Bar Fights: The New Online Dating (Psych fanfic)
Lassiter doesn’t particularly enjoy having to look for one Shawn Spencer, but given that he’d sort of been the one to lose him in the crowded bar in the first place, he’s feeling a bit obligated. He’s also slightly (very very slightly) worried. It’s only been ten minutes, but given their location and Spencer’s disposition, that’s more than enough time for trouble to crop up.
Shoving through the people who’d decided that standing in the doorway made perfect sense, Lassiter hears a voice cut through the crowd. “Shut up!” Given whom he’s looking for, Lassiter turns towards the yell and sees his target, close to the other side of the room, several fairly large men standing around him.
As a rule, Shawn doesn’t react well to being told to shut up. In fact, given precedent, Lassiter is rather expecting Shawn to stand up on a table or start yelling or generally contradict said demand as soon (or perhaps even sooner, this is Spencer after all) as humanly possible.
So he’s more than slightly surprised when Shawn blinks, opens his mouth as if to continue and then slowly closes it and takes an almost hesitant step backwards. The man that has Shawn so neatly cornered against the wall says something else, something lower that Lassiter doesn’t catch, and this time Shawn’s retreat brings him squarely against the wall. By this time several others are drawing in uncomfortably close, and Shawn’s smile is edged with something indefinable and yet unwelcome.
The fact that Lassiter immediately, and without conscious decision, starts moving towards the group of men is simply out of curiosity as to what could so succinctly shut him up, and not at all because something like fear had flickered in Shawn’s eyes when he’d backed up.
This had been a terrible idea. Of course, it had been Spencer’s idea, so Lassiter’s not all that surprised. Skeevy bars on the wrong side of town, following practically non-existent leads, is no place for pretty-boy psychics. Fake psychics, Lassiter corrects himself irritably. The boy’s a fake, no question of that. Just a fake who gets it right practically…hell, all of the time. And a fake whose darting eyes have just landed on Lassiter, and Lassiter’s pretty sure no one’s ever been that glad to see him…ever.
“Lassie!” Shawn says, greeting him with an embarrassingly gleeful wave of the arm as Lassiter shoves none too delicately through the gathered throng. “I was just…making friends…” he finishes lamely, and then the first man, who looks to have a couple of inches on Shawn, shoves the psychic back into the wall, one hand firmly planted on his chest.
“I said stay,” the man sneers at Shawn, turning to look at Lassiter. They’re roughly eye-to-eye, although the other man’s a bit heftier all told. He gives Lassiter an uncomfortably brazen, all-too-lingering, once-over. “And what have we here?”
“Steve, this is Lassie. Lassie, St-um…” Shawn stutters off as Steve’s hand moves up and settles heavily on his collarbone in clear warning. The movement drawing his eyes, Lassiter notes for the first time that several of the buttons on Shawn’s shirt are undone and his hair is even more mussed than normal, a feat he’d really not thought possible.
“What’s going on here?” Lassiter asks, his voice firm, turning back to the half-leering Steve.
“This isn’t your business,” Steve says, and (of course) several of the men behind them mumble their agreement and encouragement and god damn it Spencer’s a trouble magnet.
“Now that’s where you’re incorrect,” Lassiter says, eyes narrowing, but when Shawn nods enthusiastic agreement, Steve entangles his fingers in the front of Shawn’s shirt and pulls him close.
“Is he your boyfriend?” Steve asks, getting into Shawn’s face, his free hand on Shawn’s stomach. His voice is low, his free hand sliding lower. Shawn’s face goes uncomfortably white.
Lassiter flat-out decks him.
Steve’s fingers are still tight in Shawn’s shirt, so they both fall to the ground, the men behind them helpfully stepping out of their way to the floor. Steve’s cheeks are tinged with red, now, a mixture of embarrassment and fury, and when Shawn immediately tries to dart away, Steve pulls him back, shoving him towards his friends who grab a now struggling Shawn.
Lassiter moves towards them, but by now Steve’s standing and he steps deliberately in front of him.
