Fic: Mistletoe and Holly
Shawn! Gus! Banter! Casefic! I should write more casefic. Casefic is awesome.
Fic: Mistletoe and Holly
Fandom: Psych
Pairing: Shawn/Gusish, but not really
Rating: G
Beta: sineala
Disclaimer: still not mine
Prompt: trope_bingo, mistletoe kiss
Summary: Shawn hangs mistletoe in the Psych office. But before Gus can figure out why, they get called away on a case: a killer is loose in Christmasland.
Also on AO3: Mistletoe and Holly
When Gus walked into the Psych office, he nearly knocked Shawn off a stepladder in the doorway. “Shawn, where’s my hot chocolate? What are you doing?”
“I’m hanging up mistletoe!” Shawn said, giving his hammer a cheerful wave.
Gus jumped hastily out of hammer- and mistletoe-range. “That’s not mistletoe, that’s holly.”
“I’ve heard it - ”
“No you haven’t. And secondly, why are you hanging it up in the Psych offices?”
“The office needed more Christmas cheer.”
Gus looked around the Psych offices: the tree in the corner, the other tree in the corner, the third tiny tree on Shawn’s desk, icicle lights hanging from the ceiling, and the green and red and gold streamers twisted over the walls. “I think we have plenty of Christmas cheer, Shawn. And how is mistletoe going to add more? No one ever comes in here but us.”
“Ah!” Shawn jumped off his stepladder. He swept the clutter off his desk, knocking his tiny tree into the wastebasket in the process, and held up a poster. Psychic in Residence! Tarrow Readings Ten Dollars! “Girls love getting their fortunes told. Think of the beach babes, Gus! I can’t believe we haven’t thought of this before.”
“It’s spelled T-A-R-O-T,” Gus said.
Shawn shook his head, taping the sign up in the window. “You must be thinking of the tarrot. Close cousin of the parrot. Instead of repeating, it says things before you say them.”
“Shawn - ” Gus decided that this was not a battle he wanted to fight right them. “Shawn, you can’t just kiss random beach babes who come in here for tarot readings.”
Shawn sighed. “You may have a point,” he admitted, and ripped down the sign.
The outer door flew open. “Why haven’t you been answering my calls?” Lassiter demanded. He stopped in the doorway, glowering at Shawn’s stepladder.
“Oh, is that what was ringing? I thought those were Santa’s sleigh bells,” Shawn said. He turned, and then moved toward Lassiter with outstretched arms. “Lassie! You’re standing under the mistletoe.”
Lassiter looked up. His eyes bulged. “Kiss me, and I will shoot you where you stand,” Lassiter said. A small smile came to his lips, as if he were envisioning the scene. “Actually, go ahead,” he said. “Kiss me.”
Gus interposed himself between Shawn and Lassiter. “Do you know how much it costs to clean human blood off the walls?” Gus hissed. He shoved Shawn so hard that Shawn fell into his spinning chair and twirled around. “Detective Lassiter. Please come in. We’re just about to start a hot chocolate taste-testing party.”
“You’ll have to put it off,” said Lassiter, stepping out from under the mistletoe and tossing a file folder onto Shawn’s desk. “There’s been a murder at Christmasland.” He paused impressively. “Santa’s dead.”
“Really? You just learned that?” Shawn said. “But don’t worry, Lassie, Santa will always live in our hearts.”
Lassiter flipped open the folder and slammed his hand on the picture. “The Santa at the Santa Barbara Christmasland is dead,” Lassiter said. “Someone strangled him with his own synthetic beard.”
Shawn and Gus both leaned over the picture. Santa lay facedown on a warehouse floor, his ratty beard twisted around his neck, two pillows tumbling out of his voluminous red coat. “Now that’s just sad,” Gus said. “You remember the Santa we saw at Christmasland when we were nine, Shawn? He had a real beard.”
“Yes!” Shawn said. “He was the best Santa. He even had reindeer hairs tangled in his beard. I told him he was almost convincing.”
“Only almost? I thought he was pretty convincing. He had a pipe and everything.”
“Well of course you did, Gus, you believed in Santa till you were twelve.”
“I’ll have you know that I only pretended to believe those last two years - ”
“Oh, so you did believe when you were ten?”
Lassiter slammed his hand on the desk again. Shawn and Gus both jumped. “The Chief says I have insufficient Christmas spirit to go undercover for this one,” Lassiter said.
“Have to agree with her there,” Shawn said.
“And Juliet is still trying to track down Santa’s family, because he refused to tell anyone at Christmasland his real name. Said it helped him stay in character.”
“You wonder why he didn’t have a real beard if he was that devoted to the part?” Gus asked.
“So,” said Lassiter, and Gus could almost see sparks jumping between his teeth as he ground them together. “You two clowns need to infiltrate Christmasland.”
