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They belong to Pet Fly and Paramount, but if obsessing about them 24/7, in spite of slings and arrows of outrageous family, could make them mine they would *so* be mine.
It takes a village to raise a child. So thanks to: Becky for her transcripts; Akablonded, who has likely forgotten that many moons ago she answered a query I made on list; EE, for the prevention of unamerican activity; and Elaine, for honest beta despite threats of GBH.
Sometimes you just had to hope that you were doing things for the right reasons. Being a cop wasn't what he'd planned, but it had definite pluses. He'd discovered he liked the work, he liked the people, he liked the usefulness of it all. He'd always liked Jim. But looking through a battered copy of 'Local Laws and Ordinances of the Cascade Municipal Area and Associated Counties', surveying the pile of other texts, gave him a little chill all the same. He wanted to know this stuff inside out, he had to know how to work it, all of it. Way back when Jim and he had first met, he'd paid a purely curious visit to the public pages of the Cascade PD website. He hadn't dared to do that recently, but it was amazing how 'eight months academy' and 'two years patrol' lingered in his memory. The thought of the number of favours that Simon must have called in to fast track his way through training damn near made him faint.
He was still neither fish nor fowl as far as the department was concerned. He used to be that amorphous being variously called consultant or observer, and now he was a slightly more concrete creation called a probationer, part rookie, part practicing detective. So he studied hard, because after all the things that he'd screwed up over the last year or so, he was going to get this right, for his own sake and because he owed Jim and Simon. It was strange, the things that he had ended up trusting. He knew that Simon Banks valued his career, and the position as captain of Major Crimes wouldn't have come easy. Once Blair had decided within himself that he did want to be a cop, it was funny to feel safer trusting the judgement of Simon's self-interest more than the judgement of Jim's friendship.
He put a blue sticky note on page 156, a reminder to go back to that section later, and then he sighed. Some of the old easiness between Jim and Blair, only some, was coming back as the scabs of the dissertation debacle finally started to heal. One brief, painful conversation had picked at the edges. It was strange. Jim telling him that he was sorry for thinking the worst, for claiming that Blair could sell him out, should have made Blair feel better. In a way it did, but Blair found that he really just wanted a veil drawn over the whole mess. He'd pull it off when he had some distance from it all, when he was about forty or so, and could look at his own contributions to that disaster with something like equanimity.
But for now, he couldn't deny the grief and guilt in them both, any more than he could deny the hope and pleasure he'd felt when Jim tossed him that badge. He just hoped that everybody was doing everything for the right reasons.
He picked up the yellow highlighter and had a touch of deja vu. Hadn't he just put it down? He looked down at his notes and felt confusion. He had used the highlighter already, except...He looked at the yellow marks all down the page, not marking words or references, just single letters. That was weird. Then he saw the pattern - single letters, but as he moved his eyes down the page, the letters spelled out words - 'fraud' 'liar' 'cheat'. An absolute thesaurus of chicanery, going all the way down his notes on law enforcement.
He laughed nervously. " Really shouldn't have watched the Kubrik retrospective, man." Hurriedly, he rewrote the notes, and then eyed them as if they were going to change in front of his eyes, before crumpling the ruined piece of paper. He threw it into the waste basket, but a few minutes later retrieved it and carried it out to the fire place, where, with careful hands, he burned it.
The sky was dull grey, the trees and foliage grey-green and ill-looking. Where he could see the soil beneath his feet, it was grey too, with the silky dry slime feel of silt. As he ran, little puffs of it rose up. It rose and dried his open, panting mouth. He choked, and had to stop, coughing, bent over and gasping.
He could hear the voice, too near, and he turned and backed up against a tree, which was tall, grey and somehow insubstantial behind him. The leaves fluttered, and a few strands of his hair waved against his mouth, signal that he was in company.
"Give it up, wolfling," the voice encouraged. "Time to show throat."
He tried to spit out his defiance.
"No way. Not to you. Go to hell."
The voice was amused. He never did see who, or what, it belonged to, even when it whispered in his ear.
"I approve of a fighting spirit. But you're wasting your energy. I want you, and it's not as if anybody else does."
He swallowed hard, and told himself it was against the grit, which danced around his feet in tiny dust-devils.
"I have people who want me."
"You're fooling yourself, cub. So far as Jim's concerned you're just an unfortunate responsibility, and you're no responsibility at all to your mother. Why not stay here?"
"You're a liar. And what's here, except a lot of dying plants?"
"It needs a makeover, true enough. And you could help me with that. A little youth and energy to brighten the place up. I see and know things that you've never seen or known, that you will never will without me. Why not stay?"
"Get the fuck out of my head!"
The voice chuckled.
"And that's where you're wrong. You're in mine."
"That's really great, man. Well, guess what, I want out!" and with that, in anger and frustration he banged his head back against the tree, and he...
rolled over in bed with a groan. Fuck, he didn't need this crap. The academy was exhausting enough without the sort of nightmares that gave you the cold sweats. He got up and stripped the bed of the damp sheets. The sharpness of the dream receded, just uncomfortable impressions of grey and something that wouldn't leave him alone. He padded out to the kitchen to get a drink of water. His mouth was dry.
The faucet was just turned off when he heard Jim's voice, low but clear in the night time quiet.
"Everything all right?"
