Title: Paradise By the Gift Wrap Aisle
Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Series: Something Something
Rating: PG
Summary: Shawn and Lassiter celebrate their first Valentine's Day together.

"So, what did you get Shawn for Valentine's Day?"

Lassiter glanced over at O'Hara in the passenger seat to gauge how serious she was. She looked thoughtful, curious, and not at all like she was joking. He rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the road.

"Valentine's Day is only important to women, though God knows why. It's a holiday dreamed up by the greeting card mafia to –"

"Guilt people into spend money," O'Hara interrupted, with exasperated amusement. "You realize that argument is every bit as trite and tired as buying a heart-shaped box of candy as a gift is, right?"

Lassiter thought back to the heart-shaped boxes of chocolate he had purchased for Victoria over the years and frowned. "That doesn't make it any less true. It's a dumb non-holiday."

"So are you saying that you didn't get Shawn anything? Carlton!" She smacked him on the arm for emphasis, which was unnecessary because her annoyance with him was coming through loud and clear. "How are you going to feel when he shows up with a gift tonight and you don't have anything for him?"

"I'm not even sure I'll see him tonight," Lassiter pointed out, "unless he comes down to the station to make a nuisance of himself." Which would only happen if he had a breakthrough in the fraud case that they were all working on. Lassiter and O'Hara were investigating by subpoenaing hundreds of files from the business owner accused of taking money from elderly nursing home residents. Shawn and Gus's method of investigation was apparently to spend the afternoon playing air hockey at a nearby arcade.

"The spirits are telling me that I need a good, hard, puck before I can solve this case," Shawn had declared with a wink at O'Hara. She had been amused, while Guster, to his credit, had looked as annoyed by the innuendo as Lassiter had been, though probably not for the same reasons; Lassiter knew it was a dig at him for being "all-work, no play, Lassie" as Shawn had declared him during one of the very brief moments alone together that they'd had over the past week. As if it was Lassiter's fault that crime had kept them both too busy to spend any quality time together. He had been working for nine days straight, first on a homicide, then an armed robbery, and now this embezzlement and fraud case. He was exhausted, and he did not care about fruity, made-up holidays.

O'Hara gave him a knowing look. "You'll see him tonight," she said confidently. "It's your first Valentine's Day together. It should be special. I can get started on these files by myself if you want to run to the store and get him something."

"That won't be necessary," he said, trying not to snap. God, he wished she would stop talking about this. "I doubt Shawn even remembers that it's Valentine's Day. It's just not the kind of thing that guys pay attention to on their own, without a woman around to remind them."

"Maybe you're right," O'Hara told him as he parked in front of the station, "but Shawn does love holidays. Remember Christmas? And Arbor Day? And Flag Day?"

A cold feeling of dread was starting to settle in Lassiter's chest, but he shook his head firmly. "No, I would know if he was expecting something. I'm telling you, O'Hara, he hasn't mentioned it, and we have work to do. Just forget about it."

She shrugged as she got out of the car. "Whatever you say, Carlton. Just…keep it in mind."

"Seriously? You didn't get Lassiter anything? You really are the worst boyfriend ever."

Shawn could really have done without the look of horror on Gus's face. It wasn't that big a deal, and it was marring what had otherwise been a near-perfect afternoon. Not only had he kicked Gus's ass in air hockey, but at the arcade (which just happened to be run by the son of the crook who owned the nursing home that was stealing money from poor old people) he had successfully gotten the evidence he needed to close the case. Chief Vick would be happy, the grandmas and grandpas who had had their money stolen would be happy (and hopefully compensated), and most important of all, Lassie would finally have a night off so that he could give Shawn a happy. But Gus was screwing it up with his silly Valentine's Day talk.

"We're dudes," he explained patiently. "Since we're not heterosexual, we don't have to celebrate heterosexual holidays."

"I'm pretty sure that gay people celebrate Valentine's Day too, Shawn. Alan at work wouldn't shut up about how he got reservations at La Maison for him and his husband. Which isn't even that impressive because all of the reviews I've read on Yelp say that the service is slow and that the crab cakes have too much celery."

"Couldn't get reservations yourself, huh?" Shawn asked sympathetically.

"No, and Sadie had her heart set on it. I had to settle for reservations at that new Italian place on the boardwalk. I was thinking that my Valentine's Day would suck if she's disappointed, but it's not going to compare to how much yours is going to suck when you show up at Lassiter's place tonight without even a gift."

