FIC: "Right Place, Wrong Time" by Regann - PG-13/R - Shawn/Lassiter (5/??)
Title: Right Place, Wrong Time (5/??)
Author: Regann
Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Rating: PG-13/R
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Notes: This is a long multipart fic that I had to be insane to even start. But I love the boys so much, I just had to! Oh, and this is dedicated to pookaseraph.
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
Right Place, Wrong Time (Part 5)
It had taken Shawn several days' worth of demands from Gus before he'd shared anything about the relative success of his mission that weekend. Part of his reluctance was because it stayed too fresh in his mind; he couldn't shake that sick feeling he'd felt when he'd left or the strange, butterfly-like feeling he got in his stomach whenever some stray memory of Carlton lighted against his active brain, so vivid it felt real again.
There was also the fact that Shawn was completely disillusioned about the losing-his-virginity thing. It wasn't that sex hadn't been fun because it had but really it wasn't like he was materially changed -- unless he counted how bad he still felt when he thought about Carlton. In the back of his mind he knew he was thinking thoughts that made him sound like one of the women out of his mother's corny romance novels but it didn't mean that they weren't sincere. Horribly embarrassing, yes, but sincere nonetheless.
The whole nasty truth finally came out about a week later when Gus came by to spend the day hanging out with Shawn. The surprising thing was that Henry had agreed even though Shawn hadn't done but a handful of chores for the week and was still living under the cloud of some prank he'd pulled the week before the trip to UC Irvine.
As always, Gus came straight back to Shawn's room when he got there. When they were children, they'd spent most of their time together outside but ever since they'd hit sixteen, they split their time between closeting themselves in Shawn's bedroom or getting the hell out of the house as quickly possible.
"Shawn, you have got to snap out of this!" Gus said as soon as he entered the dimly lit bedroom. Even though it was a bright, SoCal day Shawn has his blinds closed and the only real source of light was a lava lamp.
Shawn was lounging like usual, sitting on the floor with his back against the base of his bed. He had a guitar -- a second-hand gift from his cousin Johnny -- in his hands. At the sound of Gus's indignant declaration, he glanced up. "Out of what?"
Gus looked around the room in obvious annoyance and marched over to the window above the bed. He pulled on the shade almost angrily and it replied by rolling up with a snap, flooding the room with natural light.
"Ow, ow, my eyes!" Shawn complained as he squinted and raised an hand to shield his eyes. "What the hell?"
"That's what I'm talking about," Gus told him as he plopped down on a nearby beanbag chair. He was giving Shawn the serious look which meant lots of questions were coming. "This, Shawn, is this thing you've been in since the trip."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Shawn told him, looking back down at his fingers strumming the guitar.
"You've been acting weird, Shawn," Gus informed him. "And it's not just me that's noticed. The only reason I was allowed to come over here is that your mom is worried about you."
"Weird like how?" Shawn wanted to know.
"I don't know, weird. Quiet, moody, sitting in the dark like some creepy serial killer," Gus said, frowning at him with more worry than Shawn felt his behavior deserved. "It's like you're depressed or something."
"I am not depressed," Shawn assured him.
"Then why you sitting in the dark?" Gus challenged.
"I was admiring my lava lamp?"
"Try again."
"I'm practicing for a part in The Lost Boys sequel, gotta get that brooding, hair-band vampire thing down."
"Uh huh."
Shawn shot him a resentful glare from over the fret of his guitar. "Can't a guy just sit and be still once in a while?"
"Not you," was Gus's immediate reply. "Something's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong except for the fact that you're starting to sound like my mom," Shawn griped.
Gus just looked at him for a minute before he spoke. "Look, I know you're bummed because your big cosmic "get laid" plan didn't work but you've got to get over it."
"You think that's what wrong?" Shawn asked, almost disbelievingly. "You think I struck out and I'm moping?"
"Well, yeah," Gus said, leaving the duh implied.
"Ha!" Shawn pointed at him with his guitar pick. "Shows how much you know. I totally didn't strike out!"
"Really?" Gus asked, obviously dubiously. "Then why didn't you want to tell me about it?"
"Because it's a little more complicated than I'd expected," he explained, waving around his pick for emphasis. "And I'm not sure how much you wanna hear."
"I wanna hear all of it," his friend told him emphatically. "Seriously, lay it on me!"
"I slept with a guy," Shawn admitted..
"I don't want to hear anymore," Gus immediately ordered, wincing. When he noticed that Shawn hadn't burst into laughter and started mocking him, he eyed his friend. "You serious?"
"As a heart attack or some other serious thing," he told him. "I lost my virginity to a guy."
"Does that really count?" Gus asked. "I mean, unless you...?"
Shawn raised a speculative eyebrow.
"Never mind, don't tell me."