"Yeah, fine. Just a little unsettled. No problem."
The theme of the last few weeks. No problem. After all, what was a little lost sleep compared to what was behind them?
Blair turned back to his room, and then swore loudly as his foot landed on something that cracked loudly beneath him. Half hopping, he turned the light on, to see the remains of a small wooden figurine, a Mexican carving that Naomi gave him years ago. It was in pieces, and by the feel of it some of the pieces were firmly lodged in his sole. He sat on the edge of the bed and inspected the damage, picked out the bigger pieces and felt undoubted small splinters.
"Oh, joy,' he said. What the hell was the carving doing in the middle of the floor anyway? It was supposed to be stored in a low wicker box stuffed well under the futon. He reached for the bits, and determined very quickly that it wasn't salvageable. Angrily he threw it into the trash and hobbled out to the bathroom where the tweezers were. Perhaps not surprisingly, Jim was coming down the stairs.
"Not your night, eh, Chief? Thought I smelled blood."
"I stepped on something. It's just a few splinters, Jim, I think I can cope."
Jim grinned wryly. "You wear glasses for close work, Sandburg. If I do it we might just get back to bed a little quicker."
The two of them went to the bathroom, Blair trying not to feel like a fool as he sat down on the closed toilet seat. Jim collected tweezers, antiseptic, cotton balls, his movements economical as always, and Blair watched while trying to not be too obvious about it.
"Put your foot up on your knee there, and turn towards the light." Blair followed instruction and looked down at Jim's bowed head, the broad shoulders, felt his foot twitch as one of Jim's long fingered hands held him steady, as his sure touch took out three splinters. Blair forced down a quick but appallingly vivid fantasy of another reason that Jim might be crouched before him. If there ever had been or ever was going to be a time and place for that, he didn't think that 3am on the toilet seat was it. When Jim reached for the antiseptic to swab it over the cuts, Blair intervened.
"Jeez, Jim, I reckon that even my eyesight can cope from here." And then aware that he'd sounded ungracious, "Thanks."
Jim moved his head, vaguely suggesting assent, acceptance. He was so damned polite these days. It scared the hell out of Blair.
Blair's schedule meant he didn't have to appear at the academy proper for another two days, and the plan was for MC's probationer to take part in what would hopefully be a substantial arms smuggling bust. There was the briefing in another few hours and it was going to be chaotic from there. Not the time to try a conversation opener like 'Hey Jim, you and Simon really do want me at the academy, don't you? I mean, I know it's a consolation prize because of the press conference, but it is more than just that, right?' Jim would sigh long-sufferingly and tell him to get his head out of his ass. So, get your head out of your ass, Blair told himself.
He headed off to the station, to the unsettling sensation of getting into real cop issue Kevlar. It wasn't the first time he'd worn it, but it was the first time that he'd worn it on top of his clothes, the official Kevlar, with 'police' stencilled in big white letters across the back.
"Comfortable?" Jim asked him.
The black vest felt heavier than its actual weight, and Blair couldn't help feeling that his arms were off kilter to the rest of him, pushed out by the insignificant bulk of the vest. He was off kilter all the way. He rolled his eyes. "I now know why the storm troopers in Star Wars were such lousy shots. It's not exactly free and easy."
"You can't afford to be a lousy shot. If that was some damn sub-textual thing, Simon will have you off this bust so fast your head will spin."
Blair flushed. On the other hand, at least Jim wasn't being polite. "I didn't mean it like that. I'll be fine. It's just jitters, that's all."
"Yeah, well, you might want to think about a mantra for that, Chief."
Jim was adjusting his own vest, and Blair sneaked a look at him, told himself that the little thrill he felt was adrenalin rush. Big Jim Ellison, pre-bust, with his game face on. Blair just hoped that his own face presented something that looked at least competent, instead of the sullen nervousness that he suspected was actually the case. He breathed out very slowly and gently.
"You saying that is a serious piece of irony. You okay, Jim?"
He got a brief smile, and an answer to the real question. "The dials are fine, Chief. I'm good to go."
"Hey, hairboy. You're looking like a real cop there, man." Henri Brown looked genial as ever, despite the general air of tension.
"You'll turn my head, H."
Brown's reply was lost in the clatter of movement out to cars and trucks, the garage aswarm with uniforms, detectives and SWAT team members. Blair could feel his gun, heavy in its holster. He breathed again, slowly, envisaging it as a tool of protection for his colleagues and friends and the innocent, not just the instrument of the oppressor and the crazy. Something that he could use when he had to.
And then it really was chaos, not even able to watch Jim going in with the first wave of the SWAT team, because he was a member of one of several smaller teams of men watching likely exits. The confusion of noise, shouting and gunfire, all somehow separate from him as he moved his body through what it had to do, which included yelling, "Freeze! Police." and sighting his weapon at a man, who stood still and did what he was told. Blair was grateful for that, along with his first sight of an unharmed Jim Ellison pushing another very unhappy looking man ahead of him out the warehouse door.
Then there was the different chaos of processing arrested men, detailing evidence, heading back to the station to sign the Kevlar back in. Jim told him, "Ricci said you did okay."
"Surprised, was he?" He hadn't meant that to come out the way it did - bitter. Up till that moment he'd been revved on adrenalin, but curiously relieved. He'd acquitted himself, done the job that was needed.
