Chapter Text
Shawn was not new to Lassiter’s skepticism. In fact, he was its most common target. The man had never once given him much grace or benefit of the doubt– at least not in regards to his psychic abilities. Rightfully so, as they were complete bullshit. Overall, the resistance ranged from a mild annoyance to a significant hindrance in their shared casework.
Even with this challenge, Lassiter was a good person. That was clear. He always double-checked Shawn and Gus’ theories in case they were actually onto something. Despite his usual role as opponent to Shawn’s antics, he always put their case first. His moral compass was clearly defined; sharp lines carved in stone. These lines contrasted starkly with Shawn’s own, which were traced in sand and seemed to blow around quite easily in the breeze of their circumstances.
Shawn hadn’t considered that this pristine moral compass would extend to him personally, a man the detective clearly held slightly negative at best feelings for.
Until it did.
Without a doubt, it had been a rough day. Shawn barely managed to put the details of their case together until almost the last possible moment. Gus was actually the one to uncover the most crucial bit of evidence in the end, and Shawn had to give a fairly convincing performance of a ‘vision’ to convince the detectives that their outlandish theory held weight. That is to say, annoy them enough that they’d do anything including their jobs to shut him up.
He was almost more proud of his performance than his detective work. Pulling out all the stops, his usual flailing and yelling didn’t prove shocking enough to sway them. Shawn had actually managed to make himself cry. Real, authentic tears. Well, 20% allergy season, 30% rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hands, and 50% pure, stagecraft-approved tears.
The mortified looks on his audience's faces were like pure dopamine after the detectives had dismissed his hypotheses for the entire case. Gus’ eyes widened and Shawn didn’t know whether it was in a complimentary or disgusted manner; his partner was usually unfazed by his ‘visions.’
O’Hara, the softy, had immediately urged Lassiter and the Chief to reconsider his theory, receiving little pushback from either. When they’d left the room, Gus had simply raised his eyebrows with a hefty shake of his head. Morally disappointed, yet impressed. Perfect.
Offering to go on a coffee run while they awaited news of their suspects’ detainment, Gus left Shawn to pace every hallway twice before resigning to an unlocked interrogation room.
It was a rough day indeed, well deserving of his current posture- slouched, seated in a metal chair, head in his hands. Shawn wasn’t particularly upset about the way the case went; he knew they’d done their best and it was difficult evidence. The detectives were right to be skeptical of his ideas, no matter how correct he ended up.
He and Gus had been out late investigating and woken very early. He was exhausted. That was why he currently found himself twenty seconds from falling asleep, something that may have been a first in the history of police interrogation chairs.
Abruptly, the door creaked open, and in walked none other than Lassiter himself. The detective entered, staring at a clipboard. He shut the heavy door before freezing as Shawn peered up between his fingers. It appeared he hadn’t seen him looking, which meant he could still pretend to be asleep and avoid interacting with him entirely.
A single footstep hit hard ground as Lassiter took a step forward. “Spencer?”
There went that plan.
Shawn scrubbed his face, clearing his throat. “Lassie?”
His voice cracked. That definitely placed the embarrassment cherry on top of the annoyance sundae he’d been served. Lassiter would certainly huff at the nickname before telling him to scram. Rightfully so; this was an interrogation room. One that probably needed preparing for an interrogation.
Instead, the pseudo-psychic was met with a frankly awkward expression and body language, with a touch of… could that be concern ? How tired must he look?
“...what are you doing in here?” Lassiter’s voice intruded on his analysis.
Here it came. The sarcastic beratement that would precede telling him to leave. If Shawn wasn’t so tired, he’d leave on his own volition to avoid the nuisance. Exhaustion and spite kept him glued in his position. If Lassiter wanted to bust him for trying to nap in a restricted area, he’d let him. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
Lassiter frowned, his eyes studying Shawn before he moved to sit across from him at the table. Shawn’s annoyance spiked. Carlton felt so little control in his own life that he felt the need to power trip over such a small occurrence? Make it mirror a real interrogation? No, that was Shawn’s limit. Just before he could move to get up, however—
“Are you… okay?”
With those words, Shawn’s mind reset itself and he became aware of how exactly he must have been perceived. He had just been walked in on in a position that might make an observer believe he was pretty upset— head in his hands, light dimmed, silence— especially if one was used to seeing upset people in the interrogation chair and not tired people. Especially if the upset person in question had broken down crying in front of his coworkers not an hour prior.
There was no way Lassiter actually believed he was simply shaken from his ‘psychic vision.’ The man held a PhD in Devil’s Advocacy, for Christ’s sake. And yet, the idea was captivating.
