If I Were You and You Were Me.
"Shawn!"
Juliet looked up from her desk to see their favourite psychic detective's best friend stomp into the room. His brow was gathered together and his tone of voice suggested that Shawn Spencer had good reason to be scarce at the moment. It probably had something to do with the fact that Burton Guster was currently wearing a police uniform that was at least three sizes too big for him.
"Is there are reason you're dressed like a reject from the police academy, Guster?" asked Lassiter, leaning out of the Chief's office.
Gus looked to be on the verge of having a hissy fit in the middle of the Santa Barbara Police Station. "Shawn spilled syrup all over my head and then took off with my clothes. I've been shouting from the locker room for the last half hour! Did nobody hear me?"
"Whose clothes are you wearing now?" Juliet asked.
"Um." Gus glanced down at the name tag. "Officer Ban...c-mmm?"
Lassiter shook his head. "McNab maybe?"
"Oh. Yeah. Probably that. But anyways, I've been stuck in the locker room with no clothes. Has anybody seen Shawn?"
Lassiter considered this. He wished he had seen Spencer recently, although that thought set off alarm bells when taken out of context. He wished he had seen Spencer because it looked like Guster here was about ready to rip him a new one, and it would be fun to watch.
"No. I can thankfully say I haven't seen Spencer since lunch. Although he's been here, irritating the hell out of us, every other minute of the day so far."
Juliet sent her partner a frown and turned to Gus. "I thought you guys were busy looking at mug shots."
"We were, until Shawn spilled syrup all over my head and I went to take a shower." Gus noticed Lassiter's raised eyebrows. "He was eating pancakes in the evidence room. I don't think it was an accident. Would you accidentally throw a bottle of syrup at your partner's head?"
Juliet cut off a possible rant about tainting evidence and police property. "Maybe he went back to your office."
"With my clothes?" Gus squeaked. He paced towards the front door, and then turned back to the head detective and his partner. "I've had a bad week. First I almost get run over on Monday. Every night since, I've been getting creepy crank calls. Then Shawn dragged me out of bed this morning, stuck a stupid beanie with ear-flaps on my head as a disguise and told me we couldn't leave the police department for the rest of the day because someone was out to kill us. He wouldn't even let me go out to pick up lunch! If he took my clothes and went back to the office, I'm going to be the one that kills him!"
"I'll help," Lassiter offered.
Juliet gave him a warning look, which the head detective felt was entirely unfounded. They had all shown up to work that morning to find Spencer and a half-asleep Guster on the precinct doorstep. Shawn was wearing a Mexican sombrero, and was, even though Lassiter had previously thought it impossible, more hyperactive than usual. Guster was wearing a furry winter beanie with a long brim and ear flaps that touched his shoulders. Shawn also had him wearing mittens.
Possibly it could have been an appropriate disguise for Alaska, but Lassiter had his doubts.
For the next three hours Spencer had followed the chief around like a puppy on steroids trying to convince her that there was a stalker trying to kill him and Gus. When he couldn't provide any proof, psychic-wise or other, he moved on to following Lassiter. Since Shawn was as impossible to remove from the police precinct as a very bad case of athlete's foot, it took just twenty minutes of Lassie-trailing for the Chief to agree that if Shawn and Gus could find their stalker in the mug shots, she would give them police protection and help them catch the man. She felt it was her duty to avoid bloodshed inside the police department as much as was possible.
"Boom, boom, boom... muffins!"
"Sweet justice!"
Lassiter jumped out of his chair and had his gun drawn before he realised that Shawn's voice was coming from his own desk drawer. Everyone in the workplace was staring.
"Darn, stupid, son of a grnshm-" Lassiter ground his teeth as he unlocked his desk drawer.
"That's Shawn's new ringtone." Gus came over and peered at the neon green cell phone that the head detective drew out.
"How did he get his phone in my –" Lassiter frowned. "It's a text from you, Guster."
