sgatazmy

Title: All Good Stories Start the Same
Author: Tazmy
Characters: Shawn, Gus, Lassiter, O'Hara
Description: In which Shawn and Gus fail at storytelling.

This was written for the amnesty challenge on

psychflashfic . I used the challenge: dark and stormy night. Challenges ask for under a 1000 words so this is about 1000 words. While not my first Psychfic, it will be the first one I'm posting on my journal directly.

“It was a dark and stormy night.”

“Shawn!” Gus scoffed while elbowing Shawn’s side.

“What?”

“You can’t start your story that way. It’s a cliché.”

“A cliché that also happens to be true. I can’t help it if it was dark and in fact stormy. It also happened to be night. Would you rather I lied?”

“I’d rather you just told them what happened.”

Gus sipped his hot chocolate, slinking further into the blanket. He sniffled, wondering how much of the wetness below his nose was from postnasal drip and how much was from the water dripping down his hair.

“Look,” Shawn said, placing his own hot chocolate on the coffee table. His feet slid in place right next to the cup. “If you think you can tell the story better, please, be my guest.”

“Fine. I will.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but then Shawn interrupted, “Go ahead.”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”

“You’re just delaying because you don’t have an opening.”

"No, you keep interrupting!"

“Will you please just get on with it!” Lassiter gesticulated wildly, nearly throwing his notebook into to the air. Judging by his wild glare, he was one straw short of losing his temper completely. Tiredness had that affect on people, especially Lassiter.

Gus cleared his throat. “We were walking back from the grocery store when Shawn felt something was wrong, but he couldn’t see what.”

“Because it was dark.”

“Yes, because it was dark.”

“And stormy.”

“Shawn!”

“Sorry. I’m done now. Please. Continue.”

Gus paused a moment, waiting to see if Shawn would interrupt him further. When Shawn didn’t speak, Gus continued, “Next thing we know, we hear a woman scream.”

“Boring!”

Juliet was the one to roll her eyes this time. “Just let him talk. It’s late.”

“I’m sorry, but his storytelling lacks flare. Where’s the suspense? You don’t just say 'we heard a woman scream' you say 'a terrible scream penetrated the night'.

“It’s a police report, Spencer. Not a novel.”

“You never know. Someday our adventures could be a bestselling, New York Times, award winning, awesome novel. With a double emphasis on awesome, by the way. Now how is that supposed to happen if all Gus can say is, 'we heard a woman scream'. I repeat: Boring.”

Gus glared, about as ready to lose his temper as Lassiter seemed to be. The small hand on the nearby clock inched closer to the three, Gus’s stomach rumbled, and all he really wanted was sleep. Entertaining Shawn’s lame attempts at humor wouldn’t make this end any faster.

“Anyway,” Gus said, elbowing his friend once again. “We heard a scream. We went to check it out. By the time we arrived there was a body and no one else in sight.”

“Because we couldn't see. Because it was dark and stormy.”

“Give it a rest, Shawn.” Juliet begged. Noticing her hunched shoulders and hollow eyes, Gus realized she was as tired as he was.

“You didn’t notice anything strange? No signs that anyone else had been there?”

“Besides the knife sticking out of a corpse?” Shawn asked.

“Yes, besides that,” Lassiter answered through gritted teeth.

“No, not really, but the Spirits are currently sleeping. I’ll ask them in the morning if they managed to see anything. I think you’ll find their storytelling styles vary greatly in comparison to my own, but thankfully are nothing like Gus’s.”

Lassiter and Juliet exchanged weary and frustrated glances before both standing up.

“Come by the station tomorrow,” Juliet told them. “For now, just dry off and get some rest. If you think of anything important, let us know immediately.”

“Don’t worry. We will.”

As the two detectives exited, Gus turned toward Shawn. “What is wrong with you?”

The humor immediately fell out of Shawn’s expression. He rubbed his eyes wearily. “Did you see how tired they were?”

“Yeah. They’ve been up for days trying to catch this serial killer. So have we.”

“Exactly. Days, Gus. Everyone needs sleep. Even Jules and Lassie.”

“So what, you were annoying them into leaving? What about the case?”

“The case will be there tomorrow. We could sit here all night and look at details if they think something is there, but they’ll only find out there is nothing, which you and I already know. This way they just leave.”

Gus frowned. “So you were being annoying for the greater good?”

“Annoying? I was being smart for the greater good. I’m serious about that novel, Gus. We could make millions.”

Gus eyed the clock warily. He knew if he gave any answer, any at all, Shawn would immediately respond back with a quip. They’d easily end up arguing the whole night.

Gus hugged the blanket closer to himself, holding back a sneeze. “I’m going to bed.”

“What, now? You can’t leave?” Shawn pouted, glancing quickly out the window.

“Why not?” Gus threw a blanket and pillow toward his friend. If Shawn had any intention of spending the night in his own apartment, he would have already left.

“It’s a dark and stormy night, Gus. Dark and Stormy. How do we know it’s safe?”

“Good night, Shawn.”

Gus wobbled up to his room, falling against the bed. Just as his eyes began to close, a loud crack of thunder shook his house. It wasn’t that he was afraid of thunder exactly, it was just…well…it’d been a long night and he could still picture that dead lady and thunder didn’t help matters any.

He scurried downstairs and Shawn smiled knowingly. “So you ready to hear a story?” Shawn asked.

Gus nodded reluctantly. “As long as it doesn’t start with—“

“It was a dark and stormy night,” Shawn interrupted. “Not a creature was stirring. Not even a mouse.”

Gus considered arguing, but decided against it. Instead he leaned back and listened to the nonsensical story. If nothing else, it would help him fall asleep.