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Title: Bringing Up Shawn
Author: Me :)
For: Psych
Summary:Vury, vury late birthday prezzie for my MissKittie. Who asked for a “cute Henry finding out Shawn is into boys” story, with “points if Lassi is involved.” I tried for cute, I’m not sure I succeeded.
Pairings: Shawn/Gus, sort of, Shawn/Juliet, sort of, Shawn/Lassiter (and in my head, Henry/Juliet, I have no idea why. It just came out).
Rating: PG
Warnings/Disclaimers: Vague Season Three references. Shawn is singing, The Warrior by Scandal. And the whole thing is a shout out to “Bringing Up Baby” which is possibly the best movie ever. I love Lifesavers. I don’t own any of them. Don’t sue me.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KITTIE. You know I love you, and I probably owe you my soul at this point!
After the seventeen years spent raising Shawn and the decade or so putting up with him, Henry supposed he shouldn’t be surprised anymore by the crap his kid liked to pull. But there was still a moment or two of silence when he parked the truck and took in the scene before him when his brain mourned for the very faint hope he’d had that Shawn might not drag the Spencer name into his shenanigans again.
He should have known better of course. Because Shawn is a repeat offender in the shenanigans department, if only to piss Henry off, and he took far too much pleasure out of provoking a reaction to change his ways. Not without a dramatic intervention, or at least a stronger influence on him than Gus had ever been. Gus was a good enough kid, but strong was not a word Henry would use to describe him, unless it was in reference to the amount of tolerance toward Shawn he had displayed over the years.
It probably wasn’t a good sign that he couldn’t see Gus anywhere now either. Sometimes when he watched his son with his best friend, Madeleine’s words would come back to him, and he knew though it might not seem like it at first glance to any normal, rational person, Shawn had always needed Gus more than the other way around. As a steadying influence, because Gus was someone he could not disappoint, even if he delighted in disappointing his father.
Madeleine had also added something else, but Henry had been so grateful she hadn’t said co-dependent he’d stopped really listening, just catching a word here or there, and nodding in distracted agreement.
It had been a relief really, to realize that no matter how irritatingly careless and out of control Shawn seemed, he would always pull himself back for the sake of someone else. It eased one of the many burning volcanoes of acid churning in Henry’s stomach that raising Shawn had left him with, let him think that there might be hope for his son yet.
Though there was the definite possibility that it was the hope that was doing him in.
Henry ran a hand over his head and let out a breath as he climbed out of the truck. His feet crunched in dry pine needles and the sharp scent hit him immediately, reminding him of the camping trip with Shawn he had put off taking, although who did Shawn think he was kidding by planning a trip with just the two of them alone? But what would undoubtedly be the camping trip from hell was only a fraction of the headache Henry could feel throbbing behind his eyes.
Carlton’s red Crown Vic had just parked a few yards away and already the detective and his blonde partner were out and staring ahead with the same puzzled and aggravated frowns on their faces that Henry suspected was on his. He turned his eyes after giving them both a cursory study, looking for his son.
Shawn hopped out of the car’s backseat the moment the junior detective—Juliet O’Hara, if Henry recalled correctly—opened the door for him. He grinned a little too brightly in Henry’s direction and Henry almost turned around to check his truck for signs of a paint balloon attack or glittering butterfly stickers, both of which had occurred in Shawn’s younger years, and both of which had resulted in that same suspicious smile. Henry lifted his chin instead, deciding to wait and see which weapon his son would be lobbing in his direction today.
“It’s good to get out in the fresh air, isn’t it?” Shawn asked the world at large, stretching his arms out and smacking Carlton in the chest in the process. He licked his lips and swallowed what was in his mouth, ignoring every lecture he’d ever gotten about gum not digesting and staying in his stomach for years.
Despite having apparently called out the police—and his father—to a cabin in the middle of the mountains, Shawn managed to look like he’d just gotten out of bed. The hair was on purpose; the rest of the outfit, right down to the wrinkled shirt he’d worn yesterday, suggested he had just gotten out of someone else’s bed. Henry frowned, looking at the nearest female automatically and vainly trying to shake off the worry about Shawn’s carefree attitude when it came to sex and love.
Carlton responded to Shawn’s “accident” by putting a hand on Shawn’s shoulder and shoving him until he landed against Detective O’Hara, and Henry watched his son’s expression change from a vague pout to something much happier.
He slammed the truck door behind him to announce his presence and stomped toward the group.
Carlton was business-like as usual in a suit, though Henry would have tried a double knot in the tie and maybe had more fun with the hair, and his face did look like he had been sucking on Sour Patch Kids just like Shawn had said.
His blue-eyed gaze swept momentarily back over Shawn and O’Hara and his sour face only got worse.
“Tell me something, Spencer,” Lassiter began and Henry looked over just as Shawn winked broadly into the junior detective’s face. She was a lovely girl, Henry noticed, not for the first time, composed even considering how Shawn had somehow ended up leaning against her and hadn’t moved away. But Henry kept his scowl in place when she tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips.
Her amusement lasted until Carlton turned around again and then she finally pushed his leering son off her.
“Yes, Lassi?” Shawn rolled his eyes and held his hand over heart, cocking an eyebrow a second later.
O’Hara, Henry noted, was staring right back at Shawn, and if Shawn couldn’t control his shameless behavior while he was working, then he would expect a detective of the S.P.B.D. to have more sense.
He glanced back at Carlton when the other man turned all the way to take in the little scene as well. His glare was fairly impressive.
“Do all the cabins up here look alike, Spencer?” he wondered through clenched teeth and Shawn looked up immediately, focusing. A moment later his mouth curved up. It wasn’t an innocent smile.
“No. Why?”
“Because we passed this one five times.” Carlton’s hands were closed tight and considering that Shawn had given Henry precise directions to get here, he couldn’t blame him for being pissed off.
“Shawn…” He was scolding out of reflex but Carlton looked over at him with wide eyes as though he had just noticed him. Henry let his gaze linger for a moment as Carlton smoothed over his surprise and looked away. It was probably something to do with why he had been blowing off fishing lately, but embarrassment about an inability to tie a proper Dropper Loop around a Stinger was no reason to avoid him. Henry could show him the right way, he just had to ask.
Shawn answered Carlton before Henry could say anything, flippant and shrugging and hiding behind a joke like he always did. How was any woman ever going to take his son seriously when he acted a jackass all the time? He was never going to find happiness and settle down.
“But, Lassi, it was such a lovely day for a drive.”
“Henry!” Carlton’s greeting was as loud as Shawn’s was bright, but he ignored Shawn and met Henry’s eyes as he stepped forward for a brief, firm handshake that his son would never have managed. For all his sour face, there was a hint of something sweet in the air around him.
“At least, I thought so,” Shawn remarked in a quieter voice and Henry didn’t miss the amused twitch to O’Hara’s lips that she tried to hide.
“Is that why you dragged us out here, Shawn?” she sighed a moment later, amusement gone. “We had leads we were following on…”
“I had things to do today besides haul my ass out here, kid.” It took years of practice to ignore Shawn’s so-hurt-he-knew-better-than-to-believe-it expression.
“What? Washing the truck? You wound me.” Shawn snorted, and Henry spent a second wondering where Shawn had picked that habit up. “And leads on what? Robberies…scams…vandalism… Those can wait, Jules,” Shawn tutted and rested a finger on O’Hara’s mouth. Any decent cop would have slapped his hand. This O’Hara at least got that part right, but she was still giving Shawn far too much time to talk, and leaned in as he did. Though Henry felt himself leaning in too, despite everything.
Shawn’s eyebrow went up higher and he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial hush. “This is about…murder.”
Henry blinked. O’Hara gasped. Carlton sighed.
“Is this about Major Applegate again?” Carlton’s demand snapped all their heads up. “We already checked out your “feeling” and there’s no sign that Major Applegate has even had a bad day, much less that there’s been any sort of foul play.”
“Applegate?” Henry crossed his arms and maybe he hadn’t lost his touch, because his son looked directly at him. “Isn’t he that crazy old billionaire whackjob explorer who keeps animals on his property?”
“Who’s been reading the society pages?” Shawn asked slyly.
“Shawn—Mr. Spencer—seems to think he’s been murdered,” O’Hara turned to explain to him, doubt all over her scrunched up face. And what kind of face was that for a cop anyway?
“He was just fine when we questioned him yesterday, and not happy to have the police at his door,” Carlton butted back in and again Shawn focused on him intently, obviously. Henry knew that look; it meant Shawn was searching for something, usually an angle. “We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t call the Chief,” Carlton finished sourly.
Henry turned back. On one hand, Shawn was rarely wrong. On the other, insisting a man had been murdered who was alive and then getting the police involved was dangerous for a lot of reasons.
The same irritated indecision was on Carlton’s face before he twisted away from Shawn and stared at the cabin. Carlton was silent, but it didn’t take a psychic to feel the man’s disappointed anger.
“What the hell, Shawn?” Henry asked. Maybe Shawn’s need for attention was getting out of control. Where the hell was Gus? “These are detectives, they have better…”
“Relax, relax.” Shawn sighed—loudly—and stepped forward. “All shall be revealed in…” he glanced at his wrist though he wasn’t wearing a watch. “Oh, about one and a half minutes. That is a lovely top by the way, Jules.”
Having drawn every eye back to him, Shawn dropped to lean against the Crown Vic and flashed another smile. “What is that, cerulean?”
“Teal,” O’Hara instantly gushed back, making Henry study her again, from her flat shoes to the blush stealing over her cheeks as she darted looks at her partner. “It was on sale, but I shouldn’t have.” His son studied her too, his eyes not missing a thing, but then they never did.
That Shawn liked her was obvious, how much he liked her was not. The flirting, the smiles, Henry had seen those before once or twice, with the dim-witted bimbos and moody punk girls his son had brought home to piss him off. He’d always assumed those girls had been intended to get that reaction out of him, and that was one of the many reasons they hadn’t lasted, aside from being obvious idiots for dating his son in the first place. They had been just like the many other…experiments…in young Shawn’s life. Things that Shawn was starting to make him think of again now with the way he swept his gaze over O’Hara’s suit and his whole insane conversation.
“It fits well, but have you considered something lighter?”
“Shawn!” He’d had enough.
Shawn gave a start then shook his head sadly.
“Henry has no sense of color,” he complained without looking up.
“I’m only up here because you promised to clean out the garage…and if you tricked me up here just to watch one of your crazy sideshows…”
“Seriously, the lack of faith... Vader would have Force-choked you out by now, or whatever.” He opened his mouth and Shawn had his hands up, his voice gentling to something almost reasonable. “Trust me. In a few minutes, Lassi will get to use his cuffs and catch a murderer or two. I’ll be a hero. Jules will be breathtaking, and you’ll go home to a clean garage.” Shawn held his gaze for all of a second then flicked a glance in Carlton’s direction that was too fast to read. Carlton didn’t look back, and Shawn turned to O’Hara. “You trust me, don’t you, Juliet?” He ended by clasping one of her hands in both of his.
There was definitely a light in his boy’s eyes that wasn’t at all dulled when O’Hara snatched her hand back and wisely didn’t answer.
