Hello everyone! Here's chapter 7 for you all and with it, a bit of a revelation on the Butcher.
Lawyers: Our client does not own Psych, nor does she own specific details belonging to Dexter. Don't sue her.
Chapter Seven: Disowned
Sometime in the past...
I stood before the front door of my house, hesitant to go inside. Earlier on, Dad had walked in on me killing one of my play mates. The man had already been dead and I had been pretty far along in my work when Dad walked through the door, so obviously the sight couldn't be considered 'pretty' by normal standards.
I thought it was 'pretty' though. I had just recently gotten my new set of knives, custom made, and was using them for the first time on my play mate. The blades were clear and the hilts were a pure, clean white. They did beautiful work and I think I might just have to name them later on. Such amazing tools deserve names, after all.
However, dad didn't think it was pretty. He turned paler than the corpse I was cutting up. He looked close to vomiting, but thankfully didn't.
"Dad, I'm just finishing up. I should be back in time for dinner," I said as I set my knife down and went over to him.
He backed away though, and looked distraught, angry even.
I frowned, "Sorry I didn't pick a more secretive location. I'll be more careful next time."
That must be what he's angry about. Obviously I didn't pick a secluded enough spot if he's found me. He must be worried about our family.
He took another step back and whispered, "Stay away from me. Just... stay away."
Then he fled the scene.
I frowned again and wanted to go after him, but I knew I couldn't just leave my work behind, that would upset Dad even more. I turned back to the body and decided to clean up and go. The mood had been ruined, so there was no point in continuing. I bagged up the body and my supplies and put them in the trunk of the car. I'd take them out in the boat and dump them in the harbor later. I had to see what was wrong with Dad first.
Standing before the front door, I went in with a sigh. I found him pacing around the kitchen, looking troubled. I didn't understand it. Granted, he had never seem me kill a person before, but still, he knew what I did. He's seen me kill animals numerous times. He also knew the man deserved it. Every person I killed did.
"Dad, what's wrong?"
"Don't!" he snapped. "Don't call me that."
Now I really didn't understand.
"What? Dad-"
"You're not my son," he hissed dangerously.
Suddenly everything was put into perspective for me; the reason why he always called me 'kid' and never 'son.' No, technically I wasn't his son, but I didn't think technicalities mattered to him. Guess I was wrong.
"Oh, I see how it is," I said with a glare. "So suddenly I'm not your son anymore. I'm just a monster that's tainting your happy little family. Well I'm a monster you created!"
"No," he said adamantly. "You were born a monster from a situation I had no control over!"
"You had control!" I shouted, angry with him about The Event for the first time in my life. "You could have done something. You could have stopped it if you had tried hard enough, but you didn't. You weren't there to stop him!"
"Go to your room!" he shouted. "I don't want to see you for the rest of the night."
I stormed away, and as I left, I could hear him say, "I should have stopped this when I saw the signs."
After getting home, when nighttime came, Shawn really didn't want to sleep knowing that the Butcher could sneak into his house at any given moment. So he settled down on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and opted to stay awake watching TV for the rest of the night. However, Shawn's body had other plans and before he knew it, he had drifted off into the Land of Nod.
While he slept, he dreamed, or rather, he remembered. He was laying in the hospital bed, freaking out over something he couldn't quite remember, and Carlton was there by his bedside. Of all the things he could have done at that moment, he pulled Carlton down for a kiss.
A kiss. He kissed Carlton, and yet the detective hadn't killed him because of it.
It was around one-thirty PM when he finally woke up, and while he had been known to sleep late in the past, this was just ridiculous. Of course, he hadn't set his alarm clock to wake him up because he didn't expect to fall asleep, but still, one-thirty PM? Maybe eleven AM without a wake-up call, but not one-thirty in the afternoon.
Brushing off his odd sleeping patterns with a sigh, Shawn focused his attention on an even bigger problem he had.
He had kissed Carlton that night in the hospital, that he was sure of, but he couldn't really remember anything of the kiss or any response to the kiss. At the moment, the only reaction he could go by was how awkward the detective had been acting the next day. Also, it was a little hard to judge your own reaction when you barely even remember the event.
