Title: Storm in a Teacup
Summary: He wasn't entirely sure why he was propped in the doorway of her apartment when he should be in the hospital. Then again, he'd always been a glutton for punishment, especially when it came to them.
Genre: Angst/Hurt/Comfort
Disclaimer: I don't own a thing, apart from my Mentalist DVDs, without which these past 7 TV-less months would have been so much harder to bear!
A/N: This is my very first, fully-fledged fiction, published at long last after an arduous battle with this first chapter. Fingers-crossed that my internet will play and let me update in the near future, because I've got plenty in store! And so, without further ado, please read, enjoy and (if you're feeling super generous) review!
Chapter 1: High tide
Patrick Jane wasn't entirely sure of how he had gotten to this point.
Exhausted, half-standing in the doorway of Teresa Lisbon's apartment with the most beautiful woman he knew shaking with rage only three feet from him. Yet here he was, one ugly brown shoe jammed against the doorframe while he struggled to focus on her fiery gaze, his shoulder screaming in protest, lungs burning from the cold air rattling inside his chest. He offered her a faint smile by means of explanation, one that never reached his eyes, cursing silently as the chill air send a visible shiver through his limbs.
"How long have you been out here Jane?" Her voice was quiet, tinged with disappointment but not the pity that he dreaded would slip into her tone; he'd had too much of it for one day and was grateful when her eyebrow quirked, prompting him to answer.
"Long enough. Can I come in?" His desperation won out and while Patrick Jane wasn't one to beg, unless she planned to kick his legs from under him, he wasn't going anywhere. Knowing Lisbon of all people couldn't refuse him, he watched as her eyes flickered for an instant, a soft sigh through barely parted lips an indication that, once again, her compassion had won the battle.
"You shouldn't be here," she said evenly, edging almost imperceptibly to grant him entry.
Any sarcastic comeback died on his lips as his unsteady steps careered him into the doorframe, the hot pain searing through his shoulder and throat causing his head to swim. Biting down hard on his tongue, he fought to maintain his composure as her raised eyebrow and down-turned frown followed him into the living room where he now stood, swaying, focusing on the iron tang in his mouth rather than his blurring vision. Lisbon didn't speak, her arms folded in a death grip around her small frame, watching him waver ever so slightly in the middle of the room. The ridiculous scene stretched on as the seconds ticked steadily by, her concern betraying the stillness set in her limbs as she began to slowly suck on her bottom lip. Jane brought his gaze to meet the darkness of hers steadily, swallowing hard, before cocking a head of blonde curls towards the kitchen, his eyes glinting dangerously.
"Are we just gonna stand here all night Lisbon? A good hostess would have offered me a cup of tea by now. Shall we?"
As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt something in the air shift, and he knew all too well that she would wipe the too-wide grin off of his face. Her whole body seemed to visibly flinch at his words, and he would have clasped a hand to his mouthif only his muscles wouldn't rip apart at the movement. He forced his eyes to focus, to really focus on the way her deft fingers clenched at her sides and on the forcibly steady rise and fall of her chest. Eyes roaming her small frame, it was only then that Jane noticed her bare legs, illuminated by the soft lamplight flooding the room and peppered with goose bumps, though the heat of the room, coupled with the pain threading through his limbs, had a thin sheen of sweat forming on his top lip.
"Tea?" Her voice was low, dangerous and biting, tinged with a sincere anger that she rarely exposed.
Realising he had been staring at the shadows cast across her pale legs, he forced his eyes to focus on the wall just over her right shoulder, rather than at the darkness flooding her green eyes. She took an impulsive step towards him before continuing.
"You discharged yourself, drove over here with god-knows how many painkillers in your system, not to mention a busted shoulder and three cracked ribs, for tea?"
Her tone was far from incredulous; they knew each other far too well by now for that, and yet there was something creeping into her tone that sounded far too sincere for either of them to tackle.
