A/N: I don't own the characters or established plots, but I am in control of this story. Bringing me back from something of a writer's block vacation, updates may be…erratic. Bear with me, and I promise something worthy of your patience.
Prologue: Show No Fear
Shawn Spencer had spent most of the last 20 years perfecting his perpetual air of nonchalant confidence, to the point that a part of him wondered if he hadn't spent his whole life preparing for this moment. He looked down at himself for a moment, taking a mental inventory. His stomach was in knots, his knees were weak, and he could barely breathe through the tightness in his throat.
Diagnosis, Shawn thought wryly, you're terrified. Shawn hadn't wasted much of his time lately being scared, which was almost concerning when one considered how often he spent his time around murderers and dead bodies. But as he walked over to what had become the familiar Plexiglas barrier of the SBPD's prisoner visitation area, his jaw and fists clenched.
Stop fighting it, Shawn told himself, and the moment he followed his own advice, he felt himself falling into the same old patterns, almost without thought. As he approached the booths, scanning each for a familiar face, his apprehensive frown melted into his trademark absent-minded smile, the tension rolled out of his shoulders, and the pattern of his steps shifted, just slightly, as though he were walking to the tune of a catchy song stuck in his head.
The only thing Shawn had to focus on, as he rounded the corner of the next to last booth, as that horribly familiar face came into view, as his stomach clenched all the tighter and he felt nearly sick, was the slow, methodical pace of his stride. He wanted to walk quickly, to get in and get out as quickly as possible, to spend as little time with the man on the other side of the transparent barrier as he could manage, but it wouldn't do to let the smug bastard know that. Shawn couldn't bear the thought of giving the man any more control over the situation than he already had.
Shawn forced the muscles in his face to cooperate, and his smile widened as he slid comfortably into his chair. He met the man's gaze head on for what seemed like an hour, until the man on the other side of the glass blinked. Shawn counted the exchange as a personal victory.
Shawn could feel the grin he had forced becoming genuine as the man visibly decided to accept what was happening to him. He could tell from the motion of his shoulders that the man had sighed as he rolled his eyes. Shawn almost laughed as the prisoner snatched the phone on his end from its cradle and waited impatiently.
In that moment, some of the tension actually began to drain from Shawn as he realized the reality of the situation. This man, this lowlife, this crazy bastard who had so haunted Shawn's life over the past week and a half, was a prisoner. He was shackled to the chair in which he sat, and if he wanted to so much as speak, he would have to wait for Shawn to pick up the receiver on his end. Hell, Shawn could walk away right now, and the son of a bitch would be led back to a small room with three other men and a very public toilet. He had no control. Over anything. And that was just the way Shawn wanted it.
Shawn smirked again, deciding he had waited long enough. After all, he thought, it's not like I came down here just to stare at him. The plastic of the phone was cool and, for some reason, sticky, but Shawn tried not to put too much thought into that. He pulled out his biggest, shit-eatingest grin as he lifted it from its cradle with a slightly unnecessary flourish, bringing it slowly, dramatically to his ear. He was rewarded with a disgusted eye roll from the other side of the glass, but Shawn took it as a compliment. He leaned back in his chair, exuding an ease and comfort he still couldn't make himself feel, before greeting the man cordially. "Drimmer."