Shawn had experimented in the past when he was a teen, and not all of the experiments were bad, but that was several years back. The last guy he'd ever been with was when he was twenty-one and after that it has only been women for him.
Yet a part of him was curious about the whole thing. In the back of his mind danced the question: What was it like? Was it good?
Carlton was an interesting man. Uptight, but interesting. He wasn't too bad on the eyes either, and Shawn would be lying if he said he'd never mused over what it would be like to be with the detective.
Still, he had to make peace with the situation because they were practically coworkers and were bound to be working on cases in the future. So Shawn put his curiosity aside and decided to bring the detective a coffee just the way he liked it. Leaning against Carlton's desk, he slid the hot drink over to the man as a silent apology.
'Sorry I flipped out on you and kissed you. Bet they don't have a card for that,' Shawn thought to himself before asking with an easy-going smile, "How's the case going?"
"We have no new leads," Carlton actually admitted with a grumble. "Everything's a dead end."
"I can help," Shawn said automatically.
"You know you can't," Carlton said, referring to the FBI agent's order.
Remembering just who he was currently working for, Shawn said with a frown, "You're right. I can't."
Carlton looked a little surprised when he said that, but said nothing himself. Instead, he took a nice long sip of his coffee, nodding at Shawn in thanks. Smiling again, Shawn knew that now would be the opportune time to leave, but he didn't. Continuing to lean against the desk, his gaze traveled around the station. Everyone was busy doing their own thing and yet activity in the Butcher's room seemed to be at a stand-still.
'Looks like my employer has them stumped,' he thought, then mentally winced. He didn't want to think of the Butcher that way even though it was true. Blissful ignorance would allow him to believe he was just finding evidence on certain people for a client and disregard what said client did with that evidence.
"Is there anything I can help you with, Spencer? Such as showing you the door?" Carlton asked, falling back into the roll of uptight head detective, and snapping Shawn out of his thoughts at the same time.
'No,' he should have said. 'I can see myself out.'
But he was still curious, and he'd never been able to fight his curiosity in the past, so there was no way he was beating it today.
"Actually," Shawn said. "I was wondering if you wanted to go grab some lunch. I want to talk to you about some things."
"I can't right now, I'm swamped with the Butcher case and other cases as well," he said.
"Oh," Shawn frowned, standing up straight.
"I get out at seven though. How about dinner instead?" Carlton asked, surprising the psychic.
It took Shawn a moment to find his voice before he said, "Sure, dinner works. Uh, I can pick you up from here."
"There's no way I'm riding that death trap of a motorcycle," Carlton said. "I'll pick you up."
"I'll be at Psych then," Shawn said with a smile before turning to leave. "See you tonight."
As Shawn disappeared out the front doors of the station, Carlton was left wondering why he agreed to go have dinner with the younger man. Noticing Juliet out of the corner of his eye, standing there with an odd smile on her face, he turned to her and snapped, "What are you smiling about? Shouldn't you be busy working? I think Agent Vardez was looking for you a few minutes ago."
"What? He was?" she sputtered, looking around herself as if the FBI agent would materialize out of thin air. "Cruel, Carlton. Very cruel," she said as she retreated.
As promised, Carlton picked Shawn up at Psych. Neither man really had a preference as to where they should eat, so they stopped at the first nice looking restaurant they came across. Dinner was a bit awkward for the both of them, to say the least. Carlton still had half his attention set on the kiss between them. He didn't know what Shawn wanted to talk to him about anyway, and he was waiting for the younger man to speak up.
Shawn, meanwhile, was trying to get himself to just come out and say that he remembered kissing Carlton when he was drugged. He couldn't manage to form the words though, and he was even a little nervous as to what the detective's reaction would be. What if Carlton was happy Shawn had forgotten and wanted to put the whole thing behind them?
"Good food," Shawn said, both stalling and attempting to break the awkward silence between them.
"Spencer, you told me you wanted to talk to me about some things," Carlton said, a bit frustrated. "So talk."