Jane had long since learnt that their arguments, their honest arguments, where words and half-acknowledged emotions were thrown at each other instead of office equipment, always began when that unrelenting anger began to bleed into the edges of her soft voice. He could tell from the determination of her green eyes that no amount of staplers or punches hurled in his direction could set this right; that for once she was feeling reckless and indulgent of her fettered anger.
He also knew all too well that the real danger came in the moments that followed that first chink in her armour, that first tiny glimpse into what she was really thinking, as they had all those months ago in a dark cellar where the dust lined his throat and stifled his voice, on the night that he had saved her. She took another step towards him, the mesmerizing little crease between her eyebrows furrowing as he remained silent, his gaze unwavering despite the tremors she saw grip at his muscles. Another four steps and she would be in front of him, five to press herself against him, yet all the while he fought the urge to turn and flee the suffocating familiarity of her apartment.
In that moment, they found themselves suspended in that in-between space, between his words and the tentative steps she stole towards him, between his unbuttoned vest and her too-short jersey, where they threatened to overstep the lines that they had carefully, purposefully drawn and redrawn between them.
"They're not cracked, Lisbon. Bruised."
The teasing in his voice was far from the warm insistence Lisbon associated with her consultant; tonight everything felt forced, as if he was waiting for the inevitable fallout and yet, at the same time, trying with all his might to fend it off. It would have been so easy in that moment to let it go, to throw a raised eyebrow and frown his way before sauntering into the kitchen to make him a cup of tea and order Thai.
"Hmm," she would say, "it's that death-trap of a car you insist on driving that concerns me more." He would smile at that, muttering something about it being a classic, about how ridiculous it was that she should drive that gas-guzzling monster she called a car when she could barely reach the pedals. She would ignore him, busying herself with finding the take-out menu with the little exclamation marks he had carefully pencilled next to his favourites, despite the fact that they always ordered the same. He would flick through the channels, no doubt settling on some old movie that she 'just had' to see while she added the truly boiling water to his tea, milk always first, stirred once, twice, three times and waited for the smell of camomile to warm the cold air of her small kitchen.
Tonight, her stillness threw him off balance, her only movement a small shake of her head that caused a loose strand of hair, dampened from the shower and slowly curling in the humidity of the room, to fall into her face. He waited a beat, waited for the sarcasm, the half-veiled frustration, for the raised eyebrow that was so uniquely her. He waited for that tiny tell-tale sign of normality that now seemed a million miles away from her too-warm apartment, her too-short jersey and that look on her face.
He would later recognise the clenching in his stomach as disappointment when all he was met with was a pair of large, doleful eyes shrouded in that far-off look that he knew he so often wore himself. In moments like these, where the tenuous links between them seemed so utterly exposed that it was laughable, Patrick Jane knew that nothing he could say could diffuse the crackle of tension in the room. And so, for once, he said nothing and prayed that the next words out of her mouth would be bergamot or Earl Grey.
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Not that the sight of her consultant, pallid, shaking, in the middle of her living room was in anyway humorous. If anything, seeing each wave of pain roll across his features had her heart in her throat, her pulse racing and her hands desperately wanting to rub gentle circles across his back, just as she had done with her brothers so long ago. And yet she fought her compassion, smothered it with a blanket of anger and...what? Disappointment? Fear? She realised that it was a cocktail of both, swirling in her stomach, dampening her physical need to comfort him. Because the whole situation was ridiculous. He shouldn't even be here. He should be in the hospital, where she had left him three hours earlier with a lingering look and an unwavering promise to be back in the morning.
She watched him wearily, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, knowing that she was as translucent as ever to the man in front of her. Jane wasn't looking at her though, not really, his eyes unfocused as if he was looking right through and beyond her into the plasterboard and brick of the wall. Yet regardless of the fact that he could barely stand, let alone attempt to read her in his current state, a slow wave of realisation washed over her at how vulnerable she must look; hair damp, barely dressed, mouth twisted into a downturned frown of equal parts frustration and sympathy. Her anger flared again, albeit tempered with concern, as she watched Jane close his eyes and gulp down another shaky breath of air.
