A/N: Sorry an update took me so long, but this story is getting me the least responses or reviews, so I'm trying to get my other ones done first. Also, this story if almost two years old, so not a whole lot of inspiration going on. But I am trying!

Twenty-three year old Shawn Spencer jerked awake, a scream still caught half-way in his throat. Panting heavily, he glanced over the clock.

2:19.

Damn.

There was no way in hell he'd be be able to go to sleep again. He was still shaking as he stood, sliding a pair of pants on -fumbling with the button for a few seconds -before walking to the kitchen part of his laundry mat apartment. Sighing as he opened one of the cupboards, and popped out the false back, he was greeted by the welcoming sight of his many pills.

There was his Celexa for his bipolar disorder, Axert for his migraines, Ativin for his panic attacks, Concerta for his ADD, Percocet for the pain in his shoulder from when he'd been thrown from his bike two years ago, and Halcion for his insomnia. All of them were prescribed to him -granted, by different doctors, or at least mostly- but he'd done enough research to know that half of them did the same thing. Ativin was used for both panic attacks, and insomnia. Celexa and Concerta often worked against each other. Axert and Percocet would do the exact same thing.

But he was hooked; had been hooked since the first time Donny Reed, the local drug dealer in high school, had started feeding them to Shawn like candy. The Percs had been the first, but the Concerta hadn't been long following. As soon as he was out on his own, Shawn had found doctors to keep feeding his addiction. Not just physical addiction; Shawn was pretty damn sure he wouldn't make it through a few hours without going completely off the charts insane if he didn't have his medications. They kept him in just enough of a haze so he wasn't constantly assailed by memories, but he could still focus, still do his job.

Which was something he had to do. He was working a string of car thefts, and he needed to be alert. He couldn't let his nightmares slow him down. So he grabbed two of the Concerta, one of the Celexa, and a Percocet for good measure. Hopefully it'd be enough to keep him going through the day, until he could crawl back in bed tomorrow night, helped into sleep by two or three of the Halcion, and one or two of the Ativin, which would hopefully be enough to knock him out, and keep the nightmares at bay.

He knew he was slowly falling apart. In the past year, he'd more than tripled his dosages on most of the medications. He knew if he kept going the way he was, it wouldn't take more than another year or two before he O.D.'d.

Yet he threw back the pills anyways, washing them down with a shot of his good friend the Captain, before plopping down in the chair to wait for the medication to kick in.

Within twenty minutes, he felt the sudden surge of energy he'd been waiting for, quickly followed by the twitching jitters. He glanced at the clock as he shot out of his chair.

2:59.

He practically ran out the door, barely taking time to throw his jacket on, feeling the euphoric high settling down on him, accelerating his thought process as he jumped on his motorcycle.

A few minutes later, he was tearing down the 101, doing ninety five miles an hour as he raced towards the last three spots the cars had been seen. He knew he hadn't missed anything -he never had, never missed anything, never forgot anything- but he didn't have much else to go on at the moment. And he needed to move, needed to do something. Anything.

If he sat in his damn apartment another minute, he'd kill himself.