It had started simple enough; a sore throat that had led to a small cough and a big headache. He hadn't even worried when the small cough had morphed into a sort of hack that could have passed him off as a chain smoker.  What had gotten his attention, however, was when the back pain had settled in. His back ached with every movement that he made; when he stood up or sat down, when he breathed, when he blinked. He had never been in so much pain before and no pain medication he took gave him relief. He opted not to move at all; he just lied in bed all day, on his belly with his head turned to the side, and did his best to stay still. It was actually fairly easily since the ninjas in his head wouldn't stop karate chopping his brain every time he did try to get up. There was also the cough, which seemed pretty set on provoking his lungs into jumping out of his mouth.

That had worked for a couple of almost blissful, nearly pain-free days before the abdominal pain had crept up on him. At first Shawn had figured that it was from lying in the same position for so long, but the pain had persisted long after he had finally dragged himself out of bed - much to his back's protest. Instead of gradually fading like he had desired, the knot in his stomach seemed to grow with every inhalation. Shawn eased himself onto the couch and leaned his head back, gently rubbing the affected area in hopes of relieving the growing tightness. The pain was consistent, however, and Shawn moaned in disappointment. It was just sitting there in all of its pain-glory, probably laughing at him a little. He wouldn't be surprised; with the way the stomach pain would explode in bursts of near crippling excruciations, his sickness seemed to be taunting him.

He just about cried when the phone rang. He was in the middle of yet another bout of abdominal warfare when the shrill noise of the communication device almost cracked his skull open. His father's voice came over the speaker, yelling at him about some musty attic boxes and cold spaghetti dinner. His headache had multiplied within seconds and had fallen into a sort of evil harmony with his stomach, so Shawn did his best to tune him out. Unfortunately, he had become mister popular all of a sudden; he counted at least ten phone calls after his father's. On most days, they couldn't stand the fact that he was around at all. It was as if they knew, today of all days, that he wanted to be alone in his misery. Contrary to popular belief, his misery definitely did not love company.

It was about a half an hour before he could really move again. He slid off of the couch and into a crawling position, half-dragging himself over to the telephone as it had started to ring again. He forcefully pulled the little bastard's power source out of its habitat in the wall. He mentally celebrated the small-ish victory and vowed to get rid of the stupid thing once he was feeling better.

He sobered up quickly as his back and abdomen flared up again, his aching body reminding him that he was still fighting another battle of sorts. Shawn half-crawled and half-dragged himself in the general direction he remembered his room to be, though he wasn't sure when it had become so hard to think. He could feel the perspiration beading on his forehead and strolling casually down his face. The sweat beads mixed with the tears he did not remember shedding and danced toward their destination; over his chin and down his neck. He winced when he thought about what his hair must look like.

His muscles screamed in agony, begging him to lie back down or to throw himself off into oncoming traffic in order to end the torture. Instead he chose the bathroom, while odd in choice did harbor a bathtub. Weren't you supposed to fight fever with cold water, anyways? It was also closer than his bedroom, which made it sweet nice in his book.

What should have taken him five minutes ended up taking twenty minutes, but he finally flopped into his destination. He didn't have the energy to peel his clothes off, so he settled for fishing his cell phone out of his back pocket and letting it drop onto the floor. His head lolled onto his chest and he glared at the water handles, willing them to open their metal dams. God, they were so far away. He frowned as he thought about moving, but a sudden blanket of molten lava had settled itself onto his body making it impossible. He had to turn on the shower.

His leg twitched when his brain told it to extend and he frowned even deeper. Apparently his limbs were in the middle of an argument and they refused to cooperate. He tried to play peacemaker between them, but to no avail. Shawn sighed, knowing what this meant. He grabbed the edge of the bathtub with both hands and pulled, his arms shaking pathetically as his body slowly inclined into a sitting position. He slumped over the tub's edge when he was finally upright and sucked in a few gulps of air. He would be man enough to admit in that moment - though never out loud - that he wasn't Rambo but even he wasn't that weak.

This meant only one thing, and one thing only; he was dying. Yes, he was dying a brutally painful death of some weird, inane disease inside of his bathtub - he was sure of it. What would the world do without his handsomeness or his perfectly coiffed hair? He shuddered at the void he would leave when he was no longer a canvas for people to admire. Life was so cruel sometimes.

