FIC: "Right Place, Wrong Time" by Regann - PG-13/R - Shawn/Lassiter (16/??)
Title: Right Place, Wrong Time (16/??)
Author: Regann
Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Rating: PG-13/R
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Notes: I borrowed a certain hilarious motto of life from a character from the TV Show, "The Sentinel."
Summary: 17-year-old Shawn has a fake ID burning a hole in his pocket, a college party to crash, and a mission to stop being the only virgin in his senior class. Unfortunately, there's this big-earred, good-doing grad student by the name of Carlton who catches him in the act. The unfair nature of cosmic humor being what it is, thus begins something that'll come back to haunt them both ten years later -- when an adult Shawn Spencer decides to give psychic investigation a try.
Past Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
Right Place, Wrong Time (Part 16)
Considering that he was bored out of his mind within two hours of Gus's departure for the retreat, Shawn was almost willing to admit that it was time for him to make a new friend or two. It wasn't often he realized that he spent the majority of his time with Gus but without his best friend to fill those endless hours of internet flash games and cat naps, Shawn ran out of ways to entertain himself pathetically quickly. Luckily, he decided Juliet and Lassiter were his next best chance for excitement, a choice which led him to the case of the missing Deanna Sirtis.
"You need a hobby," Gus told him in the car as they drove to the Siritses' house.
"I solve crimes," Shawn replied, the duh implied.
"A hobby you can do alone," Gus clarified. "For a guy who spent years traveling around all by himself, you have serious separation issues."
"But Gus, you're the wind beneath my wings," Shawn said. "How can I live without you?"
Gus shot him a look. "Don't start."
"You're my first, my last, my everything," Shawn said, feigning the emotion that choked his voice.
"That's low," Gus muttered. "You know I'm gonna have that song in my head for the rest of the day!"
After they left Deanna's, they tracked down Lassiter who Shawn thought might be grabbing a drink from his favorite coffee stand on the beach, something he sometimes did in the middle of a particularly stressful case. His hunch proved correct and they caught up with Lassiter who, as usual, dismissed their insights into the case. What was unusual was the fact that Henry managed to find them there, as well.
Two questions skimmed through Shawn's mind -- one wondering how Henry found them, the other about why Lassy decided to trot over to the truck with him and Gus -- but they were mostly ignored in favor of arguing with Henry over his stuff. He remembered that Henry had called again about his stuff but Shawn had thought he'd cleared out most of the things he cared about until he came across his old Whitesnake T-shirt buried in one of the boxes. It wasn't just that the shirt was irreplaceable due to its vintage status; it had great sentimental value.
Shawn stared down at the gray shirt he held in his hands, remembering the last time he wore it -- sometime in the week between the 4th of July weekend he'd spent with a certain grad student turned cop and the night that Lassiter had broke it off with him in the arcade parking lot. But the night that he most associated with the shirt was the night he'd first gone out looking for a loose blonde coed to strip him of it and his virginity and he'd met Carlton instead.
His reverie was broken by Gus's indignation over his lame Airwolf jacket and then further distracted by the completely bizarre bonding moment between Lassiter and his dad. Despite the humor Gus found in the situation, Shawn was left more weirded out than amused. It was even weirder to see them together the next day, his dad having made a special trip down to the station in order to chat with Lassiter. As he walked off to the sound of his father and Lassy laughing behind his back, Shawn couldn't imagine anything weirder, especially considered he'd spent more than a few hours as a kid dearly hoping that the two of them never met.
What was more disturbing was the fact that it actually made sense. Using the little objectivity he could manage thinking about his father or Lassiter, Shawn could see exactly why their rapport should've been a foregone conclusion. Lassiter was exactly the kind of cop that Henry had been -- tough, serious, non-sense, and, in Shawn's opinion, much too hard-assed -- and the kind of officer that Henry had wanted Shawn to be. Factoring in Lassiter's bad, obviously straight fashion sense and his love of boringly manly things like fishing, it was a match made in heaven -- or Shawn's hell.
"I can't believe it," he told Gus later that day. "It's...it's like...I can't wrap my mind around it."
"That your dad and Lassiter are hanging out?"
"Yes!"
"It is a little weird," Gus admitted. "Actually, it gives me the creeps."
"You're preaching to the choir here," Shawn informed him. "I've never seen anything so disturbing in my life and that includes Turk's ass."
"I can't believe Lassiter would want to spend time with your dad," Gus said. "Considering that he doesn't even like you."
"Guess he figured I didn't inherit my charm from the Spencer side of the family," Shawn said. "Plus, half of the guys in the force idolize my dad, think he was, like, 'supercop' or something."
"Well, your dad was still here when Lassiter started," Gus stated sourly. "Maybe that's what it is."
"I don't want to talk about it," Shawn told him. "Or think about it."
"Well, you brought it up."
"I know!' Shawn admitted, shuddering. "Let's talk about who tried to kill Deanna. It's less unsettling."
