Though I've dutifully followed the practice like the most tractable of sheep, I've never quite understood the compulsive need to disclaim one's fan fictions. A few words of self-flagellation, the requisite avowal of poverty and pleas for transactional immunity, not to mention hyperbolic author praise ain't gonna do squat to make fan fiction anything less plagiaristic. But hell, for convention's sake, consider this story disclaimed.
He slept like the dead, usually.
It was endearing, she supposed, the way Shawn collapsed into the boneless sprawl of slumber like a child down from a sugar high. He would lie there, perfectly still save for the slow rise and fall of his chest, breathing quietly, with small puffs of air escaping his barely parted lips. Sometimes his breath would gently stir the hair on the back of her neck, or brush across her cheek like the barest of caresses. Instead of irritating her, Juliet found it comforting, knowing that her lover lay under the same sheets that covered her, that his warmth crept over toward her side of the bed even on the coldest of nights. And it was reassuring to feel his breath, his life, ghosting across her cheek when her own troubled dreams woke her and she needed to remind herself that he was alright, that they were alright, and that whichever criminal or psychopath disturbed her equanimity had been caught and brought to justice.
Sometimes, after a long day that left him particularly tired and stressed and jittery with concealing it from everyone, after he had retreated behind a mask of off-beat humour and pineapple smoothies, and promised with a tight, slightly manic smile that he would talk to her about whatever it was that was bothering him—not yet but soon—sometimes he talked in his sleep.
He rarely said anything of much interest. Mostly he mumbled random, illogical sentences with no possible connection except in the mind of a deranged lunatic or Shawn Spencer. An improbable number of the late-night snatches of one-sided conversation were snippets of arcane '80s movies or pleas for pineapple-flavoured food items. The occasional smart-ass remark and mumbled "Lassie" wasn't hard to interpret, especially since it mostly occurred after the gruff detective had faced some kind of brush with death. It was obvious that Shawn counted Lassiter as a friend, and it didn't take much of a stretch to realize that Shawn's jokes were a little brother's attempt to get the elder's attention and, in the twisted way that only made sense to children, to earn his approbation. Juliet might have teased Shawn and Carlton about it had she not been so certain that it would cause more discomfort than amusement for all involved.
Juliet also knew that Shawn dreamed about her. After the Yin case, she found herself blushing hotly in the dark of night as she woke to a low, sexy groan and a sleep-roughened voice growling her name. She had ignored it then, in an effort to save them both a little embarrassment. But familiarity bred confidence, and after a particularly tough case which found her a little scraped up but none the worse for the wear, she listened to his urgent sounds of distress over he safety turn into sighs and deep moans, and woke him up, reminding him that dreams were all well and good, but reality kicked ass, too.
Sometimes she would catch a glimpse of him in the morning, his tired face bearing the damning evidence of his lack of sleep. She would tell him that he'd dreamed, her intonation mounting at the end, making the statement a gentle, undemanding question—an oblique reference to his earlier reticence and a subtle plea to share that small bit of himself that he had—however unconsciously—walled off and pushed aside.
It wasn't as if she hoped that his dreams would offer some stunning insight into his psyche. She did not believe that the secret to Shawn Spencer could be found in the pop-culture references and indecipherable babble or even mumbled insults or steamy, life-affirming sex. But the desire to share all and to know all was strong, and she could not control her lips, from which spilled each anxious question, nor her eyes, which silently begged for the intimacy of shared, diminished pain.
He might blurt out every superficial thought that entered his mind, but the deep stuff—the good stuff—he kept hidden away. He tried, God bless him, though she knew that he found it difficult to open up on a more intimate emotional level. His childhood hadn't prepared him for any measure of emotional maturity, but his relationship with Henry was improving, despite the skeletons in that closet. She knew that, though he still had difficulty relating to his mother, he made an effort to contact her after her abduction at the hands of Yang, calling once in a while in an awkward but well-meaning attempt to see how she was doing. Shawn's attempts at sharing his deeper feelings—what he called his Serious Shawn Moments—were becoming more frequent, she'd noticed, and as they did, she felt her heart nestle just a bit closer to his.
Lately, Juliet thought that she had made progress when it came to getting him to talk about the dreams. Or maybe he was the one making progress—she wasn't quite clear on who was supposed to be progressing in this particular campaign. But still she asked, in her non-interrogatory way, about the dreams.
Occasionally, Shawn would tell her fantastical tales of his slumbering adventures: flying through the air on giant black wings; acting as an elite spy, saving the free world from impending calamity; conversing with sentient pineapples. Often he would smile that abashed, crooked smile of his and tell her with impressive innocence that he could not remember what he had dreamed.
But sometimes he would look at her, really look at her, with those wide, clear eyes of his—those eyes that always managed to be just a bit bewitching, given the proper lighting and of course, provided that the mood struck him. He would start talking, about nothing and everything, really, his regular surface chatter interspersed with fleeting glimpses of the man beneath. He would confide in her, between a rundown of the best pancake restaurants in the greater Santa Barbara area and a diatribe railing against Gus' refusal to let Shawn borrow the Blueberry. A few sentences here and there, a glimpse of the fears and hopes and dreams of the man who was slowly but surely becoming almost as indispensable to her as a limb.
He would take her hand—shyly, still, as if afraid she wouldn't want to touch him if he exposed his ugly side—and tell her that sometimes, after a case was over and everyone had gone home, once the bad guys had all been caught and justice done, sometimes it would hit him that life was not a game, that theirs was an important job and a precarious one, and that the woman he loved had a dangerous job and that there were no guarantees in life. And he would smile, a little sadly, perhaps, and tell her that he would be fine, as long as he was with her.
She felt closest to him in those moments, when their separate fears collided, when their confessions mirrored not one but two souls. She would reach for his hand and gently twine their fingers together while their shared anxieties eased with the telling and their tangled fingers coalesced into a symbol of the intimate interrelation of their minds and hearts.
A/N: I'm not quite sure what this is or where it come from, but the theme of slumber just won't leave my brain. A few other ideas are still rattling about, which I suppose I will post when time and inclination allow me to write them.
I think it's clear based on my lackadaisical posting and general discomfort with the whole process that I'm not a writer, but a reader. I am a very good reader, actually, which is why it's clear to me that my little ramblings are somewhat lacking. But the comments that you have all given me here are so kind and thoughtful that I am truly humbled and appreciative, and it makes me want to write just a little more! Thanks again, everyone.
Cheers,
L'ilmissnitpick