Out of Bounds Relationships

A Lorelei Martins/Gabe Mancini story

By Brown Eyes Parker

Summary: He knew that Lorelei knew this as well, and that they were just dreamers that wouldn't survive because they had both signed a deal with the Devil.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, I would be rich. RICH I TELL YOU!

Warnings: It contains slight spoilers for 5x01, and some stuff that's been circling the Internet for the season as a whole. But I don't know, because a lot of spoilers Bruno Heller gives never really comes to be. *Cough* the slap *Cough*.

Rated: T (to be safe).

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"Thanks for springing me out of jail," Lorelei Martins said as she came out of his bathroom dressed in a pair of his old FBI sweat pants and a ratty, black t-shirt with a hole in the shoulder.

"No problem," Gabe replied. "I'm sorry that I don't have any other clothes for you to wear."

"I really don't mind," Lorelei told him as she came over to him and put her arms around his shoulder, hooking her fingers together behind his neck.

"Lorelei," Gabe groaned. "We can't do this again."

"Who's doing anything?" She asked lightly.

"You're his girlfriend."

"One among many," Lorelei breathed. "Everyone knows that Roseland Harker is his true love. The rest of us are just a warm body."

"He hates disloyalty," Gabe whispered as his arms wrapped around Lorelei's on their own accord.

"He'll never find out," Lorelei promised huskily. "He didn't the last time, remember?"

Gabe kissed her then; the second taste of her was so much sweeter than the first one that he had stolen months earlier.

She tasted like the frozen pizza that they had shared earlier in the afternoon and Budweiser beer. She smelled like his drugstore body wash and Italian perfume. . . perfume that marked her out as somebody else's entirely.

But he didn't care about that. He was in love with her, had been since the day their boss had first introduced her to him.

"Lorelei," he said quietly as he broke away from their kiss for a moment.

"Gabe?"

"Let's run away together," he suggested tentatively.

"Run away?" Lorelei repeated. "Oh Gabe. . . we can't do that. He wouldn't like it if we did. He'd find us somehow and then drag us back. . . or worse. And besides that, you need to pretend that you have a thing for Teresa—"

"I don't though. I-I-I love-love you," Gabe replied, cursing himself for his sudden show of weakness.

"You don't know what you're saying Gabe!" Lorelei interjected as she tried to wiggle out of his arms and put some distance between them, scared by the sudden seriousness in the kitchen.

"I do though!" he insisted. "And even if I wanted to pretend to have a thing for Agent Lisbon, it wouldn't matter because she's in love with Patrick Jane."

Lorelei laughed, almost cruelly. "Everybody knows that."

"He says that Jane's in love with her too—"

"Well, Red John can be wrong sometimes you know!" Lorelei retorted.

Gabe frowned. "You don't have feelings for Patrick Jane of all people, do you?"

"Of course not!" Lorelei answered empathetically.

"Good, because you know that you were probably just a warm body to him too," Gabe said testily. "Just another means to an end. . . just like you are with Red John!"

Lorelei looked like she had been slapped straight across the face as she finally freed herself of the taller man and put some distance between them.

"That's not true!" She said frostily. "Red John loves me! He loves me!"

"But you're the one who just said that Roseland was his true love—" Gabe started.

"Leave me alone! Just leave me alone Mancini!" Lorelei replied as she stalked away from him.

Gabe scrubbed his face wearily and was just about to follow her when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and saw that Alexa Shultz was calling him. He took a deep breath and then answered the call, knowing that his boss would be calling him so he could come and help look for Lorelei Martins after she had mysteriously disappeared from prison.

He scribbled a note for Lorelei in case she decided to come out of the guest room while he was out. Then he put his Armani knock-off suit jacket on and the mask of the man he was supposed to be before he went to join his team and the CBI in search of the woman that he was in love with.

He had become good at pretending.

.

Gabe had just crawled into bed and gotten himself comfortable when his door opened and Lorelei crawled under the covers to lie down beside him.

He ran a finger up and down her arm, sighing deeply. "Listen Lorelei. . . I'm sorry about what I said earlier. . . it was uncalled for."

Lorelei nodded and slid her hand up his chest. "I'm sorry for overreacting about it."

Gabe grunted his acceptance of her apology and closed his eyes as she started to rub soothing circles on his shoulder.

"Maybe. . . one day we could run away together," she suggested quietly. "I mean. . . when this is all over."

"Maybe," Gabe agreed, eve n though he highly doubted that it would ever really be over.

Even if Jane did succeed in finding Red John, there was no way that the serial killer would go down without taking all his followers down with him.

He knew that Lorelei knew this as well, and that they were just dreamers that wouldn't survive because they had both signed a deal with the Devil.

_The End_

Author's Note:

Okay, this story was inspired by two things. The first one was donnamour1969's episode tag to Sunday night's episode of the Mentalist (go ahead and read it, because everything she write's is absolutely fabulous). The second thing that inspired this was too many late nights staring at the ceiling because I couldn't sleep.

I know this story totally comes out of left field and it's totally unpolished. But I'd still love to hear your thoughts on it. Drop me a review! Maybe the next time I decide to go out of my comfort zone and write something other than Jane and Lisbon, it'll be better because of the feedback I get today.

Lots of love,

Holly, 10/4/2012_