FIC: "Indian Summer" by shadow_artemis - PG - Shawn/Lassiter (3/6)
Title: Indian Summer (3/6)
Author: shadow_artemis
Characters/Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Rating: PG
Summary: In which, over several chapters, Lassiter proceeds to have several freakouts about his relationship with Shawn, while Shawn himself only has one.
Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me, nor does the title, which is blatantly stolen from the endlessly delightful Glenn Miller.
Note: This one's actually been done for quite a while, but I had to finish the second chapter first. Pesky sequential order and whatnot.
It was so subtle, so sensible, Carlton didn’t really notice it at first-an extra toothbrush in his bathroom, a couple of brightly colored polos hanging in his closet, the exotic fruits that kept showing up in his fridge, all fairly small things that he could easily reason away.
It was better for everyone if Shawn kept up his oral hygiene, and he couldn’t keep brushing his teeth with Lassiter’s toothbrush or avoid brushing his teeth altogether, so it just made sense when he left his own toothbrush in the bathroom.
There was a chance that while Shawn was staying the night, they’d both have to wake up at some ungodly hour to go to a crime scene and he didn’t want anyone to be suspicious if Shawn was wearing the same outfit as the day before. It just made sense for the younger man to leave some clothes at Lassiter’s house, just in case.
Carlton didn’t really mind the fruit either; Shawn needed something to eat, after all, and it was better than the mounds of junk food he could’ve brought into the house. Besides, everything he’d heard about pineapple was very much true, so he wasn’t going to complain.
Those were all reasonable little things for his boyfriend of five months to leave in his house. He was even okay with the fact that he really didn’t have anything at Shawn’s apartment. Its location changed every time they went back, and it was always in the most bizarre, semi-seedy neighborhood that was still somehow above the board. Carlton just felt better being at his house most of the time, and so it was okay if Shawn left a few things here.
But this was getting a little ridiculous. All of Shawn’s fancy body washes, shampoos and conditioners sat in his shower, and a bright green towel now hung on the rack next to Carlton’s plain white one. An array of hair products the older man couldn’t even name littered his bathroom counter. Those hadn’t been there when he’d gone to bed last night. Well, he was pretty sure they hadn’t been there. Shawn’s inviting voice from the bedroom had done a pretty good job of blanking out a lot of last night for him.
After a quick and befuddled shower, he wandered back out to his bedroom. Several pairs of designer jeans were laid out across the bed that hadn’t been made when he’d gone into the bathroom. In the short time Carlton’s shower ate up, Shawn must have woken up, made the bed and started deciding what to wear today before going downstairs to make breakfast. The smell of bacon wafted up to him, but his mind boggled at the sight of those jeans spread across his bed.
He sped to his closet, throwing it open to reveal not only his meticulously hung suits and Shawn’s few shirts, but a wide array of button-downs, jeans, polos and t-shirts with odd, cute sayings on them, all arranged haphazardly on shelves and hangers. It was like Shawn’s closet had puked into Carlton’s (which was a disgusting mental image he wished he could purge the moment he had it).
But this was okay, he reasoned. Shawn had been here a lot recently. He just had more clothing than usual in Carlton’s closet because he had done laundry here, and it was difficult to take a large load of laundry back to his apartment on his ludicrous motorcycle. It was so obvious.
Content with his logic, Carlton got dressed in his usual work attire and jogged down the stairs to the kitchen. On his way down, he passed a dozen or so pictures that Shawn had hung up last week, all of family, friends and the goofy candid photos that the younger man insisted on. It hadn’t really bothered him at the time, but now a little voice in the back of his mind insisted on attaching a deeper meaning to the presence of these pictures. He squashed it down and put on a smile as he entered his kitchen.
That smile was gone in an instant. Shawn was gleefully humming a song as he stood in front of the stove, frying bacon in his boxers and pink bunny slippers. A brand-new host of cutlery and dishes were spread across the counter top, along with a handful of knickknacks gracing the windowsill and odd magnets stuck to the fridge. When he thought about it, some of those things had been there for a couple weeks, but none of it had ever really struck him as all that odd. It was only when he saw the panini press resting next to his toaster did it click for him, all those niggling thoughts falling into place.
