Chapter Text
vi.
"What happened when I was hypnotized?" Rigsby asked, half blurting and half demanding.
Jane blinked slowly at him, like a lazy cat. "You mean with Hendrix?" he asked, deceptively mild. "You don't remember yet?"
Rigsby frowned. "It hasn't been that long, and I still get flashes, but nothing that explains why you're being.... weird."
Jane chuckled, as unaffected as ever. "Weird?" he asked, spreading his hands as if to say search me, "I don't know what you're talking about. I thought this was about..." he glanced meaningfully over at Van Pelt.
Big guns, then.
Rigsby valiantly ignored this very shiny distraction. "No, this is about you avoiding me. And being weird."
"I'm not being weird," Jane said.
"Yes, you are!" Rigsby said, raising his voice.
Jane did not flinch or move back, or move at all. In fact, he went quite still. Only for a split second--then he deliberately relaxed, leaning back like he had not a care in the world. Rigsby wouldn't have spotted it if he wasn't staring directly at him.
"...See!" Rigsby couldn't help but say, a little childishly.
Jane let out a long breath, seemingly dropping all--well, not all, never all, but this--pretense. "It's fine, Rigsby," he said, "I'll get over it."
"Did I do something?"
"Do you not know? Really surprised you haven't asked Lisbon."
"Why would I--oh my god, I'm so dumb."
Lisbon was there on the roof. If that was where anything had happened, which seemed more likely--well, he could have done something somewhere else, but why? Well, why did he slam a suspect's head against a table? Really, there was no guarantee Lisbon would have known, although this did imply that whatever it was that happened Lisbon should know about it, hence it was probably the roof, when he was--what, pinning Jane for her? Had he... slapped him? Done something? God, Rigsby hoped not.
Seeing he was now lost in thought, Jane beamed at him, all sparkling smiles again. "Well, you go ask her, I'll just go make myself a cup of t--"
"Wait--" Rigsby's hand caught his shoulder as he went to extract himself from the conversation again, and Jane actually jerked away from him.
Rigsby withdrew his hand immediately, but Jane didn't seem bothered at all. In fact, he was fully willing to use the stricken look on Rigsby's face to escape, but Rigsby's (very... small sounding) call of "Wait... please," stopped him.
"Did I... hurt you?" Rigsby finally asked.
Jane looked surprised. Actually surprised. "No," he said.
"Then what happened?"
Jane exhaled, sitting back down on the couch. "It's really not a big deal," he said.
"Clearly it's something."
"It's not a big deal," Jane said again. "And you were hypnotized, so not your fault."
"That's what Grace said..." Rigsby muttered.
"Listen to Grace," Jane said. "She's right. Smart woman."
"She is very smart, isn't she?" Rigsby said, before shaking himself out of the dreamy tone. "Hey! No distracting me!"
Jane shrugged with an unrepentant little smile, like, Had to try, didn't I?
He didn't try as hard as he could have.
"So?" Rigsby said.
Jane pursed his lips. "You... tried to throw me off the roof," he said.
"I... what?"
"More like pushed, really," Jane said helpfully.
"That's not better!"
"You thought it was the ocean," Jane said. "She wanted you to 'take me for a swim'."
"That sounds like a mob hit. How did I not notice that sounds like a mob hit?"
"Hypnotized people don't exactly catch onto subtleties. It's not your fault."
"I nearly threw you off a building."
"No, Lindsay Hendrix nearly threw me off a building. She just... used you to do it." He tilted his head as he said, as cavalier as ever.
"Okay, say I'm 100 percent not to blame--" "--you're not--" "--why are you upset?"
Jane stared at him, visibly calculating how to get around this question.
"Jane."
If this had been a movie, he may have said Patrick. As it were, calling him Patrick would feel weird.
Jane was somehow more intimate. It was what they all called him, after all. His friends team.
"Not your fault," he said again. He leaned back. "Normal reaction. I'll get over it. Besides, I'm not special, you nearly threw Dr. Daniel off, too."
"That doesn't make me feel better."
"It wouldn't, would it," Jane agreed. "You didn't hurt anyone. Or me. Obviously, I'm fine," he pats his vest as if to say see? in one piece, "didn't go over the edge. No swimming with sharks."
"Sharks?"
"That's what I said to distract you. That there were sharks. You were still suggestible, you wouldn't accept that the street wasn't an ocean, so I played into it. Sharks. It's like..." he tapped his chin with a finger, "It's like a game of improv. Yes, and, right?"
Sharks.
(Jane's voice, panicked, yelling Shark! Shark! There, see it?)
Hm.
"She tried to override that--no yes, and, naughty, naughty. But in the process gave up what the trigger was, so I used that to snap you out of it. And you remember the rest."
(Before that, though--easily pinning struggling hands, why wouldn't he calm down, it was just a swim, he loved swimming)
And Rigsby wanted so bad to tease him for being a theater kid, but he was a little busy trying to sort out what he was remembering. The fragments of it, anyway.
"So I didn't... hit you, or anything?" he asked distantly.
