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It should be enough, just knowing that Yin is dead, and that Allison is going to prison. They’re getting what they deserve. They’re gone and they can’t hurt anyone anymore. No one innocent even died this time.
But that’s not how it works. Not even for Carlton, as rational and objective and occasionally robotic as he likes to make himself out to be.
It’s okay not to be okay, though. He holds to that because that is the rational answer that comes from the irrationality of grief, and because he has learned to accept, in possibly just the past few years... that it’s important to feel. That refusing to do so could only protect him for so long.
Still, knowing this, it’s hard. He’s spent most of his life bottling things up, and kicking the habit continues to be an uphill battle. Everyone has their own way of coping and he knows damn well that his —shooting targets at the gun range, or otherwise working twice as hard as usual—isn’t the best, but it’s worked for him for this long. It makes him feel in control. It makes him feel safe .
He has his guns, and O’Hara has excercise, and Guster has eating, and Shawn... has jokes.
Shawn, as he’s known for a while now, is similar to him in that he’s coping for something nearly all the time. It’s very easy to tell when something is particularly upsetting him because his jokes come more often, and they’re more rapid-fire, and they’re in fact much less funny because they don’t come from wit or any desire to entertain or even for attention. He’s just deflecting.
The thing is, they don’t often make anyone around him feel better, least of all Carlton.
But he expects it now , after Yin. He knows that’s just how Shawn is, and he knows that Shawn has been out with Guster all day, watching movies and treating themselves with junk food and avoiding the topic of their near-demise entirely... And he knows that when Shawn walks in, he’s probably just hoping to not have any serious conversation, but to simply cuddle on the couch to something lighthearted.
He’s already on it.
“You wanna rent something?” Carlton asks, grabbing the remote to start flipping through channels. “There’s a whole section for Stiller comedies, now. Or if you’re burnt out on movies I can just put on the Cartoon Network.”
Shawn smirks, at that.
“You’re only forty-two, Lassie, you shouldn’t be saying cartoon channel names like a grandpa.”
“And you’re thirty-four but you’re still watching kids’ cartoons.”
“Touche,” Shawn says, and promptly lets himself fall right over the arm of the couch, and long-ways onto the cushions and Carlton’s lap. “But you’re the one who offered to put them on for me.”
“Because I love you,” Carlton says simply.
“Yes, but not enough to know that I prefer Disney Channel to Cartoon Network,” Shawn jokes—hopefully—as he sits up, kisses him on the cheek, and takes the remote from him.
He curls up into Carlton’s side, and Carlton takes advantage of the time to just hold him, for more or less the first time since rescuing him from Yin. There was little opportunity (that is, privacy) at the station afterward to do anything but hold his hand under a table and give him a brief kiss before getting to the nightmare of interrogating Allison Cowley and the following paperwork....
Granted, Chief Vick had strongly suggested he take the day off, and Carlton was the one who insisted. But he would have driven himself crazy without some work to do, and he didn’t want to force Guster into a third wheel-situation. Or become the third wheel himself.
He wants to do so much more than put a single arm around him and another hand on his waist, right now. He wants to hold Shawn tight and kiss every inch of his face and burrow his own face into Shawn’s shoulder, and he wants to feel the intense, physical proof of Shawn being unharmed and alive in his arms, and to not let go until tomorrow morning.
But there’s a new episode of Phineas and Ferb on tonight, apparently, and Shawn seems invested in it. So that can wait. Having him curled up against his side, anyway, and seeing him smile out of the corner of his eye and hearing that Shawn is still capable of laughter... is enough for now.
“That’s you,” Shawn mutters against him. The mad scientist with the borderline offensive German accent is onscreen.
“How is that me?” Carlton mutters back, frowning and unsure whether he should be offended.
“Aren’t you paying attention? Well, I’m not rewinding.”