Shawn was moving in. Maybe not in so many words, but it was clear what his boyfriend was doing. Bit by bit, he was moving his things into Lassiter’s house. Over the last month or so, Shawn’s possessions had slowly made their way into his house. The most reasonable and necessary things came in first, the things that Carlton wouldn’t really notice or could easily brush off.
But that had just been to placate him. With the extra clothing, pictures and decorative junk, Shawn had been crafty, bringing them in one by one, slowly nudging his foot into the door with more and more stuff. It had been so slow, so subtle, so unlike Shawn’s usual audacious style that Carlton hadn’t really noticed.
He sank into one of the island stools in his kitchen, taking it all in. Shawn was moving in. His things were here, or at least a majority of them. If Lassiter really thought about it, he was pretty sure most of his boyfriend’s impractical sneakers were in the front closet, and his DVD collection was scattered throughout the living room. Carlton found himself staring at Shawn as the younger man did a small dance, one he always did while cooking bacon, and the detective was absolutely paralyzed.
Shawn was moving in. He didn’t know if he was ready for this. He’d dated Victoria for over a year before they even considered moving in together, and another six months after that before they actually did. He’d been dating Shawn for five months now; the only time they’d even brought up living together was in jest, thought Lassiter was now seriously questioning how joking Shawn had been.
He just wasn’t ready for this. He was barely ready for people outside the two of them to know they were together-Guster, O’Hara, Vick and Henry were more than enough people in his opinion, at least for now-but living together was a whole new step. Sure, Shawn hadn’t officially moved out of his apartment yet, but that was coming; he could just feel it. And that meant sharing all the space with Shawn, all the time. It meant living every day with his disorganization and preposterous projects, and never really having a private moment to himself again.
It meant falling asleep next to Shawn every night and waking up next to him every morning, not just every other day or so. It meant all the little jokes and smiles, all the quiet moments that he loved to drag out of the usually hyper psychic and the short, contented sighs right after they kissed. Most of all, it meant not really being alone anymore.
Maybe Shawn moving in wasn’t such a bad thing. After all, he stayed over more than half of the week already. He practically lived here as it was. Five months was a relatively short amount of time for Lassiter, but everything about this relationship was new and different for him, and he was happier for it. Sure, Shawn could be annoying and childish sometimes, to say the least, but Carlton would be a liar if he said he didn’t love having Shawn around. If Shawn was moving in, Carlton was pretty sure he didn’t actually have a problem with it.
That realization alone was enough to put a small smile on his face.
“Good morning, Detective Sexypants,” Shawn said merrily, breaking into his thoughts as he scooped some bacon onto a plate with already cooked slices. “Don’t think you can hide from me just because you’ve been a Rude Ronald and not said good morning to me yet, even though you’ve been in here for four minutes and thirty-eight seconds.” He raised a hand to his temple, playing his psychic bit. “I can see all, Carly-town. Also, your socks make a distinctive whooshing sound on the wood floors.”
“Morning, Shawn,” Lassiter replied a bit dazedly, finally connecting with his surroundings for real. He blinked and looked to his boyfriend, who was busily scooping eggs onto a plate like he owned the place. Legally, he obviously didn’t, but Lassiter was pretty sure Shawn owned him at this point, so that had to count for something, right?
“Now that’s better,” the shorter man said, turning on a dime to present the two plates of food to Lassiter. “Breakfast, my good sir, is served.” The detective smiled lightly and stood to get himself a cup of coffee as Shawn placed the plates next to the bowls of fruit already on the counter. His nerves jangled when Shawn pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, but Carlton kept his mouth shut as he poured his coffee. A maelstrom of thoughts assaulted his mind, varying from the very rash to the seemingly reasonable and everywhere in-between, and he really needed to keep some form of composure here.