“This isn’t your business,” Steve repeats, but the look in his eyes clearly shows how much he wants Lassiter to push the issue.
“Let him go,” Lassiter demands, wondering just how much it would exacerbate matters to pull his badge out now that he’d assaulted a man.
Shawn makes a startled noise as one of the men holding him starts to undo the rest of his shirt buttons, and Lassiter’s jaw tightens, eyes dark.
His hand goes to his pocket, and then he remembers that Shawn had insisted they “dress the part.” And evidently hadn’t given him back his gun and badge. Fury radiating through every fiber of his being, Lassiter eyes Steve.
“I said, let him go.”
Someone far too close to Shawn pulls out a knife and this time it’s Steve who catches Lassiter by surprise, punching him square in the face. He stumbles back just in time to see Shawn go limp, and the adrenaline from the fear that causes makes him try to shove past Steve, but the other man is having none of that and Lassiter is forced to return hit for hit as he struggles to keep an eyes on Shawn who…isn’t unconscious but appears to have jumped on someone’s back? And pouring beer in their hair?
The next glimpse he gets is Shawn biting someone.
Of course, by now the entire bar is one huge fight, and given that someone’s bound to have called the police, Lassiter’s a bit less worried about their safety but quite a bit more worried about his reputation.
…of course, this being the wrong side of town, there isn’t really any guarantee that the police have been called…
Swearing under his breath, Lassiter dodges another punch, ducking closer to where he’d last seen Shawn. Who crawls out from under a table and grins up at Lassiter.
With a growl he half-hauls Shawn upright, and it takes them a moment to realize that they are both now back in the corner, and Steve and some of his no doubt nearest and dearest have regrouped in front of them, despite the chaos in the rest of the bar.
“Imagine seeing you here,” Steve smirks, and Lassiter spares half a second to realize that Shawn is pressed up against his body, clearly made beyond uncomfortable with Steve’s mere presence.
“Do you know him?” Lassiter asks softly, because really, ten minutes, not even Spencer could have gotten into this much trouble in ten minutes, right?
Shawn mumbles something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like, “Old case.”
Lassiter takes a deep breath, since the closing eyes and counting to ten method sounds like a spectacularly bad idea right about now.
“You know each other?” he asks, louder, because he’s clearly not going to get coherent answers from Shawn.
Steve smiles a tad too widely. “My boyfriend hired him to find out if I was cheating.”
“He was,” Shawn chimes in, voice a bit too soft for Lassiter’s liking.
“My boyfriend then broke up with me, and I wasn’t too happy about that, was I, Shawn?”
Lassiter looks even more pissed (if possible). “Shawn, call Juliet,” he says, carefully using her first name so as not to tip off their buddy Steve as to their intentions. “Tell her we’re going to be a bit late. Got a little trash to take out.”
“Does that make you Romeo?” one of the men laughs, and of course there are catcalls that follow. Shawn tries his too-wide smile on and shoves a bit closer to Lassiter, and despite the fact that Lassiter’s fairly certain it’s scientifically impossible for too bodies to share the same space, Shawn’s making a rather decent attempt of it.
“I’m going to need all of you to back off,” Lassiter says, and his voice is firm enough that the others look amongst themselves, a bit taken aback. “All except you, Steve. I think there’s something that we need to settle.”
“I told you, this isn’t any of your business. Walk away from Shawn and you won’t be hurt.”
Shawn makes a little sound in the back of his throat, his hand clutching the back of Lassiter’s shirt with a little more force than necessary, and Lassiter looks down into Shawn’s fairly-convincingly amused face, trying to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat.
“I’m not going anywhere, Shawn,” he whispers into his ear, and Shawn’s smile falters for a moment, the terror in his eyes slowly giving way to relief. “I’m not going anywhere,” Lassiter repeats, voice loud and full-on pissed off.
Shawn fumbles in his pockets and pulls out his phone with his free hand, calling Juliet.
“Hey Jules,” he says, keeping his voice low as the call connects. “Lassie and I are at the Carmichael, yeah, you know the place…yeah, well Lassie wanted me to call to let you know we’re going to be a little late, yeah…you know, traffic back-up… …well hopefully, if those extra cars get through soon we’ll be out of here faster…yeah…right, thanks Jules!”
