from your computer." Shawn tsked him. "You really might want to think of something better than "ihatepsychics" for your password. Not only is it easy to guess, it's -- well, it's hurtful, Carly."
"Shawn..." There it was again, that fond exasperation he felt for Shawn when he let himself, that feeling that while Shawn might bring a little chaos, but he'd also bring laughter into his life. Carlton had fought it for awhile but he was finally beginning to see that it was a worthwhile trade-off.
The sex was nice, too.
"And if anyone asks you about Mr. Bubbles, well..." The mischief in younger man's face was practically putting off sparks.
Carlton did the only thing he could think of: he rolled his eyes, kissed him soundly, and manhandled him toward one of the chairs set around the cozy kitchen table. "I'm going to make some coffee," he announced, crossing to his coffee maker, already set for his morning pot. He deactivated the automatic brew setting and mashed the ON button as Shawn took a hint and slid into a chair.
"I have this terrible feeling that you still want to talk," Shawn sighed.
"Is that a crime?" Carlton asked.
"God, I wish it was," Shawn said. "Sex and talking do not mix."
"Like you ever keep your mouth shut, even in bed." Carlton grabbed two mugs from the cabinet, throwing a glance over his shoulder at Shawn, daring him to contradict him. "I know that for a fact."
Shawn snorted. "Dirty talk is not talking, Carlton."
Carlton didn't bother to say anything else as he went through the motions of making them both a cup of coffee. He knew that talking, making decisions -- grown up things -- tended to make Shawn cagey. He wondered if that was something else he could lay at his own door, given the way he'd treated him when he was younger; in all honesty, he figured he probably could. But he was prepared to make up for all his bad behavior from the past, if for no other reason than he wanted to keep this Shawn -- the impossible adult with the hint of the boy peeking through -- for as long as he possibly could.
He carried the mugs over to the table and gave Shawn the one with sugar but no cream, something he'd noticed during the so-called psychic's visits to the station. Shawn took an experimental sip as Carlton took his own seat.
"Hey, you got it right, Carly," he said, delighted.
"You're not the only detective in the room, you know."
Shawn just shot him a flirty look over the rim of his mug.
It was the kind of look that could almost short circuit Carlton's brain and he knew that it was calculated to avoid the talking. Unfortunately for Shawn, Carlton was on to his little tricks and fought valiantly to stay focused.
He cleared his throat. "So..."
"So...?"
Carlton took another deep breath and continued. "A few hours ago, you told me you loved me." Despite the heated nature of the moment, Carlton hadn't missed that simple, straightforward confession.
Shawn's face pinkened but he didn't look away or deny the words. "I also said in the same breath that you love me," he challenged. "What do you have to say about that?"
"I..." It was more difficult when he was the one in the hot spot, so to speak. The last two people he'd admitted to caring about had both hurt him, though his pain lingered with Jenny, Lucinda only a pale echo of that first wound. But Carlton knew there had to be risks if he wanted the reward, even if he'd become unused to taking those kind of chances.
"I...didn't find anything wrong with your assessment," he finally said.
There weren't words for the look that lit Shawn's face, even if it quickly passed and settled into a more commonplace look of pleasure. "I'm glad to hear you say that."
"Well..." Carlton paused to take a gulp of his coffee. "I'm glad that you're glad."
Shawn's grin widened. "Well, I'm glad that you're glad that I'm --"
Carlton held up a hand. "Don't start that, Spencer."
Shawn nodded his agreement, his smile even wider. He took a sip of his coffee, then sat his mug down with a thud. "So now that we've turned into total girls and shared this wonderfully heartfelt declaration...what now?"
"What do you mean?"
"What does it mean?" Shawn waved his hands between them. "You...know...for...us?"
"Oh." Carlton, despite Shawn's accusations, really wasn't as good at this touchy-feely-talking crap as he liked to pretend, especially when Shawn was the one asking the difficult questions. "I figured we'd keep doing this. You know, regularly."
"The sex, you mean?" Shawn asked hopefully.
"And the talking," Carlton added. "And the whole hanging around each other, sharing the occasional meal, and..."
"You know, Lassy, that sounds an awful lot like a relationship," Shawn said. "Or, as I like to call it, a thing."
"Yeah, it does," Carlton agreed.
"So you want this to be a thing?" Shawn asked after a minute, much more quietly. Carlton didn't miss the fact the Shawn's eyes were suddenly captivated with the ugly border on his kitchen walls.