It was huge, for him and for their relationship as a whole, to think of moving in together, but they were ready for it. Besides, five months was a long time for Shawn, longer than pretty much every other relationship in the younger man’s life. The fact that he’d stuck around this long had to be a testament to their lasting power, it just had to be.
Behind him, he could hear Shawn busily piling food onto his plate; he poured creamer into his mug and came to a semi-rational (for how sudden it was) decision.
“So, Shawn,” he began cautiously, adding a packet of sugar to his coffee, “how would you feel about moving in?” He didn’t turn his back, didn’t dare in case the look on Shawn’s face would break him right now; all he could do was listen to his boyfriend’s sudden lack of movement.
“Move in, with you?” Shawn repeated after a moment, tentatively. Lassiter had rarely heard him sound this hesitant, but didn’t know if it was a bad thing or not. “Like, live here, all the time, not just most of the time?”
“Yes,” Carlton choked back and he was so sure he was about to be shot down, every self-hating self-defense mechanism kicking in to cover such a stupid mistake, because really, how could he expect Shawn to want to move in with him after only five months? He’d obviously misread the situation, seen something more where there really was-
“I’d love to,” Shawn replied, nearly breathless. Carlton heard the clink of a dropped utensil and then Shawn was spinning him around and pressing their lips together. Carlton, after the initial burst of shock, leaned into it, matching Shawn’s gleeful exuberance, if only for another second before they broke apart. Each was grinning madly.
“You know, I thought you’d never ask,” Shawn murmured, smiling up at Carlton. The detective just raised a coy eyebrow.
“It’s a wonder it took me so long to notice, what with all your crap in my house.”
“Yeah, I wondered when you’d catch on. Thank god you’re such a good detective, or I’d have been all the way moved in by the time you figured it out.” The younger man grinned slyly. “Now you get to help me move everything else in.”
“Oh joy,” Carlton snorted, but his smile never quite faded. Shawn just leaned in again, breakfast forgotten as he let his head rest in the crook of the older man’s neck.
“Don’t worry, Lassparilla, it can only get better from here.”
Author: shadow_artemis
Characters/Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Rating: PG
Summary: In which, over several chapters, Lassiter proceeds to have several freakouts about his relationship with Shawn, while Shawn himself only has one.
Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me, nor does the title, which is blatantly stolen from the endlessly delightful Glenn Miller.
Note: This one's actually been done for quite a while, but I had to finish the second chapter first. Pesky sequential order and whatnot.
It was so subtle, so sensible, Carlton didn’t really notice it at first-an extra toothbrush in his bathroom, a couple of brightly colored polos hanging in his closet, the exotic fruits that kept showing up in his fridge, all fairly small things that he could easily reason away.
It was better for everyone if Shawn kept up his oral hygiene, and he couldn’t keep brushing his teeth with Lassiter’s toothbrush or avoid brushing his teeth altogether, so it just made sense when he left his own toothbrush in the bathroom.
There was a chance that while Shawn was staying the night, they’d both have to wake up at some ungodly hour to go to a crime scene and he didn’t want anyone to be suspicious if Shawn was wearing the same outfit as the day before. It just made sense for the younger man to leave some clothes at Lassiter’s house, just in case.
Carlton didn’t really mind the fruit either; Shawn needed something to eat, after all, and it was better than the mounds of junk food he could’ve brought into the house. Besides, everything he’d heard about pineapple was very much true, so he wasn’t going to complain.
Those were all reasonable little things for his boyfriend of five months to leave in his house. He was even okay with the fact that he really didn’t have anything at Shawn’s apartment. Its location changed every time they went back, and it was always in the most bizarre, semi-seedy neighborhood that was still somehow above the board. Carlton just felt better being at his house most of the time, and so it was okay if Shawn left a few things here.
