Archive of Our Own

Shawn prided himself on the expediency of his services.

That was sort of how Shawn worked. And Psych in general, for that matter. They got a case every week or so, Shawn did some fake psycho mumbo-jumbo to buy himself enough time to snoop enough information out of some people, and he eventually ended up solving the case. Most of the time, he didn’t even end up getting held at gunpoint! It was a pretty sweet gig, if he did say so himself.

But, as Gus continually reminded him, he’d been working on his current case for more than a week and a half, with still no leads in sight. It was sort of starting to weigh on him. The constant calls from Jules and Lassie, either to remind him that the chief wanted to see him or (in Lassie’s case) to brag about all the developments they were making in the case. Developments that Shawn was not making.

“I’m just saying—” Gus continued as he looked out at the gaggle of people walking the pier at night, clearly not falling for Shawn’s attempts to grab his temples and feign some sort of migraine to get out of his lecture. He’d pulled that trick way too many times as a kid for it to have any sort of effect on Gus now. “As long as we’re still stuck on this case, we aren’t getting hired on anything new. And we aren’t making money. Which we sort of need.”

“Oh really? Is that how it works?” Shawn rolled his eyes sarcastically. He didn’t like when Gus explained things to him like he was a toddler. “I sort of thought we just did this for the glory. Crime fighting does make my hair look good, you know.”

Shawn kicked back in his office chair— well, technically it was Gus’s. But Psych was basically his office, so everything basically belonged to him, right? He kicked his feet onto what was technically Gus’s desk, interlocking his fingers and resting them behind his head. He stared at the ceiling, littered with Post-It paper darts he’d flung up there. He resisted the urge to grab another and fling it up there from fear of making Gus even more mad. Even though his paper dart smiley face was almost done.

“Ha, ha, Shawn. I’m just saying, it’s not a good look for us.” Gus walked over from the window where he’d been looking out to knock Shawn’s feet off of his desk, to which Shawn protested by sticking his tongue out at Gus. He was wearing that purple sweater that Shawn had bought him once as a joke, thinking there was no way that Gus would ever seriously want to wear the fluorescent abomination. He was also wearing a pair of jeans that Shawn was pretty sure Gus had finally stolen back from him after Shawn had originally stolen them, which was so not cool. “You sure you can’t find anything else in this case? Some sort of… magic realization?”

“Magic isn’t real, Gus,” Shawn reminded. “Well– not psychic magic. Other magic is totally real.”

“You know what I mean. Maybe you have to read the file again,” Gus lightly prompted, grabbing the file that Shawn had littered on Gus’s desk and handing it to Shawn, tapping it once. Shawn scoffed. As if he hadn’t already done that about 5 thousand times. He rarely even had to read the case file, but he didn’t know what the hell he was looking at with this one. Seriously, it took three or four days before they even knew cause of death. Who knew that it wouldn’t be being trampled by an entire stadium full of crazed fans?

“Need I remind you about my super freaky crazy awesome memory?” Shawn put his hand to his temple in reference to his go-to psychic position. “I remember all the details. Dude was drugged and killed. Some dude impersonated the pop-star so people would go running. They didn’t see him, and the dead guy's organs went splat all over the pavement.”

“Yeah, but…” Gus shrugged, sitting on the edge of his desk. “C’mon. Can’t you think of something?”

No. 

That was what Shawn wanted to say. A big, fat, no. He couldn’t think of anything. He was hungry and thirsty, having barely taken care of himself while he worked this case. The dull headache in his head wouldn’t cease, and the lack of sleep certainly wasn’t helping.

Worst of all, the world was just feeling… fuzzy. He didn’t know how else to describe it. It was just something he felt sometimes, a feeling he couldn’t quite place a name to. It just made everything a little more irritable. Bright lights got brighter, loud voices got louder, and the constant dull throb in his head would pound on, just a bit more noticeable.

But that wasn’t exactly something he wanted to explain to Gus. Nor was it something he knew how to explain to Gus. So he wouldn’t bother.

“I mean, I could…” Shawn offered, shrugging. “But where's the fun in that?”

“C’mon.” Gus got up from where he perched on his desk and tugged on Shawn’s arm, pulling him out of his seat. Great, that was another thing that his fuzzy brain didn’t like. Touch. Or, at least, not touch that he wasn’t expecting. Or that he didn’t want. And this sort of touch, the sort of touch that seemed to be being done with the intent of forcing Shawn to do something, was both.

