(Psych/Sherlock) Shopping for Clues for misura
Title: Shopping For Clues
Author: redandglenda
Fandoms: Psych/Sherlock
Characters Gus, Shawn; John, Sherlock
Pairings: Gus/John
Rating: PG
Word count: 2,100
Spoilers: Both fandoms up to most recent episodes, but no explicit spoilers.
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Psych and Sherlock belong to their respective creators!
A/N: Thank you so much to bluejbird for betaing this for me - I couldn’t have done it without you! And thanks to the mods for running this exchange!
Summary: Gus and John go grocery shopping and Shawn and Sherlock tag along.
“Sherlock wanted to come?” Gus asked John suspiciously, hoping neither Sherlock, who trailed behind the pair as they walked into Tesco, or Shawn, who was already headed toward the candy aisle, heard.
“Yeah, I have no idea, I just go with it,” John said, shrugging his shoulders and chancing a quick glance back at Sherlock to see if he’d heard John. The slight narrowing of Sherlock’s eyes as they locked onto John’s suggested that he had.
Gus saw the exchange and his shoulders tensed up.
“I just want them both to get along, is that too much to ask?”
“It’ll be fine,” John said with conviction, picking up a package of toilet roll to put in his basket.
His movement was stopped by Gus’s hand, “We were going to get the roll with puppies on it this time, remember?”
John smiled quickly and put the toilet roll back, grabbing the requested item instead. “I don’t want to know what Sherlock would deduce about the choice to try loo roll with puppies on it,” John said wryly.
“Shawn was the one who told me about the brand, said it felt ‘soft like a newborn puppy’, and I mean, how could I refuse that?” Gus said.
“How indeed?” John smiled at Gus, sliding an arm around his waist.
Gus allowed himself a few seconds to smile back before craning his neck around to see what Shawn had gotten up to, hoping he wouldn’t see his best friend getting into inevitable trouble. When Gus couldn’t spot Shawn immediately, he got slightly panicked, pulling out of John’s grip and circling around until he saw Shawn by the bread section. Gus rolled his eyes at himself and then walked over to Shawn.
“You nearly gave me a heart attack, man,” Gus said, not looking at Shawn so that he could retain his manly image and not have to admit to worrying about losing Shawn. Gus’s arms came up to hug Shawn in relief at finding him, but Gus stopped them before going through with it.
Shawn’s eyes narrowed at Gus’s aborted hug attempt.
“Gus, don’t be that time your sister ran off in Sears when you were supposed to be watching her and you freaked out,” Shawn said, turning to look at Gus with a smirk in place.
Gus punched Shawn lightly in the arm, “Your momma got freaked out.”
“Your face got freaked out!” Shawn shot back, grinning widely now.
They moved down the aisle together until they got to the cereals.
“I still don’t understand why he couldn’t have moved to Santa Barbara,” Shawn complained, idly picking up a box of Weetabix and frowning at it. “I mean, at least we have sugar on our cereal. Come on, son!”
Gus sighed, “He is standing six feet behind you and can hear you, Shawn. And you know that to get that promotion at my work, I had to be willing to travel.”
“He’s talking to Sherlock,” Shawn said, drawing out the ‘e’ in Sherlock’s name, “And since when did you care about work? It’s all about solving crime! Driving Lassie crazy! Getting with the honeys!”
“Shawn, you know I love you like a brother from another mother, but if you don’t start getting along with Sherlock, John and I will never last,” Gus said.
Shawn opened his mouth to reply, but Gus cut him off, “And he and I not lasting is a bad thing!”
Shawn sighed, putting a carton of milk in the shopping basket, “Alright, I’ll try for you, man, but you know I don’t get along well with the British. They’re just jealous that we drank more tea than them at that tea party in Boston.”
“Wow, you really don’t have a grasp on history at all,” Gus shook his head. “And please don’t ever try an English accent again, Shawn, it’s just embarrassing,” Gus said.
“Your face is embarrassing!” Shawn shot back.
Gus rolled his eyes, “Again with the face jokes?”
“Shut up,” Shawn grumbled, “I’ve got jet lag like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Maybe you’d better lean on something so you don’t fall asleep,” Gus said slyly, pushing Shawn till he was leaning on a wall, conveniently next to where Sherlock was slouched. Gus then walked a few feet over to grab John’s arm, “John and I are going to the produce section, alone, please feel free to converse without us.”
John raised his eyes at Gus but allowed himself to be gently tugged away from their two best friends. “Are you sure that’s wise? Leaving the two of them alone will most likely end in an out and out fight, probably a mental one, but I wouldn’t put a physical fight past Shawn.”