During the conversation, Lassiter had continued snarking back and forth with Steve, but as soon as Shawn is done talking, Lassiter stops baiting him.
“We’re going to walk out of here, now,” he says, arm sliding around Shawn’s back to pull him in close. “And you are going to get out of our way.”
“Am I?” Steve laughs.
“If you know what’s good for you, yes.”
“Oh,” Steve says, eyes lingering on Shawn, “I think I know what’s good for me.”
“What did you do to him?” Lassiter asks, breathless rage in his voice.
Steve shrugs. “Not as much as I’d like. More than he did,” he says, amused.
The drunken brawl that had kept fairly well out of their corner comes exploding in as someone punches someone else into Steve’s lackeys. Immediately they turn to address the issue, and Lassiter shoves Shawn behind him and goes after Steve in the sort of cold-blooded rage he never loses himself to.
Shawn stays back at first, but when one of the lackeys goes for Lassiter’s unprotected back Shawn breaks a chair on him. Everything sort of goes downhill from there, although when the sirens pull up Steve is very definitely on the ground and Lassiter and Shawn are crouching behind an overturned table.
./.
Lassiter looks at Shawn, who’s banged up, his shirt ripped completely open, his hair mussed, and the start of a black eye.
“You should’ve seen my limp worm, though, those guys were not expecting that!” he’s telling Gus animatedly, limbs thrown askew as he recreates his stunt. “And I totally slid into some guy’s legs and knocked him over!”
As if sensing Lassiter’s gaze on him, he turns and meets his eyes. “You should’ve seen Lassie, though. He took like ten of them himself…tres hot,” he smirks, and Gus rolls his eyes good-naturedly.
“You’re lucky he was there, Shawn! You could’ve been killed!”
“Oh Gus, don’t be a claustrophobic seahorse, it was totally awesome!”
“Spencer…” Lassiter says, drawing the word out as Shawn looks up at him impishly. With a grin he bounds over.
“Lassie, did I mention how sexy you totally saving my life was?” he says, all eyes and shiny white teeth, and Lassiter grabs his arms and pulls him away from the group. Shawn’s smile falters a bit, and O’Hara and Gus are frowning at him, but he leans in close to Shawn anyway, because damnit, this is important.
“You should’ve told me,” he says, his voice an intriguing mix of firm and unsteady, and Shawn blinks, clearly confused. “You should’ve told me about Steve,” Lassiter clarifies, and Shawn’s eyes widen, which could’ve been amusing if there wasn’t so much confusion and embarrassment mixing around in them.
“Lassiter…” Shawn starts, but trails off after he says his name, because there isn’t really any magical mixture of words that will make him forget. “It was nothing,” he tries, but Lassiter hasn’t let go of Shawn’s arm and is quite clearly not buying it.
“It is my business,” Lassiter says, left-over anger making his voice edged, and even though Shawn knows (this time) it’s not directed at him, he still takes a step back, and Lassiter immediately looks guilty. “You’re my business,” he says, voice softer, words just for him, and Shawn tries on and then discards a smile.
“I’m glad you were there this time,” he says instead, and something uncomfortably warm stirs in Lassiter’s stomach, and when Shawn blinks eyes that are suddenly damp, he tugs him closer, arms wrapping around the younger man as he leans his head against Lassiter’s chest.
“What did he do?” he whispers into Shawn’s ear, and Shawn shakes his head as well as he can.
“Nothing-nothing like that, just…hands, and he kissed me, but….I don’t like being helpless,” he finishes fiercely, and he pulls back from Lassiter, all that anger bubbling up for a moment before shoved relentlessly back down. “Not that sort of helpless,” he smirks instead, winking over-flirtatiously at Lassiter, and the detective forces himself not to shake the younger man.
“Shawn…” he says, but it’s clear he’s not going to talk, at least right now, so Lassiter lets it drop. “Just…tell me. If anything ever…just tell me.”
