Gone Fishing…for Whump?
by: apple jacks jules (jewel of athos)
Note: My belated birthday present for the very lovely deej (aka DinerGuy) from Psychfic!!!!!! *tacklehugs her with happy birthday goodness!!* She was incredibly kind to me when my muse disappeared last week, and let me borrow her services at its replacement. So in addition to being a birthday pressie, this is also a "thank you so much for being my muse so that I didn't die cuz I couldn't write" present ;) *huggles deej* Here's your whump, girl! I hope you like!!! :D :D :D
And special thanks to my amazing twin fyd818 for the beta job and forgiving me when I emailed her a load of half-asleep gibberish in place of the fic, and for waiting patiently for the *correct* version. I could never have done it without you!! :D *hugs*
...and this fic is also an entry into the Psychfic "Whumpathon Challenge" that's going on right now...we'll see if people like it :p
Enjoy!! :D
~*~*~*~*~*~
"This is a bad idea."
Henry Spencer turned and smiled at the young man in the passeger seat of his old pickup.
"This is vacation, Shawn. You'd better get used to it." Shawn peered skeptically through the windshield at their surroundings.
"Dad, this is a cabin by a lake in the middle of nowhere. I don't see how you can possibly think that anything good can come of this."
"Shawn, it's been years since you've come up to the cabin with me to fish. It's only for a weekend; we won't be up here long enough for anything to go wrong."
"Dad, I was back at Camp Tikihama for less than a day, and three people were murdered. You said yourself that it's been years since we came up here; this is the perfect place for a bad guy to be hiding!"
"I come up here at least once a month; and I can assure you that there's no criminals using this place as a hideout. And even if there were, they'd hear the name "Henry Spencer", and be heading for the hills quicker than you can do that silly little hand-to-your-head thing that you do when you're trying to impress the cops." Shawn glared at his father.
"Dad," he spoke with exaggerated slowness, as if Henry were a small child instead of his father. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow, daring him to continue. "These are the hills! Oh my gosh, are you kidding me! How do you expect me to spend a weekend up here like this? No microwave, no cable..." he pulled his phone out of his pocket and cursed quietly. "No cell service! Dad, really, if you were going to try to torture me, couldn't we at least do it off the coast of Santa Barbara instead of in this outdated cabin?"
"Shawn, you promised me that you would go fishing with me this weekend. You didn't specify where; and since you're already here and I have the keys, you might as well get used to it." He shut down the truck and grabbed a bag out of the back. "Come on, son. This is as far as the truck goes; we walk the rest of the way down."
"Great..." Shawn muttered. cursing quietly again as he helped his father unload the truck and the headed down towards the cabin. Henry hid a grin. This trip was just what Shawn needed.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Ah," Henry took a deep, contented breath of the stale, musty air as he walked into the cabin. Shawn just shook his head. His dad was crazy to want to spend a weekend here. He didn't care how often the man claimed to come here; it looked exactly the way that it had the last time he'd come here. Fifteen years ago.
"Dad, you have got to do something with this place," he muttered, tossing his bag in the corner and heading for the patterned couch that had been in the cabin for as long as he could remember. Henry's stern voice stopped him.
"Wait, hold on just a minute, kid. What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm sitting on the couch and resting after that unnecessarily long ride, thank you very much."
"Oh, no, you're not! The fish are biting, Shawn." Shawn laughed in disbelief, waiting for his dad to say that it was a joke, that they weren't really going fishing after spending hours cooped up in the truck...but Henry's expression remained serious. Shawn's face fell.
"No...no! Oh, gosh! No, Dad. "This is a vacation", you said; well vacation is where you relax."
"Well, fishing is relaxing."
"No it's not! Fishing is frustrating. A hot shower is relaxing; sleep is relaxing. Fishing is torture."
"If you argue much longer we're gonna have to be out all night. Is that what you want?" Shawn gritted his teeth.
"No..."
"Good." Henry handed him a pole and patted his shoulder. "We're burning daylight."
Exactly ten minutes later, Shawn and his father were out in the middle of the lake in a creaky, leaky little boat that Shawn was certain hadn't been used in years. Henry, of course, denied that.
"It's a good little boat, Shawn. I use it whenever I come here, and it hasn't given me problems yet. I doubt that it's going to start now."
