Chapter Text
“That was the promise you made when you fell head over heels in love, really, she thought. Not that you wouldn’t have problems, but that no problem would be the sort where you couldn’t find the solution together.” – Mhairi McFarlane
2000
“Why are we here?” Carlton asked, looking around the random suburban street in San José.
“1962 University Avenue, Lassie,” Shawn said like that should mean anything. Carlton arched an eyebrow at him. Shawn sighed in clear disappointment. “Professor Brainard’s house from Flubber, starring the immortal Robin Williams and Marcia Gay Harden.” He clasped Carlton’s chin and turned his head towards the two-story house on the other side of the street. “Take it in, sweetheart, this will become a national monument in the next five years. I hope when that happens they’ll put the observatory back.”
Carlton felt his patience thinning and it was only ten a.m. He took Shawn’s wrist to pry his hand off.
“And we came all this way for this?” he asked, thinking about the very comfortable bed he’d been dragged out of.
“What all this way?” Shawn rolled his eyes. “It was a fifteen-minute drive from our hotel.”
“If I’m paying for the room I want to spend actual time in it beside sleeping,” the Alpha said resolutely.
“Don’t worry, Carly-cakes, I plan to use the hell out of that room – after we’re done here.”
“We’re supposed to be on vacation,” Carlton pointed out.
His boyfriend gave him a mocking smile.
“And remind me how long it took me to get you to take this vacation?” he asked. Carlton refused to answer that. “I would hardly call it a vacation anyway, it’s an extended weekend. You miss one work day and will be back at your desk Monday morning. Now…” he pressed a disposable camera in Carlton’s hand. “I need you to make a picture I can show off to Gus. He’ll be so jealous he’ll cry.”
Carlton could’ve argued that it was a private property but he didn’t actually want to stand on the sidewalk all day.
“Next time bring Guster to forgettable filming locations,” he muttered.
“Sure, I’ll take Gus on a romantic getaway next time,” Shawn said easily. “He’ll only freak out a little.”
He jogged over the road and made a ridiculous pose in front of the house like it was a car he was trying to sell. Carlton made three pictures because he had no intentions of coming back if Shawn wasn’t satisfied with it.
“Can we go now?” he asked when the Omega was back by his side.
Shawn pocketed the camera and pressed a quick kiss to Carlton’s cheek.
“Yeah,” he grinned. “Our hotel has a big pool I wanna try.”
Carlton suddenly had a very vivid image in his mind of Shawn in swim trunks that clung to his skin with water dripping off him and he was nodding before he fully realized it. Shawn’s grin turned into a smug smirk.
“Stop that,” Carlton grumbled as he got into the car.
“I tickled something there,” Shawn joined him. “Just think about it, all those other people there and my sexy ass belongs to you.”
“You’re a menace,” the Alpha muttered but he couldn’t hide the pleased little smirk his lips curled into.
“Yep,” Shawn agreed.
Present Day
Carlton was happy to be off duty because he finally had the opportunity to check up on how Shawn and Henry’s talk had gone. He really hoped the house was still standing, at least.
He parked at the back, checking that he had Shawn’s new phone in his pocket, and got out of the car, walking up to the back porch. He nervously patted his gun because the situation he was willingly getting into was not safe by any means and going in armed even if he didn’t intend to use it was giving him some peace of mind.
He opened the sliding door and stopped in his tracks. This was way worse than he’d expected.
“Carlton!” Madeleine greeted him with a genuine wide smile which Shawn had inherited.
Carlton sputtered for a response as she walked over to hug him.
“Maddie,” he finally said as he hugged back, trying to sound enthusiastic because he was happy to see her, but… “Didn’t expect you until tomorrow!”
“How come?” she pulled back with a small frown. “Henry told me he called you.”
Carlton glared at his father-in-bond over her shoulder who was busy in the kitchen but still gave them subtle glances every other second. It occurred to Carlton that this was the first time he was in the same room with both of them.
“He did,” he smiled back at Maddie. “He just said we would meet up Saturday.”
“Henry!” she turned to glare at him.
“I said Friday,” Henry spoke up, sounding almost defensive.