“What?” Shawn furrowed his brows. “If you think manhandling me is going to get me to come up with something, you’re going to have to be a lot rougher than that.”

“What– no.” Gus rolled his eyes. Another thing that he’d learned to ignore from years of being friends with Shawn were his vague attempts at flirting whenever he was trying to get out of something he didn’t want to do. “We’re going down to the station. You’re going to do your psychic stuff, and it’s going to do the thing it always does where it gives you a magical epiphany.”

“Psychic magic is not real,” Shawn continued to insist. Now he knew how Patrick Jane felt. “And I’m not going down to the station. I’ll go boneless if I have to.”

“And I’ll call Lassie if I have to,” Gus threatened back, making a show of pulling his phone out of his pocket as if he were actually going to do something. Which Shawn was fairly certain he wasn’t. He knew Gus wasn’t fond of the man (mostly due to Lassie’s constant comments implying that he didn’t really view Gus as one of them).

“And have him manhandle me? If you think I’m having trouble now, just wait until–”

“Alright–” Gus interrupted, clearly not wanting to hear any more of Shawn’s suggestive comments about Lassie (Who Gus still adamantly refused to hear Shawn out about). “Just… please? I’d like to make sure we can afford to keep the lights on in this place this month. And I think you can do this.”

“Hmm…” Shawn paused. On the one hand, he didn’t want to leave the office. He didn’t want to go anywhere where he couldn’t control basically everything around him right now. He was afraid of letting the fuzz get the better of him. On the other hand… Gus was a good friend. And Shawn did drag him around a lot. He might as well do this one favor for him. 

“So..?” Gus pleaded with him.

“Fine. But you owe me at least 100 pineapple smoothies. From the fancy place.” Shawn put a hand on Gus’s shoulder and pointed at him.

“Don’t say Lucy Juicy, you know I hate that place.” Gus sighed, knowing that his fate was already sealed. When Shawn wanted something, he was particularly skilled at getting it.

“It’s Lucy Juicy.” Shawn smiled, feeling a little bit better about himself knowing that he could at least have his smoothies when this was all over. He reached into Gus’s pockets and grabbed the keys, not bothering to wait for Gus as he strode out of the office. “Well, what are we waiting for? I have some psychic prophecies to predict!”

Once Shawn stepped into the station, he couldn’t help but feel like this was a terrible idea that he’d had.

For one, he’d hoped that the drive would help him to clear his mind and think of something vaguely plausible enough for him to present to the chief. On that account, he’d been dead wrong. And he had no idea what he was going to say.

Also, the fuzzy feeling had only been exacerbated when he stepped into the station. The buzzing noises, the constant bustle of people going in and out and shouting and interrogating and looking everywhere… It was enough to make him nauseous. It already was making him nauseous.

But, he persisted. He kept the thoughts of the pineapple smoothies on his mind, of finally getting Jules and Lassie off of his back, even if it was just for a few hours. Maybe this would help him feel a little bit less stressed. And that was a good thing.

“Spencer,” Lassie barked from across the floor, and Shawn flinched. Seriously, flinched. He immediately felt sort of embarrassed, because why the hell was he flinching at Lassie? He tried his best to mask it, but the slight squint in Lassie and Gus’s eyes told him he didn’t do very well. Oh well. Maybe he could pass it off as the spirits being scared of loud noises. Yeah, sure.  

“Shawn– he’s been having visions,” Gus insisted, slyly elbowing Shawn in the side while Lassie was still too far away from the two of them to pick up on the small gesture. Shawn, for his part, immediately assumed his role as the tortured psychic, plagued by visions.

“Agh– I’m seeing things. Terrible, terrible things!” Shawn cried out as if he were being tortured, placing both hands on the sides of his head, wrenching his eyes shut to mimic having visions.

“Bring him to the chief,” Lassie demanded, and Gus guided Shawn to the chief's office. Shawn pretended that he didn’t hate every second of Gus’s contact with him as he continued to flail and contort about. His goal was to pretend that his psychic blockage had manifested itself in a particularly nasty spasm of clarity. Whether he, the non-psychic, had that clarity yet was not so certain.

“What’s going on?” Juliet’s voice chimed in as the group's hurried footsteps went towards where Shawn could only assume was the chief's office. Opening his eyes to see the whir of moving lights while he threw himself around like a ragdoll would probably make him spew up whatever was left of his last meal— which was probably the cereal he’d had a few bites of for breakfast that morning.

