-Just me, on a total weird-fest again.-

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Past Imperfect

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"Look, I didn't hypnotize anyone..."

"You killed a chicken!"

"I sacrificed it. And now the OC guys are happy, because those two creeps can't talk fast enough."

"Jane, if the Animal Rights people ever find out..."

"Meh. They won't. Anyway, I was humane."

His shirt hangs open, revealing the elaborate inkwork over his chest. That had given her a shock, even though she knows it's fake. As is most of the blood. The gang-banger who'd ripped open his shirt to look for a wire had recoiled with an oath, an automatic crossing of himself. An intricate rendition of a grinning skeleton with her robes and crown and scythe...

Sibley, ambling up with Chenkov at his heels, shakes his head.

"Dunno about those suckers, but he scared the shit out of me..."

"It was like fucking 'Poltergeist'." Chenkov is in awe. "That creepy voice..."

"Glossolalia." Jane shrugs. "Anyone can learn to do it."

"...I mean, he's chanting this weird shit and waving this fucking knife around, and these guys are crapping themselves, and he's standing there with blood all over him and this shit-eating grin, and just says 'did you get it on tape?' Fucking awesome, man."

"It's a shame we couldn't get a snake." Jane's tone is regretful.

"A snake?"

"A python would have really added to the drama. I was never keen on the rattlers."

Lisbon looks at him. Semi-naked, and draped with a python? Okay, that's far more wrong than she wants to be dealing with. Shuts her eyes, and takes a deep breath. Sibley and Chenkov are clapping him on the shoulder, boisterous and cheerful farewells, joking that they'll get him a snake next time...She doesn't want there to be a next time.

She shakes her head.

"You just conned a confession out of two hardened criminals with a couple of voice tricks, some fake blood and a chicken?"

"I've done worse, believe me." His voice is low, and there's old pain in his eyes. "Faith is a powerful tool."

This has called up a lot of memories, and few of them are good.

"It was crazy and unethical and dangerous."

"But it worked."

"And if it hadn't?"

"You see, this is why I didn't outline my plan to you before-hand."

"You marched into the headquarters of the Perros de la Muerte with only a knife and no back-up."

"I had back-up."

Her angry scowl dismisses the OC.

"You didn't have me." Slips out before she can catch it back. "I had to find out from Despatch."

Heading over in her car, fear and fury mixed, aware that she was treading on toes, holding herself back from rushing in, demanding to know what the hell they thought they were doing. They had made space for her in the van, and she doesn't realise until afterwards that they had not even questioned her presence. And then...that voice on the tape, barely recognisable, guttural syllables and genuine fear and panic in the response she could hear, the obscene sound of the knife...She hadn't been sure what to think, when the OC finished bundling the men out into the waiting van, and she was left looking at him, torn clothes and something wild in his face, coming down off the high of the performance.

Last night, they had gone out for a quiet meal, laughed and talked of nothing very much, and shared one deep, sweet kiss goodnight on the doorstep. He had been careful, considerate. This is a different man, one she's not sure that she knows.

His face grows serious, and he looks away.

"I...didn't want you to see me."

Blood and flame and darkness, calling up things in himself he'd long forgotten, tried to forget. Dancing with his demons, and the rage had found a wave to ride. A black and twisted delight in the fear, his and theirs. She hadn't been there to control him...to prevent him from tipping over into a spiral of something deep and dangerous. The shadow of it is still in his eyes, his tight grin, that edgy, feral quality.

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Pheromones. It has to be. Within two minutes of being back in the office, a very large number of female employees find it necessary to walk through their floor. He's got the blood, fake and real, off himself, the gym showers, but he's just discarded the wrecked shirt, searching through his desk for a clean one.

"Woah." Rigsby stares. "That's never real..."

"Spraypaint. It needs solvent to get it off. And someone to help me."

('Someone' realizes who he has in mind, scowls at him.)

"...?" Cho shakes his head. "Do we even want to ask?"

"Sibley had the bright idea of persuading Jane to pose as a voodoo priest..."

