Chapter Text
Shawn Spencer went missing when he was 8 years old. It was quiet, unnoticed, and the last time anyone saw him was when he had a fight with his father and stormed into his room and shut the door.
Henry Spencer had waited until morning to try and talk to his son, knowing it should have been sooner but shame burning in his veins over what he’d said. He’d never been good at confronting his own faults, especially not with Shawn. But when he’d opened the door the bed was empty, and a few of Shawn’s favorite items were missing.
Henry tore the house apart, and then the station, and anywhere else he thought Shawn might go hiding- while Maddie did the same to the Guster’s house. It was only when a crying, shaking with worry Gus handed over the only trace of evidence that Henry and Maddie knew they wouldn’t find him.
See you later buddy. A simple note, in Shawn’s handwriting, that Gus said had been stuck to the outside of his window with a piece of chewed up gum.
Shawn Spencer ran away from home after a fight with his father. After a year the case was officially considered cold by everyone but Henry. After ten, Henry and Maddie accepted that they couldn’t keep the marriage up anymore, no matter how badly they wanted Shawn to have his whole family when he returned home- and he would. Henry knew his son wasn’t dead, no matter the pitying looks saying so got him at the station. Gus knew it too, and Shawn and Gus were so close that they might as well be psychically linked if Henry believed in those kinds of things, so it’s as good as the word of God to him that Gus never gives up either.
Gus grows up. He wins a spelling bee, he gets into a good college, he ends up in pharmaceutical sales and constantly visiting doctor’s offices, hospitals- Henry is pretty sure he ended up in that job so if Shawn appeared in a hospital one day, Gus would be able to get to him right away. Henry puts off retiring for years, but eventually he does- so he can focus on one specific case.
And then, twenty years after Shawn Spencer went missing, Spencer Acachalla steps out of the woods, spots a missing persons poster, and gets sidetracked.
Shawn Spencer is 8 years old when he runs away from home because he’s not wanted anymore.
He sneaks out of his room, puts some of his favorite toys and CDs in a little handkerchief from a cowboy costume Gus lent him, ties it to the end of a stick, and sets out. He won’t leave Gus with nothing- not when Gus is the thing he’ll miss most- so he climbs up to his friend’s window and sticks a note to it before walking away from home for the last time.
He mostly walks, runs, travels by foot. His dad would notice his bike missing right away, and he’d come find him. Shawn doesn’t want him to find him. Not when he knows it’s just because adults have to go looking for kids who run away. Even ones they don’t want.
“We talked about this, Shawn! I never want to hear you say that again!”
“I don’t wanna be a cop!” He’s not sure if that’s true, really. But he’s sick of his dad never letting him even imagine being something else for just a little while.
“Shawn, you have a gift and that gift comes with responsibility!”
“None of the other kids have to be responsible!”
“Because the other kids are idiots! You’re special, Shawn, and you need to act like it!”
“I don’t want to be special then!”
“Too bad, kid, because there’s only one of you.”
“Well then have another kid and make them be a cop!”
“I'm not going to have to have another kid just so I can tell people that I have one that’s not a disappointment!”
Shawn runs inside before his dad can see he’s crying.
Shawn kicks a rock. “Stupid memory,” he mumbles. “I hate being so weird.”
The rock hits a tree, and Shawn looks up and realizes he’s at the edge of a forest and the sun is starting to come up. He pulls a little map out of his pocket, and after a minute he’s pretty sure he knows where he is. If he goes right through the trees, he should be able to make it out of Santa Barbara entirely before he runs out of the candy bars he brought for sustenance.
He readjusts his little stick and bindle and walks into the woods. Within twenty minutes he regrets the choice because he’s covered in bug bites, scrapes, and mud.It’s as he slaps another mosquito going for his neck that he misses a root and trips.
“AHHHHHH!” He tumbles down the little hill, closing his eyes as he’s sure he’s actually falling off a great big cliff!
And then he lands on… pavement.
That’s not out in the woods.
He opens his eyes and looks up to see a wobbly, water-like circle in the air above him, showing the same forest he’d just been falling through, and then the circle is gone and he’s staring at the closed gate of a driveway.
