Title: Single-O

Author: Jane Westin

Pairing: Shawn/Carlton

Rating: NC17

Disclaimer: Not mine. Never mine.

Notes: A HUGE thank-you to tera_gram for beta-reading, and for her thoughtful and insightful comments. You're awesome, dude.

The blade flashes as he draws back his arm. His eyes are narrowed dangerously; his hand tightens on the knife's handle. He has her in his sights.

Her eyes widen. Her lips part as though she is about to speak, perhaps to beg for her life.

In one quick motion, he flicks his wrist and releases the knife. It streaks through the air, embeds itself in the wood beside her head. The audience lets out a collective breath. A second later, they erupt in applause.

Dangerous Johnny gestures grandly at his lovely assistant; she steps away from the five knives framing her body, takes Dangerous Johnny's hand, and together, they take a bow.

"Not bad," Gus concedes.

"I told you!" Shawn crows, as the audience begins to drift away from the stage. "Sideshows aren't just for weirdos and Midwesterners any more." He points at a trio of bespectacled twentysomethings wearing skinny jeans and dirty Chucks. "They're like hipster festivals."

Gus looks past Shawn's pointing finger toward a young couple in matching silver cloaks and black lipstick. "I think the weirdos are still around."

"Maybe," Shawn says, "but the point is, now it's cool." They start walking, following the crowd. Temporary stages are set up every fifteen feet, each with its own elaborate poster: The Blockhead, Fish Girl, Bendable Benjamin, Francesco the Fire-Dancer. Shawn counts twelve stages that he can see, and it looks as though there are at least a couple rows of midway games near the rides.

"Dude!" Shawn punches Gus on the arm. "There are bumper cars!"

"I am not riding bumper cars, Shawn," Gus says, rubbing his arm and glaring at Shawn. "You know my sternocleidomastoids are weak. Besides, we didn't come here for the rides. This is a very well-known sideshow. It was written up in Festive California."

Shawn is so appalled by this statement that he momentarily can't think of a retort. To buy time, he stops at a frozen lemonade stand. "Gus, please. You don't have nearly enough cats to be reading things like Festive California. I'm going to pretend you said ESPN Magazine instead," he says. "Two, please...thanks." He hands the teenage girl working the stand eight dollars and accepts the lemonades.

"Oh, did you want one?" he asks innocently, when Gus holds out his hand.

"Shut up, Shawn." Gus snatches a lemonade and takes a huge sip, then clutches his head. "Ow."

"That's what you get for being an old lady," Shawn says, sipping his lemonade. Then he seizes Gus's sleeve. "Ooh, look! Chinese acrobats!"

Gus frowns as he examines the poster, which says Beijing's Darlings and features a blown-up photograph of six acrobats in impossible-looking contortions. "I think that's racist," he says.

"Racist schmasist," Shawn replies. "They're wearing so much makeup you can't tell what they are."

"There are pagodas in the background," Gus points out.

"There are pagodas in Beijing," Shawn says.

Gus narrows his eyes. "Do you really know that, or are you just making something up to prove your point and it happens to be true?"

Shawn doesn't get a chance to reply, though, because at that moment, music starts to play through the speakers near the stage. The curtain opens, and six young women walk out.

"I know this song," Shawn says. He focuses for a minute. "Yep. I know it."

Gus gives him a look. "Since when do you listen to zither music?"

"Since it's a zither, whatever that is, remix of that Bjork song. The one from the movie about the chick in the swan dress."

"Dancer in the Dark, and the chick in the swan dress was Bjork." Gus rolls his eyes.

"That's a direct reflection on your manliness, dude." Shawn grins at Gus's scowl, then turns his attention to the stage. The Darlings are older than Shawn would have expected: they look about college-age. He wonders if this is a summer gig to pay for school. They're wearing matching spangled leotards, blue and silver, and have tinsel wrapped around the buns in their hair.

"Only one of them is Asian," he says pointedly. "And she wasn't even on the poster. So, not racist."

"Whatever," Gus mumbles.

