It is an incredibly bad idea for me to start another fic when I still have one I'm focusing on and a few others that have gone un-updated for years. But oh well. I will probably take absolutely forever to update but I just can't wait to share. This, so far, doesn't take place in a particular point in the series. It's probably early in the show cause I want to do some episodes in this AU. It's a basic fic idea in my own style and I have absolutely no planning ahead for it. Forgive if I write the characters a bit OOC, there's no way to learn how to write in their personalities other than simply yolo-ing it. So in summary, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Psych.

1: The Smoothie Conundrum

Shawn didn't see it coming. Well, he saw something coming. Not what happened after.

All he did was try to get the murderer with the orange bandana tied to his arm to move. The car speeding down the street from the rival gang was going to hit them head on. Shawn had no choice but to jump out of the way as the car hit the angry murderer with a purpose.

Shawn never thought this case would go this far. Two simple murders turned out to be two in a large gang war happening right under the cops' noses. One thing led to another and Shawn had a gun pointed at his head and a car headed straight for them. There was one thing he was glad about, at least he caught one of the suspects.

The murderer had his back turned to the car, not believing Shawn that the car was coming towards them. It was a hybrid car accelerating silently, electrically, and it's headlights were off. The murderer didn't notice it until Shawn jumped away and he turned around with no time to spare. The gunman was hit head on.

The driver of the car obviously wasn't too experienced with hitting people, and he lost control. The car swerved, hit a curb, and flipped multiple times. The trunk popped open in the carnage and a large barrel of some chemical, certainly used to manufacture drugs, was thrown out. The barrel exploded on impact and the barrel splashed all over the road, dousing Shawn. The car smashed straight into an electrical pole, making it lean precariously.

Shawn was still laying in the middle of the street, laying on his back grasping his shoulder, which he bruised while landing. It all happened so fast. First, the chemical splashed all over the place, making a huge pool and getting all over Shawn. Then, the heavily damaged car leaning sideways against the power pole moved. Shawn didn't even think anyone could survive that crash, but they did. The driver shoved the airbag out of the way and tried moving the car again. Still caught on the power pole, it reversed. That was too much for the power pole. The pole came down, wires snapped and flung back onto the ground, and a jolt of electricity went through everything touching the chemical puddle for just a split second, and that everything was mostly just Shawn. After that, all went dark.

He woke up in the back of an ambulance. Well, waking up was a bit of a subjective statement. It was more like coming to dazed half-consciousness. His whole body was in immense pain, and that said nothing for the headache he had. Every bump the ambulance hit sent waves of pain through his head, and he shut his eyes and focused on shutting the pain out.

Over the sound of the siren he could hear voices talking over each other. Some were real, some Shawn thought he was only imagining. There were too many sounds, and he couldn't make any words out. Anyways, the noise made his head hurt worse. After a while, he passed out.

It was hours later when he finally woke up, sore all over and with a stabbing headache. He could hardly think for a few seconds, but the pain soon subsided and he quickly came to.

A nurse was checking on him, writing some things down on a clipboard. He looked around, noting that outside the sky was starting to brighten. It was morning. He studied the room, nothing notable there. Standard hospital room, standard hospital bed. He could feel his analysis was slow and incomplete, and he was definitely not on the top of his game right now. The nurse glanced at him then stepped out. A minute later, a doctor walked in.

"Good morning, Mr. Spencer. I'm Dr. Lawson. How are you feeling today?"

"I'm a little sore," Shawn replied. "I hate to be cliche, but how long was I out?"

The doctor smiled slightly at the joke. "It's just past six. You got a huge shock, and paired with your concussion, it kept you out for a while."

"And when can I leave?" He really didn't want to be in here. A nagging feeling hung in the back of his mind. He didn't want to be here. He needed to go solve the case. He could solve it.

