Disclaimer: I don't own Psych or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Through current episodes, particularly strong from Heeeeere's Lassie

Chapter Seven: You're So Vain

"Hey Chief? I got in touch with Carlton and it's not as bad as I thought. He's got a toothache - I think it's an abscess. He's in a lot of pain but no immediate danger."

"That's a relief. Did you get him to make an appointment with a dentist?"

"I made him promise."

"…That's not going to be enough, O'Hara. You haven't known Carlton as long as I have so maybe you haven't had the opportunity to notice: Detective Lassiter. Hates. Doctors. Of any variety. Almost as much as he hates doctor's offices and hospitals. Oh, he'll promise to get treatment, if things are bad enough, and he'll probably even mean it, but he'll procrastinate. He'll procrastinate his way right into a long, skinny coffin if someone more sensible doesn't intervene. I don't care if you have to hogtie him and stuff him in the trunk, just get him to the dentist ASAP. You make the appointment, don't leave it up to him."

"…Understood, Chief."

- … - … -

With Chief Vick's unstated permission to play hooky in the interests of the fine art of Zen and Lassiter maintenance, Juliet left the station and drove her lime-green VW home to her condominium to let her fingers do the walking and find a dentist willing to take a new patient at the shortest possible notice. Carlton had beautiful teeth, which made his snide remark about "Little Miss Perfect Smile" just a little bit more affronting, so she guessed he had a dentist, but if he was really so averse to making and keeping appointments then he might also be averse to 'fessing up to just who that dentist was, to keep her from making him go. So it was easier by far just to call around, claiming emergency - if his tooth was really abscessed then it wasn't a lie, and if she couldn't find a dentist she could drag him into the ER at the hospital to get him started on a regimen of antibiotics. There was always the off chance she'd find his actual dentist in the process.

On the way she pondered some things that puzzled her about that telephone conversation she'd had with him. What did he mean, exactly, when he said that his condo liked to redecorate itself? Despite the horrific nature of what had happened to him and the two previous inhabitants of unit five thirty-six, she'd been comforted to discover that it all had its roots in human nature - abnormal human nature, perhaps, but a human cause nevertheless. The idea that the building - or unit five thirty-six at least - might actually be haunted was disturbing. She believed, to some extent, that such places existed, but Carlton Lassiter living in one? That beggared imagination.

Someone had been in the condo, that was the only answer. Marlowe was still in prison, so she doubted it was a woman - Carlton wasn't the cheating type, despite water cooler gossip about whether it was before or after his separation that he started sleeping with his last partner. And who had a prior history of sneaking into Lassiter's apartments and creating mayhem, apart from the woman who'd tried to run him out of Prospect Gardens?

Shawn Spencer, that's who.

If he was perpetuating the haunted condo trickery at Prospect Gardens, as a "joke" or otherwise, she was going to kill him.

Of course there was also the possibility that Shawn and Carlton were in some sort of collusion, working together to put one over on her. Or maybe Carlton actually was in the condo, making all that racket, and only said he was still on the bus so that he wouldn't have to let her in. But no, she'd heard the distinct sounds of public transportation over the telephone, pneumatic wheezes of brakes and doors, the low rumble of a diesel engine, the animated and incomprehensible conversation of too many people packed in a small space. What she had not heard on her phone was the sound of furniture moving, or the song that had suddenly and inexplicably began to play the instant he'd questioned her friendship. And if that was Shawn doing that…well…his psychic routine had improved considerably.

Lost in thought, she noticed nothing strange about her condo when she finally pulled in. There was always the possibility, of course, that she wouldn't have noticed anyway, because he was damn good at covering his tracks. The black Norton motorcycle was nowhere to be seen. She unlocked her door and walked inside.

"Jules! You're home early!"

Shawn Spencer stood in her kitchen, dumb fat face a canvas of surprise. She felt herself grow cold as she looked at him, in her house without her permission, as usual headfirst in her refrigerator. It looked like he was making a pizza. "What…are you doing here, Shawn?" she said tightly.

"Well, I…wanted to make up for…whatever went wrong the other night, so I thought I'd surprise you by having dinner ready and waiting for you when you got home from work."

"Pizza."

"No, not just pizza," Shawn said with a big, dopey grin. "Pineapple taco pizza, your favorite."

"No, Shawn - your favorite. I personally have never much cared for taco pizza, even without pineapple, and I really can't stand it with. If you used those remarkable powers of observation you possess to some other end than making Carlton - and I, might I point out, since you seem to have failed to notice that, as well - look stupid, then you might have realized that at some point. How did you get in?"

He had the sense to look sheepish, at least. "My key."

"I never gave you a key, Shawn."

"I…had one made."

She held out her hand. "Give it."

"Jules, please, just…give me a chance."

"I gave you a chance, Shawn, more or less against my better judgment. I let you charm me and drag me around by the collar and you know what? It's over. End of story. Now give me the damn key, and get out of my house."

"What did I do?" he pleaded. "Just…please, I want to understand."

"What did you do? Maybe what you should be asking is what didn't you do, Shawn. You didn't respect me, you didn't listen to me, you never once took so much as half a step out of your comfortable little Peter Pan existence to make who I am feel like I'm special to you. Well you want to know something, Shawn? I never liked Peter Pan. I always rooted for Captain Hook. At least he had a little depth. You're as shallow as a pizza pan, and you don't really spend a whole lot of time thinking or caring about anyone other than yourself. God, Shawn - Carlton knows more about who I am and what I like, and he doesn't generally give a damn about that kind of thing."

