[ The Mentalist- Fanfiction] vezon's prompt/Red Blood Circulation chapter four

[little_firestar]

 

Even if sleep derivate, Lisbon woke up few times during the night, but differently from the previous time, it was never to a bad dreams or a sinister thought. Every time, though, she couldn’t keep her eyes open for too long; she was too tired, both physically and psychologically, from the events of the last couple of days to be able to resist, even if she wanted to.

In fact, it didn’t took her too long to figure out that every time she had left the land of Morpheus the one to blame was the man who had broken her window, and that had caused the incoming of chilly autumn air into her bedroom, the same man who was responsible for her tiredness, the annoying, pain of her existence, charming, childish, unconventional, off the book consultant called Patrick Jane.

The first time had been few hours after she had left him to nap on her couch. Apparently, during that few hours, he had sobered up enough to be able to walk straight again, but not enough to think about the repercussions (Wait, no, what am I thinking about? He never thinks about the repercussions of his actions, not even when he is sober) of crushing on her bed. Lisbon didn’t send him away, though, instead, she welcomed the heat radiated from his body, and the sensation of peace and tranquility that having him in her bed brought. Instead of being scared, as she thought she would be in such a similar occasion, she was smiling happy against his chest.

The second time had been in the late hours of the night, or the early hours of the morning, she wasn’t sure. She was just sure that, at a certain point, he had left the bed and the room. She had cried in silence for minutes that seemed hours, endless hours, thinking that he was already regretting his drunken admission of love and everything that had happened between them in that short amount of time… I knew it was too good to be true, that he wasn’t really ready, and that he wasn’t really going to stop his absurd quest for revenge…

Then, the water in the adjacent bathroom started to flow, coming from the shower- just a thin wall separated it from the headboard of the bed, allowing Teresa to hear clearly a happy and content masculine voice, busy singing and humming some jazz song aloud.

At first, she merely smiled, almost laughing, considering how the man felt at easy around her and in her personal space to be so intrusive to use her own shower (and definitely her own shower gel and shampoo), then, as her mind decided to associate the term “shower” with “Jane”, she went on world of her own, with thoughts that went from the casual and happy “Jane’s still here” to the not so prude and pure “Patrick right now is naked in my shower, covered in soap”. Closing her eyes and blushing, she tried to caste the not so pure thoughts away, but as soon as she realized that it couldn’t be done, she smiled maliciously enjoying the road her thoughts were taking – besides, she was pretty sure that soon she was going to have the chance to compare reality with her own dreams, and see on her own which Jane was better, if Patrick “McSteamy” Jane or the real deal, which meant there wasn’t anything wrong in…

Drops of hot water were flowing from the shower, and even if the curtains were closed, the vapor had covered the surface of the glass, filling the whole room, making it felt like a sauna. As she walked in room on her tiptoes, Jane still singing at loud, she lost all the clothes along the way, dropping them on the pavement. She slowly joined him under the hot spray, being careful to not make her presence noticeable until her fingernails were marking his back and her teeth his shoulders, making known he was hers and hers only. Patrick groaned in pleasure, and quickly turned, grinning, eyes dark with desire, cornering her. As soon as he took her in his arms, lifting her against the wall, in his embrace, his hands on her ass, her arms around his neck, she found herself mirroring his same expression, and when the hot water started to fall on her as well, her legs went around his hips, and in the same moment she felt a pleasurable ache in her lower abdomen, she felt against her body the…

“Drop it, Teresa!” she shouted at loud at herself, hiding her head under the pillow, hoping that it could work to erase the vivid image she had in her mind of her and her consultant. Great, the dirty sexual fantasies of me and Jane at the office weren’t enough, now I have dirty sexual fantasies of Jane and me in my shower. I’ll absolutely be unable to look at that shower in the same way, from now on…

She came back to sleep only half an hour later, when he come back to bed at her side, smelling of a mix that were her vanilla shower gel and Jane, like even like that he could maintain a part of his own natural scent, that scent that was so him, so unique, that made her feel so safe. He felt immediately asleep, smiling content.

