#please help me I’m being held at gunpoint to post him/j

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my baby boy Puddlekins

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Whumptober2020: Day 3 – Held At Gunpoint

Fandom: Psych (2006) Characters: Juliet O’Hara, Sam (from Psych: The Movie) Ships: Shawn/Juliet (Shules) Universe: Prologue to Please Stay (so far away) (singleparent!AU)

TW: CHARACTER DEATH, Blood, Gunshots

[Read on AO3 here.]

Pier 39 during the day was a bustling scene of families hoping to score some candy. During the night, the feeling it possessed was that of a ghost town, boarded up shops and darkened strings of bulbs. Tonight, the ghostly surroundings served as the grounds of pursuit between two of SFPD’s finest and an alleged jewellery thief (alleged only in the sense that they had little evidence to go off of). Personally, Juliet’s instincts grew sharper with each passing second on the pier; innocent men simply didn’t run like that.

Two sets of sneakers thundered over the wooden planks, and Juliet had to muse again over the man’s stupidity. Running deeper along the pier? Despite its near-maze-like standard of pathways, it was still a dead end. Looking at the cop in her periphery, she could tell Sam echoed her sentiments by his body language alone. After years on the San Francisco force together, they – like any competent partnership – learned how to read each other. It served for better execution on the job. Trust was nothing to take lightly, something Sam understood just as much as she.

“This pier doesn’t lead to any docked boats, right?” she huffed coarsely to the side, without taking her eyes off the path ahead.

“Think so?” he replied. “Why?”

Juliet spared a subtle glance at him, about to follow through with her reasoning, when it dawned on him.

“You think?” he said.

“If this guy’s smart enough to pull off elaborate heists, why would he run into a known dead end?”

“Getaway plan,” summarised Sam. He hefted his gun a couple degrees higher.

A figure on one of the spanning bridges caught her eye. She noticed it raise a shadowy arm, and with gut-based recognition yelled,

“Split!”

Sam dove one way, Juliet the other, and between them speeding from a crack of gunfire whizzed a bullet.

Forcing herself back to her feet, Juliet scrambled around the left of a shacked up store front. She was vaguely aware of her partner running around the other side as her path lifted into a ramp. With the only sources of illumination being each cop’s torch and the waning gibbous in the sky, Juliet summoned all her previous years of sensory intuition as she advanced to the shooter’s position.

“Freeze!” a gruff voice commanded.

“I think you stole my line,” Juliet smirked, training her gun and torch in the direction of the voice. She caught a crisp, white button-up haphazardly tucked into khakis before trailing the beam of light to the man’s face. “Drop your weapon.”

“Or what?” the man taunted, but his efforts were undercut by the severe squint he was making. “You know I have a gun.”

“You’re outnumbered,” Juliet pointed out.

But the thief replied wordlessly by lifting his gun and training it her direction.

“Judging by where your holding your flashlight,” he mused, “your heart should be right…” The gun’s barrel bobbed some before settling in line with her sternum. “There?” It wasn’t entirely accurate of an estimate, but considering all angles, the damage could very much be fatal. Juliet’s heart leapt against her will. If this night had been planned for, she would be safe within a bulletproof vest. Except, she had been out shopping. There were paper bags, stuffed with carbs and fibre and vitamin C, in the backseat of her Volkswagen to prove it. She hadn’t thought she’d need a vest tonight, not when she’d promised her daughter a bedtime story.

In her periphery flashed the light from Sam’s torch. There was no way she could call out to him, but he was already following a flight of stairs to their position. All she had to do was stall for another minute at most.

“Okay, you got me,” she played. “I do have just one question, though: why’d you run up here? It’s pretty much a dead end.”

“Wrong turn?” he supplied. Juliet could hear the shrug in his voice.

“A guy who can plan three jewellery heists in a few months and escape with little evidence doesn’t really seem like the type of person who’d stick themselves in a corner this easily,” she mused. “Does he?”

“You’re right,” the thief said, “that kind of man wouldn’t.”

In the span of three seconds, from the height of success to the pit of dismay, her heart fell. A set up, she groaned internally.

“Where?” she barked.

“Like I’d tell you,” the decoy huffed.

“Put the gun down.”

“Ladies first.”

“Not a chance.”

“Hey!” called Sam, several paces from the scene but at least now on the same level. “Do what my partner says.”

