Saguna-Brahman (or why you should invest in an external hard drive)
Series: Psych
Title: Saguna-Brahman
Author's Note: Quick reposting this up here because I got a request for it and managed to track down a hard copy to type up again. Hopefully there are not typing mistakes, as I'm now far too tired to look for them. Will put up on my fic journal later with more information, but most people looking for it already know what it's about so I'm not particularly worried. Yeesh, the formatting for this fic always was a bit weird.
Shawn was one of those kids who stuck a penny in the light socket, and his father let him learn the hard way. Only, Shawn never really did learn.
The Emergency Room staff all know Shawn by name, and while this significantly improves the general atmosphere of each visit, it says little for his self preservation instincts, or rather, lack thereof.
There’s even a betting pool going among the nurses on the particulars of Shawn’s next visit, which Gus finds in extremely bad taste, and how Shawn found out was well is anyone’s guess, but he’s got twenty dollars on ‘rabid dog bite’ and Gus really doesn’t want to know what Shawn’s got planned to expect something like that.
(Apparently, the morgue has a similar pool concerning imminent demise, and some of them are equal parts amusing and horrifying, and Gus will not ask Shawn if he’s in any way involved in that, because some things just don’t bear to think about.)
Today’s winner is a veritable behemoth of a man that looks like he’d just as soon break your thumbs as fluff your pillow, but Shawn seems comfortable enough with him, though Gus is of the opinion that Shawn is entirely too comfortable for someone who’s just been electrocuted anyway.
Shawn charms the male nurse into buying him a burger from a little shop down the road, and Gus would scold him for taking advantage of people, but Shawn just looks so happy to see the burger (doesn’t even complain about the onions, though he still picks them out with a slight wrinkle of the nose) that Gus can’t bring himself to care just now.
He sits on the edge of Shawn’s bed and watches him eat in silence.
The phone doesn’t ring. It’s been off since he called for the ambulance eight hours ago, and he knows that when he finally turns it back on, his message box will be full.
There are some things more important in life, and Gus is just thankful he still knows what those things are.
Shawn develops a slight tick in his left eye that the doctors assure him is only temporary. Gus can’t stand to watch, when it looks like Shawn is being electrocuted all over again.
You’re not gonna start calling me Zappo, are you?”
Gus has known Shawn for almost twenty years now, and he still gets thrown for a loop by some of his tangents.
They had been talking about Christmas, or rather, Shawn had been talking about Christmas while Gus stared blankly out the window, nodding his head at all the right moments, and wondered why the hell Shawn was talking about Christmas in February.
And if ‘Zappo’ isn’t out of left field, Gus might need to borrow the empty bed next to Shawn, because he obviously needs a nap. Bad.
“What?”
There’s a crinkle of paper and Gus knows that if he could bring himself to look over, there would be Shawn and his greasy old burger wrapper, trying, in vain, to make origami out of it.
Smoothing and folding, smoothing and folding, and all he’d ever end up with in the end was a crumpled mess that could just as easily be achieved with a simple tightening of the fist, but it seemed it was the pattern that really mattered to Shawn and after that first hour where his hands and fingers moved on their own, Gus can appreciate these pointless gestures just about as much as Shawn.
“Flash?” Shawn still likes to multitask, and the fact that Gus can’t follow their conversation has never stopped him before. He usually trusts Gus to catch up on his own, and he usually does, because the best teacher is experience, after all, and Gus knows Shawn better than anyone.
He’s vaguely disturbed that Shawn thinks he should have some weird nickname for his near death experience though, and tells him so.
In fact, he’d just as soon forget the whole thing.
Gus might get free samples from work, but that alone won’t soothe the unpleasant gurgling he gets deep in his gut every time he glances at a bare bulb or power outlet.
He can almost hear Shawn blink at him, it’s so deliberate, but he still can’t bring himself to look, even when Shawn sucks at his bottom lip for a moment, nibbles distinctly, and asks, “Sparky?”
And he doesn’t laugh, but he doesn’t cry either, and later, when Shawn asks for a paper and pencil to make notations on the case (which Gus almost shoots down, because it’s the damned case that brought them here to begin with; but he’s honestly scared to death of Shawn’s nurse, and he can’t bring himself to argue something so petty when he’s more worried that the man will ‘accidentally’ dislocate his spine for even looking at Shawn wrong) he finds that he can actually look Shawn in the eye, and smile.
Shawn fills the paper with scribbling and strange symbols that he insists were at the crime scene, and Gus will just have to trust him on this, because all he can remember is the smell of burning flesh.
He chews on the pencil eraser, and points with a bandaged forefinger.