He could hear a soft ‘drip, drip, drip' of leaking water, though he couldn't really pinpoint where it was coming from. On any other occasion, he might have found it annoying but at the moment the sound kind of relaxed him. It wasn't long before he started to hum out a rhythm to the drippy water, but his dry and tickly throat made him break out into another coughing fit. He quickly brought his hand up to cover his mouth, just in case one of his vital organs decided to make a special appearance. He brought his hand back a few inches and studied it carefully, making a noise of mild disgust as he realized that it was covered in sweat. He was pretty sure he had just solved the case of the drippy water. He let his eyes fall shut and took a deep breath, trying to will the oxygen to kick start his immune system and rid his body of his impending death.

The shrill cry of his cell phone brought him back to near-reality and he groaned again. Couldn't they just let him die in peace? He took another deep breath and used all of his power to make his eyes pry themselves open. His heavy lids protested at first, refusing to let go of the weights they seemed to be holding on to. They soon came around, though, and fluttered to life. His eyes seemed to take a life of their own, finding energy the rest of his body certainly didn't have. They quickly zoned in the five inch gap between his fingers and his cell phone and he was tempted to just ignore it. The ninjas in his head had other plans, however, and decided to give his brain a good round-house kick with every ring. Damn Chuck Norris for perfecting the stupid move.

He forced himself to reach for the phone, giving a wheezy laugh of victory when his fingers wrapped themselves around it. He eased himself back in to the tub and slid down until he was almost fully horizontal. Once he was situated, he hit the little green button and pressed the phone into his ear.

"What?" he forced out, wincing at how raspy his voice sounded.

"What the hell, Shawn? I've been calling you for an entire week. What the hell have you been doing?" Shawn brought the phone back a good two inches as his father's voice echoed throughout his entire skull. Had it really been a week?

"Well hello, Father. It's great to hear from you, too. I'm swell, you?" Shawn winced again as his voice kept on with the same roughness that had appeared before.

"Did you forget what you promised to help me do this weekend? No, I bet you didn't. You just didn't bother to show up and made me clean the attic alone. You just do whatever the hell you feel like doing, no matter what you promise otherwise. You're never sorry about it either. In fact, you're never sorry about anything!" Shawn rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the sandpaper quality that the inside of his eyelids seemed to have develop.

"That's completely untrue. I was very sorry when the Snoop Dizzle tried to, and I quote, ‘drop it like it's hawt'."

"Go ahead, joke about it. It's what you're best at. You never take anything seriously. And what's wrong with your voice? Do you have a hangover? Is that why you didn't come over, because you were too busy partying?"

"Wow, you're bringing that up again. I knew you'd never let me live that down. I was fifteen, Dad! I had no idea how to hold my liquor at the time. I'm actually dying of some horrendous disease right now and you don't even care. I probably caught it while up in your attic that last time. The dust was growing limbs, I should have known! You should be calling the CDC right now instead of insulting me." Shawn let out a cough right into the receiver, simultaneously trying to use his toes to try and turn on the water.

"That is completely illogical, Shawn. That happened to be your old Furby doll, not dust coming to life. Besides, I think I'd know if my attic was harboring a life threatening disease."

"Now that's illogical; my Furby happens to be sitting on top of my bedroom dresser as we speak. And you've obviously built up immunity towards ‘It'." After a few missed stretches, his toes finally latched onto their target.

"You know what's illogical? That pair of hair clippers sitting in your bathroom cupboard when you obviously never cut your hair."

"As long as were being logical, why do you still own a comb? You obviously lost all of your hair by the time you were twenty-two." Shawn smiled as he finally turned on the faucet. Cold water poured over his toes and soaked into his jeans. His leg dropped and his jeans squished slightly at the movement. He sighed in sweet relief and let himself relax.

"What was that? What's going on over there, Shawn?" His father sounded somewhat worried, but Shawn just wasn't in the mood to deal with him.

