Now Ain't That a Kick in the Head (And Everywhere Else) by Emachinescat

A Psych Fan-Fiction

Summary: Shawn learns the hard way that playing the hero isn't always what it's cracked up to be, and that sometimes, when your dad says to lay low and let the cops handle it, you should listen. Unfortunately, "the hard way" involves a hostage situation and a handful of very angry bad guys with a score to settle. AU of 5x07 "Ferry Tale." Part of my whumpy AU series "AU That Glitters."

A/N: "Ferry Tale" is an amazing episode with so much untapped potential for major whump. No way those goons weren't thoroughly pissed at Shawn for stopping their escape. This story was a blast to write, and it ended up going in a direction that I didn't quite expect, which is always a pleasant surprise. I hope you enjoy! :)

Enjoy!

Now Ain't That a Kick in the Head (And Everywhere Else)

Shawn's head snapped back, pain flaring across his jaw, head, and into his neck, as the convict's foot connected with his face.

Well, he thought wryly amidst the haze of black spots rippling across his vision, it seemed his new buddy Craaaaig was wrong. These guys did not find it endearing in the slightest to have their last words thrown back into their faces as angry questions. Noted.

Shawn couldn't even think about fighting back as he felt two sets of strong arms encircle his biceps, half-dragging, half-carrying him out of the room. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard one of them snap, "Told you to shut up."

Shawn wasn't entirely sure how far they dragged him before he was roughly shoved to the floor. He may have blacked out on the way to their new destination; he couldn't be sure, but given the fuzziness in his head and the pain in his face, it was a distinct possibility. Shawn hit the floor face-first, and this time he was certain he'd blacked out, because when he next opened his eyes, he was lying on his back with no memory of having been turned over, the bleary, light-haloed visages of three of the four bad guys glaring down at him.

He cursed. "Come on, guys," he managed past his already swelling jaw. He winced as the movement pulled at a shiny new cut on his upper lip. He tasted salt and iron. His voice sounded thick and clumsy in his mouth as he blinked rapidly, attempting to clear his vision and mind in one fell swoop. "Don't you think this has gone far enough? I mean, this has gone from a quiet, unpublicized escape to a fully realized hostage situation. Trust me, I've been in more than my fair share of hostage situations in the past, and they never, ever turn out well for the bad guys."

"Is that so?" growled the pissiest of the men, the one who had kicked him – Shawn decided to call him Quarterback Steve.

"It's so so," Shawn agreed, not budging from his spot on the floor. It wasn't comfortable in the slightest but it was safer. He couldn't be kicked down to the ground on his ass if his ass was already on the ground. And Gus said he never thought ahead.

"Well, who's fault is it that we're in this situation in the first place, huh?" another convict chimed in, his dark eyes flashing wildly. Shawn had noticed those eyes the first time they'd seen the inmates. They were cold and dangerous and very, very angry. Shawn creatively called him Angry Eyes.

"Oh, I don't know," Shawn said sarcastically, fastidiously ignoring the tiny voice in his head that sounded like an unholy trinity of his father, Gus, and Lasiter, begging him to shut the hell up . "That guy's?" Propping himself carefully on one elbow, Shawn pointed to the fourth convict who had just walked into the corridor, carrying one of those emergency axes in one hand and escorting a shaky Gus, who now sported several seasick patches and was walking on his own, with the other. They must have taken a field trip to the medical cabin.

Axe Man sneered at Shawn, pulling Gus to a stop beside him. Shawn and Gus had only a handful of seconds to have a full conversation purely through eyebrow wiggles and facial expressions alone.

A raise of the eyebrows. You okay?

An answering lift of immaculately groomed brow caterpillars. Doing just great, buddy. A dip of the head. You okay?

A deep, dark glare. No, Shawn, I am not okay, and if you ever throw me to the wolves like that again, I will –

Shawn was so busy reading Gus's irritation that he didn't register said irritation turn to panic until Gus was suddenly shoved roughly against the wall and held there by his captor and another foot – or it could have been the same foot; Shawn wasn't really keeping track at this point – buried itself into Shawn's side. Shawn yelled in pain at the sudden ferocity of the attack. From against the wall, Gus screamed his name.