He actually managed a few notes of Stairway to Heaven on the guitar before he answered. "And, yes, it counts, mostly because I say so."
"Okay, so mission accomplished," Gus pressed on. "What's the deal?"
"Nothing is the deal, Gus," Shawn told him. "You're the one with the 'deal,' or whatever."
Whenever they got engaged in one of these verbal battles, Shawn tended to win if only because he was less amiable and more stubborn than Gus. But when Gus really wanted to go for the conversational jugular, he had a secret weapon -- a placid, knowing look that irritated Shawn to no end because it clearly said, "I know what you're thinking and I will make you share it!"
Gus was serious because he was employing that look against him now.
"Ugh," Shawn sighed, rolling his eyes. "Okay, fine, fine. Just stop with the look!"
His friend was now watching him with a smug expression on his face.
"It's not really a deal," Shawn began, shifting to lay his guitar safely on his futon. "More of a thing, actually. A thinking kind of thing. I've had a lot to think about."
"What have you been thinking about?"
"Mostly? The guy."
"The guy?"
"You know," Shawn prompted. "The -- guy." When Gus still looked confused, he added, "The guy I lost my virginity to, come on, like this isn't hard enough!"
"Sorry, sorry," Gus apologized, trying not to wince again. "Okay, so...what about him?"
"Well, I kinda..." Shawn trailed off, embarrassed and uncomfortable as he searched for words to describe how he felt without sounding like a total girl. "I...like him."
"Like him? Like how?"
"Gus!" Shawn's exclamation was somewhere between laughter and screaming. "If you can't put together the pieces of this conversation and figure it out, then you are as dumb as Patrice Taylor says you are!"
"She only says that because you stole her underwear! You, Shawn!"
"Focus, Gus!" Shawn told him in exasperation. "This was your intervention for me. This conversation is about my issues, not yours."
"Oh, yeah," Gus said, leaning back against the beanbag chair. "Go on."
"Well, that's really mostly it," Shawn admitted lamely. "I've just been thinking about -- stuff. That night. Him. And other related things that I won't say in order to preserve your virgin ears."
"Like maybe you want to see him again or something?" Gus asked quietly, finally showing some of the perception that made him a great friend.
"I wouldn't say no," he demurred, even as his stomach quaked with that butterfly feeling. "But it's not going to happen. He wasn't too happy when he found out I was only 17."
"Well, how old was he?"
"Twenty-five," Shawn admitted, curling up to brace for the inevitable reaction.
"Twenty-five?!?" Gus's shock was loud and ear-splitting. He paused, self-conscious of his volume. He continued in a lower voice. "Shawn, that's crazy!"
"I know!" Shawn nodded, agreeing.
"Well, it's probably better that you can't see him," Gus admitted. "He's way too old for that."
"I know, I know!" Shawn repeated, regret creeping into voice.
Gus heard it and looked sharply down at his friend. "But you still want to?"
Shawn shrugged, embarrassed. As much as he'd wanted Gus's understanding, he didn't know how to handle the sympathy that came with it.
"Shawn, man..." Gus shook his head. "Why do always make things hard?"
"It's a gift, I guess," he joked weakly.
"It's something and you've got it," his friend told him.
"Too bad I can't trade it in for something better."
"I hear that."
Shawn reached for his guitar again and settled it in his lap. "Any requests?"
Gus raised an eyebrow and looked at the guitar suspiciously. "You still messing with that thing?"
"Yes!" Shawn said. "It's been helping me think. I've gotten really good!"
"Why don't I believe you when you say that?" Gus snorted. "Aren't you tone deaf?
"So they keep telling me," he admitted. "What do you want to hear?"
"Not you making noise on that," Gus stated, standing up. "Let's go do something outside. You've been holed up in here for week."
"I'm sorry that you can't understand the importance of solitude in serious contemplation," Shawn said, feigning hurt. "Come on, hum a few bars and I'll play along."
"No, thank you."
"Okay, how's this?" Shawn plucked at the guitar, coaxing a recognizable tune from the strings.
"Greensleeves, Shawn?" Gus shook his head. "That's it, we have to get out of here."
"It's a classic!" he argued but set aside the guitar once more and scrambled to his feet. "Okay, you win. Let's ride."
Gus grinned. "I heard that they've finally fixed the Mortal Kombat at the arcade."
"Oh really?" Shawn was grinning, too. "Cool! Man, I am not going to rest until I get Scorpion to morph into Ermac."
Gus gave him a challenging look, complete with raised eyebrows. "No way. I'm going to do it and it'll be with Sub-Zero."
"Pfft! I don't think so," Shawn disagreed as he grabbed his jar of quarters from the dresser.
"I guess we'll see when we get there," Gus told him.
"I guess we will," Shawn agreed.
