AN: This is quite short again. Sorry about that. Oh, and I do not own.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed! And for all those who favourited and story-alerted.
Handcuffs and history.
"SPENCER!" Lassiter snarled, looking at his handcuffs. He'd been in the kitchen for less than a minute! How was that even possible? Then the panic started. This was what he'd been hoping to avoid. Shawn would run, and vanish and never return.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Who needs him? He tried to tell himself. But he knew that if he was honest, he did care about Spencer. Shawn. They were...well, friends. And if they didn't have Spencer then the crime rate in Santa Barbara would be way higher than it was now.
The dinosaur for example. Lassiter could not think of a single person, other than Shawn, who could have figured that one out.
But this could wait. He had to find him.
Luckily, he had the foresight to check that Spencer hadn't been dim enough to ride his bike over, three sheets to the wind. And he'd taken Spencer's phone, so he couldn't call for Guster or a taxi.
He ran through his house and had a hand on the front door handle when he froze. This was Spencer. He wouldn't do anything as mundane as race out the front door. With that thought in mind, Lassiter span around and rushed back to the bedroom. There, he paused, trying to figure out where he could be. Think like Spencer. Immature, childish, ridiculous... Lassiter grinned a shark-toothed smile as he bent down onto his hands and knees and looked under the bed.
"Oh, hey Lassie, what's up?"
It was nearly midnight and Spencer was asleep. He hadn't spoken to Lassiter since he'd trussed him up in his handcuffs, and then used a second pair of handcuffs to cuff him to the bed, and who the hell keeps leg shackles in their closet? Well, not talking isn't exactly right. Everyone who knows Shawn knows that it's almost impossible for him to be silent for that amount of time. It was more like Shawn throwing random insults at him. For hours. Why am I doing this again? Lassiter asked himself.
He went to his own room and got into bed; he'd changed earlier, and tried to get to sleep. But, he couldn't. His brain wouldn't turn off. "You hate me!" "I'm not a psychic!" "I've been hiding for so long." Who would have guessed that happy go lucky Spencer was that depressed? He just didn't seem the type. But when he'd shown up with that bottle of whisky... Lassiter had been honestly afraid for Spencer's life. And Spencer's pattern of running away, that fit. Not to mention his babbling and mood swings. Maybe he was bi-polar or something. When he's up, he's bouncing off the walls, and when he's down, he's suicidal. He pondered some more. Or maybe something happened. A fight with Guster? Or... Oh.
The last case they'd been on. It had hit them all hard. They hadn't gotten there in time to save that little girl. And Lassiter was willing to bet that that was why Shawn was drinking.
But the rest of this stuff? That wasn't just coming from nowhere. And since Guster seemed to be sleeping on the job, it looked like Carlton would have to step up to the mark. Which actually quite surprised him, expecting O'Hara and McNabb to be ahead of him on the Spencer friend scale. But it was his door the drunk fake had showed up at, and, God-dammit, now he felt responsible for the man.
The weird thing.... actually there was a whole slew of weird things starting with Shawn Spencer being chained to Lassiter's spare bed, but the weird thing that Lassie was thinking about right now? That weird thing? Well, Shawn didn't even seem that upset that the girl died. He was slightly less bouncy than normal for all of ten seconds, and he honestly looked shocked, but all too soon, he was cracking jokes and making snide comments. Lassiter thought about it, and he couldn't actually remember seeing Shawn angry, or upset, or any emotion other than happy. Sure sometimes, he seemed annoyed, but it was always in that irrepressible bouncy way. Had he been doing that just to play the role, and going out and getting hammered and crying himself to sleep? It was just so wrong.
Then Lassiter started to consider the way Shawn acted. He was always happy. No one is always happy. They get mad or sad or whatever. Not Shawn. Sure he got annoyed sometimes, but even then, he was still happy. At the same time, he constantly ran right into danger. He's confronted serial killers. He's gone to crime scenes. All with no thought to his own risk. He had asked Spencer more than once if he was trying to get himself killed. Not seriously, though. Never seriously, because this is Spencer, who doesn't have a serious bone in his body. In fact, Spencer's skeleton is made entirely of funny bones. But, what if? What if he really was trying to get himself killed? Suicide by bad guy. Like the time that Shawn had triggered that bomb. He was willing to risk being blown up to solve a case. And the only time Lassiter had even seen him close to flustered, and even then he barely showed that he was upset, was the time Gus was held hostage in that bank. And then he got himself captured as a hostage! He nearly got his ass shot off, it was just luck that the bank robber was actually a nice guy. That was worrying on so many levels.
Shawn, meanwhile, was restless. He couldn't get comfortable, and the chains on his wrists and ankles didn't help. He couldn't get over the strangeness of the situation. He was chained to Lassiter's bed. Sure, not a bad place to be, but not somewhere he'd expected to end up. Certainly not under these circumstances. What had he been thinking?! How embarrassing to wake up, hung-over, on Lassie's couch! He remembered exactly how he had whined like a little baby and spilled his secret to the one man who could possibly take him down. Gus was right. He should avoid caffeine and alcohol at all costs. Speaking of Gus, it has been over 24 hours since they spoke to each other. How come he hasn't called? God, am I that much of a teenage girl? Whinging about the fact that Gus hasn't called. Then again, Lassie-poo has probably destroyed my cell. Made me impossible to track. He did kidnap me after all. Kidnap? Abduct? Falsely imprison? Anyway, whatever Lassie face was doing, it was highly illegal. At least, Shawn was pretty sure it was.
Shawn's brain wouldn't switch off. He just kept wondering about how he had come to this. He'd been doing okay. In fact he'd been on top of the world, riding the rush that came from solving case after case. He'd gotten cocky. That's what it was. And his dramatic flair had cost that little girl her life. Maybe if he had acted sooner, if he had acted like a real cop, the one Henry always wanted, if he had Lassiter with him instead of Gus, then maybe she'd still be alive. If it wasn't for him she could still be alive.
Lassiter had yelled at him when he'd gone to the station for his 'vision.' Juliet had snapped. And the Chief? She'd basically told him to get out and stay out. But he managed to get his point across, and they caught the bad guys. But they still didn't take him seriously. How often am I wrong? How many more times will I have to save the day before they trust me? Not that I blame them. Why should they trust me? I am lying to them after all. He sighed and tried to get comfortable. This train of thought wasn't even leaving the station. Sleep. Go to sleep and maybe somehow, you'll wake up in your own bed, chain free and Lassie will be a figment of your imagination.
Yeah. Right. And Lassiter is actually a leprechaun in disguise.
The next chapter is almost done, but there may be a delay in posting, as i have to decide where to go with it in chapter 5.