Gus things of those trick pictures with the colors and hidden images, remembers childhood funhouses at the fair and floors that moved under your feet, gets dizzy and needs to sit down. Only, he’s already sitting, and he’s still dizzy, so it’s obviously not helping very much.
“This,” Shawn mumbles around the pencil, lightly tracing one of the several spirals he’s drawn all over the paper. “was on the floor where the victim was killed, and I’m willing to bet it’s at all the other crime scenes as well. Now I didn’t really get a chance to check…”
There’s a pause and Gus shifts uncomfortably on the edge of the bed, coughs, looks down.
Shawn frowns. “To check it out, but it looked like a Fibonacci spiral.”
“Fibonacci?”
Shawn had been infinitely amused as a child to learn about the man who had thought it would be fun one day to examine the numerical construction of a seashell and, consequently, become famous for doing so.
Not so much famous, per say, Gus had been quick to point out, as no one ever seemed to remember the poor man’s name, and only the bare facsimile of his work. Shawn still giggles uncontrollably whenever he sees a nautilus shell and Gus just won’t go to the beach with him anymore, because all he does is look for them.
He even went so far as to proclaim that one day, children would be reading about Shawn’s Numbers (because using last names for mathematical breakthroughs was stuffy and just plain wrong, and if he could have his way, they would be learning about Bob’s Theorem and Dave’s Hypothesis, and he wouldn’t have to garble his words so much in a class about numbers) though he soon gave that aspiration up for lost when he couldn’t settle on a topic long enough to actually work it out.
Shawn still has these pages of jumbled calculations that he brings out to play around with sometimes, when he’s having trouble focusing.
He doesn’t know that Gus knows, but in the end, Shawn likes numbers about as much as he likes letters, so he has to wonder when exactly Shawn’s started to recognize the Fibonacci Sequence in once glance, and just what sort of weird new power that’s supposed to be. “I don’t suppose you can tell me how you know this?”
“Think, Gus. I think it’s Fibonacci, though, and let’s be honest here, I’m usually right.”
Gus wants to argue with that. He can’t.
And anyway, Shawn doesn’t give him the chance. “There were marks,” Shawn marks the paper. “On the floor. Around the spiral, inside the spiral; and I figure they’re measurements. Which doesn’t tell me much, really, except that the killer’s probably a math major or something.”
He shrugs.
“But this symbol.” Shawn points to the center of a spiral on the upper right side of the paper and Gus tries to figure out just what it is he’s supposed to be looking at. “The hoodoop with a dot in it.” He clarifies for Gus. “See, that bit isn’t really part of the spiral, there’s a small space between it and the rest of the pattern and-ah!”
The eraser leaves his mouth and rubs it once, twice, against the bed sheets to wipe it dry. He messes about with the sketch for a moment before pulling away with a sheepish grin.
“I accidentally connected it when I drew it, sorry.”
Gus is just happy Shawn can still hold a pencil, let alone hold it well, so he can easily forgive a small slip like this.
Besides, drawn correctly, the sign still doesn’t mean anything to him. Means something to Shawn though. It’s just too bad he can’t remember what.
“It’s Sanskrit.” He explains. “Or at least, it’s part of a symbol in Sanskrit.”
Gus decides that Shawn knows too much about things he ought not to, and too little about what he should. And it’s his choice, ultimately, but, “Sanskrit?”
Shawn gives him the look.
“Dude, the Kama Sutra is written in Sanskrit.”
Ah, well that explains it.
Shawn’s father visits just once before he’s released from the hospital. Gus leaves them alone in the room for two minutes before the yelling starts and Gus has to ask him to please leave.
Shawn won’t tell Gus what the argument was about, just that his father cares more for him than he’d like to admit.
Apparently, this is a problem.
But then, Shawn said the same thing about Lassiter when the detective tore into him for poking around without police supervision: he could contaminate evidence, and hadn’t he ever heard that the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime?
(And Gus wants to know right now why Lassiter is on Shawn’s ‘contact in case of emergency’ list and not him.)
Gus almost has a heart attack explaining that Shawn’s blood pressure is already too high and yelling will just make it worse, and maybe they should try having this talk later, once they’ve both had a chance to cool down a bit, and Henry storms off in such a state that even Shawn’s nurse flinches and Gus thinks it might just be a good idea to have that heart attack after all.
Henry pays for the hospital bills before he leaves.
All of them.
Shawn returns to the police department pale and tired and Juliet asks him if he’s been sick and how does he feel now, and Shawn smiles and nods and tells her it was just a cold and he’s doing much better now, thank you, and he’s ready to go solve a case now, if it’s not too much trouble.
Lassiter scowls when Shawn throws an arm over his shoulder and tells everyone about how ‘Lassie’ even came by to check up on him and spoon feed him chicken broth with a couple of those nifty little saltines.
