Summary: Gus had a plan for his life. Becoming one half of a psychic detective duo wasn't part of it. Oneshot.

Warnings: None. Preseries through the Pilot episode.

Disclaimer: I don't own Psych, nor its characters. I do own this story, though.

I had this awesome plan to write one fanfiction a month and post it, just to keep my juices flowing. And then my brain died. So, after five months of hiatus, I bring you another Psych fanfic, one that has been mulling around in my bran for a while now.

Enjoy!

OOOO

The Best Laid Plans

Gus had a plan for his life.

It was a rather good plan, if he did say so himself. He would continue to be a sales rep, slowly moving up the ladder until he became a manager, or maybe even beyond that. He would marry a respectable girl, the kind his mother would approve of, and have maybe one or two babies to appease his mother's need for grandchildren. Then he would die at an old age after a long and fulfilled life.

And in his plan, Shawn was always a part of his life. Not in a gay way, because they weren't like that. But Shawn was always there in his plan, sometimes with little Shawnlets of his own, and sometimes just hanging around, some sort of funny uncle that was just always there.

They'd connected in first grade, and from the start Gus hadn't been able to picture himself without Shawn at his side. They completed each other (but not in a gay way at all). Shawn was spontaneous and bright, and Gus was reserved and leaned towards pessimism a lot (even if he said he was an optimist). Gus lent a stability to Shawn's life that the other man might not have had otherwise, and Shawn gave Gus spontaneity and made Gus take risks that he never would have attempted on his own.

Shawn broke Gus out of his box, and Gus managed to occasionally squeeze Shawn into a box ---though he had a tendency to break out of it in an instant.

As it was, Gus couldn't imagine life without Shawn at his side. By second grade, it was near impossible to see one of the boys without the other close behind. Usually Shawn leading and Gus following reluctantly behind. From the beginning they were as close as brothers, with an almost psychic link. Gus would just need to take one look at Shawn's face to know that the other boy had something reckless, possibly dangerous, and most assuredly something his mother wouldn't approve of, planned. And Shawn would just need to wheedle and maybe promise Gus a scoop of ice cream ---on Shawn's tab, of course--- for Gus to give in (the bribes grew as they got older, but Gus always ended up following Shawn anyway).

It was just the way they worked. Shawn wanted to do something and after much bribing and coersion Gus would do it. Except for Mexico. The first time Gus had been a little bit drunk, and that was the reason he went without his usual bribe. The second time…well, the second time he was kidnapped. That was his story and he was sticking to it.

The point was that Shawn would always be there in his life, no matter what happened. Shawn may ride off into the sunset on his bike, and Gus would stay in Santa Barbara and continue his slightly-boring and not-really-fulfilling job as a pharmaceutical sales rep and wait for Shawn to come back.

Because Shawn always came back. Without fail, Shawn would return to Santa Barbara with a bunch of stories about his many escapades as an acupuncture therapist or an exotic pet salesman or a dragon tamer or whatever else he'd done. And Gus's life, which never seemed nearly as exciting when Shawn wasn't there, picked up again. Until Shawn left, which he seemed to do a lot.

But he came back. He always came back. Sure, he was gone for months at a time, sometimes even years. But he always ended up coming back. Always. As unreliable as his best friend was, Gus could always count on Shawn coming back.

So Gus made Shawn part of his plans. Gus never told Shawn, never revealed what his big plan for his life was. Shawn would probably laugh, say it was boring, and want to throw in skydiving or a career as a pro wrestler or something to spice it up. Shawn liked to believe that he would go out in a blaze of glory, not living the quiet life and dying at an old age.

But that's what made them click so well. Their opposite natures brought them together like magnets. Gus had never had any other friend as close to him as Shawn was, but he liked to think that being around someone exactly the same as himself would be pretty boring. What fun was there in a person you could predict everything about, right?

Still…occasionally, Shawn's unpredictability could get him in trouble. Just every now and then. Not all the time, but sometimes…

And here Gus stood, staring at the large sign in the window.

" 'Psych?' You named your fake psychic detective agency 'Psych'?"

Gus had no doubt that this would end badly. Someone would find out, and they'd both get arrested, and Gus wouldn't do well in jail. Somehow Gus didn't think that Mr. Spencer would cover for them again, and Shawn was not going to be able to keep up this charade all the time alone.

Maybe that was why he had to rope Gus into it.

But that still didn't mean Shawn would commit. Gus was pretty sure Shawn hadn't committed to anything in his life, beyond committing his love of pineapples. Gus didn't know how long this would last. He loved Shawn (in a purely platonic way), but he knew not to expect long-term plans from Shawn. Making plans was just not a good idea; at best, the farthest ahead Shawn looked at was this weekend. So Gus knew this wouldn't last. Shawn would do this psychic detective thing for a while, get bored, and move on, leaving Gus with payments on an office space that he wasn't using and a whole bunch of lies to face the SBPD with.

This couldn't go well.

Even if they had just solved a kidnapping case, and the Chief believed Shawn's 'psychic episode' (which, in Gus's opinion, made Shawn look like he was having some sort of seizure on the McCallum yard), and even if they did get a another case right away, opening up a psychic detective agency was going to get them in trouble.

Gus had a plan for his life. Becoming one half of a psychic detective duo wasn't part of it. There would probably be danger (and intrigue). There would be no way to meet a respectable woman if he needed to be on call for some case all the time. It was hard enough to meet women as it was, with Shawn butting his nose in on his dates and critiquing his dates ---most of the time in private. Having the stress of a high-risk job like private detective on top of dating was just going to be impossible. And Gus didn't see how he could have kids if he had to be Shawn's sidekick as well, because that was just more stress piled on top of stress.

Gus had a plan. 'Psych' wasn't figured anywhere into it. Once more, Shawn's spontaneous little idea was going to upset his carefully thought out life. He should walk away and leave Shawn to himself. Let his friend learn a little responsibility. Make Shawn learn that it was stupid to jump in with both feet when he wasn't even sure how deep the water was.

But even as he glared at his best friend, even as he tried to convince himself to leave, he knew he was going to go along with it.

Obviously, he couldn't leave Shawn-the-idiot to do this by himself. Shawn would end up setting the place on fire within the week if he was left to his own devices. And he would definitely need a buffer between himself and that tightly-wound Head Detective, otherwise Gus might come over to find his best friend with a bullet hole or two in him.

Gus slumped his shoulders, looking at the window with a defeated look on his face. He knew that Shawn was grinning now, because he knew that Gus had just given in. But Gus couldn't just leave his accident-prone friend by himself. That would never work out.

Gus was in this for the long haul ---or at least for six months until the lease was up.

He could only hope that Shawn would be too.

OOOO

I had this idea running around in my head about Gus and Shawn, where Gus had this careful plan for his life and no matter what, Shawn would be there. Then I started thinking about how Shawn roped Gus into Psych, and how that would (or wouldn't) fit in with Gus's plan for his life. This grew from that idea.

The title came from that quote from Of Mice And Men. You probably know it. "The best laid plans of mice and men…" etc etc. By the way, I don't own Of Mice And Men either. I just used that line because it seemed to fit in with this story quite well.

Anyway, I hoped you liked this. I thought it was pretty awesome. Maybe. But review, please! Leave me a note that tells me what you thought!

~Well, until next time!

~Love!