I'll never let go, you shouted out
Title: How to Ruin a Proposal: A Guide by Shawn Spencer (2/2)
Author:
veterization
Disclaimer: I do not own Psych.
Rating: R
Genre and/or Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Word Count: ~13,000
Warnings: Slight language and sexual content.
Summary: Despite all of the signs and omens warning Shawn that proposing to Lassiter is a bad idea, he's never put much stock into good ideas.
“Tell him yes. Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later, because whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no.” ―Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Part I.
“So Shawn,” Gus says coolly over a pancake breakfast the following morning while he pours the last of the syrup onto his baked good, all the while avoiding Shawn’s desperate swipes to steal the last few drops of syrupy goodness for his own pancake, both of their stacks perfectly golden in color after several charred attempts landed in the trash, “Perhaps you’d like to explain why when I checked my bank account balance last night, two hundred dollars were mysteriously missing.”
Shawn promptly stuffs his mouth full of three bites worth of pancake slabs, taking his time chewing through the fluffy delicacy while Gus stares him down across the table, “Well, buddy,” he burbles through a mouth of pancake bits, “I have a good explanation.”
“Mmhmm,” Gus waits for said explanation. Shawn swallows back his mouthful of pancake.
“Turns out, the little old ladies get mad when you try to steal flowers from their gardens,” Shawn elaborates, stealing a generous glob of syrup from the peak of Gus’ heap of pancakes to drizzle over his own, “So I had to fork out the dough for a few dozen bouquets to be sent to Lassie with the ring sitting on the only plastic one in the bunch. Sweet, isn’t it?”
“Adorable. Read that on some teenage girl’s blog?” Gus simpers.
“Gus, I’m affronted,” Shawn huffs, stealing another spoonful of syrup from Gus’ plate, “I already have the mind of a teenage girl, why would I have to borrow the ideas from someone else’s-ow!”
Gus smacks Shawn’s hand as it reaches over for a third helping of syrup, leaving an angry red handprint in the wake of his slap as Shawn pulls his palm back and rubs soothingly at his knuckles, “Stop stealing my syrup, Shawn! There’s some more in the cupboard. Stop being lazy and get up to get it.”
Shawn ignores him, choosing instead to lick his syrupy sticky thumb clean until the sugary mess is gone from his fingertip and manage with the amount of syrup he’s managed to thieve from Gus’ syrup-laden plate, “Anyway, there’s been a dip in my savings since I’ve decided to buy an engagement ring that didn’t come from the bottom of a cereal box, so I had to borrow some cash from you.”
“Wait,” Gus garbles mid-chew, “so you’re not actually going to be there during the proposal? Lassiter’s just going the find the ring on the flower and assume you’re implying you want to be his wife?”
“That way, when he finds the ring, it’ll be a delightful surprise for him that I’ll be watching from behind the plastic plant by the Chief’s office,” Shawn grins, imagining the scene as Lassiter arrives at work, gasps in glee at the sight of blooming flowers enshrouding his desk, and then musters up a manly squeal for the discovery of the ring wedged onto the edge of a thorny stem.
“This sounds like a terrible idea,” Gus mentions slowly, as if Shawn needs to hear the words carefully enunciated to come to the realization that his plan is in desperate need of tweaks and that his proposal will soon be laughed at by millions on YouTube if it’s not reformed, “Do you know how many things could go wrong?”
“Gus, don’t be the little train that couldn’t,” Shawn advises with the aura of wisdom normally reserved for old, crippled Asian emperors, eliciting a wrinkle in the nose out of Gus that clearly indicates he’s still doubting the entire operation, “You’ll ruin little kid’s books everywhere.”
-
Oh, Gus, Shawn thinks miserably as he stares in horror at the explosion of flowers surrounding McNab’s desk, occupying his chair, and sitting on his paper tray, why do you always have to be right.
McNab stares at his desk in equal astonishment, several officers giggling and buzzing with talk over inappropriate lovesick behavior at the office. Dobson wrangles his way through the bouquets spilling over to his desk, delicate vases crowding around his chair as they leak out of the close-knit circle the flowers have made around McNab’s working area.
“I told them to deliver it to the strapping Irish lad with hair like a salt and pepper cake mold,” Shawn murmurs feebly to the ceiling where he hopes it will pierce the building and somehow make it up to the cosmos, where the universal overlords overlooking his fate are surely in doubling over in laughter, “How did this happen?”
“Someone has a secret admirer!” A young officer coos from her desk a few feet away from the indoor garden that has become McNab’s work space, and several more officers start up in whispers of adultery and infidelity in marriage.
“Um,” McNab says, clearly too befuddled to articulate much more, mouth hanging open as he takes in the sight of the virtual greenhouse presented in front of him, keyboard and computer monitor crowded with tulips and chair laden with lilies. Gus, standing a few feet behind Shawn as if to distance himself from his mess, pats McNab on the shoulder in consolation.
“I’m sure this was all just a misunderstanding,” Gus tells him, and McNab nods dumbly. It only takes two more seconds of dumbfounded staring from both McNab and Shawn while Gus shakes his head in wordless disapproval at Shawn’s inability to propose to the right officer and create breeding grounds for bees and insects of all families within the Santa Barbara police station until the Chief traipses from her office, Lassiter and Juliet trailing after her. All three stop dead in their tracks.
“Wow,” Juliet breathes out at the sight of the colorful jungle growing in front of her, “Is it you and your wife’s anniversary, McNab?”
McNab turns around at Juliet’s voice, face paling at the sight of the Chief’s flabbergasted expression and Lassiter’s wide eyes. Gus leans discreetly over to Shawn, mumbling by his ear, “Shawn, you might want to get your ring back in your pocket before someone else finds it and thinks McNab has a mistress.”
Shawn lets out a string of hushed swear words, postponing the inevitable bang of his forehead against the nearest wall to a situation harboring less pressure than the one he’s been cruelly forced into. He takes in the sight of the flowers, a myriad of bouquets littered among the floor and the desktop.
“Dude,” Shawn whispers to Gus, “this may not be the best time to bring this up considering I don’t remember which vase the ring is in, but I think they totally undercharged us for all of these flowers.”
Gus spews a slew of unidentifiable words and syllables at the horrifying knowledge that a priceless ring that could easily pay off a mortgage on a beachfront property house is lost amid the sea of floral bouquets blinking up at them innocently. Shawn claps him on the back until his hissing stops.
“How can you not know, Shawn?!” He demands, lowering his voice to a hush as the Chief begins circling the mass of flowers as if she hardly believes her own eyesight, “Didn’t they tell you which vase it was in?!”
“No!” Shawn hisses back, and promptly quells his onslaught of anxiety at the thought of losing a ring during his attempted proposal, forcing his mind to slow down to focus on his observational skills. He scans the bouquets, noting each petal and the length of each stem before he finally notices a pristine batch of flowers sitting atop McNab’s desk, differing from the rest with a small white card hanging from the neck of the vase. Shawn remembers it as the slightly raunchy proposal limerick he had rhymed on the spot and asked the florists to print on a tag to loop around the crown bouquet, snatching forward to snag the card, pull the flowers from their vase, and grab the ring lodged securely onto the bottom of two stems, stuffing it into his pocket and swiveling around to face the crowd.
“McNab, would you happen to know who would send you something like this to your workplace-”
“Oh nooooo!” Shawn cries, thumping the roses onto his nose and shrugging at the audience of officers, “Our fault, you guys. This wasn’t Buzz over here trying to make up for forgetting to buy everyone chocolates on Valentine’s Day.”
“This is your doing, Mr. Spencer?” Chief Vick asks, her voice laced with an undeniable tone of irritation as she addresses him, as if speaking specifically to a bothersome crick in her neck. Juliet raises her eyebrows and Lassiter fixes him with a stare that tells Shawn he may or may not be enjoying sex with his boyfriend tonight after unnecessarily disturbing the police department with something as inane as a storm of floral arrangements.