“Shawn’s having his giddy seizures again,” Lassie responded. “And hopefully, giving us a break in this case already.”

“Ooh, sweet,” Juliet cheerfully responded as they all continued walking. A door closed behind them, so Shawn assumed they had finally made it into Vick’s office.

“Mr. Spencer, you had better have something good in order for you to be exhibiting such… behavior in my office.” Shawn opened his eyes to see Vick crossing her arms and staring daggers at him. It was clear that him showing up at such a late hour when she’d already been working overtime on this case was not making her any more open to this.

“I’m uh–” Shawn couldn’t think of anything. He was blanking. Shit, shit, shit. The pressure was on, and he was basically flopping around like a fish out of water. “I’m seeing the color green. And, uh– a body of water! The killer is somewhere near a body of water.”

“Oh please– are you serious?” Lassie scoffed. “That’s one of the oldest fake psychic tropes in the book. Near a body of water?”

“Fine,” Shawn shot back, dropping the facade for a second to glare at Lassie, before remembering that he still had to be the tortured psychic. “Oh, uh– It’s cold, and dark. Where the killer is hiding. Very wet.”

“We don’t need to know where the killer is,” Vicks reminded. “We need to know who. Can you divine that?”

“Yeah, well, I–” Shawn groaned, annoyed. “I’m working on it.” 

He continued to flail around like an idiot, hoping to perform some sort of performance that would distract from his utter lack of knowledge. Like a magician dancing around to hide the rabbit that he was pulling out of his ass. Or something. He didn’t really know how magician magic worked.

He also, somewhat, wanted to distract himself. From all of it. From the crowd of people all muttering around him, from the friction of his clothes rubbing against him as he moved, from the stupid bright lights that wouldn’t stop buzzing. All of it was rubbing him the wrong way, making him feel as though he was going to lose it. All of this stupid stuff shouldn’t have been bothering him, it almost never did. But now it was, and he felt as though he was about to throw up. Or break down. Or cry. Or, D, all of the above.

One thing became crystal clear to him. If he didn’t get out of that room immediately, something bad was going to happen.

“Y’see, chief, sometimes when his chakra’s get all blocked up–” Gus was halfway through his phony defense of why Shawn was being utterly incompetent before Shawn found an opening to throw himself against the office door with practically his entire body weight. The second he was out of the room, he ran. To where, he didn’t quite know yet. He just hoped he was out of view of everyone. He could already feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, and all he could think was:

God, he was so stupid.

Stupid for letting himself be so affected by things that every other normal person on earth could handle without totally freaking out. Or stupid for having enough faith in himself that he could figure this out in the first place. Or stupid for letting himself make such a gigantic fool of himself in front of everyone like that.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

He hadn’t even bothered to look up from where his eyes were firmly planted on the ground as he was trying to shove off the annoying jacket that he’d decided to wear, the one with the scratchy fabric that he’d figured he’d be man enough to deal with for one small outing, and before he knew it, he was in a head on collision, being hurled to the ground. Great. Why the fuck wouldn’t that be happening right now?

“Jeez– can you watch where the hell you’re going next time?” Shawn snapped at the other person without even looking up to see who it was. It only occurred to him in hindsight that he was the one not watching where he was going. He had no right to be snapping right now, but he was just so irritated and so fucking pissed at nobody in particular that that was how it came out.

“Oh, uh, sorry, Shawn!” Buzz– that was who it had been— hurriedly gathered the papers that he had been holding, that Shawn hadn’t noticed he had dropped. On any other day, Shawn would’ve been a good person and helped to pick them up. But this wasn’t any other day. And Shawn just wanted to be done with it all.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s fine. Sorry,” Shawn mumbled. He picked himself up, dusted himself off, and continued to hurry off to wherever his destination was. He settled for the interrogation rooms. That should have been private enough, right? He figured he would’ve known if there were some sort of high-stakes interrogation going on.

When he finally reached his destination, he took a sigh of relief, finally succeeding in getting his jacket off and throwing it on the ground next to him. Now he was just standing there, in his old Radiohead shirt and the jeans that he was pretty sure he’d had since high school. He allowed himself to lean against the window, running a hand through his hair and closing his eyes. His breath felt out of control, as if he had been being chased or something. Which he wasn’t. Which lent itself back to the original fact that this whole thing was just so stupid. And pointless.