As the two of the headed out of the Spencer house bickering over the relative coolness of fight-ending Fatalities, Shawn had to admit that after a week of keeping it all in, he felt better having told Gus what he had. It hadn't been much -- didn't want to shock his poor, little straight friend with too much detail -- but it had been enough to make the weird feelings subside, at least for awhile. It had lost its immediate quality and was all fading back into its proper place in his memories, into "last week" which would eventually become "last month" and so on.
It wasn't until they dragged themselves back to Shawn's house for dinner after hours of hardcore video game action that he realized that he'd went almost all day without thinking about anything other than the games, their plans for graduations and his own secret mission to hook Gus up with Patrice to make up for the panty thing -- not one stray thought of Carlton to be found.
Shawn couldn't help but be relieved; he was tired of sounding Veronique pining for Gregory in Wicked Desire. He was ready to go back to being his usual charming, adorable but manly self.
**
Though Carlton had been looking forward to it all semester, he couldn't help but be a little nervous when he finally had to present himself at the Santa Barbara Police Department for the start of his ride along.
The last few weeks of the semester had passed in their usual frantic manner, made more so by the thoughts of Shawn that weighed on Carlton's mind. His thoughts weren't only centered around his own stupidity or guilt that he'd committed a serious crime; much of his headspace was dedicated to Shawn himself.
But Carlton worked hard to put it all in the past and concentrate on his 90-day observational ride along with the SBPD. It was a great opportunity and one that he didn't want to waste, not after Detective Fenich had arranged it for him, the latest in a long list of favors he'd done to help Carlton fulfill his dream of becoming a police detective.
When Carlton arrived at the station that first morning, Fenich was waiting for him.
"Good to see you again, son," Fenich greeted him warmly, offering his hand.
"Sir," Carlton said, returning the handshake.
"There's some paperwork we need you to fill out," he explained. "But first, let me introduce you around."
Carlton felt like he spent most of the morning shaking hands and exchanging introductions, but he didn't mind; all the men he met were friendly and eager to impart a little advice to him once Fenich had explained who he was and what he was doing. He'd heard a lot of the advice before -- from professors, from uncles who were cops, from Fenich himself -- but he nodded and thanked them all before Fenich led him over to the next cop for another introduction.
Fenich finally sat Carlton down at his desk with a stack of paperwork to fill out while Fenich got back to work. It was the same, usual, dry information he'd put on dozens of applications since he'd started college, and Carlton's mind started to wonder as he wrote his Carpinteria address for what felt like the twelfth time.
But even as he fought to stay focused on the crushingly boring task, his mind started to wander and, like it had much too often lately, he started thinking about Shawn. Of course, having thoughts about Shawn while sitting in the middle of the SBPD only made him feel that much more guilty and he shifted restlessly in his seat. Not that his discomfort derailed his thoughts -- he still had Shawn on the brain.
Carlton had just finished the last sheet of his stack and was ruthlessly suppressing the sound of Shawn's voice in his head teasing, So, what? Sex is like a job with you? There’s x amount of experience needed to qualify?, when another officer, a captain, approached him.
"You must be John's protégé that we've heard so much about," he declared. "Nice to finally meet you."
"Carlton Lassiter, sir," he said as he stood and offered the captain his hand.
"Brett Connors," he revealed, followed up by a strong, firm handshake.
"Thank you so much for agreeing to my ride along," Carlton told him.
"Always glad to help a future member of the department," Connors assured him. Then, in a quieter tone, he added, "I knew your father. He was a good man."
"Thank you, sir," he said again.
Connors must've been able to see the emotion that had been triggered by the mention of his father because he briskly changed topics. "How are you coming with all the paperwork?"
"Almost finished," Carlton answered.
"Well, John has an interview he's finishing up at the moment," Connors explained. "But I'd be glad to take you over to Personnel, get the ball rolling for you."
"I'd appreciate that, sir," Carlton began, "I'll just---"
He didn't have a chance to finish his sentence because a cop sitting a few desks away slammed his telephone down in disgust, startling both of them.
"Something wrong, Spencer?" Connors barked out. His tone was sharp but Carlton knew from experience that it was simply the style of communication used among cops.
"No, Cap, everything's fine," Spencer growled back, obviously pissed about something. "Just another call from the school."
"You're not working a case about a school," Connors pointed out.
"Yeah, I know," Spencer said grimly. "It's that damn kid of mine again. I swear, I'm going to kill him one of these days. At least this incident didn't involve a backhoe."
Connors grinned, letting out a snort of laughter. "He's a good kid, Henry. Cut him some slack."
Spencer gave him a disbelieving look as he stood from his desk, grabbing his jacket. "I'm due in court, sir. See you later."
"Where's the DeSilva file?" Connors called after him.
