Note: I really have no idea how this story got so out of hand that it looks like it's going to end up even longer than Dah-Ling, when it was supposed to be a short little follow up case. But at last we're nearly at the end—one short little epilogue after this, and then this series is finished up. Thanks to everyone for their support and reviews!
It was nearing ten when Shawn ended up at Lassiter's door.
Shawn had gone with Juliet to take Holly home, but he could admit, if only to himself, that he really hadn't needed to stay as long as he had. Eveline took to Holly instantly, and she'd given her the largest room in the house. Aldis was so pleased he hadn't even glared at Shawn all that much when he called him Alfred, and Shawn was guessing optimistically that the strange way his lips had curled was evidence that he could smile after all.
That unlikely group of people seemed to fit together rather well, and Shawn had high hopes for their futures. Even Sani had stopped making pudding long enough to put a real dinner together, and she no longer seemed so ready to leave. Things were looking less pleasant for Andie, but it was of course a requirement for a happy ending that the villain meet a sad end, however reluctantly they were cast. Shawn supposed he should be grateful for all the victories he could get. If he started having sympathy for the killers too, then he wasn't ever going to be satisfied with the end of the case.
Shawn unlocked the door and disabled the security alarm before heading to the kitchen. He was pulling the tab on a Pepsi when Lassiter walked into the room and leaned against the doorway to watch him. He didn't look surprised to see him there, because Shawn knew if he hadn't known it was him he would have barged into the room with his gun already drawn.
"How did you get in?" Lassiter asked.
"Please," Shawn said, gulping down some of the Pepsi. "I've had copies of your keys for years."
"And the security system?" Lassiter asked.
"It's the first four digits of the serial number on your gun," Shawn said. "You could have at least used the last four digits. That probably would have taken me two tries."
Lassiter sighed, not bothering to throw something back at him. Shawn didn't think that was a good sign. "When you ran out earlier, I had this feeling I wouldn't ever see you again," he said.
"This place is my home," Shawn said, setting down the soda and pushing away from the counter. "Not this home specifically, because your take on interior design leaves something to be desired and if I lived here there would be lots of cool things like beanbag chairs, and lava lamps, but what I mean is Santa Barbara. It's my home. I've been running away from it for years but I always end up right back here, because this is where my father is, it's where Gus is. It's where you are."
Lassiter stepped forward and leaned down to kiss him. "You scare the hell out of me, Spencer," he whispered.
"I have it on good authority that love is a terrifying thing," Shawn said. "Maybe we're supposed to be scared. It means it's real."
"I'm sorry about before," Lassiter said. "It's just, you do, Shawn, you scare the hell out of me."
"I think it goes without saying that I also find you utterly terrifying," Shawn said, kissing Lassiter again. "And you don't have anything to apologize for, maybe we just don't work well together. Maybe we work better against each other than together, with you as the police detective, me as the dashing psychic."
"You're not psychic," Lassiter said.
"But I am dashing," Shawn said. "What we've been doing works. Maybe we just need to keep work separate from this."
"I'm not sure I can," Lassiter said.
"You've been doing it all along," Shawn said. "I was the one causing problems. I shouldn't expect you to trust my every gut instinct. It isn't fair."
"I do trust you, Shawn, but I still need to do things my way," Lassiter said. "We can't list 'gut instinct' on an arrest warrant."
"How about 'psychic vision'?" Shawn asked wryly.
"You're not psychic," Lassiter said again.
"I never should have confessed," Shawn said. "Now I don't get to protest anymore that I totally am psychic, and it's just no fun."
Lassiter grinned. "It's only fair that I get to win just this one argument," he said.
"Okay," Shawn said. "But only because you wear smug so well."
Lassiter placed his hands at Shawn's neck, kissing him again as he gave him a little tug down the hall. He pulled to a sudden stop and Shawn lost his balance, crashing into him with a frown.
"Spencer," Lassiter said slowly.
"Yes, Lassie?" Shawn asked, putting one hand on the wall to catch his balance.
"Why is there a picture of Guster on my wall?" he demanded.
Shawn laughed and tugged Lassiter towards the bedroom by the hand. "Took you long enough to notice that," he said. "Good thing it isn't real, or you'd be out $8,000,000."
