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Jim dialled back on smell and wriggled uncomfortably on the edge of the table that he and Blair were perched on. It wasn't quite the worst spot in the room - two late arrivals had no option but to stand by the door. Nobody was in a hurry for this briefing. The sixth weekly review for a serial murder case was understandably not popular, especially when everybody knew that the case was at a standstill.
Jim's glance flicked over the men and women in the room. He could dial down the smell of sweat and the sour tangs of frustration, anger and fear, but he couldn't avoid seeing the body language that went with being hot and dispirited. Six weeks of investigation, five victims that they knew of, and absolutely no ideas. He shifted again, aware of his partner's irritated look. He looked at Blair, seeing in his face as plain as words 'Jeez, and you rag me about not being able to stay still'. Jim shrugged in sort-of apology and Blair briefly leaned into him in acknowledgement.
For a man who didn't like the cold, Blair didn't seem to cope with Cascade's dog days better than anyone else, sighing and wiping short unruly curls back from a sweaty forehead. ("I thought you weren't going to cut it." "That was reflex, last gasp of hairboy. I'm turning thirty - it's symbolic, okay?") The repairs to the air conditioning system were coming - like Christmas - and that was a long time away in the hottest August in years.
Bill Wilkerson of Homicide and Simon Banks walked through the door. Wilkerson headed to the front of the room where there was a table and a wallboard covered with photographs, maps and various notes. Simon made his way to Jim and Blair and said quietly "You two, outside with me."
The three men threaded their way through the press of bodies. Between the exit of Banks and his best detective team, and Wilkerson's grim expression, an air of resigned expectation rose in the room. Jim was not surprised when Simon announced, "There's another one," as soon as the door had shut behind the meeting room.
"I'll drive you out. The Commissioner is getting heavy pressure from the mayor's office and he's spreading it around. God knows what good I'll do there, but at least I'll be taking a 'personal interest'." Simon's voice was heavily sarcastic. "As if the whole damn city's not taking a personal interest."
Jim and Blair remained silent. Jim suspected that Blair was just thinking, but for himself he felt a sting of resentment, as if Simon had said "And what the hell are you doing about this?" It was unreasonable he knew, but he'd never met a situation where there was so little to go on, especially since his sentinel abilities came on line.
"It's the same as all the others?" Jim asked once they were in the elevator. They had it to themselves and Simon felt free to speak even more unguardedly.
"Looks like. Course, that's got to be all checked out before we announce anything to the ravening maw of the Press. Cascade Tourism Bureau's gonna have a fit, along with the Commissioner and the Mayor and every man and his dog." Simon stuck a cigar between his fingers, not lighting it in deference to the Public Health regulations now governing all city workplaces.
"Male or female this time?" Blair asked.
"Male, found behind the back of some bar. The rest of it - well, I don't think that I'm in any hurry for the details."
The bar was in a small retail area attached to a quiet lower middleclass area called Camperdown. There was a small group of bystanders, including reporters looking at the police tape that blocked off the entrance to the bar and an alleyway down the side. The stink of tar rose off the street and mixed with the smell of stale booze and rubbish from the alley.
The victim, a slim fit-looking man perhaps in his middle thirties lay on his side, knees curled as if he'd slid down from leaning against the stuccoed concrete wall. Perhaps he had. His face was very pale, in common with all corpses. There was no blood on the ground or on his clothes. That was the main defining characteristic and paradox of the victims, as there were always substantial throat wounds. As with the others, Jim knew there would be no evidence that the body had been moved. All of them had apparently been attacked where they died.
Dan Wolfe appeared at the alleyway entrance and Simon moved to talk to him. Jim and Blair crouched down to take a closer look at the corpse, Blair as matter of fact as Jim. Jim couldn't resist a quick look at Blair when he should have been looking at the body. He sometimes missed his squeamish grad student, but he took pride in Blair's calm new professionalism, as if it was his own creation instead of Blair's hard won achievement.
"Well, it's definitely the Bloodsucker. All the usual evidence, or lack of it. Fuck."
Jim couldn't keep the anger and frustration out of his voice. His sense of smell spiked and he could smell the stink of dead meat, the dried semen that the pathologist would find soon enough. But there was no obvious sign that belonged to the assailant. No piece of clothing, no hair, no scraping of the perp's skin under the victim's fingernails. No finger marks. The semen would be the victim's own. The chewed up throat offered few clues; the skin was too ripped to offer a bite pattern, and no remnants of saliva had ever been found. There was no connection to be found among the victims, except that male and female, they tended to be under thirty-five and fit and healthy.
The only clue now, if that's what it was, was an elusive scent, or not-scent. Jim didn't know how to describe it; a dry smell. He had found it on two other of the victims and here it was again. He bent down on his hands and knees, his nose almost up against the throat of the dead man, trying to find some way to pin it down, to anchor it in his mind with words and a definition. Once again he failed. It was just there, on the edge -
"Jim." Blair's voice, Blair's hand on his shoulder. "Dan's ready to roll, man. Better shift."
Jim pushed himself to his feet, muttering, "Sorry."
Dan Wolfe just grinned. "See anything interesting there, Detective?"
"No more so than before. There'll be the usual swabs?"
"There'll be swabs and samples six ways from Sunday, like always."
"Yeah."
Jim and Blair rejoined Simon.
"Anything?" Simon queried hopefully.
Jim shook his head. He planned to talk to Blair about that faint trace of smell, but until he could figure out what the hell it was he saw no point in taking it to Simon.
"It's been a crappy day, hell, a crappy week. Get your report done and then go home."
The ride back to the station was silent. What was there to say that the papers wouldn't say tomorrow?
Paperwork was done and said nothing new or useful, just as Jim and Blair suspected would be the case with the autopsy report. The two men headed for the garage and Jim's truck. Once in, Blair leaned his head back on the seat, eyes closed.
"Man, I want an ice-cold shower and an ice-cold beer in about that order. What did you zone on?"
The truck slowly entered Cascade's drive time traffic.
"That's the frustrating thing. I don't know. Well, I do, a scent, but... I just can't explain it. It's not anything I've ever smelled before." Jim tried to humour himself out of his frustration. "Neither animal, vegetable or mineral. Barely even there. Just, sort of dry."
"Dry."
"Yeah, Sandburg, dry. I'm sorry if that's not scientific enough for you." The frustration boiled over again. So much for trying to let go of it.
"Cool it, Jim. You're not the only person pissed off by the lack of progress here." Hands up in placating body language, no nonsense tone of voice. For once, Jim wasn't interested in figuring out which one was the act.
"Damn right I'm pissed. You and Simon are hanging over my neck like I'm some sort of performing monkey, and it's just - not - getting anywhere." Jim smacked one hand onto the steering wheel. The truck lurched a bit, not a lot, but enough for the woman driving the car in the lane on their left to give Jim a dirty look. Blair flinched a little and then Jim could see him willing himself to relax.
"Concentrate on the driving. I'm really looking forward to that shower, and I don't think a hospital bed bath would cut it."
By the time they reached home the worst of Jim's irritation had gone. He was hot and he was tired and he just wanted the privacy of his home with a cold beer in one hand and Blair in the other, if he hadn't shot his chances of that in the foot with his little temper tantrum. He ran his hand briefly over Blair's back, and was rewarded with a tired smile.
In the elevator, Blair leaned into Jim, his arms around Jim's waist.
