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It's seven in the morning when the adrenaline finally wears off. Thankfully, this happens around the same time that everyone finishes writing their statements, so just as Shawn begins to sway on his feet, his dad is there with a firm hand on his arm, keeping him upright as they, Madeleine, and Gus shuffle out to the station parking lot as one big bedraggled unit.
"Are you good to drive?" Henry asks Gus, when they reach the blueberry. Shawn lists sideways, head swimming; Henry tightens his grip.
"I think so."
"Alright. We'll meet you kids at the house. Drive slowly and pull over if you have to."
Madeleine briefly cups Shawn's cheeks and kisses his temple as she walks by, which drags a smile to his face, before Henry opens the blueberry's passenger door and basically manhandles Shawn down into the seat, not unkindly, which makes it worse.
Shawn is sleep-deprived enough to allow this, but he bats Henry's hands away when his dad tries to reach for his seatbelt too, saying, "No, nope, I have limits, Dad—"
"Yeah, alright," Henry agrees quickly, stepping away.
As soon as all the doors are shut and they're both buckled in, Shawn turns to Gus with a wan grin. "From all his mother henning, you'd think it was the first time we were held hostage and almost murdered by a psychopath."
Gus gives him a profoundly exhausted look. "Knowing you, it won't be the last."
"What happened to no regrets?" Shawn says it lightly enough, but Gus takes a shallow, hitching breath, knuckles pale around the steering wheel.
"Still applies. I meant it, Shawn. Every word."
"I know, buddy." Shawn hesitates, then adds, "I did too."
You kill him, I kill you, you got it?
He'd meant it as sincerely as he'd ever meant anything in his life. Just because it'd gone unspoken up until last night didn't mean it hadn't always been true, one way or another—if Gus had died, it would've been the last thing Yin ever did.
When he meets Gus' steady gaze, he knows Gus understands.
Good. With that out of the way, then: "Pancakes?"
"You know that's right. Is Juliet coming?"
"Later, she needs more time to finish her statement. We'll get her some to go, syrup and butter on the side, I'll throw out my dad's chicken salad to make room in the fridge."
"I don't know why he keeps making that stuff, no one eats it."
Gus starts the car with a comforting rumble, and they peel away from the police station together.
Just this once, Shawn chooses not to begrudge his parents for the weird, uncomfortable dance they always fall into when they're in the same room, because serial killers are extenuating circumstances at the best of times. Also, he'd have to stand up from the couch to go break them up and remind them that they aren't married anymore, and he's mildly concerned that all of his bones may have liquefied.
Beside him, Gus is equally melty, snuggled under their shared blanket and sunk so low into the couch cushions that only his half-lidded eyes are visible. Their shoulders are pressed together and neither of them have any intention of pulling away.
Giggling from the kitchen. A whispered "oh, enough, Henry," followed by a low chuckle.
Shawn chews the last bite of his pancake with mingled disgruntlement and longing. On the TV, the original 1987 DuckTales is playing, which everyone present felt was exactly the kind of low-stakes, inoffensive childhood throwback they need right now. He's still trembling, but it's easing. Every few seconds, Gus shivers like he's cold, and each time Shawn discreetly wiggles closer.
They're both unusually quiet for a long time.
Then Shawn says, "Bet I'll have more nightmares than you tonight."
"Dude, no," Gus says immediately. "I'm gonna be a revolving door of horrifying nightmares."
"I have a perfect memory. I'll relive it in way more detail."
"I'm the one who almost got stabbed with a syringe full of rat poison."
"And I had to watch!"
"My actual trauma is worse than your witness trauma, Shawn," Gus says, in a tone best described as 'haughty vegan coworker ambushing you at lunch amidst the tastiest Philly cheese steak of your life'. "Besides, you know you're like a slingshot with this stuff, you always bounce back faster than anyone else."
"That's true. My mind has the elasticity and tensile strength of a magnolia condom."
"It's Magnum."
"I've heard it both ways."
Gus snorts. Warmth blooms in Shawn's chest.
"Alright, I concede," he relents, shuffling so he can kick his socked feet up on the coffee table, nudging aside their discarded takeout boxes and half-drained mugs of Sleepytime tea, because Madeleine has absolutely forbidden caffeine. "Your dreams will be more haunted and ghoulish than mine. But I win points back if I wake up screaming before you."