"You're taking it down," Lassiter told him firmly.
"I'll take it down when you take down yours," Shawn said, and kissed Lassiter gently.
"Deal," Lassiter said reluctantly. "But so help me if you bring a lava lamp into this house, Spencer—"
Shawn pushed Lassiter down on the bed and grinned. "A compromise, then," he said. "I'll settle for a beanbag chair." Then he leaned down, kissing the side of Lassiter's neck.
"Okay, but only one," Lassiter told him. He decided this was really the worst possible way to go about an argument, because he probably would have agreed to a lot more than that, if Shawn had asked for it.
x x x x x x
Lassiter rolled over, and was pleasantly surprised when his arm didn't find empty air. Despite Shawn's assurances that he was not a morning person, he almost always woke before Lassiter. Lassiter snuggled closer to the warm body, frowning when he slipped his hand beneath the sheet and found fur instead of Shawn's smooth skin.
His eyes shot open and he slipped back along the bed. His stuffed panda stared happily back, with its beady black eyes and his pink tongue sticking out the side of his mouth. "I'm gonna kill him," Lassiter hissed, pushing up from the bed to stomp down the hall.
Lassiter pulled open the door to the basement. Shawn was sitting in the middle of the floor, like a kid a candy store, and Shawn would know how to look, having worked at a candy store. He was wearing jeans and Lassiter's old green 'Kiss Me, I'm Irish' shirt, which he must have found somewhere down here. Lassiter went down the stairs and glared down at him. Shawn glanced up and grinned, obviously not picking up on Lassiter's homicidal mood.
How anyone believed the guy was psychic was beyond him.
Shawn held up a pair of maroon and blue pants, his grin so wide it almost split his face. "You have MC Hammer pants," Shawn told him. "I think I could die happy, right now."
"That can be arranged," Lassiter snapped, grabbing them back. "I thought we had a deal."
"We did," Shawn said. "As you can see, I haven't organized anything. In fact, I think it looks even worse now than it did before."
"That wasn't the deal, the deal was you weren't to come down here ever," Lassiter said.
"But it's awesome down here," Shawn said. "How come you never told me you were in your Glee Club?"
"How do you know about that?" Lassiter demanded.
"I read your yearbook," Shawn said. "I never would have thought you were so active in school, and who knew they had a 'most likely to be a police officer' category? They must have made it special for you."
"Out," Lassiter said, pointing up the stairs.
Shawn ignored him easily. "If you didn't want me to come down here, you would have locked the door."
"I did lock the door," Lassiter snapped.
"Huh," Shawn said. "I must have picked the lock then, but my defense stands. You know I can pick locks. If you really didn't want me down here you should have equipped it with a retinal scanner. I probably wouldn't have gotten past that."
"Shawn," Lassiter said resignedly, dropping to sit by him.
"I have a right to know these things about you if we're going to be a real couple," Shawn said. "Like the fact that you liked MC Hammer? We might need couples therapy to get past that one. That's almost as bad as Gus's brief but terrifying obsession with the Spice Girls."
"It's not like my past fashion mistakes have any bearing on my life now," Lassiter said. "Why are you so interested in this old stuff?"
"Because it's yours. Anyway, it's only fair," Shawn said. "You know all of my secrets."
"I do?" Lassiter asked.
"Well, yeah," Shawn said. "There's really only the one. Mostly I'm an open book."
"I don't believe that for a second," Lassiter said.
"Okay, so maybe I was the one that was obsessed with the Spice Girls," Shawn said. "But at least I never wore a mini skirt."
"We're all thankful for that," Lassiter said. He frowned as he noticed the dark circles under Shawn's eyes. He wasn't sure when the last time he'd actually slept was, but it definitely looked to be catching up to him. "You're still not sleeping."
"I slept," Shawn said evasively, "but I couldn't stand it knowing all this was down here, it's like Christmas morning! You know, your house would be a lot more fun if this stuff was upstairs."
"It's down here for a reason," Lassiter said, though he was not entirely sure what it was. Victoria had always kept their house like a model home. He was used to storing anything that didn't look like it belonged in a magazine out of sight. "I don't ever use any of it."