"You know, there are more socially acceptable ways to release tension than biting people's heads off."
"Socially acceptable exactly where? Because if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, then public indecency charges would be the least of it."
Blair leaned his head back, a brightly lascivious grin on his face. "Hey, I'm like a major part of your society and it'd be a hell of a lot more acceptable to me."
"So I suppose that hoping for three Hail Marys and a 'go and sin no more' is too much to hope for?"
"And as a good WASP boy, was your source material for that Bing Crosby or Spenser Tracey?" Blair's eyes suddenly focused inwards. "Actually, that whole Hollywood fascination with the Catholic church is fascinating in its own right, given the generality of the wheelers and dealers in film companies being Jewish. I mean, the celibacy thing comes in 'cause you get sexual tension even when it's not technically there, and the suspicion of the influence of the church and anti-immigrant prejudice, and the ritualistic thing..."
Jim wondered if Blair did things like that on purpose and then cut off the stream of consciousness by kissing him. He enjoyed observing Blair's mind at play more than he admitted, but that wasn't the game he wanted right at this moment. They were in the hall by now, and kissing delayed getting out keys, but somehow Jim didn't mind. Blair's pupils were very large now, and Jim didn't think it was because the early evening light wasn't that bright anymore. Perhaps time to open the door and get out of the hall and into their home.
Once in the door, the rituals of putting keys and weapons away were undertaken. That done, Blair pulled off his shirt, huffed out a breath and just stood still for a moment, looking as if he enjoyed the brief coolness of evaporating sweat before his body adjusted. The shirt hung loose in his hand, draping on the floor, and Jim just stood for a moment himself, looking at Blair. Then he stepped up, and with one hand took the shirt from Blair and with the other stroked gently across his lover's chest.
Blair lifted a hand and rubbed it across Jim's jaw. "That's my Jim - sensual and anal-retentive about the laundry at one and the same time." His voice was affectionate, but his expression was something else altogether. He took the shirt back from Jim and made rather a flourish of pitching it across the room. "Laundry later," he muttered against Jim's jaw.
Jim grinned. "Oh yeah, talk dirty to me." By seeming mutual consent they were headed for the couch, and Blair had a definite 'you're paying for that remark, buster' light in his eyes. Since his idea of payback was to push Jim onto his back and straddle him while undoing his shirt buttons, Jim decided to give in gracefully. When the shirt was undone Blair pushed it back across Jim's chest and smoothed his hands over the heavy muscles, sighing a little.
"Envious, Chief?"
The heel of a shoe-clad foot prodded into the side of his leg.
"Appreciative. It's all mine one way or another, isn't it?" He bent down to kiss Jim, tenderly and very sloppily. "Isn't it?"
Jim's breathing had gone all to hell. He reached out his hands to the waist of Blair's pants. "Yeah," he breathed. Blair sat up, to make it easier for those seeking hands.
"Gonna prove it to me, then?" Blair asked. And Jim grinned at the desire and bravado in that question. He could provide proof, that was what cops did. He undid the waist catch on Blair's pants, pulled the zipper down, looking at Blair's erection, the head of his cock poking above the band of his briefs. Gently Jim rubbed the back of his hand against Blair through the briefs, watching Blair's face. Blair had a little half smile, and he murmured quietly, " Yeah, nice, that's really nice Jim."
Blair's expression turned mischievous. He took both of Jim's hands in his. "So, Jim, I guess that these hands are mine too?"
Jim looked at him warily and somewhat impatiently. "Your point, Chief?"
"I think that my hands should undo those pants. You're looking a little cramped there." Blair placed Jim's hands at his fly. Jim could take a hint. "Yeah, that's right," Blair murmured, his own hand working his cock now, "I like to take my time. Yeah, I bet that feels a lot better." And really, Jim thought, it was amazing how interesting something as simple as jerking off became when Blair talked you through it with a rough, breathless voice; when he leaned over you looking as if he could come just from watching you; when he assured you how beautiful you looked when you came, in a voice that shook because he was coming himself.
***
Jim put salad and cold chicken together, and listened to Blair singing as he cleaned up the bathroom. It wasn't musically enjoyable, but Jim liked it anyway. Blair padded out, like Jim, in boxers and nothing else, dumped towels in the hamper and flopped on the couch.
"How the hell does he do it?" Blair asked Jim and the loft ceiling, accompanying the question with waving hands. Jim spent time being alternately frustrated or amused by Blair's habit of contemplating work puzzles as soon as certain home rituals were completed. Sex, food , or both, achieved, suddenly Blair had a whole new comfort level about thinking about work.
"We're talking shop are we?"
Blair ignored this. "He has to move them, Jim, or else drug them. How else is there no mess and splattering? I have this vision of some pervert draping rubber sheets over them before killing them."
"Toxicology and my nose say no to the drugs, Chief. And no wonder you're not sleeping properly if that's stuck in your brain."
"I sleep as well as you do, Ellison." There was a pause. It was true that Blair had been up at 3 am drinking something that had "soothing blend" written across the packaging, but that was because Jim's nightmare had woken them both. "I had a really weird thought."
Jim chuckled.
"Who'd a thunk. And?"
"It's like the Bloodsucker is a real vampire, y'know?"
"Well, at least you have company in the Sandburg zone. Just about all of Cascade and most of the national tabloids agree with you."
"Not to mention the internet conspiracy sites, and it's just as well that they don't know all the stuff that we do. But, think about it, I'm serious here. A torn up throat, but no sign of blood or a struggle; evidence of sexual activity on the part of the victims; no physical evidence of the attacker. Eliminate the impossible and whatever is left, no matter how improbable must be the solution, right? And it's damn near impossible for a human assailant to not leave something behind, especially given how quickly we've found some of the victims."
"I think that if you're using Sherlock Holmes as an exemplar for modern policing that we're in big trouble. That idea's pretty improbable even for a case as screwed up as this one. Get your ass over here and have something to eat."
Blair scrambled over the back of the couch, his face alight with a new idea. " Hey, did you ever wonder if Holmes didn't have sentinel senses, enhanced sight or touch at the very least? What with that monograph on the forty whatever different types of cigar ash and stuff. Wonder if Doyle ever met somebody like that."
Jim surveyed this Blair who was a cop, who had cut his hair, who was calmly discussing a gory murder case while waiting for a meal. Some things, it seemed, never changed, and one of them was Blair Sandburg's ability to go off on weird mental tangents.
The next day's autopsy report was depressingly similar to that of the other five victims. Considerable blood loss through a wound in the throat. Forensics reported that there was the continuing strange lack of any blood on either the victim's clothing or the ground, indicating that the victim might not have died where he was found, at the very least. Which was unlikely, because he was a well-liked and well-recognised employee at the bar, which the alley backed onto, and he would have been there till late cleaning up after the patrons went home. Other results would have to wait, but were likely to be as inconclusive as previously. Jim and Blair spent an unsatisfactory day tracking down as many bar patrons as possible and taking statements. A general call went out through the media for anyone who had been at the bar that night to please come forward.
And that was where it stood.
Two days later Jim was at a sandwich bar picking up lunch to take back to the bullpen so that he and Blair could deal with the paper trail, cross referencing people referred to by others at the bar with those who had actually come forward. It looked like there were about four or five people who were being backward in their civic duty of coming forward to earnestly assure the cops that they hadn't seen anything, and one of those was a woman who had been seen talking to the victim.
