Where There is Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

A Little Something on the Side

He knew he was sulking. Though not his preferred emotional descriptive; sulking implied far too much petulance and none of the raw, shamed ache that currently occupied every cell in his body. Never got used to being so profoundly in the wrong. Never could function as a cop, much less a walking talking human with a fuck up this enormous lingering overhead like a personal supercell. Just waiting for the cyclone to form from that black cloud and suck him right up. As if. That the source of his failure was Shawn Spencer. For the second time in a row. But then, should it really be a surprise that the man would be his undoing? He'd suspected that might be the case, now, for the better part of half a decade.

A paper on his desk, crinkled from reading, had a front page feature of their “person of interest”. Cobbled together portrait from sketchy memories, he had no great hope that this “Unabomberette” cat scratch would provide them with a flood of leads no matter how ostentatious the woman's fashion style. He flicked his fingers across the sketch of monstrous sunglasses. No doubt the coming week would log thirty thousand calls from anxious family members ready to turn in their Aunt Beatrice for some imagined reward. No price too high when it came to selling out family.

Bent over his desk for the past three hours, back wrenched into an aching kink at the focused self-recriminatory task, Lassiter only breathed out a grunt when his partner made some collection of words regarding coffee and calories. He'd already powered through around four cups of the stuff so another infusion wouldn't matter to anything but his bladder. Speaking of which, that sudden ache awakened to chastise his dedication and, regardless of the personal flogging session, pissing himself was a bit too high a price for massaging his shame.

Five minutes away from his desk saw a minor collection of needs met. Day old powdered donut was already leaving a cocaine joke on his upper lip as he rounded the last corner back to his desk. The final three bites slipped from loose fingers and bumbled to a rest next to the pillar.

“Dude, that was a perfectly good donut!”

The man looked corporeal enough, standing next to a stunned O'Hara sporting a noticeable sheen across her eyes... No way he'd been dodging sleep long enough to start triggering hallucinations; leastwise not the walking and talking variety. And even if his brain were traitorous enough to dredge up this phantasm, it wouldn't add the cruelty of the man's other half, certainly not.

“Holy shit... Spencer!?”

The hallucination grinned and good God he was losing feeling in his legs and his chair was too far away to catch his ass; like hell he was gonna end up drooling on the marble!

“Hey, Lassie.”

Hoping the wobble went unnoticed, Lassiter clenched the muscles in his thighs until the embarrassing tremble worked itself back out again. Nope, not remotely off his nut unless this was a shared visual event and the whole SBPD was booking a flight to Wonderland. Completely forgetting they were an active and functioning station with an active and urgent caseload, it seemed every cop in the bullpen had fixated on the two fellows in their midst.

Mouth a tad too filled with sand to order the oglers back to their tasks, Lassiter was saved the reprimand by an order coming down from on high.