A/N: This will be my first multi-chaptered Psych story. Glee!!! Hopefully I will still feel like that once I'm done...

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


Seeing the rays of the early morning sun streaming through the windows to softly play along his features, was not a sensation Shawn Spencer was accustomed to experience with his eyes open. Shawn blearily realised that it was not the alarm clock, which Gus had snuck in one day when he thought Shawn wouldn't notice that was dragging him from his beauty sleep. Had he been more coherent he might have come to the realisation that it could never have been the alarm clock waking him as it had yet to reach double digits.

His phone continued to happily chipper away as though it had not just realised it had committed a rather hideous crime: rousing Shawn Spencer from his much needed and appreciated sleep. He grumbled slightly as he dragged his hand away from the bed to grab a hold on his cell phone which had yet to give up trying to get his attention.

"Hello?" Having not even bothered to look at the caller ID he was rather surprised to hear Juliet's voice over the line.

"Shawn, did I wake you?"

"Yes, yes, you did, but that's not important," Shawn answered vaguely, feeling slightly more awake than mere seconds before. "What's going on, Jules? Did you miss me?"

He smirked as he heard her sigh over line and he could practically see her roll her eyes.

"No," Juliet answered him as professionally as possible and Shawn smirked again, "the Chief asked me to call you."

"Ooh, is she in dire need of a certain psychic extraordinaire?" It was incredible how easy joking came to him, that even though he was only now starting to drag himself out of bed, he was still more than capable. Though, he would admit that even he was a little brighter in the upstairs apartment once he had been awake for a few minutes…maybe hours on some days. Some days that may or may not have been connected to Mexico.

Swiftly moving on.

"As it just so happens, no, she's not in dire need of a psychic," Juliet retorted nonchalantly, "however, she would like you to come down and look at this crime scene."

"Hang on, let me just check my schedule," Shawn said with as much credulity as he could muster while sock-hunting. Juliet made some vague noise of pseudo agreement, clearly indicating that she was not buying it. "Well, Jules, you're in luck. It just so happens that my bikini inspector services have temporarily been re-scheduled."

Juliet said nothing for a few seconds and Shawn would like to imagine it was because she was trying not to laugh, though she did sound nearly as professional and composed as she had when she had previously spoken as she told him where to find them.

It was some fifteen minutes later that Shawn was straddling his Norton and taking off towards the crime scene. He had briefly considered calling Gus but decided he would wait till he was on the scene to at least give Gus the chance to sleep that he himself had not received. Then again, now he was actually regretting his decision as it would have been totally worth it, if not only to hear what words Gus could have come up with at the early hours of the morning to implicate Shawn with.

The black and whites as well as the dozen or so police officers in front of an old abandoned warehouse were clear indicators that he had arrived at the correct location. He parked the Norton deliberately close to one of the black and whites before proceeding towards the warehouse, smiling to the couple of officers that he passed on the way.

Shawn strode purposefully into the warehouse after quickly ducking under the police tape. Already he started taking note of the scene. What seemed to be almost the exact centre of the relatively square room lay the body, surrounded by forensics, Lassiter, Juliet and Chief Vick. Shawn slowed his pace as he neared the victim, trying to see anything useful. The body was in a supine (as Gus would have happily and geekily called it) position. Of what Shawn could see of the knuckles there were scrapes on both which looked like they had been gained by punching a wall rather than flesh. The skin was wrinkled and dried but there were no apparent injuries other than the knife poking out of the chest.

"Lassie! Looking bright and chipper as usual," Shawn greeted cheerful as he took his eyes off of the body to look up at Lassiter's scowl.

"Ah, Mr Spencer, so good of you to join us," Chief Vick said before there was a chance her Head Detective managed to grind his teeth all the way through to the jaw. "O'Hara, will you please fill Mr Spencer in."

Juliet nodded once at the Chief before turning to Shawn who cocked his head slightly to the side as he studied her. She looked as if sleep was a rare elation if the dark circles under her eyes were anything to go by.

"Victim is Carla Norwick, forty-three years old. She was reported missing four days ago and we found signs of struggle at the scene. She is also the fourth victim this month to be killed in this way…"

Her voice faded off as Shawn put his right hand to his head and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Wait! I'm sensing that the knife wound was not the cause of death," Shawn said dramatically as he lowered his hand again.

"That's correct," Juliet answered while nodding absentmindedly, "as with the previous three victims, Carla Norwick was dead before she was stabbed. At the moment the most obvious cause of death is dehydration, which is also the same as the previous three victims."

"What Detective O'Hara is saying," Chief continued, "is that we have a serial killer on the loose and we could use all the help we can get."

