Shawn broke into a lazy jog to close the distance that had collected between he and Gus, taking a large mouthful off of the top of his ice cream cone. Production had shut down after the latest incident and Shawn had insisted on getting away before Eliza tried to corner him in her private trailer or something. They were currently taking a leisurely stroll down the beach, discussing the most recent developments. “At least they’re not dead,” he commented optimistically, a ring of melted cream around his lips.
Gus shook his head, licking at his own ice cream with more dignity. “This is a huge set back for the movie. They’re going to lose so much money. I wonder if they’ll hire another hair stylist?”
Shawn just stared at him. “Really, Gus. Two people are in the hospital, bruised and broken, and you’re worried about the movie?”
Gus shot a narrow look over his ice cream cone. “I don’t think I have to take criticism from you about insensitivity, Shawn.”
“At least I solve their murders so they can rest in peace,” Shawn said.
Gus frowned. “Shawn, you solve those cases because you like puzzles. You don’t solve them for the victims.”
Shawn scoffed, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly. “That’s completely untrue!”
“Mmhm,” Gus said skeptically, licking his ice cream cone into a perfectly even parabolic shape.
Sulking, Shawn renewed his attack on the vanilla-Heath Bar monster lurking in his cone. He hated when he couldn’t refute Gus’ logic. Glad though he was that no one had died on the set, his growing interest was largely because things were getting so exciting. Yeah, it was a little insensitive, but seriously, falling pillars, golf cart crashes, it didn’t get much cooler than that.
His guess about the cart having cut breaks had come in the form of a quick, flaily vision shortly after the paramedics had been called and, fortunately, had turned out to be spot on. Whoever was sabotaging the set was getting more and more daring.
Shawn’s tongue swirled around the top of his cone, his eyes drifting along the line of beach front shops in an automatic observation mode. They widened when he spotted a familiar pair of broad shoulders covered in eye-searing blue and orange. He hadn’t seen his father since the China Inquisition and he’d been checking his phone almost without thinking the last few days, expecting to find a missed call from him, but there’d been nothing. Soon after that he’d started wondering if there was something wrong with his service. His dad called unfailingly every three to five days when they didn’t have a face-to-face encounter. Shawn would never admit it aloud, but he’d been getting concerned.
“Gus!” he hissed, grabbing his friend around the shoulders, “Get down!”
Gus let out a noise of protest as they dove headfirst into the shrubbery lining the beach sidewalk.
“Shawn! My ice cream!”
Gus punched him, hard, in the shoulder and Shawn stifled a yelp, flapping his hand in Gus’ face. “Shhh!”
Henry stood across the street, next to his truck in front of one of the stores, shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet, obviously waiting for someone.
“Shawn,” Gus said, annoyed, and started to get to his feet. “What’s wrong with you?”
Shawn caught his arm, dragging him back down. “Gus! It’s my dad!” he hissed. “Will you just—” He shushed him again, leaning forward intently as a young brunette woman, probably not much older than he and Gus, joined his father on the curb.
Gus, finally taking a grudging interest in what was going on across the street, whispered, “You’re really messed up, you know that?”
“He made me this way,” Shawn retorted, staring at the pair’s mouths as they talked. The angle was all wrong, however, and they were too far away for him to make out whatever it was they were saying.
“Why exactly are we spying on your Dad?” Gus asked.
“Because, Gus. He hasn’t called me or demanded that I come over and spackle anything—aside from that weird thing with the china—in almost two in a half weeks! Something is up.” His eyes narrowed as Henry’s hands fluttered, a little bit spastically. Whatever they were discussing was making him self-conscious.
“Oh,” Gus said. “So you’re feeling neglected. This is a great way to handle that.”
Shawn pulled his eyes away long enough to glare at his best friend. “I do not feel ‘neglected’, Gus.”
Gus, who had always been better at picking his battles than Shawn, wisely chose to say nothing.
Shawn turned back just in time to see Henry lay his hand on the girl’s forearm and lean forward, placing a kiss on her cheek.
Shawn went pale, his jaw clenching and his hand fisting around an innocent clump of twigs and leaves.
“Looks like your dad has a new girlfriend,” Gus remarked.
“She’s like half his age!” Shawn snapped. “I could date her!”