“Well,” Shawn says, slowly handing out individual roses from the bouquet still in his fist as peace offerings, “They were meant for the churro guy down the street. I mean, the health department might call his sanitation level inadequate, but that perfect sprinkling of cinnamon just needs to be commended.”
For a second, the officers shuffle as they watch the scene and Chief Vick fixes Shawn with a hard stare as he fists the ring in his pocket before she sighs heavily. “Fine,” she mumbles, snatching the remaining rose from Shawn’s hand and heading for her office, “Just get them out of here, please, Mr. Spencer, and apologize to Officer McNab.”
“Sorry, Nabby,” Shawn says with a sincere pat to McNab’s shoulder as he and Gus start piling vases in their arms to clean up the disaster, Lassiter’s hand on his elbow pulling him away a second later.
“You’re not trying to ask McNab out, are you?” He asks, rather quietly, eyeing the collection of flowers as if suspicious of their intentions, and Shawn unclenches the ring in his pocket to affectionately pat Lassiter’s cheek.
“Please, Lassie,” Shawn admonishes, “if I wanted a married man, I’d turn you into one myself.”
-
It doesn’t take too long for Shawn to shake off the unmitigated disaster his first and second proposal attempts were. He realizes that if there is anything that encapsulates Shawn Spencer, a posh and elegant restaurant in which he has to lick back his hair and wear a necktie in order to make it through the door without being mistaken for a No Good ruffian or delivering bouquets arranged in a floral waterfall is not it. If Lassiter loves him-a fact that Shawn isn’t willing to test but accepts wordlessly as a universal truth, like the sun being hot or the earth turning in an orbit-he’ll be willing to endure a proposal that isn’t borrowed from a prim and prissy executive with a fondness for miniscule appetizers, but rather derived from boyish imagination and original Spencer charm.
“So after work, don’t come home,” Shawn tells Lassiter from the sleepy comfort of their bed as he squirms to monopolize the entire mattress with his limbs as Lassiter shimmies out from underneath the sheets to locate his clothing and prepare for another early day at work, sliding over to Lassiter’s side of the bed to burrow into the warm patch Lassiter’s body heat left on the mattress and breathe in the faint scent of his shampoo on the pillow. Shawn closes his eyes against the light of the sunrise filtering through the blinds as he detects the sounds of a clinking belt buckle being fastened and the rustle of fabric as Lassiter buttons up his shirt.
“You do know this is my place, right? You can’t exactly kick me out.”
Shawn pries open one eye, vision still blurred from vestiges of sleep and groggy morning slumber, and grins, “I have plans for us. We’re going to the beach for a rendezvous in the sunset to prance and frolic in the sand and whatever else they might do on Laguna Beach minus the teenage drama.”
“Shawn, I already said no to sex on the beach,” Lassiter says curtly, tucking in his shirt, and then repeats for emphasis, “No. You can get all sorts of diseases-”
“As much as the idea of diseases on the beach turns me on, we’re not going there for sex. I told you, I’ve got plans,” Shawn reaches out to seize Lassiter’s wrist and yank him unceremoniously back onto the wrinkled sheets, looping his arms around his waist and dragging him closer as Shawn lets his eyes flutter closed again. He undoes any progress Lassiter made dressing himself by impatiently tugging at the buttons and nuzzling his stomach. Lassiter’s breath hitches and Shawn grins against his bare belly, using Lassiter’s ephemeral lapse into pleasure to let his fingers flirt with his zipper and successfully unbutton his pants. He worms his hand into his boxers and wraps his fingers around Lassiter's length, smirking as his erection steadily takes interest.
“Shawn,” Lassiter murmurs as a warning, swaying on the bed as if contemplating getting up and removing the option of early morning handjobs from his schedule or risking a late entrance to the meeting the Chief had planned for the morning by succumbing to Shawn’s wandering fingers, now picking up a rhythmic stroke on his cock and gently squeezing, “Spencer,” he says when Shawn’s left hand continues to roam and his right hand picks up his pace, “I’ve got work.”
“And I’ve got a pineapple waiting for me in the kitchen, we’ve all got plans,” Shawn murmurs, sinking his teeth into Lassiter’s hip in a teasing nip and rubbing at his inner thigh through the fabric of his pants with his free hand, “Prioritize, Lassie.”
Lassiter groans, a sign Shawn has learned to mean that he’s submitted himself to Shawn’s antics and games despite his better judgment, and firmly pushes Shawn until he’s supine and willing on the bed, straddling his hips and pushing their lips together in a dry, warm kiss that tastes like minty toothpaste.
“Fine, I’ll come to the beach after I get done in the station,” Lassiter acquiesces on Shawn’s lips, “this time let’s just make sure it’s the same beach.”
“And no sex, right?” Shawn says, grinning and bucking up against Lassiter’s clothed hips, “Could I perhaps interest you in some dry humping?”
“We’ll see,” Lassiter mumbles on the crook of Shawn’s neck, nose dragging over the bristles of his stubble and tongue darting out to flit over his pulse while his hand wanders southward to palm Shawn’s length, neglected before now, and Shawn wraps his legs around Lassiter’s hips with a fervor he was too groggy to possess a mere few minutes before.
So far, this whole proposal thing was working out splendidly.
-
It takes Shawn two and a half hours to properly prepare a picnic basket appropriate for a soothing dinner at the beach and slightly suggestive dessert that leads to Shawn kneeling in the sand and pulling the ring from his swim shorts to propose in the radiance of the sunset while the waves crash picturesquely behind his figure. Calling Henry for tips in searing lobster offers Shawn more frustration than it does help when the phone call morphs from cooking advice into a pro-con list establishing reasons for why Shawn believes he’s mature enough to handle something as significant as marriage, and so, when Gus ditches Shawn and his cuisine dilemma in favor of finishing his pharmaceutical route at work, Shawn has to turn to his last resort and turn on the cooking channel for a step-by-step instruction manual on how to cook lobster.
He ends up being coached by Paula Deen for the better part of an hour until he’s succeeded in preparing a succulent yet slightly over-buttered lobster and an easily packaged pineapple upside-down cake that Shawn knows, as his specialty, he can’t go wrong with. He changes into his swim trunks, makes the effort to shave until his jaw is silky smooth, and hauls out the Tupperware to stack his snacks into before he heads out to the beach and lays out the enormous beach towel he and Gus used to use as Captain-America-goes-to-Malibu capes.
Shawn’s only sprawled out in the dimming sun forming sandcastles for fifteen minutes before he makes out Lassiter’s form in the distance stalking through the sand, and the fact that he is neither late nor is he across town is a sign that Shawn views as serious good luck in comparison to his last proposal attempt. He grins and waves in Lassiter’s direction until he’s safeguarded his attention.
“Lassie!” Shawn calls out as Lassiter approaches the towel and unknots his tie as it flutters in the breeze. “Why aren’t you in your swim trunks?” He wiggles his hips, clad in nothing but swim shorts adorned with patterned sea shells, and Lassiter frowns.
“You didn’t say anything about swim shorts.”
Shawn shrugs and pats the sandy spot on the towel next to him, reaching behind his back to seize the picnic basket handle, “Wait for iiiiiiiit,” he whips the basket in front of Lassiter’s face and beams in pride, “Handmade dinner. Cue the applause.”
Lassiter opens the basket and peers inside as he settles himself on the towel, expression slightly impressed as he rummages through the various boxes of Tupperware stacked with sundry snacks all chopped, gathered, and prepared by hand. He’s about to offer some laudatory praise for Shawn’s gourmet skills when horror washes over his face.
“Oh god, I forgot an anniversary, didn’t I,” Lassiter mutters, forefinger and thumb rubbing at the bridge of his nose in an attempt to mollify his own withering memory when Shawn pulls his hand down from his nose and slots their fingers together.
