Fandom: Psych
Written for: Katta in the Yuletide 2007 Challenge
by jesshelga
Many thanks to awesome beta-er anxietygrrl (and she's bitchin' on the glockenspiel)
1987
"Burton Guster, do your parents normally let you watch this much TV?" The question would've had more impact if Henry Spencer had asked it at the beginning of the cartoon marathon and not well into the third hour, when Gus had also had four orange Shastas and the better part of a pound of plain M&Ms.
Gus was about to answer--or lie--when Shawn stepped in. Gus was relieved as, by and large, Shawn was a much better liar.
"Of course they do, Dad. Didn't you read the note they sent over?"
"The typewritten note with no signatures? Yeah, I read it."
Shawn looked at Gus sternly. Jittery with sugar and nerves, Gus began to sweat. Everything about Mr. Spencer made Gus nervous. Particularly Mr. Spencer's hair, which was fashioned in a helmet--kind of like of like the one Man-at-Arms in He-Man wore--only blond instead of green.
Apparently, Shawn was used to both his dad and his dad's intimidating hair. "Dad, how can we create a tradition if you keep interfering? You can call the Gusters or you can get us more Shasta."
Henry Spencer huffed, looked once more at Gus, and left the den.
"Gus!" Shawn whispered fiercely at his best friend. "If you want to spend Christmas Eve Eve singing carols at the nursing home, that's fine. But if you want to spend it watching the awesomest Christmas cartoons and eating candy, you need to take a chill pill."
Gus responded by eating another handful of plain M&Ms. Maybe it was the 90 pounds of sugar in his 100-pound frame or absorbing the glory of She-Ra in her breastplate and white miniskirt as she saved Christmas for some Earth children, but Gus could never image a holiday season without his best friend. He hoped that every Christmas Eve Eve was just like this.
Present Day
"I don't see what the big deal is, Shawn!"
"The big deal, Gus? Try the biggest! It's tradition! I thought we'd do what we normally do on Christmas Eve Eve--watch The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, A Garfield Christmas, He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special, and then the part in It's a Wonderful Life where everyone is mean and crazy. You know, when Nick is all, 'Out you two pixies go, through'..."
"I don't want to do that, Shawn. I want to go on a date. With a woman." Gus punctuated this by knotting his tie with what he thought was conversation-ending certainty.
Shawn looked at him with the wounded eyes of a clinically depressed Ewok. "I bought four kinds of M&Ms. Gus, I had to go to five different Walgreens to find the crispy kind."
Gus looked at him with flat disappointment. "Those were discontinued almost a year ago, Shawn."
"Dude! They're M&Ms. M&Ms don't go stale. They're like Twinkies or Wonder Bread."
"Look, I'm sorry I can't stay and eat year-old candy with you, but Lisa is going home to her family's house in the Hamptons for Christmas..."
"The Hamptons? Are you serious? Are you dating Lisa Stewart, Martha Stewart's second cousin? Are you dating Lisa Rockefeller, heiress to the great Rockefeller Center and Ice Skating Rink fortune?"
"Laugh all you want. I am going to have dinner and, if I'm lucky, make time with a very beautiful woman tonight. Shawn, we can watch cartoons any other night this week! You have everything on DVD."
"But..." And here, Shawn's snarky bravado began to fail. "It's tradition."
Gus found himself at a loss in the face of Shawn's earnestness. This crossroads was one at which he had stood in his adult life many times before: choose spending an evening of goofing-around time with Shawn, which he had done since his preadolescent years, or go out on a date and try--just try--to find himself a life partner who was not a heterosexual man obsessed with late '80s animated holiday features.
Gus looked at his best friend and gathered every bit of strength to say, "Please, Shawn. Please, please. Please can I go on a date without feeling guilty about it?"
"Oh, you can go, Gus. You can go. But remember one thing: Lisa Vanderbilt is never, never going to love you like The Pound Puppies Christmas episode. And she is never going to let you drink five grape sodas in under an hour."
Miffed because grape soda sounded delicious and more miffed by Shawn's disappointed
expression, Gus grabbed his jacket and said, "We'll do it tomorrow, Shawn. I promise."
Gus was only four blocks away from his apartment when his cell phone rang. Expecting Shawn,
he picked up and said, "You can stop quoting It's a Wonderful Life. I'm going on my date."
"Gus, it's Lisa..."
"Hey, girl, I was just on my way to--"
"I'm sorry to flake out like this, but I'm swamped with last-minute shopping. Can we postpone until after the holidays?"
Gus stared in wonderment down the street. He was less gobsmacked by Lisa's cooing and apologizing than he was by the sight of his best friend barreling down the sidewalk at a not-too-graceful run.
"You're not mad, are you?" she asked for the third time.
"No, no...I understand. The holidays, they're tough. Listen, Shawn is on the other line. I'll call you before New Year's." Gus snapped his phone shut just as his friend pulled up to a stop in front of him.
After a minute or two of heavy breathing while doubled over, hands on his knees, Shawn looked up.
Shawn wheezed, "The thing...is...I love you."
Gus squinted. "Say what?"
"I love that you collect coins and watch spelling bees. I love that you use your perfect dental record as an excuse to not eat a gunnysack full of M&Ms. I love that you get a little crinkle above the Super Smeller when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your Axe body spray on my clothes...well, maybe I don't love that so much."
"Shawn, I don't wear Axe." Gus almost went on to remind Shawn that he wears Armani Attitude, which Shawn himself purchased for him last Christmas.
But Shawn pressed on. "And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's Christmas Eve Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."
"Did you visit IMDb and look that quote up before running here?"
Shawn mustered up a bit of mock outrage before saying, "Yes. Yes, I did. Also some quotes from Predator. That movie was a lot funnier than I remembered." Then he smiled and threw his arm around Gus' shoulder. "Merry Christmas Eve Eve, buddy."
Gus looked at his best friend for several loving, silent seconds. Then he scoffed, "Well, it's not New Year's, so you're not getting a kiss."
"Just one? I'll even let you cry and say you hate me."
Gus deadpanned, "Maybe after Garfield."
"Oh, we're not watching cartoons tonight. I TiVoed a whole week's worth of old school late '80s Jeopardy!ies from the Game Show Network. Prime salt-and-pepper cookie duster years. The years when even the Teen Week questions were head scratchers."
Gus smiled brightly. "I'm going to kick your ass, Shawn."
"Yes, my friend. Yes, you are."
And the only thing better than soundly defeating Shawn at nearly five hours of Jeopardy was eating an entire pound of carefully aged crispy M&Ms.
