Hey, see I am actually updating!
WARNING: SWEAR WORDS AND SOME DARK STUFF.
Also, if you like the 'filler flashback' at the beginning, you can thank invisalite for the review saying "Also, I'm hoping that you explain the "whole bunch of stuff that happened very quickly." :)"
Also, (hmm, I seem to be saying that a lot in these notes) no lamps were harmed in the making of this chapter. Or the last chapter. Why am I suddenly obsessed with lamps?
Oh, well, since you've waded through the random of my notes, you deserve the next chapter, so without further ado, may I present....
Chapter 14 Forensic Countermeasures.
Commence applause. Or not.
Flashback to "a lot of things happened very quickly..."
While Shawn had unaccountably lost track of events between hearing the noise outside and the gun being pointed in his face, Lassiter, in an odd reversal of roles, had seen everything clearly. To him, it was as though everything was happening in slow motion. There was a click of the lock on the front door disengaging. The creak of the sofa, as he leapt to his feet, knowing that something was wrong. Shawn, still caught up in the emotional catharsis they'd been having (although they'd deny it later), looked at the now upright man in confusion. The front door was thrown open, and it slammed back against the wall. Shawn was halfway to his feet, when the three men reached them. Ellis paused to shut the door behind them. All three men had guns. Lassiter dived for his hi-fi, knowing that the closest of his many guns was hidden in the speaker. Before he could reach it, there was a hand on his shoulder, throwing him off balance, causing him to fall into the coffee table.
"HEY!" Shawn yelled, and there was the sound of breaking crockery. The man grabbing at him suddenly went limp, with a yell. Lassiter squirmed out from underneath and turned, standing, to find Shawn. There was a muffled groan, and Lassiter felt a wave of anger filling him as he jumped back into the fray. Shawn, holding the remains of that ugly lamp that Lassiter only kept around because it reminded him of Victoria, was on the floor, and the remaining two bad guys were kicking him repeatedly.
Lassiter grabbed a shoulder and span the man it belonged to around, and punched him solidly in the face. He didn't stop there, hitting and kicking any flesh he could reach, barely feeling the returned blows in his fury. Someone leaped on him from behind and he snarled as he tried to fight off this new threat, as well as the man before him. It was the third man, the one Shawn had downed with the lamp. He'd regained his senses and rejoined the attack, anger lending him strength.
As Lassiter tried to fend off his two attackers, Shawn was struggling to get upright. He made it to his knees, and then stopped, clutching the arm of the sofa as a wave of dizziness hit. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.
Lassiter had thought the events were moving in slow motion before, but when the next sound rang clear through his home, it was like time stood completely still. Everything froze. The sound of a gun being cocked will do that.
Lassiter stopped fighting, and his attackers each got a solid grip on his upper arms. His eyes found Shawn, pale, bloody, and still on his knees. Colby Randolf, Officer of the SBPD had his gun pointed directly into Shawn's face. Lassiter watched as Shawn, ever so slowly, opened his eyes and registered the weapon being aimed at him. He saw realisation dawn on his friend's (yes, for after the events of the last couple of days, he felt the psychic, fake or not, really was his friend) face, and watched Shawn's Adam's apple bob in a dry swallow.
"Lassiter?" Shawn managed, and time suddenly regained its normal pace.
End Flashback.
"Erm, Lassie?" Shawn squeaked out, staring at the gun barrel.
"It's going to be okay, Shawn." Lassiter said. "Let me go!"
Shawn frowned and was about to say he wasn't holding Lassiter, but then he actually managed to take his eyes off the gun. Carlton was being held around the upper arms by John Ellis and George Truman. Which made the gunman.... yep. Shawn shifted his eyes until he saw Officer Colby Randolf at the other end of the service revolver.
"You're never going to get away with this." Shawn found himself saying, and then cringed at the cliché.
"Course we are. We've all been highly trained in forensics. There's going to be no evidence." Colby smirked.
"You guys are cops!" Lassiter growled, pulling against the grip on his arms. "How can you do this?"
"Yeah!" Shawn added. "You're supposed to be the good guys!" Wow, me and Lassie are totally having a Serpico moment. A portion of Shawn's brain smirked, but he told it to be quiet so he could focus on the bad guys.
"You're scum. Our job is to get rid of people like you, you dirty fraud." Colby said, and then, without warning, he pulled back his arm and pistol whipped Shawn viciously. He fell to the ground, blood blooming on the side of his face.
"Hey!" Lassiter shouted, again pulling to try and get to Shawn's side.
"What did you do that for?" Truman asked, hesitantly.
"Truman! It's too late for your cold feet. Stop being such a big girl. What's wrong with you anyway? You weren't so squeamish earlier when you wanted to fuck him." Colby replied, turning to Truman and gesturing with his gun. Lassiter let out a low, animalistic snarl, deep in his throat. He lunged forward, and this time, Truman almost lost his grip. Ellis was stronger though, and held onto him long enough for Colby to punch him into submission.
"We need to get them out of here. There are too many potential witnesses." Colby frowned. "My uncle owns a farm not that far out of town. He doesn't work it, so it should be empty."
Between them, they managed to drag a struggling Lassiter and a semi-conscious Shawn out to a waiting van. They locked the door behind them, to add to the confusion and add to the time it would take for people to realise something was wrong.
When Gus got to Lassiter's and there was no answer, he immediately knew something was wrong. He tried Shawn's cell, but no one picked up. He rang Juliet, and just a few minutes, there was a large group of cops around him.
"Gus, what's going on!" Juliet came running, and following behind her, at a more stately pace, was the Chief.