Blair had some complicated note-taking arrangement going. The air-conditioning was still not quite up to speed and Jim decided that in the circumstances it wasn't beneath the dignity of a senior detective to make the lunch run. He filled his partner's order, and chose a sandwich for himself, which would pass as healthy even by the rigorous standards of Blair Sandburg. He speculated whether Blair would pretend to be prostrate with shock, or whether he'd just smile in a smug 'knew you'd come round' way.
He was heading back when he registered a scent that was a little strange, that was... He stopped short and spun around. That strange, dry, non-scent. He followed it, realised that it tracked to a woman he could see turning the corner. She looked back at him, her eyes wide as she noted his attention, before she left his view. He sped after her, and barrelled around the corner of what was a service alley for a high-rise. He couldn't hear any footsteps or heart beat and was resigned to seeing empty space, so he was surprised when she stood there. She looked a little startled and oddly interested.
She walked up to him. She was medium everything he would guess, mid-thirties, medium height and build, attractive without being a traffic-stopper, although there was something compelling about her. She commanded attention. If she spoke, he suspected that people would listen. She did speak, and he listened carefully.
"Oh, just perfect. Perfect." Her voice was pleased, a little tired perhaps. She walked up to him and leaned her head on his chest, just for a moment. "Thank God." It was the tone of a heart-felt prayer.
"I want you to come with me," she said. So he did.
***
They went back to a small studio apartment, about thirty minutes walk from where he first noticed her. She was very tense he saw, and her hands shook when she put the key in the lock of the door. Once inside she instructed him to lie on the bed. He obliged.
She put her index finger to her mouth and nipped it with sharp front teeth. There was a little blood, like a thumb-prick test at a doctor's surgery. She lay down beside him and held her finger to his mouth, and he sucked on it. And then after that, it got very strange.
He lay on the bed, confused and sweating. He didn't want food or drink. He didn't need anything like that. Just the blood that he suckled from her finger and then her wrist, in some parody of nurture and sex. The blood was cool, as she was. He held her and tried to warm her. He could remember calling out for Blair, and her voice soothing him, calm and almost affectionate, but not the voice he wanted to hear. Blair would be worried about him, would be looking for him, but she gentled him with reassurances, "Just a little while longer, just a little while."
After a time he felt very ill. All that blood, it couldn't be good for him, could it? He curled around the ache in his belly, and stumbled to the tiny bathroom. Nothing. His body wanted nothing from that room and she came in and gently and insistently brought him back to the bed, and let him suck from her cold wrist again. He could hear her talking, telling him to remember this thing and that, but it was too hard. He would concentrate later, and for now just let her voice run over him, like Blair's when he dragged him out of a zone, except this voice pulled him deeper and deeper.
He thought it must be night, although that might just be the darkness behind his eyes, cut through with flashing lights, like the warning signs of an epileptic fit. 'I'm dying' he thought, and, miserably 'I want Blair'. Then there weren't even the lights.
When he awoke he was ravenous, craving food, and she smiled at him. Her face was sad and happy at the same time and completely unafraid. She held out her arms to him and tilted her head back to expose her neck. "Finish it," she told him. He didn't have to think about it, just took what was offered. It was perfect.
***
Jim woke up. He stretched a little, his eyes shut. He opened them, and he fell back in horror, scrabbling backwards off the bed onto the floor. The woman lay there on the bed, dead like the other six victims, her throat ripped but her clothes and the bed oddly clean and bloodless.
She was the serial killer, and he was her killer. He had gorged himself on her, and now, he felt - good. Full of wellbeing. Better than he'd felt for a long time, or was that the echo of her memories, remembering the early time of the change?
He opened his mouth in revulsion and no sound came out. Remembering, he took a deep, whooping breath in, and with air he could use his vocal cords again. He tried relieving his feelings with a burst of choicer swear words. It didn't help the terror of finding breathing was a voluntary response. Panicked, he listened inside himself for all the familiar noises, and found only silence. He pressed a fist to his chest where his heart ought to beat. No noise, no movement, although there was a feeling, something new, underlying and supporting his body's quiet. He turned inwards, listening and feeling, trying to be aware of his body in a way that he had seldom attempted, fearful of being lost in a zone. There was no zone, but there was no understanding either.
He picked up his discarded belongings from the floor beside the bed; wallet, keys, cuffs, a high smelling paper bag of sandwiches. He looked at the keys. How could he go back to his home like this? How could he face Blair, or anybody else that he knew? Except that he wanted Blair, right now, wanted to listen to his voice and be reassured that everything would be all right. He knelt with his face in the rumpled covers of the bed and knew that he didn't have the courage to not go home.
He dropped everything as another thought struck him. What had he touched in this room, in the bathroom? She had opened the door. He had lain on the bed. He would have touched the door handle of the bathroom. He remembered leaning his hands on the edge of the basin. He looked around for a cloth, a box of tissues. There was no sign that the tiny kitchen area had ever been used, no cloth hanging over the faucet, no dishtowel. He opened the door of the bathroom again. There was a towel hanging over a rail and he used it to wipe every surface that he might conceivably have touched. He surveyed the bed and the rest of the room with sentinel sight, and when he was satisfied that he hadn't left a hair or eyelash behind him he collected his belongings, and left, using the towel to touch the door locks and handle.
His watch told him that it was 8.10 am on the eighth of August. He went to get sandwiches on the sixth. He looked for a back entrance out of the building, and stepped out into a service yard shared by several buildings. There was a dumpster and he chucked the towel and sandwich bag into it. He was only half an hour's walk from the station. He walked.
Along the way, little flashes of memory ambushed him. "Forget all the horror movie nonsense." "You won't need to feed a lot, not at first. For years, you can get by on very little, no more than a few mouthfuls, every few weeks." He heard her voice stripped of the compulsion she had used on him. There had been a trace of mid-west accent, regret, a need for him to understand why she had to do this. "It wasn't so bad at first, but I can't do it without killing them now. It's never enough, I was too old when I was changed. It'll be easier for you. You'll last a long time without having to kill anyone."
He wondered what Simon would say if he confessed to killing the woman. 'Yes, I ripped her throat, sucked her blood, but it was more like assisted suicide, because she wanted to die, and that was the only way.' That would amount to a speedy trip to Conover, and regular visits from a distressed but falsely cheerful Blair.
His appearance in reception caused a sensation. The officer on duty gaped, leapt up from the booth and charged out into the public space, crying out "Detective Ellison. They've been going crazy trying to find you." Other officers fussed around him. He tried to get through the press. Presumably someone had paged Major Crimes because the next thing he knew was Simon's voice booming, "Give him some space, you morons," and Simon had a firm grip on his arm and was steering him into an elevator.
Simon directed Jim into his office, past the relieved and gleeful eyes of the seventh floor staff. Once in the quiet of Simon's office, Jim asked, "Where's Blair?" Simon pushed Jim into a chair, one hand clasping Jim's shoulder as if to say 'I'm glad you're okay. Don't do that again.'
"Well, he'd better be at home sleeping because that's what I gave him strict instructions to do about 1am this morning, since he hadn't gone home since you disappeared. What do you think he's doing?"
"Maybe sleeping, Simon. But this is Sandburg we're talking about."
"Yes, it is." There was a rueful tone to Simon's voice. "You want to call him with the good news? And then we can deal with the unimportant stuff like your statement, and a medical check. You look like hell. Forget the phone call, looks like he's here already."
