Lassie (and Shawn's) Great Adventure

3. A Slide Into Third Base Still Scuffs Your Knees

There was mud in his ears, mud up his nose, mud tears runneling down his face... After hours of pushing themselves through the slop, both Shawn and Lassiter had lost their footwear to the pit. Stupid Gus and his stupid Pumas; this had to be some sort of twisted karma. Dammit, why couldn't he have just paid for the damn shoes like he'd said he would? Mud squished up between Shawn's toes as he dug his feet into the slope. Lassiter had led them to probably the only section of the pit where there was even the slightest hope of crawling free. Both of them were so tired, though, that multiple attempts to scale the fifty degree angle had all failed. The single positive in the whole thing was that the rain had begun to ease up.

Shawn's feet skidded a long groove all the way back to the bottom – dragging Lassiter along with him. He winced as the handcuffs stretched between them. Both of their wrists were shadowed with bruising – their feet nicked and bleeding from buried glass and metal. Breathing hard and feeling his heart beat at the base of his neck, Shawn dropped against the steep hillside and closed his eyes. Of course, his cuff partner was forced to drop beside him, and not too happily given the creative cursing.

Just a few seconds of resting they were both shivering again. Well if you can't walk, at least entertain.

“I opened my eyes... and I l-looked up at the r-rain...”

“What are you b-blathering about, Spencer?”

Shawn gestured towards the sky – pointless as neither one of them could see his hand. “And it dr-dripped in my head and flowed into m-my brain.”

“God...” He could feel Lassiter shifting next to him – discomfort from their surroundings or at the recital, he wasn't sure. He didn't, he realized, actually care.

“And all that I hear as I l-lie in my b-bed... is the shhh...shhliish... sh-sh-shlish...”

“Slishity slosh of the rain in my head.” Finished Lassiter in the expedient way of trying to get an unpleasant job over with.

“Lassy – you know Shel Silverstein?”

“Spencer, everybody knows Shel Silverstein.” Shawn's arm was pulled along for the ride as Lassiter apparently tried to cross his arms – only to mutter something foul when Shawn's hand ended up in his lap. “Anyway, my mom used to read me his poetry. Back when she still talked to me...” He may not have meant for that last part to be heard or even spoken. Shawn made no comment on it and smiled at his own memories instead.

“My dad used to read me those poems.” He opened his mouth to extrapolate more, but found he didn't really know what else to add to that statement. He found he actually didn't want to expose more of that memory for review either by himself or by Lassiter. It was one of the pieces of his father that he, truthfully, considered precious. When he was very young, his dad would tuck him into sleep with soft pillow, a nightlight, and sometimes, poetry. Whereas mom usually stuck with the traditional bedtime song, when she was home, dad had always gone with literature. But of all the tomes to choose from, including “Crime and Punishment”, dad would, instead, reach for “Bear In There” or “One Inch Tall” - one of Shawn's favorites.

“We need to try again – getting comfortable isn't an option.”

Shawn yawned. He hadn't expected to start feeling drowsy, but give him a few more minutes and he was pretty sure he'd be snoring. Medically he supposed that would be a bad thing but he hadn't quite convinced his brain of that. Too bad he was strapped to a masochist.

“Come on – move it!” Their bonding must not have gone deeper than the skin because Lassiter wasn't gentle when he tugged the handcuff they shared.

Groaning wasn't earning him any sympathy but it didn't stop him from making those animalistic protests. Even with the rain now reduced to a powdery drizzle, the slurry beneath their feet was no less slick – no less goopy.