Chapter Text
Shawn was sitting in his favorite coffee shop in Santa Barbara. The coffee wasn’t his favorite, but he loved that it was right on the beach, and therefore he could sit outside to work. They also happened to have excellent house-made scones. He knew his friends and co-workers at the station thought he was just a self-taught detective hack. He knew they knew that because well…he was.
A couple of years ago he gave up on the psychic thing and started working full-time as a consulting detective for the department. He couldn’t keep lying to his friends and risked ruining their relationship, so he came clean. They still wanted to be friends with him and, even better, wanted him to work for them.
He needed the money more than ever now since his student loans were no longer frozen and his debt felt like it was drowning him. He was getting some good extra cash doing consulting work at the SBPD but his main income was from working with the LAPD doing forensics. He worked mainly out of the labs at UC Santa Barbara since the LAPD had a partnership with them and would send evidence down when the labs in LA were too full. Shawn still felt like he was not paid enough for the job he was doing. Most weeks he worked 6 days a week and he still barely had enough money to pay his rent. Rent went up every and his pay did not. He got a small raise every year but the LAPD had a new chief come in 4 years ago and he implemented a pay freeze to save money.
6 years of school and 3 degrees later and he still didn’t feel successful in his professional career. He hoped desperately that by the time he was done with his PhD program, he would finally have a stable job in his field of study that paid enough to at least get by. His dad kept telling him to talk to Karen and see if she could hire him full-time at SBPD in the forensics lab rather than doing consulting work and miscellaneous stuff for LAPD. Even though right now he is working 6 days a week that is not always the case. Technically he is a peir diem forensics tech so he only gets paid the days they need him, hence, the instability.
Instead of lamenting about how tired and stressed he was, he should focus on his school work. He would be defending his thesis this coming May and desperately needed to practice more. He loved the scones and the beach view while he worked but more importantly, he loved seeing the very attractive man that came in multiple times a week to get a red-eye with 4 shots of espresso in it. Either the man was a raging insomniac or he worked in the medical field. Shawn guessed the ladder since he almost always had hospital scrubs on under his vest or sweater and a clip with hospital credentials on his waistband. He wondered what was under that waistband. The man looked lean but strong, his scrub shirt sleeves always fitting snugly around his biceps showing off his muscles.
His credential clip probably had his name on it, but it was always covered or flipped around so Shawn could never get a good look. The man had very dark brown almost black hair that was fluffy and full, and he had a side part that fluffed up his hair even more, it looked soft. He wanted to touch it.
Don’t be such a weirdo you don’t even know him. He would think to himself every time the man passed him as he worked.
He was pretty covered up between the scrubs and sweater but Shawn caught a glimpse of what was probably a tattoo on his left forearm. He did not have any obvious tattoos that could be seen on the part of him that were uncovered but that was probably a professional choice.
Unfortunately, there was still a stigma about professionalism and tattoos/piercings even though neither of those things makes someone less professional in any way, shape, or form. Shawn wondered what other tattoos the man might have. It was one of his weaknesses. He thought they were sexy.
Especially thigh tattoos. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for a man with a thigh tattoo.
He didn’t have any himself. His pain tolerance was too low for tattoos, he had a hard enough time with piercings. He had gotten two cartilage piercings in his right ear, one in his left, and three lobe piercings on each ear when he was in college. He loved them all but each time he would cry for days after from the throbbing. He couldn’t get a tattoo the piercings were enough. He hadn’t worn his earrings in years. He wondered what his friends would think of them. Maybe he would put them back in he kind of missed them.
He was finished with his research work for now and was planning on going down to the station to see if the chief had any cases for him to work on. As he packed his bag up and finished his coffee he couldn’t help but feel he was being watched. He looked up sharply and saw the man standing at the pickup counter waiting for his order, staring at him. When Shawn looked up at him he promptly looked away, his cheeks slightly flushed in embarrassment of being caught. Was he watching him? He threw out his cup and turned to walk away when Star, the barista, came jogging over with a drink in hand.
“Shawn! This is for you!” she said handing him the drink. Star knew him by name since he was a regular.
“I didn’t order another drink,” he said still accepting the cup since she had made it for him and he didn’t want to make her feel bad by just throwing it out. Also, that would be a waste.
“You might not wanna throw that cup out…he ordered it for you,” she said, slightly whispering the last part and nodding nonchalantly towards the dark-haired man who was leaving the shop with his drink in hand.
Shawn turned the cup in his hands and the man's name and number were written on it: Ty Brooks 3332176556 : )
He smiled at the cup, “Thanks Star!”
“Anytime,” she winked at him and ran back to the counter to continue making drinks. “I want updates!” she shouted as he left hurriedly to catch up with the man he now knew was named Ty.
Shawn followed (not in a creepy way) Ty back to the hospital to thank him for the drink but stopped when he saw him speaking to whom he assumed were colleagues. He slipped out of Ty’s view and decided to wait on one of the benches near the hospital entrance. While he waited he took out his book, Good Omens, it was his favorite book, he had read it dozens of times. If he needed a comfort book or something casual to read that he didn’t need to think about heavily, this book was his choice, he always carried it in his bag.
“Do you always follow people around who buy you a cup of coffee?” Ty said startling him from his book. He looked up bashfully slightly embarrassed and had slightly pink cheeks from being caught off guard.
He cleared his throat, “Um no I just wanted to say thank you for the drink…and the number,” he said blushing even harder, his face was very red by now.
“I don’t need to go to the coffee shop I get free coffee from work, but I like seeing you there,” he said, this time it was Ty’s turn to blush.
“I don’t want to keep you from work if you’re busy but here,” he paused pulling out his phone and adding Ty’s contact, “I’ll send you my number and you can let me know when you’re free, we could get dinner or drinks if you’d like to.”
“My shift’s supposed to get done around 3 since I’m working days right now which is a nice change from the night shift. If you’re free tonight I’d love to get dinner but that’s too short of notice we can plan for another day?” Ty asked.
“No, tonight would be great I don’t have any plans.” That was a lie, he was supposed to go to the pool bar with Gus but if he told his friend he had a date he was sure he’d understand.
“Great, I’ll let you know when I’m done. I have to get back to work, patients don’t fix themselves,” he said with a chuckle, “sorry bad doctor joke.”
“It’s okay haha. I’ll wait to hear from you,” he said laughing.
He watched as Ty went back into the hospital to continue his day smiling to himself. He had to go home to shower and pick out what he was going to wear tonight. First, he had to call Gus though.
“Shawn, I’m busy I don’t have to run around solving cases today,” Gus said sternly when he picked up the phone.
“Hey! You don’t need to be such an ass you don’t even know why I’m calling!” Shawn said with a whine.
“Well,” Gus said after a moment of silence, “why did you call then?”
“Can’t I just call my best friend and see how he’s doing?”
“Shawn! I have a meeting in five minutes what do you want?” Gus said exasperated.
“Look, I know we had plans tonight to go play pool,” Shawn started.
“C’mon man, we’ve been planning this for weeks!” Gus said even more annoyed now.
“Well remember the guy at the coffee shop I told you about?” Shawn asked.
“Yeeesss…” Gus said slowly.
“Well, he may have given me his number and asked me to have dinner tonight.”
“Dude hell yeah!” Gus said excitedly.
“So you’re not mad about me canceling?”
“I was until you told me why. Okay, I really need to get to this meeting but I want to hear how the date goes!” Gus said hanging up.