Jim looked up to see a wild looking Blair charge across the bullpen, and he rose out of the chair, preferring to meet the coming whirlwind on his feet. The door to Simon's office banged open and shut and Blair yelled "Where the hell have you been?" like Jim was some teenager who'd broken curfew. Then Blair's fists were knotted in the back of Jim's shirt, his face buried in Jim's shoulder, and Jim could feel him shake. His own arms were around Blair in a grip that must have been painful to the smaller man. Finally, Blair took a deep breath and pushed back from the embrace. They were in the PD, after all, in Simon's office.
Blair and Simon gave each other a look that Jim couldn't decipher and then standard operating procedures took over. Jim wrote and signed a statement. He said that he recalled going out to get food, and that he remembered nothing else until he found himself walking the streets on his way back to the station. When Simon tried to insist on a medical exam he remembered how he had listened to the woman, done what she asked. He pushed Simon, just a little, muttering the magic words, "sentinel stuff" and Simon subsided. Jim did get some spare clothes from his locker and permitted Forensics to take away the clothes he'd been wearing. His hands shook a little when he handed them over, even though he was sure there was no blood on them.
Eventually, Blair was permitted to take him home. Blair, of course, had things to say even before they were out of the garage. His expression had hardened when Jim refused an exam, and Jim had been mentally shoring his defences.
"I don't know how the hell you got Simon to waive that medical exam, but if you think that you're getting away with that with me you're a sadly mistaken man. For God's sake, Jim, you could be hurt, maybe there's evidence floating around your bloodstream right now that's going to be gone in a few hours. If this had happened to me you'd be damn near holding me down and wielding that needle yourself. So why won't you have a doctor's exam? Sure sounds like you were drugged, and you might seem all right now, but that could change."
"Chief, you don't take more breaths you'll be the one in need of medical care. The great champion of all things alternative, wants me to see a doctor? I'm marking this on the calendar."
"You were missing for two days, Jim. Anything could have happened to you. You don't remember any of it. You say you don't remember any of it."
"And what the hell does that mean?" With an effort, Jim lowered his voice. "Maybe I'm repressing it," he said sarcastically.
"Don't you fuck with me, Jim. I've been out of my fucking mind about this. I..."
"Just drive, okay, Chief. I'm all right, I think I'd notice if anybody had raped and tortured me, okay? Let's just go home." He was vastly relieved when Blair turned left - the route home, rather than the route for the hospital.
So Blair drove him home, his control of the car a little jerky at times. Once parked, they walked to their building, Blair's hand on Jim's arm as if he was worried that the taller man might fall. "God, Jim, you're freezing. We should at least go to the medical centre. You're in shock, man."
Jim remembered his futile efforts to warm the woman. He had an image of Blair crawling into bed with him, seeking Jim's body warmth, and not finding it. He faltered, but when Blair tried to turn Jim around to return to the car, he was more than a little surprised by his lover's transformation into an immovable object. Finally, Jim found he could move forward again, and shaking off Blair's supporting arm, he jammed his hands in his pockets. "You know how to deal with shock, Sandburg. You took the same first aid courses I did. Let's just get inside."
Once in the door, Jim excused himself to go the bathroom. Well, at least he could see himself in the mirror. And he hadn't smouldered away to nothing in the sun outside. It was a start, he supposed. Despite that untoward feeling of physical health, he could see why Simon and Blair were concerned about him. He was unshaven and pale. One of those, he could fix. He yelled out to Blair that he was going to shower, and got under the spray, turning it up as high as he could bear. It was a long shower, punctuated by Blair occasionally poking his head around the door to make sure that he was okay.
When he emerged, Blair was sitting at the table with a large mug of coffee. There was a glass of water at Jim's usual place.
"No caffeine hit for you until I know that you can handle it, okay? Just sit down. Are you hungry?"
"Water is fine, Chief." And it was. The thought of food turned his stomach, but a simple glass of water was - manageable, even if he was doing no more than wetting his mouth with it. Blair reached out, stroking his thumb over the back of Jim's hand, his fingers curling around Jim's wrist, near the pulse point. Jim tried not to flinch. Blair tried to pretend that he hadn't seen the flinch, and failed miserably to ordinary sight, let alone sentinel senses.
Blair's voice remained conversational, but his hand shook as it returned to his coffee cup. "A little better. Still cooler than I'd like. Look, do you want to rest?"
"I'll rest if you rest."
Blair's calm deserted him. His voice was low and hard.
"I don't want to rest. I want to know what the hell happened, all right? I want to know why you don't want me touching you." He shoved his chair back so hard that it fell over, and then he leaned on the table as if ill, his eyes screwed shut.
Jim turned his face away.
Then Blair was leaning over him, arms around his shoulders, saying over again, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and then, "Why the hell are you so cold?"
"Come on. We'll both go to bed, get some sleep." Jim led Blair up the stairs to their bedroom, Blair's hand warm, feverish feeling, in his. They lay together, Jim careful to think about his breathing, remembering all Blair's past instructions in control and meditation. Gradually, Blair's own breathing dropped into the patterns of sleep, but Jim watched the change of light and shade in the loft and didn't sleep for a long time.
He woke to a panicked voice. "Jim, oh my god, don't you do this. Jim, breathe!" Then Blair was yanking the pillow out from under his head, putting hands on his face in a rescue breathing position, before stopping in confusion when Jim finally remembered to obey the frantic command, and did indeed breathe. He sat up in the bed, while Blair sat back on his heels and looked absolutely at a loss.
"What the hell was that? You weren't breathing, and you're still so cold, and what the hell is this? What the hell is going on?"
Jim put a hand on the back of Blair's neck. "Just calm down, come on, Chief, you can do that." He found that his voice was low and coming from the back of his throat - the sort of voice that presages tears - and that was no good. He had things to tell Blair.
"I, uh, I found the Bloodsucker," Jim said, and then stopped. Blair settled down in a cross-legged sit on the bed and watched him intently.
"Godammit, you won't believe this. Nobody is going to fucking believe this," Jim growled, standing up and pacing around the room.
"Jim, you're a sentinel. You've seen ghosts. You have visions. I think I have room for a little more weirdness."
"Oh yeah, you're going to have one hell of a selection of Halloween stories. She was a real vampire, okay?"
Blair's face didn't change, although Jim could hear interesting things happening to his heart rate. His scent was getting ever more acrid. He spoke, his voice steady and careful.
"So what happened? Did she bite you, what?"
"She wanted to die Chief. But she couldn't." Jim wanted to talk clearly, as if he was giving a report, or evidence in court. It didn't seem to be going that way, and he opened up the drawer that held tissues. He had to blow his nose and wipe his face.
"She made me, I, uh. Look, she opened up her wrist and made me drink it. Vampire stuff. And I - killed her, took it from her throat. Which I think was the point, because she was sort of passing it on, y'know. Cause she had to get rid of it to die herself.
Blair sat quite still on the bed. Jim might have thought that he was meditating, except for the scent of extreme distress coming off him. Jim leaned his back against the bedroom wall, watching the still, quiet man sitting on the bed. He waited for Blair to pick his options - to believe what Jim was telling him, or to assume that he was crazy. Jim wished that he was crazy. Finally, Blair said something.
"This is pretty weird shit."
Jim couldn't help it - he laughed, a nasty, hiccupping snort of sound. "And this is new, how?"