There was only one way to find out.
Shawn adjusted his posture, obscuring his face again and leaning into the curled-up state he’d half committed to previously. He was certain his eyes were still at least a bit red, and it was dark in the room anyway. He sniffled– just a bit, no need to overdo it when his real performance was behind him– and channeled his most unconvincing resolve.
“I…yeah, yeah. I’m fine, Lassie.”
It was a thin line to walk, and Shawn almost expected Lassiter to roll his eyes, get up, and walk away. The act hinged on the fact that people like to feel smart, and detectives like to think they’ve spotted a lie.
Lassiter licked his lips, as if stalling before having to fulfill his civic duty as someone with a conscience. “Do you want to talk about it?” He asked softly.
The softness was shocking. The man might have had the same jarring effect if he’d screamed the words. Just as it must have been confounding for the detective to see Shawn, the usual figurehead for comic relief, so (seemingly) downtrodden, it was as stark a contrast for Shawn to hear a non-confrontational tone of voice from his regular oppositionist.
“You don’t- you don’t really want to hear about this…” Yes, he’d reel him in by feeding into humanity’s natural savior complex.
Lassiter’s eyes danced across Shawn’s face. “I asked, didn’t I?”
It was time for the hard sell. The true, past-the-point-of-no-return, no-going-back sell. One which burned any shred of his remaining plausible deniability.
Shawn let out a shaky breath. Then another for good measure, letting his body shake with the faux-sob, like the sound of a rollercoaster clicking up a hill.
“Sometimes the spirits are so loud. They just won’t stop.”
He couldn’t make himself look at Lassiter. He felt his face flush red with a strange and sudden sense of embarrassment. It was one thing to fake hearing voices, yelling for the whole police station to hear, another even to choke himself and loudly throw his own body downstairs at a spelling bee, but a completely different matter to give such a private ‘performance.’ A maybe-unconvincing attempt at emotional manipulation, all just to further convince and test the belief his cohort had in his lie.
“It’s like, I know the case is over, and that’s all I needed from them, but they don’t know that and they won’t listen—“
Shawn could stop now, he knew, but for some reason, the exhaustion of the day and the general stress of the case were fueling his story.
“—And they’re so loud, and constant, and everyone, everyone, just thinks it’s some sort of, some sort of parlor trick, some sort of ‘cue the laugh track’ gag, something I can help, something I can control, and god I wish I could but It’s always on, and they always expect me to—“
Shawn was cut off by a hand on each of his arms, pulling them down from his head so he stared face-to-face with Lassiter, who had pulled his chair up right in front of him to look him in the face.
“Spencer, you have to breathe.”
Shawn hadn’t realized he’d gotten so out of breath from his ramble and he gasped for air, admittedly a bit louder and more forcefully than he’d meant to. He choked the air back out, then gulped down more.
“In… two… three… four…”
Lassiter slightly raised his and Shawn’s wrists a few centimeters with each number, like he was modeling a PD training video for de-escalation.
“And out… two… three… four…”
Even Shawn’s attempt at breathing for himself had been substandard to the detective. Go figure.
He let the counting routine go on for another two full breaths. In the dark room Shawn wondered if he may have missed his true calling in an entirely different pseudoscience. Keep your eyes on the pocket watch and count up to four, Lassiter. When you wake, you’ll trust me completely.
Of course, the corporeal reality painted Shawn much closer to the hypnotized than the hypnotist. His eyes couldn’t quite leave the way his arms were being guided. Rough fingers tensed and shifted subtly over Shawn’s skin as if to calculate the exact amount of pressure to apply without spooking him.
When his breathing ‘evened out,’ he watched rigidly as the hands removed themselves from him. Raising his eyes, he was met with an alarmingly focused gaze. The direct eye contact was startling, like when a film character looks into the camera.
This was unusual, to say the least. The whole situation he’d at once produced, directed and starred in. This was undeniably manufactured, but even stranger than that was the fact that Shawn didn’t mind the result. There was definitely something intimate about being talked down from a fake panic attack, but Shawn didn’t know why this would be something he would ever desire– especially from Lassiter, of all people.
“What can I do to help?” Lassiter prodded.
It was absolutely undeniable. Underneath the detective’s carefully skeptical exterior, he did believe Shawn. He had to. The Carlton Lassiter he knew would not have hesitated to call bullshit on his act if he didn’t fully believe him. Apparently, Shawn was a better actor than he was given credit for. It helped, of course, that there wasn’t anything clear for the pseudo-psychic to gain from lying when they were completely alone and with no case currently at stake.