"...la santa muerte, actually, it's a bit different..."

"...and frighten a confession out of a couple of suspects by threatening to take their souls."

"Did it work?" Rigsby asks.

"Singing like canaries." Cheerful grin as he buttons the shirt. "They had grubby little souls anyway, I didn't really want them."

Cho (who still has a jar of ashes in his desk) looks deeply nervous.

"You shouldn't mess with that stuff."

"I agree." Van Pelt frowns. "Isn't that like black magic, or something?"

"Something."

"How was that even ethical?"

"Freedom of religion." Jane says, promptly. "I mean, Rigsby might buy the idea of assault with a deadly chicken, but I don't think anyone else will."

He's still charged with the energy of the performance, senses thrilling with it, wild and wired. Soon, the crash will come, and he rather dreads what the night might bring. But for now, he holds the balance between, all spark and charm.

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She's hardly surprised when the DS follows her home, and she waits by her car as he unfolds out of it. The rush has gone now, and he looks drawn, tired and jittery.

"They can't keep using you as some - party trick!" she snaps. "Not if it messes you up like this."

"I'm already messed up." He says, bleakly.

He knows what he could become, if circumstances had not seen fit to place Lisbon in the path of his destruction. Without her, he would be lost, an amusing sideshow, with no brakes, a fast track ride to a bad crash.

"Talk to me." She doesn't usually ask. But now she feels she has a...right. "Talk to me – Patrick."

He doesn't share. There are things he has never told anybody.

It strikes him, with a painful and strange clarity, that Lisbon will understand, as his wife never could. There had been no darkness in her life, until...(No.) They both understand what it is like to have an absence in your life, a loss where parenting should be, that sometimes you have to find your own inner resources.

He's going to rip open old wounds, but she needs to know, perhaps, what kind of man he is. And he hopes that she will not turn away from him.

He takes a deep breath.

"Well, you know that I was born in Missouri, but we never stayed in any place for long, particularly not after my mother died. My father hit the road with me to prevent Child Services taking me away. We had to keep moving, ahead of trouble."

"Gambling?" She knows who taught him to play poker, after all. It would be easy to leave it there, let it pass. But he cannot take the easy path, not with Lisbon. She deserves truth.

"Sometimes. We did travel with a few carnivals, mind games and card tricks. Mostly," He closes his eyes, can't look at her, "he was a con-man. And one of his scams was faith healing. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps. The Reverend Patrick Jane."

She snorts. She can't help it. He opens his eyes, startled, and she sobers.

"That's what you ran away from." She shakes her head. "I...just, you...a... No."

"No." he agrees, and the corner of his mouth even turns up a little. "A lie too far, even for me." He's tearing himself open for her, bitter shame. "I helped him, though. Before. And then the apple didn't fall too far from the tree, after all. Same lies and tricks and – cruelty."

"That's not who you are any more."

How different is he, now? Marked by tragedy, but the same mind-games and manipulation in him. Less patience with the world, but he's never been blind to the darker side of it. The fractures have simply left him tired, less adept at hiding the rage and contempt.

"No?" He gestures down at himself. "I've spent my life lying to people, tricking them. I don't wonder you don't trust me. But this...is all I have to offer."

Pours the broken pieces into her hands, hopes the edges will not cut too deeply.

"No." She takes his face between her hands. "You're going to be a better person than that, if I have to drag you there kicking and screaming."

He doesn't believe that he can be a better person, but he believes that she thinks he can be. He finds that he wants to try, for her. Leans forward, rests his forehead to hers.

"My father's first rule was - 'stay away from cops, because they are always trouble'."

"Believe it." They rest there for a moment. "Now let's go get that scary crap off you."

His shoulders express every bit of the weariness, the despair he won't voice, but the shadows in his eyes lift a little as she smiles at him, draws his head down.

He'll take his demons home with him, fight them into the small hours, but he'll also take away the memory of her kiss, a small talisman against the darkness. No faith in himself, but he has faith in her.