Sorry for the delay, but I'm working on a one-shot that is taking a time between forever and forever and half: you know when a project just haunts you and you can't think about anything else in the creative field? Exactly that. Anyway, here's the forth chapter: this time, Jules and Shawn. Shawn's fans, please, don't kill me: just wait for iiit...

Thanks for your support, as always.

P.S.: The word "Comites" meant something between "mates", "partners" and "alleys": very tricky, but I like the ambiguity.

IV – Comites

(Alleys)

He had decided to go to his father's home almost instantly.

He had not even tried to get back to his flat. Just ignored Gus's attempts to talk, staring at the half-glued stickers on the front glass. Pointedly, carefully, because not staring meant thinking and that was not good. The Blueberry purred under him, the questions rose and were promptly stuffed back. Kept breathing.

When his dad opened the door he miraculously didn't ask awkward questions and restricted himself to querys that didn't require more than five words-answers. He asked if there had been an accident; yet it had, was he hurt, no not really, had it been crappy, yeah thanks pretty crappy. Then he had walked in, declining a beer and fully knowing that Gus would spill the beans in the next twenty seconds. He suddenly had to pee, went to the upstair bathroom. And in that moment, with one hand on the seat of his dad's toilet, Shawn Spencer suddenly thought that right now he could be in a world without Carlton Lassiter, and the remains of his lunch ended in the WC.

Then time passed; he cleaned himself, washed his mouth, sit on the couch. Shawn felt thirsty; even tired, the forehead bruises mildly aching.

And nothing else.

It wasn't like he didn't understand, or he didn't care: it was just that he didn't work with tragedies. He was pathetical and pretty useless in that kind of situations: emergencies, wild guesses, everytime you had to understand something or find a way out or just act yes, he was your man, but not when all you could do was sit and morne. Hey, if you pick Bugs Bunny and soak him in sighs and regrets he's not Bugs Bunny anymore, he's just a sad rabbit with a kink for carrots.

And Carlton was the same: it was why they actually functioned in their disfuctional way. They pushed hard, pulled the other back, clashing clumsily as if they had all the time of the world to make it up. If one of them cried, if one of them said that they're not really indestructible and they couldn't jump back up then bang, the balance is broken, they are alone again. They wouldn't be anymore Bugs Bunny and Duffy, or Sylvester Pussycat or whatever gay version you want.

And he didn't want it. Lassie wouldn't want it.

He saw for a moment Jules' face, the sheer betrayal in her eyes.

Ah, quit the crap, Spencer. You don't want it.

He saw the cordless sitting on the coffee table. Jules number was easy, the last four digits being his birthday.

He didn't move.

He heard a shuffle of shoes behind him. Clacking leather, so they must be his dad's absurd sandals. He was vaguely aware of Gus having left some time before, but he wasn't sure.

The steps stopped behind the couch.

-Ehy.-

-Ehy.-

-I'm making pancakes.-

Shawn shifted on the cushions, not repressing a smirk. Ah, bad sign. Henry embraced his sweet tooth and cooked pancakes for dinner only in times of great crysis. They had ate them the day Mom left, when Uncle Jack punched Pope at the Thanskiving Day and the last evening Shawn spent at home, before throwing in a bag a bunch of clothes and cash and fleeing for the next ten years.

Henry knew everything, of course.

Bad, bad sign.

-Ah, thanks Pope, but I'm- I was passionately hugging your toilet not so long ago? -I'm not very hungry right now.-

-Ah. Sure. Okay.-

Silence. Shawn was deliberately staring at his Dad's hairy calves, but he could almost smell the unease hovering around him.

He sighed. -Gus spilled it all, right?-

-He endured up to fifteen seconds.-

-That's my man.-

The room was awfully quiet. Butter-like light poured from the kitchen on the floor tiles.

-How are you, Shawn?-

He cringed. Tricky question: answering "fine" would be dumb, because his father would sense the lie in less than a micro-second. He needed something plausible but not too alarming.

-I...I don't know what I'm feeling.-

-Bullshit, kid. You may not like what you feel, but you know it damn well.-

-Mmm.-

Henry dropped on the couch next to him, turned on the lamp near the television. Waited.

-Shawn, why are you not with Carlton?-

Oh God, yes, Henry knew about them, now he remembered. It had been a tragic mistake involving the petting zoo and his phone's battery, but he couldn't recall the details. Only that it ended with a very purple Carlton, cheeks so red he had to kiss those pouting lips on his doorstep.

Face bleached white, blue lips smeared with red.

He sank his head between his knees, gritting teeth.

-Pope, can't we just pretend to have already had the Comforting- Scolding Talk and proceed? Please.-

-I'm not gonna saying anything like that, kid. And I won't force you to do anything. Surely that wouldn't make me disappointed.- Henry's shirt stretched on the cushion. - But nevertheless, I need to say something.-

He knew what he needed to say.

Shawn, it's hard but it is life, Shawn, if you want this job you better get used to it.

Shawn, at least now you could stop joking and find a nice suitable girl.

-Seriously, Dad, I don't want to hear it.-

-Shawn...-

-Dad...- He pressed his hands on the temples, hard. -Stop it.-

-I...-

-Please.-

For a moment Shawn almost thought he had won, that his father was leaving. Then came an hard sigh.