"It sounds as if my bikini inspector services will have to wait," Shawn replied with as much seriousness as he could muster, "but, you can count on me, Chief."

"Glad to hear it," Chief Vick retorted tonelessly. "Detectives, make sure Mr Spencer gets a copy of the file."

Lassiter grumbled something incomprehensible but when Vick looked sternly at him, he gave her a "Yes, Chief" which seemed to satisfy her as she proceeded to make her way out of the warehouse.

Shawn stepped to the side and rummaged through his pockets until he found his phone. He quickly dialled Gus's number.

"Dude, it's awesome! We've been hired to find a serial killer."


At first Gus had not been as thrilled as Shawn at the idea of finding a serial killer, but Shawn put it down to the fact that Gus, like him, was not too fond of being interrupted doing something important. For Shawn, the thing of importance had been his sleep. For Gus…well Shawn was not quite sure, but his friend had said something about his second job, though he still met up with Shawn at the Psych office an hour later, sounding rather excited about the case.

Shawn had gone back to the office with the firm promise that he would come to the police station later to pick up the file. Juliet was the only one who had not looked completely exasperated by that promise.

As usual in Santa Barbara the sun was shining brightly and Shawn briefly eyed the sparsely dressed girls as they walked along the promenade in front of the Psych office. This was exactly why this was the perfect location for the office. Not to mention there was often a great variety of food vendors walking by. What more could you possibly want?

"So, what is this case you're so excited about, anyway?" Gus asked and Shawn smirked openly at his friend's attempt to sound disinterested.

"That's my chunky cheese burritos!" Shawn exclaimed happily, but stopped short when he thought about what he had just said.

"Chunky cheese burritos…really?" Gus questioned as a smug look of his own spread across his face.

"Not my finest moment," Shawn agreed thoughtfully.

"The case?" Gus prompted, taking a seat behind his desk pretending to look at his laptop, though his attention was mainly on Shawn causing him to poke the desktop rather than the keys on the laptop.

"Four victims so far. All were apparently missing for a few days before they were found dead," Shawn summed up what he had been told earlier as he too sat down behind his desk, bouncing the soft ball that had previously been taking up part of the clutter on his desk.

"Cause of death?" Gus asked, no longer pretending to be occupied by his laptop but instead had his full attention on Shawn.

"That is where it gets really interested," Shawn put the ball down on the desk as he leaned over the desk in an effort to appear far more intriguing, "though all of the victims were found with a knife through the heart," at this Gus looked slightly less interested and a little more sick, "that was not the cause of death. No, my dear friend, all four people died of dehydration."

Gus did not look sick anymore either.

He looked slightly annoyed.

"Dehydration? That's what you drag me down here for? A few people forget to drink and…hang on a minute. There's not even a case is there?"

"Gus –"

"I can't believe this. You dragged me out of work – again – as some joke," by this point Gus had risen from his seat, and with his briefcase in hand, was heading towards the office door.

"Gus…Buddy!" Shawn said loudly enough to stop Gus before he reached the door. "First of all, I did not drag you out of work, because, let's face it, you drove down here all by yourself. I'm very proud of you," Gus looked about ready to kill Shawn, so he quickly continued. "Second of all, I am not joking. There really is a case, and you and I are going to go down to the police station and get us a copy of the file…legally this time."

Gus slowly moved back into the office, still looking rather suspicious, but at least it seemed as if Shawn had managed to win him over.

"We're getting a file…legally?" Gus asked as he stopped in front of Shawn's desk and looked down at his friend.

"Totally," Shawn said, jumping to his feet enthusiastically.

"Alright, I'm in, but if this turns out to be some kind joke, I swear I will make sure you will not have any 80's movie marathons for a month," with those words Gus turned and headed out of the Psych office.

"That's harsh, buddy!" Shawn shouted as he rushed after Gus. He might as well call shotgun on Gus's car. There was no point in wasting money for gas for his Norton when he and Gus were going to the same place.

The station was a flurry of activity when they finally arrived. The 'finally' mostly caused by Shawn when he remembered he had not had time to grab breakfast before going to the crime scene that morning.

"Jules! Looking lovely as ever," Shawn commented as he strolled into the station and spotted Juliet shifting through files at her desk. She looked up and spotted them when she heard Shawn's voice.

"You saw me this morning, Shawn," Juliet said as the two friends stopped in front of her desk.

"You do look lovely, though," Gus agreed, but didn't continue when Juliet looked at him once with a look that clearly said, 'don't encourage him'.

"I have the file for you," she said as she handed a file to them which Shawn accepted almost greedily.

"You are actually giving us the file," Gus said with what Shawn was certain was not feigned excitement.