"I got here, and they weren't here!" Gus said. "The lights are on, the TV, but they're just gone!" Buzz was currently picking the lock of the Head Detective's home. He just hoped Lassiter didn't find out it had been him.
"I got it!" He called as the door swung open. They looked in at the wreck of Lassiter's living room, and a wave of dread swept over the group. There were definite signs of a struggle. Porcelain shards, from what looked to have been a lamp, were strewn across the floor. There were several blood smears and drops, although thankfully no pools.
"It must have been a surprise attack. Carlton keeps enough weapons for an armada, but it looks like he didn't get the chance to arm himself." Juliet said.
"Get CSU in here." Vick said, her voice harder and colder than Gus could remember ever hearing.
On an abandoned farm, in an abandoned barn, Shawn Spencer (Psychic extraordinaire) awoke. He didn't regain consciousness slowly, but rather came to all at once. Lassiter gave a sigh of something that seemed very similar to relief.
"Spencer, you okay?"
"What? Where are we?" Shawn asked. He was lying on something cold and hard and filthy, and when he tried to push himself up, he realised his hands and feet were bound.
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"The gun in my face." Shawn wriggled, feeling the rope dig into his skin, and turned a little so he could look directly at Lassiter, who was likewise bound, and lying on the floor nearby.
"Okay, they dragged us into a van and brought us out here. It's a farm owned by Randolf's family."
Shawn seemed to consider this for a long moment.
"We're screwed aren't we?"
"I would say yeah."
Meanwhile, in the farmhouse, a meeting of monstrous minds was taking place.
"We should just shoot them now; send them to Hell where they belong." Ellis ground out.
"Where's the fun in-?" Colby cut himself off, and tried a different tack. "We have to give them the chance to repent, John. It's the way of the Lord. Isn't there something in the Bible about suffering being a path to God? We get them to suffer a bit, and maybe they repent. That way, we save their souls."
"It is the way of the Lord." Ellis replied after a moment's consideration. "Even though these filthy sinners don't deserve the shot at redemption."
"You can still fuck him if you want." Colby said crudely, turning to Truman. "Although, I don't know what you see in him."
"I'm not gay. I don't want to fuck him!" George replied, his hands fists.
"You sure wanted to at the station." Randolf grinned.
"I just wanted to show him the error of his faggot ways."
"You still can. And I bet showing him like that will make him repent of ever taking it up the ass."
"We have to get out of here." Shawn said quietly. He was struggling desperately against his bonds.
"I know, Spencer. But we can't exactly get up and leave, can we?"
Shawn was about to answer with a witty quip, when the door to the barn they were in opened and their three tormentors entered.
"Ah, good. You're awake." Colby said with a big, shit-eating grin.
"Yeah, I'd like to lodge a complaint about the accommodations? I ordered the room without the bondage." Shawn said, trying to get as upright as possible, and managing only a half-slumped sitting position.
"Aw, you love it." Colby said, with a playful yet sinister smirk.
"Yeah, I bet you and your boyfriend over there play with his handcuffs in bed." Truman said. Lassiter gave a choked off snort, and Shawn grinned. "You're not even trying to deny it! Filthy perverted homos."
Seeing them helpless like that had restored his confidence. He could do whatever he liked to them, and no one would ever know.
Gus was sitting by Juliet's desk, staring at his hands.
I should have been here. Why did I leave him? I should have known something was up. Just because I was upset about the girl's death, I shouldn't have ignored him. I'm supposed to be his best friend...
"There's nothing!" Juliet moaned, throwing up her hands, and breaking Gus from his thoughts. The Chief frowned at her.
"Detective?"
"No fingerprints, no DNA, no personal effects left behind. They're testing the blood now, but there isn't much of it, and there are areas where bleach has been used, so I'm betting all that's left is Shawn's or Carlton's."
"Why are you even wasting time here?" Gus asked, folding his arms across his chest. "It's obvious who did this."
"Mr Guster, we don't have any proof of that." The Chief said, frowning. "I do have Officer McNabb trying to track down the three officers involved, but until we find some evidence implicating them... my hands are tied."
"You have Shawn's word for it." Gus said.
"And we do have Buzz's statement." Juliet offered hesitantly. The Chief considered for a moment, it was enough to launch a tentative investigation, but into three of their own? Her people probably wouldn't be happy about it. Not to mention that she was going to be pulled in before the Commissioner for everything that had happened in her precinct already, maybe even the mayor.
"Ma'am," an officer Gus didn't know the name of said softly. He didn't flinch at the glare Vick levelled at him for the use of the title. "If they did take Shawn and Head Detective Lassiter, we have to look into it. Shawn's one of us." There was a murmur of agreement from the assembled masses.
"It's bad enough that they were harassing our psychic!" Someone perked up.
"Yeah!" Someone else called out. "We have to help them. Screw the consequences!"
Vick looked around at her people. She had felt responsible for everything Shawn had gone through, and afraid, and upset. She thought she knew the people under her command. Her precinct wasn't the largest; she knew all her Detectives and Officers by sight. The way they were all rallying around the case made her heart swell, and added fuel to the rage that had been burning deep inside her since Lassiter had dragged Shawn into her office and showed her the bruises. She smiled darkly.
"Screw the consequences?" She asked, and some of the hardened detectives shivered at the tone of her voice. "Oh, we'll screw the consequences alright. Let's go get our Psychic, and our Detective."
There were grins all around, and Chief Vick issued her orders, to hell with her superiors.
Okay, I know Truman's character might seem to be changing a little, since he was so forward and aggressive in the scene at the station. He is still aggressive, but at heart he's a coward, and Buzz walking in on them like that really knocked his over confidence. He's worried about himself, not Shawn. The Chief felt a bit OOC to me, sorry if you thought so too.
