Wish You Were Here

"When we were children we played out in the streets

When we were children we'd say that we don't meaning of fear."

-OneRepublic

About 5 years ago…

"Shawn, do you ever think about your future?" Gus asks, sprinkles sticking steadfastly to his left cheek. Shawn just stared at him. It seemed he was always staring at Gus. Gus figured it was because he was always saying something lame or stupid and normally that was okay but now Shawn's staring made something strange and quaky rise up in the pit of Gus' stomach. When it wasn't making him stumble over his own feet, it made Gus feel like he was on the verge of either throwing up or think about doing something ridiculous like grabbing Shawn's face and-

"My future? What you mean like my astronaut career? Well Gus, I figure in a couple of years your head will have gotten so big that I could just stuff you feel of helium and ride that baby to outer space." He joked and Gus' glare did nothing to stop his cackling. After a moment of nothing but the sounds of their feet crunching grass below them, Shawn gave in. "No, I guess. Why?"

Gus eyed him cautiously; he was unsure of the can of worms he was about to open. Watching for the impending letdown, Gus explained. "I wanted to know what you're going to do when we grow up. Where you'll be going to college, where you'll be living for the rest of your life. I just thought we should get it out of the way now before."

"Before? Before what? Before the calendar hits the year 2000 and we all burn to death or the earth explodes? Is that what you mean, because if everything goes according to my plan we'll be long gone to the planet Flyron by then." Shawn grinned sharply and Gus almost felt comforted except that he didn't. Not yet; he had to get this out.

"Before life gets too serious." Gus tried, seeing that he still hadn't quite gotten his point across.

"Gus, we're twelve. Life's not 'sposed to get serious for another decade." Flinging an arm across Gus' tense shoulders, Shawn pulled him close enough to count Gus' eyelashes. He had resented how Gus had reached twelve so untouched by life but times like these, when he was truly allowed to look, he felt nothing more than protective over Gus. Like it was his job to stare and make sure nobody else could.

Gus took the time to process what Shawn had said and decided to take it for what it was. This crazy, chaotic friendship had taught him living in the moment was okay sometimes, especially when the alternative might bring something he couldn't handle. This was easier.

So he let Shawn lead him down the block, blabbering on and on about the benefits of Tang all the while knowing he was unprepared.

There was no doubt in his mind that Shawn would leave Gus one day and when that day came, Gus wanted to be ready.

Present…

"You don't seem to get it, Winnie. He's not a child; he's a grown man. We can't just keep him here forever and hope that if we raise him right he'll leave on his own."

Gus sighed and leaned his forehead against the front door. His bags sat on the porch steps a few feet away from where Shawn sat drinking a beer and seemingly ignoring that Gus had ever existed. Gus had mistakenly locked his knees a while ago and now it hurt to stand but the alternatives were pretty shitty. Either stand there leaning against the door listening to his parents fighting or he could go sit down next to Shawn and pray he didn't break the glass bottle over his head. Whichever one he chose ended with a headache.

"He's going through a tough time right now, honey. His whole life has changed and who are we to judge how he chooses to deal with it?" Gus' mother argued and Gus had to admit that she did have a good point. Everything had changed. He took the few hesitant steps towards where Shawn sat lost in seemingly impenetrable thoughts. As he sat down on the creaking wood of the bench, he tried to slow his rapid heartrate. He hadn't seen Shawn since that night in his room, not even the day he left for Stanford, and now they were sitting only a few inches away. It hurt just to breathe and it felt easier not to try.

Shawn eyed him expectantly, almost challenging him before shaking his head, dismissive. He returned his gaze to the end of his bottle and Gus' mouth went dry.

"Gus got into Stanford, baby. It's not like he moved across the entire country. It's hours away, not weeks—" Mr. Guster argued, and by the weakness in his voice that his wife was sure to win.

"He can stay here as long as he wants."

"But—"

"As. Long. As. He. Wants." Gus knew that tone, his father had better give up now or get used to making his own meals for the next few nights. There were a few whispered sentences so Gus figured the argument was pretty much over. He picked up his bags and hesitantly opened the front door, avoiding eye contact as Shawn stood behind him. There was a second when the breeze blew just right and Gus was wrapped in Shawn's scent, beer, smoke and oddly enough the sickly sweet scent of sugar. He wanted to turn around and memorize that smell ; those next steps forward felt like splitting himself in two.

"After you." Shawn muttered, cursing when their shoulders bumped. At the wince on Gus' face, Shawn fought his guilt in forcing himself to remember sitting in the middle of broken chipped and faded green plaster and the stern cold returned.

