Chapter Text
“This is strange.”
Many things are strange. For example, how strange the meaning of the word bugiganga is, born and perpetuated in Brazilian Portuguese, with a literally untranslatable translation. Bugiganga is a useless thing, but still a bugiganga; and its uselessness stops being just uselessness and becomes useful in a certain way — but it remains only a bugiganga. It is a means to the desired end, without ever being the most correct contrivance to reach it. A little thing invented on the spot to make things work.
Strange, too, are coincidences that are small enough to go unnoticed. Like always hearing the same song playing in different places on the days when something important happens, or realizing that certain faces keep reappearing when life seems about to change direction, making longing arrive far too early.
There is also something deeply strange about the small day-to-day decisions that seem irrelevant at the time but end up changing the course of an entire week. Choosing to take a different way home, accepting a coffee you would normally refuse, answering a phone call when common sense tells you to ignore it. None of it seems like a big deal until, suddenly, it becomes exactly the reason everything spiraled out of control.
People in love are strange as well. Idiotic, romantic, and hopeful that things will be better the next day, then the next week, then the next month. That way, it becomes easy to forgive silly mistakes that, over time, can turn into big snowballs.
But stranger than all of that is the fact that Teresa Lisbon is lying on Patrick Jane’s chest.
This is really very strange.
She voices this strangeness out loud, and her discomfort is evident, with her cheek pressed against Jane’s chest. He grumbles something in response, keeping his eyes closed and his arm stretched over her shoulders. They agree: the situation is strange. Even so, they do not move away, because it is a situation as complicated as it is strange.
It is their first time in the same bed — the Airstream’s bed. She is there because his ankle is twisted and she prefers to focus solely on that fact, because she does not want to remember that just over twenty-four hours ago she gave up on a marriage and a stable life with a nice guy. It was her choice; no one forced her into anything. Hurting someone for the sake of her own feelings was a conscious decision. And she does not regret it — not entirely — because, strangely enough, she is feeling good.
So that’s it: Teresa Lisbon is there, lying on Patrick Jane’s chest, because he needed her help to properly settle himself into that tin can he affectionately calls home. In addition, it was recommended that he keep his foot elevated to reduce the swelling. There was also the medical observation that he should place an ice pack on his ankle so the pain would lessen. However — let’s be honest — there is no medical recommendation whatsoever indicating that Jane needs an FBI agent on his chest, wearing nothing but a terribly damp lace pair of panties, completely uncomfortable and extremely comfortable at the same time.
She takes a deep breath. There is some lake nearby. The weather is cool, and the frogs sing absurdly loud in the fall. She imagined she would spend Christmas mediating an engagement party. Also, this Christmas she had planned to invest her money in useful things. Not that she wasted it carelessly: from what was left after rent and necessary bills, she sent a little to her siblings and spent the rest on food. Healthy food? Snacks, ice cream, muffins, spicy burritos, ice cream, a monthly subscription to Japanese sweets, sandwiches, ice cream, pizza. And cereal bars, when there wasn’t time to eat the rest.
The result was simple: her panties were really old. She was going to invest in that, buy about ten pairs to last the next five years — maybe ten, if it depended on her. She would also buy new boots, because hers had smooth soles, and the FBI floor was so polished it looked like it had been bathed in butter.
The plans, however, were frustrated. With no engagement, she is rubbing her damp panties against Jane’s dress pants.
Teresa Lisbon, an FBI agent, is lying next to Patrick Jane, an FBI consultant, prohibited by national security from boarding an airplane for the next three years — a situation Abbott is trying to reverse. She hears the beats and the calm cadence of Jane’s breathing, because her face is pressed against his chest, which rises and falls rhythmically. The gentle wind of his breath mixes with her hair at the top of her head, while a blanket covers them both, protecting her bare legs from the cold camping air that comes in through the open window.
She is not wearing pants — sorry, Teresa, but this really needs to be pointed out. This is strange. Why are you half-naked from the waist down?
“Did I need to take my pants off?”
He smiles as he mutters that he had no other alternative. When Jane finally sat on the bed of his comfortable Airstream and found himself free from that haunting fear of losing her forever, there was no other option. Seriously, he truly had no other way to deal with it. It was a necessary evil: pulling her by the hips and automatically unbuttoning the tight jeans that sinfully outlined the Chicago girl’s thighs.
She let him.
And she felt strangely satisfied by the fact that he did not make much ceremony when drawing her into that trap. She shivered when his hands slid over her bare thighs and when Jane’s nose came dangerously close to the fabric of her panties.
He smelled her, moaning softly.
God.
She invaded his space almost automatically, completely drawn in, as if trapped in a magnetic field. They cuddled into that strangely comfortable bed and, while he settled his twisted foot on a high pillow, he pulled her up onto himself.
“This is strange.”
He grumbled, and this time she managed to understand. When she lifted her head and met his open eyes, she felt an anxious tightness in her chest. She was led to adjust herself, lifting slightly and moving her ear away from Jane’s chest, while sliding her bare legs over the fabric of his pants. She was aroused by the casual way the first buttons of the consultant’s shirt were open.
He raised his hand and played with her hair, pulling her closer, as if gravity itself had decided to intervene.
“You think so too?”
“Mm…”
It was strange how her body reacted to a simple whisper — her pussy contracted greedily — and how his pupils dilated when he noticed the arousal that made her lightly press her legs together. They were going to have sex soon.
“It’s strange because this feels normal.”
She agreed, moving even closer and, little by little, ended up settling herself on his lap, rubbing her intimacy against the hard tip present inside his pants. Automatically, her fingers began unbuttoning what remained of the linen shirt.
“Things just work between us.”
Jane’s thumb found the damp, lacy fabric, pressing the small soft mound marked by the clitoris. She sighed in a delicious way and, drawn in and terribly wrapped up in that practical anxiety, her small hands were already opening the button of the dress pants he wore religiously.
“Aren’t you embarrassed to be wearing those old panties?”
Jane teased. The panties were really very old, maybe from the days when she attended the police academy. But she did not care much about that detail. Much less did he.
“And aren’t you embarrassed to be this hard?”
Jane smiled, charming as the devil, finding it funny how well she shot back. His eyes were slightly swollen, and she knew him well enough to know that this was the result of a few good hours of crying. Suddenly, she felt sad thinking that if he hadn’t arrived in time to storm that plane, he would be very far away now — without Jane. And Jane would be crying, without her knowing.
That terrified her.
Losing Jane once again was frightening.
“I know your sadness has nothing to do with what we’re going to do now, but please don’t make that face when you’re about to pull my pants down.”
After all, it really is strange to look sadly at a guy’s dick. Teresa laughed, lowering her body toward Jane’s, to kiss his cheek, while finally freeing herself to slip her hand inside his underwear and feel the hot skin of Patrick Jane’s cock against her palm.
Her mouth watered. What a dirty girl.
“Jane, you should be resting.” However, she was jerking his cock.
“You have no idea the things I can do when I’m resting.”
“Show me, then.”
His fingers pushed aside the fabric of her panties, which snapped as a few seams burst. The sound that came from her throat was strange when Jane slid his thumb over her wet pussy.
Or rather, it was delicious.