Fic: New Beginnings and Old Endings, Chapter 8 (SGA / The Mentalist, Evan Lorne / Patrick Jane)
Title: New Beginnings and Old Endings, Chapter 8
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis / The Mentalist (Crossover)
Pair: Evan Lorne / Patrick Jane
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Summary: Lorne is trying to settle into his new life, but it`s really not much calmer than his old one. Wrong place and wrong timing lead to a chance encounter in the middle of a crime scene.
----------------------------
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 (NC-17) Chapter 6 Chapter 7
The relatively short walk from the coffee shop back to his motel seemed to take twice the time it should have taken. Evan was too wrapped up in his thoughts and kept taking wrong turns and then coming back to the right route.
Jane hadn’t been shocked. Surprised yes, but… Lorne couldn’t quite name the expression on the man’s face, but the comparison to a bearded lady at a carnival could be interpreted several ways. He had told himself not the start thinking about what it had meant, because he knew that line of thought wouldn’t end well. He took a look at his surroundings and realized he was off the route once again.
The street didn’t look familiar, but he knew he couldn’t have been lost for a very long time, and started re-tracing his steps. He walked past a display window, glancing at it quickly and he had to grin.
A three piece suit, three of them to be exact. Next the them was a sign, that declared:
A well-dressed gentleman is never out of style.
The faded sign looked like it had been in the window since the sixties.
Evan looked at himself in the shiny glass. He hadn’t really thought about his appearance since he had left the Air Force, or even before he had signed on. Now he had to face the truth in the bright sunlight: He looked nothing like the cute kid he had been the last time he had been a civilian.
He could judge himself quite honestly. His body had filled out long ago, but the active duty had kept him in good shape. His hair had grown out of the cut he had favored, and now it stuck out a bit. His face was… He leaned closer, mapping out his features.
There was more lines than there used to be. He had never stopped to really think about it, but he wasn’t that young anymore. Evan tilted his head and looked at his face carefully. When he had been a kid people had called him cute, and when had been a teenager he had been called pretty by several of the girls in his class.
Now he was… What?
He wasn’t sure, but "manly" was probably close to the truth. The Air Force had left it’s stamp on him, and it showed through even in his raggedy T-shirt and jeans. He could be honest with himself and say he looked good.
Evan rubbed his stubbly jaw. If he couldn’t get the one he wanted, then he could probably get someone else. He cut off that thought right in the bud.
Jane hadn’t exactly turned him down. Evan didn’t know how the situation would have ended if the man’s cellphone hadn’t started jingling, but it was probably a good thing. It gave them both more time to think about it.
Evan measured his own reflection with his eyes. He could wait for Jane to make the next move, and all things considered the blond probably wouldn’t do it. Or Evan could step up his game and see if it helped. Making some effort to look like a good catch couldn’t hurt his chances.
He grinned at his extempore decision and walked into the store. The inside was a bit dated, but neat and organised, matching the conventional display in the window. The little bell on the door jingled and a gray-haired woman walked out from the backroom.
“Hello! Can I help you?”
“Yeah, I… I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I mean I’m looking for clothes obviously, but…”
“For some specific occasion?”
“No, just… This isn’t really my strong suit.”
“I can see that.” The woman nodded and grimaced at his old T-shirt. “Don’t worry, I’ve helped a ton of clueless men over the years. You wouldn’t believe how many men I’ve saved from pulling their pants up to their throats. What do you want to look like?”
“I don’t know. Like I…” Evan was on completely foreign territory and he could feel a panic approaching. “If I get shot down, I want to know it’s not because I look like I don’t give a damn.”
“Aawww…” She sighed. “You want to make an impression. I’m Goldie, by the way, come here.” She pulled him in front of a full-length mirror. “At least we have a nice canvas to work on.” Goldie circled him, and finally gave him a little pat on the butt. “Nice face and nice body will go a long way. You got both, so relax and let me handle this. Just out of military?”
“Air Force.”
“They all have the same posture. Give them a few orders and they look like they’re about to salute you.” She disappeared into the backroom again and came back with her hands full of dress shirts in different colors. “Men with your colors usually look great in dark green, try this.” She handed him one of the shirts.
Lorne obediently pulled his shirt off and got into the green one. He looked at himself in the mirror.
“Not bad.”
“Little things, like a clean shirt, can do a lot. You better take few of those in different colors, so you can mix and match. That cut suits your built.”
“I wasn’t going to-”
“And then pants. Men don’t know what looks good on them, especially those, who like to shove socks down there, it makes their rear-ends look ridiculous.” She pulled a few cotton trousers from the shelf and added them to the pile of shirts. “Try those, they should be about your size.”
“Thanks.” Lorne looked around for a screen, but there didn’t seem to be any. He shrugged and pulled his jeans down in front of the woman old enough to be his grandma. The weirdness of the situation matched the little shop’s atmosphere perfectly.
“Men coming out from the service are always so helpless.” She commented and observed the cut of the trousers, then added few more to the pile for him to try on. “Don’t know what they’re doing and where they’re going. Don’t even know how to dress themselves when they don’t have a uniform.”
Her observations were a bit too close to reality, so Lorne focused on getting in and out of the clothes without tripping and falling over.
“When my daddy came back from the war, he didn’t know what was right and what was left. My mother had to put him back together.” Her quick hands paused for a minute. “Have you seen real war? I don’t know where they have them now, I haven’t watched the news for decades or read the papers. It`s all too horrible.”
“I’ve…” Lorne thought about his time in the SGC and nodded. “Yeah. You could say that.”
----------------------------------------
When he finally returned to the motel almost three hours later, he was balancing several bags of clothes and one that contained his old ones. Goldie had kept pestering him to put some of the new clothes on right away, and had even guided him to the shoe store on the opposite side of the street.
Evan had quickly figured out why she had been so friendly with the lady handling the small shoe store: The two women had been handling their businesses on the same spots for nearly fifty years. He had to wonder how two so overbearing personalities could get along, but didn’t speculate about it too much.
He had felt a bit like a human mannequin with the two ladies speaking more to each other than to him, and telling him to look pretty and be quiet. The whole experience had been weird, but he had to admit the results felt good. He had even stopped by at a barbershop for a haircut, and his hair was now neatly trimmed. He had a heathy amount of confidence when it came to most areas of life, but the feeling of walking on a sunny street and noticing how a few passing women turned to look at him was tickling his self-esteem.
He had looked good in his dress uniform, head held high and back straight, and the feeling that he could be as confident without it was more assuring than he could have imagined.
“Wait for me!” A voice behind him called. The teenager, who handled the front desk galloped after him, panting heavily. “You had a visitor. Tried knocking, but you weren’t there.”
“When?”
“Maybe an hour ago. Said he was coming back from work and something about body parts being bagged in twenty-four different bags…” He grimaced. “I didn’t ask. He told me to give you this when you come back.” He gave Lorne a paper bag, with a little sticker note attached to it
Evan pulled off the note. He didn’t recognize the handwriting, but he guessed right away who it was from. Evan couldn’t help grinning like a maniac, and got a worried look from the kid.
“I’ll leave you to it, okay?” The kid turned to leave, and Lorne read the note again.
I had some trouble comparing you to a bearded
lady, so maybe you should try this.
P.J.
Evan pulled out the content of the bag, and his grin turned into a full laughter.
It was a fake beard from a joke shop.
Chapter 9