Rolling his eyes, Gus replied, “Your age limit for dating is a range between twenty-two and thirty-eight, Shawn. You could date almost anybody.”
“This is my dad, Gus!” Shawn bit back, looking ready to puke. “Him dating is just—creepy!”
Gus eyeballed his friend warily. “You know, it could just be a friendly kiss, Shawn. It doesn’t have to be something—”
“Gus, what, in all the years that you’ve known him, would lead you to believe that my dad is a ‘friendly kisser’?” Shawn demanded, turning to glare at him.
He shrugged. “It seemed kind of fatherly to me. Like an uncle/niece kiss, or a grandfather/granddaughter kiss,” he explained. “It was only her cheek. It’s not like they were making out on the sidewalk.”
“UGH! GUS! Oh, god, I didn’t need those images in my brain!” He began pulling dramatically at his hair and Gus looked away to hide the slight roll of his eyes.
“What? I’m just saying.” Gus watched the pair thoughtfully, looking far less bothered than Shawn thought he had any right to be. “Are you sure she’s not a relative of yours?”
“No, no,” Shawn muttered, “The facial structure is all wrong for that, she’s—WHAT IS THAT?”
Gus tilted his head, examining the object held in Henry’s hand around the leafy branches of their hide-out. “It looks like an envelope.”
“What the hell does he think he’s doing?!” Shawn demanded, looking excessively freaked out.
Gus frowned. “Shawn, I think you’re overreacting just a little. You’re jumping to conclusions.”
Henry pressed the envelope into the girl’s hand and, based on her body language alone, Shawn knew it had to be money, which she seemed a little embarrassed about taking.
“You just saw what happened!” Shawn hissed furiously. “What would you think?!”
Head wavering in consideration, Gus said, “I see your point.”
Shawn groaned, putting his head in his hands. “Oh my god, my dad is dating a prostitute.”
~*~
Lassiter had finally figured it out.
He had finally figured out why the entire station seemed to have completely lost their minds.
It was a conspiracy. They were trying to get rid of him. O’Hara had finally gotten sick of him and she was using her ninja voodoo mind control to coerce everyone around her into tormenting him until he broke and turned in his badge or went completely crazy and had it forcibly removed from his cold, dead fingers.
That was it. There was no other plausible explanation for the absurdity of his current situation.
Sitting on either side of him in the back of a surveillance van were Burroughs and Lipkin, two of the SBPD’s best surveillance techs, and his partner was inside a nearby warehouse with none other than Sanchez, undercover as his new best girl.
After “bonding” with Juliet, Sanchez apparently had no qualms about discussing his boss’ illegal activities. And after a little eyelash fluttering and a promise that she’d be the one going undercover with him, he’d even more happily agreed to help set his boss up and catch him in the act. Lassiter wasn’t sure he liked the idea of his competent, if enthusiastic, partner pretending to be that turncoat scumbag’s girlfriend. That kind of a situation could get sketchy and fast.
Although at the moment, despite the fact that it made him feel like his mother was going to pop out of the bushes outside the van to scold him, he was beginning to hope something sketchy did go down, just to shut them all the hell up.
“…just found out some of the guys I know are working as extras on the set, too,” O’Hara was saying, smug. “They have speaking parts.”
“You’re lying!” Sanchez exclaimed and Lassiter grit his teeth, trying to breathe slowly through his nose. He was going to stay calm. Very. Very. Calm.
“I’m not,” Juliet confirmed. “They’re friends with the producer and—get this—with Eliza Carlisle.”
“Oh my god!”
Sanchez’s jealousy laced exclamation was echoed by the two men beside him in the van and Lassiter felt dread settling over him like a lead blanket. It was the interrogation all over again, only this time, this time there was no way to escape.
“She has to be talking about Shawn and Gus!” Burroughs said, his brown eyes round as hubcaps in his head. “They were in the paper a couple of days ago—Shawn saved Eliza’s life!”
It was, it was starting again. Oh god.
“I know,” Lipkin said, “There’ve been follow-up pieces in the paper, and Carlisle just gushes about him. She says he’s going to be the movie’s savior. I can’t believe he’s working a sabotage case with Eliza Carlisle on the set of that movie.”
NO NO NO, NOT SPENCER TOO. WASN’T THAT IDIOTIC MOVIE BAD ENOUGH?
