Disclaimer: I don't own Psych, neither does Deej my awesome co-writer over on PF. We just like to take the characters out and play for a while.
The story resulted as the two of us not having cable. So Wednesday nights turn into avoiding the forum and twitter. :-)
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Everyone has their sick days. For a few lucky people, they're conveniently placed over a long weekend, or when there isn't much work to be done at the office. For the rest of the world, they come at the worst time possible. Sometimes the person will soldier through, arming themselves with boxes of Kleenex and enough cough syrup to supply a small country. Other times, there's nothing they can do except stay home, curl up on the couch, surround themselves with fluids and Kleenex, and do nothing except watch a season or two of their favorite show.
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Shawn pulled yet another tissue from the box on the sofa beside him, honking slightly as he blew his nose for the umpteenth time. His phone, which was sitting on the end table next to a giant bottle of blue Gatorade, began to ring.
As the chorus to "Ebony and Ivory" reached his ears, he knew it was Gus. He sighed, paused the current episode of Magnum PI, and reached over to answer the call. "Yes, Gus, I am keeping my body liquefied and I'm taking it easy," he told his friend before Gus even had a chance to say hello.
"Whatever, Shawn. Just listen for a second. Remember that reporter chick who called us a few weeks ago about setting up an interview?"
"Yeah ..." Shawn fiddled with a loose thread on his blanket. "What about the... Oh crap, that's today," he suddenly observed.
"Yes Shawn, that's today." Gus said, his voice slightly panicked. "What are we going to do? The reporter is bringing a photographer over to the office in a few hours."
"Well buddy, it looks like you'll just need to tell them I'm sick." Shawn laughed slightly before he started coughing into the phone.
"That's not going to work this time, Shawn. This interview is really important to the department. If we bail out, they're going to think you're a fake, which, although it's true, isn't something we want published in a national magazine, especially one as important as Back Up. " Gus's voice was now frustrated.
"Then I guess you'll just have to pretend to be the psychic today." Shawn yawned into the phone. Being sick always made him lethargic and this conversation wasn't helping his concentration at all.
"Shawn, I can't pretend to be the psychic one again. Uncle Burton still won't shut up about his last visit," Gus protested over the phone. "What about Lassiter? He's a good detective. He might be good at it."
"Seriously, that's your best idea: Lassie? What if they plan on taking pictures? We don't want to scare the readers," Shawn objected. "Buzz would work. I've always thought our striking jaw lines resembled each other, and you know I've always been mistaken for being taller than my height. The hair would be the only problem; you can't solve a crew cut in two hours. Besides, when did Lassie and the police get involved?"
"When you opened your big mouth and started solving cases for them. The chief really wants this interview to go well, because it will give the department a good public image."
"Well, Buzz's image will have to do for today. Putting me on the cover won't work this time. I'm not looking my best right now. I mean it, dude; my hair hasn't been this unexciting
since freshman year of high school."
"There's something you might have forgotten, Shawn. Buzz isn't psychic, nor did his dad train him to be a super cop, so he's not going to be any help," Gus reminded his friend. From the sounds coming over the phone, Shawn could tell Gus was driving, most likely on his way to sort out the predicament.
"You know, as much as Buzz isn't going to be any help, I just don't know how me sitting on a couch is going to be any help either." Shawn yawned again. "Good luck figuring it out buddy, I really need to finish this episode so I can take a nap, even though I know the girlfriend did it. These writers weren't very creative." Gus heard a click as Shawn hung up the phone.
"Thanks for nothing," Gus grumbled into the silent phone. He put his phone away and focused on the road. He made a quick left and headed for the police station. If anyone would help him out it was Juliet O'Hara. Gus knew she would have an idea of how to get him out of this mess.
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"What do you mean, Shawn's sick?" Juliet's voice was as panicked as Gus' had been when he'd realized the interview was that afternoon. "He can't be sick today of all days. Do you know how much this interview will mean to the department and how much it would hurt our reputation if it gets canceled last minute?"
Gus nodded. "Believe me, I do. But there's just no way he's going to be any help even if he does manage to get down to the office. He's officially out of commission for the next few days."
Juliet sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Well, this is just perfect," she sighed.
"What's perfect?" Lassiter asked, coming over to his partner's desk carrying a cup of coffee.
"Lassiter, what are you doing here on a Saturday?" Gus asked, even though he really wasn't surprised to see the head detective there.
"I'm always here on Saturday, except the first and third mornings of every month. That's when I'm supposed to meet with my therapist." Lassiter spat out the word therapist as if it was akin to the word murderer or arsonist.
"Carlton, this is the first Saturday of the month," Juliet pointed out after a moment.
Lassiter shrugged. "What, you think criminals are going to stop committing crimes from nine to eleven so I can sit on a couch and talk about my feelings?" Lassiter rolled his eyes and took a sip of his coffee. "I decided to not go today so I could work on some things."
"Things like a perfect cup of coffee." Juliet couldn't help but smile despite the glare Lassiter gave her.
"Can we get back to the real problem? Shawn is sick, and there's going to be a reporter at the Psych office in two hours wanting to talk to a psychic detective about how his particular brand of deduction helps the police department on a weekly basis," Gus snapped.
"Spencer is sick?" Lassiter didn't sound concerned. In fact, if Gus had to put a name to the tone in Lassiter's voice, it would be glee or some other happy-sounding word.