“Unless you count National Pancake Day, you missed nothing,” Shawn paused, wavering in his thought process, “Maybe it should count, considering how important pancakes are.”
“Then what’s this all about?” Lassiter inquires, his disappointment in himself in allowing his memory to lapse regarding benchmarks in his and Shawn’s relationship giving way to suspicion as Shawn pulls two tall wine glasses, albeit plastic glasses, from the basket and then proceeds to reveal a wine bottle from the caverns of the basket a moment later.
“What, just because you’re not a girl I can’t treat you like a princess?” Shawn asks innocently, pulling the bottle of wine from Lassiter’s fingers to smugly display the label, “I found your favorite, Monsieur.”
“All of this for… no reason?” Lassiter narrows his eyes as Shawn uncorks the bottle and pours a generous helping of wine into Lassiter’s glass, “Do you want something? There’s only so many parking tickets of yours I can take care of before the Chief gets suspicious, Shawn.”
Shawn puts down the wine and rolls his eyes at Lassiter’s poorly concealed qualms for tonight’s true intents and purposes, “Oh, Carly, you were a skeptic years ago and you’re a skeptic now.”
“Years ago you tried to tell me you’re a psychic,” Lassiter points out, “I was right to be skeptical.”
Shawn lets the disagreement pass by in favor of maintaining a serene atmosphere for a proposal free of lover’s spats, reaching out to grip Lassiter’s chin with his thumb and push their lips softly together. Lassiter stills, the tension knitting his eyebrows together dissolving as Shawn angles their mouths together and licks over the seam of Lassiter’s lips. A crashing wave tickles at Shawn’s feet, frothy seawater startling his toes and breaking their brief kiss.
“It is time, Lassieface, to start doubting your doubts,” Shawn tells him, thumb running over the pad of his bottom lip, “I am as romantic as Prince Charming, but with better hair and without a foot fetish,” he tips Lassiter’s wine glass up to his lips while he reaches into the picnic basket and pulls out his packaged lobster meat, pulling out a handful and nudging at Lassiter’s lips. “Open up!”
Lassiter puts the wine glass atop the basket after a few sips and obediently opens his mouth. Shawn takes a moment to feel pleased at the fact that Lassiter didn’t feel the need to examine the meat or question Shawn’s cooking abilities before opening his mouth and sampling a bite of buttery lobster.
“Hmmm,” Lassiter murmurs as he chews, “You made this yourself?”
“I admit, some credit should go to Paula Deen’s country cooking recipes,” Shawn shrugs, unloading the rest of the Tupperware onto the towel for broad display. He pops a piece of lobster meat in his own mouth, mmming appreciatively upon discovering his newfound skill for creating culinary masterpieces. “Damn, Carly Horse! I’m the next Alton Brown.”
He eases another bite of lobster into Lassiter’s mouth and catches sight of the sun, dipping under the horizon line and leaving in its wake puffs of golden clouds. The vanishing daylight serves as a cue for Shawn to start brandishing the ring and work his magic. He reaches for the ring box hidden discreetly in the pocket of his swim trunks, and is promptly horrified to find his pocket to be lacking a certain square-shaped bump.
“Holy shit, I lost it,” Shawn mutters, hands scrambling to rummage through the mounds of sand under the towel and search for the jewelry amid the architectural masterpiece his sand castle was before Shawn’s hands delivered irreparable destruction to its delicate walls in his frantic search.
“What kind of spices did you use on this?” Lassiter asks, a hint of skepticism crawling back into his voice as he rubs idly at his own lower lip and continues chewing into the lobster, “It burns a bit.”
“Burns?” Shawn parrots back incredulously, but he’s not truly processing the words Lassiter’s speaking, mind too busy urgently rifling through all of the potential locations his ring could now reside and hands too occupied digging hysterically through the sand.
“Yeah, it stings my tongue just a bit,” Lassiter mentions, continuing to rub at his mouth as he swallows back the lobster. Shawn hums absent-mindedly at his comment, continuing to pat himself down until he comes across the box sitting innocently in the other, unsearched pocket of his swimming trunks. He breathes a sigh of relief, about to brandish the ring in triumph under Lassiter’s nose, when he turns around and notices an angry line of red welts swelling to furious sizes around Lassiter’s mouth. Lassiter continues scratching with his fingernail, the flesh surrounding his lips only continuing to balloon to puffier heights.
“Holy shit!” Shawn shouts at the sight of Lassiter’s face.
“Spencer, what the hell did you feed me?!” Lassiter demands as his fingers begin prodding around his cheeks and jaw, skin enlarging and tinged a cantankerous shade of scarlet.
“It was just lobster, I swear! This didn’t happen to Paula Deen!” Shawn scrambles to pull the Tupperware of lobster bits away from Lassiter’s grip, staring in horror as the redness spreads.
“I’m allergic to lobster! How do you not know that?!” Lassiter roars, and as if the labeling of the food he just ingested caps off the allergic reaction, he promptly grabs his stomach and focuses on breathing as he staggers off the towel, heading straight for the ocean even as the waves splash and lick around his ankles, seawater seeping into his polished shoes.
“You’re not going to die, are you? I mean, you can still breathe, right, Carly? Oh, I’m the worst boyfriend ever,” Shawn groans, refraining from the temptation of burying his head in the sand and refusing to come up for air. He watches as Lassiter stumbles and wades through the waves up to his knees and after several coughing fits in which he almost hacks up a few internal organs, begins retching into the teal waves. Shawn imagines his boyfriend’s throat, slowly swelling and denying entry to all oxygen, lobster-chunked bile trapped in his stomach and left hand still free of the ring sitting limp in Shawn’s hand, now forgotten in favor of more pressing matters of potentially lethal allergies.
This, Shawn thinks, as Lassiter heaves another string of stomach acid and chewed bits of lobster meat into the sea, is not the proposal he had planned.
-
After the repercussions of two utterly failed proposals that were beyond repair despite their initial brilliance and their supposed lack of troublesome loopholes, Shawn starts needing the counseling and encouragement that only fresh banana splits and a fluffed cotton bathrobe can provide.
He’s lounging on the couch, wallowing in his inadequacy as a husband-to-be while nursing his bowl of thawing ice cream scoops and starting to question what fate and the universe and karma might have to do with all of this, and if never calling back his ninth grade crush after an awkward date at the bowling alley is now coming back as revenge to keep him from successfully proposing to Lassiter with a hint of romance and grace. Shawn thinks about his plans-beachside engagements complete with picnic baskets of semi-edible snacks and reservations at an elegant, five-star restaurant so expensive even the napkins were out of Shawn’s price range-and wonders woefully if this is a sign from the omniscient deities warning him to give a rest to his tragically beautiful proposal dreams before Lassiter accidentally dislocates his shoulder the next time Shawn whips out his ring and his well-rehearsed speech of everlasting love.
“So maybe it’s taking a little longer than you thought it would to get this whole engagement thing right,” Gus dares to pipe up as he notices Shawn burrowing into the couch cushions, snatching his bowl of ice cream away, “Is this my banana ice cream? You did not eat the rest of my banana ice cream, Shawn!”
Shawn makes futile swipes for the bowl from his slothful position on the couch. Gus holds it out of his reach and promptly spoons up the remainder of the scoops that aren’t melted in a yellow pool at the bottom of the bowl. Shawn whines and writhes on the cushions in his plush robe until Gus huffs at him.
“What I was trying to say was that so what if it’s taking a while? It took a while for Lassiter to even agree to date you in the first place.”
“That’s only because he was blinded by love and the power of his feelings scared him, Gus,” Shawn insists, “I’m a frightening prospect to take in and process.”
“Shawn, would you listen to me?” Gus persists, “Nothing with Lassiter is ever going to be easy. It took the man a good few years before he could even stand the sight of your face.”