He sits up, quickly taking in his surroundings. A large driveway and front yard, pool to his right and playhouse to his left, safe to assume this is a house where kids live. The first window he sees is looking into a living room, and he can just make out the top of a bald head. He keeps low to the ground, and looks around for any sign of how he got here other than the weird circle.
Nothing. It’s the middle of a suburb, and it’s definitely not in Santa Barbara.
And then the bushes separating him from the playhouse rustle, and he gasps and whips around. A boy, maybe a couple years older than him, tumbles out of the bushes. They meet eyes. And the boy grins.
“SALLY!” He springs up and grabs Shawn by under the arms, lifting him up. “NEW BROTHER!”
“NEW BWOTHER?” a girl closer to Shawn’s age falls out of the bushes next. The two kids look nothing alike. The boy is tall, somewhat slim, with pale skin and bright blue eyes and slightly wavy black hair. The girl is short, pudgy, tan skin and brown eyes, with very curly dark brown hair. Adoption? It’d make their declaring him a new brother make a little more sense.
“I’m not an orphan,” Shawn protests. “I’m a runaway. See?” He waves his bindle in the boy’s face.
“Wow! A runaway! Just like Papa!”
“Alrigh’ what’s goin’ on out he- WHO IS THAT?!”
The bald head makes an appearance at the front door. It belongs to a large man with a strong southern accent, stronger facial hair, and even stronger love of denim clothing. He’s large in every way possible: he’s tall, he’s fat, and his presence feels like it takes up the whole yard.
“I found a boy on the driveway and I want him to be our brother!” the boy declares.
“BILLY! No takin’ in strays!”
“But Papaaaaa!”
“I told yer mama that we ain’t takin’ in no more-”
“Told me what?” The woman who comes around from the side with the pool- the yard must wrap around the whole house then- is just like the others in that she shares absolutely no resemblance to any of them. Her long red hair is tied up in a neat bun, her green eyes are brighter than any Shawn’s ever seen in real life, and even though she’s on the slim side he can see a tightness in her sleeves that suggests muscle. Which is probably due to the giant crowbar she’s holding perfectly aloft with one hand like it’s easy as breathing. Shawn gasps a little again, eyes going wide.
But the woman looks delighted the moment she lays eyes on him. “Oh my goodness! Billy, did you find a new brother?”
“I did Mama I did!”
“Well hey there lil’ guy!” She walks closer, the crowbar just… disappearing from her hands. Shawn’s eyes go even wider. “My name’s Mama Gertrude, what’s yours?”
“Um… Sh-Shawn.”
“Well that is a very nice name.”
“Gertrude, I know what yer thinkin’-”
“How’d you end up in our yard, Shawn?”
“I… don’t know.” When no-one scoffs or tells him he should know, he decides to go on. “I um, I ran away from home and then I tripped and suddenly I was here.”
Gertrude turns and looks at the man in the doorway- presumably her husband. “Let’s just feed him and hear out why he ran away.”
“Wh- no! No, no! Gertrude, we are not takin’ in any more kids!”
“Oh, you shut your yap.” Gertrude scoops Shawn out of the boy- Billy’s- arms and yeah, yeah Shawn knows for sure now that this lady is absolutely jacked. He’s so confused by how quickly this is all moving that he doesn’t even protest when he’s carried into the house, into a small dining room, and plopped into a chair.
“Looks like we’ve got… apples!” Gertrude looks above the table, and a dozen apples just fall out of the air.
Shawn’s mouth drops open. “How did you do that?”
“Do what, hon?”
“Make apples out of nothing!”
“I… don’t understand.”
The girl and Billy hop into seats across from Shawn, and Billy gasps. “Mama, Mama! He came from a portal so maybe he’s from one of those weird dimensions where they can’t spawn things!”
“Oh! Poor little guy, is that true?”
“Uhhhhh… I think so.”
Papa shakes his head. “That’s worse! Gertrude, this kid’s gonna get the government on us! I ain’t goin’ back to jail, Gertrude-”
“The government won’t come after him, it was just an interdimensional portal, we get tons of those around here!” She waves off the concern while blowing Shawn’s mind in the same sentence.
“I’m in another dimension?” He looks around. It doesn’t look very otherworldly.
“You’ll weally like it hewe!” the girl says. “We’ve got toys an’ waffles an’ Fweddy-”
“Fre- Sally, I told’ya to get that dinosaur outta my yard!”