One of the things that Shawn remembered most clearly from the days after the thing with Lassiter -- the thing that Gus was fond of calling "the break-up" -- was Gus's insistence that he take what had happened to the police. And, by police, Gus had meant his dad. His friend had been certain that Henry would've made sure that Carlton paid for messing around with him, not only in a paternal way but also in a judicial, law-breaking way. Shawn hadn't admitted it then but he'd never thought that his dad would care that much about his virtue, lost or otherwise.
Out of everything that would've come out with his confession, Shawn had figured that the thing most likely to cause Henry grief would've been the gay part of the equation. It took him two more years to drop that little bombshell on his father and even that had been tough enough when Shawn was assured a speedy way out of town the next day. If he had confessed it all to his father, Shawn was pretty sure that all that would've come up it was his grounding for the summer for sneaking off to UC Irvine and probably a lecture about how stupid he was to fall for the lines he'd been fed.
After Lassiter and even the Chief shut him down about Deanna's attacker being someone other than Felix Alvarez, Shawn headed home, hoping a little time away would clear his head. He knew it wasn't Alvarez; every one of his instincts were telling him it was someone else. But he needed to find something to convince the police or else Deanna's almost-killer would have a free chance to try again before she gained consciousness.
Unfortunately, his mind had other ideas and Shawn found himself cross-legged on his couch with VH1 Classic playing in the background while he looked over the old T-shirt he'd saved from his father's Goodwill stash. He didn't even know why he'd kept all these years because he hadn't worn it since he was 17 years old. It probably wouldn't even had made it through several purges of his stuff by both him and Henry if it hadn't been tucked away from some kind of care.
Shawn eventually tossed the shirt in the general direction of his breakfast bar where it caught on one of the bar stools. He grabbed the remote with plans to switch over to something mindless and manly like sports but he got distracted by more old school memories when the video for "Fell On Black Days" started up. Like the T-shirt, the song reminded him of that summer; it was just one of the better emo-angsty tunes of the time. While it no longer had quite the same effect on him, it brought him back to subject that his mind kept circling -- Lassiter.
Not that he wanted to think about him. Thinking about Lassiter made him think about the days when he was Carly -- and the shirt did enough of that -- and the weird friend thing he had going with his dad and the fact that he had kind of confessed to Gus that he had the hots for Lassy. Again. Kind of.
It had all gotten mixed up in his head -- Carly, Lassiter, what he'd felt when he was 17, what he felt now. He didn't like how it left him feeling, either. Falling for Carlton had been a giddy, heady and thoroughly terrible experience at the end and Shawn had been smart enough to avoid that kind of tangle again. To have all that messy emotion stuff bleeding over into his patented 'detach with love' approach to life made him unsteady, queasy and entirely too affected by Lassiter.
It all came back to him the next day when he strolled up to his dad's front door to see Henry and Lassiter sitting on the deck, laughing and joking together over the fish that they'd "hooked and cooked." Shawn had his own set of memories of Carlton on his deck, laughing, along with all the other memories from that 4th of July and they just didn't fit with reality. That, and the fact that Lassiter looked happier in that moment than Shawn had seen him in years made it all -- well, like a bad episode of The Twilight Zone.
Shawn knew he should probably think about it, figure it out so it didn't keep creeping up on him at every turn. But he didn't have the time with Deanna's attacker loose and probably ready to attack again and he didn't even have the desire to worry about it.
Luckily, he had a reason to let it wait.
**
There was a strange pall over the station as the Deanna Sirtis attempted murder investigation was laid to rest. It had started within moments of Spencer's flamboyant revelation and it hadn't dimmed since, only growing more uncomfortable as the evidence mounted against Kellen.
It was never easy to admit that one of their own turned out to be one of the bad guys that they were swore to stop.
Kellen had eventually confessed but a search of his home had turned up enough incriminating evidence that Carlton was sure they would've had had no trouble getting a conviction without it. His last call to the hospital had confirmed that Deanna was expected to recover and Carlton was ready to leave the office behind for the rest of the day. He needed some sleep after pulling double shifts all weekend and he had another fishing trip planned for that evening with Henry Spencer.
Mulling over the fact that the elder Spencer could be so different from the younger one, Carlton was just going to stop by his desk to grab his suit jacket before making a break for his car. His plans were changed, however, by the sight of an unexpected visitor standing next to his unoccupied desk.
"Guster?" he asked, surprise clear in his voice. "What does Spencer want now?"
"Shawn's not here," Guster told him, looking around nervously. In fact, his body was radiating unease and maybe even a little anger.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I came to speak to you about something," he explained. "In private."
"Well, I'm heading to my car," Carlton told him, grabbing his jacket from his hanger. "If you can walk and talk, I'll listen."
Guster nodded and fell into step alongside him, despite the difference in their strides. Carlton refused to show it but he was incredibly curious as to what could bring Guster to see him without Spencer.
"What?" he asked after a few steps.
"I don't want anyone to know about this conversation," Guster told him. "It stays between you and me."
Carlton sighed as he paused to pull on his jacket. "You're already trying my patience, Guster. Get to the point."
"I want you to lay off the play dates with Henry Spencer."
It probably had to be the last thing that Carlton had expected to hear out of Guster's mouth. "What?"