Shawn idly brings a hand to his face, stroking his jaw and the bristles of his untamed stubble after days of leaving shaving to the wayside in preference of moping on the sofa. He thinks of Lassiter, hunched over the moist sand while he retches helplessly into the waves, his face highlighted by a radiant glow from the sunset that would have been wretchedly romantic in any other situation that didn’t include rabid vomiting into the ocean, and tries not to groan out loud. Gus smacks him over the head.
“Ow!”
“Stop thinking about Lassiter throwing up!” Gus orders, “This isn’t the hard part, Shawn. After this is wedding planning and dealing with in-laws and what I can predict without the help of fake psychic premonitions might be a seriously nasty divorce when Lassiter finds out you have a habit of eating all the peanut butter without having the courtesy to leave some for other people’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!”
Shawn plays with the frayed hem of his robe’s sleeve and considers the difficulty to come after the engagement actually commences, from finding a caterer willing to incorporate pineapple garnishes into every course to dealing with Henry’s nitpicking over the font used on the invitation and the visibility of his vantage point from his seat during the ceremony.
“You’re right, Gus,” Shawn admits, “You’re going to be an absolute nightmare to deal with as my best man.”
Gus pauses his nuptials lecture to frown at Shawn before continuing, “Shawn, I know you don’t mean that, because I am an absolute pleasure to be around during upscale events. You know I’m an organization guru. You know I have a spatial eye that’ll come in handy when you’re looking for venues. I’ll be the best man to ever best.”
Shawn spares his friend a glance before returning to his previous task of addressing the ceiling. He stares at the splat of faint pink on the ceiling from when he attempted to make Lassiter a strawberry smoothie when he visited the Psych office for lunch and Shawn failed to remember to screw on the blender lid.
“I don’t know, Gus,” Shawn says uneasily, eyes moving from the stain to an unblemished portion of the ceiling and mind riveting back to the memory of Lassiter barfing over a romantic picnic that Shawn has no hope of ever successfully repressing from his memory, “Maybe this whole proposal thing is just doomed.”
“Shawn, I will pull you off that couch myself,” Gus warns in a no-nonsense tone that Shawn knows well enough to mark as a turn in Gus’ mood that implies he’s no longer amused with Shawn’s lack of cooperation, “The only way that this is a bad proposal is if he says no.”
Shawn gropes helplessly under the couch, fingernails scraping the floorboards until he finds the jewelry box he had hidden under the sofa in shame, pulling it out of the shadows and wads of dust under the couch to open the box and examine the shiny ring, unworn and in mint condition, the money he had saved for his clone of Val Kilmer deposited instead in the benchmark for his and Lassiter’s life together. He lets the light bounce off the crystal and ruminates, ruminates about how his father doubted the validity of Shawn’s proposal idea from the start, about how over a dozen bouquets of tulips had invaded McNab’s desk instead of Lassiter’s, about how many times the ring Shawn chose for Lassiter was nearly flushed, trashed, or lost in the sand. He looks up at Gus, hands on his hips and face set crossly with sass Shawn only ever witnesses on his friend when he’s pulling out the strongest motivation tactics he has in his disposal, and snaps the ring box shut.
“You know what, Gus?” Shawn says, swinging his legs over the couch and hands reaching to undo the knot on his robe after he slips the ring into his pants pocket, “You’re right, buddy. You’re definitely right. And Lassie saying no? Is the one thing I don’t have to be worried about!”
Gus beams and claps Shawn on the back as he discards of the robe and throws it onto the lampshade, “You know that’s right. You got your ego back?”
“Please, Gus, it never left me. It just went for a coffee break,” Shawn grins, familiar light of mischief dotting his eyes, the same light that’s present when they’re scheming against Henry during April Fool’s Day or when they’re reminiscing the pranks they pulled on their sixth grade gym coach, “Now, can you drive me to the police station?”
Gus blinks, “Are you going to do it now?”
“Yes, Gus! Now! I’m on a roll. I feel it in my blood. It’s ringing wedding bells,” Shawn slips on his shoes, pausing to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror and analyze his general appearance, “Hmm. Before I make it to the altar, I might need to put on some deodorant.”
-
Shawn fixedly ignores the pumping of his heart against his ribcage as he walks through the station, palpitations surely about to pulverize his ribs and leave nothing but whistling air protecting his heart while he vomits his heart out to Lassiter and channels Leonardo DiCaprio’s irresistible charm that always makes the ladies swoon in the movies. He skids to a sudden stop at Lassiter’s desk and wipes his sweaty palms off on his jeans.
Lassiter notices the extra presence around his desk two seconds after Shawn arrives, wavering dumbly on the spot and attempting to find the right words to accurately articulate his emotion-how he rooted through the grimy pipes under his sink to find Lassiter's ring, how he watched Paula Deen make lobster for an entire hour so he could create the perfect meal for their proposal, how he wanted nothing more than to make this proposal the most memorable thing his children and grandchildren and the entire police station would ever chatter about, how he went through all of this because he's in love with Lassiter despite all of the signs steering him away from commitment and trying to throw him back into bachelorhood. The words lodge themselves into his throat.
“Shawn,” Lassiter says as if pleasantly surprised by the unexpected visit when he looks up from his desk. His eyes are blue, very blue, and Shawn tries not to get distracted by them. He thinks about how many times he's stared into Lassiter’s eyes, the startling color of a summer pool before the children start turning it into a murky yellow by ignoring the no urination in the pool, please sign.
“I love you, you big Irish penguin,” Shawn spews helplessly, as if opening his mouth caused a torrent of nonsense to freefall out.
“Uh, that doesn’t make any sense,” Gus adds unnecessarily from a few feet behind Shawn, who Shawn eloquently ignores.
“I can't even tell you why. If I tried to write a list of reasons why, I'd get a big fat F on my paper because I would have no idea where to start," Shawn rambles, and is about to continue ranting with his eighth grade assignment analogy when Gus helpfully nudges him in the small of his back. “And I already see your face in my bed every morning, which is nice, and now I just want to make sure I'll keeping it for a while. Forever, if that's not as long and scary as everyone says it is. It’s like-you know the feeling when you’re hungry and you go to the fridge and it’s full of food and you can’t find anything you want, but you keep coming back every five minutes waiting for something you want? Well, you’re that thing I want, Lassie. I don’t have to go back to the fridge."
“Shawn, what’s going on?” Lassiter mumbles, eyes zipping left and right to where a few officers have stopped working to watch the scene play out in front of them, as if expecting hundreds of floral bouquets to once more walk into the station and monopolize the working space.
Shawn pulls the ring out from his pocket and holds it out. A second later he feels the firm push of Gus' hand on his shoulder and promptly remembers that he should be kneeling for this. Juliet, approaching Lassiter's desk with evidence for their latest case, swiftly drops her file and gasps at the sight.
“I kept trying to complicate this and make this special and cook lobster and screw everything up-but dude, this already is special! All I have to do is tell you that I don’t even mind if you’ll stop shaving when you hit sixty and that I am totally meant to be with you because I’m the only one who'll tolerate your annoying little habits all day long and still want to kiss you at the end of the day! So," Shawn takes a deep breath and takes in the stunning, resonant silence in the police station as not even a phone begins trilling with a disruptive ring, “Will you marry me, Lassie?"
For another few petrifying seconds that pass by as if being lugged through molasses, there is deafening silence. Then, after a slow exhale, Lassiter says, “I can't believe I’m about to say yes,” and the cheers begin. Gus applauds, Juliet squeals, and a good handful of police officers clap both Lassiter and Shawn on the back in lieu of congratulations as the applause wracks the station for a good minute before Shawn grabs onto Lassiter's lapels for support and plants a sound kiss on his mouth to ring in the deal.
“So now that we can discuss this,” Shawn says after a kiss that leaves him feeling slightly disoriented comes to a breathless end, “How do you feel about lace on your wedding dress? Yay or nay?”
Lassiter grabs the ring from Shawn’s hand, jams it onto his finger, and shuts Shawn up with his mouth once more instead of answering.
