"NO! STAND DOWN!" Lassiter yelled as Buzz turned to Shawn with wide eyes, clutching his bloody torso before falling into the kneeling man's arms and tipping both of them into the vat of wax.

"Shawn!" Gus shouted as the gunfire quieted and he ran like a football player through the chaos of museum security sparring over the shot. Juliet reached the top of the vat just after Gus followed by Lassiter as Henry was handcuffed for punching a security officer who tried to get in his way.

For a minute, Shawn and Buzz floated on a chunk of molten wax that had formed on the top of the vat because of the cold water from above. But the wax split like an ice floe in spring. Shawn gasped in pain as he struggled to remain afloat, holding Buzz's head above the surface for as long as he could.

Gus lurched to his stomach on the edge of the grate and groped downward. His hands didn't come close to touching the tip of Shawn's fingers.

"I-I'll be b-back,," Shawn gasped, his mouth set in a grim line.

"Really, Shawn, The Terminator?" Gus choked sadly as he grabbed for the block and tackle to try to reach the quickly sinking men.

Lassiter brought the screaming match between Henry and security to a screeching halt by swearing by sweet lady justice that he'd personally see to it that they'd all lose their jobs and go to jail if they didn't get it together and get his officers out of that damned vat. It was clear that he had more authority than the young security officers there combined, and jurisdiction be damned, they would listen by sheer fear of the man.

Shawn didn't want to look down, but McNabb was slipping from his grasp, his head lolling downward.

"Nabby, don't do this," Shawn begged as yep, the distinct color of Jaws-blood-red mixed with the wax. A real person was melting with fake ones. Shawn kept praying that his feet would hit bottom but he knew they wouldn't.

"G-Gus, I could use that door f-from the Titanic movie display right about n-now. And … and I won't be like Rose. I'll share."

"Just hang on Shawn." Gus choked as Juliet helped with the block and tackle.

Lassiter demanded the key to Henry's cuffs. Henry sprinted to the top of the vat in seconds, grabbing the block and tackle from Juliet as Lassiter called an ambulance.

"Hold on kid, we're gonna get you out. You're gonna be fine," Henry said.

And damned if Shawn didn't wish Henry would yell at him so he knew he'd be okay.

"Buzz!" Shawn screamed as Buzz slipped impossibly further into the wax.

"I c-can't hold him!" Shawn sobbed as his own voice gurgled as the wax burped up into his face.

"Gus, use this wax to seal a strongly worded letter to Tussaud's. Th-they melted Nancy Reagan. I saw her clothes next to Bush's. Kinky. N-now how will people know to j-just say no to drugs? Look – at what happened to Lassieface and – Buzz."

That's it, Shawn, distract yourself from the pain…Gus smiled down at Shawn in what he hoped was more encouraging than a grimace.

Shawn dragged his hand up from the wax and felt for McNabb's pulse but the heat and coating took away all of his dexterity and feeling so Shawn drowned out all the yelling and chaos and stared at Buzz's forehead where a violently blue vein had surfaced in a V formation. Shawn shut his eyes and concentrated on his arms that he wrapped around his friend. His chest was not moving.

"He's not breathing!" Shawn screamed. Shawn's foot found purchase on what felt like the un-melted hind end of a wax cow and Shawn had a flash of distinct hoof marks in the dust of an absent bovine from the western display from earlier.

Shawn's fingers slipped on Buzz's nostrils as he tried to pinch his nose. He tipped Buzz's head back, balancing on the bovine butt as he tried to ignore the pain of being cooked alive. He blew three quick breaths into Buzz's mouth and listened for a return of air exchange. There was none.

"He's … dead," Shawn gasped.

"Keep trying, Shawn," Gus instructed.

Shawn wheezed out a breath, gulping in as much air as he could before forcing it from his body to Buzz's.

Once the block and tackle was ready, it was clear that Shawn couldn't reach up to grab it, his hands were too slippery and he was the only thing preventing Buzz from sinking faster.

Gus looped his legs through the rope and hung upside down, instructing Juliet to lower him down as Henry and Lassiter squeezed together on the small ledge to grab Shawn and Buzz.

Gus looked away from Buzz's blue-tinged lips. "Give me your arms, Shawn," he said quietly to his best friend. "I'll get him, I swear."

