Chapter Text
Lindsay Leikin. God, she’s beautiful.
There’s something about her—something about her that, strangely enough, sets him on edge. Shawn can’t figure out what it is, so he lets it go. He can hear his dad telling him to trust his gut, but his dad isn’t here right now, and this beautiful woman is. Right in front of him, kissing him. And he’s letting her.
Shawn revels in the feeling of her slipping his bottom lip through her teeth, the slight pain of her biting down just enough before brushing her tongue over the same spot, as if apologizing. She moves one hand into his hair, dancing her fingers through the strands before grabbing , and moves the other hand to his cheek. Lindsay slowly, but firmly, tilts his head into a position that works better for her, and Shawn’s head is racing. Just from the feeling of her tongue in his mouth, and the pain pleasure from her teeth and hands, he’s already starting to melt.
When Lindsay disconnects momentarily, Shawn whines. She laughs.
“ Somebody’s desperate. Has it been awhile?” She asks, teasing. Something in Shawn coils up tightly, and not in a nice way, but he takes a deep breath to will it down.
“Not particularly. I’m just very vocal.” Lindsay’s eyes flash.
“I can work with that,” she says, before leaning back in, pushing Shawn down on her hotel bed. His eager and pleased smile is quickly consumed by more kisses and bites, until he’s completely forgotten to set any alarms for the morning—looking forward to slowly waking up with Lindsay Leikin.
But that doesn’t happen.
Shawn wakes up to a lonesome bed, the spot next to him cold. It’s been awhile, he immediately assesses, since she left. And she likely wanted him to think about it, based on the sheets pulled back from when she got out, and the distinct lack of a note anywhere. Her stuff is gone—and it’s just—just him.
It’s exactly like all of the other times. He thinks back to Arizona, and Oregon, and New Mexico, the rooms and the nights he spent with someone only to wake up cold and alone. He’s left frozen, suddenly standing, in the middle of someone else’s hotel room— Lindsay’s hotel room. Where did she go? Why hasn’t she left a message? Did she even like him?
God, Shawn can’t think straight. His brain scrambles to use anything he can see, anything he remembers to make sense of it. There’s a thousand unanswered questions in his mind. He doesn’t think he said anything weird last night, and nothing that she said particularly stood out either. Everything they did together was normal and seemed good to both of them, except now he was alone.
The call from Gus startles him. He realizes he hasn’t breathed normally in a few minutes, gulping air in quickly as he moves to answer.
“Shawn?” Gus’s voice, his best friend’s voice, asks through the phone. “Where are you? We have to get going.” He starts to rumble off other information, and Shawn’s mind slowly starts to reboot. He finds the evidence of the coffee shop in the trash, and soon—soon he starts to connect the dots.
///
When they catch up at the new crime scene, Shawn can’t help the betrayal that thrums through his skin at the sight of her. She starts touching the dead body, and Lassiter yells at her, but Chief Vick just uses it to take a jab at Shawn. Again. Another comment about his lack of professionalism, about his supposed complete regard for being a proper detective. His inferiority to Linsday. It reminds him of his dad, and his cheeks grow red.
Gus doesn’t notice. He’s still pissed at him.
(Not that he’d ever blame Gus.)
No, the worst thing about watching her effortlessly solve it all as though she was psychic, is after, when everybody disperses. He watches with envy—which had replaced his admiration when he woke to the cold bed that morning—as she stands up, satisfied with her work. She walks over to him, and even though he’s absolutely pissed, he doesn’t move. Sue him, he’s always been curious. Especially when it’s something he’s not supposed to know.
“Hey, Shawn,” she says, coolly. “Looks like you got here a little late.”
He can feel his cheeks burning again. He hates it.
“I imagine I got here exactly when you wanted me to,” he replies, as pointedly as he can manage. Lindsay just shrugs.
“I didn’t have a time in mind. Sometimes these things just work out—I’d say it went well for all of us.”
“You used me, Lindsay. And here I thought we had something special,” he says, attempting to make it sound like a joke.
“I never used you,” Lindsay denies, frowning as though she’s genuinely offended. “I had a great time last night.” She sighs, moving to walk past him. “I thought you did too.”
The last comment—it’s barely above a whisper. She leans in as she says it, his whole body set on fire while a chill runs down his spine simultaneously. He’s frozen, he’s melting, he’s four years away, he’s here right now . She goes to pat him on the shoulder and he flinches, causing her to stop with her hand mid-lowering. There’s barely inches between them.
Shawn knows, he knows it’s only a moment before she finally walks away, even though it doesn’t feel like that. He takes a deep breath in, smothering the icky feeling away. Maybe there was something right about his gut last night. He needs to figure out what.
///
He’s finally figured it out. Everything that’s been happening—it’s all Lindsay Leikin. Beautiful Linsday, the secret partner of Grabinski, who’s been lying this whole time. Lying to the police, lying to her coworker Ewing, and lying to him.
Well. Shawn knew she’d been a kind of liar the whole time. But this was different.
He’s confronting her, watching everybody in various stages of annoyance and disbelief, until he gets them to open up the suitcase. And gets the gun drawn on him.
(It’s a nice reminder, every now and then, seeing everybody react in panic and remembering how much they like him, even though he knows he constantly annoys all of them).
She’s saying something, to their audience, then to him, and he can barely process it because they’re so close and he isn’t in control anymore. But he hears her say, “I really thought we had something together.”
He burns.
Mildred—pushing the suitcase into her, and Ewing taking her down, happens in a flash. Shawn stumbles away, leaning into Gus. Someone safe, someone who’s always safe—before retching onto the airplane runaway.
“Shawn?” Gus asks, softly. “Shawn, I know that was scary. You’re okay now, you hear me? You’re okay.” He rubs circles on his back, and Shawn hates it and is thankful for it at the same time. The bile builds up again.
“Look away buddy, I think it’s gonna happen again.”
Whether or not his best friend actually looks somewhere else, he keeps comforting him. “You’re okay,” he repeats. “She’s not gonna hurt you.”
Shawn is aware, faintly, that Gus is referring to the gun she pulled on him. But he takes it and runs with it, using his words to remind him that he’s back in control, that Lindsay can’t touch him anymore, and that he won’t let her.
Gus doesn’t ask him anything. Shawn doesn’t know that he wants to.