He was outside of the interrogation rooms now, looking into the empty rooms. It was rare he got to see from the outside and not the inside. It was fun. Even if he wasn’t actually watching anyone, he understood the power rush that came from being able to see someone who couldn’t see him. To be able to judge without being judged. Analyze without being analyzed. The idea seemed heavenly. 

He reached a hand up to his cheek, and realized that a few of the tears that had started to prick his eyes had started to fall. Great. Just what he needed.

And there was that nauseous feeling too. What was that trick that you were supposed to do when you were nauseous? Hum something… right. That was it. 

Shawn promptly started doing just about the most off-key humming he’d ever done in his life to I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys. Which only ended up making him more nauseous, because, seriously, The Backstreet Boys?

“Spencer,” A voice, Lassie’s voice, called after him. Shit. Shawn immediately went to do whatever he could to conceal any of this sign of emotion, or crying, or nausea, or Backstreet Boys induced hysteria.

‘Never let the enemy see you crying, Shawn. If he knows you’re emotionally vulnerable, he’ll be able to get an advantage on you.’

His fathers words rang out in his head. The last thing he needed was his fathers voice with him as well. What was next, was Yang hiding right around the corner? Shawn roughly wiped the back of his hand against the undersides of his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, Lassie, I get it,” Shawn laughed dryly, keeping his voice as steady as he could manage. Which was harder than he had expected. He’d hoped the dim light of the room would mask the tears trailing down his cheeks. “Wet wasn’t a good enough clue for you. My Chakra’s are still a little blocked, okay?”

“No, that’s not what–” Lassie’s voice sounded a little softer than it normally did, before he cleared his throat and his demeanor shifted back to the good old Lassie that Shawn was familiar with. He looked around, like he was worried someone was going to see him talking with Shawn. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Bursting out of the room in the middle of leading us down a vague rabbit hole?”

“I’m–” Shawn huffed. How could he get himself out of this? He had to think. Which was coming very hard to him. “The spirits guided me over here. Away from you all. So… I had to listen to them.”

“Uh huh,” Lassie agreed, utterly unimpressed. He walked to the other side of the room, standing against the wall opposite of Shawn. “You sure that’s all that is? Because–”

“Mhmm,” Shawn insisted firmly, interrupting Lassie before he could say anything else. “The spirits wanted me away from you all. And the noise, and the movement, and the fucking buzzing lights, and the touching, God, the touching–” 

He hadn’t really meant to say all of that, but the words were spilling out of him faster than he could actually control them. Spilling out to possibly the worst person in the entire station. He closed his eyes as he leaned against the window, now wanting to see how Lassie was reacting. He hoped Lassie would just walk out while he wasn’t looking. 

“Like– seriously, is it so hard to ask before you touch a guy? Sure, I mean, I like getting touched, believe me.” He paused, thinking about phrasing. “I mean, not like that. Or, well, yes like that, but not by Gus. And yes, he’s a handsome man, but that doesn’t mean I want his hands all over me, and–”

“Spencer,” Lassie repeated yet again,  having gotten closer to Shawn when he had his eyes closed.  Not too much closer, only a few steps, but enough that it felt less like Shawn yelling into the void and more like Shawn venting to Lassiter of all people.

“And– and I get that he just wants what's best for us, but what about what’s best for me, y’know?” Shawn gave a hollow laugh, ignoring Lassie’s continued attempts to get him to shut up. Now was his time to talk, damnit, and he was going to take the opportunity to vent his emotions and deal with the consequences of it later.  “This entire station is so annoying, and my brain is being so weird and fuzzy right now, and I don’t know how to get it to stop being fuzzy so that it can actually work, so I guess I’ll just die. Or go into pharmaceutical sales. Because my psychicness is all used up, and I’m pretty much useless now.”

“Spencer, can you shut it for one second?” Lassie sighed, exasperated. He took another step forward, as if he were trying to close in on Shawn. But for some reason, it didn’t feel that way. It wasn’t the sort of trap that made Shawn want to run. But it was enough for him to take notice. To wonder what was going on. “If– Christ. If your Chakra’s aren’t charged enough… then you should go into the interrogation room. Just to recharge them. Nothing else.”

What?

“What?” Shawn blinked. He hadn’t quite been expecting… well, whatever that was. Because, if it weren’t Lassie, he might think that somebody was offering him a quiet place to get rid of the fuzzy feeling in his brain. Offering him understanding, even for a feeling that Shawn didn’t quite understand himself. 

