Chapter Text
“Juliet.”
The midday sun streaks through the blinds of the SBPD. It is unusually warm for Santa Barbara this time of year, and it’s always warm in Santa Barbara. Gus fidgets with the top button of his shirt, trying to let a fresh gust of air blow through his clothes.
“Look, Gus.” Juliet turns around in her chair to face him. Her blonde hair hangs in thin threads around her face and dark circles drip from her eyes. Her bottom lip puckers with anxiety before she speaks to him. “If you’re here to talk to me about Shawn. I’m not in the mood, okay?”
Shawn told him everything.
It was a very rare moment that Shawn Spencer was open. And once it happened, it was like a waterfall. Shawn told him everything about the jacket, the ticket, Juliet, and then finding some strange girl covered in blood while taking the taxi home. They spoke in the hallways of the hospital where Shawn had taken her, his voice teetering between smooth and a wavering panic.
Gus really wanted to say “I told you so”—because he did. He told Shawn in the very beginning that lying about being a psychic was a bad idea and that he had to, at least, tell Juliet the truth. But he couldn’t do that. Shawn was shaken in a way that didn’t seem possible, as much as he tried to hide it.
Gus moves around her desk and stands at her side, finding more courage and spark in his step. “I just need you to hear me out.”
“Hear you out?” With the words, her breath escapes all at once in a heave of thoughts and emotions she has clearly been trying to hold in. “He lied to me, Gus. He knows how I feel about liars and he went ahead and kept lying to me and everyone else.”
“And you have every right to be upset but–”
“And you knew too. The whole time! Which makes me angry at you too! You’re defending a liar!”
“First of all, Shawn is my best friend and I will always look out for him. Second, he has been a shell of himself since you broke up with him. He’s been sleeping in the Psych office for days. He didn’t even want to eat the jerk chicken I brought him. He’s messed up.” Gus leaves out the part where he ate Shawn’s rejected chicken. What can he say? He’s weak for jerk chicken.
“You know, I really don’t care.” Juliet rotates her chair back into the forward position, the clack of her high heels moving across the floor, and stares back into the computer screen in front of her. Conversation shut and closed. But Gus refuses to drop this. Not this time.
He leans over the screen of her computer. “But I’m not entirely convinced he was lying to you. Or at least, Shawn only thinks he’s been lying.”
“What does that even mean?”
Gus groans. “Come on.” Then he grips Juliet by the arm, fingers tight around the sleeve of her dark blazer and tugged her from her chair. Despite her protests, he walks her to the waiting area of the SBPD where an older man with a very impressive beard had dozed off in one of the plastic chairs. “Yes, Shawn initially lied about being psychic because everyone thought he was somehow connected to all the crimes he was solving and then raking in the money by ratting on people. And yes, he did create Psych based on that lie. But I think he might actually be psychic, he just doesn’t know it. I’ve had this theory for a few months now, but I’m only really convinced of it now.”
Her expression is flatly unamused. “I’m not following.”
“Shawn has a really keen sense of observation and an eidetic tonal memory. Plus all that stuff that his dad taught him. But Shawn can do things that Henry can’t. How does he always know where the clue is? We can be in a house full of stuff and he will find the most important clue in under a minute. Even the best detectives can’t do that. His descriptions of the crimes are extremely vivid, even without the information he’s already working off of. And Shawn can look across the room at a piece of paper, and it’s like he zooms in with a lens. Most people with an eidetic memory can only recall details for a short amount of time. He sees and remembers it for way longer than anyone should be able to.”
Shawn had been that way since they were kids. Gus didn’t think much of it until recently. Shawn was just different from other people (in a lot of ways). Gus always chalked it up to how Henry tried to drill police work into his young son, or how Shawn was clearly unmedicated for ADHD and could barely hold focus for longer than a minute. Shawn lived in his own world. And Gus accepted that. But now, after 7 years of solving crimes, something seemed off.
Shawn is good. Scary good. Supernaturally good. It isn’t normal. And it calls into question all of his childhood memories of Shawn. How Shawn could so easily outwit classmates and teachers. How he always knew the best place to hide, jump out, and scare Gus. How, once, in fifth grade, his mom lost her wedding ring while Shawn was over. She looked and looked for it until finally asking the boys for help. It was Shawn who immediately said, without a second thought or hesitation, “check the dryer”. And there it was! He said it was just a good guess. Now, Gus understood it was more than just a good guess. Shawn seemed to know things that other people couldn’t.
Juliet frowns, her lips pressed into a thin line. “So you think, Shawn’s psychic ability is to find clues and remember them?”
“I think he’s drawn to specific details that he is able to psychically envision. He intuitively knows things but has been passing it off as coincidence or observation.”
“This is ridiculous, Gus.” She flippantly waves a hand in the air. “Shawn is just an arrogant idiot who thinks he can get whatever he wants by lying and taking advantage of people.”
