“You know if you're sick, we can get you some help. This is insane.”

Carlton was glad he'd spent so long building up even this shoddy excuse for a resistance to chloroform. Otherwise he'd have been out like a light. Clearly he hadn't been going at it hard enough though—he was finding it extremely difficult to keep his focus. His assailant kept going blurry around the edges and he felt like he was trying to operate his limbs in air composed of sludge. As it was, he wasn't sure it had done any good at all. He was going to be just coherent enough to realize what was happening, but unable to raise a hand to stop it.

He realized his assailant was talking again and squinted, forcing himself to listen. “No, see the insurance darlings no longer feel any responsibility to help out. I,” the blonde ragamuffin sniffed again, sharply, dabbing his bloodied nose with the tissue in his hand. “am a liability.”

Carlton sneered, his lip curling. That was weak. There was always a way, committing a crime was just the easiest path. “Think about Marlowe,” he said. “She's an accomplice, she'll do hard time.”

God, he had really liked her. What the hell was wrong with him?

“She never laid a finger on anyone.” Shaggy jabbed the needle at Lassiter. “You were her first mark and we both know how that went. So she stole some blood. Big deal! She did it to save a life, and that's what it's there for, isn't it? Well? Isn't it?” He sniffed again, wiping the blood from his nose with the tissue and turned reaching for the supplies he'd brought along. “No more talking.”

Carlton moved to take advantage of blondie's diverted attention, but sitting up even just a little bit made the entire room start swirling around drunkenly. He flexed his arms, tried to push out of the poor excuse for restraints and found that he couldn't. It felt like his muscles were made out of pudding.

Shaggy turned around again, blood oozing steadily down his face. He held out a cotton ball and a needle. “Now just hold still and this'll all be over soon.”

Carlton jerked away, his hands clenching into loose fists. “Don't you dare. This's considered assault of a police off'cer.” He blinked hard, trying to force the room to steady and failing miserably. His heart started to thud uncomfortably against his sternum.

“Shhh, sh sh,” Blondie soothed and with a sharp sting, pressed the needle into Carlton's arm.

He screwed his eyes up and spat out a curse. “I swear to God when I snap out of this you are in for a world of pain,” he vowed.

The blood-stealing bastard just shushed him again watching as the line of tubing filled with red and started trickling into an IV bag.

Carlton swore again.

“Now, now, you're helping someone. Isn't that what your job's all about?” His head bowed so that Carlton couldn't see his face, his fingers curling around Lassiter's own and starting to press them into his palm around a phantom ball. The blood flow out of his arm grew steadily.

“My job—is to uphold the law,” Carlton growled and his head lolled back a little. Jesus, how much blood was the punk taking?

It took almost Herculean effort to get his head to flop forward again and he stared in consternation as Bloody Old Faithful pinched the tubing and pulled a full bag of blood away, replacing it with a second.

The little thief looked up at him and shook his hair out of his eyes. “I don't usually take two pints, but since the chloroform didn't keep you down, this should do the trick. You can't build up an immunity to low blood supply.”

“B'stard,” Carlton mumbled. God, he was tired. Everything was blurry and spinny and his head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.

His eyes snapped open when someone starting banging on the door. The kickstart of adrenaline was enough to keep him coherent for a few seconds, but not enough to help him raise his voice when he heard O'Hara shouting. He tried to gather up the energy, but it just wasn't there.

Blondie glanced toward the door and down at the bag which was now three-quarters full. How had that happened? “Looks like I have to wrap this up.” He yanked the tube out of the bag and tied it in a quick knot before snatching up the bags and scrambling to his feet. The banging at the door was growing louder and more frantic. He tipped a two-finger salute at Carlton. “Thanks for your donation.”

No, no, goddammit, this was not how it was supposed to go down!

The banging stopped abruptly and then a second later the door burst open, slamming against the wall. Carlton blinked lethargically, felt his body slouching ever lower against the couch as he tried to watch his partner sweep into the room with her service piece, despite it's violent gyrations.

“'e's gone,” he manged to slur and that was really probably not good come to think of it.

“Clear,” Juliet barked tersely and then, “I'll check the rest of the house. Call 911.”

It was then that Carlton noticed Spencer behind her in the doorway, his eyes wide. O'Hara's words seemed to snap him out of it and he nodded, lunging toward Carlton with a strangely anxious look in his eyes.

“Hey, hey, buddy,” he started, and dear God, did he have to listen to Spencer ramble now, too? “You're okay, everything's fine. Jules has got everything handled and I'm just gonna—”

Spencer got his fingers under the plastic restraint pinning his arms and pulled it up and off. Carlton drooped even lower.

“I told you!” another voice shouted from the doorway. “I told you—oh my gosh, is that a needle?” An unpleasant noise followed that Carlton did not try to waste his limited faculties on interpreting.

“Whoa, whoa,” Shawn said, apparently unperturbed by whoever had been speaking. He moved to catch Carlton's limp form and then Carlton had his face pressed into the shoulder of Spencer's coat. He smelled like hair product and citrus. Dimly, Carlton realized he could feel the vibrations of Spencer's voice, but all he could make out was a steady ringing that was just getting louder and louder.

If he didn't know any better he was about to—

~ * ~

“You passed out,” O'Hara told him sympathetically the next morning at the hospital. Carlton was grateful for the avoidance of the f-word. “I came back in after I finished checking out the house—Adrian fled out the back door—and Shawn was freaking out.”

“I wasn't freaking out,” Spencer protested.

O'Hara gave him a look, clearly unconvinced. “Shawn, you were shaking him and yelling hysterically. You kept saying, 'I don't know what to do! Is he dead? Oh my god, is he dead, Jules?'”

Carlton cocked an eyebrow in his direction and Spencer's eyes darted to the floor, a flush rising along his cheekbones. “That is...not at all the gist of what I was yelling. I had everything under control! I knew he was fine.” The following dismissive laugh was utterly unconvincing.

O'Hara met Carlton's gaze and shook her head slightly. “You weren't fine. The combination of the chloroform and the blood loss was really serious. We were lucky we got there when we did. Your body was severely overstressed. I can't believe you were even conscious when we found you.”

The creases that only appeared when she was really worried had gathered around her eyes, between her eyebrows. Carlton waved a hand and glanced away. “I've been building up a resistance to chloroform. It was no big deal.”

He left out the cold feeling of fear he'd gotten when he'd realized he was at the mercy of that shaggy-haired blood-spewing lunatic. Carlton allowed a brief glance of gratitude and got a sliver of a smile out of O'Hara for his trouble. The lines started to soften again.

Spencer pulled his head back. “What? Why?”

Sometimes Spencer was completely obtuse. “For a night like last night, obviously.”

“I don't believe it,” Gus muttered. “That's messed up, Lassiter.”

Carlton shrugged. “I'm going to have to amp up my routine, I should have been able to snap out of that in five minutes, tops.” He pretended not to notice the head-shaking around the bed. “So! When am I going to get out of this joint? I've got a date.”

The look of astonishment on Spencer's face was totally worth it.