Chapter
Time went on and Psych continued to solve cases, both with the SBPD and on the private sector. The UST between Shawn and Lassiter continued to go unchecked and unacknowledged. In fact, very few even picked up on it at all. Shawn thought Juliet might have a suspicion, but since it was never brought up she couldn't be sure. She certainly wasn't going to say anything. After a surprising case where Shawn and Gus broke into legal consulting and proved Lassie's perp to be innocent, it seemed like Lassie would ease up a bit on his anti-psychic crusade. Especially when he personally rescued her bike from the police auction after Henry called in one too many parking violations on her. But things just went back to normal once again.
Unfortunately, the chief had not been calling on Psych in quite some time. A month, to be exact. Apparently, Lassie was on some sort of streak, solving cases left and right. Shawn looked around the station in confusion. How was it that there had been a full month of cases that they didn't need her on? She decided to tag along with Lassie and Jules to their latest case. She knew she had to pull something completely amazing out of her hat if she wanted have money for the bills at the Psych office. Lucky for her, the body that had washed up on the beach had puncture wounds she was absolutely sure were consistent with the bite radius of a tyrannosaurus rex. She knew this because she had climbed inside a fossilized tyrannosaurus mouth in the museum several years back to achieve the perfect photo op and the bruises didn't fade for a full year.
Somehow, the chief got it in her head that Shawn was suicidal and called her father to stage an intervention. Fortunately, right in the middle of said intervention, Vic, Lassie and Jules came in to tell her the dead guy was a paleontologist. So, her dinosaur angle wasn't too far a stretch. She and Gus hopped on board and followed a lead out to a farm in the middle of nowhere, where they almost got shot by a grumpy farmer. The next time they came back, they were a bit more careful. By the end of the case, the two friends had successfully solved the murder, discovered a dinosaur and proved that the puncture wounds on their dead paleontologist did in fact come from the jaw of a tyrannosaurus. Lassie was exhaustedly resigned, and Psych was back in business. Shawn grinned at Lassie triumphantly, barely suppressing the urge to stick out her tongue like a six-year-old.
Lassiter himself was once again questioning everything he stood for. "How can I even compete with that?" he asked Juliet later. "I am completely incapable of pointing the finger at a dragon or the loch ness monster!" "You had a good run, Carlton," she replied. "You're a good cop. Don't let this get you down. No sane person would have guessed dinosaur." He nodded thoughtfully. "Do you need a hug?" Juliet continued. He looked at her, one eyebrow raised. "What? Of course I don't need a hug! Who do you think I am?" He paused for a moment. "Okay, just for a minute." She smiled and gave him a big hug. "Thanks," he said. "Any time."
And so it went. Day to day, week to week, month to month. Before she knew it, Shawn had been playing psychic for two years already. How that happened, she didn't know. She'd never held a job for this long in her life. Usually, she got a job, learned the particulars, had fun for maybe a few weeks and quit. Then she'd move on to the next thing that came along. Honestly, she was starting to get a bit antsy. She was certainly blaming her restlessness for the incident with the bank. Gus had gone inside to make a deposit. Shawn, naturally, hated waiting in lines and therefore stayed in the car. The next time she looked up it was to see Lassie and Jules pull up to the curb in front of Gus's car, followed closely by what seemed to be practically the entire precinct. Her nose wrinkled in confusion as she squinted up at Lassie and got out of the car. "What are you guys doing here?" she asked. Juliet barely glanced at her when she answered. "We got a call about a bank robbery in progress and we're pretty sure the guy is taking hostages." Shawn could feel the color drain from her face and almost started crying when Lassie caught her around the waist, stopping her from running to the bank doors. "Spencer, what the hell?!" he yelled at her, not letting go until he was sure she wouldn't try to make a break for it again. "Gus is in there," she managed to choke out. She avoided both of their eyes, knowing she would only see pity. She didn't need pity, she needed to do something. She hated that no one would give her a gun in situations like this. It was like they didn't think she could handle herself.
To make matters worse, the chief wouldn't let her help at all. All of her suggestions were shot down almost as quickly as she voiced them, and the SWAT guy who was now in charge was extremely full of himself. On the upside, Lassie seemed to hate him as much as she did. On the downside, Shawn was pretty sure Juliet was sleeping with him so they didn't have her on their side. Her suspicion was confirmed when she and Juliet had what for them counted as a fight about the guy's methods. Shawn was not impressed. So she did what she did best. She manipulated the situation and got herself into the bank. Maybe not the smartest move if you asked anybody else, but she desperately needed to get a read on the situation inside if she was going to save Gus.
It turned out to be a good thing, too. She was able to figure out that Phil (the guy with the gun) wasn't actually the one calling the shots. She convinced him to let her leave the bank to find his wife, who had been kidnapped and held as collateral so that Phil would rob the bank. Under the guise of being 'debriefed' by Lassie, she told him the situation and, after only a brief argument, he set his shoulders. "You take shotgun," he said. "You are so sexy right now, Lassie," she whispered as they hopped in the police van and took off to check out the foreclosed houses she'd seen the list of in the bank manager's office. She was sure that the manager was somehow in on the whole thing and an abandoned house would be the perfect place to hide someone for a few hours while they waited for Phil to bring them the diamonds. Surprisingly, Jules was actually on board with the theory as well, and she came along. They were successful in finding the wife, but by the time they came back to the bank the SWAT team had already gone in with the tear gas. Shawn, in a fit of spitefulness, sent SWAT man on a wild goose chase into the sewers to find the bank manager's partner. Meanwhile, she and Gus boosted Lassie up into the air vent where she knew he was really hiding. She was determined this would be a win for the SAPD and took vindictive pleasure in showing up the SWAT team. And if the resulting smell clinging to SWAT man meant that his date with Jules had to be postponed, more the better./p
