Handcuffed: Chapter six
Shawn closes his eyes for a long moment, trying to figure out when Juliet O'Hara became his mother. And, more importantly, where had he been, not paying attention to Jules noticing all the things that she'd noticed: wasn't being hyper observant and jumping to the not-so-obvious conclusions his job?
When he re-opens his eyes, Lassiter is still scowling near the window and muttering about music under his breath. "Dude. Let it go," he says, lightly. "I don't get it either."
Lassiter turns his scowl on Shawn. "Why is she doing this to us? I…I could have her arrested. I need to talk to the Chief. I need…"
Shawn frowns, reaches out, pats Lassiter on the shoulder. "Lassy. I'm pretty sure she's doing this because in some twisted way, she's trying to tell us she loves us."
"Yeah. Right." Lassiter shakes his head, growls under his breath, and Shawn wonders if it's worth it trying to explain anything to him.
The thing of it is, though, once Shawn thinks something, he has a very hard time not following through with it. "Look, it's like what my mom did when I was a kid. Only, admittedly, a little bit gayer. My dad and I would get into a fight about something stupid and finally my mom would sit us down and tell us how stupid we were both being and that always settled it."
Lassiter raises one eyebrow. "No wonder they're divorced."
"She left him!" Shawn says, automatically defensive. "That's not the point, Lassy," he adds, with a sigh, and - he actually has to stop himself from touching the other man again. He'd never been bothered to be self-conscious about it, before Jules brought it up - but she had it dead on, there.
(As far as he's concerned, she got a lot of things dead on.)
"So. Do you want to talk about it?" he adds, lamely, and Lassiter gives him a long-suffering look.
"Talk about what, Spencer? About your mother? About Depeche Mode? About the cruel and unusual punishment my partner is subjecting us to?"
"It's not all bad. I totally smell lasagna." Shawn grins. "I think she was right about one or two things, at least."
Lassiter looks away. "What? About the spirits drawing you to me during your visions? I don't buy that one for a minute, because that would involve believing you were psychic."
"About me," Shawn says, and then -instantly! - regrets it. For a moment, anyway.
"About your being psychic?" He snorts.
"About my being, you-know." A thousand euphemisms flicker through his brain and he finally settles on "Bent?"
"You're batshit insane, Spencer. That's not news." Lassiter nearly smiles, and Shawn rolls his eyes.
"I meant bent as in queer. A little bit. A little bit queer." He frowns, there, a quick - nearly ashamed - sort of look. "I don't know what else to call it, calling myself "bi" makes me sound like a fickle college girl, and I really do like women. Some women," he clarifies, a hint of smile returning to his expression. "Some men. Sometimes."
He closes his eyes, again, because he can't quite stand to look at Lassiter just now - because he's afraid that that would give even more away than he's willing, and he's not willing to get into a discussion about blue eyes and strong hands and the times when he's had to think entire litanies of unsexy thoughts because the last thing he needed was to get an already angry Lassiter complaining of sexual harassment mid-manhandling.
"Congratulations," Lassiter says, dryly, but there's a funny little catch in his voice - so subtle that Shawn almost didn't notice it: in fact, he realizes, he probably wouldn't have noticed it if he'd had his eyes open, had a visual cue to distract from the auditory.
Shawn opens his eyes, gives Lassiter a measuring look. "Does it bother you, Lassy?"
"I'm not a bigot, Shawn." The other man's eyes narrow. "Please don't tell me you're going to accuse me of homophobia now, every time I get upset when you've done something stupid."
He cracks a smile. "Sure, and now's the part where you tell me some of your best friends are queer, right?"
Lassiter actually laughs there, although it's a dangerous (humorless!) sort of laugh. "Not really. Not at all. More like the top two members of my shitlist, if you want to be technical."
"Queer criminals done you wrong?"
"Having criminals on your shitlist is easy. It's when they're family that it's difficult." There's a long silence, and Shawn watches as Lassiter hesitates on the words. "My mother, my hypocrite bitch of a mother, she turns fifty and comes out. She leaves us for another woman. The world would be a lot better off if they'd just driven right into the Pacific, but nothing's ever that easy, is it?"
Shawn pales, because he's actually taken aback, by that: the most personal revelation he's ever had from the enigmatic Carlton Lassiter. "I guess we've got something in common, then. But when my mother left, I took her side."
"I didn't care that she left me. I was an adult, I could take care of myself, but Lauren…she was just a kid, for god's sake. And my wife - number three," and he holds up three fingers for emphasis, "on the shitlist, by the way, my ex-wife who always though I didn't want children, didn't like children, couldn't handle children and I wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her, tell her that at twenty-four years old I moved back home to raise my baby sister, because someone had to and no one else in my family knows a damn thing about being responsible for their actions." He flinches, looks at Shawn. "Why the hell am I telling you this?"
"Because you're angry? You're angry at Jules, and you're angry at me, obviously, and now you're thinking about all the other things you're angry about." Shawn shrugs. "It's a pretty simple analysis, Lassyface. What number am I?"
"Pardon?" Lassiter frowns, and his forehead creases, and Shawn has to pretend that he doesn't find it adorable.
"On your shitlist. What number am I?"
"It varies, between four and fifteen. Depending on the day. Right now Jules is solidly at four - for the first time in her life, might I add, is she even on the list. I don't know where you are. Probably closer to the bottom, at the moment, although that's liable to change at any time."
"Your mom actually waited until she was fifty to come out?"
Lassiter, apparently, is refusing to dignify that question with an answer.
"That's weird. I've never come out, because I've never been in, I don't think." Shawn shrugs. "Of course, you, mister straight and narrow Lassipants, you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
"Straight and narrow?" Lassiter echoes.
"That's right." Shawn grins, rather wickedly. "Straight and narrow. Macho manly man. You're the type who probably never even thought about kissing another man, except maybe for a brief moment when Brokeback Mountain was in the headlines infringing on the otherwise powerfully manly territory of your beloved cowboy movies."
"You really think that?"
Shawn just gives him a look, and Lassiter laughs, deep in his throat.
"And you call yourself a psychic, Spencer? …gotcha." The expression on Lassiter's face is predatory, positively wicked, as he takes a step closer to Shawn: Shawn, who is suddenly realizing that getting out of this trap he's just stepped in is going to take all the powers of perception he's got, and a great bit of luck besides.
(And that is going to be something very very difficult to concentrate on with the sudden lightheaded fluttery feeling that maybe, just maybe, there might be some kind of something to that fantasy he's been having for years…)