Gus snorted, “They’ve got to start getting along one of these days. I’ve lived with you for six months now and I’m happy here, with you, with my supervisor job, with London; with everything except Shawn.” Gus looked down at the fruit in front of him, refusing to meet John’s eyes.
John rubbed Gus’s shoulder and said in soft voice, “He loves you, Burton, he’ll come around eventually,” John used a finger to tilt Gus’s face up, looking into Gus’s eyes. “And I love you too. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn’t run into you at that pharmaceutical convention in Santa Barbara.”
“And been seduced by my mad skills, right?” Gus said, starting to grin, dipping his head slightly down towards John’s.
John laughed, “Something like that anyway.” John leaned in the last inch and pressed a light kiss to Gus’s lips.
Sherlock and Shawn had been watching Gus and John as they walked away but both looked away when they kissed.
Shawn sighed, “Gus used to be all about the ladies.”
Sherlock looked at him out of the corner of his eye, “Do you have a problem with Gus’s sexual orientation?”
“No!” Shawn shouted, and then continued more quietly, “No, of course not. It just would have been nice if he’d found a nice man from Santa Barbara to live with.”
“Ah, I see,” Sherlock said softly, “You have feelings for him.”
“I knew all the hype about you was fake! How can you be the ‘most observant man’ John’s ever known and think that about me? Gus and I are brothers, hermanos, buddies! That would be like me saying that just because you obviously like to wear scarves that you are into . . . asphyxiation!” By the end of Shawn’s rant, he had stepped into Sherlock’s space and was flushed, ready for a fight.
Sherlock merely raised an eyebrow and said, “I didn’t say ‘romantic’ feelings.”
Shawn threw up his arms, “You are the most infuriating man I’ve ever met! And that includes Lassie!” Shawn took a step back and then paused, looking Sherlock straight in the eyes, “I bet I could out-deduce you any day,” Shawn raised his right hand to his head, “I am psychic after all.”
Sherlock smirked, “As Gus would say: Bring it.”
Shawn snorted at the idea of Gus still using his so-called ‘hip slang’ in stuffy London. Shawn quickly sobered and squinted at a young woman walking by, zeroing in on her red eyes and Boots the Chemist bag, bringing his hand to his head. “That woman has just realised that she’s pregnant and isn’t happy about it.”
Sherlock nodded slightly, spying a university textbook in the woman’s arms and hearing her tell her friend that ‘Milton’ wouldn’t be happy: the same name as the author of the textbook. Sherlock concluded, “The father is her university lecturer.”
“Well played, your turn,” Shawn said.
Sherlock looked at the body language of the cashiers and said, “The female cashier is having an affair with the younger male cashier.”
Shawn caught a glimpse of the male cashier’s designer briefs peeking out over his pink studded belt, partially hidden by his shirt. Shawn’s hand flew to his head, “But the male cashier is actually gay and is only sleeping with her out of a deep shame about his preferences!”
Sherlock raised both eyebrows, and after looking closer at the two said, “Yes.”
“Yes?” Shawn asked in disbelief, “I give you that gem and all you can say is ‘yes’?”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Sherlock said, quickly noting the older man’s red eyes that mirrored the younger man’s, and the way the younger man stole frequent glances at the other man, “Yes - but the male cashier’s true affections lie with the older male cashier, who is also his drug dealer.”
“Not bad,” Shawn said, impressed, “but this proves my point that Gus shouldn’t be living here! What an awful neighbourhood!”
Sherlock chuckled softly, “Indeed, but it makes for the most interesting cases.”
“So, how do you find cases?” Shawn asked, warming up to Sherlock despite himself.
“Sometimes I am brought on by the police, but when they do not need me, I get bored and find myself observing people, like this, and often find cases that way. And yourself?” Sherlock asked.
“Pretty much the same deal,” Shawn said.
They stood in companionable quiet for a few moments, observing together and then at once, both exclaimed upon seeing a man with muddy boots and a full-length trench coat even though it was sunny and warm outside, “That man!”
They looked at each other excitedly. “Did you see the gun?” Sherlock asked.
“And his boots - where do you have dirt like that?” Shawn asked. “He obviously just came from burying someone!”
“Let me think,” Sherlock said, pulling out his iPhone and mumbling to himself, “It rained today, but only to the north and east of London. . . it would have taken him forty minutes to get here. . . so he was probably at one of five parks. . . ”
Shawn shuffled closer to Sherlock, leaning over, “The leaf caught in his hood - an oak, right?”
Sherlock nodded. “Yes! That would mean. . . . Yes! Okay, I have the park, you follow the guy, we’ll keep in contact through text.”