"Things don't always have to be useful," Shawn told him, spinning a trophy from some little league game or another in his hands. "And you never told me, what's the story with Eugene?"
"Eugene?" Lassiter asked.
"I named your panda Eugene," Shawn said. "I was sure that you'd neglected to name him yourself."
"There's no story," Lassiter told him. "I already said, I won it at a carnival."
"That raises so many questions. Firstly, you go to carnivals?" Shawn asked. "Why don't you ever take me out to carnivals? We never go anywhere fun. We always just go and look at dead bodies."
"Carnival, just the one," Lassiter said. "I wanted to play the game, I won, I got the panda and had no one to give to it. End of story."
Shawn frowned. "If that's the end of the story, then why do you still have it?"
Lassiter glared at him. "Why do you have to know everything?"
"Just wired that way, I guess," Shawn said. "Naturally curious. How about this, I'll tell you something you don't know about me, if you tell me something I don't know about you."
"I thought you were an open book," Lassiter said.
Shawn grinned. "I am, but it's a very big book."
"Why did you leave?" Lassiter asked. "The first time?"
"That, you should already know," Shawn said. "You met my father, right? Anyway, you're not doing it right. I said I'd tell you something you don't know. I didn't say you'd get to choose what it was."
"Okay, then," Lassiter said. "Tell me something. And it better not be Spice Girls related, I already know more than I wanted to about that."
"Okay," Shawn said. "For awhile, when I was younger, I actually wanted to be a cop. Wanted to be just like dear old dad."
"What changed?" Lassiter asked.
"I wanted to be a million other things, too," Shawn said, looking way. "It's your turn."
"There were actually, a few times, very few, and very short, where I thought you might actually be psychic," Lassiter said, and winced.
"It was the dinosaur, wasn't it?" Shawn asked.
"Yeah, it was the dinosaur," Lassiter said.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Shawn said, pushing Lassiter down as he moved to straddle him. "I can be very convincing."
"Hey, Shawn?" Lassiter said, as he leaned up to kiss him.
"Yeah?" Shawn asked.
"You can have the panda, if you want," he said.
Shawn grinned, and laid his head on Lassiter's chest. "I thought you'd never ask."
Lassiter moved his arm around him, allowing himself a rare, genuine smile. "Shawn?" he said quietly, but there was no response. Shawn was sound asleep.
He leaned over to place a kiss on the top of Shawn's head. "It's all yours," Lassiter whispered.
x x x x x x
Shawn woke up wrapped in a beat-up Lone Ranger quilt, still in the basement. He frowned as he sat up, noticing that his Lassiter-pillow was gone. There was a note beside him: Got called in to tie up some loose ends and didn't want to wake you. XOXO Lassiter. Shawn laughed at the XOXO, and decided to hold onto the note for blackmail purposes.
He kept the quilt wrapped around him and went upstairs. Lassiter had taken the wanted posters down. They were sitting in a stack on the kitchen counter, with Burton "Buster" Guster on top. Shawn frowned when he saw what was sitting on the counter beside them, and let the quilt drop to the floor as he reached out to grab it.
It was Holly's diary, still unlatched. Lassiter must have found it in the car and left it here. Shawn reached for Lassiter's phone and dialed Gus. "Gus!" he said cheerfully. "Guess what? It's Monday, that's a Gus day, and I need a ride."
"I have to be to work in like an hour, Shawn," Gus said. "Take your motorcycle."
"Look out your front window," Shawn said. "You gave me a ride yesterday, remember? My motorcycle's still there. At least drop me off at your place. Right now I'm stranded at Lassiter's."
"You could take a cab," Gus said.
"And pay him in Skittles?" Shawn asked.
"I'll be there in ten minutes," Gus said, long-suffering, before ending the call.
Shawn pulled on his Kangaroos and then one of Lassiter's suit jackets, because the weather was still strangely winter-like for Santa Barbara at this time of year, though the freak storm had passed them by. He grabbed Holly's diary and ran out to meet Gus.
Gus eyed him speculatively as he got in the car, taking note of the too large blazer and the 'Kiss Me, I'm Irish' shirt. "I'm guessing things between you and Lassiter are back on track?" he asked as he pulled out into the street.
"Not really, I was just robbing the place," Shawn told him.