Another kick, this one landing on his hip, and Shawn instinctively rolled away from the pain and onto his stomach once more. Pain lancing through him at the movement, Shawn managed to scramble to his knees in a desperate bid to regain his feet. Once on his hands and knees, however, another kick, this one more brutal than the first two combined, slammed upwards into his gut, stealing every ounce of air from his lungs, draining him of his good humor and spry youthfulness and everything else but painpainpain . He gagged, his arms and legs no longer supporting him, and he dropped down in a heap of ouch at his assailants' prison issued shoes. His face smacked the floor, and his vision went fuzzy as his poor, abused jaw was clipped yet again.

If any of his attackers were speaking, Shawn could't hear them over the combined chaos of his own desperate, clawing drags of air, Gus's panicked struggles, and the sound of blood rushing in his ears. For the love of all things 80s, what the hell had he done to deserve this? The answer was multifaceted and instantaneous, and the voice in his head that supplied it sounded suspiciously, infuriatingly, like his father's: You didn't lay low, you took things into your own hands, you deliberately antagonized an escaped convict, and you kept running your mouth even then. Need I go on?

No, Shawn thought sickly, you needn't.

And then all thought flew out the window as one of his captors knelt down beside him and a large, strong hand meshed firmly in his beautiful mane. Shawn couldn't hold in a whimper as his head was yanked up, off the floor, and back about as far as it could go and then some. His neck stretched past its limits, his head screaming from the vise grip on his hair, Shawn found himself staring up into the face of Angry Eyes, whose Eyes had far surpassed Angry and were now entering into Enraged territory.

"You could have just walked away," Angry Eyes growled, his face inches from Shawn's. "You could have just let us go, but you had to play the hero. You forced us into this hostage situation by stealing our only chance of an easy escape. And you're going to get us out of it."

Suddenly it all made sense. Even as he lay there, neck and head screaming, face throbbing, midsection caved in on itself, he connected the dots and realized that these guys weren't beating the crap out of him just because he'd smarted off to them. They blamed their current situation on him. He'd been the one to release the lifeboat and steal their freedom literally right from their hands. Even if Shawn hadn't drawn attention to himself by following Craaaaaig's stupid advice, they probably would've pulled him aside and whaled on him anyway.

Air was slowly, painfully, filtering back into Shawn's lungs and he breathed quick, shallow breaths through his nose as he tried to think through the raging panic building up inside. He heard Axe Man's voice from where he held a still fighting Gus. "What do you want to do with his friend?" Shawn couldn't see his buddy's face from the angle his own head was being held at, but he could taste his best friend's fear in the air. It smelled like sweat and, oddly enough, chocolatey caramel goodness. Shawn realized that he was smelling a half-eaten snickers that had fallen out of his pocket when he'd been mistaken for a soccer ball. His stomach curdled at the smell of his favorite candy mixed with his own blood.

The fourth convict – Shawn named him Not So Tiny Tim as he hadn't noticed any defining characteristics in the short and unpleasant time they'd been acquainted other than big – finally piped up, "Throw him back with the others, and gather everyone together for a little trip."

Tim and Angry Eyes must have had their own silent eyebrow conversation, because without conferring aloud, they seemed to be on the exact same wavelength. As Angry Eyes finally, blessedly, released Shawn's hair, the man grunted in agreement and Shawn saw a truly nasty smile curl his lips. "We're going up on deck, and we're going to give your cop buddies a show."

Just when he'd thought things couldn't get worse, his son always managed to prove him wrong. Henry wasn't entirely sure how, but there wasn't a doubt in his mind that this was Shawn's fault.

The hostage negotiations had spiraled from bad to catastrophic in a matter of minutes. The convicts had moved their captives to the deck, right out in the open, and had arranged them in a circle, facing outwards, with all the bad guys safely tucked in the middle. A giant, multi-faceted human shield.

Henry squinted his eyes, peering through the binoculars at the perfect ring of hostages that made the S.W.A.T. snipers obsolete. He could see Gus in their ranks, and his heart sank at the drained, fragile look in his eyes. Something beyond the obvious had gone very wrong, and with a sick pit in his stomach, Henry knew that his son was at the center of it.