The doctor looked at the papers the nurse was writing on a second ago. "You got struck with the voltage of live power lines. Because nobody saw it happen, we're not sure if you got hit with the full voltage or if it was dampened from traveling through the ground. That doesn't change the fact that you got a major shock, which can cause health issues that might show up later, so I'd prefer to keep you here for another day or two. That's not even accounting for the chemical we still haven't been able to identify that you were doused with. We've detected small quantities of it in your bloodstream." He wrote a couple notes on his clipboard. "We've been checking on you all night and luckily nothing was out of the ordinary. With an electric shock like that, you're lucky to get off okay with nothing but a few bruises and a minor concussion." The doctor looked at the papers on the clipboard once again. "I'm amazed your heart's still beating," The doctor mumbled under his breath. Or did Shawn just imagine that? With all the sounds of distant voices in his head and the headache growing, he was still a little out of it and didn't like it.

"I'm not staying here any longer. I've got things to do."

"I can't force you to stay, but it's best if you do."

As Shawn sat up, a wave of pain rushed through his head. In his mind came an image of last night. Some vague, unclear, half-conscious memory, he guessed. The car was almost scrap, and it drove off with the speed of a three-legged turtle, but it escaped. He had to catch them, and solve this case. "I need to get out of here. I'm leaving."

A few hours later, Shawn was back at the Psych office with a big headache, ibuprofen that wasn't helping one bit, and a concerned Gus. The headache was growing more painful by the minute. The doctor said there was only a minor concussion, but Shawn could've been fooled. The front of his skull felt like it was going cave in. Coupling that with the soreness in all of his muscles, he felt absolutely miserable.

He was laying on the couch, trying to sleep the pain away, cause the pain pills weren't working on the headache. At least his shoulder felt better, and the soreness was fading away. But he could practically feel the worry Gus was having. Sometimes he'd want to be worried about, if not only to convince people to be his personal food deliverers, but this time was different. It couldn't be joked away or taken advantage of. He didn't know why. Something was just wrong and Shawn couldn't stop thinking about it and he just wanted this damn pain to get out of his brain and forget about the whole situation.

"Gus, don't be a burned grilled cheese sandwich. I was basically struck by artificial lightning. Can I just sleep it off in peace?"

Gus glared at him. "I didn't say anything."

"Yeah, but you're thinking things," Shawn said.

"Listen, you got an electric shock that should've killed you instantly, and in your post-shock delirium made sure the hospital called nobody to check on you. Not to mention checking out AMA. Of course I'm worried, Shawn."

"Don't you dare tell my dad about this. Actually, don't tell anyone. Don't say you weren't thinking of it 'cause I know you were. We keep it between us." Shawn had more vague memories flash in his mind about what happened after the pole fell, coinciding with each wave of pain. He saw two people limp over to the body of the man they rammed and killed, loaded him in the back seat, and drove off (which was the part he "saw" earlier). It was another maybe five minutes before another car drove by and called an ambulance. Nobody knew what happened until that very morning when he called Gus for a ride. He still wished he could've gotten out of there without telling anyone, but with the hospital bill he needed to pay, even a short taxi ride would be too expensive. He put his hands to his temples to at least try to dull the stabbing feeling.

"Maybe I should tell someone. Someone that can knock some sense into your head. You nearly died!"

The discussion of mortality was definitely not something Shawn wanted to think about. "Its a bad idea to knock anything into a concussed head, Gus. Didn't you read that pamphlet they gave me? Anyways, until we can get to the laundromat on the north end of State Street, we're keeping this between ourselves."

"What laundromat? What are you talking about?"

Shawn sat straight up, bringing a short but strong wave of dizziness, and the headache faded away in a flash as the knowledge came to his mind. "Money laundering. They chose a laundromat because they thought it would be so obvious, nobody would think to look into them. Genius!" He hopped off the couch, still a bit dizzy and stumbled before it subsided.

Gus loaded up maps on his laptop to look for the laundromat. "Do you even know what money laundering means?"

"I gotta get over there, the first gang is coming to get revenge for the guy the laundromat dudes killed." Shawn pulled his phone out to call Juliet, Lassiter, or whoever, then grabbed his motorcycle helmet and ran out the door.

