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Continued from Part Two...
Disclaimer: Not mine, btw. And all previous warnings and stuff still apply.
“Dude, “Boys Don’t Cry”? Really?” Spencer asks the man curled up on the floor, spitting out a strand of inky black hair as he does. The sorority girl glued to his chest buries her face in his shoulder and maybe she has been held against her will in this dark hell-hole by this freak and forced to read, but Carlton doesn’t see any reason for her to grope Spencer.
Spencer probably just takes it as his due, one more person at his feet. Carlton probes carefully around his sore eye while keeping his gun aimed steadily on his suspect as O’Hara and an incredibly bright flashlight come into the room with them.
“What happened?” she asks after of course gasping and wondering where his flashlight is. Carlton checks his gun and stows it before bending over to cuff the suspect. He doesn’t answer her questions, mostly because his face hurts like a son of a bitch, but he jerks his head at Spencer without turning back around and hauls the guy to his feet.
He really hopes there’s another way out of here, because getting this guy up that ladder while he’s cuffed is not going to be fun. Thank God for obedient local deputies with strong arms.
He doesn’t look back until he’s out in the sunshine. The last thing he needs is to see Spencer with another person all over him.
Lassiter doesn’t seem too interested right now, though Shawn will mention it later. For now he has to pat Jeni’s hair try not to notice how the dye is rubbing off on his palm.
Lassi yanks the suspect to his feet in one short, jerky, pissed off move and directs a glare at Shawn that is far too brief when Shawn makes a comment about the music selection. But he’s got a lot of happy memories set to that song. Well, a few encounters in the dark with girls who took “Lovesong” a little too seriously. Not even the cops showing up at what was probably his father’s request could ruin memories that sweet.
The choices so far have definitely been more on the moody, lonely side. Weird that Lassi didn’t seem to appreciate it. Shawn guesses he’ll have to do without seeing Lassiter in a plastic collar and a pound of dark eye shadow.
He just gets a chance to look for Lassi and give him a thumbs up but Lassi’s shoving Goth Kubiac toward the ladder, and while ordinarily getting a handcuffed guy up a ladder was something Shawn would want to see, Jules is frowning at him and there are a few other uniformed cops with guns scattered around.
“Hey, Jules!” Shawn greets Juliet and pries Jeni off him at the same time. She ends tucked against Juliet and staring at him with wide, raccoon eyes. “Tell me the cavalry is here.” The raccoon eyes have smeared all over Jules’ suit, which she hasn’t noticed yet. She’s taking in the Fortress of Solitude, the Marilyn Manson version.
“Not to brag, Jules, but Lassi and I were like any great crime fighting couple Starsky and Hutch...Bert and Ernie…Crockett and Tubbs—I was Crockett,” he adds, on the down low.
“Shawn.” She interrupts him and frowns, as though just noticing that Shawn has pretty much shoved the crying victim into her arms and is now scooting past the both of them. “There are some local deputies outside, and an ambulance. Our officers are on the way. But that still doesn’t explain what happened. And Bert and Ernie didn’t fight crime…”
“But they were a great couple,” Shawn asserts immediately, imagining the drumroll even if he doesn’t have any drums. Or know how to play them. Juliet blinks once or twice.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Shawn?” she asks slowly. “It’s dark down here, but you look a little…” she passes a hand over her face but then Jeni perks up enough to get her attention and she doesn’t finish.
“Wow,” a male voice exclaims from the direction of the entrance, probably one of the locals sent in to make sure the place is clear. Shawn tilts his head that way and Juliet nods.
“Come on…” she bends down to whisper in Jeni’s ear as she leads her out, and while the sight of Juliet’s mouth that close to any part of another girl is all sorts of hot, Shawn darting back and forth behind them, bouncing past the second local deputy coming off the ladder to shoot up out into the light.
It’s disgustingly bright outside, though at least the locals are there to help him haul their Cure-loving suspect up.
The field doesn’t look very isolated anymore. There’s an ambulance pulling out into the field, and the farmer who owns the land is going to be pissed about that, not that Carlton gives a crap right now. One side of his face and the back of his head feel like he ran into a wall, his shoulder aches from pushing that giant clown dressed in black up a ladder, he’s hot, and his neck still itches from at least two bug bites.
He can still hear the girl complaining into Spencer’s shoulder, if he listens.
She’s safe now at least.
Carlton stands back to watch another local help her out into daylight—and to see her giggle over that, apparently not too shaken up by her forced stay at the Tim Burton Hotel.
Spencer comes bounding out of the hole next, glancing around as Guster comes up to fuss over him. Or yell at him, it’s hard to see the difference, until they bump fists and Guster leaves his side to make a show of helping O’Hara out of the bunker. Not that she needs the help. But it frees up Spencer for one second and Carlton watches the other man scan over the field, sees him stop when he finds the suspect and Carlton.
There are sirens in the distance and Carlton sighs and starts walking toward them, shoving the freak in front of him. He hears more cars pulling up while he recites the Miranda and the guy isn’t fighting him, but he pushes him into the Crown Vic anyway.
“Sorry,” he apologizes with the fakest smile he can manage and slams the door. The moment he does, and turns, he sees O’Hara pointing at him. The paramedics grab him a second later.
For a few minutes it’s hands all over him and another flashlight in his eye and he can’t see anything else. He can only listen to sirens, squealing, and Spencer. He can’t make out any words, not over the EMTs giving him some pills and an icepack, telling him to go to a hospital to get checked out, just in case, and then his own voice telling them he would and all of them knowing he’s lying. But the water tastes good in his mouth, which is dry as he strains to hear more, as he is finally released from all the tender loving care and allowed to walk back to his car.
Gus is waiting for him at the edge, scowling and going on about flashlights and Lassiter and all the usual things about the ulcer he’s naming after Shawn. A moment later they are sharing a look at the really, really large man wearing all that black and Gus is shaking his head. He has a point though; Shawn doubts there are many Goth aficionados in the African-American community, though there has to be at least one, somewhere.
Once she is above ground Jeni is back in Shawn’s arms, though she sniffles a few times and traps Gus for a while too. She takes a second to look at the guy Lassi is shoving into his car, and doesn’t seem to recognize him. The guy doesn’t say a word either, apparently taking his rights very seriously. She’ll have to look at him again down at the station, while Lassi and Jules try to figure out who that guy is, and how he knows the girls. Shawn almost asks her if she’s been to a Hot Topic recently, then decides to ask later.
But even though Jeni hasn’t stopped talking the way to the ambulance to be checked out she hasn’t stopped shivering either, so Shawn sighs and holds and glares over his shoulder at Gus who is hanging back now and shaking his head whenever Shawn looks at him.
Shawn glares at him with his mouth in a line. He can actually feel the wet eyeliner staining his flannel.
Also he has several words for Gus for not telling him about all this sooner. Odds are good they will not be in hushed tones.
They get back to their cars just as several S.B.P.D. vehicles pull up. There’s no sign of Buzz or the Chief, but one of the cars is full of about six screaming, excited sorority girls. Three of whom have taken Shawn’s advice and gotten their hair restyled. The Robert Smith-wannabe can suck on that.
Jeni finally detaches herself to run over to them and, Shawn could say what he wants about how annoying, and shallow, and well, dumb, some of those girls are, this group does seem to care for each other. Shawn watches them envelop Jeni in a hug and slides his eyes over to the ambulance, because the EMTs are insisting that Lassiter get looked over too.
His eye looks horrible, all puffy and red and gross and Lassi just got rid of the sling and now this. The suspect is in the back of Lassiter’s car and Lassiter is making no move to be a part of all the official stuff going on that he normally loves, though he is snarling at the uniformed guy trying to open his swollen eye.
Jules doesn’t seem to mind Lassiter being distracted. She’s talking into a phone about getting the crime scene team and ordering the local deputies not to touch anything. She’s pretty bossy. She’ll probably match Lassi once of these days, unless someone saves her from a lonely, sour-faced fate.
Someone should have tried to save Carlton, but then Shawn would never have gotten the chance. Though he most likely would have arrested whoever would have tried. Shawn narrows his eyes when Lassiter nods and frowns and obviously ignores whatever the EMTs are telling him and walks over to his car and sits against the hood. He’s got an icepack over his eye, but he uses his other eye to squint around the field.
Shawn waves at him from the middle of his circle of sorority girls and catches Gus giving him another Look. A look that means another Talk. He crosses his arms and Shawn points to his fly, which has been open for about an hour now.
He looks back at Lassiter when Gus whines and scowls and turns around to zip up. There’s a little thrill down his back when Lassiter glares at him then drops his gaze the moment Jeni swoops back into Shawn’s line of vision, smiling at him.