“Just– go.” Lassie did a shooing gesture towards the door of the interrogation room, before seeming to remember something and reaching into his back pocket, pulling out a Rubik’s Cube. It was thoroughly scrambled, but still seemed to look like it was in somewhat new condition. He threw it at Shawn, who haphazardly caught it, the pointy corner digging into his palm. “Also, solve this for me.”

“... Why?” He looked at the Rubik’s Cube curiously, as though it were a grenade that Lassie had just pulled the pin to. Or some sort of test. Like— was Lassie going to just stand out there, studying Shawn, seeing whether or not he was solving it psychically enough? What a twisted test.

“Oh.” Lassie paused, like he hadn’t been expecting the question. “Well… It’s a gift for my nephew. Grabbed it off of someone and shoved it into my desk. But the kid’s a few crayons short of a pack, so I don’t think he’ll be able to solve it himself. So, I need you to solve it for me so I can give it to him.”

“You’re giving a criminal’s Rubik’s cube to your nephew?” Shawn laughed under his breath, and it felt like the first real laugh he’d had since he’d entered the station, not something he forced out of himself to cover up some emotions he was too much of a coward to face head-on. “And you need me to solve it? Wow, that’s…”

“Yeah, well, don’t think too hard about it.” There was an awkward silence that hung in the air for a minute as both of them just stood there, neither of them wanting to break it by saying something stupid and embarrassing themself.

“What’s the name of that one smoothie place Guster likes?” Lassie finally spoke up, and Shawn dragged his eyes up from the Rubik’s Cube that he’d been eyeing. “Goosey… something. Something pansy like that.”

“Lucy Juicy,” Shawn supplied. “And, also, Gus hates that place. Says they make the smoothies too sweet. I, however, disagree. Their smoothies are not sweet enough. Except they’re actually really good. Why do you ask?”

“I just… figured I’d get him something. If he’s going to be stuck here waiting for you to clear up your Chakra’s.” Lassie cleared his throat, and without saying anything else, or maybe without allowing for further time for Shawn to pose him questions, such as why he’d be going to get Gus smoothies when Shawn was the one walking in with a smoothie cup every day, he turned on his heels and left.

And Shawn, for his part, figured it’d be easiest to just do what Lassie told him to. It made it easier for him, not having to decide anything for himself, just being told what to do. He walked into the interrogation room, sat down in the chair, and started trying to solve the Rubik’s Cube.

Shawn didn’t know how long he’d been inside of the interrogation room. What he did know, however, was that the fuzzy feeling in his head had pleasantly dispersed. Focusing on the Rubik’s Cube— solving it, scrambling it, finding exactly what would be the easiest way to solve it again, it was fun. It kept his brain active, but not thinking about all of the things that were stressing him out, like the case. Who knew that playing with a Rubik’s Cube without just peeling all of the stickers off and putting them in the right spots could be sort of fun?

His jacket was still laying on the table, and made for a nice pillow for Shawn to rest his arms on so he didn’t have to face the freezing cold table. It was amazing how ingenuitive he could be. Someone should give him an award, really. He could invent some sort of jacket arm protector thing from cold tables. Or— wait. Scratch that. That was just called a jacket.

What he did know was that after his fifth solve or so, there was a knock on the window. Shawn looked up, at where he assumed Lassie was (A trick that Juliet had mentioned had once freaked Lassie out), and nodded his head. He appreciated that Lassie cared enough to even think to knock before just barging in, but it felt only natural that Lassie would come to kick him out eventually. He was hogging police resources that should have been being used for Lassie to do whatever it was he did. Probably intimidating perps and looking good doing it, Shawn figured.

Lassie entered, closing the door behind him, holding a yellow smoothie that Shawn definitely recognized. It was his regular pineapple smoothie, being brought to him by Carlton Lassiter. Huh? Did Gus order that and ask Lassie to bring it for him? Except… well, Lucy Juicy was definitely closed by now. It was way too late. But the logo on the cup was definitely that distinctive shade of pink.

“I brought you this. I figured you might, uh…” Lassie trailed off, looking at the ground. Shawn got the feeling he didn’t want to get too much into it. Which he was grateful for, because neither did he. “They close at 10:00, and I got there at 10:05, so I had to get them to turn all their stuff back on because, y’know. Official Chakra unclogging police business. So it took a while. I might’ve threatened to shoot the cashier.”