“We’re here, aren’t we, Spencer?” Carlton broke in and Henry watched the color rise in his son’s face, saw the soft smile come and go before he renewed his cocky grin. He hadn’t stepped away from O’Hara, and Henry felt himself staring.
He remembered the first time he’d fallen in love, real love, not some boyhood crush. He’d probably been too young, younger than Shawn was now, too young to completely hide every fluttering feeling of panic that had ran through him at the slightest word, the barest touch. Maybe nobody could hide that for long, not even Shawn, who had been trying and succeeding at hiding things from the age of nine. Admittedly, it was hard to see with Shawn’s already constant and distracting motions, skipping back and forth, darting around the normal rules, but it was still there now that Henry was truly looking. Love was, if anything, about courage, something to strive for, and Shawn was too new to the game of trying for anything to have mastered it.
Madeleine had been so beautiful, warm and understanding. The way Henry had thought she would be forever, and he had been over the moon at the idea.
He’d only ever felt that way one more time in his life, holding Shawn, and having him small and quiet in his arms. He’d always thought Madeleine had felt the same way. And he had never once thought that she would leave Shawn, or imagined the damage it would do to him.
Henry looked over at this O’Hara one more time since his son hadn’t moved from her side, frowning at her calm expression and every single hair she had pinned back with barrettes. Barrettes. He shook his head. She was hardly adult enough for the kind of responsibility involved in caring for his son’s heart. That would be work, tough work, because Shawn would ensure that, testing anyone and everything to find their breaking points, their leaving points.
“They’re coming,” Shawn announced and was suddenly outside O’Hara’s space and in front of/behind Lassiter as Carlton turned.
“Who?” O’Hara wondered.
“Hello? The murderers,” Shawn sang out as a black Mercedes pulled up, and a man in cheap clothes who seemed out of place in a car like that got out of the passenger side. 35-ish, rough hands, strong build, some tattoos. The driver was another story; tall, trim except for a slight paunch, the shiny face of a man who drank too much, wearing an old-fashioned three piece suit that didn’t completely fit him.
“Major Applegate?” Carlton managed to greet the man and growl at Shawn at the same time.
“Detective…Lassiter wasn’t it?” Major Applegate stared at all of them with a raised eyebrow and Henry felt himself get riled at the man’s attitude, though both Carlton and O’Hara didn’t react. “What are you all doing here?”
“Good question,” Carlton answered and angled his head down. Shawn raised his head at the same time to stare back and Henry opened his mouth, ready to call a halt to this foolishness if he had to.
“I’m so sorry to keep troubling you, sir, Major,” Carlton beat him to it, looking back up, and Henry sighed in relief. “But we were wondering if we could take a look around your cabin. We…have a lead…that you…might be in danger.”
“Was in danger,” Shawn correctly quietly, grinning like an idiot.
Henry snapped his mouth shut. Carlton was pale—he was always pale—but there was no sign of fever. That could only mean that somehow, his son was behind this.
Applegate’s eyes landed on Shawn, his unpleasant attitude getting worse, though Henry couldn’t blame the man for being angry at the intrusion.
“I told you when you bothered me before that nothing was wrong. And as for you…” He pointed at Shawn. “I told you when we met this morning to go away and leave me alone!”
Carlton turned slowly. Henry couldn’t see his face, but Shawn blinked, then smirked back at him so knowingly that Henry frowned. He turned to the other detective for an explanation when Carlton let out a sad, not entirely surprised sigh and dropped his shoulders.
“You met Shawn last week, Major Applegate,” O’Hara commented softly. “At the benefit you gave at your beach house for the Department’s toy drive.”
“That’s right,” Shawn burst out just as Applegate went silent. “We had a long talk. You showed me your house, I showed you my appendix scar. We compared the Charleston to the Roger Rabbit and then you introduced me to Susan.”
“Susan?” O’Hara asked, more intrigued than jealous.
“Susan?” Applegate jumped. The man with him took a step and Carlton jabbed a finger at him.
“You stay right where you are.”
Shawn went right on as though the interruptions hadn’t happened. “Yes, I was so sad to hear that you’d…misplaced…your especial lady.”
“I…” Whatever the reason, Applegate went white at Shawn’s words—a nice guilty color. Henry grunted. For the first time since he’d come up here, he understood why the two detectives had listened to Shawn at all. But…
“Who is Susan?” There hadn’t been any missing persons recently that he’d heard about.
“A leopard,” Carlton answered absently.
“Major Applegate’s precious feline companion,” Shawn amended. Carlton bobbed his head in agreement without comment.
“A leopard is a wild animal, Shawn, not a pet.” Henry found himself using the same voice as when he’d had to explain to Shawn how much work it was to have a dog.
“Not to Horace Applegate.” One glance at Shawn made it pretty clear that Shawn had liked Horace Applegate. Had liked in a way he didn’t like that man before them.
“You lost a leopard?” He couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice when he looked back at Shawn’s suspect.
“Your precious feline companion?” O’Hara added.
“Is it a crime for a pet to go missing?” Applegate recovered enough to sneer.
“Yeah, if your feline companion eats anything bigger than a Chihuahua,” Lassiter shot back and when Henry coughed out a laugh Shawn gave him a look of horror.
“What?” He tried to blink. “You know how I feel about Chihuahuas, Shawn.”
“Call it in, O’Hara,” Lassiter ordered without taking his eyes off Applegate and not paying any attention at all to Shawn furtively calling his father a dog-hater.
“No!” The Major looked like he’d swallowed his tongue. “That is, there’s no need… She’ll come back on her own.”
“When she’s had her fill of kindergartners…”
“We really have to work on these morbid thoughts of yours, Lassi.” Shawn was mostly facing the other direction, but he slapped a hand on Carlton’s back, patting it in fake sympathy.
Henry turned too, following Shawn’s gaze, trying to see what it was Shawn had seen. It was a large cabin, fairly isolated up here in the mountains, most of the neighbors vacationing types, only here a few weeks a year. Lots of peace and quiet and no witnesses.
“What’s this about a murder?” It was tempting to go back to the truck and watch all of this unfold in comfort. Shawn clearly had a plan, even if he wasn’t getting on with it.
“Lassi, if you say ‘No body, No crime’ I will start to sing ‘The Warrior’, and you haven’t lived until you’ve seen me work my finger-gun move either.” Shawn’s hand was still resting at Lassiter’s back, though it had fallen a few inches without either of them seeming to notice.
Henry lifted his head, watched as Shawn opened his mouth before Carlton could even take a breath. His eyes were serious—for Shawn—as though this wasn’t one of his dares, and something real was at stake here.
The first few notes were enough to have everyone else there cringing. “I don’t wanna tame your animal style, you won’t be caged, in the call of the wild!”
“I don’t have to stand here for this nonsense!” Applegate shouted over Shawn’s off-key, “You talk, talk, you talk to me, your eyes touch me physically…Shootin’ at the walls of heartache –Bang! Bang! I am the Warrior!”
“Wait!” Shawn gasped out abruptly, stumbling and not singing.
“Thank God,” Henry murmured at the silence. Carlton rolled his shoulders, not quite hiding a shudder. Shawn spun away from Carlton and shut his eyes. A moment later he was back, his arms outstretched, his hands sliding over the other man’s chest.
This was the point where Gus usually stepped it to remind Shawn of where he was, and really, where was Gus anyway? If Shawn was going to act like a jackass when he was on his own, than a little dependency wasn’t so bad. Maybe even a little inter-dependency, or infatuation, or whatever else it was Madeleine had said.
“I’m getting something,” Shawn declared and neatly evaded Carlton’s slapping hands even with his eyes closed. He even reached out, grasping in the dark, and caught one. Carlton went still. Henry felt himself go absolutely frozen.
“You don’t get infatuated with other boys,” he’d argued, faintly, shaking his head, and Madeleine’s mouth had curved up into a small smile.
“I don’t think Shawn sees it that way.”
Henry felt his arms fall to his sides, and licked his dry lips.
“Maybe I’ll take Gus to prom.” Shawn had been offhand, glancing up at him once from his cereal, both of them knowing that Henry had found the magazines in the shed even if he had never mentioned them. The things in there, they’d been just to shock him, just like everything else always was.
He still didn’t know what he’d done to get his son so angry with him, what he could ever do to make it right.
“Gus would never take you,” he had answered, just as offhand, and gone back to reading the paper.
“I see a hand!” Shawn let his fingers slide between Carlton’s, his grip stronger apparently, because Carlton tugged but didn’t break his hold, though his face was getting red. “Not hands…fingers! No…!” Shawn play-frowned and opened his eyes. “A ring!” he shouted and then abruptly frowned for real. “You took off your wedding ring?” he noticed out loud, shocked. He was breathing hard, more than a match to the way Carlton’s chest was heaving. Henry couldn’t seem to catch his breath either.
Carlton opened his mouth, then shut it, and for that second while he waited, his son was actually quiet. Carlton’s head twitched like he wanted to see the faces of those around him, but he didn’t turn.
“It’s none of your business, Spencer,” Carlton whispered at last, so faint as to not even have been said at all. He swallowed, and the moment broke. Shawn released his hand and threw himself backward, returning to the business of being a professional dumbass.
“A ring!” Shawn looked every which way for a second, then glanced in Henry’s direction. Even with everything else, Henry felt himself cocking his eyebrow at the detail that Shawn should have noticed before, and Shawn still responded by scowling at him for half a second. “Not a ring, a ringer! A ringer, a look-alike! That’s not Horace Applegate, just someone who looks like him,” he finished in a rush and swooned dramatically.
“Shawn?” O’Hara snapped her phone closed.
“A double?” Carlton scoffed with his hands behind his back, ignoring Shawn’s faint and amazingly fast recovery. Henry just frowned at all of them. His headache wasn’t so small anymore. “What are the odds of that?”
“Pretty good if you’re actually his brother,” Shawn answered smoothly, standing up straight. He seemed to have recovered just fine.
“His twin?” O’Hara came up to stand next to her partner. She had her hand on the gun at her waist for the first time and Henry’s eyebrows went up at quickly she’d gone professional. He looked over but his son was strutting in front of the suspects and shaking his head. Henry sighed.
He got it; the brother had offed his richer brother and assumed his identity for the fame and fortune. But what did the leopard have to do with it?”
“I didn’t know he had a brother,” Carlton remarked absently.
“That’s right, nobody ever did,” Applegate—one of them—laughed bitterly. “Always in the spotlight, with my rank and my awards and my charities and that damn cat!”
“That’s no way to talk about your precious Susan,” Shawn reminded him, his voice disappointed. Henry took his eyes off his son’s wild, and honestly, somewhat limp-wristed hand gestures to study the other man with Applegate.
“So who’s this guy?”
“He owns this place. A friend of Mr. Applegate here…Mr. Huxley Applegate.”
“Carlton Random,” the fellow introduced himself with a glower and Henry coughed.
“Wow.” O’Hara forgot herself and Henry gave her a pointed look.
