"The Lies You Tell Yourself"
(one. That night at Tom Blair's Pub.)
You shoulder it off awkwardly the next day, swear you never drink, pretend you don't know what Shawn Spencer is talking about: and inwardly you wither in the sudden disappointed look in Spencer's eyes.
But the truth of the matter is: you remember it all.
You awoke in the back of a moving car, your head nestled in Shawn Spencer's lap, and the first thing you became aware of was the simple pleasure of his fingers stroking through your hair. And you opened your eyes and looked up at him and he was beautiful, there, green eyes green shirt green upholstery in one of Santa Barbara's finest taxicabs.
"You're beautiful," you muttered, because it was true; you were gratified to see the way he smiled suddenly.
"You're drunk," he replied, but a smile lingered on his face and he didn't stop stroking your hair. "I couldn't leave you in that bar. I hope I psychically picked up the right address."
You didn't care about addresses; you didn't care that there was no way he was a psychic. What you cared about was the feel of his hands in your hair and the smile on his face and then you leant up and kissed him, suddenly, right on the lips, right there in the cab.
His arms went round you, pulling you into his lap, holding you steady. "You astound me, Carlton Lassiter," he says, and he sounds hopeful pleased excited nervous all at once. You just nuzzled in, pressed your face into the crook of his neck and drifted somewhere between awake and asleep until the sudden stop of the vehicle jarred you awake.
You were dimly aware of the part where Spencer paid the fare, and then he was helping you out of the car, one arm draped over your shoulders with one of your arms around his waist, all the way up the walk to your condo.
You tried to kiss him again there, on the threshold: he batted you away, used the keys he swiped from your jacket pocket to open the door. And that rejection is enough to irritate you enough that you used the last of your strength to pin him against the front door, stare unblinking into his eyes, and then kiss him again.
He moaned against your lips and you took that as an encouragement to do it again and again and then he levers you away to actually open the door. "Oh Carlton Lassiter, we've been wasting so much time," he murmured, and you grinned at him, eyes sparkling in the near-darkness.
"Bed," you insisted, because your knees were weak, because your head was swimming from adrenaline and alcohol and whatever hormones come from letting go and kissing the agonizingly beautiful Shawn Spencer, in public even.
So you reach for his hand and stumble down the darkened hallway, all the way to your bedroom, and you led him right to the edge of it, sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed and looked at him expectantly, pathetically, trying your best come here and kiss me again look, which has never worked before, but maybe Spencer was psychic after all because come there and kiss you again he did.
You were drunk and the room spun and all you wanted was to be closer, ever closer to Shawn Spencer. A kiss and then another and another and then you were fumbling uselessly at the knot of your tie, the buttons of your shirt, and it was a futile effort because you didn't want to stop touching Spencer.
Finally he reached out and took matters into his own hands, gently unknotting your tie and setting it aside, almost delicately undoing your buttons one at a time, frustratingly painfully slowly and when he finished you guided his hands down to your trousers.
"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice uneven, a look in his eyes that made you think for a moment that he really was reading your mind.
"Aren't you psychic," you reminded him, breathlessly. And he laughed.
And soon enough both of your clothes were discarded, and there you were, kissing and touching and eventually falling into a primal sort of rhythm, limbs entwined.
He thrust up against you as he came, fingers curling around the roundness of your shoulders. His eyes stared into yours, fixed, memorizing you, as you desperately sought a release of your own. His name was on your lips, over and over again, and in a shuddering keening flood it was over and you collapsed down into him; his arms came around you, gentling cradling soothing. You absorbed into Spencer, you fell disjointedly into sleep.
And when your alarm went off in the morning, you were alone; no trace of Spencer but the wet spot you'd slept in and in the sober clear light of morning you knew the only way to salvage this – to salvage your sanity, to salvage your career, to salvage your life – is to pretend the scotch washed all your memories away.