Blair didn't smile. Instead he got off the bed, came over and took Jim's hand, and frowned. "I mean this is really weird. How can this happen?" He reached for Jim, put his arms around him and laid his head low against Jim's chest. Jim hugged him hard before he realised that Blair was seeking information as much as comfort.
"I can't hear your heart, Jim." Blair's voice trembled. "I can't hear anything." He started to cry - hard, guttural sobs, and Jim held him for a long time.
***
Jim and Blair went in to Major Crimes the next day. Simon hauled them both into his office and carried out a brief interrogation as to whether Jim was fit for work. Once convinced, he released them to the bullpen.
Jim found himself in a strange mood. No man is an island, but in the heart of one of his territories, with Blair at his side, he felt definitely adrift. Jim nodded and occasionally smiled his way through the welcomes and enquiries, but what he really wanted to find out was if anyone had reported the woman missing, or her body found.
He listened in to his colleagues' speculations about what had happened to him, along with Blair's uncharacteristically curt brush-offs of enquiries made directly to him. He discovered that Simon sending Blair home after his disappearance had involved a shouting match in Simon's office that rumour suggested incorporated words like "fuck off" and "suspension".
There was no news, and Jim didn't know how he felt about that. Someone would eventually find the woman, and the longer the time, the more unpleasant it would be for whoever stumbled across the body. The idea of waiting for someone to report a body found was unbearable.
Jim and Blair headed out of the bullpen mid-morning, claiming the need to follow up the enquiries disrupted by his disappearance.
Blair drove his car out of the garage. "Where are we headed?"
"You know where, Chief."
"Actually, Jim, no. I know what we're doing. Just not where we're going."
"Shit. Straight down Arden for three blocks."
"Got it."
He didn't really need to explain, but somehow it seemed that he did.
"I can hardly leave her there for somebody else to find. It's not exactly looking after the tribe. And I, I owe her. I killed her. My god." He shut his eyes.
"Jim, it was...god, I don't know what it was, but it wasn't murder. You were hardly in your right mind, and in a totally unbelievable situation. We'll get the wheels in motion and go from there. And I'll write the report. You and I have been shovelling it for years, and this isn't exactly going to go to trial."
Jim could hear a particular emphasis in Blair's voice. He knew what Blair wanted - the assurance that Jim wasn't going to do anything that Blair would judge stupid, like trying to tell the truth. Blair had once said that the truth was over-rated. In spite of, perhaps because of the covert work he had done, Jim couldn't agree. By nature and upbringing he was accustomed to taking responsibility for his actions. But then, who would believe this? He knew that he couldn't go by the book now, but that didn't reduce his discomfort in the slightest.
"Sandburg, they teach you the meaning of 'accessory after the fact" at the Academy?"
Blair reached out to put a hand on Jim's thigh and rested it there a moment, heavy and comforting. His voice was almost amused.
"Yeah, man, and thanks to the glories of higher education, I can spell it too. Unlike some people."
"You miss out on the spell-check one time and some other people never let you forget. It was just a mistype anyway."
"Yeah, sure, Jim."
The fragile pleasure of the banter dissipated as Jim told Blair to turn left. Nearly there. Jim searched his memory. How many corpses had Blair seen that Jim had been directly responsible for? Lash's had been discreetly wheeled past in a body bag. Blair had seen only a little of the chaos that Jim had left behind at the drug dealers' camp in Peru. In the end, the number was more than Jim felt at ease with, and the only comfort was that he hadn't yet had to look at someone killed by Blair.
It was one thing for Blair to know intellectually that Jim had killed, or that Jim had shot someone. It was quite another thing for Blair to see the slack-jawed empty shell left behind in death and know that the same hands and mouth that touched him in love had sent that person on their way in violence.
The apartment building was quietly stifling. Jim listened but could hear only a few sounds to indicate occupancy in any of the rooms. People were mostly at work he presumed. In front of the woman's door, they stopped and went through the motions, knocking and declaring themselves. There was no answer, and so "acting on information received" Jim kicked at the door until the lock gave way.
Both men were braced for the smell of a body thirty-six hours dead in a small, hot room. There was surprisingly little, just a vaguely meaty smell overlaying the musty odour of an unventilated space. Jim watched as Blair walked over to the bed, looking down at the body there. Jim fought the urge to clap his hands over Blair's eyes and manhandle him out of the room. Blair needed to make this real for himself. Jim understood that, he just didn't have to like it.
He needed distraction, and he had to fulfil the whole purpose of coming here. He pulled on gloves and began to search for anything that might identify the woman, that might give her a name. There would be, he knew, nothing to connect her to the previous killings, no trophies or scrapbooks. The belongings in the apartment were sparse - a basic selection of clothes and toiletries, stored in cheap furniture. The room had less personality than the average hotel room.
After a while Blair turned away from the woman. Jim looked at him sideways while pretending to concentrate on the search he was making. Blair's face was set in lines that Jim recognised as anger. He kept watching Jim as he rifled through drawers, opened cupboards. There was a handbag in the closet, with a small wallet containing a driver's license and a couple of bankcards in the name of Julia Christine Gregory. Somehow that didn't feel right to Jim. Leaning up against the wall on the floor of the closet he found a plastic satchel and opened it. Inside were several birth certificates, one in the name of the other documents, a couple in other names, and a marriage certificate and sepia toned photograph.
The picture was of the woman, her face shaded by a large hat, standing next to a thin man only a little taller than she. Their clothes suggested early twentieth century. The marriage certificate was discoloured and fragile with old creases. It proclaimed in immaculate copperplate writing that on the twenty-third of April, 1903, Elizabeth Beatrice Williams, age thirty-five (widow) had married Phillip Thomas Drewson, age thirty- two (farmer) of Howardsville, Idaho.
Jim knelt on the floor, looking at the photo and certificate, apparently the only links that Elizabeth Drewson had kept with the past. Had she kept them out of continuing love for her husband, or as a lifeline to a world long gone? Would, someday, far too far in the future, some stranger look at a picture of Blair, and wonder at its significance?
Blair leaned over him, his hands warm on Jim's shoulders even through his shirt. Whatever emotion showed in his face, Blair's hands were gentle.
"You going to leave it with the other stuff, or take it with you?"
"I'll take it. Time to call this in, start everything up."
Blair suddenly knelt down, his head pressed against Jim's shoulder.
"Why did she have to pick you?"
***
Jim stood out on the balcony. The heatwave had broken over the last week, and the evenings were growing cooler as September came in. Standing on the balcony while Blair ate had been the norm for three days now. ("So, you're still not feeling interested in food?" "Christ, Sandburg, I think I recognise when the idea of something makes me sick to my stomach.") They had come in late at night and Blair had organised a basic meal for himself - canned soup and toast - only to watch as Jim had thrown it into the sink in dog in the manger frustration.
Food was something for other people now. Smells that would have made him salivate pleasurably a month ago now were just neutral background. At best, a food smell was pleasant the way a flower or the scent of earth fresh after rain was pleasant - but he didn't want to eat those things. All of the anger and uncertainty (and fear, let's not forget the fact that he was scared as hell) had come to a head against something as simple as Blair's need to eat.
Blair's face had been drawn under the kitchen lights as Jim had smashed the plate and mug against the sink top, his hands sweeping utensils and the detritus of the food preparation around the kitchen area onto the floor. When the burst of rage had ended, Blair had surveyed the mess, and said defeatedly, "Dammit, Jim, I'm tired and I'm hungry." Jim had helped him clean up, and watched enviously as Blair made another meal, which he ended up having little appetite for. The rage had simmered all that evening.
