Title: I'm Sorry
Fandom: : Psych
Rating: PG-13
Length: 843 Words
Content notes: For the FFW prompt "apology," my hc_bingo prompt "cursed," and my advent challenge day 2 prompt, "lovers quarrel."
Summary: Shawn tries to apologize


"I'm sorry."

"I don't need an apology from you right now. I don't want an apology from you right now, Shawn."

Shawn frowned and looked back out the window of the cruiser. This was fairly usual behavior from Gus. He never wanted to hear the apology the first time. But eventually he would come around. He always had, in 20 years of friendship, and Shawn was fairly confident that the same would be true tonight.

They drove past the new dry cleaner, and Shawn made a mental note to take his nice sweater in for a cleaning. It was one of the few he owned, and he hadn't had it cleaned last month after someone - there was no telling who - had spilled some of his favorite spaghetti sauce on it. But he wanted to wear it tomorrow, when he went with Gus to his parent's house for a holiday dinner. Mrs. Guster always seemed to appreciate it if he dressed up for fancy occasions with them, even if that still wasn't as nice as what Gus was wearing. Something about him putting in the effort, at least, seemed to please her.

"I am sorry, you know," he repeated softly.

Gus didn't reply, and Shawn chanced a glance out of the corner of his eye. His best friend was still staring straight ahead, as thought he was vitally interested in the back of McNab's head, but Shawn knew better. His nostrils were flared in exactly the way that indicated that he was at a level eleven of Guster Anger. This was the mythical level only rarely seen by normal humans, but seen on a semi-monthly basis by Shawn. This was sleeping in his own apartment for a week levels of nostril flaredge.

Shawn frowned and looked back out of his own window. He didn't like sleeping in his own apartment. For one, it was far less clean. And for another, he found it harder to sleep alone. Something about the sound of Gus's breath, even and light in the bed beside him, or even in the other room if he was on the couch, was enough to sooth him back to sleep when he woke up in the middle of the night with his nightmares.

But his own place was too empty, too quiet, even with the white noise radio that Gus had gotten for him one year.

"I know you don't want to hear it-" he began.

Gus finally turned to look at him, and Shawn was forced to reevaluate his assessment of his lover's anger levels. Those nostril flares added to that eye tick were an almost unheard of combination. One Shawn had only managed to provoke once before. The excuse he had been making died in his throat at that deadly look.

Gus turned back to his window and Shawn did the same. The grocery mart had painted their windows with a holiday scene – snow drifts and frolicking reindeer. And that was something that Shawn had never gotten. This was Santa Barbara; there was no snow! There never had been, and there probably never would be unless that whole global-warming-becomes-global-cooling-becomes-super-storm disaster movie thing happened. So why would they decorate with snow? It wasn't like the kids here would know what it was.

Gus shifted a minuscule amount and Shawn glanced back over, but his expression hadn't softened.

Maybe Shawn shouldn't have forced Gus to ride along today - he probably could have infiltrated the Hoodoo Priest's shop on his own, after all, but it was just that he always took Gus with him. Unless he refused to go, or insisted on actually working at his other job or something. They were partners, so they investigated things together. That's all there was too it.

And he finally had a chance to roll out his long awaited "and this is my colleague, Dursty McChicken San - no relation to the sandwich, though we do have a lawsuit for infringement pending against them." Really, he was quite proud of that one.

Gus was supposed to nod, as he always did, and then stoically follow as Shawn asked the Priest for a curse against their enemies. Gus wasn't supposed to get cursed himself.

Not that Shawn really believed in curses, but of course Gus did, and after the day they had had, Shawn was starting to lose his own unshakable belief in their non-existence. It was simply statistically impossible for someone to have that much coincidental bad luck in one day.

The cruiser pulled into the lot behind the precinct and Shawn sighed and leaned his head back against the seat. Now they were going to have to go inside and deal with Lassiter and the Chief and all of those pesky rules that got into his way.

Shawn scooted down in his seat, and nudged his leg closer to Gus's. Gus snorted and moved closer to the door on his side.

Shawn looked back out the window with a frown. Maybe he didn't need to go to the dry cleaners after all.