Author:
veterization
Disclaimer: I do not own Psych.
Rating: R
Genre and/or Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Word Count: ~13,000
Warnings: Slight language and sexual content.
Summary: Despite all of the signs and omens warning Shawn that proposing to Lassiter is a bad idea, he's never put much stock into good ideas.
“Tell him yes. Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later, because whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no.” ―Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Part I.
“So Shawn,” Gus says coolly over a pancake breakfast the following morning while he pours the last of the syrup onto his baked good, all the while avoiding Shawn’s desperate swipes to steal the last few drops of syrupy goodness for his own pancake, both of their stacks perfectly golden in color after several charred attempts landed in the trash, “Perhaps you’d like to explain why when I checked my bank account balance last night, two hundred dollars were mysteriously missing.”
Shawn promptly stuffs his mouth full of three bites worth of pancake slabs, taking his time chewing through the fluffy delicacy while Gus stares him down across the table, “Well, buddy,” he burbles through a mouth of pancake bits, “I have a good explanation.”
“Mmhmm,” Gus waits for said explanation. Shawn swallows back his mouthful of pancake.
“Turns out, the little old ladies get mad when you try to steal flowers from their gardens,” Shawn elaborates, stealing a generous glob of syrup from the peak of Gus’ heap of pancakes to drizzle over his own, “So I had to fork out the dough for a few dozen bouquets to be sent to Lassie with the ring sitting on the only plastic one in the bunch. Sweet, isn’t it?”
“Adorable. Read that on some teenage girl’s blog?” Gus simpers.
“Gus, I’m affronted,” Shawn huffs, stealing another spoonful of syrup from Gus’ plate, “I already have the mind of a teenage girl, why would I have to borrow the ideas from someone else’s-ow!”
Gus smacks Shawn’s hand as it reaches over for a third helping of syrup, leaving an angry red handprint in the wake of his slap as Shawn pulls his palm back and rubs soothingly at his knuckles, “Stop stealing my syrup, Shawn! There’s some more in the cupboard. Stop being lazy and get up to get it.”
Shawn ignores him, choosing instead to lick his syrupy sticky thumb clean until the sugary mess is gone from his fingertip and manage with the amount of syrup he’s managed to thieve from Gus’ syrup-laden plate, “Anyway, there’s been a dip in my savings since I’ve decided to buy an engagement ring that didn’t come from the bottom of a cereal box, so I had to borrow some cash from you.”
“Wait,” Gus garbles mid-chew, “so you’re not actually going to be there during the proposal? Lassiter’s just going the find the ring on the flower and assume you’re implying you want to be his wife?”
“That way, when he finds the ring, it’ll be a delightful surprise for him that I’ll be watching from behind the plastic plant by the Chief’s office,” Shawn grins, imagining the scene as Lassiter arrives at work, gasps in glee at the sight of blooming flowers enshrouding his desk, and then musters up a manly squeal for the discovery of the ring wedged onto the edge of a thorny stem.
“This sounds like a terrible idea,” Gus mentions slowly, as if Shawn needs to hear the words carefully enunciated to come to the realization that his plan is in desperate need of tweaks and that his proposal will soon be laughed at by millions on YouTube if it’s not reformed, “Do you know how many things could go wrong?”
“Gus, don’t be the little train that couldn’t,” Shawn advises with the aura of wisdom normally reserved for old, crippled Asian emperors, eliciting a wrinkle in the nose out of Gus that clearly indicates he’s still doubting the entire operation, “You’ll ruin little kid’s books everywhere.”
-
Oh, Gus, Shawn thinks miserably as he stares in horror at the explosion of flowers surrounding McNab’s desk, occupying his chair, and sitting on his paper tray, why do you always have to be right.
McNab stares at his desk in equal astonishment, several officers giggling and buzzing with talk over inappropriate lovesick behavior at the office. Dobson wrangles his way through the bouquets spilling over to his desk, delicate vases crowding around his chair as they leak out of the close-knit circle the flowers have made around McNab’s working area.
“I told them to deliver it to the strapping Irish lad with hair like a salt and pepper cake mold,” Shawn murmurs feebly to the ceiling where he hopes it will pierce the building and somehow make it up to the cosmos, where the universal overlords overlooking his fate are surely in doubling over in laughter, “How did this happen?”
“Someone has a secret admirer!” A young officer coos from her desk a few feet away from the indoor garden that has become McNab’s work space, and several more officers start up in whispers of adultery and infidelity in marriage.
“Um,” McNab says, clearly too befuddled to articulate much more, mouth hanging open as he takes in the sight of the virtual greenhouse presented in front of him, keyboard and computer monitor crowded with tulips and chair laden with lilies. Gus, standing a few feet behind Shawn as if to distance himself from his mess, pats McNab on the shoulder in consolation.
“I’m sure this was all just a misunderstanding,” Gus tells him, and McNab nods dumbly. It only takes two more seconds of dumbfounded staring from both McNab and Shawn while Gus shakes his head in wordless disapproval at Shawn’s inability to propose to the right officer and create breeding grounds for bees and insects of all families within the Santa Barbara police station until the Chief traipses from her office, Lassiter and Juliet trailing after her. All three stop dead in their tracks.
“Wow,” Juliet breathes out at the sight of the colorful jungle growing in front of her, “Is it you and your wife’s anniversary, McNab?”
McNab turns around at Juliet’s voice, face paling at the sight of the Chief’s flabbergasted expression and Lassiter’s wide eyes. Gus leans discreetly over to Shawn, mumbling by his ear, “Shawn, you might want to get your ring back in your pocket before someone else finds it and thinks McNab has a mistress.”
Shawn lets out a string of hushed swear words, postponing the inevitable bang of his forehead against the nearest wall to a situation harboring less pressure than the one he’s been cruelly forced into. He takes in the sight of the flowers, a myriad of bouquets littered among the floor and the desktop.
“Dude,” Shawn whispers to Gus, “this may not be the best time to bring this up considering I don’t remember which vase the ring is in, but I think they totally undercharged us for all of these flowers.”
Gus spews a slew of unidentifiable words and syllables at the horrifying knowledge that a priceless ring that could easily pay off a mortgage on a beachfront property house is lost amid the sea of floral bouquets blinking up at them innocently. Shawn claps him on the back until his hissing stops.
“How can you not know, Shawn?!” He demands, lowering his voice to a hush as the Chief begins circling the mass of flowers as if she hardly believes her own eyesight, “Didn’t they tell you which vase it was in?!”
“No!” Shawn hisses back, and promptly quells his onslaught of anxiety at the thought of losing a ring during his attempted proposal, forcing his mind to slow down to focus on his observational skills. He scans the bouquets, noting each petal and the length of each stem before he finally notices a pristine batch of flowers sitting atop McNab’s desk, differing from the rest with a small white card hanging from the neck of the vase. Shawn remembers it as the slightly raunchy proposal limerick he had rhymed on the spot and asked the florists to print on a tag to loop around the crown bouquet, snatching forward to snag the card, pull the flowers from their vase, and grab the ring lodged securely onto the bottom of two stems, stuffing it into his pocket and swiveling around to face the crowd.
“McNab, would you happen to know who would send you something like this to your workplace-”
“Oh nooooo!” Shawn cries, thumping the roses onto his nose and shrugging at the audience of officers, “Our fault, you guys. This wasn’t Buzz over here trying to make up for forgetting to buy everyone chocolates on Valentine’s Day.”
“This is your doing, Mr. Spencer?” Chief Vick asks, her voice laced with an undeniable tone of irritation as she addresses him, as if speaking specifically to a bothersome crick in her neck. Juliet raises her eyebrows and Lassiter fixes him with a stare that tells Shawn he may or may not be enjoying sex with his boyfriend tonight after unnecessarily disturbing the police department with something as inane as a storm of floral arrangements.