"Yes. Some nasty bug that seems to have made itself at home with him," Gus said. "And now the reporter from Back Up is going to show up looking for Shawn Spencer and won't be able to interview him."
"At least someone can live with him," Lassiter commented. "Shouldn't he have seen this coming anyway. He is a 'psychic', after all."
O'Hara smacked her partner in the shoulder. "Carlton, this is very serious. The chief wants this interview to go smoothly so the department can get some good PR. I think we at least owe it to the chief to figure something out. What would she say if she came back from vacation and found out the interview was canceled?" Juliet chastised her partner.
"Fine," Lassiter agreed, rubbing his shoulder. "Did Spencer have any 'psychic' ideas about what we should do while he's sick?"
Gus could hear the air quotes around the word 'psychic' as Lassiter's tone picked up the normal sarcastic edge it adopted when he talked about Shawn's job with the department.
"He suggested we find someone to pretend to be him for the interview." Gus explained to them.
"I will not pretend to be Spencer." Lassiter objected.
Gus snorted in laughter. "He didn't suggest you. He suggested McNab." He purposefully left out the reasoning behind Shawn's not suggesting the head detective.
Now it was Lassiter's turn to snort in laughter, which nearly resulted in coffee coming out his nose. "McNab? I suppose we're supposed to find a fake crime scene for the fake psychic to investigate as well?"
"That could work," Juliet mused.
Lassiter stared at her. "O'Hara, I wasn't being serious."
"Well, I was. Think about it. The magazine gets what they need, and we don't have to worry about pulling it off at a real crime scene. We can adjust the surroundings to fit what we need. It'll be tailor-made so Buzz doesn't have to work too hard to find the clues."
"You might be onto something," Gus nodded.
"Wait," Lassiter protested. "You can't seriously expect this to work. Where are you going to get a personalized crime scene? None of us have the skills to stage a crime, not to mention that we don't have the place for one either."
"We don't," Gus admitted, "but I know someone who does." He held up his cell phone. "When Shawn and I were little, his dad used to make him solve things all the time. He'd place clues in the back yard or in the kitchen to get Shawn ready for the days when he would be a cop."
"Thank God that never happened." Lassiter muttered, which earned him another punch to the shoulder from his partner.
Juliet turned to Gus. "Do you think he would agree to help stage a crime scene?"
"I'm still not sure I like this idea," Lassiter objected.
"I don't know if he'd help us out to save Shawn's reputation," Gus admitted, reflecting on the older Spencer's dislike for his son's psychic charade.
"What if he thought it was just another training project?" Juliet asked.
Gus shrugged. "He might, if you asked nicely enough."
"So ask," Lassiter said. "But whatever you do, you better decide soon. We're going to need some time to get everything ready if we plan to pull this off. Guster, call Spencer and get the scene set up. O'Hara, you're with me. We'll pick up our 'psychic' and meet up with Guster at the Psych office."
"What if he says 'no'?" Gus inquired.
"Then make the scene yourself. We'll see you at the office in an hour." Lassiter's tone left no room for argument. Gus sighed, but agreed to Lassiter's plan. O'Hara gave him a small wave and ran to catch up to her partner as he strode determinedly towards his car.
"For the record, I still think this is a horrible idea." Lassiter reminded O'Hara as they buckled themselves in and pulled out of the station's parking lot.
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"Wait, you want me to do what?" McNab's face screwed up in confusion as he stood in the middle of his living room, appearing quite uncomfortable to be wearing his bathrobe while talking to his superiors.
"McNab, you know I wouldn't ask you to do this under any other circumstances," Lassiter told him. "If this were just some small interview, I'd let Spencer take whatever humiliation came from canceling on the reporter. But the chief is counting on this to go smoothly."
"But no one could mistake me for Shawn; he has such great hair, and I'm so much taller than he is," the rookie officer pointed out.
"This reporter has never met either of you before," Juliet informed him. "Just remember you're Shawn during the interview and you'll be fine."
"Besides," Lassiter said, "it's your duty to the entire SBPD to make sure this goes off without a hitch. The reputation of a department rests on the shoulders of its officers. If I weren't so well-known as a head detective, I would be doing this myself."
McNab hesitated for a moment before nodding. "All right, if it's only for the one interview I suppose I could. I did take a beginning acting class when I was in college."
"I know you can do it," O'Hara smiled at the younger officer.
"Now go get some clothes on," Lassiter ordered him. "If you have anything ridiculous like those polo shirts Spencer always wears, that'll make it easier to get into character. You know, brightly-colored offenses to the color palate."
"Francie loves me in polos," Buzz muttered as he headed for the bedroom in the back of the apartment.
"Carlton, be nicer to him." O'Hara whispered at her partner. "He's doing us a really big favor by agreeing to play Shawn."
"He wouldn't be having to play Spencer in the first place if Spencer had taken better care of his immune system."
O'Hara rolled her eyes. "You make it sound like it's all Shawn's fault."
"Well, it is," Lassiter snapped at her.
Buzz emerged from bedroom at that moment, decked out in a red polo and blue jeans. He had even mussed up his hair in an effort to be more Shawn-like. Juliet put a hand over her mouth to hide a smile and Lassiter just rolled his eyes again.