"On my desk!" Spencer yelled back before he disappeared from the bullpen.
Once Spencer had cleared out, Connors glanced back at Carlton. "Grab your papers, Carlton, I'll walk you over to Personnel."
"Yes, sir," Carlton nodded as he obediently collected his clipboard full of paperwork, pocketing the pen that Fenich had given him in case he needed one later.
Instead of heading straight toward out of the bullpen, they made a detour toward Spencer's desk -- to collect the DeSilva file, Carlton figured. Connors rifled through Spencer's files for a minute before he found the one he was looking for. He handed the file off to Carlton while he quickly straightened up the items he'd knocked askew in his search. One of the items he straightened was a photograph of Spencer and a little brown-haired boy who looked to be between eight and ten years old.
Connors looked at the photo for a moment, flashing it at Carlton before he returned it to its proper place. "He is a good kid," Connors said again. "Henry just has high expectations, wants the best for him."
"Cute," Carlton said, looking down at the little boy in the photograph, wondering what he could've possibly done that involved a backhoe.
"I know how he feels," Connors continued conversationally as they headed toward the personnel department. "I have a daughter, myself. Trish."
Carlton nodded.
"She's graduating high school this year," Connors told him, and his face was transformed by the thought of his daughter, softening his features. "She's at the top of her class, captain of the cheer squad. Couldn't be prouder if I tried."
Carlton didn't say anything but he couldn't help the rush of guilt that made perspiration break out across his forehead. Captain Connors's daughter was the same age as Shawn and he could only imagine the kinds of hell that the man next to him would put him through if he ever even entertained laying a hand on his young daughter.
Shawn had parents, too -- parents who'd probably feel the same way if they 'd been aware of what some twenty-five year-old man had done to with their underage son. It made Carlton feel like a charlatan standing there in the SBPD, pretending to be someone with the clear ethical imperative needed to serve and protect society.
But in the more selfish regions of his mind, he just hoped he never ever had the bad luck to run into any of Shawn's relatives who might entertain thoughts about killing him. From the day he'd spent getting drunk with Rodney, he'd remembered Galina telling him all about the cultures she'd studied in an anthropology course that considered the taking of someone's virginity to be tantamount to theft if not condoned by the family. Her detailed explanations of the some of the more creative punishments were enough to make him cringe, almost a month later.
In the Personnel department, the captain introduced Carlton to Rhonda, an even-tempered blonde who'd be in charge of getting all his paperwork together.
"You were printed back in December," she said, looking over his file after Connors had left. "And everything seems to be in order with your NAC, so we're just down to a few last things."
"You mean more than this?" he asked archly, laying the finished clipboard of paperwork with a thud.
Rhonda smiled. "Actually, yes." She set own her file on top of his clipboard and bent down, searching for something in a large drawer behind her desk. After a moment, she came up with a large bound notebook which she immediately hefted in Carlton's direction. "You'll have to read the manual," she informed him. "And you're responsible for following all the rules and regulations herein."
"Not a problem," he said, taking the manual from her.
"You'll also have to submit to a drug test," she told him. "But I'm sure that won't be a problem."
Carlton smirked, thinking of Rodney's offer of less-than-legal substances to help him with his "thinking-about-Shawn" problem. "No, it won't."
Rhonda nodded. "Then we should be about finished here," she assured him, making a grab for the clipboard. "As long as you've filled out everything here, I'll just need you to pee in a cup for me and then I'll send you off to have your picture taken for your ID."
"Oh joy," he intoned dryly.
Her smile widened. "Which part did you like best? The peeing in the cup or the picture part?"
"Well, they're both such barrels of fun."
Rhonda stifled a chuckle as she flipped through his application. "I think we're all...no, actually you missed a question here."
Carlton craned his neck to look down on the sheet with her. "Where?"
She pointed a painted nail. "Here. The usual one -- "have you ever been convicted of a crime, other than a routine traffic violation" -- which is on every application in existence, I believe." She swiveled the clipboard back to face him. "If you please, Mr. Lassiter."
A month ago, it wouldn't have given him pause and he'd have marked the "NO" box and initialed it with an impatient flourish. But now he couldn't stop himself from hesitating, pen hovering above the paper.
Rhonda noticed. "What?
"Nothing," mumbled Carlton. "Just thinking about something."
"What? All the felonies you've been convicted of?" Rhonda teased.
Carlton swallowed hard. "No, not convicted."
Rhonda mistook his response as another joke which made her laugh. "You're just trying to avoid the drug testing part of the afternoon, Mr. Lassiter," she scolded.
He managed a weak smile and forced himself to make the appropriate marks on the page before handing it back to her. "Any more hoops?"
Rhonda held up the sample cup. "Just the fun ones, Mr. Lassiter."