“Well,” Shawn says, slowly handing out individual roses from the bouquet still in his fist as peace offerings, “They were meant for the churro guy down the street. I mean, the health department might call his sanitation level inadequate, but that perfect sprinkling of cinnamon just needs to be commended.”
For a second, the officers shuffle as they watch the scene and Chief Vick fixes Shawn with a hard stare as he fists the ring in his pocket before she sighs heavily. “Fine,” she mumbles, snatching the remaining rose from Shawn’s hand and heading for her office, “Just get them out of here, please, Mr. Spencer, and apologize to Officer McNab.”
“Sorry, Nabby,” Shawn says with a sincere pat to McNab’s shoulder as he and Gus start piling vases in their arms to clean up the disaster, Lassiter’s hand on his elbow pulling him away a second later.
“You’re not trying to ask McNab out, are you?” He asks, rather quietly, eyeing the collection of flowers as if suspicious of their intentions, and Shawn unclenches the ring in his pocket to affectionately pat Lassiter’s cheek.
“Please, Lassie,” Shawn admonishes, “if I wanted a married man, I’d turn you into one myself.”
-
It doesn’t take too long for Shawn to shake off the unmitigated disaster his first and second proposal attempts were. He realizes that if there is anything that encapsulates Shawn Spencer, a posh and elegant restaurant in which he has to lick back his hair and wear a necktie in order to make it through the door without being mistaken for a No Good ruffian or delivering bouquets arranged in a floral waterfall is not it. If Lassiter loves him-a fact that Shawn isn’t willing to test but accepts wordlessly as a universal truth, like the sun being hot or the earth turning in an orbit-he’ll be willing to endure a proposal that isn’t borrowed from a prim and prissy executive with a fondness for miniscule appetizers, but rather derived from boyish imagination and original Spencer charm.
“So after work, don’t come home,” Shawn tells Lassiter from the sleepy comfort of their bed as he squirms to monopolize the entire mattress with his limbs as Lassiter shimmies out from underneath the sheets to locate his clothing and prepare for another early day at work, sliding over to Lassiter’s side of the bed to burrow into the warm patch Lassiter’s body heat left on the mattress and breathe in the faint scent of his shampoo on the pillow. Shawn closes his eyes against the light of the sunrise filtering through the blinds as he detects the sounds of a clinking belt buckle being fastened and the rustle of fabric as Lassiter buttons up his shirt.
“You do know this is my place, right? You can’t exactly kick me out.”
Shawn pries open one eye, vision still blurred from vestiges of sleep and groggy morning slumber, and grins, “I have plans for us. We’re going to the beach for a rendezvous in the sunset to prance and frolic in the sand and whatever else they might do on Laguna Beach minus the teenage drama.”
“Shawn, I already said no to sex on the beach,” Lassiter says curtly, tucking in his shirt, and then repeats for emphasis, “No. You can get all sorts of diseases-”
“As much as the idea of diseases on the beach turns me on, we’re not going there for sex. I told you, I’ve got plans,” Shawn reaches out to seize Lassiter’s wrist and yank him unceremoniously back onto the wrinkled sheets, looping his arms around his waist and dragging him closer as Shawn lets his eyes flutter closed again. He undoes any progress Lassiter made dressing himself by impatiently tugging at the buttons and nuzzling his stomach. Lassiter’s breath hitches and Shawn grins against his bare belly, using Lassiter’s ephemeral lapse into pleasure to let his fingers flirt with his zipper and successfully unbutton his pants. He worms his hand into his boxers and wraps his fingers around Lassiter's length, smirking as his erection steadily takes interest.
“Shawn,” Lassiter murmurs as a warning, swaying on the bed as if contemplating getting up and removing the option of early morning handjobs from his schedule or risking a late entrance to the meeting the Chief had planned for the morning by succumbing to Shawn’s wandering fingers, now picking up a rhythmic stroke on his cock and gently squeezing, “Spencer,” he says when Shawn’s left hand continues to roam and his right hand picks up his pace, “I’ve got work.”
“And I’ve got a pineapple waiting for me in the kitchen, we’ve all got plans,” Shawn murmurs, sinking his teeth into Lassiter’s hip in a teasing nip and rubbing at his inner thigh through the fabric of his pants with his free hand, “Prioritize, Lassie.”
Lassiter groans, a sign Shawn has learned to mean that he’s submitted himself to Shawn’s antics and games despite his better judgment, and firmly pushes Shawn until he’s supine and willing on the bed, straddling his hips and pushing their lips together in a dry, warm kiss that tastes like minty toothpaste.
“Fine, I’ll come to the beach after I get done in the station,” Lassiter acquiesces on Shawn’s lips, “this time let’s just make sure it’s the same beach.”
“And no sex, right?” Shawn says, grinning and bucking up against Lassiter’s clothed hips, “Could I perhaps interest you in some dry humping?”
“We’ll see,” Lassiter mumbles on the crook of Shawn’s neck, nose dragging over the bristles of his stubble and tongue darting out to flit over his pulse while his hand wanders southward to palm Shawn’s length, neglected before now, and Shawn wraps his legs around Lassiter’s hips with a fervor he was too groggy to possess a mere few minutes before.
So far, this whole proposal thing was working out splendidly.
-
It takes Shawn two and a half hours to properly prepare a picnic basket appropriate for a soothing dinner at the beach and slightly suggestive dessert that leads to Shawn kneeling in the sand and pulling the ring from his swim shorts to propose in the radiance of the sunset while the waves crash picturesquely behind his figure. Calling Henry for tips in searing lobster offers Shawn more frustration than it does help when the phone call morphs from cooking advice into a pro-con list establishing reasons for why Shawn believes he’s mature enough to handle something as significant as marriage, and so, when Gus ditches Shawn and his cuisine dilemma in favor of finishing his pharmaceutical route at work, Shawn has to turn to his last resort and turn on the cooking channel for a step-by-step instruction manual on how to cook lobster.
He ends up being coached by Paula Deen for the better part of an hour until he’s succeeded in preparing a succulent yet slightly over-buttered lobster and an easily packaged pineapple upside-down cake that Shawn knows, as his specialty, he can’t go wrong with. He changes into his swim trunks, makes the effort to shave until his jaw is silky smooth, and hauls out the Tupperware to stack his snacks into before he heads out to the beach and lays out the enormous beach towel he and Gus used to use as Captain-America-goes-to-Malibu capes.
Shawn’s only sprawled out in the dimming sun forming sandcastles for fifteen minutes before he makes out Lassiter’s form in the distance stalking through the sand, and the fact that he is neither late nor is he across town is a sign that Shawn views as serious good luck in comparison to his last proposal attempt. He grins and waves in Lassiter’s direction until he’s safeguarded his attention.
“Lassie!” Shawn calls out as Lassiter approaches the towel and unknots his tie as it flutters in the breeze. “Why aren’t you in your swim trunks?” He wiggles his hips, clad in nothing but swim shorts adorned with patterned sea shells, and Lassiter frowns.
“You didn’t say anything about swim shorts.”
Shawn shrugs and pats the sandy spot on the towel next to him, reaching behind his back to seize the picnic basket handle, “Wait for iiiiiiiit,” he whips the basket in front of Lassiter’s face and beams in pride, “Handmade dinner. Cue the applause.”
Lassiter opens the basket and peers inside as he settles himself on the towel, expression slightly impressed as he rummages through the various boxes of Tupperware stacked with sundry snacks all chopped, gathered, and prepared by hand. He’s about to offer some laudatory praise for Shawn’s gourmet skills when horror washes over his face.
“Oh god, I forgot an anniversary, didn’t I,” Lassiter mutters, forefinger and thumb rubbing at the bridge of his nose in an attempt to mollify his own withering memory when Shawn pulls his hand down from his nose and slots their fingers together.
“Unless you count National Pancake Day, you missed nothing,” Shawn paused, wavering in his thought process, “Maybe it should count, considering how important pancakes are.”
