Psy vs. Psy in the Sky (And Right Back Down Again) by Emachinescat

A PsychFan-Fiction

Summary:After being taken hostage by fake psychic Lindsay Leikin, Shawn finds himself tied up and on an unplanned skydiving adventure. AU of 2x03, "Psy vs. Psy"

A/N: Written for Whumtober 2021 Day 4: Trust Fall. I've never been skydiving, and know next to nothing about planes. I did some research, but it's very possible I got some things wrong, so we'll just claim creative license. :) I started out with the prompt, and then the story took a turn and I ended up using the "Fall" in "Trust Fall" quite literally.

Psy in the Sky (And Right Back Down Again)

Shawn Spencer had never had a gun to his head before – a surprising fact, when he thought about it, considering how he had made his career out of pissing off violent, armed criminals. He'd had plenty of firearms pointed at him, sure, but this was different. More intimate. More terrifying. And barely even sexy at all.

At least, he thought wryly as he felt Lindsay Leikin's surprisingly strong arm circle around his neck and the cool barrel of the pistol rest on his temple, it was a beautiful woman who was taking him hostage. If it had been a big, ugly, hairy man, then everything about this situation would be a bust.

Lindsay's voice was loud in his ear, her breath as hot and sensual as it had been last night – dammit, why couldn't he have nice things?! – as she declared, "I'm taking him and the plane!"

Oh, crap. All frivolous thoughts of his captor and their time together vanished as her words echoed in his mind and the implications hit him full-force. He remembered all at once the lessons his father had taught him about kidnappers and hostage situations.

If someone tries to make you leave with them, Shawn, you do everything you can to get away, to keep them from taking you. Once someone moves you to a new location, the chances of finding you again diminish substantially. And that was if someone was trying to take him away in a car! If he got into this plane with her, there was a very good chance he wouldn't make it back alive.

For a single moment, the world stopped turning. Shawn could see the horror on Gus's face; the way Mildred stood, frozen, wrinkly old hands still poised over her typewriter; the wide eyes but steady hand of Jules as she kept her gun trained on Lindsay and her captive; the unreadable but painfully intense fire in Lassie's gaze, the way his eyes darted across the scene, searching, Shawn knew, for any open shot to take this crazy bitch down and save his favorite, beloved department psychic; the betrayal and frustration in the fierce lines around Ewing's mouth and the ferocity with which he gripped his own weapon. If he hadn't been hitting on Jules so blatantly, Shawn might have felt bad for the guy who'd just found out his little psychic pal was not only a fraud but also the bad guy.

And then the moment ended and the world slammed back into motion. "Move," Lindsay hissed in his ear, and Shawn's breath caught in his throat as the sound of the safety clicked off. Any bit of security, false as it might have been, flew out the proverbial window, and real terror set in for perhaps the first time in Shawn's life. Sure, he'd been afraid before, been threatened, held at gunpoint, nearly shot, but this… this was somehow more real, more deadly. This was one twitch of a perfectly manicured finger and boom – Here lies Shawn. He died and didn't even look cool doing it.

And then he was being pulled back, and someone was yelling something – maybe multiple someones were yelling – and he was in the plane and Lindsay's gun was still to his temple and the safety was still off and the door was closing and the last thing he saw was a helpless terror on Gus's face before he and Lindsay were alone once again.

It took far less time than Shawn had anticipated for the plane to take off. He wasn't sure if the pilot or co-pilot even knew about the situation that had unfolded outside of the plane. Hell, it was possible that they could even be on Lindsay's payroll. All he knew for sure was that Lindsay knocked on the door separating the aircraft's small cabin from the cockpit, and within a few minutes, the plane was taxiing down the runway – and Shawn still had that gun to his head.

He didn't have a good vantage point from where Lindsay had dragged him into the plane, so wasn't sure what was going on as the plane lifted off. He knew that they would have called the chief by now, probably SWAT too, and a hostage negotiator, though how they planned to negotiate with a woman who was hundreds of feet in the air and climbing, Shawn wasn't sure. Gus would be crying hysterically, he was sure of it. Or swooning. Or both. Poor Gus, Shawn thought a bit wildly. He was lost without Shawn to guide him.

