Title: Apply Liberally at Sunrise
Fandom: Psych (post-series, I'm guessing, or at least way ahead of season four)
Characters/Pairings: Shawn and Carlton (UST); Gus x Juliet (established)
Rating: Teen+ for television-style swears and readability
Disclaimer: Psych is owned by NBC Universal Television and several other production companies, none of which I am affiliated with.

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Part the First

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Darkness swirled around Shawn. It was far more preferable, he acknowledged, than anything else. If he had had his way, he'd rather rise from fitful sleep near a vat of something sweet and sticky. Caramel sauce or fresh-from-the-stove raspberry sauce. What was the French for raspberry? A word he'd come across once, or heard repeatedly during dozes in the office with the television on the Food Network. Frah-bwah, it sounded like. But he spelled it out in his head, framboise. Right, that was it. Fram from Boise. To blow a raspberry: faire un bruit de pet… He didn't know French—did not want to know it—but he'd picked up so much useless information that he was thinking of wrangling Gus into writing a book of their cumulative intelligence prowess. They could slap a ridiculous title on it. Like The Book of Inactive Reasoning and Yummy Raspberry Sauce. It could be like one of those projects they did when they were ten years old and all the world stood still and they'd never grow up…

He thought these things before opening his eyes.

Then, instead of listening to himself ramble on in the mad rush of morning's seductive activity, he listened to the stagnancy of Lassie's place. Shawn preferred this new, smaller house. Much more suited to a man of Lassie's—what was the phrase? Utter emptiness. Loneliness? No, something more confining. Loneliness was so expansive. Lassie was not so infinite.

The back door opened before the word appeared to him.

"Lock it, Lassie," he murmured, steeling his eyes shut against the inevitable. He knew what day it was, Saturday, but didn't want to think about it. How easier it was, now, at that God-awful hour of the morning, to predict the movements of Carlton Lassiter. He only knew Lassie put the bolt lock back in place because of the clank of shoe sole against the bottom of the door: the door was one of those fickle, slightly warped old things that required extra attention if, in fact, you wanted to do something as ridiculous as lock it.

Six steps. Turn. Out of the kitchen. Two loud steps on bare floorboards. One missed step lost in the softness of the throw rug in the living room. Six more loud steps. Two missed: Lassie crossed the hallway rug, an ugly beast so intoxicated with dirt that Shawn had first joked it was Lassie's bed. Get it? Dirty dog, dirty floor rug, and—yeah. Lassie hadn't gotten it either. In truth, Shawn had never met anyone cleaner. He didn't care how much lavender oil Gus had once rubbed into his shapely chocolate-egg-at-Easter head. Even as Lassie entered the spare room there was that collection of now infamous odours: after shave and shampoo—the good stuff today, not the cheap stuff—shoe polish and gun oil—God he was not going to let Lassie wear his piece all freakin' day—and something else elite and unusual that always hovered in Lassie's aromatic wake.

Shawn opened his eyes. Carlton flinched a little. How did Shawn do that, anyway? Open his eyes so that, without moving them even a bit, they were directly on his own eyes. Fastened there as though kept on a short tether. It unnerved. He set his lips against his teeth, feeling vulgar feelings, and extended his hand anew. Shawn inhaled, taking the takeaway cup, but disfavored speaking for sipping a cold liquid through a straw. The dark ruined its contents. He didn't know what he'd expected, but started hacking and coughing.

"It's—too early for you to—" Shawn felt the crinkles of liquid lodged in his windpipe. "Oh God—it burns us, Lassie!—for you to kill me!"

"Sorry," though it was an unpleasantness, hearing Carlton apologize for an act not his fault. He was, like Shawn, full of a morose bouquet. And only in a handful of hours would it leave them.

Shawn lay back on the pillows, three of them—he'd taken one from Lassie's bed in the middle of the—evening, because it wasn't exactly night. He rubbed his sternum to get rid of the poisonous serum. Shooting Lassie a bland look that transformed to accusatory, Shawn lifted the beverage.

"What the hell is this?"

"Iced espresso," Carlton said. 'Seven shots. No sugar. No cream. Nothing. Just ice. At least,' he frowned for a moment, "I think that's what I ordered."

"My God, man, you are an elephant at remembering these things!"

"Right," he murmured, too quietly that he was rather positive even Shawn had missed it. He itched his ear, nervously, nursing paranoia and a desire to get this finished. An actual ending. Wouldn't it be something?

"What time is it?" Shawn tried to answer his own question, finding Lassiter could be unreliable from time to time. He reached for his phone on the bedside cabinet. It wasn't there, and the little battery-operated travel clock was useless to read in a room full of wan Santa Barbara street light.

"About four-thirty."

Shawn found his iPhone buried between luxurious pillow crevices. Its display gave a gaudy reading: 4:34 AM. He could only see it through one eye, like Cyclops, so bright was the screen. He preferred hearing it from Lassiter, and shoved the iPhone back between pillowy mountains. After a second sip of his drink, he pulled a face, lolled his tongue, made a rude noise.

"This makes my whole mouth feel as hairy as Alec Baldwin's classy moobs."

"Charming. It'll keep you awake."

"At least until nine in the morning, then I might be able to go back to sleep…" He wasn't aware, really, that he'd said it aloud. And far more proud of both of them for not following it up with an undignified statement, a tease about the morning's approaching epoch.

Shawn made another face and squeezed his tongue tip between his teeth. "Seriously, I think my tongue is getting woollier. Is that a word, woollier? Woollierest? Woolly. I never noticed it before, but words are absolutely ridiculous at four-thirty in the morning. Back me up on this, Lassie."

Lassiter quite agreed, especially when they came out of Shawn's mouth, like vapid, plagued peasants sporting malaria and uncommon, incurable diseases. "Here." He grabbed Shawn's drink, put his drink in Shawn's empty fingers, and, with a nod, headed for the doorway. It was not innate machismo that let Carlton slurp the iced espresso without so much as a cringe. He watched Shawn take a test sip of the hot beverage. After smacking his lips a couple of times, Shawn approved.

"Is that hazelnut I taste?"

"Hazelnut latte."

"Lassie," Shawn said in his affectionate, startled, soft mocking voice, "that isn't like you."

"Just drink it, Spencer. And get in the shower, would you? The sooner you get dressed, the sooner we can get over there and get this done with."

"Absolutely," Shawn said, 'since I'm sure they're going to hold up the entire wedding until I get there.'

