Patrick couldn't tell you when exactly it had started. It had been long ago. Back before he had even started working for the CBI. All he remembered was that one day, when he had returned to the crappy, rundown apartment that he had been staying in at the time, finding a envelope that had been slipped under the door. At first he had thought it was a joke, after all, why else would someone give him a envelope with a picture of him from before... before Red John came into his life and attach a note to it saying, you will wear your hair like this.
He had brushed it aside and ignored it... Or at least he had, until the day when the day that the woman who always smiled at him and said hello as he walked through the park had been found dead. That night, when he had returned to his apartment there had been another envelope, only this time the only thing in it had been necklace that the old woman had worn every time he saw her. He had packed all his items into his old suitcase and left that night.
He might as well have not even bothered. Two days after settling into his new rooms, in the new city, in the new state, far away from the old one, he had once again come home to find an envelope slipped under his door. When he opened the door and saw it he had frozen before forcing himself to enter, closing the door after looking around to see if who ever had left it was still around. He didn't open it, or even pick it up right away, he just left it where it lay and stared at it for a while. Finally, however, he bent down and picked it up, his hands ever so slightly shaking. He opened it slowly, pulling out the folded piece of paper inside. It merely read, this is your last chance.
The next day he had gone out and had his hair cut and had brought a blow dryer. It had felt wired, putting effort into how he looked, even as little as it took to make his hair look like it used to. A few days later he had woken up to find a book sitting on the steps to his apartment.
The envelopes had continued after that. They were not very often, one every two, sometimes three months. He was hesitant to follow what they said, however, he remembered the necklace he had been sent, the necklace that, after not follow one of the... rules - leave your blinds open at night - for two days after receiving it, had appeared on the table beside his bed as he slept.
It was the first time he had had proof that the person could enter his apartment. He had suspected it, but even thought he always found the envelopes inside, he never found the 'presents' inside. They came to him through various means. Sometimes they were left sitting on the steps to his apartment, like the book had been, other times they were given to him by delivery men, and other times they were left in places that he went to every day. He had even found on sitting in the tree that he liked to climb in order to watch the sun set.
He moved once again, this time to an apartment with a better lock, but it didn't seem to matter. No matter where he went the notes followed him, even after his break down, when he was institutionalized. He had never mentioned them to Sophie, he had thought about it, but, almost like the person sending them could read his mind, that very day one had appeared on his bed, explaining in great detail what would happen to her if he did.
The day he was set to be released, he received one that made him freeze. Move back to your house in Sacramento. He hadn't. It was the first one since the first one that he had ignored one of the rules. He once again tried to run, this time not staying in one place for more than one day, and even using fake identities this time, and yet still the person had found him. Or more like never lost him, after all, killing the pilot of the plane he had been about to take made it seem like he had never lost him. It was after that that he finally gave in and returned to Sacramento. He did not want anyone else to die because of him.
He had sat outside his house, the house filled with some many memories that, though once having been good, now caused him pain. When he finally entered he had found a large suit case sitting in the middle of the living room. Inside it were the suits that he had worn when he had pretended to be physic. The suits that he had given away to a goodwill before he left California. They were all in the same bags as they had been that day.
Looking back, that day was the first day that he had had really accepted that the person giving him these rules was the same person who had killed his family. He had thought of it before, after reading the treats that had been made to Sophie, subconsciously picking out the similarities between the threats and the wounds on the bodies of the two woman he had loved more than anything.
The list of rules had keep growing over the years, always a different gift left for him when he followed them, and always a death when he didn't. It had gotten to the point that now days he couldn't relax for even a moment without fear of breaking one and having someone else killed for it. He remembered on all the people who had died because of him, his wife and daughter, the kind old women, the girl he had played chess with on multiple occasions, the tea store owner who would always specially order his favourite type of tea just for him, and all the rest that had been killed because he angered Red John. He remembered them all, and promised them, even as he was looking down at the newest rule, that one day, he would avenge them all.
AN: Ok, so this is written for a prompt on the Mentalist kink memo. The prompt was: Yeah, the old "Red John is obsessed with Jane" prompt, but I would like something not necessarily slash...it's okay if it goes that way eventually (though please not between Jane and any of the other team members), but it doesn't have to. Either way, I would like Red John blackmailing Jane...when he complies with his demands, he gets a "reward" (a new suit he is forced to wear at a special time, a gift, sometimes even a hint), but whenever he breaks the rules, someone has to suffer for it. And the list of rules becomes longer and longer... I hope you all liked it.