musicalluna

Title: Shawn, You're No George Clooney: Part V
Fandom: Psych
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Shawn, Gus
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Humor
Warnings:
Complete: No
Summary: Shawn and Gus steal--pardon--borrow Henry's boat and soon discover the meager amount of boating experience between them just might land them at the bottom of the sea, sleeping with the fishes
A/N: HAHA. MY TRIUMPHANT RETURN. kthxigottagotowork
Disclaimer: Much as it pains me, I do not own Shawn or Gus, I only get to play with little dolls of them in the sandbox known as the internet. PLEASE DON'T PERSECUTE ME FOR LOVING THEM TOO MUCH.

It wasn't raining particularly hard, but between the ocean spray and the rain, it didn't take long for Gus to get soaked. And being soaked meant being cold.

 

“W—we need to find that gas can, Shawn,” Gus said. “The longer the boat drifts, the more we get off-course.”

 

Beside him, Shawn's teeth were chattering in an irregular rhythm, probably because Shawn had his jaw clenched in an attempt to make them stop. The movement likely caused the gash on his face considerable discomfort. “The s-sooner we can get back to dry land, the b-better,” he mumbled.

 

Gus pulled himself to his feet with the help of the console and then held out a hand for Shawn. “Come on,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over a rumble of thunder. “Let's find that gas and get the hell out of here!”

 

Shawn nodded, his sopping hair flopping down and clinging to his forehead. “Okay,” he said, and took Gus' hand.

 

He whimpered as Gus dragged him to his feet, his free arm clutched tight around ribs.

 

Gus leaned toward him, worried, and put a hand to his back. “Are you okay?”

 

Shawn bit his lip and nodded sharply. “Yeah, I'm just peachy.”

 

Which meant it wasn't going to be fun, but he could still handle doing the search.

 

“I'll look in the back,” Gus said. “You search up here. Make sure you hold onto something,” he ordered.

 

The boat gave a hard rock from back to front, and Shawn groaned, his hands clenching tight around the handholds he currently had. “Aye, aye, cap'n.”

 

Despite his unequivocal commands, Gus was a lot less certain about his role in this particular plan. There was absolutely no stability to the boat with the engine offline and there was nothing to hold onto to get to the stern. His stomach wriggled nervously as he clung to the helm, watching, and feeling, the way the boat bucked in the waves.

 

“Gus?” Shawn called, questioning.

 

“I got this!” Gus called back and then swallowed. He could do it. He totally could.

 

It took another few seconds, but he finally decided that the best way to get to the aft would be to get down on his butt and just let the back and forth dipping motions move him. Shawn had gone head first into one of the compartments beneath the console and Gus glanced back at him, hoping he would stay in there long enough that he wouldn't see what Gus was about to do.

 

Then he lowered himself down onto his butt, took a deep breath, and let go as they started up the side of a wave. The effect was immediate, gravity sending him sliding straight back toward the benches at the rear of the boat. A smug, self-satisfied smile was just creeping onto his face when he realized that he hadn't planned how he was going to stop.

 

His heart leapt into his throat, but it was already too late.

 

He hit the back of the boat feet first with a loud THUNK that reverberated through his whole body. He hissed, his feet stinging from the impact, but he hadn't hit nearly hard enough to actually injure himself, for which he was grateful. Bad enough that Shawn was hurt—if he got hurt too, they'd really be in trouble.

 

“Gus?!”

 

“I'm fine!” he called back to Shawn, grabbing hold of the benches as the boat tipped back the other way, nearly sending him sliding back the way he had come. “Anything?”

 

“Nothing yet!”

 

Gus nodded, mostly to himself, and started yanking open the cabinets beneath the benches. The one on the far left was stuffed full of bright orange life vests and it hit Gus abruptly that he and Shawn should have them on. Especially with the boat bobbing back and forth like a trebuchet just waiting for the perfect opportunity. He wrestled one out and pulled it over his head, quickly fumbling the straps into place with increasingly clumsy fingers. The chill from earlier had become down right bone-numbing coupled with the rain. As soon as he was strapped in, he wiggled another of the vests out and turned back toward Shawn, using one hand to wipe rain from his face in a futile gesture. “Shawn!” he yelled, “Here!”

 

When Shawn turned, Gus flung the life jacket at him.

 

A crosswind caught it midway there and it zipped out over the water, flopping down a few yards from the boat.

 

“Nice,” Shawn yelled back at him, “Are we going to leave a trail of life jackets for the Coast Guard to follow? I feel like we're going to need more than five!”

 

Gus shot him a dirty look. “Shut up, Shawn!”

 

Shawn just smirked wanly back at him.

 

With a little chill, Gus realized as he pulled another life vest out of the storage space that Henry was going to be absolutely livid when they returned his boat.

 

A small, dark part of him thought, That was, if they returned his boat.

 

He swallowed and tossed the life jacket at Shawn, sideways, a little like a Frisbee and much, much closer to the deck. This one made it to the pair of steps at the helm and Shawn crouched, one hand wrapped tight around the captain's chair as he reached for it.

 

Shawn struggled as Gus had to get the life vest in place, dragging the straps to their loosest so that they wouldn't put pressure on already aching ribs. When he was done, he looked around the helm and then at Gus. “There's nowhere else he'd keep it up here, Gus!” he shouted.

 

“Did you check the cabin?” Gus yelled back.

