Title:                 A Scanner in the Night

Author:             mysteriousgirl4

Pairing:             Shawn/Lassiter

Rating:              M for language and themes, Slash in later chapters. Oh yes, there will

                        be slash.

Genre:              Drama/Adventure/Romance

A/Notes:          I suck at titles. I don’t know anything about police codes, or police protocol. Everything I know I pick up from watching crime shows! This is my second fic, but my first ever psych-fic. Not yet sure how long this will be. Will mainly depend on public opinion, if people like I will write more. Thanks always to jadecastle6 who is my beta, my first reader and my eternal critic. Plus she got me onto this show so am luvin her for that too.

Summary:         Shawn likes listening to the Police scanner on the nights Lassiter has patrol. Reviews are Love, Creamy, chocolate chipped, fudge filled, chocolate sauce covered LOVE. 

“Shall we?”

Denny linked his arm with Alan’s theatrically, and together, they walked back inside.

Chapter 5

They walked side by side, stepping to the same rhythm, straight out of Denny’s office, Alan sweeping his arm down to grab his briefcase without breaking stride and Denny flicking off the light switch on their way out the door. They continued that way down the hallway, eyes forward, slight grins on their faces, thinking about the night to come and enjoying the secret they now shared.

Sitting in her office sorting out some of the plaintiff files for a class action suit, Shirley Schmidt raised her head at the sound of the rhythmic footsteps coming past her door. She took in the sight of Denny and Alan leaving together arm in arm and smiled to herself. She couldn’t help but think that they looked like they were heading down the yellow brick road to see the wizard. With an amused shake of her head, she returned to her paper work.

Further down the hallway, Paul came out from the conference room doorway and stood in front of the approaching duo.

“Denny, I need to talk to you about second chairing the Peirson case with Brad.”

Denny and Alan stopped in front of Paul, grins gone and serious expressions staring at him. A few moments passed. Then a few more. Still, they stared at him. Feeling as though the eyes were burning holes through him, Paul finally cleared his throat and stepped aside. Denny and Alan’s sly grins returned and they continued resolutely on. Paul stood somewhat dumbstruck and watched them reach the elevator. Alan pushed the button and they stood and waited until the door opened, then they walked in, still arm in arm. Paul blinked and shook his head incredulously. A split second before the doors closed he heard:

“Night Paul.”

He pondered momentarily on which of the two had said it. Then, figuring it didn’t matter, retreated back to the conference room.

On the elevator, Denny and Alan finally dropped each others arms. And stood side by side. Staring at the numbers on the elevator.

Alan suddenly grinned to himself, he had come up with a rather naughty idea. He turned to face his companion.

“Denny?”

“Yes Alan.” Denny said cheerily.

“What would you think of us maybe…?”

Alan’s words were cut short by the sound of the elevator dinging on the 6th floor. Someone was about to board the elevator. Alan shot Denny an apologetic look and turned back to face the doors. They opened to reveal two uniformed police officers. Both well over 6 foot tall and sturdy. They nodded to Denny and Alan and turned to face the doors as they closed.

Alan, unable to control himself in the presence of authority figures, reached out and grabbed Denny’s hand. Denny looked at Alan, trying to warn him that they were in an enclosed space with two of the cities finest and that now was not the time. Alan looked back at Denny and gave him a look that conveyed that, yes. They were in an elevator with two officers, and that there was no better time that the present. Denny rolled his eyes in response, but let Alan continue to grasp his hand, assuming that with the cops backs turned that there was no real danger in indulging him.

Alan relaxed his grip on Denny’s hand so that he was softly cradling it and began rubbing his thumb in small soothing circles around the palm of Denny’s hand. Denny relaxed somewhat. It felt nice. Then the younger man started applying more pressure in his circled, his finger started to link themselves through Denny’s own.

