Chapter 10

Shawn's big revelation didn't have quite the effect he was going for. Gus didn't stare in disbelief. He didn't roll his eyes, or start to laugh either. He didn't even nod sagely and say something like, 'Of course you are, Shawn, I knew all along,' which was what Shawn was half hoping for even if he knew it was a long shot. For some reason, Gus didn't react at all to his words. Instead he went off on some weird and completely unrelated tangent about police brutality and stupid people who forget to eat while radiating worry like a beacon, dispelling the last of the darkness the two officers had brought.

"You're not listening!" Shawn cried when Gus started to drag him to see the chief, mumbling something about stopping by the hospital and all in all not bringing the conversation in a direction Shawn cared for, "I really am psychic."

"I know you are Shawn," he answered, "We all do, remember?" Then Shawn looked around, noticed several people staring at them (what was with the stares, lately?) and promptly decided the middle of the police station was not the best place for this conversation. So of course, he wanted to leave at once, which turned out to be the opposite of Gus's plans which involved (in bursts of anger that made Shawn's stomach roll as they ran over his skin) informing the chief and possibly Jules and Lassiter, at length, about the situation he had walked in on.

"Look, they were just trying to scare me," Shawn said, trying to head Gus off, "I don't need to run to Mommy for…"

"No Shawn," Gus practically growled as he continued to drag Shawn along bodily, "People who are trying to scare you don't throw you into a wall. People who are just trying to scare you don't…chief! We want to report a crime!"

"No we don't," Shawn quickly said, finally collecting his wits enough to squirm out of Gus's grasp and try to drag his friend back in the other direction. Unfortunately Shawn was at a disadvantage both from the way his head was still ringing and from the sudden assault of color and emotion that threatened to send him keeling over once again. His grasp on Gus quickly went from pulling at his friend to clinging to him so he could stay upright.

And the really scary part about that was, the only person in the room with him was Gus. As it turned out, the chief wasn't in her office.

"Shawn? Shawn!" Gus cried, sounding alarmed.

"Sorry, Gus," Shawn answered, still clinging tightly, "Little busy being psychic, here."

"Shawn," Gus growled, "If this is one of your games…"

"Not playing," Shawn answered, only managing not to throw up because he already had, "Not fun, either. Could you tone your colors down? They're giving me a headache."

"That's it," Gus cried, and abruptly turned and once again started dragging Shawn after him, this time in the direction of the parking lot. Shawn didn't even need to be psychic to foresee wasting the rest of the night away in some hospital waiting room.

"Wait, no, Gus!" Shawn cried, "I just need…sleep! That's it!" Gus didn't say anything more until he had Shawn buckled into his seat and had started the car.

"Gus, listen," Shawn tried again, "Look, I know you're upset, but this is important! I'm a psychic."

"No you're not, Shawn," Gus answered sternly, free to speak now that they were away from the station. Shawn also found the psychic storm had calmed a bit, either because he really was tired or possibly because he wasn't touching Gus anymore. Mentally, Shawn added psychic powers to his list of things that ought to come with an instruction manual. A big thick manual that Gus could obsessively read and then spout out information from at the slightest prompt.

"Yes I am!" Shawn insisted, "I even see spirits! Well, one spirit, but I felt others!"

"You're concussed, Shawn," Gus answered abruptly, his stubbornness filling the car like stones.

"Come on, Gus, this is why I didn't tell you at first," Shawn cried, doing his best to come up with something that would convince his friend, "I mean, come on! I was acting weird long before Trippin' Truman and Witch Hunter came into it!" Gus didn't answer. "Look!" Shawn cried, "Remember back in the office when I was acting all weird about your date? And then I talked about her dead sister? Where do you think that came from? I'm psychic!"

"Her sister isn't dead, Shawn," Gus answered.

"I saw her before I saw her," Shawn continued, ignoring Gus's big flaw in Shawn's reveal, "In a daydream, I saw you talking to her and then we got to the Doom Fortress and she was real! And I can see colors around everyone; well, not everyone, but you're usually orange and yellow but sometimes you go all green or red when you're angry."

"You see auras," Gus asked, his voice flat as he gripped the wheel tightly.

"Er…I guess?" Shawn answered, "I don't know; I just know I see colors. And feel them."

"And feel them," Gus repeated. He still didn't believe Shawn, Shawn could tell.

"I can prove it!" Shawn cried desperately; he so did not want to spend his night in some emergency room for a non-existent concussion. I mean, honestly, was he the type to downplay war wounds? Okay, so maybe there was that one time…but who wants to go to the hospital if they can avoid it? Gus obviously didn't agree.

"How?" Gus asked, "How can you prove it? I know how you roll, Shawn; you won't fool me."

"Oh, come on!" Shawn cried, "I'm so good at being a fake that you won't believe me when its real? Come on, just a simple test. If I fail, I'll drive me to the hospital myself."

"No you won't, Shawn," Gus practically growled through clinched teeth. But he did divert the car towards the psych office. Not because he was giving in, as he informed Shawn, but because he wanted to make sure his date got out alright. He did kind of leave her suddenly to go get Shawn. Which reminded him to lecture on the importance of eating.