“Seriously, it doesn’t get any better than that,” Burroughs agreed, shaking his head.
Lassiter groaned. This was going to be the longest bust of his entire career.
~*~
As it turned out, production wasn’t shut down for long at all. Gertie had gotten a nasty bump on the head, as well as broken her right leg, but was much tougher than she looked. After talking Samantha into hiring her a second assistant, she’d been ready and raring to get back on the set. Drew, even more stubborn than she was, insisted on remaining in the production, despite having suffered a broken collarbone and a broken nose. He looked pretty horrific, the entire center of his face blooming outward in a dark purple and black bruise, topped with a little snow cap peak of a bandage, but he was determined as ever to do his job. So a day and a half after the accident and approximately fourteen hours after the incident with Henry, Shawn and Gus were driving home from the beach, Shawn still freaking out over the scene with his dad.
“I can’t believe he’s dating a prostitute!”
Gus heaved a sigh for the hundred-thousandth time. “Shawn, I’m pretty sure your dad isn’t dating a prostitute.”
“How else do you explain what we saw yesterday?! That little—liaison!” he exclaimed, and he was starting to sound a little hysterical, not to mention a little psychotic.
Gus began ticking possibilities off on his fingers, unwrapping them from around the steering wheel as he did so. “He could be exchanging recipes, paying a housekeeper—”
“Gus, my dad is way too anal and stingy to have a housekeeper,” Shawn countered, glowering into the side view mirror.
He plowed on, undeterred. “It could be his buddy’s daughter, who he’s helping out with a letter of recommendation or maybe some cash, it could have been something he found and was returning—”
“Okay, okay,” Shawn muttered sullenly, crossing his arms over his chest and sinking a little further into the seat. “I get it.”
“You’re just overreacting, as usual,” Gus said and flicked on the turn signal.
Shawn frowned. “This is the wrong turn, Gus.”
“No it isn’t,” Gus replied coolly.
“Uh, yes it is,” Shawn said, sitting up and watching as they slid around the corner. “My apartment is that way.” He pointed.
“I know.”
“I’m confused,” Shawn said. “If you know, then why are we going the wrong direction?”
“We need to go by the station,” Gus said, casually avoiding his gaze as he checked each of the mirrors dutifully.
Shawn stared blankly at him. “Why? We’re not working any cases they care about and we don’t have a check to pick up. What reason do we have for going by? Aside from a certain lovely junior detective.”
“She’s not a junior detective anymore, Shawn. And I need to go by there, so we’re going.”
Shawn raised an eyebrow, pulling his head back. “You want to go to the station? Wait, no,” he said, holding up a hand and looking around. “Am I on Candid Camera?”
Gus scowled, smacking his hand down. “Shut up, Shawn. That show doesn’t even exist anymore.”
“I’m not going to go down to the station with you so you can flirt with Jules, Gus,” Shawn said, pursing his lips.
“Ha ha, very funny. I’m serious.”
Shawn leaned back in his seat, clearly still suspicious of his friend’s motives. “Dude, you’re always serious. I don’t think you have another mode.”
“We’re going to the station, Shawn.”
“Well it’s not like I can stop you, it’s your car,” Shawn said. “I’m just a helpless hostage.”
Gus snorted. “As if that could stop you. And of all the words in the world Shawn, ‘helpless’ does not describe you.”
Shawn shrugged, tipping his head slightly to concede that point. “Are you going to get a case for us?” he asked facetiously, batting his eyes.
Glowering at him, Gus said, “No, I promised Juliet I would get her Eliza’s autograph, and I got it for her.”
“Jules is into this stupid movie, too?” Shawn moaned, voice whiny. “What is the world coming to?”
Gus rolled his eyes. “Just because you’re the only one in Santa Barbara who has no taste. Don’t be so melodramatic.”
Shawn scoffed. “Of the two of us, I am definitely not the one with no taste, Gus.”
~*~
Juliet and Lassiter’s particular corner of the station was abuzz with chatter when they arrived, a young Hispanic man sitting handcuffed in Juliet’s chair and grinning like…well, like he wasn’t sitting handcuffed in the police station.
“Jules!” Shawn called and both he and Gus paused to admire her as she turned around, face flushed and sweaty, a smile fit to break her face arcing across it.