‘My God’ thought Denny, ‘this man knows his way around a hand!’ He realised he had closed his eyes and was enjoying the feeling of Alan tenderly massaging his hand, pressure increasing to push the tension out of the muscles and the decreasing to softly brush the skin, stimulating the nerve endings in his fingers. The stimulating part of the massage really hit home when Alan suddenly pushed his thumb right into the centre of Denny’s palm. Until now, he had been circling around it, teasing. The unexpected pressure on that part of him sent a wave of sensation through his body and he moaned.

He suddenly snapped his eyes open and saw that the two police officers had turned around and were giving the two of them strange looks. Alan didn’t even have the good sense to look guilty, on the contrary he seemed quite proud that he had been able to elicit that noise from Denny. Denny, pulled his hand back and clasped them behind his back. His mind raced, trying to think of something to say. Finally he blurted out:

“He’s scared of the elevator, always insists I hold his hand. Big baby.”

The cops looked unconvinced. One of them blinked and looked Denny straight in the eye.

“Uh huh, sounded like you were enjoying it to me.”

Denny racked his brain and had an excuse ready about having developed a sore shoulder after so much hand holding when Alan spoke up.

“He was enjoying it; I was applying a sensual shiatsu massage that stimulates the nerves, sending signals right to the sexual pleasure centre of the brain.”

Denny stared at Alan in shock. The two officers did the same thing. After a moment, one of the uniformed men sputtered out:

“Uh…Why?”

Alan looked at the officer as though he was ignorant and responded:

“Well you don’t think I’m going to wait till we get back to my hotel to get him all warmed up do you?”

He finished his remark just as the elevator dinged and the doors opened. Alan grabbed Denny’s hand and they made a quick exit between the two officers who were so stunned that the elevator doors closed on them before they had figured out what was going on.

In the taxi, after he had recovered from what he would now remember as the ‘elevator incident’ Denny turned to Alan. Alan had been giving Denny his space in the taxi, assuming that Denny would be angry about what he had done.

“Alan?”

Alan quirked an eyebrow inquisitorially.

“Yes Denny?”

“Do you take some…perverse pleasure out of humiliating me?”

Alan looked insulted.

“Of course not! I just…. I don’t know what it is with me Denny, I see an authority figure and I feel the need to…”

Denny twisted in the car seat to look Alan in the eyes.

“To what?”

Alan sighed.

“To prove that they don’t control me. That despite some government body giving them power, it doesn’t extend to me.”

Denny thought about this for a second and then sat back straight.

“Load of crap.” He mumbled.

It was Alan’s turn to look surprised now.

“Excuse me?”

Denny gave Alan a mischievous grin.

“You couldn’t hold it in could you? Don’t let it bother you, many people can’t wait to touch Denny Crane.”

Alan smiled.

“Well there is that.”

With that, Alan and Denny were holding hands again. They sat in silence like that for a while.

“Have you ever done anything like this before?’

Alan feigned ignorance.
”Like what?”

“You know, the…. doing…….with a….” Denny couldn’t get the words out, much less know what words to use.

“Engaging in illicit acts with a man?”

“….Well yeah.”

Alan laughed.

“Don’t worry Denny, I’m almost sure I know what I’m doing.”

Denny didn’t get Alan’s subtle references

“How do you know?”

Alan settled for looking Denny straight in the eyes for a time until Denny got the message. Denny turned and looked out the window and chuckled to himself.

“Knew it.”

Denny absently rubbed his thumb over Alan’s hand, still locked in his own. This was going to be an interesting night.

Yes, I know I’m evil. There will be another chapter. Review!

One more Chapter left. You'll be pleased to know I am halfway through writing it as we speak. Why, you might ask am I then on here posting this chapter? Procrastination. No better way than that to put it. Need time for the movie
to play out in my head.

Chapter 4

“Told you.”

Alan stood a few steps away from Denny, staring at the lips that he had been kissing seconds earlier, desperately wanting to kiss them again. Alan was attempting to catch his breath while still maintaining an unruffled, calm, appearance but he wasn’t sure that he was succeeding.

