FIC: Acrimonious (5-2-2/21)
Title: Acrimonious
Author:
sirenofodysseus
Disclaimer: …it’s probably better that Bruno Heller owns The Mentalist, really.
Rating: NC-17
Summary: After FBI Agent Susan Darcy is overheard telling Special-Agent-in-Charge Luther Wainwright that Patrick Jane may be working with Red John, Red John steals Jane’s body and begins to destroy the team’s lives one-by-one.
Spoilers: Brief spoiler for The Crimson Hat (4x24), but the rest of this story is set after Something Rotten in Redmund (4x20).
Warnings: Violence, language, drug use, sex, non-con situations, mentions of child abuse/domestic abuse, negative character portrayals, major and minor character death.
Pairings: Red John/Teresa Lisbon, Patrick Jane/Teresa Lisbon, Wayne Rigsby/Sarah Harrigan, Kimball Cho/Summer Edgecombe.
5 2/2--
Lisbon watched Jane leave the choir room with wide eyes, as she continued to clench her teeth together out of pure anger and humiliation. Out of everything she had expected him to say, she had never expected him to spew such spiteful words about her in the presence of her team and various others.
Her cheeks burned brightly and she tried to take a deep breath to calm herself, but the deep inhale only made her angrier, as she moved to clench her hands into fists.
If so, a trip to Alcoholics Anonymous might be needed. The echoes of his words resonated in her mind. How had the man known that she had been drinking over the weekend? Jane knew many things about her, as he could apparently read her like a book, but she doubted that the man could tell when (or if) anybody had a drop to drink past twenty-four hours by just looking at them.
Lisbon also doubted that her team would believe Jane’s comments, as they knew he loved to say things without thinking, but she didn’t want anyone else (especially the Dustin County Sherriff) to believe that she was an alcoholic.
Slowly, she turned to face her team; she knew her cheeks were still burning and the team could probably tell that Jane’s words had affected her on some level, as they all seemed surprised (even though it was hard to tell with Cho) and outraged at Jane’s words.
“Boss…” Van Pelt began with a hint of concern in her tone. Lisbon quieted the Junior Agent with a firm glare, before she started to speak.
“Cho, Rigsby.” Both men glanced at her. “Go speak with Kirsten’s parents. If they don’t live in the same house, ask around. Take Van Pelt with you.” Cho and Rigsby said nothing, as they accepted the papers from her and left the room. “Van Pelt.” The young woman glanced back up from the floor to meet her eyes, “check Mr. Raleigh’s alibi.” She would have asked Van Pelt to check the alibis of Amanda Maddock and Joshua Cole, but as they were each other’s alibi, it made things much more complicated for everyone involved. Lisbon quickly handed Van Pelt the lone sheet of paper that she had written Nicole Wright’s number on, before the redheaded agent hurried after Cho and Rigsby. She was thankful that the team hadn’t made a huge deal out of Jane’s words and had allowed her to continue on, as if nothing had been said at all.
Sherriff Tyler was a different story, however.
“Agent Lisbon, I don’t want to sound condoning.” The Sherriff began and Lisbon met his eyes, hoping to convey the message that she didn’t want to discuss her rogue consultant. Jane was a problem, he always had been, but she didn’t need someone else telling her how they thought that she should handle them. “But you should really control that consultant of yours; he’s a near menace.”
Lisbon couldn’t take it anymore; she had always prided herself on her ability to stay calm, but she knew that if she stayed with the Sherriff anymore, she’d lose her temper. With a deep breath, she opened her mouth to address him.
“I think we’re done here, Sheriff Tyler.” The Sherriff nodded and Lisbon hurried out the door. Her behavior had been unprofessional, especially in front of other law enforcement individuals, but Jane’s disrespect had to be dealt with. Lately, she had been trying to pull back her iron fist and allow for him to trust her more, but if he was going to continue pulling crap like that, she knew she had to do or say something.
In the parking lot, heated by the overcast May sun, she found Jane.
Jane leaned against the CBI-issued SUV, his eyes were closed and he wore a smug smile, which pissed her off even more. She hurriedly unlocked the door to the SUV and threw herself into the driver’s seat, fully prepared to lock the vehicle again and keep the consultant from going anywhere with her, when the passenger door opened and Jane slumped into the passenger seat.
