Fires Aren't Your Friend

Part 3

Carlton was frozen in place. All he could do was stand there, almost as if time had stopped. He could only focus on the flames as they licked and burned the Psych office. Carlton wanted to scream and do something, anything, but he was completely numb. Suddenly, everything that Carlton had learned to do in these situations came rushing back. He grabbed for his radio through the open window of the Crown Vic.

"Control, control. This is detective Carlton Lassiter. I have a building fire on Cress Road. I repeat: I have building fire on Cress Road. Possible civilian trapped inside. Send immediate fire and rescue support and an ambulance."

When he received the response from dispatch, he cursed. The officer had given him an ETA of ten minutes. The fire was spreading and Shawn was in there. He didn't have ten minutes. Carlton couldn't wait around and let something happen to his Shawn.

He ran to the front door of Psych and reached for the handle. Carlton pulled his hand back with a curse of pain when he burned it on the metal knob. Not knowing what else to do, he ran to the window and looked in. It was hard to see through all the smoke but that didn't stop him from searching for Shawn.

He finally spotted Shawn. He was in the middle of the office and was unconscious. Thankfully, the psychic was somehow sheltered from the flames by the couch and coffee table. The furniture acted like a makeshift barrier of some sort but it wasn't going to last long and neither would Shawn.

"Shawn! Shawn," Carlton yelled but the injured man didn't even move. "Hold on... hold on..." he whispered to himself as he searched for a way in.

It was then that Carlton noticed the small break in the window and a desk lamp on the ground a few feet away. He moved over to the small break and used the butt of his standard issued nine millimeter to smash in the rest of the window. Once there was enough space, Carlton maneuvered himself into the building through the broken window. He sucked in a lungful of smoke and began to cough violently. The detective pulled down his sleeve and used it to cover his nose and mouth.

"Shawn!"

There was no response. Carlton trudged further into the building inferno. He spotted Shawn and raced towards his lover's unconscious form. Carlton crouched down and carefully rolled Shawn on to his back. The detective checked for a pulse but a sudden burst of flame near them halted his search for life.

Carlton picked Shawn up and carefully put the unconscious man over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. As quickly as he had managed to get into the burning building, Carlton got himself and Shawn out. He maneuvered the younger man off of his shoulder and into his arms and got them a safe distance from the fire before sinking down to the ground with his back against the side of his car.

Carlton was comforted by the sounds of the sirens in the distance. He breathed deeply as he sat there with Shawn's head pillowed on his shoulder. He ran a hand through Shawn's hair and let it travel down his face and across his jaw before it settled on the young man's pulse point.

Carlton let out a breath when he felt the faint flicker of a heartbeat beneath his fingers. "Thank God," he whispered.

The sirens were loud now in Carlton's ears. He watched, completely detached, as the firefighters raced to stop the fire from spreading.

"Shawn," Carlton whispered again. He shook the pseudo-psychic softly to try and get some form of reaction from him. "Shawn, you're safe now. C'mon, wake up!" He was pleading but he didn't care. He just wanted Shawn to wake up.

"Detective?"

Carlton looked up at the paramedic that had materialized at his side. "Yeah?"

"Can you tell me what happened to him?" The paramedic nodded his head towards Shawn.

Carlton told the paramedic everything; the phone call, rushing over to the scene, going in to save Shawn, everything. The paramedic nodded as he talked before signalling for a gurney.

"Detective, we have to take him to the hospital now," the paramedic said softly. Carlton's grip on Shawn did not loosen. "You can follow after I take a look at you and you talk to the firefighters. Don't worry; we'll take good care of him."

Carlton reluctantly let his grip on Shawn loosen and watched as two other paramedics loaded him onto the gurney and then into the ambulance. He only looked away when the ambulance was out of sight. He knew that they would take good care of Shawn. He sat there numbly for a few minutes before getting into police mode. The sooner he was done here, the sooner he could get to the hospital – To Shawn.