"He might have been. I wasn't." Blair checked Jim's face under the glare of fluorescent light. Jim looked tired and peculiarly guarded, but there was no special effort in his words, they were just something he said. Blair relaxed a little more, and tried to let the constant unease he felt these days roll away with the last of the adrenalin high.
Back at the loft, Blair made tea, never mind that it was only seventy or so minutes to an hour when he usually drank coffee. "You want some?" he asked Jim, and then Jim's hollow eyed weariness reminded him of his own restless sleep and barely remembered odd dreams. He was driven to investigation, despite the inappropriate hour.
"Hey, Jim. You haven't had any visions, dreams, visitations from large felines, recently?"
Jim had been relaxing into the tiredness that followed a by the book arrest that was hopefully going to lead to a by the book court case, and Blair watched as relaxation turned to wariness.
"No. Why are you asking?"
Okay. So, apparently the psychic alarums weren't ringing for the Sentinel, and he'd always been the one to get the messages from the beyond before. So, maybe that left Blair with the sort of answers that related to anxiety and self-esteem issues.
"No biggie. I've been having a few dreams, a little weird stuff, but maybe it's just some sub-conscious processing going on. You're the one who goes off like a four alarm fire for the mystic stuff."
"Don't remind me."
Well, fuck, Jim, Blair thought. You get some dignity. You get a serene blue forest, and spirit guides asking metaphysical questions. Or at least, that was what it sounded like, given that getting Jim to discuss the more 'spiritual' aspects of the Sentinel experience was excellent practice for difficult suspect interrogations. Blair had been full of bright intentions to work on that when he was in the hospital after the fountain. The enthusiasm had died in Sierra Verde, where admittedly nobody had enjoyed a lot of dignity.
Jim shrugged. "You could say that I've sort of cut the wires."
Blair stared at him. "You've what?"
Jim's face was carefully blank. "What use was all that crap anyway? All that hoodoo-voodoo mysticism didn't help anything, or make any difference to anything."
Blair sat down, stunned. "You just turned it off? How the hell did you do that? How the hell could you do that?" But he already knew the answer to that - Jim Ellison could throw up stone walls faster than an army of masons.
"Jesus, Sandburg, don't have a cow. I've still got the senses, I still use them. I'm just not connected to that other stuff anymore."
"But you'd never have caught Alex without that stuff."
Jim's face twisted in anger. "Without that stuff maybe Alex wouldn't have got away in the first place."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing, the dreams, all that crap just confused the issues, that's all. I'm not into talking about Alex. That's past."
Blair sighed. Nearly everything about that time had been forced underground. The last year had been one desperate lurch from crisis to crisis. He'd been wrong to let Jim's irascibility about what happened with Alex shut down discussion, but he'd had so many raw patches of his own that it had just happened that way. Dying could really take the bloom off a man's enthusiasm and energy.
Blair wondered sometimes if he was dealing with more than his own errant psyche, but if he was it looked like he was on his own, which bothered him because previous efforts to deal with things on his own hadn't been notably successful. But maybe it was simply fears and insecurities. That was okay. Fine even. Same old. So, come on man, deal with the insecurities. Face the truth.
"So, uh, Jim, you do want me to be a cop?"
Jim raised his eyes in a 'give me strength' gesture.
"What is this? Mental catharsis night? Sandburg, you did fine out there. Why look the gift horse in the mouth when we've just pulled an all-nighter?"
"Because it's a really big gift horse, that's why. Halving my academy time, no patrol work. You think that I don't know how just how much tap dancing Simon had to do for this, even once Edwards tabled her oh so discreet recommendation?"
The recommendation that had described the whole mess in vague terms that exonerated all parties from anything other than a misunderstanding, that followed on from a similar piece of paper that confirmed that Blair had not requested that Berkshire publish his book, that it was all a misunderstanding. Jim was all for suing their asses off, but Blair was sick of the issue, and he knew that going after Sid would be heaping coals of fire on his mother, and he couldn't - quite - bring himself to do that. So, no litigation, but plenty of negotiation. Admittedly, people negotiated a lot more effectively when litigation hung over their heads.
Jim put a heavy, warm hand on the back of Blair's neck. "I wasn't fooling around that time I said that you were a good cop." His expression turned suspicious. "Somebody say something to you?"
"No, couple of funny looks, but no, it was fine."
"Simon and I both thought it was a decent option for everyone. And you did sort of give us reason to believe that you agreed." And unspoken, 'Simon put himself on the line, and the chance to say no with honour is long gone.'
But it wasn't that. He wouldn't have entered the academy if he hadn't thought that he could do it. Blair stood still beneath Jim's touch, let it soak into him, despite the niggle of irritation. It wasn't that he didn't like that hand on him, but he didn't fool himself that however much affection underlay the touches between the two of them, that there wasn't also a substantial element of 'shut up and listen to me' in them as well. "I'm not saying I don't want to do it. It's just..."
"It's just not a lot of fun finding out that it really is a lot easier to give than to receive. That one, I know." Jim's face was shuttered, but the hand dropped and rubbed Blair's back comfortingly.