There’s black lipstick on her teeth. Shawn smiles back anyway.
Spencer must have finally gotten the adulation he was looking for. He seems like he’s being fairly quiet over there, with bouncing and squealing co-eds surrounding him on all sides.
Meanwhile Carlton’s fingers are freezing from holding the damn icepack the paramedics gave him. His pain pills haven’t kicked in yet and his headache is only getting worse with every excited cry. He’d like to know exactly who told the sorority girls they could come out to the crime scene; he has a feeling it was McNab, not that it matters, the latest victim is already smiling again.
Carlton chucks the icepack on the hood of the car but O’Hara appears out of nowhere and shoves it back at him before shouting at him to sit. Carlton sits. She even has her little pouting frown on. Carlton scowls back at her but he covers his eye again after reminding himself that it’s important to keep a partner happy.
“I figure you’ll tell me what happened when you make your report,” she offers, suddenly reasonable again, and Carlton snorts. It’s pretty damn obvious what happened. “When the girls calm down we’ll have them take another look at…that…guy.”
That guy is still sitting silently in the back of the car, staring down at his lap, his little flip of hair dangling in his eyes. Carlton has a feeling he’s composing some bad poetry in his head. Maybe he should ask if the guy was published, and send a volume to his wife…to his ex-wife. Almost ex-wife. To Victoria. To go with her potpourri.
Carlton lets out another breath. “Spencer found our suspect and saved the day,” he starts, waving a hand, only to jump to his feet when O’Hara is shoved aside and he finds himself being yanked up. He reaches for his gun and then the chattering around him sinks in and he realizes that Spencer’s flock of adoring sorority girls have circled him.
Some of them are even touching him. He keeps his hand right where it is, and strokes his gun, just once before he glances up and catches Spencer watching him again.
The noise around him is deafening, but he translates a line or two and shoots O’Hara a look after the second “oh my god thank you so much for arresting that guy, Detective Lassi-face!”
Only O’Hara is just smiling and Carlton lets his eyes narrow because the “Lassi-face” is a dead give away as to who sent them over here. And yes, he’s got a bitch of a black eye, and a headache, and he’s covered in store-bought cobwebs and there’s a definite vanilla and lemon stink around him now, but that doesn’t mean he needs a fan club to feel better.
He doesn’t want their pity, or Spencer’s pity, or their thanks for that matter. He doesn’t need it, even if it maybe feels nice to hear it and the EMT guys are looking at him like he just got a ticket to the Playboy mansion.
That’s not the point and Carlton takes one deep breath before he throws out his arms and gets them off him.
“All right, that’s enough!” He frowns into their puzzled faces and sees O’Hara’s smile droop a little bit. The four dark-haired ones have identical round, hurt eyes and Carlton’s mouth tightens. He’d look up, but he knows he’ll be getting the same look from Spencer.
He sighs.
“Okay you’re all right,” he growls out with his head down and then waves his hand. “Now go on. Go home. Get. Shoo.”
“What?” he wonders at O’Hara when the girls back away and strangely, O’Hara’s smile just gets wider. Her eyes slide a little to the side and then she giggles and steps back.
A crime scene is no place for a detective to be giggling. In fact, a detective should never giggle. Carlton frowns a little more as he watches her go.
“They just wanted to thank you,” Spencer says, quietly, from his other side and Carlton turns his head to find Spencer standing there with his hands in his pockets. He’s rocking on his heels and smiling a little, probably thinking how funny he is. “Even with a black eye, you’re charming.”
Lassiter looks a little better now that there’s some pink in his cheeks, a pissed off gleam in his one eye. He had looked too pale a few minutes ago, like he might faint or throw up. Those EMTs should have sent him to the hospital.
“I don’t need to hear that, Spencer, I know I did a good job,” Lassi says after a moment like he hadn’t been smiling for a second there with all the girls around him. He winces as he pulls the icepack from his eye and puts it to the back of his head.
Shawn clenches his hands and thinks that the back of Lassi’s head is probably swollen and nasty. There is absolutely no reason that he should want to take a look at it. Except for this whole weird love thing that is seriously starting to mess him up.
But the proof that Lassi is fine and the same Lassi as ever is the memory of the horrified look on his face when the girls had first gone over to him. Though Shawn still doesn’t think it was totally necessary for them to grab Lassi’s chest, no matter how grateful they were or how funny it had been.
He looks back up when he realizes he’s staring at Lassiter’s chest, which had seemed like a nice chest, and one that he’d very much like to see more of, if possible. Lassi’s head must really hurt because he doesn’t follow that first snap with anything else, and doesn’t even yell at Shawn for staring.
Shawn takes the opportunity to consider what he knows, even what doesn’t make sense. Lassi doesn’t want thanks, or compliments. He apparently wants—or wanted—Hornstock, and wants—or had wanted, no, still wants—Shawn. That’s something, even if Shawn only got once to H-stock’s at least twice. That’s hardly fair, no matter how he adds it all up.
Especially with Lassi all rumpled and dusty and cobwebby, his tie pulled loose and his shirt loose.
Spencer has that inwardly focused look on his face again, and apparently has forgotten to shriek out the names of dead people or claim he’s talking to the trees or that the Crown Vic has an aura of unhappiness.
It puts this icy burn in Carlton’s stomach that rises up his throat, and he might wish for another antacid, but he has a momentary but terrifying feeling that it won’t do any good. Medicines seem ineffective in Shawn Spencer’s presence. The pills he’d been given for his throbbing head certainly weren’t doing anything. Nothing had helped him around Shawn Spencer. Not one single thing he’d tried.
He grunts at a renewed spike of pain in his skull that is only going to get worse and Spencer twitches and focuses out again, on him.
The sun is setting, there’s no reason that this field should still be so warm.
“That eye must hurt, you should leave the ice there,” Spencer remarks and he’s quiet enough again that Carlton shifts on the car, scanning the area but both Guster and his partner seem to have vanished. He’d be suspicious if he weren’t busy wondering why Spencer feels the need to keep stating the obvious today.
“Look, Spencer.” It’s as far as he gets, because Spencer had saved the day, just like he’d told O’Hara, and Spencer had already heard that from his co-ed clients. He didn’t need to hear it from Carlton too, even if it would get them out of this mess, let him leave with what’s left of his dignity. But Spencer is staring at him and when he opens his mouth he can’t think of what he’s supposed to say. Spencer is just standing there…quiet. It’s freaky.
“Thanks for the concern, but I’m fine,” Carlton manages, and gets to see Shawn Spencer go still in a familiar way, sort of stunned. It makes him wonder if Guster had slapped him again recently. “We would…” He has to cough, and where the hell had he left his water? “We would never have thought to look underground.” At least not in time to save the last girl.
Spencer blinks once or twice and angles his head to the side. In a minute he’ll be grinning slowly in that way that says Carlton has done something cool and there’s no way Carlton is waiting outside Spencer’s little clubhouse, again, to find out why. “It wasn’t any psychic crap,” he adds with a frown, thinking it too, as much as he can around the pounding inside his skull.
Shawn’s head is up at the first words from Lassi and if he finds that weird, than Lassi must think he has finally lost his mind. Lassi stops, rolls his shoulder, then winces when that probably pulls at his head wound.
“We would never have thought to look underground,” Lassiter admits in a rough voice, his one eye wide, and then he clears his throat and stands up straight. He drops the icepack on the car and takes a deep breath.
Shawn shuts his mouth, which might have been hanging open for a while there, and then does his best to keep from smiling. He can’t breathe at all, that bruised chest feeling coming back, but apparently that’s not going to wipe the grin off his face. Nothing seems to be able to, not even the knowledge that Lassiter is getting more uncomfortable the longer they stand there, not talking.
“I know it wasn’t any psychic crap,” Lass breaks the silence first and Shawn spends a moment wondering if he should look at a camera, because he’s having that Ferris Bueller moment where Jeannie saves Ferris even when she didn’t have to.
Not that he wants Carlton to be his sister. Or Jennifer Grey, even if she can dance.
That is not what he wants at all. He wants to know what Lassiter wants. And he wants to see Lassiter naked—which really ought to sound more disgusting than hot, but which sounds totally hot and would probably sound even hotter if he said it out loud. He wants to not deal with sorority girls ever again too, especially when they were getting in the way of the first two things he wants. Beyond that, he’s not really sure.
Lassi’s not volunteering anything either, just standing there and breathing shallowly, listening to Shawn hum Cure songs and try to say something to get him closer to where he and Lassi were before The Question.