The Darlings have started their show. It's not exactly Cirque de Soleil, but it's not bad either: they're backbending and handstanding and climbing over each other like pros, their movements smooth and well-rehearsed.

So it startles even Shawn when there's a loud cracking sound and the redhead drops through the floorboards.

"What the-" Gus starts to say, but he stops, because now there is screaming.

The audience is frozen, exchanging scared glances: is someone going to do something? The other five acrobats are staring at the hole in the stage, also motionless. Then Shawn sees a young woman dart forward, climb onto the stage, and drop to all fours next to the hole. He sees her expression change as though in slow motion: fear concern shock horror determination. She points toward the other acrobats. "Call nine-one-one," she orders, then swings feet-first into the hole.

It isn't a tall stage, maybe four feet high, so Shawn can still see her as he shoulders his way forward. He hears Gus behind him: "Shawn! What are you doing? Come back here! Shawn!" But he ignores the questions, because he can still hear the redhead screaming, and obviously something is very wrong.

He jumps onto the stage and half-crawls, half-rolls toward the woman, who is now hauling the redhead out of the hole. The redhead is crying, clutching at her knee, still half-screaming. "Oh my God," she wails. "Oh my God, oh my God!"

Shawn hops to his feet, seizes the redhead under the arms, and pulls her the rest of the way up. She scuttles backwards, shrieking again when the injured knee hits the stage.

Shawn looks at the young woman, who's still standing in the hole. She looks grim. Shakes her head a little. He leans forward and peers toward her feet.

Ah.

He can't see much because of the shadows under the stage, but he can see an arm, a leg, a men's wristwatch. And blood.

"Guess that explains the screaming," Shawn says.

The young woman eases herself back onto the stage. "Don't say anything," she hisses. She looks from one side of the stage to another, her eyes moving quickly, scanning, and takes a few quick steps. There are six hanging ropes on the side of the stage and she follows the path of each one with her gaze before seizing one and pulling. The curtain moves.

She pulls until the curtain is closed, and of course now the stage is full of people. Carnival employees, a balding man in a button-down shirt, and two audience members who followed Shawn onto the stage. Shawn can hear the excited buzz of the rest of the audience. He hopes carnival security can handle the crowd control.

"Excuse me." Shawn hears Gus's voice. "Shawn!"

A second later he's at Shawn's shoulder, looking down into the hole. "What's going-"

Then he sees the body and immediately starts gagging.

"Stay back, buddy," Shawn advises, and catches the young woman's sleeve. She's talking to the manager now, and stops when Shawn puts his hand on her arm.

"Thanks," she says.

"No problem." Shawn takes a split second to assess her. Short dark hair. Odd eyes: one green, one hazel-almost-brown. Freckles across her nose - she probably burns instead of tans. Her jeans are torn at the knee, and he can see a long scrape, blood on her pale skin. She's wearing Vans. He sticks out his hand. "Shawn Spencer."

She looks at him oddly, but takes his hand. "Bethany Abel."

The manager is sweating, flustered, panicking. His name tag says "Brain."

"Brain!" Shawn offers his hand and now the manager looks even more confused. "Pinky. Nice to meet you. What're your plans for the night?"

"What? What? I-" His palm is clammy against Shawn's and he clutches Shawn's hand a little too long.

"My name's Brian," the balding man says. "I'm the acrobats' manager."

There isn't time for more, though, because at that moment EMTs appear from backstage. Two of them drop to their knees beside the still-sobbing redhead; the other two start toward Shawn, Bethany, and Brian/Brain.

Shawn points toward the hole in the stage. "There," he says. "But I'm pretty sure there isn't a lot you're going to be able to do."

"Of course you had to be the one to find the body," Lassiter says. He looks grumpy, which makes Shawn feel simultaneously triumphant (he loves getting under Lassie's skin, loves it loves it loves it) and sulky. As much as he likes irritating Lassiter, a part of him kind of wishes, just a little, just a tiny bitty bit, that Lassie didn't have to get quite so mad at him all the time.

