Author's Note: I think a lot of us more critical Psych-os wonder how Shawn can possibly sleep at night. And so we write fanfiction where he doesn't. This is my take on that theme.
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As Shawn sat quietly under the pier, lost in thought, he recalled the last time he had sat in this very same spot. It was thirteen years ago, and he had watched from a distance as Abigail Lytar, the girl who used to both brighten his daydreams and haunt his sleep at night, had grown increasingly frustrated over the course of an hour as she impatiently waited for her date. He had been close enough to admire the cut of her light blue babydoll dress and the red butterfly clips in her auburn hair - close enough to call out to her, even, but he hadn't done a thing. Instead, he just continued to sit silently, waiting and watching, until eventually Abigail had sighed in resignation and left.
But tonight, the pier was practically deserted. In the spot which Abigail had stood thirteen years prior, there was only a memory and a shadow. A solitary couple out for a late night stroll could be seen off in the distance, but Shawn paid them no mind. Instead, he sighed as he reflected on the fact that there was a part of him that was still a little sad about the way his last visit to this pier had turned out, but there was also a part of him that was very very glad. He then laughed aloud at the irony that thirteen years later - long out of high school and a far cry from being the awkward boy with the mullet who had never had a girlfriend - he was still sitting, frozen with fear of the future, under this very same pier.
After all, Shawn had a lot of things to fear. He was afraid of commitment, of promising to be with someone forever - or at least for a very long time. Shawn didn't do anything for a very long time. Psych was the first endeavor of Shawn's that had lasted for more than a year since he had graduated high school, and that seemed like miracle enough. Why push his luck? He was afraid of being tethered to one place, of not being free to roam and act on his whims and just, well, be Shawn. And he was afraid of responsibility - of having another person need him, depend on him even. And children? Multiple people truly dependent on him for their every need? The thought was terrifying. Yet for some reason, it still made him smile. His smile deepened into a smirk as he recalled his recent visit to a nanny agency for a case, incognito as one Mr. Levon Tostig.
But more than any of these things, Shawn feared being vulnerable. Of putting himself out there, admitting his true feelings out loud. He wasn't afraid of rejection. Rather, the opposite. It was like an allegory his father had told him when he was small of a man who had scattered feathers from a goose-down pillow all over town. Or squeezing all of the toothpaste out of the tube. Once you let it out, you couldn't put it back in, and once he told her how he felt, he would never, ever be able to un-tell her. In fact, all of his other fears didn't scare him so much when he thought about her. But this... this paralyzed him. This was the reason he was still sitting under the pier all alone in the middle of the night.
He knew that one day he would muster up the courage to tell Juliet how he really felt.
But not tonight.