He did gain something, though. Now he knew that Lassiter believed in his ‘abilities.’ Now when the detective gave him pushback in future cases, Shawn would always hold the trump card. It wasn’t that he would be particularly keen to tell an audience that he’d been crying in a room alone– it was a pretty pathetic story– but Lassiter could never again look Shawn in the eye and honestly claim he didn’t believe he was a psychic. That was enough for Shawn.
Why, then, wasn’t he ready for this to end?
“Honestly, Lassie,” Shawn summoned his best, ‘the spirits are so chaotic it hurts to talk’ tone. “You’re helping just by being here.”
Lassiter looked satisfied enough with that. He sat back in his seat slightly. Still close to the other, but not ready to grab him again. Shawn found himself craving the proximity. How much of a frenzy would he need to work himself into to be pulled into an embrace?
“Spencer?”
Great, Lassiter had asked him something. He had been too distracted by his strange fantasies to even listen. “Huh?”
“How often does this happen?” Lassiter repeated.
“Does what happen?” Shawn asked, with immediate regret.
He had already begun to forget the gist of his ramble. It had spilled out as if someone had prepared him lines. Something about the ‘spirits’ being loud? A pointed complaint about people not believing in his visions? Subtle, Shawn. He did not want to hear Lassiter’s response. If he had to try and summarize it, he might realize how generic it sounded. It didn’t even make much sense; Lassiter was the only one at the station who voiced any distrust in his abilities to his face.
Lassiter furrowed his eyebrows. The only other meaning, Shawn realized, would be, ‘How often do you come to interrogation rooms and cry?’ and, well, he had already reached his daily quota of patheticness. He didn’t let the detective respond.
“Oh, well… sometimes it just gets a little overwhelming. I can’t really control when or how I get the visions. Sometimes I just need them to stop, but they never do…”
Shawn really didn’t know where he was going with this. If only someone truly had written him lines. He only knew he had to end it, and soon. Having obtained what he needed– proof of belief, leverage, and, well, other things… things that would need deep psychological examination later… It was time to get out of there before his deception was caught on to.
Lassiter wore a pensive expression. “I hadn’t realized these… episodes… could be so distressing for you.”
“Well…”
Shawn’s eyes would’ve gone anywhere to avoid the concerned, calculating gaze before them. Luckily, they landed on the door, through the window of which he spotted a familiar figure. One who could decidedly never know the details of this little unplanned experiment.
“Well,” He continued. “Telling people only means pity. Or worry, which is useless, because nothing can be done about it.”
Lassiter frowned. “No one here would pity you, Spencer. Not over this.”
The figure in the window grew closer. That was someone who certainly might.
“Speaking of which,” Shawn tightened his voice, raising his right hand to his temple, and turned his head away from the door. “I’m sensing—”
Lassiter sat forward in his chair.
“—Gus is coming. Is there any way, oh god, is there any way this can stay between us? Gus, he has enough on his plate without having to worry about me, too, you know?”
Lassiter looked Shawn up and down in silence before dipping his head in a quick nod. Three somewhat hesitant raps sounded on the door before it opened, creaking. Gus’ eyes moved from Shawn to Lassiter, then back to his friend. Shawn shook his head in the universal signal of do not ask.
Gus coughed. “Uh, Shawn, I brought your coffee,” He emphasized the cup, before nodding to the other man. “Lassiter. If you want some coffee…”
The two had risen, standing awkwardly and slightly too close together, just like their chairs had been.
“...then you should’ve gone out for some.” Gus finished.
“Gus,” Shawn clapped him on the back. “Buddy, thank you. Running dangerously low on caffeine here, nearly fell asleep on that metal table.”
“Right.” Gus was not going to let this go.
“You two should leave. Interrogation Room A only moonlights as a coffee waiting room.” Lassiter finally spoke.
“Ha! Funny. Gus, Lassie made a joke.”
Gus shook his head. “So, our theory held up? Both were arrested?”
Shawn looked at Lassiter. Gus’ head swiveled again. “You don’t know? That’s not what you were discussing?”
“It is. And they were. Despite how outlandish it was, you were correct. Yet again.” Lassiter covered for him.
Gus shrugged. “Great. Any reason we’re still hanging around here?”
Shawn shrugged back. “Victory lap?”
“We’re leaving,” Gus replied, and they did.
As he exited the doorframe, Shawn risked a look at Lassiter, who was not looking back at him. If this were a film, they would have exchanged a knowing glance. Lassiter might have manufactured a clever excuse to send Gus away, and Shawn would work himself into a real panic attack if only to be the focus once more of those eyes—
“Shawn, you coming?”
“Yeah, ‘course.”
If Shawn’s moral compass was more like Lassiter’s, it would have ended there.