"Look..." Guster began. "I know you and Shawn don't get along and I'm all for that. However, you two have managed to be nice to each other on occasion and I want you to do this for him, okay?"
"What does Spencer have to do with this?" Carlton wanted to know, unable to believe that the fake psychic had sent his friend on the mission.
"What do you think?" Guster asked, as if the question were an idiotic one. "He's just a little weirded out by his co-worker -- one who doesn't even like him -- being all chummy with his dad. I understand how he feels and I know he'd never ask himself."
"Well, as touching as that is," Carlton told him. "Spencer's delicate feelings aren't my problem."
Guster sent him as scathing a look as Carlton had ever seen on him. "Yeah," he muttered. "I noticed."
"I beg your pardon?" Carlton asked sharply, stung.
"Look, Detective..." Guster sighed and stopped moving, turning to face the detective. "I really shouldn't even be telling you this but Shawn and Henry's relationship has never been what you could call great and I don't think this fishing buddies thing is helping. When Shawn was a kid, he did a lot of crazy stuff--"
"I'm well aware," Carlton said dryly, recalling the story about Spencer's arrest for grand theft auto.
"You are?" Guster asked slowly, eyeing with no little suspicion.
"Of course I am," Carlton told him. "How could I not be?"
Guster's frown deepened. "So...you know?"
Carlton wondered where all of Guster's disbelief and suspicion were coming from since it was a widely known fact that Spencer had been a trouble maker since birth. Anyone who'd ever spent a few hours fishing with his father could attest to that. "Isn't that what I just said?"
Suddenly Guster changed and everything about him was less polite, less reserved -- more angry. "Then I shouldn't even have to explain this to you," he hissed, pacing in front of him. They'd long since reached Carlton's car parked in the station's parking deck and the detective was leaning against the Crown Vic, waiting for Guster to get to his point. "This is really weirding him out and it's not like you don't owe him a break or two."
"Me? Owe him?" Carlton scoffed, wondering how loyalty could make Guster not only blind to Spencer's faults but to reality in general. "I don't see it that way, Guster."
Guster stopped pacing to glower at him. "That's always been the problem! Don't you care, even a little, about what you've done to him?"
Carlton folded his arms and returned the glower. "Spencer looks fine enough to me."
"You don't care." Guster shook his head and clenched his fists, before taking a deep breath. "You know, he kept that stupid damn T-shirt all these years even though he couldn't bring himself to wear it ever again. But I bet it doesn't matter to you." He paused, shaking his head again. "Why did I even think this was a good idea?"
Guster gave him one last dark look, sarcasm heavy in his words. "Thanks for your time, Detective."
Carlton watched as the younger man stalked away, completely mystified by most of the conversation he'd just had. He didn't know why Guster had eventually turned so hostile but once again he did commend his loyalty to his friend. Despite his confusion, he thought about Guster's main point and what he should -- or shouldn't -- do because of it. If Spencer had only been nothing more to him but the annoying coworker he pretended he was, he'd have probably brushed off Guster's concern without a second thought. However, there was something about dreaming about a person most nights that made him a little more sensitive to his feelings.
He did really enjoy his fishing trips with Henry Spencer; it was relaxing and Henry was solid but unassuming companionship. Sometimes they did chat but usually they were quiet, unless he had a question about Henry's glory days in the force or if Henry had a question or tale that he wanted to share about his son. Carlton had noticed immediately that the retired cop had two main topics of conversation: being a policeman and his son. Since it -- and fishing -- were the main things they had in common, it was probably why Carlton found him an ideal fishing buddy.
It must've really been bothering at Spencer, he decided, if Guster was willing to come all the way down to the station and ask him to stop. He didn't really see the big deal since it was obvious that Spencer had probably never been his father's buddy in anything but Carlton had long since figured out that there was issues there. He could still remember Spencer's icy voice and expression from their first meeting in the interview room when he'd asked him if he'd learned his lesson to which Spencer had replied, "I learned I hated my father, so sure."
With a sigh, he climbed into his car and headed to the Spencer house, decision made. It wouldn't be that great of an imposition to skip a few trips with Henry if it saved Spencer an hour or two of therapy down the road. Carlton didn't want to admit it but he had seen some things in Henry's behavior and personality that could explain the train wreck that his son had grew up to be. Henry Spencer was blunt, overly critical -- luckily marriage had made Carlton pretty good at tuning it out -- and it was obvious from his stories that he'd had a very definite plan he's expected his son to follow.
Considering Spencer didn't seem like someone who followed the preparation instructions on ramen noodles, Carlton could see where the problems came from.
He was actually surprised that Spencer was there with his father when he arrived but it gave him a chance to pawn the trip off on the kid which would've made Guster happy, he hoped. Spencer was immediately suspicious and trailed after him, pointing out that he knew that Carlton's lie about having to work was just that. He fed him some half-truths about Henry's nagging and a honest admission about understanding him a little better.
Carlton was still half-grinning to himself as he walked around the corner to where he'd parked his car, mind idly replaying the scene as climbed in and started the ignition. Spencer, all sprawled on the porch, then grinning at him as he jokingly defended his father against Carlton's complaints. There was something about it, about Spencer grinning at him and standing there with the outline of his childhood home in the background...