Shawn held his hand up for a high five and Sherlock stared at it for a moment while Shawn waited expectedly. “Alright,” he said reluctantly and high fived Shawn.
Shawn smiled widely and then hurriedly moved to find Gus and John to tell them he and Sherlock were leaving.
“Gus!” Shawn exclaimed upon finding them in the frozen food aisle, idly arguing over the health benefits of frozen verses fresh food.
“Where’s the fire, Shawn?” Gus asked suspiciously.
“Nothing, no fire! Sherlock and I are going to . . . go for a walk together. To get to know each other better, just like you asked,” Shawn said, trying to sound sincere.
Gus opened his mouth to express his doubt about that statement but Sherlock cut him off. “Shawn is correct, we require time to,” Sherlock paused, looking slightly uncomfortable, “bond.”
John raised his eyebrows, “Bond?”
Sherlock looked away from John, knowing that John would know for sure that he was lying if he looked him in the eye. “Yes, we need to go now.”
With that, Sherlock grabbed Shawn’s arm and dragged him from their two best friends.
Gus looked slightly shocked, “That. . .”
“Was weird,” John finished.
“They were definitely running after a possible case,” Gus stated.
“Definitely,” John confirmed.
Gus sighed, putting a last bag of frozen veg in their basket and walking to the cashiers, “Well, we did want them to get along, right?”
John smiled, reaching up and rubbing at Gus’s neck, “They’ll be fine.”
Gus smiled back, “You know I worry.”
“I know you do,” John let go of Gus’s neck and placed their basket in front of the cashier for their groceries to be scanned.
Gus packed the groceries away as John paid, a habit born of much repetition, and once they were done, Gus caught John’s hand, feeling settled in the routine and wanting to be close to John.
“You know,” Gus said deviously, “they probably won’t be back for a couple of hours, we could unpack the groceries and then - ” Gus waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
John laughed, “You’ve got me so wrapped around your finger. You don’t even have to properly ask me anymore.”
“I’ve got skills - I’m telling you!” Gus said.
“I can see the zed when you say ‘skillz’, that is not smooth!” John said.
The bag of groceries swung between them, and Gus said, not joking anymore, “Smooth enough for you?”
“Yeah, baby,” John said, looking over and smiling widely, “More than smooth enough for me.”
-END-
Prompt: Shopping for groceries, slice of life.
Author: redandglenda
Fandoms: Psych/Sherlock
Characters Gus, Shawn; John, Sherlock
Pairings: Gus/John
Rating: PG
Word count: 2,100
Spoilers: Both fandoms up to most recent episodes, but no explicit spoilers.
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Psych and Sherlock belong to their respective creators!
A/N: Thank you so much to bluejbird for betaing this for me - I couldn’t have done it without you! And thanks to the mods for running this exchange!
Summary: Gus and John go grocery shopping and Shawn and Sherlock tag along.
“Sherlock wanted to come?” Gus asked John suspiciously, hoping neither Sherlock, who trailed behind the pair as they walked into Tesco, or Shawn, who was already headed toward the candy aisle, heard.
“Yeah, I have no idea, I just go with it,” John said, shrugging his shoulders and chancing a quick glance back at Sherlock to see if he’d heard John. The slight narrowing of Sherlock’s eyes as they locked onto John’s suggested that he had.
Gus saw the exchange and his shoulders tensed up.
“I just want them both to get along, is that too much to ask?”
“It’ll be fine,” John said with conviction, picking up a package of toilet roll to put in his basket.
His movement was stopped by Gus’s hand, “We were going to get the roll with puppies on it this time, remember?”
John smiled quickly and put the toilet roll back, grabbing the requested item instead. “I don’t want to know what Sherlock would deduce about the choice to try loo roll with puppies on it,” John said wryly.
“Shawn was the one who told me about the brand, said it felt ‘soft like a newborn puppy’, and I mean, how could I refuse that?” Gus said.
“How indeed?” John smiled at Gus, sliding an arm around his waist.
Gus allowed himself a few seconds to smile back before craning his neck around to see what Shawn had gotten up to, hoping he wouldn’t see his best friend getting into inevitable trouble. When Gus couldn’t spot Shawn immediately, he got slightly panicked, pulling out of John’s grip and circling around until he saw Shawn by the bread section. Gus rolled his eyes at himself and then walked over to Shawn.
“You nearly gave me a heart attack, man,” Gus said, not looking at Shawn so that he could retain his manly image and not have to admit to worrying about losing Shawn. Gus’s arms came up to hug Shawn in relief at finding him, but Gus stopped them before going through with it.
