A/n- my new work? a collection of post-ep flash fics based on things characters (jane and Lisbon) may or not may think about happenings... with that, keep in mind: spoilers for the whole season 4.
4.4 Ring Around The Rosie
He isn't dumb, he is everything but that, just plays the part sometimes, and if people can't get in their heads, can't see behind his mask, behind their stupid clichés….
He worked, still is working, hard to get where he is, to keep achieving his goals, to show everybody that he is a better man than his own father, that he isn't merely his father's son. But that's not why he joined the Police, even if people keeps thinking that, even his own father- for him, just a rebel, for the others, just another boy who wanted to impress people without even really been capable of it.
But that's not the case. There were thousands of things he could have done with his life, but he choose Police. He choose police because it was the right thing, because it felt good, it felt…. Right. He loved being helpful, and that he could show that he wasn't his father, that he could do better, that he could be good…. that, it simply was another added bonus.
It still is, actually, and that's probably why he wants to be more, to become more. He is pretty young, but he has achieved already a lot in his career, and there's nothing that he wishes more than keeping scoring – that's why, a lot of times, he'd rather prefer dying that agreeing in follow one of Jane's schemes.
The man already ruined for good Lisbon's career, and is doing a pretty good job with Cho and Grace, poor, broken Grace, so lost in her own sufferance that she can't see how he is manipulating all of them, how he sued them. (not that she could actually saw it back then, before, too young, too inexpert, too naïve).
He wears a mask, he plays the fool for their own benefit, but he is everything but that, he is good, and he knows it. He proved himself time after time, and he is still doing so. And if they can't see it…
What makes him really suffer is knowing that his best friend can't see past the façade, doesn't want to. Cho's words, his simple statement ("You got used to it, working with a guy who's barely qualified"), he knows they were meant to be about himself… and it's just another added sufferance, another broken piece of his soul to add to the mix.
One of these days, he'll let it go, of this, of them. But not today.
Today, they still need him. And Jane has just showed him one of his schemes.