Carlton has done everything he could think to do.

He'd asked nicely. He'd bargained. He'd demanded. He had, finally, under duress, pleaded.

And still, the Chief said no.

"For the last time, Carlton," she'd said, exasperation edging her tone, "I am not signing off on a second two-hundred-dollar-a-night room when there is absolutely no reason you can't share one with Mr. Spencer."

Oh, there's a reason, all right, Carlton had thought grimly.

"If O'Hara were going, we'd have two rooms," he pointed out.

"An excellent point." Vick clamped her lips together in what appeared to be an attempt at a patient smile. "But O'Hara's not going, Carlton."

"But Chief-Karen-"

He knew immediately that he had misspoken. Vick's expression had barely changed, but her eyes seemed to have morphed into chips of ice.

"No more, Carlton," she'd said, and walked away before he could say anything else.

So here he is now, following Spencer (who is pulling a rollerboard and wearing a ridiculous Transformers child's backpack) through the lobby of a Marriott and wondering what the hell he's going to do once they get to the room.

Three nights.

He's going to spend three nights with Spencer, and oh God if Spencer ever found out. If Spencer ever knew how Carlton thinks about him-or how Carlton feels about him-

"Hey, Lassie, you want any of this?" A candy bar has materialized in Spencer's hand. He tears the wrapper with his teeth and hits the elevator button with his free hand.

Carlton avoids Spencer's gaze. "No thanks."

"Come on." Spencer follows Carlton into the elevator. "You only had one burger. And who doesn't like Whatchamacallit?"

Carlton grunts.

Their room is at the very end of the hall on the fourth floor. Carlton unlocks the door. Pushes it open, deep breath. Here we go.

"Dibs on window!" Spencer shoves past Carlton and tosses his backpack onto the bed, then flops down on his back next to it. "Ahh." He stretches his hands above his head.

Carlton edges into the room. Puts his suitcase on his own bed and fiddles with the zipper. He pulls out one thing after another, in no particular order, looking for nothing.

"I feel a little morgue-y," Spencer announces, bouncing to a sitting position. "You want to shower?" He leers at Carlton. "First, I mean."

Carlton fumbles with a suit jacket, almost drops it. He clears his throat. "No. Go ahead."

"Great." In one fluid movement, Spencer pulls off his shirt and tosses it on the floor.

Carlton's heart lurches into his throat. He stares. Can't help it. Thank God Spencer's busied himself sorting through handfuls of denim and plaid, because it takes Carlton a moment too long to wrench his gaze away.

Spencer appears not to have noticed. He sails by Carlton, clapping a hand on Carlton's shoulder as he passes. "Five minutes," he says, and then the bathroom door clicks shut.

Carlton lets out a breath. He hears Spencer turn the water on. Hears him humming, then the clatter of something dropped and Spencer's muffled curse.

Carlton drops the pants he's refolding and snatches the TV remote. He hits the Power button. Turns the volume up loud.

"Put it on Food Network." Spencer's voice, echoey from the bathroom.

"Shut up," Carlton mutters.

The water shuts off just as Carlton finishes smoothing the wrinkles out of his second suit. There are a couple minutes of silence, then the bathroom door opens and Spencer emerges in a cloud of steam. He's still shirtless, but he's wearing flannel pajama pants and there's a towel wrapped around his head.

"I give them five stars for water pressure alone." Spencer throws his jeans on the floor with his shirt and scrubs at his hair with the towel. "I feel like a human again." He tosses the towel over the desk chair.

Carlton reaches into the closet, yanks the plastic laundry bag out of its hanger clip, and thrusts it at Spencer without looking at him. "I don't feel like spending the next three days in a pigsty," he snaps.

"Okay, okay, jeez." Spencer shakes the bag open, stuffs his laundry in it. Carlton has to force himself to look away from the muscles shifting under his tanned skin. "Guess I should've let you have first shower, crankypants."

"I'm not a-" Carlton cuts himself off, seizes his pajamas, and stomps into the bathroom.

"Crankypants!" he hears as he shuts the door.