She was still smiling when she woke up in the morning, maybe even more than when she had fallen asleep, and she really couldn’t blame herself. It was just… it was so perfect, everything was so perfect. It wasn’t like she regretting the way she had pretty much rejected him just the day before, because she knew that in that moment it was the right thing to do; even if it had been just 24 hours, back then she wasn’t ready to admit how deep the feelings for him run, and neither was he, back then, they wasn’t ready to face reality, not yet, they were on the verge of carnally consuming their relationship (At the office!) and neither of them was ready for that step, not with that much things still unsaid, because she didn’t want to simply have sex with Jane, she didn’t want for him to just fuck her, she didn’t want to have something between them happening just out of lust, she didn’t want him just for his body (Even if he does have an extremely sexy, hot, handsome body and I can’t help thinking about how great sex with him will surely be, considering that he is a mentalist and so he knows for sure what a woman wants and how she wants to be touched and where, and I bet that he is even quite well… stop it, Teresa!). She wanted Jane, the whole package, for the man he was and the man she knew he could be, and she wanted their first time to be special and made out of love, not something quick in her office on a chair. It wasn’t like she wanted candles, sexy French lingerie, an aphrodisiac dinner, classic music, incense, silk blankets and petals of roses, but at least she wanted something a bit more special than a fuck at the office, and more private and intimate. And if Patrick continued to keep his hands for himself like he was doing, there was a good chance they were on the same page… 

 

It wasn’t like he regretted his (pathetic) attempt of physical seduction of 24 hours before, because at the time he had thought it was the right, and only, thing to do, the only thing he was capable of. It had been too long since he had been in love for last time, seven long years, and even more since the last time he had declared his love to a girl… when he had confessed of his feelings to Angela he had been just a boy, 19 years old, and even back then, words weren’t exactly his strength. On stage, when he was the boy wander, the come out easily, like a river, but when he was only Patrick, and he was dealing with something important, they didn’t want to get out.

So, at the time, trying to drag Lisbon to bed (figuratively speaking, since it was on a chair they were going to consume their relationship) had seemed a good idea, a good way of showing her how much he needed her. Only, she had misunderstood his attempt, seeing his need only as physical, and not emotional as well (not that he didn’t want her also for her body, because many of his nights had been hunted by extremely vivid and M rated dreams of him and the dark raven haired beauty, completely naked, she on top of him, with him handcuffed to the bed with a blindfold on). The result had been that Teresa got scared, thought that he didn’t give a damn about her as a person and wanted just to have his way and some fun, and told him that her feelings for him went beyond boss/consultant or friendship, and why she wasn’t going to allow herself to get too close to him. She hadn’t told him so many words, but the significance had been clear… I’m scared of what you’ll end up doing to me. I’ll not allow you to break my heart, not when I can avoid it. Those were the words that left her lips, and Jane had understood, as soon as she had stormed in tears out of the office, what she meant, what she was scared of. I’ve already lost all the people I cared about, and when you’ll face Red John, you’ll die or go to jail, and I’ll lose you as well, and it will break me. When he had realized that those were the words her soul was saying, he had decided to go to talk to Angela and Charlotte, he wasn’t sure why, but he felt he needed… closure, forgiveness, absolution, permission maybe. It was, basically, the same reason he had, later, drove until he had reached Danny’s neighborhood, hoping that he would deliver them as well. He knew he couldn’t do otherwise, it was the only thing left to do, because a long time ago, he had promised to never hurt His Lisbon and always stick by her side, and looking at her crying, he had realized her wasn’t’ keeping his word, and that he had to do something about it. Obviously, being himself, he had messed up a bit along the way; he hadn’t planned to get drunk, it wasn’t in the original plan, only an idiot would show up at Lisbon’s door drunk to deliver his heart. Not that he was blaming Danny for having brought him there, the poor boy just didn’t want to have to deal with him and his constant requests, and, more important, he didn’t know about Lisbon’s story with alcoholism. But, really, asking Danny to drive him there, even if well aware of what her father was? Idiot, asshole, self-centered, egoistical, that was what he was.

And he knew it, but he knew also that only the alcohol could have given him the liquid courage to take that decision, because, if there was something Patrick Jane knew, was that he was the living proof of how much true the Latin motto “In vino veritas” was, and he remembered how he had told her everything…but he still felt a bit guilty (for showing up drunk, for confessing his feelings drunk, for her broken window) and embarrassed - for the both of them. Danny definitely didn’t need to know about our dirty sexual fantasies and our real almost sex life… Looking at her sleeping form, he hoped he could still salvage whatever they have going on between them…

 

“Sorry” when she finally woke up, the room was engulfed in bright sunny light, penetrating from the large hole in the window, made by Jane himself few hours before, in attempt of gaining her attention. Both on their sides, Jane’s chest facing her back, he was whispering sweet (and probably not so true) excises in her ear, his hot breath tickling her neck, his fingers busy trailing a path up and down her arm, slowly, caring, sweetly… and too seductively for their own good. I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist him for long, if he keeps going on this way…

Lisbon smiled, giggling, a sound so rare that got him already addicted, and Jane decided then and there that no one was going to be allowed to make her sound that way but him. “There’s nothing to be sorry of. When I signed with you, I already knew that you meant trouble and that you happened to make more antics than the rest of the whole human race.”