“That is true.” Gus has to admit to that. Shawn is an idiot of the highest degree. “But I’m going to test this theory out on Shawn. You’re welcome to join me. And depending on what we find, you can kick Shawn to the curb for good. Be a good detective and find out the truth.”
Crossing her arms, Juliet stands completely rigid, like she is physically turning herself into a wall. The back of her right heel bounced up and down with thought. “Fine.” Then she marches towards the double doors, high heels rhythmically clicking down the steps.
“Where are you going?” Gus calls after her.
“You’re taking me to Psych. I’m going to see if Shawn is for real.”
— — —
Shawn is dreaming. But it feels real. It feels tangible, but in the way sand slips through your fingers. He’s been having a hard time telling the difference between dreams and reality for some time now. All of the dreams are about Jules. The bare hills of her shoulders as a gray shawl dips across her arms, a river silk around the fields of her white skin. And he dreams of her laugh, the reflection of the golden sunlight in her crystal blue eyes. And he dreams of her mouth, how it tastes when she kisses him.
(He dreams a bit about Gus having an allergic reaction to gold flakes. But he fast-forwards through that. He’d rather dream about Juliet.)
He dreams about a case. The one with the girl covered in blood on the street. It should be some consolation that his misery saved her life. But that doesn’t matter anymore because when he finally found her, she dug a knife into his shoulder. He dreams they find her dead instead. He dreams about going home with Juliet instead.
He dreams that the girl is brought to the morgue. That he follows the clues as he always does. He follows the bowie knife wounds in her chest instead of the knife wound in his shoulder. And he follows the coat to a woman’s house. He dreams that it all turns out fine. He dreams about Juliet.
“Shawn.” Her voice cuts through his thoughts. At first, he thinks it is still a part of the dream. “Wake up!”
His hands and arms press against the side of the chair, as if he were falling and bracing himself. A deep pain runs through his shoulder at the place where the tendons meet and the padded gauze scratches at his skin. Don’t let it ever be said Shawn Spencer won’t suture his own stab wound with a disinfected needle and non-biodegradable stitches he stole from the coronary.
Juliet hovers in front of him, lingering in the doorway of the Psych office. “Jules!” Jerking up on the chair he says, “Oh man, I am so happy to see you. I’ve just been replaying the other day in my head, imagining how things could have gone differently. Right turn, left turn. It all makes a difference!” He realizes then he probably should have let Gus drive him home. Maybe then he wouldn’t have had to deal with the girl, Elin, covered in blood. Or at least he would have had a friend to comfort him.
“Stop imagining,” Jules spits. “I’m just here to ask you something.”
“Yes, Jules. Anything.”
She pauses, the side to side drift in her eyes suggesting that she doesn’t know what she wanted when she came there. He desperately wants to point it out, to suggest that she came for him and nothing else. But he bites his tongue.
Scrambling over at his desk, Juliet roots through his drawer, ripping out a notepad and pen he has never used. You didn’t need notes when your memory was perfect. In a hurried hand she scribbles on the paper and holds it close to her chest. “What did I draw on this piece of paper?”
He chuckles, "Really? That's what you wanted?"
"Humor me."
Instinctively, he places his fingers on his temples. He knows he shouldn’t have done that. After all, he is a fake psychic. But it is a force of habit. “Is it a picture of me showing off my six-pack? Wait, no. It’s us, walking hand in hand on the beach. Wait! It’s pineapples! Final answer.”
“It’s a flower, Shawn.” She spins it around to show him a rudimentary daisy drawn in blue ink.
“So close.”
“Not really.”
Gus rips the pad of paper away from Juliet defensively. “That’s not how we test it, Juliet. It would be more like this.” He then tears three pages out of the notebook, writes on one, and crumples all three into balls. Holding them behind his back, he shuffles them, like a weird uncle trying to impress their nephew with a magic trick. “Okay, Shawn. I’ve written on one of these papers. Tell me which one it is.”
“Gus, I’ve told you that becoming a magician is not in the cards for you. Sure, you have a head that’s as smooth as a Magic 8 Ball, but you just don’t have the showmanship. But Jules, you would make a lovely assistant, especially in a sequined getup.”
“Answer me! Which one is it?” Gus’s voice is sharp in a way that only arises when he’s angry at Shawn for stealing his credit card or almost getting them killed (again).
“Uhg.” He squints at the papers. His vision zooms in, highlighting the fine details on the paper down from the wrinkles to the fibers. He can see it so clearly, how the papers shuffled in Gus’s hand so much so that he can even feel the sweat on Gus’s palm. One over two, two over three, three over two, one over two, three over one. He can see the ink bleeding into one of the pages. “The one on the right.”
Gus unfolds it. “Ha! See!”
“But how did you know that, Shawn?” He feels like he is in an interrogation room with her. It’s like she has a shovel and is piercing the thin blade into his chest, trying to dig the truth out. “Gus did a really bad job crumpling them up. I could see the blue ink on one of the corners.”