Carlton does feel better after the shower, but when he comes back out of the bathroom-

"Nice pajamas, Lassie!" Spencer crows. He's propped up on a pile of pillows, remote in hand, grinning broadly at Carlton.

Carlton looks down at himself. He's wearing regular old pajamas: dark blue, long-sleeved, button-down. He doesn't see anything wrong with them. "Spencer, you are annoying the crap out of me." Sees his empty bed and adds: "Give me my pillows."

Spencer waggles his eyebrows at Carlton. "We could share. Have you seen Paul?"

God. Carlton doesn't know which is more annoying: the taunt, or the fact that Spencer might not be kidding. "Spencer!"

"Okay, okay." Spencer pulls two of the pillows out from under him and tosses them to Carlton. "Now my neck cramps are your problem."

"Shut up, Spencer."

"You want to watch a movie?" Spencer's eyes are wide, guileless. "You can be the big spoon."

"No. I want to go to sleep."

"Come onnnnn." Wheedling now.

Carlton reaches for the remote. Spencer pulls it away. "Nuh huh."

A quick grab, and it's in Carlton's hand. He turns the television off. "We're meeting Rizzoli at the station at seven," he says firmly. "I need to go to sleep."

Spencer lets out a whuff of frustration. "Fine," he says grumpily.

He pulls the covers over his head and rolls over. Carlton hears him grumbling, his words muted by the bedding.

"Sleep," Carlton orders, and turns off the light.

From the darkness: the sound of a raspberry being blown. Then the rustling of Spencer's bedding, then stillness.

Carlton pulls the covers to his chin and stares into the darkness, listening to the sound of Spencer breathing. Light and huffy at first; after a few minutes, slow and even. Asleep. Just like that.

Asleep. Spencer. Five feet away.

And now it's just Carlton and his thoughts.

He closes his eyes, tries to relax. Even tries to match his breathing to Spencer's. But despite himself, his mind drifts.

He sees Spencer as easily as if the image was burned onto his retinas. Shoulders bare, that stupid leather necklace against his skin, curve of neck into collarbone. Beads of water at his hairline. Pajama pants slung low, snug under that hint of a paunch. His back: shadow of bone and flexing muscle. Those hands raking through wet hair.

Carlton drifts.

Spencer mutters something in his sleep and Carlton jolts. Realizes, to his horror, that he's hard; that his fingers are wrapped loosely around his cock.

He pulls his hand away fast, flattens his palm on the mattress. Wide awake now. He's appalled at himself.

Spencer stirs and Carlton holds his breath.

Agonizing minutes pass and Carlton feels Spencer's presence like hands on his body, every nerve alight, every proprioceptor firing.

Finally he slides out from under the covers, tiptoes into the bathroom. He closes the door as silently as he can, wincing at the infinitesimal click as it latches. In the dark, he draws up a handful of tissues. Stands against the wall and pushes his pajama pants out of the way.

He strokes himself slow and hard, his breath shallow, sweating from his effort to be quiet. When he comes, he quakes, but moves almost not at all.


Morning.

The alarm on his phone is buzzing, beeping, and he hears groans of protest. Whose?

"Shawn." The name is on his lips, past his lips, before he can stop it.

"Dude, that alarm is awful." Spencer sounds wide awake.

Carlton opens his eyes in time to see Spencer, now wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt, reach across the nightstand and take his phone. A second later, the beeping stops.

"Ugh, no wonder you're in a bad mood in the morning." Spencer is peering at the phone. He taps the screen a few times, replaces it on the nightstand. "You'll thank me later."

"How long have you been up?" Carlton pushes himself into a sitting position.

"Um." Spencer shrugs. "Hour, maybe two."

"It's six AM," Carlton points out.

"I know. I don't sleep much." Spencer kicks the covers aside and stands. "I've been waiting for you to get up so we can get breakfast. I'm starving."

They end up driving through McDonald's on the way to the station. Carlton orders coffee and picks at a hash brown; he watches Spencer eat two Egg McMuffins in about four bites.

Rizzoli is all business when they arrive, no small talk, which Carlton appreciates. By seven-thirty, they are driving in a caravan to Rebecca Xavier's townhouse. Spencer is uncharacteristically quiet. He perks up, though, when his phone rings. The ringtone is atrocious: a bubblegum pop song, all canned rhythm and chirping female vocals.