Carlton grimaced but took the cup.
To Be Continued...
Author: Regann
Pairing: Shawn/Lassiter
Rating: PG-13/R
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Notes: This is a long multipart fic that I had to be insane to even start. But I love the boys so much, I just had to! Oh, and this is dedicated to pookaseraph.
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
Right Place, Wrong Time (Part 5)
It had taken Shawn several days' worth of demands from Gus before he'd shared anything about the relative success of his mission that weekend. Part of his reluctance was because it stayed too fresh in his mind; he couldn't shake that sick feeling he'd felt when he'd left or the strange, butterfly-like feeling he got in his stomach whenever some stray memory of Carlton lighted against his active brain, so vivid it felt real again.
There was also the fact that Shawn was completely disillusioned about the losing-his-virginity thing. It wasn't that sex hadn't been fun because it had but really it wasn't like he was materially changed -- unless he counted how bad he still felt when he thought about Carlton. In the back of his mind he knew he was thinking thoughts that made him sound like one of the women out of his mother's corny romance novels but it didn't mean that they weren't sincere. Horribly embarrassing, yes, but sincere nonetheless.
The whole nasty truth finally came out about a week later when Gus came by to spend the day hanging out with Shawn. The surprising thing was that Henry had agreed even though Shawn hadn't done but a handful of chores for the week and was still living under the cloud of some prank he'd pulled the week before the trip to UC Irvine.
As always, Gus came straight back to Shawn's room when he got there. When they were children, they'd spent most of their time together outside but ever since they'd hit sixteen, they split their time between closeting themselves in Shawn's bedroom or getting the hell out of the house as quickly possible.
"Shawn, you have got to snap out of this!" Gus said as soon as he entered the dimly lit bedroom. Even though it was a bright, SoCal day Shawn has his blinds closed and the only real source of light was a lava lamp.
Shawn was lounging like usual, sitting on the floor with his back against the base of his bed. He had a guitar -- a second-hand gift from his cousin Johnny -- in his hands. At the sound of Gus's indignant declaration, he glanced up. "Out of what?"
Gus looked around the room in obvious annoyance and marched over to the window above the bed. He pulled on the shade almost angrily and it replied by rolling up with a snap, flooding the room with natural light.
"Ow, ow, my eyes!" Shawn complained as he squinted and raised an hand to shield his eyes. "What the hell?"
"That's what I'm talking about," Gus told him as he plopped down on a nearby beanbag chair. He was giving Shawn the serious look which meant lots of questions were coming. "This, Shawn, is this thing you've been in since the trip."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Shawn told him, looking back down at his fingers strumming the guitar.
"You've been acting weird, Shawn," Gus informed him. "And it's not just me that's noticed. The only reason I was allowed to come over here is that your mom is worried about you."
"Weird like how?" Shawn wanted to know.
"I don't know, weird. Quiet, moody, sitting in the dark like some creepy serial killer," Gus said, frowning at him with more worry than Shawn felt his behavior deserved. "It's like you're depressed or something."
"I am not depressed," Shawn assured him.
"Then why you sitting in the dark?" Gus challenged.
"I was admiring my lava lamp?"
"Try again."
"I'm practicing for a part in The Lost Boys sequel, gotta get that brooding, hair-band vampire thing down."
"Uh huh."
Shawn shot him a resentful glare from over the fret of his guitar. "Can't a guy just sit and be still once in a while?"
"Not you," was Gus's immediate reply. "Something's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong except for the fact that you're starting to sound like my mom," Shawn griped.
Gus just looked at him for a minute before he spoke. "Look, I know you're bummed because your big cosmic "get laid" plan didn't work but you've got to get over it."
"You think that's what wrong?" Shawn asked, almost disbelievingly. "You think I struck out and I'm moping?"
"Well, yeah," Gus said, leaving the duh implied.
"Ha!" Shawn pointed at him with his guitar pick. "Shows how much you know. I totally didn't strike out!"
"Really?" Gus asked, obviously dubiously. "Then why didn't you want to tell me about it?"
"Because it's a little more complicated than I'd expected," he explained, waving around his pick for emphasis. "And I'm not sure how much you wanna hear."
"I wanna hear all of it," his friend told him emphatically. "Seriously, lay it on me!"
"I slept with a guy," Shawn admitted..
"I don't want to hear anymore," Gus immediately ordered, wincing. When he noticed that Shawn hadn't burst into laughter and started mocking him, he eyed his friend. "You serious?"
"As a heart attack or some other serious thing," he told him. "I lost my virginity to a guy."
"Does that really count?" Gus asked. "I mean, unless you...?"
Shawn raised a speculative eyebrow.
"Never mind, don't tell me."