-I was just going to say that you want to stay with him.-

Shawn looked up abruptly; Henry had straightened, staring intently at the window. Not a clue about his words.

-What?-

-You don't want to let him go like this. Now you think it's not a good move and that you going all freaked won't be of any use and this is absolutely true, because right now nothing you could do would help him.- He sighed again, stared down at his hands. He never seemed so old. -But if you don't go and that is the last chance to stay with him, to see him even just breathe, you'll regret it for all your life.

You're both good guys, good men. Neither of you deserve it.-

Shawn blinked, because his Dad was now watching him. No calculation, for a change. Something too soft in his eyes.

He was serious. Oh God, he was serious.

And for some reason he felt his throat tight, like suddenly there was no more oxigen in the whole world.

His damn blessing. Oh, Carlton would be so pleased.

For a moment, Shawn was about to tell him everything, that he had thrown up after a simple thought and that he couldn't go and that he wanted to still be Bugs Bunny. But he couldn't breathe, and you need oxigen even to be brave.

Henry widened his eyes like he had suddenly realized to have been nearly human for a whole minute, and yet didn't totally regret it. In pure Henry's style, he patted awkwardly Shawn's back.

-I go pick pancakes.-

Juliet O'Hara was sitting for the first time in several hours. She was slumped on a chair in the IC corridor, near the end enough not to be in the way and not enough to feel the silence. Until that moment she had drafted her report, called the PD artificer squad to know the news, sent McNab to the precinct to collect all the case's files.

Jim Polokov, fourty years, boss of the White Hand Gang. Big drug load expected for Thursday the fifth, Shawn found the location. Stop sobbing like a little girl, McNab.

She had talked with the chief, listened carefully to the docs. Gone to the fourth room on the right, brushed her fingers against the double-glass.

Damn, Carlton, what a bad day.

Now she untied her seven-hinch pumps, slowly. The crazy thing was, that it hadn't even been a so dangerous operation; not for their canons, however. She had expected to end in this aisle almost every day of her career, but not today, and somehow this made everything look even more unjust. Her best friend had flat-lined three times, she was alone, no, she was the only one waiting here, and then there had been that moment. That second near the op rooms, when something changed in the air and she just had to stop: not knowing why, just obeying her skin, like you do to dodge a bullet or to listen to a familiar voice. Feeling the same ringing in her ears.

Detective O'Hara kicked away one shoe, feeling like she was falling hard and at speedlight.

What a bad day. I can't breathe. What a bad day.

A cola suddenly appeared at the brim of her sight. Bobbing gently against her shoulder.

-There. I've tried to find a Diet Coke, but there was only that.-

She looked up. Burton was standing near her chair, smile stiff on his lips. He was pale and the blue shirt was wrinkled over the belt, but it was clean. Oh, yeah, he wasn't there. He wasn't there. The sudden anger nearly took off her breath.

-Gus. W-what are you doing here? Shawn?-

-He's with Henry.-

He looked for something to say, found nothing.

-What about Carlton?-

She rested her head against the wall. She had talked with almost no pause for the previous two hours, and still now her mouth felt like concrete. How funny.

-Still critical. Something, something about the subclavian artery, I don't know. - oh no you know, you know perfectly, every darn word of that chart - Maybe you could give a look, later?-

-Sure thing.-

They stayed in silence. Juliet closed her eyes for a moment, Burton didn't sit down. The speaker cracked something about an emergency puke at the third floor.

She swallowed. -He won't come, will he?-.

Gus flinched, talking in that high-pitched squeak she usually found so sweet and now left her absolutely indifferent.

He wasn't there, Shawn isn't here no one but me is here.

-It's complicated.-

-It's pretty simple I think.-

-Jules, listen, I've known him for ages. He, he doesn't do well with these things. After all that happened to him...-

And there she snapped. Juliet found herself standing, blood pumping in her head so hard it hurt. -What, for example, what? He has a father, a mother, a best friend, it doesn't seem so horrible.- She took a step forward, saw him wince. -I'm the one with the fucked up family, I'm the one with trust issues but I'm here.-

-I understand, but really, it's different...-

-No Gus, it's not fuckin' different. I can go with any crap Shawn come with, you know it, but he chose Carlton. It's not like he was the freakish cousin crashed on your doorstep, he was the one he chose, the one he chose instead of the bank guy or the pub girl that gets scared when the counter turns off and almost unerringly comes home every day. We chose him, and so now we must be here.- She couldn't breathe. How you dare, Shawn Spencer. How you dare let me here, alone. -And right now I don't give a damn about your friend's feelings.-

She turned, leaning on the opposite wall. Inhaling deeply like Carlton said. Breathe, think, act.

God it wasn't working.

She had expected Gus to leave, more or less definitively: they were defending their own best buddies, it was a doomed short circuit. Instead, his loafers pattered nearer.

-What about you, Jules?-

-Sorry?- She turned, for a good half actually lost.

-How are you, Jules.-

His voice was low. His eyes so warm, sweetly, cliché-like warm.

-I...- Gosh, she honestly didn't know. How stupid. -I...-

She passed a hand through her hair, found bits of ash, of Carlton's blood. Her heart broke.

-I'm disheveled.-

And when the tears began, Gus was hugging her.