The sun is going down, leaving the sky fiery orange and the air still. There’s sweat at the edge of his hair, underneath his clothes, making him itchy, making him think about showers, and what he might do in the shower later. If he thinks hard enough, he might forget that he’s let the silence stretch out between them again, and that they are both just standing there, breathing in and out, not saying a word. Except that Shawn doesn’t forget anything.
He takes his eyes off the sky and studies Lassiter. Lassiter lifts his chin, shifting a little to face him and Shawn opens his mouth to point out that Lassi is still covered in webs. Lassiter’s jaw clenches before he even breathes in. Everything about him says ready for a fight, and it’s not like Shawn came over here to pick on him, or make him blush, or to gloat, or to fall down and slide his hands up Lassiter’s legs for no good reason other than he wants to. He doesn’t know why Lassiter would expect that from him when he’s clearly trying to be nice. Just because that’s what he always does…
Oh.
He can practically feel Henry smacking him on the back of the head.
Well this is different. He knows why now. It all makes so much sense once all the evidence slides into the right place.
“Wow,” he says out loud, because he really had been doing just about anything to get his hands on Lassi. Or Lassi’s hands on him. No wonder Lassi had such a wary look on his face; not once had Shawn ever just said “take me away, Lassi” –outside of early morning fantasies anyway. “I get it now.”
“…But you figured it out,” he finishes, and Spencer’s face is frozen in a weird smile, a slight scowl between his eyes. If Carlton didn’t know better, he’d say Spencer looks surprised. Really surprised. As surprised as he had looked before, sick and scared and motionless, like someone had just clocked him in the jaw.
“Wow. I get it now,” Spencer murmurs to himself and brings up one hand up from his jeans to scratch at his neck, where a bug has gotten him too. Carlton’s lips quirk up despite the pain he’s in. He forgets to smile in the next moment, when Spencer keeps talking.
He has to just…say it. Just speak the truth…out loud…in a way that not even Carlton Lassiter can interpret as an insult, or a joke, or some sort of veiled threat. Shouldn’t be hard.
Shawn opens his mouth, shuts it, then blurts out the first words that pop into his head.
“Believe it or not, Lassi, I’ve had my share of black eyes,” he admits, looking straight at him, and Carlton can hear himself responding, snapping out something that Spencer ignores. Or maybe he doesn’t ignore, because it makes him push forward, until they are close again, as close as they were when they got to this field, in that bathroom, when all of this started.
Spencer’s mouth is still moving a mile a minute, and Carlton catches his breath, hears one word, a name, and actually lifts his head.
“Henry hit you?” He never once imagined Henry was the type to hit a child, not even Spencer, but Shawn’s mouth is quirking up, so either he’s lying or Carlton got the story wrong.
He should have known he got it wrong. He’s always getting it wrong. Spencer goes on about keeping his guard up and all his Academy boxing lessons spill out of Carlton’s mouth before he can try to think of anything else to say, startled and worried that somehow Spencer knew that he’d been thinking about this exact thing back in the field.
“You know…believe it or not, Lassi, I’ve had my share of black eyes.” Okay, not exactly what he had in mind, but it will do. Shawn goes with it. It’s even true.
“Oh I believe it,” Lassi counters immediately but holds back whatever else he was thinking about saying when Shawn hops forward. That of course, has him oh so very close to Lassi, and he thinks taking a step back again might be wise. Not that Shawn has ever, or will ever, seriously consider acting with wisdom.
“For the last one Henry slapped some meat on it.” Possibly the grossest experience in his life. Stinky raw meat being pressed against his face while Henry had gone on and on about the steaks he’d been going to barbecue.
“Henry hit you?” The disbelief in Lassiter’s voice recalls Shawn to the moment and he considers rolling with that story for half a second before he shakes his head. Lassi would eat that up though.
“No. Well yes, but not really. He was trying to teach me boxing, and I wouldn’t keep my guard up.” Weird that now the memory of Henry fussing over him and gently rubbing his back makes him smile. He remembers lots of pain and yelling at the time.
Lassiter grunts, like he knows about that, but then he does have a black eye.
“You need to be more careful,” Lassiter warns him darkly, and Shawn turns his laugh into a gasp and waves the warning off.
“You need to be more careful,” Carlton announces, and Spencer gives him a look that says, in case he has forgotten, that he is the one with the black eye and bump on his head. Carlton feels his face get hot and looks away. “In any case, you don’t seem to have problems with that now,” he finishes, to say something, only the words come out strong and bitter, and he swings his gaze back up in time to catch the flicker of alarm in Spencer’s greenish eyes.
His mouth makes a soft little circle as it drops open and then Spencer shakes his head and whispers something.
He’d thought keeping his hands up all the time was dumb when it was easy enough to just move, not that Henry had really seemed to get the value of running away from a fight ever. Running away at all, not really Henry’s style, which just proved Henry had problems, because standing here was terrifying. Following after Lassiter in the dark had nothing on this.
“What?” Carlton snaps without thinking and Spencer narrows his eyes, brings himself back to the moment.
“Flower pot,” he blurts out and lets Carlton blink for just a moment. “I thought keeping my hands up was stupid when I could just move around and I tripped over the last flower pot of…the last one my mother had left behind.” Spencer shoves his hands back in his pocket and rocks back and forth, once. Carlton thinks maybe that whiny music has driven him crazy, or that maybe he’s dreaming or drunk in a bar somewhere and hallucinating this, because it sounds like Spencer is being…honest with him.
Why? No use denying that he’s wondering why, that he’s always wondering why and how with Spencer.
“I broke it,” Shawn admits quickly when he realizes all he’s said in at least two minutes is “flower pot”, because Lassiter still isn’t saying anything.
“Anyway, I broke it. Henry wasn’t too happy. Especially when I ruined dinner. The steak....” He looks up and Carlton transfers his glare to the ground. He breathes out, loud and awkward as he segues back into the case. “So anyway it was hardly your fault that Kube over there got your eye…”
Carlton spends a moment trying to understand the “Kube” reference than gives up when Spencer starts listing the reasons why it’s okay that he messed up.
Lassi swallows like he could use a drink. Shawn pulls his hands out of his pockets again and uses them to scratch at his neck when they still want to slide all over Lassi’s body from his waist to his hair and his lumpy skull.
He’s not sure why he’s telling a story about falling on his face and getting meat put on his eye, but then he’s not sure why Lassi is listening. But talking makes some of the knot in his stomach go away, and he can look up into Lassi’s one hot blue eye and breathe out again.
“Anyway,” he says again, itchy and warm all over. He’s still talking, but it seems better than asking that question again, or any others. And Lassiter is still not speaking. He’s just staring. Then he swallows again.
Lassiter hadn’t wanted Hornstock to talk. Not even a little bit. Had specifically told him not to.
Shawn swallows too, and keeps talking, because Lassiter is letting him, and obviously that must mean he wants him to. Lassi is pretty quick to toss out the “shut up, Spencer”s when he doesn’t.
“And it was hardly your fault that Kube over there got your eye, since it was dark, and you were hampered by spiderwebs…”
“And a flashlight in my face,” Carlton points out, even when they both knew the reason he had ever let his guard down at all. Some things are too obvious to deny.
“Okay and a flashlight in your face, sheesh.”
Spencer flinches and that’s almost enough to banish any lingering doubts, or the unsettled, cold feeling that has been raging through him since Spencer first fell on his knees in the dirt in that field.
He had wanted a moment of truth, but all of this at once is just…weird.
“You saved her.”
“But we found her because of you,” he growls and glances around looking for his partner. Who is still, quite suspiciously, missing.
“But you saved her,” Shawn argues instantly. He’s beyond pathetic here and he’s helping himself to Gus’ American Express when he gets home, because Gus owes him big for not telling him about this. And it doesn’t even work, because, as Lassi is about to tell him, he doesn’t want any praise.
Lassiter’s eye focuses on him and then, swollen face or not, both his eyebrows snap down.
“I don’t want your praise, Spencer,” Carlton snarls at even the faintest hint of pity and again Spencer stares at him, inward and outward again, a smile stuck on his face a moment too late to hide the fact that he is hiding something.
If that had been honesty—and Carlton would have to ask Henry—it still leaves him wondering why, why the hell Spencer would tell him that at all. All the lies between them, the questions, and Spencer volunteers something that Carlton hadn’t even thought of, and it’s too late now to try asking about anything else, not after what Carlton just said.
Back in the field with just the two of them and Carlton in his face, Spencer had all but admitted that he didn’t know everything. Right before he’d fallen on his ass, too careless and confused to watch where he was going. Because of Carlton.