“Bradley?” Shawn pouted, but still snatched the drink out of Lassie’s hand and took a sip. And another. And, yeah, maybe he downed half of the cup in one go. He hadn’t really realized how starving his body had been for any sort of nutrition, even if it came in the form of a pineapple smoothie with enough sugar to kill a small elephant. “Bradley’s a good kid, though! He’s studying to be a mechanic, I think. Don’t shoot him.”

“Hm.” Lassie raised his eyebrows, shrugging. “Well, good news is, I don’t think he knows you’re connected to me.”

“Well, I mean, how many psychic detectives do you know that order pineapple smoothies 5 times a week?” Shawn took another sip of the drink, and another bigger one. He hadn’t exactly been expecting it, but it was good. And quickly improving his mood, despite the fact that he was already feeling a good bit better than he had been earlier.

“5 times,” Lassie repeated, surprised. “That’s a lot.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lassie, are my drinking habits not palatable enough for you?” Shawn smiled, enjoying being back to teasing Lassie. He was worried that the situation might actually get serious. And then he might be forced to talk about his emotions, or whatever the hell had happened to him. As if he hadn’t already done enough of that. “At least I don’t get drunk and tell people how they astound me.”

“Jesus, are you ever going to drop that? All I’m saying is that 5 large pineapple smoothies a week can’t be good for you.” Despite the grimace on Lassie’s face, he could see his cheeks heating up at the mention of the drunk compliment Lassie had once given Shawn. Which may or may not have still been a regular thing that replayed in Shawn’s head.

“Yeah… no,” Shawn responded with a smile. He laughed under his breath, but it quickly turned into another awkward silence between the two of them. What else was he supposed to say? Hey dude, thanks for not beating the crap out of me for giving you all faith in a fake lead and then running away and crying over not knowing it? That felt a little too on the nose, even for Shawn.

“So…” Lassie started, although making no effort to actually start any conversation. He stopped just awkwardly standing in front of Shawn and put his hands in his pockets, now awkwardly swaying back and forth as he walked around the interrogation room.

“So…” Shawn mimicked. He figured he might as well rip off the band-aid and be the one to start. Even though he’d tried to avoid it, it was the decent thing to do. And, hell, Lassie was being a pretty decent guy. “Thanks. For giving me this room. And– I don’t know. For not just lashing out on me and going full Lassiter.”

“Of course, Shawn.” Lassie’s voice showed that same edge of softness that it had before, when he’d first approached Shawn outside of the interrogation room. He also didn’t fail to notice that Lassie definitely just called him Shawn. Which, if it weren’t for fear of spoiling the mood, he definitely would've brought up. He hadn’t noticed when the mood had started, but there was definitely a mood now. A bit more intimate than it had previously been. “I, uh… I know how it feels. The buzzing. The fuzzy feelings.”

“Oh?” Shawn raised a brow. He hadn’t been expecting that. He drummed his fingers on the table anxiously.

“Yeah. It’s… not great.” Lassie laughed, and Shawn laughed too. “But… I sort of figured out what helped. Focusing on things. Like…”

Lassie pointed to the Rubik’s Cube that was still placed on the front of the table. He rounded the table, pushing Shawn’s jacket out of the way and sitting on the table, in front of the chair where Shawn was sitting. He picked the Rubik’s Cube up and started fidgeting with it. He wasn’t making any progress with solving it, Shawn noted, but the same repeated gestures he kept doing were sort of soothing.

“So the whole thing about your nephew was all just made up?” Shawn was actually surprised by that. He expected that he would’ve been able to read that from Lassie if he’d been lying to him. But, he was distracted, so he gave himself a pass.

“Mhm. But I’m glad your Chakra’s were blocked. So you couldn’t detect that.” Lassie smiled down at Shawn. Shawn knew Lassie didn’t believe in his whole psychic shtick, but it was rare that he actually played along with it— or, at the very least, humored it.

“Right… right.” Shawn swallowed. Lassie was certainly closer than he had been before. And there was something about the light of the interrogation room that was just illuminating his features in all the right places. He forced himself to drag his eyes away from Lassie and down to the smoothie cup that he was holding in both of his hands. And Shawn had the first good idea he’d had for a few days. Or, the first very bad idea. He’d heard it both ways. “Hey, you want a taste of my smoothie?”

“W–what?” Lassie sputtered, looking down at the smoothie. Or, rather, looking down at Shawn’s lips. Maybe trying to figure out how Shawn wanted him to taste it.

