[[Author's Notes:

I have two – three? – things to apologize for here. No. 1: how long it took to get this bit up. No.2: the attack of the Original Character from Carlton's Past. And No.3: how relatively short it is.

I hope you like it anyway! &hearts

As always, thanks for your reviews, alerts, favorite-ing &c. &with special thanks for fmapreshwab, torchil, and aki, my awesometastic reviewers.

H&Ks, Elske]]

It was only the matter of a split-second's considering whether or not it was worth it to out himself to Spencer: the potential reward of proving the lack-of-psychic-abilities was far greater than the risk of spilling a simple silly youthful indiscretion. (Also, there's the matter of Spencer already having revealed similar information about himself, thus evening the odds and eliminating the possibility of anything said in this conversation being used as blackmail. It's the Mutually Assured Destruction of secrets. Carlton Lassiter isn't stupid.)

"Gotcha," and he's grinning like a fool and it's definitely worth it to see that look cross Spencer's face, although…no, it's not going to be that easy, because now Spencer's laughing and that means…what does that mean?

"Oh, Lassipants, I know better. I really just wanted to hear you say it, it was so much more fun that way. So you kissed a guy and he liked it – it may or may not have had anything to do with your cherry chapstick…" his eyes have fluttered closed, he's got his fingers pressed to his temples, and Carlton really wants to punch him in the face. (Also, now that it's been mentioned, it's all he can do not to retrieve the tube of cherry chapstick from his pocket and put some on, and how could Spencer have known about that?)

"Is that so, psychic?" Carlton says, trying to keep his voice as level, as neutral as possible.

"And there's nothing wrong with that!" Shawn opens his eyes with another one of those infuriating grins. "It's okay, Carlton, everyone goes through a teenage rebellious phase. Wait, no, not teenage rebellion, teenage puppy love, only the kind of puppy love where you're both lifting your legs to piddle on the hydrants of life together."

Carlton actually takes a step back, and then another, and then slumps abruptly on the futon. This – thing – from when he was little more than a kid, it's not something he likes to think about often, and part of that is because it's still painful, it still hurts more than anything has a right to after twenty-some years. (Hurt more than losing Victoria, than losing his mother, than losing…).

"How do you do that?" he snaps. "Never mind. I don't want to know. I don't want to talk about it."

"So I'm right, then?" Spencer grins, crosses the room to the futon, and he's hovering smugly. "It was the late 80s and you listened to Depeche Mode and made out in the backseat of his car."

"You make it sound dirty, and it wasn't at all like that, it was…" Carlton trails off with a sigh, remembering: sleeping bags in the backyard when they were both fifteen, a sky full of stars and Will's head pillowed on his shoulder there aren't enough words for love in English, Carlton, the Greeks had the right of it. You'll laugh at me if I say it in English, I love you, not love-you-eros but love-you-agape. A year later, moved from declarations of love to clumsy first kisses. A year later, disaster. "It was…no one had ever told us it was wrong."

Spencer rolls his eyes. "Of course they didn't. Why didn't you marry him?" That question, so glib and irreverent, and it makes Carlton even angrier.

"Because my mother walked in on us engaged in a relatively innocent expression of intimacy and forbade me ever to speak to him again. And then she phoned his father and told him what a sexual deviant his son was. And at school on Monday, he was there with a black eye and a broken collarbone and a shattered wrist and wouldn't even speak to me when I tried to apologize." He narrows his eyes, peers up at Spencer, and there's fury in his voice. "He was my best friend, he was my only friend and I loved him and she ruined it. And I never even got to apologize."

"Phone him up. Apologize now," Spencer offers, and Carlton just sighs.

"I tried that once. He wouldn't talk to me. I got to have a lovely chat with his husband, though."

"So he's still gay? But you're not? Interesting, that."

Carlton bites his lip, peers up at Spencer. "What do you mean by that?"

Spencer shrugs. "It seems to me that if your first love was another boy – another gay boy, might I add – and you haven't gotten over it and, well, it all makes sense, how bad you are with women, why your wife left you…maybe it'd be more comfortable out of that closet, Lassieface.

It's the last straw; Carlton growls deep in his throat and gets to his feet in one smooth movement: a heartbeat later, and he's got one of Spencer's shoulders in each of his hands and he's pinned him up against the one section of the wall not filled with Juliet's girlish memorabilia. He's close enough that he can hear the other man's sudden inhalation of breath and – because he's looking the other man in the eyes – he can see the way Spencer's pupils are suddenly dilated.

It's chemical, Carlton thinks, it's human nature that he wants to respond to that subconscious show of attraction.

"Which is it that you want, then?" Spencer breathes and Carlton lets him go in one quick, panicked gesture: palms up, as if in surrender.