"To be fair, I didn't actually find it." Shawn reaches across Lassiter for the case file, wincing and scowling when Lassiter swats him away. "That redhead found it. All I did was point at it." He grabs for the file again, neatly dodging Lassiter's hand, and this time he gets it. He tucks it under his butt.

"Spencer," Lassiter warns, but he's interrupted by Juliet.

"Deceased's name is Victor Ernest Xavier," she says as she approaches Lassiter's desk. She puts her own file folder on Lassiter's desk and Shawn catches a whiff of her perfume, light and floral and pretty. "He was an developer, worked primarily with condominiums and townhomes. Company's called DeluxDream."

"Any relationship to the sideshow?" Lassiter asks. He stands up and comes around behind Shawn's chair, puts a hand on Shawn's shoulder, and gives him a little shove to extract the file folder. Shawn resists the shove just long enough that Lassiter's knuckles brush his back pocket, then rolls forward and winds up on the floor. He curls his knees to his chest and looks up at Lassiter. He looks even taller from down here, and so so handsome. Shawn can see up his nose.

"Get off the floor, Shawn." Gus is frowning at him.

Shawn does, scrambling back into his chair. His shoulder is tingling where Lassiter pushed him. So is his right butt cheek.

"None so far," Juliet says. "He wasn't even trying to buy the lot."

"Relatives?"

"A daughter, Rebecca. She works at a bookstore in Boston. We haven't been able to get a hold of her."

Lassiter frowns. "Well, keep trying," he says. "Did you get anything out of the rest of the witnesses?"

Juliet shakes her head. "Bethany Abel said she didn't even really see the body, let alone touch it, she was just trying to get the dancer out of the hole in the stage. Got pretty scraped up doing it, too."

"Well." Lassiter's frown deepens. "Round up the carnival management and all the performers. We need to find out the link between our dead guy and that carnival." He picks up the rest of the files on his desk and heads toward the Chief's office. Adds over his shoulder, "And someone find Rebecca Xavier!"

Shawn watches Lassiter walk away and sighs. When Lassiter gets like this, there's no getting to him, no matter how much Shawn tries. He's going to have to escalate - steal Lassie's briefcase or something. Or put toothpaste in his pencil jar again, that was pretty funny.

He realizes Gus is looking him, eyes narrowed.

"Shawn - " Gus starts, but Juliet interrupts.

"You haven't had any visions, have you, Shawn?" she asks.

Shawn shakes his head. "Not yet, Jules, sorry," he says.

"In that case, I think you better clear out for the afternoon. Lassiter's really busy and I have a dentist appointment in a half hour." She makes an apologetic face.

Shawn looks at Gus. The odd, calculating expression is gone.

Well, at least they'll be able to do some snooping. "Sure, Jules," Shawn says. He grabs his jacket. "See you."

"Why is it always so cold in here?" Shawn wonders aloud as he pushes the morgue doors open.

Woody pops up from behind the gurney. "You don't want to smell it in here when the air conditioning goes out," he says. "Trust me, it's better cold."

Behind Shawn, Gus makes a gagging noise.

"If you're going to throw up, use the sink on the left," Woody says mildly. "It has a garbage disposal."

"Ew," Shawn says. He looks at the body of Victor Xavier, pale and nude on the table, the Y-incision on the chest still gaping. There are puncture wounds peppering his shoulders.

Shawn still finds dead bodies a little bit...crawly. But unlike Gus, he's gotten pretty good at swallowing his puke. "So whatcha got, Woody?"

"Glad you asked, Shawn!" Woody beams. "It's really interesting, actually. There are a lot of lacerations, as you can see, but I'm not sure that most of them didn't occur postmortem."

"Postmortem?" Gus asks. "Like he was dead before he got stabbed?"

"It's possible." Woody probes one of the wounds with the tip of his pen. "There's no evidence of increased blood flow to the areas where the injuries were incurred." He points to a purplish thing on the counter. "See this? It's a lung."

Shawn looks up briefly when Gus runs out of the room, then turns his attention back to Woody. "Okay," he says.