Finally, once they were high in the sky, Lindsay released her grip on Shawn and shoved him away from her, though when he turned around to face her, his back to the first row of seats, the gun was still pointed at him. Not having the deadly metal pressed against his skull emboldened him somewhat, and after a deep breath to steady his nerves, the fake psychic plastered a grin he didn't really feel on his face and quipped, "If you wanted to get me alone again, there are simpler ways of doing it that don't involve spending the rest of your life on the run." At the expression on Lindsay's face, he tacked on in a meek voice, "Too soon?"

Lindsay didn't respond for a long moment, and Shawn used this time to study her closely. The Lindsay Leikin standing before him appeared to be a completely different woman than the one he'd fought with, flirted with, worked with, and slept with – this Lindsay was even different than the one who had made a split second decision after being outed as a murderer to take Shawn as a hostage. There was a cold fury about her now, burning in her eyes and radiating from every pore. Her full lips were set in a hard, thin line and the pistol trembled slightly in her grip, though her aim was true. Shawn didn't even need to use his "psychic powers" to know that she was shaking from anger, not adrenaline or fear or uncertainty.

"I should have known from the moment I met you," she hissed, her calm, steady voice belying the barely tempered rage within, "that you were going to ruin everything."

Shawn, his hands still raised to shoulder height, eyes trained on the gun, safety still off, snarked, "Yeah, well, don't be too hard on yourself – it's not like you're psychic or anything."

Lindsay's eyes flashed dangerously, her grip tightened on the gun in her hand, and her finger twitched ever so slightly on the trigger. Shawn couldn't help himself – he flinched. A small, deadly smile played at the corner of his captor's lips and Shawn swallowed hard. He didn't have to be psychic to know that he had stepped over a very clear line. What had his dad always said about antagonizing the wrong people? You poke the bear long enough, Shawn, and eventually he's gonna bite. Well, this wasn't a bear, and honestly, Shawn wouldn't mind if she bit him, but it was the deadly weapon in her hands and the fact that they were above the clouds that gave him pause.

"All right, that's it," Lindsay growled, and she motioned with the gun for Shawn to move. "Sit down." Heart pounding, smart-ass retort dying in his throat, Shawn obeyed, planting his ass in the nearest passenger seat and focusing very hard on not saying something that would get him shot.

Lindsay Leikin was certain that she had never hated anyone as much as she hated the man sitting, tied and blissfully silenced, on the seat before her. During their time working together, she had developed a bit of an interest in Shawn Spencer, true, and she hadn't been lying when she'd claimed she hadn't slept with him just because he was the enemy. There was something magnetic about him that she couldn't quite explain. He was not bad looking, but it wasn't his appearance. His personality was obnoxious and his "visions" unbearable. But even still, something had drawn her to him.

Now, though, after watching him strip away everything that she had worked so long and hard to complete, that she had killed for, anything that made her interested in or sympathetic toward him had vanished, leaving only a gaping pit of hatred in her gut. Honestly, if she had her way, she'd prefer to kill him here and now and dump his body off the plane. Something stopped her, though it wasn't any remnant of affection or loyalty. It was self-preservation.

She knew that if she shot the department's precious psychic outright, that would be another murder charge if he were ever found and she were ever caught. But she couldn't hang onto him. Not just because he was a menace, but because he would only slow her down and get in the way. Possibly, he'd find a way to escape and run off to alert the cops.

She also didn't need a hostage anymore, and he was dead weight. After all, the pilot was working with her – something the psychic hadn't divined, it seemed – and the knock on the cockpit's wall was a signal that they were going to make a pit stop in a remote, private airfield on the way to their official destination. They had set this up as a safeguard in case anything went wrong and they needed a quick getaway. And boy, did it all go really, really wrong.

