Because the idea of Shawn and sketching and Juliet wouldn't leave my head.

And because Shawn said that when he wasn't a coward he'd show Juliet his sketches. My Muse and I decided that it would never happen if left up to him. So we took matters into our own hands.

Heh heh heh... :D


She just came by to tell him that he was right. They'd found the evidence exactly where he said they would.

That she could have done such a thing over the phone was a fact she chose to ignore. That she was finding more and more excuses to seek him out was a truth she buried in a corner of her mind. She didn't have to deal with what she didn't think about.

He's not here. She knows that immediately since both Gus' blue car and his Norton are missing. But the lights are still on inside so someone is bound to come back. And Gus has a date tonight so it's probably not him.

Deciding that waiting inside on a rainy night makes just as much—or more—sense than sitting in her car, she readies her umbrella and opens her door, the protective shield popping open with a quick and practiced move on her part. She lets herself in the unlocked door, smiling ruefully as she shakes her head.

Gus is definitely not coming back. Shawn wouldn't dare leave the door unlocked if there was a chance his best friend might find out about it. And since he cares about his TV still being here when he returns it's obvious he only braved the monsoon of a storm for a quick dinner run. Which means she doesn't have long to wait. She gives the comfy chairs a glance, but decides not to take them up on the invitation to sit.

A chance to look around is too tempting to pass up.

Gus' desk is neat and organized and completely Gus. She'd bet he even has files in actual folders inside the cabinet, though whether they're sorted alphabetically or by some other system she can't be sure. Shawn's desk is just as representative of the owner though it's at the opposite end of the spectrum on the 'clean and organized' scale. She smiles and thinks that probably doesn't make a difference in how quickly something can be found by the respective owners.

She's just about to end her quick survey and take a seat before Shawn returns, when something on his desk catches her eye. There's a spiral bound notebook, one that she realizes she's seen before. Funny how she never really thought about it, but now that she has, it occurs to her that she's seen it quite often.

She glances towards the window, but the strobe of lights is only from a passing car and curiosity is nibbling away at her. So with a silent apology for snooping she picks it up and flips back the cover.

And inhales sharply, completely taken by surprise.

It's her. It's a candid moment, one in which she thought she was unobserved, but the detail and accuracy of the sketch make it easy for her to recall the heart beat of time remembered in the gentle sweeps of black ink.

She flips the page and her eyes race over the paper again before she goes on to the next one. Page after page after page is filled with her.

Happy, sad, laughing, scowling, bored, amused, smug, unsure... it's filled with her, stolen moments of time displayed here in this simple spiral notebook. The skill takes her breath away and the detail leaves her amazed.

She reaches the end and is disappointed to find a few empty pages. Until her eyes stray down to the desk before her.

Another furtive glance towards the front window to confirm there are no approaching motorcycle headlights and she sets the notebook down and pulls open a drawer. There's a stack of magazines—sports, bikes, and video games, nothing surprising there—but her gut tells her that's just a convenient cover. She pulls them out and is rewarded by vindication. Beneath the stack of glossy publications there are more notebooks.

Her eyes widen when she realizes how many. In a drawer that's at least eight inches deep she finds six of them are the spiral bound notebooks.

She's forgotten that she'll have company in the office soon and settles down in the chair to see if she's got company in the notebooks.

Half an hour later she's still silently flipping through.

She's not the only subject. There's a couple of Gus. A few of Karen, and even some of Lassiter and Henry.

By this time she's come to see that his style of drawing conveys more than his skill and attention to detail. The very pen strokes reveal his emotions about his subject in the moment of frozen time.

Gus is most often drawn in light, easy lines, vaguely cartoonish, though the resemblance is still uncanny. Lassiter is either amusing caricature or short, quick lines that seem to indicate annoyance. Henry is mostly done in thick, angry lines, the frustration clear in the deep indentations. Karen is clear, no nonsense lines, no extra feathers of wasted ink. It gives her drawings a feeling of respect and understanding.

Her own pictures, by far the most numerous of the lot, are all soft lines, flowing shapes. There's a filter there, between her and her heretofore unknown observer. She's not quite sure what it means.

The sudden crinkle of plastic makes her jump and nearly tumble out of the chair as her eyes shoot up in panic to see Shawn standing in the back doorway, dripping wet from his ride in the rain.

Their eyes meet and she finds her tongue has gone numb, her brain unwilling or unable to respond to her frantic commands to do something, say something.

"I stopped by the station," he said. "Thought I'd see if you were still there and hungry," he adds and lifts the bag. She can see now that it's full of little white boxes with bright red writing on the side. He brought her Chinese.

She opens her mouth, then shuts it, still completely at a loss for words. He just walks past and sets the bag on the table, then moves to shrug out of his jacket and hang it up to dry. He returns to the food and drops into one of the chairs and starts pulling things out.

She's still sitting at his desk, notebook in hand, guilty expression on her face, and not a thing in her brain beyond panic at how he'll react to her invasion of his privacy.

He nods to the other chair as he breaks his chopsticks and rolls them between his hands a few times. "You're welcome to join me."

He's being oddly formal about all of this, not at all like the Shawn she's familiar with, and in that moment it hits her that she's not the only one uncomfortable right now and uncertain how to act. Her realization is what gives her the courage to stand and walk over to the chair and sit down.

He hands her chopsticks and a box that she can already smell is her favorite, the #12 with shrimp. They eat in silence for a few minutes before she speaks, surprising them both.

"When you said that you drew, that you sometimes needed a model, I didn't think..." But her courage runs out before she's done and she hurries to stuff another mouthful of noodles and shrimp in to fill the gap.

He arches an eyebrow, a faint smile curving his lips. "That I was serious?" he finishes.

She just works on thoroughly chewing her food.

He laughs, hesitantly and self-consciously, and she forgets to take another bite.

"Yeah," he says quietly, "me neither."

"You're very good," she says. It's inane and she can't believe she said something that pathetic.

Then he smiles, a shy, uncertain thing.

"Really?" he asks, the vulnerability in his voice completely genuine and all the more potent for it.

She feels herself slip, actually feels herself slide down the slope towards what she can only guess is a mistake, but she can't stop herself and she doesn't seem to care.

"I just..." he says, but trails off and pokes at his moo goo gai pan.

His lack of courage seems to bolster hers and before she can stop herself she's saying, "If you'd still like a model—not that you need one obviously... I mean, you have a model, and, well, I guess that's me, so this whole discussion is stupid and..." Before she loses her courage and coherent thought completely she blurts out, "I'm just saying that I'd be willing to do a sitting. Or whatever it's called."

She looks up to find his familiar, sardonic grin back in place.

"I don't know. I think I like our current arrangement."


Okay, who has a toothache now from that sappy pile of pure, fluffy sugar? I know I do! :D

Review plz&thx.