"Deal."
They shake on it under the blankets, which takes some maneuvering.
Tap tap tap.
Both of them jump, twisting around towards the front door, but Shawn quickly relaxes again. He knows that knock. He slides out from underneath the blanket, uses the couch to steady himself, and trudges over to open the front door.
The relief and affection that floods him upon seeing Jules converts instantly to intrigued confusion when his gaze meets Lassiter's over her head.
"Jules!" he says. Then, "and… Lassie…?"
"I asked Carlton to drive me," Jules admits, arms loosely folded over her middle in a nervous, soothing gesture. The bandage on her forehead makes Shawn a little nauseous. "The Chief sent us both home for the day, but I didn't feel safe to drive. I also might have—told him about us. He—" She waves a hand helplessly. "He saw us in the interrogation room."
Well, that explains the pale, unnerved look on Lassie's face, at least.
"Right," Shawn says. "Right, okay. That's… fine, I guess."
Jules shoots him an exasperated glance. "He's my partner, it was going to come out eventually."
"Yeah, eventually, not right now."
"I'm just… gonna go," Lassie says. He takes a self-conscious step backward, but he doesn't make it any farther than that because Jules whips around, grabs his arm, and drags him back into place.
Shawn knows a losing battle when he sees it. And anyway, it's for the best that Lassie is here instead of coping at the gun range and/or by wringing little squirrel necks like usual. "No, come on. Stay. We saved some pancakes and biscuits—for Jules, not for you, but there's a surplus of tea and if we don't make a dent in it soon I fear we all may drown in a tidal wave of Lipton Charming Cassis."
Henry and Madeleine have relocated to the living room by the time Lassie and Jules step inside. Shawn leaves them at the tender mercies of his divorced parents and slips into the kitchen to fetch the aforementioned pancakes and biscuits, a task that he stumbles through with all the grace of a newborn baby deer, before returning to the living room and collapsing back down into the couch between Gus and Jules.
Someone has hooked Jules up with a blanket and a steaming mug, which she's rotating slowly in her hands, expression vacant. Shawn settles the warm plate of pancakes in her lap. Jules blinks, eyes dropping down, then sliding back up to where Shawn is smiling at her, trying to ignore the sharp hook in his chest at how small she seems, how unlike herself.
"Thanks, Shawn," she finally says, sinking lower into the couch so she can settle her head on his shoulder.
He turns and kisses the top of her hair. She smells like dust and metal, only the faintest traces of her citrus shampoo lingering underneath the unsettling notes of Yin's basement.
Standing stiffly by the window, Lassie is doing a bad job of pretending like he isn't watching them with immense suspicion. Or it might be jealousy that there's no room left on the snuggle couch for him. Shawn thinks that cuddling Lassie would probably be like trying to cuddle an eel—weird and creepy and probably slimy. But even eels and head detectives need love.
"Maddie, will you come look at this with me?" Henry asks, voice fading as he wanders off into the house. "I think I left something…"
Madeleine sets down the snow globe she'd been peering into—the one Shawn got Henry for Christmas a few years ago—and calls back, "Alright, be there in a minute." She glances over at Shawn with a searching, pensive kind of look, considering him and Juliet together, before smiling a little. It's sad, but all of her smiles are. "You're okay, goose?"
"Yeah, Mom," Shawn says. "You don't have to hover."
"What if I want to?"
"I think it's sweet," Jules murmurs.
On Shawn's other side, Gus makes a faint sound that could either be agreement or the preamble to a snore.
"I'm fine," Shawn insists, more gently than he intends with Lassiter in the room, but it's out before he can change his tone. He holds his mom's gaze. After a moment, she sighs.
She passes a hand over his head on her way out, ruffling his hair. "Juliet, Gus. Carlton," she adds, looking at them each in turn, "there's another pot cooling in the kitchen, if you want more tea." And then she's gone.
Abruptly, Lassie announces, "I'm getting some water."
He hurries out of the room like a rabid porcupine is at his heels, which makes zero sense considering all the urgent situations are over and done with, but also, Shawn has never claimed to understand Carlton Lassiter. Juliet sips her tea, warm and soft where she's pressed against Shawn. Gus has his fingers wound into the hem of Shawn's shirt under the blanket, where no one can see, as if anyone would even say anything if they did. They've basically been married since they were twelve. On the TV, Scrooge McDuck claws his way out from under a pile of books and says indignantly, Even if ghosts do exist, I'm not going to let one chase me away from a bargain—
Jules sniffles, very quietly.
