Chapter Text
"Listen Gus, all I'm saying is that he may give too many dollars for his change," Shawn said around her straw before taking a large, noisy slurp of her pineapple smoothie. "Can't blame a guy for trying. You are a handsome devil."
"It's too much change for his dollar," Gus replied, raising his eyebrows and leaning back in his chair all sassy-like. "And just because he's gay does not mean I should flirt with him. He's a human being, Shawn. I will not play with his feelings so you can get cheaper smoothies."
"Oh come on! I'm not saying you play with his feelings, do you think me a monster? Gus, for shame! I'm only-"
Shawn cut herself off before she could even utter another word. Her lungs drew in a deep breath, her eyes squeezed shut, and her teeth clenched together. "Is he–"
In the corner of her eye, a shadowy figure made its way across the room. It weaved its way through the tables, leaning over chairs full of people. The room darkened around where it moved. A black hole, swallowing everything it touched with no remorse.
Gus narrowed his eyes and leaned forward onto his elbows. "If you're about to ask me if I think he's ugly, this conversation is over, and I'm leaving. I have work I should be doing, anyway."
"Dammit..." She sighed, setting her drink down before using her fingertips to rub at her eyes, the coldness from the drink she was holding helping to pull her to attention once more. Maybe if she pressed her eyes into her head hard enough for those little black spots to appear, then the shadow would disappear with them. "Thought it would stop. It's like those fences, the really fancy Victorian ones? The ones they used on the Addams family."
"I'm not even gonna ask." Gus rolled his eyes before pulling his oh-so-very-important work phone out of his pocket.
A gross, finger-like chill creeped down Shawn's spine. She didn't whip all the way around like she wanted to. She didn't want to give into its sick sense of satisfaction, as childish as it may make her seem.
The hallucinations had been pretty bad, lately; Gus had been having longer shifts, spending all day in his office or on the phone or on his route. She didn't have any other friends, and every potential romantic partner ends up deciding any sort of relationship with her is more work than it's worth.
Being alone harbored visceral fears of abandonment. She would never, ever, ever admit this out loud, especially to someone she would see more than once in her life, but her biggest fear was being left alone with no way of knowing who - or what - to trust.
Well, that, and leprechauns.
The thing about black holes is that you can't really see them; you can see everything around them, but it's like there's this space that doesn't exist. You can only tell where it is based on what you can't see. That's how she knew they weren't real, sometimes. Real people don't absorb all light.
Being in public helped, too. If the hallucination was primarily auditory, like they usually were, it was easier to drown out in the noise of bustling crowds. I mean, sure, there were times when she knew they were doing her a favor, but that didn't make the experience of hearing something very real and knowing that no one else could hear it any less terrifying.
Sometimes, she really did feel psychic. Her hallucinations could be beneficial, in some cases, and despite the fact that she felt sick to her stomach every time she had some gross old guy breathing down her neck, she appreciated that.
Her attention was pulled from the black-hole-walking dude when her phone chimed in her pocket. She reached down into the pocket of her old, knee length cut-off jean shorts, pulling her phone out. Reading the screen, she smiled.
"Oh god," Gus said. "Stop smiling all evil. I've got stuff I have to actually do today."
"Whatever boring plans you had can wait, my chocolate sidekick - that was Jules. We have a case."
"No, WE don't have a damn thing. YOU have a case, I have a job." Gus said. He got up and started grabbing his things, anyway.
"Come on, Gus! To the blueberry!" Shawn pocketed her phone again and grabbed her pineapple smoothie in one hand and Gus's keys in the other.
"Shawn! Pay your damn ticket!" Gus yelled at her back as she all but sprinted out of the café.