Gus backed away. “Oh no,” he said. “I am not dressing up as an elf again.”
But Shawn’s face had lit up, like a child’s on Christmas day. “Gus,” he said. “We have to save Christmas!”
***
“A reindeer?” Gus said.
“It’s the only job in the park stupider than elf,” said Cindy the Elf, blowing her long pink bangs out of her eyes and jabbing at her iPhone.
“Cindy! What did I tell you about phones on the job?” yelled her manager, walking past them carrying a bucket of fake snow.
“They detract from the Christmas spirit!” Cindy said perkily, tossing the phone into her pocket. But when her manager had turned the corner, she stuck out her tongue after him. “God, Brad, the park is closed for the night.” She snapped her gum. “Whatevs, man. Let’s just get you in this stupid costume so I can get out of here and see The Hobbit. Gus, bend over and grab Shawn’s waist.”
“Shawn.”
“They’ve already hired all the elves they need for the season, Gus!” Shawn said. He put the reindeer head on.
“Yeah, they’ve actually been laying some of us off,” Cindy said. She lifted the train of fabric falling from the horse head. “Come on, get under there, Gus. Wish they’d fire me. Elf is, like, the worst job ever. Except reindeer. I didn’t even know we hired reindeer anymore.”
Shawn, who had almost gotten into the reindeer costume, jerked upright again. “Shawn! You volunteered us for this, didn’t you?”
Shawn turned to face him. It was alarming hearing Shawn’s voice emerge from the shaggy muzzle of a moth-eaten costume, beneath a pair of bobbing antlers. “Of course. I thought we could bring more Christmas cheer if we dressed up as reindeer. Remember how much we liked watching the reindeer when we came to Christmasland?”
“And by watching you mean ‘pulling the reindeer’s tail and trying to climb on for a reindeer ride,’ right? Yes. I remember that. I don’t want to be that reindeer. What’s with you and Christmas cheer this year?”
“Um, could you argue about this later?” Cindy the elf demanded. “Not to rush you, but, like, The Hobbit starts in fifteen minutes.”
“Sorry, Cindy,” Shawn said.
“Yeah, sorry.”
Cindy held up the train of the reindeer costume. Gus gave a martyred sigh and leaned over, staring at Shawn’s butt. At least it was a nice butt. God, where did these thoughts come from?
Cindy dropped the fabric, and suddenly Gus couldn’t see anything but the patch of concrete directly below his head. “Shawn!” he bleated.
“Later!” Cindy called. Her high heels clicked on the concrete as she strutted for the locker room.
“Relax, I’ll tell you what to do,” Shawn said. “Okay, we’ll start with the left foot. No, my left - ”
“We’re facing the same direction, Shawn, we have the same left.”
“Okay, so, left foot - no, the actual left this time - wait, I think I got my antlers tangled in something - ”
They went down in a heap. “That’s it,” Gus said. “Tomorrow we wear elf costumes.”
“Gus! You can’t give up after just one try!” Shawn pleaded. “Come on, just one more time.”
Gus hauled himself to his feet again. “What I don’t understand is why you get to be the front half of the reindeer,” he complained.
“Because I have to be able to see in order to make my psychic deductions,” Shawn said. “Just think of all the Christmas cheer we’re going to spread, Gus!”
“I don’t want to bring Christmas cheer, Shawn. All I wanted to do today was sit in the Psych office and drink hot chocolate. You promised me there would be hot chocolate. I’ve had a very rough week selling pharmaceuticals, you know.”
“Oh, you know this is so much more fun than hot chocolate, Gus,” Shawn said. “Oh, wait, we’re coming up on a flight of stairs.”
“Stairs!” bleated Gus. “No.” He planted his feet. There were limits, and by God, going down a rickety staircase blind was one of them.
Shawn sighed. “Come on, Gus. If you just do exactly what I say - ”
“ - we’ll fall down a set of stairs! No! I refuse!”
“But Gus, we have to practice for tomorrow!”
They were arguing so loudly that Gus didn’t even hear anyone coming till someone knocked him against the stair rail. “Hey!” Gus cried, but before he could lecture the unseen person about manners, it knocked them again, and he and Shawn were thumping down the stairs.
When they reached the bottom, Gus lay with the wind knocked out of him. Then he fought his way out of the costume, looking around wildly. No sign of whoever had attacked them. Shawn lay unmoving beside him.
“Shawn!” Gus shouted. He almost shook Shawn’s shoulder before he remembered the risk of spinal trauma. “Shawn!”
Shawn stirred. “Did you see him?” he asked, his voice muffled by the reindeer head.
“Shawn!” Gus cried, and gave the reindeer muzzle a hug.