Her eyes lit on a couple of emergency parachutes in the corner of the cabin, standard fare especially for small private aircrafts like this, and an idea formed that gave her the best of both scenarios – she would get rid of the psychic and she wouldn't be killing him in cold blood.

Shawn watched Lindsay with growing apprehension. He may not have actually been psychic, but he could be pretty damn good at reading people when he actually paid attention to them, and an erratic, destructive energy was rolling off of her in waves. He could see it in the way she paced, the tell-tale biting of the lower lip that would be incredibly attractive in literally any other circumstance. She still held the gun tightly, but it was no longer pointed at him, and the safety was finally off.

He knew that she was trying to decide what to do with him, and unfortunately he couldn't offer any of his wonderful suggestions – his favorite of which was buy me a donut and take me home – because she'd gagged him with one of her very fashionable scarves. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat; his wrists were tied tightly behind his back and his ankles were bound together. When he'd brought up the possibility of handcuffs last night, this was not what he had in mind. Worst of all, his chin itched and he couldn't scratch it!

Well, maybe not worst of all. Lindsay turned on him, a new spark in her eyes that told him she'd finally come to a decision, and the frenetic resolve housed in her expression informed him that it would not be pleasant for him.

Shawn had never been more right in his life – Lindsay's plans for him were the exact opposite of pleasant. Ten minutes later, Shawn stood, legs freed and trembling, by the opened plane door. Lindsay had untied him long enough to strap him with a parachute, offering him a semblance of hope despite the swirling terror building up inside of him. That hope was promptly squashed like Shawn would be when he hit the ground as Lindsay smiled cruelly and bound his hands once more behind him. Shawn was finding it increasingly difficult to remember why he had ever liked her in the first place. How, with all of his amazing observational skills, had he not seen this in her?

Lindsay held on to a handle by the door with one hand, and the other hand gripped the back of Shawn's parachute, keeping him from being sucked out of the plane since she had stolen his ability to hang on for himself. He knew that any moment, whenever her crazy self decided the time was right, she'd stop pulling him back and push him instead, and then he'd be falling to his death in a horrible mockery of skydiving, that useless parachute doing nothing to slow his descent.

The thing was, Shawn had been skydiving before. He loved it, actually – the wild rush of adrenaline as you stand at what feels like the very edge of the world, the slight hesitation and questioning of your own sanity as you take that step, the drop in your stomach as you begin plummeting and realize that there's no going back, then the freedom, the blue sky surrounding you on all sides, the chill of the rushing air, the knowledge that you're no longer connected to anything or anyone, it's just you and the deep blue sky and the clouds, the pull of the parachute cord, precisely timed, the weightless floating as the fabric billows out behind you, the way you float like a dandelion seed to the earth and touch down, knowing that you've stared death in the face and won.

Shawn felt none of these things as Lindsay yelled sarcastically, "Thanks for everything, Spencer!" and shoved him out of the plane and into the open air. This time, the blue sky didn't welcome him with open arms and the ground rushed towards him far, far faster than it normally did. The worst part was the knowledge that the pull cord for the parachute was right there, and he couldn't reach it. Lindsay really was a psychotic lunatic, and he only wished he'd been able to live long enough to tell her so.

As his stomach flipped over on itself and he fell, Shawn screamed into the gag. His heart pounded in his ears. He was going to die. But he wasn't going down without a fight.

For the first five seconds of his fall, Shawn screamed.

For the next five seconds, he prayed to a God he didn't think he believed in anymore and hadn't thought about in years.

And for the next five seconds, his mind whirled faster than it ever had, putting together random bits of knowledge, pieces of his father's advice, and even (most likely wildly inaccurate) calculations in a desperate attempt to put together a "plan" (he would air quote if his hands weren't tied) to save his life.