He actually managed a few notes of Stairway to Heaven on the guitar before he answered. "And, yes, it counts, mostly because I say so."
"Okay, so mission accomplished," Gus pressed on. "What's the deal?"
"Nothing is the deal, Gus," Shawn told him. "You're the one with the 'deal,' or whatever."
Whenever they got engaged in one of these verbal battles, Shawn tended to win if only because he was less amiable and more stubborn than Gus. But when Gus really wanted to go for the conversational jugular, he had a secret weapon -- a placid, knowing look that irritated Shawn to no end because it clearly said, "I know what you're thinking and I will make you share it!"
Gus was serious because he was employing that look against him now.
"Ugh," Shawn sighed, rolling his eyes. "Okay, fine, fine. Just stop with the look!"
His friend was now watching him with a smug expression on his face.
"It's not really a deal," Shawn began, shifting to lay his guitar safely on his futon. "More of a thing, actually. A thinking kind of thing. I've had a lot to think about."
"What have you been thinking about?"
"Mostly? The guy."
"The guy?"
"You know," Shawn prompted. "The -- guy." When Gus still looked confused, he added, "The guy I lost my virginity to, come on, like this isn't hard enough!"
"Sorry, sorry," Gus apologized, trying not to wince again. "Okay, so...what about him?"
"Well, I kinda..." Shawn trailed off, embarrassed and uncomfortable as he searched for words to describe how he felt without sounding like a total girl. "I...like him."
"Like him? Like how?"
"Gus!" Shawn's exclamation was somewhere between laughter and screaming. "If you can't put together the pieces of this conversation and figure it out, then you are as dumb as Patrice Taylor says you are!"
"She only says that because you stole her underwear! You, Shawn!"
"Focus, Gus!" Shawn told him in exasperation. "This was your intervention for me. This conversation is about my issues, not yours."
"Oh, yeah," Gus said, leaning back against the beanbag chair. "Go on."
"Well, that's really mostly it," Shawn admitted lamely. "I've just been thinking about -- stuff. That night. Him. And other related things that I won't say in order to preserve your virgin ears."
"Like maybe you want to see him again or something?" Gus asked quietly, finally showing some of the perception that made him a great friend.
"I wouldn't say no," he demurred, even as his stomach quaked with that butterfly feeling. "But it's not going to happen. He wasn't too happy when he found out I was only 17."
"Well, how old was he?"
"Twenty-five," Shawn admitted, curling up to brace for the inevitable reaction.
"Twenty-five?!?" Gus's shock was loud and ear-splitting. He paused, self-conscious of his volume. He continued in a lower voice. "Shawn, that's crazy!"
"I know!" Shawn nodded, agreeing.
"Well, it's probably better that you can't see him," Gus admitted. "He's way too old for that."
"I know, I know!" Shawn repeated, regret creeping into voice.
Gus heard it and looked sharply down at his friend. "But you still want to?"
Shawn shrugged, embarrassed. As much as he'd wanted Gus's understanding, he didn't know how to handle the sympathy that came with it.
"Shawn, man..." Gus shook his head. "Why do always make things hard?"
"It's a gift, I guess," he joked weakly.
"It's something and you've got it," his friend told him.
"Too bad I can't trade it in for something better."
"I hear that."
Shawn reached for his guitar again and settled it in his lap. "Any requests?"
Gus raised an eyebrow and looked at the guitar suspiciously. "You still messing with that thing?"
"Yes!" Shawn said. "It's been helping me think. I've gotten really good!"
"Why don't I believe you when you say that?" Gus snorted. "Aren't you tone deaf?
"So they keep telling me," he admitted. "What do you want to hear?"
"Not you making noise on that," Gus stated, standing up. "Let's go do something outside. You've been holed up in here for week."
"I'm sorry that you can't understand the importance of solitude in serious contemplation," Shawn said, feigning hurt. "Come on, hum a few bars and I'll play along."
"No, thank you."
"Okay, how's this?" Shawn plucked at the guitar, coaxing a recognizable tune from the strings.
"Greensleeves, Shawn?" Gus shook his head. "That's it, we have to get out of here."
"It's a classic!" he argued but set aside the guitar once more and scrambled to his feet. "Okay, you win. Let's ride."
Gus grinned. "I heard that they've finally fixed the Mortal Kombat at the arcade."
"Oh really?" Shawn was grinning, too. "Cool! Man, I am not going to rest until I get Scorpion to morph into Ermac."
Gus gave him a challenging look, complete with raised eyebrows. "No way. I'm going to do it and it'll be with Sub-Zero."
"Pfft! I don't think so," Shawn disagreed as he grabbed his jar of quarters from the dresser.
"I guess we'll see when we get there," Gus told him.
"I guess we will," Shawn agreed.
