-some random scenes full of 'shippy goodness-
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Love, And All The Reasons Why...
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She's sitting on her couch, watching tv, but not really taking it in, quite comfortable and relaxed. The heavy weight across her knees shifts slightly. He's stretched out the length of the couch, which puts him across her lap, where one hand can stroke his hair. She knows she should throw him out, but he looks so peaceful, deceptively innocent. Her hand stills, and he opens a reproachful eye.
"Like it. Don't stop."
She sighs, smiles and rakes her fingers lightly through his curls. He makes a ridiculous sound, a kind of grunting purr, and settles himself like a happy cat.
"You are a smug devil, aren't you?"
His mouth curls, that wicked joyous smile. He has a lot of different smiles, but this one is hers.
The year turning, Summer shading into Fall. Three months, and somehow, there is a routine to their lives now. They don't flaunt their relationship, but they don't hide away. Still take separate cars to work, but they arrive, leave within minutes of each other. She's fairly sure that someone has probably seen them going about their lives...
...One Tuesday, after yoga, she finds that in the few moments she has been away getting a drink, her lift home has morphed from a tall redhead to a grinning blond.
Hair still damp from the shower, sleeves rolled up, jacket slung over one shoulder. He does look rather good. She's shamefully aware that she's enjoying the envious glances, and that he's aware of them, too. Submits to a reasonably sedate kiss.
"Did you terrorize Van Pelt into leaving?"
"Me?" Wide-eyed innocence doesn't work on him. "I didn't. She took one look at me and went all flustered. She's been admiring my manly charms off that balcony again."
His eyebrows rise even further when she gives a dirty laugh.
"Well, if you will parade around like that..."
"I was swimming. Honestly, woman." Pause. "So...?"
"Yes, your charms are very...manly."
Or, as one of the women in the yoga class had put it, 'ohdeargodthat'shot.' But she doesn't think his ego needs that much feeding.
Has to ask, though.
"What exactly did you say to Van Pelt?"
"Oh," he grins aggravatingly, "I assured her that it was a purely platonic offer of a lift. And that I would not be attempting anything of an immodest nature upon your person. Because that would be against the rules."
She narrows her eyes at him. That was probably a direct quote, as well. They'll just have to hope that Van Pelt still retains some of her charming naivety. Or at least a strong enough sense of self-preservation not to speculate.
Other working relationships are still...problematic.
...One evening, instead of pizza, they are sitting around with boxes of Chinese take-out, (the team still don't know why Lisbon thumps Jane for offering her Singapore noodles) and having a 'Weirdest Thing You Ever Ate' conversation. Van Pelt, who grew up in a town where pasta was exotic, and who had never even used chopsticks until she was in College, listens with a fascinated horror. Rigsby, despite the quantities he eats, prefers to recognise what he is putting in his mouth, and isn't even in the running. Lisbon has been mildly adventurous in San Francisco's Chinatown, Cho has a whole background of family occasions to draw on, and Jane (of course) has eaten some really strange things.
Bosco picks an inopportune moment to arrive. It's the stark surprise, and the edge of something else, on Bosco's face, that makes them realise that the sight of Lisbon feeding Jane a garlic prawn to shut him up might be considered a little odd. And the pause is a fraction too long before Lisbon offers him a seat. Which is declined.
Everybody there is absolutely aware of the fact that Jane would like nothing better than to put his chopsticks up Bosco's nose, and that the other man would be more than happy to return the favour.
It's always the small, normal moments that really take her by surprise. She still finds it slightly surreal to have him amble round with her when she's getting groceries – Jane and domesticity don't seem to match. Though he's dreadfully opinionated about his breakfast cereal. They are both eating better; cooking for two seems easier, somehow.
There was the first night he had stayed over, and they didn't have sex, just fell asleep wrapped together...
...Jane eyes the baggy cotton pj's.
"You look about fifteen in those things, woman. I feel like a pervert."
"I'm tired."
He wraps his arms round her.
"mmm. You feel nice and warm, though." She feels the rumble of his laugh under her ear. "The romance has gone, huh? Comfy pj's, and a microwave meal in front of the tv."
"I've never given you a microwave meal." Raises her face in indignation, realizes too late that that was his intention, as he steals a kiss.
"Let me stay?"
She bites her lip. Worry in her eyes.
"I'm tired, Jane. Really."
"Hey," Soft kiss on her nose. "I'm quite capable of behaving myself."
"That will be a first."
But she has grown used to the warm weight of his arm, the sound (not quite snoring) of sleeping male. Gives in to those hopeful eyes, wheedling kisses. And he does behave himself. Just wants to be with her...
He doesn't spend every night at her place. There are nights that she pushes him out, when she needs her sleep, knows that she absolutely has to get up early for work. Mornings are hard enough, without the added temptation nuzzling at her neck. (Because she could become far too used to waking up to the sight of him, could start to want more.)
She wouldn't have pegged him as a cuddler. But behind closed doors, he wraps himself around her whenever he can, protective and possessive. Two hours lost in nothing more than gentle kisses, soft laughter and little spurts of conversation about nothing at all...
