Author's note: Written for the Paint It Red November 2012 Monthly Challenge - prompt: "You never know".
Tomorrow Never Comes
There are only two places where Jane really feels at home. One is on his faithful couch in the bullpen, the other is inside Lisbon's office.
He's been spending more and more time in her office since that particular day – the day he's still unwilling to dwell on.
(That would be the day of Red John's downfall, but he's not ready to come to terms with such a life-changing milestone. Not yet.)
Lisbon hardly pays any attention to him as he's napping on the couch he bought her some years ago. He wouldn't have it any other way, for he's quite busy sorting out a rather personal matter.
It's not that the matter at hand doesn't involve Lisbon as well. He just doesn't want her to know about it until he's made up his mind at last.
Come to think of it, the relationship he's been having with Lisbon over the past decade is based more on what they don't say and what they don't dare to do – rather than anything else.
They almost never say they care for each other, no matter how much they actually do. And though they've happened to hug on occasion, neither of them has ever gone as far as giving a quick peck on the other's cheek.
It's not that he's never thought about it. He has – more than once, as a matter of fact.
However, he's not sure he's allowed to do anything of the kind.
Because she's Lisbon.
And he's Jane.
They're not supposed to kiss – ever.
As preposterous as it sounds, he cares for her too much to risk their friendship over a kiss. Even if it's a kiss he's been craving for longer than he even cares to remember.
On the other hand, he's almost sure that Lisbon wouldn't ever dream of kissing him; she's way too professional to entertain such inappropriate thoughts.
So he simply lies in wait, while days follow days and weeks follow weeks.
He waits for tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes, as they say.
(And yet one never knows. Maybe someday he'll finally pluck up the courage to corner her in the kitchenette. There's a fair chance he'd manage to taste the coffee still lingering on her lips before she decides to knock the living daylights out of him. It could be worth it.)
It's late one evening when Lisbon seems to have finally run out of patience. Jane cringes slightly as she stalks into the bullpen – he's been lying on his own couch for a change – and beckons him to her office.
He complies nervously, wondering what he might have done this time. Then she grabs him by the lapels of his jacket and kisses him like there's no tomorrow.
He can't recall another occasion when he's been so happy to be proven wrong.