"What?" Gus patted down his pants pockets. "Shawn has my phone!"
Juliet leaned forward. "What does it say?"
"I'm tired of this Shawn. If you don't pick up the phone I'm leaving. I'm hungry and I'm going to pick up some lunch." Lassiter looked at the cell in his hand, nonplussed. "Did you write this?"
"No."
"What is that juvenile little moron up to now?"
A new voice disturbed the three from their focus on the cell phone. "Excuse me. Uh, Detective Lassiter?"
Officer McNab was standing in the door way to the work room, a long piece of cardboard in his hands. "Sorry to disturb you. But I was wondering if this belonged to Gus." He flipped the piece of cardboard around to reveal a life-size cut-out of Burton Guster in that morning's outfit, hat with the earflaps and all.
"What the-"
"Hey!"
"I found it on the floor by the front door."
Lassiter rounded on Gus. "Did you two come here for the sole purpose of making sure we would get no work done today? Because I don't appreciate your participation in-"
Just then Chief Vick came storming down the hall from the direction of the conference room. "Exactly who has been messing with the copy machine?" The Police Chief marched into the middle of their workplace and displayed an armful of papers, all splashed with different colours and cut into different shapes. She brandished one paper that showed half of Gus's face, from the nose up. "Do you know anything about this, Mr. Guster?"
Gus still had his mouth open and hadn't left off staring at the life-sized him in McNab's hands. "Uhh... Why would he make a…"
By this point the majority of the officers in the room had given up pretending to work and were watching in quiet anticipation. If Shawn was involved in this, it was liable to be very entertaining. A couple officers with death-wishes even clapped when Lassiter jumped a moment later. The cell-phone had gone off in his hand again.
Lassiter glared at the device and wished as he often had, since meeting Spencer, that he could shoot lasers from his eyes. "What in the name of Sweet Justice is he-? Oh. Incoming text from an unknown number." He read it out loud. "Hey Shawny boy. You just killed your best friend. Told you to leave me alone. So much for being a genius: the police station - really? You thought I wouldn't dare. Guess you're not a psychic either cause you didn't see this coming."
There was silence for a moment.
Then Juliet yanked up her phone and started dialing Gus's cell number while Lassiter started running with Shawn's cell towards the tech department and Chief Vick shouted out that she wanted to know where Shawn Spencer was at that very moment and Gus sat down on the floor very abruptly.
Crack!
A succession of loud noises from outside sent the front door of the Santa Barbara Police Department rattling. Everyone stopped what they were doing. It was gunfire.
Somehow Lassiter made it back across the room to burst out the front door at the exact same time as O'Hara. From the top of the steps they could see a car speeding away down the street, a semi-automatic disappearing in the passenger window. The no-parking zone at the bottom of the stairs was covered in shattered glass from Gus's blueberry-mobile. Its front door was open, and Lassiter recognized Gus's purple shirt and that ridiculous hat on a figure half-slumped in the car door-way. It was just a little too short to be Gus, and the hat was slipping to the side to reveal a very white neck.
"Shawn!"
Juliet rushed down the steps to the car, and Lassiter followed, shoving his gun back into its holster. A crowd of officers was gathering behind them at the top of the stairs.
As they rounded the front of the car Shawn let go of his grip on the front seat and flopped to the ground beside the car. O'Hara started screaming. Lassiter almost didn't notice, because he had started swearing so loudly himself.
The car was riddled with holes, and blood mixed with broken glass on the pavement as Gus's nicely pressed slacks started to turn red. There was too much blood for Lassiter to tell how many times the psychic had been hit. For a moment the only thought running through his head was how odd it was to see Shawn in a buttoned up dress shirt. Then he was ripping open the ruined shirt and pushing those stupid mittens away so he could feel Shawn's pulse.
"A flak jacket!"
Juliet said the words with such hopefulness blurred by the tears streaming down her cheeks that Lassiter felt horrible. Behind them, he could hear Guster throwing up.