..."I had a job washing dishes in Pasadena for a while."
"Hence the Tex-Mex Spanish?"
"...Yes."
Lisbon looks hard at him from the corner of her eye.
"What was her name?"
"Lisbon, you wrong me. The nightwatchman used to share his lunch with me."
She gives him a more direct look, waits.
"His grand-daughter, Ana." He confesses, slightly shame-faced grin. "Am I to have no secrets from you?"
"I imagine that you had girls in every state." she retorts. He protests.
"Girls liked me."
"I'm trying to imagine you at age twenty. To see if I would have liked you."
"Well, you were seventeen...Hmmm...Lisbon, did you go to a Catholic High School? I'd have liked you." Leers at her, and she slaps at him, laughing.
"You were a blond bad boy...wearing?"
"...faded jeans, cowboy boots, ripped t-shirt..."
"....mmmm."
He grins at her.
"So you would have liked me, then?"
"I would have had a huge crush on you." Grins back. "But I'd have still turned you down for John Cusack."
"Damn." …
There's the day a man in the cafeteria refers to Lisbon as 'the poison dwarf', turns round to find Jane behind him, and nearly comes to bits on the spot.
Tacit acceptance in the CBI. If you wanted to borrow Jane, you had to ask Lisbon. They came as a package deal. If you sent him to do something crazy, she would be there to talk him down afterwards. And if Lisbon was in a high bitch of a mood, you sent Jane in to calm her down. He was resigned to being a target.
...The sound of Lisbon snarling down the phone is enough to make most people back away. When she is in this sort of mood, only a very brave man would venture into her office. A very brave man bearing a couple of Aleve that he's scored off Van Pelt.
"The consumption of toffee-pecan muffins increased two days ago." He lifts a shoulder. She sighs; she's dating a man who probably knows her cycle better than she does. It would be embarrassing, but for the fact that he has also brought her another of the said muffins...
She's so tough and in control when she works - and then she likes to dance around the kitchen to the radio, often just in one of his shirts, which drives him crazy.
...It is possible to make Lisbon blush. Jane can be extremely filthy when he has a mind to be, and what he is murmuring in her ear would make anyone blush. Especially since she knows that he is capable of it, too.
Of course, it's a two-way street.
"Later." One word, breathed lightly into his ear.
All it takes. Sashays back to her office, leaving him standing, eyes wide and totally incapable of going anywhere for a while...
She loves the effect she has on him, all that smug self-control of his broken by a little smile, one crooked finger. He knows that he is whipped, owned, at her mercy. Can't, daren't, ask for more.
...She never paints her toenails, now. But he notices. Finds a pale rose colour. Convinces her that it will be good therapy for him. He brings dedicated concentration to the task, gentle hands, face drawn into a sweet frown, total absorption. Butterfly kisses up her instep and ankle...She finishes the rest of her toes herself, the next morning. Otherwise, she'll be walking round with half-painted feet for weeks...
There are still days when he scares her. Days when he isn't a jigsaw, but a kaleidoscope, bright and broken pieces shifting in ever-moving patterns, dazzling the eyes, all edges and chaos, mirror shards echoing back what the world wants to see. When the rage comes near the surface, and she has to rein him in, try and control the energy before it consumes both of them. There have been times when they have both teetered on the edge, judgement calls a little off, and she has seen the worry in Minelli. Understands his concern herself, because she feels her judgement eroded by the need to take the pain from Jane's eyes, to give him whatever he needs to make the world better, and she has to fight that, because what he wants is not what he can have, in a sane and daylight world. And she is selfish, does dare to dream of a future.
..She has to go to a three-day residential conference.
"Don't I count as essential work equipment?" he jokes.
"I doubt you'd fit in the suitcase."
And every night she is away, she finds that she is now one of those people who step out of the bar to have a soft-voiced conversation on their cell with someone...
He sleeps a little better now, wraps himself around her, holds her sleeping warmth, talisman against the night. (Faithful guard dog)
...Driving back from a crime scene, and they hit the rush hour.
"Alright, you can say it."
"We should have taken my car." She lifts the hot hair off the back of her neck. "How did people survive before air con?"
"Opened a window." He has to admit that that doesn't help much. Stuck in traffic, the air is unmoving, warm and gritty. He's long discarded his jacket, and now he shrugs out of his vest. She grins at him, face alight with mischief.
"Am I going to have to arrest you for public indecency, Mr Jane?"
"If the cells are cool, I'm not sure I'd care." He rolls his sleeves, undoes a few buttons. Then he smirks. "Your turn, Agent Lisbon."
"What?"
"Strip poker. Without the cards."
"Don't be filthy. Besides, unless you cheat, I always kick your butt at poker."
"I let you."
"Hah." Gathering her hair into a messy pony-tail. Jane grumbles softly to himself. The back of her neck is so tempting. There's that place just under her hairline that he likes to nuzzle in the mornings...She gives him a look sideways, her half-grin that means he's been busted. Looks through her lashes at him.