"Can we NOT talk about food?" Shawn asked, still feeling a bit queasy, despite the emptiness of his stomach.

"Aha!" Gus cried, "Another sign of a concussion!"

"I was feeling queasy before I hit my head," Shawn pointed out, "In fact, it kind of preceded the entire trip to the wall."

When they got to the Psych Office, Shawn was practically out of his seat before they stopped moving. He knew that once he was out of the car, Gus had a much smaller chance of dragging him anywhere Shawn didn't want to go.

Henri Heathers was long gone, though Shawn still felt an echo of her presence. It was vaguely disturbing the way it permeated the office, tainting the purer essence of Shawn and Gus that normally saturated the place.

"Stay here, Shawn, and close your eyes," Gus said suddenly, shoving Shawn to face the door.

"What?" Shawn cried, annoyed, because he had half been planning to crash on the couch for the night; it wouldn't be the first time he had slept over at the Psych Office. He had, in fact, considered closing his apartment, if it weren't for the fact that bringing a date home to an office space, no matter how cool the office, was not really conductive towards romance.

"You want to prove to me you're psychic?" Gus demanded, "Then let's prove it. Don't peak, Shawn."

"What is this, hide and go seek?" Shawn asked, "Should I count to ten?" Gus didn't answer. Shawn heard him walking around the office, tracking his footsteps and his actions with his ears. It was an automatic response to his father's training and slightly annoying when it forced him to concentrate through his growing headache. Gus opened drawers and closed them, shifted papers, moved sofa cushions around, opened doors. He had some idea of what Shawn was capable of and so made sure to leave as few clues as possible to what he was doing. Finally, he stood in front of Shawn again, confident even Shawn wouldn't be able to guess his way out of this.

"Alright, Shawn," he said, "I've hidden something. Tell me what and where."

"What?" Shawn cried, "I tell you I see colors and you want to play hide and seek with objects?"

"Come on, Shawn, you want to prove it to me? So prove it. What did I hide, and where?" Shawn sighed, but obediently closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. He didn't know what he was doing. He hadn't actually tried to use his powers yet; mostly they had just been thrust upon him and he had gone along with it. He didn't even know if he could find objects like that. With nothing else to go on, his tired brain returned to his training. The object would be small and easy for Gus to come across. It would be in one of the places Gus had passed in is walk around. That didn't narrow things down much; there were any number of small objects he could of grabbed, and he had walked through the entire office.

"See!" Gus cried when Shawn made no move, not even his usual fake flailings, "You can't…"

"Shhhh!" Shawn cried, "I need to concentrate." And the test was completely unfair but if Shawn was going to be psychic, then he was really going to be psychic and Gus was going to believe him. So…how did he see colors or feelings in the first place? How had he started to see dead people? The last was easy; he was asleep. And he had done some research on psychics, no matter what Gus thought that he just made things up as he went along based off of various movies. And yeah, most of his research was with movies; but he had done some internet searches. And made some new friends. And most of those sites all talked a lot about meditation, and altered states of mind. And if that's what it took to convince Gus, then he would just have to try it. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let out a mystical sounding ohm.

"Shawn, what are you doing?" Gus demanded.

"Contacting the spirits," Shawn answered, still in the same tone of voice. This was easy; he did this every day for the police. So what if it was real now; maybe that was just how Shawn's mind worked. And as weird and unlikely as it was; faking his way along was working. Because something was speaking to Shawn.

He didn't know if it was a spirit; he didn't even know if there were actual words or if it was just more feelings. But something was telling him something, and with a non-existent voice that sounded just like Gus.

"Your phone!" Shawn cried out, opening his eyes to look upon his startled best friend, "In the sofa. In the sofa? How did you…oh, in the sofa cushions! That makes more sense…"

"How did you?" Gus demanded, still staring, and Shawn resisted the urge to answer with his usual, 'psychic,' spiel. Instead, he walked into the other room and sat down, waiting for Gus to follow.

"I am psychic," he said, without any flair or melodrama whatsoever, "Or I'm insane. But you know, after everything, I don't think I am." And as Gus sat down, finally listening, really listening, Shawn told him. From the beginning, without any enhancement, his voice totally serious. Not because he didn't want to insert excitement or melodrama or spice it up a bit, hiding the parts where he was scared or disconcerted and not totally up with suddenly finding his lies becoming true. But because he knew this was how Gus needed to hear it; he needed one person to know the real story, and he needed that one person to believe. He knew Gus would. Eventually. Once he was convinced it wasn't a joke or a trick or a concussion, he would believe. And then he'd do all in his power to find that instruction manual, whether it be from some new age faerie website or just trial and error observation. Because that is what Gus did.

And Gus listened. Then He pulled out the air mattress, because it was late and Shawn had already claimed the couch. He didn't say he believed, not yet. But he didn't talk about the hospital again, either. At the very least, he seemed to believe that Shawn believed, and that was a good step in the right direction. So they both slept on it, together.

Neither noticed that Gus's cell still lay snuggly nestled between the couch cushions. But that was alright because whenever Gus got around to panicking when he couldn't find his phone, his newly psychic friend would be able to help him out.