Woody uses the pen to push the lung around on the cutting board. "There are three lung lacerations, but there was no blood in the pleural space, no hematoma, nothing. The tissue looks like it usually does when I cut it. In other words, no blood flow." He puts the pen in his pocket. "None of the stab wounds hit any major arteries, either. He wouldn't have died from injuries to the deltoid, but weight-lifting after that would have sucked." He chuckles at his own joke.

"So what killed him?" Shawn asks.

"Not totally sure yet. I sent off some tox studies." Woody reaches for a needle and starts sewing up the incision on Xavier's chest. "He had a lot of needle marks on his abdomen, too, but he had a glucometer in his pocket, so those were likely from administration of insulin."

He holds a little gadget out toward Shawn. Shawn takes a moment to pull on gloves, then reaches out and takes it from Woody. He flips through the last three readings: 479, 422, 398. He doesn't know what any of those mean, so he puts the glucometer back down and throws the gloves away.

"This is such an interesting job." Woody hums happily as he sews.

Shawn looks the body over. There are bruises over the arms, legs, and around three of the needle punctures on the abdomen. "Did he get beat up?"

Woody shakes his head. "Not really the bruise pattern I'd expect from assault. Shins, arms - those are common places to bruise. You run into doors, tables - "

"The floor," Shawn adds, thinking of the conversation with Lassiter.

Woody continues as though he hasn't heard. "The weird part is that there was blood in the nose and the mouth, too, but no fractures or lacerations there. Almost as though his mucosa and gingiva just spontaneously started bleeding." He pulls the final stitch tight, looks around the room as though he's lost something, then shrugs and severs the thread with his teeth.

Shawn shudders. "Thanks, Woody. I appreciate it."

"No problem, man!" Woody waves cheerfully. "Have a pleasant day!"

He finds Gus outside the door. "You'll be glad you missed that last bit," Shawn says.

"I'm sorry I saw any of it," Gus says weakly. "I don't know why I keep coming down here. I don't have the stomach."

"Neither does Xavier." Shawn slaps him on the shoulder as they walk. "Hey, question for you."

"Make it an easy one. I think all those morgue fumes melted my brain."

Shawn opens the door to the stairwell for Gus and follows him up, matching his stride to Gus's. "What does a gluco-meter -"

"Glucometer," Gus corrects, pronouncing it correctly.

"Sugar reader," Shawn amends. "What do 472, 422, and 398 mean on one of those?"

Gus wrinkles his brow. "Those are really high blood sugars, Shawn."

"How high?" Shawn points and winks at the security guard as they leave; the guard points and winks back.

"High enough to make you sick," Gus says. "Why?"

"No reason." Shawn slides into the Echo with no further elaboration, and after a moment, Gus shrugs and follows suit.

Shawn fiddles with the radio for a few minutes. He really wants to tell Gus, but he's not sure what Gus will say.

"I like Lassiter," he says at last.

Gus doesn't respond for a moment. When he does, his tone is careful, measured. "Yeah, he's okay."

Aaaaargh. "No, Gus. I like Lassiter."

There's a long silence. Gus keeps driving. At the next intersection, Gus turns right and pulls into a gas station parking lot.

"Say that one more time," he says.

Shawn obliges. "I like Lassiter."

"No." Gus turns in his seat to face Shawn fully. "Like you said it before. Like the L in "like" was capitalized."

Shawn sighs. He had hoped this would be easier, but he had had a feeling it would go like this. "It was capitalized, Gus."

"No." Gus turns back to the steering wheel, puts the car in gear, and starts driving again like nothing had happened.

After about a minute, Shawn begins to realize that maybe Gus really does think he's refuted the entire topic. "What do you mean, no?"

Gus glances at Shawn, then back at the road. "I mean no. You've made some bad dating decisions in the past, Shawn, but this is by far the worst."

"What do you mean, the worst? You just said Lassiter was okay." Shawn pulls his lips into a pout. He'd expected Gus to be uncomfortable with it. He'd expected him to be incredulous. Hell, he could see Gus even being a little bit mad. But this?