“I know, two Carltons. I’m not sure the Space Time Continuum can handle them being in the same place at the same time,” Shawn stage-whispered to her.
“Shut up, Spencer.” Carlton didn’t even put any heat into it, which was likely why Shawn ignored it, and honestly, weren’t there any cops out there that could make his son toe the line?
“But I haven’t even gotten to the good part, Lass.”
“None of this is proof of anything,” Applegate—probably Huxley—insisted.
“Well that would be the aforementioned ‘good part’.” Shawn grinned and somehow slid back into Carlton’s space as he made his air quotes.
“Spare us the speech. Just tell me who to arrest,” Carlton muttered and Shawn’s hand snaked out again, just once, just for a moment, patting down Lassiter’s tie.
It was a gesture Henry had seen before, though not in years, not up close, but always when a case had had him anxious and too restless to focus on things at home like he should have. It had been casual but still somehow deeply-felt. It was…grounding…to feel his wife’s touch, and it was after she had left that he hadn’t been able to focus very well on anything anymore. Not for a long, long time, not until it had maybe been too late.
He hadn’t wanted to think that Shawn had noticed. But of course Shawn saw everything, Henry had seen to that.
He’d just assumed, the dates, the jobs, the driving off on that damned motorcycle, that they were all aimed at him. He had never thought, not once, that Shawn might have been running from more than that.
His son had been in Santa Barbara for over a year now. That was the kind of clue Henry should have seen a long time ago, and damn it, this was probably why Carlton had stopped going fishing with him.
Henry swallowed, his throat thick, while Lassiter let Shawn talk.
“One brother; millionaire-turned-billionaire, philanthropist, eccentric, charming, a war hero who mixed a mean piña colada and could do the frug like you wouldn’t believe. The other; a greedy, unscrupulous cat-hater with decent if boring hair, who was jealous of his sibling’s success. One night, probably Christmas but the spirits can’t be sure yet, they argue, and that’s when the idea of murder first occurs to him.
Everyone in the family always remarked on how alike they looked. All he’d have to do is cut his hair and hide the body and the billions are his. It’s not like anyone is going to come looking for him. He’s practically a nobody.”
“Yeah, but what about Susan?” At least O’Hara still had a hand on her weapon, not that Random or Applegate have made a move; they seemed as transfixed by Shawn’s speech as everyone else.
“Ah, Susan, the lady of the house…and the one fly in your ointment, the bee in your bonnet, the bat in your belfry…”
“Spencer.”
One word and his son switched gears. Henry shook his head and looked up, really looked up. Shawn was prowling across the space between Lassiter and Applegate—like a cat, or more like an idiot trying to look like a cat. He was excited, flushed brightly and fully in the moment as he denounced a killer, but it was impossible to tell if he was serious underneath all the show. Henry wasn’t sure that he could even learn to be, or that anyone would have the patience to wait and see.
“Horace took Susan everywhere. They’d been inseparable for years. She made him famous, the sweet, tame leopard on the diamond-studded leash. The two were linked in the public mind. Susan was like a puppy, she liked everyone…even Lassi here got his face licked by the big, fluffy, wuffy kitty.”
“Teeth…” Carlton muttered, giving one shiver, and again, Shawn’s hand glanced over Carlton’s tie before he slinked away.
“But not you.” Shawn gentled his tone and mercifully stopped pretending to be a cat. “Not you, Huxley.”
“That cat always hated…my brother.” Huxley smoothed his hands over his suit and cleared his throat. “And I don’t believe anything you’ve said here constitutes proof.”
“That’s true. You’d need a warrant for his blood or something,” Random actually spoke up again, strangely knowledgeable of the legal system and Henry frowned at the interruption, jerking his thumb at him.
“Seriously, who is this guy?”
“Huxley’s prison cell-mate. Oh, did I forget to mention he’s an ex-con?” Shawn brushed a speck from his shoulder.
“That was a juvenile offense. Those records should have been expunged. How did you know that?” There was a drop of sweat on Huxley’s forehead now.
“Dude, I told you this morning…and a week ago…psychic.” Shawn made his usual psychic gesture at his head. Henry had a feeling he wasn’t the only one who rolled his eyes.
“All right, I’ve heard enough.” Carlton put out a hand.
“But, Lassi.” It was embarrassing to hear his grown son whine, to see him stick out his lower lip. But after the token protest, Shawn dropped back on his heels and gave every appearance of being prepared to wait.
“Unless you’ve got some probable cause up the sleeve of that hideous shirt, Spencer, I can’t hold them.” Carlton didn’t seem to notice Shawn’s gasp, but Henry watched Shawn dart a questioning look to O’Hara, who wrinkled her nose and nodded with a sad little shrug. Shawn dropped back with an honestly confused frown, staring at his clothes. Personally, Henry didn’t think his son could pull off that shade of yellow. “But I’d advise both of them not to leave town.”
“Oh!” Shirt apparently forgotten, Shawn shook off his inaction and leapt forward. His face was lit up and brilliant and for one moment, Henry could see that whatever else Shawn hated him for, he loved being able to do this—though he might not ever admit it. This was it, this was the reason Shawn had gotten them all up here, the thing he’d been building up to this whole time.
“Dude, this is going to be awesome,” he commented, evidently to a Gus who still wasn’t there, then he dashed over to the cabin, stopping in front of doors to what looked like a basement or a storm cellar.
“What if Susan suddenly couldn’t stand her lifetime companion? Would that be probable cause for a DNA test, Lassi?” he called out.
Everyone was looking at Shawn now. There was nothing unusual about that. Turned as they were, Henry couldn’t see their faces, could only hear Random yell out for Shawn to stop. But he could see his son’s expression as he looked back at all of them, as he stared at the two detectives.
Henry looked at them too, at O’Hara slim and pretty in her smart suit, the hair she hadn’t quite managed to get under control. She hadn’t taken her hand from her weapon, even with that, and Henry had to approve.
But a moment of study let him see that Shawn wasn’t trying to hide anything he felt for her, that he didn’t have anything to hide from her, any pieces of himself he was afraid of revealing.
Love was courage, courage over huge amounts of fear, and when his gaze slid just a few feet to the side there it was, everything Henry had ever intentionally taught his son about using his brain to solve crimes, and unintentionally shown his son about protecting himself. Shawn was wavering between showing off and hesitating, and while he waited, his voice too loud and his words insane, he barely seemed to breathe.
Henry could remember the feeling.
He looked down too, when Shawn did, his face burning to have seen something like that on his son’s face at all, his body cold because Shawn hadn’t wanted him to see it either.
“Your wish is my command,” Shawn was babbling about something that someone must have said, to get on with it maybe, saying something that vaguely sounded like something from his childhood. “Meka-leka-high-meka-heinie-ho.”
“Wait, Shawn don’t!” O’Hara launched forward right as Shawn popped the lock and swung open the doors, and at that point, after taking part in Shawn’s lunacy for ten minutes, no one seemed really surprised to see the great cat leap up the stairs and out into the open.
It stopped once outside, and Henry didn’t know leopards, but he knew that this one wasn’t wearing a leash, diamond-studded or otherwise, and that all the fur raised along a cat’s back was never a good sign.
“They found Susan an hour ago, wandering the grounds of Major Applegate’s estate in town,” O’Hara whispered, looking momentarily petrified when the cat stared at her. “But the zoo reported someone stole a leopard last night.”
“Isn’t she a good wittle kitty?” Shawn hopped forward with a grin.
“Shawn!” The three of them shouted at once, hands out, and Carlton yanked free his gun.
“I told you you’d get to arrest someone, Lass,” Shawn called out, his words slowing when he saw took in the sight of them, but he still moved to stand next to the cat. “I’ve got her.”
“No you haven’t, Shawn,” Carlton hissed. “That’s a different leopard.” Shawn snorted and smirked at O’Hara.
“Lassi, leopards don’t change their spots. I’m not a zoologist, but I know that.”
“Do you even know what a zoologist is?” Carlton wondered, his voice faint with disbelief, his arm steady.
“Of course I know what a zoologist is…” Shawn shrugged, his bluffing obvious even to the cat; it flicked back its ears in an irritated gesture. “They study all things zoo…related.” Distracted, Shawn reached down and Henry moved forward, already knowing he was too slow, that that animal was going to kill his idiot son right before his eyes.
Whatever the reason his son’s improbable friendship with Gus had lasted this long, probably Gus’ inhuman patience, it had doubtless saved his son’s life on occasions just like this one. Gus would have seen a physical threat a mile away and run from it, screaming. As long as only his body was involved, Shawn threw himself toward it.
“Spencer, back away. Now.” Lassiter kept his gun as level as his voice and Henry stopped.
“You can’t shoot Susan.” Shawn protested, but for the first time he looked beyond the cat and Henry flinched when Shawn looked at him and froze, recalling for the first time that naked concern was all over his face.
“I wasn’t going to shoot Susan,” Carlton replied, fierce and breathless, and Shawn took his wide-eyed stare away to study…the Head Detective? The man Shawn had trusted to save him? The man who had put that anxious, head over heels look on Shawn’s face?
Carlton cocked his gun. “If I have to shoot you to keep you out of trouble, Spencer, then it will be my pleasure.”
“Hey,” Henry spoke up, because none of that gave the man the right to shoot Shawn. But the sound was drowned out but the sudden growl, the blurred motion of the cat leaping forward, and the noise of his son squealing like a twelve year old girl.
The leopard went for Huxley with a vengeance, not the only leopard who hated the man, apparently. Henry had a second to wonder how in the hell they’d gotten that animal out of the zoo in the first place and then everyone scattered.
“Shawn, stay back!” He heard himself yelling and watched Carlton and O’Hara scramble after the fleeing Huxley—after the large, deadly cat chasing Huxley—and his partner.
O’Hara slammed Random into the Mercedes and cuffed him, but Henry searched through the Shawn-created chaos to track the cat as it circled the Crown Vic, its yellow eyes narrowed on Huxley as he climbed on top.
“Get the cat-hater, Lassi!” Shawn’s ringside cheerleading was just one more sound among the growling and screaming.
“Shut up and keep back!” Lassiter snapped at him distractedly, but this time it worked. Shawn shut up and stayed back, something close to a miracle for the ten seconds it lasted.
“It can jump, you know!” Shawn informed them helpfully and Henry swung around to exchange one panicked look with Carlton just as the other man kicked into action.
He leapt up and yanked Huxley off the roof of the car, and they both ducked when the leopard growled and jumped. It thudded onto the roof and then soared through the air to the ground below. Carlton reached out and flung open the car door, shoving the man in the passenger seat. He had time to shut the door and then he was off, running around the car, a very pissed off leopard on his tail.
“Oh man, that stupid cat!” Random swore as Carlton and the leopard passed him, and O’Hara turned too, trying to fix her gun on…anything.
“Lassi! The Mercedes!” Shawn’s voice reached them and Henry nodded and moved again, ending up alongside O’Hara as she yanked open the door to the backseat of the Mercedes. They both fell back as Carlton, long legs and all, slid inside and crawled across the leather just to tear at the door on the other side when the cat followed him in.
O’Hara reached up and slammed the door on her side right as Carlton fell out the other side and shut that door behind him.