“You repeatedly said Saturday,” Carlton told him drily.
“That explains Shawn’s surprise,” Maddie said with a thoughtful frown.
Which raised the question that Carlton had been about to ask anyway.
“Where is Shawn?” he asked.
“Said he needed something from his room,” Henry told him but his tone was heavy with implications. “That was about fifteen minutes ago. Maybe he’s taking a nap.”
Or hiding.
“I’ll better check on him then,” Carlton said as he started for the stairs, then turned back to press a quick kiss on Maddie’s cheek. “It’s really good to see you again.”
Carlton had only been to Shawn’s childhood bedroom once, when he’d had to pick up something on his way home a year ago, but he knew the way. He was just about to knock when the door opened, his Omega standing on the other side. He blinked once in surprise at seeing Carlton, then grabbed his arm and pulled him inside, closing the door behind them.
“The hell, Lassie, did you know about this? Getting me to talk to my dad was some kind of trap? Are you two conspiring now?” he hissed like he was afraid his parents would hear them.
“Of course not!” Carlton narrowed his eyes at him. “I knew your mother was coming but I thought we’d meet her tomorrow, and Henry wanted to be the one to tell you about it. And it’s insulting that you think I would take his side over yours on anything important.”
Shawn did back down at that.
“You’re right. Sorry,” he muttered. “You still could’ve warned me.”
“I thought we’d have time to deal with it,” Carlton grimaced.
“We’ll have to make do,” Shawn grumbled. “You’re not allowed to leave me alone with Henry, though, after I have a few words with him.”
They walked downstairs together, and Maddie immediately handed both of them a glass of wine each. Shawn had downed his immediately which was worrying on its own. Carlton just listened in to the conversation until she mentioned she’d do evaluation at the SBPD.
“You’re working with us?” he asked.
“For the next week,” she smiled at him. Carlton already pitied whoever had to sit down with her. “When are our dinner reservations, Henry?”
“Oh, there’re dinner plans tonight!” Shawn looked between the two of them.
“You can make it, right?” Maddie turned to him and Carlton.
“We’ll be there,” Carlton said before either Shawn or Henry could open their mouths.
“Carlton told me you thought I was coming tomorrow,” Maddie looked at her son. “You didn’t have other plans, did you?”
“We didn’t have other plans. I– I didn’t know at all.”
“Didn’t know what?”
“That you were coming. Carly knew, but Dad told him he wanted to tell me the news himself, so…”
Maddie gave a sharp glance towards her ex-mate.
“Henry, why didn’t you tell him I was coming?”
“He doesn’t have a phone,” Henry gestured with his wine glass.
That reminded Carlton.
“Oh yeah, here,” he pulled out the cell he had in his pocket and handed it to Shawn. “I already put your SIM card in there. Don’t drown or break this one for at least a couple months.”
“Thanks, Lassie,” Shawn smiled at him, the first honest one Carlton had seen on him in the last half hour.
“Why do you need a new phone?” Maddie asked.
“I dropped my phone while I was solving a very important crime. It was on the front page of the newspaper yesterday.” It was the second page, dedicated to Carlton and it had been today, but Carlton kept his mouth shut. (Unless Shawn was talking about Vick’s demotion, which could be considered a crime in Shawn’s unusual way of logic and which had been solved by an article on the front page.) Shawn put down the glass. “Yeah. May I speak with you privately?” he asked Henry.
Carlton sipped his own wine. This was gonna be a long week.
During dinner Shawn drunk three glasses of wine and when they got home went straight for the scotch. Carlton took it from him the moment he started drinking straight from the bottle and kept him distracted with sex until Shawn finally fell asleep.
He hadn’t seen Shawn actually drunk in a long time and he didn’t need to be a psychologist to know the reason for it. He’d been high-strung all evening, being unfailingly polite with Henry while having a strong grip on Carlton’s knee, but he was smiling softly at Maddie. At least it was the weekend now which could probably give both of them some breathing room.
He grabbed his coffee, skipped his morning run and went back to bed with a book. He wanted to be there when Shawn woke up, which happened after ten and with an obvious hungover because he was a lightweight.