Ironically, he didn't realize just how "in the center of it" Shawn was until one of the hostages in the back was yanked out of the ring and into the middle of the circle with the convicts. Even with binoculars, Henry didn't have a great line of sight, but through the cracks in the shield, he immediately recognized his son. From what he could tell Shawn was standing, but he was slouched, and Henry recognized the hunched back and defensive slump of the shoulders as the posture of someone who'd taken a beating. He cursed.

"What?" Lassiter demanded from his left.

Wordlessly, Henry handed the binoculars to the detective. A second later, he also cursed and began to confer rapidly with Vick and Detective O'Hara. Henry stared across the gorgeous blue diamond surface of the water and onto the boat where he knew, but couldn't see, his son in the clutches of four deadly convicts willing to do anything to obtain their freedom.

If he hadn't been such a seasoned detective himself, Henry would have jumped when Vick's phone suddenly slammed down on the railing in front of him, Vick's hand keeping it firmly in place. Henry noted that the speaker was on. He locked eyes with the chief, then glanced at Lassiter, O'Hara, and McNab in turn. Vick's voice was tight as she announced what Henry had already surmised.

"They want all of us to hear this."

Shawn, for perhaps the first time in his life, stood still and quiet, hunched over on himself against the parade of aches and pains currently marching through his body. He fixed his eyes in front of him, where Gus stood as part of a giant human shield. Gus's perfect cocoa head was just as smooth and buttery from behind. Not for the first time, Shawn felt an almost irresistible urge to lick it – not in a weird way, of course. It just looked like a giant Whopper, and Shawn had never been able to resist chocolately, malty goodness.

He was jerked out of his reverie as Quarterback Steve's voice sounded in his ear. It took Shawn longer than it should have to realize that the dude was talking into a phone – Shawn's phone – and not to Shawn himself. In his defense, Shawn had just played the very unfortunate role of a piñata and the pain was taking up most of his attention. That, and he had been rudely yoinked from his place in the giant game of Ring Around the Robbers and into the heart of the circle, which he knew could only spell trouble for him in the long run.

Boy, oh boy, was he right.

"As you can see," Quarterback Steve announced into the phone, "your snipers can't hit us without hitting one of your precious hostages. Now, our demands are simple. We want a fully-fueled boat and guaranteed safe passage out of here."

From the speaker, Shawn heard Chief Vick's slightly muffled voice and closed his eyes in relief. If anyone could get him out of this mess, it was her. Any fun from the adventure, the suspense, the mystery of it all had been entirely leached from him and all he wanted now was to go home, to be safe. He'd even settle for his dad's house at this point. He just didn't want to be here anymore.

"I'm sure we can figure out something," Vick said placatingly, though Shawn knew full well that the SBPD had a strong policy of never negotiating with kidnappers. "But first, we need something from you–"

She was cut off by Angry Eyes, who decided it was high time he join the conversation. "Fully fueled boat. If it's not here in ten minutes, we start shooting hostages, starting with your little psychic here. And to keep you motivated, and to show how serious we are…" He trailed off, but Shawn didn't have to be psychic to know what was coming next.

Oh, crap.

While two convicts kept an eye on the hostages and police, the other two turned on Shawn, who raised his hands in a placating gesture. His throat was so dry, his lungs frozen with terror, his body already aching from the beating he'd taken earlier.

Later, Shawn would realize that the first beating was nothing compared to one that came next.

The first punch landed directly on his swollen jaw, flooring him in one hit. The pain stole his breath and his vision, and he had no time to recover from the hit or prepare himself for the next one. The two men were on him in an instant, a flurry of kicks – his face, his ribs, his sides, his back – and finally, he just tucked himself into the tiniest ball he could muster, remembering through the haze of agony and the sounds of shoes thudding into flesh and the smell of blood his father's survival training and he could hear someone yelling through the phone – someone yelling from just a few feet away – then a snapping sound and red-hot pain flared through his ribs and he screamed, a hoarse, strangled noise –

And then a new sound joined the party, a whizzing sound, kind of like a sparkler, and then suddenly there was yelling and stampeding feet and the beating stopped but the pain stayed and it was hard to breathe, smoke spewing and already starved lungs choking for air, wheezing, chaos everywhere, smoke creeping into his lungs and someone calling his name from a long, long way away.

Shawn desperately tried to make sense of the world around him, but it was just a whirl of pain and flashing lights and color and he couldn't breathe and coughing hurt more than anything, even more than being shot.