But this was getting a little ridiculous. All of Shawn’s fancy body washes, shampoos and conditioners sat in his shower, and a bright green towel now hung on the rack next to Carlton’s plain white one. An array of hair products the older man couldn’t even name littered his bathroom counter. Those hadn’t been there when he’d gone to bed last night. Well, he was pretty sure they hadn’t been there. Shawn’s inviting voice from the bedroom had done a pretty good job of blanking out a lot of last night for him.
After a quick and befuddled shower, he wandered back out to his bedroom. Several pairs of designer jeans were laid out across the bed that hadn’t been made when he’d gone into the bathroom. In the short time Carlton’s shower ate up, Shawn must have woken up, made the bed and started deciding what to wear today before going downstairs to make breakfast. The smell of bacon wafted up to him, but his mind boggled at the sight of those jeans spread across his bed.
He sped to his closet, throwing it open to reveal not only his meticulously hung suits and Shawn’s few shirts, but a wide array of button-downs, jeans, polos and t-shirts with odd, cute sayings on them, all arranged haphazardly on shelves and hangers. It was like Shawn’s closet had puked into Carlton’s (which was a disgusting mental image he wished he could purge the moment he had it).
But this was okay, he reasoned. Shawn had been here a lot recently. He just had more clothing than usual in Carlton’s closet because he had done laundry here, and it was difficult to take a large load of laundry back to his apartment on his ludicrous motorcycle. It was so obvious.
Content with his logic, Carlton got dressed in his usual work attire and jogged down the stairs to the kitchen. On his way down, he passed a dozen or so pictures that Shawn had hung up last week, all of family, friends and the goofy candid photos that the younger man insisted on. It hadn’t really bothered him at the time, but now a little voice in the back of his mind insisted on attaching a deeper meaning to the presence of these pictures. He squashed it down and put on a smile as he entered his kitchen.
That smile was gone in an instant. Shawn was gleefully humming a song as he stood in front of the stove, frying bacon in his boxers and pink bunny slippers. A brand-new host of cutlery and dishes were spread across the counter top, along with a handful of knickknacks gracing the windowsill and odd magnets stuck to the fridge. When he thought about it, some of those things had been there for a couple weeks, but none of it had ever really struck him as all that odd. It was only when he saw the panini press resting next to his toaster did it click for him, all those niggling thoughts falling into place.
Shawn was moving in. Maybe not in so many words, but it was clear what his boyfriend was doing. Bit by bit, he was moving his things into Lassiter’s house. Over the last month or so, Shawn’s possessions had slowly made their way into his house. The most reasonable and necessary things came in first, the things that Carlton wouldn’t really notice or could easily brush off.
But that had just been to placate him. With the extra clothing, pictures and decorative junk, Shawn had been crafty, bringing them in one by one, slowly nudging his foot into the door with more and more stuff. It had been so slow, so subtle, so unlike Shawn’s usual audacious style that Carlton hadn’t really noticed.
He sank into one of the island stools in his kitchen, taking it all in. Shawn was moving in. His things were here, or at least a majority of them. If Lassiter really thought about it, he was pretty sure most of his boyfriend’s impractical sneakers were in the front closet, and his DVD collection was scattered throughout the living room. Carlton found himself staring at Shawn as the younger man did a small dance, one he always did while cooking bacon, and the detective was absolutely paralyzed.
Shawn was moving in. He didn’t know if he was ready for this. He’d dated Victoria for over a year before they even considered moving in together, and another six months after that before they actually did. He’d been dating Shawn for five months now; the only time they’d even brought up living together was in jest, thought Lassiter was now seriously questioning how joking Shawn had been.
He just wasn’t ready for this. He was barely ready for people outside the two of them to know they were together-Guster, O’Hara, Vick and Henry were more than enough people in his opinion, at least for now-but living together was a whole new step. Sure, Shawn hadn’t officially moved out of his apartment yet, but that was coming; he could just feel it. And that meant sharing all the space with Shawn, all the time. It meant living every day with his disorganization and preposterous projects, and never really having a private moment to himself again.
