Disclaimer: I don't own Psych or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Totally AU and completely ridiculous. I should be ashamed of myself even for writing it, but I'm not, so there. There was a time when I actually considered making this a one-shot. Joke's on you, I guess.

Freaky Thursday

"All right, so what do we do now?" Shawn asked. "Sit around the Orb in a circle and sing campfire songs?"

"You understand, I've never actually seen anyone use the Orb before," Thurman explained, "so there's certainly an element of guesswork in this, but I believe that the two of you should each be touching it - that is, after all, what caused the problem in the first place." Lassiter wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of touching the damned thing again - what if it played Musical Bodies with him again and he ended up swapping with O'Hara or something? - but reluctantly he joined Spencer with his fingers lightly on the shiny glass surface.

"Now what?" he growled.

"Well, I suspect now you need to share your experiences as each other with each other, and what you learned about each other from that."

"Oh dear God - what then? Full-body hugs and Kumbaya?"

"Lassie, keep an open mind," Shawn said. "We need to help each other grow as people. I learned a lot about you that might help - I'll go first."

"Great. This I gotta hear," Lassiter grumbled.

"Lassie - do you know what I did today?" Shawn asked.

"Your level best to utterly ruin my career?"

"No - today, I went around the station and I talked to people. Your colleagues. I said hello to them, I said nice things to them. Do you know what happened - after they stopped looking around for the prank-show cameras and decided I wasn't just getting them to let their guard down so that I could rip out their jugulars with my teeth, I mean? They went away happy. Like, really, seriously happy. Look, Lassie - I know I spend a lot of time ragging on you, but the truth is that you're top dog around here - short of the Chief, you're the one every cop looks to for leadership. You're respected. Admired, even. I know you're a hard-liner and I'm not saying that you've got to start offering milk and cookies to murder suspects, but Lassie - I really think if you treated your own coworkers with a little cordiality then they'd show you that respect more openly, and just maybe they'd do their jobs a little better, too. You've got a big heart, Lass - you just need to learn to use it a little more effectively."

Chief Vick, O'Hara, Woody, and even McNab who'd snuck back in to observe despite not being invited, nodded thoughtfully. Lassiter hung Shawn's head momentarily and said, "Okay, I guess I see your point, Spencer. I could…try."

"Great, Lassie, I wish you well my man. I only want to help you, you know - you're like my fifth or sixth-best friend, after all. Oh, by the way - I dug around on your computer and discovered, to my chagrin, that you don't have an eHarmony profile, despite what Buzz told me you'd said, so I signed you up. Except I thought the eHarmony questionnaire was totally lame-o, so I signed you up with OnlineBootyCall instead. You already had twelve responses by quitting time, possibly because I mentioned that you always carry a pair of well-oiled handcuffs."

"Jesus Christ, Spencer."

Juliet made a noise like a strangled snicker. "Even if he's telling the truth, you don't have to respond to anything, Carlton. Just laugh it off."

"Damn straight I'm not responding to anything. OnlineBootyCall. Like the world needed a faster, more convenient way to contract venereal disease."

"All right, Detective, it's your turn I believe," Dr. Thurman said. Lassiter sighed deeply, then met his own eyes.

"I learned that you're losing O'Hara, Spencer," he said, with the decided air of a man biting a bullet. "I don't know if she's admitted it to herself yet or not, or even if there's time for you to fix what's going wrong - or even if there's a way for you to fix what's wrong - but it looks to me pretty clear that she's getting fed up with the World's Oldest Adolescent routine. Maybe there's still time for you to salvage the relationship, maybe not, but what I'm telling you now would carry over to any relationship you tried to have - you can't treat a woman the way you treat O'Hara. You can't expect her to take you seriously as a partner if you don't take the partnership seriously. You can't belittle her, her work, her wishes, her feelings. You have to listen to her, and you have to learn to talk to her as well. About serious things, and about things that maybe don't seem to mean much of anything, too. Because if you can just sit and talk to her about things that aren't much taken on their own, they add up to a very big thing - her knowing that you're her friend as well as her lover. You can definitely trust that I know all about the talking thing - my inability to do it has played a big part in ruining every relationship I've had, my marriage especially. Now, I know you have a…strange…kind of charm, but eventually the charm starts to grate on people's nerves if it isn't backed up by anything substantial, and you don't expend a lot of effort on letting people see any substance you might have. I don't give a good God damn about your feelings, Spencer, and I know you know that, but O'Hara's mean a lot to me - she's my partner, and that means a lot to me. That means pretty much everything to me. So for her sake, Spencer, I suggest that if you have any depth at all beneath that shallow exterior, you start to show her. And I further suggest that you break character completely and give her the whole, honest truth for once. About everything."