“Look at you, Lassie, getting all overprotective and possessive on me!” Shawn laughs unsteadily, reaching up to pinch his cheek playfully, but when Lassiter doesn’t knock his hand away he pauses, an array of emotions flickering through his eyes.
Before Lassiter can do or say anything, Shawn throws his arms around Lassiter in a huge hug, and plants a kiss on Lassiter’s cheek. “Thank you,” he whispers, pulling away, but before he completely can, Lassiter’s arms have come up, encircling Shawn’s waist and pulling him close.
And completely ignoring everyone around them, Lassiter kisses Shawn, chastely at first, and then, as Shawn opens his mouth and kisses him back, almost desperately, as if they need to erase or reaffirm or reestablish everything and nothing can ever make sense again, and maybe they don’t want it to, maybe they don’t want anything at all.
After several long minutes they pull reluctantly apart, aware that most eyes in the vicinity are now locked quite firmly on the pair. Lassiter isn’t quite sure what to do next, but the choice is taken away from him when Shawn turns to Gus and Juliet with wide-eyes, arm suddenly darting upwards.
“The spirits!” he declares loudly. “Lassie, the spirits are saying we totally cracked the case by coming here! Something about bubblegum? Bamboo gun?”
“Bubba Guln?” Gus chips in, naming their suspect numero uno, and Shawn nods vigorously, his hand tightening on Lassiter’s as he tugs him back to the group, and Lassiter almost smirks, because this is Shawn, and no one is even looking at them twice anymore, because it’s Shawn Spencer. Juliet grins up at him, and before he can quite help himself, Lassiter grins back.
“Monkey clomps! Clips! Monkey clips?”
“Money clips?” Juliet asks, and Shawn smacks his head.
“Of course! Money clips! Lassie, the missing money clips! The spirits know where they are!”
Lassiter’s lips twitch, but it’s with a completely straight face that he looks into his face, hand still in hand. “Well, Spencer?” he asks, voice half-bored and half-irritated, because hell, he’s Lassiter. He gives Shawn’s hand a squeeze as he rolls his eyes and lets out a long-suffering sigh. “What are the voices telling you to do?”
Shawn’s grin is blinding. “Thought you’d never ask.”
./.
Finis
Shoving through the people who’d decided that standing in the doorway made perfect sense, Lassiter hears a voice cut through the crowd. “Shut up!” Given whom he’s looking for, Lassiter turns towards the yell and sees his target, close to the other side of the room, several fairly large men standing around him.
As a rule, Shawn doesn’t react well to being told to shut up. In fact, given precedent, Lassiter is rather expecting Shawn to stand up on a table or start yelling or generally contradict said demand as soon (or perhaps even sooner, this is Spencer after all) as humanly possible.
So he’s more than slightly surprised when Shawn blinks, opens his mouth as if to continue and then slowly closes it and takes an almost hesitant step backwards. The man that has Shawn so neatly cornered against the wall says something else, something lower that Lassiter doesn’t catch, and this time Shawn’s retreat brings him squarely against the wall. By this time several others are drawing in uncomfortably close, and Shawn’s smile is edged with something indefinable and yet unwelcome.
The fact that Lassiter immediately, and without conscious decision, starts moving towards the group of men is simply out of curiosity as to what could so succinctly shut him up, and not at all because something like fear had flickered in Shawn’s eyes when he’d backed up.
This had been a terrible idea. Of course, it had been Spencer’s idea, so Lassiter’s not all that surprised. Skeevy bars on the wrong side of town, following practically non-existent leads, is no place for pretty-boy psychics. Fake psychics, Lassiter corrects himself irritably. The boy’s a fake, no question of that. Just a fake who gets it right practically…hell, all of the time. And a fake whose darting eyes have just landed on Lassiter, and Lassiter’s pretty sure no one’s ever been that glad to see him…ever.
“Lassie!” Shawn says, greeting him with an embarrassingly gleeful wave of the arm as Lassiter shoves none too delicately through the gathered throng. “I was just…making friends…” he finishes lamely, and then the first man, who looks to have a couple of inches on Shawn, shoves the psychic back into the wall, one hand firmly planted on his chest.