Henry got to his feet and then extended a hand to Detective O’Hara. Random was still handcuffed and huddled down behind him. She glared at him the moment she was on her feet, her color up.
“Carlton.” Henry managed as he came around the car to stand beside the detective. “You all right?”
Carlton was standing, surprisingly on his feet after all of that, and uninjured, though he was dirty and breathing hard, and his suit was a little…askew. So was his hair, falling into his face.
Carlton brushed himself off and stared down for a moment. “My pants…” he lamented softly, like running from a wild leopard was nothing compared to ruined pants. “I’m fine,” he answered after a pause, his breath still smelling oddly sweet, then narrowed his eyes as Shawn appeared at his side.
“Dude! That was amazing! You’re like the Beastmaster!” Shawn exclaimed as he jerked to a stop an inch from knocking Lassiter over. His hands came out, but fell short of actually touching Carlton this time. His eyes were busy documenting everything about Lassiter, sweeping repeatedly over his lanky body, his tight face, his worry obvious now that Henry was looking for it.
Shawn met Carlton’s gaze at last and flinched, then tried a smile and stepped back with his hands out.
“Spencer, what kind of idiot stunt was that?” Carlton bit out and Henry caught the small noise from behind him that meant O’Hara was listening and wanted to comment.
“That idiot stunt helped solve the case.” Shawn lifted his chin. “And got you your arrest.”
“You don’t have anything on us for murder,” Random pointed out from back on the ground.
“They’ve got you for stealing the leopard. The warrants are practically in their hands for everything else,” Henry snapped without taking his eyes from his son and Carlton Lassiter.
“I had my gun out, Spencer.” Carlton spoke through clenched teeth then seemed to realize that he still had his gun out. He holstered it in one jerky motion.
“Please, we all know you love whipping it out.” Shawn wriggled his eyebrows and Henry knew he was turning red.
For one hot, furious moment it was like Carlton couldn’t even speak.
“Just…don’t call me out next time you want to risk your neck,” Carlton finally snapped then twisted around, tossing his cuffs to his partner. “O’Hara, read them their rights. I’ll call it in.” He took a step, then stopped when he saw Henry watching. “Henry.” He nodded in acknowledgment of the offered help earlier and then limped back to the Crown Vic. He must have hurt himself during the chase after all.
O’Hara moved too, and Henry found himself standing alone with his son.
Shawn glared at the ground but when he looked up it was with a smile that Henry wasn’t about to fall for. He still didn’t understand, nor did he really want to, but he’d be as big of an idiot as his son if he just ignored what was right in front of his face.
“Nobody here appreciates my genius,” Shawn said, and from a distance, Henry could still hear Carlton’s snort. Shawn’s mouth tightened.
“It would have gone awesomely if it had been Susan in there.”
“At least Jules didn’t have to shoot the cat,” he added a moment later. When he looked up, Henry realized Shawn had actually been talking to him. Beneath the color, Shawn was darting his eyes around, humming with nervous tension.
“You know, that shirt really is awful,” Henry said, because he had to say something. No sense of color... Shawn snorted, and the sound was so telling it was amazing that he hadn’t noticed it before now. He turned away, observing Carlton as he bent inside his car to use the radio. His voice was calm even if his words were clipped, his body mostly steady even if his fingers drummed across the Crown Vic’s roof.
The man was at least ten years older than Shawn, and divorced, or almost-divorced, and apparently trigger-happy. Compared to him, Juliet O’Hara was an ideal bride.
God. Henry scrubbed his face with his hands for a moment. Because what the hell kind of thought was that? It was Shawn’s influence, all this fake psychic craziness. This was just like Shawn, stealing a good fishing buddy and then making him imagine things that a man his age had never had to think about before. Like what the hell was he supposed to call Carlton now? He is not referring to Detective Carlton Lassiter as his son’s boyfriend, if that’s even what he was.
“You have the right to remain silent,” O’Hara recited, pulling Applegate from the front seat to the back.
“You didn’t notice the cat acting strangely?” Henry demanded after the pause went on too long, his voice rough. His son’s lover? He was shuddering even at the idea. “And how could you miss Carlton’s wedding ring? It was so obvious, for Pete’s sake.”
“I thought it was the captivity, and I wasn’t exactly looking at his hands…” Shawn shut himself up mid-argument, confirming and denying everything, crossing his arms in a sulk just like he’d done at five and would probably do until he died. If Carlton really was putting up with that, then the man had just earned Henry’s respect for life.
His son acted like it, but he really wasn’t an idiot. That was possibly the most frustrating thing about Shawn. But seeing the silently defiant set to his face made Henry’s chest go tight, pain shooting through his heart in a way that he knew would kill him someday if he didn’t do something about it.
He looked away again, at Detective O’Hara wiping her hands and looking satisfied, at the Mercedes rocking with the movements of one seriously angry leopard, at the man responsible for his son’s happiness, whether he knew it yet or not.
Carlton had surprised Shawn just now, that had to count for something.
Henry looked back. “Dating a man isn’t like stealing a car, Shawn,” he remarked. Shawn’s mouth fell open just the tiniest fraction before he controlled himself and grinned. His shrug almost hurt to see, but it was all part of the same distracting move as Shawn pulled a Ziploc bag filled with what looked like candy out of his pocket and popped one in his mouth.
It was all about slight of hand, moving attention to something else as he thought up an excuse, an answer, as he controlled himself. Henry knew it, and waited anyway.
“Of course it isn’t. Stealing a car is easier.” Shawn replied smoothly after a few seconds, and Henry rolled his eyes.
“Shawn.”
“Henry.” The candy smell wafted over to him, sweet and appealing and familiar. Henry scowled down at the bag.
“Give me one of those,” he ordered, looking at them with interest, and Shawn snatched the bag away and stuck it back in his pocket.
“These are Pineapple Lifesavers, painstakingly harvested from roll after roll of Assorted Lifesavers,” Shawn shook his head and sucked loudly on the little circle of candy. “I don’t share these with anybody, not even Gus.”
Henry shut his mouth, and looked over at Carlton before he could help himself. He faced his son again with one eyebrow lifted. After a second he coughed and increased his glare, calling the elephant by its name.
“He’s right you know, kid. Next time you want to get yourself killed, don’t ask us to watch.” His son blinked, successfully hiding his feelings on that little pronouncement, and Henry went on, lobbing a few weapons of his own. “We’re only human, you know, with feelings of our own.” He drove his point in a little deeper, wincing because he knew what he was saying was painful, but necessary, and his son stared at him with wide eyes. He wasn’t arguing, and Henry let the lesson sink in, moving on. “Which reminds me, why the hell am I here anyway?”
Shawn jumped back into motion, built up words rushing from his mouth.
“Almost killed, thank you very much, and Lassi was the one who had to run for his life. And…I need a ride back to town.” Henry must have been staring, because Shawn tried a different smile, coaxing and clever. “I figured Lassi’s car would be full, and Gus is…” he lowered his voice and spoke faster, “…cleaning out your garage.”
“What?” It’s all he can get out while he processes that Shawn had somehow tricked his best friend into doing his dirty work, again.
“Oh, come on.” Shawn waved a hand. “He was afraid of Susan no matter how many times I said she was harmless, and I told him he could stay behind if he cleaned it, and then I told him I had hidden his Cyndi Lauper True Colors t-shirt in there.”
“Did you?” He had to ask and Shawn’s sly grin was his answer. Henry was pretty sure he’d used that thing as a rag to wash his truck years ago, but that was Shawn’s problem now, so he didn’t say anything. Yet. Shawn wouldn’t notice his silence anyway, not the way his eyes kept wandering over to the Crown Vic, only part of his restless energy expended by the action of sucking on his Lifesaver.
The scent was quite distinctive, and Henry realized he had smelled it on Shawn before.
If Shawn really didn’t share them, then there was only one other way Lassiter would have ended up smelling of pineapple-flavored sugar, but there was no way Henry was going there.
“Shawn…” he scolded tiredly than gave up. Madeleine would have known what to say here. But she had left them, and he guessed she was as much a part of the problem as he was, even if their son wasn’t consciously aware of how much. Henry didn’t want to bring it up in any case.
“So…” he tried, then fell silent.
“Yeah…” Shawn finished for him and they both nodded.
“Meet you in the truck?” Henry asked and Shawn nodded again, already inching toward Carlton, who was motionless now beside his car.
“I’ve got to take care of something.”
“Yeah.” Henry cleared his throat, not thinking about that in any detail either. He paused, then put out a hand. A moment later he yanked Shawn into his arms.
They both held still, at least until Shawn breathed out, and maybe Henry didn’t close his eyes or go all weepy at the sound that meant his son was still alive, but Shawn was quiet and so he shut his mouth too, at least until Shawn smacked his back once or twice, and Henry patted him in return, the universal signal that the awkward embrace had gone on long enough for both of them.
“Truck,” Henry reminded him, backing off even faster than Shawn had, then turned and headed quickly in the opposite direction. He turned back at the door in time to see that Carlton had Shawn pinned between the door of the car and his body and was jabbing a finger repeatedly in Shawn’s face.
Henry thought about objecting, but whatever Carlton was saying—and Henry had a pretty good idea of what it was—Shawn probably needed to hear it. His attitude was enough to silence Shawn at least.
But it wouldn’t last, couldn’t last, and almost immediately after Carlton finally shut his mouth, Shawn grinned and spoke loud enough that only the two criminals and the leopard locked inside their separate cars couldn’t hear him.
“But, Lassi, you’re so good-looking with your hair like that.”
It was a blatant distraction that made Henry blush too. Carlton eased back, slightly, but his frown stayed in place.
“You caught the bad guy,” his son tried again, and the mere fact that his son was trying, had to try, said a lot more than Shawn realized.
Carlton eased back, just a little more, then hesitated before bringing a hand up.
The gesture was the same as before, as thought he still might shove Shawn away. But the push was gentle, and Henry had the thought that if Carlton and Shawn had been alone, Carlton would have kissed him.
He quickly glanced away, and accidentally meeting O’Hara’s working-for-impassive- but-still-obviously-pleased gaze.
Henry’s face was definitely warm. He got in the truck.
A minute later he dared another look out the windshield.
They weren’t kissing, because Carlton at least could be professional. It was a good sign. He might be up for the job, after all. He was Head Detective.
“Carlton?” he yelled out through his side window and both men jerked their heads up. Carlton’s eyes were so round and blue Henry could read the wariness from this distance. “Saturday. Five am. I’ll meet you at the docks.” He made a gesture that could mean either fishing or disposing of Carlton’s body.
He smiled blandly at how the invitation to his son’s…to Lassiter…made Carlton blanch. But Carlton nodded a second later, stepping back from Shawn, and Henry’s grin widened before he looked over at his son.
Shawn was staring at him, uncertain and suspicious, and Henry only kept smiling until Shawn blinked.
It had to be good that after seventeen years and a decade or so, he could still surprise his son.
Author: Me :)
For: Psych
Summary:Vury, vury late birthday prezzie for my MissKittie. Who asked for a “cute Henry finding out Shawn is into boys” story, with “points if Lassi is involved.” I tried for cute, I’m not sure I succeeded.