“C’mon, Lassie, taste it!” Shawn shot up from his seat, instantly excited by his idea, crowding into Lassie’s space where he was sitting on the table. He grabbed the smoothie, pointing the straw towards the older man. “Gus says it's too sweet, I say it’s not sweet enough. We need an impartial third party weighing in. Besides, you bought it anyway, so might as well not waste your money, right?” 

“Well, first of all, I didn’t waste my money, I–” Lassie cut himself off. “But… fine. If you insist I try your pineapple smoothie, I’ll do it.”

Shawn gently moved the smoothie towards Lassie’s lips, and he took the straw between his lips, taking a small sip. Although he tried to hide it, Shawn could see the immediate reaction he had to the pure sugar of the smoothies. It was ridiculously sweet, to be fair. But Lassie was taking it like a champ.

“It’s… fine,” Lassie supplied, lying through his teeth. Shawn could smell the hatred Lassie had for the drink. Or maybe it was fear. Fear for the unholy abomination of sucrose contained in the cup. “I might agree a bit more with Guster, but…”

“Aw, come on, man,” Shawn pouted. He put the smoothie down to the right of Lassiter, right on top of the Rubik’s cube. He hoped that wouldn’t make the hinges too sticky. Or– on second thought, he moved it off of the Rubik’s cube. Just to be thoughtful. “And here I thought you were deciding to be nice to me tonight.”

“Hey, just because I care about you doesn’t mean I have to agree with your opinions about–” Lassie cut himself off, too late. 

He’d said it. The C Word. Care. He looked mortified, as if he’d just confessed to a murder. Which, knowing Lassiter, he might as well have. It wasn’t something Lassie looked like he’d meant to share, nor was it something Shawn was expecting to hear. But, there it was, out in the open.

“You care about me?” Shawn raised his eyebrows. He hated how his voice cracked when he asked that, but he really hadn’t been expecting that. He didn’t know if he believed it.

“Well…” Carlton shrugged, turning his head to the side and looking away. Shawn thought it was funny the way he tried (and failed) to appear nonchalant. “I don’t know. I suppose. If… If that’s something that you wouldn’t mind, that is.”

“Yeah, of course,” Shawn responded, smiling shyly. Lassie turned back to look at him, and met Shawn’s gaze. “I care about you too, Carlton.”

“Well, then…” Lassie ran a hand up and down his sleeve, looking as though he was working up the nerve to ask something. “Do I have permission to touch you, Shawn?”

“What?” Just when Shawn thought Lassie couldn’t surprise him any more, there he went. He really could be a wild card when he tried. “Yeah, I mean, touch me wherever you want. But– what?” 

“Well, I–” Lassie started, and Shawn stifled a laugh as he watched Lassie try and fail to hide the blush rising to his cheeks. “I didn’t mean it like that. Not really. I just meant, like…”

Lassie raised a hand to Shawn’s jaw gently, now trying to take more affection than was being offered to him. Allowing Shawn to dictate what was allowed. That feeling of being listened to was kind of electrifying.

“Is this alright?” Lassie searched Shawn’s eyes for any sign of discomfort, for which he found none. 

Shawn couldn’t really find any words to respond. They all died in his throat. Lassie continued, bringing his other hand up to the other side of Shawn’s jaw, cupping it as if Shawn was something precious. Something worth being gentle with. That was hot. Shawn leaned into the touch, feeling the weight of Lassie’s rough, calloused hands on him, grounding him. That was hotter.

“You have big hands,” was the first thing that Shawn thought to say. Lassie chuckled, but it sounded deeper, somehow. Just about everything that he was doing right now was setting Shawn on fire. The gentle touches, the deep laugh. What was happening? 

“Can…” Lassie paused, searching for the exact right words to say what he wanted to say. Shawn rocked on the balls of his feet, not wanting to make any moves without his expressed permission. “Can I kiss you, Shawn?”

“God, please,” Shawn responded, easily. Saying yes was practically the easiest thing he’d ever done. And just like that, Carlton brought Shawn’s lips to his own, bringing him in for a soft, gentle kiss.

Or, at least, that was how it started. As Shawn quickly found out, kissing Lassie was just about the best thing that he’d ever done. In fact, he cursed himself for ever having not kissed Lassie now that he’d done it. It was addictive, a certain sort of ebb and flow that was able to give Shawn all he wanted and still leave him wanting more. He wrapped his arms around the back of Lassie’s neck, crowding into his space as he leaned against Lassie, against the spot in between his legs against the table. It might’ve felt less like a kiss and more like an attack, really. An attack from a starved man who didn’t know he was hungry until this moment. He felt slight traces of stubble from Lassie scratching him, and that was a scratch that he didn’t mind. It was a sort of burn that made him feel present, which, considering how amazing kissing Lassie was, he wanted to be present for every second of this. That was all he wanted.