“Shawn! Gus!” she called back, “Hi!”
“Hey, you look happy,” Shawn said as she jogged up to them. “What’s going on?”
She grinned. “I went undercover today. We set up the bust that’s going to take down the entire drug cartel Sanchez works for. Things couldn’t be more perfect.”
“Oh, I know one way,” Gus commented casually.
Juliet glanced at him, surprised. “How?”
With a smug expression, Gus pulled out a sheaf of photos, fanning them out to display for her. “I got you autographs.”
Eyes widening to three times their regular size, Juliet squealed, snatching the photos out of his hands. “Oh my gosh, Gus! You’re fantastic. Oh I can’t believe you got these! And Gabe Owens’ too! My brother is going to freak out.”
Gus grinned and, with a little hand wave, gestured for a hug. She complied with a freakish amount of enthusiasm and Shawn shot a narrow look over her shoulder at Gus’ smug expression. When she finally released him, eyes fixed on the pictures and their accompanying signatures, Gus buffed his nails lightly on his shirt. “Just doing what I can for a friend.”
“Oh my gosh, Gus, thank you. Thank you so much. This is—I can’t believe it.” She waved Eliza’s photo in his face. “This is Eliza Carlisle’s signature! She touched this photograph!”
Shawn groaned, edging away from the conversation with a disgusted twist of his face. “What is the fascination with this movie?” he demanded of the station air. “I don’t understand! She’s a daytime actress!”
A drawer shut with a snap behind him and he turned to see Lassiter staring at him. “What, are you going to berate me too for thinking this is the most idiotic film ever made?”
“You don’t like this movie, Spencer?” Lassiter replied, clearly suspicious.
Shawn made a face. “Dude, I have way better taste than that. This movie makes the MST movies look like film home runs.”
Lassiter put his hands to his face, rubbing vigorously. “Of all the— Now I know I have to be dreaming. I do not agree with Shawn Spencer.”
Shawn’s eyes widened. “You don’t like it either? Thank God! There’s one sane person left on the face of the planet!” He paused, head wobbling back and forth. “Granted, it’s you, but still! I’m not alone!”
Juliet squealed again, loud enough to make them both wince and Lassiter met Shawn’s gaze, a morose expression on his face.
“Drinks?” he suggested, though the word came out like poison dripping from his tongue.
“The sooner the better,” Shawn muttered.
~*~
“Dude, where’s Fern?” Shawn asked as he was stepping out of Food Services. “I got ketchup on my face and now my eyes are uneven. This one pops and this one just sort of fades away into my face.”
Gus frowned, staring at Shawn as though he’d just claimed the sky was pink polka dotted. “How on earth do you mess up your eye make-up from getting ketchup on your face? And his name is Vern, Shawn.”
Shawn nodded. “Exactly, Fern. Where is he?” He pursed his lips, looking around.
“No, Shawn,” Gus said, starting to get annoyed. He pushed his head forward into Shawn’s personal space and his friend frowned, pulling his own head back, wary after the licking incident. “Va-Va-Va Vern.”
Shawn’s lip curled. “First of all, your face looks totally creepy when you say that.” Gus’ face twisted, disgruntled, and Shawn lifted a second finger, his eyebrows rising. “Second, you’re va-va-va violating my personal space.” A third finger rose. “AND. We’re stopping for breath mints on the way home today.”
“My breath smells like roses,” Gus said.
Shawn nodded once. “Then remind me never to buy a girl roses.”
Frown deepening until there were shar pei-esque wrinkles in his brow, Gus huffed into his hand, sniffing to check his breath. Shawn waited with raised eyebrows for the verdict, but Gus just scowled at him and stormed past, knocking him in the back with his shoulder.
“We’ll get Altoids, buddy!” Shawn called after him. “Curiously strong! Knock that right out.”
Gus didn’t turn around, nor did he respond, so Shawn pursed his lips, using his tongue to suck at his teeth. He’d asked for that. Suddenly, a couple of PAs and a girl who he remembered having way more 2nds in her title than any one person merited, or that even made any sense, fled past him and he turned to see Eliza storming in his general direction, her gauzy costume fluttering regally in her wake. “Where is he?” she demanded. “I want to see him right now.”