Pairings: Shawn/Gus, sort of, Shawn/Juliet, sort of, Shawn/Lassiter (and in my head, Henry/Juliet, I have no idea why. It just came out).
Rating: PG
Warnings/Disclaimers: Vague Season Three references. Shawn is singing, The Warrior by Scandal. And the whole thing is a shout out to “Bringing Up Baby” which is possibly the best movie ever. I love Lifesavers. I don’t own any of them. Don’t sue me.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KITTIE. You know I love you, and I probably owe you my soul at this point!
After the seventeen years spent raising Shawn and the decade or so putting up with him, Henry supposed he shouldn’t be surprised anymore by the crap his kid liked to pull. But there was still a moment or two of silence when he parked the truck and took in the scene before him when his brain mourned for the very faint hope he’d had that Shawn might not drag the Spencer name into his shenanigans again.
He should have known better of course. Because Shawn is a repeat offender in the shenanigans department, if only to piss Henry off, and he took far too much pleasure out of provoking a reaction to change his ways. Not without a dramatic intervention, or at least a stronger influence on him than Gus had ever been. Gus was a good enough kid, but strong was not a word Henry would use to describe him, unless it was in reference to the amount of tolerance toward Shawn he had displayed over the years.
It probably wasn’t a good sign that he couldn’t see Gus anywhere now either. Sometimes when he watched his son with his best friend, Madeleine’s words would come back to him, and he knew though it might not seem like it at first glance to any normal, rational person, Shawn had always needed Gus more than the other way around. As a steadying influence, because Gus was someone he could not disappoint, even if he delighted in disappointing his father.
Madeleine had also added something else, but Henry had been so grateful she hadn’t said co-dependent he’d stopped really listening, just catching a word here or there, and nodding in distracted agreement.
It had been a relief really, to realize that no matter how irritatingly careless and out of control Shawn seemed, he would always pull himself back for the sake of someone else. It eased one of the many burning volcanoes of acid churning in Henry’s stomach that raising Shawn had left him with, let him think that there might be hope for his son yet.
Though there was the definite possibility that it was the hope that was doing him in.
Henry ran a hand over his head and let out a breath as he climbed out of the truck. His feet crunched in dry pine needles and the sharp scent hit him immediately, reminding him of the camping trip with Shawn he had put off taking, although who did Shawn think he was kidding by planning a trip with just the two of them alone? But what would undoubtedly be the camping trip from hell was only a fraction of the headache Henry could feel throbbing behind his eyes.
Carlton’s red Crown Vic had just parked a few yards away and already the detective and his blonde partner were out and staring ahead with the same puzzled and aggravated frowns on their faces that Henry suspected was on his. He turned his eyes after giving them both a cursory study, looking for his son.
Shawn hopped out of the car’s backseat the moment the junior detective—Juliet O’Hara, if Henry recalled correctly—opened the door for him. He grinned a little too brightly in Henry’s direction and Henry almost turned around to check his truck for signs of a paint balloon attack or glittering butterfly stickers, both of which had occurred in Shawn’s younger years, and both of which had resulted in that same suspicious smile. Henry lifted his chin instead, deciding to wait and see which weapon his son would be lobbing in his direction today.
“It’s good to get out in the fresh air, isn’t it?” Shawn asked the world at large, stretching his arms out and smacking Carlton in the chest in the process. He licked his lips and swallowed what was in his mouth, ignoring every lecture he’d ever gotten about gum not digesting and staying in his stomach for years.
Despite having apparently called out the police—and his father—to a cabin in the middle of the mountains, Shawn managed to look like he’d just gotten out of bed. The hair was on purpose; the rest of the outfit, right down to the wrinkled shirt he’d worn yesterday, suggested he had just gotten out of someone else’s bed. Henry frowned, looking at the nearest female automatically and vainly trying to shake off the worry about Shawn’s carefree attitude when it came to sex and love.
Carlton responded to Shawn’s “accident” by putting a hand on Shawn’s shoulder and shoving him until he landed against Detective O’Hara, and Henry watched his son’s expression change from a vague pout to something much happier.
He slammed the truck door behind him to announce his presence and stomped toward the group.
Carlton was business-like as usual in a suit, though Henry would have tried a double knot in the tie and maybe had more fun with the hair, and his face did look like he had been sucking on Sour Patch Kids just like Shawn had said.
His blue-eyed gaze swept momentarily back over Shawn and O’Hara and his sour face only got worse.
“Tell me something, Spencer,” Lassiter began and Henry looked over just as Shawn winked broadly into the junior detective’s face. She was a lovely girl, Henry noticed, not for the first time, composed even considering how Shawn had somehow ended up leaning against her and hadn’t moved away. But Henry kept his scowl in place when she tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips.
Her amusement lasted until Carlton turned around again and then she finally pushed his leering son off her.
“Yes, Lassi?” Shawn rolled his eyes and held his hand over heart, cocking an eyebrow a second later.
O’Hara, Henry noted, was staring right back at Shawn, and if Shawn couldn’t control his shameless behavior while he was working, then he would expect a detective of the S.P.B.D. to have more sense.
He glanced back at Carlton when the other man turned all the way to take in the little scene as well. His glare was fairly impressive.
“Do all the cabins up here look alike, Spencer?” he wondered through clenched teeth and Shawn looked up immediately, focusing. A moment later his mouth curved up. It wasn’t an innocent smile.
“No. Why?”
“Because we passed this one five times.” Carlton’s hands were closed tight and considering that Shawn had given Henry precise directions to get here, he couldn’t blame him for being pissed off.
“Shawn…” He was scolding out of reflex but Carlton looked over at him with wide eyes as though he had just noticed him. Henry let his gaze linger for a moment as Carlton smoothed over his surprise and looked away. It was probably something to do with why he had been blowing off fishing lately, but embarrassment about an inability to tie a proper Dropper Loop around a Stinger was no reason to avoid him. Henry could show him the right way, he just had to ask.
Shawn answered Carlton before Henry could say anything, flippant and shrugging and hiding behind a joke like he always did. How was any woman ever going to take his son seriously when he acted a jackass all the time? He was never going to find happiness and settle down.
“But, Lassi, it was such a lovely day for a drive.”
“Henry!” Carlton’s greeting was as loud as Shawn’s was bright, but he ignored Shawn and met Henry’s eyes as he stepped forward for a brief, firm handshake that his son would never have managed. For all his sour face, there was a hint of something sweet in the air around him.
“At least, I thought so,” Shawn remarked in a quieter voice and Henry didn’t miss the amused twitch to O’Hara’s lips that she tried to hide.
“Is that why you dragged us out here, Shawn?” she sighed a moment later, amusement gone. “We had leads we were following on…”
“I had things to do today besides haul my ass out here, kid.” It took years of practice to ignore Shawn’s so-hurt-he-knew-better-than-to-believe-it expression.
“What? Washing the truck? You wound me.” Shawn snorted, and Henry spent a second wondering where Shawn had picked that habit up. “And leads on what? Robberies…scams…vandalism… Those can wait, Jules,” Shawn tutted and rested a finger on O’Hara’s mouth. Any decent cop would have slapped his hand. This O’Hara at least got that part right, but she was still giving Shawn far too much time to talk, and leaned in as he did. Though Henry felt himself leaning in too, despite everything.
Shawn’s eyebrow went up higher and he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial hush. “This is about…murder.”
Henry blinked. O’Hara gasped. Carlton sighed.
“Is this about Major Applegate again?” Carlton’s demand snapped all their heads up. “We already checked out your “feeling” and there’s no sign that Major Applegate has even had a bad day, much less that there’s been any sort of foul play.”
“Applegate?” Henry crossed his arms and maybe he hadn’t lost his touch, because his son looked directly at him. “Isn’t he that crazy old billionaire whackjob explorer who keeps animals on his property?”
“Who’s been reading the society pages?” Shawn asked slyly.
“Shawn—Mr. Spencer—seems to think he’s been murdered,” O’Hara turned to explain to him, doubt all over her scrunched up face. And what kind of face was that for a cop anyway?
“He was just fine when we questioned him yesterday, and not happy to have the police at his door,” Carlton butted back in and again Shawn focused on him intently, obviously. Henry knew that look; it meant Shawn was searching for something, usually an angle. “We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t call the Chief,” Carlton finished sourly.
Henry turned back. On one hand, Shawn was rarely wrong. On the other, insisting a man had been murdered who was alive and then getting the police involved was dangerous for a lot of reasons.
The same irritated indecision was on Carlton’s face before he twisted away from Shawn and stared at the cabin. Carlton was silent, but it didn’t take a psychic to feel the man’s disappointed anger.
“What the hell, Shawn?” Henry asked. Maybe Shawn’s need for attention was getting out of control. Where the hell was Gus? “These are detectives, they have better…”
“Relax, relax.” Shawn sighed—loudly—and stepped forward. “All shall be revealed in…” he glanced at his wrist though he wasn’t wearing a watch. “Oh, about one and a half minutes. That is a lovely top by the way, Jules.”
Having drawn every eye back to him, Shawn dropped to lean against the Crown Vic and flashed another smile. “What is that, cerulean?”
“Teal,” O’Hara instantly gushed back, making Henry study her again, from her flat shoes to the blush stealing over her cheeks as she darted looks at her partner. “It was on sale, but I shouldn’t have.” His son studied her too, his eyes not missing a thing, but then they never did.
That Shawn liked her was obvious, how much he liked her was not. The flirting, the smiles, Henry had seen those before once or twice, with the dim-witted bimbos and moody punk girls his son had brought home to piss him off. He’d always assumed those girls had been intended to get that reaction out of him, and that was one of the many reasons they hadn’t lasted, aside from being obvious idiots for dating his son in the first place. They had been just like the many other…experiments…in young Shawn’s life. Things that Shawn was starting to make him think of again now with the way he swept his gaze over O’Hara’s suit and his whole insane conversation.
“It fits well, but have you considered something lighter?”
“Shawn!” He’d had enough.
Shawn gave a start then shook his head sadly.
“Henry has no sense of color,” he complained without looking up.
“I’m only up here because you promised to clean out the garage…and if you tricked me up here just to watch one of your crazy sideshows…”
“Seriously, the lack of faith... Vader would have Force-choked you out by now, or whatever.” He opened his mouth and Shawn had his hands up, his voice gentling to something almost reasonable. “Trust me. In a few minutes, Lassi will get to use his cuffs and catch a murderer or two. I’ll be a hero. Jules will be breathtaking, and you’ll go home to a clean garage.” Shawn held his gaze for all of a second then flicked a glance in Carlton’s direction that was too fast to read. Carlton didn’t look back, and Shawn turned to O’Hara. “You trust me, don’t you, Juliet?” He ended by clasping one of her hands in both of his.
There was definitely a light in his boy’s eyes that wasn’t at all dulled when O’Hara snatched her hand back and wisely didn’t answer.
