Disclaimer: I do not own Pysch or any of the lovely characters from the show. I only wish I could lay any claim to them! I only claim my own OCs, and nothing else!

"Murder is fascinating and frightening; it is the great taboo, the one crime, perhaps, that every culture in every age has condemned as the Numero Uno offense against society, the tribe, the clan, the individual." Nelson DeMille

Done.

That was the only word for this feeling.

Utter exhaustion leading to a total void of any and all caring.

This was it. He was going to quit the force.

Pack up his desk. Turn in his badge.

He. Was. Done.

He wasn't going to, of course, but damn it if 2 weeks of 3-4 hours of sleep each night weren't a hair shy of forcing him over the edge. 2 weeks of burglaries escalating to homicides almost as quickly as they began, and no leads to speak of. The night had held hope for longer sleep, as neither he nor O'hara had made any breaks in the case, but it was interrupted by a late night call from the Chief alerting them to yet another burglary/homicide.

As he shifted into park in front of the latest victim's house, he silently promised to catch the one (or ones) responsible for these crimes by today's end as he slumped down into the driver's seat and let his head lean back into the headrest. A droning ache had taken up residence just behind his forehead, not yet a migraine, but achy and constant enough to put him in a worse mood than usual. Sighing, he brought a hand to his face in an attempt to subdue the ache for a few moments.

TAP TAP TAP "Lassifrass!"

Oh, seven hells, not today. His face tightened, eyes rolling back as he abandoned his moment of peace and shoved open the door, intentionally right into Spencer's shin.

"OW! Lassie, I'm hurt. I suppose that answers the question that Gus and I never need to ask you, as we always know the answer!"

He glared at Spencer, towering over the younger man. Spencer cocked his head in his own smug way, ever-smiling back at him, "Well, seeing as I'm obviously the wizard that brings you your brain and its marvelous sense of humor one day, I'll ask anyway; how are you today Mr. Scarecrow?"

"Spencer. You have exactly 3 seconds to explain to me why the hell you're here and why in hell you think that pestering me is your best chance of making it through the rest of this day alive."

"Whoa whoa whoa, Lassie, I know you're not a morning person, but some compassion?" The pleading face of the fake-psychic switched to one of mock-apology as he watched the Detective turn his morning glare up to a fair 9. "Okay, okay, I can't believe we still have to do this every time" he put his finger up to his head and plastered a smug look on his face, "Psychic? I felt a great disturbance on this street while Gus and I were taking our early morning Churro run."

Lassiter shot his glare to Guster, begging the other man to give him a reason to murder his friend.

"It's true, you see Churros? Neither do I." Gus practically spat while trying to 'help' his friend's case.

"Point 2! Come now Lassidophilus, I beg you, you try and fail to bug me, and we're a happy family."

His face fell as he listened to the two of them, standing there in an exhausted state of annoyance. Yep, there was the migraine he knew his day was missing.

"Shawn, I think you mean 'Point B'."

"What?"

"Well you said, 'A-you can't believe we do this every time', and then you said, 'Point 2' and made that stupid rhyme."

"I've heard it both ways"

"ENOUGH!" Lassiter bellowed at the two men before him, his hands flying into the air of their own accord, before he took back control of his anger, throwing up a smile of fake sincerity. "You know, Spencer, Guster, usually, I'm less than excited to run into you two idiots at my crime scenes. Though for some reason it's always unavoidable." He admitted, grabbing his two pests and leading them away from the crime scene, as he walked between the two of them.

"But today? Oh, I'm somewhere between homicidal and murderous."

"Aren't those the sam-"

"Shawn! The man's going to kill us! He's got the crazy in his eyes…" Gus's voice lowered to a whisper on the last part.

"Oh Gus, relax! Classy Lassy here would never kill us! He's just not ready to share with us his true feelings of-"

"Oh today I'd listen to your friend, Spencer." Smirking as he stopped and shoving the two of them forward, having brought them to McNab. "Keep these two idiots out of my crime scene McNab. I don't care what they tell you-They get in, you lose your job, understood?"

Mcnab's face paled and he seemed to be frozen into place. "Y-yes sir, D-Detective." he stuttered out meekly with a slight nod.

Carlton raised his eyebrows and smirked at the two as he turned and walked back towards the house and into the crime scene, content with his small morning victory.

Inside the house lay a fresh hive of activity, the ident unit already having arrived, and uniforms scurrying around to get out of the way now that Lassiter had arrived. He spotted O'Hara speaking with one of the ident guys when he rounded the corner into the living room/crime scene. Taking a deep breath, he surveyed the room.

Despite his eye-rolling at Guster's usual behavior at the sight of dead bodies, often noting him as lacking the fortitude to withstand the shock of even everyday life, underneath the candor, he fought the very same reactions. Through the lens of the TV, most people's view of crime scenes is skewed, as is their view on how easy it is for even the most seasoned of officers to process crime scenes involving the dead, some even believing that the dead look 'peaceful'. Trying to dress live actors into corpses still allows those corpses a semblance of life; they don't look 'dead'. Compared to real bodies, especially those of the murdered, the look of true death is enough to push one into absolute positivity in the belief of a human soul, something that even a child innately recognizes.