“Crap,” he muttered and hurriedly ducked in between two of the nearby trailers, hoping Her Clingy Highness hadn’t seen him.
“WHERE IS HE?” she shouted and groups of crew members scattered around went quiet, staring as she blew past him, clearly on a mission. Fortunately, one that didn’t involve him.
“SOMEONE TELL ME WHERE HE IS RIGHT THIS INSTANT!” she shrieked and Shawn didn’t poke his head out from between the trailers until after the echoes of her hissy fit had faded. Someone was totally in for an earful.
“You don’t think she’s talking about Jimmy Hoffa, do you?” Shawn commented.
When there was no snappy rejoinder in response, his head turned to locate his missing counterpart. He sighed when he found no one, remembering Gus had stalked off after the whole Fern thing. He chewed on his lower lip for a minute debating what he should do. On the one hand, hunting Gus down while he was still kind of miffed probably wouldn’t buy him any more points. On the other hand, he might be over it already. And had just made an awesome joke that no one had heard, which he needed to pout about.
Also, though he wasn’t entirely ready to admit it to himself, he got a little paranoid whenever Gus stomped off in a huff, worrying each time that he wouldn’t be coming back. One fight and suddenly it was like he was wandering around in a minefield.
He had promised himself he wasn’t going to let their fight change the way he acted around Gus, just the way he thought about what he did beforehand. And he had thought. Which meant he was totally going after him. With a little grin he set off to find his wayward partner. Even if he was still mad, he always appreciated a good Jimmy Hoffa joke.
Spotting the 2nd 2nd 2nd whatever as he was skirting through the center part of the set, his eyebrows rose. She would know where Gus was. It was her job, and far as he had seen, she hadn’t lost track of anyone yet. Fairly impressive considering the massive amount of people she was supposed to be keeping track of.
Drew, arm swaddled in a dark blue sling, was listening and trying not to flinch as the woman ranted about something, her sharply gesturing hands often coming a little too close for comfort for the injured PA. “…just flies into these ridiculous fits over nothing. All I’m saying is that I’m glad I’m not Vern. I’d strangle her.”
Shawn stifled a smile and lifted a finger as he approached, catching the girl’s attention. “Hi, I was just wondering if you knew what scene was next. Because Gus and I are in scene fifty-two and I’m afraid he’s run off like a wounded beaver again.”
She heaved a sigh, pushing a strand of hair out of her face as she regained her composure. “Scene fifteen is next, then fifty-two. You’re talking about Burton Guster, right? The one with the great calves?” At his nod, she pointed in the direction of basecamp. “I’m pretty sure I saw him going that way not too long ago.”
Shawn flashed a brilliant smile at her. “Thanks.”
She nodded and reached into her back pocket, tugging down her radio mic, obviously getting back to work. As he headed off in the direction of basecamp, he heard her thank Drew for listening.
That was like the fifth person to remark on Gus’ amazing calves. It was starting to get a little creepy. Although if it got girls to react the way those chorus girls had been, giggling every time he walked by, and fleeing like a startled flock of birds when he flashed a smile at them, it couldn’t be all bad, right?. He grinned to himself, already amused by the mental images of a dozen slender arms yanking his friend into a deserted trailer.
Good for him.
The lead grip blew by, shouting into his headset, creating the after image of a rainbow in the air before Shawn’s eyes with the electric colored Hawaiian shirt he wore on his person and Shawn grimaced, thinking of his dad.
He still hadn’t been able to justify what he’d seen him doing a few days ago, and it was starting to disturb him, particularly in lieu of the virtual radio silence between them.
Grimacing again as he slid his phone out of his pocket, he punched in his dad’s number with determination. He was taking the matter into his own hands.
The phone rang twice and then— “Hello?”
“Dad!” he exclaimed, forcing his voice into the upper registers of cheerfulness. “Long time no beratement.”
Henry huffed in exasperation and said, “Shawn, what do you want? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
An eyebrow rose on Shawn’s forehead. “In the middle of what?”
“It’s none of your business, kid. Are you going to tell me what you want, or am I going to hang up on you?”
Shawn’s hands fluttered as he spewed the first nonsense his brain could churn out. "Well, they want me to stay behind to protect the heroine. I'm concerned this might be out of character for security guard number one...in all your time on the force did you ever feel like—"
“Shawn, I have a guest. I don’t have time for this,” his dad said, clearly annoyed.