Shawn peers down at her, frowning, and wriggles one arm out of the blankets enough to slide it around her shoulders. "Hey. Come here."
"Sorry," she whispers. A faint shudder runs through her, voice wobbling. Shawn holds her a little tighter. "This wasn't even as bad as the first two times. I don't know why it's bothering me so much."
"We're going on three deadly encounters with the same serial killer mastermind, who wouldn't be freaked out? And I'm pretty sure that this kind of stuff, you know, gets worse the more it happens."
"Like the opposite of a vaccine," Gus says sleepily.
"I just feel like I should've learned something from the other times," Jules says. "And I let Allison trick me—I let my judgement be compromised, all because she made me believe she'd been hurt the way I was, and I felt so bad for her. What if I didn't catch on in time? She might've—"
"There's no point dwelling on what might have happened," Shawn insists. "Look, Allison clearly had a few screws loose, it's not your fault for being so… so kind, and caring, and selfless, okay? What about me? I didn't psychically detect that she was lying—if anything, it's my fault."
"No, no, Shawn, it's not. Your gift isn't always reliable. I should've—" Jules makes a frustrated noise, pressing her face into the crook of Shawn's neck. "I should've known better. I almost got you both killed because I couldn't look at the situation without bias."
"How about we stop blaming ourselves and start blaming the crazy old man who tried to kill us?" Gus suggests, reasonably.
"I like the sound of that," Shawn agrees. He brings a hand up to stroke Jules' hair, trying to be gentle with her head injury. She hasn't outright said that Allison slammed her around during their scuffle, but she's been wincing and barely moving her head for the last few hours, so Shawn figures she must have knocked it pretty hard. "Come on, Jules. Don't let Yin off the hook. And to be fair—I don't think any of us are unbiased at this point. Even Lassie has been taking this personally. Although it can be hard to tell from his shattered visage, frown, wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command—"
Gus interjects, "There's no way you've read that poem—"
"—Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons created Ozymandias in September 1986, keep up, Guster," Shawn continues, "but trust me, you're not the only one having a hard time with all this."
"How do you know that?"
"Because Lassie left to get a drink fifteen minutes ago and the spirits are giving me a distinct vibe that he's not keeping his word." He clicks his tongue. Also, sound carries in this house, and Lassie took maybe five full steps into the kitchen before stopping, where he's been standing in motionless silence ever since, like a weirdo.
Jules starts to sit up, expression pinched with worry. Her eyes are red-rimmed and Shawn wants nothing more than to tuck away all of the free, wispy hairs that have escaped her bun, now framing her face in delicate tendrils that would be artful in any other situation. "Carlton," she says thickly, passing a hand under her eyes. "I should check on him. I left him outside when I accompanied Yang and then he just found out I've been lying to him about us—oh, Shawn, he's probably so upset with me, partners don't lie to each other."
"I lie to Gus all the time," Shawn says. Under the blankets, Gus pinches his thigh. "Ow!"
"Carlton and I don't lie to each other," Jules emphasizes.
Shawn smacks Gus' offending hand away. "Look, Jules, don't stress about Lassie. I'll go and make sure he isn't hyperventilating or pulling a Jack Torrance or whatever you're worried about. You need to rest."
"… Are you sure?" she asks, dubious. She's hesitant to let this go, but she's also completely drained, and Shawn can see her wavering between concern and weariness as she worries the rim of her mug with a fingernail, spine bowed, chewing on her lower lip. He makes the choice for her by reluctantly climbing back to his feet, nudging her closer to Gus so she can share in the delicious blanket toastiness while he's gone. Gus, always a good sport, lets Jules have a solid third of it.
"Be back soon," Shawn promises. And means it, because he's beyond tired too. He's passed the town limit of Tired and has collapsed on the steps of Exhaustion City Hall. He's getting a flashlight shined in his eyes by Sheriff Fatigue; no relation to Army Fatigues, the jolly ice cream parlor owner who bears an uncanny resemblance to the durable yet functional combat uniforms of the same name. Sheriff Fatigue is pulling a framed photo of Shawn's bed out of his wallet and asking him who the beautiful dame is, to which he's straight up bursting into tears.
