Need You

[musicalluna]

Title: Need You
Fandom: Psych
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Shawn/Juliet
Genre: Angst
Warnings: None
Complete: Yes
Summary: Shawn takes a case gone wrong hard.
A/N: This particular mushy moment isn't mushy in the same sense of the word as the others are, but I really enjoyed writing it and I think it turned out really well, so I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

It was inspired by one of windscryer's Snapshots and it's one of the first things I've written in the present tense. Hopefully it flows properly.

Enjoy guys!
Disclaimer: They're not mine. Probably better they aren't.

It’s been a very long day.

It’s twilight now, the sun having dipped behind the horizon, leaving the sky a flawless gradient from a deep, beautiful blue to a dark, inky near-black, spotted with the faint glimmer of emerging stars. The streetlights should be coming on any minute now.

Juliet skirts around the S.B.P.D., headed for the back lot where she parked her car around six this morning, and as she does, the full extent of her exhaustion hits her. The consuming melancholy she feels is dampened only by that fatigue and she’s pretty sure that’s the only reason she hasn’t broken down yet. She’s just too tired.

She rounds the back corner of the precinct and stops suddenly in her tracks when she sees that someone is already at her car.

And for a second, the utter surprise jumpstarts her brain again, because it’s Shawn Spencer of all people. He’s leaning against the driver’s side door of her car, his head tilted back against the roof, and she realizes that she hasn’t seen him since they arrived at the high school at ten o’clock that morning.

And that worries her.

For the last week and a half they’ve been investigating a rape case at a local high school because a girl had come forward saying that one of the boys in her class had attacked her after band practice one afternoon. Much to everyone’s surprise, Shawn formed an almost instant repertoire with the girl, persuading her to tell her story and even providing a t-shirt tissue when she could no longer hold it together. Which, because of the simple fact that he was a man, made that a feat in and of itself. It was the sobriety that had seamlessly developed every time he spoke to the girl that had really stunned those at the station however, and that included herself. He’d managed to talk the girl into testifying when no one else could. Everything had been falling together perfectly.

And then this morning they had gotten a call for shots fired at the high school.

"Shawn?" she says, and it comes out more hesitantly than she intended. He doesn’t move.

"I’ve been waiting for you."

She approaches uncertainly, unsure of how to deal with this side of Shawn, but she asks, "For how long?" She can’t quite see his eyes and it makes her nervous.

His mouth twitches in something she thinks is supposed to be a smile. "Eleven, maybe? I’m not sure."

They’d arrived at the high school that morning to find that the girl’s rapist—one of the steroid-pumped up jockeys who seemed to think he owned the world—had gone postal in a ‘roid rage. She’d been shot four times in the middle of the school cafeteria.

And now Juliet’s sure that what she’s seeing is a reaction to that scene. She can recall the look on Shawn’s face when they stepped through the doors, now that she’s thinking about it, and how his playful expression had simply fallen away, taking with it all of his color. She’d been busy then and didn’t notice when he’d gone, but she couldn’t remember seeing him at all after that moment. And that worries her even more, because Shawn Spencer has never run from a crime scene.

"Shawn," she starts, but he finally lifts his head, allowing her to see his face, and the words die in her throat.

His eyes are red-rimmed and bloodshot, but dry, and a new crease has been carved into his forehead, etched into the space between his eyebrows. But it’s his hollow expression, the guilt she can literally see eating him alive that scares her the most because she’s never realized before now that he feels so intensely.

Without thinking, she drops her bag to the pavement, her arms flying up and around his body, pulling his head to her shoulder, and she doesn’t realize until they’ve crashed to their knees that the car was the only thing holding him up. If he’s in pain, he doesn’t say anything.

"Shawn, this is not your fault," she whispers fiercely in his ear and his arms come around her, pulling her body to his so tightly that she almost can’t breathe, his face buried at the base of her neck.

"That’s what Gus said," he mumbles into her throat. "He doesn’t understand."

"Doesn’t understand what?" she asks.

"That it is my fault. That Sarah died—" He chokes on the word, hands tightening. "—because of me."

"That’s not true," Juliet insists, "You didn’t kill her—"

"No, but I played a part in her death. I knew that creep had been threatening her and I chose to believe he was harmless. I was responsible for keeping her safe; she trusted me. I should have done something. I gambled with that girl’s life, Jules," he whispers, his lips still speaking into her neck. "And she lost it."

