Title: Visions of Vermilion
Author: kenzimone
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Fandom: The Mentalist
Character: Patrick Jane
Rating: R
Word count: 1,500
Summary: Death will linger, given enough incentive.
Note: Spoilers for Pilot and Seeing Red. Utterly unbeta'd.
...
With the lights down, the man in the plaid shirt stands out against the shadows.
"He says he's sorry for all the pain he's caused you and your mother. Deeply sorry."
The woman sobs, a broken noise in the silence.
"He asks you to forgive him. Can you do that, Jenny?" She nods, but you press on: "He needs to hear it."
There are of course others, countless others, trailing after the ones they left behind like dazed, lost sheep, but this man is the freshest wound in the room. You passed him in the hallway behind the stage as the audience were taking their seats, and the bitter smell of blood permeated the air around him like perfume that had been too liberally applied – he's a stark outline against the faded souls of his peers. No more than a month passed, you'd guess.
"I forgive you, Daddy. I forgive you."
The man bares his teeth, grinding them soundlessly together. You watch the blood dripping down his fingertips, the bullet wound covering his heart. Quick, easy. Painless. A loved one, you guess. Only love would aim the barrel of a gun at a rabid animal, determined to kill but cause no suffering.
"He's smiling now. They're tears of joy. He says 'God bless you and keep you'."
The man's eyes are wide and angry. You lie, and it serves its purpose. Comfort the grieving, offend the deserving dead.
"He's gone."
The stage is bright and the applause are loud, and somewhere in the transition of shadows to light the man fades with the rest of them.
...
The first thing you see when you open the door is your wife. You think you are prepared, but you realize that you're expecting carnage and blood and twisted sheets (a shell of a body), and so when she turns and meets your eyes in an unblinking stare your knees give way.
There's blood on her cheekbone, a smeared thumbprint in red, and she's so beautifully not dead and strong against the white walls of your bedroom that for a moment it's all you can do to gaze up at her and believe that she's still alive.
The toddler in her arms whimpers, bloody fingers wiping at her mother's nightgown, small legs kicking restlessly in the air, and suddenly you can't breathe (behind them and through them, the painted and still wet calling card of a killer is smiling back at you mockingly).
...
They seal the room off, invade the house. They're strangers with badges and gun holsters, ghosts in white overalls that touch and dust and carry your wife and daughter out the front door in black bags. Like garbage, you think numbly.
They ask you questions, but your mind isn't moving, like it's stuck in second gear between pulling up into the driveway and seeing your wife's newly painted red nails. You don't remember calling 911 or walking back down the stairs, can't recall collapsing onto the couch or opening the liquor cabinet and pouring yourself a glass of whatever your eyes fall on first.
Come down, you find yourself thinking. Come downstairs.
They don't.
...
Forensics claim the bed, and everything else in the room. You think of the labs, of everything being taken apart and searched and swept and swabbed, stored until Red John is found and caught. You think of it, but you can't make yourself care.
You check into the closest motel. It's dirty and cheap, and it will do. The nights are spent leaning against the headboard of the bed, listening to the sounds of traffic drifting in through thin walls, eyes open and unblinking. You keep vigilant, tense, waiting.
Death will linger, given enough incentive. Hate, love, anger, sorrow, happiness. If the emotion is loud and clear enough, death will stay.
You wait, but no one comes for you. On the morning of the eleventh day you check out and go home.
Behind torn yellow tape, amidst the mess of a newly released crime scene, you find what you are looking for. She sits by the window, child on lap, silent and cold and beautiful. You join her, feel the chill in your bones, and together you stare down at the street and the small pile of flowers the neighbors have placed by your mailbox.
Horror, you think. Violence. Pain.
It's a sickening realization, but for a moment you're grateful that he made it terrifying enough for them to stay with you.
...
The detective in charge tells you you're free to clean the blood off the wall, that it'll help. You smile, nod and shake his hand, and then you ignore his advice.
You go through the room from floor to ceiling. You dust and sweep (throw away discarded latex gloves and wipe the windows clean of fingerprint powder), destroy any hint that anyone but your family and Red John have ever crossed the threshold.
The smiling face is electrifying, and you can feel the humming in your ears as you go near it. Horror and violence and pain, you think. Bound in blood. You will not touch it, will not risk it. You won't be held responsible for your family being torn apart for a second time.
Across the room, you feel her eyes on you. There's condemnation there, you think, if you'd turn to look. Instead you gaze at the red shackling on your wall. This is your failure, your legacy – you'll do well to remember it.
...
The Chief of Police does not take well to on and off consultants storming his office. You think that had it not been for the grief that still clings to your shoulders you might have been manhandled out of the building before you even reached the elevators.
You plant your hands onto the large desk, jaw set. The Chief puts down the file he was reading and sits back, waits for an explanation.
"I'm not a psychic," you say, and the man in front of you does not seem surprised; he tilts his head in a nod, and you force yourself not to look away, to ignore the specter of a young girl standing by the Chief's chair (her face mirrored in the black and white photos of the cold case littering the man's desk).
"I'm not a psychic," you repeat. "But I'm a damn good observer."
...
Where once your bed stood (oak, more pillows than you needed, quilt made by your mother in law), a mattress now lies on the floor. You don't sleep here; the low hum of the blood keeps you awake, and the silence of your ghosts do as well. You sit and you watch, and your daughter crawls around on the floor and laughs at things only she can see, and your wife gazes out the window up towards the stars.
This is a good night.
...
Kristina Frye is a self proclaimed psychic and a fool. You play along at first, smirk and bait, and meet the stare of Rosemary Tennant, whose eyes are large and hopeless over her friend's shoulder.
It amuses you for a short time, but then the case is solved and instead of watching her leave you find yourself in a small room with only your fellow liar and the shadow of an invisible man hunched over in the corner.
She makes you promise not to interrupt, and then she assumes things she does not know and gets the question wrong.
"Your wife wants me to tell you that your daughter never woke up. She didn't know what happened. She wasn't scared, not even for a second."
You want it to be true. Want it so badly it hurts, but you know it's not, and you've never wanted to kill someone who isn't Red John as badly as you do right now.
She leaves before you can see clearly again through the red haze that has descended over your vision, before you can function enough to slam her up against one of the walls and choke the breath from her lips.
...
Sometimes the hum is too loud, too cutting – your daughter is keening, small chubby hands pulling at her ears, fat baby tears rolling down her cheeks to pool in split skin. Your wife spits and bares her teeth, lashes out with clawed hands and tumbles straight through you. She places herself in front of your child, a barrier inbetween the two of you, and her eyes are white and unseeing.
You should leave, could leave, but you don't. You have vows to keep, and death has you not yet parted. Your wedding band burns when you try to reach out and touch her, and your hands grasp thin air.
...
The couch at the precinct is old and worn, and smells of coffee and leather. You nap and you doze, and it holds you over.
It's a temporary reprieve (you wake to find the teenaged boy you've been searching for staring down at you, bruises around his neck and seaweed in his hair. When Lisbon walks past you tell her to call for divers).
It's enough.