"You didn't slam my head into a table if that's what you're worried about," Jane said lightly. "Just a little manhandling. Nothing I can't handle."
(Keeping his hands behind his back, shoving him forward even as he pushes back, scrambles away, he holds his own pretty well but it's just a swim, he's being ridiculous, Rigsby will get him any second and once he's in the water he'll realize how silly this is--)
"You said that no one could be hypnotized into doing something they weren't... morally okay with."
(Jane's voice, more scared than he's ever heard it, saying No, no--)
"True," Jane said.
"So I was morally okay with throwing you off a building?"
"You were morally okay with throwing me into the ocean," Jane corrected, then paused, seemingly replaying that sentence in his head. "In a nice way," he said. "Like, on the beach. Like dunking a friend in the pool. Not like cement shoes and sleeping with the fishes."
"So we're back to mob hits, great."
"I just said you wouldn't take me out mob-style, keep up."
"That doesn't make sense, anyway. I thought the point was it couldn't be pushed too far, that only a killer could be hypnotized to kill."
Jane looked at him for a long moment.
"I'm not dead," he said simply.
Rigsby frowned. "You could have been."
"I'm not."
"Could've been."
"Not."
"Coul--"
"Not, not, not," Jane practically sing-songed, like someone's annoying kid brother, "And maybe I could have been, but you didn't manage it and you had quite a bit of time for a trained police officer. Why not just haul me over your shoulder, hm? You're strong enough to. But you didn't. I'd say, somewhere deep down, you--" he pointed, nearly bopping his nose, "--resisted."
Rigsby was starting to feel a little better about this whole thing, but--wait, the whole point was that Jane was upset. He'd just managed to turn it back around to Rigsby's guilt over the situation. Damn it.
"Okay," he said slowly. "Not my fault."
Jane raised his eyebrows at Rigsby giving in so quickly.
"So are you okay?"
Jane waved dismissively. "Oh, we're fine," he said. "I don't blame you all."
And he really didn't seem to.
"Okay," Rigsby said again, "I believe you. But that's not what I asked. Are you okay?"
He was starting to get an idea of what was wrong. Even if he felt a little slow on the uptake.
"Fine," Jane said, almost strained. "Why would I not be?"
As soon as the words leave his lips he visibly regrets it. Rigsby takes the chance he's given.
"Well, your friend attacked you--" (and you know what's really endearing? No matter how he hides it, he still looks pleased when any of them refer to him as a friend) "--and tried to throw you off a building. Whether said friend was hypnotized or not, that wouldn't feel great. It'd be perfectly natural to be a little upset."
"I'm fine," Jane said again.
Rigsby stared him down.
"You're not gonna let this go, are you?" Jane said.
"Nope."
"Ever? Until I talk about it?"
"Nope."
"Great."
"Pretty sure Cho will lock us in if we don't work this out, anyway."
Jane glanced over through the glass door. Cho looked over at them with a flat look that very much said get your shit together.
Yeah, Cho would do that.
Jane sighed. "I really don't blame you," he said, for the umpteenth time. "It was just... unnerving, that's all. I'm not hurt."
Because, of course, Jane knew Rigsby wouldn't hurt him, had accounted for that, never planned for that scenario, because he wouldn't, so when he did, it was like a betrayal, or like Jane had been wrong and stupid, which was bullshit, but he couldn't say all that because Rigsby was still looking at him with that expectant face and Jane wasn't about to say even though it's stupid and tiny I didn't think I'd ever have to deal with bruises from any of you.
Couldn't have him feeling any more guilty than he already did.
"That's all," he said again. "Logically, I know exactly what happened and why. There is still the reaction I can't help. Someone I trust--" and to his credit, he barely stumbled over the world, "--pushed me around a bit, while under hypnosis. I'll get over it. Really, Rigsby, that's all. I haven't made a big deal of it because it's not a big deal."
And that, that was true. Mountains from molehills. Jane was overreacting on an emotional level, and Rigsby was so worried over hurting someone (which was really quite sweet) he was overreacting, too. If they'd just let it blow over it wouldn't have had to have been such a big deal. He'd get over it, with time--just spending time around Rigsby would help. Which, admittedly, he'd been avoiding, but it had only been a little while ago. He'd let things go back to normal, work cases, participate in office banter, tease him and Van Pelt over their burgeoning romance, and just being around Rigsby, who was, for the most part, a big teddy bear, would help.
Rigsby studied his expression for a moment and Jane, who was remarkably good at concealing his emotions, generally speaking, felt unusually... seen. Hm.
"Alright," he said finally. "If you're sure."
"If you'd accepted this answer ages ago," Jane pointed out cheekily, "You'd have saved us some trouble."
Rigsby did not take the opportunity for banter. "For what it's worth," he said quietly, "I'm sorry."
Jane smiled, and it did reach his eyes as much as any of his smiles ever did. "You've got nothing to be sorry for."
He almost made a joke about kissing Van Pelt, but neither of them seemed particularly sorry for that, either.
(He'd tell Rigsby that later, a while later, and he'd laugh and swat his shoulder and Jane would just laugh with him, no flinching or anything of the kind.)