He couldn't quite place the something and his mind wandered again as he cracked the car window and let the warm breeze filter in against his face, taking the next left toward his house. Parts of his conversation with Guster were still bothering him, especially the indecipherable innuendo about him hurting Spencer and the line about a T-shirt. While Carlton had probably thought about doing damage to any number of Spencer's T-shirts since he'd started starring in his fantasies, he didn't know anything about some shirt Spencer had held onto for years, except maybe that gray one that he'd seen Spencer salvage from the back of his father's truck and he couldn't see how he was supposed to feel bad over Spencer's ambivalent feelings toward an old Whitesnake T-shirt...
Carlton was glad he'd already pulled into his quiet neighborhood or else he'd have probably caused a wreck the way he slammed on his brakes.
The only coherent thought he had for a moment was Oh god.
Spencer. Shawn Spencer.
Son of Henry Spencer. Former police detective Henry Spencer.
Shawn who was the right age to have graduated from high school in 1994 and to have been a young 17 years old then, who would've hated the idea of being a cop thanks to his overbearing policeman father.
Shawn Spencer who made up stupid rules to childhood games, who had made very cutting remarks about his treatment of Berry, who had once slipped and called him Carly.
Shawn Spencer who made him want a man when he hadn't in thirteen or so years, since he'd last went to bed with a gangly kid with a whipcrack sense of humor and an outrageous boldness that was still endearing when he thought about it -- like the emails Spencer had once sent him.
He couldn't believe it -- wouldn't believe it. It would've been too amazing, too agonizing, too much like the fate that a 17-year-old Shawn had once spoke of, too much like a cruel cosmic joke that he'd managed to forget and remember so much simultaneously.
Carlton didn't realize that he was still motionless in the middle of the street until a car came up behind him and started honking. He hit the gas pedal and, with shaking hands, drove on auto-pilot until he was pulling up in front of his house.
There had to be way, he thought to himself, as he finally opened his front door, a way to prove to himself that it wasn't true, a concrete way. He'd already tried to use his mind to refute the terrifying theory but his memories were playing tricks on him and the holes he'd had of Shawn's face were already being filled with Spencer's features, just as memories of Shawn's body had once filled in for his lack of knowledge of Spencer's in his lust-driven fantasies.
He needed...he needed...something real of Shawn, something that he could look at and hold and use to assure himself that he'd reached a terrible, wrong conclusion.
Carlton was reaching for a cold beer from is refrigerator when a thought hit him -- a chance. He left the beer on the fridge shelf and tore down the hall, shrugging out of his jacket on the way. He stepped into his almost-empty hall closet and up on the foot ladder there, then shouldered open the small hatch that led to his attic.
All the boxes were coated in dust, untouched since he'd moved in over two years earlier. Some of the boxes hadn't been opened in much longer -- like the box he was looking for. He found it pushed against a far timber, still marked with the flourishing "M.A.S + Dorm Stuff" that he'd written on it when he had first moved in with Jenny.
Carlton grabbed the box and slid back out of the crawlspace. He carried it back with him to the kitchen and set it in the middle of his kitchen table, the box even dingier in the bright light. He finally got his hands on that cold beer, which he gulped down before he finally used a knife from the nearby block to break the its masking-tape seal.
He sifted through the old books, old class notes, the strange pieces of memorabilia he'd picked up from Galina or Rodney or somebody else, down into the bottom of the box where his fingers wrapped around a dented metal box. Carlton sank down into a chair, the small metal box in front of him. He took another long drink from his beer and opened the lid, his fingers oddly gentle against the abused metal.
There were old photographs of college friends, flyers from plays his actress-girlfriend had starred in, old bits of schedules, matchbooks from bars, and other odds and ends he'd managed to collect in a few semesters. But, there, buried at the bottom, was a plastic rectangle -- a not-so-cleverly made fake driver's license for one Shawn Steele of Anaheim.
He turned it over in his hands, remembering the night he'd confiscated it and shoved it down into the pockets of his jeans where he'd forgotten about it until laundry time and had then tossed it in his metal box, a little too sentimental to throw it away. It had stayed there all those years, as if waiting for that moment.
The face smiling up at him from the license was much younger, thinner through the cheeks but rounder in the chin, the nose and mouth and ears all a little too big for the rest of the face. But the squinting, smiling eyes were the same and the resemblance was undeniable.
Shawn was Spencer.
Shawn Spencer.
He ran his thumb over the picture, clearing away the dust it had accumulated over the years until the grin flashing up at him was as clear and white as the one he'd seen that afternoon in Spencer -- in Shawn's father's backyard.
Carlton laid the license on the table, the face still smiling up at him. For months, this had been in his face and he'd blithely ignored it, even with hundreds of little barbs from Shawn every chance he had. He could see now that he'd wanted to ignore it, even after he couldn't get Shawn -- Spencer -- out of his head.
As he leaned back in his seat with sigh, he could Shawn's voice -- youthful Shawn -- talking about fate and luck and how he'd been ordained to meet him that night at that party like it was a wonderul miraculous force bringing them together.
