A/N: Again, another weird (migraine induced) entry to the Jello Forever Challenge. A somewhat literal interpretation of the prompt. But come on, someone had to do it. And what with this collection, I had to do it five times over. Besides, it's rather silly and that contrasts nicely with the rather sad tone of the first one.
Thank you to: WildDaisies10, Habeous Corpus, Divinia Serit, anthropologist, boutondor, phoenixmagic1, jisbon 14, yaba, Ebony10, Frogster, Koezh, Nick Tarostar, lisbon69, Princess Popsicle, shopping-luva91, Viktorija, Famous4it and mtm for reviewing Shed a Tear. I'm so glad you guys like this idea and hopefully I'll get plenty of ideas to keep this collection going.
x tromana
Title: Standing On The Outside
Author: tromana
Rating: T
Characters: Jane/Lisbon, Team
Summary: …or five times Lisbon locked Jane outside of something.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Notes: Prompt from the Jello Forever March Challenge. Prompt: Standing on the outside.
Standing On The Outside
i
"Lisbon!" Jane paused for a second. He could almost touch her and that was just teasing. "Hey, Lisbon!"
Eventually she raised a single finger to Rigsby to indicate that she would be just one minute and headed over to Jane. He was practically hopping from foot to foot in impatience and seemed rather relieved that she had finally gotten the message. It had only taken him five minutes of calling, begging and whining for her to finally give up and he noted that as a personal record. Carefully, she hopped over the yellow tape and Jane's eyes never left her for a second. It seemed like a blessed relief when she was standing in front of him, arms folded and foot tapping in that typical pissed off Lisbonish fashion.
"I appreciate your need for security, but this lovely gentleman doesn't believe that I'm a member of your team."
"You work for my team, you're not a member of it," she stated, making sure she enunciated every single word as clearly as possible. "There's a slight, yet important, difference."
"Semantics."
"Not," she shot back, cringing at how immature she sounded. But Jane always brought out the very worst in her and she couldn't help it. "Why are you here anyway?"
"To do my job."
"I left you with plenty to do back at the office."
"And how can I do my job if I can't get access to the body?" he continued, completely ignoring her statement.
"You know Jane, most consultants don't require access to a crime scene," she hissed. "I don't know why you have to be so different."
"How can I get an idea on what the victim was like if I don't see her body?"
"We know plenty about him, though thanks for offering. Now go away and do something useful for a change," she smiled slightly at Jane before turning her attention to the officer standing guard. "Don't let him through."
Jane watched with frustration as Lisbon wove her way back to the crime scene, where she immediately applied herself back to the task. He glanced at the body this time and she was right, now he took a proper look, he could see it was blatantly a man. Shaking his head, he faced the official standing beside him. The man looked as if he'd had a stick shoved up his ass, but it was worth a shot.
"How much would it cost for you to just turn your head for…"
"Not disobeying Agent Lisbon, sir," he answered, cutting Jane off with ease. "Her tongue is as sharp as a knife."
ii
He glared up at the sky and quickly decided that the cloud hovering above him looked ominous. Yet again, he found himself taking his cell phone out of the pocket of his dress pants and dialing a terribly familiar number. Jane was unsure as to whether or not she would actually answer though. Half the time, she simply ignored the call and the rest, she just shouted down the phone line at him to stop bothering her because she had work to do. Most people would just switch their cell phone off if somebody was calling them incessantly, but not Lisbon. She thought she needed it on all the time, even at the office, just in case somebody called her with a job to do. He smirked a little; if somebody said she needed to sell her soul because it would help out with work, she probably would. The little brunette agent was terribly faithful to her career and that was one thing he didn't quite understand about her. Life was for living, not for slaving away in an office. Still, at least she was letting him visit crime scenes with them now instead of leaving him hidden in the shadows.
"Lisbon, this is ridiculous," Jane whined down his cell phone, making sure he was the one to speak first for a change and fell silent for five seconds as she responded. "It's cold out here. The wind is blowing and I don't even have my jacket."