Not comfortingly enough. Jim had been notably kind recently, but he still had his acerbic habit of dropping the truth according to Ellison into casual conversation. 'I didn't do it just for you' Blair thought, and that was true enough in its fashion. He'd needed to clean up his mess. Naomi and Sid might have started the landslide, but he'd stacked the rocks. He smiled, a little weakly. "Sorry man. Look, I'm exhausted and so are you. Sleep sounds like a great idea. How about we get some." Blair turned to his door, and told himself he was imagining that abortive move of Jim's hand, as if to - what? Call Blair back? Grab his arm? But it was gone, and Jim was heading up the stairs.
Blair had a week where he slept as well as he ever had, which meant that he fell exhausted into bed at midnight. He told himself that dreams were just dreams. He did dream that the wall that he had to scale in the gym kept growing into infinity, but that, he figured, was normal, as was the need to visit the john after weapon practice. How typical to get the runs after pointing at the target, rather than at a real person. Delayed reaction was a wonderful thing.
It had been a long day. God, but he was tired. Blair collapsed onto his bed and he...
...could feel a strong body behind him, holding him, one hand over his eyes, one arm snug around his arms and chest. He could feel a hard-on against him, and for one moment he thought, "Jim", but then he breathed in. The scent of dessicated rot assailed him, and he knew where he was. How the hell did he forget this? He remembered it all now.
"So, given up on even pretending at seduction, have we? Going for the straight out rape now?"
His voice was strong, which he was glad about, because his knees were weak as hell. He tried to pull away, but the snug hold was suddenly steel, and somehow physically wrong, a peculiar shape that emanated a disembodied chill, like feeling the air come out of a freezer. Even if the hand was removed from his eyes there would be nothing to see, and it struck him that that might be a very good thing.
The voice was deep, deeper than Jim's, vibrating in him like a tuning fork, travelling around him like a dry breeze. "When you and I join, little wolf, it will be entirely joyful and consenting. But I hope you won't begrudge me the enjoyment of holding you. I just wanted to show you something."
"What if I don't want to see it?"
"Oh, I know that you don't. But it's for your own good. You need to face some cold hard facts."
And then he was in Simon's office, standing behind Simon's desk, and Simon and Jim were talking. They didn't notice him, he wasn't there.
Jim looked tired, beaten down. Blair remembered that this was Jim's reality not so long ago, pursuit by the media obstructing the pursuit of Zeller, the Sentinel secret 'news at eleven'. What a shitty, awful mess that was, but it's better now. It's getting better now, Blair told himself.
"It's not his call, Captain. This is my decision. His ride is over. I want to go back to being a cop, just a regular cop. And with this sentinel thing hanging over us, it's always right there and I...I'm tired of it. I just want out."
Simon sighed.
"Well, maybe that's for the best."
And Blair was cold. He hated being cold.
"You see how much he wants you?" the voice purred, absolutely smug, and Blair found some strength and wrenched himself out of its hold. Its hand was gone, and he saw the half dead place around him.
He didn't try to claim that what he saw was a lie. He knew that wasn't. He knew it bone deep and gut deep and it hurt much the same way. He took a deep breath, and, too late, hauled defences into place.
"You're getting a little desperate, don't you think?"
"I know desperation, but I'm feeling quite hopeful right now."
"Jim was stressed as hell then. It was one huge fucking mess, and you can't blame him for wanting out. It doesn't mean that he feels that way now."
"Of course he doesn't," the voice said agreeably, humouring him. "You're loyal to him and he's loyal to you. After all, he and Banks pulled strings to have you accepted into training. You'll be his regular normal cop partner. Everything's hunky-dory." And on the last sentence, the voice lifted a little, to something startlingly like Jim's voice.
"Fuck you. So, where's the exit from the fun house this time? I can do without the headache."
"As you wish." And Blair started awake, with a mocking, drawn out "See you later" ringing in his head.
Oohh, that was a good one. Not. He dragged himself up off the mattress, his body cramped and sore. His heart was hammering, and he shut his eyes, consciously working to hold on to memory while sweat trickled uncomfortably down his body. How long had this crap been going on? It wasn't the first dream, or even the second.
Blair chuckled mirthlessly. He had two choices. Anxiety was having its way with him, creating unfortunately likely scenarios where Jim and Simon looked to drop him like a hot potato during the Zeller fiasco. Or, a door into the beyond had opened again. Apparently into the mystic equivalent of a dead end bar, where a sleazy fellow patron just kept on hitting on him.
Not enough sleep, but he knew couldn't settle back down. He needed a shower. He stood under needles of hot water, and told himself that past was past. He leaned against the bathroom wall and debated with himself: point one, he was still in the loft, and even at its worst, Jim had never told him to get out. Spite suggested 'he wouldn't have the balls after what happened with Alex' and Blair pushed that thought away as unfair. Point two; Jim had made the offer of the badge, backed up by Simon and most of Major Crimes. He didn't have to do that if he didn't want Blair working with him.
'He owes you' said a snide interior voice, 'and Jim Ellison pays his debts.' Guilt wore plenty of faces. Sometimes it wore them at a graceful distance. His mother knew how to do that. And sometimes it was up close and personal. Blair bowed his head under the spray, and willed a world where Jim wanted him by his side, for the right reasons.
He came out of the shower, and saw Jim coming down the stairs.
"Damn. Didn't mean to wake you, man."
"It's okay. You going back to bed? You look like crap."
Blair grimaced. "Now, there's an image to boost my self-esteem. I'm fine."