His mind should be reeling with all the implications of what he had just done. Of the impact he had just made to their friendship, their relationship, and to their lives from now on.

But instead, he couldn’t stop himself from celebrating internally. Finally! There was some hard proof that Denny’s feelings for him went beyond cigars, scotch and stimulating conversation.

And by hard proof, Alan meant the insistent bulge he had felt pressing against his thigh moments earlier. He had been somewhat terrified when he had moved in to kiss Denny, hoping against hope that even if the man’s affection for him wasn’t physical, that it might at least be deep enough to stop him from picking Alan up and throwing him over the balcony. The enormous triumph that he’d felt when Denny had not only relented to that fateful kiss, but reciprocated, was enough to make him want to skip down the office hallway naked singing “Let’s hear it for the boy”.

Denny stood quite still, hands dropped at his sides, the forgotten cigar still sitting on the balcony ledge. He had that thoughtful look on his face. The one that could make people believe that the toughened, stubborn, immovable Denny Crane was actually considering someone else’s opinion for once.

After a few moments of silence, Denny spoke up.

“Told me what?”

Alan bit the corner of his lip and lowered his eyebrows in confusion.

“...I told you... you have feelings... I was...”

“I know what you were doing, but you haven’t proved anything to me. I always knew I was attracted to you; I just manipulated you into doing something about it.”

Alan slowly smiled. This must be the only way Denny could possibly reconcile what had just happened, by completely taking responsibility for it. Turning everything around so that it appeared that he’d known what was going on all along.

Denny Crane was a proud man, so to admit that some important change had taken place in his life without him having orchestrated it, was simply not acceptable.

Denny turned back to the balcony ledge and picked up his cigar, stuck it in his mouth and took a victory puff while staring out at the twinkling cityscape before him. Alan allowed his tense shoulders to drop and slightly shaking himself, he smoothly fell back into the familiar routine with his friend.

“In that case, congratulations are in order. You certainly had me fooled.”

Denny quickly downed what was left of his scotch and surveyed the empty glass in his hand.

“Part of the plan, had to be convincing.”

Alan nodded at this self denial and gently took Denny’s glass. He went back inside and came out a short time later with two freshly filled ones. Handing Denny one and drinking a mouthful of his, Alan walked over and sat down, making sure to straighten his jacket as he sat. An old habit he’d formed in court proceedings that he would probably never grow out of.

“Denny.”

Denny turned and caught Alan’s eyes.

“Not to impugn the brilliance of your plan, but... What now?”

Denny faltered a little at this.

“What do you mean, ‘what now?’?”

“Well, you’ve admitted that you’re attracted to me, I think you’re fairly aware by now that I’m attracted to you...”

“You are?”

“Yes, Denny.”

“I knew it.”

Denny scoffed triumphantly and took a swig from his scotch, sticking his cigar back in his mouth and puffing away in an almost exultant manner.

“Denny Crane. Everyone wants a piece.”

Alan was unfazed.

“Indeed. So you’ve cleverly established that we are both attracted to each other, I only wonder if you know what should happen next. Should we follow the path most people tend to take in this situation?”

Denny shook his head and sighed.

“You will do anything to get me into bed.”

Alan chuckled and Denny laughed with him, both men sharing in the irony of Denny repeating what he’d said many times before but within this new context.

Once they were quiet again, Alan decided to press the issue, knowing that the more that the time elapsed, the more chance Denny would have to blame this whole incident on ‘mad cow’ and disavow all knowledge that it had occurred.

“So? What’s the plan?”

Denny shook his head and took another puff of his cigar.

“No idea, didn’t get that far. What with the mad cow and...”

Alan smirked to himself, having taken all responsibility for his manipulation of the situation, Denny was putting the ball back in his court.

Alan pretended to think hard about what to say.

“You know, I’m not completely sure these night terrors have subsided...”

Denny interjected in an innocent, seemingly considerate way.