Gus snorted. "What's so important that I had to rush over here?"
"Don't tell me I interrupted you during your Sponge Bob time again," Shawn said, before slumping in the seat. "You can just drop me off with my bike."
Gus glanced at him, and then shook his head. "I still have some time. Where are we going?"
"Eveline's," Shawn said. "I've got something I need to give back to Holly."
Gus saw the diary and nodded. "I'm glad she didn't have to stay at that hospital," he said.
Shawn nodded, and tried not to think about how Andie did. "Yeah, I think she'll be alright now," he said. "And hey, no ghosts."
"There coulda been ghosts, Shawn," Gus said. "You don't know. They're everywhere."
"They could be in this car with us, right now," Shawn said wryly, and laughed when Gus tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
"You laugh, but one of these times you're not going to have an explanation for something we see," Gus said.
"Well, when that happens, I'll start buying salt in bulk, but right now, let's just take a moment to reflect about how very right I was, once again," Shawn said.
"You were wrong about the butler," Gus said smugly.
"It was the maid. She's like a girl butler," Shawn said.
"They're completely different job titles, Shawn," Gus said.
"Really? What do you call a guy maid then? Or a girl butler, for that matter?" he asked. "Man-maid? Gutler?"
"It's still just maid and butler, whatever the gender," Gus said. "Which means you were wrong."
"Well, I may have been wrong, but at least my suspect had actually been a living person," Shawn said. "You were wrong and your suspect was dead, so I think I still win."
Gus pulled to a stop in front of the gate, and it opened for them once again without prompting. He frowned. "They aren't expecting us this time," he said. "Say what you want, I still think there's something wrong with this place."
Gus pulled to a stop, looking nervously out the window. The clouds had were dark grey, and Gus could have sworn they hadn't looked that way when they were still a couple of blocks away. "I'll just wait here," he said.
Shawn rolled his eyes and got out of the car. He was starting up the steps when he heard someone call his name. He frowned and started back down them, heading towards the side of the house.
"Shawn!" Shawn looked up to see Holly sitting about fifteen up on the limb of a large tree. She waved down at him. She was wearing a bright new blue dress and black Mary Jane shoes. Shawn thought she looked a little like Alice, returning from Wonderland.
"What are you doing up there?" he asked.
Holly carefully made her way down, using he tree limbs as deftly as if it were a ladder. "I used to go up there all the time," she explained. "I remember it being a lot higher than it is, but I suppose I was smaller then."
"How are you doing?" Shawn asked. "Do you like it here?"
"Very much," Holly said. "It's the same place it always was, only it feels like it's not. I think I like it better this way."
"I brought this back," Shawn said, and held the diary out.
Holly quickly took it from his hands, opening it as if to assure herself all of her words were still there. "Thank you," she said. "You're really very kind."
"It's yours," Shawn said. "You were right, it wasn't nice of me to take it in the first place."
"I know you were just trying to find out the truth," Holly said. "And did you?"
"Andie confessed," Shawn said. "Everyone knows the truth now."
"Even her, I suppose," Holly said. "I'm not so sure she did before."
"Have you seen her?" he asked.
"Yes," Holly said. "She's at the hospital, in one of those white rooms. She seems calmer. Maybe it was the same for her as it was for me. Maybe she realized it wasn't so scary after all." Holly snapped the lock on her diary closed. "Or maybe it's the drugs."
"Are you going to be okay?" Shawn asked her.
"Shouldn't you be telling me?" she asked. "Everyone seems to have their opinion."
"I really only care to hear yours," Shawn said.
Holly smiled. "I guess I don't know," she said. "But I'm better. How are you?"
"I'm better, too," Shawn said.
Holly nodded. "Does that mean that you're dreaming again?"
"I'm sleeping again, but I don't think I ever really stopped dreaming," he said.
"That's a good answer," Holly said, and smiled. "I should be going back inside, it looks like rain. You have a pleasant day, Shawn. Come again soon."
"Holly, would you do something for me?" Shawn asked.
"What is it you would like me to do?" she asked, holding her diary to her chest, like she was afraid he was going to ask for it back.
Shawn smiled as he stepped away. "Don't be so polite," he told her, before spinning on his heel to head back.