"Whatshisname at your office is doing it wrong," Shawn insisted. "The best thing about being with another guy is not having the pressure of buying cards with stupid poems in them."

"Really?" Gus asked dubiously. "That's the best thing about your relationship with Lassiter? The lack of expectations around greeting cards?"

"Of course not," Shawn huffed. "But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't in the top twenty. Look, Lassie's a guy. A manly man. He's not interested in pink hearts unless there's a stabbing involved."

"If you say so," Gus said with a shrug. "But Lassiter's a pretty traditional kind of guy, and this is your first year together. He might be planning something romantic."

"Nah," Shawn scoffed. "I would know…right?"

Gus sighed. "Is it time for me to remind you yet again that you're not actually psychic?"

"I'm observant! I observe things! And I haven't observed Lassie acting suspicious about anything this week. He can't keep secrets from me, Gus. He's an even worse liar than you are."

"But you told me that you've barely seen Lassiter this week except at work," Gus pointed out. "Maybe he's been avoiding you on purpose so that you can't figure out that he has big plans for you tonight."

"No," Shawn said, but he sounded unsure. "He wouldn't…would he? I'm the devious one, not him."

Gus looked at his watch impatiently. "All I know is that we've spent all the time today that I'm willing to spend talking about your relationship with Lassiter. Anyway, we need to get down to the station to make sure that he and Juliet don't find the evidence they need before we can give them the evidence we already have. We need to get paid, son."

Arrest. Interrogation. Paperwork. Lassiter had a headache from reading financial records all afternoon, before Shawn and Gus had burst into the station with a "vision" and the evidence they needed. Having them pop in and solve the case at the last minute would never stop being annoying, no matter how much Lassiter loved Shawn, but he had to admit that in cases involving staring at columns of numbers, a psychic vision (no matter how fake) was a welcome development. Still, even with the evidence in hand, it had taken hours to get the arrest warrant, bring in the suspect, and question and book him. Gus had left early on for a date, but Shawn had hung out at the station for most of the evening, solving a minor vandalism case for a couple of uniformed officers. He finally left only a few minutes before Lassiter did, after confirming that he would be coming over to Lassiter's apartment that night.

And somehow, it was still Valentine's Day, and Lassiter had spent all afternoon and evening stewing over O'Hara's insistence that he needed to get Shawn a gift. It was late enough when he left the station that most of the stores in the area had already closed, and the only option between the station and his house, where Shawn was supposed to meet him in half an hour, was a drugstore. It would have to do.

Truth be told, while it would be nice to spend some time with Shawn, he wasn't sure that even with a gift it would be possible to make this anything resembling a romantic holiday. In addition to his headache, his shoulders and back also ached from sitting hunched over paperwork for too long. He was cranky from too many cups of coffee and too many days of work in a row, and hungry because all he'd had for lunch was a granola bar. He wanted to go home and eat something and go to sleep, and tomorrow, when he had the day off, there could be, as Shawn would say, sexy shenanigans.

But for now, to salve his guilty conscience and make sure that Shawn would be interested in later shenanigans, there needed to be a gift.

The first thing he noticed when he walked in to the Rite Aid was a rack of DVDs on the counter next to a bored 19 year old cashier who was undoubtedly counting down the minutes until closing time.

"Do you have anything with Val Kilmer?" Lassiter asked, scanning the selection.

The clerk barely glanced up from the magazine she was flipping through. "Who?"

"Forget it," he snapped, glancing at his watch. "Just tell me where the Valentine's Day stuff is."

This finally got the clerk's attention; she gave Lassiter a disdainful once-over. "Dude, for real? What, did you forget or something?"

Though his fingers itched to reach for his gun, Lassiter merely gritted his teeth. "Which. Aisle?"

The kid blinked, shrugged, and pointed. Lassiter stalked off to the indicated aisle, but his desire to shoot something didn't disappear once he was there, because there was nearly nothing left. Sure, there were still some heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, but after what O'Hara had said, he couldn't bring himself to buy one. Although…on one shelf he saw a box that was being hugged by a stuffed bear. "I Luv U Beary Much" was written on it. Even better, next to it was one with a stuffed rabbit and the caption "I'm Ur Luv Bunny." It was stupid, but Spencer liked both bunnies and candy. Hopefully, it was better than coming home with nothing. He grabbed the bunny, dropping it into the basket he had picked up at the front door, and was about to exit the aisle when one last thing caught his eye. Hanging on a peg with a few sad, Valentine's Day themed t-shirts, was a pair of shiny black boxer shorts covered with red hearts. They were at least as stupid as the bunny, but picturing Shawn's grin when he pulled them out of a gift bag made Lassiter put them in his basket as well.