“Need me to come over? Keep an eye on you? Tie you up with rope again?”

Alan smiled wickedly, catching Denny’s bright eyes and the hint of lust growing behind them.

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“No! Not at all, happy to do it.”

Alan continued to stare into Denny’s eyes, prompting Denny to stub out his cigar and gulp down the rest of his scotch. Throat still burning from the drink he rasped out,

“I’m all done, let’s go.”

Alan smiled at Denny’s eagerness. He stood up and offered his arm to his friend.

“Shall we?”

Denny linked his arm with Alan’s theatrically, and together, they walked back inside.

I know that I started this with Denny Crane sitting musing over what happened in the hotel. I did have to stretch it out over 2 chapters but those chapters were a recollection of what happened from his and Alan’s POV. Now we return to the balcony….

Chapter 3

Denny shook his head slightly as he recalled how they had eaten their pancake breakfast at the hotel in relative silence and then had gone about their own business. Getting dressed, going to work and disrupting board meetings as if nothing had ever happened. That was two days ago and still ‘the talk’ that Alan had promised they would have about what happened between them had not yet come to pass. But Denny knew it was coming. It was inevitable. If nothing, Alan Shore was a man of his word.

Just knowing that ‘the talk’ was coming was enough to throw him off his game, he’d been… cloudy, the last few days. Most in the office had simply dismissed it as being his ‘mad cow’ again.

But the truth of it all was that it wasn’t the mad cow - Denny was nervous. And Denny Crane never got nervous. He had faced up to some of the biggest judges and attorneys in the country, stood before thousands of people on countless occasions and expressed unpopular opinions. But nothing could compare to this. Walking around with the knowledge that Alan would eventually want to talk about what had happened that night was almost too much for him to bear.

Denny Crane was ultimately anxious because….. he had kissed Alan back.

As much as he vehemently denied it to himself. But all the excuses in the world couldn’t remove the fact that Alan had made an advance in his sleep and, being fully conscious, Denny had kissed him back. He didn’t know why he’d done it. But he knew that Alan would figure it out eventually. And he was terrified at the possibility of losing his best friend.

But of course, all of this played out under Denny’s thick, bomb-shelter-like exterior, which was nearly impenetrable to anything life could throw at him. No-one around him would have had a clue as to what he was thinking at this moment. Hell, sometimes even HE didn’t know what he was thinking.

At that thought, he decided it was definitely time to stand up to get his scotch off the ledge.

Once he’d retrieved it, he stood and looked out onto the beautifully man-lit city. Wondering to himself if Alan was going to come and join him on the balcony, wondering if he really wanted him to.

“Evening Denny.”

It was as if fate had heard him thinking.

Denny sipped languidly from his scotch glass and bent over to rest his elbows onto the ledge. Upon some reflection he decided he did want Alan there. Awkward or not, Alan was his friend – his best friend. Without missing a beat, Denny fell back into the old routine and began immediately with the current office gossip.

“Heard you bit a client today.”

Alan walked over and stood a little closer than normal next to Denny and admired the cityscape.

“She was trying to choke me. I saw fit to defend myself.”

Denny laughed.

“Ha! What did you do? Try to hit on her?”

“Heavens no! She’s a sasquatch.”

The older man nodded.

“Ugly girl huh?”

“No, I mean she’s literally a sasquatch, at least she claims to be. Says she was raised by Bigfoot and his ape-wife in the forest. She actually wanted to be put on the endangered species list in the hopes of receiving free medical care.”

At this statement Alan looked over at Denny with an amused smirk on his face. Denny for his part, had the decency to look mildly shocked.

“So why did Saskatchewan try to choke you?”

“Sasquatch Denny, Saskatchewan’s a province. And she tried to choke me after I asked why she had so little body hair.”

“For that she tried to choke you?”

“I also might have mentioned that she had no chance of winning the motion….. And that whether she was a Sasquatch or not, my bet was on her mother being a dirty ape.”