Gus went running after him. "Shawn! Wait up! You need rest!" In fact, Gus did read the pamphlet on concussions, and really tried babysitting Shawn, but he knew it was useless when they were on a case. Shawn was gone in a flash, not surprising. He had a case to solve, and clearly had a breakthrough, and you can't stop him when he gets to a big breakthrough.

Gus got in his car and drove after him. Dealing with Saturday summer tourist traffic was not gonna be easy. He wished he had a motorcycle too right now.

Meanwhile, Shawn was on the phone with Juliet (quite a feat while speeding down a busy street between traffic on a motorcycle) telling her what had to happen. "These guys are riled up. If you charge in there, it'll be a war zone. Get some undercover guys, I have a plan."

"Wait, you're not going in there and being a showoff today? Impressive."

"Jules, trust me. This vision is one of the strongest I've ever had. Oh, by the way, it's a laundromat, so make sure the disguises are laundromat-y."

"Okay, I'll get things set up. Don't do anything reckless before we get there."

"Not this time. See you there." He hung up and continued dodging traffic all the way up to the store. He beat the cops there by a few minutes. He could've easily just went in and done what he usually does, but he trusted his knowledge. He had no clue how he got all the info about the place. Maybe the doctors really were wrong the severity of his concussion. Or maybe the electric shock messed with his brain. Either way, it was incredibly unsettling to not remember. It didn't matter though; he had a bad feeling about this place all around. Those missing memories must be locked away somewhere in his head, he just couldn't consciously remember them.

The cops soon showed up. An undercover van with two plain-clothes officers plus Juliet and Lassiter in a van. Four squad cars parked a little down the street. They all gathered in a parking lot across the street from the laundromat. The laundromat itself was the biggest unit in a row of shops right against the sidewalk, the parking was in the back of that building.

Shawn closed his eyes and put his hand to his head in his signature psychic pose, and pictured the laundromat. "There are only three of the guys inside. It's weird there's only three, but makes it easier for us. They're in the gang that wears the skull rings." He could only see one guy inside through the window, but he was certain there had to be two others. Trying to remember where he got that knowledge just gave him vertigo, so he ignored it for now.

"The Reapers," Juliet interjected.

Shawn nodded. "One is fixing a washing machine. Two are in the back room. If your guys can get the maintenance dude then draw out one of the guys in the back, you won't have any trouble."

Lassiter shook his head. "There is no way you know all this. We're gonna do it my way."

"I'm serious. These guys are waiting for some of the orange bandana gang to come in and shoot the place up. And the orange bandanas have a couple of guys on the way. If you go charging in there, you're going down in a storm of bullets. And Lassie, I'm sure that's the way you'd want to go, but I don't think the office can go without your general angry aura."

"Are you really sure about this? Seriously sure?" Juliet asked.

Shawn was completely serious. Closing his eyes, he focused on those odd memories he couldn't remember and tried to keep his balance. "I can see it all. You have to get them one by one. And I'm sure you'll find a case of illegal guns in that back room too."

"If it's true, we can lock these people up on dozens of charges." It was Lassiter's voice Shawn heard. He was looking away from the stern-faced detective as he heard those words.

"That's right Lassie, dozens of charges, including the original murder that got us into this mess," Shawn replied.

Juliet looked at her partner, who was clearly hiding a surprised glare, then back at Shawn. "Okay, I believe you."

"What, did I say the magic words?" Shawn asked half-rhetorically with a smirk.

Lassiter walked to the van with a scowl. Juliet smiled, still impressed. "He mentioned something like that on our way here. Don't rub it in his face until after we finish up here."

Shawn kept up his aloof mask as best he could, but the seriousness of the situation, and the constant dull pain in his skull, was quite the distraction. "He can have all the credit as long as I can run this thing." Knowing that was just slightly too serious for his character, he added, "maybe he can get the leftover box of jellybeans I left in Gus' glove box as a prize. But that's as far as I'll go. I can't promise the Milk Duds. And the Skittles are strictly off limits."

Lassiter walked back over with communication equipment in hand. "Fine, if your all-seeing eye showed you exactly how to do this, you better prove it."