It makes Carlton feel like he just got clocked again, a hard one-two to the stomach, because even in pain he’s aware that he hurt Shawn Spencer’s feelings just now. Even with his head throbbing so fiercely he could throw up he’s thinking that he might not need Spencer’s praise, but Spencer might need his.
And that makes so much of Spencer understandable that it’s like meeting Henry for the first time, it’s like seeing Spencer speechless as Carlton strides past him again.
Which makes Spencer possibly the biggest idiot in the world, including that freak parked in the back seat of his car right now.
Carlton reaches out. It’s as easy as he remembers to grab a handful of Spencer’s shirt and haul him forward. He turns as he does, pushing Spencer into the hood of the car and bending him backward, just a little, before Spencer squawks and flails and rights himself. Then Carlton lets go, because he’s already got Spencer right where he wants him.
Spencer’s incoherent words are hanging in the air between them and Carlton holds himself still. This close he can feel the almost nervous way Spencer is vibrating, shaking as he leans in.
Hot hot hot. It’s hot this close to Lassi again, and that ball of fear in stomach is getting sharper and brighter and Shawn lets his head fall back anyway, only frowning a little when Lassi follows him in, where there are words and breath and lips at his ear, at his neck.
He doesn’t know what he said to bring this on, since he hadn’t been trying to get thrown between a Lassi and a harder place, but he’s all for it now that he’s here. It feels right. It feels good. It fits.
A thought like that just leads to other, dirtier thoughts and those are definitely something to mention to Lassiter later, when he’s in a more reasonable mood and not grunting and shifting and doing everything but rub himself against Shawn’s hip.
It’s his turn to breathe hard into Spencer’s ear, his turn to watch Spencer’s skin flush with color, his stupid hair all messed up and dark with sweat.
Carlton stops, his fingers twisting his wedding ring while he wonders why it is that, despite all their bickering and scratching at each other, whenever he moves close Spencer never moves away.
Shawn’s hardly going to object if he does. It’s so good he moves his feet apart, just a little. He knows they might have an audience; he just doesn’t care. Lassiter just moves in closer, not even seeming to notice that he does.
He’d asked for a moment of honesty. He had never actually expected it. Spencer probably hadn’t either. For a bare second he feels the heat of triumph, and then he’s just shuddering, looking away from green eyes and noticing the complete lack of spider webs on Spencer’s clothing.
“You don’t know what you want, do you, Spencer?” he demands, looking back up, and the noise behind them fades as Shawn pulls in a breath and holds it. Carlton’s chest is tight. He’s dizzy. The other man blinks, long, soft eyelashes brushing his cheek before he sweeps his eyes up.
Lassi is frowning, but Shawn is most definitely not teasing him. Not yet anyway. Just how serious he is depends on what Lassiter does next. Shawn’s already shivering, shaking, and Lassi must make something weird out of that, because he’s asking questions. Or just one. Very direct. Very accusing. Very, very hot.
“You don’t know what you want, do you?” Lassiter demands, but his gaze darts away, and by the time it returns Shawn knows he’s grinning, and that his grin is going to get Carlton angry, but he can’t help it. He knows what Lassi wants too, has known this whole time, he just wasn’t paying close enough attention. This would be a bad time to ask if Carlton is still seeing Hornstock, but Shawn’s pretty sure he knows the answer, so it doesn’t matter anyway
“I know exactly what I want,” he promises, since he does, now, and shifts, and it is more than sweat and air that question between them now.
Spencer’s hand comes up and Carlton can’t even think about moving when Spencer’s fingers trail across his cheek.
Carlton licks his mouth.
“Oh no, I know exactly what I want,” Spencer breathes. His lips are wet too.
“Carlton.”
The look in those eyes is teasing and confident. Too confident, not that it matters, because Carlton is blushing and hard and inches away from Spencer, who can feel all of that. Spencer is hard against his leg and his slow smile says he’s finally got Carlton right where he wants him.
Carlton falls back out of panicked reflex, stumbling over his own feet while he imagines several horrifying and embarrassing scenarios, because he knows Spencer can’t be serious. He just manages not to land on his ass and spins on his heels in time to see everyone but O’Hara quickly look away.
Watching Lassiter almost fall on his ass after that is almost worth Lassiter walking away. His helpful reminder to Lassi to be careful is just a fun little bonus that he’s more than willing to have Lassiter get him back for later.
“You should be more careful,” Spencer remarks smugly from behind him and Carlton grits his teeth and straightens his coat as he begins to walk away, not that he knows where he’s going when his car is behind him. Back to the cave to oversee evidence collection. That makes sense; it’s possibly even credible if the pleat of his pants manages to hide his massive erection.
Another bug tickles his neck and he slaps at it without hitting it. He’ll be grateful to never have to see this damn field again. It looks normal, but it might as well have been land-mined.
“…Lassi!” That stupid nickname pulls his attention back to Spencer, not that it had ever really left him. “We make a good team!” Spencer calls out so the whole world can hear and Carlton twists around immediately even though the conversation was over and he had ended it and he was supposed to be going on with his life now.
“I told you to stay back!” he reminds that idiot in case that idiot has forgotten. “Did they never mention danger in your comic books?” His smirk is somewhat marred by the fact that he’s breathing too fast and that Spencer only looks mildly offended.
“First of all, I didn’t read comic books, Gus did. But if I had stayed back, I would never have gotten a chance to be here now, suggesting that we get together sometime in the near future to compare Launchpad from Duck Tales with Launchpad from Darkwing Duck.”
“Darkwing Duck wasn’t on the Disney Aftern…” Carlton can hear himself answering Spencer’s comment about Launchpad McQuack who, yes, was on both Darkwing Duck and Duck Tales, and closes his mouth too late. Spencer is grinning at him with obvious amusement, because he’d almost gone along with it, again. “Shut up, Spencer,” he finishes, weakly, and turns back around.
Behind him he can hear soft footsteps, and when he turns to look Spencer is following after him, that eerily knowing look on his face as he starts asking about food.
Carlton waits until he starts babbling about Chinese before he starts walking faster.
“Still waiting for that yes, Lassi,” Spencer reminds him and Carlton twitches around. Spencer is still following him, grinning like a lunatic that he obviously is. God help him, Carlton’s heart actually kicks against his chest. He’s still aroused too, and that can only mean one thing. He must like it.
And for once, because he wants to let Spencer catch up, Carlton knows exactly what that makes him.
Shawn opens his mouth even if the right words haven’t occurred to him yet. He’s possibly frowning, and if he was hot before he’s burning up now with the memory of Lassiter’s body heat. He pulls at his flannel as he turns around.
Lassiter is picking his way carefully across the field, staring in one direction, then turning and heading for the bunker. Shawn really hopes everybody keeps their eyes on his undoubtedly flushed and furious face. If they look down, well, is Lassi ever going to be embarrassed.
“We should do this again, Lassi. We make a good team. Seriously, our timing is really starting to come together.” Timing like that means the sex is going to be amazing, not that he had any doubt after the first time. But tossing that out makes Lassiter stop. He jerks around and looks like he’s about to head back for half a second before he controls himself.
And yes, he had told Shawn to stay back, all touching concern for his well-being, but if Shawn had stayed back, then he would never have learned such awesome things about himself, and about Lassiter, and the cartoons that is looking forward to watching with Lassiter, preferably while both of them are naked, in a bed of some kind.
He only mentions part of that to Lassi of course, the non-naked part. They are in a public field after all. Well a private field with a lot of the public in it.
“How about a steak, Lass?” he wonders out loud a second later and Lassiter’s stride breaks enough that Shawn knows he heard. “Chinese?” Mu shu anything sounds better than steak right now anyway, but Lassiter stops long enough to turn around.
Lassikitten shakes his head, winces, and then resumes his stalking toward the bunker entrance, just a little faster than before.
It’s not the field that has Shawn all warm inside and smiling. Because he’s not into fields but he is apparently into Lassiter. Huh. And Lassiter is into him, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. Double huh. Gus hadn’t mentioned that part.
“Still waiting for that yes, Lassi,” he calls out just to make sure Lassiter turns to give him a frown that seems more confused than annoyed.
Shawn looks over at the car, the icepack, and then back at Lassi. Lassiter probably got a sunburn from being outside this much. And unless Jules or the Chief makes him, he probably won’t go get an x-ray. He has some hair dye from Shawn’s hand smudged down his cheek too.
There’s also a streak of white webs filled with bit of dust and dirt and probably traces of grain and walnut shells going down his back.
Shawn grins as he sets off after him.
I swear to you, this is all just to get to more pr0n. I swears it.