Jim was looking him up and down as if he was a piece of evidence to be interpreted. "I'm not kidding, Sandburg. You haven't been sleeping worth shit the last couple of weeks, even by your standards."
"Damn it, Jim. I'm not broken, I don't need to be treated like some kid. If the sleep's a little rocky, then I'll get over it, okay? I don't need people to nurse-maid me!" You're the one who shut down before when I wanted to talk about my not-sleeping. Instantly, he felt like a shit, but the damage was done.
"Fine. Whatever." Jim disappeared into the bathroom, to reappear later in perfect facile calm.
The calm lasted over an early breakfast and the ride into work until some 'horse's ass' tried to cut Jim off in traffic. Jim jammed on the horn and added some more comments that nearly sulphured the cab of the truck.
"God, Jim, cool it, why don't you? Not everybody is qualified to race in Nascar, okay?"
"Unlike you, presumably," Jim commented.
Blair couldn't resist. "Nah, I do the monster truck derbies."
Jim barked out a brief laugh. "I'm not going to be allowed to forget that, am I?"
Blair grinned. "Let's just say I'm glad that you drive a little more intuitively in this thing." And everything was right for that moment and he refused to remember that was another occasion where his mother had her finger in the pie.
He really ought to sleep. He was exhausted, but he needed to try and deal with this more than he needed to rest. He settled into a lotus sit on his bed, very conscious that he didn't want to do it in the living room, where Jim would see him. 'What use is all that mystic crap?' Blair wasn't sure, but he had a feeling that he needed to find out. He began to breathe, carefully and slowly, and he was sliding - somewhere else...
"Look, this is a waste of your time. I'm really not that sort of guy."
He turned and started walking away from where he thought that voice might come. It proved him wrong as cool breath gusted in his face.
"You don't know what sort of guy you are."
"Oh, please. I'd hate to think all that therapy and a psych minor was wasted time and effort." He turned and walked the other way.
"Stay with me."
"Why? What the hell do you want from me?"
"Warmth. Strength. You could be a fountain, giving life. You could make this bloom again."
"And what's in it for me?"
"Whatever you like. Knowledge, love, a sure purpose."
And he could see it, be him, the successful Doctor Sandburg, discoverer, published author, maybe even a celebrity, in a Stephen Hawking sort of way. And if that Doctor Sandburg had left a few people behind, like Naomi and Jim, well, there were other people, other - affections.
"I've already got those things."
"If you were so sure of your place then you couldn't even be here. You keep saying that you don't want to be here, but here you are. And your mystically inclined hero nowhere in sight."
And there was a sore point.
"You keep dragging me here."
"Maybe, but you open the door to me every time. Because you know that you don't belong there." The voice grew more forceful, the prosecutor working up to the last damning argument, but all Blair could think was, the hell he opened the door to this. But maybe he did have to learn how to lock it. He had a sharp empathy with Jim's decision to cut the wires.
"You know you were wrong. You took the fall because you knew he'd catch you. Altruism my ass. You stood in front of the tv cameras and threw everything away, because you know how well he does guilt. 'Oh look, Jim. I've just destroyed my life for you. See how much I love you.' And he caught you, just as you expected. But stolen treats don't taste so good, do they, sweetie?" And all the while the voice spoke, a dry, unclean wind eddied around.
"You're full of it. It was the best option to get the mess cleaned up as quickly as possible. At least then it was just my mess, not everybody else's. What Jim did afterwards didn't come into it."
The voice did a good line in more in sorrow than in anger. "You're a creative liar, wolf, but you shouldn't lie to yourself. You counted on the Sentinel on the white horse to save your ass and he delivered in spades. So now he's stuck with you." The voice was insinuating, nearly vibrating inside him.
"I'm out of here." Because, in the end, he didn't really believe this voice. Not really. It was clever, but clearly not used to trying to get anything by persuasion. Blair started, as hands once again wrapped across the back of his head, his eyes.
"Stop fooling yourself. You don't have a place with him."
And he could see the blue jungle, a place that he vaguely remembered perceiving through different senses, running from and then towards a jaguar. But he was himself here, and he could see Jim, moving surely through heavy forest, proud and beautiful. Jim was hunting. He nocked the arrow, let it fly, and Blair heard the yelp and bent over in sympathetic pain, watched as Jim walked forward to inspect the kill, which was - Blair.
And then the hands were gone, and he was on hands and knees on the grey silty ground, hearing the crackle of dead leaves under him. He remembered Incacha and Janet, and Jim's shamefaced admission that he'd dreamed of shooting the panther before losing his senses. So, what did this killing mean?
Blair curled around his gut. "His ride is over." "I call it a violation of friendship and trust." "The sentinel thing is dead." And the voice was booming at him, "No place but here, no place, no place." No place for fuck-ups, no place for anthropologists who forgot the rules, for guides who didn't know what the hell they were doing. "What makes you think you'll help him anymore as a cop? You'll screw that up too," the voice rumbled.
But that was never all there was to it. Whatever the hell Jim's visions meant, Jim Ellison did want him around. Blair held on to the memories of the small kindnesses, the touches. You didn't do those things for an obligation did you? Sometimes, people got second chances. God, but he was sick of this manipulative bastard, who knew just enough truth to use it to hurt, and he dragged himself up and said quietly amid the thunderous noise, "So why the hell are you so eager to get me? You lose, man."