"Then I hope you like the tropical mix, Lassie. Now, I need paper and a pen. Or colored pencils. Crayons are negotiable."

Juliet gave him a pen and a notepad, while Lassiter passed out discreet earpieces so Shawn could direct them from outside.

Shawn stared into the windows to study the details, noting one man fixing a washer and the general layout visible from across the street. He then drew the layout of the small building, putting together the images he got of it in his head. He shut his eyes and focused on those images, and they got more vivid, revealing more of the fine details. He smiled, feeling more confident in his messed-up memory than ever, and ignoring the fact he never went inside that building. He marked the location of the three men in the gang on his map, not sure why he thought they were in those spots, but it just felt right.

With one last look at his sketch, he was satisfied. "Gather round, everyone. The spirits have shared their knowledge!"

The two undercover officers who were holding duffel bags stood right next to the detectives. Shawn recognized them as officer Chambers, a short guy with a scruffy beard purposely scruffed up more than usual for his disguise, and officer Adams, much taller and more threatening looking than his partner. He hardly knew them, but he could tell they could do this just fine.

"Okay, here's how the spirits say it'll work. Chambers, Lassie, you go in and get a quick and quiet arrest on the guy fixing a machine." He pointed at the little X he put down on the paper. "He's pretty new to the gang, and I have the feeling he'll just take what's coming to him. Chambers, take care of sticking him in a car, Lassie, get ready to be backup. The other two, not so much. Adams, Jules, you'll walk in and pretend to start laundry while the first arrest happens. You'll have to get one guy alone, maybe to help you work the machine or something. He probably won't be quiet about it, so once you guys got him cuffed, get ready for danger. Lassie, bring everyone you've got and charge into that office and get the third guy quick, cause we have maybe fifteen minutes before the rival gang shows up." The sharp pain in his forehead came back with a vengeance, and the whole world started to spin. He couldn't even think of a feigned psychic vibe attack to hide it. He just shut his eyes tight and placed both hands on the table and just hoped he looked like he was in a bout of psychic meditation.

Lassiter hid his face of amazement. Spencer did a perfect job explaining the plan, as if he actually paid attention to real briefings sometimes. (He didn't know that Shawn actually did pay attention, instead ignoring proper protocol in the name of his psychic act.) The rest of the crew looked to him, as if to silently ask for confirmation. "You heard him. Let's get going."

And just like that, the plan was in motion. Shawn recovered pretty quickly and hopped in the back of the van, guiding everyone along. He had a bad feeling about this. His plan was too perfect, that was it. Clearly something just had to go wrong. That was standard, right? That's what gave him the bad feeling. Just standard pattern recognition, he told himself. The first arrest occurred exactly as planned. As Adams was about to draw out the second guy, Shawn told them to hold off.

"Shawn, what are you doing?" Juliet asked silently into the hidden mic.

"There's a back exit, the third guy's going to run once he hears what's going on. Someone get back there, quick!"

"Got it," Lassiter said. Through the cameras on the van, Shawn saw the detective signal some uniformed officers to follow him around back.

"Okay, we're good. Plan can continue," Shawn said into his walkie.

The second guy was drawn out and detained. He yelled for his partner to run, just as Shawn predicted. But his escape was blocked.

Shawn hopped out of the van. The squad cars pulled up, lights flashing, to the front of the laundromat. Soon enough, the place would be searched. When the orange bandanas would drive by, they'd just turn and run after seeing the cops swarming the place. He watched the scene for one minute more, and saw the third guy being dragged to a squad car, looked him down, and noticed his various fresh cuts and bruises.

And missing all the action, Gus finally pulled in. He took a quick look at the scene before hopping out of his car. "Shawn, what did you do?" he asked as he walked over.

"Once again, I saved the day," Shawn boasted. "I bet those guys are gonna make a deal and rat out the rest of the gang."

"Seriously, what even happened?"

"I'm on fire today! I got to tell everyone what to do. Even Lassie listened to my plan." He smirked. "Undercover operation," he added in a bragging tone.

Gus laughed at that. "No way. Your brain really did get totally fried last night. There's no way anyone would let you direct anything, especially not Lassie."