"Lassie, your phone," he says.

Carlton doesn't take his eyes off the road. "That's not my phone."

"Sure it is." Spencer holds up his own phone, which is decidedly silent. "I told you you'd thank me."

Carlton fumbles in his pocket for his phone, which is indeed ringing. "Spencer, what did you do?"

"Come on, Lassie. Who doesn't like Party in the USA?" Spencer grabs the phone out of Carlton's hand before Carlton can snatch it away.

He answers it. "Hi, Jules...no, he's driving. What's up?"

He listens, then frowns. Carlton can hear the bright buzz of O'Hara's voice, but can't make out any of her words.

"Really? For how long?" A pause. "Okay. Okay. I'll let him know." He hangs up.

"Give," Carlton snaps, hand out.

"Apparently," Spencer says, complying without complaint, "there's more to the story than we thought."

Carlton bites back his annoyance. "Oh?"

Spencer puts Carlton's phone down and picks up his own. "Rebecca Xavier was married."

Carlton frowns. "Married? Rizzoli never said anything about a husband."

"That's because they're estranged. For three years. She kept her name." Spencer doesn't look up from his phone. His thumbs tap the screen busily.

Carlton's eyebrows go up.

"We need to find the husband," he says.

"Way ahead of you," Spencer replies. "Bryce Montgomery. He's a CPA." He recites a Boston address and a phone number.

"How'd you know that?" If Spencer says "psychic vision," Carlton might hit him.

"Google." Spencer smiles brightly and holds up his phone.

Carlton is already calling Rizzoli. When she answers, he relays the information fast and hangs up.

"One of the other detectives will track him down and bring him in," he says. "We can question him as soon as today."

"Should probably check to see if Rebecca has a will, too," Spencer adds.

They've turned into a neighborhood of small pretty townhouses and cobblestone streets. Rizzoli parks in front of an end unit, indistinguishable from any of the others except for the pair of uniformed officers standing near the front steps and the crime scene tape across the door.

Rizzoli and Carlton flash their badges at the uniforms, and when they move to stop Spencer, Carlton reaches back and grabs him by the arm. "He's with me."

He pulls Spencer under the crime scene tape and through the front door and stops short.

The foyer is a mess. Furniture overturned, glass broken on the floor, and blood. Blood everywhere. Congealed puddles on the floor, splashes up the wall, splatters of arterial spray on the ceiling.

Rizzoli is pulling on gloves. "We swept it yesterday," she says, "but I figured you'd want to take a look before we release it."

Carlton takes the gloves she holds out and follows suit, but watches Spencer out of the corner of his eye.

Spencer is standing absolutely still, hands at his sides. Nothing moves except for his eyes. They're darting here, there, everywhere. Carlton has never really watched him at a crime scene, not closely, and he's...different.

He closes his eyes for a moment. Opens them. Then reaches for the shoe covers near the door, pulls one quickly on each foot, and walks into the room.

He avoids the pools of dried blood, avoids the shards of glass - broken mirror, broken lamp-scattered across the floor. Picks his way through the foyer and turns down a hall.

"Spencer." Carlton moves to follow him, stopping also to pull on a pair of shoe covers.

Spencer's standing in the bedroom, still with that focused, narrow expression on his face. When Carlton comes to the doorway behind him, his eyes flicker and focus. "Hey, Lassie, do you have extra gloves?"

Carlton hands him a pair and Spencer puts them on. Reaches for a framed photo on the dresser.

"What?" Carlton can't resist asking. "What do you see?"

No reply. Carlton looks over his shoulder: a photo of Rebecca and another woman in ski hats and scarves, laughing against a backdrop of mountains. It had been a nice photo. All of the photos in the room had been nice photos. Had been.

Now, though, the glass on every frame is broken. There are slash marks through every photo of Rebecca.

"Spencer," Carlton says again, impatiently. "What do you have?"

At last, Spencer turns around. He stares at Carlton, his expression distracted.

"I don't know," he says at last.