"Gus, I already told you that we got a case," Shawn pointed out as he started shifting through the file.

"Yes, Shawn, but just last week you called me out of work because of some emergency, which just happened to be that there were no more pineapple juice boxes left at the Psych office."

"Well, there wasn't," Shawn defended.

"I don't care, Shawn, it was not an emergency," Gus retorted with a huff.

"Fine, it was not an emergency. Can I call you if your entire comic book collection goes missing?" Shawn questioned as he looked innocently at his friend.

"Shawn, if you take my –"

"Guys! Enough!" Juliet said loudly, drawing the attention of the two bickering friends back on her. "I have a lot of work to do here. There's a serial killer out there, so go and do…something."

"Jules, are you throwing us out?" Shawn said with a slight smirk.

"I think she is, Shawn," Gus agreed, though he was better at feigning a hurt expression.

"I am not throwing you out, I'm just giving you a subtle hint to leave the station for now and then come back if you have anything to add to the case," Juliet said sweetly, looking up at Shawn and Gus who in turn looked at her with pseudo shocked expressions.

"She is throwing us out," Shawn shared a look with Gus.

"Let's go, Shawn," Gus replied, "it's clear when we are not wanted."

Juliet couldn't help but smile and shake her head as she watched the two head out of the station.

"Back to the Psych office?" Shawn asked as they reached the car.

"You know that's right," Gus answered eagerly, all signs of his earlier reluctance dissipating.

Once they were back at the office Shawn wasted no time getting out the clear board, hurriedly writing the four victims' names in capital letters on the board.

First was Michael Stuarts, thirty-six years old, married with one child. He had been missing for six days before he was found in a park by a morning runner, knife protruding from his chest. Cause of death was dehydration with no apparent signs of defensive wounds on the victim.

Second was Jade Peterson, twenty-four years old, single, working in a nursery. She had been missing for four days before her body had been found, also with a knife in the chest, in a quiet area of the city. Cause of death was again dehydration.

Next up for the old run of the mill dehydration was Stanley Elkhorn – seriously, Elkhorn? – forty-five years old, single construction worker. He had been missing for five days before his body was discovered.

Lastly was the victim Shawn had seen that morning, Carla Norwick, forty-three years old, married, no children.

"Damn it!" Shawn hissed as he threw the file back down his desk.

"You find anything yet?" Gus asked, looking at his friend over the top of his laptop where he was doing his own research.

"No, nothing yet. I can't see anything connecting them," Shawn said with a huff as he dropped down in his chair and glared at the board.

His phone rang. Looking at the caller ID he quickly answered the call with a sigh as he leaned back in his chair.

"Hey, Dad."

Gus stopped typing and instead watched Shawn inconspicuously – or at least he thought so – over the top of his laptop.

"Shawn, are you still coming to dinner tonight?"

No, he did not want to go to dinner tonight…with his dad…without Gus…he did not want that at all.

"Dinner? Tonight, huh?" Shawn looked over at Gus when he noticed his friend nodding vigorously. Shawn made a grimace at him before continuing, "Listen, Dad, I don't think I'm going to be able to make tonight. Gus and I just got a case."

"Will you be able to solve it by tonight?" Henry asked, though his tone gave no implication as to what his intentions were.

"No…" Shawn answered rather cautiously, "I don't think so."

"Will you be able to solve it by tomorrow?"

What was this? Twenty questions?

"No, Dad, I probably won't, which is why I need to be here…working."

"If you can't solve the case by tomorrow anyway, you can just as well get your ass over here and eat dinner," Henry retorted calmly. How was it that his father was always able to sound so calm and yet make Shawn so frustrated? "I'll see you at seven."

Shawn listened briefly to the dial tone before he put his phone back in his pocket, a scowl shadowing his features.

"So, dinner with your Dad tonight?" Gus asked with a smirk.

Shawn glared at Gus before standing up and heading towards the board again, standing directly in front of it, as though in the hope that whatever useful clue there might be would jump out at him.

"Michael, Jade, Stanley, Carla," he mumbled to himself as he looked at the board. "Man, woman, man, woman."

"What are you getting at, Shawn?" Gus questioned as he too came around his desk to stand in front of the board.

"There's a pattern with the gender of the victims," Shawn said rather vacantly, knowing that he was grasping at loose ends. This was hardly what he would call a break in the case. "Great…I've narrowed it down to the next victim being a man. The women of Santa Barbara are safe for another week."

"Shawn, it's been a day. I'm sure you'll find something. Just go to your Dad's tonight, have a quiet dinner, and we'll continue working on this tomorrow."