A high-pitched ringing joined the cacophony and his vision went gray around the edges as his abused chest fought desperately for an ounce of air that simply wouldn't come. Right as the world faded into darkness, a shape loomed over him, something hard and plastic was placed over his face, and he thought he heard a frantic, terrified voice call his name.

The moment the convicts started assaulting Shawn, Karen had deployed S.W.A.T. with their tear gas. Her lips were tight, voice tense with expertly concealed panic and fury as she barked the order. Shawn Spencer drove her crazy ninety-five percent of the time, but damn it if he wasn't effective, despite his less than orthodox methods. And beyond that, he was one of them, no matter how often or how carelessly he'd turned the department on its head. He'd proven himself time and again to not only be a valuable resource, but a loyal – if not frustrating – friend.

She'd gotten a quick look at those around her the moment the first punch landed. Lassiter stood erect, hands fisted tightly at his sides, jaw grinding, eyes flashing in fury. O'Hara's stance unintentionally mimicked Lassiter's, though her eyes were misty and her lower lip trembled the slightest bit. McNab looked green.

Henry was practically vibrating where he stood, his face set in stone, fear etched into every line, jaw working, and his eyes…

Karen had had to fight the urge to take a step back; the cold, deadly rage in Henry Spencer's gaze prompted her to make a mental note not to let him near any of these men once they'd caught them. She'd known Henry a long time, and he was generally a very gruff and composed individual. But this was his son, no matter how much they fought against one another, and he was being brutalized before his very eyes. Just the prospect of someone hurting her Iris sent electric waves of fury through her body. She couldn't even fathom what Henry was feeling.

Now, it was just her and McNab. She had sent Lassiter and O'Hara with S.W.A.T; their first priority would be assisting in neutralizing the threat and making sure all the hostages were safe. Karen stayed behind to coordinate and had ordered Henry to remain with her. It was too dangerous, he wasn't in the field anymore, and he was too emotionally compromised. She wasn't at all surprised when he spat, "Like hell," and practically leaped onto the S.W.A.T. boat after her detectives right before it took off.

She may not have approved, but she wouldn't have expected anything less from Henry Spencer.

Henry got to Shawn first. Gas mask on his face and an extra in hand, he barreled through the chaos on the ferry. S.W.A.T. and the detectives were still rounding up the fleeing, staggering convicts, but Henry didn't stop to help. They had this under control, and his son needed him. Because of all the hostages blocking the way he hadn't had a clear view of the beating his son had endured, but he had heard it. Heard the sound of the hits and kicks connecting. Heard Shawn's gasps and grunts and cries of pain. And, more horrifyingly, heard when he fell silent.

Bodies were everywhere, kneeling, sitting, crawling, coughing, hacking, screaming, crying. Hostages clung to one another, blinded eyes streaming, noses running like facets, coughs hacking up from deep within them. Henry had once told Shawn that tear gas wasn't pretty for anyone involved. That was the understatement of the decade. And yet Henry ignored it all, ignored the grasping, reaching hands, the cries of fear and pain. He knew that S.W.A.T. and the detectives would take care of the hostages that were, current situation notwithstanding, healthy and whole. He was focused on the one hostage who was not.

By the time Henry had waded his way through the cesspool of terror, S.W.A.T. had neutralized the convicts and were already escorting the coughing, wheezing scumbags to a newly deployed prison transport boat. Over the sound of the panic, Henry heard Lassiter barking orders, taking control of the situation.

Henry fell to his knees at Shawn's side, his gut twisted around itself as he saw through the slowly clearing gas the state of his son's face. Writhing on the ground, chest heaving with pain and exertion, Shawn desperately tried to draw air past his bloodied lips. He was on his back, and his fingers clawed at the wood beneath him as if trying to find purchase. He coughed, whimpering, tears streaming from his tightly squeezed eyes and mixing with the blood on his face.

"Oh, kiddo," Henry breathed, and carefully lowered the gas mask over his son's battered, barely recognizable face.

From behind him, Henry heard Gus's voice muffled by his own gas mask. One of the detectives must have found him and given him one. "Shawn!"

