Work Text:
Shawn settled back against the couch. A film playing on his small tv. Never switching through channels. Only letting the CD play through instead. He had about a quarter left of the first Godfather film. One he had seen at least ten times by now and could quote a very large majority of it. Shawn kicked up his feet to sit entirely on the plush of the couch. Legs tucked into sweatpants, an old crappy hoodie covered his torso; hood on his head. He wrapped himself further into the blanket again before searching for his page.
It wasn’t that the movie was not interesting or that he knew it too well. Contrary to such, Shawn deeply enjoys the movie and finds comfort in the film, despite its eerie-ness of course.
However, the truth was that for the last three days, hours taken up by two surprisingly difficult cases and very little free time, all Shawn had wanted to do was settle down in his living room with his kindle. A soft swirling of shame settled through his stomach. He hated being a shy reader. That he wanted to hide it. But he knew that his father would laugh at him if the man ever found out that his son enjoys reading romance novels. Juliet might coo, and Gus would just chuckle to himself. Hopeless romantic Shawn Spencer at it again. But this specific book: Notorious by Patricia Potter, of which he was about halfway through the third chapter -and holding back a laugh when Cat considered poisoning Mr Cantron, and realizing it would be bad for business- was a historical fiction and romance novel, with a slightly smutty side.
Not that he was reading just to imagine heterosexual intimacy. He could imagine heterosexual or homosecual or even polysexual (if he wanted) relationships without the damn words. He read to enjoy the content. To view places and people who never really existed, yet ones that still feel real. To live lives with people that are so nearly actual humans; to turn the page, and remember that it’s just him. No one reads a book the same way as the last person. And with Shawn’s overactive imagination and ability to piece details together. It was either see everything literally, or to see what’s happening in every little word, and then ti take the page apart piece by piece and extrapolate just what may become of the characters and their little individual lives.
Shawn Spencer deeply loves historical fiction. Telling him of a time he may never live in, lived by people who while not actually there, are close enough to who may have existed in such situations. Realistic, but no actual harm. The excitement of learning through people who never really got hurt.
Shawn found a sense of peace in these stories. Unlike the shows he watched or the life he lived, he has the ability, through reading, to see every emotion flit across Cat’s face, and then back to Marsh as he observed the buffet food. Sense their emotions, pride and disgust and curiosity. Shawn couldn't help the smile that rose on his face as he imagined piano music ringing softly. The San Francisco town sounded unrealistic, but also totally close to life. Not just with the damn near physical distance, but it felt like a familiar atmosphere. Shawn desired to switch his tv off in favor of the radio, or a recording of classic and soft piano music.
Yes, this entire imaginative experience that made Shawn crave a slice of life outside of his own. Presenting a strange sense of self in every character, every word in every sentence in every page. Identifying with every written person and word. This was Shawn’s favorite type of book. And he could read these stories forever. Because the emotional high he got from reading them let him sleep every night. He could just imagine, not memorize. He could feel, not speculate. He could read situations, not read into them.
Shawn Spencer felt the most normal he ever could when he was simply reading. And if he wanted a little silly sappy romance with a shag or two written in the pages, then who was anyone else to judge as he used the small wheel to scroll down to the next page.
“Chapter 4.”