"Whoa whoa whoa…hang on a second," Shawn said seriously, looking Gus right in the eye, "Did you just say a quiet dinner. Dude, this is me and my Dad we're talking about."

"You know what I mean, Shawn," Gus said as he sat back down behind his desk.

"Yeah, I'm sure eating a dead cow will give me the epiphany I'm looking for," Shawn said with an exasperated sigh.

"It's better than eating a live one," Gus reasoned.

"Dude, you did not have to share that," Shawn retorted, glad that they were bickering as it took his mind off the annoying thought that he had still not found anything the police hadn't. "Who eats live cows, anyway?"

"I don't know, Shawn, I was trying to be funny."

"Better luck next time there, buddy," Shawn said with false sincerity as he walked around Gus's desk to pat him on the shoulder in an encouraging way, only to yell in pain when Gus slapped his hand. Hard, he might like to add.


It was a couple of hours later that found Shawn alone in the Psych office. Gus had left a little earlier to complete his rounds, leaving Shawn alone with his thoughts as continued to stare at the board. They had decided to go and talk to the victims relatives the next day to try and see if they could find a connection that way. As it turned out, Shawn had still found absolutely nothing to connect the victims. They had all been kidnapped on random days at random times, leaving Shawn clueless as to what pattern their killer could possibly be following. He would never admit it, but he was starting to feel the cold sliver of dread that the killer maybe did not follow a pattern at all, making him that much more of a challenge to find.

He glanced briefly at the clock hanging on the wall and groaned when he realised that it was already six thirty. He had to be at his father's in half an hour unless he could come up with some excuse to weasel out of it. Considering the conversation he had had with his dad earlier he did not see that as an option. Gus had merely seemed to find it rather amusing that Shawn was put down about having dinner with his dad. However, whether Gus was just glad that he did not have to listen to the two arguing, Shawn was unsure. His friend had even suggested that Shawn should try and set himself the target that he and his father should not get into a disagreement for at least two hours. To this Shawn had answered that he and Henry could get into a disagreement about which side of the table the salt and pepper should be on, so two hours might be stretching it a little.

Pushing himself up from his chair, Shawn moved over to stand in front of the board yet again, holding the file in his hand. After three minutes of staring with nothing jumping out at him yelling, "Ta-da! I'm a major clue", he threw the file back down on his desk in frustration, before grabbing his helmet. He made sure to lock up, knowing from experience that Gus was not a happy little trooper if Shawn did not lock up, no matter what the excuse was.

As he drove his Norton on the familiar streets towards Henry's house, images from the crime scene he had seen that morning as well as the crime scene photos from the other victims, kept flashing through his mind as he tried to grasp what he wasn't seeing. In the end he pushed the images out of his mind and instead concentrated on driving.

He had been sitting in front of his childhood home on his Norton for five minutes before exhaling a sigh and hopping off the bike. It would be nice if Gus's suggestion actually could have been reality as Shawn was really not in the mood to fight tonight. True, it had been Jules waking him, but he had still been woken way too early for comfort. To add to that he had still to find a clue the cops hadn't, though he was rather positive that tomorrow would change that. That did not change the fact, however, that he for some strange incomprehensible reason, had to have dinner with his dad without Gus as a mediator.

"Why were you sitting out there instead of coming inside?" Henry asked as soon as Shawn set foot in the house.

"Hello to you too," Shawn said and he noticed he sounded slightly irritated even to his own ears. This almost had to be a record. It was almost two seconds into him entering his father's residence and they were already well on their way for a fight.

Shawn watched his dad move around for a bit before Henry gave him a pointed look at the table that had yet to be set. Instead of arguing, Shawn opted to merely sigh before he moved towards the cupboards and pull out the things they needed. He didn't even notice that Henry had stopped working to watch him for a few seconds.

"So, what's this case you've got?"

The question took Shawn by surprise as he put the salt and pepper on the table, though he managed to rescue the salt before it decided to try bungee off the table without the cord.

"You want to talk about my case?" Shawn questioned as he straightened and turned away from the table to look at his dad who had his full attention on his cooking. Well, that was what he wanted you to think. Shawn knew that his dad was an expert at looking as if he was doing one thing when, in reality, he was actually watching to make sure Shawn was not doing something he was not supposed to.

"Sure I do," Henry said as he too moved towards the table with the plate of steaks.

"Okay…" Shawn drawled as he went back to the kitchen to get the potatoes. As he continued to bring the food to the table, literally, he gave his dad the rundown of the case, intentionally leaving out the small factor that he had not made any progress throughout the day.

"So, what have you got so far?"

Damn it!

"Er…not much…it's still early days," Shawn said casually as he sat down at the table. His dad merely grunted in reply as he too sat down.

