He wasn't there to check up on Lassiter. That was what Shawn was trying to convince himself of as he rode the elevator to the fifth floor. He was there, because Juliet had asked him to see if Lassiter was okay. That wasn't "checking up" on Lassiter. The man wasn't sick, he had just been in the foulest mood that Shawn had ever seen him in since he'd started working with the head detective. A bad mood for Lassiter meant a bad mood for Juliet, and a bad mood for Juliet meant nothing good for Shawn. Sighing, Shawn squared his shoulders and reached out to knock on the door.
He frowned when he noticed the door to 526 was slightly ajar. Slowly he pushed the door open further. He was hoping that Lassiter had just forgotten to latch it on his way out and that he wasn't about to walk in to see Lassiter and Marlowe together... in... Shawn shuddered and tried to banish that image from his head.
"Lassie?" Shawn cautiously called out. He could hear a rustling from the bedroom and muttered swearing - oh no, this was just like walking in on his parents; where were the aliens to probe his brain now? "Lassie?" He called a little bit louder this time. There was a thump and Shawn heard a loud "Son of a," in Lassiter's voice.
Shawn was looking at the mounted display of Civil War buttons when Lassiter walked into the living room. It was Saturday so he was wearing his normal weekend t-shirt and jeans - not that t-shirt and jeans on Lassiter would ever look normal to Shawn. "Don't you ever knock," he scowled, rubbing the back of his head. "You made me hit my head on the closet door frame." In his other hand there were half a dozen shirts on hangers.
"The door was open," Shawn shrugged and then focused on the shirts. They were slightly wrinkled, like they'd been on the hangers for a while, definitely not fresh out of the dryer. "What're you doing?" He tried to keep things casual.
Lassiter followed Shawn's gaze to the shirts in his hand. "Nothing." He tried to hide the shirts behind his back.
"Isn't that the shirt you spilled coffee on two years ago and swore you were going to have to throw away. Do I need to bring in a film crew and host an intervention for your hoarding problem?" Shawn stepped forward and grabbed the sleeve of the blue dress shirt.
"I.." Lassiter faltered and stepped away so that the shirts away from Shawn's reach. "Don't be ridiculous, Spencer."
"It totally is! See, the stain looked like Gus puking up a piece of pie. Are you cleaning out your closet? Can I look through stuff before you take it to Goodwill?" Shawn wandered back to the bedroom, curious to see what else Lassiter had been keeping.
"Spencer!" Lassiter growled at the psychic as he invaded Lassiter's private sanctuary.
"Dude, you're getting rid of this shirt? I've wanted this shirt for years." Shawn was holding a blue and red plaid shirt up to himself and looking in the mirror.
"Give me that," Lassiter grabbed the shirt out of Spencer's hands. "If you want this shirt you'll have to rip it off." He shrugged on the plaid shirt over his SBPD softball t-shirt.
Shawn raised an eyebrow.
"Not like that!" Lassiter protested, quickly taking the shirt off and throwing it into the box farthest from him.
"I always knew our cuddle in the park meant more to you than you let on." Shawn smirked and began perusing the boxes again. "Wait a second..." He did a quick spin in the center of the room, checking out all the dresser drawers and closet space. "You're getting rid of all your clothes... Are you joining a nudist colony?"
"No, I'm not."
"So... you're buying a whole new wardrobe? Cause you don't have to; the Don Draper look is really in right now." Shawn was now going through a box of Lassiter's ties.
"I'm buying a new wardrobe" Lassiter snapped, grabbing the box away from him. He was not in the mood for Spencer's childish games.
"Then I give up, Lassifrass!" Shawn threw his hands in the air and plopped down on the foot of the bed. "What are you doing?"
"None of your business," Lassiter growled.
Shawn crawled further up the bed, grabbing a pillow to hold in his lap. "If it's none of my business can you pretend I'm someone whose business it is and tell me?"
"Get off the bed; I just washed those sheets." Lassiter stopped putting shirts in boxes and turned to glare at Shawn.
"I'll get off if you tell me what is going on." Shawn sniffed the pillow he was holding. "Mmm, smells like Snuggle." He grinned at Lassiter. "Who would have thought you loved a little bear with a squeaky voice."
"That's Marlowe's pillow," Lassiter snatched it out of Shawn's hands and tossed it back on the bed. "Sweet Lady Justice. Were you raised in a barn? At least get your feet off the bed."
"I'll get off completely if you'd just say what you're doing."
"I'm moving out," Lassiter snapped. "Now off!"
Shawn reluctantly stood and then frowned in confusion. "Moving out? Lassie, you just got this place. Are you having nightmares about almost swording Gus in the face? Is that why you want to sell it?"
"I'm not selling the condo," Lassiter mumbled.