Disclaimer: Not mine, btw. And all previous warnings and stuff still apply.
“Dude, “Boys Don’t Cry”? Really?” Spencer asks the man curled up on the floor, spitting out a strand of inky black hair as he does. The sorority girl glued to his chest buries her face in his shoulder and maybe she has been held against her will in this dark hell-hole by this freak and forced to read, but Carlton doesn’t see any reason for her to grope Spencer.
Spencer probably just takes it as his due, one more person at his feet. Carlton probes carefully around his sore eye while keeping his gun aimed steadily on his suspect as O’Hara and an incredibly bright flashlight come into the room with them.
“What happened?” she asks after of course gasping and wondering where his flashlight is. Carlton checks his gun and stows it before bending over to cuff the suspect. He doesn’t answer her questions, mostly because his face hurts like a son of a bitch, but he jerks his head at Spencer without turning back around and hauls the guy to his feet.
He really hopes there’s another way out of here, because getting this guy up that ladder while he’s cuffed is not going to be fun. Thank God for obedient local deputies with strong arms.
He doesn’t look back until he’s out in the sunshine. The last thing he needs is to see Spencer with another person all over him.
Lassiter doesn’t seem too interested right now, though Shawn will mention it later. For now he has to pat Jeni’s hair try not to notice how the dye is rubbing off on his palm.
Lassi yanks the suspect to his feet in one short, jerky, pissed off move and directs a glare at Shawn that is far too brief when Shawn makes a comment about the music selection. But he’s got a lot of happy memories set to that song. Well, a few encounters in the dark with girls who took “Lovesong” a little too seriously. Not even the cops showing up at what was probably his father’s request could ruin memories that sweet.
The choices so far have definitely been more on the moody, lonely side. Weird that Lassi didn’t seem to appreciate it. Shawn guesses he’ll have to do without seeing Lassiter in a plastic collar and a pound of dark eye shadow.
He just gets a chance to look for Lassi and give him a thumbs up but Lassi’s shoving Goth Kubiac toward the ladder, and while ordinarily getting a handcuffed guy up a ladder was something Shawn would want to see, Jules is frowning at him and there are a few other uniformed cops with guns scattered around.
“Hey, Jules!” Shawn greets Juliet and pries Jeni off him at the same time. She ends tucked against Juliet and staring at him with wide, raccoon eyes. “Tell me the cavalry is here.” The raccoon eyes have smeared all over Jules’ suit, which she hasn’t noticed yet. She’s taking in the Fortress of Solitude, the Marilyn Manson version.
“Not to brag, Jules, but Lassi and I were like any great crime fighting couple Starsky and Hutch...Bert and Ernie…Crockett and Tubbs—I was Crockett,” he adds, on the down low.
“Shawn.” She interrupts him and frowns, as though just noticing that Shawn has pretty much shoved the crying victim into her arms and is now scooting past the both of them. “There are some local deputies outside, and an ambulance. Our officers are on the way. But that still doesn’t explain what happened. And Bert and Ernie didn’t fight crime…”
“But they were a great couple,” Shawn asserts immediately, imagining the drumroll even if he doesn’t have any drums. Or know how to play them. Juliet blinks once or twice.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Shawn?” she asks slowly. “It’s dark down here, but you look a little…” she passes a hand over her face but then Jeni perks up enough to get her attention and she doesn’t finish.
“Wow,” a male voice exclaims from the direction of the entrance, probably one of the locals sent in to make sure the place is clear. Shawn tilts his head that way and Juliet nods.
“Come on…” she bends down to whisper in Jeni’s ear as she leads her out, and while the sight of Juliet’s mouth that close to any part of another girl is all sorts of hot, Shawn darting back and forth behind them, bouncing past the second local deputy coming off the ladder to shoot up out into the light.
It’s disgustingly bright outside, though at least the locals are there to help him haul their Cure-loving suspect up.
The field doesn’t look very isolated anymore. There’s an ambulance pulling out into the field, and the farmer who owns the land is going to be pissed about that, not that Carlton gives a crap right now. One side of his face and the back of his head feel like he ran into a wall, his shoulder aches from pushing that giant clown dressed in black up a ladder, he’s hot, and his neck still itches from at least two bug bites.
He can still hear the girl complaining into Spencer’s shoulder, if he listens.
She’s safe now at least.
Carlton stands back to watch another local help her out into daylight—and to see her giggle over that, apparently not too shaken up by her forced stay at the Tim Burton Hotel.
Spencer comes bounding out of the hole next, glancing around as Guster comes up to fuss over him. Or yell at him, it’s hard to see the difference, until they bump fists and Guster leaves his side to make a show of helping O’Hara out of the bunker. Not that she needs the help. But it frees up Spencer for one second and Carlton watches the other man scan over the field, sees him stop when he finds the suspect and Carlton.
There are sirens in the distance and Carlton sighs and starts walking toward them, shoving the freak in front of him. He hears more cars pulling up while he recites the Miranda and the guy isn’t fighting him, but he pushes him into the Crown Vic anyway.
“Sorry,” he apologizes with the fakest smile he can manage and slams the door. The moment he does, and turns, he sees O’Hara pointing at him. The paramedics grab him a second later.
For a few minutes it’s hands all over him and another flashlight in his eye and he can’t see anything else. He can only listen to sirens, squealing, and Spencer. He can’t make out any words, not over the EMTs giving him some pills and an icepack, telling him to go to a hospital to get checked out, just in case, and then his own voice telling them he would and all of them knowing he’s lying. But the water tastes good in his mouth, which is dry as he strains to hear more, as he is finally released from all the tender loving care and allowed to walk back to his car.
Gus is waiting for him at the edge, scowling and going on about flashlights and Lassiter and all the usual things about the ulcer he’s naming after Shawn. A moment later they are sharing a look at the really, really large man wearing all that black and Gus is shaking his head. He has a point though; Shawn doubts there are many Goth aficionados in the African-American community, though there has to be at least one, somewhere.
Once she is above ground Jeni is back in Shawn’s arms, though she sniffles a few times and traps Gus for a while too. She takes a second to look at the guy Lassi is shoving into his car, and doesn’t seem to recognize him. The guy doesn’t say a word either, apparently taking his rights very seriously. She’ll have to look at him again down at the station, while Lassi and Jules try to figure out who that guy is, and how he knows the girls. Shawn almost asks her if she’s been to a Hot Topic recently, then decides to ask later.
But even though Jeni hasn’t stopped talking the way to the ambulance to be checked out she hasn’t stopped shivering either, so Shawn sighs and holds and glares over his shoulder at Gus who is hanging back now and shaking his head whenever Shawn looks at him.
Shawn glares at him with his mouth in a line. He can actually feel the wet eyeliner staining his flannel.
Also he has several words for Gus for not telling him about all this sooner. Odds are good they will not be in hushed tones.
They get back to their cars just as several S.B.P.D. vehicles pull up. There’s no sign of Buzz or the Chief, but one of the cars is full of about six screaming, excited sorority girls. Three of whom have taken Shawn’s advice and gotten their hair restyled. The Robert Smith-wannabe can suck on that.
Jeni finally detaches herself to run over to them and, Shawn could say what he wants about how annoying, and shallow, and well, dumb, some of those girls are, this group does seem to care for each other. Shawn watches them envelop Jeni in a hug and slides his eyes over to the ambulance, because the EMTs are insisting that Lassiter get looked over too.
His eye looks horrible, all puffy and red and gross and Lassi just got rid of the sling and now this. The suspect is in the back of Lassiter’s car and Lassiter is making no move to be a part of all the official stuff going on that he normally loves, though he is snarling at the uniformed guy trying to open his swollen eye.
Jules doesn’t seem to mind Lassiter being distracted. She’s talking into a phone about getting the crime scene team and ordering the local deputies not to touch anything. She’s pretty bossy. She’ll probably match Lassi once of these days, unless someone saves her from a lonely, sour-faced fate.
Someone should have tried to save Carlton, but then Shawn would never have gotten the chance. Though he most likely would have arrested whoever would have tried. Shawn narrows his eyes when Lassiter nods and frowns and obviously ignores whatever the EMTs are telling him and walks over to his car and sits against the hood. He’s got an icepack over his eye, but he uses his other eye to squint around the field.
Shawn waves at him from the middle of his circle of sorority girls and catches Gus giving him another Look. A look that means another Talk. He crosses his arms and Shawn points to his fly, which has been open for about an hour now.
He looks back at Lassiter when Gus whines and scowls and turns around to zip up. There’s a little thrill down his back when Lassiter glares at him then drops his gaze the moment Jeni swoops back into Shawn’s line of vision, smiling at him.