But then he remembered what else he'd always heard about fate.
It was such a bitch.
To Be Continued...
Author: Regann
Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Rating: PG-13/R
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Notes: I borrowed a certain hilarious motto of life from a character from the TV Show, "The Sentinel."
Summary: 17-year-old Shawn has a fake ID burning a hole in his pocket, a college party to crash, and a mission to stop being the only virgin in his senior class. Unfortunately, there's this big-earred, good-doing grad student by the name of Carlton who catches him in the act. The unfair nature of cosmic humor being what it is, thus begins something that'll come back to haunt them both ten years later -- when an adult Shawn Spencer decides to give psychic investigation a try.
Past Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
Right Place, Wrong Time (Part 16)
Considering that he was bored out of his mind within two hours of Gus's departure for the retreat, Shawn was almost willing to admit that it was time for him to make a new friend or two. It wasn't often he realized that he spent the majority of his time with Gus but without his best friend to fill those endless hours of internet flash games and cat naps, Shawn ran out of ways to entertain himself pathetically quickly. Luckily, he decided Juliet and Lassiter were his next best chance for excitement, a choice which led him to the case of the missing Deanna Sirtis.
"You need a hobby," Gus told him in the car as they drove to the Siritses' house.
"I solve crimes," Shawn replied, the duh implied.
"A hobby you can do alone," Gus clarified. "For a guy who spent years traveling around all by himself, you have serious separation issues."
"But Gus, you're the wind beneath my wings," Shawn said. "How can I live without you?"
Gus shot him a look. "Don't start."
"You're my first, my last, my everything," Shawn said, feigning the emotion that choked his voice.
"That's low," Gus muttered. "You know I'm gonna have that song in my head for the rest of the day!"
After they left Deanna's, they tracked down Lassiter who Shawn thought might be grabbing a drink from his favorite coffee stand on the beach, something he sometimes did in the middle of a particularly stressful case. His hunch proved correct and they caught up with Lassiter who, as usual, dismissed their insights into the case. What was unusual was the fact that Henry managed to find them there, as well.
Two questions skimmed through Shawn's mind -- one wondering how Henry found them, the other about why Lassy decided to trot over to the truck with him and Gus -- but they were mostly ignored in favor of arguing with Henry over his stuff. He remembered that Henry had called again about his stuff but Shawn had thought he'd cleared out most of the things he cared about until he came across his old Whitesnake T-shirt buried in one of the boxes. It wasn't just that the shirt was irreplaceable due to its vintage status; it had great sentimental value.
Shawn stared down at the gray shirt he held in his hands, remembering the last time he wore it -- sometime in the week between the 4th of July weekend he'd spent with a certain grad student turned cop and the night that Lassiter had broke it off with him in the arcade parking lot. But the night that he most associated with the shirt was the night he'd first gone out looking for a loose blonde coed to strip him of it and his virginity and he'd met Carlton instead.
His reverie was broken by Gus's indignation over his lame Airwolf jacket and then further distracted by the completely bizarre bonding moment between Lassiter and his dad. Despite the humor Gus found in the situation, Shawn was left more weirded out than amused. It was even weirder to see them together the next day, his dad having made a special trip down to the station in order to chat with Lassiter. As he walked off to the sound of his father and Lassy laughing behind his back, Shawn couldn't imagine anything weirder, especially considered he'd spent more than a few hours as a kid dearly hoping that the two of them never met.
What was more disturbing was the fact that it actually made sense. Using the little objectivity he could manage thinking about his father or Lassiter, Shawn could see exactly why their rapport should've been a foregone conclusion. Lassiter was exactly the kind of cop that Henry had been -- tough, serious, non-sense, and, in Shawn's opinion, much too hard-assed -- and the kind of officer that Henry had wanted Shawn to be. Factoring in Lassiter's bad, obviously straight fashion sense and his love of boringly manly things like fishing, it was a match made in heaven -- or Shawn's hell.
"I can't believe it," he told Gus later that day. "It's...it's like...I can't wrap my mind around it."
"That your dad and Lassiter are hanging out?"
"Yes!"
"It is a little weird," Gus admitted. "Actually, it gives me the creeps."
"You're preaching to the choir here," Shawn informed him. "I've never seen anything so disturbing in my life and that includes Turk's ass."
"I can't believe Lassiter would want to spend time with your dad," Gus said. "Considering that he doesn't even like you."
"Guess he figured I didn't inherit my charm from the Spencer side of the family," Shawn said. "Plus, half of the guys in the force idolize my dad, think he was, like, 'supercop' or something."
"Well, your dad was still here when Lassiter started," Gus stated sourly. "Maybe that's what it is."
"I don't want to talk about it," Shawn told him. "Or think about it."
"Well, you brought it up."
"I know!' Shawn admitted, shuddering. "Let's talk about who tried to kill Deanna. It's less unsettling."
One of the things that Shawn remembered most clearly from the days after the thing with Lassiter -- the thing that Gus was fond of calling "the break-up" -- was Gus's insistence that he take what had happened to the police. And, by police, Gus had meant his dad. His friend had been certain that Henry would've made sure that Carlton paid for messing around with him, not only in a paternal way but also in a judicial, law-breaking way. Shawn hadn't admitted it then but he'd never thought that his dad would care that much about his virtue, lost or otherwise.