Denny chuckled and stuck his cigar into his mouth as he tried to gently distance himself from Alan by sitting down in his chair and leaning back into it. Alan shot Denny another amused smirk, then quietly joined him.

For a while they sat that way in a comfortable silence, sipping scotch and smoking cigars, enjoying the view. Enjoying the fact that they were up above the noise and organised chaos that was Boston. Sitting, sharing in the quiet joy of a friendship.

Alan sipped his scotch and, taking a breath, he prepared to speak:

“You’re sexually attracted to me.”

Denny’s jaw dropped as he stared in complete shock at the other man. As a result, the cigar he was smoking fell out his mouth and down into his lap.

Denny jumped up rapidly and cursed as he knocked the cigar away and onto the ground. After slapping at his legs extensively to get the cigar ash off them, he turned his head again to stare at Alan, who had not moved. He was just sitting there, watching him with a bemused smile on his face.

He looked at Alan wide eyed. He spoke harshly as though Alan had just deeply insulted him.

“I beg your pardon?!”

“You heard me. I’ve deduced that you’re sexually attracted to me.”

Denny snorted and walked over to the balcony ledge.

“And they say I’m the one who’s losing my mind.”

Alan continued, unperturbed.

“I’ve been thinking about what happened the other night, and I’ve come to realize that I missed something. While reading over the Kellerman deposition, it suddenly occurred to me that I was asleep the other night.”\

“That’s only just occurred to you?”

At this point Alan stood up and slowly walked over to Denny, who backed up a little as though wanting to keep his distance. Prove he was a hetero. Alan was having none of it.

He stepped closer and put his hands on Denny’s upper arms, in an attempt to keep him there for what he was about to say to him. He looked Denny straight in the eyes and used his gentle voice. He knew that this was something that Denny didn’t want to hear, but it needed to be said.

“I was asleep Denny, you weren’t. So when I kissed you, it was because I was either dreaming of kissing a woman, or thinking you were somebody else or one of a million other reasons why a sleeping person kisses someone.”

Denny’s mind almost started to wander, thinking about what those reasons might possibly be. But Alan stepping even closer brought him straight back to reality.

“When you kissed me back….. you knew what you were doing. I have thought about this at length, and the only reason I can come up with as to why you would kiss me back… is because you are sexually attracted to me.”

Denny suddenly wished he had his gun on him. He’d make this pansy shut up quick smart! Then he came to the alarming realisation that he only wanted his gun because he didn’t have another answer for Alan, no other excuse to give him to explain it all away.

Alan noted his silence and continued.

“It’s okay, I know it’s not within you to believe it, much less admit it. So I’ll prove it to you.”

Suddenly Alan’s lips were upon Denny’s. Denny wondered how such soft lips could sometimes be the bearer of such harsh words. And the sneaky bastard wasn’t even kissing him properly! He was chastely teasing, taunting Denny, waiting for him to kiss back.

And he was sick of fighting it. If anyone asked, he’d tell them that Alan ambushed him, Denny thought to himself as he closed the millimetres of distance and turned the kiss into something else, something deeper. Mouths met hungrily, greedily devouring the other. Instinctively, Denny shoved his hands inside of Alan’s coat and was holding onto him like his life depended on it.

Alan however was much more respectful, he knew that if he made one wrong move, Denny would break the kiss…. And would probably break him too. And he didn’t want that.

This is what he’d wanted all along.

Throughout the sleepovers and nights on the balcony he’d wondered about this moment. Whether it would ever happen and if he’d be brave enough to initiate it. That’s why he’d kissed Denny that fateful night. Somewhere in his subconscious, his brain knew what it wanted and had sought to get it, no matter what the cost.

After a period of time, and slowly comprehending that they were both running out of air, they broke the kiss. Alan stared at Denny as though he was completely lost, gulping air while he tried to think of something witty to say. But the best he could come up with was:

“Told you.”