There’s black lipstick on her teeth. Shawn smiles back anyway.
Spencer must have finally gotten the adulation he was looking for. He seems like he’s being fairly quiet over there, with bouncing and squealing co-eds surrounding him on all sides.
Meanwhile Carlton’s fingers are freezing from holding the damn icepack the paramedics gave him. His pain pills haven’t kicked in yet and his headache is only getting worse with every excited cry. He’d like to know exactly who told the sorority girls they could come out to the crime scene; he has a feeling it was McNab, not that it matters, the latest victim is already smiling again.
Carlton chucks the icepack on the hood of the car but O’Hara appears out of nowhere and shoves it back at him before shouting at him to sit. Carlton sits. She even has her little pouting frown on. Carlton scowls back at her but he covers his eye again after reminding himself that it’s important to keep a partner happy.
“I figure you’ll tell me what happened when you make your report,” she offers, suddenly reasonable again, and Carlton snorts. It’s pretty damn obvious what happened. “When the girls calm down we’ll have them take another look at…that…guy.”
That guy is still sitting silently in the back of the car, staring down at his lap, his little flip of hair dangling in his eyes. Carlton has a feeling he’s composing some bad poetry in his head. Maybe he should ask if the guy was published, and send a volume to his wife…to his ex-wife. Almost ex-wife. To Victoria. To go with her potpourri.
Carlton lets out another breath. “Spencer found our suspect and saved the day,” he starts, waving a hand, only to jump to his feet when O’Hara is shoved aside and he finds himself being yanked up. He reaches for his gun and then the chattering around him sinks in and he realizes that Spencer’s flock of adoring sorority girls have circled him.
Some of them are even touching him. He keeps his hand right where it is, and strokes his gun, just once before he glances up and catches Spencer watching him again.
The noise around him is deafening, but he translates a line or two and shoots O’Hara a look after the second “oh my god thank you so much for arresting that guy, Detective Lassi-face!”
Only O’Hara is just smiling and Carlton lets his eyes narrow because the “Lassi-face” is a dead give away as to who sent them over here. And yes, he’s got a bitch of a black eye, and a headache, and he’s covered in store-bought cobwebs and there’s a definite vanilla and lemon stink around him now, but that doesn’t mean he needs a fan club to feel better.
He doesn’t want their pity, or Spencer’s pity, or their thanks for that matter. He doesn’t need it, even if it maybe feels nice to hear it and the EMT guys are looking at him like he just got a ticket to the Playboy mansion.
That’s not the point and Carlton takes one deep breath before he throws out his arms and gets them off him.
“All right, that’s enough!” He frowns into their puzzled faces and sees O’Hara’s smile droop a little bit. The four dark-haired ones have identical round, hurt eyes and Carlton’s mouth tightens. He’d look up, but he knows he’ll be getting the same look from Spencer.
He sighs.
“Okay you’re all right,” he growls out with his head down and then waves his hand. “Now go on. Go home. Get. Shoo.”
“What?” he wonders at O’Hara when the girls back away and strangely, O’Hara’s smile just gets wider. Her eyes slide a little to the side and then she giggles and steps back.
A crime scene is no place for a detective to be giggling. In fact, a detective should never giggle. Carlton frowns a little more as he watches her go.
“They just wanted to thank you,” Spencer says, quietly, from his other side and Carlton turns his head to find Spencer standing there with his hands in his pockets. He’s rocking on his heels and smiling a little, probably thinking how funny he is. “Even with a black eye, you’re charming.”
Lassiter looks a little better now that there’s some pink in his cheeks, a pissed off gleam in his one eye. He had looked too pale a few minutes ago, like he might faint or throw up. Those EMTs should have sent him to the hospital.
“I don’t need to hear that, Spencer, I know I did a good job,” Lassi says after a moment like he hadn’t been smiling for a second there with all the girls around him. He winces as he pulls the icepack from his eye and puts it to the back of his head.
Shawn clenches his hands and thinks that the back of Lassi’s head is probably swollen and nasty. There is absolutely no reason that he should want to take a look at it. Except for this whole weird love thing that is seriously starting to mess him up.
But the proof that Lassi is fine and the same Lassi as ever is the memory of the horrified look on his face when the girls had first gone over to him. Though Shawn still doesn’t think it was totally necessary for them to grab Lassi’s chest, no matter how grateful they were or how funny it had been.
He looks back up when he realizes he’s staring at Lassiter’s chest, which had seemed like a nice chest, and one that he’d very much like to see more of, if possible. Lassi’s head must really hurt because he doesn’t follow that first snap with anything else, and doesn’t even yell at Shawn for staring.
Shawn takes the opportunity to consider what he knows, even what doesn’t make sense. Lassi doesn’t want thanks, or compliments. He apparently wants—or wanted—Hornstock, and wants—or had wanted, no, still wants—Shawn. That’s something, even if Shawn only got once to H-stock’s at least twice. That’s hardly fair, no matter how he adds it all up.
Especially with Lassi all rumpled and dusty and cobwebby, his tie pulled loose and his shirt loose.
Spencer has that inwardly focused look on his face again, and apparently has forgotten to shriek out the names of dead people or claim he’s talking to the trees or that the Crown Vic has an aura of unhappiness.
It puts this icy burn in Carlton’s stomach that rises up his throat, and he might wish for another antacid, but he has a momentary but terrifying feeling that it won’t do any good. Medicines seem ineffective in Shawn Spencer’s presence. The pills he’d been given for his throbbing head certainly weren’t doing anything. Nothing had helped him around Shawn Spencer. Not one single thing he’d tried.
He grunts at a renewed spike of pain in his skull that is only going to get worse and Spencer twitches and focuses out again, on him.
The sun is setting, there’s no reason that this field should still be so warm.
“That eye must hurt, you should leave the ice there,” Spencer remarks and he’s quiet enough again that Carlton shifts on the car, scanning the area but both Guster and his partner seem to have vanished. He’d be suspicious if he weren’t busy wondering why Spencer feels the need to keep stating the obvious today.
“Look, Spencer.” It’s as far as he gets, because Spencer had saved the day, just like he’d told O’Hara, and Spencer had already heard that from his co-ed clients. He didn’t need to hear it from Carlton too, even if it would get them out of this mess, let him leave with what’s left of his dignity. But Spencer is staring at him and when he opens his mouth he can’t think of what he’s supposed to say. Spencer is just standing there…quiet. It’s freaky.
“Thanks for the concern, but I’m fine,” Carlton manages, and gets to see Shawn Spencer go still in a familiar way, sort of stunned. It makes him wonder if Guster had slapped him again recently. “We would…” He has to cough, and where the hell had he left his water? “We would never have thought to look underground.” At least not in time to save the last girl.
Spencer blinks once or twice and angles his head to the side. In a minute he’ll be grinning slowly in that way that says Carlton has done something cool and there’s no way Carlton is waiting outside Spencer’s little clubhouse, again, to find out why. “It wasn’t any psychic crap,” he adds with a frown, thinking it too, as much as he can around the pounding inside his skull.
Shawn’s head is up at the first words from Lassi and if he finds that weird, than Lassi must think he has finally lost his mind. Lassi stops, rolls his shoulder, then winces when that probably pulls at his head wound.
“We would never have thought to look underground,” Lassiter admits in a rough voice, his one eye wide, and then he clears his throat and stands up straight. He drops the icepack on the car and takes a deep breath.
Shawn shuts his mouth, which might have been hanging open for a while there, and then does his best to keep from smiling. He can’t breathe at all, that bruised chest feeling coming back, but apparently that’s not going to wipe the grin off his face. Nothing seems to be able to, not even the knowledge that Lassiter is getting more uncomfortable the longer they stand there, not talking.
“I know it wasn’t any psychic crap,” Lass breaks the silence first and Shawn spends a moment wondering if he should look at a camera, because he’s having that Ferris Bueller moment where Jeannie saves Ferris even when she didn’t have to.
Not that he wants Carlton to be his sister. Or Jennifer Grey, even if she can dance.
That is not what he wants at all. He wants to know what Lassiter wants. And he wants to see Lassiter naked—which really ought to sound more disgusting than hot, but which sounds totally hot and would probably sound even hotter if he said it out loud. He wants to not deal with sorority girls ever again too, especially when they were getting in the way of the first two things he wants. Beyond that, he’s not really sure.
Lassi’s not volunteering anything either, just standing there and breathing shallowly, listening to Shawn hum Cure songs and try to say something to get him closer to where he and Lassi were before The Question.