His forehead spasmed in a little frown. “Who? How come I wasn’t invited?” he asked, cramming as much hurt as he could into the words.
This only proceeded to irritate his father more. “I’m hanging up now, Shawn.”
“WAIT!” he cried. “I have an important question! It could be life or death, Dad!”
Henry heaved a sigh, obviously already preparing himself to regret the decision to hear Shawn out. “What, Shawn? What is it?”
He paused for a brief second and then said seriously, “Does Gus have better calves than me?”
His dad hung up on him.
The corner of his mouth curled up into a grin, triumphant. He never got tired of that.
Basecamp thrummed with activity when he arrived, like the center of an enormous anthill. Today they were filming one of the big scenes, a meeting between the representatives of earth and the alien diplomats and the rise in the number of present cast members created an extra layer of chaos. Everywhere he looked, there were people talking and stuffing their faces with food, if not doing lines or getting costumes and make-up checked. He was scanning the crowd, unconsciously counting the hats in the crowd when he spotted Gus’ gleaming head across the way. There was a huge grin on his face, which Shawn couldn’t quite figure out the motivation for, until a couple of people shifted, revealing the pretty girl with the pushy friend from extras holding—Natalie?
He grinned. That sly dog. Weaving his way through the crowd of bodies, he came up beside them, spreading his arms. “Dude, Gus! Where have you been? I’ve been trying to find you.”
Gus’ smile faded slightly as he turned to look at him, but his response made it clear any of his previous annoyance had been forgotten. “I had to make a call into work, so I stepped outside to get some privacy.” He turned a smile on the girl. “Then I ran into Natalie—” Sweet. Nailed it in one. “—and we’ve been talking.” The girl grinned at Gus in a silly sort of way that made Shawn happy. He needed to talk to him about his dad though.
“Well, I made a call too, while you were gone,” he said. “I talked to my dad. He’s acting shifty.”
Rolling his eyes, Gus said, “Shawn, you always think your dad is acting shifty. It’s not really any of your business. Besides, I think it’s great if your dad is choosing to date again.”
“Dude, it’s not that,” he said, pressing his thumb over his mouth. “This is different. He’s being cagey.”
“Maybe he just doesn’t want you interfering in some parts of his private life. Or maybe he’s even doing something for you, Shawn,” Gus said. “Did you ever think of that?”
“Please, Gus, be serious,” Shawn said, waving an absent-minded hand.
“My parents are divorced, and when my dad remarried, I was really upset about it, too,” Natalie said, her voice sympathetic. “But my stepmom and I are really good friends now.”
Shawn’s head popped up, his face going blank. Stepmom?!
“It’s really not as weird as you might think,” Natalie continued.
The look of horror on Shawn’s face was just starting to worry Gus when the 2nd 2nd AD hurried up, waving her hands. “You guys should be in make up already! What are you doing? Get going, now!”
Shawn shot him a look as they were herded off in the direction of the make-up trailer, his face a little pale. “You don’t think he’s getting married, do you?”
~*~
Shawn bounded out of the make-up trailer not too much later, Gus hot on his heels as they inspected the make-up girls’ work. “I can’t believe it,” Gus said. “It’s identical.”
Shawn glanced at the droplets splattered over his arm, head wavering slightly. “Not quite, but it is pretty good.” A flash of white light caught his attention out of the corner of his eye and he perked up. “Look, Gus! Reporters!” Shawn threw an arm around Gus and dragged his friend into the picture just in time for the reporter to snap a shot. "Seriously Shawn, this isn't healthy," Gus muttered as he pulled himself free from Shawn's grip.
"Healthy smealthy. It's good for business." He tossed a thumbs up to another reporter as the flash blinked with the click of another camera.
"How is having a group of reporters fangirling you good for business? You really think people are going to hire you when they could go to the police station?" He grabbed Shawn's elbow and dragged him away from the media frenzy. For a minute, Shawn struggled to pull away, back towards his adoring fans, at least until he realized he was being guided towards the catering table.
"First of all," He tugged himself from Gus' grip and fell into step beside him. "I'm not sure you can call it ‘fangirling’ when almost all of them are males. Second of all, why wouldn't they hire me? Everyone else does."