Juliet remembers the first case one of her mistakes cost someone their life. Theresa Brown, mother of two, a boy and a girl; she’d misjudged the desperation of a cornered drug dealer and before she’d even been able to blink, Theresa’s life was spilling out onto the deck of a high-powered motorboat. She’d had nightmares for two weeks straight. Even now, after a particularly rough day, she has them on occasion.

The required therapy, daily conversations with her parents, and two months of deskwork had pulled her through that very tough time. She’s seen a number of good cops who simply couldn’t cope with the trauma though, and it’s shocking to discover that Shawn Spencer, with all of his cavalier treatment of crime scenes, is affected as deeply by his first big mistake as she was. The first one still hurts more than any of the others so it’s easy to empathize.

She squeezes him more tightly and says, voice soft, "I understand. But it’s not your fault Shawn. You made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes."

He snorts angrily and she feels his hands clench into fists behind her back. "I don’t. I can’t. Not like this…"

She forces him back, taking his face firmly between her hands and says harshly, "No, Shawn. That’s not how it works. Everyone makes mistakes. And sometimes—" Her voice breaks. "—sometimes people die because of our mistakes. But no matter how good you are you will make them. You have to remember that or you’ll never learn from those mistakes. And you have got to remember that Sarah’s death was not your fault."

Shawn suddenly looks furious, eyes blazing, and for a second she’s scared that he’s going to hurt her when his hands clench around her wrists. But they’re shaking and she knows immediately that he’s got fierce control over the force he’s using because his grip is tight but not painful. It’s his voice he can’t seem to manage and it cracks as it rises. "Not my fault? She called me the night before and in tears told me that that bastard Wells threatened to rape her again and then kill her and throw her body in the bay for God’s sake! How is it not my fault? I should have seen it coming! I should’ve— DAMNIT!" he yells and the venom in his voice is nearly overpowered by the grief. "I should’ve—I should’ve—"

Juliet’s forehead creases, and she pulls her arms free of his grip to wrap them around his figure. "It’s okay," she whispers. "It's okay, Shawn."

His head falls unwillingly back onto her shoulder and in a barely audible voice he replies, "No. It’s not."

She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she says nothing, does nothing but maintain her hold on him. It’s dark now and she has no idea how long they’ve been sitting here in the parking lot, and tired as she is, she couldn’t care less, because right now a good friend needs her and that’s all that matters.

For a long time he’s quiet, his breathing more audible than it should be if she’s to believe that he’s calmed down, hitching almost inaudibly on occasion. Finally he mumbles into her shirt, his breath heating the slightly damp fabric and beneath it her skin, his voice thick, "Sorry. You wanted to go home didn’t you?" He laughs, but it sounds rough and wrong, and she presses a hand to his head, her fingers mingling with his hair.

"If you need me to stay here all night, Shawn, I will," she says seriously. "You’re always there for me, and I’m not going to drop the ball now."

He laughs again, weakly, and with far less humor than usual, but he doesn’t have to strain for it this time and that’s a good sign. "Actually," he says and his voice is slightly sheepish now, "I haven’t eaten in... Would you…would you be up for pancakes?"

"IHOP?" she guesses and smiles slightly when he says with obvious relief, "You read my mind."

They don’t move for another long moment and then Shawn’s hands loosen and slip from around her waist. He coughs, trying to cover the sound of a sniffle, and she pretends not to notice, instead focusing her attention on her forgotten purse. He’s not looking at her and Juliet understands that this is a breakdown he didn’t intend to have, and she’s careful to act like she has no idea that anything’s changed. She gets to her feet and he moves to follow, but hisses, his limbs protesting after having been forced into such an awkward position for so long.

"Ouch," she says sympathetically and helps him force his joints to do what they’re told, steadying him as he works the muscles back into submission.

Shawn finally looks at her and she’s glad to see that the crease between his eyes has softened. It’s not gone, but it’s not nearly as sharp as before and that’s another good sign. She squeezes his hand and smiles. "I bet I can guess what you’re going to have."

His smile comes even more easily this time and when he speaks, the lighthearted tone she knows so well is making a comeback. "It shouldn’t be hard Jules, I think I’m going to order everything on the menu."

She laughs and gestures to the passenger side of the car. "Well, get in. I’m hungry too you know."

His mouth turns up in a hesitant grin and he turns to do as she asks. Then he pauses, turns back, and his face has gone serious again. He puts his hand over hers on the door frame and with a swallow, his eyes fixed on the asphalt at their feet, he says quietly, "Thanks, Jules."

"Anytime, Shawn," she says, and her voice is just as soft as his.

Their eyes meet again and she knows that he’s made it past the worst of it.