"Yes, you say that; but then it will try to prove you wrong and capsize us both ;and me and my apple jacks t-shirt and brand new sneakers are going to get wet and mucky! You know how I hate that! And then the waistband of my jeans will be all damp and scratchy and gritty..."
"Enough complaining, kid," Henry warned, though he sounded surprisingly good-natured. "Just fish." Shawn sighed.
"Fine, whatever you say, Pops. Don't say I didn't warn you." He then shut his mouth and deliberately cast his line in the same direction that Henry had.
"Shawn!"
"Just fish, Dad," he said, shaking his head. "Just fish." Henry frowned at him, but seemed willing to let the matter drop for the time being. Shawn privately celebrated what he considered a victory while he balanced in the boat, waiting for the telltale tug on his line and the toppling into the water that would doubtless follow. Oh, the joys of fishing, he thought wryly.
"Oh, wait, I got a bite!" Henry hissed suddenly, tensing in the boat beside him. Shawn glanced at him.
"How good do you have him?" he asked, watching his father wrestle with the pole.
"Oh, I've got him good!" Henry gritted. "And he's a big one! He's not gonna get away from me this trip!"
"Dad, he's not a criminal that you're bringing in for questioning." He paused, then brought his hand up to his forehead and raised an eyebrow. "Though I'm sensing he does hate cops."
"Would you shut up and help me?"
"Dad, you know how I feel about killing fish."
"Shawn, you're not killing him yet, you're helping me get him in the boat."
"Yeah, to kill!"
"Just help me get him in the boat!"
"Dad, I'm not gonna do that---whoa!!" Henry half stood up in the boat, just as the fish gave an unexpected tug on his line. Thrown off balance by the rocking, he toppled into the water. Shawn clutched the edges of the boat and willed it to stop shaking before it pitched him in, too, and watched his father's pole streak away across the water. A second later, Henry surfaced by the boat, coughing and spluttering. He grabbed onto the side of the boat, and it rocked violently.
"Hey, careful! You might knock me in!" Henry coughed again, and made a grab for his son over the side.
"Knock you in? Oh, I'll do better than that---!"
~*~*~*~*~*~
Henry didn't manage to get Shawn in the water, but Shawn did get him out before several snapping turtles had gotten more than a few bites in. But even after that, his father refused to go back to the cabin to dry off until they'd caught something. It was nearly two hours before Shawn finally convinced him to be satisfied with the day's catch; three fish and a killer cold. They rowed back to shore and pulled the boat up the beach.
"You know," Shawn suggested as they worked, "with a cold and all, we probably shouldn't stay the whole weekend. We've been here, we've caught fish, it was great; now let's go back home." Henry shook his head firmly.
"No, Shawn. What, do you think I'm some kind of wimp, going home for a cold? You think that I'd just give up that easily because I took a little dip in the lake? No, Shawn. We are men; and more importantly, we are Spencers. We're staying."
"Fine," Shawn huffed, giving the boat an irritated tug. It slid easier than he'd expected it to, though, and they both took several quick steps back to compensate. Suddenly, Henry's foot slipped.
"Ah!" He lost his grip and tumbled to the ground. Shawn let go of his side of the boat as well and crouched down beside him.
"What happened?" he asked. "You okay?" Henry groaned and looked at his leg.
"Stepped in a hole," he gritted. Shawn followed his eyes.
"Yeah, chipmunk burrow, it looks like. You know, Dad, I'm impressed. I didn't think it was possible to fall and almost kill yourself twice in such a short period of time. Gus, of course, being exempt from this example.
"Shawn, you know I'm gonna kill you."
"Whoa, take it easy!" He held up his hands in defense. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. That was a compliment! I mean, whew! It took the mighty chipmunk to take you down! Sworn enemy of cops and hikers, you know?" Henry rolled his eyes.
"Shawn, shut your mouth and help me up." Shawn took pity on his father and obeyed, helping him stand and supporting him when his ankle almost gave out.
"Dad, are you sure that you wanna stay...?"
"Shawn, I'm fine, really. Ankles not busted, probably just bruised or strained. I'l wrap it up when we get back to the cabin and it'll bee as good as new."
"Whatever you say." He readjusted his father's arm over his shoulders, and they limped up the tiny hill towards the cabin.