This evening he wasn't angry, just depressed. Cut off from so simple a pleasure as eating and sharing food. He didn't need an anthropologist turned cop to point out the social significance of food and the rituals attached to it. The donut girl at the station, beer and snacks on poker nights, those damn stupid little pastries at the Mayor's dinners. That plate of scrambled eggs that Blair had cooked his first morning in the loft. He'd accused Blair of courtship rituals and thought that he'd been making a joke.
He wondered briefly what other simple pleasures he might be cut off from. In the stress of the last few days, sex had simply not been an issue. He'd been too preoccupied in the first shock to even think about it. Now he was thinking about it, wondering if he dared to find out what else he could or could not expect from his body.
"Jim, will you get inside? You don't have to banish yourself in perpetuity."
"Just admiring the view. You take a night skyline for granted sometimes."
"Yeah, I guess it's pretty enough." Blair's voice was sceptical. "Look, I've been thinking."
Jim looked sharply at Blair, who was looking out straight over the balcony in a nervous determination that spelled out 'I have something to say that you probably won't like.'
"I know that you've told me a bit about this thing, how you think it works, but I really think that we need to formalise some parameters. You have a department physical in five months, maybe six if you stall. We need to work out if we can work enough legerdemain to pass it or if we should resign from the PD."
Jim had already spent quite a lot of time contemplating the various ways that he could give this new secret away without even trying, but it was the first time that either of them had voiced any of the problems. He felt strangely relieved. He was back in familiar territory - Blair 'formalising parameters' was ironically normal.
"So Einstein, you have a plan?"
Blair sighed. "Jim, even before I met you, I'd spent years dreaming and reading about sentinels and hyper senses, and a hell of a lot of time planning tests. And my main research into vampires has been watching "The Lost Boys" and taking an old girl friend to some summer lectures on how penny dreadful novels reflected societal fears and taboos in Victorian England."
Jim struggled to keep irritation out of his face. It wasn't the long windedness. The problem was that he was too used to watching Blair wave a magic wand and fix things for him. Blair shrugged apologetically.
"The short answer is no, not really. I guess we should try and figure out exactly what a doctor is or isn't going to find if they examine you, the basics anyway. I borrowed a machine to test blood pressure, and we can take your temperature, and I've been doing a little research on conscious control of autonomic body functions, the sort of thing some yogic adepts can do."
Jim suspected that his expression was not encouraging, as Blair's voice trailed off.
"Yogic adepts?" His eyebrows were crawling up, and up again. "Come on, Chief."
"Hey, they can take their respiration and heartbeat right down. Maybe you can do something similar in reverse - even temporarily. You've got certain advantages in that direction."
"Does the term 'grasping at straws' ring a bell here? Maybe I can fake a heartbeat and breathing. What do you think they might find if they want to take a blood test? A urine sample?"
"What if you get hurt on duty? You might be able to camouflage some of it. Will you at least get inside, so we can make a start?" Blair moved to the door, opened it, and made an impatient 'after you' gesture. Jim couldn't think of any reason why not, and reluctantly went inside. Once indoors, ten minutes of experimentation established that Jim had absolutely no heartbeat, no blood pressure, and a temperature of 89.2 degrees.
"Well, that's interesting," Blair said wryly, standing in front of Jim. "Taking out the whole no heartbeat thing, you should be hypothermic and unconscious right about now, and that's a best case scenario."
Jim leaned his head against the back of the couch.
"I'm fucked," he said. Blair started to say something and then stopped.
"What?" Jim enquired. Blair looked a little embarrassed. "What?" Jim asked again.
"I was going to say, not recently, and then it occurred to me that it was less than tactful."
"You'd have that right."
Blair's face grew determined.
"I'd settle for you just coming to bed with me occasionally, instead of sacking on the couch."
Oh yeah, he was fucked all right. Doing tests, and talking about what happened between point A and point B was just a case of the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. But Jim stayed morbidly aware that he wasn't a cosily warm, breathing body for Blair to snuggle against at night. After Blair's mistaken panic the morning he had returned to the loft, Jim had taken to finding excuses to stay up, channel surfed like crazy and took what sleep he needed downstairs. Any attempt by Blair to touch him was increasingly met with the skittishness of a nervous virgin at a frat house party. He knew that it hurt Blair but he was still fighting the necessity to discover exactly what might happen in their bed.
"I don't need that much sleep now, anyway."
"Fine, Jim, but why don't you think about taking it in company?" Blair swallowed hard. "I miss you man, okay? How about you come upstairs with me tonight. Might help both of us rest better." He shrugged twitchily, and knelt down in front of Jim, coming close but still not actually touching. "If you were going to go all creature of the night on my ass, it would have happened by now. You told me that what happened before she - changed you- was atypical, that it's not supposed to be that way all the time."
"That's what she said but I don't know it for sure. I shouldn't even really be here."
Blair reached out, took one of Jim's hands. "There's nothing wrong with wanting - the, the comfort of a familiar environment at a stressful time." Jim felt a pang at Blair's awkward effort to keep his reassurance at an acceptable emotional distance. Blair didn't deserve that. And Jim was so damn tired - not physically, but mentally. He had spent all the time with her desperately wishing for the presence of the man in front of him, and spent all the time since trying to keep Blair at arm's length.
It was the usual story - caveman Ellison, hiding from the world in his little hole in the rock. And Blair kept crawling in and dragging him out again. By the hair, presumably. Jesus, didn't Blair ever get sick of it?
Jim took a deep breath - funny how habits stayed with you - and folded his arms around Blair, felt Blair's reach up across his back and clench around his shoulders.
"Missed you," Blair mumbled. "Come to bed."
Blair had ended up between Jim's thighs. Blair was rubbing gentle, but definitely stimulating hands across Jim's back, nibbling gently at Jim's lips, which had not yet opened for him.
"I thought you just wanted me to sleep?" Jim drew his head back and tried to sound irritated, but it wasn't a success.
"C'mon, you know me. I'm a give me an inch and I'll take a mile sort of guy. And you always were the best looking table leg around."
Jim sat quietly a moment, registering all the scents and sensations that Blair's presence wrapped around him. In very deep relief, he realised that the new state of affairs in his body permitted desire and nuzzled along Blair's face and neck. "You're throwing my old remarks back at me. Shit, are we married, or something?" Blair's laugh was a little shaky as he got up from the floor, and his warm hands wrapped around Jim's cold ones as he pulled Jim up from the couch.
So, up the stairs to the bedroom, into bed. The sweetly bossy eagerness that Blair usually brought to sex was subdued, but Jim was left in no doubt how badly Blair wanted their lovemaking. Jim was never so grateful for an erection in his life, glad to give that pleasure to Blair, and he tried to ignore the calculating part of himself that was noting the little differences between this and previous times. Just a little quiet lovemaking, spooned together with Jim's nose buried in Blair's hair, his cock buried in Blair's body. Sweet for both of them, and they both lay quietly afterwards.
***
Something over three weeks after 'that,' which was now as close to description that Jim was willing to get when Blair wasn't conducting the Spanish inquisition, he realised that he was getting more tired. His concentration dropped, and he spent rather more time sleeping. He also spent rather more time quietly panicking about what the hell he was going to do. He wasn't getting hungry in any way that he recognised but his body was telling him that it was time to eat.