Out of everything that would've come out with his confession, Shawn had figured that the thing most likely to cause Henry grief would've been the gay part of the equation. It took him two more years to drop that little bombshell on his father and even that had been tough enough when Shawn was assured a speedy way out of town the next day. If he had confessed it all to his father, Shawn was pretty sure that all that would've come up it was his grounding for the summer for sneaking off to UC Irvine and probably a lecture about how stupid he was to fall for the lines he'd been fed.
After Lassiter and even the Chief shut him down about Deanna's attacker being someone other than Felix Alvarez, Shawn headed home, hoping a little time away would clear his head. He knew it wasn't Alvarez; every one of his instincts were telling him it was someone else. But he needed to find something to convince the police or else Deanna's almost-killer would have a free chance to try again before she gained consciousness.
Unfortunately, his mind had other ideas and Shawn found himself cross-legged on his couch with VH1 Classic playing in the background while he looked over the old T-shirt he'd saved from his father's Goodwill stash. He didn't even know why he'd kept all these years because he hadn't worn it since he was 17 years old. It probably wouldn't even had made it through several purges of his stuff by both him and Henry if it hadn't been tucked away from some kind of care.
Shawn eventually tossed the shirt in the general direction of his breakfast bar where it caught on one of the bar stools. He grabbed the remote with plans to switch over to something mindless and manly like sports but he got distracted by more old school memories when the video for "Fell On Black Days" started up. Like the T-shirt, the song reminded him of that summer; it was just one of the better emo-angsty tunes of the time. While it no longer had quite the same effect on him, it brought him back to subject that his mind kept circling -- Lassiter.
Not that he wanted to think about him. Thinking about Lassiter made him think about the days when he was Carly -- and the shirt did enough of that -- and the weird friend thing he had going with his dad and the fact that he had kind of confessed to Gus that he had the hots for Lassy. Again. Kind of.
It had all gotten mixed up in his head -- Carly, Lassiter, what he'd felt when he was 17, what he felt now. He didn't like how it left him feeling, either. Falling for Carlton had been a giddy, heady and thoroughly terrible experience at the end and Shawn had been smart enough to avoid that kind of tangle again. To have all that messy emotion stuff bleeding over into his patented 'detach with love' approach to life made him unsteady, queasy and entirely too affected by Lassiter.
It all came back to him the next day when he strolled up to his dad's front door to see Henry and Lassiter sitting on the deck, laughing and joking together over the fish that they'd "hooked and cooked." Shawn had his own set of memories of Carlton on his deck, laughing, along with all the other memories from that 4th of July and they just didn't fit with reality. That, and the fact that Lassiter looked happier in that moment than Shawn had seen him in years made it all -- well, like a bad episode of The Twilight Zone.
Shawn knew he should probably think about it, figure it out so it didn't keep creeping up on him at every turn. But he didn't have the time with Deanna's attacker loose and probably ready to attack again and he didn't even have the desire to worry about it.
Luckily, he had a reason to let it wait.
**
There was a strange pall over the station as the Deanna Sirtis attempted murder investigation was laid to rest. It had started within moments of Spencer's flamboyant revelation and it hadn't dimmed since, only growing more uncomfortable as the evidence mounted against Kellen.
It was never easy to admit that one of their own turned out to be one of the bad guys that they were swore to stop.
Kellen had eventually confessed but a search of his home had turned up enough incriminating evidence that Carlton was sure they would've had had no trouble getting a conviction without it. His last call to the hospital had confirmed that Deanna was expected to recover and Carlton was ready to leave the office behind for the rest of the day. He needed some sleep after pulling double shifts all weekend and he had another fishing trip planned for that evening with Henry Spencer.
Mulling over the fact that the elder Spencer could be so different from the younger one, Carlton was just going to stop by his desk to grab his suit jacket before making a break for his car. His plans were changed, however, by the sight of an unexpected visitor standing next to his unoccupied desk.
"Guster?" he asked, surprise clear in his voice. "What does Spencer want now?"
"Shawn's not here," Guster told him, looking around nervously. In fact, his body was radiating unease and maybe even a little anger.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I came to speak to you about something," he explained. "In private."
"Well, I'm heading to my car," Carlton told him, grabbing his jacket from his hanger. "If you can walk and talk, I'll listen."
Guster nodded and fell into step alongside him, despite the difference in their strides. Carlton refused to show it but he was incredibly curious as to what could bring Guster to see him without Spencer.
"What?" he asked after a few steps.
"I don't want anyone to know about this conversation," Guster told him. "It stays between you and me."
Carlton sighed as he paused to pull on his jacket. "You're already trying my patience, Guster. Get to the point."
"I want you to lay off the play dates with Henry Spencer."
It probably had to be the last thing that Carlton had expected to hear out of Guster's mouth. "What?"
"Look..." Guster began. "I know you and Shawn don't get along and I'm all for that. However, you two have managed to be nice to each other on occasion and I want you to do this for him, okay?"
