musicalluna

Title: 011 Memory - 100 Days
Fandom: Psych
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Shawn
Genre: Angst
Warnings: vague spoilers for Weekend Warriors, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, He Loves Me... Oops He's Dead, and the Pilot.
Complete: Yes
Summary: Shawn's memory can be a real bitch sometimes.
A/N: The first angsty prompt. :D Every once in a while I just can't resist the potential for something gut wrenching. XDDDD
Disclaimer: I don't own Psych or the characters. Yet. My lawyer and I are working on that... (J/K! Don't sue me!)

He isn’t kidding when he says his memory is both a blessing and a curse.

With a lot of careful training and just some all around good rules for living life, he’s managed to make sure that most of the time it’s a blessing, or, at the very least, extremely helpful. For instance, being able to recall on a whim any number of the adorable expressions on Junior Detective O’Hara’s face is definitely a bonus. Never having to study for a test? Major bonus. Being able to reconstruct entire scenes from memory with just a moment or two to sweep his eyes over the scene? Saved his ass more than once. Besides that, he can remember each of his visits to the many states and countries he’s seen flawlessly. He loves that. His memory comes with a lot of perks, there’s no denying it.

But no matter what he does, there are times when the curse side of his gift rears its ugly head. Sometimes it’s something as stupid as seeing a naked man. Which isn’t necessarily painful, but it’s not an image he likes having trapped in his brain and whenever he thinks the words "naked man" (which is disturbing in and of itself) it will spring to mind in all of its horror-inducing clarity so long as he lives.

Other times, it’s enough to make him wish he could cleave the part of his brain that remembers these things from his head and live out the rest of his life as a vegetable if necessary. Because sometimes, when his dad says his name, every argument, every screamed, "Shawn is not one of your partners, Henry!" or, "Shawn is throwing his life away! What do you want me to do, Claire? Just sit back and watch him do it?!" comes back in gut-wrenching detail.

Which is why it’s so hard to face his dad sometimes. He remembers each and every expression he’s ever seen on his face, and all it takes is a flicker of recognition to bring back, "Congratulations. You’ve just hit the disappointment exactum, kid," like a dull sword point to his spleen and infinitely more painful. It makes it that much easier to get mad too, which gives him the impression of having an explosive temper, when really, they’re usually old wounds, old grudges, which have been festering quietly over time, coming back at their full magnitude with just the slightest provocation.

So it may be a gift, but it has a dark side that can be hell, plain and simple, at its worst. He’s terrified of the day when the people around him begin to die, and he wonders how bad it will be if he refuses to go to their funerals.

Because he doesn’t think he can.