As the two of the headed out of the Spencer house bickering over the relative coolness of fight-ending Fatalities, Shawn had to admit that after a week of keeping it all in, he felt better having told Gus what he had. It hadn't been much -- didn't want to shock his poor, little straight friend with too much detail -- but it had been enough to make the weird feelings subside, at least for awhile. It had lost its immediate quality and was all fading back into its proper place in his memories, into "last week" which would eventually become "last month" and so on.
It wasn't until they dragged themselves back to Shawn's house for dinner after hours of hardcore video game action that he realized that he'd went almost all day without thinking about anything other than the games, their plans for graduations and his own secret mission to hook Gus up with Patrice to make up for the panty thing -- not one stray thought of Carlton to be found.
Shawn couldn't help but be relieved; he was tired of sounding Veronique pining for Gregory in Wicked Desire. He was ready to go back to being his usual charming, adorable but manly self.
**
Though Carlton had been looking forward to it all semester, he couldn't help but be a little nervous when he finally had to present himself at the Santa Barbara Police Department for the start of his ride along.
The last few weeks of the semester had passed in their usual frantic manner, made more so by the thoughts of Shawn that weighed on Carlton's mind. His thoughts weren't only centered around his own stupidity or guilt that he'd committed a serious crime; much of his headspace was dedicated to Shawn himself.
But Carlton worked hard to put it all in the past and concentrate on his 90-day observational ride along with the SBPD. It was a great opportunity and one that he didn't want to waste, not after Detective Fenich had arranged it for him, the latest in a long list of favors he'd done to help Carlton fulfill his dream of becoming a police detective.
When Carlton arrived at the station that first morning, Fenich was waiting for him.
"Good to see you again, son," Fenich greeted him warmly, offering his hand.
"Sir," Carlton said, returning the handshake.
"There's some paperwork we need you to fill out," he explained. "But first, let me introduce you around."
Carlton felt like he spent most of the morning shaking hands and exchanging introductions, but he didn't mind; all the men he met were friendly and eager to impart a little advice to him once Fenich had explained who he was and what he was doing. He'd heard a lot of the advice before -- from professors, from uncles who were cops, from Fenich himself -- but he nodded and thanked them all before Fenich led him over to the next cop for another introduction.
Fenich finally sat Carlton down at his desk with a stack of paperwork to fill out while Fenich got back to work. It was the same, usual, dry information he'd put on dozens of applications since he'd started college, and Carlton's mind started to wonder as he wrote his Carpinteria address for what felt like the twelfth time.
But even as he fought to stay focused on the crushingly boring task, his mind started to wander and, like it had much too often lately, he started thinking about Shawn. Of course, having thoughts about Shawn while sitting in the middle of the SBPD only made him feel that much more guilty and he shifted restlessly in his seat. Not that his discomfort derailed his thoughts -- he still had Shawn on the brain.
Carlton had just finished the last sheet of his stack and was ruthlessly suppressing the sound of Shawn's voice in his head teasing, So, what? Sex is like a job with you? There’s x amount of experience needed to qualify?, when another officer, a captain, approached him.
"You must be John's protégé that we've heard so much about," he declared. "Nice to finally meet you."
"Carlton Lassiter, sir," he said as he stood and offered the captain his hand.
"Brett Connors," he revealed, followed up by a strong, firm handshake.
"Thank you so much for agreeing to my ride along," Carlton told him.
"Always glad to help a future member of the department," Connors assured him. Then, in a quieter tone, he added, "I knew your father. He was a good man."
"Thank you, sir," he said again.
Connors must've been able to see the emotion that had been triggered by the mention of his father because he briskly changed topics. "How are you coming with all the paperwork?"
"Almost finished," Carlton answered.
"Well, John has an interview he's finishing up at the moment," Connors explained. "But I'd be glad to take you over to Personnel, get the ball rolling for you."
"I'd appreciate that, sir," Carlton began, "I'll just---"
He didn't have a chance to finish his sentence because a cop sitting a few desks away slammed his telephone down in disgust, startling both of them.
"Something wrong, Spencer?" Connors barked out. His tone was sharp but Carlton knew from experience that it was simply the style of communication used among cops.
"No, Cap, everything's fine," Spencer growled back, obviously pissed about something. "Just another call from the school."
"You're not working a case about a school," Connors pointed out.
"Yeah, I know," Spencer said grimly. "It's that damn kid of mine again. I swear, I'm going to kill him one of these days. At least this incident didn't involve a backhoe."
Connors grinned, letting out a snort of laughter. "He's a good kid, Henry. Cut him some slack."
Spencer gave him a disbelieving look as he stood from his desk, grabbing his jacket. "I'm due in court, sir. See you later."
"Where's the DeSilva file?" Connors called after him.
"On my desk!" Spencer yelled back before he disappeared from the bullpen.
