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“Are you out of your damn mind?” It’s late in the evening, so Lassiter’s voice is thunderous in an almost empty police station.
The janitor Lassiter is referring to jumps and turns to the head detective, wide-eyed. “I-I’m sorry, sir..?” He stutters.
“You should be”, Carlton says in a huff. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m… cleaning?” The guy, visibly on edge, gestures at his janitor uniform, as if Lassiter isn't the head detective here.
“I don’t think so, pal.” Lassiter says, crossing his hands. “What you’re doing is sabotaging the investigation. I could arrest you for the obstruction of justice right. now.”
The janitor visibly pales and audibly swallows. “For-for cleaning… the whiteboard?”
“You’re not ‘cleaning the whiteboard’, you dimwit, you’re erasing information that is crucial to solving our current case.”
They both look at the whiteboard. It’s blank, except in the right corner, there is a small drawing that Spencer made earlier that day.
“I’m sorry, sir, the, uh- the jellyfish with a gun is- is crucial to your- investigation?”
Carlton is livid. “That,” he points at the whiteboard, “is an octopus.”
The guy, bewildered but smart enough to pick his battles, gulps and blabbers, “I- I am so sorry, sir. I- didn’t mean to-”
Lassiter looks like he’s about to attack the poor janitor, so the guy slowly backs away. “I- I am finished now, I- I’ll just-”, once he establishes safe distance from Lassiter, the janitor quickly runs away, leaving his supplies behind.
Carlton huffs and approaches the whiteboard. That dunderhead managed to erase one of the tentacles before Lassiter could stop him, so the head detective picks up a marker and awkwardly tries to restore the drawing to its original glory. He probably puts more thought into it than Spencer did in the entire thing, but he doesn’t think about that at the moment. And he pointedly doesn’t think about the fact that they will need that space on the whiteboard eventually. All he can think of is ‘Spencer’s drawing’.
Once Carlton is finished, he draws a rectangular around the octopus, encompassing it in a safe border. And after that, he turns the whiteboard on the other side. There, it is protected from the evil lurking janitors, at least for now.
***
“From the gentleman at the bar,” the waiter says, setting down a glass of something… suspicious and green-ish and suspicious in front of Spencer.
Shawn excitedly looks in the direction the waiter gestured to, noting a man looking at him. He raises the glass, holding eye contact with the man-
“You’re not drinking that,” Lassiter hisses at him.
Shawn turns his head, breaking eye contact with an admittedly handsome man, to look at Carlton (also an admittedly handsome man, in Shawn’s not humble opinion), who sits across him at the table.
“I’m not?” Shawn asks, intrigued.
“Of course not! It could be poisoned!" Lassiter whisper-shouts, indignant.
“Lassie, why on earth would it be poisoned?”
“Cause we’re on a stakeout!”
“Yeah, trying to protect the owner of the bar who famously doesn't drink. C’mon, let me enjoy my mojito in peace.”
Lassiter does not look at all convinced, so Shawn adds, “if it is poison, I promise I’ll let you suck it out of me.”
Carlton briefly wonders why he even bothers, but then Spencer raises the glass again, and he says, almost desperately, “Have you not been told to not take candy from strangers?”
“Dude, have you met Henry? I’ve been told to not take candy from my mother-”
Lassiter knocks the drink out of Shawn’s hand. The glass shutters, spilling possibly-lethal-liquid all over their table.
For a moment they just stare at each other, not even bothering to try and clean up.
After a beat, Shawn says, looking right at Lassiter, “You, sir, owe me a drink.”
***
Lassiter is in the middle of interviewing a woman about a burglary.
Apparently, the only thing stolen was a rice cooker that her ex bought, and Carlton is fairly certain even McNab could solve this, so he’s about to excuse himself and go find the officer and not have his own time being wasted on petty revenge, when the woman abruptly stops in the middle of sentence. She looks somewhere above the head detective’s shoulder and mutters, “What’s he doing here?”
Carlton turns around, following her gaze, and his eyes land on none other than Shawn Spencer. Guster is trailing right behind him, balancing at least five drinks. Lassiter distantly wonders if one of the coffees is for him, and then shakes his head, returning to the “victim”.
“Why? You know him?”
Looking for stolen rice cookers is not something Lassiter wants to spend his afternoon on, but this might be interesting.
“Yeah, that’s- that’s Shawn. Spencer. We went to school together.”
“Is that so? Were you two friends?” Carlton tries to ask nonchalantly. If he could get just one embarrassing story about Spencer’s childhood to taunt him with-
“Friends? Pfft, like he had any.”
Carlton’s confusion is genuine when he asks, “Spencer didn’t have friends? Spencer?”
“I mean, like, he was hanging out with some nerds and was always forcing Burton to follow him around and do everything for him-” Carlton almost asks who Burton is, but luckily, his brain catches up to him, - “and I can’t believe he still does,” she finishes, looking affronted behind him. The woman leans in, looking at Carlton conspiratorially and twists her hair. “He was, like, so annoying. Always so loud, distracting everyone, showing off, like, talk about class clown, you know what I mean? I have, like, no idea how teachers put up with him. And then in high school? He was trying to act all cool, you know, skipping classes, not caring about grades, he went to all those parties- worst thing, his dad would always show and bust us, so we, like, couldn’t invite him anywhere.” She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, then backs up a bit. “You want my opinion? The only reason he even finished high school was because Burton was there to cover his sorry ass.” She fully leans back in her chair, crossing her legs and giving Carlton a sly smile.