Henry ignored him as Shawn finally gave up the fight for consciousness. Panic flared for a dark moment; Henry had no idea how bad Shawn's injuries were, if there were internal injuries, something deadly lurking beneath the surface that he couldn't see. He quickly reached for Shawn's wrist, breathing a sigh of relief when he felt a steady beat beneath his fingers. It was a bit weak, but it was there.

And then suddenly Gus was there, and he had gas-masked medics in tow, and Henry was shifted out of the way as the professionals knelt around his broken son and began to assess his injuries. "Gus, what the hell happened on this damn boat?" Henry demanded weakly as he stood and side-eyed his son's best friend. He realized that Gus's hands were shaking as his eyes fixed on his friend.

Henry realized that his own hands held the slightest of tremors.

"Trust me, Mr. Spencer, you don't want to know."

Henry in fact did want to know, very much so, if only so he knew how long and loud he would need to lecture Shawn later. He didn't push, though, because they were strapping Shawn to a backboard and carrying him toward the med transport and he was so damn tired.

Shawn was in the hospital, which was a problem because Shawn hated hospitals.

Four broken ribs, the doctor had said. Apparently, on the way back to shore, Shawn had started having increased trouble breathing, and it had been discovered that one of those ribs had punctured a lung. Shawn now had a great big ugly tube snaking out of his chest from between his ribs as a reward. His nose was broken, he was covered in bruises and welts and abrasions, and one of the nastier kicks had fractured his right arm. To complete the bold and daring ensemble, he had a concussion to match.

But the absolute worst injury as far as Shawn was concerned was his fractured jaw. Apparently, the amount of times he'd been kicked, punched, and clipped in that same spot had taken its toll and the last vicious kick to his face had been the pièce de résistance (which, roughly translated, meant the suckiest suck to ever suck) that had done the dirty deed. Shawn had awoken in a hospital bed five hours after the worst ferry ride of his life with that damn tube in his chest and his jaw wired shut .

Which meant he could only grunt and mumble responses when well-wishers (including Gus, Jules, Vick, Buzz, half the police station, Gus's weird tree-hugger friends, and a despondent, now jobless, Craaaaaig ) asked how he was doing. His father was there the whole time, too, but Shawn didn't count him as a well-wisher, mainly because his father wished nothing of the sort. He only wished to bring misery and strife onto his already ailing child.

Which led Shawn to the next terrible effect of his forced silence. He couldn't defend himself against the barrage of lectures that immediately followed after the initial well-wishing. (To be fair, when Lassiter came to take his statement later, there was no wishing of any kind, well or not. As Shawn clumily wrote down his only slightly embellished version of events with his left hand, Lassie launched directly into a shouted soliloquy of rage and disappointment, about procedure and police work and unnecessary risk and Shawn tuned him out after that.)

Gus's lecture had been short and rambling and had involved a lot of babbling, sniffling, movie references, and had ended in a fist bump. Jules had sighed, shaken her head, and told Shawn they could – and would – talk about this later, when he was feeling better. She had quietly told him that she knew his heart was in the right place, but she'd also insisted that the way he'd handled the whole situation as incredibly idiotic. She'd also patted him on the shoulder but hadn't given him a lingering kiss on the cheek like he'd been hoping, so he wasn't sure how he felt about that whole interaction.

Chief Vick didn't have to say much. She just gave him that Look – the one that he was sure could cow entire gangs into joyful submission and obedience with one glance – though she did tell him she was glad he was okay and hoped to see him back at the station and in her office soon. Shawn chose to believe she was implying she wanted to give him a new case, and not that she wanted to lecture him in earnest. C'mon son , he said to himself, which wasn't nearly as fun as saying it to Gus. Even he wasn't that stupid.

But his father was by far the worst. He had deigned to rail at Shawn moments after he had woken up, in front of everyone, and his lecture lasted a good twenty minutes. He pulled all the angry dad and angry boss stops – he talked with his hands, counted points on his fingers, rubbed his bald head more than once, growled and snapped and fairly frothed at the mouth, pointed a finger directly into Shawn's face, inches from his broken nose, and even had the gall to scrub his hands across his face at the end and sigh, "Geez, kid, you scared the hell out of me." Then he freestyled a little and threw in a bit of teenage-girl-pissed-at-her-parents tantrum action, turned on his heel, and stormed from the room.