"Yeah, I do," he said, no reluctance in his answer. He grinned at his own confidence.
"Cool." Shawn's wandering eyes finally met his again, and he started grinning, too. "Things can kinda end up being long-term sometimes."
Carlton reached out and brushed his fingers over Shawn's knuckles where they lay on the tabletop. "It's been a thing for ten years now," he said. "I think it already qualifies as very long term, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do." The smile he got for that was blinding. Carlton's prediction of a pounce also finally came true as Shawn managed to wiggle onto his lap.
"Carly, has anyone ever told you that you were a gooey chocolate chip cookie?"
He didn't get a chance to answer that particular accusation because Shawn was too intent on bringing their mouths together in a desperate crush of lips. Shawn tasted like sugar and coffee, with a hint of the hazelnut from the prissy flavored beans the Chief had given Carlton for a belated birthday gift and he was finally appreciating its rich flavor, though he was more appreciative of the way he was currently tasting it.
Only the sound of the doorbell pulled them apart. "Dinner," Shawn said breathlessly as he climbed off Carlton's lap. He shot him another devilish look. "I hope you're in the mood for Chinese."
As he watched Shawn disappear down the hallway -- barefoot, in his robe -- Carlton decided that he was in the mood for anything Shawn wanted.
Dangerous, yes, but Carlton couldn't bring himself to regret it in the least, even though it had taken them so long to get there.
Finally, the stars had aligned in the proper places and they were in the right place at the right time.
**
To be Concluded...
Author: Regann
Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Notes: Note rating for this chapter!
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 over ten years later -- when an adult Shawn Spencer decides to give psychic investigation a try.
Past Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19
Right Place, Wrong Time (Part 20)
Shawn hadn't yet had a chance to nose around Carly's new digs and he wasn't getting that chance now, either. From the moment he and Carlton had crossed the threshold, they'd been lip-to-lip, hands rushing and fumbling as Lassy tried to careen them down what Shawn assumed was a hallway toward the bedroom.
He didn't have any problems with Lassy's game plan; the execution, however, was leaving him with bumps and bruises as he collided with a wall and then with some kind of end table that only a girl or a neat freak would think to situate in a hall. And while he didn't mind it a little rough, he preferred to get his bruises from bedroom acrobatics and not the warm-up.
By the time, Carlton kicked open the bedroom door -- and, yes, he was totally impressed by that little manly display -- things had slowed down. There was less scrambling and more lingering, especially Lassy's hands on any part of Shawn he could reach. Shawn followed his lead and let his hands slide slowly down Carlton's chest, scraping at the hair and skin he knew lay beneath the pristine white dress shirt.
As they finally broke apart from another long marathon kiss, Shawn's quick eyes skimmed over the room, catching on details of how the room differed from its predecessors: more pillows, less plaid, and a plastic rectangle tossed onto the bedside table.
It was the fateful fake ID that had first brought him to the attention of one Carly Lassiter.
Shawn had only needed about 45 seconds to catalogue everything before he was once again focused totally on the idea of getting Lassy naked and in bed. But sometime in those precious seconds, Carlton had slowed from gentle to gently-extricating which made Shawn's heart, stomach and libido plummet all at once.
"Shawn." His voice was rough and breathy. "I just..."
He groaned and buried his head against Carlton's shoulder. "Please, please, please, no talking! Just sex!"
Carlton laughed, only the slightest tinge of nervousness in the sound. "Don't you think we still need to settle a few things?"
"Absolutely not," he assured him between nips at the pale column of skin rising above the necktie. "I love you, you love me, I want to have sex and you definitely need to have more sex, it's obviously win-win, what more is there to settle?"
He could feel all the resistance -- that last, desperate control that Shawn had always been skilled at breaking -- melt from Carlton as he renewed his hands' exploration of Shawn's body. "When you put it that way..."
"Smart, aren't I?" he gloated.
"Smart ass, anyway."
Shawn decided he could live with that, as long as Carly kept up with the roving hands and lips. Impatient when he seemed to be content to explore under and through his thin T-shirt, Shawn took matters into his own hands and stepped back for a moment, stripping it from his body in one long motion. It was a little sexy trick he'd picked up a while back and he assumed from the way Carlton's eyes glazed over as he tossed it away that it was just as mind-numbing to police detectives as it had once been to vacationing New York socialites in Cozumel.
