musicalluna

Title: When It Was Easy
Fandom: Psych
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Shawn, Henry
Genre: Drama, Tag
Warnings: SPOILERS for Mr. Yang Presents, obviously.
Complete: Yes
Summary: Henry comes home and finds the back door open.A tag for Mr. Yang Presents.
A/N: Also a response for my own character fantasy. I'm not sure if this is what I wanted it to be, but it was an exercise in writing for sure.
Disclaimer: I don't own anybody.

Henry stopped dead when he looked up from the keys in his left hand to the back door, one foot already on the porch.

The door was ajar.

Neither the door nor the frame had been damaged, meaning the intruder had either picked the lock (unlikely since he had dead-bolted it), used a key (which meant the “intruder” was his idiot son), or they had entered from the front of the house and unlocked the door from the inside. Without going around to the front, it was impossible to determine which.

He eased the grocery bag in the crook of his arm to the porch and slid his keys back into his pocket, trading them for the garden shears he'd left lying next to the grill earlier that morning. Part of him recognized that what he was about to do was a stupid idea, but he felt the odds of things going horribly wrong were low and it would be a waste to call the police if it did turn out to be his idiot son inside. And since Shawn seemed to think he owned the place, just like he had when he was a kid, that was the most likely explanation.

A little caution never hurt anyone though.

He breathed in and then reached forward, nudging the door open further. Holding the shears out in one hand, he moved into the house, calling, “Is anyone here?”

No one replied.

Leaning forward a little, he checked the kitchen to the left, and then the living room to the right. Both were empty and exactly as he had left them. No overturned furniture, no missing television, no ripped open drawers. Unlikely it had been a robbery then. He sighed, letting the shears drop to his side. “Shawn,” he called, allowing his irritation free reign. Still no answer. “I swear to God, Shawn,” he muttered under his breath, storming back out onto the porch to retrieve the groceries, “if you barged into my house and then left without bothering to lock up I'm gonna strangle you.”

He tossed the shears back down next to the grill and shut the door behind him with a sharp bang. He waited there for a beat, expecting Shawn to bound down the stairs looking fake-surprised like he was the one showing up uninvited. He didn't.

Henry growled a few unflattering things about his son's manners and took a second to pull everything out of the grocery bag, stowing the perishables. Then he headed into the house to make sure Shawn wasn't hiding somewhere rifling around in things he shouldn't.

Henry's internal tirade about invading people's personal space and lack of respect for other people's property and general stupidity carried on like a barreling freight train, gaining speed with every empty room he checked.

He was stomping his way back toward the stairs when a gut-feeling stopped him. At the top of the staircase he shifted on his feet, taking a step down, but it was like trying to ignore a fire alarm.

“This is stupid,” he told himself. He moved back onto the landing anyway. “He never goes in there!”

The feeling wouldn't be talked away though.

He sighed and pushed open the door to Shawn's childhood bedroom. “There,” he muttered to himself, “Happy? He's not—”

Henry's mouth closed, eyebrows drawing into the center of his forehead.

Shawn lay curled up on the bed he hadn't so much as sat on in over fifteen years. He had the pillow wrapped in one arm, smashed beneath his head. The twin sized mattress was nowhere near large enough for his adult body and his feet hung off either side, the laces from his left shoe untied and dangling all the way to the floor. His jaw was dark with stubble.

What the...?

“Shawn,” he said sharply. When that didn't rouse him: “Shawn!”

That did it.

Shawn started, head snapping up, his feet wreaking havoc on the bed sheets as he struggled to sit up. “Wha—mndad? Wha'issit?” He blinked like he was having trouble making the world come into focus, rubbing one eye with his knuckles. “'as the matter?”

Nine-year-old Shawn gazed blearily at him, groggy and bewildered. Then he was thirty again and Henry noticed the dark smudges beneath his eyes, the lines of weariness around his eyes.

“Dad?” he repeated and he sounded exhausted.

“What are you doing here, Shawn?”

It didn't make any sense. Why come here to sleep on a bed too small for him? Why not Henry's bed? Or even the couch? At least his feet wouldn't be sticking off the edge. And why not go to his own apartment? Or Gus'? Didn't he do that all the time?

Henry could see things begin to come back together in Shawn's head, his disorientation starting to fade. Awareness tightened the lines on his face, the ones Henry was still trying to get used to. He had missed the arrival of Shawn's first wrinkles.

“I couldn't sleep,” Shawn muttered and moved his feet to the floor. He was starting to close himself off; Henry knew all the signs—had seen them on a thousand different faces.

He pulled back, crossing his arms and turning sideways in the doorway, trying to minimize the perceived threat. “Maybe because it's almost noon?”

Shawn huffed, shaking his head as he tilted it back. “I should have found somewhere else,” he said and he sounded like he was telling himself he should have known better.

That had been the wrong approach. Henry tried again: “Don't you fit better in the bed in your apartment?”

Shawn rubbed his hands over his face. “Not really,” he sighed. “I'm in an old laundromat and space is kind of tight.”

Henry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course he was living in an old laundromat. An actual apartment would be asking too much. “You left the back door open.”

Shawn had his palms together, fingers pressed into the corners of his eyes. “I thought you were here.”

Henry raised an eyebrow. “You were looking for me?”

“No,” Shawn said, head shaking like a bobble doll, “I wasn't looking for you. I was just maybe—you know—hoping to run into you.”

“In my house.”

“Well—yeah.”

“Well, that makes perfect sense.” Shawn frowned, clearly having difficulty working out whether or not he'd meant that seriously or sardonically. Henry decided to stop beating around the bush. “It's been what, a week since you got any sleep?”

“Gee, how'd you guess? Was it the check-in luggage under my eyes or the fact that I resorted to coming here that tipped you off?”

Henry ignored the razor-sharp sarcasm. “Let me guess. You haven't been able to sleep since Yang.”

When Shawn didn't even attempt a denial, Henry knew he had hit the nail on the head. He sighed. “Shawn—”

“Look, I don't want to talk about it, Dad, okay? Yang got the best of me, Yang invaded my life, Yang nearly killed mom—you know, that's great for the psychotherapists and whatever, and I'm sure talking it out works great for normal people.” He stood up abruptly, arm slashing through the air. “That's fine, dandy even, for people who don't look at their best friend and see the psycho who was stalking them sitting at the table behind him at lunch like they're still there. It's super for those people. But I'm not those people. Every time I—I turn around there's someone or something that reminds me of that psycho and how mom almost died and—”

“There's nothing to remind you of her in the past,” Henry murmured.

Shawn sank back onto the bed and put his head in his hands. “I just—I needed to clear my head.” There was a moment of silence between them and then Shawn cleared his throat, wiped a hand over his face. "You know what, Gus is probably wondering where I am, I should have been dragging him out of Central Coast ages ago, so I'm just gonna—"

"Or," Henry cut in casually, "you could call your mother and see how she's doing and then come downstairs and have lunch with me. I've got two steaks in the fridge that aren't going to eat themselves."

Shawn hesitated, his hand moving to touch the pocket where Henry assumed his phone was. It wouldn't do any good to pressure Shawn into a decision now. It would only make him run.

He turned away, calling over his shoulder, “You'll sleep better on a full stomach.”

And then he left it at that. He was halfway down the stairs when Shawn called, “Dad?”

“Yeah, Shawn,” he said, pausing.

A slight hesitation and then in a rush: “Medium, okay? No blood. I don't eat things that are still bleeding.”

Henry allowed himself a small smile. He was starting to get the hang of this. “I don't know who's son you are, but you sure as hell aren't mine.”

“That's what I've been saying!”