Title: I Can't Read You Like a Book
Rating: PG
Summary: Jane meets a stranger on the beach...
Disclaimer: I wish either TV programme were mine, but no.
Notes: Written for a holiday fic challenge on livejournal, one of two Skins/Mentalist crossovers which will share this collection. For reddawg82's prompt I can't read you like a book about the characters Jane from The Mentalist and Effy from Skins.
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The beach lay empty in the early evening as Jane sunk his toes into the damp sand. He preferred it damp because it moved like silly putty and he could use it to make anything he wanted. That evening he made a tunnel with cars driving along the road he built on top. He didn't really know why, except that the act of creation made him feel calm and at peace with his surroundings. Sometimes his mind worked at lightning speed and he could barely control the things he thought about and he needed something to dispel the darkness within.
That evening, though the beach lay empty, Jane could feel a pair of eyes watching him. He dusted the sand off his slacks and looked around. There up on the rocks sat a girl with pale skin and dark brown curls.
He'd never seen her before and he frequented that beach often, it wasn't exactly a beach that the regular crowd would visit on a vacation. That's why he liked it so much, the only people who visited were dog walkers, local surfers and other residents of the area.
She continued to look at him as he stared back at her.
She couldn't have been much older than nineteen; she looked lonely and lost, her eyes downturned in sorrow. She had demons that could have potentially outweighed his own though he wasn't entirely sure what they would be.
It still shocked him to find anyone so young, so troubled. He considered himself too young to be so troubled and she was at least half his age.
She eventually stood up from the rocks and climbed down them as she walked slowly towards him, her whole body gliding as she stepped down onto the sand.
'I can't read you,' she whispered, her British accent startlingly obvious. She creased her eyebrows and stood firmly on the spot, as though she were a cowboy preparing to drive him out of town.
'I can't read you either,' he replied, her air of confidence a surprise as her seductive appearance left him befuddled.
She smiled and though it didn't quite reach her eyes he knew she meant it. Whoever she was, whatever she was doing there, he'd met his match. Before he could ask her any questions or seek to know more about her she glided away across the sand.
