NOTE: Welp, I'm a bit burned out. 's been a stressful few weeks and Hannibal is a great show but never fear, Psych, I have returned! With a little post-Halloween Shassie fic for you all.
Lassiter strides briskly up to the front door of the Psych office, the early-morning sea breeze and warm sun tousling his short hair and casting beams through the windows of nearby shops. He stops at the entrance to the small establishment, hesitantly turning the knob, scoffing when he finds it unlocked.
"Spencer! Guster!" He says, loud enough to sound through the entire office. "We have work to do! Another body's been found at-" Carlton stops at the sight that meets his eyes.
It's quite a sight indeed.
The entire office is trashed, papers scattered everywhere and one shelf swept clean of all its occupants (who have found a new home on the floor). Gus is snoring on the couch, seemingly unperturbed by the bright sunlight streaming through the window, and Shawn is sleeping in his desk chair, head lolling back and probably very uncomfortable.
"What the…" Lassie mutters, picking his way carefully through the mess on the ground. There are candy wrappers strewn absolutely everywhere, he notes, and several soda bottles line each of the desks. The detective stops in the middle of the room and sighs, rubbing at his forehead with one long-fingered hand.
The man on the couch begins to stir, muttering, "no, Shawn, leave the pineapple, people are dying" (and really, what is that supposed to mean? Lassiter thinks), before his eyes blearily open and immediately shut again against the light drilling holes in his retinas. "What the-" Gus echoes Carlton's statement from earlier.
"Up and at 'em, Guster." Lassiter rolls his eyes before turning and poking Shawn in the shoulder. "There's a dead body down by the Marina and the Chief requested I pick you two delinquents up."
"Pick 's up? Why?"
Shawn groans awake, blinking slowly. "Th' Blueberry is… is…" He yawns, jaw nearly cracking. "Still in the police impound." Gus rolls over with a dismayed moan and the detective still standing in the middle of the mess lets his eyes flutter shut as he rubs the bridge of his nose.
"Please tell me there's a coffee maker in this dump."
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Lassiter pulls up to the crime scene, getting out and resisting the urge to lock the two children he'd been charged with transporting in the back of the vehicle. From what he'd gathered, they had… indulged in quite a bit of sugar on Halloween night. Childish.
Also slightly adorable in Spencer's case. But mostly just juvenile.
He shakes himself out of that line of thought because he knows it would never happen, not because he's poked by his partner (he's not that smitten, it's still under control).
"This is gonna be a tough one, Carlton." Juliet pats him on the shoulder and steps forwards to examine the body, seemingly unbothered by the mingled scent of ocean water and rotting corpse. He smiles. O'Hara will make a good Head Detective.
Before he can make his way over, Spencer is running gracelessly down the slope, ducking under the yellow crime scene tape, Guster following close behind.
Lassiter belatedly thinks the coffee he found in the Psych office must have been decaf. He can't remember being this out of it after getting at least a cup of caffeine into his system.
It has nothing to do with how his mind keeps drifting off to think about tousled brown hair, hazel green eyes, soft lips…
Spencer's solving the case now. Of course he is.
Asshole.
Suddenly there's a murderer and Lassiter's driving, O'Hara shouting into her radio, the smell of burnt rubber and adrenaline permeating the air, the rush in his veins, the thrill of the chase…
They get out when the killer crashes his car into a streetpost (idiot, Lassiter thinks) at a speed that should definitely put him in some kind of coma, if not kill him. But no, he's stumbling out of the driver's side door and Carlton draws his weapon, hears Juliet's shouts of, "The suspect is armed!" before a bang splits the air and there's a piercing pain in his left shoulder.
And he's falling…
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Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Urrrg." Lassiter groans awake blearily, warm, somewhere soft and lit by bright fluorescent lights.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
He's in the hospital.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"God damnit."
"Hey, Lassie-face!" An annoyingly peppy faux-psychic bounces into the room, all smiles and sparkling eyes and white teeth.
Not that Carlton notices.
"Spencer." He says, scowling at the tray of hospital food that was delivered to him by a smiling nurse about ten minutes ago.
"Thought you might be hungry. Trust me, you don't want to eat that." Shawn gestures at the sorry looking plate in Lassiter's hands, pulling a face.
Spencer has dark circles under his eyes, Lassiter notices, and his hair is a little more forlorn than usual, a little less purposefully mussed, more "I-just-got-out-of-bed-after-tossing-and-turning-for-hours".
A delicious smell wafts from the bag Shawn's holding and Carlton abandons the sodden lumps on the plastic plate given to him by the medical establishment, more focused on the white container in the other man's hands.
"Pineapple chicken lo-mien."
At the mention of pineapple the detective's hungry gaze grows a little more wary.
"It's great. Trust me."
And, Lassiter admits begrudgingly as he takes the takeout box from Spencer and accepts the chopsticks held out to him, he does.
More than he should.
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It turns out Shawn did not drop by merely to bring him delicious food. He apparently intended on staying. And chatting.
For hours.
And Carlton doesn't really mind, which worries him more than the brunette's apparent desire to talk about Halloween with him while he's sitting in a hospital bed recovering from a gunshot wound (and he will recover with little to no mobility issues, thank God) and eating candy non-stop.
Spencer is.
Not Carlton.
Eating the candy, that is.
Not for lack of trying on Spencer's part, though. He's offered him several different types of sweets, ranging from Three Musketeers (sugary fluff, he'd said), Twizzlers (he scowled, growling that he'd rather be hung from a rope of the things than eat them), York Peppermint Patties (allergies, he'd grunted), and an alarmingly large bag of butterscotch (do you have any actual scotch? he'd asked).
During this impromptu visitation session he'd learned a number of inane, completely irrelevant things, like the fact that Guster is at work, or that Spencer is blowing off a date to come talk to him (he ignores the warm, fluttery feeling that inspired in his chest), Vertigo is apparently an amazing movie, and Henry is awful at hosting dinner parties.
There is also the issue of things he doesn't particularly want to know if only to save his sanity while he lay here, metaphorically wasting away in his boredom, such as the state of his car (not great), the fact that apparently his mother is coming to town (have you been going through my mail, Spencer? he'd growled), that Vick is filing paperwork to get him on medical leave he didn't need, and O'Hara is up to her neck in cases.
"Are you sure you don't want a butterscotch, Lassie?"
He sighs and sinks into his pillows.
"Visiting hours are over."
Lassiter blinks, astonished. Had he really spent several hours in this dismal white room, chatting with Shawn Spencer?
It is surreal.
"Well," said man says, getting up, picking up his (still sizable) bag of candy, "I'd better get going."
Carlton mutters in agreement.
Spencer hesitates. "Just one thing?"
"What?" He growls (though it's mostly for show. Not that he'll ever tell anyone that).
A hint of a smile flashes across the other man's features. "Don't get shot again." He bends over and briefly presses his lips to Lassiter's. Drawing back, Shawn full-out grins at the shocked look on his face. "You had me really worried, Lassie."
Shawn's been gone for five minutes when Carlton registers the presence of something foreign in his mouth.
He tentatively sucks on it. It's sweet and smooth, sugar coating his tongue almost immediately.
It's a butterscotch.
Lassiter almost chokes on his enormous grin.