She stared at him for a minute; the dark suit still looked wrong on him and his smug smile made her want to punch him. Lisbon waited for him to pull on his seatbelt, before she narrowed her eyes at him.
“What in the hell was that?” Lisbon exclaimed, as she fought against her urge to wring his damned neck. Jane shrugged and she gritted her teeth together again. He had no valid reason to be mad at her, unless…Lisbon nearly lost her anger. Jane had never held grudges against her and she honestly hoped that his horrible comments weren’t because of their fight last Friday night.
Either way, Lisbon thought, I have to ask.
“If you’re angry with me for last Friday night, just tell me. Okay?” Jane remained quiet and she hit her hand against the steering wheel, which made the horn sound in protest. “Damn it, Jane! Do you know how much you humiliated me in there?” She waited for him to say anything in response, but after a few minutes, it became perfectly clear that Jane wasn’t about to answer her.
“Of course.” She muttered, dryly. “You don’t care. What a surprise.” Jane had always ignored the needs of everyone else for his own and she absolutely hated it.
“Automatically assuming I don’t care Lisbon, is pretty heartless.” Jane replied with his eyes on her and she closed her eyes for a moment, in an attempt to regain a semblance of calm. If she hit Jane again, the bureau would probably see fit to make her continue going to anger management classes and she didn’t want that at all. “You can close your eyes all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that you missed things in there.” Lisbon’s eyes flew open.
Anger management or not, she decided with a scowl, I’m going to deck him.
“Not all of us can be cold bastards like you, Jane.” Jane lost his smug smile. “I’m sorry that I can’t just automatically suspect someone without asking the necessary questions first.”
“Guilty till proven innocent.” Jane tried to argue.
Lisbon opened her mouth to rebuke Jane, when her phone vibrated against her chest. Relieved and annoyed, she pulled the phone from her breast pocket and held it against her ear.
“Lisbon.” She greeted.
“Agent Lisbon, Agent Wainwright here.” Lisbon stifled her groan at his voice. Wainwright had said that he would call later in the day, not almost four hours after she had last spoken to him. She and Jane were in the middle of a fight and while she couldn’t tell her boss to call back, she almost wished that she had ignored the phone in favor of continuing her rant to Jane. “Is this a bad time to talk?”
“Not at all, sir.” Lisbon lied. She feared that Wainwright’s call wasn’t about Amy’s suicide, but more about Jane’s behavior nearly fifteen minutes ago. If any officer at the crime scene had found their behavior wayward, Lisbon knew that they had the right to report misconduct at a crime scene to the head agent, which would have been Agent Wainwright.
“Good.” Wainwright responded. He sounded disgruntled, which didn’t help her nerves at all. “Is Jane with you?” Lisbon almost wanted to ask him where else he thought Jane would be, considering that the consultant had made himself into her constant shadow.
“He is.” Lisbon answered.
“This makes my job much easier then.” Wainwright said and Lisbon almost asked him why, when he continued on. “Could you put yourself and Jane on?” Lisbon quickly put her phone on speak phone, before she set the device between herself and Jane. “How is your current case going?”
“The case is fine,” Lisbon admitted. “Dustin County PD is giving us full cooperation into investigating Kirsten Ryder’s death. I’ve got my unit following leads now.”
“I’m sure you both are rather anxious to get back to your case, so I’ll hurry this conversation along.” Wainwright gave and Lisbon nodded, although she knew he couldn’t see it. “I just finished a meeting with the attorney general, who made me aware of the charges that the Child’s family is filing against the CBI. It probably doesn’t come of much surprise that the family is filing for emotional distress.”
Jane scoffed from next to her. “The Child’s are ridiculous for even trying to bring this case to trial.” Lisbon silently agreed with him, even in her anger; she had tried to talk Amy down from committing suicide, but nothing good had come from it.
“A family lost both of their daughters, Mr. Jane.” Wainwright responded. The head sounded frustrated with Jane, which she couldn’t blame him for. Jane just couldn’t leave anything alone. “Everybody deals with grief differently and if this is how the Child’s family wants to proceed with their grief, we have no say.” Lisbon waited for Jane to brush the comment off, as she knew Jane didn’t find the man worth his time or energy to reply back to.
