AN: Thanks everyone for your continued support of this story! I'm behind on replying to reviews (what else is new?) but things in my life should slow down a bit after an exam I have tomorrow, so I'll try to get to those ASAP. I hope you like this chapter; it diverged quite a bit from where I had intended it to go, but I think it's better than I had originally planned.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist.
Chapter 3: Bold Enough
Later that night, Jane and Lisbon sat together on their couch. All the windows to the small apartment had been left open in an attempt to take advantage of the nonexistent breeze. Though the heat hadn't abated any since her venture into town, Lisbon inched closer to Jane, glad for his warm arms around her. A single lamp lit the room, emitting just enough light for Lisbon to read from the book of poems she'd bought earlier.
She was halfway through the first poem, taking her time with the Spanish pronunciations. After the first line, Jane had pulled her closer towards him, her back resting against his front. His arms rested just under her breasts, and every time she breathed in she felt him. Jane lowered his head to her shoulder, and his lips came to rest by the crook of her neck.
After she'd finished, Jane spoke, his lips moving against her skin. "Can you translate it? Please?"
Lisbon shivered, the touch of his lips bringing about a sensation in her stomach that she likened to the feeling of the first drop of a particularly high roller coaster.
"The title, roughly translated, means 'stargazers'," she said, and began to read in English.
She felt Jane's eyelashes brush her neck, and she knew he'd closed his eyes. When she'd finished the poem—quietly reciting But for now, I look to you/the stargazer—his eyes were still shut, and she closed the book while turning in his arms.
She'd thought the poem would resonate with him. It certainly had for her with its message of wishing one could see what a loved one could, despite being blind to their beliefs. Maybe someday, like in the poem, Jane would come to understand what she saw in him.
Jane opened his eyes, and upon turning around, Lisbon found herself face-to-face with him, so close that she could make out the individual specs of color in his brilliant irises. He wasn't teary-eyed, and, for once, nor was she. She studied his face, and it took her a moment to comprehend his expression.
Admiration.
With the grace of a professional romantic, Jane took the book from her hands and set it on the coffee table in front of them while simultaneously leaning forward to kiss the side of her mouth. He was being deliberate, she knew, saving the best for last, and she turned her head to give him better access. His lips teased her there for a while before moving south to kiss down her jaw and onto her chin while one hand tangled in her hair and the other moved to stroke her hip.
Lisbon didn't even try to control her breathing, which had become embarrassingly erratic, and she moaned quietly as his lips found a particularly sensitive spot on her neck. She reached out and grabbed his arms to steady herself.
Finally—finally—his lips encountered her own, and she kissed him back eagerly, grinning against him when she realized his breathing matched her own. His tongue sought permission, which she granted gratefully—of course he had permission, she was his—and his hand moved from her hip to her stomach to gently push her down on the couch. She complied.
His body covered hers, and the sound of rustling clothes harmonized with the breaking of the waves.
"Alright," said Jane, breathing in deeply and clasping his hands together. He touched his lips with the tips of his fingers. "The first thing to know if you want to become a human lie detector is that there is no such thing as a perfect liar. Everyone has a tell."
They were sitting together on the edge of a circular stone fountain in the center of the city plaza, shoppers buzzing around them heading to market or greeting friends for lunch. Lisbon sat facing Jane, her legs crossed—as she'd referred to it in her schoolgirl days—applesauce style, and Jane rested one leg on the fountain, his knee bent and supporting an elbow, the other foot touching the ground. Water splashed down beside them, and they felt the occasional spray of mist from the fountain when the wind picked up.
He glanced at her, the scruff of his beard appearing nearly golden in the sunlight, and took in her raised eyebrows. He chuckled. "Yes, Lisbon, even me. I have a tell."
"Pray tell," she said, and he laughed again at her play on words.
"I actually have multiple tells, but I've learned to mask them well. We'll get into that later." He paused and looked over at her. "I think the most reliable way to tell if I'm lying is to look for microexpressions."
"Microexpressions," said Lisbon, testing out the word.
"Yes," said Jane. "Microexpressions are just that—expressions that cross your face for a fleeting second as you react to something. They're involuntary, so you can't control them. And because of that, they reveal the true feelings of the individual wearing them."