Mine! The hoarse screech startled them. Looking up, they saw three gray seagulls circling over the roof. Mine!
"This isn't a normal seagull habitat, is it?" Shawn questioned.
"Not normally, but I see 'em up here occasionally," Henry said, squinting for a closer look at the birds. Screeching again, one of them flew over his head. Something white splattered onto his shoulder.
Henry cursed loudly, and made several decidedly Lassiter-like comments about shooting the bird, which Shawn argued was a very hasty and violent thing to do.
"That bird deserves violence!" Henry insisted.
"No, the birds deserve love. And forgiveness."
"Shawn---!"
"You need to go home" Both men spun around at the unexpected interruption---Henry nearly falling again in the process---embarrassed at being snuck up on. They found themselves staring at a gray-haired little old woman in a faded dress. Henry recovered first.
"Excuse me, can I help you?" he asked, his politeness sounding strained. The woman looked at him seriously.
"Seagulls are a bad omen up here," she said, pointing at the birds still circling their cabin. "This weekend will be bad for guests.
"Let me stop you right there, ma'am; we're not guests. I own this cabin."
"You need to leave this weekend," she insisted. "Come back some other time. The seagull has cursed you." She threw a pointed look at his shoulder.
Shawn turned to his dad with wide eyes.
"I like what she's saying; I like it very much. Lets go back home to Santa Barbara and go fishing there and not worry about being cursed by seagull poop."
"Shawn---"
"You have been marked for bad luck," the woman insisted. "Listen to your son, go home."
"With all due respect, ma'am, I think we can take care of ourselves, thank you." She shrugged a skinny shoulder.
"I warned you," she said. "I only pray that your son's luck is enough to save you." Without another word, she turned around and headed for the road.
Once she was out of sight, Shawn shuddered.
"That was creepy," he muttered. "We should listen to her."
"That was a prank, a joke," Henry scoffed, shaking his head. "For all I know you're the one who put her up to it, or something like that. It doesn't matter. Nothing is going to ruin this trip."
"How about pneumonia?" They argued about it the rest of the way back to the cabin.
Once they were inside, Shawn flopped on the couch to nap, and Henry went to take a shower. Running water was the one thing that Shawn had absolutely refused to go without as a child.
Shawn had barely closed his eyes, however, when a shout from the bathroom forced him awake again. He groaned.
"Dad, what is it this time?" he asked. He didn't sound in pain, like his ankle had almost given out again...
"Shawn, come here, look at this." But before Shawn could even attempt to get off the couch, Henry limped out into the main room, carrying a bundled up messof plastic. "Would you look at this? Some animal completely chewed through the shower curtain. This is useless now!"
"When was the last time that you changed that this?" Shawn asked, noticing dark spots of mildew all over it. "Nineteen ninety-six?"
"That is not the point, Shawn. The point is that I need privacy!"
"Dad, there's no one up here but us and that creepy old lady who I doubt is coming back. You're safe, trust me; wouldn't even dream of disturbing your shower."
"Smart mouth, huh? Well, just shut it." Henry disappeared back into the bathroom, and Shawn leaned back and closed his eyes. Within minutes, he was asleep.
He didn't wake up until it was almost time to eat. He walked into the cabin's tiny kitchen and found Henry limping around in clean clothes---his fish were already boned and skinned and sizzling on the stove---kitchen knife in hand. Shawn looked past him and saw a half-sliced pineapple on the counter.
His entire face lit up, and he wrapped his arms around his father, knowing that the touchy-feely movement would embarrass him, even though they were alone.
"Dad, you brought my favorite food so I wouldn't starve! Thank you!"
"I figured you'd appreciate that. Now get off me." Shawn squeezed a little tighter, grinning. "Shawn, I've got a knife." Shawn let go like he'd been burned.
"That's not a knife," he quoted from a safe distance.
"Funny, kid. But remember, I always get the bigger knife."
"No, you don't; because I always win."
"Cop's privilege."
"Well I guess you can have it then. Only cops fall into---" Henry raised the knife and a warning eyebrow. "Never mind."
"Smart move."
~*~*~*~*~*~
Their night passed fairly uneventfully; even relaxed, almost. And in spite of Henry's injury and Shawn's reluctance to stay, they both went to bed in fairly good spirits.
The next morning, they woke up to pouring rain. At that point, Shawn put his foot down firmly.