And there was silence, and stillness. But there was also a sense of presence, and Blair knew that the respite was temporary.
"You lose, and I am out of here."
The voice was diminished but determined. "You're still here, and you're tired. A union in consent is better, but I'll take rape if that's the only option. On your back or on your belly, little wolf? Any preference?"
Blair was tired, true, but he wasn't the only one.
"You know what? You strike me as the sort of guy who would've had me on belly or back a long time ago if you only could. You can't take, and I'm not giving."
And he was getting out of there, one way or another. Blair tilted his head like, well, like a wolf scenting something on the wind, and headed off where he thought best. The voice hissed behind him, weirdly resonant in that grey deadness, "You think I can't reach you if I want? You can't turn away without consequences." Blair kept going without looking back.
After a while, the rustling foliage opened up, grey sky above, and in front of him there was a great defile, wide and deep, and far below a sickly trickle of water. The other side of the defile was - veiled; or at least that was the word that suggested itself. But Blair knew the other side was there, and it had to be better than what was here. One of the great grey trees had fallen across the defile, a makeshift bridge from nowhere to somewhere else. Blair sighed, and looked down the defile, looking for a better, if not easier route. He didn't know how much time he had left. No matter how spectacularly you verbally bested the bad guy, he always had a trick up his sleeve - blowtorches or drugs, or guns.
And then everything around him - tilted - and Blair wasn't sure what he was seeing. But he heard the roar of rage behind him, pushed his hair back as it blew into his face, and knew there was no more time. He ran for the tree, and hoisted himself onto the trunk. It was a good three feet across, plenty of space to put his feet. Just get over, he told himself, and took four steps, which took him to a point where there was way too much empty space if he looked down. And then he stopped, and everything tilted again, but in simple dizziness this time. Not real, not real, he chanted, but he knew it was as real as anything he'd ever seen or done, and he was on his hands and knees.
"Goddammit, Sandburg, if Joel saw you now, he'd never forgive you."
Blair looked through hazed eyes. He still couldn't tell what was across the defile, but that was Jim at the other end of the tree bridge, clambering on to the trunk through dead, dry branches.
"Jim?"
Damnit, he didn't need Jim to come and get him like he was some kid lost at the funfair. Except that it was good to see him. He'd tell Jim that, once he'd crossed over, on hands and knees if necessary, and it looked like it was. Blair shuffled forward. God, it was a long way down. He heard roaring in his ears, and realised it wasn't just panic. He could hear Jim as well, encouraging, pleading even, growing more and more urgent.
"Come on Chief. Come on, I can meet you half way, but you have to hurry, god, Blair, you have to go faster, please, come on." Jim was standing, halfway across. He didn't have to crawl, no, he was standing there, buffeted a little by the wind, the wind that was growing in force, driving dirt and twigs and leaves into Blair's face. And that noise was incredibly loud, a rumble and a shriek combined.
"Stand up, Blair. It'll be faster, it's only a few steps, come on, baby, you can do it." Jim was scared and that did it for Blair, because he helped Jim, didn't he, he loved Jim, and if Jim was scared then he needed - something - and if that meant Blair had to get up then he would. He pushed up onto his feet and stumbled forward.
Jim's hand was cool and solid around his wrist, and he pulled Blair up against him, and Blair turned his head to see the grey whirling vortex bearing down on them. He wondered stupidly if it would be seven years bad luck if it caught them. It skirted along the edge of the defile and flipped the end of the tree into space, the swirling mass curving and bending low to scoop them up while its apex remained anchored against the edge of the land. Jim and Blair took two stumbling steps down a sudden slope together, and then they were gone over the side, and even as Blair looked straight down he knew it was better than being cast into the whirlwind. Jim threw his arms and legs around Blair, warm skin surrounding the yawning cold of terror inside, and they fell. There was the harshness of impact and....
Jim was heavy against him, still wrapped around him. The ground was damp, the air full of the sound of life. Blair opened his eyes, and everything was blue.
"I see we're still doing eldritch," Blair said, silly with relief. He shifted his head to look at Jim, who had his eyes closed.
"It's blue here, isn't it?" Jim asked.
"Oh yeah."
"So we're still talking weird stuff, then?"
Blair laughed, whooped with it. "You have no idea, Jim," he finally choked out. Then he sobered a little. Jim still held on to him, eyes open now, his face peacefully quizzical in contrast to Blair's hysterics. "You have no idea," he repeated, and full of affection and gratitude, he kissed Jim full on the mouth. Jim accepted it quietly, put a hand across the back of Blair's head like a blessing.
The skittery relief ran out of him after a while. He disengaged gently from Jim and sat up, looking around.
"Well, this is interesting." He felt ill at ease. All that time wondering why pragmatic Jim had the open-ended invitation to the higher power club and he didn't, although now Blair was here, he was starting to get a clue. He felt - claustrophobic, in the middle of all this life. Everything was breathing around him, everything was alive as the grey place had been dead or dying, and this place, he admitted deep inside, scared him to death. Because the grey place and its denizen had been dangerous, maybe, but ultimately pathetic and contemptible, and whatever breathed here was none of those things.
He turned back to Jim. "God, how do you stand it?"
"Stand what, Chief?"