She turned in that embrace, resting her head in the crock of his neck, looking at Jane deeply in the eyes, an ocean of blue waves melting into a field of fresh green grass. Without closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply that weird scent, half her (vanilla and cinnamon, her shower gel) and half him, while Jane kept skimming over her arm with his right, playing with her wild natural curly dark hair with the other one, running his fingers through the mass (amazing Lisbon incredibly, she couldn’t believe that he had wanted for so long to run his fingers through her hair as much as she had wanted to run her fingers through his own.). With his breath dead in his throat, he looked deeply at her, with complete and utter devotion, like she was a goddess, drinking into the sight that it was Lisbon, almost scared, like it was too good to be true, like this was only another one of those dreams where the both of them were happy and together, with no shadows from the past hanging over their heads.

Without daring to break eye-contact, she forced Jane to move his hands, putting hers in his owns, interlacing their fingers, and it’s only then, when she firmly squeezed them, that she felt something, or better, the lack of something. She stared in disbelief at the man in front of her, holding back tears that, for once, weren’t of sufferance, something snapped inside of her, fears and insecurities she felt until few hours before gone.

“What you said yesterday…” She’d like to do many things, like ending the sentence or keeping eye contact, but she couldn’t, because his eyes were saying, screaming, too much, everything, and Lisbon wasn’t scared, but the feeling… she felt like being pulled down by waves, right into the sea, adrenaline, but too much to handle, and she wasn’t sure she could handle something so big and deep, but Jane simply stared at her, without adding a word, and only lifted her chin so that they could be eye-to-eye again.

It’s not exactly disbelief what she felt towards the man in front of her, she wasn’t sure she knew how to describe it. She felt like Jane was bare in front of her, despite wearing fresh boxers and a t-shirt (that she knew belonged to Tommy and he boy kept at her place-she didn’t want to know how or when Jane found them).

“I buried it at Angela and Charlotte’s graves. It wasn’t fair, keeping wearing it while my heart belongs now to you.” As he explained her what he did the previous day, he was sad, but there was something else in his voice, something she knew too well. She remembered the time he told her how he was going to kill Red John, how sure and resolute he was, and now, in front of her, stood the same man, only, what he wanted wasn’t the life of a sadist murderer, but her, body and soul. “I wanted to go to Danny then, ask for his forgiveness, his permission to move on with my life, but I wanted to clear my mind a little first, I wanted to think about the words to tell you, how to tell you that I love you without risking you not believing me… I thought a bear could help, but I guess I got a bit sidetracked, because I didn’t know exactly how to voice my feelings, and I ended as you saw me…” he looked at her with puppy eyes, with that smile of five years old that he knew she couldn’t resist even if she wanted to. 

“Jane, there wasn’t any need to…” There were many things she’d like to tell him, like that there was no hurry, but Jane, with just a finger on her lips, silenced her- she smiled under his fingertips, kissing it erotically, making him shiver with desire. We’re both adults, we’re both more naked than clothed, we’re both willing. But he had to go on, because he couldn’t leave things left unsaid, not risking losing Lisbon. He couldn’t survive life without her, neither if she was lost to death or to another man or to herself.

“Everything I told you in these years, I meant it, Teresa, and last night… I was telling the truth, Teresa. I’d never hurt intentionally you, for this reason and this reason only, I’m going to leave Red John to you and the team. It will not be my hand to take his life” 

The space between them was almost zero, but she still nullified it, allowing her lips to touch Jane’s with a sweet, slow kiss full of love.

“I love you” she whispered against his lips, with tears in her green eyes but smiling, as they parted of just few millimeters. She caressed his hair, his blonde curls, allowing her finger to run through them, while he removed her tears with his thumbs, kissing every angel of her face but her lips. Later, we’ll have time for that, all the time of the world. This wasn’t about mere passion any longer, now it was time for the truth, the most sincere one, the one coming from his heart, the one she could still accept, making him the happiest man alive, or refuse, making him the most miserable man alive.

“I mislead, manipulate and mess around. I keep you in the dark. I don’t listen to you and I don’t follow orders or rules. I behave like an idiot. I don’t know when I have to stop or when I have to shout up. I put myself and others in danger, sometimes in lethal danger. I’m self-centered and selfish, a little crazy, perennially on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and even if I didn’t kill any of Red John’s victims, a part of me will always feel guilty nevertheless.” His voice was calm, feeling so good and well and light after so many years, finally opening up, and revealing who he really was to someone else, finally allowing the walls and the mask to fall, ending the charade, the game, the play.    

