Title: Pineapples and a Movie
Author: Extremity
Genre: Romance/Humor
Pairing: Shules
Type: One-shot
Summary: After dates fail for both Juliet and Shawn, the two manage to make each other smile without even meeting face to face. One-shot.
Spoilers: None
Shawn was attempting to woo a model again. Engaging conversation and a snappy personality should have been enough to catch her interest and give him a partner for the night, but he couldn't bring himself to take her home. Despite his many attempts at humor, and good attempts at that, the brunette would just stare at him, cock her head to the side, and give a too-fake imitation of a laugh. Her inability to understand even basic plays on words was enough to make him want to roll his eyes.
"And then he said he had to take a phone call and he never came back! I mean, what kind of idiot does that? Look at me?" Shawn didn't need to be told twice. However, her valley girl rant only gave him another reason to want to strangle her.
"I just can't believe anyone would do that to a girl," he paused at his word choice, because something that innocent didn't seem to fit, "like… you." He gave a pained half-smile, hoping it'd placate her. Somehow she managed to find that funny too.
"And then, when I called him back, he didn't even answer! Like, why would you do that?" He briefly thought that if her voice got any higher, only dogs would be able to hear it. That would have been a gift to society.
"Maybe because you're about as likeable as Lassie on a bad day…" Shawn grumbled. As terrible as it was, he wished someone would just get killed already so he could have an excuse to leave. The brunette gave him a puzzled look, which made her lips look like those of a fish.
"What? Isn't that the dog in the well?"
"Something like that."
"Well then, I still don't see why he wouldn't return my calls." She crunched her face up in a way that made her look like an angry third grader. Crossing her arms didn't improve the image.
"I see why." This time he whispered it under his breath, looking around for some sort of escape, any escape. Times like these made him wish he had a real superpower. Like laser vision or invisibility. Anything to eliminate the source of annoyance that was clinging to him like a very stubborn leech. A very toned, flawlessly beautiful leech. If such a thing existed.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing, nothing." He remained silent for a moment before a light bulb went on in his mind. "Hold on a second, I have to take this call," Shawn lied, excusing himself from the table and his brainless company. The woman just smiled and laughed again, as if he was telling another complicated joke. As he slipped off out of sight, her shallow smile slowly faded away as she realized that his phone never rang.
Shawn escaped to his motorcycle, which was a terrible choice for transportation given the unusual downpour assaulting the city. Steeling himself against the chill with a frown, he kicked his ride into gear and motored out of the parking lot.
City lights whipped by him in glowing streaks as his eyes settled on a twenty-four hour grocery store, which he pulled into. An idea was growing in his mind. He was in and out in three minutes tops, and emerged with a pineapple under one arm and a movie with a bow under the other. He'd scratched a brief message on his receipt and folded it up in the top of the fruit before hopping on his motorcycle again.
This time there was a grin plastered across his face.
XXXXX
Juliet O'Hara was not fond of horror movies. She'd seen enough horror in her life as a detective that she didn't need an extra blood or gore. It didn't bother her, per say, it simply wasn't her cup of tea. Which was exactly why she was flustered at the man sitting next to her, attempting to throw an arm around her shoulder in a smoky theater.
When he'd asked her out, she knew she should have said no. He was not her type at all. Gruff, tattooed, wearers of wife beaters had never attracted her. So when he began to get a little too touchy feely and when the movie began to hit a little too close to home, she shoved him off and walked away. Even the massive downpour that greeted her was better than the disrespectful bundle of testosterone that was trying to get her into bed. She coughed, her lungs trying to expel the remnants of cigarettes and old cigars that had floated the air in the movie theater.
To her dismay, her knee-length pea coat was not nearly enough to protect her from the exorbitant amount of rain and she found herself frantically searching for cover. She should have driven her own car, but she had stupidly let her horrible date drive her. So, without any hope, she trudged the three blocks to her home, dreading how much water she was going to drip on her new hardwood floors.
When she finally reached her front porch, feeling like a drenched cat, she fumbled through her pockets to find her keys. Just as she made to unlock her door, she noticed something unusual in the flower box to her left. Poking out among the flowers was the spiky top of a yellow fruit. She abandoned her key in the lock to retrieve the pineapple and its accompanying note and package. The note, written on a receipt, had a message about bad dates and bad movies, scrawled in terrible handwriting and signed with a 'mysterious' SS. She couldn't help but grin before she let herself into her home.
Unloading her now heavy jacket and her surprise gift on the cabinets by her door, Juliet tore the soggy bow off her package to find a copy of a romantic comedy that was dear to her heart. Despite the tough, cop-like exterior she would wear at work, she was still a woman inside and Shawn was clearly intuitive enough to know that.
She smiled, padded to her bathroom and stripped herself of her wet clothes. Once she'd clothed herself in a tank and department sweats. As her hair dried, she shuffled out to her living room to set up the movie and popcorn. Curled up beneath a soft blanket, she decided to make up for the night's earlier failure by watching a movie that was funny, and not filled with screaming college girls running away from axe-murderers.
Just as the film began getting interesting her phone buzzed on the cushions beside her. With a flick of her wrist she was greeted by her brother's caring voice.
"Jules, how are you?"
"Great, but I think there's a guy out there I need you to take care of," Juliet joked and she launched herself into her story of her ill-mannered date.
Outside, the rain continued to pour down on the shoulders of a certain spiky-haired psychic who smiled when the object of his affections pulled his gift into her lap and laughed into the phone.