While he knew it was faintly undignified, Shawn bounced when he finally landed on the bed, tugging Carlton toward him as he went. He got kind of a thrill realizing how different this was from every other times they'd ended up in bed together. He was no longer a green but enthusiastic kid looking for his first lay or even a besotted teenager dopily following his crush's lead but instead a guy who'd had enough adventure in the last ten years or so to modestly consider himself skilled if not expert in all matters of good sex.
There was also a different feeling in the air that hadn't been there the last time he and Carlton had tumbled into bed together, something part of him wanted to label as euphoria even as another part of his brain was deciding that Gus's Word-A-Day calendar at the office was having a bad effect on him.
Shawn was snapped out of his rambling -- dare he say, nervous? -- thoughts by Carly's strong, restrained fingers brushing over his face, temples to cheeks to lips. He looked amused when Shawn's startled eyes found his.
"You still with me, Spencer?" he asked quietly.
He nodded. "Just a little a psychic trance there," he grinned.
Carlton snorted his disbelief, though it was a more indulgent sound than Shawn was used to from him concerning his abilities. "Learn anything useful?"
"Of course," he said, working loose the tie dangling enticingly right within his reach. He removed it with a flourish that sent it sailing across the room. "It told me that things are gonna be a lot more interesting once I get you naked and in this bed."
"Do these lines of yours actually work?" Carly laughed, earning himself a pout from Shawn.
"You're here and almost naked, aren't you?" Shawn said as he quickly unbuttoned Carlton's shirt, remembering to check the cuffs before pushing the fabric off his shoulders, only to encounter the thankfully-empty shoulder holster.
"Point," he conceded. Carlton helped by shrugging out of the holster, reaching around to hang it on the bed post on what Shawn assumed was 'his' side before losing the shirt completely.
Shawn idly wondered where and when Carlton might have stashed his gun but decided that it was a mystery better left for another day because he had more pressing matters to deal with. His fingers skimmed down pale, naked flesh to Carly's belt which he undid with sure motions, the jangle of the buckle like fire in his blood. It joined the tie and the shirt and then Shawn's hands slid lower, over the tented fly. "I see you're packing a different piece today, Carly," he noted. "I approve."
Carlton cut off the rest of the line with his hard mouth on Shawn's. "I thought you were the one who didn't want to talk," he said after they'd broke apart, breathing heavily.
"Who knew compliments made you cranky?" he asked. His hands had since slid into Carlton's pockets, and he tossed the badge he found there onto the bedside table but when his other hand closed around the handcuffs, he paused, twirling them on his finger thoughtfully. "Ooh, these will definitely come in handy later."
"Handcuffs?"
Shawn shrugged, still twirling them on one of his fingers. "What can I say? I'm a man of many kinks."
"Of that, I have no doubt," Carlton admitted, seizing the handcuffs and throwing them on the nightstand beside the badge. He was obviously getting impatient with Shawn's teasing because he grabbed him and tumbled them down to the bed in a tangle of mostly unclad bodies that Shawn heartily approved. He ended up on top -- naturally -- straddling Carlton, hands resting against the headboard as he leaned down to ravage his mouth.
"I'm sure you got a few of your own. Let me guess," he murmured between kisses. "B&D? S&M? C&B? Breath play, electro play, cosplay, plain ol' role play?"
"I don't even know what half of those are," Carlton protested, reaching up to catch Shawn by the hair, dragging his mouth down to his again, ending the discussion.
Shawn might've been easily distracted but he had the kind of memory that allowed him to recall his point no matter how persuasive Carlton's sexual chicanery. "Admit it, you know you've been dreaming about handcuffing me to one of those benches at the station and having your way with me! I can see it in your eyes."
From the way that Carlton's eyes glazed again and something wicked flared in their depths, Shawn decided that his teasing might not have been too far from the truth and the thought gave him a little thrill that was positively masochistic in nature. He figured he should probably rein in those kinky impulses of his one day but he wasn't planning on that day being any one in which he had Carly under him in bed.
A wicked gleam of his own twinkling in his eyes, Shawn pulled away and dangled his wrists in front of him, one crossed over the other.
"Come on, Detective," he teased. "Cuff me."
To his utter delight, Carlton -- eventually -- obliged.
**
Carlton awoke to the sound of the most annoying cell phone ringtone he had ever heard in his life. He didn't remember adding that particularly terrible tune to his phone in the first place but he couldn't escape its shrilling whine, so he blindly rummaged around in the messy pile of clothes in the floor next to his bed until his fingers closed around the lumpy shape of the phone.
