Another sleepless night, Shawn thought to himself as he opened the door to the Psych office and violently threw a pill bottle across the room.

What good were sleeping pills if they didn't fucking work! He hadn't slept in nine days, and it was driving him crazy, though he knew it wasn't the sleeping pills fault.

It was all because of the night terrors…

The moment he closed his eyes, he was back at the drive in theater, eyes zoning in on the bomb in popcorn on his mother's lap.

All of a sudden there was Yang, waving the detonator in his face.

"You lose Shawn," she would say venomously, licking her lips as she lifted her iphone to reveal not only was there a bomb on his mom, but also strapped to the back of Lassie's gun holster, he was shocked he hadn't seen it before.

"No, not Lassie too," Shawn's voice echoed desperately in his dream.

"Yes Shawn, Lassie too. Don't think I didn't know about your feelings for him. I need you to love me Shawn, I can't let him get in the way," she would reply before pressing the button and laughing.

"No!"

And that's when Shawn would wake up, puke, and weep in the corner of his room, until he convinced himself of reality and the impossibility of putting a bomb on the back of a gun holster without anyone noticing it.

In the day time Shawn could function without problem, he was able to busy his mind to the next case, to nachos, Jerky Chicken, and Gus, all the while thinking pleasantly on Lassiter.

The lack of distraction in the night was killing Shawn however…

He never told Gus or his father about these night terrors, nor anyone else for that matter, he just suffered the nights alone.

On the first night of the dream Shawn didn't do anything except weep and shake until he fell asleep against the corner, and was awoken in the middle of the nightmare by his phone.

The second night, Shawn avoided sleep by two hours, and like a curse it came back.

That night, the dream added Gus to the death list, and terrified Shawn to the point that he didn't go back to sleep, instead he let the tears fall until they had no H2O left, and then just sat there, watching as the sun rose in the window.

By the third night, Shawn fought sleep every second, until exhaustion had pulled him into the dream and actually trapped him in it.

The button was pressed; and explosions were suddenly all around him; so consumed by terror that he didn't question why the fire didn't burn.

"Mom! Lassiter! Gus!" Shawn shouted in his dream, as the explosions dimmed into smoke, and he opened his eyes to first find his mother's chest hollowed out by the blast, revealing her torn lungs, and heart beating three times before it finally stopped.

That's as far as Shawn let the dream take him; as he woke up drenched in sweat and rushed to the bathroom.

He couldn't get the vision out his head that time… And he just collapsed against the bathroom counter, hyperventilating and trying to focus on the ceiling.

Each time he blinked the visions came back, and it made Shawn's stomach twist more. He was desperate for them to stop; he needed them to stop, and his hand just lunged at the razor atop his sink, pulling it apart until it was separated into five blades. Then he clutched one of the loose blades in his hand and somehow decided subconsciously to dig into his legs.

As he dug in; the pain of the visions disappeared and he felt emotional release, as the blood trickled down from the wound that went from the top of his knee to the edge of his ankle, relaxing him.

As daylight rose again, to find Shawn now clamping down on the wound with a towel as it finished bleeding, the blood loss seemed to clear his head enough to realize he couldn't make the cutting a habit. He knew there was no way in hell he was dreaming that again.

No way in hell.

The fourth night the dream didn't progress further; but Juliet was now added to Yang's list of victims, and it ended the same way, Shawn on his bathroom floor adding another cut to his leg, then with him promising himself he'd never do it again as he clutched his leg with a towel.

By the fifth night, the dream was much more aggressive in its collecting of victims. Now, Chief Vick, his father, Abigail, and even Buzz were all somehow slipped bombs without them knowing, the button was pressed, and Shawn was suddenly surrounded by smoke again.

That night Shawn had carved his leg without restraint, just enough to draw blood, not deep like the other two. Stopping the razor just an inch above his right leg right after his seventh cut that night, his actions dawned on him, and he threw the blade across the room and watched it land in his bathtub.

It wasn't working; the dreams were getting worse, and every time they did, Shawn got worse, and the lack of sleep was taking its toll on him in the daytime. Gus commented of course, but Shawn easily redirected his concerns elsewhere, and then a few hours later dropped a question of how one might ward off night terrors.

"Well if therapy is not an option, there is the possibility of using the drug Prazosin, though it's usually used to treat high blood pressure. Why do you ask?" Gus asked suspicious.

"Friend on skype is having problems with night terrors, he doesn't want anybody to know he's having them though," Shawn lied easily, before moving the conversation to gumi bears.

When Gus departed for his "real job" Shawn did further research on his computer. Apparently Prazosin had harsh side effects such as thinking impairment, dizziness, and fainting, and if he was going to continue his psychic act he couldn't walk around impaired. So that threw that idea out the window.

He determined later that day that if there was nothing to cut himself with, he wouldn't cut himself. So even if he had the dream again, he wouldn't try to murder his legs, so he got rid of all razors and knives.

That sixth night however, the dream did return, and this time blood was splattering against him as his mother's bomb went off then smoke again, then there was Shawn awake again.

Lost in a state of panic after he vomited yet again, Shawn searched desperately for something to draw blood, and after finding nothing, Shawn looked into the mirror, lifted his fist, and punched the glass making it break into large shards.

Snatching one of the shards with a separate hand; Shawn sunk down to the floor rolled up his pant leg and began to cut again.

He did all this in a kind of out of body haze; and hadn't realized what he'd done, until thirty minutes later when he caught hold of his panic and looked down and found blood staining his bathroom mat.

This wasn't working at all.

That day Shawn worked out, that if he could just get enough sleep to alleviate his stress of lack of sleep, he might stop the need to shred his legs. He would have to deal with being trapped in a nightmare, but he decided ultimately, dreams couldn't kill him no matter how gruesome they got, but blood loss and possible infection could. Only problem was that now he needed a way not to wake up from the dream.

Shawn knew there was one way to get and stay asleep, and the answer to that was sleeping pills, and there was even a place he could get them.

Gus's sample bag. It was chalk full of a variety of sleeping pills, and he left behind the bag when he went on that company field trip that same morning.

It had to work, he was desperate for them to.

The seventh, eighth, and ninth night were all nights of pure insomnia, in which he found himself in crippling depression until sunrise.

But that wasn't the case today.

That was how he ended up here.

When the sun had rose; Shawn was still fighting the pains of his nighttime depression, he'd even gone so far as to consider cutting his legs again, which was normally only triggered when he had the dream.

He held his sleeve to his mouth as he paced around the office, sweating and eyes darting left and right.

"I need sleep…" Shawn said to himself. "I need sleep…"

His eyes suddenly rested on the pill bottle he'd originally tossed aside, and snatched it up again in his hands.

Maybe if he just took two pills it would work.

He popped two pills into his mouth, and continued to pace around waiting for their effect.

Ten minutes went by; and Shawn had forgotten if he'd taken the two pills or not, he popped in two more pills. Another five minutes he forgot again, popping two more, five minutes later same thing, until the entire bottle of 24 pills was gone.

Shawn's vision began to haze then, and every other step he took he stumbled, his sweating became even worse from before, and finally becoming dizzy to the point of needing to lie down.

Even in his drug haze he knew he was not stable enough to make it to the couch. Clutching the edge of his desk Shawn attempted to ease his way down to the floor into a sitting position, then leaning back until he was staring at the ceiling.

His lungs stung with pain as he breathed in and out with slow breaths, struggling to fulfill the need of oxygen, and making his vision worse.

As he lied there on the floor struggling to breath, his eyes began to close on the edge of blackness.

The last thing Shawn heard was a car door slam shut and footsteps approach the entrance to the office.

Then he was lost to blackness.