“Ugh,” Shawn muttered into his pillow.
“Aspirin on the nightstand,” Carlton told him, keeping his book open but his eyes on his mate.
“I love you,” Shawn sighed, patting the Alpha’s thigh and pushed himself up to his elbows so he could reach for the medicine and the glass of water. As soon as he was done he let his head drop back on the pillow. “I don’t want to deal with this,” he stared up at the ceiling with bleary eyes.
“I guessed that from the way you drank yesterday,” Carlton raised his hand and gently ran his fingers over Shawn’s forehead and up into his hair. Shawn closed his eyes and turned his head with a contented sigh to give him better access.
“Okay, as soon as the nausea goes away we’re moving to Jamaica. Gus has a cousin that works as a bunny breeder, I’m sure we can work something out,” he said.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Carlton told him, hand lightly massaging the Omega’s scalp. “And I won’t have you sulking at me all weekend, so you better figure out something to do or I will.”
“I’m not gonna go through my stuff in the loft. I need all of that,” Shawn complained.
“That explains why they’re up there, still in the boxes they were in when we moved,” Carlton rolled his eyes.
“Fine,” Shawn agreed and turned to reach for his brand new phone. “Gus texted me yesterday a bunch. I’ll check out what he wants.”
Carlton went back to his book but he couldn’t have read more than half a page when Shawn sat up like he’d been electrocuted, dialing quickly.
“What?” he asked, slightly alarmed. The chances of it being from a snack emergency to Guster getting kidnapped were pretty even.
“Come on, Gus, pick up!” Shawn hissed into the phone, his voice tense, but then it probably went to voicemail, because he continued, “Dude, what do you mean you wanna quit Psych? Call back as soon as you get this!”
“Guster wants what?” Carlton asked, honestly shocked by it. Psych was as much Guster’s business as it was Shawn’s and Carlton needed the idiot to keep an eye on his bonded.
“His boss made him choose between his boring job and Psych and now Gus thinks he can bail on me,” Shawn summed up as he jumped out of bed, hangover forgotten, pulling on a clean pair of boxer briefs. “I gotta go and deal with this.”
“Do you need help?” Carlton frowned.
“Not yours,” Shawn said as he looked for his pants on the floor which Carlton translated to mean ‘illegal’.
“Don’t get arrested,” he sighed. Madeleine wouldn’t be happy if she had to visit Shawn in prison. Shawn quickly crawled over the bed for an eager kiss. Carlton scrunched up his nose. “And brush your teeth.”
Guster proved to be a better diversion than Carlton could ever have hoped to come up with.
He’d hardly seen Shawn all weekend and not because he’d got a case at a cat show since he and O’Hara had solved that in three hours, but his mate was up early Monday morning to escort Madeleine to the station in the backseat of the car.
They were hardly in the door when O’Hara spotted them.
“Carlton!” she hurried over. “The Chief wants to see you as soon as possible.” She focused on the two people next to him and smiled. “Hello, Shawn.”
“Hi, Jules!” Shawn smiled back, even if it lacked his usual enthusiasm.
Carlton turned to Maddie.
“This is my partner, Detective O’Hara,” he introduced her. “O’Hara, my mother-in-bond, Dr. Madeleine Spencer.”
“You’re Shawn’s mom!” O’Hara’s face lit up and she held out a hand. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“You as well, Detective,” Maddie shook it. “Thank you for keeping Carlton safe.”
O’Hara blushed at the praise and her smile widened.
“Of course.”
“Come on, Mom, let’s leave Lassie to work. I wanna show you the interrogation rooms, you still have an hour until your first session starts,” Shawn took his mother’s arm, pressed a kiss on Carlton’s cheek and started leading her away. “See you later, Jules!”
“McNab!” Carlton caught the officer’s shoulder as the man tried to pass him, a bunch of files in his grip.
“Yes, sir?” McNab asked.
“See that woman with Spencer?” he pointed at the pair disappearing down the stairs. “That woman is the closest to a saint I know. You listen to every single thing she has to say and you give her everything she needs but do not get in her way. Got it?” That included jumping in front of a bullet if necessary.