Four days later, Shawn sat on the couch in his father's house, wallowing in his abject misery. He'd finally been released from the hospital, but under the careful watch of his father. His jaw was no longer wired shut, but it hurt like hell to speak.

Not that that did anything to stop him from talking. The problem was, no one seemed to want to listen. Especially his dad. Shawn couldn't put his finger on it, but he felt something different in the way that he interacted with his friends and Lassie since he'd been nearly beaten to death on the ferry. He wasn't sure what he'd expected life to be like post-assault, but he'd at least thought it would be something similar to when he'd been shot. He'd had lots of people checking up on him, dropping by the hospital just to say hi and to give him encouragement. Gus had played cards with him for hours. Even Lassiter had stopped by just to see how he was doing. And people were generally nicer to him than usual as he recovered.

But now, even though people called to check on him and visited and even brought him pineapple smoothies from time to time, something was off . It wasn't necessarily anything that they said or did, or didn't say or didn't do, but there was something there , lurking between them, and he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was.

A great, heaving sigh, and the couch dipped next to him. Shawn rolled his eyes over to see his dad nearly collapse onto the sofa beside him. The man had been making smoothie runs constantly for the past several days. Shawn was grateful, as it was the only thing he could eat while his jaw healed, but that same something still lingered in the empty space between himself and his dad, something more bitter and frustrating than their normal levels of animosity.

Henry glanced over and met Shawn's tired, pained gaze. "How ya feeling, kid?"

Shawn shook his head angrily, then squeezed his eyes shut when the movement sent waves of pain through his head and nausea through his gut. Stupid concussion. "Like you care," he snapped, wrapping his good arm around his midsection. He resisted the urge to look at his watch, knowing it was far too soon for another round of pain meds, but everything just hurt so damn much.

"Aren't you chipper this morning?" his dad sniped back. "God, kid, Gus and I have been running ourselves ragged trying to take care of your ass these past four days, and this is the thanks we get?"

"Boo-hoo," Shawn griped, then opened his eyes to see a strange look on his dad's face – if he didn't know any better, he'd say his father's feelings were hurt. But since Henry Spencer wouldn't know what an emotion was if it bit him in the ass, it had to be a trick of the light.

Still.

"Sorry, Pop," Shawn managed, leaning his head back against the couch, his face tight with pain.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when his father's ice cold hand made contact with his throbbing forehead, then he unconsciously leaned into the cool, soothing touch. Why were old people's hands always so cold? His dignity was at stake, so with difficulty Shawn pulled away. "What are you doing?"

His dad didn't answer. "Pain bad?" he grunted.

A sarcastic response formed in Shawn's mind, but he didn't have the energy to voice it. He just nodded, and to his shame, he felt his eyes prickle and a small lump form in his throat. He'd been emotionally volatile since the attack. It could be any number of things, the doctor had said – the concussion, the pain, the pain meds, most likely the trauma of what he had been through mentally and physically. Shawn had a department-ordered meeting with a psychologist in three days to address said trauma. He wasn't looking forward to it, but Vick had told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn't make this meeting, he wouldn't be taking any more cases for the SBPD.

Father and son sat in strained silence for a few minutes, until Shawn couldn't take it any longer. "Dad?" He hated how weak and fragile his voice sounded in his own ears.

Another grunt. Boy, his father was an articulate fellow today. A regular Shakespeare. Shawn took this as an invitation to continue. "Have you noticed… I mean…" Pain flared with every word he spoke, but Shawn had to get this out. "Why is everyone acting different since the ferry? Like they're pissed at me."

"Probably because they are pissed at you, Shawn. You nearly got yourself killed."

Shawn allowed himself a frustrated growl. Of course Dad didn't understand. He tried his best to clarify. "More than usual. It's like… gah … a wall is between me and everyone. Like everyone is acting normal but there's something between us that I can't see and I can't connect with anyone and it's weird , even with Gus…"

He trailed off, knowing he was babbling, each new word slurred more than the last as his newly freed jaw protested the movement.

A knowing look had passed over his father's face, tinged with triumph and what Shawn almost would have called sympathy. "Son, this 'wall' has nothing to do with them and everything to do with you ."

