Lassiter turned his head away, trying to escape from Shawn's insistent gaze. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing at here, Spencer, but whatever it is—"

"No game, Lassie. Totally serious. A truth for a dare. I'll tell you my secret and you do my dare." The pelicans honked, sounding like a chortling group of onlookers.

Lassiter put his hands on his hips and leaned against the cabin. "How do I know this isn't all some kind of a joke?" he asked, his voice trembling so slightly that he was sure Shawn couldn't have noticed.

Shawn sighed with exasperation. "I'll go first even and if what I say doesn't sound like the truth then no dare. I promise."

"I mean," Lassiter said. "How do I know you're not joking about wanting to—" he took a moment as he sought a way to say what he meant, but Shawn caught on before he found the words.

"Oh! That." Shawn smiled. "I think we can find a way to prove my sincerity." Shawn stepped forward, and Lassiter crowded further back against the cabin wall.

Shawn touched a finger to Lassiter's lips. "Relax, Lassie. I'm not going to hurt you." He rested his palms on Lassiter's hips and stood so close that Lassiter could feel the heat from his body. Shawn leaned in until his face was only inches away from Lassiter's. "Have you done this before?" he asked, almost whispering.

Lassiter tried to turned his face away but succeeded in only moving his eyes. "You're supposed to be psychic, you tell me." Then, as Shawn loomed in, he added. "I swear, Spencer, if you come any closer, I'll bite you."

"I'll risk it." Shawn said, and then his mouth was on Lassiter's and he was kissing him, tentatively at first, Gus's words about his health insurance ringing in his ears, then as he felt a response, more insistently. When he felt Lassiter's arms embrace him back he parted his lips and all hesitancy dropped away. The kiss lasted only a minute, but it was long enough to answer all the fearful questions that had been looming in the back of Lassiter's mind. Like a bullet in flight this kiss had a trajectory, and Lassiter could see that its flight ended directly in the stateroom downstairs, on that enormous bed Vargas had installed. But first he needed a different kind of satisfaction. If he was going to risk giving Shawn that kind of a hold over him he needed some insurance.

Shawn pulled back and smiled, equal parts victory and anxiety.

"A truth for a dare?" Lassiter asked.

Shawn took a deep breath and used the air to push the words out. "Ever watch Criminal Minds?" he asked, his thought going immediately to a television parallel. "The hot blonde guy with the schizophrenic mother?"

Lassiter frowned. "You mean the one who doesn't carry his gun properly?"

"Yeah, that one. I do what he does." He felt his stomach clench and he wondered if he was now ruining the best job that he and Gus ever had over a crush, albeit a long-standing one.

Lassiter's suspicion was written all over his face. "He speed reads hundreds of books a year and memorizes their contents."

"Okay, fine. I do some of what he does, except I also have a life." Shawn paused, thoughtfully. "Actually, what I do is a lot like the Mentalist. Have you seen that?"

"No," Lassiter said. "I saw a teaser for it once. It looked…annoying."

"Oh, it is," Shawn admitted. "This guy pretended to be psychic, but he's really just super-observant. It's horrible. If it weren't for the hotness that is Robin Tunney and Tim Kang I wouldn't even bother watching it."

Lassiter's eyes narrowed, and his brow furrowed as he tried to figure out what that meant. Finally, he spoke. "So when we're at a crime scene, you just notice more than I do?" He crossed his arms and stared at Shawn with a look he usually reserved for murder suspects.

"Yep." Shawn nodded, and bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, trying to release some of his nervous energy. "Of course you also have to know what the stuff you see means."

"So you're like Rainman," Lassiter said slowly, "but with crime instead of blackjack."

Shawn shook his head. "I'm more like Dexter, but with crime-solving instead of serial killing. And with a live father criticizing me instead of a dead one. In fact, if Henry ever died and his ghost followed me around telling me I'm not good enough and complaining when I borrowing his tools, I might not even notice he was dead."

Lassiter thought for a moment. What Shawn said explained a lot, except why he chose to use such a gift to run a psychic detective agency. In Lassiter's book people with a gift had a responsibility that included not cutting corners. If Shawn was that good he should have gone to the academy and applied himself, maybe even gotten a criminology degree. He could be working for the FBI instead of pretending to divine the location of lost dogs and spot cheating boyfriends.

"Why couldn't you just be upfront about the whole thing?" he asked. "Why the whole psychic act?"

Shawn rolled his eyes. "We can't all be Rob Morrow solving crimes with that kid from the Addams Family. I need to make a living, and psychic detective just kind of fell into my lap. Now speaking of laps, let's move ours inside."

Shawn grabbed his waistband and tugged. Lassiter followed him into the cabin and down the stairs, stopping just outside the door to the stateroom. As much as he would loved to follow Shawn into that bedroom, there was one more thing he needed.

"Who knows?" he asked, holding back.

