a/n: wow another written in an evening frenzy unedited patrick jane x reader fic has hit the me blog. inspired by that one whump post i reblogged a bit ago and also my unending love of hurt comfort. enjoy y'all ♥️
- - -
It's all gone to shit.
That's an understatment.
You peel your eyes open. Shift your weight every so slowly. Your joints scream in protest. Everything aches. You can feel the splinters of wood on your palms from your attempts at escaping. They're needles to your nerves, pinpricks of white hot pain under your skin; a reminder of pain. Of sensation. Of being alive.
There's that, at least.
Oh, and the gunshot wound in your shoulder that's still bleeding.
You try not to think about if you'll be alive for much longer.
Your head is pounding. Trying to remember the Before of when you were in this room is difficult. Every pathway to any kind of memory slips through your fingers like grains of sand. You have fragments. Laughter. Kind blue-grey eyes. Fiery orange hair. Some kind of mission. They blur, meld together like some kind of dream, of a life before this dark room and the cold air of the night. It's so hard to remember when all you have right now is the rustling of the leaves and the moon.
You shift your weight again. You have no restraints, but the weight of exhaustion are chains enough. The moon's light shines translucent through the curtains. If you could just move them and get your bearings...
You move to get up, face the window - big mistake - you put too much weight on your shoulder and barely manage to stop yourself from falling face-first into the floor. Your world explodes - it's a kaleidoscope of pain that lances up your shoulder and turns every thought in your mind into fog.
You're still reeling until a voice cuts through that haze.
"Hey. If you get in trouble, comm me."
"When am I ever in trouble, Jane?"
Jane. His face flashes behind your closed eyelids. Kind, downturned, blue-grey eyes. Curly blonde hair. Crumpled suit. Warm smile. A gentle touch on your shoulder before you pocketed your walkie-talkie.
You open your eyes - your walkie talkie. He doesn't know where I am.
That lights a small, flickering fire in your chest. You crawl, closer and closer to the window. You raise your hand and grip the bottom of a curtain, wrinkling the floral pattern. Just a bit of -
The curtains part, just slightly. The moon's silvery light - it almost blinds you - peeks through the gap in the curtains and slices through the dusty air. It clears a path, spilling onto cardboard boxes and plastic-covered furniture, leading you right to your walkie-talkie. Something releases in your chest, stokes the flames of hope.
Thrown across the room in a scuffle. You must have sent a message, some kind of cry for help, but you're so alone that you're not sure.
"Oh, never," Jane says. His smile flickers. Serious. "But unexpected occurrences, and all that. You're going in there on your own. Never hurts to be too prepared."
"If there is such a thing." You remember smiling back. "You worried about me, Jane?"
"Eh," he drawls, waves his hand. But stops to look at you - really look at you. "You know that already."
You didn't. You don't think you realized.
The walkie-talkie is so, so slippery in your hands. Fingers trembling, you manage to press down on the button to talk - but your mind is unravelling, the air so cold, only one name manages to tumble out of your shivering lips.
"P-Patrick."
Patrick. Not Jane. Patrick. Like calling him by his name will bring him to you like magic. You're desperate enough to believe it.
You let go of the button - nothing. The sound of the static blends into the faint sound of leaves rustling somewhere outside. The rushing, crackling, silence.
You try again. Fingers slick with blood, you try again. "Patrick," you croak, hoping and hoping that it's him on the other end, that he can hear you at all. Who knows where his walkie talkie even is. It might be tucked at the bottom of a drawer at the CBI, spouting pleas to an empty room as the rest of the team goes looking for you.
They must be looking for you. They have to be. Especially him.
Because the alternative is that they've given up and that can't be true because Patrick Jane would never abandon you.
"Please," you whisper into the reciever. You're not sure if it even picks up. "Patrick-"
There's a breath of your name. Soft, and then louder as it crackles through the speaker of the walkie-talkie.
"...there? Please tell me you're there."
Jane's doesn't often call you by your name, but that doesn't mean he hasn't tried. It doesn't make the way his voice wraps around the syllable of your name sound any less heavenly.
