Chapter Text
Lassiter was back in the limelight. He was solving cases left and right, even managed to swing a date, and best of all, they haven’t needed to call a “psychic” in two whole months! He was finally feeling like himself again! But of course it all had to come crashing down when he was called to lead a drug bust. The dealers in question were responsible for three deaths and Lassiter finally snagged their hideout. Without a psychic. Just good ole fashion, respectable police work.
The arrests were quick and easy. Of course, there was a runner but nothing that a well timed tackle couldn’t handle. Lassiter was over the moon with himself. But then everything changed as he was shoving the perp into the back of a squad car.
“Uh, detective? You’re gonna wanna come see this,” Buzz called out from the doorway of the building. Lassiter slammed the car door shut before following Buzz back into the building. Buzz opened a closet door to find a hostage tied to a chair and beaten. Lassiter huffed.
“What the hell, Spencer,” he grumbled. He went over to the psychic and started to until him. “Buzz, call a bus for him.”
“No! No, please!” Shawn pleaded.
“Damn, he’s delirious. What did they do to you?” Lassiter muttered. He got Shawn untied and tried to help the man up, only for him to yelp in pain and collapse onto the ground. Lassiter quickly knelt down and tried to assess Shawn’s injuries.
“McNab! Tell the ambulance to hurry!” he called out.
“No! Lassie, please…listen to me. I don’t need an ambulance,” Shawn gasped out. Lassiter frowned and shook his head.
“You can’t even stand up. Tell me what they did to you,” Lassiter demanded. Shawn swallowed nervously.
“Please,” he whispered.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll just figure it out myself,” Lassiter growled. He started pressing around Shawn’s body and limbs to try to find injuries. He flinched and yelped when his ribs were gently grazed so they must be severely injured. He didn’t need to prod Shawn’s arm to see the visible break. His upper thigh was cut and bleeding bad enough to need stitches and his face was beaten to a pulp, probably resulting in the concussion that’s telling him he doesn’t need a hospital.
“How long have you been here?” Lassiter asked.
Shawn swallowed again. “Three days.”
“I doubt they fed you or gave you water?” Lassiter guessed. Shawn didn’t answer, which was perfectly an answer to Lassiter. He huffed. “Guess we’ll add this to the charges. What the hell were you doing investigating a drug den by yourself, unarmed?”
“I wasn’t! Shaggy’s girlfriend hired me to tail him, thinking he was cheating. I got picked up by the other two. Good news is, he’s not cheating. He’s out late, dealing drugs,” Shawn explained. He tried to sit up and winced in pain.
“Just relax until the ambulance gets here.”
“No, Lassie, you don’t understand. I-I don’t have insurance,” Shawn panicked.
“I can’t just let you leave like this. Besides, if you get treated at a hospital then that’s a paper trail to put Shaggy away,” Lassiter said. Shawn still tried to get up but Lassiter held him back. The paramedics were quick to arrive and load Shawn up in an ambulance.
“Wait! Wait, please! I refuse treatment!” Shawn shouted at them. But Lassiter flashed a badge.
“He’s a victim of a brutal attack. I need his treatment documented for evidence,” he argued. Of course, the paramedics listened to the man with the badge. Lassiter decided that it was best to follow the ambulance to the hospital and wait in the waiting room until Shawn was treated. What the hell was he thinking? How does he always end up in these situations? And what was Lassiter supposed to report to Henry? It was well into the night, visiting hours long over, before Shawn's doctor came out into the waiting room.
“Family of Shawn Spencer?”
“I'm his…ugh, coworker,” Lassiter admitted begrudgingly. “I'm the one that brought him in, sort of. Forced was more the right–how's he doing?”
The doctor raised a suspicious eyebrow at him. Lassiter just flashed his badge.
“He got caught in a drug bust. Please, just tell me how he is,” he said
The doctor nodded before speaking. “He's concussed. He had a deep laceration on his left leg and his left wrist is broken. It will need surgery to fix later.”
“Later? Why not fix it now?” Lassiter demanded.
“Well, your coworker doesn't have insurance. We can't afford a pro Bono surgery right now. He'll just have lasting issues on that wrist since we can't set it properly.”
Lassiter's jaw dropped. “Youre supposed to help people you know. Isn't that why you became a doctor?”
The doctor just laughed mockingly. “It's easier for you to say when the government hands you a blank check, Officer.”
“It's detective!” Lassiter corrected. “When can I see him?”
“A nurse is discharging him as we speak.”
Lassiter's shock grew, as did his disgust. “Discharge? But he was only here for an hour! You're not keeping him for observations?”
“On what insurance? He's already racked up a bill of $15k,” the doctor said with a scoff. Lassiter was completely appalled. Now he understood why Shawn was begging to NOT go to the doctor. Before long, Shawn came limping out from behind the doors. They didn't even bother to have him in a wheelchair so he didn't have to walk. At least his broken wrist was casted which was more than Lassiter had expected. Shawn limped right past Lassiter, pretending like he didn't see him.
“Let me take you home,” Lassiter offered.
“Uh…yeah, sure. Maybe swing by the Psych office instead,” Shawn said. Lassiter rushed ahead to open the next door to hold it open for Shawn.
“Come on. I think you can call it a night. You don't need to work,” Lassiter argued. Shawn looked everywhere except for Lassiter.
“I promise I'm not working. I just….I forgot….uh, something. I forgot something there,” Shawn struggled to think of a lie. Lassiter squinted at him but didn't care enough to question. So he took Shawn to the Psych office and dropped him off. He drove around the block to see if Shawn would leave. But when there was no sign of a cab, Lassiter began to worry. Surely, Shawn wasn't stupid enough to ride his bike right now. Not in this condition at least.
He parked his car and started for the door. He stopped short when he peeked through the front window. Shawn was asleep…on the couch. Since when was Shawn sleeping at Psych? Lassiter was confused. He went back to his car and against every fiber of his being telling him to forget Spencer and go home, he swung by Shawn’s apartment. Surprisingly, it was a dry cleaners. He knew it was a dry cleaners before Shawn got ahold of it but it was a functioning 24 hour dry cleaners again. He decided to head in and ask a few questions.
“Good evening, sir! Can I help you?” The overly perky clerk greeted.
“Uh, yeah, I'm looking for the previous tenant here,” he said. The clerks smile faltered briefly.
“He was evicted two months ago. Kept insisting that he was going to get paid soon. You know how freeloaders are. No real job. In fact, the landlord told me that he put ‘psychic detective’ down as a job. Like, just say scam artist,” she scoffed. Well, that stung. Lassiter's winning streak was the direct cause of Shawn’s downfall. He just turned on his heels and walked out of the dry cleaners. Well, damn, the sting turned into full blown guilt when he thought about what the doctor said. Shawn was sleeping on a couch in an office. His wrist was going to be permanently fucked up unless he could magically get the money for surgery on top of the $15k he owed the hospital for his emergency visit…that Lassiter insisted that he go. Damn, this was all Lassiter's fault. Shawn always managed to ruin everything for him, didn't he? Couldn't have just let Lassiter have this winning streak without him making Lassie all worried for his well being. Lassiter decided that he was going to visit Shawn the next day and come up with a plan to help him.