Not that he ever used the word 'eat', or 'feed' to himself. The idea of what he needed to do enveloped him like a dark and suffocating blanket, and the shape of it all was just as defined, but he still knew what it was all about. He had to find somebody, some other human being and...the part of his mind that defined things in words stopped right there. He couldn't see any way in which what he had to do didn't amount to a weird sort of rape.
People at Major Crimes noticed the tiredness, and the irritability that always came to the fore in Jim when he felt less than up to par. Joel quietly mentioned that the Department Counsellor was a good man. Jim had nodded a response, not really trusting himself to speak, given that Simon had already forthrightly told him that Jim would see the Counsellor if he didn't see an improvement in Jim's attitude. This was after two suspect interrogations that had skated the edge of official complaint.
The continuing paper work and speculation for the Bloodsucker investigation was a thorn in everybody's side, and was especially bitter for Jim and Blair. The weeks with no more killings had taken the edge off the city's hysteria, but people were still tense and expectant of the worst. So was Jim, continually trying to remember whom he'd 'pushed' and how, to make sure that the investigation into his disappearance stayed a non-event. And throughout it all Blair remained a constant companion, watching Jim closely but saying very little. The silence irritated Jim, even as the unspoken concern warmed him. He wanted things to be normal, and a silent Sandburg was just another reminder of crisis.
The two men headed home late one night, with the blessed promise of two days off in front of them. Jim had already made up his mind that the next night had to be the night. The day had been humdrum and that had been the only point in its favour. At least he hadn't needed to do anything that required thought or initiative. There'd been no danger that his increasingly foggy mental processes would put his partner or colleagues at risk, but it was only a matter of time. He had to get himself functioning again.
In the garage Blair held out his hand and uncompromisingly pronounced, "Keys." Jim waved a hand at the truck.
"We brought my truck in, Sandburg."
"True, but if there was a little blow in the bag test for fatigue, you'd be spending the night in lock-up. Keys."
Jim was tempted to tell Blair to take a running jump, but some small spark of commonsense prevailed. He handed the keys over with a put upon expression and sat sullenly in the passenger seat for the drive home. Blair graciously offered Jim the first shower when they got home. There was leftover takeout in the refrigerator, and Jim knew Blair planned to reheat it. He took his time over showering and dressing, and Blair was finished eating when he came out.
Blair fixed Jim with a look. "I take it that this whole grumpy tired thing means that you need a little nutrition?"
Jim had to admire Blair's combination of matter of factness and euphemism, which suggested that the situation was no worse than dealing with an overtired toddler just before supper. It took his mind off the hollow twist of fear in his gut that the subject was out between them.
"Looks like it." He sat on the couch, head leaned back, eyes shut. Without sight to distract him he was suddenly aware of the scent of Blair, which should have been buried under the lingering aroma of Chinese food, but instead rose like a siren song. Fine. He was sleeping on the couch tonight for sure. Or perhaps he should just get up off the damn couch, get out of the loft, and do what he had to, now. Straight away. Except that he couldn't.
He heard the sounds of Blair standing at the sink, washing his plate and fork, getting ready to brew some tea. There was the rattle of the dishes, the tiny subtle sounds as Blair moved, the rustling of his clothes. "Jim? You okay?"
"No, I'm not okay. What the fuck am I going to do?"
Blair sounded exasperated. "What's the problem? You've told me about this, at this point it's more or less a benign process, so what are you so worried about? You need it, you take it from me, end of story."
Jim was dumbfounded. His world contracted to a tiny space where he sat alone and tried to make sense of what Blair had just said. It abruptly expanded to take in the madman who was still quietly working in the kitchen, apparently checking out the freshness of his tea blends.
He had been desperately bringing himself to the point of doing what had to be done, and all this time Blair had assumed that he was going to be - what? Jim's own personal snack machine? He was infuriated. 'What are you so worried about' his ass. Scientific pragmatism was all well and good but this wasn't the first time that Blair had taken it too far. Jim rose from the couch and stalked across the room, making a point of ostentatiously sensing his lover. Sight, hearing, smell, all focused on one man, who perhaps wasn't feeling as pragmatic as he wanted to appear, after all. Who was in fact, as nervous as hell. Well, who wouldn't be when they'd just made the sort of offer that Blair had?
"Tell me something, Sandburg. If I told you to find a good spot on Kimberly Avenue and peddle your ass, you'd do it, wouldn't you?" Jim's voice rose throughout this sentence and he was shouting by the end. "You have no pride when it comes to me, do you? No fucking pride at all."
And how the hell did it always come to this? Blair suddenly smaller and vulnerable, but defiant in the face of Jim's anger.
"I have plenty of pride," Blair retorted loudly. "And where the fuck do you get off saying crap like that me to me?"
The burst of fury seemed to have exhausted all the air that Jim had. Interesting psychosomatic effect, given that he no longer appeared to need the stuff. He still felt as if he was strangling. He grabbed Blair's shoulders, and bent down to him, as if unsure that Blair would hear him otherwise. "You hand over your career and your body and your life because of me, and what the hell am I supposed to do with all of it, huh? I don't need any more blood from you, okay?"
Blair's voice was low now. He clamped his hands over Jim's forearms, his breath hissing warm against Jim's ear, the scent of him sweet as honey. Jim could see the whorl of his ear, all the tender skin of his throat.
"Not okay, man. What are you going to do? Troll the nightclubs explaining that you never drink - wine? Skulk out the door telling me it's your time of the month? Yeah, you've got that power to cloud men's minds thing going, but this is the better option. Come on, Jim. Half of this is that you're hungry and you're not thinking straight. We feed you and you'll be a new man."
Jim shut his eyes. He had listened to this voice cajole him, encourage him, seduce him for five years. And Blair's smell, the warmth of flesh and blood under his hands, was beginning to drive him crazy in a way that was still carnal, but different to any reaction that he'd ever had to him before. It had been a mistake to touch him in this mood, and one past redeeming now. "Fine. The pep talk's convinced me. Let's get on with it." He felt Blair tense, smelled the spike of fear. "Put up or shut up, Blair. Are we doing this, or am I out that door? Like you said, it's a benign process."
Blair nodded, one curt movement, and Jim realised that he wasn't quite sure he could have kept his assurance of leaving if Blair had said no. Walking them both over to one of the chairs by the dining table, Jim sat down heavily, and pulled Blair astride his lap. He reached up to undo a couple of buttons on Blair's shirt, to make it easier to pull it back from his neck but his fingers fumbled. "I'll do it," Blair offered but that disturbed Jim even more. He batted Blair's hand away and somehow found some dexterity again.
He could feel the strangest feeling in his gum, feel the points of long teeth prick behind his lips and he swallowed hard. He didn't want Blair to see them, he sure as hell didn't want to do this, but it was inevitable. He could feel something inside him rejoice in the knowledge that the craving that he'd tried to push away was finally going to be satisfied. He shuddered. What he felt wasn't the foretaste of satisfying hunger; it was the rush of anticipation for a drug.
Jim pulled Blair's head down to rest on his shoulder and reached inside himself for that instinct that helped him, that informed him in what he suspected was more ways than one. Blair had his arms so tight around him, Jim might have found it hard to breathe - once. Jim whispered to him, "It'll be all right. I promise." He leaned his face into Blair's throat, mouthed and licked him, trying to pretend that this was an ordinary caress, and knew suddenly what he needed to do. Just a little pressure - he only needed a small amount of blood after all. Blair started against him, and muttered his name.