“Then what’s this all about?” Lassiter inquires, his disappointment in himself in allowing his memory to lapse regarding benchmarks in his and Shawn’s relationship giving way to suspicion as Shawn pulls two tall wine glasses, albeit plastic glasses, from the basket and then proceeds to reveal a wine bottle from the caverns of the basket a moment later.
“What, just because you’re not a girl I can’t treat you like a princess?” Shawn asks innocently, pulling the bottle of wine from Lassiter’s fingers to smugly display the label, “I found your favorite, Monsieur.”
“All of this for… no reason?” Lassiter narrows his eyes as Shawn uncorks the bottle and pours a generous helping of wine into Lassiter’s glass, “Do you want something? There’s only so many parking tickets of yours I can take care of before the Chief gets suspicious, Shawn.”
Shawn puts down the wine and rolls his eyes at Lassiter’s poorly concealed qualms for tonight’s true intents and purposes, “Oh, Carly, you were a skeptic years ago and you’re a skeptic now.”
“Years ago you tried to tell me you’re a psychic,” Lassiter points out, “I was right to be skeptical.”
Shawn lets the disagreement pass by in favor of maintaining a serene atmosphere for a proposal free of lover’s spats, reaching out to grip Lassiter’s chin with his thumb and push their lips softly together. Lassiter stills, the tension knitting his eyebrows together dissolving as Shawn angles their mouths together and licks over the seam of Lassiter’s lips. A crashing wave tickles at Shawn’s feet, frothy seawater startling his toes and breaking their brief kiss.
“It is time, Lassieface, to start doubting your doubts,” Shawn tells him, thumb running over the pad of his bottom lip, “I am as romantic as Prince Charming, but with better hair and without a foot fetish,” he tips Lassiter’s wine glass up to his lips while he reaches into the picnic basket and pulls out his packaged lobster meat, pulling out a handful and nudging at Lassiter’s lips. “Open up!”
Lassiter puts the wine glass atop the basket after a few sips and obediently opens his mouth. Shawn takes a moment to feel pleased at the fact that Lassiter didn’t feel the need to examine the meat or question Shawn’s cooking abilities before opening his mouth and sampling a bite of buttery lobster.
“Hmmm,” Lassiter murmurs as he chews, “You made this yourself?”
“I admit, some credit should go to Paula Deen’s country cooking recipes,” Shawn shrugs, unloading the rest of the Tupperware onto the towel for broad display. He pops a piece of lobster meat in his own mouth, mmming appreciatively upon discovering his newfound skill for creating culinary masterpieces. “Damn, Carly Horse! I’m the next Alton Brown.”
He eases another bite of lobster into Lassiter’s mouth and catches sight of the sun, dipping under the horizon line and leaving in its wake puffs of golden clouds. The vanishing daylight serves as a cue for Shawn to start brandishing the ring and work his magic. He reaches for the ring box hidden discreetly in the pocket of his swim trunks, and is promptly horrified to find his pocket to be lacking a certain square-shaped bump.
“Holy shit, I lost it,” Shawn mutters, hands scrambling to rummage through the mounds of sand under the towel and search for the jewelry amid the architectural masterpiece his sand castle was before Shawn’s hands delivered irreparable destruction to its delicate walls in his frantic search.
“What kind of spices did you use on this?” Lassiter asks, a hint of skepticism crawling back into his voice as he rubs idly at his own lower lip and continues chewing into the lobster, “It burns a bit.”
“Burns?” Shawn parrots back incredulously, but he’s not truly processing the words Lassiter’s speaking, mind too busy urgently rifling through all of the potential locations his ring could now reside and hands too occupied digging hysterically through the sand.
“Yeah, it stings my tongue just a bit,” Lassiter mentions, continuing to rub at his mouth as he swallows back the lobster. Shawn hums absent-mindedly at his comment, continuing to pat himself down until he comes across the box sitting innocently in the other, unsearched pocket of his swimming trunks. He breathes a sigh of relief, about to brandish the ring in triumph under Lassiter’s nose, when he turns around and notices an angry line of red welts swelling to furious sizes around Lassiter’s mouth. Lassiter continues scratching with his fingernail, the flesh surrounding his lips only continuing to balloon to puffier heights.
“Holy shit!” Shawn shouts at the sight of Lassiter’s face.
“Spencer, what the hell did you feed me?!” Lassiter demands as his fingers begin prodding around his cheeks and jaw, skin enlarging and tinged a cantankerous shade of scarlet.
“It was just lobster, I swear! This didn’t happen to Paula Deen!” Shawn scrambles to pull the Tupperware of lobster bits away from Lassiter’s grip, staring in horror as the redness spreads.
“I’m allergic to lobster! How do you not know that?!” Lassiter roars, and as if the labeling of the food he just ingested caps off the allergic reaction, he promptly grabs his stomach and focuses on breathing as he staggers off the towel, heading straight for the ocean even as the waves splash and lick around his ankles, seawater seeping into his polished shoes.
“You’re not going to die, are you? I mean, you can still breathe, right, Carly? Oh, I’m the worst boyfriend ever,” Shawn groans, refraining from the temptation of burying his head in the sand and refusing to come up for air. He watches as Lassiter stumbles and wades through the waves up to his knees and after several coughing fits in which he almost hacks up a few internal organs, begins retching into the teal waves. Shawn imagines his boyfriend’s throat, slowly swelling and denying entry to all oxygen, lobster-chunked bile trapped in his stomach and left hand still free of the ring sitting limp in Shawn’s hand, now forgotten in favor of more pressing matters of potentially lethal allergies.
This, Shawn thinks, as Lassiter heaves another string of stomach acid and chewed bits of lobster meat into the sea, is not the proposal he had planned.
-
After the repercussions of two utterly failed proposals that were beyond repair despite their initial brilliance and their supposed lack of troublesome loopholes, Shawn starts needing the counseling and encouragement that only fresh banana splits and a fluffed cotton bathrobe can provide.
He’s lounging on the couch, wallowing in his inadequacy as a husband-to-be while nursing his bowl of thawing ice cream scoops and starting to question what fate and the universe and karma might have to do with all of this, and if never calling back his ninth grade crush after an awkward date at the bowling alley is now coming back as revenge to keep him from successfully proposing to Lassiter with a hint of romance and grace. Shawn thinks about his plans-beachside engagements complete with picnic baskets of semi-edible snacks and reservations at an elegant, five-star restaurant so expensive even the napkins were out of Shawn’s price range-and wonders woefully if this is a sign from the omniscient deities warning him to give a rest to his tragically beautiful proposal dreams before Lassiter accidentally dislocates his shoulder the next time Shawn whips out his ring and his well-rehearsed speech of everlasting love.
“So maybe it’s taking a little longer than you thought it would to get this whole engagement thing right,” Gus dares to pipe up as he notices Shawn burrowing into the couch cushions, snatching his bowl of ice cream away, “Is this my banana ice cream? You did not eat the rest of my banana ice cream, Shawn!”
Shawn makes futile swipes for the bowl from his slothful position on the couch. Gus holds it out of his reach and promptly spoons up the remainder of the scoops that aren’t melted in a yellow pool at the bottom of the bowl. Shawn whines and writhes on the cushions in his plush robe until Gus huffs at him.
“What I was trying to say was that so what if it’s taking a while? It took a while for Lassiter to even agree to date you in the first place.”
“That’s only because he was blinded by love and the power of his feelings scared him, Gus,” Shawn insists, “I’m a frightening prospect to take in and process.”
“Shawn, would you listen to me?” Gus persists, “Nothing with Lassiter is ever going to be easy. It took the man a good few years before he could even stand the sight of your face.”
