My first Psych fic, woot!
Disclaimer: I do not own Psych or it's characters.
Shawn didn't want to turn around.
He had been lying in bed for the past six hours, and it didn't occur to him why he couldn't fall asleep, not at first. He'd even gotten up mulitple times for bathroom breaks. He'd eaten a sandwich. He'd turned the fan off, because maybe he was just too cold. Then he'd turned it back on, because summers in Santa Barbara were a force to reckon with.
Lassie would say he was being ridiculous. "Just go to bed," he would say, because he didn't understand how someone could stay awake for hours on end, just staring at the ceiling. He didn't understand Shawn.
But that wasn't true. The detective knew him better than anyone else, because Shawn wanted him to. There was something about those blue eyes that made the psychic want to ramble for hours, on the off chance that something he said would bring out that toothy grin that he loved so much.
There wasn't much about Lassie he didn't love. His feelings had been clear at the beginning, to everyone but the one they were aimed at. Gus had been the one to figure it out first.
But the room was too quiet, too empty. He reached for his phone only to remember that it wasn't even there anymore. He broke it months ago, and hadn't bothered to fix it, telling the officers at the station to use the spirits to communicate with him. Or if that didn't work for them, try the landline at the Psych agency.
He wished someone would use the spirits tonight.
It had taken him until at least three o'clock in the morning, when his back was aching and his mind was wild with exhaustion, but he had figured out why he couldn't sleep.
And now he couldn't turn around.
He couldn't turn around because if he turned around, he would see that Lassie wasn't there, and he couldn't pretend anymore.
It had been almost a year since Shawn had lost him, and he was getting used to sleeping alone. That just made this feeling worse. The emptyness was practically suffocating him and he wanted to scream but that would rip apart the charade he was keeping up.
Tonight, for his sanity, he would pretend Lassie was alive. He would pretend that he was behind him, and all night they had argued about who got to be the big spoon, and as soon as Lassie fell asleep he'd rolled out of the embrace and turned away. He would pretend that Lassie would wake up any second, roused by Shawn's fitful movements, and would kiss his hair and tell him to go back to sleep, because everything is fine.
Everything is fine.
...
"Shawn, get the hell out of there!" Juliet's voice screamed through the radio on his waistband. He ignored it. Juliet was yelling and Shawn was running and he could see him, could see the red and the blue and he knew how wrong it was but his only thought was he had to get Lassie out of there.
The firefight went on around him as he dropped to hs knees next to the fallen detective. Lassiter's eyes found Shawn's and for a moment, he could see relief. "Shawn," he croaked, obviously in pain. "You shouldn't be here...the guns...get hurt." His voice was nothing more than a strained whisper and Shawn saw his vision blurring.
He blinked away tears. "Just hang in there, Lassie. Please, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay." he repeated it like a mantra, and he wasn't sure who it benefited more. He wanted to stop the bleeding, but there was so much. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway.
Lassiter brought a hand up to stroke Shawn's cheek. "Shawn, you have to get out of here. I don't want you getting shot too." He coughed, blood tricking down the side of his mouth. "Everything is fine."
...
Everything wasn't fine. Hell of a choice for last words, Shawn thought. Lassie always had to make things memorable.
But for now, he wouldn't think of that. He would pretend that the man he loved was on the other side of his king-size bed, sleeping soundly, quietly, safe.
And he would not turn around.