Shawn pulled off the reindeer head. “Did you see him?” he asked again.
“No, Shawn. I was a little busy falling down the stairs,” Gus said.
Shawn shook his head, sitting up slowly. He cocked his head. “Do you hear that?” Shawn asked.
Gus listened. But he couldn’t hear anything but the tinkle of the Christmasland jingle bells in the breeze. “Hear what?”
Shawn shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. He hauled himself to his feet, and toppled down again when he put his weight on his right ankle.
“Shawn!” Gus caught Shawn before he hit the ground. Shawn’s face was pale and sweaty.
“I think I hurt my ankle,” Shawn said, so directly and so calmly that Gus knew he must be in agony.
“I’m gonna call an ambulance,” Gus said.
“No, I don’t need an ambulance. Just help me back to the Blueberry and I’ll - ah - ” Shawn gasped as he pulled himself to his feet. “Come on, Gus, give me an arm.”
“We should wait for a stretcher,” Gus protested.
“No - time,” Shawn replied, hopping up a step on his good leg, his hands clamped around the stair rail. “Have to - see - ”
The next step creaked ominously when Shawn hopped onto it. Gus hurried up after him, putting Shawn’s arm around his neck. “Thanks, buddy,” Shawn gasped.
It was a short flight of stairs. They hopped the rest of the way up it and started across the warehouse floor.
“What’s that?” Shawn asked suddenly.
“What?”
Shawn lifted his free arm and pointed. But Gus had already seen the splotch of pink sticking out from behind a thicket of shedding Christmas trees. He took his phone from his pocket. His clammy hand slipped on the touchscreen. “Juliet,” he said. “You need to get to Christmasland as soon as possible.”
Shawn and Gus rounded the Christmas tree thicket. Behind the tinsel-shedding bows lay Cindy the Elf, blood matting her pink hair.
***
“There’s no sign of forced entry,” Juliet said, standing in the foyer of the Psych office. “CSI is still going over the scene, but so many people use that building, it’s impossible to tell what shouldn’t be there.”
“I still think it’s the manager,” said Shawn. He lay on the couch, his ankle propped on a pile of pillows. “Driven mad by his failing business prospects, he blamed his employees’ insufficient Christmas spirit for Christmasland’s imminent demise.”
“He’s got alibis for both murders,” Juliet said.
“He runs Christmasland. He probably has an assassin elf,” Shawn protested. “He might have a whole army of assassin elves. They ride red-eyed reindeer - ”
“The pain meds are making him a little loopy,” Gus said. “Juliet, why don’t you come inside?”
Juliet looked doubtfully up at the lintel, then edged through the doorway, back flat against the doorjamb so she wouldn’t pass under the mistletoe.
“Aw, Jules,” Shawn complained.
“Lassiter warned me,” Juliet told him. “And you shouldn’t be standing on that ankle anyway.”
“I could delegate to Gus,” Shawn said. “Gus! Will you be the official mistletoe man?”
“Shawn, I’m not going to use outdated Christmas traditions to force people to kiss me against their will,” Gus protested.
Juliet peered up at the greenery nailed above the door. “Isn’t that holly?” she asked.
Shawn looked a little shifty-eyed. Then suddenly his eyes widened and his fingertips snapped to his forehead. “I’m getting a vision!” he said. “I’m seeing Jell-O, red Jell-O. It’s got marshmallows and pineapple and those little goldfish crackers in it! It’s jiggling, it’s shivering, it’s…”
Shawn was quoting from “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Incorrectly. “Do you mean jelly?” Gus asked.
“No, of course I don’t mean jelly. Who puts jelly in a bowl, that’s absurd. It’s a bowl full of Jell-O that jiggles, it’s…”
Juliet clapped her hands. “Santa!” said Juliet.
But Shawn wasn’t listening to her, or even looking at her: he looked past her, eyes bugged out.
Gus turned around very slowly. A short, round man with a long white beard stood in the foyer. “Ho ho ho,” he chuckled, his belly shaking under his fur-trimmed red suit. He clicked back the hammer on his pistol. All the hair on Gus’s arms stood up. “I’m here for my pipe. Ho ho ho.”
***
“I remember you,” Shawn said.
“Of course you do,” said Santa. “You stole my pipe.”
Gus moved to place himself between the enraged Santa and Shawn. But Santa saw him moving and waved his pistol at him in a manner all the more threatening because vague and unfocused. “It was the stump of a real briar pipe,” he said. “I worked ages to chew it down. And then they fired me! For promoting smoking, they said! Either the pipe had to go, or I did, they said.”
“You’re the Santa who used to work at the mall!” Gus blurted.
“It clearly states in the poem that Santa has to have a pipe!” Santa bellowed, stomping one coal black boot on the floor. He sweated profusely in his fur-trimmed suit. It looked like real fur.