Shawn’s eyes narrowed at Gus’s aborted hug attempt.
“Gus, don’t be that time your sister ran off in Sears when you were supposed to be watching her and you freaked out,” Shawn said, turning to look at Gus with a smirk in place.
Gus punched Shawn lightly in the arm, “Your momma got freaked out.”
“Your face got freaked out!” Shawn shot back, grinning widely now.
They moved down the aisle together until they got to the cereals.
“I still don’t understand why he couldn’t have moved to Santa Barbara,” Shawn complained, idly picking up a box of Weetabix and frowning at it. “I mean, at least we have sugar on our cereal. Come on, son!”
Gus sighed, “He is standing six feet behind you and can hear you, Shawn. And you know that to get that promotion at my work, I had to be willing to travel.”
“He’s talking to Sherlock,” Shawn said, drawing out the ‘e’ in Sherlock’s name, “And since when did you care about work? It’s all about solving crime! Driving Lassie crazy! Getting with the honeys!”
“Shawn, you know I love you like a brother from another mother, but if you don’t start getting along with Sherlock, John and I will never last,” Gus said.
Shawn opened his mouth to reply, but Gus cut him off, “And he and I not lasting is a bad thing!”
Shawn sighed, putting a carton of milk in the shopping basket, “Alright, I’ll try for you, man, but you know I don’t get along well with the British. They’re just jealous that we drank more tea than them at that tea party in Boston.”
“Wow, you really don’t have a grasp on history at all,” Gus shook his head. “And please don’t ever try an English accent again, Shawn, it’s just embarrassing,” Gus said.
“Your face is embarrassing!” Shawn shot back.
Gus rolled his eyes, “Again with the face jokes?”
“Shut up,” Shawn grumbled, “I’ve got jet lag like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Maybe you’d better lean on something so you don’t fall asleep,” Gus said slyly, pushing Shawn till he was leaning on a wall, conveniently next to where Sherlock was slouched. Gus then walked a few feet over to grab John’s arm, “John and I are going to the produce section, alone, please feel free to converse without us.”
John raised his eyes at Gus but allowed himself to be gently tugged away from their two best friends. “Are you sure that’s wise? Leaving the two of them alone will most likely end in an out and out fight, probably a mental one, but I wouldn’t put a physical fight past Shawn.”
Gus snorted, “They’ve got to start getting along one of these days. I’ve lived with you for six months now and I’m happy here, with you, with my supervisor job, with London; with everything except Shawn.” Gus looked down at the fruit in front of him, refusing to meet John’s eyes.
John rubbed Gus’s shoulder and said in soft voice, “He loves you, Burton, he’ll come around eventually,” John used a finger to tilt Gus’s face up, looking into Gus’s eyes. “And I love you too. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn’t run into you at that pharmaceutical convention in Santa Barbara.”
“And been seduced by my mad skills, right?” Gus said, starting to grin, dipping his head slightly down towards John’s.
John laughed, “Something like that anyway.” John leaned in the last inch and pressed a light kiss to Gus’s lips.
Sherlock and Shawn had been watching Gus and John as they walked away but both looked away when they kissed.
Shawn sighed, “Gus used to be all about the ladies.”
Sherlock looked at him out of the corner of his eye, “Do you have a problem with Gus’s sexual orientation?”
“No!” Shawn shouted, and then continued more quietly, “No, of course not. It just would have been nice if he’d found a nice man from Santa Barbara to live with.”
“Ah, I see,” Sherlock said softly, “You have feelings for him.”
“I knew all the hype about you was fake! How can you be the ‘most observant man’ John’s ever known and think that about me? Gus and I are brothers, hermanos, buddies! That would be like me saying that just because you obviously like to wear scarves that you are into . . . asphyxiation!” By the end of Shawn’s rant, he had stepped into Sherlock’s space and was flushed, ready for a fight.
Sherlock merely raised an eyebrow and said, “I didn’t say ‘romantic’ feelings.”
Shawn threw up his arms, “You are the most infuriating man I’ve ever met! And that includes Lassie!” Shawn took a step back and then paused, looking Sherlock straight in the eyes, “I bet I could out-deduce you any day,” Shawn raised his right hand to his head, “I am psychic after all.”
Sherlock smirked, “As Gus would say: Bring it.”
Shawn snorted at the idea of Gus still using his so-called ‘hip slang’ in stuffy London. Shawn quickly sobered and squinted at a young woman walking by, zeroing in on her red eyes and Boots the Chemist bag, bringing his hand to his head. “That woman has just realised that she’s pregnant and isn’t happy about it.”