She couldn't yet bring herself to speak, despite the fact that right now, something had to give and judging by Patrick Jane's shaking fingertips and glazed-blue gaze, it would be his legs if she didn't say something soon. She watched, barely moving, as he took a few more breaths and began to speak, his eyes flooded with a sudden wave of blue clarity.
"Quit worrying woman. A cup of tea and I'll be fine. Right as rain. Fit as a..."
"Jane..." She silenced him momentarily with a quick wave of her palm, a small part of her wondering just how he had managed to produce a coherent sentence when the mere effort of speech had his throat visibly constricting in a desperate attempt at keeping his voice even.
"I'm fine," he countered. The nausea clawing at the back of his throat begged to differ.
She spoke without missing a beat, and in any other situation the sparring would have been a harmless part of the banter that filled their days and the ears of their long-suffering colleagues. But, as always, it was her eyes that gave her away, eyes that were now trained on him, narrowed with her trademark accusation.
"You can barely see straight."
He would have opted for a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders to reinforce the nonchalance he knew would have her fighting the urge to punch him square in the face, and yet the hot pain lancing through his collarbone meant he settled for a brusque Meh thrown in her direction.
She paused, eyes tearing away from his and focusing instead on the floor, small hands wringing nervously against the faded material of her jersey. Jane watched as her muscles tensed, brimming with a nervous energy that had her torn between holding her ground and fleeing the feel of his eyes on her. As soon as her fingers stilled, he knew her mind was made up. Her chest rose steadily as she sucked in another breath, body tensed, braced, as if ready to plunge headlong into icy waters, and in that moment, he didn't feel ready for what she was about to say.
"You were hit by a car," she said, voice barely above a whisper.
"A small car." He could feel the floodgates threatening to open.
"It still counts."
"Counts for what? Besides, everything was fine in the end, Lisbon. We caught the bad guy didn't we?"
Her frown deepened, a sadness creeping into her eyes that he couldn't have foreseen. It looked like she was determined to get her hair wet.
"But what if it hadn't been."
He could almost hear the crashing of the waves, although that could have been the residual noises of a concussion pounding against his eardrums. The throbbing in his temples worsened, the mild panic he felt at his words pumping his blood just that fraction faster. He couldn't do this, not tonight, not when the last thing he needed was to see how his 'accident' (as it had been almost-affectionately termed by the team) had the tenacious woman before him avoiding his gaze. He decided to play dumb, in the desperate hope that she would leave it alone, at least for tonight.
"Sorry?"
"You heard me."
He let out a ragged sigh, his good hand raking through already dishevelled curls; a nervous habit he'd never been able to shake. He should have known better than to expect her to back down without a fight. Her green eyes were levelled against his now, and she seemed much surer than she had only moments ago, more determined. She was teeming with it; a frustrating, endearing and, at times, infectious determination that had kept him grounded over the last few years. He hated what he had to say next.
"I don't see what that has to do with anything Lisbon."
She flinched slightly, almost imperceptibly, at the coldness that bled into his words. She had seen that look in his eyes before, the unwavering steel-gray that mirrored the determination infused in her own.
And all at once, it didn't seem worth it. Her acceptance, for she would never call it defeat, of the inevitability of his denial, of his refusal to take that step towards her when it really counted, of him even showing up tonight, came charging at her full-force. Her next words were steady calculated, although she could have winced at the desperation that caught in her throat.
"Right. Forget I spoke. Tea?"
"Lisbon." His voice was almost pleading, and yet she found it surprisingly easy to ignore.
"Jane."
Another sigh, husky, resigned.
"Milk in first."
Silence. As if she, of all people, would forget how to make his tea.
Preview:
"Look, Lisbon, if this is about me coming over, I'm sorry. But you should have tasted the stuff they tried to make me drink in there. Bitter...my guess is chloroform. Probably what's keeping half the people in there."