“I said stay,” the man sneers at Shawn, turning to look at Lassiter. They’re roughly eye-to-eye, although the other man’s a bit heftier all told. He gives Lassiter an uncomfortably brazen, all-too-lingering, once-over. “And what have we here?”
“Steve, this is Lassie. Lassie, St-um…” Shawn stutters off as Steve’s hand moves up and settles heavily on his collarbone in clear warning. The movement drawing his eyes, Lassiter notes for the first time that several of the buttons on Shawn’s shirt are undone and his hair is even more mussed than normal, a feat he’d really not thought possible.
“What’s going on here?” Lassiter asks, his voice firm, turning back to the half-leering Steve.
“This isn’t your business,” Steve says, and (of course) several of the men behind them mumble their agreement and encouragement and god damn it Spencer’s a trouble magnet.
“Now that’s where you’re incorrect,” Lassiter says, eyes narrowing, but when Shawn nods enthusiastic agreement, Steve entangles his fingers in the front of Shawn’s shirt and pulls him close.
“Is he your boyfriend?” Steve asks, getting into Shawn’s face, his free hand on Shawn’s stomach. His voice is low, his free hand sliding lower. Shawn’s face goes uncomfortably white.
Lassiter flat-out decks him.
Steve’s fingers are still tight in Shawn’s shirt, so they both fall to the ground, the men behind them helpfully stepping out of their way to the floor. Steve’s cheeks are tinged with red, now, a mixture of embarrassment and fury, and when Shawn immediately tries to dart away, Steve pulls him back, shoving him towards his friends who grab a now struggling Shawn.
Lassiter moves towards them, but by now Steve’s standing and he steps deliberately in front of him.
“This isn’t your business,” Steve repeats, but the look in his eyes clearly shows how much he wants Lassiter to push the issue.
“Let him go,” Lassiter demands, wondering just how much it would exacerbate matters to pull his badge out now that he’d assaulted a man.
Shawn makes a startled noise as one of the men holding him starts to undo the rest of his shirt buttons, and Lassiter’s jaw tightens, eyes dark.
His hand goes to his pocket, and then he remembers that Shawn had insisted they “dress the part.” And evidently hadn’t given him back his gun and badge. Fury radiating through every fiber of his being, Lassiter eyes Steve.
“I said, let him go.”
Someone far too close to Shawn pulls out a knife and this time it’s Steve who catches Lassiter by surprise, punching him square in the face. He stumbles back just in time to see Shawn go limp, and the adrenaline from the fear that causes makes him try to shove past Steve, but the other man is having none of that and Lassiter is forced to return hit for hit as he struggles to keep an eyes on Shawn who…isn’t unconscious but appears to have jumped on someone’s back? And pouring beer in their hair?
The next glimpse he gets is Shawn biting someone.
Of course, by now the entire bar is one huge fight, and given that someone’s bound to have called the police, Lassiter’s a bit less worried about their safety but quite a bit more worried about his reputation.
…of course, this being the wrong side of town, there isn’t really any guarantee that the police have been called…
Swearing under his breath, Lassiter dodges another punch, ducking closer to where he’d last seen Shawn. Who crawls out from under a table and grins up at Lassiter.
With a growl he half-hauls Shawn upright, and it takes them a moment to realize that they are both now back in the corner, and Steve and some of his no doubt nearest and dearest have regrouped in front of them, despite the chaos in the rest of the bar.
“Imagine seeing you here,” Steve smirks, and Lassiter spares half a second to realize that Shawn is pressed up against his body, clearly made beyond uncomfortable with Steve’s mere presence.
“Do you know him?” Lassiter asks softly, because really, ten minutes, not even Spencer could have gotten into this much trouble in ten minutes, right?
Shawn mumbles something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like, “Old case.”
Lassiter takes a deep breath, since the closing eyes and counting to ten method sounds like a spectacularly bad idea right about now.
“You know each other?” he asks, louder, because he’s clearly not going to get coherent answers from Shawn.