"Apart from you?" Shawn counted off on his fingers. "Gus, Henry, Mom, and my penpal in Guam."

Lassiter studied Shawn carefully in the glow of the hall's pocket lights, looking for signs of deceit. "For someone who seems to love attention, you don't let many people know about the most interesting thing you can do," he said.

"It's surprising how discreet I can be when the career and freedom of me and my best friend are both on the line," Shawn said. "I watched six seasons of Oz, and the only uplifting part was when guys got sent to the hole. I don't need to try living it. So if the cross-examination is done, how about we get to the dare portion of the evening?"

Lassiter resisted, his head offering a dozen rational reasons why crossing this line with Shawn was a very bad idea. But none of them seemed as convincing as the need that was coursing through his veins now. Only his fear was holding him back.

"Come on," Shawn said. "I think I've proven that I can keep a secret."

"Fine." Lassiter said, sounding far grouchier than anyone should under the circumstances. "But if even a hint of this ever surfaces, I am charging you with fraud and prosecuting you and Guster to the fullest extent of the law."

"Why charge Gus?" Shawn protested. "He thought the whole Psych thing was a bad idea from the start. I practically had to force him into it. In fact, I may have committed a felony just getting his name on the lease for our office."

"Guster doesn't deserve prosecution," Lassiter agreed. "But you're impulsive, and that doesn't make for a high trust level. Guster's my insurance."

"You won't need insurance," Shawn assured him. "I've got you covered." He led Lassiter into the bedroom and this time the detective didn't hesitate. His kiss was open and unrestrained.

He pulled the shirt from Shawn's body and trailed his mouth along the muscles of his neck and shoulder, clasping him against him. Shawn's hands wriggled between them and worked franticly at Lassiter's belt. Lassiter relaxed and let Shawn have his way, and within moments they were both naked, their erections curving shamelessly toward one another. Lassiter has expected to be nervous, but now that his body and intentions were so exposed all he felt was a rush of exhilaration and an intense need that pushed him forward, past all his anxieties. Shawn pushed him gently to the bed, straddled him, and clamped his mouth onto Lassiter's right nipple. He was rewarded by a deep groan from Lassiter's lips as he thrust his hips forward, smearing wetness across Shawn's stomach. After several ball-tightening minutes of exquisite torture Shawn moved to the left one and began again.

"Damn!" Lassiter gritted his teeth and watched Shawn from beneath heavy lids. "You are driving me crazy with that sweet mouth of yours."

Shawn mumbled something that sounded like "you ain't seen nothing yet," and moved his way down across Lassiter's abdomen. He wrapped a fist around Lassiter's cock and took the hard shaft into his throat. Lassiter arched off the bed, gripping the bedspread with one hand and a fistful of Shawn's hair with the other.

Lost in the intensity, he desperately tried to hold back the feeling building inside him. Shawn mouth was a perfect combination of wet, tight and rough, driving him to the edge of his self-control.

"Shawn," Lassiter gasped, but the only response he received to the warning was an "uh huh" mumbled from deep in Shawn's throat, sending his nerve endings vibrating. Unable to hold off any longer, Lassiter surrendered and lost himself in the feeling of Shawn's tongue, lips, throat, and hand, and in the powerful spasms that wracked his body, leaving him feeling boneless and spent.

For several moments he lay motionless, watching as Shawn sat up, gasping breathlessly, his face flushed with triumph. He had never looked more beautiful.

"So Lassie," Shawn asked teasingly, his eyes shining, "does this mean you're going to start being nicer to me when we're on a case?"

Lassiter's lips curved in a wry smile and he ran his thumb tenderly along Shawn's jaw. "It's a blowjob, not a lobotomy."

Given Lassiter's earlier trepidation, Shawn was fully prepared for the evening to end there, but Lassiter surprised him by shifting on the bed and pushing him firmly onto his back. Then, before Shawn could even joke about it, Lassiter's mouth descended upon him and he was awash in sensations that left him speechless. Shawn supposed it could be true that Lassiter hadn't done this before, but if the working of his mouth were anything to go on, all evidence pointed to his having thought about it pretty damn thoroughly, possibly on numerous occasions.

"Jesus Lassie," Shawn muttered, struggling to speak coherently, "that's one hell of an oral fixation you've got there!" He grasped the headboard, and his fingers groped along the ridge, scrambling for purchase. They found the lip of one of the carvings and gripped it hard. He felt something give beneath his fingertips but he didn't care. As far as he was concerned, the whole bed could fall apart as long as Lassiter's mouth kept doing what it was doing at that moment. Shawn flung his head back and he heard the headboard smack hard against the wall and felt his grip on it give a little under one hand. Then, in the midst of what was one of the strongest orgasms Shawn had ever had, the ceiling fell in. At least, things were falling on them, and since the ceiling was immediately above them, it was Shawn's primary suspect.