Once Spencer had cleared out, Connors glanced back at Carlton. "Grab your papers, Carlton, I'll walk you over to Personnel."
"Yes, sir," Carlton nodded as he obediently collected his clipboard full of paperwork, pocketing the pen that Fenich had given him in case he needed one later.
Instead of heading straight toward out of the bullpen, they made a detour toward Spencer's desk -- to collect the DeSilva file, Carlton figured. Connors rifled through Spencer's files for a minute before he found the one he was looking for. He handed the file off to Carlton while he quickly straightened up the items he'd knocked askew in his search. One of the items he straightened was a photograph of Spencer and a little brown-haired boy who looked to be between eight and ten years old.
Connors looked at the photo for a moment, flashing it at Carlton before he returned it to its proper place. "He is a good kid," Connors said again. "Henry just has high expectations, wants the best for him."
"Cute," Carlton said, looking down at the little boy in the photograph, wondering what he could've possibly done that involved a backhoe.
"I know how he feels," Connors continued conversationally as they headed toward the personnel department. "I have a daughter, myself. Trish."
Carlton nodded.
"She's graduating high school this year," Connors told him, and his face was transformed by the thought of his daughter, softening his features. "She's at the top of her class, captain of the cheer squad. Couldn't be prouder if I tried."
Carlton didn't say anything but he couldn't help the rush of guilt that made perspiration break out across his forehead. Captain Connors's daughter was the same age as Shawn and he could only imagine the kinds of hell that the man next to him would put him through if he ever even entertained laying a hand on his young daughter.
Shawn had parents, too -- parents who'd probably feel the same way if they 'd been aware of what some twenty-five year-old man had done to with their underage son. It made Carlton feel like a charlatan standing there in the SBPD, pretending to be someone with the clear ethical imperative needed to serve and protect society.
But in the more selfish regions of his mind, he just hoped he never ever had the bad luck to run into any of Shawn's relatives who might entertain thoughts about killing him. From the day he'd spent getting drunk with Rodney, he'd remembered Galina telling him all about the cultures she'd studied in an anthropology course that considered the taking of someone's virginity to be tantamount to theft if not condoned by the family. Her detailed explanations of the some of the more creative punishments were enough to make him cringe, almost a month later.
In the Personnel department, the captain introduced Carlton to Rhonda, an even-tempered blonde who'd be in charge of getting all his paperwork together.
"You were printed back in December," she said, looking over his file after Connors had left. "And everything seems to be in order with your NAC, so we're just down to a few last things."
"You mean more than this?" he asked archly, laying the finished clipboard of paperwork with a thud.
Rhonda smiled. "Actually, yes." She set own her file on top of his clipboard and bent down, searching for something in a large drawer behind her desk. After a moment, she came up with a large bound notebook which she immediately hefted in Carlton's direction. "You'll have to read the manual," she informed him. "And you're responsible for following all the rules and regulations herein."
"Not a problem," he said, taking the manual from her.
"You'll also have to submit to a drug test," she told him. "But I'm sure that won't be a problem."
Carlton smirked, thinking of Rodney's offer of less-than-legal substances to help him with his "thinking-about-Shawn" problem. "No, it won't."
Rhonda nodded. "Then we should be about finished here," she assured him, making a grab for the clipboard. "As long as you've filled out everything here, I'll just need you to pee in a cup for me and then I'll send you off to have your picture taken for your ID."
"Oh joy," he intoned dryly.
Her smile widened. "Which part did you like best? The peeing in the cup or the picture part?"
"Well, they're both such barrels of fun."
Rhonda stifled a chuckle as she flipped through his application. "I think we're all...no, actually you missed a question here."
Carlton craned his neck to look down on the sheet with her. "Where?"
She pointed a painted nail. "Here. The usual one -- "have you ever been convicted of a crime, other than a routine traffic violation" -- which is on every application in existence, I believe." She swiveled the clipboard back to face him. "If you please, Mr. Lassiter."
A month ago, it wouldn't have given him pause and he'd have marked the "NO" box and initialed it with an impatient flourish. But now he couldn't stop himself from hesitating, pen hovering above the paper.
Rhonda noticed. "What?
"Nothing," mumbled Carlton. "Just thinking about something."
"What? All the felonies you've been convicted of?" Rhonda teased.
Carlton swallowed hard. "No, not convicted."
Rhonda mistook his response as another joke which made her laugh. "You're just trying to avoid the drug testing part of the afternoon, Mr. Lassiter," she scolded.
He managed a weak smile and forced himself to make the appropriate marks on the page before handing it back to her. "Any more hoops?"
Rhonda held up the sample cup. "Just the fun ones, Mr. Lassiter."
Carlton grimaced but took the cup.
To Be Continued...