FIC: Acrimonious (17/21)
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 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.
17-
In the bright light of his study, Red John eyed the small television on his bare desk with a grimace. The California Bureau of Investigation, after he had left them all in a hasty exit, had been rather uninspiring and dull to spy on. Agent Darcy had confined Teresa to her office after she and Grace had come back to the CBI without Rigsby and aside from leaving for the day and bathroom breaks, poor Teresa was a prisoner.
From the little sound waves of poor quality audio he had caught in the weeks after his departure, he had learned that the CBI was trying to control the backlash from the community by allowing Teresa to keep her title. Of course, Senior Agent Teresa Lisbon wasn’t out solving crimes; they were using the little lamb to tempt the tiger.
He had found their plan to be both facetious and foolish for a few reasons. The first, Red John had been finished with Teresa for months; he had destroyed her team, her heart, her career and her credibility. No one would trust or listen to a woman, who had willingly slept and employed a serial killer.
The second, Red John had also finished with Grace months ago; he had used her body, taught her how to keep those whore legs of hers closed and if he was lucky, he had also ruined her life. No one within Wainwright’s office had discussed Grace, but he had caught of the overly pregnant Grace from his television screen once or twice and he had wondered if the last image she had of Rigsby haunted her every waking moment.
The last reason? Their idea that he would come back to finish off either Teresa or Grace was rooted out of the basic concept that serial killers had patterns, which most did. They picked the same type of victim, the same time to commit their crimes: day or night, the same weapon over and over again until the small facts became entwined with who the serial killer was.
He, for example, was known for killing women. He painted walls for the longest time in the blood of women and innocents.
But even serial killers broke pattern.
Over the course of fifteen years, he had broken several and each new pattern-broken and unchained-had filled him with a sense of adrenaline that the blood of virgins on white walls could never bring him.
The bomb for Kimball Cho.
The rape of Grace Van Pelt.
Both changes in pattern had been meant to teach the Serious Crimes Unit a lesson, as the group of five-now, down to one-had all continued to follow Patrick Jane down the rabbit hole, even after Patrick had no longer been Patrick Jane.
Red John smirked. Unwillingly, both Teresa and Patrick had become martyrs to their own causes. If they both had just listened, had just paid attention to the signs he had left for them both to follow, he wouldn’t have destroyed the lives of countless individuals who they both had touched along the path of trying to catch their biggest demon-him.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, he thought.
And by trying to catch him, they had paved their own golden roads with more good intentions than anything else. Teresa, who had wanted to save Patrick from himself and from the iron clad bars of a prison cell and Patrick, who had wanted to keep Teresa safe and get his revenge at the same time. It truly was a fitting end for the workaholic and the vengeful. Both of them, so driven and so ignorant of other person’s desires, had somehow ended up paving the same road twice; they had both collided into each other without even knowing and they would both go down together too.
“Sir,” Thomas’ voice interrupted his musing. “It’s time.” Red John glanced away from the small screen and focused his attention on the youthful accomplice, who seemed weary. He sent the man a mirthless smile, before he stood from his desk and turned the television off again. Red John said nothing to Thomas, as he allowed for the dark-haired accomplice to take the lead.
Thomas led him through the halls of the hideout and Red John tried to keep his facial expression blank, but it was hard to do whilst still being in the body of Patrick Jane.
So, Red John continued to smirk. From the moment he had left Teresa-naked and covered in the blood of Wayne Rigsby-he had continued to stay on within Patrick’s body; he hadn’t planned it like that, but there were certain things beyond his control. Patrick, for instance, hadn’t been ready for the swap back months ago, as the man’s mental state had apparently been barbaric and Thomas had feared everlasting brain damage.
He had also been waiting for the best moment to swap bodies back with Patrick too. With the FBI searching for Patrick and every local law enforcement agency thirsting for the reward money his blood would bring them-$500,000-Red John had decided to wait and see what the premiere law enforcement agency in Sacramento did.