"This place. I really think that I want to wake up now."
"I didn't expect to see this again," Jim admitted. "Should have known better, I guess. It's not like I had options all the other times.
Jim shrugged his shoulders, casting something off, anger, regret, perhaps. "It's not always a safe or comfortable place to be. But it's," Jim hunted for words, "important. A true place." He reached out, put a cautious hand on Blair's shoulder. "Maybe if I hadn't shut down so hard on this you might not have had to put up with that creep so long." He paused a moment. "I dreamed I had to find you and - pull you over. A warning. And I thought I'd better listen to it for a change."
Blair couldn't find even resignation to this place in him.
"And it's not that I'm not grateful, but I want out. Come on, Jim, do we click our heels and say there's no place like home? What?"
He spun around, seeking that sense of escape, of exit, that he'd sensed from the grey place, and when he turned again, Jim was gone.
"Ah, shit," he cursed, and stumbled off, calling Jim's name. And then he started bolt upright in the dark on his bed, and Jim was blocking his flailing arms, grabbing his shoulders.
He sat there, feeling Jim's grip on him down to his bones. After a while he looked up. Jim was a bulky shadow, a weight on the edge of his bed.
"So," Jim asked, "what happened to 'come on in, the water's nice?'"
Blair took a breath. "I think the water got a little muddied in Sierra Verde."
Jim let go of his shoulders, but stayed sitting on the bed. The small room seemed a lot smaller. Blair got under the bed clothes, feeling chilled all of a sudden, and pulled the blankets up under his chin, curled his body into a ball.
"When Incacha was here, when you said that he passed the way of the shaman onto me, I didn't know what the hell that meant, well, of course I knew what a shaman was, but, what it meant for me..." But he'd been excited, as well as a little scared, and when he'd helped Jim get his senses back he'd thought, well, this isn't so bad, or so hard, and maybe it's possible to have the best of both worlds here. But it was trickier than he thought to integrate it all, and uncomfortably aware that he was big time going native, he'd been Professor Super-Academic in the introductory chapter he'd written, which was, after all, when things really started going to hell.
"And when Alex came along, you and she both had this hotline to it all, spirit animals, and her art, god, it was beautiful." And she'd happily sacrificed it to the bomb that she'd rigged to her apartment door. "But, I wasn't getting any of the vibe, y'know? It was all for the sentinels. And then there was the," he swallowed hard, "she killed me, man. And you brought me back, and I thought, yeah, this is it, I'm in the loop, I have a spirit guide, you and me get to kick evil sentinel ass." He laughed a little. He was an idiot.
Jim was silent, leaning forward a little with his arms propped on his thighs, head lowered, but everything in his silence told Blair that he was listening hard.
"Only in Sierra Verde, it wasn't like that. All for the sentinels again. You didn't need me." Jim shook his head. "You went on to the temple on your own, dealt with her on your own, and that was the cop, I don't even want to think about what the sentinel was supposed to do." Blair took a deep, shaky breath.
"I wasn't in the loop, because I didn't want to be, complete fuckin' fraud man. All that meditation is about keeping control, pushing my energy around, and I just wasn't ready to be the pushed, and I was no use to you. And you knew that. No wonder you didn't trust me. You didn't want to take that trip 'cause I was blowing it out my ass. And I was no use as shaman so I tried my very best to be super anthro-boy, and look where that got us."
Blair could see Jim turn his head towards him.
"You're nuts, Sandburg."
"Way to prove your faith in my judgement, Jim."
"Alex was nuts, she's in a mental ward staring at the wall when she's not grooving on her cream of wheat."
"Because she pushed too hard and fast, but she was still connected to that stuff, and I wasn't." Jim was shaking his head again.
"I don't care whether you were connected or not. You think I want to be? I would have gone crazy without what you did for me, everything, not just Sierra Verde." A pause. "I dreamed - saw - things, but it didn't make any difference. I think that I saw Megan and Simon get shot. But it didn't change anything. It still happened."
"What about the dream where you killed the wolf?"
Jim sat up very straight, and very still. He wasn't looking towards Blair anymore.
"How did you...?"
"Our windy friend showed me some home movies. You don't think that maybe you should have mentioned that?" Blair's voice was as dry as the dust in the grey place.
"I was crazy and shit scared during that mess, and ashamed as hell after. I brought you back. For what that's worth, since I ended up watching you die all over again." Jim's voice was clipped, and Blair reached a hand out of the cocoon of blankets and gripped Jim's hand. It was either that or smack him one. There was silence for a moment, as the two of them held hands hard enough to hurt. He hadn't meant to hurt Jim with the press conference.
"That sounds a little warped to me, Jim. I don't need to be an anthropologist to enjoy being alive. I'm okay with being a cop. I wanted a sentinel, I got one. I got a good friend too." Blair took a calming breath. "It didn't make any difference seeing those things, and that's why you tried to disconnect from it?"
"Tried to. Looks like I was fooling myself. Besides, looks like we're both in the loop now, whether we want it or not. You were there, Chief." Jim turned back to Blair, but it was too dark to make out anything of his expression. "You kissed me there." In that place that wasn't safe or comfortable, but was true.
Ah, well, when you couldn't obfuscate, Blair thought, you brazened it out. Maybe he could put the sudden rush of nervous adrenalin to some use.