He undid the flak jacket, recognizing it as one of his personal own. Multiple flattened bullets fell to the pavement as he thrust it away. Only one of the bullets had made it through, piercing his right shoulder. But now they could see the graze on Shawn's temple, the blood flowing from the back of his neck, and his pants saturated in red. O'Hara started crying harder.
Shawn blinked, and Lassiter gripped the sides of the psychic's face. "Spencer! Shawn! Can you hear me?"
"Luss... e?" Hazel eyes swivelled towards his face, but didn't focus.
"You bet it's me. Open your eyes! You need to stay awake! What were you thinking?" Lassiter scowled and slapped gently at Shawn's chalk white cheek.
He blinked again, and then a small smile pulled at his lips. Lassiter could see his teeth were stained red. "'T work'd... Lussie," he slurred.
"What worked? Wake up Shawn!" Lassie found himself shouting as another officer began pulling at him to give them space. Somebody had brought out an emergency aid kit, and he could hear sirens growing nearer.
Shawn's eyes stayed closed this time, but his hand twitched slightly. Lassiter glanced down at the psychic's hand. It was limply curled beside his pocket. A white corner of paper stood out starkly against all the red. Lassiter gingerly pulled the paper out, cringing at the crimson droplets staining it.
The letters were large and rounded and it was written on the back of one of the police reports the Chief had specifically forbidden Shawn to touch.
Hey Lassie-face!
Hope you don't mind that I borowed your vest. Course I guess I would have taken it even if you did mind. Oh well! I know your a good natured and forgiving guy, Lassie.
So creepy-stalker dude is an idiot as well as having an inflated ego and a tendency for violence. Unoriginal much? You can catch him now. I made sure all the security cameras were fasing the right part of the street. Stalker killer man may also be waiting for you up the street now at a minor road detour.
So he's been haking into my cell, but you should be able trace him now that I'v given you all the evidence. Good old routine - eh Lassie? I solve the cases and you pick up the baddies?
Ooooo! I'm getting psychic visions that a certain head detective needs to change the lock on his desk.
Gotta go. I think the photocopyer is overheating, and I have a fake Gus to make!
- Love and kisses and mushy sentiment from your very most favouritistest Psychic detective!
Lassiter had to squint and blink to read the faint penciled note at the bottom of the page.
P.S. He was trying to get at me through Gus. Couldn't let him do that. Lassiter, please please make sure Gus is okay. This is my falt. Don't let him feel guilty.
"#*$* Spencer!" Lassiter let out a particularly foul epithet as he tried desperately to keep from crushing the letter in his hand. "Why would you do such a damn stupid, stupid..." He looked down to find Juliet tugging at his jacket sleeve. Her nose was red and her face puffy and smeared with tears.
"Lassiter? I want to go with him to the hospital. We need to figure out what's going on."
The head detective glanced over his shoulder to see the psychic's partner stroking the mangled blueberry-mobile in an odd forlorn sort of fashion. He frowned and felt bile rise in his throat as the arriving paramedics descended on the infuriating Spencer.
"Whatever, O'Hara." Lassiter stuffed the letter in his jacket and headed for his car. "And do something about Guster, will you?"
"Ahunredfour bottles of beeronthewall, hunredfour bottles of beeeeer, take one dowwn and passitarounnn, ahunredfive bottles of beeronthewall! Ahunredfive bottles of beeronthewall, ahunredfive bottles of beeeer..."
Lassiter rubbed at his temples and probably wouldn't have even looked up from his paper work if Juliet hadn't leapt from her desk at the sound.
"It's Shawn!"
Groaning, Lassiter got to his feet. "Oh. Is that what that awful noise was?"
But he still wandered over as the inner door of the police station opened and the cacophonous droning came through at a full volume.
"Hey guys!"