The pair stopped in front of the breakfast foods as Shawn began to peruse the donuts.
"That's because you don't give everyone else a choice," Gus replied, shooting Shawn a dirty look.
"I do too!" he protested as he took a large bite out of a jelly-filled donut.
"Shawn, when have you ever given anyone a choice?" Gus snagged a bagel and began liberally applying cream cheese. "You waltz into a crime scene and next thing I know you're flailing around pretending to have divined something you won't tell anyone until they hire you!"
"I do not I – maaan." Shawn looked down at the blotches of red on his arm, the skin speckled with fake blood from his recent trip to make up now decorated with spots of jelly from his donut.
"I'm pretty sure that's why they told you not to eat the jelly ones." Gus smirked as he bit into his cream cheese covered pastry.
Shawn sniffed at a couple of the blotches before sticking out his tongue and poising it over the potential blob of jelly. "Dawth thage buwd tath bah?"
"What?" Gus managed around a mouthful of bagel.
Shawn straightened, and pulled his tongue back into his mouth. With an eyeball still on the possible jelly on his arm, he repeated the question. "Does stage blood taste bad?"
Gus raised an eyebrow. "It's blood, Shawn."
"Fake blood!" He leaned forward to lick it again but Gus pushed his arm away from his mouth.
"Just leave it. You start licking yourself and we're going to have to spend another forty-five minutes in make up." The thought of spending even more time in make up did not appeal to Shawn, but neither did leaving a glob of perfectly delicious jelly on his arm.
His head wobbled, eyes fixed on the little red specks. "I can't leave jelly on my arm Gus! The jelly wants to be eaten, it's calling to my stomach." He dropped his voice to imitate the jelly, "Stomaaach! Eat me, I'm delicious!"
Gus rolled his eyes and turned away as Shawn continued to examine the multiple red blobs on his arm. "It's so fake, I can't even tell it apart from the jelly! Real blood doesn't look like jelly donut filling." He brought his arm up to his nose to sniff at a suspect splotch. "Unless of course that's actually what they put in the donuts, which would in fact make the blood edible…"
Gus finished off his bagel with a shake of his head. "Oh, sure, because having blood gushing out of your breakfast pastry is what everyone wants to see in the morning."
"Fake blood," Shawn reiterated as he followed Gus away from the catering table.
"It still looks real," Gus told him. Shawn couldn't help but notice that Gus didn't even bother looking at the blood droplets in question as they fell into step again.
"Dude, it's made of like, corn syrup and coffee creamer!"
Gus snorted, "Shawn, they don't use coffee creamer on movies to make blood."
"Evil Dead," he retorted triumphantly.
"They don't use coffee creamer on real movies to make blood." Gus smirked back at him.
"Cause Evil Dead is less of a real movie than this? What does Gabe Owens have on Sam Raimi?" Shawn demanded. “Those movies are classics!”
Gus narrowed his eyes at him, daring him to make another comment degrading one of his favorite directors. With a sigh, Shawn shook his head.
"I mean, look at this stuff." Shawn bent down, gesturing to a red puddle at the base of the camera crane. "It's ridiculously fake! There are globs of syrup still floating around in it for Pete's sake."
"It looks pretty real to me," Gus said, stepping up along side Shawn and peering down at the puddle.
"Oh come on, it's like they spilled a vat of donut filling on the ground. It's so fake I can't believe anyone would consider it real.” He straightened up, shaking his head. “I think I would know, Gus. Blood is sort of a regular part of the job, you know?"
"Shawn…" Gus' voice trembled.
Shawn continued on, thoroughly absorbed in his own argument. "You think with all the effort they’re going to for the aliens and Romans, they'd spring for higher quality blood goop." He glanced back and Gus, who had his eyes directed skyward where they were glued to the platform the camera would usually be mounted on, made a little whimpering noise, his face ashy.
A single drop of red fell from the platform overhead onto Shawn's shoulder; red that looked and smelt suspiciously like real blood did.
Shawn followed Gus' gaze, already dreading what he might find there. A single hand could be seen dangling over the edge of the platform, blood oozing sluggishly from a fingertip. Shawn jumped back towards Gus as both men let out a high-pitched scream of terror.