"Can't something like this be faked?"
Jane shrugged. "Not really. These expressions are instinctual—they're preprogrammed into our DNA by millions of years of evolution. Even people who are born blind make the same universal microexpressions for certain emotions. Because we make these expressions instinctually, they're extremely difficult to mimic on command. A person who is trying to fake a microexpression either gets the timing off—for example, the expression lasts too long—or uses the incorrect muscles."
Lisbon's eyes widened, and she stared at him in disbelief. "'Incorrect muscles'?" she quoted.
He smiled at her incredulity and dug some folded sheets of paper out of his shorts pocket. He handed her the first one, and she looked down to find a depiction of a human face straight out of an anatomy textbook. There was no skin, just striated lines where the different muscles of the face wove together. The names of the muscles were sketched on the diagram in Jane's messy handwriting. Jane pointed at the paper Lisbon now held in her hands, and their eyes met again.
"The muscles of the human face," Jane elaborated. "You'll want to memorize the locations and names, of course. Certain combinations of muscles, like the corrugator and the orbicularis oculi, are only involved in certain expressions."
Lisbon rolled her eyes. "It's like Anat and Phys in high school all over again," she laughed.
"I bet your teacher then wasn't nearly as attractive as the one you have now."
Her jaw dropped—Jane rarely flirted so obviously with her, and even rarer still did he flirt with her in public. "He was about fifty-five and had a handlebar mustache," said Lisbon, grinning. "So, yes, Jane, you're correct. After all, who could compare to you?"
He laughed again, the sound nearly intoxicating, and Lisbon breathed in the similarly heady scent of the flowers arranged around the fountain. Jane handed her another picture, this one of a human face showing a particular expression. "We'll start with six of the most commonly agreed upon microexpressions. This one's disgust. Notice how the orbicularis oris curls up a bit? And how the brow crinkles? That's the corrugator supercilii wrinkling."
Jane looked up from the paper and searched the town square. "There," he said, after his eyes had wandered for a while and then landed on something. Lisbon looked in the direction he was pointing to and saw a garbage can. "Watch as people pass the trash bin," he suggested. "Sooner or later, someone will catch a whiff of it—looks like it hasn't been emptied in a while."
Sure enough, as though on cue, a young boy ran through the plaza, a soccer ball at his feet. He passed the trash bin as he dribbled the ball, and his nose crinkled for a fraction of a second in disgust.
"See it?"
Lisbon nodded eagerly, and she searched the crowd for another example. After a minute, her eyes landed on the shop of the carnicero—the Spanish word for butcher—and she watched the expressions of the passerby who walked in front of the store where the goods were displayed in the glass windows. Soon enough, a couple of American tourists came into view. One of them looked up, saw the meat hanging in the window, and the same look crossed her face for a millisecond.
Lisbon turned back to Jane, pleased. Jane handed her another sheet of paper with a similar drawing on it.
"This one shows fear," he began, and he described the characteristic muscle movements as Lisbon listened, entranced.
An hour later, Jane had finished explaining the six main microexpressions—disgust, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise, and anger—and Lisbon's lower back had begun to protest her lack of movement. She rubbed her spine, massaging the muscles there, and Jane folded the rest of the papers he held in his hands and returned them to his pocket.
"That's enough for one day," he said. "The best way to really learn this stuff is only a little at a time. It's easier for your brain to file away smaller bits of information." He stood up and arched his back a bit, and Lisbon heard his knees crack in response. Lisbon grabbed her purse from the ground and stuffed away the papers Jane had given her. She smiled, remembering that he had also given her homework.
Jane offered his arm to her, and she stood as well, linking their arms and leaning against him as they walked across the plaza. It had begun to clear out as people returned to work after their lunch breaks, though it was still occupied enough to buzz with conversation.
After a few steps, Lisbon froze, feeling as though something were off.
Jane turned to face her, and she saw surprise flit across his face—his orbicularis oculi muscles contracted, making his eyes widen. She allowed herself a moment of satisfaction for her first time in successfully reading him, but pushed the thought aside.