“It does?” said Shawn.
Santa’s his twinkling eyes bulged out of his head. Gus, knees trembling, stepped in front of Shawn. “Gus,” Shawn hissed. “Move.”
“I’m not moving. You move.”
“I can’t move.”
“Well, exactly,” Gus said, dry-mouthed.
“I know the poem,” Juliet said, her voice high but steady. “Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house - ”
“ - Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,” finished Santa. A cherubic smile lit his round, jolly face for a moment, and his grip loosened on his gun; but when Juliet started to move toward him, he snapped back to attention, hands tightening and eyes bulging again. “Is there anything in that poem about fake beards?” he demanded.
“No,” said Juliet.
Tears welled out of Santa’s eyes, spilling down his rosy cheeks. “I knew he had to be stopped. I had to save Christmas,” Santa sobbed. His hand tightened on his gun. “He’s been running from me. But this year, he finally returned to Christmasland. He didn’t tell anyone his name, but I knew. Now he’ll never ruin Christmas again.”
“Yes, yes you did,” Shawn said soothingly. “You just wanted to spread Christmas cheer. That’s all you’ve ever wanted. I understand! Look at all the Christmas cheer I’ve spread around the Psych office. Christmas trees, candy canes, mistletoe. Actually, you’re standing under the mistletoe. I’m not sure I should stand up on this ankle. Jules, maybe you can be my wingwoman on this one?”
“Shawn,” hissed Juliet, darting a glare at him.
Santa looked up at the mistletoe. His rosy cheeks grew very red. “That’s not mistletoe, that’s holly,” he growled.
“Hee-ya!” shouted Juliet. She kicked Santa’s gun out of his hand. She tackled him to the floor and twisted his hands behind his back, handcuffing him. “You’re under the arrest for the murder of Cindy Lopez and that other Santa.”
***
After Juliet had led Santa away to the squad car, Gus leaned against the wall, knees watery. “How did you know it was Santa?” he asked.
“Jingle bells,” said Shawn, who looked as stupidly calm as always, never mind they’d just almost been shot. It was kind of exasperating. “I heard bells jingling last night. I didn’t realize till earlier that they must have been on Santa’s sleigh.”
“There were bells all over Christmasland,” Gus protested.
“Not made of sterling silver,” Shawn said.
Had Shawn’s dad made Shawn learn the sound of all the different kinds of bells? Probably. Or Shawn had worked three weeks somewhere as a bell ringer.
Gus’s knees were starting to feel a little better. He walked over to the door, tugging at the mistletoe - no, holly - on the lintel. “It’s getting late, Shawn,” he said. “We’d better…”
But Shawn was already off the couch, swinging across the room on his crutches. He stopped under the door. “Don’t take it down,” Shawn said.
Shawn had apparently used half a dozen nails hammering it to the lintel, anyway. There went the deposit. Again. “Why did you put it up anyway?” Gus asked, yanking at the holly. “No one ever comes here but us.”
Then Gus realized that they were standing together in the doorway. Red berries popped off the holly as Gus’s hand twitched and fell to his side. “Shawn,” he said; but Shawn had already started on, swinging himself awkwardly on his crutches. “Shawn!”
Shawn turned around. For a long moment they stared at each other, and then Shawn swung himself back across the foyer on his crutches. He seemed to hang in the air in slow motion for a moment; and then he slammed his foot against the ground, stumbled, and fell. Without thinking, Gus caught him.
For a moment they stared at each other, their faces awkwardly close. Gus’s heart beat too fast and his face felt too hot and he didn’t let go of Shawn, because Shawn would probably fall down if Gus didn’t hold him up. That was how it always was with him and Shawn.
Shawn leaned in and kissed Gus on the cheek, so fast Gus almost didn’t feel it; and then his usual cocky smokescreen smile was back. “Did you see the look on Lassie’s face?” he said jauntily, and swung away on his crutches again. “We should get McNab in here.” His crutches creaked on the boardwalk.
“Is that why you put it up there?” Gus demanded.
“For McNab? Gus! I would need to get a stepladder. Or at least a chair. Maybe a stepstool?”
“No, Shawn. For...” Gus couldn’t quite finish the sentence. His cheek still felt hot from Shawn’s kiss. Suddenly he didn’t want to know: because this mistletoe plot was just Shawn all over, funny and strange and indirect, because Shawn could never get right to the point about anything. Gus had already been married to the female version of Shawn, and that had fallen apart: and he couldn’t lose Shawn like that.
Gus ripped the holly down from the lintel.
For a shadow of a second - so fast Gus would have needed Shawn’s eyes to be sure - Shawn looked disappointed. But then his usual grin reappeared, and he swung away down the boardwalk again. “Come on, Gus! Last one to the Blueberry is a rotten egg!”