"Say something," he says, his voice low and more serious than you've ever heard before. This is rare, for Jane. "Say something so I know you're alive. I need-"
"I'm here," you groan. You slump onto the floor. There are still needles under your skin and blood pouring out of your shoulder and you feel so fucking cold but you can hear Jane; somehow it all fades into the background. It's just you and him. When you speak again, your voice is thin. "I don't know where I am."
"I know, and I'm coming to get you," Jane replies, without any hesitation. I'm coming to get you. Not we. "Just stay with me."
You lean your head against the wall. Try to breathe. Watch the dust dance in the one beam of moonlight you have. "Okay. I'll try."
"You called me Patrick," Jane says. He's trying to keep his voice light, you can tell. "I'm always trying to get you to call me Patrick. If you wanted to get my attention you didn't have to go and get kidnapped, you know."
"Desperate times... desperate measures," you mumble. The pain really has taken a backseat, the fog rolling in instead. "You called me by my name."
"Desperate times," Jane - no, Patrick - mirrors. His voice is shaking. You want so badly to reach out, to hold him, but he's so far away. Everything is. "Talk to me. Whatever you remember."
It isn't much. "Got shot," you say dully, dimly nothing how the trickle of blood from your shoulder has stopped feeling warm. "Threw me. Hit my head maybe. Hurts. You helped me with that one time."
You can hear the smile in Patrick's voice. "I did. You put your head in my lap."
Impossibly, you manage a chuckle. "Made me do it. Coercion."
"Coercion with good results," he hums.
It's easy to pretend you're back there, on his couch at the CBI, your head in his lap, one of his hands in your hair and the other in yours. Falling asleep looking up at him with his sad, searching blue eyes, that seem to go as deep as the ocean does. Currents carrying you away into deeper and deeper waters. Away from here, and into the deep of his arms instead.
Another call of your name. Sharper this time. Like a plea.
"Talk to me," you hear Jane say. Already so distant, still at the shore. "Don't leave. I'm almost there, don't let go - listen to me, okay? Listen to me."
You're miles away. But Patrick's voice still carries, somehow, over the waves, over the swell of the water that threatens to pull you under.
"I want you to stay with me," he says, his breath quick, voice trembling like you've never heard it before. "Not just awake, but here. With me."
Always, you want to tell him, before you drown under the weight of all your pain.
The distant sound of a car pulling into a driveway. Raised voices. You're sinking.
Until someone drags you out of the water and into the cold night air. Dark hair and green eyes and a soft voice fill your vision, press two fingers to your neck. Lisbon. Her eyes are blown wide, mouth murmuring apologies as she holds you and props you up against the wall.
"In here!" she calls, and you're glad it's her, but where -
Patrick appears from behind her. Falls to his knees beside you. He's shaking and you want to hold him and he's right there - but you can't move. You're still bouyant, floating just on the surface. All you can do is breathe. Ignore the chill creeping onto your skin and seeping into your bones.
"Paramedics are minutes away," Lisbon says, putting a hand on Patrick's shoulder. He's frozen staring at you. "She's going to be okay if you can keep her awake until they get here."
That's when he blinks, as if he's waking up. He creeps closer to you, and suddenly scoops you into his arms. You're getting blood onto his suit. He doesn't seem to care as he wraps his arms around you, letting you lay against his shoulder.
"Hi," Patrick says cooly. Smiles down at you, radiant. As if nothing is wrong. Just like that night in the station. "I missed you."
"Since when?" you croak, and he chuckles, hangs his head low. When he lifts it to look at you, his eyes are brimming with tears.
Patrick doesn't answer the question. Instead he brushes his lips against your forehead as the sirens get closer and closer. "I told you to stay, right?" he whispers, rests his head against your forehead. "I - care about you. I want to keep caring about you. Those good enough reasons to stay?"
It's as good a reason as any, you think, because you care about him too.
(Patrick doesn't let you go until the paramedics arrive, and even when you're allowed to finally sink under and rest, he refuses to let go of your hand. And when you wake, the world blurry still, the first thing you see clearly is his smile.)
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