"You are the best man."

"And what are you? We were never really sure of that. Matron of honor? Are you wearing pumps? Enquiring minds want to know! This is starting to grow on me." He spoke of the latte, not the idea of Lassiter in pumps. He wagged a hand at Lassie's ensemble. "Jimmy Choo makes a delectable three-inch pump in leopard print that might just make that tie look somewhat decent. Please tell me you're not wearing that."

"Just—hurry up." He scowled, sipped his espresso, and started turning away.

"This is ridiculous, man!" Shawn shouted, pounding a fist into the mattress. "Who gets married at sunrise, anyway?"

"Get in the shower, Spencer, before I throw you in!"

This came from somewhere in the living room. Shawn's eyes tightened, wanting to blame Lassiter for this ordeal, this incredible, senseless mayhem. He hated these twisting feelings: one part happiness mixed with disbelief and jealousy and despair.

"I'm going to kill Gus for this!" he cried, making sure it was loud enough for Lassie to hear.

What came was an unexpected retort.

"Not if I kill him and O'Hara first!"

Shawn, filled with melancholy, rolled from the mattress. Hanging on the back of the door was his damn suit. "Dude," he reflected aloud to himself, as though Gus stood right there, "I'm so going to look like Sonny Crockett in this thing."

Lassie's head popped between door and frame. It caught Shawn off his guard, usually so high and impenetrable around Lassiter anyway. "Put it on."

"Do you mean before or after the shower? Never mind. Just—just never mind." Shawn was through with the chatter like old bitties, the bickering like long-time lovers, and parted Lassiter out of his way, holding nothing more than clean boxers and white undershirt. He was a few steps away before he recalled the taste of hazelnut, missed the latte, and went back for it. Lassie held it out to him. "I'm drinking this in the shower," said Shawn in his heroic bravado, "and don't try stopping me. And if I have to tinkle at any time through the marriage ceremony, then that's the way it's gotta be. Gus and Jules will understand." He nodded, adding a fitting end to his speech. "Good-bye, Carlton."

Only after Shawn had turned the corner did Carlton dare smile. Shawn would, of course, do something like that at his best friend's wedding. They were probably the two people in the world who shouldn't go to Gus and Juliet's wedding, for all the antics they could pull, and all the rowdiness of simmering emotions; but they were, of course, the two people Gus and Juliet wanted there, more than anyone else, no matter what hour of the day it occurred.

Water whined through pipes as the shower started, and, assured of Spencer's being ensconced in hot spray, Carlton dialed O'Hara. She answered, sounding breathless, joyful, and too cheery for that incredible hour of the morning.

"Carlton, is he up? Gus has been pacing, waiting to hear one way or another. If Shawn's—"

"Wait, you've seen Guster?"

"He's right here."

"So much for traditions of the bride and groom separated before the ceremony."

"We're not that superstitious. And we have way too much to do. Is he awake?" Juliet looked across the room to the window, a glare of silver, the freshest beginnings of morning, pouring around the cut-out of Gus. "Please tell me that we didn't haul him, with you kicking and screaming, to your house just to have you—"

"He's in the shower," Lassiter answered, rubbing his brow and flicking away a speck of dry skin, bothering to sniff as though miffed that O'Hara hadn't trusted him. "I think he was already up when I came in with coffee."

"Seven shots of espresso, like Gus ordered?"

"He wouldn't drink it. I gave him my hazelnut latte."

"A flavored latte? You?" Juliet repeated, this little puzzle reaching Gus, whose eyes lit up. "That's not like you, Carlton."

"We can discuss the changeability of my drinking habits later. He's awake. We'll be there."

Juliet half-heard while Gus tugged at her arm and, hardly audible, whispered to ask Lassiter something on his behalf. "One small favor before you pack him into the car."

"You want me to gag him and put him in cuffs? Because I can do that. As it is, O'Hara, I have to have the whole house disinfected because he was here."

"Shawn's been to your house lots of times."

"But never for twelve hours."

"He helped you move in. He found someone who bought your old house."

"Do you think Target will have Pine Sol on sale this week?"

"Carlton! It was one night! And how else were we going to get him here? Shawn's dad was staying with the Gusters up here for the night, and—"

"What's the favor? I'm going to assume, with the way the day's gone so far, that it isn't something as jolly as gagging and cuffing Spencer."

Juliet waited for a moment, blinking away the rough images of Carlton and Shawn entangled in the throes of hatred. Like she'd discovered through the years as Lassiter's partner, he was the sort whose bark was worse than his bite, regardless of his ferocity. Shawn, on the other hand, adored the beloved "Lassie" and hadn't, inasmuch as Gus was able to tell her, ever hated Lassiter. It was difficult for Shawn to hate anyone: He was too fascinated by peoples' idiosyncrasies and his own self-centered, puerile understanding of them.

In the end, however, Juliet lifted her gaze to Gus, saw support there, that came to when he lifted his hand to her shoulder, pressed his lips to that warm space above her ear. She closed her eyes, now knowing the favor she wanted was too silly, and she too embarrassed to ask for it. She made up something, something of interest that was, in truth, as important to her as asking him to be nice to Shawn during the drive.

"Carlton, just leave your gun at home, would you?"

After a faint chuckle, Gus delivered near the mouthpiece: "It won't be lonely with the half-dozen or so you've already got hidden around your place, will it?"

The faint hissing of the shower stopped, and in a matter of minutes he'd have to hurl Spencer into the Crown Victoria, sans cuffs and gag. The degree of O'Hara's request barely fazed him, but for other reasons he ran fingertips across his tired, burning eyes. The espresso hadn't hit him yet. Or it'd hit him in some other way, perhaps sufficiently explaining why his insides felt chewed to bits and rolling like angry waves.

"Fine," he answered. "It stays."

"I'm going to pat you down when you get here," responded Juliet, "just so you know. Or I might even ask Shawn to do it for me." She and Gus high-fived at her joke.

The bathroom door opened, pluming into the hallway faint odors of body wash, wet ceramic tile, and California's treated water.

"Gotta go," delivered Lassiter, ending the call before Spencer, ever curious, descended the corridor and inspected what he saw there.

"You look conspicuous." Shawn held his fingertips to the side of his head, lowered his eyes, the definition of his standard position of pretend. "I sense you're hiding something."

"Of course I am. Do you think I tell you all my secrets?"

"Is it a pair of teal nylon and Spandex bikini briefs, by chance?"