“Ha!” Juliet shouts back at Gus, as if this were a game they were playing.
“What is this about?” Shawn probes.
“Gus has been trying to convince me you’re actually psychic.”
“Gus,” he says morosely. It is sad to think that Gus would go so far for him: that he could be convinced Shawn is actually psychic. Or worse, that he would lie to Juliet on his behalf. “Be serious.”
“I think it’s true,” Gus shrugs. “And I don’t care if either of you believe me or not.”
Getting up from the chair, Shawn motions for Gus to follow him to the side room, leaving Juliet behind to pace across the floor. Shawn takes a breath, tasting the dust and rich California air. “Look, buddy. I appreciate you trying to help me out with Jules. But I’m already in hot water. And right now, you’ve cranked the heat up and I’m boiling like a lobster. Let me handle this on my own.”
“This is not about me helping you out,” Gus counters. “I’m a playa’, I know better than to lie to a lady who’s already mad. I am genuinely convinced that you have a gift.”
He chuckles. “I’m flattered. But I really am just that good at what I do. I have an identical memory or whatever.”
“Eidetic memory, Shawn.”
“I’ve heard it both ways.”
“No, you haven’t.”
Juliet appears in the transom window (which is not actually a window, mostly because Shawn “renovated” without the landlord’s permission) between the office space and… well, the rest of the space. They didn’t use the entirety of the office. It mostly held their fridge, snack storage, and at one point, a canoe that Shawn found on the side of the road.
“First, I can hear you. Second, as happy as I am to have my time wasted, I need to get back to the SBPD,” she says.
“Fine,” Gus relents, fishing his keys out of the pocket of his slacks. “But I’m not crazy, Shawn. I’m not.”
“Sure, you’re not buddy.” He leans against the glassless window, “So, Jules. When can we get together to talk about this?”
She shakes her head, the wisps of her fine golden hair flying about her face. “Never, Shawn. I actually think we need some space. You should find a time to move your stuff out of my house. I put an ad on Craigslist for a roommate and I’d like the house to be clean.” And then she leaves through the door, eyes purposely trained on the ground so as not to look at him.
Shawn’s mouth tastes like bile and regret.
— — —
It is expected that Gus would drop the psychic-thing. He's the logical one of the pair, after all. The idea that he could even entertain the idea is absurd. And that's exactly what he does. He drops it.
At least, until there's a knock at the door at three a.m.. Gus groans, glancing to the side to see if Rachel, his current girlfriend, had stirred in response, but she remains blissful in sleep. Carefully, he inches out of the bed, making sure to grab his robe off the door so that whatever intruder or murderer at his door doesn’t kill him in only his pjs. At this point, he’s come to expect that the only people showing up at his door unannounced have the intention to kill him. Or it’s Shawn, but he clearly told Shawn to find somewhere else to stay the night. As much as he wanted to look out for Shawn, he was a liability around Rachel and Maximus.
He quickly grabs an umbrella from the holder near the door and peers into the peep hole. Juliet’s visage stares back at him, blonde hair and blue eyes distorted by the curve of the glass. Admittedly relieved, he opens the door. The pantsuit she wore that morning is crumpled, the tip of the collar jutting up towards her neck.
“Juliet, what are you doing here?” He wraps his robe a little tighter around his pajamas. Juliet is a friend. But it's still weird to see her while he’s in his nighttime attire.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s late. But,” she looks down at the umbrella. “Were you planning to hit me with that if I was an intruder?”
“I’m cautious. Okay? Can you tell me why you’re here?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said and you might, might,” she repeats the word so carefully, “be on to something. There is something strange about how Shawn operates."
“It’s nice to be acknowledged for once.” A smug smile spreads on Gus’s face. When you're constantly working with three talented detectives, it can be easy to feel overlooked or forgotten. He brings things to the table too! He brings his knowledge of medication, safe cracking abilities, the Super Sniffer, and (of course) tap-dancing. He's just as good at having theories and picking up on patterns as Shawn.
Juliet, however, doesn’t register his pride and continues to talk. “If we’re really going to test your theory, we need to replicate the circumstances in which Shawn is able to figure these things out. Drawing on paper isn’t going to cut it. We need to fake a crime scene. We need to leave evidence in odd places where he wouldn’t even consider looking and see if he finds it right away.”
Gus takes a moment to think about that. He’s been on the solving end of crimes for so long and yet hasn’t considered replicating one. “We can stage a robbery at Psych. Once Shawn finds a new place to stay, we can get in there in the middle of the night and set up a crime for him to solve.”
She nods, “Good thinking. The closer to home the better.”
“We’ll need all the help we can get if we’re going to pull this off.” Gus hates what he means, but he knows there’s no other way to do it. Not if he wants Shawn to see the truth.