“We’re here, aren’t we, Spencer?” Carlton broke in and Henry watched the color rise in his son’s face, saw the soft smile come and go before he renewed his cocky grin. He hadn’t stepped away from O’Hara, and Henry felt himself staring.
He remembered the first time he’d fallen in love, real love, not some boyhood crush. He’d probably been too young, younger than Shawn was now, too young to completely hide every fluttering feeling of panic that had ran through him at the slightest word, the barest touch. Maybe nobody could hide that for long, not even Shawn, who had been trying and succeeding at hiding things from the age of nine. Admittedly, it was hard to see with Shawn’s already constant and distracting motions, skipping back and forth, darting around the normal rules, but it was still there now that Henry was truly looking. Love was, if anything, about courage, something to strive for, and Shawn was too new to the game of trying for anything to have mastered it.
Madeleine had been so beautiful, warm and understanding. The way Henry had thought she would be forever, and he had been over the moon at the idea.
He’d only ever felt that way one more time in his life, holding Shawn, and having him small and quiet in his arms. He’d always thought Madeleine had felt the same way. And he had never once thought that she would leave Shawn, or imagined the damage it would do to him.
Henry looked over at this O’Hara one more time since his son hadn’t moved from her side, frowning at her calm expression and every single hair she had pinned back with barrettes. Barrettes. He shook his head. She was hardly adult enough for the kind of responsibility involved in caring for his son’s heart. That would be work, tough work, because Shawn would ensure that, testing anyone and everything to find their breaking points, their leaving points.
“They’re coming,” Shawn announced and was suddenly outside O’Hara’s space and in front of/behind Lassiter as Carlton turned.
“Who?” O’Hara wondered.
“Hello? The murderers,” Shawn sang out as a black Mercedes pulled up, and a man in cheap clothes who seemed out of place in a car like that got out of the passenger side. 35-ish, rough hands, strong build, some tattoos. The driver was another story; tall, trim except for a slight paunch, the shiny face of a man who drank too much, wearing an old-fashioned three piece suit that didn’t completely fit him.
“Major Applegate?” Carlton managed to greet the man and growl at Shawn at the same time.
“Detective…Lassiter wasn’t it?” Major Applegate stared at all of them with a raised eyebrow and Henry felt himself get riled at the man’s attitude, though both Carlton and O’Hara didn’t react. “What are you all doing here?”
“Good question,” Carlton answered and angled his head down. Shawn raised his head at the same time to stare back and Henry opened his mouth, ready to call a halt to this foolishness if he had to.
“I’m so sorry to keep troubling you, sir, Major,” Carlton beat him to it, looking back up, and Henry sighed in relief. “But we were wondering if we could take a look around your cabin. We…have a lead…that you…might be in danger.”
“Was in danger,” Shawn correctly quietly, grinning like an idiot.
Henry snapped his mouth shut. Carlton was pale—he was always pale—but there was no sign of fever. That could only mean that somehow, his son was behind this.
Applegate’s eyes landed on Shawn, his unpleasant attitude getting worse, though Henry couldn’t blame the man for being angry at the intrusion.
“I told you when you bothered me before that nothing was wrong. And as for you…” He pointed at Shawn. “I told you when we met this morning to go away and leave me alone!”
Carlton turned slowly. Henry couldn’t see his face, but Shawn blinked, then smirked back at him so knowingly that Henry frowned. He turned to the other detective for an explanation when Carlton let out a sad, not entirely surprised sigh and dropped his shoulders.
“You met Shawn last week, Major Applegate,” O’Hara commented softly. “At the benefit you gave at your beach house for the Department’s toy drive.”
“That’s right,” Shawn burst out just as Applegate went silent. “We had a long talk. You showed me your house, I showed you my appendix scar. We compared the Charleston to the Roger Rabbit and then you introduced me to Susan.”
“Susan?” O’Hara asked, more intrigued than jealous.
“Susan?” Applegate jumped. The man with him took a step and Carlton jabbed a finger at him.
“You stay right where you are.”
Shawn went right on as though the interruptions hadn’t happened. “Yes, I was so sad to hear that you’d…misplaced…your especial lady.”
“I…” Whatever the reason, Applegate went white at Shawn’s words—a nice guilty color. Henry grunted. For the first time since he’d come up here, he understood why the two detectives had listened to Shawn at all. But…
“Who is Susan?” There hadn’t been any missing persons recently that he’d heard about.
“A leopard,” Carlton answered absently.
“Major Applegate’s precious feline companion,” Shawn amended. Carlton bobbed his head in agreement without comment.
“A leopard is a wild animal, Shawn, not a pet.” Henry found himself using the same voice as when he’d had to explain to Shawn how much work it was to have a dog.
“Not to Horace Applegate.” One glance at Shawn made it pretty clear that Shawn had liked Horace Applegate. Had liked in a way he didn’t like that man before them.
“You lost a leopard?” He couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice when he looked back at Shawn’s suspect.
“Your precious feline companion?” O’Hara added.
“Is it a crime for a pet to go missing?” Applegate recovered enough to sneer.
“Yeah, if your feline companion eats anything bigger than a Chihuahua,” Lassiter shot back and when Henry coughed out a laugh Shawn gave him a look of horror.
“What?” He tried to blink. “You know how I feel about Chihuahuas, Shawn.”
“Call it in, O’Hara,” Lassiter ordered without taking his eyes off Applegate and not paying any attention at all to Shawn furtively calling his father a dog-hater.
“No!” The Major looked like he’d swallowed his tongue. “That is, there’s no need… She’ll come back on her own.”
“When she’s had her fill of kindergartners…”
“We really have to work on these morbid thoughts of yours, Lassi.” Shawn was mostly facing the other direction, but he slapped a hand on Carlton’s back, patting it in fake sympathy.
Henry turned too, following Shawn’s gaze, trying to see what it was Shawn had seen. It was a large cabin, fairly isolated up here in the mountains, most of the neighbors vacationing types, only here a few weeks a year. Lots of peace and quiet and no witnesses.
“What’s this about a murder?” It was tempting to go back to the truck and watch all of this unfold in comfort. Shawn clearly had a plan, even if he wasn’t getting on with it.
“Lassi, if you say ‘No body, No crime’ I will start to sing ‘The Warrior’, and you haven’t lived until you’ve seen me work my finger-gun move either.” Shawn’s hand was still resting at Lassiter’s back, though it had fallen a few inches without either of them seeming to notice.
Henry lifted his head, watched as Shawn opened his mouth before Carlton could even take a breath. His eyes were serious—for Shawn—as though this wasn’t one of his dares, and something real was at stake here.
The first few notes were enough to have everyone else there cringing. “I don’t wanna tame your animal style, you won’t be caged, in the call of the wild!”
“I don’t have to stand here for this nonsense!” Applegate shouted over Shawn’s off-key, “You talk, talk, you talk to me, your eyes touch me physically…Shootin’ at the walls of heartache –Bang! Bang! I am the Warrior!”
“Wait!” Shawn gasped out abruptly, stumbling and not singing.
“Thank God,” Henry murmured at the silence. Carlton rolled his shoulders, not quite hiding a shudder. Shawn spun away from Carlton and shut his eyes. A moment later he was back, his arms outstretched, his hands sliding over the other man’s chest.
This was the point where Gus usually stepped it to remind Shawn of where he was, and really, where was Gus anyway? If Shawn was going to act like a jackass when he was on his own, than a little dependency wasn’t so bad. Maybe even a little inter-dependency, or infatuation, or whatever else it was Madeleine had said.
“I’m getting something,” Shawn declared and neatly evaded Carlton’s slapping hands even with his eyes closed. He even reached out, grasping in the dark, and caught one. Carlton went still. Henry felt himself go absolutely frozen.
“You don’t get infatuated with other boys,” he’d argued, faintly, shaking his head, and Madeleine’s mouth had curved up into a small smile.
“I don’t think Shawn sees it that way.”
Henry felt his arms fall to his sides, and licked his dry lips.
“Maybe I’ll take Gus to prom.” Shawn had been offhand, glancing up at him once from his cereal, both of them knowing that Henry had found the magazines in the shed even if he had never mentioned them. The things in there, they’d been just to shock him, just like everything else always was.
He still didn’t know what he’d done to get his son so angry with him, what he could ever do to make it right.
“Gus would never take you,” he had answered, just as offhand, and gone back to reading the paper.
“I see a hand!” Shawn let his fingers slide between Carlton’s, his grip stronger apparently, because Carlton tugged but didn’t break his hold, though his face was getting red. “Not hands…fingers! No…!” Shawn play-frowned and opened his eyes. “A ring!” he shouted and then abruptly frowned for real. “You took off your wedding ring?” he noticed out loud, shocked. He was breathing hard, more than a match to the way Carlton’s chest was heaving. Henry couldn’t seem to catch his breath either.
Carlton opened his mouth, then shut it, and for that second while he waited, his son was actually quiet. Carlton’s head twitched like he wanted to see the faces of those around him, but he didn’t turn.
“It’s none of your business, Spencer,” Carlton whispered at last, so faint as to not even have been said at all. He swallowed, and the moment broke. Shawn released his hand and threw himself backward, returning to the business of being a professional dumbass.
“A ring!” Shawn looked every which way for a second, then glanced in Henry’s direction. Even with everything else, Henry felt himself cocking his eyebrow at the detail that Shawn should have noticed before, and Shawn still responded by scowling at him for half a second. “Not a ring, a ringer! A ringer, a look-alike! That’s not Horace Applegate, just someone who looks like him,” he finished in a rush and swooned dramatically.
“Shawn?” O’Hara snapped her phone closed.
“A double?” Carlton scoffed with his hands behind his back, ignoring Shawn’s faint and amazingly fast recovery. Henry just frowned at all of them. His headache wasn’t so small anymore. “What are the odds of that?”
“Pretty good if you’re actually his brother,” Shawn answered smoothly, standing up straight. He seemed to have recovered just fine.
“His twin?” O’Hara came up to stand next to her partner. She had her hand on the gun at her waist for the first time and Henry’s eyebrows went up at quickly she’d gone professional. He looked over but his son was strutting in front of the suspects and shaking his head. Henry sighed.
He got it; the brother had offed his richer brother and assumed his identity for the fame and fortune. But what did the leopard have to do with it?”
“I didn’t know he had a brother,” Carlton remarked absently.
“That’s right, nobody ever did,” Applegate—one of them—laughed bitterly. “Always in the spotlight, with my rank and my awards and my charities and that damn cat!”
“That’s no way to talk about your precious Susan,” Shawn reminded him, his voice disappointed. Henry took his eyes off his son’s wild, and honestly, somewhat limp-wristed hand gestures to study the other man with Applegate.
“So who’s this guy?”
“He owns this place. A friend of Mr. Applegate here…Mr. Huxley Applegate.”
“Carlton Random,” the fellow introduced himself with a glower and Henry coughed.
“Wow.” O’Hara forgot herself and Henry gave her a pointed look.
“I know, two Carltons. I’m not sure the Space Time Continuum can handle them being in the same place at the same time,” Shawn stage-whispered to her.
“Shut up, Spencer.” Carlton didn’t even put any heat into it, which was likely why Shawn ignored it, and honestly, weren’t there any cops out there that could make his son toe the line?