Fic: Mistletoe and Holly
Fandom: Psych
Pairing: Shawn/Gusish, but not really
Rating: G
Beta: sineala
Disclaimer: still not mine
Prompt: trope_bingo, mistletoe kiss
Summary: Shawn hangs mistletoe in the Psych office. But before Gus can figure out why, they get called away on a case: a killer is loose in Christmasland.
Also on AO3: Mistletoe and Holly
When Gus walked into the Psych office, he nearly knocked Shawn off a stepladder in the doorway. “Shawn, where’s my hot chocolate? What are you doing?”
“I’m hanging up mistletoe!” Shawn said, giving his hammer a cheerful wave.
Gus jumped hastily out of hammer- and mistletoe-range. “That’s not mistletoe, that’s holly.”
“I’ve heard it - ”
“No you haven’t. And secondly, why are you hanging it up in the Psych offices?”
“The office needed more Christmas cheer.”
Gus looked around the Psych offices: the tree in the corner, the other tree in the corner, the third tiny tree on Shawn’s desk, icicle lights hanging from the ceiling, and the green and red and gold streamers twisted over the walls. “I think we have plenty of Christmas cheer, Shawn. And how is mistletoe going to add more? No one ever comes in here but us.”
“Ah!” Shawn jumped off his stepladder. He swept the clutter off his desk, knocking his tiny tree into the wastebasket in the process, and held up a poster. Psychic in Residence! Tarrow Readings Ten Dollars! “Girls love getting their fortunes told. Think of the beach babes, Gus! I can’t believe we haven’t thought of this before.”
“It’s spelled T-A-R-O-T,” Gus said.
Shawn shook his head, taping the sign up in the window. “You must be thinking of the tarrot. Close cousin of the parrot. Instead of repeating, it says things before you say them.”
“Shawn - ” Gus decided that this was not a battle he wanted to fight right them. “Shawn, you can’t just kiss random beach babes who come in here for tarot readings.”
Shawn sighed. “You may have a point,” he admitted, and ripped down the sign.
The outer door flew open. “Why haven’t you been answering my calls?” Lassiter demanded. He stopped in the doorway, glowering at Shawn’s stepladder.
“Oh, is that what was ringing? I thought those were Santa’s sleigh bells,” Shawn said. He turned, and then moved toward Lassiter with outstretched arms. “Lassie! You’re standing under the mistletoe.”
Lassiter looked up. His eyes bulged. “Kiss me, and I will shoot you where you stand,” Lassiter said. A small smile came to his lips, as if he were envisioning the scene. “Actually, go ahead,” he said. “Kiss me.”
Gus interposed himself between Shawn and Lassiter. “Do you know how much it costs to clean human blood off the walls?” Gus hissed. He shoved Shawn so hard that Shawn fell into his spinning chair and twirled around. “Detective Lassiter. Please come in. We’re just about to start a hot chocolate taste-testing party.”
“You’ll have to put it off,” said Lassiter, stepping out from under the mistletoe and tossing a file folder onto Shawn’s desk. “There’s been a murder at Christmasland.” He paused impressively. “Santa’s dead.”
“Really? You just learned that?” Shawn said. “But don’t worry, Lassie, Santa will always live in our hearts.”
Lassiter flipped open the folder and slammed his hand on the picture. “The Santa at the Santa Barbara Christmasland is dead,” Lassiter said. “Someone strangled him with his own synthetic beard.”
Shawn and Gus both leaned over the picture. Santa lay facedown on a warehouse floor, his ratty beard twisted around his neck, two pillows tumbling out of his voluminous red coat. “Now that’s just sad,” Gus said. “You remember the Santa we saw at Christmasland when we were nine, Shawn? He had a real beard.”
“Yes!” Shawn said. “He was the best Santa. He even had reindeer hairs tangled in his beard. I told him he was almost convincing.”
“Only almost? I thought he was pretty convincing. He had a pipe and everything.”
“Well of course you did, Gus, you believed in Santa till you were twelve.”
“I’ll have you know that I only pretended to believe those last two years - ”
“Oh, so you did believe when you were ten?”
Lassiter slammed his hand on the desk again. Shawn and Gus both jumped. “The Chief says I have insufficient Christmas spirit to go undercover for this one,” Lassiter said.
“Have to agree with her there,” Shawn said.
“And Juliet is still trying to track down Santa’s family, because he refused to tell anyone at Christmasland his real name. Said it helped him stay in character.”
“You wonder why he didn’t have a real beard if he was that devoted to the part?” Gus asked.
“So,” said Lassiter, and Gus could almost see sparks jumping between his teeth as he ground them together. “You two clowns need to infiltrate Christmasland.”