"Lisbon?" Jane asked, looking at her closely.
Lisbon glanced around the plaza. The buildings looked unchanged, their adobe coloring and flowers as bright as ever—but the people appeared different. She continued to look around. As she watched, the locals' expressions one by one turned from smiling to horrified as they talked with one another, as though they were all taking place in a macabre version of the game telephone.
She turned to Jane. Without a word, her dark expression seemed to convey to him exactly what she was thinking. He looked over her head, scanning the crowds around them, and grabbed her hand.
"Come on," he said. "We need to figure out what's going on."
They walked quickly, Lisbon nearly jogging to keep up with Jane's brisk pace, and he led them to the used bookstore down the street. The bell jingled as they walked towards the store, and Adriana appeared, closing the door behind her and locking it.
"Adriana?" Jane called, still holding onto Lisbon's hand. Lisbon breathed deeply, trying to catch her breath. Adriana turned sharply, her movements tense and her hair messier than when Lisbon had last seen her, as though she'd been running her fingers through it anxiously.
"Señor Jane," she said.
"Has something happened?" asked Jane, not bothering with pleasantries.
"You have not heard?" asked Adriana, her eyes wide. As she spoke, Lisbon noticed that Adriana's bright red lipstick had smeared, leaving a smudge on her front incisor. Lisbon wondered why she had not fixed it—or what had caused her to become so preoccupied she had forgotten to fix it.
Adriana continued breathlessly, and her accent became so heavy that Lisbon struggled to understand the words. "Thirty minutes ago, there was an earthquake on the…the…I believe you Americans call it a plate."
"An earthquake?" asked Lisbon. "We didn't feel a tremor."
"It's not the earthquake we are worried about here on the island," explained Adriana patiently. "It is the aftereffects."
Lisbon's experience with earthquakes in California had taught her that what happened after an earthquake could be just as deadly as what happened during one. She felt Jane's hand tense in her own and knew he'd come to the same conclusion.
"Where did the earthquake take place?" asked Jane.
"It is not known exactly. Somewhere in the ocean, hundreds of miles from here."
"Is the island being evacuated?" asked Lisbon, feeling the cop part of her resurrect after pushing it away for so many weeks.
"They fear there is no time," said Adriana, her voice pained. "It would be more dangerous to be caught in a tsunami fleeing the island than to endure it here. Everyone is moving to higher ground."
"Muchas gracias, Adriana," said Lisbon, nodding her thanks to the bookseller and pulling Jane away from the shop. A second later, she'd released his hand and begun to sprint towards their apartment, Jane running along in her wake.
"Lisbon!" he yelled after her, and she sprinted faster. "Lisbon! What the hell do you think you're doing?" He caught up to her, grasping her arms tightly and pulling her back.
"The apartment," she gasped, breathing heavy. "My sheet music—your book..."
Jane shook his head, pulling her in the opposite direction, towards the road which led to the highest point on the island. Lisbon vaguely recognized another of the expressions she'd learned today—fear—etched across his face. "That's madness, Lisbon! Nobody knows how much time we have!"
As if to prove his point, a young couple ran past them in the direction Jane pointed to, the father holding tightly to a newborn infant.
Lisbon moaned, still desperate to escape his reach. "Please, Jane. Please!"
"Not a chance in hell," snapped Jane, and he pulled her away from the road that would lead them back to the apartment. "Look at me, Lisbon. Look at me!"
She tore her eyes away from the road for a second to meet his.
"The music, the book," he said softly. "All of it's in here," he said, gesturing to his head. "I promise you, that stuff is not going anywhere."
She stopped struggling immediately, and he began to pull her again. They followed the younger couple.
Lisbon risked one last look behind her, but she felt Jane give a sharp pull on her arm, and she focused her attention on scaling the hill in front of them.
She didn't look back.
I feel obligated to point out that I've never experienced an earthquake nor a tsunami, so I took a lot of creative license with that particular plot point. As always, feel free to point out any mistakes I've made so I can correct them! And as long as I'm taking creative license, let's pretend Lisbon didn't learn about microexpressions while training to become a cop...
Thanks for reading!