Sherlock nodded slightly, spying a university textbook in the woman’s arms and hearing her tell her friend that ‘Milton’ wouldn’t be happy: the same name as the author of the textbook. Sherlock concluded, “The father is her university lecturer.”
“Well played, your turn,” Shawn said.
Sherlock looked at the body language of the cashiers and said, “The female cashier is having an affair with the younger male cashier.”
Shawn caught a glimpse of the male cashier’s designer briefs peeking out over his pink studded belt, partially hidden by his shirt. Shawn’s hand flew to his head, “But the male cashier is actually gay and is only sleeping with her out of a deep shame about his preferences!”
Sherlock raised both eyebrows, and after looking closer at the two said, “Yes.”
“Yes?” Shawn asked in disbelief, “I give you that gem and all you can say is ‘yes’?”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Sherlock said, quickly noting the older man’s red eyes that mirrored the younger man’s, and the way the younger man stole frequent glances at the other man, “Yes - but the male cashier’s true affections lie with the older male cashier, who is also his drug dealer.”
“Not bad,” Shawn said, impressed, “but this proves my point that Gus shouldn’t be living here! What an awful neighbourhood!”
Sherlock chuckled softly, “Indeed, but it makes for the most interesting cases.”
“So, how do you find cases?” Shawn asked, warming up to Sherlock despite himself.
“Sometimes I am brought on by the police, but when they do not need me, I get bored and find myself observing people, like this, and often find cases that way. And yourself?” Sherlock asked.
“Pretty much the same deal,” Shawn said.
They stood in companionable quiet for a few moments, observing together and then at once, both exclaimed upon seeing a man with muddy boots and a full-length trench coat even though it was sunny and warm outside, “That man!”
They looked at each other excitedly. “Did you see the gun?” Sherlock asked.
“And his boots - where do you have dirt like that?” Shawn asked. “He obviously just came from burying someone!”
“Let me think,” Sherlock said, pulling out his iPhone and mumbling to himself, “It rained today, but only to the north and east of London. . . it would have taken him forty minutes to get here. . . so he was probably at one of five parks. . . ”
Shawn shuffled closer to Sherlock, leaning over, “The leaf caught in his hood - an oak, right?”
Sherlock nodded. “Yes! That would mean. . . . Yes! Okay, I have the park, you follow the guy, we’ll keep in contact through text.”
Shawn held his hand up for a high five and Sherlock stared at it for a moment while Shawn waited expectedly. “Alright,” he said reluctantly and high fived Shawn.
Shawn smiled widely and then hurriedly moved to find Gus and John to tell them he and Sherlock were leaving.
“Gus!” Shawn exclaimed upon finding them in the frozen food aisle, idly arguing over the health benefits of frozen verses fresh food.
“Where’s the fire, Shawn?” Gus asked suspiciously.
“Nothing, no fire! Sherlock and I are going to . . . go for a walk together. To get to know each other better, just like you asked,” Shawn said, trying to sound sincere.
Gus opened his mouth to express his doubt about that statement but Sherlock cut him off. “Shawn is correct, we require time to,” Sherlock paused, looking slightly uncomfortable, “bond.”
John raised his eyebrows, “Bond?”
Sherlock looked away from John, knowing that John would know for sure that he was lying if he looked him in the eye. “Yes, we need to go now.”
With that, Sherlock grabbed Shawn’s arm and dragged him from their two best friends.
Gus looked slightly shocked, “That. . .”
“Was weird,” John finished.
“They were definitely running after a possible case,” Gus stated.
“Definitely,” John confirmed.
Gus sighed, putting a last bag of frozen veg in their basket and walking to the cashiers, “Well, we did want them to get along, right?”
John smiled, reaching up and rubbing at Gus’s neck, “They’ll be fine.”
Gus smiled back, “You know I worry.”
“I know you do,” John let go of Gus’s neck and placed their basket in front of the cashier for their groceries to be scanned.
Gus packed the groceries away as John paid, a habit born of much repetition, and once they were done, Gus caught John’s hand, feeling settled in the routine and wanting to be close to John.
“You know,” Gus said deviously, “they probably won’t be back for a couple of hours, we could unpack the groceries and then - ” Gus waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
John laughed, “You’ve got me so wrapped around your finger. You don’t even have to properly ask me anymore.”
“I’ve got skills - I’m telling you!” Gus said.
“I can see the zed when you say ‘skillz’, that is not smooth!” John said.
The bag of groceries swung between them, and Gus said, not joking anymore, “Smooth enough for you?”
“Yeah, baby,” John said, looking over and smiling widely, “More than smooth enough for me.”
-END-
Prompt: Shopping for groceries, slice of life.