He doesn’t argue the fact, though, doesn’t tell everyone that Shawn was hurt doing precisely what he wasn’t supposed to, doesn’t shove Shawn away like he normally would.
And he’ll later charge Gus with the responsibility of taking better care of Shawn, because heavens knows Shawn won’t do it himself, but for now he seems content just to stay and provide his own special brand of support.
(Which, Shawn doesn’t say, but he is grateful for. His knees feel a bit watery right now, nothing serious, but he’s grateful for the extra support just the same.)
That extra weight on Lassiter’s shoulders is almost like a thank you, anyway.
Shawn gets these awful headaches just behind his left temple that make his eye start up with that tick again and distracts him when he tries to review the evidence. He thinks it might be the lighting of the office, which has never bothered him before, but he can’t explain it otherwise, and doesn’t bother trying.
Karen takes pity on Shawn when it becomes obvious that he’s in pain (he’s kneading his brow and biting his lip and doing almost everything but look at the crime scene photos now) and suggests a change of scenery.
Shawn almost whimpers with relief.
Gus offers him an aspirin, shuffles from foot to foot, and quietly hope they visit a different crime scene than that first one, because, oh boy, wouldn’t that be awkward.
The headache’s gone by the time they get in the car, but Shawn dry swallows the pills anyway.
Just in case.
It’s a different location, and Shawn was right about that spiral being a recurring theme, and if Gus squints and tilts his head to the right just so, he can see the hoodoop that Shawn was telling him about, though he still has no idea what it means.
Shawn begins to prowl the grounds and Lassiter blatantly dogs his heels to make sure he doesn’t walk into an open manhole or something equally ridiculous.
(And Shawn is just all sorts of amused by this whole thing, keeps stopping abruptly and forcing Lassiter to do so as well, and Lassiter is this close to just shooting the psychic, consequences be damned.)
At least there are no open power lines here.
Shawn is crouched over that spiral again, trying to figure that symbol out, when the spasms start. He screams, and Gus knows that this isn’t just another act.
Ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurts.
It takes them almost an hour to bring him back down, and from where is anyone’s guess, and another two for the tremors to stop entirely.
(And Gus suddenly finds it difficult to breathe. This is too much reminiscent of then, and this is now and he has to help Shawn in the now rather than be stuck in the then, because now is what’s really important.)
Shawn won’t agree to the hospital (I’m fine), pops a couple aspirin, and asks for paper and pencil. Cracks a small smile when Juliet hands him a whole notepad, because she really does keep everything but the kitchen sink in that purse, flips to a blank page (and she blushes, but aren’t those little doodles just adorable?) and writes down an address.
“You’ll have to hurry,” he says as he tears out the paper and hands it to Karen, “if you wanna save the next victim.” And promptly passes out.
They hurry, it’s not as though there’s anything more they can do for Shawn, Gus has already phoned the hospital again and now it’s just a waiting game, really (which Gus entertains himself through by staring at the bloodstains on the wall and trying real hard not to throw up).
They catch the criminal and save a life. And maybe more.
Shawn’s in the hospital again and his father is going to kill him, because this is exactly what he was talking about before.
Shawn tries to explain it to Gus later, but even he’s not too sure what happened, and the important thing is that they solved the case and no one else got hurt, though Gus would beg to differ, and just how many of those stupid aspirin had Shawn taken to overdose like that anyway?
Shawn finally remembers what that symbol meant. “It’s part of a whole, Omkar, or Om, that translates roughly into something that represents the fours stats of consciousness.” He draws out each bit on a small whiteboard resting on his lap as he speaks.
“The first loop is a state of normality, like, how you and I are right now, how we are every day. It’s function at its simplest level. The second bit (when you draw it right there the two parts make a kind of three, see?) is deep sleep. This pretty little bit right here, stemming out from the first two, that’s REM, Rapid Eye Movement. And here, the hoodoop with the dot in it, that’s what the killer kept drawing into the spirals.”
Gus nods, as though he follows. Well, he sort of does.
A little.
“Well the hoodoop is heightened awareness, ascending to another plane of knowledge, stuff like that.” He scrolls the spiral once more, places the symbol inside and taps at the whiteboard as if to strengthen the meaning behind his words. “You get it?”
No.
Shawn frowns to himself before wiping the board clean with his sleeve. “I guess Sanskrit’s just not your thing.” He grins wickedly. “’s too bad man, the Kama Sutra’s got some wicked positions.”
Shawn says that the headaches are gone, and everyone decides to take him at his word, because they really have no way of knowing if he’s telling the truth or not, at least, not without him admitting it one way or another, and the chances of that happening anytime in the near future are slim to none.
He does seem to have gotten much better at his job, though.