That doesn’t bother Carlton in the least, and he knows Shawn knows that, but he is, in fact, paying even less attention to the cartoon than usual. If it was Cops or maybe Hawaii Five-0 he could be properly distracted... but not now. Yin won’t get out of his head, even with Shawn beside him.
He wishes that he could be more like Shawn in the same moment that he realizes that Yin certainly isn’t out of his head, either. He’s just pushed further back. Maybe Carlton just wishes he could do that.
Maybe he should try to get invested in this cartoon.
“That’s you,” Carlton says, as the teenage sister fails in some investigation.
Shawn giggles and presses even closer to him, and it’s all he could want in that moment.
Then, after the episode ends, Carlton wants to ask him about his day. If he spent more time with his mother, who is so rarely in town. If his dad has been overbearing all day. If he absolutely gorged himself while with Guster or if he could go for some dinner.
“Yes, but still yes,” he answers to that last one. “I’m actually dying for some shaped macaroni. Do you have scooby-doo shapes?”
“I have noodle shapes,” Carlton answers dryly.
“I guess that’s close enough.” Shawn sighs over-exaggeratedly and pushes himself up and off the couch, then pulls Carlton with him and to the kitchen. “The regular noodles could be like, Shaggy’s severed arm. Or a... bent scooby snack.”
He’s almost surprised that Shawn can make a morbid joke like that right now without batting an eyelash, but he also can’t help but breathe a short laugh. At least at the delivery , because, come on .
Carlton himself isn’t particularly hungry, but he knows that that’s a product of his anxiety and that he should get a meal in him about now. Boring, regular-shaped macaroni and cheese should do for both of them.
More importantly, now that they’re both up, he has the room to do it properly—that is, he has the room to look at Shawn’s face and see the slight smile that means he wants it too. And he can take his hand and thread their fingers together, and he can cup his boyfriend’s face and kiss him.
It’s long, and it’s soft. It’s a tired kiss. It’s an I-haven’t-kissed-you-all-day-kiss. It’s a more-relieved-than-you-can- imagine kiss.
He pulls away, and sees Shawn with his eyes still closed and lips still outstretched like he was expecting more, and then grabbing the counter so he doesn’t fall over.
Then comes the first tremble of his lips. It doesn’t seem like anything, but just a second later—
“Oh, god, that’s stupid,” Shawn breathes, and it sounds like a laugh and his lips are stretched into a grin even as they’re trembling worse now, and as his eyes are glistening—“That’s just—this is so dumb , why...”
And then, too suddenly for Carlton to prevent it, Shawn’s eyes are squeezed shut and his jaw is clenched, and he’s covering his face with one hand but Carlton can still see the sobs that are heaving their way up from his chest.
Oh, no.
Carlton’s arms are immediately around him.
“I’m sorry—”
“I don’t know why I’m crying, Lassie,” Shawn sobs, muffled, into his chest.
“I mean, I have a pretty good idea why,” Carlton can’t stop himself from saying, as he pulls him in as tight as he can. It seems to make Shawn laugh, at least.
“No, I—” He laughs again, and it shakes the both of them. “I don’t know why I’m only crying just now , I... oh, god, I—I cheat death all the time, but I’ve never come so close before and it—it really would have been all my fault , wouldn’t it?”
Carlton frowns deeply and feels his own eyes burn with tears trying to push their way through.
“It would have been Yin’s fault, and no one else’s,” he tells him, voice as firm as he’s holding him. “He’s a psychopath and you can’t blame yourself for—”
Shawn starts pulling back, and in spite of his confusion, Carlton lets him go.
“It wasn’t supposed to be about me, Lassie!” he damn near screams, eyes already swollen and red, streaks of tears down his cheeks, and looking like he’s about to rip his own hair out. “ You told me that! But I made it about me, and I—I fucking believed Allison when no one else did, and I went into the fucking house with just Gus and I—god, we should both be dead right now—”
“Maybe you should be, but you’re not ,” Carlton says, holding his gaze with sudden intensity and gripping him by both arms. “You’re not dead, Shawn. You’re alive and that’s what matters to me , and it’s what matters to Guster and O’Hara and your parents and everyone else . Okay?”
