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"You and Lassiter," Gus said flatly and for the seventh time. He was varying it with 'Oh my God! You and Lassiter?' from time to time, but Shawn was counting those separately.
He reached out, making Gus's bed creak, and tapped the side of Gus's head. "Are you stuck on repeat? Yes, me and Lassie. It can't be a total shock; you must have seen the way he looks at me, all those longing glances, that pent-up passion. He totally digs me."
Saying it in the present tense was helping to fool himself that nothing had changed if he didn't let himself think about it much.
"Lassie and I," Gus said primly, pedantically, predictably, "and from where I was standing, he was only ever longing for you to leave."
Shawn rolled his eyes. "No, silly Gus, silly, sweet Gus. Not you and Lassie. Me and Lassie. You're not into naked men, remember?"
"You know what I meant," Gus said. There was a distinct chill to his voice. "And don't start telling me about how liking Billy Zane proves you swing both ways because it doesn't. Everyone likes him. You're into guys, too. Potentially. Technically. You told me that in eleventh grade and then never did anything about it. I'm cool as long as you never, ever, give me any details. What I'm not cool with is you waking me up at two in the morning when I've got to get up at seven to do my real job and telling me that your latest victim is Lassiter. Lassiter. What did he ever do to you?"
"I'm sorry about the two o'clock deal," Shawn said. Victim? That was harsh. He'd spent the last four hours staring out at the ocean or driving around aimlessly. Which meant that he kept finding himself outside Lassie's place every twenty minutes or so. The lights had been out every time so Lassie was either out shooting someone or asleep. He'd headed for Gus's when it had occurred to him firstly that he was acting like a character in a chick flick and secondly that after the reaming it'd gotten, sitting on a motorbike wasn't his ass's first choice.
Gus acknowledged the apology with a sniff that signaled grudging acceptance, no more than that. A woken-in-the-middle-of-the-night Gus was a grumpy Gus.
"And since when were you President of the Carlton Lassiter Fan Club?" Shawn demanded. "You don't even like him. He's mean to us both all the time."
"He's not that bad to me," Gus said. "Mostly, he just ignores me." He gave Shawn a pointed look. "And he's had a lot to put up with at work the last year or so."
Shawn didn't let the fact that Gus always looked extra-cuddly in his fire truck PJs distract him from the real issue here, which was Gus's incredible disloyalty and lack of support. Where was the ice cream? Where was the shoulder offered for Shawn to soak with manly tears? Where was the sympathy? "So you're best buds now, is that it?"
"We talked. Last month," Gus said as if that happened all the time, which it didn't, just like unicorns on the beach and men on the moon. "You said you were dying with the flu -- and don't try and resurrect that fake cough you used, because I didn't buy it then and I'm not buying it now -- "
Shawn coughed anyway, to cover his grin. Gus was, as ever, completely correct about the fakeness, but if you couldn't call in sick when you worked for yourself…
"So I went out of my way to swing by the station and get our check. I couldn't claim for that mileage, Shawn! I did it because some of us realize that bills don't get paid with anything but money -- and don't ever try and use chocolate coins again at the coffee shop, no matter how many you stocked up on in the Christmas sales, because no one wants them and it's just embarrassing."
"They're chocolate, Gus," Shawn explained patiently, on familiar territory again. "They're money you can eat. It's the perfect solution to all the economic issues and world hunger, and we both know it."
"Whatever." Gus pulled the sheets higher and confessed the rest in a rapid gabble. "So I bumped into Carlton and we chatted over coffee in the break room."
"You did what now?" Shawn stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it. "Am I hearing you right? You and Lassiter? Chatting? Doing the chatty thing?"
Jealous. He was lime-green jealous. Which was ridiculous but it didn't stop him from being it. Unless Lassie had been trying to pump Gus for details of Shawn's love life? That might work. He'd let it go. For now.