"So, you want to interpret our dream, Jim?"
Jim had slid to kneel on the floor, his face very close to Blair's.
"Think I prefer acting out." And he let go of Blair's hand to cradle his head, and leaned across to kiss him, mouth and breath warm, tongue pushing forward to thoroughly explore Blair's mouth. A desire that was so much more than just sexual rose up in Blair, until he felt as if he could choke on it.
He pulled back, just enough to whisper, "Take your clothes off, Jim." God, there was brazen and there was crazy, but Jim was doing it, and Blair sat up in bed, dragged off and shimmied out of his own things, and pulled the bedding back to let Jim in. And if Jim made Blair's room feel small, that was nothing to how the bed suddenly shrank. Blair figured the best way to make room was to plaster himself as hard against Jim as he could, and being as close as possible to a naked Jim was right up there among the high points of his life.
There were enthusiastic, timeless minutes of kisses, and Blair was somehow on top of Jim, nuzzling his way across all the interesting muscle anchored around Jim's collarbone. Jim tilted his head back a little, and Blair happily grazed on that beautiful neck while Jim locked his arms around Blair's waist as if he was grabbing the last life preserver off the Titanic.
"I was scared that you didn't want to be a cop."
"What?" Blair tried to connect the words to action. He'd thought the talking part of the night was over.
"Be a cop. After the bust - I half expected you to say it wasn't going to happen. And now you finally admit to the other stuff. I don't care about that stuff."
Blair sighed. He knew that they both ought to care about 'that stuff', but right now far more urgent stuff was getting in the way of his capacity to give a damn.
"Jim, I have a hard on I could hammer nails with. What is this, mental catharsis night?"
Jim snickered, but answered, "I'm serious."
"Right now, I'm serious about both of us getting off. Really, really serious. Any suggestions?"
Blair could just see the flick of eyes disappearing beneath lowered lids, and then eyes opened again. He wanted desperately to know what was held in their regard.
"Maybe I should turn on the lamp. I don't have Sentinel sight and I'm missing out here."
"Only if you need it to find condoms and lube. You want to fuck me, Blair?"
Blair thought that maybe he might float up to the ceiling on the bubble of lust that expanded in his gut.
"You going to tell me that you never - speculated? Wonder no more, Chief." Jim's voice was warmly amused and Blair gathered what wits he had left.
"You don't have to."
"I want it. I want you."
"Okay." And there was an ungraceful scrabble across Jim to try and find things by touch and in a ridiculous hurry, while painfully aware of the big warm hands that traced across his waist and hips and his ass. Blair grabbed condoms and a tube of aloe vera gel that had a myriad of uses, and concentrated on the most important things, which were making it as good as possible for Jim while not exploding like a sixteen year old before he got anywhere near him.
When he pushed into Jim, he was glad of the dark, because if he'd been able to see much of anything he probably never would have lasted. There was just the awareness that Jim was lying back, spread out for him, encouraging him on, "Yeah, that's it, that's beautiful, you're beautiful, come on, do it," not loud, a hoarse growl of sound that finally ended in a long, deeply drawn out groan. And that was it as far as Blair was concerned, that noise was the most beautifully, painfully erotic thing he'd ever heard, and he was finished, done, coming, inside Jim...
He collapsed on top of Jim, and gathered just enough energy to dispose of the condom under the bed before returning to lie where he'd landed. Jim was quiet, except for a little sigh of contentment as his arms came around Blair. Eventually, aware that he was going to fall asleep, he rolled off his friend, his lover, onto the infinitely inferior sheets of his bed.
Jim snuffled gently against Blair's shoulder, which was the point where Blair realised that he was awake again. But then lying in the dark, feeling Jim against him, was better than sleeping any day of the week. Blair turned to his side and wriggled back a little to fit against Jim, and felt only the very smallest surprise to see Incacha crouching beside the bed.
"Sorry, man, no more room."
Incacha grinned hugely, as if this was the funniest thing he'd heard in a long time. "True," he pronounced. The mischievous expression sobered.
"You can no longer be in between. You must choose."
Blair was acutely aware of Jim, sleeping quietly behind him. Carefully, he propped himself up on an elbow. "I have chosen. I chose a long time ago."
"Him, yes, but not the seeing, only the watching. You are too bright a light. Others will try to choose if you do not." Like the thing in the grey forest. Like the dreams he'd had for weeks after whatever looked out of Carina Santiago's eyes had smiled tenderly upon him. He'd never quite been able to hear what she said, never quite chosen to. On the return from Mexico, he'd bitterly pondered if he wanted to be a member of any club that would accept Alex as a member.
"And what if I do choose to see, rather than just watch?"
Incacha held out his hand. He was holding a key, very like one that Blair's grandmother had used to liberate treats and toys from an old cabinet that had belonged to her mother. Its curved, old world metal looked a little strange in Incacha's new world indigene palm.
"For you, to lock doors, but to open them as well." Blair looked at it doubtfully and then reached out and took it in his hand. There was a sharp tingle against his skin and it was gone. But not.
"Oh, boy."
Incacha chuckled, and was gone too. Blair lay back down, and turned towards Jim, squeezed his arm under Jim's neck and cradled him, and he wondered about how many more doors he was finally going to open.
End Shades of Grey and Blue by Mab: [email protected]