For a few moments, Shawn simply stares at him.
“Lassie, you’re crying.”
“...Am I?” He blinks a few times, and notices his vision become a lot clearer when he does. And those do feel like tears dripping off the bottom of his chin, don’t they. “Huh. I guess... I am.”
That very rarely happens, and when it does it’s almost always in complete privacy—but as Shawn rushes forward into his arms again, Carlton feels no inclination to stop or hold back. In fact, he feels the tears coming harder and heavier. He clutches at Shawn’s back and at his hair, and feels Shawn do the same.
“I was so fucking terrified, Lassie,” he says through sobs, “I really thought—”
“Me too,” Carlton rasps out.
“I mean, I—god, I really had no control over that situation, all I did was stall long enough for Yang to get there and kill him....”
“But that’s your signature move, isn’t it?”
That makes Shawn laugh against him again, and relief floods through Carlton—any sign that Shawn is still Shawn , that he hasn’t been broken by this...
But then he sniffs, and goes silent for several seconds.
“...You should break up with me, Lassie,” he says, and his grip on Carlton promptly weakens. Shawn’s arms fall, mostly limp, to his lower back.
“What—?”
“You deserve someone who doesn’t do this shit to you—who isn’t gonna look death in the face and force you to pull him from it every week, and... God, Lass, I mean—I was so terrified just to die , and that I was gonna have to see Gus die first, but then I was terrified for you and what would happen if I just left you all alone, and I didn’t—I don’t want you to ever go through that, and you’d be so much better off without—”
“ Shawn .”
Before he can shuffle out of his arms again, Carlton pulls him closer and tighter, and he feels his eyes threaten to spill over and his throat burn like hell as he says, raggedly and directly into his ear,
“Shawn, I would be no less fucking devastated upon losing you if we weren’t together, I... Listen to me, Shawn, listen , I—I am not going to break up with you, and I would never tell you to stop doing this. You love being a detective and you’re good at it and I love working with you and... and I would never ask you to stop because you would never ask me to stop...”
God, the tears are piling up so high he can barely see anymore. Has he ever cried this much before?
“...But it would be nice if you could be a little more careful,” he adds, quietly.
He feels Shawn immediately clutch harder at his back, and duck his head down onto Carlton’s shoulder.
Almost a full minute of silence later, Shawn pulls away, and starts nodding and furiously wiping at his face.
“Fair enough,” he sniffs, still mostly hiding his face in his sleeves.
Consumed by a rush of relief, again, Carlton steps forward to kiss his forehead, and he tries to kiss his lips, too, but—
“No, not yet, I’m ugly.”
He almost wants to laugh. “You’re not ugly.”
“Then you’re blinded by love because my face is a swollen, snot-covered mess right now—which in most cultures constitutes for ugly, Lassie.”
“Then we’re both ugly, so—”
“Yes, we are! I love you very much but the facts are facts, and I’m not kissing you again until we both look normal.”
Carlton rolls his eyes, but his sigh is entirely out of fondness as he moves to turn on the sink so they can both splash their faces with cold water. And as he realizes how much better he feels.... Surely Guster and O’Hara (and probably McNab) have done some crying on their own time, but they’re just those kind of people. They’re... more comfortable with themselves, Carlton now imagines.
Because after all this time of refusing to cry so consistently, one good cry seems to have done what a day of sleep-deprived work couldn’t for him... and what a day of treating himself with Guster couldn’t do for Shawn.
One good cry, and another good kiss, of course.
And, as he’s mostly forgotten until now—
“On second thought, Lassie, I really don’t wanna settle for regular mac n’ cheese.”
Carlton sighs, again in fondness.
“Fine. Get in the car.”