"He's a more interesting man than I'd realized," Gus said in his most aloof tone. He came down off his high horse almost immediately, though, a reminiscent smile on his face."Well, okay, he's also strange and obsessive, but after being friends with you all my life, my tolerance level's pretty high for weirdoes."
"No, it isn't," Shawn said, needing to correct Gus's peculiar misapprehension. "You hate weird people apart from me. I'm special. I use up all your tolerance. The rest of your friends are normal."
"I never introduce you to them unless I can't avoid it, so how would you know?" Gus said, which was cruel and wrong on every single level. "And you still haven't told me why you ran away after doing the nasty without saying a word to him. What are you, twelve? That's immature, Shawn, even for you."
"I didn't run -- Run away? Me? That's so funny." Shawn tried to laugh and discovered a lump in his throat. Awkward. He gave up on the airy merriment and went for sincerity instead. Compassion. "I just decided that the man needed some space, a time to recover from the awesomeness that is me. It was a kindness really."
Gus looked supremely skeptical. "Uh-huh. So you did leave him a message?"
"I left him a bowl of popcorn. If he examined the kernels on the top layer, they spelled out, 'Call me!'," Shawn said.
"You can't spell with popcorn on popcorn, Shawn. Did you even text him?"
"No," Shawn said, giving up because Gus was looking so fucking disapproving and disappointed with him right then. Didn't Gus know how much that hurt? "I didn't leave a message, I didn't text him, I didn't do anything, Gus. He went into the shower and I could hear him whistling -- he was happy, Gus -- and I just -- I can't be responsible for someone being happy. I always let them down."
"You know that's right," Gus said, "but it sounds like you were doing okay up to then."
Shawn looked at the pillow that Gus hadn't rested his head on yet. It lay there, fluffed up, pristine, cool and welcoming. His head was aching. He'd wanted to lie in the bed with Lassiter for hours, cuddling, saying stupid stuff in husky whispers, maybe fooling around some more in the middle of the night with both of them waking at the same, turning to each other, all silent and needy, kissing each other, hands going places --
Making popcorn and watching a movie had seemed like a good escape route from something he wanted so much it dried his mouth with fear.
Now he just wanted to sleep and forget what he'd done.
"Can I grab a pillow and crash on your couch?"
"No," Gus said and pointed at the door. "You have man cooties and I don't want them on my couch. Go home. Or call Lassiter and grovel."
"Wake him up?" Shawn said dubiously.
Gus snorted. "I doubt he's asleep, Shawn. Knowing Lassie, he's cleaning his guns and trying to decide which one to use to shoot you with."
Shawn closed his eyes and pictured a driven, tense-mouthed Lassiter deftly reassembling his gun and spinning around to aim at a picture of Shawn with a target over it. Ouch. Or was it hot, too? He couldn't decide.
"I blew it," he said aloud, just to give Gus something to contradict.
"Totally," Gus agreed. "You got him to trust you, and I bet that didn't come easy, then when he did, you kicked him in the teeth. I bet you're mean to kittens, too. And bunnies. I bet they run when they see you coming. Animals always know --"
"Not helping," Shawn cut in before Gus could warm to his theme.
"Why him?" Gus asked curiously. He might say 'no details' but that didn't mean that he wasn't interested. "I don't get it."
"Have you seen his eyes?" Shawn took a deep breath. "No, cancel that. I've seen all of him now and his eyes are the least of it."
"Shawn --"
"I don't know, okay? He was in the men's room and I was there, and there was this thing with his tie…He slammed me against the wall and it was hot, dude, it was like this erotic charge that started at my toes and went all the way up to my -- Hey, don't do that, Gus, I'll fall off the -- ow!"
Shawn landed with a thud on an ass that was going to be demanding danger money if he bruised it again and gave Gus a reproachful look. "You asked."
"Not for details," Gus said. "You need to think about your next move, Shawn and you can do it someplace else. I'm going back to sleep."