Gus backed away. “Oh no,” he said. “I am not dressing up as an elf again.”
But Shawn’s face had lit up, like a child’s on Christmas day. “Gus,” he said. “We have to save Christmas!”
***
“A reindeer?” Gus said.
“It’s the only job in the park stupider than elf,” said Cindy the Elf, blowing her long pink bangs out of her eyes and jabbing at her iPhone.
“Cindy! What did I tell you about phones on the job?” yelled her manager, walking past them carrying a bucket of fake snow.
“They detract from the Christmas spirit!” Cindy said perkily, tossing the phone into her pocket. But when her manager had turned the corner, she stuck out her tongue after him. “God, Brad, the park is closed for the night.” She snapped her gum. “Whatevs, man. Let’s just get you in this stupid costume so I can get out of here and see The Hobbit. Gus, bend over and grab Shawn’s waist.”
“Shawn.”
“They’ve already hired all the elves they need for the season, Gus!” Shawn said. He put the reindeer head on.
“Yeah, they’ve actually been laying some of us off,” Cindy said. She lifted the train of fabric falling from the horse head. “Come on, get under there, Gus. Wish they’d fire me. Elf is, like, the worst job ever. Except reindeer. I didn’t even know we hired reindeer anymore.”
Shawn, who had almost gotten into the reindeer costume, jerked upright again. “Shawn! You volunteered us for this, didn’t you?”
Shawn turned to face him. It was alarming hearing Shawn’s voice emerge from the shaggy muzzle of a moth-eaten costume, beneath a pair of bobbing antlers. “Of course. I thought we could bring more Christmas cheer if we dressed up as reindeer. Remember how much we liked watching the reindeer when we came to Christmasland?”
“And by watching you mean ‘pulling the reindeer’s tail and trying to climb on for a reindeer ride,’ right? Yes. I remember that. I don’t want to be that reindeer. What’s with you and Christmas cheer this year?”
“Um, could you argue about this later?” Cindy the elf demanded. “Not to rush you, but, like, The Hobbit starts in fifteen minutes.”
“Sorry, Cindy,” Shawn said.
“Yeah, sorry.”
Cindy held up the train of the reindeer costume. Gus gave a martyred sigh and leaned over, staring at Shawn’s butt. At least it was a nice butt. God, where did these thoughts come from?
Cindy dropped the fabric, and suddenly Gus couldn’t see anything but the patch of concrete directly below his head. “Shawn!” he bleated.
“Later!” Cindy called. Her high heels clicked on the concrete as she strutted for the locker room.
“Relax, I’ll tell you what to do,” Shawn said. “Okay, we’ll start with the left foot. No, my left - ”
“We’re facing the same direction, Shawn, we have the same left.”
“Okay, so, left foot - no, the actual left this time - wait, I think I got my antlers tangled in something - ”
They went down in a heap. “That’s it,” Gus said. “Tomorrow we wear elf costumes.”
“Gus! You can’t give up after just one try!” Shawn pleaded. “Come on, just one more time.”
Gus hauled himself to his feet again. “What I don’t understand is why you get to be the front half of the reindeer,” he complained.
“Because I have to be able to see in order to make my psychic deductions,” Shawn said. “Just think of all the Christmas cheer we’re going to spread, Gus!”
“I don’t want to bring Christmas cheer, Shawn. All I wanted to do today was sit in the Psych office and drink hot chocolate. You promised me there would be hot chocolate. I’ve had a very rough week selling pharmaceuticals, you know.”
“Oh, you know this is so much more fun than hot chocolate, Gus,” Shawn said. “Oh, wait, we’re coming up on a flight of stairs.”
“Stairs!” bleated Gus. “No.” He planted his feet. There were limits, and by God, going down a rickety staircase blind was one of them.
Shawn sighed. “Come on, Gus. If you just do exactly what I say - ”
“ - we’ll fall down a set of stairs! No! I refuse!”
“But Gus, we have to practice for tomorrow!”
They were arguing so loudly that Gus didn’t even hear anyone coming till someone knocked him against the stair rail. “Hey!” Gus cried, but before he could lecture the unseen person about manners, it knocked them again, and he and Shawn were thumping down the stairs.
When they reached the bottom, Gus lay with the wind knocked out of him. Then he fought his way out of the costume, looking around wildly. No sign of whoever had attacked them. Shawn lay unmoving beside him.
“Shawn!” Gus shouted. He almost shook Shawn’s shoulder before he remembered the risk of spinal trauma. “Shawn!”
Shawn stirred. “Did you see him?” he asked, his voice muffled by the reindeer head.
“Shawn!” Gus cried, and gave the reindeer muzzle a hug.
Shawn pulled off the reindeer head. “Did you see him?” he asked again.