"That doesn't do anything to keep me cool." he complains.
"Is that all you think about?"
"Sometimes I think about food." He grins. "I'm getting in touch with my Inner Rigsby. You do know that Cho and Rigsby like to do the 'Royale with Cheese' routine when they get stuck in the car, don't you?"
"I always think of them as more Jake and Elwood."
"Or Bert and Ernie."
She laughs.
"You are nasty."
"True." He undoes another button. "I really should get a bike."
"I am not colluding with your mid-life crisis."
"Oh, come on. Cruising down the Cabrillo Highway? Not even a little tempted?"
She rolls her eyes. But she remembers the conversation, and later that evening...
"If you ever do get a bike, you think I should wear these?"
Jane looks up. And his brain shuts down. Lisbon in leather trousers. Just the leather trousers, looking saucily back over her shoulder at him. He had thought he was too old, too cynical to be turned into a horny, babbling idiot.
He isn't.
He has years of bleak loneliness to make up for, his body alive to the world again. Wants every moment to count.
He has no real place to live. He has wondered about finding himself something more permanent in Sacramento, surprises himself, that dislocation in him that perhaps now he thinks about a future. (And all the reasons that he cannot.) Something in him still holds him back from that last final step. There are things left undone, things that must be done. He wants a life, a future, a world that does not contain fear. And he wants a life with her.
So he keeps his room at the hotel, though he spends less and less time there. Thursday night is still poker night, and one night, when he wanders down, he stops, honestly surprised. Petite dark-haired woman in his chair. These guys can smell cops. But Chavez is handing her a beer, clinks the bottle with her, jerks his head.
"You keep your lady waiting, brujo."
She looks up, smiles a little self-consciously.
"Hi. Your friends said I could wait for you..."
"So you thought you'd hustle them? Lisbon, I'm ashamed of you."
Merv gives a deep bark of rare laughter.
"Your chickie plays hard, man."
Jane is seriously entertained at the idea of Lisbon as anybody's 'chickie'. But the woman has a respectable pile of matches in front of her.
He's not sure why she's here. Neither is she, completely. It's been a wretched case, a long and tiring day. Maybe she just wanted to see how he was, still worried by the shadows under his eyes. He begins to smile.
"So, you think you can keep those matches?"
"Bring it on."
Beer and chips, a tinny radio playing something soft from over the border. And Lisbon, hiding her tells, but still translucent to a man who knows every little detail of her face. She's nervous about being here, cross with herself for it...
...Making out like teenagers in the shadows of the wall by the car lot. Not what he ever expected, but he's not complaining. She actually giggles, and he loves that noise, the fact that two hands have made their way up under his shirt, that he has his own hands full, warm skin.
He groans softly.
"So I'm your booty call, am I?"
"Well, yes." She takes another long deep kiss.
"Should hope so." Pulls her against him, insistent. "What if I don't want to let you go?"
"I'll cuff you to the gate."
"Kinky." He sighs, rests his chin on top of her head. "Oh, you are evil."
"I didn't mean to torment you. You're just too damn sexy for your own good."
How the hell is he ever supposed to sleep now?
"Stay with me." Kisses her, deep,urgent kisses with all his need, his passion in them. "Stay here with me, now."
Hotel rooms, motel rooms...she dislikes them. A visceral thing, mind-body memory, shame, betrayal, early morning departures and avoiding eyes at breakfast.
"This is nothing remotely similar." His voice is quiet, savage. "Hell, woman, which bit of 'I love you' don't you understand?"
A little bit of him dies inside when she shuts him out like that. He has to use every weapon he has to hold her. But he cannot let her go, his only anchor, the only good thing in his world.
"I don't want to sneak around, pretend that I don't love you." Words spill out of him. "If I had a home to take you to...I would let the whole damn world know how much you mean to me...but it's dangerous. I'm dangerous."
"It's too late to worry about that." Kisses him hard. "It's always been too late."
This isn't some anonymous hotel room, crowded with the ghosts of guilt and reproach. This is Patrick, wanting her to stay with him, wanting her.
No more words. They cling to each other and who needs who the most is lost. So many lines crossed. She lets sensation blot out the worry, the fear, returns his kisses with her own hunger. How can this be so wrong, when he feels so wonderful?
She still leaves early, drives home in the dawn, but she leaves with reluctance and a lighter heart.
Dares to wonder if maybe some day, there will be a time when they won't have to leave each other in the mornings...
...She looks down at him, tweaks his nose gently.
"I'm going to bed now."
He looks up, hopeful.
"Me, too?"
He's never officially moved in. It's simply that he spends more time in her bed than he does in the one he has at the hotel. That it seems ridiculous to go all the way across town when he can keep a couple of shirts at her place. That he has his own side of the bed, a toothbrush above the basin, his own shampoo and shower gel. That she has borrowed his razors, wears one of his shirts to sleep in some nights, has grown accustomed to having someone wash her back. To having her coffee just as she likes it first thing in the morning. To a pair of wicked sea-coloured eyes, unruly blond curls and a naughty smile.
And she knows that she has lost the war.