Jane shivered and glared at the cell phone as she ended the call. Really, it was terribly immature of her to lock him out of the whole CBI building. Okay, so the case had gone a little astray and maybe he might have talked their prime suspect into killing themselves instead of putting the gun down. And this case had meant she had lost that cross necklace that her mother had given her and thus, was so very important to her. But still, she could have at least let him go in and get his belongings so he wasn't freezing his ass off outside because that just wasn't fair. He could catch all menagerie of diseases, especially as it was a particularly cold winter for California. A cold, pneumonia, hypothermia… Well, if he did, it would serve her right and he wouldn't be in a particularly forgiving mood when she visited him in hospital claiming she was sorry.
He jumped when a grey pile of something landed neatly at his feet. It didn't take him long to identify it as his jacket, the one he'd left on the couch that morning. Gratefully, he pulled it on before gazing up to see Cho leaning slightly out of the window. Tentatively, he waved up at the Asian agent who simply nodded in response.
"Thanks, Cho. Now any chance you can…"
"No," Cho answered quickly and snappishly. "Boss told me to give it to you so that you would stop calling her every five minutes."
"Are you sure she meant throw it out of the window?"
"Yes."
As Cho withdrew from his spot in the window, Jane kicked a stone somewhat aggressively. Stupid faithful team. He'd break their resolve eventually. Maybe bouncing a rubber ball against their window would annoy them sufficiently enough to let him back in and stop this stupid vendetta against him?
iii
It had taken him seconds to pick the lock to her office door. It always did and he didn't quite understand why Lisbon went through the process of locking it. The action was so ineffectual and Jane had greeted her from inside her office so many mornings that he was actually beginning to lose count. Every time he did so though, she wore that same expression. The one that was a combination of annoyance, irritation and though she would vehemently deny it, a little bit of amusement too. It was almost becoming a game between them. She would lock her office doors and if he successfully broke in, he would leave a little something to show that he'd been. Just something simple, like a handful of strawberries, a completed form that she thought he'd forgotten to fill in or a couple of teabags he thought she might like. Always something essentially harmless, to take the edge of her anger and prevent her from shouting the building down. Usually something to apologize for his misbehavior too, especially if a case had lead to her having an abundance of paperwork fall on top of her.
This time, however, was slightly different. He hadn't done anything 'wrong' of late, nor had she been pissed off with him for some obscure reason. But Lisbon had been conversing with a stranger. Well, probably not a stranger to her, but Jane didn't know him and therefore didn't trust him to spend time with her. He told himself it wasn't a slight twinge of jealousy that somebody else was in his Lisbon's company and that he was simply looking out for a friend. As he confirmed that fact to himself, he pulled up her chair and pulled the computer keyboard towards himself. Flexing his fingers, he typed what he was fairly certain was his password. Most people were predictable and Lisbon was as predictable as they came.
He jumped when the door swung open.
It was Lisbon and she wasn't on her own.
"You thought you could hack into my computer, didn't you?" she asked, somewhat amused and rather relieved that her password was particularly obscure to stop Jane from hacking into her files yet again. She shook her head slightly and changed the subject. "This is Andrew."
Bitterly, Jane thrust his hand forward and shook his hand. The man could be Lisbon's type, but he wasn't quite sure yet. To be fair, whenever he thought about men that Lisbon would probably like, he kind of, accidentally replaced anything she might like with himself. For the first time in a long while, he cursed his own ego and wished he'd actually paid attention to his subject. Quickly, he regained focus and took in as many details as possible about the man in front of him. He had a tight, possessive grip that was contradicted by his softened eyes. Broad shoulders, dark hair that was already receding…
"Andrew's my brother," she added lightly. "I hope you don't mind me meeting up with him now."