The heat had taken Shawn's ability to think coherently and he slurred as though drunk.

"A-alive, Gus … he's alive. N-neck pulse."

Gus doubted that but to expedite things because Shawn was not letting go of Buzz even if they both died, he reached for the young officer.

The tendons stood out on Gus' surprisingly toned arms and he shook as he pulled with all his might not to lose McNabb. Electricity helped pull them both up but did nothing to secure the slippery victim in his arms or take the weight burden from him as the blood rushed to his head.

Just as Gus's hands grew warm and slippery from the hot wax, Henry and Lassiter took his burden and passed him, mosh-pit-style to the floor. Juliet turned the block and tackle hoist over to a security officer and jumped down the last rungs of the ladder to kneel next to McNabb. Her hands slipped on the waxy chest as she tried to perform CPR the best she could while praying for Gus to bring Shawn safely up.

Gus tried to get some of the wax off of his hands as Lassiter tried to help him lower himself down again.

"Guster, it would be better if I try this time. My hands are at least dry to begin with, I'll have more purchase to grip."

This made sense so Gus wound the ropes around Lassiter's ankles and the head detective started his ascent just as Shawn's body shifted and his arms wind-milled into an awkward backstroke as he sunk out sight.

… and that kiddies is why people ride horses and not cows, Shawn's heat-stroked brain told him.

"Hold your breath! I order you to hold your breath, detective!" Lassiter commanded as he fished up to his armpits in the hot wax, holding just his head out, His fingers found hair. It would have to do. Lassiter grabbed the nape of Shawn's neck and wound his fingers in as much hair as he could get a-hold of.

"Pull us up, damn it, I can't hold 'im for long!" Once Shawn's head appeared, Lassiter slipped his arms around his chest as best he could. The heat had eroded Lassiter's strength and the adrenaline had deserted him long ago when shots had rung out when they shouldn't have. His body shook as he clung to the young man whose father waited with open arms at the top.

Shawn's eyes were closed. He never made a sound. Wax dripped from his open lips as once again, hands caught him and guided him to the floor.

Gus slid his way to his friend's side in seconds, with a brief glimpse of Juliet still doing chest compressions on Buzz.

"Not breathing!" Gus shouted as Shawn's body shuddered. But his friend's chest was sucking in and out uselessly.

"Roll 'im!" Henry shouted as Shawn vomited wax amidst groans of pain and tried to claw at his eyes which were sealed.

Lassiter slid Shawn away from the pool of wax vomit with Gus and Henry then went to help Juliet with Buzz and take over CPR.

"Go find an AED!" Lassiter shouted at the nearest officer who ran from the room and returned seconds later with the device.

Between Lassiter's compressions, Juliet tore Buzz's shirt open, plastic buttons pinging in every direction. She scraped the blood and wax away as best she could and applied the AED pad. The indications to shock appeared and the machine did its work.

No conversion, the AED announced before trying again with no success.

"McNabb, You will not die. That is an order, constable!"

The AED charged and Buzz's body arched as his heart began to beat sluggishly but he fought for every breath he took.

On the other side of the vat, Shawn struggled to breathe. He tried to roll onto his back to take the pressure from the side of his injured knee, but someone held him gently but firmly on his side.

So hot ... why was it so hot? The senses upon which the young detective relied were muted. There were voices but they were bodiless in the haze of a sliver of white shadow.

"He's going into shock," Henry advised Gus. "Where the hell are the medics!"

Using a line from Madagascar, Gus used a different approach with his best friend. "I swear to God, Shawn, if you die, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna strangle you, then bury you, then dig you up and clone you and kill all your clones and not talk to you again."

Henry pinned his son's hands to his side as Shawn tried desperately to claw at his eyes again.

With a thrill of horror, Gus realized that Shawn's left eye was open slightly and still covered in milky white wax.

"Shawn, try to be still, the paramedics will be here soon."

"I've heard of w-wax in the ears, but this is … ridiculous," Shawn gasped as his eyes flew open behind the molten wax which didn't separate in the slightest and caused the fake psychic to cry out in agony and with renewed strength, he fought the hands holding him down before becoming limp, his pupils disappearing behind the wax as they rolled back in his head.