"What? No."

From his other hand, Shawn held up the adduced pair of briefs, hanging, swinging delicately, shimmering a little in the lamplight, from the crook of his forefinger. "That's too bad. It begs the question, now, about the owner of these. Belong to a friend of yours?"

"Spencer."

"More than a friend? I'm hoping a swimsuit model from Bulgaria named Vlad. But I digress. I feel that they are lost and require immediate return. I shouldn't want someone to roam about Santa Barbara without lavish underpants, Lassie, for I believe that is against the law. And if it isn't—it should be—" he ran a cursory inspection up and down Lassiter, "for some people."

Carlton knew that Shawn knew. There was no use in hiding anything, really. But, in spite of their mutual ascension into awareness of briefs' ownership, Carlton wouldn't take them. He'd left them in the bathroom after groggily showering around 3:45 that morning. With an eyebrow raised speculatively, Shawn swung his forearm, teetering the briefs, but wrenching around.

"I'll put them in the dirty briefs hamper in your room, sweetie, and perhaps they'll sprout a pair of sexy legs and wander back to their owner eventually, freshly laundered and smelling like Peach Blossom Swirl Snuggle softness."

Which was, naturally, the exact same fabric softener sitting on the shelf above Carlton's dryer. As Shawn vanished into the shadowy dim of Carlton's bedroom, likely doing what he said he would, Carlton briskly stepped away. He checked the car, put new bottles of water and two bottles of cranberry juice on the floor in front of the passenger's seat. It would take them nearly two hours to reach the resort. They had to leave by five. If Spencer wasn't ready in six minutes…

But just as he returned to the house in order to hurry Shawn along, he came striding into the living room in his pale linen suit, the loose-fitting jacket over a pastel blue t-shirt.

"James 'Sonny' Crockett," Shawn said at once, making sure his jacket sleeves were secure against his elbows, "that's what you're thinking."

Carlton made some noise between pressed lips, like a sizzle that was clearly a held-in piece of laughter. "He's making you wear that? Really?"

"Yeah, Lassie, really. And don't you dare hate on Gus's dream of an eighties-theme wedding. At least," Shawn loped his gaze into the space of thought, "I hoped that's what he was doing. But we were so busy with that last case—and the one before that—and the one before that—we hardly knew what was planned… Time to go?" He said it quickly in case his emotions went limp again. This couldn't be happening, really. Surely he and Gus were still ten and merely meeting at a secret tree house built in a secret location between Morro Bay and Santa Barbara. Only now they would allow in a woman—maybe even two: Juliet, of course, and Vick could come if she wanted to. But, honestly, that was the extent of girls for a while. They would have to be periphery members if they were going to be a part of the Shawn and Gus clubhouse. It might even be possible to incorporate a stupid mantra into the rules: If you have boobs, you'll be refused! He'd take it over No body, no crime, Shawn any damn day of the week.

He was glad that Carlton nodded, and there was a certain serenity in the two of them checking that windows and doors were locked. Shawn liked Lassiter's house. He'd expressed it many times before, and had been among the few that'd helped Lassie put his first household items among its empty rooms. For the last year, since Lassie moved in, Shawn had tried to trick his way into a sleep-over. He invented reasons to drop by, because he liked to sit on the enclosed patio area, surrounded by green things he didn't care to know the name of, but was astounded when Carlton told him their names anyway: wisteria was the purple stuff, birds of paradise were the fetching orange-yellow flowers, then the standard bougainvillea and lemon tree. Unlike Gus's apartment, and his own place still in the renovated (sort of) launderette, and, how impossible it seemed given Lassiter's outward coldness, Shawn thought the house felt like a cosy old home. More than his dad's bachelor pad, more than his untouched, unaltered old bedroom. So it was with gentleness and affection that Shawn latched bolts and checked window latches, even stuck his finger in one of Lassiter's plants to make sure it didn't need to be watered.

Silently, they went out the back door, off the kitchen, still smelling faintly of last night's dinner. Carlton shut the door, the window panes giving a wheezy rattle, and immediately patted his trousers for the keys.

"I forgot—"

Jangling keys made his statement unnecessary. Shawn lifted the house key and turned the bolt into place, tugging at the warped door. As he was about to hand the wanted keys to Lassie, Shawn drew back his hand, keeping them out of reach.

"Let me drive? It is my best friend's last great adventure we're going to."

"He's getting married, Spencer," Carlton held out his hand, "not dying. Give them over."

Shawn waited, seeing if pity might evolve into capitulation. He received a tilt of the head and a narrow-eyed leer, Lassie's continual display of frustration and anger. "Didn't think so." He slapped the keys into the waiting palm, took to the sidewalk in the ambiguous morning light, and slid into the car. It smelled like cordite, feet, Armor All and just a dash of night air. The scene improved when Carlton entered, when they got going and improved air circulation from the vents.

Carlton had an absolute idea of their ultimate destination. He'd already driven up once with O'Hara, a test run to see how long it would take. Meanwhile, Shawn wriggled restlessly in the seat, having no idea where they were going but with a vague idea that it was north, on the beach, past San Luis Obispo. Shawn's need to snoop had been upstaged by a slew of odd cases that had captured his attention more than the location—sure to be sassy—of Gus and Juliet's wedding. Even Gus, the rare occasions it was mentioned, didn't seem to care whether Shawn knew or not. "Lassiter's bringing you" was declared almost as soon as Gus and Juliet decided to have it as sunrise. Carlton was the only one they trusted to have Shawn show up on time. When Shawn suggested staying at the resort with the Gusters and his parents—it seemed an easy solution—Jules gave him one of those sympathetic "I'm sorry for your stupidity: let me give you a candy bar instead, poor boy" looks that he'd rarely witnessed, and chirped pathetically, "Then who would make sure Carlton comes?" It seemed that Shawn and Carlton's friendship was doomed to hang on the dreary rack of symbiosis. Their friends, the Chief at times, too, had accustomed themselves to relying on them as a unit rather than individually, if the situation called for Shawn's vigilance and Carlton's assertiveness.

A little into the ride up The One, Carlton abruptly gripped the steering wheel with a white-knuckle tightness. "You brought the gifts, right?"