McNab nodded quickly and seriously.
“Understood, sir,” he saluted, almost dropping the files before he hurried off to probably put them down before he started on his assignment.
“You’re really fond of her, aren’t you?” O’Hara grinned up at Carlton.
“I would walk through hell for Madeleine,” he said and meant it, if for nothing else because Shawn adored her. “Now, do you know what the Chief wants?”
“No, but I hope we don’t get another important case just yet,” she grimaced. “I’m behind on my reports as it is on the Wyles case.”
Yeah, Carlton was behind on paperwork, too. He hoped that whatever Vick wanted wouldn’t take up much of his time.
“Is this even allowed?” Carlton asked as he sat down on the couch opposite Maddie in the corner of the Chief’s office which she’d lent to them for the hour. “Aren’t there some ethical rules about not having sessions with family members?”
“If this were proper therapy then yes,” Madeleine conceded. “But it’s just a psychological evaluation.”
“Yeah, if it would be anyone else here, I would believe that,” Carlton disagreed. He’d had a couple vulnerable moments with the department’s usual shrink but he usually could keep himself from falling into any traps Devette set. “Did the Chief request you personally?”
“Why’d she have done that?” Maddie asked, sitting straight and being all attentive and unassuming.
“Because I actually like talking to you and you might pry things out of me,” he said and crossed his arms.
“I like talking to you, too,” she allowed herself a smile, brief but genuine. She didn’t deny the second half of the sentence, though. “So how about we do this? Just talking like we usually do?”
“No, because you’ll do the Shawn thing and you’ll analyze me which I think defeats the purpose of ‘just talking’.”
“I doubt Shawn analyzes you, Carlton,” she said but then added, “not all the time.”
“He would if he got paid for it. He does it to crime scenes.”
“You think you’re to me what crimes scenes are to Shawn?” Maddie asked, clearly amused.
“Maddie,” Carlton groaned painfully and tilted his head back against the cushion. She knew him enough that she could already write her damn eval report about him. Why was this even necessary?
“Carlton,” she said and when he looked back her brows were raised the same way Shawn’s always were when he expected Carlton to pull himself together. “This is not a personal attack against you and it’s not because Chief Vick thinks you can’t do your job.” Then she sighed and leaned a bit forward. “We don’t have to talk about why you pull your gun even if the need for it is doubtful. But we will have to talk about your job in general. So how about you tell me about your partner?”
That did stop Carlton for a moment.
“You want to talk about O’Hara?” he frowned.
“We have to start somewhere,” she said. “Either that or we can talk about how you feel about working with Shawn.”
Oh no, no way. Not because she would tell Shawn or anyone else, but Carlton’s feelings on that subject were too chaotic to work through easily.
“O’Hara’s fine.”
“So how was your session with my mom?” Shawn asked after he got home, a smug smile on his face and a satisfied swagger to his steps.
“Better than expected,” Carlton answered, closing the file he’d been going through and throwing it on the coffee table. He was surprisingly exhausted and of course he’d revealed more to Maddie than he’d wanted but… he trusted her to not use it against him in any way. He hoped that in the next two days at least he’d get something out of the sessions, too. Wasn’t psychology supposed to give him something in return for the personal information he provided?
“Did you talk about me?” Shawn asked, sitting down next to Carlton and giving him a quick kiss.
“Yeah, because I have nothing else going on in my life,” the detective rolled his eyes. “What’s going on with Guster?”
Shawn grinned.
“My plan to keep him in business is coming along nicely,” he said. “We’re helping out his boss’ boss with a haunting and Gus is handling it really well.”
“And when it turns out there’s no haunting going on?” Carlton asked because he didn’t know much about Shawn’s case but ghosts still didn’t exist.
“I’d have to mess up pretty bad for that to happen,” Shawn leaned back against him, a solid and familiar weight along Carlton’s side as he nestled his head into the Alpha’s shoulder, legs on the coffee table. “But I have a plan B that’s foolproof.”