Red John only had to wait three months and sixteen days for the Director of the CBI to play his predictable hand of cards; Gale Bertram with the assistance of Osvaldo Ardiles had pushed to formally bring a case against Teresa. He had listened to the four fools within Wainwright’s office-Gale Bertram, Susan Darcy, Luther Wainwright and Osvaldo Ardiles-discussing the idea of allowing for Teresa to be given a certain amount of rope to hang herself with.
The amount of predictability had made him laugh. The CBI was only out to protect themselves and their image, not listen or pay attention to what Teresa had done for them in the past. Of course, their predictability had made sure that Teresa could no longer hide behind a shiny badge or the title that her job had provided her with.
But above all else, their predictabilities had helped him choose when to swap back with Patrick. He hadn’t wanted Teresa in jail and if releasing Patrick back into the den of wolves in sheep clothing would keep her from an orange jumpsuit and the death penalty, he would do it.
“He’s already out, sir.” Thomas spoke again and Red John nodded, before they both stepped into the large room that had once served as a mortuary. He quickly glanced around the room; the silver instruments still shone brightly in the lights, the bright red blood of animals still stained the floor in spots, and his body remained on the silver autopsy table in the center of the vented room.
His body had been clothed, a dark shirt and dark pants, his wrists and waist had been encircled with tight leather restraints, wires remained strung from almost every bare inch of skin, and a dark tourniquet had already been fixed around the arm. The odd sight filled him with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia; being in Patrick’s body for over six months had been like being on vacation-the different sights were lovely, the new smells were pleasant, the people were entertaining, but he preferred home better.
He had missed his body, black mask and all.
Red John scanned every inch of uncovered skin, making note of every blemish and bruise from a distance. The swapping back procedure would wipe them all away and he wouldn’t remember any of the marks come morning, but it was something he still felt the need to do.
His gaze, however, stopped at the familiar mask he had worn for fourteen years. Around his accomplices, he had never once taken it off; taking it off would have been too risky as his accomplices could turn on him at any moment and aside from Rosalind Harker, he had never allowed for another woman to touch his bare face.
Thomas had once asked him about the mask. Red John remembered that he had glanced at the young man, simply smiled and replied: “The mask is the core of my identity, Nathaniel. Without it, I am nothing.” He had his bleeding smiley face and he had his face, but while people quickly forgot faces-it didn’t matter if one had brown hair or blonde hair, blue eyes or green eyes, pale skin or dark skin, as common features faded into one giant blur at the end of the day-they would never forget a man behind a mask.
Red John stepped closer to his unconscious body and ran his finger over the soft mask. He heard Thomas moving behind him and he closed his eyes for a moment.
After this, he thought still with a smile, I will no longer need it.
The concept of freedom was something everybody strived for, he had learned that many years ago, but it was also something very few could obtain. And for him, all it had taken was a flip of a switch and a few months of patience.
Nobody was looking for the faceless Red John anymore; they were all looking for Patrick Jane, a man who had only been thrown into the shadows because he had been beaten at his own game.
“Sir.” Thomas spoke again. Red John turned on his heels to find Thomas, who stood behind him with a syringe in his hand. He continued to smile as he allowed for the accomplice to silently lead him to the second autopsy table and tie a tourniquet tightly around the nook of his inner elbow. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” Red John replied without hesitation and Thomas placed the needle against his skin, just against one of his blue veins, when he continued to speak. “I want you to insert the needle, dress me with the wires, start the machine and then close your eyes.” Thomas nodded.
Red John felt the sharp needle sink into his arm; watched the liquid leave the clear syringe and allowed for Thomas to take the needle away. He felt the wires being draped across his skin, as he tried to fight against the coming darkness for a few more moments.
Thomas stepped away from the table, started the machine in viewing distance with the press of a finger, before he closed his eyes and waited for the next order from his master.
But the order would never come, not in this lifetime or the next.
As the last thing Red John heard, before everything faded into the blackness, was Nathaniel Thomas’s body hitting the floor.
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Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five 1/2 - Part Five 2/2 - 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 Eighteen - Part Nineteen - Part Twenty 1/2 - Part Twenty 2/2 - Part Twenty-One