"Baby! You're home!" Mrs. Guster pulled Gus into a hug so tight it was a wonder he could breathe through the smell of her perfume and the smell of the delicious roast in the oven. She made it just the way Gus liked with carrots and potatoes; Shawn had helped. "Come in, come in. You have to tell us about your first year—what'd you do? What classes did you take? Did you meet any new people?"

Gus' father came closer and laid his arm across Gus' shoulder. "Let's get some food in him first. I'm sure he's tired from his trip home." And with that he steered them all towards the living room, Shawn pushing himself to follow behind.

Dinner was incredibly awkward, even after Joy arrived ten minutes in. Joy was watching Shawn pretend to ignore that her brother was blatantly staring at him, the Gusters were obviously not speaking to each other and Shawn… Shawn was silent and the sight.

"So, Joy, how's your job? You still doing that internship with Richard and Shepherd?" He eyed his wife sitting across the table. "Must be nice to be employed like most adults in America."

Mrs. Guster didn't skip a beat as she cut into her food. "Yes, yes, it must be. Joy, honey, don't you think your father could greatly appreciate some help around the house while he's taking time off to watch his health?" The lightness to her tone definitely implied she wasn't looking for an answer.

"Sweetheart, don't you think we shouldn't be talking about this over dinner?" Mr. Guster shot back and now Gus was honestly confused.

"Mom, Dad, what's going on?" Gus and Joy asked simultaneously, their parents refusing to look at each other.

"I'll tell you what's going on. Your father is being a stubborn, overgrown child." She stood up and threw down her napkin. "His cardiologist told him months ago, months ago, that he needed to take some time off work for his health and he waits to tell me until I hear about it in a voicemail. A voicemail!"

Refusing to lift his eyes from his plate, Mr. Guster added, "You shouldn't have heard about it at all. I told you I would check the messages." It was dead silent as Mrs. Gusters typically kind, gentle eyes narrowed so much that her pupils were barely discernable.

Joy, Shawn and Gus shared a nervous look and started to back away from the table. Shawn had just tentatively pushed his chair back when Mrs. Guster gave him a chilling glare. "Don't you dare leave this table until you've finished your food. All of you, sit!" They sat.

Mr. Guster tried again, sensing his wife was about to explode. "You're being unreasonable. It was really more of a suggestion, not an order."

"Well I don't care what it was; you're taking time off of work and letting us help you." Mrs. Guster demanded, aware that Shawn was picking at his food, trying to stay out of the conversation. Gus, rather than worry about his father settled on making animal shapes out of his mashed potatoes.

Giving in, Mr. Guster slumped over his plate and muttered to himself, but loud enough that his wife heard every word. "I raised two kids and just when I thought I'd finished with the last one you give me another one to take care of?"

"Oh, Bill, I wish. I wish that was my intention." She straightened her dress and gave a tight smile. "No, no, no, no, no… Shawn's going to be here taking care of you since you can't seem to grow up enough to do it yourself."

The remainder of dinner was a quiet affair except for the occasional question about how Gus was doing at Stanford. During the answers to these questions, Shawn picked at his food and avoided eye contact to give the illusion that he wasn't hanging on Gus' every word. And when their glances locked by bad timing, Shawn could only hope his eyes were cold enough to disguise the stupid, futile nervousness that having Gus' eyes on him again had caused.

With Shawn having moved into Gus' room and Mr. Guster turning Joy's room into an office two years ago, Gus was given the couch in the living room while Joy was given the pull-out in the office. After laying out blankets and sheets, Gus was sitting in the empty living room when Shawn found him. He didn't bother asking for permission before sitting down next to Gus on the couch.

He knew exactly why he couldn't fall asleep but he didn't know why he'd been drawn downstairs after a night of avoiding Gus as best he could. Maybe he just had terrible willpower or Gus' attention was some kind of drug. Even when he tried to convince himself that he didn't want it, that it was bad for him, some part of him kept coming back for the kick, the high.

They each studied the various pictures lining the walls and mantle piece before the silence started to feel daunting. Gus was thinner, he seemed taller, he seemed more confident just standing there than Shawn had felt since that night. Suddenly a part of him felt furious, bruised, incomplete; like Gus had taken the best parts, the amiable parts, of Shawn for himself. Gus had the nerve to be fucking better off without him. Biting back the urge to claw and tear the soft skin of Gus' arms just within his reach, Shawn tried to swallow this down.

"So…" Gus began, glancing at Shawn out of the corner of his eye. Shawn shrugged in return and bit the side of his lip before scolding himself. He never used to have nervous habits, those were for Gus.