"I said that when he was just our co-worker, Shawn," Gus snaps, executing a perfect left turn and pulling the Echo precisely between the lines of their usual parking spot. "Now that he's the object of your affections, I feel one hundred percent different about him."

"For starters-" Shawn fumbles in his pants pockets for the keys to the Psych office, finds them, unlocks the door. "-you can't feel one hundred percent different about someone. That doesn't even make sense. You measure your feelings for someone in degrees, not percentages. For example, you can feel one hundred and eighty degrees different about Lassiter now."

"Don't argue semantics with me right now, Shawn," Gus drops into his chair, opens his laptop, and pointedly does not look at Shawn.

"Okay, okay, no semantics." Shawn drops into his chair, rolls it over to Gus, and stares at him.

"Stop staring at me, Shawn."

Shawn keeps staring.

"Stop staring at me, Shawn!"

Shawn pushes the rolling chair backwards and folds his arms. "I will when you tell me what's wrong with Lassiter."

Gus sighs, then. He closes his laptop and turns to Shawn.

"Look," he says, and his voice is serious now. "I already knew you liked Lassiter."

Huh?

"You did not," Shawn says accusingly. "How could you know? I'm really good at keeping stuff like that secret. Nothing gets out. I'm like Jodie Foster's panic room."

"People couldn't get in to the panic room," Gus says. "Anyway, you might be able to keep things from other people. Not from me."

Shawn considers this for a moment. Gus has a point. He's never been able to keep anything from Gus, not even the time he stole his Tamagotchi (which kind of made him suspect that Gus was harboring psychic powers of his own in that sweet dome).

"I think you've liked Lassiter pretty much from day one," Gus says. "It was kind of inevitable, you have to admit. Think about your last three boyfriends."

Shawn considers. Derek, tall and thin, a grouchy drunk. Andrew, tall and thin, an emotionally unavailable jerk. Rob, short and chunky, mind-numbingly boring.

"Two out of three. Granted. He's got it on looks, that's for sure." Shawn reaches for a pencil from Gus's desk and flicks it at the ceiling. "Keep in mind that those were my only three boyfriends. The n is too small to draw any conclusions."

"Shawn, the only reason you know what n is is because I explained it to you last week," Gus says. "And yes, you do seem to have a type. Unfortunately, your type is mean."

"Lassiter isn't mean!" Shawn says indignantly.

Gus just looks at him until he caves and shrugs. "Okay, maybe he's sort of mean."

Gus sighs. "You know that whatever you do, I'll support you. I really will."

He really will. Gus is such a good friend. Shawn loves Gus, really loves him, that kind of Steel Magnolias love that makes grown men well up with tears, and he generally believes what Gus tells him when Gus uses that heart-to-heart tone of voice. But he suspects he's not going to believe the next thing Gus says.

"But." There it is. The But.

"But what?" Shawn doesn't really want to hear it, but he asks anyway.

"But think about it, Shawn. Please think about it. Lassiter is a good cop and a good guy, but he has no capacity for emotions. Look at how he dealt with his separation. Plus, you drive him crazy."

"I do drive him crazy." Shawn has to suppress a grin of pride when he says it. "But I drive him crazy because I like him."

"And..." Gus pauses.

"Yeah? What?"

"It's not that I don't trust your judgment on this, Shawn, but how do you even know he, um, plays for your team?"

Shawn immediately flashes to Lassie in full softball regalia, complete with three-quarter-length sleeves and cleats. Mmm.

"Shawn!" Gus wads up a Post-It note and tosses it at Shawn. It bounces off his forehead. "Focus, please."

Shawn focuses. "Oh, I know." He smiles, recalling the times he hacked into Lassiter's computer to scope out his browsing history. "If his secret file of shirtless Robert Downey, Jr photos is any indication."

Gus makes a horrible face. "Ack."

"Sorry." Shawn is gleeful. Gus is out of rebuttals.

"Well." Gus seems unconvinced. "Do what you want, Shawn. But don't come crying to me when Lassiter kicks you to the curb."

"That's exactly what I'm going to do, and you know it."

Gus sighs. "Yeah. I know."