It was Gus speaking, and everyone in the room stopped to smile at the pharmaceutical salesman and more specifically, the drugged up psychic lolling against his shoulder.
"We're just on our way home from the hospital, but I thought-" Buzz McNab rushed forward to take a better hold of Shawn and his crutches as the young man began to list to the other side, slurred singing continuing the whole time.
"Thanks, Buzz." Gus detangled himself. "I thought we'd stop by to pick up his phone. You said the evidence had been processed, Lassiter?
Chief Vick strolled over, frowning. "Shouldn't he be in a wheelchair?"
Gus glanced over at his wobbling best friend. "We had one, but Shawn drove it into a lamppost in the hospital parking lot, and they wouldn't give us another."
"Awww." Juliet smiled at Shawn. "Poor thing. I'll go get you a chair."
"Will someone make him shut up already!"
Everyone looked at Lassiter.
"I meant, uh... yes Guster, I'll go get the phone now." He took off to the evidence room at a slightly faster than normal speed.
Juliet pushed an office chair over, and they tipped Shawn into it.
He smiled up at her, and she smiled back even harder, despite the fact that his swollen purple forehead made him look a bit like a Klingon overdosing on Prozac.
"He looks much better." Buzz McNab offered.
"Yeah." Gus smiled happily. "What with the concussion and all the pain medication, he probably won't be lucid for a while. But other than that, he's doing great!"
The chief looked a little sceptical as Shawn gave up staring at her junior detective and rolled his head over to stare at her. "Hey chief! Chief, chee-if, chiffon... Gus, waddus chiffon mean?"
"It's a sheer fabric of silk, nylon, or rayon in plain weave, Shawn." Gus said. "Anyways, Shawn wanted to say hi, or at least he said he did but I'm not entirely sure he understood what we were talking about, and I wanted to pick up his phone while we were still out and about."
Juliet took the opportunity of a less than lucid Shawn to stroke the psychic's hair while the others were talking. "You hear that the evidence was so conclusive they don't even need you two for a deposition, right Gus?"
When the letter (minus its pencilled post-script) had been turned in along with the video footage, cell phone logs and a complete confession a la detective Lassiter, it didn't take the department more than a few hours to put together a case to have 'Creepy-Stalker Dude' sent away for life. It helped that Shawn had left them hints on what sort of questions to ask to bring out the details of all his other past crimes.
Nobody had felt the slightest bit of sympathy when Lassiter's interrogation reduced the Dude to tears. They were all wishing he had just resisted arrest and gotten himself shot.
Half an hour later they had the news from O'Hara that Shawn was all stitched up, and would survive with a stitched up shoulder, moderate lacerations to his head and lower body, abdominal bruising and a concussion, mostly thanks to the door of the blueberry-mobile.
In the end, the Chief busied herself billing Psych for all the photocopy paper, Lassiter went about getting new locks installed on his desk drawers, Juliet sat at the hospital, and Gus sat with her, filling out paperwork for the insurance on his car.
Lassiter strode back into the room, Shawn's neon green phone in hand.
"There you go, Spencer."
Shawn stared at him stupidly, and Lassiter passed the phone to Gus, slightly disconcerted.
"He's not brain damaged, is he?"
"Lassiter!" Juliet frowned, and removed her hand from the psychic's admittedly awesome hair.
Gus shrugged, hauling Shawn up and trying wedge the crutches back in place with Buzz's help. "You never can tell with him. But it's not like he can't afford to lose a few brain cells anyways."
If Lassiter wasn't mistaken, and he hoped he was, a glazed expression akin to admiration had settled on the faces of Buzz McNab and Juliet O'Hara as Shawn gave them an uncoordinated wave goodbye and turned to hobble towards the exit. For Justice's sake, they could at least try and hide it as well as he did.
They watched as Burton Guster dragged his best friend out of the police department. Sometimes it was hard to remember what it had been like without the two of them around. But then, they never did try too hard.
The End