On a horse with no name

[psych_out]

"Dude, I got it! Get everyone down to the track," Shawn told Gus before he had left the Jockey Club box. He didn’t just ‘have’ it, he had it, and now came the best part, the pay off, the grand reveal where he got to flex his psychic senses for all to see. It was his time to shine like the brilliant star that he was.That was the plan, anyway, except

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[unchosen_son]

Sam gave the guy a strange look, wondering if he should go get this Gus guy or attempt to deal with this himself. Out of some unknown reason, Sam went for the latter. "Sorry," he offered. "I'm Sam," he added with a bit of a smile. "You okay there?"

[psych_out]

"I'm super," Shawn insists brightly, tugging on the reins, the horse coming to a stop. Stop he can do, it's go wherein lies the issue. "I'd be even better if you could tell me where the winner's circle went." He has ESP, not GPS, and this case wasn't going to crack itself.

[unchosen_son]

"Uh..." Sam took a long moment to try and compose himself, to try and figure out exactly what kind of answer you gave to that. "I don't think we have one of those around here, really."

[psych_out]

Clearly, Sam McHelpful wouldn't be much help at all. "It's a race track, of course there's a winner's circle, silly rabbit. If it helps at all, I'm not even sure it's an actual circle. Could be an oval, square, octagon... para--normalgram." Shawn never did well in geometry class.

"And what's with all the livestock? Have I been coming to these races too late and missing the running of the goats pre-shows?"

[worse_on_friday]

It was pure luck that, at that exact moment, Augustus Knickel happened to be walking past with a pig at each heel. He heard someone yelling his name, and he stopped, looking around for the source.

In a place like this, someone yelling his name that loudly couldn't be a good sign.

He turned around, one eyebrow raised, with Hamlet and Ophelia crowding in behind him.

"...What?"

[psych_out]

"Dude... What's wrong with your dogs?" Asks Shawn, sliding his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose a bit. Stubborn as the horse is, he's glad he's on it, because those things were just freaky looking.

"I take it your name's Gus, too? My condolences." Technically, his Gus wasn't a Gus at all. He was a Burton merely posing as a Gus, which was completely his prerogative. Shawn humored him. Gus, however, never did him the same gratitude when he'd insisted on being called Captain Awesome. It put a rift in their friendship, one that had lasted a whole eleven minutes and thirty-six seconds. Shawn kept count.

"You're entirely too pale with a full head of luscious brown locks to be the guy I'm looking for. And, seriously... what are those?"

[worse_on_friday]

For a moment, Gus could do something more than stare at him in utter disbelief.

"...They're pigs," he said, finally. "Pot-bellied pigs. And my name's Augustus, but people call me Gus. And, as far as I know, there isn't another one around here, either."

[psych_out]

"Ooohh," Shawn says, throwing his head back dramatically before staring at the animals again. "I totally see it now." He squints, leans over at an awkward angle in his saddle before straightening out again and shaking his head to the negative. "No. No, I really don't, man. I think a good seventy-five percent of my nightmares as a child starred those things. Babe was a pig. An adorable pink quadruped that captured the hearts of young and old alike... Those things look like they capture souls. With no intentions of ever letting them go..."

Shawn would be sleeping with one eye open tonight.

"Augustus? Hm." The man still had his condolences. "I'm Shawn and this is Flicka and... are those things at all carnivorous?"

[just_a_mountie]

"That saddle doesn't look very secure," Fraser said knowingly, not being judgmental so much as concerned for the man's safety and the horse's comfort. The Mountie approached slowly, looking up at the man curiously. He didn't look as if he had much horseback riding experience.

[psych_out]

"And that's a... bad thing?" Shawn asks, swinging his feet about in the stirrups. "Does it matter when the horse has negative seven horsepower and moves at the speed of dead opossum?"

[just_a_mountie]

"I don't believe dead opossums move at all," Fraser replied, looking confused. "I assume you're implying that she isn't eager to let you ride her."

[psych_out]

"Not unless they've been zombified... but let's not get into that," says Shawn, patting 'Flicka' at the withers. "Her giddy isn't very up at all. Had I known she was as stubborn as a mule, I might have opted for an actual mule. But-- Hey! You called her a her, too. It's a her? Didn't really have time to check under the hood." Nor did he have the desire too.