Chapter 26: Breaking Barriers

Thanks so much for your patience as I slowly overcame writersblock!

warning, a crap ton of this chapter has Shawn being as pissed off as Jake normally is. Please enjoy.

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It had been about two hours since Shawn handcuffed us together. I was sitting on the couch leaning as far away from Shawn as possible as he typed one handedly on his laptop silently, the other arm outstretched with mine. My bladder was in pain and I seriously needed to go to the bathroom.

I thought that making it so that Shawn couldn’t type with both hands would inconvenience him enough to un-handcuff me long enough to go to the bathroom. Apparently he didn’t need both hands to type efficiently…

“Shawn.” I said, breaking the long silence. “My bladder is about to implode- please just uncuff me long enough to take a piss.” I begged.

“No. We’re going together or not at all.” He said frankly, eyes never leaving his computer screen.

“I’m not letting you go to the damn bathroom with me.” I grumbled. “Do you want to wait at the door or something? Seriously, where’s the logic in making me get a urinary tract infection?”

“You might jump out the window.” Shawn stated, eyes glued to the screen.

I frowned. “Why?”

Shawn looked away from his laptop to glare at me. “You tell me.”

“I won’t jump out the window. I don’t have a freaking reason too.” I reasoned. “So let me go to the godamn bathroom.”

Shawn scoffed. “You’ll just find a loophole. Like ‘oh I climbed out of the window, I didn’t technically jump’. And it’s not true that you don’t have a reason; you could do it just to make me mad.” He said bitterly.

“So that you can angrily molest me again? No thanks.” I countered. “I can’t lie Shawn- can’t you just accept that I won’t go out the window and let me piss in peace?” I asked, wincing when I felt another pang from my bladder.

“No.” He answered immediately. Son of a bitch!

“…Fine! Let’s go.” I said in defeat, standing up and pulling his wrist.

Shawn closed his laptop with a smug smirk and stood up to follow me.

Once we got up to the bathroom we walked over to the toilet. I paused a moment to think. “Uh, turn around Shawn.” I said.

Without protest, he turned around so that we were back to back.

After making sure Shawn wasn’t looking, I moved to unzip my fly. I suddenly froze. “I’m right handed.” I muttered.

“Yeah? So am I.” Shawn replied from behind me.

“No! I mean my right hand is cuffed to your left! And I’m right handed!” I said agitatedly. “I’ll get piss everywhere if I try to pee with my left.”

“…Then pee with your right.” Shawn said.

“But… then your hand will be near my…” I said, a bit embarrassed.

“Oh no.” He said sarcastically.

“You think I trust your hand being so close to my wood ?” I said crossly.

Shawn scoffed. “Guess not.”

I took a deep breath. “Fuck it, I’m taking a piss- just don’t move your hand.” I muttered, unzipping my pants so I could relieve my aching bladder. As I peed, I kept a wary eye on Shawn’s hand in case it moved.

When I finally finished, I zipped up my pants flushed the toilet. I turned around. “Um, thanks for not doing anything.”

“No problem.” He muttered, glaring at me in irritation.What? I was sure that I didn’t do anything to piss him off this time… Unless he was still pissed off about what happened that morning. Yeah, he definitely was.

“So… I’m going to wash my hands.” I said, stepping to the sink and starting to wash my hands, trying to make sure Shawn didn’t get anything on his hand cuffed to mine. I didn’t want to put a drop more fuel on his angry ass fire. Apparently I was doing the wrong thing, because Shawn suddenly pushed my hand so that his was under the faucet too.

“Why?!” I exclaimed, sending a glare at him.

“I’m pissed off at you, you’re being cute, and it’s pissing me off more.” Shawn grumbled.

“Then what the hell do you want me to do!?” I asked. He didn’t want me pissing him off, but at the same time he didn’t want me trying to not piss him off, because it pissed him off?!

“I want you to stop being a damn slut.”

“Quit calling me a fucking slut! For the last time, I’m a single virgin! And if either one of us is a slut, it’s probably…” I trailed off when I saw the pure fury in Shawn’s eyes.

“What? Not gonna finish that sentence?” He asked threateningly, staring me down.

I shrunk back, at a loss. Fuck! Why did I have to keep pissing him off more! “Uh… Las Vegas might be kinda like a slut.” I said, trying desperately to change the subject.