"Shawn!" Henry yelled as Gus futilely tried to scoop more wax from Shawn's mouth before he choked again.

Banging sounded from somewhere behind them. Something shattered and a young man spilled from a door onto the floor. "Didn't anyone hear me! I yelled and banged on the door before getting under a table in the darkroom," he yelled to the security guards. You were supposed to sweep the building if an alarm goes off."

Taking in the chaos around him, he shifted gears.

"What happened here?" he asked, stepping around the trails of wax.

"What temperature is that wax?" Lassiter asked, getting right to business.

"Were they … in the…"

The man pushed his hands through his blonde hair as it fetched up in his ponytail. He walked around the vat and bent to examine a gauge no one else had seen in all confusion.

The man blew out a long breath. "It's hotter than a manicure dip or hair wax … but if they weren't in long, they could make it. We melt slowly or the wax burns and takes on a tint … they're … sort of … poached? If you don't get their temps down, they will die," he said with certainty.

No one was surprised but they had been kept busy keeping Shawn and Buzz's hearts beating and supporting their breathing.

Juliet's hand rested on Buzz's chest as Lassiter peeled wax from his forearms. Adrenaline had kept him focused on anything but the pain in his arms. The wax peeled like bandage glue, taking hair with it and leaving sunburnt looking skin behind.

"We need to peel the wax off. I don't know what's keeping the paramedics but if we're to cool them down, we need to get it off."

Lassiter swallowed his own agony and propped Buzz up slightly as fresh blood blossomed across the officer's chest. Juliet bit back small sobs as she peeled Buzz's shirt off. The areas where the wax was somewhat diverted from his skin by his shirt were pink with heat but the areas where the shirt had ridden up, were angry red and coated in wax. She slapped her fingers under the wax, slicing it through it with an index fingernail and peeled.

"Lassiter you're lucky you didn't get dunked, your stern bush wouldn't thank you for that," Gus said and Juliet smiled despite her grim task. Thank God for Gus, he was doing exactly what Shawn would want him to do.

Shawn woke screaming, wondering why he was being skinned and gutted like one of his father's prized fish. His flesh had tried to sweat under the wax and he slipped from Henry's grasp and rolled to his back arched up only on his elbows and heels, head back exposing the throbbing tendons in his neck as he gasped pitifully.

"Shawn, breathe, just try to breathe, try to calm down, the paramedics are coming. It's going to be okay … you're going to be okay."

None of it reached Shawn's ears but Gus had no choice but to continue his torturous task as a security guard was enlisted to help hold him down.

Lassiter get my purse!" Juliet ordered her boss who obeyed from her tone alone. Juliet flung the contents of her bag across the room until she found plastic packets she was looking for.

Without embarrassment, Juliet extracted a feminine hygiene pad. "Apply pressure with this, it's sterile and he's bleeding out now that the wax is gone."

"Get his pants," Jules ordered the wax artist who stood stock still like his creations in fear. "Please," Juliet added as a security guard yelled into his radio.

"You've got to be freaking kidding me, we have two people who are going to die if the paramedics don't get here like ten minutes ago."

"What now?" Lassiter hissed, trying to hide his pain as he worked on peeling wax from Buzz's abdomen. It was a good thing that Buzz had taken up … dancing There was no hair on his chest to impede the peeling.

Juliet breathed a sigh of relief as Buzz's pants and boots came off in one, solid piece, leaving his legs hot and pink but not covered in wax. Buzz's boxers were wax free so Lassiter left them in place.

Shawn wasn't quite as lucky; his sandals had allowed his feet to become ensconced in the drying wax and a small bit had made its way up his ankles. Someone produced a pair of scissors and Gus cut away his pants, wincing as Shawn's knee was exposed, twice its normal size and black and blue. When Gus removed Shawn's sandals a sickening THWUCK THWUCK! sounded as the wax peeled away with them leaving white skin under the strap's protection and violent red where the skin had been bare.

Shawn's body went limp in his father's arms mercifully still breathing.

"You won't believe this but this is La La Land – tourists are creating a mob that is keeping firetrucks and ambulances busy; they think this is all some publicity stunt for a movie because of the paparazzi that's been hovering around to get a scoop on that dizzy actress. They've been asking real firefighters for an autograph! I swear I'm moving outta this crazy town."