"What does Spencer have to do with this?" Carlton wanted to know, unable to believe that the fake psychic had sent his friend on the mission.
"What do you think?" Guster asked, as if the question were an idiotic one. "He's just a little weirded out by his co-worker -- one who doesn't even like him -- being all chummy with his dad. I understand how he feels and I know he'd never ask himself."
"Well, as touching as that is," Carlton told him. "Spencer's delicate feelings aren't my problem."
Guster sent him as scathing a look as Carlton had ever seen on him. "Yeah," he muttered. "I noticed."
"I beg your pardon?" Carlton asked sharply, stung.
"Look, Detective..." Guster sighed and stopped moving, turning to face the detective. "I really shouldn't even be telling you this but Shawn and Henry's relationship has never been what you could call great and I don't think this fishing buddies thing is helping. When Shawn was a kid, he did a lot of crazy stuff--"
"I'm well aware," Carlton said dryly, recalling the story about Spencer's arrest for grand theft auto.
"You are?" Guster asked slowly, eyeing with no little suspicion.
"Of course I am," Carlton told him. "How could I not be?"
Guster's frown deepened. "So...you know?"
Carlton wondered where all of Guster's disbelief and suspicion were coming from since it was a widely known fact that Spencer had been a trouble maker since birth. Anyone who'd ever spent a few hours fishing with his father could attest to that. "Isn't that what I just said?"
Suddenly Guster changed and everything about him was less polite, less reserved -- more angry. "Then I shouldn't even have to explain this to you," he hissed, pacing in front of him. They'd long since reached Carlton's car parked in the station's parking deck and the detective was leaning against the Crown Vic, waiting for Guster to get to his point. "This is really weirding him out and it's not like you don't owe him a break or two."
"Me? Owe him?" Carlton scoffed, wondering how loyalty could make Guster not only blind to Spencer's faults but to reality in general. "I don't see it that way, Guster."
Guster stopped pacing to glower at him. "That's always been the problem! Don't you care, even a little, about what you've done to him?"
Carlton folded his arms and returned the glower. "Spencer looks fine enough to me."
"You don't care." Guster shook his head and clenched his fists, before taking a deep breath. "You know, he kept that stupid damn T-shirt all these years even though he couldn't bring himself to wear it ever again. But I bet it doesn't matter to you." He paused, shaking his head again. "Why did I even think this was a good idea?"
Guster gave him one last dark look, sarcasm heavy in his words. "Thanks for your time, Detective."
Carlton watched as the younger man stalked away, completely mystified by most of the conversation he'd just had. He didn't know why Guster had eventually turned so hostile but once again he did commend his loyalty to his friend. Despite his confusion, he thought about Guster's main point and what he should -- or shouldn't -- do because of it. If Spencer had only been nothing more to him but the annoying coworker he pretended he was, he'd have probably brushed off Guster's concern without a second thought. However, there was something about dreaming about a person most nights that made him a little more sensitive to his feelings.
He did really enjoy his fishing trips with Henry Spencer; it was relaxing and Henry was solid but unassuming companionship. Sometimes they did chat but usually they were quiet, unless he had a question about Henry's glory days in the force or if Henry had a question or tale that he wanted to share about his son. Carlton had noticed immediately that the retired cop had two main topics of conversation: being a policeman and his son. Since it -- and fishing -- were the main things they had in common, it was probably why Carlton found him an ideal fishing buddy.
It must've really been bothering at Spencer, he decided, if Guster was willing to come all the way down to the station and ask him to stop. He didn't really see the big deal since it was obvious that Spencer had probably never been his father's buddy in anything but Carlton had long since figured out that there was issues there. He could still remember Spencer's icy voice and expression from their first meeting in the interview room when he'd asked him if he'd learned his lesson to which Spencer had replied, "I learned I hated my father, so sure."
With a sigh, he climbed into his car and headed to the Spencer house, decision made. It wouldn't be that great of an imposition to skip a few trips with Henry if it saved Spencer an hour or two of therapy down the road. Carlton didn't want to admit it but he had seen some things in Henry's behavior and personality that could explain the train wreck that his son had grew up to be. Henry Spencer was blunt, overly critical -- luckily marriage had made Carlton pretty good at tuning it out -- and it was obvious from his stories that he'd had a very definite plan he's expected his son to follow.
Considering Spencer didn't seem like someone who followed the preparation instructions on ramen noodles, Carlton could see where the problems came from.
He was actually surprised that Spencer was there with his father when he arrived but it gave him a chance to pawn the trip off on the kid which would've made Guster happy, he hoped. Spencer was immediately suspicious and trailed after him, pointing out that he knew that Carlton's lie about having to work was just that. He fed him some half-truths about Henry's nagging and a honest admission about understanding him a little better.
Carlton was still half-grinning to himself as he walked around the corner to where he'd parked his car, mind idly replaying the scene as climbed in and started the ignition. Spencer, all sprawled on the porch, then grinning at him as he jokingly defended his father against Carlton's complaints. There was something about it, about Spencer grinning at him and standing there with the outline of his childhood home in the background...
