Work Text:
Shawn calls him as he’s getting off of work. He’s in the parking lot, heading to his truck, Folsom Prison Blues blaring through his earbuds.
The shift he’s had was rough. Not terribly bad or anything, just hard work— both physical and mental. The shift he’s had was rough, and he would like to be swept up into a world of cowboys and outlaws and this almost violent childhood, violent teenagehood, violent adulthood. Franz likes when music tells a story. He likes when anything tells a story and he can see where it all connects, the beginning, middle and end.
Shawn’s call disrupts his music, pauses it, and his phone vibrates in his jean pocket. If he didn’t have his phone on silent, he thinks he would have Ring of Fire as the tune that plays when his boyfriend calls. It’s a little silly, but he thinks rather bashfully that he would like to do it anyways.
“Hallo,” he greets, immediately shoving whatever heavy, solemn feelings he picked up from his shift and putting them in a box in his mind. It’s more of a chest, really, large and covered in strong leather straps and clasps and whenever something happens Franz puts everything into it and shakes his head and moves on like nothing happened.
He loves Shawn; he doesn’t need to worry him. Shawn’s starting a new business founded on lies. He’s trying to learn how to live in the same town as his father again. He’s trying to do a lot of things.
“Hey,” Shawn says, and Franz feels a warm sense roll over him as he hears the domestic, reliable fondness in his tone, “can you come over to my Dad’s and build a doghouse?”
Franz frowns a little as he unlocks the truck door and hops in. “A dog house?” he repeats, like Shawn’s shadow, “why are you building a dog house at your dad’s? Wh— what is a dog house exactly? I— I’ve heard the phrase.”
“Just— I dunno how to explain it over the phone. It’s a tiny house. Like a bird house for dogs. On the ground,” he tries.
“Ah. Ja. I see,” Franz remarks, but he does not, in fact, see. He turns the keys into the ignition and Viel Zu Spät starts playing through his old radio, twinging sharply.
Franz barely made it to Henry Spencer’s house without asking for directions. It sits in the back of a cul-de-sac with a little walk to the beach in the backyard. It stands tall and almost pretty, if it wasn’t for the fading paint, the sun burnt yellow.
Shawn is in the back, looking at a pile of wood that Franz can vaguely make out as some sort of shape. His head immediately flicks up as he sees the latter and he breaks into a soft grin.
“Hey. Thank you, by the way. Everything with my dad, I just—“ he rubs his face, like he’s trying to scrub away whatever is bothering him. Franz would like to try and help in whatever way he can. He can build a dog house if that’s what Shawn would like him to do, if that would help.
Shawn looks frustrated, shoulders tensed. Franz steps up beside him and looks down at the sloping dog house.”
“Okay. I can do this. How big is the dog?” he asks, because it is reasonable to assume that Henry Spencer is getting a dog and told his son to build the home for it. Shawn wouldn’t do something like this without some sort of thing in return, so Franz wonders if he’s keeping a favour to cash in later, or if he’s doing the favour in return for something else. Help on his Spelling Bee case, perhaps? Shawn had spoken to him on the phone about it before, talking over Gus.
Shawn hands him the hammer. “There’s not a dog. It’s this sick little game my dad is making me do because all he cares about is stupid stuff from 20 years ago!” Shawn runs his hand through his hair.
“Shawn,” he says, gentle, as calm as he needs to be, “I’ll watch any movie about a dog house as long as we rewatch Bridesmaids soon.”
Seemingly thankful for the distraction, Shawn nudges Franz. “Your obsession with that movie needs to be studied,” he says, “it’s not even that funny.”
Franz, after observing what boards he could possibly save, and running the idea of completely starting from scratch over in his mind, shakes his head. “It’s not! I know! But the food poisoning— in the street. Could you shit in the street?”
Shawn, to Franz’s absolute surprise, helps him wiggle off a board. “Yeah? Of course I could. Maybe not in a wedding dress, but after a visit to that Taco guy by the marina, I have been known to walk very fast to the closest bathroom.”
Franz scrunches up his nose in faux disgust. “I do not need to know about that,” he responds. He isn’t sure why the scene in Bridesmaids sits in his head so long. Maybe it’s the concept of sickness, which brings him back to the Paramedics, which brings him back to his job, which brings him back to that chest in his mind, which seems to be rattling today, like he’s locked up an animal, or buried someone alive.
Suddenly, he’s thinking about his sister and he isn’t sure what else to do. He’s just standing there, dumbly, while Shawn rambles on.
He looks at his hands, almost like he’s having some kind of out of body experience. His hands aren’t shaking. He’s clutching onto the hammer, not white-knuckled, but normal.
Shawn must notice he’s stuck in his head, because he asks about what Johnny Cash song he was listening to on the drive here, and then he’s back to Shawn, afternoon light casting warmly across his face, wrapped and swaddled in gentle golds.
Franz starts to work on the dog house. It’s better than being left outside on a chain, he thinks.
Franz never had a dog as a child, he never had any pets at all, his parents didn’t allow it, and his grandparents wanted him to focus on his schooling, the firefighters and then Canadian English.
By the time Franz is finished, he doesn’t think enough time has passed. The sun had barely begun to slip passed the horizon.
“Dude, it’s like the Ritz for dogs. Oh, you are so hot right now!” Shawn grabs at his shoulder and pulls him against him.
Franz kisses the side of his head, wrapping his arm around his waist.
As the light starts to dip lower into the ocean line, Franz tells Shawn he’s going to go back to their quiet little house on the edge of town; that he’ll drive him home too, and Shawn declines the offer, saying he can’t leave his motorbike—motorcycle—here without his dad destroying it or selling it.
“Alright,” he agrees. He squeezes Shawn’s hand. “I’ll see you at home, ja?”
“Yeah. I’ll bring smoothies home. Do you still like pinapple— of course you do, what am I saying? Everybody likes pinapple smoothies, that’s like, a law or something,” he says.
Franz makes a face. “Not sure about that,” he says.
“Pretty sure,” Shawn responds, and the expression, playful and open and exposed and unlike the fake psychic demeanour that he shows to the cops, or the hard, closed off one he shows to his father, and Franz loves him.