Now, all he needed was the gift bag and a card, and no one would be able to accuse of him of being the worst boyfriend in Santa Barbara.

On the way to the greeting card aisle, he found himself stopping short in front of an endcap of mostly lotions and shower gel. The bottle that made him pause, though, was made of dark-tinted glass and said "Massage Oil" on the label. He picked it up and unscrewed the cap. The scent was warm, spicy, surprisingly masculine. He had a sudden vision of Shawn sprawled across his bed, the muscles of his back warm and lax and slippery with oil underneath Lassiter's hands.

Huh. Maybe he was more up for sexy shenanigans than he had previously assumed.

The bottle went into the basket, while the inappropriate thoughts got filed away for later. Maybe something good could come from all this Valentine's Day nonsense after all.

Picking out a card proved to be more difficult than a gift. The only ones that remained were so mushy that they made Lassiter roll his eyes, and they would have embarrassed Shawn with their sentimentality. Someone else stepped into the aisle, and Lassiter moved to make room without looking up from the card he was reading.

"I'm gonna kill Gus," a familiar voice said, and Lassiter looked up to see Shawn standing next to him.

"What?" Lassiter asked, flustered and confused, immediately trying to hide his shopping basket behind his back "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Same thing you're doing," Shawn said, holding up his own shopping basket. "I knew it! I knew we had an unsaid agreement to ignore this dumb holiday. Man, we could already be home, watching Criminal Minds and eating take-out."

Lassiter felt a strange little ping in the region of his heart at Shawn's casual use of the word "home"; they hadn't yet reached the moving-in-together stage of their relationship, but maybe…maybe it was something to start thinking about, because coming home to Shawn every night suddenly sounded like the best idea in the world.

"O'Hara said that you would want to celebrate because you love holidays," Lassiter said, mostly so that he wouldn't blurt out 'do you want to move in with me?' in the middle of the card aisle of Rite Aid.

"Shyeah, real holidays, like National Doughnut Day and International Respect for Chickens Day. Not silly greeting card holidays like this," Shawn said, waving his hand in the direction of the mushy cards.

"International Resp…never mind, I don't want to know. Can we get out of here now?"

"Wait, I want to see what you were going to get me," Shawn said, grabbing for Lassiter's basket. His face lit up at the sight of the bunny and the boxer shorts, but it was the massage oil he reached for, reading the label with a pleased, filthy smirk that made Lassiter feel flushed and stupid.

"You're definitely still buying this stuff," he announced, handing the basket back.

Nodding towards the basket in Shawn's hand, Lassiter asked "What about you? What were you going to get me?"

"Oh, uh, it's not much," Shawn said, as Lassiter reached for the basket. Inside was the "I Luv U Beary Much" candy box, along with a bottle of Lassiter's favorite bubble bath and a new loofah. "I know your head's been hurting you all afternoon, so I thought maybe you'd like a hot bath to unwind when you got home. I was gonna stop by the liquor store and get some of that whiskey you like too."

Of course Shawn knew he liked a tumbler of whiskey when he got home and hot bubble baths to relax, and Criminal Minds and take-out Chinese. Of course he could tell just by looking that Lassiter had a headache. It had been a very long time since Lassiter felt that someone knew him so well. Maybe he had never really felt that way at all before.

Impulsively, he dropped the shopping baskets, leaned down, and kissed Shawn under the glare of the fluorescent lights. Shawn gave a surprised "mmph" before clutching his jacket lapels to pull him closer, solid and warm and sure in Lassiter's arms.

"YO! Break it up!" Lassiter looked up to see the cashier standing at the end of the aisle. "We're closing. Bring your purchases to the counter," she snapped, adding, as she turned away, "I've only made, like, three announcements in the last five minute saying we're closing. Some of us want to go home, you know."

Torn between being embarrassed and being pissed off, Lassiter briefly considered leaving without buying anything, but Shawn was already picking up their baskets and heading for the cash register.

"Wow," he said, grinning, "someone's really gunning for Employee of the Month, huh? But, she's got a point. I'm ready to go home too."

Home with Shawn. Lassiter cleared his throat, nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Let's go home."

Notes:

If you're looking for a reason to celebrate, International Respect for Chickens day is on May 4 this year (when Shawn and Gus will also be celebrating Star Wars day, of course), while National Doughnut Day is on June 2