"Oh."
iv
She'd locked him out of a car and driven off before, so he couldn't believe that Teresa Lisbon would sink so low as to do it again. Her brother had been practically laughing his ass off as she did so, but the poor woman had looked so humiliated that she had turned a rosy red and dragged her brother off by his tie and left him at the restaurant. Alone. Okay, so maybe he had pushed the boundaries a little too far. Maybe he had bent the truth a little too much too, but really, she should have been able to tell when he was joking by now, right?
It had started off harmless enough, them discussing how long they'd been working together, stuff like that. Lisbon had been a little annoyed at first, but had relaxed a little by the time the main course had arrived. After all, she hadn't particularly wanted Jane there, that had been her younger brother's idea. He kept insisting that he wanted to get to know the 'famous' Patrick Jane and see if he measured up to the stories that his sister had told him. Problems started when Andrew just happened to mention just how happy he was to finally see his sister dating again instead of being so focused on work all the while. And Jane just hadn't been able to resist, he just had to run with it. Lisbon had been fuming but it was when he said that she was wild in bed that she snapped and left. Jane had chased them to the parking lot, leaving behind a rather delicious crème brûlée, but she had already locked all the doors to her SUV before he had reached them. She had simply glared at him as she snapped her seat belt in place before starting the engine and leaving him standing there, looking like a fool.
Now, it was nearing eleven p.m. and he was standing outside, alone, having pushed her a little too far after what had been a lovely, civil meal out with Lisbon and her family. At least this time he had his jacket so didn't have to suffer in the freezing cold again. After paying their bill, Jane called Rigsby, relieved that this time, the team didn't know that he'd irritated Lisbon again. Hopping from foot to foot and blowing in his hands in attempt to create some warmth, it was a blessed relief to see Rigsby's car pull up. Less so, when he saw the expression written on his face though.
"Ah, you had a date with Grace, didn't you?" he queried, somewhat embarrassed.
"You annoyed the boss again, didn't you?" Rigsby retorted, finally understanding how Lisbon got annoyed with Jane so easily.
"Maybe."
"Get in," he sighed, rolling his eyes. "Are you ever going to learn?"
v
The flowers were looking a little limp, but this was a last ditch effort to apologize.
Her brother had long since left and he'd hoped by the time that Andrew had gone home that Lisbon would be more in the mood for forgiving him. Flowers were a little clichéd, but really, he was running out of options. She'd thrown the basket of her favorite fruits back in his face literally, said she'd already seen the latest romantic comedy at the movies with Van Pelt, of all people. Adopting one of the new tiger cubs at the zoo in her name had drawn the faintest hint of a smile to her face, but she had since pretended that he had done nothing. He'd even stopped breaking into her office (and stopped trying to hack into her account on the computing system) and given her the space and privacy that he knew she craved.
All of it to no avail.
And that was why he found himself on her doorstep with a bunch of roses, trying desperately to make himself heard above a jazz CD she probably didn't even like.
He'd already picked the lock, but it was on a chain and she was probably sitting by the door too as he hadn't been able to make it budge an inch. Jane contemplated breaking a window, but had a feeling she would probably kill him literally if he did that. Though Lisbon was off-duty, she did still have her off-duty weapon. And as she reminded him regularly, breaking and entering was a felony.
"Lisbon, please."
"No."
"I'm sorry."
"You never are."
"No, really, I am."
"You humiliate me in the little time we already spend together, why would I actively spend more time with you?"
"Because I make things more interesting?" he replied hopefully.
Lisbon allowed the door to open just a crack and he thrust the bunch of roses through it before she had a chance to say no. They fell to the floor beside her and Jane smiled weakly at her before he encouraged her to open the envelope that he had slipped in with them. Eyeing him suspiciously, she eventually obliged. The card was generic, simply stating 'thank you' in bold letters but it wasn't that that caught her eye. The cross necklace, the one she had though lost a few weeks had fallen into her hand. It was a little battered and bruised, but there was no damage a decent jeweler would be unable to sort out.
Standing backwards, she closed the door just enough to let off the chain. She had locked him outside of her house for hours, after all and there was only so long you could be angry with Patrick Jane for…
end