Shawn's first reaction was to retaliate boldly, brassily, that they were in the trunk and for the love of God stop being an uptight ankle sock! "Don't be the scarer of sunshine on my sunny day, Lassie. I bought them a ten-years' supply of Pop Rocks and one hundred Sky Bars. They should be eating them right this minute up at the hotel. I want them good and sugary when we arrive. Gus gets the cutest little sugar mustache when he…" His smile dropped at Lassie's scowl and accompanying grunt like a sour chord out of a moldy old tuba. 'Yeah, yeah, I brought them. They should be in the trunk. Seriously," another worry, as antique as the primordial ideas of the wedding, seeped into Shawn's porous conscience, "if I get up there and find out Gus has had a stag party, and if I find out that Mr T was there, I'm never speaking to him again. And I'm taking back the Roller Racer I bought for him—yes, that's right, I bought him a Roller Racer. Him and Juliet." Quieter, more for himself than defense against any bizarre note Lassie might see in his gift, he said, "I don't want them getting fat and all squishy in their matrimonial era, and I want them to have fun."

"I suppose you bought one for yourself?"

"That totally goes without saying, Lassie. I was going to get you a Pogo Ball, but I was torn on whether or not you already had one."

Scenery soon lost all claim on Shawn's memory, and everything outside the window, as daylight lifted night's gauze, became an enigma to explore. The two of them became too quiet and thoughtful, and Shawn accurately described the lay of Lassie's thoughts one too many times.

"They'll be back before we know it." He reached across the empty space and patted Carlton's thigh, until it was yanked out of reach.

"That's not what I was thinking!"

Shawn did that thing he always does that annoyed Lassie any hour of the day, but perhaps worse at six in the morning: holding his fingers beside his head so his fingers made an agile, graceful "C".

"Well, not all of what I was thinking," Lassie corrected. "I just hope that Chief Vick—"

"Dear, sweet Karen."

"Chief Vick," he repeated for emphasis, "will not let us—me—"

"Us, Lassie, you can say it and mean it now."

"Fine," but his knuckles tightened on the wheel, the other clutching the cranberry juice bottle till its plastic crimped, "us—let us go without a case while Guster and O'Hara are gone."

"I'm sure she'll go out and rouse criminal activity just for our sake. She's just that kind of woman. I know I've always thought so."

Carlton wondered if it ever got old for Shawn, to create all the needless wit, to crack whips against humor and recalcitrance with the adroitness of a dolphin on amphetamines.

"We'll be all right," Shawn averred, prolonging his thought process of it to bring himself necessary comfort, and saying it aloud to heal any leftover issues of abandonment that might be lingering in the dark places of Lassie's blemished soul. "We could always go over cold cases. Never a dull moment there."

Shades of grey filled the eastern horizon when they were forty minutes from their destination. Shawn had brought Lassiter into a word game. Vague Memory Card Cases, as Shawn had named it, or VMCC for short. One of them would recall a case they had worked on together, then give one-word clues to the case's identity. Like Twenty Questions, but it usually took less than twenty times to get the case right; and of course they were using words, nouns and verbs alone, no proper names allowed, rather than questions. Carlton found he was fascinated by the titles Shawn had given their cases over the years.

"Each one has its own title," Shawn expatiated, yawning greatly into two hands before continuing. "It's how I remember them in my head, usually. There's Cloudy With A Chance of Murder—"

"Ah, the murdered weatherman," said Lassie, smiling.

"High Noon-ish. That's was all about you—and that weird place of your childhood. Talk Derby To Me."

"O'Hara and the roller derby girls!" exclaimed Carlton with a snap of his fingers and a grin.

"Right again. You're on fire, Lass! What about Nine Lives?"

"Not the one with the McNab's cat!"

"You are more than a smoldering pile of ashes, Lassie. You're a redwood in an inferno! And that was one brave little boy cat."

"Girl cat."

"I've heard it both ways. What's another one that might amuse you? H'mm." He noticed street signs and buildings, popping out of the dark as rectangles of unfathomable dimension. "Where are we going?"

"I don't recognize that one."

"It's not a title. It's me, wondering where we're going. There's Lassie Did a Bad, Bad Thing which is not one of my personal favorites, although I did help clear your name. Gus, too. Then there was Octowussy and The Matchstick on the Rooftop, and Throw Me the Whip. You wouldn't know those last ones because they were solitary cases I took by myself. It's going to rain in about half a mile."

Shawn had noticed cars on the southern side of the road with swishing windshield wipers, and, along with a change in the smell through the vents, it seemed that a little lingering morning shower waited.

The first smacking kiss of a raindrop against the glass narrowed Carlton's eyes, but all the subsequent ones sent his thoughts into hyper-drive: turning on the wipers, setting them to the right speed for this annoyingly indecisive pace of rain, wondering about the wedding, hoping it wouldn't rain all day—

"Scattered showers were in the forecast today." Again, Shawn effortlessly read Carlton's worries. "I hope Gus and Jules have an alternate venue, nice as it would be to get married in a rainstorm on the beach. Now that would be unusual. Then we could all go and build fantastic sand castles. Everyone knows they only work if the sand's wet. It generates appropriate viscosity. Aw, Lassie, you're frowning. Was it my use of the word 'viscosity' that's throwing you off? Now we're even."

"Even? For what, Spencer?"

"Dude, three words: Teal biki—"

"Never mind!" Carlton grimaced, raised a hand, avidly listening to the rhythmic rain and wipers. If he hadn't been so humiliated, vexed, annoyed, by more than traveling two hours in the same car with Shawn Spencer, he might've easily been lulled to sleep. The exit loomed, and soon the ordeal would be complete, and some other adventure for him, for Shawn, and one big one for Gus and Juliet, would begin.

In the parking lot, slightly damp from the previous rain, Shawn lifted out of the seat and stretched, yawned, and lamented that he hadn't thought of a better entrance. It would've behooved his Miami Vice outfit if he had pummeled into the marina on a classy speed boat, maybe with an alligator sunning itself on the deck, like some reptilian cruise guest. Alas, he was doomed for this prosaic entrance, striding alongside Lassie, tall and pulling off a stylish suit purchased new—not even off the rack (Shawn was secretly proud)—for the blissful occasion. Then, everything switched, and it was Carlton who read Shawn's mind.

"If you call me Philip Michael Thomas or—or whatever his character's name was on the show, so help me, Spencer, I'm going to cram a petit four so far up the crack in your ass that you'll need surgery to get it out!"

Shawn stared at him. They'd stopped walking in the vehemency of Carlton's abrasive speech. "What do you have against PMT, anyway? Or my man Tubbs? Or petit fours for that matter? It is a delicious piece of cake done up so nice and pretty. And eventually my ass would just swallow it whole. My ass can take a lot, Lassie, and don't forget it."