Moments later, two grips rounded the corner in a huff, holding up tools defensively. Shawn barely managed to pull away from Gus’ embarrassing and cowardly clinging to him as the men stopped short, looking between the two of them.
"What happened?! We heard women screaming!"
Shawn grunted in as manly a fashion as he possibly could before responding in a gruff voice, "Oh, yeah...so did we, but there's no one here. We came as fast as we could."
He turned to Gus, hoping his friend would back him up in a manly voice that would save their dignity, but all Gus managed was a weak whimper as he pointed up at the body. The two grips turned.
"Oh hell," one of them muttered. He rushed to the controls and lowered the platform to the ground, foot tapping impatiently. The other grip started shouting into his microphone as the body of Vern Woo, the makeup artist, sank into view. Shawn turned away from the blood seeping from Vern's head just in time to catch Gus gagging his bagel up into a bush.
"So, real blood after all…" he murmured. Shawn pulled Gus away from the body as people began rushing from every direction to see what the commotion was all about. "Man, that Vern really screams like a girl doesn't he?" Shawn called out, hoping to throw the girly scream on someone else. Nobody heard him though, as they were all too busy trying to figure out what had happened.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe it!”
“What happened?!”
“Who is it? Oh my gosh, should we be worried?!”
He caught sight of Samantha rushing over from behind catering, her voice shouting out for everyone to calm down, which didn’t seem to have much of an effect as more and more curious people gathered, questioning their neighbors on the details.
She rushed past the rapidly growing crowd and stopped suddenly, hand to her mouth. "God!" she cried, turning away from the bloody body on the platform. She took a moment to catch her breath before her sharp eyes, starting searching the nearby area. She grabbed a nearby apple box and turned it over, stepping up onto it to get above the buzzing crowd. "What the hell happened here?!"
Shawn came forward, not to claim his role as first on the scene, but to get a closer look at the body that would allow him to divine something. He barely managed to catch sight of the head wound the dead Vern was sporting before a nearby explosion rocked the area. Samantha stumbled from her perch into the arms of a nearby electrician, screams and even more anxious shouting rising in the throng.
A terrified scream split the sky.
Shawn glanced to Gus, but the scream had been farther away this time, neither of them responsible for sounding like girls this time. Needing to know what was going on, to get a look, Shawn turned and bolted in the direction the explosion had come from. Behind him, the crowd shifted, following his lead and he flinched, as another smaller explosion rattled everything around him, his arm coming up to fend off flying bits of burning debris.
The group stampeded around the catering truck to find the make up and hair trailer ablaze, a sobbing Eliza sprawled out on the ground in front of it.
Flames from the trailer licked the air as pieces of charred metal collapsed into the wreckage, one piece catching the tent that had been pitched alongside the trailer for shade and tearing it down with a tremendous ripping noise. It wasn’t enough to stop the soaring flames, however, and the tent standing over Eliza went up in a blaze. And although he knew he was going to regret it, he rushed forward into the sweltering heat.
The flame was hot on his face, and he instantly broke into a sweat as he drew closer to the fire. Thick black smoke billowed up from everywhere at once, catching in his lungs and searing his throat. He coughed, throwing an arm over his face and shouting, "Eliza!"
She turned towards him, tears smearing her face, which was marred by the soot and dirt blasted outward by the fire and swirling all around them. He took too deep a breath and broke into harsh coughs, flinching away as large embers spit out of the fire, stinging his face and arms.
"Shawn!" Eliza threw herself at him, knocking him onto his back with the force and taking what little breath he had from him. The new position gave him a much clearer view of the flaming canopy above him and it wasn’t just the smoke in the air he was choking on a moment later. The poles of the tent were swaying precariously, flames dancing all the way down the tattered strips of canvas. The thing was coming down on them.
Kicking off the ground with one foot, he rolled Eliza over his own body, pushing into her as they turned over and using the momentum to keep going, despite his ragged coughing.
They came to a stop, sprawling in the middle of basecamp just as the tent lost all stability and crumpled down beside them with a fwoomp, the flames spurred ever higher by the blast of air.
Eliza lay on top of him, sobbing his name over and over, as he stared blankly at the burning trailer, her tears creating a cool wet streak along his throat. Coughs continued to half-heartedly well up in his chest, his breathing wheezy and difficult.
This was starting to become a bad habit.
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