"Uh, last I checked you don't make enough to own two condos. Did Marlowe's roommates all die and you're taking over the house?"
"They're fine and Marlowe's not moving with me."
Shawn cocked his head to the side. "You're moving out and Marlowe isn't? Did she break up with you?"
"No."
"Did you decide to take a step back in the relationship?"
"I decided to leave," Lassiter taped up the box he had filled.
"Cause I mean, I've been there man," Shawn continued. "Jules and I, we've had our-" he faltered. "You decided?"
"Do you need your ears checked?" Lassiter headed for the living room to start gathering his things there.
"But, Lassie, you're the one that decided?" Shawn hurried after him. Lassiter was sorting through magazines and DVDs on the floor. "Why the hell would you do that?"
Lassiter ignored him, sorting out his and Marlowe's Eastwood DVDs to their appropriate piles.
Shawn kept talking, the silence not deterring him. "One time I thought about breaking up with Juliet."
"I wish you had," Lassiter mumbled, pausing because he couldn't remember which copy of Every Which Way but Loose was his.
"Then I realized that I loved her way too much to go through with it." Shawn ignored the jab.
"That's my whole problem," Lassiter finally decided his copy was the widescreen edition and added that to the stack on the left.
"What is?"
"Loving her too much," Lassiter stacked up the rest of his DVDs and placed them in an empty box.
"So... you bought her an apartment, waited for her to get out of jail, love her too much and this is a bad thing?" Shawn stared dumbfounded at the detective.
Lassiter rolled his eyes and started packing up the magazines. "If you remember correctly, Spencer, I'm the one who put her in jail."
"Because she admitted to stealing a pint of blood from the blood bank, and if you remember correctly, you got her out early because you had her help us solve another case." Shawn shook his head.
"I shaved off a measly two months," Lassiter shrugged.
"Juliet shot two guys for me, love is weird." Shawn was wandering around the kitchen now, looking for a snack. "Marlowe's good for you, see," he held up the package of oreos he found in the cupboard. "You didn't have these before."
"Those are Marlowe's favorite," Lassiter looked almost fondly at the package of chocolate cookies and then frowned and went back to packing.
"I knew they weren't yours," Shawn rolled his eyes, talking through a mouthful of cookie. "Your favorite cookies are like stale fig newtons and those shortbread cookies with the nuts in them. But seriously, since when do you love Marlowe too much?"
"Probably since the night she gave me a hickey on my collarbone and I burned my elk loin," Lassiter sighed wistfully.
"What was this elk loin seasoned with? Wait! No, I don't want to hear about that... or do I? No! A hickey?" Shawn closed his eyes. "Before I go home and dunk my head in a bucket of bleach to erase the image of you with a hickey let's talk about this too much bit."
"What's to talk about it?" Lassiter snatched the cookie package away from Spencer, pulled two out and put the package back in the cupboard.
"I don't know..." Shawn pretended to muse the subject while licking the cream out of his last oreo. "You know, maybe... Why the hell you feel this way?" He gave Lassiter his sternest gaze.
Lassiter stared back at him, and then turned, grabbed two beers from his fridge and handed one to Shawn. "Spencer," he opened his beer and took a large swig. "You've known me for a long time."
"Seven and a half years," Shawn agreed, content with just holding his beer.
"Don't talk," Lassiter glared at him.
Shawn made a big show of zipping his lips and motioned for Lassiter to continue.
"In that time, have I ever remotely had a successful romantic relationship?"
"There was, ummm, that one... no, wait, she was a hooker, then there was the girl... nope, she got scared off by the clown drawing. You liked Mindy, but you arrested her..."
"Rhetorical question," Lassiter snapped. "The point is, the only thing I've been successful at in relationships is at ending them."
"Really? Because you totally held onto the Victoria thing for years after she'd been done..." Shawn trailed off and busied himself with opening his beer.
"Do you want to listen to me or not?" Lassiter took a large swig of his own beer.
"I do!" Shawn protested. "Juliet said you'd been all mopey and that not even her lemon, white chocolate chip cookies cheered you up, so I thought that I could help."
"Cookies don't fix people, Spencer," Lassiter ran his hands over his face.
"Who says you're broken?" Shawn said offhandedly.
"Who says I'm not?" Lassiter frowned. "I mean, I've spent the past seven years lonely and wishing I had someone, and now that I have someone, I'm so scared that I'm going to mess it up that I'm willing to leave it all behind to avoid failing." He was pacing the kitchen now.
Shawn opened his mouth and then closed it promptly when Lassiter glared at him.
"I tried with Victoria, I really tried. Then like you said, I held on to her for too long. Maybe if I'd just tried harder..." He frowned. "But then again, what did she have to come home to? What does Marlowe have to come home to? A sad, pathetic excuse for a romantic? I'm so wrapped up in my job that sometimes I forget things."
