A/N: No, I'm not dead. Just a bit incognito. This popped into my head today, a little more J/L than I usually like, but it's one-sided, so I guess that makes up for it, heh. Reviews are greatly appreciated. :)
I'm so afraid I'll lose him.
That one day, I'll wake up and he'll be gone.
I'll enter the bullpen, like any ordinary morning. But he won't be lying there on his leather sofa, pretending to be asleep.
I lose him little by little everyday.
Even when I first received him, he wasn't all there. He had been torn apart and I had gotten the leftovers. I thought that maybe, with a little help, he could be repaired, stitched together, like a torn shirt or teddy bear. It turns out though, super glue and duct tape aren't always the answer. People aren't made of glass. They're made of blood and muscle and bones and other stuff. But they can still disappear, bit by bit.
It's just a matter of time, now.
I try to protect him, keep him back when we first confront a scene (I'll never get him to wear a vest. Ever) but the image of him falling, bleeding, is forever imprinted behind my eyes. A suspect will sense he's our weakness, they'll get to him, they'll hurt him. Or, he'll really mess up, bad. In a way where not even all the favors in my career can free him.
Red John will get to him, of course.
He's sleeping in the attic. I try to tell him that I'm concerned, without telling him that I'm concerned. That maybe he'll get the hint. He can't treat himself in this way, that people need him.
That I need him.
He'll spiral off, not sleeping, not eating, mind only set on catching Red John.
But can I blame him?
The monster murdered his family. The monster was the first strike. And left me to pick up the pieces.
He'll crack. He'll spiral so far down, there won't be a way to bring him back up. Everything in the damn world would've gotten to him, but there's so little of him left already that he won't know how to handle it, because he's Patrick fucking Jane and he won't ask for my help, and he'll let himself rot.
But I think the worst are the freak accidents, the risks of venturing outside. Muggings, random acts of violence. Drunk drivers, hit and runs, escaped animals, rabid bears, falling debris, terrorist attacks. Maybe he'll fall off a step ladder while getting an old case file and crack his head open, or he'll roll down the stairs coming back down from the attic and bust open his skull and become a vegetable. A baseball with hit his temple and loosen more than a few screws.
He takes one too many aspirin with his sleeping pills.
Or, maybe, he'll get sick and won't go to the doctor. Or catch some horrible disease or he'll fall into the ocean.
The things I can't help scare me the most because they make me realize I can't just force a kevlar vest on him, and he'll be okay.
I just wish he'd be more careful.
Because he doesn't realize how much he means to me. And not just because he closes cases. I'm the one picking up the pieces. I have them all. But he doesn't know.
He'll never know.
And I'll never tell him.