“Shoes off,” Carlton scolded him even as he wrapped an arm around the Omega’s waist and Shawn kicked his sneakers off with a huff. “Glad to hear that you’re prepared at all. Usually you just wing it.”
“Yeah, but usually I’m not in danger of losing my best friend to a bunch of sleeping pills and foot cremes,” Shawn muttered, taking Carlton’s other hand and threading their fingers together. “I’m gonna take Mum to dinner. I need to spend some time with her, just the two of us.”
Without Henry, it went unsaid.
“That’s a good idea,” Carlton kissed his hair. “We could invite her here later this week, too, if you want.”
They’d offered her the guest room but Madeleine had said she was fine at the hotel and that she wouldn’t want to intrude on them. Carlton had a suspicion that she just liked her independence – Shawn was the same way even if it was in different things. He doubted Maddie would say no to a dinner, though.
“I’d love that, Lass,” Shawn turned to him with a smile. “And don’t worry about your psych eval. Mom will be fair. The only danger is anyone from Internal Affairs getting a hold of it and what are the chances of that?”
“You need to keep that damn lawyer away, get it?” Carlton ordered O’Hara through the phone. “I’ll be there in five minutes to talk to him.”
“He has a right to the details of the case, you know,” his partner said with a tired sigh.
“Of course I know, but if we could keep him away for another half an hour, he couldn’t do anything about it today,” Carlton said. He was just about to start the car when the passenger side opened and Shawn got in without a word, closing the door hardly. By his expression he was quietly fuming, by his scent he was genuinely angry. “O’Hara, I’ll call you back. I have total faith in you handling this.”
“What? Carlton –”
He hung up and looked at Shawn carefully. They were sitting right next to the restaurant where Shawn had been supposed to meet Maddie and it hadn’t been two minutes since he’d gotten out of the car, hurrying because he’d already been late. Carlton had been his ride here from the Haversham estate where the supposed haunting was taking place and he hadn’t expected to see Shawn until later tonight at home. That he’d stormed out of the place within five minutes, and that he looked like he was ready to hit something (which was Carlton’s thing) meant that something was seriously wrong.
“Shawn?” he asked, watching his mate’s face carefully.
“Henry,” was all Shawn said, short and sharp and furious.
“Henry was there?” Carlton glanced back at the restaurant with a frown.
“In a suit, ordering fancy food he would never eat if my mom wasn’t there,” the Omega gritted his teeth and Carlton noticed his hands curling into fists. He opened his mouth but Shawn cut him off. “Don’t. Just take me back to the Haversham house.”
Carlton started the car but he was stubborn enough to not let this go so easily.
“We will have to talk about this later,” he said resolutely.
“Oh, now you want to talk about things?” Shawn actually snapped at him. “Great that you’ve taken to psychology, but newsflash, Carlton, you’re not my fucking therapist!”
Carlton’s hands curled tighter around the wheel and he was sure he would’ve let this escalate into a shouting match but Shawn’s scent, hurt and bitter, made him swallow his anger back down. Because Shawn was obviously looking for a fight and Carlton wouldn’t give it to him.
“I know I’m not,” he said, calm despite the strain in his voice. “God knows I would’ve already strangled you if that were the case.” Shawn scoffed without any of his usual amusement and looked out the window, arms crossed over his chest. “But I am your Alpha. I want to help.”
He watched from the corner of his eyes as Shawn’s shoulders slowly slumped and a minute later he let out a deep sigh. He wasn’t relaxed by any means but the tension in him eased and some of the sweetness returned to his scent. Carlton knew that by the time Shawn got out of the car he’d pull himself together enough that even Guster wouldn’t be able to tell that something had happened at all.
They made the rest of the way in silence and Carlton’s thoughts turned to Henry. Something was not right. His father-in-bond’s behavior was too much like he wanted to impress Madeleine and as far as Carlton knew he’d been the one to leave in the first place. Except he’d been the one staying at the Spencer house and taking care of Shawn until Shawn had left. To get all that in a divorce would’ve required a ruthless and unrelenting mindset Carlton was sure Henry was capable of but… not against Maddie, and especially not against Shawn. And Maddie had had a job already waiting for her out of town…
He didn’t voice any of this out loud because implying that Maddie had been the one who’d left might be the only thing that would make Shawn really punch him.