“No, Shawn. I was a little busy falling down the stairs,” Gus said.
Shawn shook his head, sitting up slowly. He cocked his head. “Do you hear that?” Shawn asked.
Gus listened. But he couldn’t hear anything but the tinkle of the Christmasland jingle bells in the breeze. “Hear what?”
Shawn shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. He hauled himself to his feet, and toppled down again when he put his weight on his right ankle.
“Shawn!” Gus caught Shawn before he hit the ground. Shawn’s face was pale and sweaty.
“I think I hurt my ankle,” Shawn said, so directly and so calmly that Gus knew he must be in agony.
“I’m gonna call an ambulance,” Gus said.
“No, I don’t need an ambulance. Just help me back to the Blueberry and I’ll - ah - ” Shawn gasped as he pulled himself to his feet. “Come on, Gus, give me an arm.”
“We should wait for a stretcher,” Gus protested.
“No - time,” Shawn replied, hopping up a step on his good leg, his hands clamped around the stair rail. “Have to - see - ”
The next step creaked ominously when Shawn hopped onto it. Gus hurried up after him, putting Shawn’s arm around his neck. “Thanks, buddy,” Shawn gasped.
It was a short flight of stairs. They hopped the rest of the way up it and started across the warehouse floor.
“What’s that?” Shawn asked suddenly.
“What?”
Shawn lifted his free arm and pointed. But Gus had already seen the splotch of pink sticking out from behind a thicket of shedding Christmas trees. He took his phone from his pocket. His clammy hand slipped on the touchscreen. “Juliet,” he said. “You need to get to Christmasland as soon as possible.”
Shawn and Gus rounded the Christmas tree thicket. Behind the tinsel-shedding bows lay Cindy the Elf, blood matting her pink hair.
***
“There’s no sign of forced entry,” Juliet said, standing in the foyer of the Psych office. “CSI is still going over the scene, but so many people use that building, it’s impossible to tell what shouldn’t be there.”
“I still think it’s the manager,” said Shawn. He lay on the couch, his ankle propped on a pile of pillows. “Driven mad by his failing business prospects, he blamed his employees’ insufficient Christmas spirit for Christmasland’s imminent demise.”
“He’s got alibis for both murders,” Juliet said.
“He runs Christmasland. He probably has an assassin elf,” Shawn protested. “He might have a whole army of assassin elves. They ride red-eyed reindeer - ”
“The pain meds are making him a little loopy,” Gus said. “Juliet, why don’t you come inside?”
Juliet looked doubtfully up at the lintel, then edged through the doorway, back flat against the doorjamb so she wouldn’t pass under the mistletoe.
“Aw, Jules,” Shawn complained.
“Lassiter warned me,” Juliet told him. “And you shouldn’t be standing on that ankle anyway.”
“I could delegate to Gus,” Shawn said. “Gus! Will you be the official mistletoe man?”
“Shawn, I’m not going to use outdated Christmas traditions to force people to kiss me against their will,” Gus protested.
Juliet peered up at the greenery nailed above the door. “Isn’t that holly?” she asked.
Shawn looked a little shifty-eyed. Then suddenly his eyes widened and his fingertips snapped to his forehead. “I’m getting a vision!” he said. “I’m seeing Jell-O, red Jell-O. It’s got marshmallows and pineapple and those little goldfish crackers in it! It’s jiggling, it’s shivering, it’s…”
Shawn was quoting from “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Incorrectly. “Do you mean jelly?” Gus asked.
“No, of course I don’t mean jelly. Who puts jelly in a bowl, that’s absurd. It’s a bowl full of Jell-O that jiggles, it’s…”
Juliet clapped her hands. “Santa!” said Juliet.
But Shawn wasn’t listening to her, or even looking at her: he looked past her, eyes bugged out.
Gus turned around very slowly. A short, round man with a long white beard stood in the foyer. “Ho ho ho,” he chuckled, his belly shaking under his fur-trimmed red suit. He clicked back the hammer on his pistol. All the hair on Gus’s arms stood up. “I’m here for my pipe. Ho ho ho.”
***
“I remember you,” Shawn said.
“Of course you do,” said Santa. “You stole my pipe.”
Gus moved to place himself between the enraged Santa and Shawn. But Santa saw him moving and waved his pistol at him in a manner all the more threatening because vague and unfocused. “It was the stump of a real briar pipe,” he said. “I worked ages to chew it down. And then they fired me! For promoting smoking, they said! Either the pipe had to go, or I did, they said.”
“You’re the Santa who used to work at the mall!” Gus blurted.
“It clearly states in the poem that Santa has to have a pipe!” Santa bellowed, stomping one coal black boot on the floor. He sweated profusely in his fur-trimmed suit. It looked like real fur.