Shawn stood with as much dignity as he could muster. "Fine. Thanks for being a friendly, listening ear. Oh, wait. You weren't."
"And don't make it up with him if you're just going to kick him again," Gus said, his voice muffled by the bedclothes he'd pulled over his head. "Clean breaks are kinder, I guess. You were always going to break his heart."
"I don't want to break his heart, I just don't want this -- thing -- with him. I can't cope. Thought I could, discovered I couldn't." Shawn paused. No more Lassie looking at him with a warmth that held no anger, no more panting and moaning as Lassie's dick taught him new ways to scream? He hadn't even gotten around to taking Lassiter up on that astonishing offer to return the favor and fuck him . All good reasons to cajole Lassiter into forgiving him. He had half a dozen lies ready, some involving Gus and an emergency that only Shawn could talk him through, like no clean shirts for the morning, one centered around a kitten stuck in a tree on the other side of town, meowing piteously, its distress causing vibrations on the astral plane that -- no, forget that one, Lassie would never buy it. A suspected heart attack for Henry was safer. Shawn quite liked the idea of himself as a dutiful, concerned son rushing to his father's side.
On second thought, the kitten story was safer. Lassie knew Henry.
"I don't know what I want," he discovered with some surprise. "Maybe just a second chance?"
"I want to sleep," Gus said. "Good night, Shawn."
Shawn left a few minutes later, too dispirited to make Gus suffer through more than a few back and forths of 'Good night, John-Boy' which just showed how upset he was. That was usually good for at least fifteen minutes and something thrown at his head by an enraged Gus.
He drove by Lassie's on the way home. It was only six miles out of his way.
Still dark. He pulled over at the steps leading up to Lassie's place, took off his helmet and took out his phone.
Lassie answered, just like any good cop would, probably groping for his phone in the dark, and grunting out his name in a sleepy growl.
"Lassie, it's me. It's Shawn. Look, I'm just outside and I wanted to come in. Do the groveling thing. Explain why I ran on my icy cold feet. You just -- you overwhelmed me, Lassie. For real. I thought I knew you and turns out I didn't. But I want to, I just -- Let me come in, make it up to you? Please."
He paused. He hadn't really expected to get this far and he'd run out of rehearsed, if sincere words.
A complex click from behind him brought his head around sharply. He knew what a gun being cocked sounded like and it wasn't a sound he wanted to hear on a deserted road in the middle of the night.
Lassiter was behind him, fully dressed and aiming a gun at him. "Go home, Spencer," Lassiter said softly. "Before I shoot you."
"You wouldn't," Shawn said, automatically trying to defuse the situation because, God, Lassie looked pissed. Tired, sad, pissed. The sadness was the hardest to spot and the one that hurt Shawn most. The guilt he'd been denying for hours was slamming into him like a fist, over and over, until he couldn't breathe. He'd made Lassie look like this. Defeated. Homicidal. He'd done worse than that in his life, but not often. "You'd wake everyone up."
"I don't get on with many of my neighbors," Lassiter said evenly. "Even if I did, it'd be worth it."
Shawn moistened his lips and started his bike, the sound of the engine loud, but not loud enough to drown out the way his heart was thudding. "I'll -- you know, I think I'll go home now."
Lassiter nodded as if that was what he'd expected Shawn to say, the same way he'd known that Shawn would come back and had been waiting for him. Maybe Lassie was the psychic and that's how he knew that Shawn wasn't one. That would be funny, except nothing was funny right then. "Don't come back."
"Lassie, just listen," Shawn said, putting everything he'd got into it even if the gun trained on his heart -- nice target choice -- was unwavering which was freaking him out. "Let me come in and we can talk this over, because we're not done, you know that --"
"You're not welcome in my home," Lassie said with cold finality and stepped back. "Go. Now."
Shawn shoved his helmet down over his head and did as he was told. He looked back every few yards, but Lassiter had gone inside and the street was empty.
Everything was empty.