Takes place just after the timeline of Supernatural episode 5x03 "Free To Be You And Me" (Dean and Cas capture Raphael in the summer of 2009).

TWO YEARS LATER

"I see a dark space," Shawn said loudly, throwing his arms out and missing Gus by inches.

"Yeah, it's dark everywhere, thanks," Lassiter said, his arms folded. "You want to stop wasting everyone's time?"

Shawn turned around so that Chief Vick and the line of uniforms on either side of the detectives couldn't see his face. "How many and where are they?" he whispered, waving his arms in the air back and forth a little for effect.

"Chief, we've been over this area once already," Lassiter told her. "There's nothing here, and he could be three hours away by now."

Shawn spun around fast, one arm pointed to the left. "I see a hostage!" he said. "And a number—eighteen! He's got someone with him and they're in one of the storage sheds!"

"Detective Lassiter, take three officers and go that way," Vick ordered, pointing. "Detective O'Hara, with me and the rest and around the back. Mr. Spencer, you and Mr. Guster stay put."

Shawn stepped back obediently as the cops scattered. "Thanks, Lassie," he said softly, and grinned when Lassiter glanced back at him before rounding the corner of a line of sheds, his gun out and pointed at the ground.

"If that scumbag's hostage is a woman, slam his ass into the roof of the car," Gus added, also in a whisper. Shawn listened carefully, and then he nodded at Gus and bumped fists with him when he heard the familiar sounds of arrest.

Detectives O'Hara and Lassiter came back around to the squad cars, dragging the man Shawn had glimpsed two days ago, running away from a home invasion, between them. Juliet opened the door, and Shawn saw the edge of Lassie's foot trip up their suspect, causing him to knock his forehead against the door frame.

"Whoops," Lassiter said mildly.

"Oh no," Juliet said. "See what happens when you forget your glasses?"

"And when you kidnap sweet, innocent, single ladies!" Gus muttered, folding his arms and glaring. He looked at Shawn hopefully. "Maybe?"

Shawn glanced at Lassie, and then he shook his head at Gus when Lassiter rubbed at the third finger of his left hand. "Sorry, she's married."

"She wasn't wearing a ring," Gus said, disappointed. "I looked."

Shawn shrugged. "Maybe that ass-basket who took her hostage stole it. You want to go ask her?"

"No." Gus sighed, and then dropped his voice even lower. "Your stupid vampire boyfriend can probably smell him on her."

"My vampire boyfriend, with his awesome vampire senses, can also still hear you," Shawn pointed out. Then he snickered when Lassie looked deliberately in their direction and Gus put on his Who, Me? face.

"Excellent job, Mr. Spencer," Chief Vick said as she walked over, tilting her head a little at him. "As usual, that was very impressive. Come see me tomorrow for your check."

"Chief totally suspects something, doesn't she?" Shawn asked Lassie later, as they headed for home.

"She's suspected you from the start of being a fake," Lassiter said. "A year ago she started to seriously reevaluate that assumption. She'd believe in you completely by now, since the evidence all stacks up that way, if she wasn't a true skeptic. In the end, it doesn't matter, because we're getting results."

"Damn good results," Shawn said, pleased. "You and me are practically unstoppable." He sat back in his seat and grinned with his eyes closed. "You are the night, and I am the sight. Wet yourself, Santa Barbara."

"But you're not the sight," Lassiter protested.

"Oh, fine, ruin my super-sweet crime-fighting-duo rhyme with your technicalities," Shawn scoffed. "How about, I am the light? As in, the light of your life? Right? And you are the... bite?" He grinned when Lassie's eyes slid over to him and he licked his lips. "Totally," Shawn said, his voice slightly breathy as Lassiter put the car into park and turned it off. "I've got all sorts of bodily fluids you can suck."

It took almost everything he had to not climb into his lap right there in the car, but they had an amazingly big, comfy bed that Shawn loved to be fucked into, so he scrabbled for his car door and stood impatiently on the sidewalk for a second before realizing Lassiter was frowning at the house. Shawn turned and looked closer, glanced up the street, and then rolled his eyes when he remembered Juliet mentioning she had a 'big date' that night.

"There's someone in there," Lassie said, behind Shawn now. "One heartbeat."