"The truth about what, Lassie?" Shawn said. "I passed your polygraph, man - come on."

"Yes, you passed the polygraph I gave you. But it wasn't exactly the third degree, and if I'd given you the same hours-long test I'd have given an actual suspect I don't think Henry's training would have done you much good. Unless you're a complete sociopath, that is."

"Henry's - ?!" Shawn sputtered. "Dude, I don't know what you're - "

"Come off it, Spencer. I know both of you well enough to know the old man taught you a lot of the tricks you use to bamboozle people into thinking you're a psychic, although I don't think for a minute that's why he taught them to you. Is the old fox canny enough to beat a polygraph? Possibly, and if he knew a way, I'm damned sure he'd pass it on to you."

"Initially you did take a lot more time with your answer than we'd allow a suspect, Shawn," Juliet pointed out. "It occurred to me at the time that you might be using some calming technique to disguise your biorhythms. If we had a newer, more sensitive polygraph I bet it would have picked something up. And I've always wondered," Juliet continued, ruthlessly, "why, if you were telling the truth, you seemed to get cockier as Lassiter threw variations of the question at you, why you looked so damned smug like you were getting away with something. And since I can't trust the results of your answer to that question, I can't trust the results of what you blurted out afterwards, either."

"What? Jules!" Shawn cried in dismay. "You're going to side with Lassie on this? He put you on the polygraph first, remember? And he even asked for a new partner!"

She sighed. "Yes, I remember. It was an overreaction, maybe, but I did lie to him. Because of you. And I shouldn't have done that, because Carlton was right - as partners, we need to be able to trust each other completely. Before I hooked up with you, I did trust Carlton, and he trusted me. You made me afraid of his reaction, Shawn, when I should have known from the start that, unhappy or not, he would have had my back - the way he's had ever since, even though I know he can't trust me in the way he did. I don't know if you're really psychic or not, Shawn - I certainly didn't believe it at first, but over time I guess I started to believe you - but I will be very unhappy if I find out that you lied, Shawn, and I don't think I'd ever be able to trust anything else you've told me."

"Jules…"

Juliet met his hangdog gaze levelly. "I don't know if you can 'fix' what's broken in our relationship, either, Shawn, but Lassiter is right - what he's telling you now could help you someday, with someone else."

Thurman broke the long silence that followed. "Well, that seems like a good beginning. Any…any changes happening?"

"Not a damned thing," Lassiter growled, still stuck in Shawn's body.

"Well, perhaps there's something further you need to learn from this experience. Why not try focusing your attention on the Orb? Perhaps it will give you clarity."

Lassiter's face, controlled by Shawn's consciousness, still looked pouty from his dressing-down, but after a shared glance with the real Lassiter in his body, they both turned their minds to the object they touched. As had happened before, the interior depths clouded over and words formed in their minds.

You'll never bosom-buddies be,

But years of camaraderie

Made you at least reluctant friends,

So now it's time to make amends.

"Hee hee…bosom," Shawn chuckled.

"What the hell does that mean?" Lassiter growled.

"Well gee, boss - I'm pretty sure it means a lady's chest," McNab replied in his innocent way.

"Actually a man's chest is also a bosom, Buzz - although you're right, generally when people speak of bosoms they mean breasts," Juliet said.

"I wasn't referring to what Moron McGee said, I meant what the Orb said," Lassiter clarified.