It meant falling asleep next to Shawn every night and waking up next to him every morning, not just every other day or so. It meant all the little jokes and smiles, all the quiet moments that he loved to drag out of the usually hyper psychic and the short, contented sighs right after they kissed. Most of all, it meant not really being alone anymore.
Maybe Shawn moving in wasn’t such a bad thing. After all, he stayed over more than half of the week already. He practically lived here as it was. Five months was a relatively short amount of time for Lassiter, but everything about this relationship was new and different for him, and he was happier for it. Sure, Shawn could be annoying and childish sometimes, to say the least, but Carlton would be a liar if he said he didn’t love having Shawn around. If Shawn was moving in, Carlton was pretty sure he didn’t actually have a problem with it.
That realization alone was enough to put a small smile on his face.
“Good morning, Detective Sexypants,” Shawn said merrily, breaking into his thoughts as he scooped some bacon onto a plate with already cooked slices. “Don’t think you can hide from me just because you’ve been a Rude Ronald and not said good morning to me yet, even though you’ve been in here for four minutes and thirty-eight seconds.” He raised a hand to his temple, playing his psychic bit. “I can see all, Carly-town. Also, your socks make a distinctive whooshing sound on the wood floors.”
“Morning, Shawn,” Lassiter replied a bit dazedly, finally connecting with his surroundings for real. He blinked and looked to his boyfriend, who was busily scooping eggs onto a plate like he owned the place. Legally, he obviously didn’t, but Lassiter was pretty sure Shawn owned him at this point, so that had to count for something, right?
“Now that’s better,” the shorter man said, turning on a dime to present the two plates of food to Lassiter. “Breakfast, my good sir, is served.” The detective smiled lightly and stood to get himself a cup of coffee as Shawn placed the plates next to the bowls of fruit already on the counter. His nerves jangled when Shawn pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, but Carlton kept his mouth shut as he poured his coffee. A maelstrom of thoughts assaulted his mind, varying from the very rash to the seemingly reasonable and everywhere in-between, and he really needed to keep some form of composure here.
It was huge, for him and for their relationship as a whole, to think of moving in together, but they were ready for it. Besides, five months was a long time for Shawn, longer than pretty much every other relationship in the younger man’s life. The fact that he’d stuck around this long had to be a testament to their lasting power, it just had to be.
Behind him, he could hear Shawn busily piling food onto his plate; he poured creamer into his mug and came to a semi-rational (for how sudden it was) decision.
“So, Shawn,” he began cautiously, adding a packet of sugar to his coffee, “how would you feel about moving in?” He didn’t turn his back, didn’t dare in case the look on Shawn’s face would break him right now; all he could do was listen to his boyfriend’s sudden lack of movement.
“Move in, with you?” Shawn repeated after a moment, tentatively. Lassiter had rarely heard him sound this hesitant, but didn’t know if it was a bad thing or not. “Like, live here, all the time, not just most of the time?”
“Yes,” Carlton choked back and he was so sure he was about to be shot down, every self-hating self-defense mechanism kicking in to cover such a stupid mistake, because really, how could he expect Shawn to want to move in with him after only five months? He’d obviously misread the situation, seen something more where there really was-
“I’d love to,” Shawn replied, nearly breathless. Carlton heard the clink of a dropped utensil and then Shawn was spinning him around and pressing their lips together. Carlton, after the initial burst of shock, leaned into it, matching Shawn’s gleeful exuberance, if only for another second before they broke apart. Each was grinning madly.
“You know, I thought you’d never ask,” Shawn murmured, smiling up at Carlton. The detective just raised a coy eyebrow.
“It’s a wonder it took me so long to notice, what with all your crap in my house.”
“Yeah, I wondered when you’d catch on. Thank god you’re such a good detective, or I’d have been all the way moved in by the time you figured it out.” The younger man grinned slyly. “Now you get to help me move everything else in.”
“Oh joy,” Carlton snorted, but his smile never quite faded. Shawn just leaned in again, breakfast forgotten as he let his head rest in the crook of the older man’s neck.
“Don’t worry, Lassparilla, it can only get better from here.”