“Awww, but Papa, he’s so cute!”
“He tried to eat me!”
“He did eat you, hon.”
“He is not allowed! In my yard!”
“What if we put a gate on the pool and put him there?” Gertrude reasons. Shawn misses out on Papa’s response, because he hears shuffling and gets up and looks outside and there’s a real living and breathing dinosaur in the yard.
“See? Fweddy is adoweable!” Sally squeals from beside him, making him startle because he hadn’t even heard her walk up. “Wanna wide him?”
“Ride a dinosaur?” Shawn grins for the first time since the fight with his dad. “Yeah!”
“FWEDDY!” At Sally’s call, the dinosaur looks up and stomps over. It nuzzles her affectionately, and then she grabs Shawn’s hand and holds it out. “Meet my new bwother!”
Freddy sniffs Shawn’s hand, and after a tense moment where Shawn thinks he might die by dinosaur bite, which would admittedly be pretty cool, Freddy nuzzles his hand too and kneels down. Sally hops on top, and helps pull Shawn up.
“This is awesome! I gotta tell Gus about-! … Oh.” Shawn slumps. “I guess I can’t.”
“Awww, look at that, Acachalla! Kids, look down here!” Gertrude waves for them to look at her, holding a camera the size of her head up. “Smile!”
Sally grins brightly, and Shawn musters up a small smile. Gus would love this, even if the dinosaur isn’t the same as the big head he made…
“Me too, me too!” Billy jumps up onto Freddy’s back. “Hahaha! Let’s ride him down to the 7-11!”
“NO! NO YOU KIDS AIN’T TAKIN’ THE DINOSAUR TO MY STORE- hey, wait. I have the place insured. … LET’S GO, KIDS!” Papa runs out ahead of them, and Sally and Billy cheer. Shawn can’t help but get swept up in the idea of destroying a store with a dinosaur with adult permission, and his smile becomes more genuine.
He will tell Gus about this someday. Someday when he’s so awesome his dad will never be able to call him a disappointment again!
Shawn stays with the Acachallas that night, and the next, and the next, and then before he knows it he’s been there for six months and he has his own room, own clothes, and own spot at the table. And he knows this world is definitely more fun than the last one.
He’s ridden a dinosaur, watched the people he’s starting to genuinely be able to consider family phase through walls and fly up in the air, watched Billy fall out of the treehouse and die and then disappear and walk out from the house giggling about coming back from the dead, watched a cop come to the house and then turn into a bird and stop caring about the building-destroying dinosaur because “birds don’t care”-
“I’m never going to be a cop,” Shawn had declared the next morning, and the response had been mostly support- and a little confusion about why he said it.
That had been about three months in, and had been when Shawn told them about why he ran away finally, and when Gertrude had pulled him into a hug so tight it literally crushed his bones- which surprisingly didn’t hurt, even though it had killed him.
He saw his own body for a few seconds after that, and then he was back in it and standing in the backyard, and Mama Gertrude was running out and apologizing and he realized maybe I can do that stuff too.
And now, six months in, he spawn himself a breakfast burrito and chows down while Sally eats a stack of waffles taller than she is and Billy eats a whole watermelon, rind and all. Papa munches on some bacon while Mama Gertrude eats a bagel with cream cheese, which had been glowing green earlier that morning but seems fine now.
“Awe you gonna stawt coming to school with us?” Sally asks Shawn out of nowhere. Shawn groans.
“I don’t want to go to school in a world where I can ride dinosaurs!”
“We have dinosaurs at school too! And lottsa friends and also cool classmates like Godzilla and ghosts!”
“You go to school with Godzilla? I take it back, count me in!”
Shawn has lived in Little Butts, North Carolina, with the Acachalla family for a full year and still goes by Shawn Spencer. Mostly because he’s still not sure this is all real, but he really hopes it is.
It’s at the exact one year mark that he comes face-to-face with ‘the elder god trapped in mortal form’ that lives in the basement alongside what Sally calls “Uncle Jewemy” but Papa calls “that shadowy thang down there”. He doesn’t realize it’s the alleged elder god at first though, because when he walks downstairs he just sees a kid a year or two older than him with giant glasses, a too-big sweater vest over a button-up shirt, and the messiest and brightest orange hair he’s ever seen.