“It does?” said Shawn.
Santa’s his twinkling eyes bulged out of his head. Gus, knees trembling, stepped in front of Shawn. “Gus,” Shawn hissed. “Move.”
“I’m not moving. You move.”
“I can’t move.”
“Well, exactly,” Gus said, dry-mouthed.
“I know the poem,” Juliet said, her voice high but steady. “Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house - ”
“ - Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,” finished Santa. A cherubic smile lit his round, jolly face for a moment, and his grip loosened on his gun; but when Juliet started to move toward him, he snapped back to attention, hands tightening and eyes bulging again. “Is there anything in that poem about fake beards?” he demanded.
“No,” said Juliet.
Tears welled out of Santa’s eyes, spilling down his rosy cheeks. “I knew he had to be stopped. I had to save Christmas,” Santa sobbed. His hand tightened on his gun. “He’s been running from me. But this year, he finally returned to Christmasland. He didn’t tell anyone his name, but I knew. Now he’ll never ruin Christmas again.”
“Yes, yes you did,” Shawn said soothingly. “You just wanted to spread Christmas cheer. That’s all you’ve ever wanted. I understand! Look at all the Christmas cheer I’ve spread around the Psych office. Christmas trees, candy canes, mistletoe. Actually, you’re standing under the mistletoe. I’m not sure I should stand up on this ankle. Jules, maybe you can be my wingwoman on this one?”
“Shawn,” hissed Juliet, darting a glare at him.
Santa looked up at the mistletoe. His rosy cheeks grew very red. “That’s not mistletoe, that’s holly,” he growled.
“Hee-ya!” shouted Juliet. She kicked Santa’s gun out of his hand. She tackled him to the floor and twisted his hands behind his back, handcuffing him. “You’re under the arrest for the murder of Cindy Lopez and that other Santa.”
***
After Juliet had led Santa away to the squad car, Gus leaned against the wall, knees watery. “How did you know it was Santa?” he asked.
“Jingle bells,” said Shawn, who looked as stupidly calm as always, never mind they’d just almost been shot. It was kind of exasperating. “I heard bells jingling last night. I didn’t realize till earlier that they must have been on Santa’s sleigh.”
“There were bells all over Christmasland,” Gus protested.
“Not made of sterling silver,” Shawn said.
Had Shawn’s dad made Shawn learn the sound of all the different kinds of bells? Probably. Or Shawn had worked three weeks somewhere as a bell ringer.
Gus’s knees were starting to feel a little better. He walked over to the door, tugging at the mistletoe - no, holly - on the lintel. “It’s getting late, Shawn,” he said. “We’d better…”
But Shawn was already off the couch, swinging across the room on his crutches. He stopped under the door. “Don’t take it down,” Shawn said.
Shawn had apparently used half a dozen nails hammering it to the lintel, anyway. There went the deposit. Again. “Why did you put it up anyway?” Gus asked, yanking at the holly. “No one ever comes here but us.”
Then Gus realized that they were standing together in the doorway. Red berries popped off the holly as Gus’s hand twitched and fell to his side. “Shawn,” he said; but Shawn had already started on, swinging himself awkwardly on his crutches. “Shawn!”
Shawn turned around. For a long moment they stared at each other, and then Shawn swung himself back across the foyer on his crutches. He seemed to hang in the air in slow motion for a moment; and then he slammed his foot against the ground, stumbled, and fell. Without thinking, Gus caught him.
For a moment they stared at each other, their faces awkwardly close. Gus’s heart beat too fast and his face felt too hot and he didn’t let go of Shawn, because Shawn would probably fall down if Gus didn’t hold him up. That was how it always was with him and Shawn.
Shawn leaned in and kissed Gus on the cheek, so fast Gus almost didn’t feel it; and then his usual cocky smokescreen smile was back. “Did you see the look on Lassie’s face?” he said jauntily, and swung away on his crutches again. “We should get McNab in here.” His crutches creaked on the boardwalk.
“Is that why you put it up there?” Gus demanded.
“For McNab? Gus! I would need to get a stepladder. Or at least a chair. Maybe a stepstool?”
“No, Shawn. For...” Gus couldn’t quite finish the sentence. His cheek still felt hot from Shawn’s kiss. Suddenly he didn’t want to know: because this mistletoe plot was just Shawn all over, funny and strange and indirect, because Shawn could never get right to the point about anything. Gus had already been married to the female version of Shawn, and that had fallen apart: and he couldn’t lose Shawn like that.
Gus ripped the holly down from the lintel.
For a shadow of a second - so fast Gus would have needed Shawn’s eyes to be sure - Shawn looked disappointed. But then his usual grin reappeared, and he swung away down the boardwalk again. “Come on, Gus! Last one to the Blueberry is a rotten egg!”