"He was impressed Gus. He would never admit it, but he was. Maybe we should get some smoothies to celebrate."

There was no way. Gus didn't believe Shawn could make a plan that clean without pulling some ridiculous stunts in the middle. And Lassiter would never let him be in charge, ever. So Gus was suspicious. "Smoothies sound good right now. Why don't you go get us some while I catch up with everyone?"

"Go brag to everyone for me. No, actually, we don't need to. Look at their gazes." Shawn walked off with a nefarious smile, leaving Gus to wonder what was actually in everyone's gazes and what he even meant by that. Shawn was definitely acting strange today, like he was distracted. He wasn't making as many jokes as usual, and he looked like he was keeping up appearances. He was clearly hiding something. Gus imagined it was that concussion messing with him, or possibly something more was on his friend's mind. The smoothie shop was right down the street, so Gus had maybe ten minutes to talk to everyone alone, just to see if someone else picked up on how Shawn was acting.

"You're a bit late to the party, Guster," Lassiter said.

"Shawn's motorcycle is a real life cheat code," Gus said. "Traffic was awful. What even happened here?"

Lassiter looked over Gus' shoulder, seeing Shawn walking away from the scene. He could talk freely now. "He took it seriously. He made a plan, stayed in the background, and let us do the dirty work without interfering. What did you do to him last night?"

He couldn't just say, "Well, after we finished getting pizza, Shawn went out hunting for a murderer and got himself electrocuted." So he just shrugged. "He's been like this all morning. He had some psychic vision and ran out on me to come here, hardly explaining anything. Did you notice him acting strange at all? At least, strange for him?"

"Whatever it is, it's preferable to his normal antics. Don't bring attention to it, I don't think he realizes he's not bothering us to his normal degree and would like to keep it that way."

"Carlton!" Juliet scolded her partner. "It really was impressive," she said to Gus, "he was good, real good. He lead us through the plan like a pro. His psychic information was accurate as ever." She paused and looked down the street. "But he was too good for him. Usually he can't help but show off, or make endless jokes for attention. He was impressively serious this time."

"That's what I thought," Gus said. Great, he's gonna blow his cover at this rate. "I'll talk to him when he gets back. He's having a... big psychic event. Go do your thing for now, and don't worry about him. He'll just pick up on it."

Meanwhile, Shawn was halfway to the smoothie shop. The noon traffic of people walking by was not unusual. He noticed everything about everyone he walked by of course. The way the woman's purse was scuffed, the way that guy with the red shirt rubbed his chin, the teen girl struggling to unlock her beat up car. He practiced his deductions. The scuffed purse was caused by the woman tripping on a sidewalk pushed up by a tree root. The man had just gotten a fresh shave after having a beard for a while, and hadn't gotten used to it. The teen got her car from working all year at a craft store, and the lock was sticky, there was a sweet spot for the key to sit that she hadn't perfected. He did this quick-glance-to-deduction game often as a practice of his skills, but what he pictured today was much sharper, more detailed, and he was more certain about them. He had to stop, though, as it just made his head throb again.

He got to the smoothie place, but before ordering, sat down and gave the situation a moment of thought. A spilled chemical plus electricity. That could totally be a superhero origin story, couldn't it? His amazing observation skills were already superhuman enough (he thought as he noticed how one of the fluorescent lights was dimmer than the others, it would need to be replaced soon). He considered it was maybe making his concussion a really weird one. He didn't know what classifies a concussion as weird, but he guessed this was it. He certainly wasn't having any symptoms of it now, and they only came in very short bursts. Maybe the symptoms were accompanying his new boost in skills. Yeah, that must be it, he thought to himself. That plus a tiny bit of slightly unsettling memory loss. Just weird concussion antics.

He had to test it. He only went to get the smoothies in the first place because Gus clearly wanted to talk about him without him being there. He was certain his best, most trusted friend would keep last night's incident secret but he knew he was acting unusual enough for everyone to notice. He still didn't feel a hundred percent, even though his perception was better than ever. So he wanted to prove he was still good, still on his game. What flavor smoothie did Gus want? He looked at all the choices on the menu, closed his eyes and thought about it for a few seconds. He could just get Pineapple Party, as always. But what did Gus really want today?