"I'll probably never see you again, on account of the whole me dying thing, so I want you to know this; it was me who broke your glass table when I was six. My imaginary friend, Hooey, was just an innocent bystander and had nothing to do with it. Goodbye, Pops." Shawn ended the call and was about to drop the phone over the edge, but it let out its penetrating shriek once more.

Before he had a chance to move, his stomach tightened into a little ball again. Shawn screamed out, the pain spreading quickly from his stomach to his appendages. It felt as if a streak of lighting had entered his body and pulsated throughout his veins unrelentingly. Shawn curled up into the fetal position, staying that way for about seven minutes. He maybe even cried a little before the pain finally subsided. Seven minutes in heaven my ass.

He uncoiled slowly, rubbing his stomach with his left hand while his right navigated the distance from the edge of the tub to his ear. He was barely aware of the water filling the tub around him, he just knew it felt damn good against the fire that had started crawling all over his skin.

"Hmm," was all he could manage once he answered.

"I just got off the phone with your dad. You do not have any type of disease, Shawn. Well, no diseases that the CDC would be worried about." Shawn rolled onto his back and the water, which had completely covered his lower extremities, sloshed every which way.

"Wow that was fast. I literally just hung up on him. And you were the one who frequented the free clinics last summer after your relationship with Trixie ended, Gus."

"Her name was Tracey, Shawn. She was not a stripper and the only reason I was at those clinics was because they were part of my route."

"Sure. Stick with that story, buddy." Shawn's voice had diminished into a whisper. Whatever energy source he had been tapping into had rudely cut him off; he felt drained and his body grew heavy. The cell phone slipped through his fingers and into the rising water, which was now up to his chest. A chill swept through his body and made him tremble with such intensity that the water splashed over the edge of the tub. Not considering the blatant lack of trying, he couldn't get up. He wanted to lift himself, to turn off the water, but he felt like he was buried neck-deep in sand. All of the heat that had previously resided in his body decided that moving into his brain was the perfect idea. He was completely convinced that the new and improved pounding in his head was his brain trying to break out of the sauna it was trapped in. Now he knew exactly how Michael Jackson felt in that Pepsi commercial.

Shawn moaned and let a small sob past his lips, which resulted in the water that was now directly below his mouth to bubble. He tried to remember who had talked him into this bathtub idea. It seemed plain silly now that the plan was in motion. Seriously, who sends a dying man to a bathtub to die? Unless this was an assassination attempt, which would totally be awesome. Accept for the part where he would end up six feet under...that wasn't so awesome.

The slam of his apartment door made him flinch and the footsteps that followed scared him beyond belief. Oh god, this really was an assassination attempt! He should have seen it coming. It was the perfect setup; immobilize the target in an icy cool bath, then sneak in and finish off said target off. The footsteps grew louder with every stride, as did Shawn's bubble-breathing. He took it back; being the target of a highly trained professional was totally not awesome. He didn't want to die this way, diseased in a bathtub that he had maybe just peed in a little...

The door slammed open. Shawn let out a high-pitched wheeze, which sounded more like a high-pitched gurgle due to the water level, and let himself go boneless. That move, however, fully submerged his face and cut off his oxygen supply. He panicked, sucking in an enormous amount of the H2O that surrounded him. Needles immediately began to prick at the inside of his nose and a frog had somehow lodged itself into the middle of his throat. He tried to get up, but his limbs opted to stay boneless. He swore that he could hear every part of his body laughing at him; maybe they were part of the assassination plot, too...

Then as quickly as he had gone under water, he was airborne. Within seconds he was dropped quite rudely to the ground, face-first. He coughed and burped, trying to breathe and expel the clear liquid from his lungs at the same time. A rough hand slapped his back a few times, withdrawing only when he was finally able to breath. He lay there for what seemed like forever, eyes closed, as he took in respiration after sweet respiration. He could hear a casual gentlemen's shoe tapping rapidly against the tile, impatiently waiting for him to recover. He knew that shoe and every tap of said shoe only made his misery worse, digging and stabbing into his head.

"G'way," he croaked. This was more of a good place to die. Maybe he could get Lassiter to shoot him in the face a little.

