Juliet is trying (and failing) not to laugh as Shawn good-naturedly teases her partner.

“Lassie…” he says, and his voice is gently reprimanding and teasing simultaneously, “you wore that tie two days ago.”

“I did not!” Carlton says indignantly and Shawn’s head cocks to the left, scrutinizing the tie again. Her partner watches the psychic with a look halfway between intense annoyance and helpless curiosity.

He shakes his head. “No, no, I’m sure you wore that tie on Tuesday. Are you running out of ties Lassie? Should we buy you some? I could steal some of Gus’. He’d never miss them,” he says and his voice is full of rich, warm concern. Juliet chokes on a laugh.

“I do not need Guster’s ties!” Carlton fumes. She tries to smother a grin behind her hand as a faint blush rises along his cheekbones.

“He’s right, Carlton,” she agrees after forcing her mirth down. “You wore that tie on Tuesday.” Pointing a carefully unaccusatory finger at the bottom of the tie she adds, “It has the same little soy sauce stain right there. We had sushi, remember?”

“We did no such thing!” he protests, but he’s beginning to look a little less sure of himself.

“We totally did,” Shawn says. “You don’t remember? You had spring rolls and what was it Jules?”

“Ebi,” she replies promptly.

“Right, the Ebi rolls. This ringing any bells?”

Looking completely flustered, Carlton says insistently, “We did no such thing!”

“Where do you think the soy sauce came from then, Lassie?” Shawn asks, eyebrows high on his forehead.

Carlton splutters for several long seconds, cheeks getting redder by the second before he finally bursts, “We did not have sushi!” and storms off.

Juliet can’t help it. She takes one look at Shawn’s face and dissolves into laughter the moment Carlton is gone. Within seconds Shawn is laughing with her and he has this funny, slight honk to his laugh that just makes hers that much worse. They laugh until they’re both gasping for air and just when she thinks the last giggles are going to fade away, their eyes lock again and for reasons she can’t explain, the laughter bubbles back up, even more exuberant than the first time. She bends at the waist, clutching at her aching ribs and Shawn’s giggly, gaspy laughter just seems to feed the fire until she’s laughed so long and so hard that her stomach and ribs ache, her lungs burning for air. But the laughing won’t stop.

“S—stop it!” Shawn gasps at her between airy chuckles and she shakes her head, her eyes tearing up.

“I—I—I— …I—” The giggling only gets worse.

This goes on until they’re both collapsed on the floor between hers and Carlton’s desks moaning and desperately trying to stop the last few painful giggles. Her smile is so big it hurts and Shawn seems to have the same problem because he keeps chuckling weakly and rubbing the flushed apples of his cheeks with his knuckles.

Outside their little sanctuary the station has gone quiet, the kind of quiet that always follows these sort of bouts because everyone has gotten used to the uncontrollable fits of laughter that sometimes break out in this particular corner of the bullpen. She hurts, but in a good way. Leaning back against her desk, she bows her head as another small burst of giggles slips beyond her lips.

Shawn is smiling at her, large and broad and it strikes her on some semi-conscious level that she’s never seen him smile quite like that before. He looks happier somehow, still filled with his usual humor but serious all at once.

Warm, golden sunshine pools softly in warm shapes on his body, and makes his brown eyes so light they turn gold. The regular noises of the station are slowly returning, papers shuffling and voices carrying across the open space and she just looks, drinking in the way Shawn looks right now, gazing back at her and robed in warm, buttery yellow light.

The laughter filled her up with giddiness and she tells herself her heart is beating this fast because of how hard they were laughing. She tells herself she’s short of breath because of the stitch in her side.

But his eyes are glued to her, his only movement the slight heaving of his chest and she can’t look away. Not yet.

Neither of them sees when Buzz McNabb trips, but one of the coffee cups in the little tray he was carrying hits Shawn in the head and pops open, dousing the psychic with hot liquid and he yelps, shaking his head and scrambling to his feet. The giggles return with a vengeance, erupting in a helpless stream as Juliet watches Shawn flail and whimper and whine as Buzz apologizes profusely, a look of absolute mortification on his face.

“Owww…” Shawn whimpers, “Ho-ot.”

The ghost of a smile on his lips is enough to keep her in stitches.