All he wanted… he thought about that. And, somehow, his mind drifted back to the case. Who wanted, not just the manager dead, but to be the popstar? There had to be something…

“Holy shit,” Shawn exclaimed, pulling away from Lassie, who let out a little disappointed noise that Shawn would definitely replay for the rest of his life before he went to bed. Or when he woke up. Or, whenever. It could even replace You Astound Me as his mental mantra. “I know who the killer is.”

“Oh?” Carlton answered, sounding particularly kiss-drunk and breathless in a way that made Shawn want to completely forget the case and just keep doing the addictive drug that was kissing Carlton Lassiter. 

“The sound director!” Spencer removed his arms from where they had been wrapped around the back of Lassie’s neck to throw them up in triumph. He remembered shortly after that he needed to keep pretending to be psychic, so he quickly placed them at his temples, playing as though he were seeing visions of the incident. “I’m– I’m seeing the manager, making the victim manage the sound booth, until–”

“Until he ambushed him and drugged him, which would give him enough time to get into the costume and pop out in the front,” Carlton added on, getting equally as excited. “That makes total sense! Shawn, you’re astounding!”

“I know!” Shawn was now pacing back and forth, the pieces coming to his mind quicker and quicker. He dropped his hand from his temple, hoping that the psychic juju could just flow through him. And because his arm got tired from constantly doing that. “And– and the only way that he could’ve pulled off the pop-star switch at the perfect time would have been–”

“If Drake Timothy was in on it! God, that makes sense!” Carlton now stood up too, equally as excited. “The sound director got a promotion, and… and did you see the way he looked at Timothy? If I had to bet, I’d say it could even be a possibility that–”

“That they’re totally in love with each other,” Shawn posited, mentally hitting himself for not realizing it earlier. When was he going to learn he had terrible Gaydar? First Juliet, next Carlton, and now Canadian Heartthrob Drake Timothy. “For sure. I didn’t give it much stock until now, but…”

“Jesus Christ, that was awesome!” Carlton smiled. It was a huge, dopey smile that Shawn really wished he got to see more often. He went to grab Shawn by his shoulders, his hands hovering briefly before Shawn nodded, letting him know that it was alright. Jesus, he never realized how sexy consent could be. Which was probably a problem, but that was a problem for another day. “Should we go, uh–”

“Tell them? Yeah…. Yeah. Probably.” Shawn couldn’t help but show disappointment at the fact that he would have to leave this perfect little bubble that he and Carlton had created inside the interrogation room.

“Yeah…” Carlton also sounded a tad bit disappointed. But then, he looked back up at Shawn, and seemed to be reinvigorated with passion. “Or… Shawn. Before we go tell them, can I kiss you again?”

“Yes, God, please,” Shawn agreed, meeting Carlton in the middle and embracing him, getting yet another hit of the drug that was Carlton Lassiter. He felt like he should be being a bit more formal about it, like Carlton was being. Or, at the very least, stop seeming so desperate every time Lassie offered any sort of affection.

“You, uh, you know…” Carlton said after a few minutes, pulling away from Shawn. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sort of seems like us kissing is what helped to unblock your… psychic things.”

“Chakras,” Shawn corrected. “But… you’re right. Definitely. It seems like you're certainly a skilled…. Chakra unblockerer.”

“Unblockerer? I don’t know if that’s a word,” Carlton responded, before realizing that he’d set Shawn up for the perfect opportunity to say what might’ve been his favorite, most annoying thing to say.

“Eh. I’ve heard it both ways.” Shawn shrugged, and Carlton couldn’t resist planting a kiss on Shawn’s cheek.

“Of course you have,” Carlton responded, rolling his eyes. “I’m just saying— if this helps you with your psychic things, maybe we should… do it more often. With your consent, or course.

“If we never did this again, I think I’d kill myself,” Shawn responded bluntly. Probably too honest, as Carlton briefly looked a little bit concerned. “Joking, obviously. But, yeah, I definitely want to do this again. And again. And again. And… you get the point.”

“Yeah… yeah, I think I do.” Carlton gave Shawn a beautiful smile, all toothy and glowing, that made him feel like the only person on earth. 

Which, shit, right now, he might as well be.

He doubted anyone else was having as good a time as he was.