"So…" Shawn sarcastically repeated. "How's college really going?" Internally he cringed, knowing that while getting Gus to talk about something would loosen the tightness in his stomach but it would make the urge to break the boy next to him worse. He wanted to strip him down, see if Gus had scars the same way he did. And if not, he wanted to make them, but more than anything he just wanted proof that he hadn't made up their entire relationship.

As if reading Shawn's mind, Gus' eyes dropped to his lap. Gus swallowed thickly in deciding what to give away. Finally, he settled on the truth. "Terrible. I love my classes and my teachers are great but…"

"But?" Shawn tried not to sound too satisfied. He'd already assumed Gus was lying to make him feel better. It wasn't working; Shawn still wanted to crush him for trying… the only difference was he maybe wanted to kiss him first.

"It's not like high school at all. There, I was brilliant, the best at most of the things I did. But at Stanford… it's like I'm fifth best. Not even second but fifth." He breathed out and turned to find Shawn closer to him on the couch than he'd thought. The fact that he hadn't noticed they'd been inching closer made him pause for a moment and he stuttered in thought. "I'm just used to being the best and now that I'm not- I feel like I don't know who I am anymore. Everyone else around me seems to have it all figured out but me… well I'm just undecided."

Forcing a smile turned grimace, Shawn clenched his fist at his side and supplied, "I'm sure they're all freaking out just as much as you are." He paused, contemplating, "Actually I'm not. You tend to have pretty catastrophic freak outs… from what I remember anyway." Gus broke eye contact and studied Shawn's hands.

"I just don't know how much longer I can keep trying to pretend I'm not completely lost out there." Gus admitted, choosing to ignore the feel of Shawn pressed tight to him from hip to shoulders. He didn't know and he didn't care how it had happened. He could barely admit to himself that he'd missed the feeling and surprisingly Shawn's visible annoyance wasn't enough to extinguish the sheer ridiculousness.

"Gu- You do not get to decide to quit just like that. You don't get to." Shawn objected, talking rather than whispering into the quiet room.

Gus shook his head and began to argue. "Shawn—wait what?" Shawn gripped Gus' head in his palms and looked him straight in the eye, adamant. The brown in his irises seemed to gleam with the message that Gus better listen to everything he had to say.

"Don't you dare. All of this—living here, missing you and being angry at you all at the same time—sometimes I thought I couldn't take it, but I did for you because you're worth it."

"I know you think that—" Gus started before Shawn cut him off.

"I know that. Don't tell me I went through all of this just so you could quit after a year."

"I haven't decided to quit, yet."

"Good, you can't. I won't accept it." There was no room for objection in Shawn's tone and if it had been under different circumstances, Gus might've acknowledged the odd hooked feeling in his gut. He laid down and Shawn buried his face in his palms. Gus pensive, Shawn quelling his own anger. They sat like that for a while, savoring just breathing the same air until they both fell asleep, Shawn gathering Gus in his arms. It almost felt like nothing had changed, except everything had.

The morning Gus left to return to Stanford was harder for Shawn than the day he left the first time. At least that day Shawn had been so angry and hurt he'd stayed in Gus' room buried in the closet hopelessly gluing shattered plaster pieces together. At least that morning he'd expected to wake up alone. He hardly remembered falling asleep next to Gus on the couch, only that he slept better than he had since before Gus left. Waking up alone underneath sheets that smelled of the expensive cologne Gus had gotten one Christmas from Joy, he'd felt like he deserved the wounding pain behind his ribs. He knew what to expect and he'd hoped anyway like a brainless child touching a hot stove and then having the nerve to cry when he got burned.

Instead of getting out of bed to help Mrs. Guster make breakfast like he usually did, he rolled over further into the leftover warmth and took deep breaths to avoid the scream threatening to erupt. After ten minutes, Mr. Guster entered the room, his eyes scanning the tell-tale signs that he'd slept on the couch all night. Rather than give Shawn the lecture he'd been expecting, the veteran lawyer simple shook his head and said, "Okay, get up, son. If you're going to stay here you're going to earn your keep." Surprised, Shawn sat up and wiped a tired hand over his dry eyes.

"How?" He asked hesitantly. To be honest, though he'd been staying at the Gusters' for the past five months, he and Mr. Guster hadn't really talked except for the passive aggressive hints at meal times about Shawn's lack of employment.

Brandishing a list, Mr. Guster pulled out his reading glasses. "This is a list of the things I need to fix around the house." He practically thrust the list in Shawn's face before crossing his arms in a position of authority. To be honest, it scarily resembled Henry's. "You're gonna help me and I won't hear any complaints, right?"