Lassiter sat up panting slightly, and looked around, confused at first and then an icy blue fire lit his eyes as he realized what had happened. They were covered in several dozen small plastic bags of powder. Half were filled with what Shawn assumed was cocaine, since it looked exactly like it did on all the cop shows he watched. The other half held a light beige substance. Shawn picked up one of the mystery bags.

"What the hell is this stuff?"

Lassiter examined one of the little bags. "This…is heroin." He stood on the bed and looked into the ceiling, where he saw additional bags of drugs stored. "This is enough drugs to leverage Vargas into giving us whatever we want."

They both looked at the drugs, the bed, and their naked bodies for a moment, wondering how to explain the circumstances of their find to the folks at the station.

Lassiter's voice took on a serious tone. "So, we're both agreed that I found this stuff during a routine search of the boat?"

Shawn rested his arms behind his head and smiled slyly. "If we also agree that I had a vision that showed you where to look. I have a reputation to uphold, you know."

Lassiter's jaw clenched only a moment before he nodded curtly. "Deal."

"So Lassie," Shawn asked, running a hand along Lassiter's naked thigh. "Is this the start of a beautiful friendship, or am I like Charro, and only guest-starring on this episode of the Love Boat?"

Lassiter looked at Shawn with a measured stare, then smiled as the light of an idea crossed his features. "Tell me Shawn," He asked, "do you like to fish?"

In the break room at the SBPD station, Henry glared sullenly over the top of his coffee and watched Chief Karen Vick heating up a mug of soup in the microwave. Juliet, just arriving with her lunch, noted the look on Henry's face.

"Penny for your thoughts," she said cheerfully. Henry looked at her with curiosity in his eyes and she added, "You look like you've got a lot on your mind."

"It's Shawn," Henry said finally. "I just don't get that kid. For years, I couldn't drag him onto a fishing boat. Believe me, I've tried. Now suddenly he's going fishing with Carlton every weekend? Something's not right."

"I'm just glad to see them getting along," Chief Vick said. "It's a nice change." She smiled and moved her cup of soup carefully to the counter. The trip to Eureka had netted enough evidence for them to flip Vargas. The man was eager to spill his guts and his lawyer was pushing to cut a deal in exchange for cushier prison time. Not only had the asset seizure gone better than expected, but Lassiter had picked up Vargas' yacht for a song, thanks in part to a rumour that the boat was filled with deadly traps. While a thorough search of the vessel had proven this to be untrue, many people felt that bidding on the vehicle might still be dangerous. She herself has witnessed Shawn having a vision at the auction house that the boat was cursed by the ghost of Blackbeard and Captain Highliner. Although she noted that his vision didn't seem to deter him now that the boat was legally the property of Carlton Lassiter.

"They seem to have really bonded during that Eureka trip," Juliet admitted. "Maybe it was breaking the Vargas case together," she mused.

"Bull crap," Henry said, setting his mug down roughly on the counter. "Those two have solved dozens of case together. It's never changed Shawn's interests before."

Nor, Chief Vick mused, had breaking cases together changed Carlton's attitude toward Shawn before. She mulled Henry's words over in her mind. If he was right, and Shawn did indeed hate fishing, then she doubted that two days on a boat with Carlton had changed that. Suddenly, like a game of Tetris, the collection of puzzling behavioural cues both men had exhibited since returning to Santa Barbara formed clear lines in her mind. She sipped at her soup and smiled to herself. If Henry couldn't figure out Shawn's sudden passion for hours alone on a boat with Carlton then he wasn't nearly as good a detective he thought he was.

An hour later Lassiter emerged from the file room and walked into the bullpen.

"Still here, O'Hara?" He looked down at his partner and then glanced at his watch. It was way past quitting time.

She nodded glumly. "I'm still only three-quarters of the way through these documents from Vargas' place," She said, waving a hand at a stack of folders on her desk. She frowned at a small handful of receipts. "He sure buys a lot of something called Wet Platimum. Any idea what that is?" Lassiter scooped the stack of folders into his arms and hugged them to his chest.

"I'll review these," he said. "You go home."

"Are you sure?" Juliet hesitated, unwilling to believe that Lassiter, the kind of delegating unpleasant work, was actually willing to take on the mind-numbingly dull task.

"I have to work overtime anyway," he explained. "I'm taking a three-day weekend. For fishing."

"That's great, Carlton." Juliet smiled. "You know, I have to say, buying that boat has really improved your mood."

"Yes it has," Lassiter agreed.

"You know," Juliet said hopefully, "I'm pretty good at fishing too. If you ever need an extra hand on board…"

Lassiter looked at her with surprise for a moment before regaining his composure. "Thanks for the offer, O'Hara,"he said. "But I don't really think of you that way." He returned to his desk, leaving her to wonder what he could have possibly meant.