Steve smiles a tad too widely. “My boyfriend hired him to find out if I was cheating.”
“He was,” Shawn chimes in, voice a bit too soft for Lassiter’s liking.
“My boyfriend then broke up with me, and I wasn’t too happy about that, was I, Shawn?”
Lassiter looks even more pissed (if possible). “Shawn, call Juliet,” he says, carefully using her first name so as not to tip off their buddy Steve as to their intentions. “Tell her we’re going to be a bit late. Got a little trash to take out.”
“Does that make you Romeo?” one of the men laughs, and of course there are catcalls that follow. Shawn tries his too-wide smile on and shoves a bit closer to Lassiter, and despite the fact that Lassiter’s fairly certain it’s scientifically impossible for too bodies to share the same space, Shawn’s making a rather decent attempt of it.
“I’m going to need all of you to back off,” Lassiter says, and his voice is firm enough that the others look amongst themselves, a bit taken aback. “All except you, Steve. I think there’s something that we need to settle.”
“I told you, this isn’t any of your business. Walk away from Shawn and you won’t be hurt.”
Shawn makes a little sound in the back of his throat, his hand clutching the back of Lassiter’s shirt with a little more force than necessary, and Lassiter looks down into Shawn’s fairly-convincingly amused face, trying to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat.
“I’m not going anywhere, Shawn,” he whispers into his ear, and Shawn’s smile falters for a moment, the terror in his eyes slowly giving way to relief. “I’m not going anywhere,” Lassiter repeats, voice loud and full-on pissed off.
Shawn fumbles in his pockets and pulls out his phone with his free hand, calling Juliet.
“Hey Jules,” he says, keeping his voice low as the call connects. “Lassie and I are at the Carmichael, yeah, you know the place…yeah, well Lassie wanted me to call to let you know we’re going to be a little late, yeah…you know, traffic back-up… …well hopefully, if those extra cars get through soon we’ll be out of here faster…yeah…right, thanks Jules!”
During the conversation, Lassiter had continued snarking back and forth with Steve, but as soon as Shawn is done talking, Lassiter stops baiting him.
“We’re going to walk out of here, now,” he says, arm sliding around Shawn’s back to pull him in close. “And you are going to get out of our way.”
“Am I?” Steve laughs.
“If you know what’s good for you, yes.”
“Oh,” Steve says, eyes lingering on Shawn, “I think I know what’s good for me.”
“What did you do to him?” Lassiter asks, breathless rage in his voice.
Steve shrugs. “Not as much as I’d like. More than he did,” he says, amused.
The drunken brawl that had kept fairly well out of their corner comes exploding in as someone punches someone else into Steve’s lackeys. Immediately they turn to address the issue, and Lassiter shoves Shawn behind him and goes after Steve in the sort of cold-blooded rage he never loses himself to.
Shawn stays back at first, but when one of the lackeys goes for Lassiter’s unprotected back Shawn breaks a chair on him. Everything sort of goes downhill from there, although when the sirens pull up Steve is very definitely on the ground and Lassiter and Shawn are crouching behind an overturned table.
./.
Lassiter looks at Shawn, who’s banged up, his shirt ripped completely open, his hair mussed, and the start of a black eye.
“You should’ve seen my limp worm, though, those guys were not expecting that!” he’s telling Gus animatedly, limbs thrown askew as he recreates his stunt. “And I totally slid into some guy’s legs and knocked him over!”
As if sensing Lassiter’s gaze on him, he turns and meets his eyes. “You should’ve seen Lassie, though. He took like ten of them himself…tres hot,” he smirks, and Gus rolls his eyes good-naturedly.
“You’re lucky he was there, Shawn! You could’ve been killed!”
“Oh Gus, don’t be a claustrophobic seahorse, it was totally awesome!”
“Spencer…” Lassiter says, drawing the word out as Shawn looks up at him impishly. With a grin he bounds over.