That was an easy one. Even though they rarely hit this smoothie shop, Shawn already knew Gus chooses one of their two pineapple mixes when he was the one ordering. But which one of the two? Pineapple Twist or Pineapple Party? Shawn was more partial to Pineapple Party, it brought out the flavor of the pineapple better. But from what he saw in his friend today, he just had the feeling Gus was in a Pineapple Twist mood.

So, he would order for someone else. What would Juliet want? She clearly wouldn't mind a smoothie. She seemed to be in the mood for one. He studied the menu (not something he really needed to do, he had it memorized already, and also the menu decal on the board was peeling at the corner and really needed to be fixed), then thought about Juliet. For some reason, he focused on Mango Swirl. It just popped out at him.

Another tropical flavor, nice. He'd have to bring her into the pineapple club soon, though. He tried to find some sort of evidence that was what she really wanted. But all he had was the feeling that this flavor was just right.

He had one more person to order for. Lassie! This was another easy one, he hardly had to think at all before Pink Lemonade Blast had blasted in his mind.

Makes sense. Lassie never seemed like a big smoothie person anyways, and that smoothie wasn't as sweet as the rest. Perfect for him.

He got up and ordered smoothies for everyone, including Pineapple Party for himself. If he wasn't just guessing that everyone wanted smoothies, and if everyone is happy with the flavors, he really did have magically boosted skills. Or he just became psychic. A hilarious notion, a fake psychic becoming a real psychic! He laughed the thought away, but it never quite disappeared. He sat down to wait for the smoothies to be made, which helped when his vision blurred and he lost his balance as a result of his concentration. Soon, the smoothies were finished and he left the shop.

He walked back to the crime scene, this time doing his best not to think about the things he couldn't help but notice, lest it triggered more of those concussion symptoms. Gus was messing around on his phone while Juliet and Lassiter helped do crime-scene things that Shawn never paid attention to or stuck around for as that stuff was just too boring.

Shawn gave Gus his smoothie. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

Gus shrugged. "I guess they found a few bags of money and some imported weapons, and they've got the drug dogs in there now." He took a sip of the smoothie. "Pineapple Twist? You never get me this!"

"You can't hide your twisty mood, and today I just had sympathy for it," he joked. "Were any of the three guys one of our murder suspects?"

"Yeah, the guy that tried to run. My guess is he was probably the guy that drove that car from last night you were talking about earlier. We also found out the name of the orange bandana gang, they're new on the streets and call themselves Hellfire."

"Sweet, I was right! And the dude was definitely the dude from last night, don't think I didn't catch how banged up he was." That was another point for epic skills. "I've got a couple more deliveries to make. Enjoy your paradise in pineapple."

He went and found Juliet. "The spirits are telling me you like mango," he said.

She smiled when she turned to see Shawn holding out a smoothie. "Tell the spirits thanks for me! This is just what I needed right now."

"The spirits don't lie. They're also telling me I should convert you to pineapple, but at least mango is in the sweet tropical goodness family." Two out of three guesses were correct. Now, he had one more smoothie. The ultimate test.

He went to where Lassiter was observing the drug dogs sniff around. "Special delivery for one Lassafrass McGrumps. It's not half a box of jellybeans, but I hope you can make do with this."

Lassiter grabbed it, sniffed it, took a quick sip and gave a tiny nod in satisfaction. "Thanks, Spencer," he said quietly and awkwardly before walking off. A clear success.

Shawn smiled. This was proving ground, and all went well. He was better than before. Skills were heightened and hopefully they were to stay. But how much of a boost did his skills get, he wondered? That was the real question here. That was the question that would show how much fun he could have with this. He stood back and watched the show, drinking his smoothie, avoiding Gus, and hoping for a chance to pet one of the dogs.

That's it for the first chapter. I hope you enjoyed! Follow, favorite, review!