Rooftops and Recovery ||Shassie||

His Anniversary

Lassiter shuddered. It's like he could feel the ghost of a hand.

He would've said

"Hey Lasssssieeee, if you keep coming up here I might start thinking you care about me."

Carlton knew the voice was in his head, but it sounded so real, and he couldn't take reality right now, so he allowed his imagination to continue, speaking out loud to no one but the wind.

"Spencer." Carlton said in acknowledgement to the voice in his head. His voice disappeared with no echo into the clouded sky.

The Shawn in Lassiter's head put his hand on his chest, in mock hurt.

"Even when I'm dead, I still don't get to hear you say my first name."

Those words shocked Carlton out of it.

Shawn was dead. He wasn't here, and this was stupid.

He originally stepped up onto the parapet to see how Shawn felt, but now it was too much. The numbness was fading and Lassiter didn't have anything to distract him. He quickly stepped down, his coat flapping in the wind as he made his way back to the staircase.

---

No. He'd left that habit behind. No more pretend Shawn. No more fantasies that made life so much harder. Lassiter rejoined the world of consciousness and put the key into the ignition, hearing the strained rumble of his engine.

After the short drive to the station, Carlton had finished his coffee, immediately making a beeline to the coffee machine. He actively tried to ignore the pitiful glances everyone shot his way. They did this last year too. Last year he left work early after breaking a pane of two sided glass in one of the interrogation rooms.

But he was doing better this year. He'd stopped going to the roof for two months. He'd stopped imagining Shawn. He had nights where he went all 7 hours without dreaming about Shawn plummeting. The break room was warm, and even though the sun was up, the sky wasn't blue. Clouds blocked the light from reaching the ground.

Carlton supposed it was fitting at this point, that even the sky was recognizing this terrible anniversary.

O'Hara walked over to him, a manila folder in hand, as he blankly stared at the coffee machine.

"Morning Lassiter." She said. Carlton could hear the wariness in her voice. She was tip-toeing around the topic, afraid she might break him.

"Morning O'Hara. Any cases?" He asked blandly. He kept emotion out of his voice, like he would before.

This seemed to satisfy her worries, his seemingly normal demeanor.

"Yeah actually, a missing persons case" she informed him, handing over the case folder. He flipped it open, and thank God it wasn't open and shut. Yeah yeah yeah crime was bad, but he really needed a distraction today. He needed a case he could drown himself in, to block out any other thoughts.

"Thank you." He said. It was a new occurrence. After Shawn's death, Lassiter had started saying thank you, being more appreciative of his coworkers, and hoping that he never had to worry about losing them.

People died in his line of work. It was dangerous. Shawn wasn't a cop. He wasn't a detective. He was a citizen, and all those accusations were baseless. They'd been disproved a month later, with Lassiter lashing out at the press everytime he was asked about it.

After quickly pouring a cup of coffee and adding cream and sugar, he made his way to his desk, stranding O'Hara alone in the breakroom without a response.

Lassiter focused on the case.

Connor Mason was alone in his room. His parents checked on him, told him to get ready for his football game, then, thirty minutes later when they were supposed to drive him to it, he wasn't there, the window was open, and there was a ransom note on his desk asking for more money than his parents would make in a lifetime.