“But I haven’t even gotten to the good part, Lass.”
“None of this is proof of anything,” Applegate—probably Huxley—insisted.
“Well that would be the aforementioned ‘good part’.” Shawn grinned and somehow slid back into Carlton’s space as he made his air quotes.
“Spare us the speech. Just tell me who to arrest,” Carlton muttered and Shawn’s hand snaked out again, just once, just for a moment, patting down Lassiter’s tie.
It was a gesture Henry had seen before, though not in years, not up close, but always when a case had had him anxious and too restless to focus on things at home like he should have. It had been casual but still somehow deeply-felt. It was…grounding…to feel his wife’s touch, and it was after she had left that he hadn’t been able to focus very well on anything anymore. Not for a long, long time, not until it had maybe been too late.
He hadn’t wanted to think that Shawn had noticed. But of course Shawn saw everything, Henry had seen to that.
He’d just assumed, the dates, the jobs, the driving off on that damned motorcycle, that they were all aimed at him. He had never thought, not once, that Shawn might have been running from more than that.
His son had been in Santa Barbara for over a year now. That was the kind of clue Henry should have seen a long time ago, and damn it, this was probably why Carlton had stopped going fishing with him.
Henry swallowed, his throat thick, while Lassiter let Shawn talk.
“One brother; millionaire-turned-billionaire, philanthropist, eccentric, charming, a war hero who mixed a mean piña colada and could do the frug like you wouldn’t believe. The other; a greedy, unscrupulous cat-hater with decent if boring hair, who was jealous of his sibling’s success. One night, probably Christmas but the spirits can’t be sure yet, they argue, and that’s when the idea of murder first occurs to him.
Everyone in the family always remarked on how alike they looked. All he’d have to do is cut his hair and hide the body and the billions are his. It’s not like anyone is going to come looking for him. He’s practically a nobody.”
“Yeah, but what about Susan?” At least O’Hara still had a hand on her weapon, not that Random or Applegate have made a move; they seemed as transfixed by Shawn’s speech as everyone else.
“Ah, Susan, the lady of the house…and the one fly in your ointment, the bee in your bonnet, the bat in your belfry…”
“Spencer.”
One word and his son switched gears. Henry shook his head and looked up, really looked up. Shawn was prowling across the space between Lassiter and Applegate—like a cat, or more like an idiot trying to look like a cat. He was excited, flushed brightly and fully in the moment as he denounced a killer, but it was impossible to tell if he was serious underneath all the show. Henry wasn’t sure that he could even learn to be, or that anyone would have the patience to wait and see.
“Horace took Susan everywhere. They’d been inseparable for years. She made him famous, the sweet, tame leopard on the diamond-studded leash. The two were linked in the public mind. Susan was like a puppy, she liked everyone…even Lassi here got his face licked by the big, fluffy, wuffy kitty.”
“Teeth…” Carlton muttered, giving one shiver, and again, Shawn’s hand glanced over Carlton’s tie before he slinked away.
“But not you.” Shawn gentled his tone and mercifully stopped pretending to be a cat. “Not you, Huxley.”
“That cat always hated…my brother.” Huxley smoothed his hands over his suit and cleared his throat. “And I don’t believe anything you’ve said here constitutes proof.”
“That’s true. You’d need a warrant for his blood or something,” Random actually spoke up again, strangely knowledgeable of the legal system and Henry frowned at the interruption, jerking his thumb at him.
“Seriously, who is this guy?”
“Huxley’s prison cell-mate. Oh, did I forget to mention he’s an ex-con?” Shawn brushed a speck from his shoulder.
“That was a juvenile offense. Those records should have been expunged. How did you know that?” There was a drop of sweat on Huxley’s forehead now.
“Dude, I told you this morning…and a week ago…psychic.” Shawn made his usual psychic gesture at his head. Henry had a feeling he wasn’t the only one who rolled his eyes.
“All right, I’ve heard enough.” Carlton put out a hand.
“But, Lassi.” It was embarrassing to hear his grown son whine, to see him stick out his lower lip. But after the token protest, Shawn dropped back on his heels and gave every appearance of being prepared to wait.
“Unless you’ve got some probable cause up the sleeve of that hideous shirt, Spencer, I can’t hold them.” Carlton didn’t seem to notice Shawn’s gasp, but Henry watched Shawn dart a questioning look to O’Hara, who wrinkled her nose and nodded with a sad little shrug. Shawn dropped back with an honestly confused frown, staring at his clothes. Personally, Henry didn’t think his son could pull off that shade of yellow. “But I’d advise both of them not to leave town.”
“Oh!” Shirt apparently forgotten, Shawn shook off his inaction and leapt forward. His face was lit up and brilliant and for one moment, Henry could see that whatever else Shawn hated him for, he loved being able to do this—though he might not ever admit it. This was it, this was the reason Shawn had gotten them all up here, the thing he’d been building up to this whole time.
“Dude, this is going to be awesome,” he commented, evidently to a Gus who still wasn’t there, then he dashed over to the cabin, stopping in front of doors to what looked like a basement or a storm cellar.
“What if Susan suddenly couldn’t stand her lifetime companion? Would that be probable cause for a DNA test, Lassi?” he called out.
Everyone was looking at Shawn now. There was nothing unusual about that. Turned as they were, Henry couldn’t see their faces, could only hear Random yell out for Shawn to stop. But he could see his son’s expression as he looked back at all of them, as he stared at the two detectives.
Henry looked at them too, at O’Hara slim and pretty in her smart suit, the hair she hadn’t quite managed to get under control. She hadn’t taken her hand from her weapon, even with that, and Henry had to approve.
But a moment of study let him see that Shawn wasn’t trying to hide anything he felt for her, that he didn’t have anything to hide from her, any pieces of himself he was afraid of revealing.
Love was courage, courage over huge amounts of fear, and when his gaze slid just a few feet to the side there it was, everything Henry had ever intentionally taught his son about using his brain to solve crimes, and unintentionally shown his son about protecting himself. Shawn was wavering between showing off and hesitating, and while he waited, his voice too loud and his words insane, he barely seemed to breathe.
Henry could remember the feeling.
He looked down too, when Shawn did, his face burning to have seen something like that on his son’s face at all, his body cold because Shawn hadn’t wanted him to see it either.
“Your wish is my command,” Shawn was babbling about something that someone must have said, to get on with it maybe, saying something that vaguely sounded like something from his childhood. “Meka-leka-high-meka-heinie-ho.”
“Wait, Shawn don’t!” O’Hara launched forward right as Shawn popped the lock and swung open the doors, and at that point, after taking part in Shawn’s lunacy for ten minutes, no one seemed really surprised to see the great cat leap up the stairs and out into the open.
It stopped once outside, and Henry didn’t know leopards, but he knew that this one wasn’t wearing a leash, diamond-studded or otherwise, and that all the fur raised along a cat’s back was never a good sign.
“They found Susan an hour ago, wandering the grounds of Major Applegate’s estate in town,” O’Hara whispered, looking momentarily petrified when the cat stared at her. “But the zoo reported someone stole a leopard last night.”
“Isn’t she a good wittle kitty?” Shawn hopped forward with a grin.
“Shawn!” The three of them shouted at once, hands out, and Carlton yanked free his gun.
“I told you you’d get to arrest someone, Lass,” Shawn called out, his words slowing when he saw took in the sight of them, but he still moved to stand next to the cat. “I’ve got her.”
“No you haven’t, Shawn,” Carlton hissed. “That’s a different leopard.” Shawn snorted and smirked at O’Hara.
“Lassi, leopards don’t change their spots. I’m not a zoologist, but I know that.”
“Do you even know what a zoologist is?” Carlton wondered, his voice faint with disbelief, his arm steady.
“Of course I know what a zoologist is…” Shawn shrugged, his bluffing obvious even to the cat; it flicked back its ears in an irritated gesture. “They study all things zoo…related.” Distracted, Shawn reached down and Henry moved forward, already knowing he was too slow, that that animal was going to kill his idiot son right before his eyes.
Whatever the reason his son’s improbable friendship with Gus had lasted this long, probably Gus’ inhuman patience, it had doubtless saved his son’s life on occasions just like this one. Gus would have seen a physical threat a mile away and run from it, screaming. As long as only his body was involved, Shawn threw himself toward it.
“Spencer, back away. Now.” Lassiter kept his gun as level as his voice and Henry stopped.
“You can’t shoot Susan.” Shawn protested, but for the first time he looked beyond the cat and Henry flinched when Shawn looked at him and froze, recalling for the first time that naked concern was all over his face.
“I wasn’t going to shoot Susan,” Carlton replied, fierce and breathless, and Shawn took his wide-eyed stare away to study…the Head Detective? The man Shawn had trusted to save him? The man who had put that anxious, head over heels look on Shawn’s face?
Carlton cocked his gun. “If I have to shoot you to keep you out of trouble, Spencer, then it will be my pleasure.”
“Hey,” Henry spoke up, because none of that gave the man the right to shoot Shawn. But the sound was drowned out but the sudden growl, the blurred motion of the cat leaping forward, and the noise of his son squealing like a twelve year old girl.
The leopard went for Huxley with a vengeance, not the only leopard who hated the man, apparently. Henry had a second to wonder how in the hell they’d gotten that animal out of the zoo in the first place and then everyone scattered.
“Shawn, stay back!” He heard himself yelling and watched Carlton and O’Hara scramble after the fleeing Huxley—after the large, deadly cat chasing Huxley—and his partner.
O’Hara slammed Random into the Mercedes and cuffed him, but Henry searched through the Shawn-created chaos to track the cat as it circled the Crown Vic, its yellow eyes narrowed on Huxley as he climbed on top.
“Get the cat-hater, Lassi!” Shawn’s ringside cheerleading was just one more sound among the growling and screaming.
“Shut up and keep back!” Lassiter snapped at him distractedly, but this time it worked. Shawn shut up and stayed back, something close to a miracle for the ten seconds it lasted.
“It can jump, you know!” Shawn informed them helpfully and Henry swung around to exchange one panicked look with Carlton just as the other man kicked into action.
He leapt up and yanked Huxley off the roof of the car, and they both ducked when the leopard growled and jumped. It thudded onto the roof and then soared through the air to the ground below. Carlton reached out and flung open the car door, shoving the man in the passenger seat. He had time to shut the door and then he was off, running around the car, a very pissed off leopard on his tail.
“Oh man, that stupid cat!” Random swore as Carlton and the leopard passed him, and O’Hara turned too, trying to fix her gun on…anything.
“Lassi! The Mercedes!” Shawn’s voice reached them and Henry nodded and moved again, ending up alongside O’Hara as she yanked open the door to the backseat of the Mercedes. They both fell back as Carlton, long legs and all, slid inside and crawled across the leather just to tear at the door on the other side when the cat followed him in.
O’Hara reached up and slammed the door on her side right as Carlton fell out the other side and shut that door behind him.
Henry got to his feet and then extended a hand to Detective O’Hara. Random was still handcuffed and huddled down behind him. She glared at him the moment she was on her feet, her color up.