"Yeah." He sighed. "Dean Winchester."

Lassiter looked at him sharply. "I'm not picking up his scent," he said. He'd been on watch for it since the last time that asshole and his brother had been in town—almost a year ago the Winchesters had taken it upon themselves to 'check up' on Lassiter, which had irritated him and Shawn but had been welcome input for both Gus and Juliet (for very different reasons)—but there had been no indication of them returning at all, as far as he knew. Still, he didn't doubt that Shawn knew what he was talking about; it was just annoying that he'd known first. Who, as Shawn had put it, was the night around here?

"Are you picking up anyone's?"

He looked around more carefully as he breathed in, and after a moment he shook his head. "No. He's masking himself. What was it Gus found? Saffron and trillium?"

"Yeah, that sounds right." Shawn hooked his thumbs into his jeans pockets and cocked his head, considering. "Should we sneak up on him?"

"No, he'll have heard the car and I'm sure he's watching," Lassiter said, annoyed. He went to the front door and turned the knob, knowing it would have been unlocked since he and Shawn had left that morning.

Dean was lounging in Shawn's favorite chair, his boots propped comfortably on the coffee table. "Well, hey," he greeted. "If it isn't Twilight and Fright Night."

"Get your feet off my table, Winchester," Lassiter ordered, putting his briefcase down in his own armchair.

"Am I supposed to be Twilight?" Shawn asked indignantly. "I'll have you know that golden time is my best lighting."

Dean snorted, sitting up and returning his feet to the floor. "I'll bet," he said. "So... how's tricks? Everything cool here?"

Lassiter folded his arms and smiled thinly. "Sure," he said. "How's your new boyfriend?"

Dean raised an eyebrow at him. "What makes you think I have one?"

"Easy," Shawn said. "You're all clean and spiffy, which means you just got out of the shower, and I somehow doubt you got dolled up just for the likes of us, especially since you shaved, too. But you're not wearing aftershave or cologne, so you're probably not trying to make some girl forget you normally smell like ballsweat and desperation. Your clothes are clean, but you need new jeans, dude." Shawn grinned and pointed. "The knees of those are wearing thin, much faster than the rest of the denim. Also, you have a hickey, and a small irritation on your neck, like from someone else's face stubble."

"He still smells like ballsweat and desperation," Lassiter said, and then he snorted. "Some of which isn't his."

Dean shook his head. "I hate you guys."

"I'm cool with that," Shawn said. "But as you'd know if you checked, we're totally cool here. Lassie was even looking good for assistant chief, with his amazing arrest record, but—"

"I turned it down," Lassiter said, and he shrugged. "I wouldn't have thought that was in me a few years ago, but I work better when I can get out there and find people."

"Besides, why ride a desk when you can ride me, right?" Shawn said, and grinned brilliantly. Dean rolled his eyes and Shawn went on. "And as for me, while I may not actually have psychic powers, I've made besties with a few spirits via the talking board that witch we met gave me for my birthday, and they've helped us take down three cursed objects, two poltergeists, one werewolf, and a partridge in a pear tree."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "So you're hunting now? That's new."

"Not deliberately." Shawn shrugged. "But if anything wanders in our part of the world, we invite it to get the fuck out."

"This is our city," Lassiter said. "We are responsible for keeping people safe, and we do it."

"Hmm," Dean said, and considered that. Then he nodded and stood up. "Good deal. Uhh... one more thing. Just so you know... my brother may have accidentally let Lucifer out of his cage. He's walking the Earth and we all might be dead soon. Just in case you want to, you know. Look out for demons, angels, the Apocalypse."

"Any one of those?" Lassiter asked sarcastically, while Shawn stared blankly at this new information.

"Yep," Dean said. "Though in my experience, Archangels are the biggest bitches. Just...if you come across anything, you know. Drop a dime, we'll see what we can do."

"Awesome," Shawn said after a moment. "Well... I guess we'll be on the edge of our seats for that." He looked uncertainly at Lassiter, who looked back evenly, and then he glanced at Dean again. "Oh, one more thing. Your left rear tire is a little low. Also, you parked on the wrong side of the street, and it's street-cleaning day."