"We don't know what it said, Detective," Chief Vick pointed out.

"Oh. Right. Well it said that it was time to make amends. I thought we just freakin' did that."

"It said that we were friends, too, Lassie," Shawn pointed out quietly.

"I heard reluctant, and that's still stretching the truth quite a little," Lassiter shot back.

"I think the Orb might have been trying to tell you that it's time to simply own up," Juliet said. "You both like each other, to some degree, and neither of you is any good at all at admitting it. Carlton, you never want to say Shawn is your friend even after seven years, and Shawn, you can never say that Carlton is your friend without denigrating it in some way. Is it really so hard to admit? What have you really got to lose? Face? You're already wearing the wrong ones, so just go for it."

"Dammit," Lassiter grumbled. He reluctantly dragged his eyes up to meet Shawn's. "All right, Spencer, I'll admit it - I don't like everything about you, and I don't trust you as far as I could throw you, but…well, when you're not being a morally-bankrupt jerk or a self-obsessed ass hat, you're a decent guy who looks out for his friends. I know that even though I haven't been really nice to you at any point since ever, you've helped me out of some major problems in the past, and didn't really even seem to expect much out of it in the end, though you never missed an opportunity to bust my chops a little - which I suspect is part of your unique, high school definition of friendship, though it isn't part of mine. So, yeah, I do consider you my…friend. And at this point, even if you did tell me that you're not really psychic, I wouldn't actually want to arrest you for interfering with a police investigation on any past case I can think of offhand."

"Thank you, Lassie, that was very gracious of you. By your unique definition of grace," Shawn said.

Juliet slapped him upside the back of the head as though she were his Italian mother. "Don't editorialize. Just get it over with."

"Okay, okay, jeez…no need for police brutality," Shawn said, rubbing the back of his head. "Lassie…you're a robotic, stick-in-the-ass freak, but I recognize that you are a decent robotic, stick-in-the-ass freak, and you are my friend. I would get you liquored up and party with you any time. But the liquored-up part is non-negotiable, because you're no fun sober."

They both looked expectantly at the Orb. For a long moment nothing happened, and then:

Is that the best I can expect?

"Yes," Lassiter said.

"No question, man," Shawn said.

You're both seriously messed up - you know that, right? Oh well, can't say I didn't try, and technically you did learn your lessons.

The world shifted on its axis, and suddenly Lassiter was looking at Shawn's face and Shawn was looking at Lassiter's. Shawn's split in a huge grin.

"Hot damn, Lassie - when you're you and not me, you're one beautiful sight."

Lassiter sat back in his chair. "Thank all that is good and holy that's over with," he said shakily. Whether that trembling was caused by relief or the necessity of reacclimatizing himself to his own lanky build was hard to say.

"I second that," Juliet said. "You're really back the right way around?"

"Yes," Lassiter said firmly, glad to hear his words emerge in his own voice.

"Crap on a cracker," Shawn blurted in a deep, angry voice. Everyone looked at him, eyes wide. His face was a mask of scowl for a solid second, and then he burst out laughing. "Psych!"

Thurman shook his head. "Please, Officer McNab - return me to my cell before I'm subjected to any more of this moron's juvenile antics."

"And the Orb to Evidence, please," Vick said. "Cautiously, officer - I don't need any more of my people in the wrong bodies."

People started filing out of the room. Exhausted and wanting only to go home and get used to being himself again, Lassiter slowly pushed himself out of the chair and made to follow the general exodus. Juliet pulled him aside and held him by the arm until the others were gone.

"I just wanted to tell you that I had a really nice time on our date last night," she said. She stretched up and planted a light kiss on his cheek. "I only wish I'd known it was you."

Dumbfounded, Lassiter could only watch as she sashayed gracefully away until epiphany struck him and he bolted from the interrogation room, shouting, "SPENCER! GIVE ME BACK MY KEYS AND CREDIT CARDS!"

FIN

A/N: And now the band is playing...very slow...and once again, I'll get my coat and go. Hope you enjoyed this weird little ramble through the chasms of my mind. I have to confess I enjoyed writing it.