Shawn wasn't sure how high the plane had been, but the ground when he'd peered fearfully down looked about as far away as it had when he'd skydived before, so 10,000 feet, give or take. He knew there was no room for error, but considering he was on his very fast way to an extremely messy death with no calculator on hand, he'd have to work with what he had. He remembered from his skydiving lessons that it usually took about 50 seconds to fall from 10,000 feet, and that you needed to deploy the parachute by 3,000 feet. That meant – if he was counting right, and he highly doubted he was – he'd need to find a way to free himself and pull the parachute cord in roughly thirty seconds.

He'd already wasted fifteen of those seconds screaming, praying, and planning, which meant he had fifteen to execute his plan. Glancing down as he tumbled through the sky, he saw that the patchy quiltwork of fields, vineyards, forest, and roads below was growing closer, and he knew that he had to pull the parachute as soon as it started coming into sharp relief. He pushed back the sheer terror until he was either on the ground or dead (though, either way he'd be on the ground, he supposed) and curled his knees to his chest. The air pulled at him, jostling him and making it hard to control his limbs, but after about ten seconds, Shawn had managed to loop his tied hands underneath his butt and around his tucked legs, and his hands were in front of him – thank God!

He had about five seconds left, so he reached his bound hands toward the pull cord and yelled into the gag, every ounce of terror and helplessness released and then blocked by the scarf, as he realized that even with his hands tied, he still couldn't reach the cord.

It was probably too late, now, he thought as he desperately brought his hands to his mouth, yanked down the gag, and began expertly working the ropes with his teeth, a skill drilled into his head by his dad over twenty years ago. He had no doubt he could escape from the ropes, but if he didn't pull that cord in the next few seconds, there wouldn't be enough time for him to slow down enough, and he'd splat to the ground anyway. At the very best, he'd have several broken bones. More likely, he'd be dead.

Still, no one could say that Shawn Spencer was not a stubborn man, and after about five more seconds, he'd managed to free his wrists. Without hesitation, he reached up and pulled the cord, and it billowed up behind him, taking its sweet time to begin its very important job of slowing his fall.

I'm too late, he thought desperately as the details of the quickly approaching vineyard came into focus. Then, he felt several things in quick succession: the strong upwards pull of the parachute as it fully deployed, sheer terror as he realized he was still falling far too quickly and that the ground was far too close, and then finally a burst of agony in his legs as his hellish descent was abruptly halted – and then he felt nothing at all.

He did hear, or maybe he imagined, a scream and distant shouting, as the darkness took hold.

When Shawn woke, he knew immediately that he wasn't dead, though he was quite sure he should have been. He knew he was still alive because of the pain – dead people didn't feel pain like this, he was sure of it. Maybe he was in hell, but if that were the case, then hell looked an awful lot like California wine country, and that didn't jive with what little Shawn had retained from Sunday school as a kid.

As the world swam into a facsimile of focus, and as the swelling crescendo of pain began to slowly localize into a few areas of starkest agony – his left side, his head, and good Lord, his legs – Shawn realized that past the terrible ringing in his ears, he could hear voices.

Oh, thank God. Had someone found him?

In desperation, needing to know if he were hearing things or if help had really arrived, Shawn shifted where he lay, crumpled on his side in the dirt. Pain stabbed through him anew and a sound like a wounded animal forced its way from his mouth.

At the sound of his suffering, Shawn heard through a fresh buzzing in his ears the voices grow louder, and even though he knew it was a bad idea, Shawn couldn't help himself – he moved again, struggling to turn towards the words that almost sounded like words. Fire lanced through his legs and shot up his spine, tore at his side and culminated in his head. A rushing filled his ears and terror overtook him – was he falling again? – before he realized that he was passing out.

Nausea roiled within him and his vision blurred as someone unfamiliar – all he could see was a muddle of black and brown – leaned over him, and in his last moments of agonized cognizance, he managed to wrap his trembling lips around what he prayed were coherent words.

"Call … SBPD … ask for … L-Lassie..."

Then the rushing in his ears spiked, his head swam, and the darkness claimed him once more.

A/N: To be continued...

I hope you all enjoyed! Please let me know your thoughts, and I'm hoping to have the final part out soon! :)

~Emachinescat ^..^