He was barely awake enough to flip it open. "Lassiter," he growled.
"Lassiter?"
It took him a moment to work through the sleep-induced brain-fog and place the incredulous voice. "Guster?"
"Lassiter!" Guster still seemed surprised. "Where are you?"
"I'm at my house, where you are?"
"I'm at the office." A pause. "I'm looking for Shawn."
Carlton knew that things were hazy but the conversation just wasn't making logical sense. "Then why the hell did you call me?"
"I didn't," Gus snapped. "I called Shawn."
At Guster's statement, Carlton finally looked at the cell phone he held in his hand. He knew immediately that it wasn't his -- it was the completely wrong shape and color.
"Oh." He could hear Guster's smugness through the speaker. "He'll call you back," he said before snapping the phone shut and tossing it onto the bedside table.
With sleep no longer clouding his mind, Carlton vividly recalled the past -- he glanced at his alarm clock -- several hours of his evening which had begun when he'd found Shawn sitting on his porch. He noted a surprising lack of a certain other person in his bedroom and had a quick, fleeting fear that Shawn had disappeared in the time when he'd been asleep but the fact that Shawn's clothes were still strewn across his bedroom floor dismissed that worry. Carlton pulled himself out of bed and reached for his bathrobe, only to find it missing. Rolling his eyes, he changed directions and instead grabbed a pair of sweats from a drawer, pulling them on before heading down the hall.
He'd only taken a few steps before he heard the unmistakable sound of Shawn's voice coming from his kitchen. Shawn was on the phone, leaning up against the island, tapping his fingers idly the marble countertop as he talked.
Carlton also noted that Shawn was wearing his missing robe.
"I know it's a little late, Mr. Soong," he was saying into the phone, "and a little out of your area but...by the way, how's Kiki and her little dog?" He stopped talking, listening to the person on the other end. "That's great! Half-hour, tops? Cool, see ya then." As soon as he hung up the phone, he turned to grin at Carlton. "Carly! Great timing! Dinner's on the way."
"It's almost midnight. Who delivers in this neighborhood at this hour of the night?" Carlton asked. He knew many of the places around the university stayed open until the wee hours of the morning, but...he was suddenly hit by another thought. "And why would Guster be looking for you at the office so late?"
Shawn raised an eyebrow. "Well, I have connections with the best Chinese takeout in town, to answer your first question," he told him. "And to answer your second...huh?"
"Never mind." He waved it away. He'd eventually relay Guster's message, when he felt like it.
Shawn was smiling at him as he slunk -- no other word for the way he slid his body -- toward him. Carlton thought he was going to be pounced on again but instead Shawn just moved into his personal space, content with their physical proximity. Carlton found he was, too.
"How long have you been awake?" Carlton asked.
Shawn shrugged, the movement slow, letting his robe-clad arm slide against Carlton's bare chest. "Long enough to go through all your drawers, order a couple of porn flicks on your pay-per-view cable and, oh, send out some embarrassing mass emails from your computer." Shawn tsked him. "You really might want to think of something better than "ihatepsychics" for your password. Not only is it easy to guess, it's -- well, it's hurtful, Carly."
"Shawn..." There it was again, that fond exasperation he felt for Shawn when he let himself, that feeling that while Shawn might bring a little chaos, but he'd also bring laughter into his life. Carlton had fought it for awhile but he was finally beginning to see that it was a worthwhile trade-off.
The sex was nice, too.
"And if anyone asks you about Mr. Bubbles, well..." The mischief in younger man's face was practically putting off sparks.
Carlton did the only thing he could think of: he rolled his eyes, kissed him soundly, and manhandled him toward one of the chairs set around the cozy kitchen table. "I'm going to make some coffee," he announced, crossing to his coffee maker, already set for his morning pot. He deactivated the automatic brew setting and mashed the ON button as Shawn took a hint and slid into a chair.
"I have this terrible feeling that you still want to talk," Shawn sighed.
"Is that a crime?" Carlton asked.
"God, I wish it was," Shawn said. "Sex and talking do not mix."
"Like you ever keep your mouth shut, even in bed." Carlton grabbed two mugs from the cabinet, throwing a glance over his shoulder at Shawn, daring him to contradict him. "I know that for a fact."
Shawn snorted. "Dirty talk is not talking, Carlton."