But he walked away, ending the discussion with a proud air of triumph, pushing up his sleeves and humming Jan Hammer's theme song. They didn't speak to one another again until standing on the access plank to the beach. Dawn was definitely swarming in the east, and all the pastels of the sun's emergence began to swirl away the endless blue of night.

Yet the beach was empty. Not a soul was in sight. There were no rows of chairs decorated in cute furbelows, no trellis heaped with lilies and roses. Nothing. No thing at all. Shawn's shoulders slumped. He made a crackle of astonishment in the back of his throat, staring once at Lassiter, as blank as he felt, and back at the abandoned beach.

"What the hell is this? Didn't you bring us to the right place?"

"Oh this is the right place. Believe me."

"But where is everyone? Where's my best friend's beautiful sunrise wedding?" He gleaned not one substantial piece of evidence from Lassie's face, aside from a quirky little rise in his right eyebrow. That meant something—Shawn had noticed it once—but in his distress, his mind wanted to go sideways, slip into what was comfortable: this disarray was comfortable, because he couldn't explain it away. He looked at his iPhone, looked at Lassie's watch, looked at his own, and all had the same time. The ceremony was supposed to start in fifteen minutes.

In his boat shoes and linen suit, Shawn dashed back to the parking lot. Carlton jogged to keep up with him, beginning to find that this held the essences of amusement. He'd never seen Spencer so flustered.

Shawn pointed out the cars he recognized: Gus's, Juliet's, the Gusters' sedan, Joy's rental car, and so on… Everyone who should be at the resort was there. But he noticed that McNab's car, Chief Vick's, too, were not among the crowd, though there could be a hundred different explanations for their absence.

"Come on," Lassiter tugged at Shawn's elbow, his touch light and simple, unobtrusive, "let's go inside and see if we can find some answers."

Shawn was malleable, willing to be tugged along without retort, into the hotel's opulent lobby. The elegance and beauty of it stunned him further. He was on his way to the clerk behind the counter when another tug came from Lassie. Shawn followed the bob of his head, the line of his eyes, to a sunken lounge area and a display of people there. They stood up from chairs and wooden seats, leaving behind coffee cups and bowls of sliced fruit.

At the forefront stood Gus, in his casual, everyday wear that a gentleman of his fashion-conscious understanding wouldn't wear to a wedding or a funeral. Beside him, Juliet, her blonde hair in wavy, shower-damp tresses across her shoulders, bright as the smile used to greet them.

Shawn halted, completely frozen at this incalculable happening, as soon as he'd taken the three steps into the lounge. He was too dumb to move. Finally, when he noted that his dad and mom were there, they waved at him, along with the Gusters and a grinning Joy, Shawn believed this was merely a pre-wedding reception. Of course. A pineapple and mango breakfast followed by a few wedding vows followed by petit fours, which he was now rather looking forward to.

"So—is this a champagne breakfast?" he started, loose again in joints and muscles, his eyes freely roving across Gus and Juliet. It had been incredibly easy to see them together. "Hadn't we better hurry if the ceremony is—"

The first laugh came from Juliet. She never could keep a straight face when they had wrangled Shawn into one of their massively extravagant pranks. Gus was so close behind her, though, that it was really his bursting guffaw that shed the light of intelligence upon Shawn. He needn't have listened to the other boughs of laughter reverberating through the lounge.

For a moment, Shawn faked it, pretended it wasn't true—that they wouldn't have stooped to such a level just for the sake of getting to Shawn Spencer. Absolutely not. No way. The wholeness and intensity of the ruse hit him as he looked at Lassie. Usually fitted with a poker-face, it had collapsed into the same gleaming, idiotic grin as everyone else.

"You were in on this!" Shawn could hardly believe it. He collapsed his face into a hand for a moment, emerging to gander at the crowd. They were all in on it! Had been, for months and months! "Oh my God, biggest prank ever!"

Before he could laugh at it himself, he hopped up and down three times, Gus enfolding him with arms and laughter, Juliet squeezing in. Shawn noticed himself saying a few derogatory words of his own inability to notice what he'd willingly wandered into.

He talked to everyone, and each, in turn, laughed at his expense for another time. He did his best to hide his embarrassment.

"And you never suspected?" his dad asked, while his mom handed him a dish of pineapple and mango with a dollop of cottage cheese.

"There were a couple of times we thought you'd figured it out," she said.

"Thanks, Mom, for thinking your son is just that brilliant! No, honestly, Dad, I didn't know. We were so busy with case after case. I've spent as much time with Gus lately as I have with each of you. And I'm getting to know Lassie on a level I never thought I would.' He paused, brow wrinkled in the middle, contemplating teal bikini briefs and petit fours put in places lovely sponge cakes were not meant to creep. "Anyway—I wanted to believe they'd do something off the wall for their wedding. I have such high hopes for those crazy, love-struck kids. So of course I'd believe they'd get married at dawn…"

The real wedding was at sunset. Shawn heard it later when the four of them prowled the strip of sand, doused in gorgeous sunrise hues. Every once in a while, Shawn would be struck by their ability to dupe him so thoroughly, and strike himself in the forehead as a consequence. "I should've known! Ugh, I should've known! My psychic channels have been all crazy since the two of you started dating."

"Sure, blame it on us," intoned Gus, yet expecting nothing less of Shawn. "Maybe there's a thunderstorm in your ether, Psychic Detective."

"Gus, that makes total sense. Thank you so much for clearing away the ambiguous and ethereal cobwebs for me. Now I can predict things with greater accuracy. I can predict that Lassie is wearing magenta nylon bikini briefs."

Juliet did a rather becoming squeal, admonishing Shawn for his choice of predictions.

"I can't control these things, Jules, no more than I can control the love between you and Magic Head here." He certainly hadn't seen that coming, either, all the more reason to be overjoyed by their unpredictable playfulness, their elaborate series of pranks over the last year and a half. "And, all the same, which of you is going to prove my clairvoyance wrong? Anyone? Anyone? I didn't think so."

Juliet smacked Carlton on his chest. "Carlton! Are you going to take that from Shawn?"

"Well," but it was Shawn that spoke, "I really doubt he's going to drop trou right here in front of us. He won't deny it."