She answered with a smile and lifted eyebrows, giving him a quick peck on the skin of his chin- he was freshly shaved, and she didn’t want to know which razor he used.  “Tell me something I wasn’t already aware of, Mister Jane”

The look of devotion was back, and, if possible, it was even bigger. He was still astonished and incredulous, smiling happy but astonished and incredulous, and he’d like to hurt himself to check it wasn’t just a dream, because it was too good to be true. “You’re aware of whom I am, you know what you are getting yourself into, but you still want me…” 

Again, Lisbon thrown her arms around his neck, she got closer and closer to the man who stole her heart at first sight, and again her words were whispered on his lips, with sweetest and most intimate gesture of affection and trust. “You do what you are best at, in order to give justice to people and bring them peace of heart. You want to protect me and the people you care about. You are funny and you make me smile, even when I don’t feel like it. You speak your mind; you put people back into their place. You make our job a way more interesting, and thanks to you we reach success after success. You always think of the team, me in particular. You are particular and unique. You are sweet, and loving and caring and deep like anyone I’ve met before” she paused, taking a big breath, still smiling “you are a good person, you try to seem cynical to defend yourself, but I’ve seen you with children… you are wonderful and beautiful inside and out, when you hold a baby, with that smile, that smile that you reserve for them and them only. Those are all the reasons why I love you”

“Now I’ll have it for you too” he held her in his arms, inhaling at closed eyes her scent, deeply lost in the moment. The world could stop, could end, a war could begin. He’d not care, not there, not with Lisbon in his arms, it was perfection, and he could die in peace because he finally learned what perfection was. “That time, I meant it.”

She just made a sound that Jane received as an invitation to go on, to explain himself. He said many things. She needed to know what this sad but honest statement meant, what her referred to. “During the Doverton Investigation, when we were posing as husband and wife, I meant it when I told you I love you.”

“Really?” now, Lisbon was the one amazed, but Jane could clearly feel the happy smile on his skin. He was already addicted to this feeling, he want to feel her lips on his skin until the end of time.

“Yeah, I didn’t know if you felt the same way, but I needed to let it out, so… that way, you couldn’t reject me or laugh in my face, because for you it was just an act. And… that day in the crate, I thought… during those last months, we had got closer and… I thought it was finally time to… I thought I was ready; I wanted to tell you, because I had this crazy hunch that you felt the same. I said to myself, there’s no way she stands you only because you close cases, there has to be more, she has to have deep feelings for you! I really wanted to tell you, but… we got free before I could say it at loud.” He stopped to be the usual petulant five years old, he took a big breath, looked away for a while, just to come back to feel Lisbon under his fingertips again, almost on verge of tears, regret, pain and sufferance clear in his voice as never before, sufferance for himself, and sufferance for what he had made to her “And then, as my usual, I pretty much ruined everything because I had to be so stupid to prove Hightower a point by dating Kristina, and then…” He hissed her name, he never cared for her, he was just testing a theory with her, to his and Hightower’s benefit, but he wasn’t dating her, he didn’t love her. He was sorry for what happened to her, but she went looking for it. she knew how Red John’s mind worked, but she still decided to play with the enemy a game of cat and mouse, and he knew too well it was for his benefit as she claimed, but for the sake of her business and that only, because he had always knew that she was just like he used to be before.         

She reached for his chin again, noticing that he was, mentally, alienated himself again, and a simple gesture of her slender fingers on his skin took him back to reality, to their reality; there was no Red John now, no Serious Crimes Unit, no CBI, no abusive parents, no bloody past, it was just them, there, in that bed, in each other’s arms, for a time that seemed infinite.

“Say it again” if he wasn’t so close, he’d never hear her request, a request not made out of desperation or tears, but just that. She wanted to make him say that because she had always liked the sound of the words, those words, from his mouth.

“I love you” this time, he didn’t kiss her slowly. It was a kiss full of passion and desire, of years of sexual tension, of frustration and abstinence. It wasn’t such a surprise for Lisbon when Jane, still kissing her, quickly made his way on top of her, with his hands and lips repeating what they had made to her the previous day at the office. It wasn’t such a surprise for Lisbon that she allowed him to finish it, this time, and she didn’t care that there weren’t candles, sexy French lingerie, silk covers, incense, an aphrodisiac dinner, classic music and petal of roses. She wanted something romantic, and what could be more romantic that what they just shared? They forgot everything, the only human beings on the planet for a time they couldn’t count, they melt into each other, become one, sexually and emotionally, with sweetness, love and pure devotion, the only sounds they heard, their heartbeats and they erratic breathing, moans of pleasure, named cried out in ecstasy as they reach together the edge, their naked bodies covered in sweat, entangled, but satisfied and happy. He remained buried in her after, busy exploring her body with his hands, keeping kissing her with all the passion and the desire he accumulated since the first time he saw her, because he had always been a red blooded man and he could recognize a beautiful woman when he saw one and she was the most beautiful one…

It was only the first time, the first time of a lifetime together, because Jane had decided a long time ago that he was going to make her blood moving again every time her legs would fall asleep, whatever it took.