Shawn stared at me expressionlessly for a moment. “…Did you seriously think bringing that fucker into this was going to calm me down even a bit?” He finally asked.

“I… wasn’t really thinking.” I admitted, pinching the bridge of my nose exasperatedly.

Shawn sighed. “Let’s just go back downstairs.” I nodded in agreement.

Since I had relieved my bladder, I sat closer to Shawn to allow him both hands to type. I tried to indiscreetly glance at what he was doing, seeing a lot of gory photos, newspaper articles, and what looked like police files. Shit, he seriously was good at hacking if he could get into police files.

“Jake, don’t you have anything better to do?” Shawn suddenly asked, sending me a warning glare.

I frowned back. “Nope.” I replied. Our wrists were cuffed together, what else was I supposed to do?

Shawn slammed his laptop shut and jerked me towards him by yanking on the cuff. “I think you’ve stuck your nose into this enough for one day, don’t you?” Shawn said sourly.

“Nope.” I said again.

Shawn lost his threatening glare and his expression gave way to irritation. “You’re so fucking persistent.”

I cracked a smirk. “Looks like you were right the whole time; you shouldn’t let me get involved.”

“Don’t make me bite your neck again.” He grumbled. “I’ll make that mark a scar.”

I immediately scootched away. “Point taken.” I said. Shawn was definitely still pissed of at me. Not that I could totally blame him. The only problem was… anger and arousal seemed to go hand in hand with him.

I went back to looking over Shawn’s shoulder as he researched information on the janitor, also known as, The Painter. His registered name as the janitor was Harold White, but it seemed like that was just a pseudonym.  There were a lot of other photos Shawn was finding with different name captions.

From the photos Shawn found, it was revealed that the man’s looks could range from a disheveled and husky janitor to a classy businessman- making him hardly identifiable between photos. He looked average; roughly in his twenties or early thirties, had brown hair and eyes, he was Caucasian, and his height and build were normal too…He certainly had disguise down- and seemed to move from place to place judging from the sickeningly gory photos of similar crime scenes in varied locations.

Shawn suddenly shut the laptop again. “Jake, can’t you watch TV or something? I can’t focus when you’re looking over my shoulder.” He said through gritted teeth. “It’s making me think about how pissed off I am, and what ways I can protect your reckless ass. What I should be thinking about are ways to kill the son of a bitch.”

“Well that isn’t my…” Wasn’t my fault? Yes it fucking was… My mind snapped to the latter thing he said. I opened my mouth to protest; saying that we should focus on getting him in prison and not the grave, but I thought better of it and bit my lip. With how pissed off Shawn was, I really should keep my mouth shut…

Shawn glared at me again. “You’re so fuckin’ adorable, it’s pissing me off.” He grumbled.

He was literally getting pissed at me for every fucking thing. And I was getting fucking sick of it! I didn’t like caring what he thought, and I would definitely get the short end of all of it, but still… Fuck I was going to regret this. “Shawn, I’m sick of this. You have every right to be mad, but can we just move past this shit so we can move onto what actually matters- like the Painter?” Shawn didn’t look convinced yet. I took a deep breath. “Alright, what the fuck do you want? Let’s just make another one of your self-serving deals so we can get past this, ‘kay?” I said, regretting it immediately.

Shawn’s look of surprise quickly gave way to a genuine smile, like he hadn’t been pissed off at all for the past three hours. “I like the way you think Jakey.” He crooned, a complete 180 from his previous tone.

I sure as hell did like the way I thought. “What do you want?” I asked.

“You mean aside from sex and engagement?” He asked.

“Y-yeah.” I replied uncomfortably.

“And aside from the should-already-be-obvious ‘don’t go on coffee dates with fucks who’ve tried to kill you’?” He asked again, this time with a scowl. Was he fucking bipolar!?

“Please Shawn, what the hell do you want?” I sighed.

Shawn thought for a moment, and then smirked. “Alright, I have a pretty damn good deal here-”

“For you or for both of us?” I asked doubtfully.

“Actually, pretty damn good for you.” He said. “So, firstly, I’ll forgive you, let you be… somewhat involved in all of this, and I’ll stop cuffing us together by next week if you’re good.”

That sounded pretty damn good. Too good. “In exchange for what?”

“I’ll let you choose; a mutual french once a day for a week, or a consensual kiss once a day for three months.” He said, grinning.

I blanched at him. “…M-mutual?”