Swaying drunkenly the whole way there, Shawn trudges off to fetch Lassiter.
Batting a thousand with the psychic visions: Lassie is indeed not getting himself a glass of water, or tea for that matter. Lassie is standing over the kitchen sink, hands braced on the counter's edge, staring out the window that leads to the backyard.
Shawn's eyes flit over him in the span of a few short seconds, cataloging everything: his holstered gun always within grabbing range, the tight hunch of his shoulders, the stress in his posture, how white his knuckles are, the bagginess of his shirt that he hasn't re-tucked, the slightly unfocused glaze in his icy eyes that means he isn't really looking at anything after all. It's novel, getting to read Lassie like this. Normally he does a better job of keeping his tells locked down. Shawn steps into the kitchen from the side, so Lassie can see him coming, but Lassie flinches as if Shawn had been trying to sneak up on him deliberately. His gaze flickers toward Shawn and one hand jerks in an aborted reach-for-the-gun gesture that has Shawn taking a step back, vaguely alarmed. Then Lassie inhales, straightens up, and folds both arms across his chest to level him with Glower #4 that radiates only a fraction of its usual potency.
"Hey, Lassie," Shawn says. He slides both hands into his pockets, starts to tip backwards, then very casually places one hand on the counter to keep himself vertical. Smooth. "Crazy night, huh? This is definitely one for the scrapbook."
"Actually, this time turned out fairly pedestrian," Lassie says. "Mostly I'm just glad we're closing the chapter on Yin and Yang for good. The closure feels good. They've plagued this department and city for far too long, and now we can all move on."
"Amen."
"Of course," he continues, casting his gaze sidelong back to the window again, "this breed of serial killer always draws secret admirers and copycats out of the woodwork, so I anticipate an outbreak of similar crimes in the next few months. So don't worry, Spencer. You'll get more chances to show off and play games with insane murderers in the future, and damn the rest of us."
Shawn brings a finger to his temple. "I'm detecting some sour-lemon vibes from you Lassie, but that simply can't be true, seeing as I've done nothing to you recently besides be right in the face of your unfair skepticism, again."
"No, you don't do anything to anyone, do you? Just yourself."
"Okay, you've officially lost me. What's your deal, man?"
Through gritted teeth, Lassie snaps, "I am sick and tired of my team throwing themselves into mortal danger where I can't follow."
Oh.
Shawn lowers his hand sheepishly. He lets out a breath, rubbing the back of his neck. "Look, Lassie. You know how Yin and Yang work. We had to go alone or he would've killed Allison—I mean, granted, Allison turned out to be nutso, but we didn't know that at the time—"
"It isn't just about Yin," Lassie snarls. "Although Yin is a symptom of a bigger disease. First you and Guster go into the house alone, without backup or any regard for your own lives. Then O'Hara goes in alone with Yang and loses contact. And where was I? Loitering outside like an idiot while my team was trapped in there with a madman." Shawn almost adds and madwomen, plural, but the fierce glint in Lassie's eyes for once makes him stay silent. "And this is hardly the first time you've thrown yourself recklessly into a situation without waiting for backup. You've gotten yourself shot, kidnapped, taken hostage, held at gunpoint, I could go on, not that you've learned anything from those incidents. For God's sake, Spencer, I may not like your methods, or the way you conduct yourself professionally, or your infuriating personality, or the fact that O'Hara has apparently lowered herself to date you now—"
It's like watching a runaway train. Shawn opens and closes his mouth several times.
"—but I will always come if you need someone to watch your back," Lassie finishes, chest heaving, thumping his fist on the countertop to emphasize the point. He jabs a vicious finger in Shawn's direction. "Next time, you wait for me. I don't care what the ominous letter from the serial killer says. I don't care if you think it wastes time or cramps your style or whatever other excuses you tell yourself. You wait for me."
For a long moment, they just stare at each other, neither willing to back down. Lassiter is as intense as Shawn has ever seen him. Shawn feels… mostly frustrated, uncomfortable, sore, and more rattled by the force of Lassie's demand than he'd prefer. But he can't bring himself to make a promise he won't keep. Not that that's ever stopped him before, but, well. It's stopping him now.
He spreads his arms helplessly. Lassie narrows his eyes.