"Guster, you said your car was parked illegally right out front?" Lassiter said. McNabb isn't going to wait anymore. We gotta get him to the hospital." Lassiter changed improvised bandages on Buzz's chest as they blossomed with blood. "We'll elevate his feet over the seat and hold him steady in the back of my car and you take Spencer in your car. I don't think he has spinal injuries, we'll have to be able to bend them."

"How are we going to carry them out of here?" Juliet asked, "Even with all-hands-on-deck, it's too much instability."

"Baywatch," Gus gasped, trying not to puke as he pulled off Shawn's shirt and the wax went with it but stayed in a perfect bust of his torso, back of head and neck.

"Gus, don't speak idiocy," Lassiter growled through clenched teeth.

Gus ignored the pained man.

"No, Baywatch, there's a display down the hall, there's backboards and everything, right near Hasselhoff."

"On it," the security guard said, noticing for the first time that the guard who'd shot Buzz was gone. He returned less than a minute later with the backboards and towels he'd snagged from the wax sunbathers.

On the count of four, Buzz's battered body was lifted onto the backboard and Lassiter, Juliet and two guards took off with him. Shawn cried out as his body was placed on the backboard and as his father reluctantly strapped his feet down, his hands slipped from Gus's slippery grasp and ripped the wax from his eye sockets. He moaned, jamming his palm into his left eye, the other eye squinting up.

Shadows were all that he could discern. The voices continued as someone took his hands and forced them to his side, strapping his chest down, a towel between him and the strap sawing like sandpaper on his reddened skin.

"G-Gus? Dad?" Shawn whispered hoarsely.

Shawn's eyes fell on his father and his best friend but there was no recognition, only fear.

Gus placed his hand in Shawn's palm and traced the scar Shawn had accidentally made on him when they were kids trying to jump off roofs with umbrellas. Gus nodded to Henry, who'd paled.

Shawn couldn't see.

Gus prompted Henry out of his temporary stupor by placing the once retired detective's hand in his son's. Shawn's fingers traced the callouses and fishhook scars along his father's fingers.

"Y- you're – real," Shawn said before his eyes rolled back in his head again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Juliet drove Lassiter's car while Gus drove his and with lights flashing and sirens wailing, she guided them through the throngs of frenzied tourists and super fans. Once clear of the hoards, a stopped firetruck blinked its lights at Juliet and she stopped, hopping out of the car and explaining the situation while fishing for her useless badge.

Firefighters hopped from their rig carrying oxygen and medical supplies, two of them wore paramedic gear.

"Chief, we've got severe hyperthermia in both victims," a paramedic called. "ETA to St. Francis is twenty-five minutes in this traffic. We've been advised to take cooling measures."

Lassiter stood in the background, his arms around his body. Three yellow plastic tarps were placed on the ground and Juliet had ratted out her injured boss as a firefighter escorted him to sit down despite his protests.

The paramedics spoke to a doctor on their radios. An IV was inserted into Buzz's arm and one directly into his carotid. Combat gauze was placed over his bullet wound and the paramedic inserted an oral airway while another assisted his breathing. McNabb remained still as stone as the paramedic noted cyanosis to the doctor.

"Temp is one-oh-five, tactile," the paramedic working on Shawn announced as he inserted an IV into Shawn's arm.

"Ow," Shawn groaned weakly.

"I know, kid, sorry," Henry said.

Shawn never heard the apology but the tone suggested that the IV wasn't the only thing he was sorry about.

"We're ready, Cap," the paramedic called. "Gently hold his legs and arms," the mustached man instructed. "It's imperative that we get his temperature down or he's going to convulse."

Henry and Gus nodded, looking sick as the engineer set the hose nozzle to gentle spray and Shawn's body was showered with cold water alongside Buzz who was undergoing the same treatment seemingly without the threat of waking up as no one held the young officer down.

"GAH!" Shawn screamed, suddenly shocked into consciousness when he desperately craved to pass out. "St-stop, please?" His voice was childlike, coming out of the dark. "C-cold – please stop!" Goosebumps rose on his flesh despite his core temperature.