Shawn huffed. "And tonight the part of the cryptic old coot will be played by none other than–"

Henry cut him off. "It's guilt, Shawn. You did something stupid, you nearly got yourself killed, put a lot of people in danger, and you know it. You didn't listen to me when I told you to lay low and let us take care of it. You've seen how this whole ordeal has affected those around you, who care about you, and you feel guilty ."

Shawn considered this with pursed lips. "This guilt business sucks," he finally decided. He liked to live his life in the moment. No second thoughts. No regrets. He'd felt guilt before, of course, but simple and fleeting. Not like this.

But he knew his father was right. He had let everyone down. He had gone too far this time and nearly gotten himself killed in the process. They were pissed at him because they were worried about him. Well, Lassie was always pissed at Shawn, and it had nothing to do with affection. Shawn remembered the look on Lassiter's face when he'd taken immediate stock of all of Shawn's injuries at the hospital and amended – maybe it had a little to do with affection.

His dad chuckled. "It does. But I can tell you, even though we're all pissed, the only wall there is the one you've put up because you feel guilty for putting us in this spot to begin with."

Quietly, almost timidly: "How… how do I pull the wall down?"

Another sigh, this one almost affectionate. Henry gently patted Shawn's knee as he rose from the couch and turned to loom over him like a bald, marginally benevolent and surprisingly wise old crow. "You own up to your mistake, kid. You apologize. You do better. You stop putting your life at risk so casually and listen to those who are trying to protect you."

Again, Shawn couldn't keep the tremor out of his voice, and he blamed the pain meds still in his system and the concussion. "And then things will go back to normal?"

Henry snorted. "Nothing's ever normal with you, Shawn."

Shawn gave a reluctant micro-chuckle and let himself sink deeper into the couch as he contemplated his dad's words. His eyes slid shut, and Henry gave a rare indulgent smile as he looked down upon his bruised and battered son. Covering the kid with a throw, Henry turned to leave and was at the door when Shawn, who'd he thought was asleep, spoke up, his voice weak and laced with discomfort but perhaps more earnest than Henry had ever heard it.

"I'm sorry, Dad."

Henry couldn't help himself. He moved back to the couch and gently brushed the back of his hand against Shawn's bruised cheek as the kid started snoring for real. "Oh, kid," Henry huffed, allowing himself this one moment of emotion to process all that had happened the past few days. He'd been so terrified he'd lost his son, and now he was here, broken but healing, and he would live to make more stupid mistakes. And there would still be many stupid mistakes, of that, Henry was certain. But. But perhaps he had learned something this time. He was growing. He was trying.

Thickly, Henry managed, "You're always forgiven." Then he scrubbed the back of his hand over his eyes,, cleared his throat, and wandered from the living room in search of a beer.

Three days later, Shawn stood in front of the therapist's office with one arm crossed over his chest, a picture of pitiful defiance. His bruises were at their peak ugliness, his jaw swollen and more painful than ever, and his bad arm was in a bright blue cast and a lime green sling.

"Actually, Gus, I'm feeling great. No need for this shrinky-dinky visit. I'll just call Chief Vick and let her know it wasn't necessary after all."

"Shawn," Gus said, his own arms crossed over his chest. "No way are you getting out of this. You heard the chief. No cases until you see a trauma therapist. And beyond that, you experienced trauma . You can't just pretend it never happened like you do with everything else."

"But I'm fine. "

He was very obviously not fine. But the idea of revisiting the hell he'd been through terrified him to the core. Why couldn't he do what he always did and shove it down deep, where no one, not even he, would be able to find it again? It had worked so well in the past...

Gus sighed. "No, you're not."

Shawn glared at Gus, a pitiful sight with his two black eyes, puffy nose, and swollen jaw. "I'm not going in, Gus."

Gus rolled his eyes. He dug in his coat pocket for something while Shawn looked on curiously. Two seconds later, a Snickers was in Shawn's hand and he was gleefully unwrapping it one-handed as he followed Gus into the building, chattering about how hungry he'd been and how the caramel-to-peanut ratio was perfect, and what the hell was nougat anyway?

Gus smirked to himself.

Too. Damn. Easy.

A/N: I had so much fun with this one. There are plenty more whumpy AUs in the near future... I'm getting back to this "AU That Glitters" series some, and I'm already partway through a whumpier AU of 1x04. :)

Please review! I'd love to know what you thought!

~Emachinescat ^..^