Warhead On Legs

Title: Fancy Footwork
Fandom: The Mentalist
Characters: Patrick Jane, Theresa Lisbon
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,450
Summary: Jane calls Lisbon's bluff when she accuses him of letting her do all the legwork.
A/N: Written for the kink_bingo prompt "Shoe or foot fetish"

"It was just a joke!"

"No, no, I insist… Here. Put your feet up…"

Jane had deigned to let Lisbon share his couch, in lieu, perhaps, of closed-case doughnuts. She'd made some comment about not having time to sleep on the couch like he did, having to do all the leg-work, and he'd offered a foot massage. Because his usual response when she scolded him was to push.

She gave him a funny look for it, one of her usual what are you up to you brat type looks. Tempered with a quirky smile, because it wasn't related to a case so there was at least a limit to the kinds of consequences his pushing could have.

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Title: Mercy Street
Fandom: The Mentalist
Characters: Patrick Jane/OC
Rating: PG-13 for adult themes.
Word Count: 1,989
Summary: When Frankie calls, Jane comes. Sometimes even when she doesn't.

Patrick's eyes matched his suit.

It was an innocuous and random thought that flickered through her mind and once she'd noticed it she couldn't stop seeing it. Like a tiny fist squeezing that little bit of air out of her lungs every time their eyes met. It was distracting.

He'd come over to make sure she was all right. She hadn't answered her phone in a couple of days, and she'd forgotten to call him to make sure that he knew her cell phone number was being replaced, too. She didn't have any idea where her last one was, and she wasn't going to take a chance.

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Title: Wallflower
Fandom: The Mentalist
Characters: Patrick Jane, OC
Rating: R
Word Count: 10,635
Summary: A young woman from a past case is in trouble again, and staying out of trouble never was Jane's strong point. When the trouble turns into something more than she can handle alone, Jane steps in to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"Six by six from wall to wall
Shutters on the windows
No light at all
Damp on the floor you got damp in the bed
They're trying to get you crazy, get you out of your head"
-- Peter Gabriel, "Wallflower"

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Title: Red Rain
Fandom: The Mentalist
Characters: Patrick Jane
Word Count: ~2,100
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After the murders.
A/N: As promised. Happy birthday, booknerdguru?

Patrick Jane is shaking, hands clutching the phone, thumbs stabbing at buttons that seem to be appropriate but all he can see is the blood on the wall and all he can think is wake up. Please wake up. The officer asks him the nature of the emergency and all he can do is shout because what the hell does she think the nature of the emergency is? He doesn't realize she can't see through the phone.

Silence, now. Hush little baby, don't say a word.

His hands are red. Sticky, covered in blood. Rocking his little girl, his baby girl, rocking back and forth. It's okay, baby. It's okay, sweetie pie. It's going to be okay.

Please wake up, mommy. Please wake up, my dearest love.

Please.( Read more... )

Title: Blood of Eden: Postscript
Fandom: The Mentalist
Characters: Patrick Jane
Word Count: 550
Rating: G
Summary: A post-script to the previous fic

The courtroom was packed with reporters, lawyers, college students. The hallways were similarly packed, as well as all the usual personnel scurrying about their business. Frankie Estacado's testimony was up. Jane had the feeling she would meet it with the same quiet strength she had met all her other challenges. Himself among them. He hadn't meant to be.

He'd stayed out of her way since that night. No one thought it was unusual. Not when he already had a reputation for erratic behavior and odd quirks, taking irrational dislikes to people, so on and so forth. He wondered, a little, what Lisbon or Van Pelt had told her. It would have been one of the women who explained or was asked why he wasn't around anymore. This wasn't the sort of thing men talked about amongst themselves, noticed, or above all talked to women about. At least, women they weren't in a relationship with. He hoped whatever answer the other two women had given was satisfactory. He hoped Van Pelt had been the one to talk to her about it.

"Her." He couldn't even think her name. Or didn't dare, or something. His mind skipped around it with an awareness of what it was but no desire to touch upon it, like walking around a snapping turtle in the road.

Which didn't explain why he was here, now, standing with Cho and Lisbon and waiting for her to be done with her testimony, for court to let out. Lisbon had invited him along and said that if Bradley Chesterton was going to try anything today it would be desperate, and he agreed, but that didn't explain why he was here either. The boy hadn't tried anything yet, there wasn't much point to trying anything after Frankie had given her testimony.

There, he'd managed one burst of her name. That was good.

This was stupid.

Jane was about to turn and go when the door opened and the bailiff escorted her out. Familiar dark hair and features that had Moorishness to their fullness, somewhere in the background. Dark eyes, olive undertones that came from her Israeli father. Everything looked sharper in the daytime.

She saw him when she turned to say something to the prosecutor and caught his gaze in the crowd.

It was like watching the sun come out behind her eyes. Her shoulders straightened, her head lifted. The weariness of her interrogation at the hands of both prosecutors and defense attorneys dropped off her shoulders like an old coat. The formal blouse and pants suit still looked strange on her but much less jarring, much less as though she'd been stuffed into them to make her look bad and more as though she hadn't paid attention when she got dressed that morning. Her wrists and hands moved with more grace when she stopped the reporter approaching her with an absent gesture. The corners of her mouth were turning up in a welcoming smile. Worse still, he found himself starting to smile back.

This couldn't happen. This would not happen. He was about to drop his gaze when one reporter became two, became three, became five. He was down the courthouse steps by the time she would have extricated herself from them.

Jane looked up at the sky for absolution, but there was none to be found.