The sun is going down, leaving the sky fiery orange and the air still. There’s sweat at the edge of his hair, underneath his clothes, making him itchy, making him think about showers, and what he might do in the shower later. If he thinks hard enough, he might forget that he’s let the silence stretch out between them again, and that they are both just standing there, breathing in and out, not saying a word. Except that Shawn doesn’t forget anything.
He takes his eyes off the sky and studies Lassiter. Lassiter lifts his chin, shifting a little to face him and Shawn opens his mouth to point out that Lassi is still covered in webs. Lassiter’s jaw clenches before he even breathes in. Everything about him says ready for a fight, and it’s not like Shawn came over here to pick on him, or make him blush, or to gloat, or to fall down and slide his hands up Lassiter’s legs for no good reason other than he wants to. He doesn’t know why Lassiter would expect that from him when he’s clearly trying to be nice. Just because that’s what he always does…
Oh.
He can practically feel Henry smacking him on the back of the head.
Well this is different. He knows why now. It all makes so much sense once all the evidence slides into the right place.
“Wow,” he says out loud, because he really had been doing just about anything to get his hands on Lassi. Or Lassi’s hands on him. No wonder Lassi had such a wary look on his face; not once had Shawn ever just said “take me away, Lassi” –outside of early morning fantasies anyway. “I get it now.”
“…But you figured it out,” he finishes, and Spencer’s face is frozen in a weird smile, a slight scowl between his eyes. If Carlton didn’t know better, he’d say Spencer looks surprised. Really surprised. As surprised as he had looked before, sick and scared and motionless, like someone had just clocked him in the jaw.
“Wow. I get it now,” Spencer murmurs to himself and brings up one hand up from his jeans to scratch at his neck, where a bug has gotten him too. Carlton’s lips quirk up despite the pain he’s in. He forgets to smile in the next moment, when Spencer keeps talking.
He has to just…say it. Just speak the truth…out loud…in a way that not even Carlton Lassiter can interpret as an insult, or a joke, or some sort of veiled threat. Shouldn’t be hard.
Shawn opens his mouth, shuts it, then blurts out the first words that pop into his head.
“Believe it or not, Lassi, I’ve had my share of black eyes,” he admits, looking straight at him, and Carlton can hear himself responding, snapping out something that Spencer ignores. Or maybe he doesn’t ignore, because it makes him push forward, until they are close again, as close as they were when they got to this field, in that bathroom, when all of this started.
Spencer’s mouth is still moving a mile a minute, and Carlton catches his breath, hears one word, a name, and actually lifts his head.
“Henry hit you?” He never once imagined Henry was the type to hit a child, not even Spencer, but Shawn’s mouth is quirking up, so either he’s lying or Carlton got the story wrong.
He should have known he got it wrong. He’s always getting it wrong. Spencer goes on about keeping his guard up and all his Academy boxing lessons spill out of Carlton’s mouth before he can try to think of anything else to say, startled and worried that somehow Spencer knew that he’d been thinking about this exact thing back in the field.
“You know…believe it or not, Lassi, I’ve had my share of black eyes.” Okay, not exactly what he had in mind, but it will do. Shawn goes with it. It’s even true.
“Oh I believe it,” Lassi counters immediately but holds back whatever else he was thinking about saying when Shawn hops forward. That of course, has him oh so very close to Lassi, and he thinks taking a step back again might be wise. Not that Shawn has ever, or will ever, seriously consider acting with wisdom.
“For the last one Henry slapped some meat on it.” Possibly the grossest experience in his life. Stinky raw meat being pressed against his face while Henry had gone on and on about the steaks he’d been going to barbecue.
“Henry hit you?” The disbelief in Lassiter’s voice recalls Shawn to the moment and he considers rolling with that story for half a second before he shakes his head. Lassi would eat that up though.
“No. Well yes, but not really. He was trying to teach me boxing, and I wouldn’t keep my guard up.” Weird that now the memory of Henry fussing over him and gently rubbing his back makes him smile. He remembers lots of pain and yelling at the time.
Lassiter grunts, like he knows about that, but then he does have a black eye.
“You need to be more careful,” Lassiter warns him darkly, and Shawn turns his laugh into a gasp and waves the warning off.
“You need to be more careful,” Carlton announces, and Spencer gives him a look that says, in case he has forgotten, that he is the one with the black eye and bump on his head. Carlton feels his face get hot and looks away. “In any case, you don’t seem to have problems with that now,” he finishes, to say something, only the words come out strong and bitter, and he swings his gaze back up in time to catch the flicker of alarm in Spencer’s greenish eyes.
His mouth makes a soft little circle as it drops open and then Spencer shakes his head and whispers something.
He’d thought keeping his hands up all the time was dumb when it was easy enough to just move, not that Henry had really seemed to get the value of running away from a fight ever. Running away at all, not really Henry’s style, which just proved Henry had problems, because standing here was terrifying. Following after Lassiter in the dark had nothing on this.
“What?” Carlton snaps without thinking and Spencer narrows his eyes, brings himself back to the moment.
“Flower pot,” he blurts out and lets Carlton blink for just a moment. “I thought keeping my hands up was stupid when I could just move around and I tripped over the last flower pot of…the last one my mother had left behind.” Spencer shoves his hands back in his pocket and rocks back and forth, once. Carlton thinks maybe that whiny music has driven him crazy, or that maybe he’s dreaming or drunk in a bar somewhere and hallucinating this, because it sounds like Spencer is being…honest with him.
Why? No use denying that he’s wondering why, that he’s always wondering why and how with Spencer.
“I broke it,” Shawn admits quickly when he realizes all he’s said in at least two minutes is “flower pot”, because Lassiter still isn’t saying anything.
“Anyway, I broke it. Henry wasn’t too happy. Especially when I ruined dinner. The steak....” He looks up and Carlton transfers his glare to the ground. He breathes out, loud and awkward as he segues back into the case. “So anyway it was hardly your fault that Kube over there got your eye…”
Carlton spends a moment trying to understand the “Kube” reference than gives up when Spencer starts listing the reasons why it’s okay that he messed up.
Lassi swallows like he could use a drink. Shawn pulls his hands out of his pockets again and uses them to scratch at his neck when they still want to slide all over Lassi’s body from his waist to his hair and his lumpy skull.
He’s not sure why he’s telling a story about falling on his face and getting meat put on his eye, but then he’s not sure why Lassi is listening. But talking makes some of the knot in his stomach go away, and he can look up into Lassi’s one hot blue eye and breathe out again.
“Anyway,” he says again, itchy and warm all over. He’s still talking, but it seems better than asking that question again, or any others. And Lassiter is still not speaking. He’s just staring. Then he swallows again.
Lassiter hadn’t wanted Hornstock to talk. Not even a little bit. Had specifically told him not to.
Shawn swallows too, and keeps talking, because Lassiter is letting him, and obviously that must mean he wants him to. Lassi is pretty quick to toss out the “shut up, Spencer”s when he doesn’t.
“And it was hardly your fault that Kube over there got your eye, since it was dark, and you were hampered by spiderwebs…”
“And a flashlight in my face,” Carlton points out, even when they both knew the reason he had ever let his guard down at all. Some things are too obvious to deny.
“Okay and a flashlight in your face, sheesh.”
Spencer flinches and that’s almost enough to banish any lingering doubts, or the unsettled, cold feeling that has been raging through him since Spencer first fell on his knees in the dirt in that field.
He had wanted a moment of truth, but all of this at once is just…weird.
“You saved her.”
“But we found her because of you,” he growls and glances around looking for his partner. Who is still, quite suspiciously, missing.
“But you saved her,” Shawn argues instantly. He’s beyond pathetic here and he’s helping himself to Gus’ American Express when he gets home, because Gus owes him big for not telling him about this. And it doesn’t even work, because, as Lassi is about to tell him, he doesn’t want any praise.
Lassiter’s eye focuses on him and then, swollen face or not, both his eyebrows snap down.
“I don’t want your praise, Spencer,” Carlton snarls at even the faintest hint of pity and again Spencer stares at him, inward and outward again, a smile stuck on his face a moment too late to hide the fact that he is hiding something.
If that had been honesty—and Carlton would have to ask Henry—it still leaves him wondering why, why the hell Spencer would tell him that at all. All the lies between them, the questions, and Spencer volunteers something that Carlton hadn’t even thought of, and it’s too late now to try asking about anything else, not after what Carlton just said.
Back in the field with just the two of them and Carlton in his face, Spencer had all but admitted that he didn’t know everything. Right before he’d fallen on his ass, too careless and confused to watch where he was going. Because of Carlton.
