musicalluna

Title: Ballroom Bash
Fandom: Psych
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: eT
Characters/Pairings: Shawn, Primary Cast
Genre: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort
Warnings: None
Complete: Yes
Summary: They say beauty is pain, and Shawn's about to find out just how true that is.
A/N: I wrote this a while back. Didn't like it. Read it again a few weeks later. Still didn't like it. Read it last night. Thought it was totally fun. GO FIGURE.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Shawn would bleed a lot more if they were.

Shawn made a face, tugging unhappily at the bowtie secured around the starched white collar at his neck. Juliet smiled at him and batted his hands away, re-straightening the now crooked accessory. “Leave it alone, Shawn. You look great.”

“I always look great, Jules. Haven’t we established this? I look even greater when I don’t look like a waiter. This thing is driving me nuts. It feels like I’m choking,” he whined, and Juliet had to smack his hand away again as it moved once more in the direction of his neck.

“Don’t be such a baby. You’re the one who insisted you and Gus simply had to come read the party guests.”

“Yeah, what she said,” Gus interjected from his left. “Besides, I look smokin’, thank you very much.” He straightened his jacket lapels smugly and Juliet grinned.

“See, Gus has got the right idea, Shawn,” she said.

He sniffed disdainfully and said, “Whatever. And ‘smokin’’, Gus? Really? Who are you, Jim Carrey?”

Gus glowered. “Shut up, Shawn.”

Shawn sighed. “Let’s just get this over with so I can get out of this ridiculous penguin suit. I mean, seriously, who finds penguins hot? No one. Penguins are cute, fat little things. I am not cute. I am—”

“Totally full of it,” Gus cut in. “Why don’t you get to work, instead of continuing to complain?”

“Please do,” Lassiter said, finally inserting his own two cents. “I’m going to kill myself if I have to listen to you whine all night, Spencer.”

“Is that a promise, Lassie?”

“Shawn,” Juliet said, voice a warning tone.

“Fine, fine, I’ll go work…”

Without another word, he slipped into the crowd of elegantly dressed couples, his own tuxedo blending in seamlessly. Juliet had even managed to convince him to go clean shaven, and uncomfortable or not, he had to admit he looked damn good.

The party was a benefit ball thrown by the mayor for some foundation or another that Shawn couldn’t be bothered recalling the name of. He and the detectives weren’t here for the benefit however, they were here because just two days ago Shawn had “divined” that the fire in a city councilman’s house was not only arson, but the arsonist had been his own secretary. He had then gotten a strong “vibe” that said secretary was going to be trying something tonight when he remembered a note on her desk denoting this date and time.

So now here they all were (excepting Karen, who was here by invitation) trying to nab the secretary before she could do the councilman anymore harm. They expected her to be in disguise, but Shawn had seen enough photos of her to identify her with no problem. He caught sight of Juliet, grinning as she and some guy spun around the dance floor, her dress twirling wildly around her legs. Pulling his gaze from the pretty flush of her cheeks he made a mental note to give her a little sampling of those dance lessons he’d gotten in New England.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a vivid redhead slipping along the wall, and he instantly recognized the jaw line.

“Bingo…” he muttered and then paused, eyebrows rising slightly. “Or Yahtzee?” With a little smirk, he took off after their rogue secretary.

She slunk through a doorway on one of the far walls and he followed after her, pausing to casually gaze around the room in an attempt not to seem conspicuous stalking after her too closely.

The hallway was empty when he moved after her, and he was too busy creeping up on a cracked doorway to his right to see the sea foam green, steel-tipped stiletto swinging for his head from the left. It clipped him in the temple, hard, and he saw stars, blackness rushing in on his vision so quickly he didn’t even realize he had dropped to his knees. He recovered just in time to dodge another blow from the strappy shoe.

“Don’t think you’re going to stop me!” she hissed and he winced as the pounding of his heart sent spikes of pain shooting from the spot on his temple where the shoe had hit home.

“Dude, what is your problem, lady?” he demanded, deciding to play dumb. “I was just going to the bathro—” He cried out as the small tip of the shoe’s heel came down on his shoulder. The pain was so sharp he could have sworn the shoe had punctured his skin or maybe even shattered the bone.

“Shut up!” she snarled. “I. Know. Who. You. Are!” Trapped against the wall, there was little Shawn could do but cover his head and try to stop the blows that accompanied each word from coming down on his head. He let out a strangled cry as the high heel glanced his hand, setting it on fire.

“Will you knock it off?!” he demanded and yelped, pain erupting across his cheekbone as the stiletto made contact there. He lashed out with a foot, hoping to at least knock her off-balance, but that only seemed to incense her further and she clambered on top of him, pinning his arm beneath her knee and trapping the other in the excessive folds of her voluminous dress. She raised the shoe with both hands, expression vaguely manic and he began thrashing in earnest, twisting so violently that she toppled to the side. She shrieked indignantly and he scrambled to his feet, lurching for the door they had come through just minutes ago.

A sharp crack halted his movements mid stride and if it hadn’t been for the floor swiftly coming up to meet him and the now excruciating pain in the back of his head, he wouldn’t have realized that the sound was from the impact of the stiletto against his skull. He collapsed, dazed, and was unable to work up the necessary coordination to fight the crazed secretary off when she grabbed him by the lapel and shoved him up against the wall, her breathing hot and heavy against his baby-smooth cheek. “Just one more, darling, and then it’ll all be over,” she said, leveling the heel with his temple and then drawing her hand back for the final blow.

It was then, out of the corner of his eye, that Shawn saw the door open. The earth-shattering scream that followed set his ears ringing and the secretary’s hand, already in mid-swing, faltered, and struck at his hairline, blinding pain erupting just before blackness overwhelmed him.

~ * * * ~

“Shawn? Come on, Shawn. Can you hear me?”

He groaned, grimacing at the steady throb of his head. “Jules?” he mumbled.

She sighed, the sound faintly relieved. “Oh good. You scared me for a minute there.”

“You screamed?” he said, and winced as his surely bruised cheekbone protested.

Juliet blushed. “Yeah. I had to get the others here somehow. How are you feeling?”

“Not concussed,” he said honestly. “Though I kind of wish I were. Owww…”

Juliet grimaced sympathetically.

“You sure know how to pick ‘em, Shawn,” Gus marveled, appearing above him.

“Oh, yes, I specifically go out looking for crazy people who will attack me with—ah—ah, ow!” he whimpered, Juliet’s hand on his arm pressing on bruised flesh.

“Sorry!” she exclaimed apologetically, “Sorry.”

He grit his teeth. “S’okay. Just hurts like a bitch. No biggie. Man, I’m going to look like I have the weirdest case of chicken pox…”

Juliet couldn’t help laughing at that. “Yeah, you are,” she admitted, and her fingers tenderly brushed his jaw just beneath the bruised cheek. “You’ve already got a nice black spot here.”

Shawn sighed. “Did you at least get the secretary?”

“Lassiter’s taking her to the car right now.”

“Good. Can we tell the press she had an ice pick or something? Stilettos are hot, but I really don’t think even I can make that sound good.”

Juliet grinned at him. “I think we can arrange something.”