“Lassie, did I mention how sexy you totally saving my life was?” he says, all eyes and shiny white teeth, and Lassiter grabs his arms and pulls him away from the group. Shawn’s smile falters a bit, and O’Hara and Gus are frowning at him, but he leans in close to Shawn anyway, because damnit, this is important.
“You should’ve told me,” he says, his voice an intriguing mix of firm and unsteady, and Shawn blinks, clearly confused. “You should’ve told me about Steve,” Lassiter clarifies, and Shawn’s eyes widen, which could’ve been amusing if there wasn’t so much confusion and embarrassment mixing around in them.
“Lassiter…” Shawn starts, but trails off after he says his name, because there isn’t really any magical mixture of words that will make him forget. “It was nothing,” he tries, but Lassiter hasn’t let go of Shawn’s arm and is quite clearly not buying it.
“It is my business,” Lassiter says, left-over anger making his voice edged, and even though Shawn knows (this time) it’s not directed at him, he still takes a step back, and Lassiter immediately looks guilty. “You’re my business,” he says, voice softer, words just for him, and Shawn tries on and then discards a smile.
“I’m glad you were there this time,” he says instead, and something uncomfortably warm stirs in Lassiter’s stomach, and when Shawn blinks eyes that are suddenly damp, he tugs him closer, arms wrapping around the younger man as he leans his head against Lassiter’s chest.
“What did he do?” he whispers into Shawn’s ear, and Shawn shakes his head as well as he can.
“Nothing-nothing like that, just…hands, and he kissed me, but….I don’t like being helpless,” he finishes fiercely, and he pulls back from Lassiter, all that anger bubbling up for a moment before shoved relentlessly back down. “Not that sort of helpless,” he smirks instead, winking over-flirtatiously at Lassiter, and the detective forces himself not to shake the younger man.
“Shawn…” he says, but it’s clear he’s not going to talk, at least right now, so Lassiter lets it drop. “Just…tell me. If anything ever…just tell me.”
“Look at you, Lassie, getting all overprotective and possessive on me!” Shawn laughs unsteadily, reaching up to pinch his cheek playfully, but when Lassiter doesn’t knock his hand away he pauses, an array of emotions flickering through his eyes.
Before Lassiter can do or say anything, Shawn throws his arms around Lassiter in a huge hug, and plants a kiss on Lassiter’s cheek. “Thank you,” he whispers, pulling away, but before he completely can, Lassiter’s arms have come up, encircling Shawn’s waist and pulling him close.
And completely ignoring everyone around them, Lassiter kisses Shawn, chastely at first, and then, as Shawn opens his mouth and kisses him back, almost desperately, as if they need to erase or reaffirm or reestablish everything and nothing can ever make sense again, and maybe they don’t want it to, maybe they don’t want anything at all.
After several long minutes they pull reluctantly apart, aware that most eyes in the vicinity are now locked quite firmly on the pair. Lassiter isn’t quite sure what to do next, but the choice is taken away from him when Shawn turns to Gus and Juliet with wide-eyes, arm suddenly darting upwards.
“The spirits!” he declares loudly. “Lassie, the spirits are saying we totally cracked the case by coming here! Something about bubblegum? Bamboo gun?”
“Bubba Guln?” Gus chips in, naming their suspect numero uno, and Shawn nods vigorously, his hand tightening on Lassiter’s as he tugs him back to the group, and Lassiter almost smirks, because this is Shawn, and no one is even looking at them twice anymore, because it’s Shawn Spencer. Juliet grins up at him, and before he can quite help himself, Lassiter grins back.
“Monkey clomps! Clips! Monkey clips?”
“Money clips?” Juliet asks, and Shawn smacks his head.
“Of course! Money clips! Lassie, the missing money clips! The spirits know where they are!”
Lassiter’s lips twitch, but it’s with a completely straight face that he looks into his face, hand still in hand. “Well, Spencer?” he asks, voice half-bored and half-irritated, because hell, he’s Lassiter. He gives Shawn’s hand a squeeze as he rolls his eyes and lets out a long-suffering sigh. “What are the voices telling you to do?”
Shawn’s grin is blinding. “Thought you’d never ask.”
./.
Finis