Disclaimer: I do not own The Mentalist or any of its characters. But how I wish I did...
Revenge of the Prank Master
Chapter 3- The Agony of Defeat?
With only two hours left to go, Jane was frantically searching everywhere to find his couch. Where could she have possibly hidden a couch? Jane wondered. It's a couch! A large brown couch! He hated to admit it, but he was nearly out of ideas as to the location of his couch. Maybe he could use his charm to get the answer…
A little while later, Jane returned to the CBI. He had taken a brief break from his search to run some necessary errands. When he arrived back on the Serious Crimes Unit floor, he made a beeline straight for Lisbon's office. He opened the door and strolled right in. He was armed and feeling confident to get the answers he was desperate to find.
"Hey gorgeous." Jane said to Lisbon after he walked in.
He placed a giant bouquet of a dozen stunning red roses and a box of chocolates on her desk. Lisbon looked at the gifts that he had placed on her desk before she looked up at him.
"Bribery will get you nowhere, Patrick." She told him.
Jane pretended to be insulted.
"Bribery? Me? Teresa, I am shocked that you think that I would ever stoop so low!" Jane said, obviously being dramatic. "I just wanted to show my wonderful girlfriend how much I love her by showering her with gifts."
"Bull. You just want to know where your couch is."
"I wouldn't mind if you wanted to tell me where it is."
Lisbon just shook her head.
"You've only got about an hour and a half to figure out where your couch is. Better get going!"
"Are you sure-"
"Good-bye Patrick." Lisbon said as she nodded toward her office door.
Jane frowned as he left Lisbon's office. He was hoping that he could at least get a hint from Lisbon as to where his couch was. He had no leads or clues or anything. He was completely in the dark.
With about an hour and a half left, Jane needed to think. He needed to review all of the places that he searched. Maybe he missed something. He had already searched majority of the CBI building. It was not at Lisbon's place or anywhere near there. Jane interrogated the team to see if they knew his couch's whereabouts. Van Pelt, Rigsby and Cho all told him that they didn't know a thing about Lisbon's prank. He knew that Van Pelt was telling the truth, and Rigsby seemed to be. With Cho, it was hard to tell. If he knew anything, he certainly was not going to let Jane in on it. Pretty much out of options, Jane decided to do a final run through of the CBI. Hopefully someone saw something because otherwise, his couch basically disappeared off the face of the planet.
Three, two, one, zero…The twenty-four hour deadline was up and Jane's couch was still MIA. Right on the dot of the deadline ending, Lisbon emerged from her office and went over to join Jane and the team in the bullpen. Jane watched her anxiously from his unused desk, which was where he had been forced to sit for the duration of Lisbon's prank.
"So Patrick, have you figured it out yet?" Lisbon asked immediately.
"Uhhh….Maybe?" Jane mumbled.
"I'll take that as a 'no'." Lisbon said.
She then looked at Cho and Rigsby.
"If you wouldn't mind helping me?"
Cho and Rigsby followed Lisbon out of the bullpen and into the elevator. Jane looked incredulously over at Van Pelt.
"That better not mean that my couch was in the CBI the whole time."
Van Pelt shrugged.
"I have no idea where it could be. So, your guess is as good as mine."
About ten minutes later, the elevator doors opened and out walked Lisbon, Cho, Rigsby with…Jane's couch!
"MY COUCH!" Jane squealed happily.
Cho and Rigsby carried Jane's couch over to its corner and positioned it in its exact spot (it had to be just right so the stain on the ceiling looked like Elvis and not a basset hound). After it was perfect, Jane happily jumped on his couch.
"Anything you want to tell me Patrick?" Lisbon questioned him.
"Not really." Jane replied.
"Are you absolutely sure?" Lisbon prodded, knowing that he was reluctant to say the required words.
With a loud, overly dramatic sigh, Jane said:
"My beautiful and devious girlfriend has officially reclaimed the title of Prank Master…for now." He said. "Happy?"
"Yes actually. I just out pranked my mentalist boyfriend, why wouldn't I be happy."
She looked at Jane, who was now sulking on his couch, and laughed.
"I'm curious, Teresa. How did you get my couch out of here without anyone noticing? And how did you hide it so I wouldn't find it?" Jane asked.
"Well, I planned this about two weeks ago. I needed to get back at you for your prank, which is definitely making target practice extra fun." Lisbon said and Jane pretended to be hurt at her comment. "So, I thought about it. I consulted my brothers, but eventually, I came up with the prank to end all pranks. I called Cho and told him about what I wanted to do and he immediately agreed to help me."
Jane glared at Cho.
"What? It was a really good and funny idea." Cho stated.
"Anyway, the only thing I had to figure out was when to have Cho and Rigsby, who also volunteered to help, move your couch out of the bullpen. Then, during our last case, you made that bet with me. It was the perfect opportunity. When we went for our victory lunch, Cho and Rigsby took your couch and-"
"They took it to your secret hiding place." Jane finished.
"Exactly. Then we came back from lunch, you found that your couch was missing and my prank was put into action. I had the team leave for lunch right as we did so you wouldn't suspect anything, even though I knew you would interrogate them anyway." Lisbon then turned her attention toward Van Pelt. "Sorry I couldn't tell you about the prank, Van Pelt. I knew that Jane's desperate pleas for his couch would probably get to you."
Van Pelt smiled.
"Probably. I felt really bad for Jane. He was really sad without his couch."
"I hate to admit it, but you certainly covered all of your bases, Teresa." Jane complimented her. "But you forgot to tell me one thing."
Lisbon looked at him questioningly.
"Where did you hide my couch?" he asked.
Lisbon flashed him a devious smile, just as he had given her numerous times.
"That information, my dear, is reserved strictly for the Prank Master."
Jane's jaw dropped and Lisbon and the team laughed. With a very obvious victory in her pocket, Lisbon contentedly walked back into her office. Jane popped up off his couch and ran after her.
"Resa! That's not fair! You have to tell me!"
Rigsby, Cho and Van Pelt just looked at each other and laughed again. As crazy as those two made each other (and them), it was obvious that they really were perfect for each other.
A/N: Yay for Lisbon! She completely one-upped Jane! Kudos to anyone who caught the reference to 2.02 (Scarlet Letter) where Jane says that the stain on the ceiling looks like Elvis and not a basset hound.
This concludes the Prank Master series...maybe. My sister and I did come up with a fourth, but I'm unsure if I'm going to end up writing it, as I have so much to do with school and work and the tons of fics that I have queued up to write X). If you're interested in Jane trying to win the title back again, review to let me know. Otherwise the series ends here. Either way, I loved writing this series and hope you loved reading it.
SEASON 3 PREMIERE IN THE US TONIGHT! FINALLY! Can't wait :)
Thanks for reading! I'll have more fictions for everyone soon (hopefully...)