"Shawn," the kind paramedic said, leaning into Shawn's line of sight to at least present a shadow. "I'm Mike, a paramedic with L.A.F.D. We're here to help you. You're going to be alright very soon but right now, what's happening is that your body is too hot and we need to get you cooled."

"H-hurts," Shawn sobbed, tears leaking from his eyes that ran oddly down the wax tracks on his red face.

"I know it. I know it does," Mike soothed. "I've been there before, big fire in '89 in Yosemite when I was green as grass and new to the department. Got too close to the dragon and he nearly ate me."

Henry was glad for Mike's easy banter. He and Gus were out of words.

Mike took Shawn's pulse. "I think we can give you something for the pain now, kid," he said, fishing out a prefilled syringe and inserting it into Shawn's IV.

Gus swallowed the lump in his throat. Shawn's body loosened but he didn't go deadly limp as he'd done when he'd passed out.

"'S- cold." Shawn's teeth chattered and it broke Henry's heart. It was usually his job to tell his son to suck it up but it was Mike's now albeit in not such a mean way.

"I know. Hey, Cal give 'em a break while I get a set of vitals," Mike hollered and the engineer shut off the hose looking relieved. The engineer looked like this was his least favorite task.

"One-oh-two and falling," Buzz's paramedic announced. "Time to go!"

"One—oh-three point four here, hit 'im again, Cal," Mike said with regret lacing his words.

Henry and Gus shivered as they held Shawn's legs and arms as Shawn squirmed before the meds took effect finally.

"C-cold, please st-stop – but you said – you said – I was h-hot – someone tell Juliet – that I'm hot. She doesn't n-notice."

With every gasp of cold from Shawn, Gus's heart broke a little more.

"Hey G – Gus, there's a fine line b-between cuddling and holding someone down so th-they can't get away," Shawn smirked as his entire body shivered.

Gus let a chuckle escape him. That was Shawn, joking through the pain.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Henry, Gus, Juliet, and the security guards were dismissed from their duties as soon as the ambulances with McNabb and Shawn were unloaded at St. Francis Hospital and the two men disappeared behind separate trauma room doors with the paramedics who would inform the doctors of the situation before leaving.

Lassiter's face held a tinge of green as he reminded Juliet that technically, McNabb was under arrest.

"They're taking him straight to surgery," Juliet said tiredly. "If he makes it, he'll be out for some time but we forgot to tell his doctors about his exposure to the drugs and God knows what else."

Juliet lead her boss to the duty nurse's desk and began the arduous task of explaining Buzz's condition prior to being shot and nearly boiled alive. After the nurse had spoken to detectives from Santa Barbara, she informed Buzz's surgical team of any further complications and then guided the dead-on-his-feet Lassiter to an examination room. Juliet made to follow the head detective into the room.

"O'Hara?" Lassiter said, wide-eyed as the nurse handed him a hospital gown. He gestured for her to leave. Juliet merely turned around as Lassiter removed his clothing which until now, he hadn't realized were covered in blood and wax.

"I just need a minute," Juliet whispered. "I can't face Henry and Gus right now. And if Shawn doesn't…"

"I'm not that lucky, O'Hara," Lassiter sighed without a trace of remorse evident but when Juliet turned around she caught him swipe suspiciously at his eyes.

The nurse turned Lassiter's hands over in hers and instructed him to hop up on the exam table. She left the room only to return a minute later with a set of scrubs in her arms.

"I think you should change," the nurse instructed the exhausted-looking Juliet. "Use the patient shower down the hall but be quick."

"You'll be okay?" Juliet asked Carlton.

"'M not five O'Hara, geez," Lassiter practically squeaked.

Juliet nodded and left.

XXXXXX

Shawn's eyes shot open as the blood pressure cuff inflated on his upper arm. No one who was touching him was tall enough to be his attacker but the white uniforms all around him blended with the faces and bright lights above him. The thump thump thump staccato of his heart and the swoosh of still-too-hot blood pumping thickly through his veins set his teeth on edge. His brain kept receiving messages like a broken computer as he tried to feed it information – how many hats – how many people in the room – Does Juliet know your secret? Error – Error…

A/N No, Yin's not done yet and Santa Barbara's finest will have to figure out how to proceed out of their element while in Los Angeles. Until next time, thanks very much for the alerts, reviews, and favs, they are much appreciated. Please review if you can.