Chapter Text
Being shot was not all it was cracked up to be in classic 80s television. MacGyver and Magnum P.I. made it look so cool, and inevitably, any time a character got shot in one episode, they’d be magically better by the next. Usually, they’d be fighting off bad guys, bullet holes and all, by the end of the episode. It was pretty badass, and though Shawn had never had a desire to get shot himself, he’d always imagined that if it ever did happen, he’d be up on his feet and roundhouse kicking the gun out of the shooter's hand moments later.
Now that he thought about it, that was a pretty ambitious goal, considering he couldn’t even do a roundhouse without a bullet wound, but the point remained. Angus MacGyver and Thomas Magnum always got back on their feet.
Shawn Spencer, however, did not.
He lay where he’d landed, the force of the bullet thudding into his flesh enough to topple him to the gritty asphalt. Thankfully, he’d remembered his dad’s training on how to fall correctly – and yes, the guy had literally told him he couldn’t even fall down the right way and had spent an entire afternoon when Shawn was six teaching him how to do it right. Shawn had to admit that he appreciated not cracking his head open on the concrete, though, so he supposed this time he’d give his dad a pass.
He had a nasty feeling that he’d be calling on a lot of Papa Monkey’s old advice in the foreseeable future if he wanted to stay alive and see his friends and family again. But he could fret about that later: Right now, his entire shoulder was burning from the inside out, like acid slowly eating through his skin, muscle, and bone. He’d heard about shock with gunshot wounds, but unless the shock in question was a highly painful electric one, whoever had told him that had been a dirty rotten liar. Shawn couldn’t remember ever being in this much pain, even when he’d broken his leg in fourth grade trying to replicate a daredevil stunt involving a kite, his bike, and his dad’s roof.
“Gaaah,” Shawn gritted out, raising a trembling hand to his shoulder, stomach churning at the warm blood already soaking his shirt. Shawn had never been squeamish (that was Gus’s territory, after all), but the feel of so much of his own blood slicking his fingers and the coppery tang assaulting his nostrils turned his gut in a way nothing ever had. “Dude,” he panted, peering up at the not-so-gentle giant looming over him. “You didn’t have to… mmmm… shoot. It’s o-okay if you don’t like ice c-cream. Not everybody d-does.” His teeth had started chattering. He didn’t feel cold, quite the opposite, so he figured it was probably the pain of a hole drilled into his shoulder. Yep, he thought vaguely, that’ll do it.
Garth Longmore stared at him blankly. The hard look in his eyes hadn’t softened, but it had shifted. Shawn got the impression that he was thinking about something very hard. He also got the impression that Longmore didn’t participate in that particular activity all that often.
Well, his new trigger-happy friend could keep it up until he had smoke coming out of his ears, but Shawn had just been shot, he could feel blood trickling down his bare skin beneath his shirt on his chest and back, and he was about two seconds from passing out. This whole investigation had gone to hell in a millisecond, and Shawn had no desire to stick around and find out how it could get worse. Slowly, gingerly, Shawn tried to lever himself off the ground, but the agony erupting in his shoulder sent him collapsing back to the ground, teeth gritting around the moan dragged deep from within his chest.
“Don’t move,” Longmore ordered. The hard look had reappeared in his eyes, reflecting in the residual flashlight beam. Apparently, he’d come to a decision – a decision that Shawn was pretty sure he wouldn’t like.
“Look, man,” Shawn said, keeping his voice as low, friendly, and calm as he knew how. For perhaps the first time in his life, he made the decision to not further antagonize the guy holding him at gunpoint with a stupid joke or obscure reference. Longmore had shown that he didn’t have much of a sense of humor, and Shawn really didn’t want to get shot again. “You’ve made your point, loud and clear. You don’t like my jokes, you don’t like me, and you don’t like me sticking my nose into your business. And you know what? That’s more than fair. If some random dude with perfect hair and a chiseled jaw came waltzing into my crime scene in the middle of the night, I’d be pissed too! So why don’t we call it a truce? You can drop me off at the nearest hospital, we can go our separate ways, and I’ll forget I ever saw anything. How’s that?” He knew the answer before the question even left his mouth.
“Not gonna happen.”
“Okay, then, help me up. I’ll walk to the nearest hospital.”
Longmore sneered. “Stay there,” he ordered, then turned and walked around the truck he’d been working on, taking his flashlight with him. Shawn lay in the dark and tried his damndest not to cry like a baby.
“Sure,” Shawn gasped as a fresh wave of pain screamed through his shoulder. “N-not like I got anything b-better to do.” Aaand the shivering was back.
Less than a minute later, the flashlight beam heralded Longmore’s return, and this time he held something cylindrical in his other hand. Shawn squinted in the low light, his eyes widening as he recognized the silver sheen of a roll of duct tape. Was that for what he thought it was? Please, Shawn thought desperately, all good humor leaving him at the thought of being tied up and dragged off to God-knows-where, having God-knows-what done to him, let there be an air vent in urgent need of sealing.
As it turned out, Shawn’s fears were spot-on. Longmore stalked toward Shawn, who had now managed to get his elbows beneath him and was shuffling backwards, rough concrete tearing at his clothes, in a desperate attempt to escape the inevitable. “Garth, man, you don’t have t-to do this,” he stuttered. “I d-don’t think I’m going to be feeling up to a ro-road trip any time soon.” Damn, he was so light-headed. His ears rang in a high-pitched parody of TV static and nausea capsized his gut like Gus’s favorite model ship Shawn had lost to the ocean when they were twelve. How much blood had he lost? How much blood could he lose? He tried to remember his father’s lessons, to recall any helpful information, but even his gift had deserted him in his time of need. Pain and dizziness had replaced his brain – photographic memory and all – with Play-Doh. He’d come to his senses eventually, he knew, but right now the world was spinning and he hurt so damn much –
And then the world exploded into an even brighter ball of pain as Longmore leaned over him, heaved him over onto his stomach, and grabbed both arms. As he felt his hands wrenched behind him, Shawn really did cry, physically unable to keep the macho, manly tears at bay when his shoulder erupted in agony. It was like getting shot all over again!
Dimly, through a haze of torment, he felt his wrists being cocooned in layer after layer of sticky duct tape. A ragged scream ripped from his throat as he was flipped over once again, this time onto his back, his bound hands trapped beneath him, digging into his spine. He barely noticed the discomfort through the tidal wave of ouch. Black spots danced before his blurring eyes as strong hands looped underneath his armpits and began dragging him, slowly, agonizingly, across gravel and asphalt. Finally, Longmore dumped him to the ground. A brief silence, then the sound of a car trunk unlocking, swinging open.
It was only as Longmore began levering him off the ground that the full reality of Shawn’s situation hit him full force. Raw, animal panic stripped his soul of anything but terror and he struggled weakly as his captor heaved him into the trunk. Oh God, he thought, bile rising in his throat, his whole body trembling in pain and blood loss and fear. I’m being kidnapped.
Then his injured shoulder hit the floor of the trunk and his world shattered into fractals of agony and swirling darkness.
He was unconscious before the trunk clicked shut.