A/N: An adolescent Lisbon story. Kinda AU.
Spoilers: a little, hardly noticeable, reference to 5x08 Red Sails in the Sunset.
Disclaimer: I own a lot of things, but The Mentalist is not one of them.
She had contemplated the idea for a while now. And she'd finally made a decision. She was going to get a tattoo. Not a big one, just a little something to commemorate the occasion. She was 18 now - a grown woman - still if her mother had been alive she would have killed her for even considering it, her father too, but he was too drunk most of the time to realize what was going on in her life. Besides she had chosen a spot it would be very unlikely he'd ever see. This was not some kind of teenage rebellion, it was a private expression, a symbol of her not being afraid anymore.
As the notorious manage keeper she was, she had made sure everything was planned down to a T.
The day and time; early afternoon on a Wednesday because the boys had soccer practice and their dad would be in his usual mid-week drunk stupor.
The tattoo parlor: a little joint in midtown, chosen for its location, which was close to the errands she had to run anyway.
The placement on her body; just above her right pelvic bone.
And of course the design…, which really was a no brainer.
xXx
On said Wednesday she walked into the tattoo parlor after dropping the boys off, sat down and awaited her appointment. When it was her turn she walked over gracefully and sat down in the chair. She didn't fret, didn't run away, had no second thoughts whatsoever, she calmly explained the design and the color, had even drawn up a sketch.
She lay down and exposed her skin. The first needle prick was the worst, mainly because of the anticipation, everything after that didn't face her one bit. The man repeatedly dabbed her hip, his pretense, drying up the blood from the wound he himself created and filled with ink. The patting was a little more extensive than it had to be, she thought, but she didn't let it bother her, because today she was free, and so she made herself concentrate on the end result, and not on the perv making it happen.
From here on out she would be strong and independent - this marked her as just that - nothing could ever hurt her again. When she was done, her wound patched up and bandaged she walked out feeling like a changed woman. However she still had her duties, and so she picked up the boys, made them dinner, made sure they did their homework and got them to bed at a decent hour, all while their dad was passed out on the living room sofa.
When she was finally alone in her room, she stripped naked, took off the bandages, and gently let her fingers glide over her little round patch of swollen skin. She looked at herself in the full-sized mirror. The delicate red nuance stood out against the pale white of her skin. She smiled as she looked down at the little red face on her hip, smiling back up at her.
She had found her salvation.
A/N: I'll leave you with that.
I feel it's kinda different from my usual stuff, though I never really stick to one genre. Anyways did you like it? Did it make sense?