"Lassie, it can't be that bad," Shawn tried to help.
"I forgot Victoria's parents' anniversary party," Lassiter muttered. "I only remembered when I showed up to arrest her uncle for public intoxication."
"And that was years and years ago." Shawn grabbed Lassiter's beer away from him and threw the bottle in the sink.
"Hey! What the hell, Spencer?" Lassiter looked like he was ready to punch the psychic.
"Lassie, you keep saying that you're afraid of being a failure, that you're afraid of not achieving what you set out to do."
"Because I won't."
"My turn to talk," Shawn reached over and zipped Lassiter's lips and threw the imaginary key over his shoulder. "You've saved my life and, most importantly, Juliet's life. Did you think you were going to fail when you ran to the clock tower to save Jules? Did you think you were going to fail when you ran through the woods to find me when I was shot? Did you think you were going to fail when you ran through the woods to rescue Juliet from that creepy seahorse farmer?" Shawn raised an eyebrow at the detective.
Lassiter stared at him in silence.
"You can answer that," Shawn rolled his eyes.
Lassiter sighed. "I didn't think I was going to fail, because that kind of thinking isn't allowed when someone's life is on the line."
"Exactly!" Shawn shouted, surprising the other man. "So think of this relationship as something that you have to run for... only, you know, metaphorically, because you can't run for emotions." Shawn sighed in frustration. "The point being, if you're not going to fail saving people, you won't fail saving this thing with Marlowe."
"Lovely analogy," Lassiter headed back for the living room. "Now excuse me, I need to get all my stuff out before Marlowe comes home. I want to make this go as smoothly as possible."
"A breakup? Have you listened to yourself?" Shawn was shouting at Lassiter now. "You're treating this like it's a business arrangement that you're ending. Marlowe is going to be heartbroken!"
"She'll move on, find someone that she deserves." Lassiter was still walking about the apartment, grabbing things here and there.
"She already has!" Shawn grabbed Lassiter's shirt and pulled on it. It threw the detective off balance and he landed in the arm chair with a grunt.
"What the hell, Spencer? I could arrest you for assaulting a police officer!" Lassiter tried to get up.
Shawn pushed him back down and stood in front of him, arms crossed and a glare on his face. "You listen to me."
Lassiter sighed and closed his eyes, counting to ten. "You have exactly one minute to say whatever it is you want to say, and then I'm kicking you out the door."
"If you would shut off that stupid analytical brain of yours for three seconds, you would see what everyone else on this planet sees. Lassiter, you're a badass detective, you're a loyal partner and friend. You save people's lives! How can you not see how cool that is? But above all, Marlowe chose you. Dude, she's hot, she could pick anybody. Hell, she could have picked me or Gus."
Lassiter's fist clenched and the detective actually growled at him.
Shawn hurriedly continued. "She picked you, Lassie. And no matter how terrifying it may seem, you two are gonna be spending the rest of your lives together."
"How do you know that?" Lassiter's face was suspicious, but his eyes were studying Shawn, looking for the sincerity and confirmation that he needed.
Shawn just tapped a finger to his temple. "That's between me and the spirits, Lassie."
"Bunch of bull," Lassiter grumbled.
The door opened and Lassiter glanced over to the clock. With Spencer there, he'd completely lost track of time and now it was past four and Marlowe was off work.
"Carlton?" Marlowe's voice carried across the room. "Oh, hi, Shawn." She smiled brightly at the psychic, unperturbed that he was leaning on both arms of the chair, bent over Lassiter. "What are you guys up to..." She slowly looked around the room at all the boxes.
"I, uh," Lassiter shoved Shawn away and stood. "This is, um," he looked around at the mess he'd created.
"Lassie was just telling me that he thought you guys could purge the duplicate DVDs." Shawn said, grabbing the box that Lassiter had put his copies in. "And I offered to take them." He grinned at Marlowe. "So, I'll just take these and head out." He winked at Lassiter.
Lassiter grabbed the box out of his hands. "Yes, I think it's time for you to leave." He pushed Shawn towards the door and out, locking it behind the psychic.
"Shouldn't he take the DVDs with him?" Marlowe gave Lassiter a confused look.
Lassiter could feel all the doubts fading away as her blue eyes studied him, looking for answers. He dropped the box on the floor and wrapped his arms around Marlowe's waist. "I'm not giving him those DVDs."
Marlowe studied his face and then frowned. "Carlton, what's wrong?"
"I'm not broken, am I?" he asked quietly.
"Broken?" Marlowe laughed. "Carlton, of course not There's nothing to fix. You're just right for me."
"And that's why you picked me." He kissed her softly.
"That's why I picked you."