It makes Carlton feel like he just got clocked again, a hard one-two to the stomach, because even in pain he’s aware that he hurt Shawn Spencer’s feelings just now. Even with his head throbbing so fiercely he could throw up he’s thinking that he might not need Spencer’s praise, but Spencer might need his.
And that makes so much of Spencer understandable that it’s like meeting Henry for the first time, it’s like seeing Spencer speechless as Carlton strides past him again.
Which makes Spencer possibly the biggest idiot in the world, including that freak parked in the back seat of his car right now.
Carlton reaches out. It’s as easy as he remembers to grab a handful of Spencer’s shirt and haul him forward. He turns as he does, pushing Spencer into the hood of the car and bending him backward, just a little, before Spencer squawks and flails and rights himself. Then Carlton lets go, because he’s already got Spencer right where he wants him.
Spencer’s incoherent words are hanging in the air between them and Carlton holds himself still. This close he can feel the almost nervous way Spencer is vibrating, shaking as he leans in.
Hot hot hot. It’s hot this close to Lassi again, and that ball of fear in stomach is getting sharper and brighter and Shawn lets his head fall back anyway, only frowning a little when Lassi follows him in, where there are words and breath and lips at his ear, at his neck.
He doesn’t know what he said to bring this on, since he hadn’t been trying to get thrown between a Lassi and a harder place, but he’s all for it now that he’s here. It feels right. It feels good. It fits.
A thought like that just leads to other, dirtier thoughts and those are definitely something to mention to Lassiter later, when he’s in a more reasonable mood and not grunting and shifting and doing everything but rub himself against Shawn’s hip.
It’s his turn to breathe hard into Spencer’s ear, his turn to watch Spencer’s skin flush with color, his stupid hair all messed up and dark with sweat.
Carlton stops, his fingers twisting his wedding ring while he wonders why it is that, despite all their bickering and scratching at each other, whenever he moves close Spencer never moves away.
Shawn’s hardly going to object if he does. It’s so good he moves his feet apart, just a little. He knows they might have an audience; he just doesn’t care. Lassiter just moves in closer, not even seeming to notice that he does.
He’d asked for a moment of honesty. He had never actually expected it. Spencer probably hadn’t either. For a bare second he feels the heat of triumph, and then he’s just shuddering, looking away from green eyes and noticing the complete lack of spider webs on Spencer’s clothing.
“You don’t know what you want, do you, Spencer?” he demands, looking back up, and the noise behind them fades as Shawn pulls in a breath and holds it. Carlton’s chest is tight. He’s dizzy. The other man blinks, long, soft eyelashes brushing his cheek before he sweeps his eyes up.
Lassi is frowning, but Shawn is most definitely not teasing him. Not yet anyway. Just how serious he is depends on what Lassiter does next. Shawn’s already shivering, shaking, and Lassi must make something weird out of that, because he’s asking questions. Or just one. Very direct. Very accusing. Very, very hot.
“You don’t know what you want, do you?” Lassiter demands, but his gaze darts away, and by the time it returns Shawn knows he’s grinning, and that his grin is going to get Carlton angry, but he can’t help it. He knows what Lassi wants too, has known this whole time, he just wasn’t paying close enough attention. This would be a bad time to ask if Carlton is still seeing Hornstock, but Shawn’s pretty sure he knows the answer, so it doesn’t matter anyway
“I know exactly what I want,” he promises, since he does, now, and shifts, and it is more than sweat and air that question between them now.
Spencer’s hand comes up and Carlton can’t even think about moving when Spencer’s fingers trail across his cheek.
Carlton licks his mouth.
“Oh no, I know exactly what I want,” Spencer breathes. His lips are wet too.
“Carlton.”
The look in those eyes is teasing and confident. Too confident, not that it matters, because Carlton is blushing and hard and inches away from Spencer, who can feel all of that. Spencer is hard against his leg and his slow smile says he’s finally got Carlton right where he wants him.
Carlton falls back out of panicked reflex, stumbling over his own feet while he imagines several horrifying and embarrassing scenarios, because he knows Spencer can’t be serious. He just manages not to land on his ass and spins on his heels in time to see everyone but O’Hara quickly look away.
Watching Lassiter almost fall on his ass after that is almost worth Lassiter walking away. His helpful reminder to Lassi to be careful is just a fun little bonus that he’s more than willing to have Lassiter get him back for later.
“You should be more careful,” Spencer remarks smugly from behind him and Carlton grits his teeth and straightens his coat as he begins to walk away, not that he knows where he’s going when his car is behind him. Back to the cave to oversee evidence collection. That makes sense; it’s possibly even credible if the pleat of his pants manages to hide his massive erection.
Another bug tickles his neck and he slaps at it without hitting it. He’ll be grateful to never have to see this damn field again. It looks normal, but it might as well have been land-mined.
“…Lassi!” That stupid nickname pulls his attention back to Spencer, not that it had ever really left him. “We make a good team!” Spencer calls out so the whole world can hear and Carlton twists around immediately even though the conversation was over and he had ended it and he was supposed to be going on with his life now.
“I told you to stay back!” he reminds that idiot in case that idiot has forgotten. “Did they never mention danger in your comic books?” His smirk is somewhat marred by the fact that he’s breathing too fast and that Spencer only looks mildly offended.
“First of all, I didn’t read comic books, Gus did. But if I had stayed back, I would never have gotten a chance to be here now, suggesting that we get together sometime in the near future to compare Launchpad from Duck Tales with Launchpad from Darkwing Duck.”
“Darkwing Duck wasn’t on the Disney Aftern…” Carlton can hear himself answering Spencer’s comment about Launchpad McQuack who, yes, was on both Darkwing Duck and Duck Tales, and closes his mouth too late. Spencer is grinning at him with obvious amusement, because he’d almost gone along with it, again. “Shut up, Spencer,” he finishes, weakly, and turns back around.
Behind him he can hear soft footsteps, and when he turns to look Spencer is following after him, that eerily knowing look on his face as he starts asking about food.
Carlton waits until he starts babbling about Chinese before he starts walking faster.
“Still waiting for that yes, Lassi,” Spencer reminds him and Carlton twitches around. Spencer is still following him, grinning like a lunatic that he obviously is. God help him, Carlton’s heart actually kicks against his chest. He’s still aroused too, and that can only mean one thing. He must like it.
And for once, because he wants to let Spencer catch up, Carlton knows exactly what that makes him.
Shawn opens his mouth even if the right words haven’t occurred to him yet. He’s possibly frowning, and if he was hot before he’s burning up now with the memory of Lassiter’s body heat. He pulls at his flannel as he turns around.
Lassiter is picking his way carefully across the field, staring in one direction, then turning and heading for the bunker. Shawn really hopes everybody keeps their eyes on his undoubtedly flushed and furious face. If they look down, well, is Lassi ever going to be embarrassed.
“We should do this again, Lassi. We make a good team. Seriously, our timing is really starting to come together.” Timing like that means the sex is going to be amazing, not that he had any doubt after the first time. But tossing that out makes Lassiter stop. He jerks around and looks like he’s about to head back for half a second before he controls himself.
And yes, he had told Shawn to stay back, all touching concern for his well-being, but if Shawn had stayed back, then he would never have learned such awesome things about himself, and about Lassiter, and the cartoons that is looking forward to watching with Lassiter, preferably while both of them are naked, in a bed of some kind.
He only mentions part of that to Lassi of course, the non-naked part. They are in a public field after all. Well a private field with a lot of the public in it.
“How about a steak, Lass?” he wonders out loud a second later and Lassiter’s stride breaks enough that Shawn knows he heard. “Chinese?” Mu shu anything sounds better than steak right now anyway, but Lassiter stops long enough to turn around.
Lassikitten shakes his head, winces, and then resumes his stalking toward the bunker entrance, just a little faster than before.
It’s not the field that has Shawn all warm inside and smiling. Because he’s not into fields but he is apparently into Lassiter. Huh. And Lassiter is into him, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. Double huh. Gus hadn’t mentioned that part.
“Still waiting for that yes, Lassi,” he calls out just to make sure Lassiter turns to give him a frown that seems more confused than annoyed.
Shawn looks over at the car, the icepack, and then back at Lassi. Lassiter probably got a sunburn from being outside this much. And unless Jules or the Chief makes him, he probably won’t go get an x-ray. He has some hair dye from Shawn’s hand smudged down his cheek too.
There’s also a streak of white webs filled with bit of dust and dirt and probably traces of grain and walnut shells going down his back.
Shawn grins as he sets off after him.
I swear to you, this is all just to get to more pr0n. I swears it.
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Now it's finally porn time again. !!!