"No way, Dad," he protested when Henry told him to get his fishing rod. "We are not going back out on that lake in this storm."
"Are you afraid to get a little wet catching dinner?" Henry challenged, re-wrapping his ankle tightly and testing his weight on it.
"Dad, it is pouring rain out there, and you're sick. No way are we sitting out in that leaky old boat until we catch our death or drown."
"Shawn, you agreed to come on this fishing trip with me---"
"No, I agreed to go fishing in the ocean, off the coast of Santa Barbara; you ever heard of the place? You tricked me into coming here!"
"That's funny, psychic," Henry taunted. "I thought that you knew everything."
"I know that I am definitely not going fishing out in this."
"Fine, then. Don't come. But I won't let you eat anything that I catch, either."
"Wait, you're not still going out, are you?" Henry smiled. "No! Dad, you're crazy! You've got the killer cold of death, a sprained ankle, and quite possibly schizophrenia. Besides, you're not going to find any fish biting in this storm. Why don't we listen to the creepy old lady who doesn't like seagulls and just go home?"
"Listen to that nut-job? You've got to be kidding me! No, I have been planning this trip for weeks; nothing is going to convince me to leave here early." He headed for the door."
"You're crazy," Shawn repeated. Henry rolled his eyes.
"I'm not fishing again until the rain lets up a little, if that's what you're worried about. I'm just throwing out this disgusting shower curtain so that it doesn't stink up the whole cabin while we're here." He picked up the gross lump and balled it a little bit tighter.
"Dad---"
"Look, Shawn, I'll be right back. Relax." Shaking his head, Henry limped out the door, shutting it behind him with a bang that made Shawn cringe. And for a few moments, Shawn was alone in the cabin with nothing but the sound of the rain and a box of apple jacks that he had packed for himself. Then, almost on cue with a particularly bright flash of lightning, he heard the by-now familiar sound of his dad shouting. Heaving himself off the couch, he walked over and opened the door, squinting to see through the gray sheets of rain. What he saw made him laugh.
The lightning had struck a tree, scaring a family of raccoons out into the storm. The frightened creatures had apparently gone charging through the mud and straight into Henry, knocking him over. But they hadn't run away, and had instead turned on him. It took Shawn a moment to realize that they weren't trying to attack his father at all; they were after the moldy old shower curtain he'd been trying to get rid of. As far as the animals were concerned, his entire upper body was just collateral damage. Their real goal, for whatever reason, was that shower curtain.
"Throw the curtain away!" Shawn shouted at his father, managing to keep his amusement out of his voice. Henry shoved a raccoon off of his face and chucked the plastic sheet as far as he could. The raccoons were off of him in a second and chasing after the thing. Panting for breath, covered in scratches, Henry sat up and looked over at Shawn.
"Shawn, get over here and help me up! We're cutting this thing short." Shawn grinned.
"I thought that nothing was going to ruin our weekend?"
"I was just attacked by wet raccoons, Shawn. We're done!" Still grinning, Shawn obeyed.
"This was a fun weekend, huh?" he asked as he pulled Henry to his feet. "I got to eat pineapple and practically gourmet fish, and you got to become one with nature. You definitely should have listened to me, you know? I told you that coming out here was a bad idea." He sighed. "Well, at least I didn't get attacked by every woodland creature out there…" Henry's eyes widened.
"Shawn, you have about three seconds to get as far away from this place as possible."
"Oh, come on, Dad."
"One."
"You've gotta admit to the irony in this…"
"Two."
"I mean, you wanted to come her, and you got your butt kicked by a bunch of freaked-out raccoons---"
"That's it!" Henry made a grab at Shawn, which he barely ducked in time. He ran towards the truck, Henry chasing furiously after him. He glanced back to see his father gaining on him, even though they were going uphill.
"No man with a sprained ankle should be able to run that fast!"
~*~*~*~*~*~
fin.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Note: Thank you so much for reading!!! :D Please, let me know how I did; whump I enjoy, but humor is hard for me…so it was interesting to try to incorporate the two here. I think that I did kind of decently, but it's not quite as heavy of whump as I'd hoped :p *sigh* I hope that you liked it, though!! :D *huggles you nice readers* Peace!! ~ajj
And again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEEEEEEEEEEEEJ!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D