“Yeah, like you actually kiss back- instead of that almost shit you’ve been doing.” Shawn explained.

Fuck. He knew that I almost kissed him back a few times… “U-uh…do you want anything else?” I asked desperately. I didn’t want to do anything as extreme frenching Shawn every day for seven days, but a regular kiss for three months was plain ridiculous. But then again, we had to stop this petty fighting and get to work on getting more information on the killer.

He smirked. “Nope.”

I gritted my teeth. “Alright, the kiss everyday fucking day for three fucking months.” I conceded. “But I get full involvement in this- you’re not going to keep shit from me this time.” I said, referring when he was being a vague shit about Spike and he abducted me. “Oh! And make that two months.”

“Ten weeks.” Shawn bargained, holding out his hand to shake.

“Fine.” I caved, shaking his hand. I could hardly believe that we were making such a bizarre-ass deal in the first place.

Shawn suddenly grabbed my head and gave me a quick peck on the lips, making my face flare up red.

“Thanks for being so flexible Jakey.” Shawn said. I swore he was mocking me.

“S-…so was that the first… kiss?” I asked, trying to calm myself down.

“Huh? Oh no, that wasn’t a consensual one.” He said, grabbing his laptop and opening it. So, in other words, the kiss didn’t count because it wasn’t consensual as per our agreement. So basically, all of Shawn’s unsolicited kisses weren’t going anywhere.

“Y-you piece of shit.” I seethed.

“I try my best.” He said, grinning evilly. “Anyways, I can’t find a single solid thing on this fuck.”

Okay, so we were moving on. At least he was including me. I leaned over to get a better look at the screen. “So, you’ve never met him before?” I asked.

Shawn shook his head. “Not that I know of.” He said. “I’ve met a crap ton of psychos, and even if he looks average, I would have remembered someone with his… skills.”

I nodded. “What else did you find about him… or his victims?” I asked.

Shawn frowned at me. “Sometimes I really wish you were more squeamish, that way you’d stay out of the way and let me protect you correctly.”

“Well, I’m not apparently, so let’s keep going.” I said.

“I can’t find much of anything in common between his victims. Different places, genders, ages, economic standing- there’s not similarities between them except the fact that they’re so random. They would almost seem like random killings, if he didn’t draw such meaningful crap beneath them with their blood. All of it looks really detailed, and judging from the ace of hearts he made for us, I’m guessing they all have deep meaning.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “So, he looks really deeply into stranger’s lives just so he can paint meaningful things under their corpses?”

“That’s what it looks like, but he would have to look pretty fucking deep to find out that I was going to make you ace of hearts before I fell in love with you…” Shawn said disdainfully.

I thought for a few moments until something weird came to me. “And why kill the P.E. teacher?”

Shawn shrugged. “Because he was convenient? It’s pretty hard to kill someone in a packed school; believe me.”

I nodded. “I don’t know, I might be overthinking it, but he was treating me like crap throughout the day- and you kind of wanted to kill him too.”

“I’d still kill him if he was alive.” Shawn agreed darkly.

“So… what if it’s not a threat, but… a favor or something.”  I said in dread.

Shawn’s eyes widened in anger. “So… they did it for you? I’m going to fucking paint a room with their guts.” Shawn cursed.

I ignored Shawn’s disturbing threat. “I don’t know… how would they have any way of knowing that I know that I was even the ace of hearts. If it was for me, then why would it be so… you?”

“They might have done it for you, but the painting was directed at me as a threat, saying that they were aware of what you are to me.” Shawn theorized.

“Possibly.” I agreed. “I still think it might have been for you. Like a favor- or tribute- to you; protecting Card’s love interest from harassment or some noble shit… And we’re also coming back to the fact that you don’t even know this guy.”

“Yeah, that’s fucking weird… unless.” Shawn trailed off, thinking.

“Unless what?”

“Unless he’s a hitman.” Shawn finished.

I blinked in shock. “So, he might have just been following orders?”

“That would explain the weird lack of any pattern in his victims.” Shawn agreed gravely.

“So we might not even know who’s really behind this.” I said in alarm. Shawn nodded gravely.

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D'aw, look at them, solving murder mysteries together.

Thanks again for reading! And thanks again (and again and again and again) for those comments :)

(also, i wasn't allowed to use the D-word, the P-word, or the male chicken word in this chapter. Hence the word wood as a substitution XD)