Carlton didn't bother to say anything else as he went through the motions of making them both a cup of coffee. He knew that talking, making decisions -- grown up things -- tended to make Shawn cagey. He wondered if that was something else he could lay at his own door, given the way he'd treated him when he was younger; in all honesty, he figured he probably could. But he was prepared to make up for all his bad behavior from the past, if for no other reason than he wanted to keep this Shawn -- the impossible adult with the hint of the boy peeking through -- for as long as he possibly could.
He carried the mugs over to the table and gave Shawn the one with sugar but no cream, something he'd noticed during the so-called psychic's visits to the station. Shawn took an experimental sip as Carlton took his own seat.
"Hey, you got it right, Carly," he said, delighted.
"You're not the only detective in the room, you know."
Shawn just shot him a flirty look over the rim of his mug.
It was the kind of look that could almost short circuit Carlton's brain and he knew that it was calculated to avoid the talking. Unfortunately for Shawn, Carlton was on to his little tricks and fought valiantly to stay focused.
He cleared his throat. "So..."
"So...?"
Carlton took another deep breath and continued. "A few hours ago, you told me you loved me." Despite the heated nature of the moment, Carlton hadn't missed that simple, straightforward confession.
Shawn's face pinkened but he didn't look away or deny the words. "I also said in the same breath that you love me," he challenged. "What do you have to say about that?"
"I..." It was more difficult when he was the one in the hot spot, so to speak. The last two people he'd admitted to caring about had both hurt him, though his pain lingered with Jenny, Lucinda only a pale echo of that first wound. But Carlton knew there had to be risks if he wanted the reward, even if he'd become unused to taking those kind of chances.
"I...didn't find anything wrong with your assessment," he finally said.
There weren't words for the look that lit Shawn's face, even if it quickly passed and settled into a more commonplace look of pleasure. "I'm glad to hear you say that."
"Well..." Carlton paused to take a gulp of his coffee. "I'm glad that you're glad."
Shawn's grin widened. "Well, I'm glad that you're glad that I'm --"
Carlton held up a hand. "Don't start that, Spencer."
Shawn nodded his agreement, his smile even wider. He took a sip of his coffee, then sat his mug down with a thud. "So now that we've turned into total girls and shared this wonderfully heartfelt declaration...what now?"
"What do you mean?"
"What does it mean?" Shawn waved his hands between them. "You...know...for...us?"
"Oh." Carlton, despite Shawn's accusations, really wasn't as good at this touchy-feely-talking crap as he liked to pretend, especially when Shawn was the one asking the difficult questions. "I figured we'd keep doing this. You know, regularly."
"The sex, you mean?" Shawn asked hopefully.
"And the talking," Carlton added. "And the whole hanging around each other, sharing the occasional meal, and..."
"You know, Lassy, that sounds an awful lot like a relationship," Shawn said. "Or, as I like to call it, a thing."
"Yeah, it does," Carlton agreed.
"So you want this to be a thing?" Shawn asked after a minute, much more quietly. Carlton didn't miss the fact the Shawn's eyes were suddenly captivated with the ugly border on his kitchen walls.
"Yeah, I do," he said, no reluctance in his answer. He grinned at his own confidence.
"Cool." Shawn's wandering eyes finally met his again, and he started grinning, too. "Things can kinda end up being long-term sometimes."
Carlton reached out and brushed his fingers over Shawn's knuckles where they lay on the tabletop. "It's been a thing for ten years now," he said. "I think it already qualifies as very long term, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do." The smile he got for that was blinding. Carlton's prediction of a pounce also finally came true as Shawn managed to wiggle onto his lap.
"Carly, has anyone ever told you that you were a gooey chocolate chip cookie?"
He didn't get a chance to answer that particular accusation because Shawn was too intent on bringing their mouths together in a desperate crush of lips. Shawn tasted like sugar and coffee, with a hint of the hazelnut from the prissy flavored beans the Chief had given Carlton for a belated birthday gift and he was finally appreciating its rich flavor, though he was more appreciative of the way he was currently tasting it.
Only the sound of the doorbell pulled them apart. "Dinner," Shawn said breathlessly as he climbed off Carlton's lap. He shot him another devilish look. "I hope you're in the mood for Chinese."
As he watched Shawn disappear down the hallway -- barefoot, in his robe -- Carlton decided that he was in the mood for anything Shawn wanted.
Dangerous, yes, but Carlton couldn't bring himself to regret it in the least, even though it had taken them so long to get there.
Finally, the stars had aligned in the proper places and they were in the right place at the right time.
**
To be Concluded...