“You don’t think I don’t know that?” Lisbon glanced at Jane, who wore a dark grimace. Jane usually kept his anger in check around the upper management of the CBI, as heartless comments from management weren’t anything new to anyone. Angry or not, she was concerned-why had the one comment made him snap? She wished that she had been able to see Wainwright’s face, as she was sure that the man was just as surprised as she was.
“Jane.” Lisbon admonished, wearily. She didn’t want to start another fight with Jane by stepping on his toes, but he needed to respect the boss; just because the various other members of the CBI found Wainwright to be too childlike, didn’t mean that they all had to treat or see him like that.
“It’s alright, Agent Lisbon.” Wainwright replied, after a few moments of silence. “Mr. Jane is entitled to his opinion.”
“See, Lisbon?” Jane asked her. “I’m entitled to my own opinion. Agent Wainwright agrees with me.” Lisbon narrowed her eyes at him again and watched his grimace turn into a bright smile.
“I never said I agreed, Jane.” Wainwright corrected himself and before Jane could pester the man further, he continued to speak. “I asked the attorney general and Brenda Shettrick for options on how we should continue further.” Lisbon already had a feeling that somebody (probably the attorney general, as the man disliked Jane with a passion) had brought up the idea of not allowing either of them to continue fieldwork. “I was told by Brenda that not allowing you and Mr. Jane to solve cases would cause a media backlash…”
“And we wouldn’t want that.” Jane stated, sarcastically. If she hadn’t been restrained by her seatbelt, she would have elbowed him in the chest.
Wainwright continued on, as if Jane hadn’t interrupted him. “…and the best way to handle the possible media and community backlash is to let it be known that you and Mr. Jane tried to stop Ms. Child’s.” Lisbon grimaced. Even if Brenda could sway the media and community into believing that they had tried to stop Amy from committing suicide, both outlets would still thirst for their blood. “If the lawsuit had gone to court, we would have used the footage that Frank and Tylor Gibbons had recorded of the main foyer, but they erased the footage.” She almost cursed. If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with stopping the two, she could have stopped them from erasing the tapes in the moments before their arrests.
“Where does that leave us then?” Lisbon asked, almost hesitantly. She had been suspended enough in the last two years, mainly because of Jane and his secret ploys to catch Red John, to know that Bertram only cared about the CBI and not about any of its employees.
“I know the regular protocol is to have a psychologist sign off on you,” Wainwright started and Lisbon sharply inhaled. The idea of sitting before another Roy Carmen and having her coffee drugged again made her wish for suspension instead. “However, I can’t follow regular protocol this time.” Lisbon raised an eyebrow in question. “I’ve read enough files and incident reports to know that having a psychologist sign off on either of you is a bad idea, especially after what happened with Carmen.”
“At least we know I’d be signed off on though.” Jane stated. Lisbon rolled her eyes. Anybody who said Jane was fine deserved to be suspected of something inky too, mainly because the man had never been just fine. “So, what will we be doing?”
“I request that you both speak briefly with the FBI psychologist, Dr. Michelle Carwin.” Lisbon stifled her groan again. “However, I’m not going to set up appointments for you both.” Wainwright’s methods, if Virgil had still been around the CBI, would have gotten the youngest boss odd looks. “The Director of the FBI has allowed for Dr. Carwin and a few of her associates to come in and teach a seminar on suicide to our bureau; it’s important that you and your unit are there, Agent Lisbon.”
“Of course, sir. We’ll all be there.” Lisbon hoped that the suicide seminar was nothing like the sexual harassment seminar; otherwise no one would take it very seriously. “Did you need anything else?”
“No.” Wainwright responded. “Good luck on your case, Agent. Jane.” Lisbon disconnected the call, before she glanced up toward the ceiling of the CBI-issued SUV. Why couldn’t things just be easy?
“Don’t worry about it, Lisbon.” Jane broke the silence and she put the vehicle into reverse without responding to him, as it wasn’t worth her time or energy.
--
Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five 1/2 - Part Six - Part Seven - Part Eight - Part Nine 1/2 - Part Nine 2/2 - Part Ten - Part Eleven - Part Twelve - Part Thirteen - Part Fourteen - Part Fifteen - Part Sixteen 1/2 - Part Sixteen 2/2 - Part Seventeen - Part Eighteen - Part Nineteen - Part Twenty 1/2 - Part Twenty 2/2 - Part Twenty-One