"No," said Lassiter. He could hear the head detective shift in obvious discomfort. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"F-f-eels n-nice," answered Shawn, shaking severely. First he had hot flashes and now he was in the freaking tundra. Great, he could now check ‘go through menopause' off of his list of things to never do again.

"You really are an idiot." Shawn only grunted. Lassiter crouched down next to him and placed a surprisingly gentle hand on the pseudo-psychic's forehead and sighed. "You're burning up, Spencer."

Shawn's response sounded somewhat like, "No shit". Lassiter rolled his eyes and turned the younger man onto his back. Shawn's skin was pale compared to the bright red color his cheeks had adopted. His eyes were only half open, but they were open enough for the detective to see that they were glazed over. "G'way," tried Shawn again.

"Trust me, I wish I could be anywhere else. C'mon." Lassiter wrapped a hand around Shawn's bicep and gave a small tug. Shawn's face scrunched up, but he stayed where he was. Lassiter closed his eyes for a moment, knowing what had to be done. He silently cursed O'Hara for sending him over here. He opened his eyes and sighed, lifting Spencer to his feet. The head detective let the younger man lean on him as he led the way to the bedroom.

The journey was slow, but they eventually made it to their destination. He slid Spencer onto the bed and turned toward the dresser. He jumped when his eyes came in contact with the ginormous dust-ball with eyes staring back at him. They had a five-second staring contest before Lassiter realized just what it was he was staring at.

"You are the only person I know who still owns a Furby doll," said Lassiter as he stepped up to the dresser. He opened the drawers one by one, looking for some warmer attire for the fake psychic.

"'M the only p-person y'know p'riod, L-Lassie Lu," muttered Shawn. Lassiter gritted his teeth and reminded himself that Shawn was ill; if there's one thing he wouldn't do, it was beat the man's ass while he was temporarily disabled. He wanted him to be fully aware for that.

"I know O'Hara," he shot back weakly. He grabbed some blue and red checkered pajama bottoms as well as a hoodie and made his way back over to Spencer. "Neither of us is going to like this much, so don't say word. If you so much as sneeze, I will punch you in the jugular." Lassiter helped the sick man out of his wet clothes - the underpants stayed on, that's where he drew the line - and redressed him into the dry ones. When that task was finished, Shawn immediately lay down and rolled himself into a ball under his comforter. He was asleep before Carlton could even make it out of the room.

*~*~*~*~*~*

When Shawn awoke, the first thing that he noticed was that his head was no longer pounding. The second thing that he noticed was that his back pain had also disappeared. His stomach was still a bit uneasy, but he could deal with it if it meant no more brain ninjas trying to piss him off. He ran his fingers through his now very unruly hair and sighed. It was going to take forever to sculpt it back to perfection.

He had a vague recollection of Mr. Bean helping him to his room and admiring his Furby. He stretched for a few seconds before he rolled out from underneath the blanket and stood up. He stumbled as the room spun around him, reminding him that he still wasn't completely better yet. He waited for the world to right itself before he started moving again.

He entered the living room and noticed Lassiter sitting on his couch, watching COPS. He had his legs propped up on Shawn's coffee table and had covered himself with his suit jacket, which was a brownish color. "Ooooh, Mr. Bean," he mumbled to himself as his brain made the connection. Lassiter's head whipped around and he stood when he saw Shawn.

"Good, you're better. I, uh, guess I should get going," said Lassiter awkwardly.

"Thanks, Lassie. I appreciate you, ya know, taking care of em and stuff." Shawn's voice was still somewhat rough.

"Don't mention. Literally, we never speak of this ever again. It was bad enough, as is. You kept saying something about ‘living la vida loca.'"

Shawn made a face, like he had just tasted something really bad. "Gus and I promised to never talk about that again. You can only break so many foreign laws before...well, that's a story for another time...So, uh, I didn't really expect to see you here."

"Guster called O'Hara right after you hung up on him. For some god-awful reason he wanted to come here, but he was stuck in meetings all day. O'Hara was buried in paperwork, so she made me choose between you and the paperwork."

"And you chose me? I'm touched, Lass-man." Shawn smiled as he placed a hand to his heart.

"I should have chosen the paperwork," Lassiter said as he moved towards the door. "By the way, you're out of Children's Tylenol. And beef jerky."