Finally, Shawn had gotten to Lassiter, and with his hands in his trousers pockets, the leg hems rolled up like theirs, walking barefoot on smooth sands warmed by the sun of a July morning, the last bits of his inner thorns disappeared. "I won't deny it, no."

The announcement had the intended impact: Gus hooted and Juliet laughed so hard that she had to dash inside to get rid of champagne and coffee.

"I knew it," said Shawn, narrow-eyed glare at Lassiter. "I am the super sleuth, the greatest gumshoe when it comes to solving what sort of underpants a man prefers. Michael Jordan? He doesn't wear Hanes. That's a secret just between us."

"I didn't say I prefer them, but I won't deny wearing them."

This was a conundrum, rather with a doggerel ring to it, and Shawn waited to see if insight might be provided. When none seemed forthcoming, Shawn dragged it out of him.

"Let me guess: Victoria hated them. She preferred more traditional forms of undergarments. You probably wore sock garters and were up to your armpits in whitey-tighties. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about any of this."

Carlton went on to concede, explain, and, before they realized it, Gus had left them, and they'd walked a long stretch of the beach.

The day passed in activities and, when two other showers briefly let loose, times of mellowness. As the sun reappeared, hit the western slope of sky, groom and best man readied themselves in Gus's room. "I can't believe you're making me wear this cheap, bastardized version of a Sonny Crockett original, Gus."

"Oh no I'm not." And Gus bobbed his head to the bed, to a tuxedo in a bag lying there. "That's what you're wearing. The suit was just a part of the prank, Shawn."

"Because that's how you and Jules roll. I don't suppose Lassie's bikini briefs were part of the prank, were they?"

"As much as I'd like to say yes to that, no, that was real. Definitely all Lassiter. Can we never mention Lassiter's underwear again, please? It's starting to creep me out a little."

"Fair enough, my underwear-phobic friend. Dude," Shawn held up the tuxedo jacket from the hanger hook, "I'm totally going to look like Wadsworth from Clue in this."

"Shawn," a little angrier now, "put it on."

"No," in his imitation Tim Curry.

"Shawn!"

"No!" And again. "The Sonny Crockett suit was merely a red herring!"

Shawn laughed and gave Gus a thorough workout chasing him around the room—over the bar, over the bed, over the next bed, and finally cornering Shawn in the bathroom. A handful of exchanges of dialogue and one-line quotes from Clue followed. Shawn paused, sighed, and embraced Gus with a little rub to the back of the perfectly round head. "I love you, buddy, even if your friends do have communist connections."

"Shawn, be serious."

"I was serious, except about the friends as communists part. We all know I'm a Jon-Stewart with streaks of Stephen-Colbert, but only on certain issues."

Gus hesitated bumping knuckles, doing so only with an ultimatum. "You'll wear the tuxedo without any further reference to any 80's film?"

"Promise. I will kneel before Zod and promise. Sorry, that sort of slipped out. And it was lame to boot, and now I'm ashamed and will wear this tuxedo in disgrace. Somewhere Terence Stamp is weeping."

Their fists bumped, and Shawn closed the door at Gus's exit. He gave a wary glare at the tuxedo, to himself in the mirror a la Don Johnson, circa 1984. He would've preferred an 80's theme wedding, but supposed that would have to wait.

The ceremony was beautiful and sombre, the exact opposite of the rowdy, sometimes crass reception afterwards. Shawn decided, with Joy his interlocutor as they tore up the dance floor, that it was not so much a reception as a night club party fueled by love, an open bar, and shiny gifts. A little before ten, the limousine came and hauled away Gus and Juliet, hand in hand towards their unending pilgrimage. Shawn expected a windfall of loneliness and misery once the car was gone, but if it had taken away only Gus, the sensation mightn't have been as powerful. But to take away two of his closest friends, the pain sheathed loneliness and went right for misery.

The guests dispersed to their homes down The One, or into their rooms as the night wound into morning. Shawn, feet sore clear to his shins, descended from the hotel to the moonlit beach. It calmed him to listen to the ocean waves stumbling in, like blind beings looking for any sort of foothold, only to slip away again. Shoes and socks removed, he stuck his feet in the cool sand.

"It's like an instant massage, Lassie. You should try it."

Carlton had loomed behind him, had actually been prowling the walk in front of the hotel lobby for some time, as if trying to decide if he wanted to interpose on Shawn's exile. The invitation given was silently accepted. The two sat with their feet in the sand, hands out behind them to support their tired torsos, for several minutes without speaking.

"I still can't believe they did this," Shawn eventually spoke, revisiting the prank he hadn't seen coming.

"Don't feel bad, Spencer. We had months and months to pull the wool over your eyes."

"Whose idea was it? Please don't tell me it was Gus's. This isn't his style. His style was the elaborate prank that told me the two of them were dating in the first place. Jules was the one who came up with the 'I'm Pregnant With A Swamp Beast' scare."

"That was hilarious. We almost had you fooled with that one."

"Yeah, almost." Shawn uttered the two words as a restless lament. He hoped they'd continue their fantastic schemes. He needed them to.

Lassiter removed one foot from the sand, then the other, rearranging his long legs beneath one another. "It was my idea. Well—initially, it was my idea. Gus and Juliet came up with the actual ruse themselves. But I was the one who said we should try our best to prank you at their own wedding."

"H'mm. Well played." Shawn set his wrists to his knees, his chin to the top wrist, staring into the mist between sea and horizon, with moonlight shooting into his eyes, emollient and peaceful. "I sense that the two of them are going to prank me at my own wedding."

"Probably. I'd be on the lookout for that, if I were you."

"Where's the fun in that?"

The two of them looked at one another, and thoughts scrambled into, as Gus had phrased it, the thunderstorm in ether. Their respective crime-fighting partners were off for a wedding tour of the world, for nearly three weeks. What were the two of them supposed to do? Shawn thought elaborately. He always did. He imagined chasing tangled cases that took him into cities were Gus and Jules vacationed, and as their tour progressed so would the crimes. It would be like a crossover of MacGyver and Scarecrow and Mrs King. Maybe with some Golden Girls thrown in if they happened to go to Sicily. And a Michael Shayne story, just because he liked the name and the more obscure reference from days way before disco went mainstream.

He saw a flicker of light out the corner of his eye: a shadow shuffling before a lamp post. He turned about, making Lassie move with him, to see the Chief with the phone still pressed to her ear. She put it away, staring at them in a fixed way they were used to.

"Lassiter, Spencer."

