"What'd you do to your head?" Gus asked the moment Shawn walked into the Psych office.
"Nothing," Shawn mumbled, finally just ripping the stupid band-aid off before another person could hassle him about it.
"Yeah, you did." Gus argued, pointing at the sizeable scrape on Shawn's forehead. "You're all cut up. What'd you do?"
"I got shot."
"In the head?"
"Yes, Gus!" Shawn snapped impatiently. "I got shot in the head! Ok? Why does everyone find that so hard to believe?"
"It doesn't even look like a bullet wound, Shawn. It looks like a scrape, like you fell or something."
"I didn't fall!" Shawn shouted. "I got shot!"
"Okay, okay." Gus raised his hands conciliatorily. "You got shot…in the head."
He said the words, but Shawn could tell he didn't really believe them.
"Gus, what do you know about Ritalin?" He asked, quickly changing the subject before Gus could ask anymore questions about his injury.
Gus cocked an eyebrow at his best friend.
"Oh, I think you're a bit beyond that at this point." He said seriously. "What you need is electroshock therapy."
"Funny," Shawn muttered, glaring as he turned a chair around backwards and sat down across the desk from Gus. "I'm serious. What do you know about it?"
Gus leaned back thoughtfully, trying to figure out where Shawn was going with this.
"I don't know. It's a stimulant, but it has the opposite effect on kids. It increases attention span and helps with concentration, so they use it to treat ADD. It's still pretty controversial, though, because of the side effects. Why?"
"Because both victims were pumped full of it when they died."
"Oh," Gus nodded knowledgably. "They were probably using it as cheap Speed. It's easy enough to get, and there's a huge black market for it. Teenagers with ADD sell it off instead of taking it, or they steal it from their little brothers and sisters."
"But could you use it to murder someone by giving them a heart attack?" Shawn asked.
Gus shrugged.
"Theoretically, I guess, but it'd be a pretty inefficient way to kill someone. It does increase your heart rate and it has been linked to several heart attacks in kids, but it'd take a lot of it to kill a healthy adult. Besides, there wouldn't be any guarantee it would actually work the first time."
Shawn sighed, running his hands through his hair as all his theories started to go up in smoke.
"I don't get it," he muttered to himself, standing up and starting to pace the room, his brain pounding furiously. "They weren't junkies. Their systems were clean three months ago. Why would they suddenly start taking drugs?"
Gus shrugged again, his eyes following Shawn's nearly-frantic jaunt around the room.
"People don't always take it to get high," he said after thinking about it for a few minutes. "Sometimes, they just take it to stay awake."
Shawn paused, slowly turning back to his friend.
"What?"
"It's like a really powerful cup of coffee," Gus explained. "It keeps you awake and focused. It also gets you high, but people have gotten addicted to it just for the coffee effect before. The problem is, once your body is used to it, you have to take more of it to get the same results."
Shawn nodded slowly, a grin breaking out across his face as the pieces finally began to fall into place in his mind.
"Gus, you're genius!"
Gus grinned back and clicked his heels up on the desk, clasping his hands at the nape of his neck in satisfaction.
"Well, duh."
"Spencer! What the hell did you do to your head?"
Shawn groaned as he stepped out of the classroom and nearly collided with Lassiter, who was on his way in.
"Nothing." He growled.
"Did that woman finally try to kill you?"
"No!"
"Then what—"
"Nothing! And what are you doing here, anyway, Lassie?" Shawn demanded. "Shouldn't you be at the station interrogating some innocent person or something?"
Lassiter shrugged, still staring at Shawn's forehead suspiciously.
"I'm supposed to give a lecture about the proper technique for taking finger prints at a crime scene," he explained. "Detective Johnson always asks me to do it for him. He's an old mentor of mine."
As if on cue, Detective Johnson stepped out of the classroom into the hallway.
"Oh, Lassiter. You're here." He mumbled, checking his watch. "You're early."
"Yes, Sir." Lassiter nodded.
"Have you met Spencer?" Johnson continued, gesturing at the psychic with his thumb.
"Unfortunately, yes, Sir." Lassiter muttered. "He does some consulting work for the Department."
"Well, make sure the Department doesn't lose him," Johnson said firmly. "He's the best recruit I've ever seen."
Lassiter's jaw nearly came unhinged as it hit the floor.
"Spencer?" He gawked, his eyes bulging out of his head. "Spencer is the best recruit you've ever seen?"
Shawn was almost doubled over in laughter now.
If there was ever a more perfect moment in life, he couldn't think of it.
"You heard him, Lassie." He beamed, not even trying to hide his gloating. "Your mentor thinks I'm the best recruit he's ever seen."
"Are you sure you're talking about Spencer?" Lassiter asked, refusing to believe it was possible. "Shawn Spencer? The pain-in-my-ass psychic?"
"Yes!" Johnson insisted. "Shawn Spencer! Good God, Lassiter. How could you not see it? He has the sharpest mind I've ever seen."
"You hear that, Lassie?" Shawn grinned, elbowing the still stunned detective. "The sharpest mind."
"And he shattered your record score on the shooting range, too." Johnson added, needlessly rubbing salt in the paper cut that was Lassiter's soul.
"He beat my record?"
For a minute, Lassiter looked like he was going to be sick.
"Aww, don't worry, Lassie." Shawn consoled him with a gentle pat on the shoulder. "Just by twenty points."
"Shut up, Spencer."
Detective Johnson checked his watch again and continued down the hall.
"Your lecture is in a half-hour, Lassiter," he called over his shoulder.
Lassiter didn't respond.
Once Detective Johnson was out of sight, Shawn couldn't help himself.
He had to torment Lassiter with this new revelation.
"You know, my dad didn't get to hear that…" he sighed wistfully, draping his arm around the fuming detective's shoulder. "…if I go get him and bring him back here, will you tell him that Detective Johnson thinks I'm the best recruit he's ever seen? He won't believe me if I tell him."
"Shut up, Spencer!"
Lassiter shoved his arm off and stormed off down the hall. Shawn laughed and turned to go back into the classroom, but as he reached for the heavy, wooden door, it suddenly flew open. The corner struck him right in the nose, and before he could even blink he was lying flat on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling in a daze.