“Stop here,” Shawn said, maybe half a mile from the house. “I don’t want them to know I’m back.”
Carlton didn’t even bother to ask, he just stopped in the middle of the road, keeping the headlights on and the engine running. Shawn pulled out the flashlight from the glove compartment along with a pack of Doritos and a Capri Sun from the stash there. He opened the door and hesitated before turning back and throwing his arms around Carlton’s neck, snacks and all, in a tight hug. Carlton hugged him back with a small huff that was almost a laugh.
“It’s gonna be fine,” he murmured against Shawn’s temple.
“Thanks, Lassie,” his mate whispered against his neck then pressed his lips there before he got out of the car. “I’ll see you at home,” he leaned back down, cocksure smile back in place.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Carlton glared back half-heartedly.
“Of course, honey.”
“Henry!” Carlton stopped on his way back from interrogation. It was the middle of the day and there were only two reasons Henry could be at the station and the fact that he was wearing a semi-decent shirt reduced that to one.
“Hello, Carlton,” Henry greeted him, almost seeming upbeat. “You done with your psych eval?”
“Supposedly,” Carlton sighed. He’d had some revelations on Vick’s couch that were almost life-changing because Maddie was fantastic at her job but he really didn’t want to revisit that with Henry. He didn’t even know how his own father had come into the picture and he hoped to heaven that Madeleine wouldn’t ever bring that up again. He really needed to get his hands on her evaluation, just as a precaution. Vick would surely let him…
The door to the Chief’s office opened and Maddie walked out. Carlton noticed that something was wrong immediately, her eyes watery and her scent, so similar to Shawn’s, full of sorrow and regret.
Henry was there in a second, just as Carlton’s gaze drifted behind her, seeing Shawn through the blinds, his mate sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees and staring at the floor.
“Maddie, what happened?” Henry asked, an arm around her and a genuinely worried expression on his face.
“It’s alright,” she patted his arm with a small smile then she looked at Carlton and nodded towards the office.
Carlton stepped through the door carefully and closed the blinds before he did anything else. Then he walked to the couch and hesitated for only a moment before he sat down next to Shawn, keeping a couple inches between them. Shawn hadn’t moved, eyes still cast downwards and his scent had too many emotions in it for Carlton’s nose to recognize them.
“Mom was the one who left,” he said after a minute, not whispering but his voice still somehow muffled. He cleared his throat and straightened up a bit, still not looking at Carlton but he was blinking rapidly.
“I figured as much,” Carlton admitted.
Shawn’s laugh was bitter and self-deprecating and Carlton hated it.
“Of course you did,” he muttered and rubbed a hand over his face. “Almost thirteen years I blamed my dad and he just… didn’t correct me. The man’s corrected everything I’ve done all my life and he thought this would be the one he would let me be wrong about.”
And Maddie hadn’t told him before now either, because she probably hadn’t got a clue that something had been wrong in the first place.
“Would you have believed him?” Carlton asked. “If your mom hasn’t been the one to tell you, would you have believed anyone else?”
Shawn sniffed and surreptitiously wiped at his eyes. Over twelve years this was the closest Carlton had ever seen him to crying outside of watching movies (he was pretty sure Shawn was still not over Brokeback Mountain – or Love Actually because that one made him sob every single time).
“Probably not,” he sighed. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“How about we go home and watch Indiana Jones movies while eating that tub of pineapple ice cream I hid in the freezer?” Carlton offered. He didn’t have any major cases and he was caught up with paperwork – Shawn having a private case had given him a lot of time to work through everything.
That made Shawn turn towards him in surprise.
“You bought pineapple ice cream?” he asked. “And you hid it from me?”
“It’s behind the bag of dinosaur shaped chicken,” the Alpha said. Shawn just gaped at him as Carlton stood up and held out his hand. “Come on, I’ll even let you eat it on the couch.”
“That’s the least you can do after you hid it from me!” Shawn exclaimed as he took Carlton’s hand and let himself be pulled upright and then out of the station.