The kid turns to look at him and jumps back. “Who the heck are you?!” His voice is a little weird, like everyone else Shawn has met in this world. Sally talks like a baby, Billy always sounds like he’s yelling, Mama Gertrude’s voice is almost unbelievably motherly to a parody-like degree, and Papa’s accent comes and goes by it’s own will.
This kid’s voice is almost like he’s slurring his words, and even though he hasn’t said any “S” sounds yet Shawn is certain the kid has an intense lisp. He also has braces, and Shawn gags for real when he realizes they’re entirely covered in rust.
“Who are you?” Shawn says back.
“YOU DON’T KNOW WHO I AM?! I AM THE MIGHTY SPENCE, YOU ABSOLUTE NERD!” Hmm, he said those S’s okay, but something in Shawn says that might just be another one of those “quirks” of the way people talk here.
“Hey, between us, I’m not the nerd here,” Shawn says, crossing his arms and trying not to look like the unintimidating 9 year old that he is. “You’re the one wearing a sweater vest.”
“Oh, that’th it.” Yup, there’s the lisp. Shawn hasn’t let his deductive skills fade away, even though the people here are way harder to predict than in Santa Barbara. Well, that one was kind of obvious to “predict”, but he’s counting it because his dad isn’t here to tell him it doesn’t count.
“Who’s wakin’ me up early?” Papa Acachalla grumbles as he walks down behind Shawn. “Wh- SPENCER!”
Shawn looks up at Papa, but Papa is staring at the boy. Shawn looks back at him.
“Your name is Spencer? … You don’t know a Henry, do you?”
“Uh, no! I am The Mighty Spence, I don’t jutht know, peasanth! Who the heck ith Henry?!”
“No-one.” Shawn looks up at Papa Acachalla, who’s now holding a shotgun- a familiar sight when something happens that Papa didn’t expect. “Who is he?”
“He’s supposed to be in the basement!”
“Wait, he’s the elder god?”
“Sure is, now git! Git in the basement!”
“You can’t make me!”
“I sure can! Shawn, go get Gertrude!”
Shawn runs upstairs. “Mama,” he says, because just like Papa is Papa Acachalla’s title Mama is Gertrude’s, and it fits her perfectly. “There’s a kid downstairs who Papa says is the guy in the basement.”
“Oh, him again?” she says with a yawn as she sits up. “I keep telling Acachalla we should let him out, but he keeps saying Spencer will destroy the world or collect another cult following… I’ll go handle this, sweetie, you go back to bed.”
Shawn goes back to bed for all of five minutes before sneaking back down. He watches Mama Gertrude give Papa Acachalla a talking to, the kind that he shivers just being a viewer of, and with a mumbled agreement Papa turns to Spencer and says “Fine. Since we’ve got one Spencer already up here, ya can come up here too. But yer still sleepin’ in the basement!”
“Acachalla…” Gertrude says in a warning tone.
“An’... the kids’ll help you decorate it.”
Spencer watches Papa warily. “What do you mean by another Thpenther?”
“Shawn’s last name,” Mama Gertrude sighs.
“WHAT?! NO, NO! I REFUTHE TO LIVE IN A HOUTHE WITH THOMEONE THEALING MY NAME!”
Shawn makes a split second decision and says from the stairs, “I can use Acachalla.”
All three downstairs shout in alarm, and if he was still in Santa Barbara Shawn would be worried by the way Papa swings around his shotgun, but he’s not in Santa Barbara so it really doesn’t matter. Even if Papa shoots the wall, it’ll just go away eventually all on it’s own- probably. Sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s rarer than when it does.
Instead of getting scolded for staying up late, or eavesdropping, or getting caught eavesdropping by “blowing his cover”, Mama Gertrude grins when she realizes it’s just him and sweeps him up into a hug. “You mean it?”
He hugs her back. She’s always really warm and her strong grip is always very careful now, after that first incident. She always pays a lot of attention to him, especially when he spins some tall tale or talks about something he likes or makes wild declarations of a new passion or interest. She smells a little like metal, but it’s nice.
“Yeah,” he says with a firm nod. “I’m okay with Shawn Acachalla.”