Shawn idly brings a hand to his face, stroking his jaw and the bristles of his untamed stubble after days of leaving shaving to the wayside in preference of moping on the sofa. He thinks of Lassiter, hunched over the moist sand while he retches helplessly into the waves, his face highlighted by a radiant glow from the sunset that would have been wretchedly romantic in any other situation that didn’t include rabid vomiting into the ocean, and tries not to groan out loud. Gus smacks him over the head.
“Ow!”
“Stop thinking about Lassiter throwing up!” Gus orders, “This isn’t the hard part, Shawn. After this is wedding planning and dealing with in-laws and what I can predict without the help of fake psychic premonitions might be a seriously nasty divorce when Lassiter finds out you have a habit of eating all the peanut butter without having the courtesy to leave some for other people’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!”
Shawn plays with the frayed hem of his robe’s sleeve and considers the difficulty to come after the engagement actually commences, from finding a caterer willing to incorporate pineapple garnishes into every course to dealing with Henry’s nitpicking over the font used on the invitation and the visibility of his vantage point from his seat during the ceremony.
“You’re right, Gus,” Shawn admits, “You’re going to be an absolute nightmare to deal with as my best man.”
Gus pauses his nuptials lecture to frown at Shawn before continuing, “Shawn, I know you don’t mean that, because I am an absolute pleasure to be around during upscale events. You know I’m an organization guru. You know I have a spatial eye that’ll come in handy when you’re looking for venues. I’ll be the best man to ever best.”
Shawn spares his friend a glance before returning to his previous task of addressing the ceiling. He stares at the splat of faint pink on the ceiling from when he attempted to make Lassiter a strawberry smoothie when he visited the Psych office for lunch and Shawn failed to remember to screw on the blender lid.
“I don’t know, Gus,” Shawn says uneasily, eyes moving from the stain to an unblemished portion of the ceiling and mind riveting back to the memory of Lassiter barfing over a romantic picnic that Shawn has no hope of ever successfully repressing from his memory, “Maybe this whole proposal thing is just doomed.”
“Shawn, I will pull you off that couch myself,” Gus warns in a no-nonsense tone that Shawn knows well enough to mark as a turn in Gus’ mood that implies he’s no longer amused with Shawn’s lack of cooperation, “The only way that this is a bad proposal is if he says no.”
Shawn gropes helplessly under the couch, fingernails scraping the floorboards until he finds the jewelry box he had hidden under the sofa in shame, pulling it out of the shadows and wads of dust under the couch to open the box and examine the shiny ring, unworn and in mint condition, the money he had saved for his clone of Val Kilmer deposited instead in the benchmark for his and Lassiter’s life together. He lets the light bounce off the crystal and ruminates, ruminates about how his father doubted the validity of Shawn’s proposal idea from the start, about how over a dozen bouquets of tulips had invaded McNab’s desk instead of Lassiter’s, about how many times the ring Shawn chose for Lassiter was nearly flushed, trashed, or lost in the sand. He looks up at Gus, hands on his hips and face set crossly with sass Shawn only ever witnesses on his friend when he’s pulling out the strongest motivation tactics he has in his disposal, and snaps the ring box shut.
“You know what, Gus?” Shawn says, swinging his legs over the couch and hands reaching to undo the knot on his robe after he slips the ring into his pants pocket, “You’re right, buddy. You’re definitely right. And Lassie saying no? Is the one thing I don’t have to be worried about!”
Gus beams and claps Shawn on the back as he discards of the robe and throws it onto the lampshade, “You know that’s right. You got your ego back?”
“Please, Gus, it never left me. It just went for a coffee break,” Shawn grins, familiar light of mischief dotting his eyes, the same light that’s present when they’re scheming against Henry during April Fool’s Day or when they’re reminiscing the pranks they pulled on their sixth grade gym coach, “Now, can you drive me to the police station?”
Gus blinks, “Are you going to do it now?”
“Yes, Gus! Now! I’m on a roll. I feel it in my blood. It’s ringing wedding bells,” Shawn slips on his shoes, pausing to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror and analyze his general appearance, “Hmm. Before I make it to the altar, I might need to put on some deodorant.”
-
Shawn fixedly ignores the pumping of his heart against his ribcage as he walks through the station, palpitations surely about to pulverize his ribs and leave nothing but whistling air protecting his heart while he vomits his heart out to Lassiter and channels Leonardo DiCaprio’s irresistible charm that always makes the ladies swoon in the movies. He skids to a sudden stop at Lassiter’s desk and wipes his sweaty palms off on his jeans.
Lassiter notices the extra presence around his desk two seconds after Shawn arrives, wavering dumbly on the spot and attempting to find the right words to accurately articulate his emotion-how he rooted through the grimy pipes under his sink to find Lassiter's ring, how he watched Paula Deen make lobster for an entire hour so he could create the perfect meal for their proposal, how he wanted nothing more than to make this proposal the most memorable thing his children and grandchildren and the entire police station would ever chatter about, how he went through all of this because he's in love with Lassiter despite all of the signs steering him away from commitment and trying to throw him back into bachelorhood. The words lodge themselves into his throat.
“Shawn,” Lassiter says as if pleasantly surprised by the unexpected visit when he looks up from his desk. His eyes are blue, very blue, and Shawn tries not to get distracted by them. He thinks about how many times he's stared into Lassiter’s eyes, the startling color of a summer pool before the children start turning it into a murky yellow by ignoring the no urination in the pool, please sign.
“I love you, you big Irish penguin,” Shawn spews helplessly, as if opening his mouth caused a torrent of nonsense to freefall out.
“Uh, that doesn’t make any sense,” Gus adds unnecessarily from a few feet behind Shawn, who Shawn eloquently ignores.
“I can't even tell you why. If I tried to write a list of reasons why, I'd get a big fat F on my paper because I would have no idea where to start," Shawn rambles, and is about to continue ranting with his eighth grade assignment analogy when Gus helpfully nudges him in the small of his back. “And I already see your face in my bed every morning, which is nice, and now I just want to make sure I'll keeping it for a while. Forever, if that's not as long and scary as everyone says it is. It’s like-you know the feeling when you’re hungry and you go to the fridge and it’s full of food and you can’t find anything you want, but you keep coming back every five minutes waiting for something you want? Well, you’re that thing I want, Lassie. I don’t have to go back to the fridge."
“Shawn, what’s going on?” Lassiter mumbles, eyes zipping left and right to where a few officers have stopped working to watch the scene play out in front of them, as if expecting hundreds of floral bouquets to once more walk into the station and monopolize the working space.
Shawn pulls the ring out from his pocket and holds it out. A second later he feels the firm push of Gus' hand on his shoulder and promptly remembers that he should be kneeling for this. Juliet, approaching Lassiter's desk with evidence for their latest case, swiftly drops her file and gasps at the sight.
“I kept trying to complicate this and make this special and cook lobster and screw everything up-but dude, this already is special! All I have to do is tell you that I don’t even mind if you’ll stop shaving when you hit sixty and that I am totally meant to be with you because I’m the only one who'll tolerate your annoying little habits all day long and still want to kiss you at the end of the day! So," Shawn takes a deep breath and takes in the stunning, resonant silence in the police station as not even a phone begins trilling with a disruptive ring, “Will you marry me, Lassie?"
For another few petrifying seconds that pass by as if being lugged through molasses, there is deafening silence. Then, after a slow exhale, Lassiter says, “I can't believe I’m about to say yes,” and the cheers begin. Gus applauds, Juliet squeals, and a good handful of police officers clap both Lassiter and Shawn on the back in lieu of congratulations as the applause wracks the station for a good minute before Shawn grabs onto Lassiter's lapels for support and plants a sound kiss on his mouth to ring in the deal.
“So now that we can discuss this,” Shawn says after a kiss that leaves him feeling slightly disoriented comes to a breathless end, “How do you feel about lace on your wedding dress? Yay or nay?”
Lassiter grabs the ring from Shawn’s hand, jams it onto his finger, and shuts Shawn up with his mouth once more instead of answering.