Dean looked startled for a moment before snorting. "Yep, that sounds about right." He headed for the front door, giving both Shawn and Lassiter a small salute on the way by. "See you on the flip side, losers, I gotta split."

"Date night," Shawn agreed. "Don't wait up for Sam—Jules has missed him. Have a good cockapocalypse with your own boyfriend."

Dean snorted as he opened the door. "Whatever."

"You should call that witch for a séance to find out more about this," Lassiter said to Shawn as the door closed, and then rolled his eyes to himself. "There's a sentence I never thought I'd hear myself say."

"I'll call her later. Right now I'm hungry," Shawn said, and he headed for the fridge. He opened the door, and then he stared in horror at the empty space. "Losechester!" He came into the living room just as he heard a loud engine gun down the road. "Jerk! He stole my pie!"

"I know," Lassiter said. "I smelled it on his breath. Looks like you're going to have to snack on me instead."

"Oh... suck it, Lassie."

.

It was majorly weird to feel good at the end of the world, but hell, if not then, when? The weather was perfect and his baby purred contentedly as he walked her up the highway, tapping his fingers on the door where his arm rested.

"Hello, Dean."

He closed his eyes briefly and grinned before turning to look at Cas, who had just materialized in the front seat. "Hey," he said.

"Where is Sam?"

"Date night," Dean said, and snorted.

"And the vampire you wanted to check on?"

"Fine." He laughed a little and shook his head. "It's all good, Cas. Weirdly, awesomely, fucked-up good. The not-psychic is taking psychic lessons, the vampire is cutting down crime rates as lead dick of the PD, Sam's half in love with the chick who tried to break my face, and the angel on my shoulder spends just as much time in my bed."

Castiel smiled. "Now that Raphael is actively hunting me, being close to you is the only time that I feel blessed. Are we going to your bed?"

"Definitely," Dean said, and he reached over to lay his hand on the inside of Cas's thigh. "But first we're gonna ride, we're gonna fly while we can."

Cas considered that. "I can fly," he said, and then offered, "I could take you up with me, if you wanted."

"You already do," Dean said. When Castiel smiled at him again, pleased, Dean hit the accelerator and they flew.

Shawn skidded to a stop, relieved to finally find Gus in the Psych office, standing in the back room and facing the back door. His friend hadn't answered his phone for the last two days, and although Lassie had insisted that Gus was probably taking some time off or—for some reason—doing that 'real work' thing, Shawn hadn't bought it. Gus always answered his phone, and when he felt the primal urge to tuck in his shirt and respectfully pimp himself out in doctor's offices, he never refused to half-heartedly shove Shawn's face in it (which was, more often than not, clearly a subcutaneous cry for help, for rescue from the dullery of pharmaceutical sales). Shawn had attempted to file a Missing Persons report on him, but Juliet had gently—but firmly—turned him back around toward the entrance to the department, reminding him that one couldn't file such a report after half an afternoon of getting no responses to his texting.

Which was ridiculous—Shawn had challenged Gus on the reality of jackalopes. For Gus not to respond to that meant something was wrong.

And there was the fact that Shawn had put a GPS tracker into the inside lining of Gus's sample case (for his protection, of course—there were monsters out there, ones much less hot than Lassie when he had fangs) and the tracker had gone dark sometime yesterday morning.

"Buddy," Shawn greeted, almost dropping the smoothie he was holding in his surprise. "There you are! Where have you been—I've been trying to find you! Did you try to prove me wrong and stumble upon a nest of jackalopes?" He paused. "Oh my god, can jackalopes fly? Did they make you one of their own? You got into the clan and you didn't call me?"

"Shawn... Spencer."

"That's my name, don't wear it out," Shawn said automatically. In deference to his advanced age and higher station in life these days, he just managed to leave out the second line, oft-chanted in their schoolyard days: Touch my butt and poop comes out. When Gus still didn't turn around, Shawn frowned a little. "Gus, are you okay? Do I need to say your name like a robot too? Burton. Guh—ahh!"

When Shawn's best friend in the world whirled around to face him, Shawn's quick eyes saw everything at once: the blood around his nostrils, the lips stretched into an insane grin that was far too wide, the black, black eyes. Gus—or the thing inside him—started to walk forward. Shawn's smoothie hit the ground.

to be continued...