Even as the senior detective in the department, he still fights back the nausea, the sour, bitter tang rising in the back of his throat, the desire to be anywhere but there. And each time a new crime scene is processed and stowed away in his mind, the theatre turns off the lights to everything else but the memories of every other murder, homicide, suicide, accident, or manslaughter scene that he's ever witnessed in agonizing detail, every grizzly component, down to the sinew of each exposed muscle in the slit throat of a young girl.

Carlton separates his memories from the picture in front of him, taking another deep breath, putting on his mask of indifference as he slowly makes his way towards his partner and the bodies. She dismissed the other officer and turned to him, her usually bright blue eyes bore a look more akin to a clouded horizon before a storm. Though he knew that she had had the same amount or less sleep as him, she still managed to look as put together and professional as always, the only tell the slight puffing under her eyelids. Her perky attitude and appearance the perfect juxtaposition to his gloomy mood. He'd never understood how she did it; he hadn't even had the time to shave in the past day, his stubble growing into quite a bit more than a 5 o'clock shadow.

"Good morning Lassiter." She greeted him with her usual perky demeanor.

He huffed, shaking his head ever so slightly at her bright attitude. "What have we got O'hara?"

"Two victims; male and female. The female has been ID'ed as Jennifer Gale, and the male's name is Kyle Martin. The house belongs to Ms. Gale." He walked over, bent down next to the two corpses as she spoke. "It looks to be the same M.O. as the other burglaries- wallets emptied, most valuables from the rooms gone, and the victims—" "Executed." He declared grimly, a hand going to his furrowed brow as he fought to abate the memories of the previous burglary/homicides flashing to the forefront of his brain, "They've gone from burglary, to manslaughter, to now straight-up murder; in two weeks. They're escalating quickly."

"Yes." His partner stated in a bleak exhalation.

His hesitation is seen only by her. His partner reads him better than anyone, including, though he'd never outright admit this, himself. She sees every hesitation, every minute twitch that betrays he's fighting to turn away and run from the abhorrent scene before them. He feels the bile rise again in his throat as he looks more closely at the execution wounds. The male appeared to have been shot point blank in the back of the head, though there didn't appear to be any powder residue around the wound. The woman had suffered a much more grisly fate. "Deep laceration to the larynx," Lassiter shuffled sideways around to the side of her body, keeping a wide berth around the already too-wide pool of blood around the victims. "Possible signs of a struggle -at least she put up a fight."

Sighing once more as he stood up straight, blinking rapidly as the blood rushed to his head and staving off any other outward signs of his exhaustion, he looked around at the other aspects of the scene. He regarded that the crimson pool was smeared around the woman and that there were…bloody paw prints? He looked at O'Hara, only then noticing the barking that had been occurring since he got there. "O'Hara" he growled, "Why do I hear barking at my crime scene?" His lips pursing as he nodded his head towards her, a signal for her to show him the problem.

She rolled her eyes and led him to the back of the house, following the paw prints, the barking intensifying as they went further. There was an officer posted outside of a closed door that the barking seemed to be emanating from.

"Officer," He started through clenched teeth, "is there any particular reason there is still a dog at my crime scene?"

"Uhm, well…"

Lassiter raised his eyebrows and stepped closer towards the officer, "Yes? I'm waiting for my answer."

"Well sir, you see. Uhm, no one could handle him, and animal control hasn't arrived yet. I-It was all we could do to get her into this room; she was wild, lunging at anyone who came near her!"

"You're telling me, that none of the fine officers of the SBPD could handle this girl's pet?" The barking intensified at the detective's raised voice.

"Detective Lassiter!" O'Hara hissed at his remark.

"Fine. I'll take care of it myself." He shook off his jacket, throwing it at the trembling young officer. Lassiter ripped open the door, glaring down at the dog. The dog continued its barking; she was much larger than Lassiter had anticipated, a large, all black German Shepherd from the looks of her. She remained standing, but did not lunge at him. They remained locked in a stare until the dog looked away, trotting over to lassiter and sitting next to his feet, looking up at him and whining. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked behind him to O'Hara, her mouth open with her hands grazing her upper lip. He leaned his right leg cautiously into the dog, and flinched slightly as the dog put a paw on him. He scraped his hand through his hair and then leaned his arm down to pat the dog's head, the dog pressing her head into Lassiter's palm in response. Juliet let out a snort, and then coughed to try and cover up her laughing. Lassiter shot her an annoyed look, and she tried to quell her laughter. Kneeling down to the dog's level, rubbing the sides of her cheeks as she whined excitedly, Lassiter checked her tags and groaned, throwing his head backwards.

"What's wrong?" Juliet asked, having finally put a lid on her laughing fit.

"Her name."

"What about it?"

"It's Lassie."

Juliet couldn't help but burst into another fit of roaring laughter.

TBC