Story Notes:

W00t. New story. XDDD Shameless whumpage of Shawn.

Happy reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own Psych nor do I own any of the wonderfully adorable characters who inhabit the Psych world.

Author's Chapter Notes:

I feel like I should warn you guys. Don't worry if you feel like you came in in the middle of something at first--you did. Everything (well maybe not everything) will be explained. :)

Shawn's first problem was the throbbing pain in the crown of his skull.

His second problem was that he was in a ventilation shaft, and the only way out was up.

He could feel something warm and wet beneath the aching spot on his head. Looking upward, he tried to make out just what the vent he was lying in looked like, but he couldn't see much around his legs in the darkness.

Because the third problem, the problem he was most concerned with, was the fact that he was upside down, and the only thing he could see in the darkness were his knees.

The shaft was narrow and only his head and shoulders fit on the bottom. Everything else rose upward sharply, and when he relaxed his legs, they rested, kneecaps against the wall above his head. Unfortunately, relaxing them made breathing really difficult, so he had to extend them upward every so often (which was surprisingly difficult—his legs seemed to have been transfigured into jelly after the fall) to get a good deep breath of air. His right arm worked all right, but he couldn't really feel his left, and it was pinned between the side of the vent and his head, making it impossible to move.

He couldn't remember falling. He actually couldn't remember waking up either, so he wasn't entirely sure how he had gotten where he was. He didn't think he had been unconscious for long, if at all, but he just couldn't remember.

What he did know was that his head hurt, and he could feel something wet puddling beneath it. Water, maybe? Or was it blood? Juice? Now that was just silly. Again, he was having a hard time being sure. It was hard to think.

How had he gotten here in the first place?

He remembered trailing after Lassie, being a general pain in the butt (his specialty) and he remembered everyone splitting up to look through the cordoned-off building for the bonds that had been stolen from a bank downtown. He even remembered sneaking away from his group to go snooping around in the ventilation shafts, which he had thought sounded brilliant and fun. He remembered a lot of the journey, specific directions even, and then things got sort of muddled until he remembered, head stinging painfully and neck sore, looking up at his knees and thinking, "Well, that doesn't seem right."

That helped him put it together. He must have fallen. The linear-thinking thing helped a lot.

He pushed his legs upward because it was getting hard to breathe again and his stomach twisted ominously. He took a quick breath and then let his legs come back down again doing his best to force the bile threatening to come up-and-out back down. He was not going to puke if he was going to be stuck like this.

The queasiness faded a little after a moment and he relaxed, taking a couple of careful breaths. He smelled blood. It was warm, metallic, and sickly sweet, and he had to clamp his free hand over his nose and mouth, swallowing hard to stem the new wave of nausea that washed over him.

He came so close that time that he could taste the acrid bile in his mouth. Disgusting.

When his stomach finally settled again enough from him to uncover his face, he breathed carefully and measuredly through barely parted lips. He disliked the faint taste of blood the air carried, but if he smelled it again…

Shuddering, he stretched out his legs, and took a few deep breaths, which, surprisingly, helped clear his head. He was just beginning to relower his legs when his phone began ringing, the shrill, tinny sound echoing off of the metal and piercing his head like needles. Before he could grab it though—his arms felt Jell-O-y too—it vibrated itself out of his pocket and landed with a thunk right between his eyes.

He cursed loudly, his hand groping awkwardly for the phone which had fallen beside his head. Finally, he got a hold of it and he flipped it open, holding it as near to his ear as he could manage. "Hello?"

"Where the hell are you, Shawn?"

Gus sounded peeved. Shawn couldn't quite wrap his mind around why.

"I'm in a ventilation shaft."

"Okay, I'm going to meet you—" Gus stopped and then in a quiet, deadly tone said, "Excuse me?"

"Okay. You're excused." 'Was that right?' he wondered dimly.

"Shawn! This isn't funny! What are you doing in a ventilation shaft?!"

Shawn's head began to hurt. He closed his eyes, massaging his temple and tried to ignore the weird feeling of the liquid under his head creeping along his neck. That only made it harder to think. Wait. "What are we talking about?"

Now Gus sounded really cheesed off. "Stop avoiding the subject, Shawn! What are you doing in the ventilation shafts?"

"Ohhh," Shawn said, and everything clicked back into place. "Exploring, duh."

"You've been gone for twenty minutes Shawn!" he exclaimed.

Shawn glanced at his watch in the dim blue light his phone provided and remembered glimpsing it as he climbed into the vents. "Thirty-seven, actually," he corrected helpfully.

Gus started breathing in and out, slowly and evenly and Shawn smiled. He was really frustrated.

"Shawn, I want you out of there in five minutes," he finally said, "Or I'll—"

"Uh…that's going to be a problem."

He suddenly sounded tired. "Why, Shawn?"

"I'm stuck."

The heavy, even breathing started again and then faded away and Shawn's eyebrows contracted. "Gus?"

The voice that answered was not Gus' and sounded even less pleased, if that were possible.

"Spencer!" Lassiter barked, "In the name of all that is honorable and just in this world, I am going to kill you!"

"Lassie!" he said, and grinned. He wasn't entirely sure how or why he was talking to Lassiter now, but he didn't really care.

"Spencer, I swear, I'm going to—"

"You have to find me first," he said cheekily and smirked when Lassiter growled.

"This isn't 'playtime', you idiot! We're working a case while you're off screwing around and getting stuck in ventilation shafts! I have half a mind to just leave you wherever the hell you are!"

The pain radiating from his head and shoulders and the tingly feeling starting to take over his legs sobered him considerably. "I would really appreciate it if that wasn't the course of action you took, Lassie," he said. "I…may have fallen to where I am now."

"Oh, for pity's sake," he muttered. "Are you injured?"

Shawn's head attempted to sway, out of habit, and pain spiked up his neck. "Define 'injured'," he mumbled and could practically see Lassiter kneading his forehead, teeth gritted.

"Are you in pain?" he asked, voice tight.

Shawn finally answered him straight. "Yes."

"Are you bleeding?"

"Might be."

"Is anything broken?"

"I…don't think so?"

Lassiter heaved a long-suffering sigh and then said, "So where the hell are you exactly, Spencer?"

Shawn laughed weakly. Oh, he wouldn't like this…

Chapter End Notes:

LOLZ. Yeah. It doesn't really have a plot. But who needs a plot when you've got whumpage? SRSLY.

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