Chapter 3

Sometime within the month or so that had passed since he had realized his fake flailing for the police had turned into something a bit less than fake, Shawn had learned to shy away from touch. Being psychic was like opening doors in winter; dry air, lots of wool…prime ingredients for static shock. You never knew when a casual brush against metal would suddenly bite back. Lex Summers' hand felt high voltage.

-grief, anger, love, blackness deep as a starless night, crystals of white, bursts of blood rose red-

And Shawn pulled away. No one seemed to have noticed anything odd in his handshake. Lex was looking down and Gus was still frowning over Shawn's failure to help him convince their client to seek police justice. And Gus did have a point on this one; Truman's offensive dismissal of both Lex's evidence and his pain shouldn't be ignored. But Shawn also knew that Lex wouldn't agree, not yet. It was all too raw and he didn't really trust Shawn and Gus.

"So, are you both psychics?" Lex asked hesitantly, his eyes darting back and forth nervously between Shawn and Gus, "How does it work?"

"I'm the psychic," Shawn answered, "Gus is my anchor during my forays into the spirit world, sucking me back when I go too far like a great, cosmic hoover. I like to call him the psychic sucker." Gus's face twitched as he snapped, "No you don't, Shawn!" but he didn't otherwise contradict his job description. There was a short awkward silence. When it became obvious that no one else was about to speak, Shawn clapped his hands together and said, "So…you think your dad murdered your boyfriend?"

"No," Lex answered, frowning slightly, "I know Justin's dad killed him." And now there was definite lip quivering going on along with the flair of darkness. –rage, pain…-

"Right," Shawn said, clapped Gus on the shoulder, and then grabbed the folder with the letters and newspaper clippings from his hands, "I'll just go…divine." And he practically ran into the other room, leaving Gus to deal with the dark shock of grief swirling around Lex.

Gus found him later sitting slumped over, staring broodingly at the folder lying on the table in front of him. It was closed.

"What was that all about, Shawn?!" Gus exclaimed, his colors flickering madly with his mood, "You know I can't deal with men crying!" Shawn didn't answer and Gus's frown deepened, something like concern passing over his features. Abruptly Shawn sat up and turned his head to look at him, his expression attempting a more familiar, jovial expression.

"So, did you get anything more out of Luthor?" he asked, and brooding mood or not, being able to say that brought a half smile to Shawn's face.

"Lex," Gus answered, stressing their client's real name, "sat and cried for half an hour while filling out our form before leaving." He was sounding stressed again, just remembering. It wasn't that Lex suddenly started bawling, really, in fact he held up quite determinedly but didn't quite manage to hold back his tears. He apologized afterwards, too. Gus had managed to give him an awkward but manly pat to his shoulder and a box of Kleenex.

"We have forms?" Shawn asked, causing Gus's eyes to narrow further and Shawn was quick to wave a hand towards the folder on the table. "There's something dark about those letters," he said in hopes of pacifying Gus's mood by showing he'd actually been working and not just hiding back there, "A bit like grief, actually. Like he was already mourning his son."

"You think he did it?" Gus asked eagerly, "Did you get a, you know, a vision?"

"Told you, they aren't really visions," Shawn answered, rubbing his head, "Well, sometimes, like memories…more like…"

"Wait, I'm going to get the book," Gus said before dashing out of the room. He was back a moment later carrying a three ring binder. The cover depicted Shawn (or at least Shawn's interpretation of himself which wasn't quite the same thing) clutching his head in an agonized but still sexy (again, according to Shawn) pose as he looked into the beyond. Gus looked on with awe in the background, a swirl of orange and yellow around his head. Suffice it to say, the illustrations were supplied by Shawn. In neat but stylish lettering, the title: A Study of Psychic Manifestation was written at the top, below which, in messier but still stylish (not to mention more colorful) writing was the message: Shawn's Uber-awsome Instruction Manuel to his Brain!!! . Inside, typed and hand written pages were filed neatly behind dividers labeled with such titles as 'case files', 'paranormal research', 'interviews' and 'Through Shawn's Eye' (the last which was the thickest and messiest portion as it mostly contained random drawings done by Shawn, only about a third of which actually had anything to do with his psychic abilities.). Gus flipped straight to the 'case files' tab which started out typed but contained, in the back, several pages of hand written notes that he hadn't gotten around to typing yet.

Shawn rolled his eyes at Gus's part eager, part wary pose. Making a book about Shawn wasn't really good for him, at least in Gus's opinion; it tended to bring out his 'suffering movie star' persona and make him more annoying than usual. Gus put up with it, in part from the times when he did manage to get something both truthful and useful from Shawn and in part from feeling guilty for when he didn't believe him. No matter that no one could have blamed Gus for that.

"So," Gus said, "What did you get from the letters?"

"Come on, Gus, you're starting to sound like my dad!" Shawn cried, annoyance bordering on anger filling his voice. Gus's eyebrows rose. Whatever was going on with the case must have freaked Shawn out big time; he usually just made jokes at this point to rile Gus up before giving in and letting him have some details. Of course, the last few cases they had managed had been small cases, mostly a little old lady who stopped by at least once a week to have Shawn help her find something she'd misplaced or on occasion for help with some minor task (she tended to treat Shawn and Gus like favored young relatives or neighbors; she paid in homemade baked goods). Aside from Mrs. Lewis, they had had two missing dogs, a lost wedding ring, and six cheating boyfriend types of cases. Nothing close to murder.

"You said the dad was already mourning?" Gus said, not giving into the glare and ignoring the mumbled words that made no sense at all, something about counting bats. Finally Shawn slumped back in his seat, his posture defeated.

"Yeah," he said, "I just got emotions, not like…it wasn't his thoughts or anything. I didn't see murder. Just…a dad who was disappointed in his son." Gus wrote carefully, recognizing Shawn's parallel but not sure what to do about it. "He was angry…upset…but I can tell that just from how he wrote. Disjointed, pressing down too hard."

"And what did you…" Gus began to ask when Shawn leapt up, something approaching relief on his face as he went for his phone. It rang a few seconds before Shawn grabbed it.

"Lassie-face!" Shawn exclaimed, none of the stress he had shown earlier entering his voice, "What've you got?" He listened for a few seconds in silence. Gus didn't have to be psychic to know that Lassiter was probably growling a bit over the name but Shawn's grin didn't waver. After a listening for a bit, Shawn said, "Do my ears deceave me? Lassie-face requires the aid of a paranormal expert! Well no worries, Lassaroonie, we'll…" But he trailed off in the middle of his sentence, lowering his phone from his ear.

"He hang up on you?" Gus asked.

"Yep," Shawn answered, grinning, "Oh, and he wants our help."

"We already have a case," Gus reminded him, "One we really should be bringing to the police…"

"All in good time!" Shawn answered, "All in good time. But first…" he grabbed the book from Gus's hands, flipping to the tab on paranormal research, "What do you know about vampires?"