Rooftops and Recovery ||Shassie||

His Anniversary

((I got a little carried away here. A warning, this is slow burn. Music : Thank you by Dido slow and reverb. Enjoy! Comments and criticism greatly appreciated 🙃))

Carlton Lassiter woke abruptly, in a cold sweat. Glancing around, he realized he was home.

God dammit. It'd been 2 years and he still saw Spencer plummeting to the ground.

He shook his head. Getting up, he quietly put on a cup of coffee. The cheap, white plastic counters stained with the dark substance. The sun was barely peeking in through the closed curtains and illuminating  the cold floor. Coffee waiting on the counter, Lassiter quickly went through the boring process of getting dressed. He opted for his button down, suspenders and slacks.

Keys, Coffee, Gun. He went through the mental checklist.

He walked to the red car parked on the curb outside his apartment, checking the street for cars before quickly circling around and planting himself in the front seat and his coffee in the cup holder.

Staring at the road ahead of him, the sun was still dim, but just bright enough that the road could be navigated without headlights. 

For a moment, Lassiter wondered what would happen if he didn't come into work. If he just stayed in his car. Or maybe if he drove to the hospital.

Carlton rested his forehead on the steering wheel, letting his mind replay those memories.

---

That habit had been born a week after the incident. Carlton hadn't slept, just replaying it in his mind. It was one AM and he made the short drive to the tall hospital building. The same building he and Shawn frequented together to check autopsy reports or to question victims. Where he reluctantly let Shawn tag along in case he had one of his bullshit 'psychic' visions.

At this point Carlton would give anything to have that annoying voice steal the case file out of his hands, or to fall into Lassiter while pretending to talk to spirits. To be Alive still, and safe inside the station, or working on a case where he belonged.

Instead Carlton was slowly ascending the stairs to the hospital. The door was rusted, and it took a considerable amount of strength to open, making a terrible nail on chalkboard sound as it revealed the rooftop to the Santa Barbara head detective. It was dark, but the staircase didn't have lights, and Lassiter's eyes had adjusted to the darkness at this point.

The ceiling had the normal ventilation system, with four industrial fans off to the left corner. Small circles littered in a square pattern covered the entire roof. Lassiter didn't know what they were and he didn't care. The edge of the root was elevated, creating a parapet.

The same parapet he saw Shawn's black with white laces shoes step onto. He remembers everything from that moment. The shirt he was wearing, the mildly dirty jeans, and the expression on his face.

At this point Carlton had quit trying to not think about it. He stepped forward looking over the rest of the city. There was a small clump of large buildings, but Santa Barbara in general was suburban. This was the only downtown it had.

Briefly he could see Tom Blair's pub in the distance, before being clouded with unwelcome memories of the psychic detective. He averted his eyes and settled for staring down at the pavement.

After minutes passed, Lassiter stepped up onto the parapet, with the ground looming 6 stories below him. If there were people passing below him they may think this was a suicide attempt. That Carlton was about to join Shawn laying dead on the pavement. But Spencer would've known better. He would've walked up behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder.