Good Advice

[musicalluna]

Title: Good Advice
Fandom: Psych
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Shawn/Juliet
Genre: Romance, Drama
Warnings: None
Complete: Yes
Summary: Shawn tries to make amends.
A/N: Heehee! I have a two-fer-one deal for you guys! You lucky buggers. I loved windscryer's ideas for Shawn's redemption, so I wrote this in response. Then I wasn't 100% happy with it...so I wrote another one. XDDDDD You guys get both tonight, and now I leave it to ya'll to decide which you prefer. :D
Disclaimer: I don't own Psych.

 

Shawn sighed heavily, tilting his face to the sky when the first drop of rain splattered onto the tip of his nose. Great. So far, Lassiter’s brilliant advice was not doing him a world of good. He’d been sitting on Juliet’s front steps for over an hour and she hadn’t so much as peeked out the window, despite his fervent pleading with the door and the enormous bouquet of roses in his hand.

The rainfall increased rapidly into a steady downpour. He was soaked within minutes. It figured that it would rain the one day he was stuck outside with no shelter. Speaking of which, what kind of house didn’t come with a door overhang big enough to shelter one person?

He set the bouquet down on the steps next to him and rubbed his hands over his face. Sitting around like this, with nothing to do but think was starting to drive him crazy. He had screwed up, for once without even realizing (okay, maybe he had had an inkling that it was a bad idea, but he had tuned out the little angel on his shoulder a long time ago…) and now he couldn’t get his father’s voice out of his head. He hated himself for proving him right.

It made him uncomfortable, admitting even to himself how much Juliet meant to him. His mother and Gus were the only ones he had really let get close to him in a long time and he hadn’t let himself get so involved with a girl since…well, he just didn’t do it. Things like this tended to happen when relationships went on too long and crying, hysterical girls who were directing all of their emotion at him were something he couldn’t deal with.

This was the first time he had ever decided that the unbelievable amounts of discomfort were worth going through. Juliet resided on a level leagues above any of the other girls he had dated and he wasn’t about to let her go without a fight, soul-crushing or not.

He pushed his soaked bangs off of his forehead and was trying to wipe some of the rain from his face when a click behind him alerted him to the opening of the door. He turned hastily and his mouth went dry when he saw Juliet, eyes red-rimmed, strands of hair hanging drearily around her face, looking out at him from a crack in the doorway. It was unnerving, the way seeing her like this made his gut twist. "Go home, Shawn," she said softly.

"I can’t do that, Jules." His heart was suddenly beating painfully against his ribcage and he had never been more tempted to run. But that would make his father even more right, and hell if he was going to allow that.

Her eyes closed and her head tipped forward, her forehead coming to rest on the frame of the door. "Shawn, please. I told you, this is over. I gave you your chance and you…" The words caught in her throat and her face pinched as she tried to keep herself from crying. "Just go," she whispered.

She started to close the door and Shawn lunged forward on his knees, wedging himself against the door. "No, don’t!"

"Shawn!" she cried and her voice broke. "Please just leave."

"No," he said fervently, and planted his hands on the door and the frame, looking up at her. "Just hear me out, okay? Then…" he grimaced and said, tone resigned, "…if you still don’t want me here, I’ll go. Just hear me out."

Juliet pressed her fingers to her forehead. "Fine."

He relaxed his hold on the door and said as ardently as he could, "I’m sorry. I didn’t…I didn’t mean to hurt you, Jules. I’d never do this to you on purpose."

"Shawn, I may be naïve," she said, "But it’s a little hard to ‘accidentally’ kiss someone."

"I’m not an idiot, Jules, claiming it was an accident would be stupid," he said.

"So you did do it on purpose."

"No—well, yeah, but—will you let me explain, please?" he said when she started to close the door again. "I don’t do this groveling thing very often, you’ll have to forgive me if I get some of it wrong." She met his gaze and waited silently for him to continue. He exhaled a long, slow breath and then said, "I did kiss her. But I wasn’t cheating on you Jules. I swear that wasn’t what it was supposed to be. I…I was getting information for the case. I was trying to find the money and I figured if I could get her to ask me up to her apartment I could look around a little. I didn’t think it was a big deal." He caught a glimpse of the look on her face and knew the head detective had been right. He added hastily, "It was stupid, I know. Really stupid," he muttered and he sagged as he realized just how bad his case was. Juliet would never buy it. "Juliet," he said softly, "I’m sorry. I screwed up. Like, oops-forgot-to-pull-the-rip-cord-on-my-parachute-and-I’m-a-hundred-feet-from-the-ground screwed up. I…" He coughed, trying to stop the tightening in his throat. "Dammit, I can’t even do this right." This was never going to work, he couldn’t do it. He started to shuffle backwards on his knees, and he looked up, startled, when a hand caught a hold of his shirt collar.

"Wait."

He swallowed, forcing himself not to hope.

"You mean it?"

Shawn stared. "What are you kidding? Jules, I don’t sit on girl’s porches very often. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever done something this insane in order to keep a girl from getting away and I’m surprised you didn’t call Lassie and have him throw me in jail. I’m pretty sure if you send me away now I’m going to go home and look in the mirror and find out that there’s a huge bloody hole in the middle of my chest."

Juliet laughed weakly, tears streaking heavily down her face and his expression twisted. "Jules, you really need to stop crying. You’re killing me." He hesitated and then added, "Am I…redeemed?"

She threaded her fingers into the hair just behind his ear and nodded. "But if you do something like this—"

"I won’t. I don’t want anybody but you."

She smiled and a tear slid down her cheek. He reached up, brushing it away with his thumb and said, "Seriously Jules. You need to stop crying. I’m freaking out here."

She laughed again and leaned down, pressing her lips to his. He returned the kiss with fervor, leaning back for a moment to whisper, "I really thought I doomed this."

"I was afraid you had too," she murmured.