He couldn't quite place the something and his mind wandered again as he cracked the car window and let the warm breeze filter in against his face, taking the next left toward his house. Parts of his conversation with Guster were still bothering him, especially the indecipherable innuendo about him hurting Spencer and the line about a T-shirt. While Carlton had probably thought about doing damage to any number of Spencer's T-shirts since he'd started starring in his fantasies, he didn't know anything about some shirt Spencer had held onto for years, except maybe that gray one that he'd seen Spencer salvage from the back of his father's truck and he couldn't see how he was supposed to feel bad over Spencer's ambivalent feelings toward an old Whitesnake T-shirt...
Carlton was glad he'd already pulled into his quiet neighborhood or else he'd have probably caused a wreck the way he slammed on his brakes.
The only coherent thought he had for a moment was Oh god.
Spencer. Shawn Spencer.
Son of Henry Spencer. Former police detective Henry Spencer.
Shawn who was the right age to have graduated from high school in 1994 and to have been a young 17 years old then, who would've hated the idea of being a cop thanks to his overbearing policeman father.
Shawn Spencer who made up stupid rules to childhood games, who had made very cutting remarks about his treatment of Berry, who had once slipped and called him Carly.
Shawn Spencer who made him want a man when he hadn't in thirteen or so years, since he'd last went to bed with a gangly kid with a whipcrack sense of humor and an outrageous boldness that was still endearing when he thought about it -- like the emails Spencer had once sent him.
He couldn't believe it -- wouldn't believe it. It would've been too amazing, too agonizing, too much like the fate that a 17-year-old Shawn had once spoke of, too much like a cruel cosmic joke that he'd managed to forget and remember so much simultaneously.
Carlton didn't realize that he was still motionless in the middle of the street until a car came up behind him and started honking. He hit the gas pedal and, with shaking hands, drove on auto-pilot until he was pulling up in front of his house.
There had to be way, he thought to himself, as he finally opened his front door, a way to prove to himself that it wasn't true, a concrete way. He'd already tried to use his mind to refute the terrifying theory but his memories were playing tricks on him and the holes he'd had of Shawn's face were already being filled with Spencer's features, just as memories of Shawn's body had once filled in for his lack of knowledge of Spencer's in his lust-driven fantasies.
He needed...he needed...something real of Shawn, something that he could look at and hold and use to assure himself that he'd reached a terrible, wrong conclusion.
Carlton was reaching for a cold beer from is refrigerator when a thought hit him -- a chance. He left the beer on the fridge shelf and tore down the hall, shrugging out of his jacket on the way. He stepped into his almost-empty hall closet and up on the foot ladder there, then shouldered open the small hatch that led to his attic.
All the boxes were coated in dust, untouched since he'd moved in over two years earlier. Some of the boxes hadn't been opened in much longer -- like the box he was looking for. He found it pushed against a far timber, still marked with the flourishing "M.A.S + Dorm Stuff" that he'd written on it when he had first moved in with Jenny.
Carlton grabbed the box and slid back out of the crawlspace. He carried it back with him to the kitchen and set it in the middle of his kitchen table, the box even dingier in the bright light. He finally got his hands on that cold beer, which he gulped down before he finally used a knife from the nearby block to break the its masking-tape seal.
He sifted through the old books, old class notes, the strange pieces of memorabilia he'd picked up from Galina or Rodney or somebody else, down into the bottom of the box where his fingers wrapped around a dented metal box. Carlton sank down into a chair, the small metal box in front of him. He took another long drink from his beer and opened the lid, his fingers oddly gentle against the abused metal.
There were old photographs of college friends, flyers from plays his actress-girlfriend had starred in, old bits of schedules, matchbooks from bars, and other odds and ends he'd managed to collect in a few semesters. But, there, buried at the bottom, was a plastic rectangle -- a not-so-cleverly made fake driver's license for one Shawn Steele of Anaheim.
He turned it over in his hands, remembering the night he'd confiscated it and shoved it down into the pockets of his jeans where he'd forgotten about it until laundry time and had then tossed it in his metal box, a little too sentimental to throw it away. It had stayed there all those years, as if waiting for that moment.
The face smiling up at him from the license was much younger, thinner through the cheeks but rounder in the chin, the nose and mouth and ears all a little too big for the rest of the face. But the squinting, smiling eyes were the same and the resemblance was undeniable.
Shawn was Spencer.
Shawn Spencer.
He ran his thumb over the picture, clearing away the dust it had accumulated over the years until the grin flashing up at him was as clear and white as the one he'd seen that afternoon in Spencer -- in Shawn's father's backyard.
Carlton laid the license on the table, the face still smiling up at him. For months, this had been in his face and he'd blithely ignored it, even with hundreds of little barbs from Shawn every chance he had. He could see now that he'd wanted to ignore it, even after he couldn't get Shawn -- Spencer -- out of his head.
As he leaned back in his seat with sigh, he could Shawn's voice -- youthful Shawn -- talking about fate and luck and how he'd been ordained to meet him that night at that party like it was a wonderul miraculous force bringing them together.
But then he remembered what else he'd always heard about fate.
It was such a bitch.
To Be Continued...