"Chief, I'm sensing a—"

"There's been a murder. The victim was found floating in a pool. The two of you up for it?"

"It's one in the morning," Shawn started to whine, already knowing he would haul himself back to Santa Barbara, "don't murderers ever sleep in? And I've been drinking."

Carlton stared. "You had two glasses of wine, Spencer! And, anyway, I'm driving."

They hurriedly put on their shoes, Chief Vick delivering vague details of the case. Shawn claimed the psychic vibrations of the world, those secrets of the universe he plucked from thin air, were scrambled by exhaustion, titillation (he used the word with a haughtily cocked eyebrow), and two flutes of high-quality champagne; he could offer no insights, but predicted that his head would clear once he reached the crime scene.

"How convenient," Vick claimed, her sardonic smile holding the haze of affection.

Going by her to get his Don Johnson suit left in the room, Shawn rubbed his thumb behind the tuxedo's satin collar. "Hey, Chief, am I supposed to change out of this thing?"

"Depends on whether or not it's returnable with crime scene evidence on it, Mr Spencer."

That's why he loved her so much: sassy, straight-speaking, and she respected a good tuxedo as much as a crime scene. She nodded, slid into the sedan, set the lights blazing but kept the sirens silent, and was soon a Fourth of July twinkle between distant underbrush.

"It's too bad you have to change out of it," Lassiter began, attempting, for the first time, to be provokingly coy with Spencer. To give, maybe—as good as he'd received. "It's kinda sexy."

Shawn laughed so hard that he nearly "pulled a Jules" by running to the bathroom. As it was, he got a cramp in his side, spent the whole elevator ride massaging it, and whining about the pain Lassie had inflicted. The tuxedo was rented, however, and Gus and Juliet's wedding co-ordinator wanted it back for the morning. All the while, through his rigorous teasing, Shawn had known this. Inside the room, he verbalized acknowledgement of Lassiter's unexpected signal of humour.

"It's good to hear you say that, Lassie, it really is." Shawn, in triumphal, exaggerated gestures, removed the trousers with a dramatic flourish, so that Lassiter couldn't help but look. Beneath the loosened blue t-shirt hem, Carlton saw a hint of bright green and then bare, hairy legs made all the uglier by towering black socks. The hint of green, however, that is what held his attention longest and surest.

It was a while before Carlton could do anything more than point.

Shawn wouldn't really. Even Shawn wouldn't. It violated far too many personal boundaries.

"Stare away, my friend," Shawn said, striking a provocative pose. "Because I borrowed a pair of your fancy underwear."

Once it was said, Shawn realized it might've been more brilliant had he put on his Don Johnson pants before admitting and flaunting it. Lassiter snarled, growled, clenched his hands, and, like Gus had done, gave chase around the room. Shawn managed to divert Lassie by tipping over a chair. It gave him enough time to grab the remains of his suit and sprint out the door.

He took the stairs, and heard Lassie take the stairs after him. In the lobby, the astonished desk clerk stared open-mouthed, and a few straggling wedding guests gaped, but Shawn was a blear as quick as he moved. Outside, he scrambled into his shoes, adjusted the bundle of cloth over one arm, readying the remote to unlock Lassiter's vehicle. Behind him, Lassiter's pace lagged and Shawn ran on, clear across the parking lot. Lassiter, unable to run and laugh at the same time, finally stopped, doubled over, with the image of Shawn, pantless but shirt fluttering in the wind resistance, silhouetted sharply against the moon and sparkles of the ocean, now a part of indelible memory.

Reunited in the car, Carlton was grave and puzzled but with his eyes straight ahead. Beside him, fabric rustled as Shawn completed his toilette in rather confined space.

"I can't believe you did that, Spencer."

"Oh cheer up, Lassie. Green's not really your colour, anyway. I had an inkling—"

"Inkling?"

"Inkling of what was going on here today. I suspected a prank."

"You did not."

"Didn't I?"

Lassiter stole a glance at Shawn, who'd anticipated it, with his fingers in that common "C" shape next to his face.

"I sensed a possible coup, and decided I would play my own prank."

"You played a prank in case we pulled a prank on you?"

"The idea of a fake wedding had crossed my mind, Lassie. Come on! Jules and Gus are always pulling stuff like this. So, naturally, I wanted to be prepared."

"By borrowing my underwear? Thanks, Spencer."

"Don't get your bikini briefs in a bunch, my Calvin Klein advertisement."

Lassiter focused on the twisting road ahead, wincing at the reference's ambiguity.

"They're my briefs." In three words, Shawn had dimmed Carlton's simmering anger.

"I saw you take a t-shirt and a pair of boxers into the bathroom."

"Wow, vigilant Lassie is vigilant. Wait." Shawn held up a hand, closed his eyes, and made some noise similar to a pleasurable, post-coital sigh. "I'm just—just so proud of you right now. You would be right. The briefs were under the boxers. Vigilant," the eyebrow went up again, "but not quite vigilant enough. I had on both pairs, because that's the sort of security I need. When Gus had me change into the tuxedo, I took off the boxers, left on the briefs. Now, yes, it's true, I'm wearing both again. I'm very warm."

He flung the climate control fan to High, routing the nearest vents to blow on his crotch.

"Dare I ask," and Lassiter did hesitate, "how you knew— Oh wait, I know this one. You helped me move in."

"I would give you a Scooby Snack for being such a smart little guy, but someone at the reception ate all of them. I think it was McNab. I probably should've mentioned that they weren't snack crackers."

Without saying another word, Carlton resumed a quietness befitting the nearing one o'clock hour. He wondered what odd name Spencer would give this case.

"What do you think, Lassie? I'm thinking Kamikatree. Because the Chief said it was something about a tree falling in a suspicious way on a bunny breeder."

"That's not what she said, Spencer. She said a stripper named Avery Tree was killed in a suspicious way, and found by another stripper named Summer Preacher."

"Please keep in mind that I have been drinking. So, no adorable little bunnies?"

"No."

"No?" in his Tim Curry voice, ostensibly lost on Lassiter but, in fact, not lost on him at all. "Dude, why's it always strippers?"

"We've never worked with strippers."

"Sure we have. Remember Milk Stockings? Clearly a case about a stripper. And adorable if a bit naughty novelty ice cream cakes. Now that was a delicious case."

Carlton was about to disagree, but eventually lifted a shoulder and bobbed his head in lame agreement.