“Carlton.” Henry managed as he came around the car to stand beside the detective. “You all right?”
Carlton was standing, surprisingly on his feet after all of that, and uninjured, though he was dirty and breathing hard, and his suit was a little…askew. So was his hair, falling into his face.
Carlton brushed himself off and stared down for a moment. “My pants…” he lamented softly, like running from a wild leopard was nothing compared to ruined pants. “I’m fine,” he answered after a pause, his breath still smelling oddly sweet, then narrowed his eyes as Shawn appeared at his side.
“Dude! That was amazing! You’re like the Beastmaster!” Shawn exclaimed as he jerked to a stop an inch from knocking Lassiter over. His hands came out, but fell short of actually touching Carlton this time. His eyes were busy documenting everything about Lassiter, sweeping repeatedly over his lanky body, his tight face, his worry obvious now that Henry was looking for it.
Shawn met Carlton’s gaze at last and flinched, then tried a smile and stepped back with his hands out.
“Spencer, what kind of idiot stunt was that?” Carlton bit out and Henry caught the small noise from behind him that meant O’Hara was listening and wanted to comment.
“That idiot stunt helped solve the case.” Shawn lifted his chin. “And got you your arrest.”
“You don’t have anything on us for murder,” Random pointed out from back on the ground.
“They’ve got you for stealing the leopard. The warrants are practically in their hands for everything else,” Henry snapped without taking his eyes from his son and Carlton Lassiter.
“I had my gun out, Spencer.” Carlton spoke through clenched teeth then seemed to realize that he still had his gun out. He holstered it in one jerky motion.
“Please, we all know you love whipping it out.” Shawn wriggled his eyebrows and Henry knew he was turning red.
For one hot, furious moment it was like Carlton couldn’t even speak.
“Just…don’t call me out next time you want to risk your neck,” Carlton finally snapped then twisted around, tossing his cuffs to his partner. “O’Hara, read them their rights. I’ll call it in.” He took a step, then stopped when he saw Henry watching. “Henry.” He nodded in acknowledgment of the offered help earlier and then limped back to the Crown Vic. He must have hurt himself during the chase after all.
O’Hara moved too, and Henry found himself standing alone with his son.
Shawn glared at the ground but when he looked up it was with a smile that Henry wasn’t about to fall for. He still didn’t understand, nor did he really want to, but he’d be as big of an idiot as his son if he just ignored what was right in front of his face.
“Nobody here appreciates my genius,” Shawn said, and from a distance, Henry could still hear Carlton’s snort. Shawn’s mouth tightened.
“It would have gone awesomely if it had been Susan in there.”
“At least Jules didn’t have to shoot the cat,” he added a moment later. When he looked up, Henry realized Shawn had actually been talking to him. Beneath the color, Shawn was darting his eyes around, humming with nervous tension.
“You know, that shirt really is awful,” Henry said, because he had to say something. No sense of color... Shawn snorted, and the sound was so telling it was amazing that he hadn’t noticed it before now. He turned away, observing Carlton as he bent inside his car to use the radio. His voice was calm even if his words were clipped, his body mostly steady even if his fingers drummed across the Crown Vic’s roof.
The man was at least ten years older than Shawn, and divorced, or almost-divorced, and apparently trigger-happy. Compared to him, Juliet O’Hara was an ideal bride.
God. Henry scrubbed his face with his hands for a moment. Because what the hell kind of thought was that? It was Shawn’s influence, all this fake psychic craziness. This was just like Shawn, stealing a good fishing buddy and then making him imagine things that a man his age had never had to think about before. Like what the hell was he supposed to call Carlton now? He is not referring to Detective Carlton Lassiter as his son’s boyfriend, if that’s even what he was.
“You have the right to remain silent,” O’Hara recited, pulling Applegate from the front seat to the back.
“You didn’t notice the cat acting strangely?” Henry demanded after the pause went on too long, his voice rough. His son’s lover? He was shuddering even at the idea. “And how could you miss Carlton’s wedding ring? It was so obvious, for Pete’s sake.”
“I thought it was the captivity, and I wasn’t exactly looking at his hands…” Shawn shut himself up mid-argument, confirming and denying everything, crossing his arms in a sulk just like he’d done at five and would probably do until he died. If Carlton really was putting up with that, then the man had just earned Henry’s respect for life.
His son acted like it, but he really wasn’t an idiot. That was possibly the most frustrating thing about Shawn. But seeing the silently defiant set to his face made Henry’s chest go tight, pain shooting through his heart in a way that he knew would kill him someday if he didn’t do something about it.
He looked away again, at Detective O’Hara wiping her hands and looking satisfied, at the Mercedes rocking with the movements of one seriously angry leopard, at the man responsible for his son’s happiness, whether he knew it yet or not.
Carlton had surprised Shawn just now, that had to count for something.
Henry looked back. “Dating a man isn’t like stealing a car, Shawn,” he remarked. Shawn’s mouth fell open just the tiniest fraction before he controlled himself and grinned. His shrug almost hurt to see, but it was all part of the same distracting move as Shawn pulled a Ziploc bag filled with what looked like candy out of his pocket and popped one in his mouth.
It was all about slight of hand, moving attention to something else as he thought up an excuse, an answer, as he controlled himself. Henry knew it, and waited anyway.
“Of course it isn’t. Stealing a car is easier.” Shawn replied smoothly after a few seconds, and Henry rolled his eyes.
“Shawn.”
“Henry.” The candy smell wafted over to him, sweet and appealing and familiar. Henry scowled down at the bag.
“Give me one of those,” he ordered, looking at them with interest, and Shawn snatched the bag away and stuck it back in his pocket.
“These are Pineapple Lifesavers, painstakingly harvested from roll after roll of Assorted Lifesavers,” Shawn shook his head and sucked loudly on the little circle of candy. “I don’t share these with anybody, not even Gus.”
Henry shut his mouth, and looked over at Carlton before he could help himself. He faced his son again with one eyebrow lifted. After a second he coughed and increased his glare, calling the elephant by its name.
“He’s right you know, kid. Next time you want to get yourself killed, don’t ask us to watch.” His son blinked, successfully hiding his feelings on that little pronouncement, and Henry went on, lobbing a few weapons of his own. “We’re only human, you know, with feelings of our own.” He drove his point in a little deeper, wincing because he knew what he was saying was painful, but necessary, and his son stared at him with wide eyes. He wasn’t arguing, and Henry let the lesson sink in, moving on. “Which reminds me, why the hell am I here anyway?”
Shawn jumped back into motion, built up words rushing from his mouth.
“Almost killed, thank you very much, and Lassi was the one who had to run for his life. And…I need a ride back to town.” Henry must have been staring, because Shawn tried a different smile, coaxing and clever. “I figured Lassi’s car would be full, and Gus is…” he lowered his voice and spoke faster, “…cleaning out your garage.”
“What?” It’s all he can get out while he processes that Shawn had somehow tricked his best friend into doing his dirty work, again.
“Oh, come on.” Shawn waved a hand. “He was afraid of Susan no matter how many times I said she was harmless, and I told him he could stay behind if he cleaned it, and then I told him I had hidden his Cyndi Lauper True Colors t-shirt in there.”
“Did you?” He had to ask and Shawn’s sly grin was his answer. Henry was pretty sure he’d used that thing as a rag to wash his truck years ago, but that was Shawn’s problem now, so he didn’t say anything. Yet. Shawn wouldn’t notice his silence anyway, not the way his eyes kept wandering over to the Crown Vic, only part of his restless energy expended by the action of sucking on his Lifesaver.
The scent was quite distinctive, and Henry realized he had smelled it on Shawn before.
If Shawn really didn’t share them, then there was only one other way Lassiter would have ended up smelling of pineapple-flavored sugar, but there was no way Henry was going there.
“Shawn…” he scolded tiredly than gave up. Madeleine would have known what to say here. But she had left them, and he guessed she was as much a part of the problem as he was, even if their son wasn’t consciously aware of how much. Henry didn’t want to bring it up in any case.
“So…” he tried, then fell silent.
“Yeah…” Shawn finished for him and they both nodded.
“Meet you in the truck?” Henry asked and Shawn nodded again, already inching toward Carlton, who was motionless now beside his car.
“I’ve got to take care of something.”
“Yeah.” Henry cleared his throat, not thinking about that in any detail either. He paused, then put out a hand. A moment later he yanked Shawn into his arms.
They both held still, at least until Shawn breathed out, and maybe Henry didn’t close his eyes or go all weepy at the sound that meant his son was still alive, but Shawn was quiet and so he shut his mouth too, at least until Shawn smacked his back once or twice, and Henry patted him in return, the universal signal that the awkward embrace had gone on long enough for both of them.
“Truck,” Henry reminded him, backing off even faster than Shawn had, then turned and headed quickly in the opposite direction. He turned back at the door in time to see that Carlton had Shawn pinned between the door of the car and his body and was jabbing a finger repeatedly in Shawn’s face.
Henry thought about objecting, but whatever Carlton was saying—and Henry had a pretty good idea of what it was—Shawn probably needed to hear it. His attitude was enough to silence Shawn at least.
But it wouldn’t last, couldn’t last, and almost immediately after Carlton finally shut his mouth, Shawn grinned and spoke loud enough that only the two criminals and the leopard locked inside their separate cars couldn’t hear him.
“But, Lassi, you’re so good-looking with your hair like that.”
It was a blatant distraction that made Henry blush too. Carlton eased back, slightly, but his frown stayed in place.
“You caught the bad guy,” his son tried again, and the mere fact that his son was trying, had to try, said a lot more than Shawn realized.
Carlton eased back, just a little more, then hesitated before bringing a hand up.
The gesture was the same as before, as thought he still might shove Shawn away. But the push was gentle, and Henry had the thought that if Carlton and Shawn had been alone, Carlton would have kissed him.
He quickly glanced away, and accidentally meeting O’Hara’s working-for-impassive- but-still-obviously-pleased gaze.
Henry’s face was definitely warm. He got in the truck.
A minute later he dared another look out the windshield.
They weren’t kissing, because Carlton at least could be professional. It was a good sign. He might be up for the job, after all. He was Head Detective.
“Carlton?” he yelled out through his side window and both men jerked their heads up. Carlton’s eyes were so round and blue Henry could read the wariness from this distance. “Saturday. Five am. I’ll meet you at the docks.” He made a gesture that could mean either fishing or disposing of Carlton’s body.
He smiled blandly at how the invitation to his son’s…to Lassiter…made Carlton blanch. But Carlton nodded a second later, stepping back from Shawn, and Henry’s grin widened before he looked over at his son.
Shawn was staring at him, uncertain and suspicious, and Henry only kept smiling until Shawn blinked.
It had to be good that after seventeen years and a decade or so, he could still surprise his son.
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....that sounds like I have principles and everything but it's really just so you people keep writing.:)
Ps. That's a very, very believable Henry.:)
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Though sometimes I lose the link, being the unorganized creature that I am.
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(My bookmarks are a horrible, evil mess of very important stuff and I have over hundred tags open. Yes, I am fucked.)