Carlton looks over his shoulder, eyeing Spencer and Guster, who are now chatting with O’hara. He processes the new information and then turns back to the woman, plastering a smile on his face, borderline baring his teeth. “Really? Then I’m sure you’ll be delighted to hear he’s doing great now. Spencer is actually our special consultant.” Carlton swallows the word “psychic”. “Did you know he scored a hundred on his detective exam?”
Lassiter gleefully notices how the woman’s face drops, and he continues. “Just last week, he helped us solve the Waterhouse Gallery robbery. You know, an actual robbery.”
The woman looks positively uncomfortable now, to Lassiter’s enjoyment. He looks back at Spencer and then at the woman, like a brilliant idea just struck him. “Say what, why don’t we ask him to help out with your burglary? I’m sure he’d love to help out an old classmate.”
The woman shifts awkwardly in the chair, looking behind Lassiter and then back at him. She chuckles nervously, “No, no need to bother him. You know, I guess I could just, like, buy a new rice cooker, or something,” she says, hurriedly starting to gather her things.
“Sounds like a great idea,” Lassiter replies, with a smile full of venom. He pointedly holds up her half-written statement and tears it in half, still smiling directly at the woman. He watches her rushing out of the station, lamely grumbling her goodbyes on the way. He picks up what’s left of the statement and tosses it into the bin, then turns around.
Spencer catches his gaze and grins, waving at him. Carlton schools his expression, but his shoulders relax nonetheless as he steps towards his… colleagues, his eyes set on the cup of coffee they left for him.
***
“I knew because I saw it with my own two-" Shawn pauses, and Lassiter can feel both his and Henry’s gaze land on him,- "I mean I knew because I saw it. Psychically.” From the corner of his eye, Carlton can see Spencer raising his hand to his temple. Lassiter just rolls his eyes, crossing another t in the report he is writing.
The head detective is sitting at his desk, while the Spencers argue crosswise behind him, Henry at his designated consultant cubicle and Shawn perching on the nearby desk.
Henry sighs. "That’s not good enough, Shawn. You can’t be sure of what you saw, you need context, you need tangible proof-”
"Shawn was right, though,” Carlton says offhandedly, not raising his head. “He solved the case. And if we waited for your permission, Henry, it would have been too late."
Both Spencers fall silent and Carlton briefly glances in their direction. They are looking at him, expressions comically identical in their disbelief.
Shawn recovers first, "I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I think I just heard you saying I was right, and, more importantly, that my dad was wrong."
Carlton pretends to go back to his report and says, trying to sound indifferent, "The fingerprints turned out to match the ones we found at the crime scene. The guy was almost halfway out of the city by the time we caught up to him, if we waited for the lab results, he would have been gone.” Carlton finishes, sneaking another glance at the Spencers direction.
Shawn hops from the desk he was sitting on and dramatically points at his father with a triumphant "Aha!"
Henry stares at Shawn, unimpressed, then squints at Carlton, then looks back at Shawn. "You got lucky this time. Police procedures exist for a reason, and-”
Lassiter doesn't register the rest of what Henry says, because he catches Shawn outright beaming at him, which is… very disorienting. Carlton isn’t used to someone looking -smiling at him like that.
"Lassie, I could kiss you right now," Shawn says, completely awe-struck.
Carlton shakes his head, trying to keep his expression composed. Fearing that he might fail, the detective grabs his unfinished report and hurries to leave the room, while trying to act calm the entire time. He feels the warmth of Shawn's gaze on his back the entire time.
***
Shawn`s psychic powers didn`t tell him it would be raining today.
Probably because the powers don`t exist, but still, that left the consultant on the steps of the Santa Barbara Police Department, facing the wall of heavy rain and considering his options.
From where he is standing – well, he can`t actually see his bike, the darkness and the rainfall being the problem, but even if he was stupid enough to try and drive it in this weather, by the time he ran to his motorcycle he'd be completely soaked. And as much as he loves dancing and singing in the rain, Gene Kelly had an umbrella. And a hat. And a raincoat. And Shawn only has his jacket to protect him from the wrath of the skies. Granted, the jacket looks way cooler than a raincoat, but it doesn't provide much in the coating from the rain department.
He could probably go back inside and wait until the rain stops, which, by the looks of it, would be approximately never. Sleeping in a cell isn't his idea of a good time, despite the rumors, but the conference room does have a comfy couch-
Shawn hears a distinct sound of an umbrella opening.
Right behind him stands Lassiter, looking at the rain like he wants to shoot it. The detective slowly turns his eyes towards Shawn, who is slowly getting drenched despite hiding under a roof. Noticing the detective's apprehensive gaze, Shawn tries to look as pitiful and miserable as possible.
Carlton sighs.
“Fine, I'll drive you.” Lassie reluctantly extends his arm, holding out the umbrella and letting Shawn in. Seeing Shawn's happy grin, he warns, “But don't make me regret it.”
Shawn just hums happily, pressing himself to Lassie's side, perfectly content.