"I can't… guarantee that," Shawn says, haltingly. "Sometimes the spirits just propel me, I can't always slow down to—"
"Try."
A thoughtful beat.
"Also, if you hurt O'Hara or disrespect her in any way, I will shoot you repeatedly in the face until you're unrecognizable."
And with those friendly parting words, Lassie draws himself up, sets his jaw, and stalks past Shawn out of the kitchen.
Shawn scrubs a hand down his face and sighs. Good talk!
He grabs a dry mug from the rack—white with a black wiener dog silhouette and bold letters that read HAVE YOU SEEN MY WIENER?—adds a bag of Sleepytime Extra for certain tightly-wound and trigger-happy individuals, and pours the last of the hot water into the mug. He stirs in five spoonfuls of honey.
When he returns to the living room, a flush of warm sentimentality threatens to kill him dead.
Morning sunlight streams in through the blinds, suffusing the room with a pale, nostalgic glow. Jules and Gus have ended up huddled together, both buried under their blankets and fast asleep, nestled deep into the couch like they might need to be surgically separated from it later. Jules has taken her hair out of its tie; it flows around her in frazzled golden waves. Gus has his hands tucked underneath his cheek like a cartoon character. They left space for him on Juliet's other side, a perfectly and delectably tempting couch cushion that he swears is singing his name in the dulcet tones of Curt Smith.
But no, he must focus up first. Because there's also Lassie, stewing resentfully in the adjacent armchair. He had been watching Juliet sleep with a kind of aching hunger on his face that belies how genuinely upset he must have been about her going into Yin's house alone—but as soon as Shawn enters the room, Lassie's eyes snap towards him with the deep wariness one should only reserve for spitting cobras or young children, which simply cannot be good for the man's blood pressure.
Shawn deposits the steaming mug in Lassie's hands, forcing him to either catch it or spill hot tea all over himself.
Lassie jumps, gripping the mug. "I—huh?"
"Hold that thought."
Shawn dips into the linen closet and retrieves the biggest, fluffiest, most luxurious comforter he can find. He places this one on the couch where he will be cozying up with his two favorite people in the world very soon. Then he retrieves a second, slightly smaller, less fluffy blanket that smells distantly of grass from the last time it was used in a picnic. He dumps this one unceremoniously over Lassie's head.
"Hey!" Lassie splutters, fumbling to rip the blanket off. "What the hell, Spencer?"
"Drink the tea and go to sleep, man, we've been up all night."
"I never sleep in front of other people. And—And I'm not staying here, I'm going home."
Contrary to his confident words, Lassie makes no move to stand up, a clear dissonance in behavior which undermines all other claims he has ever made. Really makes a guy wonder if Lassie even meant the whole 'shooting you until you're unrecognizable' thing.
On second thought, no, actually, that one had been perfectly sincere.
"Suit yourself," Shawn says with a shrug, and finally, finally topples down onto the couch with a pleased groan, immediately sliding sideways and curling up basically on top of Jules on top of Gus. He drags his blanket down over himself. The TV croons cheerfully, every day they're out there making duck tales (ooh-ooh)… The scent of Henry's laundry soap, gunpowder and citrus, syrup, honey-steeped tea—the warmth seeping into his bones, turning him to mush right here on this couch, this is heaven. Jules and Gus where he can both see and feel them to make sure they're not going anywhere. His parents talking somewhere in the back of the house, a soothing, faraway murmur of sound that makes this place still feel like the childhood home he remembers so well. And even Lassiter nearby, their very own protective gargoyle in police leathers, making noises more closely associated with succumbing to the allure of sweetened tea and fluffy blankets than standing up and leaving. Against both of their wills, sometime in the last four years, Lassie has completed the tableau of people Shawn would die for in a heartbeat. In this moment, Shawn thinks drowsily that Lassie must've been not only upset, but scared for him. For all three of them.
This moment, of course, meaning this highly compromised and state of altered consciousness moment, which cannot be trusted to have emotional epiphanies. He'll be back to feeling alienated and uneasy about forming deep connections anywhere when he wakes up.
Until then, though.
Shawn snuggles further into Juliet's side, closes his eyes, and slurs, "G'night Lassie."
Later, he'll think he dreamed up the low, awkward way Lassie mutters, "Goodnight, Spencer," in reply. There's really no way to be sure.