Shawn snorted. "Lassie? Lassie wouldn't notice if you showed up at the station with your hair on fire, unless that were in direct violation of California police code."

"Carlton would notice, although if my hair was on fire for fashion's sake he wouldn't say anything about it. You I think might very well miss the observation altogether, if there was an open bag of Doritos anywhere in the building."

"Ouch. Jules, that's low."

"You want to know what low is? Low is all the times you jab at Carlton's looks. If I'd been keeping track in the past year alone of all the times you've twitted him on his hair, his ears, his build…just the things you say behind his back, Shawn, not even bringing in everything you say to his face…truthfully I'm not sure I could count that high. And then of course there's all the professional humiliation you think you have to heap on him, all the times you think you have to tell him what a terrible detective he is. Let me tell you something, Shawn - Carlton is a better detective than you'll ever be, because he actually cares about the work. It's not something he does just to show everyone how wonderful and magnificent he is."

"Jules, come on - Lassie is one of the most shamelessly self-promoting people I know."

"No, Shawn. Carlton likes to get a little praise and recognition for a job well done - who doesn't? And he wants to keep his career on an upward path, and at this point that means he needs to put himself in the public eye because there really isn't anything higher he can get to without politics getting into it. But he doesn't start hopping up and down like an idiot on a pogo stick just because there's a camera pointing in someone's face. He doesn't try to step into anyone else's spotlight, either. Not like someone else I could name."

"Well if he's so wonderful then maybe you should have dated him," Shawn said, in a huff.

"By this point I think I'd have been better off."

That actually seemed to rattle him. He rallied valiantly, but she could see she had him on the ropes now. "What, you think Lassie would have taken you to a wine tasting or for a hot air balloon ride? If you dated him, you'd never make it through dinner without arresting somebody."

"Really? You're going to make that argument? Are you really that stupid, Shawn? Have you forgotten why you took me to a wine tasting and hot air balloon ride? Were not both activities to which you were violently opposed until they became part of an investigation? Yes, Carlton is intensely dedicated to his profession, Shawn, which doesn't bother me much since I am, too. But if he took me for a 'romantic weekend getaway' and I mentioned to him that I would like to take a hot air balloon ride? I don't think he'd tell me to settle for floating in the hotel pool on an inflatable orca. At the very least I'm sure he'd make some genuine effort to find a mutually acceptable compromise. All you did that whole weekend, apart from lie to me and obsess about a stolen toy, was complain about everything I wanted to do.

"I've been thinking a lot about you and I lately, Shawn," she continued relentlessly, "this whole messed-up relationship from start to finish. Frankly I can't even figure out why I ever started dating you in the first place. When I think back on all that creepy 'flirting'…blatant sexual innuendos right in my workplace. Sometimes I think what I should have done is hit you with harassment charges. But I let you get away with it because you were silly and you could be sweet and you were cute…I'm sick of cute, Shawn. Cute gets old in a hurry when it's appended to a man and not a kitten."

"Well, if…that's how you feel, then I…guess there's really nothing more to say, is there?" Shawn said. He sounded crestfallen but also struggled mightily to gain some sort of high ground of asperity. "Maybe Marlowe will get her sentence extended for rampaging vampirism and give you a chance to steal Lassie's heart, if you can find it under all that chest hair."

He started out past her but she stopped him. "Key."

He fished it out of his pocket and slapped it into her palm. He left, then, and it seemed like the whole house brightened as though the sun had suddenly broken through a covering of clouds. Juliet closed and locked the door - even though she didn't really trust him not to have another copy of her key - and sank into her armchair with a sigh. She hadn't even gotten to start on finding Lassiter a dentist, and now she had a huge mess to clean up in her kitchen. She needed to take a moment to unwind. She reached over to her Ipod dock and hit play.

"You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht, your hat strategically tipped below one eye, your scarf it was apricot. You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte, and all of the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner, they'd be your partner, and…you're so vain, you probably think this song is about you. You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you, don't you? Don't you? Don't you?"

Good Lord, leave it to the Random function to pull up such an apropos song in the wake of yet another round with Shawn Spencer's rampaging ego. What was it about music lately? Some strange force seemed to be using it to manipulate her feelings…although truthfully music always had that power. It just seemed a little more potent lately, somehow.

Well if Lassie's so wonderful, maybe you should have dated him, Shawn's voice said in her head. Well, she didn't know about that, but she did know she would have been better off. Carlton was…Carlton, and not exactly a perfect example of…of…human, but he had his good side, much as he tried to hide it under the bluster. Sometimes she wondered exactly what had happened to him to make him so…guarded. Maybe it was just the divorce. He was the type of man who'd take such a thing quite hard, not that she hadn't seen the evidence of exactly how hard firsthand. He was a problem-solver, a fixer, and his inability to fix the deepest relationship of his life was a blow to the pride as well as the heart.

I don't trust anybody, O'Hara, but damned if I didn't trust you.

And she'd broken that trust. For Shawn Spencer. It was too late, now, but she kicked herself for it. She'd always told herself that however things worked out with Shawn - and had she ever expected them to work out to a fairy tale ending? She hoped she'd never entertained such a naïve expectation - that she wouldn't regret it, but she did, she regretted it wholeheartedly now. If she was able to salvage her partnership in the wake of this mess, that would be the best she could walk away with. Thankfully it seemed Lassiter was more or less willing to let it go, provided she didn't go dragging it up out of the crypt.

Well, the first step in repairing the damage was in repairing the abscess. She hoisted herself out of the chair, turned off the music, and pulled her telephone book out of the end table and set to work.