"Jules and Gus's little cakes were so moist and tasty, weren't they? The petit fours idea was genius. You can drive faster than this, Lassie. Look, there's no one on the road! Put the light on the roof and let's make this highway taste our exhaust! Come on!"

Thinking he'd better, though already driving eighty-five, Lassiter hitched the red light to the rooftop, hearing his ears pop as the window went up and stopped the airflow. With both hands on the wheel, at Ten and Two, though he was really a Nine and Three kind of guy, he urged the pedal down with the whole of his foot. The engine roared, settled into a big-kitty purr as they hit ninety-five.

Shawn's phone rang. "Lieutenant Castillo, finally! Tubbs and I have been trying to get a hold of you all night."

"Dammit, Spencer," cursed Lassiter.

"Shawn!" reprimanded Gus. "Didn't Lassiter say he would shove a petit four up your crack if you called him Tubbs?"

"Oh relax. He doesn't have any. We're in pursuit of a stripper named Summer Preacher."

"Are you for real?"

"You know there are two things that I never kid about: the proper method of smoothie blending, and strippers. And if I did, for some reason, invent a stripper named Summer Preacher, there'd be gummi worms and Harry Dean Stanton involved."

"You know that's right."

They talked for a minute, with Gus and Jules at the gate waiting for their flight. While speaking to Jules, Shawn had to interrupt her sprightly, happy voice, happier than he'd ever heard her, as Lassiter reached over and took something out of the glove compartment. It landed on Shawn's lap with the telling crinkle of a plastic sandwich bag.

"Hang on, Jules, Lassiter just gave me something."

"What is it? A kick in the head?"

"Uh, almost—but maybe a little more metaphorical."

Shawn held it up against the intermittent street lamps. Then, noting its shape, getting a hint of its colour, and, holding it to his nose, catching its sugary, sweet smell, Shawn laughed. It was a petit four.

"Jules, babe, I have to go. We've got crimes to solve and petit fours to do crazy things with. Call me when you two land. I'm sure Gus will want to hear all about the stripper."

"Stripper? What stripper? Shawn, what's going on?"

"Gotta go, Jules. We're on a big case, and I can't talk about it. Love and hugs, and Lassie sends his best sloppy kisses."

He hung up, put the phone back in his jacket pocket, sniffed, pushed up his sleeves, then handled the packaged petit four. He hadn't expected Lassie to be so clever, to come at him with such a retort, with such a wallop in one tiny little scrumptious cake.

"I'm putting this in the freezer when we get home,' he said. "We can eat it on our first anniversary. With Gus and Jules, of course."

Carlton couldn't respond, having then to veer carefully around a semi, a utility truck in the centre lane, and a car merging badly onto the freeway. The length of time passed that made it awkward to revisit Shawn's sentiment, whether it was a joke, or even if the ridicule held a grain of truth. They hardly spoke, but to toss out conjecture as the police radio crackled every once in a while, until they made it to the station.

"It was a good wedding," Shawn commented, apropos nothing, before they reached Lassiter's desk, with O'Hara's looking neat, prim, anticipating her lengthy absence, a photograph of her and Gus at its corner. The Chief was there, a few familiar faces, another from homicide who'd take O'Hara's place, if in title only, and one from vice who knew Summer Preacher personally.

"Let's wrap this up quickly, Chief," Shawn started, slapping his hands together. "Lassie and I want to get home to play Uno all night, guzzle down a few Pabsts, and listen to the new Butch Walker album. We have things to do."

He held up the petit four, received blank expressions, while Lassie, penned to the end of his desk, slumped over and shaded his eyes with his hand. During this distraction, Shawn noted what he could of the new case file in Vick's hand, and had already delineated certain data from the detectives from vice and homicide.

He threw out a few guesses, enough to engage Vick and animate Lassie. Within a minute, they were once again in Lassiter's car, heading towards the posh crime scene. Shawn put the petit four into the glove box, "from whence it came" as he muttered. He'd remember it later, when Lassiter took him home, to whose home hardly mattered, though he'd left all his stuff at Lassiter's. Partly, he suspected, on purpose. Beers tasted better, and the day ended better, on Lassie's patio.

There was the usual bustle of police activity around the estate. The body of Avery Tree hung nearly half out of a pool. The witness, Summer Preacher, had already answered a dozen trifling questions and was pleased to get rid of the "beat cops" for real detectives.

"He's not a detective," Carlton immediately said.

"Forgive him. He doesn't usually dress like this and his has his chi all out of whack." Shawn hastened to clear up Miss Preacher's confusion, her eyes already burdened, like a raccoon, by tear-wasted mascara. "My name is Jonathan Creek, and this is my crime-fighting partner, the detective-slash-magician Don Diavolo. We're from the SBPD—here to help."

"Why do you smell like you've been drinking? You smell like Chico Ramone."

Shawn, his hands in a frozen clap in front of him, merely stared at the copper and gold coloring of Summer Preacher. What the hell had just happened to him? "I have no idea who that is. Wow. Lassie, you wanna take this?"

"Detective Lassiter, SBPD." He ignored Shawn's murmured complaints about being seen as hypocrites. "We won't keep you too long, Miss Preacher, just long enough to get a good lead."

Summer was both reluctant and relieved. Real men. Who dressed decently. They could put a different twist on her own little burgeoning bungalow of hell. When Shawn got the low-down of Avery Tree's lifestyle, that of a private stripper among other well-paying gigs, Shawn leaned in to whisper to Lassie.

"I got it. Stripper Dipper. Or is that too crass? Too vague?" He just watched Lassiter turn the toothpick around in his mouth, in an alluring, talented way of tongue and teeth and just the right gap between jaws.

"Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kill Me, Pill Me," offered Lassiter. He bobbed his head at an empty, opened prescription pill bottle hidden beneath a beauty bush. It had already been marked as evidence.

"Nice classic U2 citation! You know, I'm not sold on that yet. We'll have to work on it," Shawn said, amused and subjecting his intelligence to the mere notion that Carlton Lassiter was far more clever than previously exhibited.

Carlton missed O'Hara, even missed Guster if just for those rare chances he could get Shawn to shut up, or curtail his antics a little bit. As with all the lots life had handed him, he reflected that it could've been worse, that Juliet could've married Shawn, and then he'd be investigating this crime scene alone with Burton Guster.

No, he'd rather have it this way. He was surprised by the revelation, though suspected, accurately, that Shawn was not.

Still, it was a better ending to the event than even a psychic could've predicted.