Juliet’s grip on her gun eased somewhat with the presence of back up. Together, like they always did, they’d take down this disobedient facade and get to work tracking down the real criminals.

“Cooperate and we can cut a deal,” she offered but with an authoritative air.

Sam planted himself a couple paces behind the man, gun trained on his turned back. The thief spared only a tilt of his head in acknowledgement of the second detective’s presence. For someone caught in the crossfire, he emoted minimal stress. His hands barely trembled, not even the one threatening Juliet’s life.

“It’s not a bad deal, man,” Sam pressed.

The corona of Juliet’s torch beam caught his raised brow, and while she couldn’t signal anything back in fear of the middle man catching on, she trusted that their minds were working around the same concept.

“Sorry,” the decoy said, and Juliet just caught his finger squeeze the trigger.

Two gun shots coalesced into an earsplitting bang. The man’s knees thudded against the bridge planks, and his torso teetered before collapsing in Juliet’s direction. She tried to jump back in avoidance of his head, but her legs would not respond. Blood swelled over the once-pure white of his shirt.

A sharp burning dragged her gaze further down until her eyes rested on her grey sweater. A tuned gasp ripped from her throat.

Normally, seeing blood wasn’t an issue. In addition to her experience in the field, part of her time at the academy was in first aid. Yet seeing a stain of red spread across the fabric of her favourite shirt – so much so soon – made her sway where she stood.

Sam was immediately at her side, gun and torch dropped, gripping her shoulders. She sank to her knees anyway, guided safety by her partner’s strength.

A hand hovering over the wound, she muttered, “I think I need medical attention.”

“You think?” replied Sam with his signature dryness. “Hang in there, J, I’ll call. Hang on.”

There was scuffling against wood to be heard and soon the beginnings of a winded conversation, but Juliet barely paid attention to what was being said into the phone. She flattened a palm against her gut while feeling around the space with her other hand. Letting out a grunt, she heaved herself properly onto the floor and settled into a semi-comfortable sitting position, her back against one of the railing’s posts.

Each breath she attempted felt like a steamboat weighing on her lungs. Shallower breaths hurt less, so she opted for more of those to split the difference.

A warm presence crouched by her right again. A beam of light passed up and down her body before concentrating on the bloody mess beneath her fingers.

“Dammit, Juliet, why couldn’t you have gotten shot somewhere like your leg?” snarked Sam, voice shaking in either humour, dread, or both.

“I’ll try harder next time,” she chuckled back only to wince at her core’s movement.

“Help’s five minute’s away,” he informed. “We just gotta keep pressure on the wound until then.”

Juliet coughed before she could respond. She ended up just nodding instead of answering.

“Hang in there.”

“You said that already,” she pointed out, her voice growing raspy.

“I think it still applies here.”

Managing a hum and a little smile, Juliet shifted her fingers over the bullet hole. The pain was excruciating, but her pride wouldn’t allow her to make any sound above a grunt.

“How’s it feel?”

“Like a vacation,” she lied, although her sarcasm didn’t land as well as it usually did. Her brain was growing woozier with each second.

“That bad, huh,” he said, and within seconds she gave him the stickiest glare she could manage. “I know, dumb question, right?”

“S’okay.” She lifted her hand from the wound to grab at… something, anything. She was slipping away from the floor with every blink.

Her mind flew across town. She jerked forward, panic inciting another round of adrenaline. “Shawn… I need– I have to–!” She let out a shriek; the skin around her bullet hole tore with the strain.

“Whoa, Juliet! Stay– I call him, too! Just sit, okay?!” With the help of gravity and Sam’s guiding hands, she slipped backwards against the post. Her hand was pushed back down to her midriff and secured. The grip was comforting, but it felt wrong in too many ways for her to enjoy its little solace. She wanted Shawn’s hand.

“I’m... tired?”

She could barely hear her own voice.

“J, seriously needing you to hang on, right now! They should be here anytime.”

All Juliet could do was shake her head, yet events she did so, the sensation felt a million miles away. Someone else was shaking their head. Someone else was bleeding out on Pier 39. Meanwhile, she was fine, she was safe, she was wrapped up in a green snuggie and nestled in the arms of her lover. The torchlight was growing fainter, but her next breath came a little easier. Good night, she thought with a little smile, knowing that in the morning, she’d wake up to cuddles and sunshine.

Wouldn’t that be nice.

—

Written for @whumptober2020.

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he's so little guy

my baby boy Puddlekins