While he began piling food on his plate, Shawn made sure to keep a weary eye on Henry, hoping to be able to pick up on what he was going to say next so as not to be caught off guard…again.

"Have you been to a crime scene?"

No such luck.

"Yeah, this morning," Shawn replied before stuffing a piece of steak in his mouth.

"And?" Henry prompted around a mouthful of potatoes.

See, Shawn thought, at least I spoke before I started eating.

"And that's that. There was a dead person on the floor and that's it," Shawn said, unaware of the fact that while he was talking he had been decorating the same potato with multiple holes from his fork. He noticed when his father glared at the offending hand with said fork. "Will you look at that!" Shawn said slightly high-pitched with feigned excitement, "It's like a Swiss cheese, but a potato."

"Cute," Henry retorted as he cut a piece of his steak, "don't get sidetracked."

"I wasn't getting sidetracked," Shawn said as he poked the aforementioned potato again.

"What did you get from the crime scene?" Henry prompted and Shawn had the feeling that his dad was already getting frustrated with him. Maybe he should text Gus and tell him that two hours was definitely optimistic.

"I didn't get anything from the crime scene," Shawn said truthfully.

"Nothing?"

"No, I got nothing, zilch, nada," Shawn answered as he shook his head as well just for good measure.

His dad grunted again.

"What?" If there was one thing Shawn hated it was knowing that his dad had something that he wanted to say, but was keeping it in.

"Well, it's just, there must have been something you noticed."

There was that slightly accusing tone that Shawn was used to hearing. His dad simply couldn't accept no for an answer.

"I'm sorry," Shawn said, though he sounded far from sorry, as he stood firmly by the fact that he actually had no reason to be apologising in the first place, "but there was nothing. The death as such had happened elsewhere and I couldn't see anything that gave any kind of clue to this location."

"Maybe you didn't look hard enough," Henry supplied a little too casually as he reached across the table and grabbed the pepper.

"Maybe there just wasn't anything for me to find," Shawn retorted rather testily as he stabbed a piece of steak rather viciously.

"The steak's already dead, you don't have to stab it that hard," his dad said though continued too quickly for Shawn to get a word in, "and Shawn, it could just be that you didn't look close enough."

"Do you want me to go back to the crime scene? Or better yet, how about I drag you down there so you can see it yourself, and then you can walk me through step by baby step how A leads to B which leads to C which –"

"Shawn!" Henry cut off Shawn sharply as he finally put down his knife and fork to look directly at his son. "I want you to take a step back. How long have you had this case? A day?" When Shawn nodded reluctantly Henry continued, "Go back to the crime scene tomorrow and look at it with a fresh pair of eyes."

Shawn frowned.

"You want me to get a new pair of eyes like Tom Cruise in Minority Report?"

"Gah-Shawn!" Great, now his dad was actually starting to grow red in the face. It was funny Shawn had actually missed the point when his ears turned red, instead first noticing when it was his dad's entire face. He looked almost like a red Hulk. "Would you stop with the jokes for just once in your life –?"

"No…" Shawn mumbled but his dad ignored him.

"– and maybe try to realise when someone is giving you advice?" Henry finished angrily picking up his fork again and stabbing a potato so viciously that the poor thing almost jumped off the plate.

"Oh, you mean you're trying to give me advice?" Shawn said with feigned surprise, irritated that his dad always had to lecture him about something. He received no other response than a heated glare from his father. "Fine, I will go back to the crime scene tomorrow and I'll bring Gus. Happy?"

"Let me guess, Gus will be the fresh pair of eyes?" Henry asked a little less heatedly this time as his son had relented to his idea.

"No, don't be ridiculous. Gus will be my idea bouncer and the smoothie buyer. He's indispensable," Shawn said nonchalantly as he stood to take his now empty plate back into the kitchen, missing his dad's silent shake of the head.

It was an hour and a half later that Shawn was finally able to enter his own apartment. The rest of dinner with his dad had turned out surprisingly well considering how it had started. Of course his dad had to ruin it at the last possible moment just as Shawn was leaving by telling him he wanted him to come by later that week to clean up a in his old room. When Shawn had questioned his father on this, he had merely received the response that if Shawn wanted to keep the things in there he had to clean the room himself, regardless of whether or not he still lived there. Shawn had grumbled about that the entire way back to his apartment, but he supposed he could use the case as an excuse to not clean anything. Maybe then his dad would forget about this whole Shawn-has-to-clean-his-room thing.

Yeah right, like that had ever happened before.


So there you have it...first chapter. Do you like?

Virtual pineapples to anyone who finds the Supernatural reference. ;-)