GUS I

He never got letters at college unless they were from groupies. His parents occasionally sent him a care package still, but those had steadily tapered off until they stopped altogether. The mail guy knew to give Blackapella's stuff to Diddle, so Gus usually got his fan mail in class the next day.

So when he received a postcard one Thursday night, he was beyond confused.

He looked at the front of the thing first - he could feel that it wasn't heavily written on, as the cardstock didn't feel distorted at all. The picture proudly showed a saturated image of the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, next to the murky banks of the Arkansas River. Gus frowned, examining the picture for a moment. Did he know anyone there? He doubted it. All the Gusters lived in Santa Barbara, and all the people who knew the Gusters lived in Santa Barbara. He flipped it over.

Hey, Gus! a messy, slanted scrawl greeted. It's been a while, but here I am! The cashier in this gift store looks like the girl you took to homecoming freshman year - remember her? Oh man, bad times. I needed to tell you about this, so I sent you this picturesque card. Cost me a whole five bucks. Missing you! xoxo, Shawn

The return address told him that one Shawn Spencer had sent this his way.

He stood there shakily, leaning against the doorway of his dorm for support. He was glad Tony was out with Joon that night - he wouldn't know how he'd react to this if they were in the dorm with him. He'd crack a joke and throw it in the trash, probably. But since he was alone, he held the postcard tightly in his hand and slumped onto his bed, staring at the name Shawn.

It'd been three years since Shawn had left, at which point Gus had figured he needed to move on. Shawn had been in his life since as long as he could remember; Henry and Maddy had treated him like a son. Winnie and Bill had been more than happy to hear that Shawn had left, but it was devastating at the time. Shawn no longer showed up at his house in the summer with a skateboard and a bad idea. Shawn no longer called his house and asked him to go down to the beach to babe-watch. Shawn was no longer there to keep him updated on all the latest gossip; he always managed to figure it out before the word spread.

Shawn had left without even saying goodbye, and Gus had been forced to move on.

The sense of loss returned in that instant. Gus hadn't wanted to dwell on it at the time, and he didn't want to dwell on it now. Blackapella had a gig in the science commons the next day; grief made him sluggish, and sluggishness made for poor dancing. Gus had new friends, and Shawn had left him, anyway - why should he feel so bad about this?

A sense of longing stirred; Gus wanted to write him. He had an address. Maybe if Shawn was still in Little Rock, someone might be able to get it to him. Gus stood from his bed, suddenly invigorated, and stepped back to his desk, pulling a sheet of paper from his chemistry notebook and setting his pen to the page. There was so much to write, so many months to pack into one letter. Shawn's attention span was always ridiculously short; how long could he make this before Shawn would lose interest? Didn't he want to hear about the time that they'd been apart? Gus wanted to know where Shawn had been and where he'd gone - Shawn knew where he was, it was only fair he heard about Shawn's exploits. He jotted out a Dear Shawn, and then stopped.

A sudden rise of anger choked him. Shawn had left him! His best friend of 18 years and he had just left without a word. Henry said he'd just woke up one day and found him gone. Gus had hoped this would've been like the other incidents where Shawn had ran, but it wasn't. He'd taken his second-hand motorcycle and vanished without an indication of where he was going. Henry had been uncooperative and stiff.

When had the Spencers ever helped him, anyway? Shawn had made him smoke that pack of cigarettes when he was a kid. He had gotten his first B because of Shawn. Henry had hosted a Thanksgiving dinner so disastrous that Gus couldn't go to the Spencer house for an entire six months, and Gus' parents had never forgotten it. Henry's father had given him terrible dating advice; the girl he'd taken to homecoming freshman year, the one Shawn mentioned, was the most popular girl in their grade. Jessica Harvey, he thought her name was - and Henry's father, Grandpa John Spencer, had give him such terrible dating advice that they became the laughing stocks of the entire school. They were never very popular after that. Maddy was admittedly good to him, but Maddy wasn't technically a Spencer, at least not anymore.

Gus crumpled the piece of notebook paper and dunked it into the trash can, putting his head in his hands. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He had already washed his hand of the hellish Spencer clan, why should he get dragged into their nonsense again? Besides, that was the address of the store, not Shawn's residence. It'd never get to him if Gus sent it to that address. He picked up the postcard again and looked at it, scowling.

It was written in cheap black ink. He could see the scribbles in the corner where Shawn had gotten the pen working. At least he was still alive.

In truth, part of Gus was relieved. Shawn remembered him enough to send him a crappy little postcard, and that was more than nothing. Gus was a natural worrier, and having solid proof Shawn was at least doing well enough to write him was reassurance enough. He leaned back in his desk chair and looked at the postcard for a few more moments, imagining Shawn picking one randomly off the shelf just to send. Content with that image, he tucked it in a drawer in his desk, where he kept other important things - it wedged itself between Gus' inhaler and some childhood toys his parents had sent him in one of his care packages. He was just shutting the drawer when Tony and Joon walked in, smelling like the night and fried food.

He greeted them as he normally would, not standing from his desk. He wouldn't forget Shawn, no, and he was sure that he'd eventually come back - but for now, as least he had these guys. Diddle came in moments later, toting some classic board games in his arms.

As they started to set up Monopoly, Gus debated on whether or not he should tell Henry. Figuring Shawn would probably be upset if he did, he pushed it from his mind in time to claim the dog as his player piece before Diddle.

a/n; this story is officially caught up with its twin over at psychfic, so there's that. my exams are over as of today so i should be clear to write more. a special thanks goes here to everyone who reviewed!