"Oh, you know, just small talk," Shawn said with a shrug. "Just wanted to know how you've been doing lately. I wanted to thank you again for driving me to the hospital, apologize for trying to hit you and I also kinda rememberthekiss." He shoved a few pieces of chicken into his mouth. "Really good food right? Amazing! How's yours?"
Carlton paused in chewing his steak and took a moment to process what he heard the psychic say. Swallowing heavily, he asked, "You.. remember the kiss?"
Shawn nodded silently.
"Look," Carlton said. "It was the heat of the moment, I get that you were high and I really didn't mean to kiss back but-"
"Wait, you kissed back?" Shawn asked incredulously.
Carlton froze, then said in confusion, "You just told me you remembered it!"
"Kinda, I said I 'kinda' remembered it," Shawn corrected him.
At that moment, Carlton would have liked nothing better than to slink away and erase the whole fiasco from existence.
"Check!" he called out, "Can I get a check over here?"
"Oh great, now you're embarrassed," Shawn said, absentmindedly tearing his napkin to shreds. "Don't be embarrassed. Why should you be? Like you said, it was the heat of the moment. We were both confused. Hey, maybe there was something in your drink too but you didn't drink enough of it because I knocked it over. You're welcome, by the way."
"I am not having this conversation with you right now or ever, for that matter," Carlton hissed, before shouting, "Check! For the love of God, check!"
"Did you like it?" Shawn asked curiously. "Is that why you're embarrassed?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Spencer," Carlton said, the muttered to himself, "Your meal plus my meal... A thirty-five should cover that plus the tip."
Seeing Carlton pull the cash out of his wallet, Shawn said, "You don't need to pay for my meal. We were going to split it, remember?"
"I'm leaving," was all the detective said before getting up and speed-walking away.
"Wait, you're my ride," Shawn said, getting up and running after him.
Carlton was already out the door by the time Shawn caught up and he followed the detective out to the car.
"Why are you acting so strange?" Shawn asked, walking over to the passenger's side door.
"I'm not acting strange," Carlton protested, getting into the driver's side and pulling out his keys. "I'm acting perfectly normal for a guy in this position. You're the one who's acting strange!"
"I didn't realize you were so homophobic," Shawn mused as he sat down in the passengers seat and buckled up.
"I am not homophobic! There is nothing wrong with being gay. I just.." he ran out of words to describe what he was 'just,' and he fell silent. Sitting in his seat, staring forward with the car off and the keys in his hand.
Shawn stared at the detective with a frown, trying to figure out what was going through his head and get a reading off of what this was really all about.
"Carly," he said seriously, and the detective looked over at him. "I get it. Denial, right? And you're unsure. You're a creature of habit and this sort of thing would take you completely off the path. That's fine. If it makes you this uncomfortable, I'll drop it and we can forget about the whole thing."
He still said nothing.
"Something like this should be right for both of us," Shawn said. "Or else it'll be wrong."
Letting go of the steering wheel, Carlton leaned forward and kissed Shawn. It was a tentative kiss, more of a test really. After a moment they both pulled away.
"I liked that," Shawn said, his lips quirked in a small smile. His curiosity was satisfied. It had been good, very good. Carlton had yet to say anything, so Shawn hesitantly asked, "But.. did you like it?"
"I did like it," Carlton finally admitted out loud.
Shawn frowned. The detective may have liked it, but he still looked a little uncomfortable with the whole thing.
"I'm all for this, Carlton, but the next move is up to you," Shawn said.
Coming to a decision, Carlton said, "This isn't something we can broadcast to the station, you know."
"I know," Shawn said. "So what does this mean for us?"
"I'm willing to try it out if you are," Carlton said, looking over at Shawn while fiddling with the car keys. Putting the keys in the ignition, he said, "It's getting late. I'll drop you off, but.. how about another date tomorrow? An actual date?"
"Does dinner time work for you?" Shawn asked with a grin.
"Yeah, same time tomorrow."
After dropping Shawn off, Carlton got a call on his cellphone from Juliet.
"How was dinner?" she asked and he could easily see the evil grin on her face.
"Is there a reason you're calling me, O'Hara?" Carlton deadpanned.
"Yes, actually," she said. "The Butcher has struck again. We need you to come down to Rattlesnake Tavern."