Soothingly, Jim stroked the back of Blair's head, fingers playing in the curls. His other hand wrapped around Blair's waist, palm and fingers pressed against the warm skin under the loose shirt. He began to suck, and felt a cool, smooth euphoria spread through him, the peace of having exactly what his body needed. He could taste Blair's blood, and it was delicious, but that was secondary to how it made him feel, this wonderful and complete peace.
He smelled arousal and realised that Blair was experiencing entirely different sensations. That was fine. He felt Blair's cock harden against him, felt the subtle shivers that ran up and down the beloved body. In the serenity of complete satiety Jim finished sucking, but didn't withdraw his mouth, instead running his tongue gently over the tiny wounds left behind. Blair's breathing became erratic, and then he jerked and came, the sharp, familiar smell of his semen filling the air. With a small moan he slumped against Jim, his body slack as if he was sleeping. Jim didn't mind if he was.
They just sat there a few minutes, Blair's breath warm against Jim's face. Blair began to stir, his arms reaching again around Jim's neck.
"You okay?"
"I think that you've got the enquiries around the wrong way, Chief. I'm supposed to ask you that."
Blair leaned his forehead against Jim's, and wrapped one hand across the back of Jim's head. "I'm fine, great even, apart from a little laundry problem. Man, there is no way you are doing this with anybody but me, Ellison. God."
"You were aware through all of that?"
"Hell, yeah." Blair's expression was a weird mix of emotion - a little fear, some awe, satisfaction. Jim felt a moment of what could only be called jealousy. He hadn't put that expression on Blair's face, not really. His unwanted tenant, passenger, whatever he called it, it was responsible for the dreaming expression on Blair's face.
Blair shifted as if he was about to get up, and Jim tightened his grip. He didn't want to let go, not yet. Blair made a vaguely dissatisfied noise, but settled, cupping Jim's face in his hands.
"Maybe this is the way it's supposed to work. Maybe the myths come out of when the whole thing gets dysfunctional. Something goes wrong, somebody gets too old or too hurt."
"Yeah, maybe." Jim was too busy checking that Blair was all right. The small holes on Blair's neck were barely noticeable, and Jim ran his fingertips over them in disbelief. Blair tensed his shoulders, the way he did sometimes when he wanted to hang onto some good physical feeling, and sighed. Then he kissed Jim, a gentle swipe of lips and tongue.
"I'm not doing what she did, Blair."
Blair's voice was calm, a good voice for speaking comforting lies.
"No reason why you should. You've got every chance to monitor it, recognise if there's a problem..."
Jim would have been irritated if he hadn't felt so good. Blair thought he was talking about Drewson's uncontrollable killing. Well, one way or another, Blair wouldn't be around if it ever came to that. He suspected that Elizabeth Drewson was already an old woman when she met whoever passed the nasty little present on to her. Jim suspected that Blair would be long gone when Jim needed more than the promised 'few mouthfuls' every few weeks. And if he wasn't, Jim would be a long way away from wherever Blair Sandburg was.
"I'm not hanging around when everybody else is dead and gone." 'Everybody' being contained in the weight that was just starting to cramp Jim's leg muscles.
Blair ducked his head. "I'm kinda getting the impression that you might not get a choice about that."
"It doesn't care as long as it gets fed. That much I'm sure of. It was Drewson that wanted to finish it. I just have to pass it on to someone else when I'm ready." Jim regarded the prospect. "It'll come to that in the end, anyway. No reason I can't pick the time and the place. Might be better that way. Pick somebody with a reasonable chance of coping."
Jim's unnatural high was not proof against Blair's look of grieved horror. He'd said too much. "It's a long way away, Chief. Come on. Right now, you need a shower. Leave it any longer and you'll have to soak those pants off."
"Hey, I wasn't the person hanging on there." Blair headed for the bathroom, the sexual glow on him gone as if it had never been.
Jim puttered for a while, putting the chair in its proper place against the table, taking a chance on putting Blair's unused tea things away. He was clear minded, and remembering some uncomfortable things. 'You have no pride when it comes to me... if I told you to peddle your ass...' How much of that anger had been at himself, at the unadmitted relief that Blair was trying to force the decision?
He knew that he hadn't always been a class act in relating to Blair, but what he'd said had to be right up there with accusing him of working hand in hand with scummy Sid from New York. Jim sighed. He hated saying sorry, was no good at it outside of very ordinary courtesies, but he was going to have to do it anyway.
"Suck it up, Ellison," he said out loud, and then nearly choked trying to control inappropriate laughter. He headed upstairs. Blair would want him there, and as apologies were in order that was as good a place to start as any. Blair padded up shortly, a towel wrapped around his hips. Without shyness, but without any particular display, he shucked the towel and dressed in boxers and a t-shirt before climbing into bed.
Jim lay on his side looking at Blair, and wondered whether it would all be up to him or not. Blair lay on his stomach, propped up on his elbows, not looking at Jim.
"I can't believe that you told me that."
"People say things they don't mean under stress." 'Great apology, Jimmy,' popped into his brain.
"Jim, it's my observation that people under stress say exactly what they mean."
Jim scooted a little closer and rested his head against Blair's arm, laid his own arm loosely over his back.
"I might mean stuff, but it doesn't mean that I'm right."
"That's for sure. Tell me something, if I'd died before all this, would you have jumped in front of a train, made somebody else complicit in your death the way she did with you?"
"What?" This was not how Jim's personal script had run.
"For god's sakes, Jim, you make it very clear that you think that I have no - sense of proportion about how I feel about you, and then ten minutes later you tell me that you're going to kill yourself once I'm dead and gone. And of course, you'll be passing on your poisoned chalice at the same time. And it doesn't strike you that that's a little perverse, to say the least? I mean, no pressure or anything. Guess I'll definitely be passing on the junk food. I've got a responsibility to lead a long and healthy life." Blair laughed, and there was more than a touch of hysteria in it.
Always, it seemed, Jim was an idiot when it came to dealing with Blair. And it seemed that Blair was no better when it came to him. Blair had had a responsibility to be around Jim for as long as possible way before Drewson changed everything.
"What else should I do?" Jim asked tiredly.
"How the hell should I know?" Blair said savagely. "We should sound out medical people. Maybe there's a way to get it out..." He hadn't suggested such a thing before but Jim could hear the longing in his voice.
"No way. There've been times I've half expected to end up on somebody's vivisection table with the senses. I'd never see the light of day again with this. Come on, Chief, you know that. Nobody else can know."
"And this from the man who was going to play Count fucking Dracula with complete strangers."
Jim accepted that barb as his due and rubbed his hand gently over Blair's back.
"Come on, Sandburg. I'd like to have a Scarlet O'Hara moment here."
Now it was Blair's turn to be confused as hell.
"Excuse me?"
"I want to think about this tomorrow, okay."
Blair shrugged helplessly and then turned on his side, gathering Jim against him.
"This isn't going to go away after a night's sleep, Jim. I've already tried that."
And didn't Jim know that feeling. But Blair needed sleep, even if Jim didn't right now. Jim wriggled down a little in the bed and lay with his head against Blair's chest, listening to the entirely human beat of his heart. He buried any thought of his future in his own personal meditation on that sound.
"Just go to sleep, will you, Sandburg?"
So Blair slept, and Jim listened.