Title: The Tale of the Sandwich
Summary: Shawn Spencer reflects on his life.
Disclaimer: I don't own Psych. Be very glad.
Notes: This is not my fault. There I was, being all good and serious and trying to write a real story, and Jenn dragged me back to crack. I_Blame_Jenn.
Shawn was sitting across the desk from Lassiter, his eyes over-bright. Lassiter was trying very hard to ignore the tears swimming in Shawn's eyes, but they made him nervous. Not only because Lassiter was a gruff and extremely, nearly fatally, masculine guy, but also because Shawn was sitting really close to his tuna nicoise sandwich.
"Lassie…" Shawn whispered from the hidden depths of his soul, because there were better echoes down there, "Lassie – I'm so sad."
Lassiter said nothing, silently praying that Shawn would disappear and inching his sandwich closer.
"There's so much hurt that I hide inside myself," Shawn continued with tears shining in his eyes, which was good because during the commercial break the whole station had been restructured to make sure light reflected into his eyes, and it would have been a shame to have wasted all that work. "There's my childhood, and my father, who never gave me enough unconditional love. And then there's my mother, who could be anything from a misunderstood woman trying to do good, to a raving lunatic who has made several attempts on my life. And they're the whole tragedy of how Jules always brushes me off. OH, WEEP FOR ME!" Shawn shrieked, throwing himself across Lassiter's desk and crushing the beloved sandwich.
Lassiter leaned as far back from the desk as he could and tried to stay still as a statue and inch away from the desk at the same time, while Shawn's tears flooded over the desk.
"What's going on here?" Karen demanded, wading through the inch or so of tears now coating the floor.
"Ah, nothing much," Juliet said, popping out of nowhere. "He's just having an emotional breakdown."
"Really?" Karen looked at her watch. "It's that time of day already?" And she and Juliet walked off.
"Um…help," Lassiter whispered to Buzz as he was walking by.
Buzz stopped and stared at the tableau in surprise. "What happened?"
"I'm trapped, what do you think, you handsome idiot!" Lassiter hissed.
Slowly, a look of epiphany and inexpressible joy dawned on Buzz's face. The chorus hiding behind Juliet's desk broke out into 'Hallelujah.' "I'm free," Buzz mumbled with a quivering voice. "Finally free from fetching your coffee and being yelled at. FREE AT LAST!" He skipped to the door, laughing insanely. As Gus walked in with three coffees, Buzz grabbed him by the shoulders. "I'm FREEEEE!" he shrieked, turned to run out of the station, ran into a wall, and fell down unconscious.
Gus stared at Lassiter. "Well, that was weird."
Lassiter shrugged. "He wouldn't have gotten very far. We've tagged him."
Suddenly Shawn renewed the vigor of his sobbing, and Gus sighed. "Alright, alright, we get it, Shawn. Very sad childhood. Fine."
Shawn stopped abruptly, and sat up on the desk. "Way to kill the mood," he muttered sulkily. "I was going for a whole hysterical meltdown thing."
"I brought you pineapple coffee," Gus coaxed, offering one cup to Shawn who greedily gulped it down.
"Pineapple coffee?" Lassiter asked with nausea from seeing the trampled and soggy remains of his sandwich lacing his tone.
"Yup," Gus said, "They created a new method of harvesting coffee from pineapple rinds since we're running out ways to put in each episode."
"Ahh," Lassiter murmured understandingly, and the three sat down to drink their coffee. When they were finished, Shawn and Gus got up to leave.
"So, same time next week?" Shawn asked Lassiter.
Lassiter shrugged. "Fine. But you owe me a sandwich."
Shawn dismissed the request with a wave of his hand. "Alright, alright, I'll bring you a tuna sandwich next time."
"A tuna nicoise sandwich!" Lassiter yelled out after him, then returned to his soggy paperwork.
I wrote this before season 3, hence the thing about Shawn's mom. As always, reviews are love.