Rattlesnake Tavern? Why did that sound so familiar?
His eyes widened in realization.
"Do you need directions? It's on Olive street just off of East Haley street," she said.
"Yeah, I know, I've heard of the place," he said vaguely, turning his car around and heading for the bar.
"See you there," she said before hanging up.
Rattlesnake Tavern was the very same bar that Shawn had been drugged at. Somehow Carlton didn't think it was a coincidence that the Butcher displayed his victim there. It seemed a tad suspicious though that only a day after Shawn had been drugged, the Butcher struck the very same place.
Carlton decided to keep this little bit of information to himself for now until he was sure of all the facts. The last thing he needed was that FBI agent jumping to conclusions and accusing Shawn of being involved with the case.
Carlton parked among all of the other police vehicles and crossed the police tape to get inside. Pushing through the front door, he was met with a sight just as gruesome as the one found at the CVS. Neatly set up on the bar itself were dozens upon dozens of bottles of all shapes and sizes. Beer bottles, wine bottles, champagne, vodka, the list goes on. Within each bottle was a multicolored slurry, the most prominent color being red.
In the front, middle of all the bottles was a rather large bottle with two dismembered hands placed around it. Carved into one of the hands was the roman numeral XXIV.V and in the other hand was XXXII.V.
"Let me guess," Carlton sighed as he came to stand next to Juliet. "Our victims are in the bottles."
"You guess it right," Juliet said with a grimace. "I don't know what the point-five is about though."
Looking at all the different pictures taped to the wall behind the bottles as well as what looked to be some documentation, Carlton said, "I'm sure we'll find out eventually."
"Here, come look at this," Juliet said, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him closer to the display. "You mentioned finding strawberry leaves in the abandoned car?"
"Yeah," Carlton confirmed.
Juliet pointed to the largest bottle the hands were around without actually touching it, and Carlton leaned in closer for a better look. The bottle seemed to be filled with watered-down blood, and floating around inside the bottle were two sets of eyeballs and a single strawberry.
"His 'calling card,' maybe?" he wondered out loud, and Juliet shrugged.
Looking back at the pictures again, Carlton couldn't help but notice that Shawn's picture wasn't up there.
'Probably because he got away.'
Shawn woke up the next morning with a frustrated sigh. He'd managed to stay awake for half of the night, mostly bugging Gus on the phone, but sleep eventually came for him after Gus hung up on him.
Walking into the kitchen, he stopped and stared at the paper taped to his fridge that hadn't been there the night before. He slowly approached the fridge, as if worried that the paper would come alive and eat him, and leaned down to get a closer look.
It was a list of names. A rather long list of names, and next to each name was a date, a code of numbers, and an amount of money. Taped to the list was a small note that had been printed off of a computer. It said:
You may have to travel abroad.
Detective Lassiter and Shawn... together. This is going to be a problem I would have rather avoided. With those two dating, it'll only be a matter of time before Lassiter notices something suspicious about Shawn and learns of our involvement with each other.
Shawn just doesn't think sometimes. I don't know what made him think dating the detective working on a case he's directly involved in was a good idea. His attraction for the detective made him ignorant and blind to the danger we now face.
An easy solution would be to get rid of the detective. Unfortunately, Lassiter leads a clean life, and not only that, but Shawn would be quite upset if I were to do such a thing. The last thing I want to do is upset Shawn and I doubt he'd work with me after something like that.
That still leaves me stuck in a corner though.
I could try to manipulate them into breaking up, but doing that would put me even more at risk. Exposure is the last thing I want to happen. It would ruin everything. It's just not an option.
The only other thing I could come up with was for Shawn to leave. That's just wistful thinking though. I know he's not going to just up and leave to help me track down my wayward play mates. He'll probably just do his research from Santa Barbara. Still, I felt the comment was necessary, and when it comes time to go hunting out of state, Shawn's not going to have much choice in the matter anyway.
That's the end of chapter seven! So, yes, the Butcher has been revealed to be a guy. Hopefully the whole dinner scene came out okay. (whines) Romance is hard! (clears throat) More to come, probably next Thursday.
Review please!