 

Shawn stared at him incredulously for a moment. Lightning cracked behind him, followed by a clap of thunder that sounded more like a cannon boom and they both jerked, dropping toward the deck. Gus' bravery dribbled out of him as he looked up at the sky, realizing that getting struck by lightning out here was a very real possibility.

 

It was a long minute before Shawn yelled, voice considerably higher than normal, “There's a cabin? What—what kind of cabin? A little wood cabin? Or—”

 

Having something other than the increasingly terrifying weather conditions was a relief. “Not that kind of cabin, Shawn! Your dad's boat has a cabin for the galley and the bunks! How can you not know that?!”

 

Shawn looked at the boat, giving it a good once over from end to end. “Where in the name of Crusty Eyed Pete is he keeping a cabin?”

 

“You're standing right in front of it!” Gus yelled peevishly. How could someone as observant as Shawn seriously not notice the door to the lower deck?

 

Shawn was half turned when he finally spotted the door inset into the boat next to the control panels and Gus saw the look of surprise flitter across his face. He couldn't hear him, but he would bet good money that Shawn had just made a soft, “Huh,” sound.

 

“I'll go check!” Shawn yelled and Gus rolled his eyes.

 

“You do that!”

 

Gus shut the compartment, feeling the latch snap into place beneath his hand. The next one was filled with even more life vests. How many people was Henry taking out on this boat anyway? Did he even know that many people?

 

The next compartment was thankfully bereft of life vests. Instead there was a large, bright yellow pill-shaped wad of plastic that Gus guessed was an emergency life raft to go with the oars on the left side of the boat. There were also several flares wrapped in plastic bags, an enormous utility flashlight, and a tool box. The flares might come in useful later, if they wound up needing to radio for help.

 

A flash of lightning lit up the interior of the next compartment as he opened it and Gus shivered, glancing nervously at the sky overhead. This was such a mess. How did he let Shawn talk him into these things? And why?

 

He was met with disappointment when he realized that there was no red, no container of gas, in the last compartment. Just a lot of nets and other fishing supplies and an anchor. Buried at the bottom was a small first aid kit in a plastic box. An image of the jagged cut along Shawn's jaw leapt to mind and Gus grabbed it, tucking it under his arm. That at least could be useful.

 

At the bow, Shawn hadn't come back up from below yet.

 

A tendril of fear wriggled through Gus' stomach and he looked back over his shoulder, hoping to see Shawn poking his head out from the cabin. No such luck. Where was that idiot? The cabin wasn't that big. There was a reason Shawn hadn't noticed it.

 

The boat tipped forward as if pulling him toward Shawn and Gus only thought for a second before letting it. The incline was a lot steeper this time and his landing pad a lot less even, so Gus' control of the slide was precarious at best. His feet hit the stairs at an awkward angle, hard, and pain spiked up his shin. He hissed, lying down as the boat rocked back the other direction. It wasn't until he started to slide that he sat up, scrambling for a hand hold. His leg stung like a strained muscle when he turned it in a certain way, but it wasn't bad—probably not even really injured, just angry. “Stupid, Shawn,” he muttered and jammed the first aid kit into the space beneath the captain's chair before making his way down the small, steep staircase where the door to the cabin yawned like a thin black mouth.

 

“Shawn!” he yelled, grabbing onto the door as the boat rocked. “Where the heck are you?”

 

The cabin was just as tiny as he had expected and ten times as dark. He grumbled a curse, wishing he'd thought to bring the flashlight with him. “Shawn?”

 

A flicker of lightning gave him a split second of sight and he saw that the tiny galley area on the left was empty. He turned to the right and waited for another strike. It came after just a few seconds and he saw Shawn, sitting on the lower bunk, staring vacantly straight ahead.

 

“Shawn?” he said, alarm rapidly scrabbling up inside him.

 

“Gus,” Shawn rasped, “why does my dad have this?”

 

He held something up and Gus frowned, squinting in the low light and pressing a hand to the wall to steady himself. “What is it?”

 

Lightning flashed through the tiny windows and for a moment, Gus could see the object.

 

“Twilight,” Shawn said, sounding like his soul had been stripped bare.

 

Gus' frown deepened and there was a beat of silence. Then he said, “Why does your dad have a copy of Twilight?”

 

Shawn groaned and tossed the book aside. “Probably because he's not actually my dad. He's some kind of freaky android that has replaced my dad. My dad does not read things like Twilight.”

 

“Apparently he does.”

 

Another moan, but this one was coupled with a wobbling of the boat that nearly knocked Gus on his ass and he wasn't sure if it was nausea due to his discovery or due to the waves. It reminded Gus why they were down here in the first place. “Did you find the gas?”

 

“No,” Shawn said, “You?”

 

“No,” Gus admitted. “But I haven't checked the hold in the deck.”

 

“Let's do that then, shall we?” Shawn said. He was definitely nauseated again. Gus helped him up and the two of them staggered back up, flinching as they were hit with wind-whipped rain drops as they resurfaced. The chills that had temporarily waned while below decks started up again with renewed fervor.

 

“Hurry!” he shouted and Shawn nodded; they worked their way out to the center of the boat, barely managing to keep their feet. With both of them latched precariously onto the deck by their fingertips, they wrestled the hold in the deck open and peered inside.

 

Relief spread through Gus like the heat from a good bowl of soup. “Yes, finally!”

 

Pressed up against one end of the rectangular hold was a pair of bright red gas cans. 

Part I   Part II   Part III   Part IV   Part V   Part VI