Shawn gave a wry smile and a quick nod before rolling over into the comfort of the bedclothes. He felt truly certain Mr. G would go back upstairs and he would be able to wallow for a little bit longer while he pondered just what he was going to do about getting his life back in some semblance of an order. He'd just closed his eyes when he felt a shove at his shoulder. "What?"

"We need to get started right away, Shawn, before we lose this light."

"It's eight o'clock in the morning." Shawn grumbled, hating the chuckles that followed.

"It's twelve o'clock and my wife has been way too generous in letting you sleep in this late." He started to pull the bedclothes off of Shawn's curled up form. "Sometimes I think she likes you better than me."

Shawn sat up and ran a hand over his face, muttering, "I wonder why."

It wasn't as if Gus was incapable of understanding wanting to have a party every now and then. He totally understood wanting to celebrate the arrival of the weekend or the end of a grading period but when it bled into the Tuesday after and the music blared loud enough to shake the cork assignment board that hung above Gus' window, the partying had gotten excessive.

It was this complaint and the need to study for his Government final that led to Gus stomping his way up the stairwells to the roof of his dormitory. Clutching his notes tight to his chest, Gus eyed the seemingly deserted roof before settling down a few feet from a lookout onto the quad. It was a nice enough, quiet enough spot that he spread his work out, set down his jacket and laid down to get back to work. He lost himself in terminology and the workings of the Senate and failed to notice a wind picking up until his printed sheet with the coursework for the year was swept up and towards the deathly edge.

"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no!" Gus yelped, jumping to his feet and chasing after the paper. He stumbled a few times on the roof ground and followed the sheet all the way over to the short wall blocking the edge. He'd just reached out and managed to grip the paper when an unknown hand reached out and gripped the back of his t-shirt.

A desperate voice rang out, "Whoa, dude, I know the school's motto says that 'The pursuit of knowledge is never-ending', but I don't think this is what they had in mind." Once he was safely three feet away from the ledge, Gus spun around to meet his presumed savior. The man stood a few inches taller than Gus with curly brown hair and bright green eyes. The corner of his mouth was turned up in a small version of a smirk but his eyes were tight around the edges.

"My life was going over the edge for a moment there. I really needed this." He clutched his notes to his chest.

"I'm sure it seemed that way at the time." The stranger insisted.

Gus eyed him curiously, still shaking the wrinkles out of his clothes until he finally understood the misunderstanding. Holding his hands up and shaking his head, "Hey, wait. I wasn't trying to—I wouldn't— I just wanted some peace."

The stranger nodded cynically and cut him off. "We all feel that way sometimes."

"I came up here for a place to get my thoughts straight."

"Tumbling to the ground below wouldn't have helped you."

"I just couldn't take all of those people screaming and –"

"Just say no."

"I was just trying to…" Gus paused in his explanation. "I think that's the anti-drugs motto."

The stranger took a moment, bit a nail as he thought over Gus' words. Finally he nodded, curls gently scattering atop his head. "You may have a point but for the purpose of my argument I will refuse to admit that."

Gus cocked an eyebrow, slightly stunned. "Did you just admit I was right and disagree with me at the same time?"

The stranger shook his head and responded, "Yes. And No."

This gained a real laugh from Gus as he gathered his things to a less windy part of the roof. He weighed down his work with his textbook and jacket. Sitting back on top of a metal box, Gus studied the green-eyed stranger in between bouts of making sure he'd truly saved his Government notes. The lines on the strangers face told stories, laugh lines around that unwavering, sure-fire grin, stress lines between his brow that belied some uncertainty, scars on the bottom corner of his cheek that had faded to an almost unnoticeable shade. The stranger had brought nothing with him up here besides the pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket.

"Tyler."

Gus looked up from organizing his pile, unsure of what to say. "This is the part where you tell me your name and I get to decide if you're telling the truth or lying because you're a criminal on the run from the police for one of the lame felonies like embezzling money or making counterfeit mattress tags."

Ignoring the weird stretch of unused muscles in his face, Gus grinned. "Burton Guster but ev—some people call me Gus." He reached out his hand but Tyler didn't take it, choosing instead to light a cigarette.

"Gus, huh?" He glanced back at the boy behind him and shuffled backwards to sit next to him on the metal box. "I like that. It's childish and sweet but clever at the same time. Who gave you that name?"

The twinge returned to the pit of Gus' stomach but he ignored it. "My best friend. So… do I make counterfeit mattress tags or what?"

At this unexpected joke, Tyler let out a startled laugh and the glint in his eye soothed the painful sinking feeling in Gus' abdomen. "No, I peg you for the smuggling of stolen label-makers. That seems like a Gus-like crime."

"Well, I do love my labels."

A/N: So what did you guys think?