Work Text:
The Smile
by Akablonded
***
The Smile. The God-damned smile.
You know the one.
It's the smile he reserves for men and women of a certain age, kids and dogs of any age.
The one he doesn't use very often.
The one that makes you glad to be alive.
The one that belongs to the watchman of the 'village' of Cascade. To a hero. To the Cop of the Year. To the man I love desperately, Sentinel Jim Ellison.
When I first met Jim, there weren't many laugh lines on that handsome face of his. (A real 'shana punum*,' as Jewish bubbies** are fond of saying.)
Of course, my partner was a bit younger then. (But, so were we all.) And he didn't laugh very much.
Things have changed alot since those 200 lbs. of highly excitable Major Crimes detective slammed one shortish, somewhat geeky and way too enthusiastic anthropologist up against an artifacts-rich office wall.
Jim's ... not mellowed, exactly. But he has become less edgy. Less rigid. Less black and white. (At least, he's not always at full military alert.) The big guy rolls with the punches these days and doesn't get quite so crazy with the things he can't control. He's ... well ... easier to take.
Actually, Jim Ellison's never been that hard ... uh .. that tough on me. Only once or twice when I deserved it. Oh, yeah, and right before and after I died. (Another story for another time.)
Of course, I've had a vested interest in keeping Detective Ellison sane, calm and attuned to all of his special gifts from day one.
Jim was my Holy Grail, the pot of gold at the end of my personal rainbow, the brass ring, whatever you want to call it. He was the answer to a grad student's prayer. He still is. A dream come true: A full-fledged, mature Sentinel. Here's the crash course on the subject. A sentinel is an individual born with a genetic advantage in the form of heightened sensory abilities. It
takes a period of training or isolation to jump-start the five senses into action. (In Jim's case, it was 18 months in a Peruvian jungle among the Chopec people who adopted him as their Sentinel.) And every Sentinel has someone at his (or her) back to help keep him (or her) focused and on track. That individual is called a guide. At least that's what that S.O.B. Lee Brackett christened yours truly. I hated the rogue ex-CIA agent who almost got Jim and me blown to smithereens on one of Uncle Sam's best government booby-trapped bridges. And the bastard almost got the better of Jim.
But, almost doesn't count.
And I like the title ... Guide. It pretty much says it for me.
Something else started to happen when Jim and I began to feel the undeniable pull of the Sentinel and Guide bond. We started to live in a kind of shorthand -- in speech, in thought, in action. At first, it was in finishing one another's sentences, followed by tumbling into each other's personal space. And then came the touching. The touching grounds Jim, helps him to concentrate on the sense he's using. It also helps keep him out of the sensory limbo I call a zoneout. And maybe my touch brought him out of 30 plus years of loneliness.
Something I've observed in the time we've have been sharing digs at 852 Prospect Ave. -- and life everywhere else -- is that Jim's a glutton for touch. Can't get enough of it. Could be because, from what little he's let slip about his past, touching in the Ellison household was pretty much
confined to being manhandled or hit by his dad. I never asked, but I think the last time William Ellison hugged or touched his elder son in anything but anger was the day Grace Ellison left. And even then, it was more of a "Pull yourself together and be a man, Jimmy. A man never cries. Even if his mother walks out on the family." Imagine saying that to a sobbing 10-year-old? Breaks your heart, doesn't it?
And as an U.S. Army Ranger trained in Covert Operations, well, touch was pretty much either combat or that "exterminate with extreme prejudice" thing.
I also think Jim found and married Carolyn Plummer because she was the first woman who treated him kindly. He mistook it for love. She's the ex-Mrs. Ellison now, by the way.
I have a theory about why the match didn't work. Yeah, I know you're saying "Christ, Sandburg. Tell us something we don't know. You've got a theory on just about everything." Well, I do. Except maybe why people eat Hog's Head Cheese.
My theory is that Carolyn Plummer was Jim Ellison's wire monkey mother. Did I lose you? Think back to that old behavioral study in Zoology 101. I've never forgotten the pictures I first came across in a dusty old book I found in the science section of the library, even though I couldn't have been more than eight or nine at the time. (OK. I confess. I was a science nerd even then.) One black and white shot was of the "A" Group Rhesus monkeys interacting with a soft, cuddly, terry cloth "mom" placed in their cage. The "B" group were these pathetic little primates who'd been given a surrogate parent made out of wire. It was hideous-looking and frightening. At first, the sad, little test subjects avoided "her" like the plague. After a while, though, they took whatever comfort they could from nuzzling, stroking, and trying to nestle against this cold, lifeless impostor.
I think Jim was dropped into the "B" group by the fates, and ended up taking whatever love and affection he could, wherever and whenever he could get it. It would go a long way in explaining Lila and Emily and Veronica, and all the other women who were wrong for him. So wrong, it would take me at least six weeks and a dozen pens to explain why. And in all those encounters, he didn't really know what feeling loved and being loved was all about.
But, Jim's slowly learning, I think. And I want to take credit for his transformation.
Because I want him to discover love for real -- and forever. And I want my Sentinel to find it with me.
I love Jim Ellison. Yeah, Like a partner. Ditto, like a best friend and brother. But, I want to love him like he deserves. The best of me wants to give him everything.
And I want The Smile to be for me. That God-damned, take-your-breath-away, blind-you-with-its brilliance, warm-you-like-the-sun, and melt your heart like a truckload of puppies smile.
For me. Just for me.
If it were anybody else, I'd have taken the flyer a longtime ago, and laid it on the line, so to speak. "Hey, XYZ, I think -- no, make that I know -- I love you. One little question: Does the fact that you're the Poster Boy for true blue American heterosexuals everywhere throw a monkey wrench into my plans for getting up close and person with you?" Then XYZ would either fuck me blind or kill me. But with Jim, if the answer were "no," and I truly spooked him beyond even the tolerance levels of our strong relationship, I'd be screwed. We'd both be screwed. And it would never be the same between us again.
And it goes without saying that I'd be "unscrewed" by the object of my considerable affection.
But to get The Smile, the God-damned smile flashed at me, that I can feel it in my hip pocket, particularly if he and I were together and naked, well, nothing could be better.
Wait, I take that back. The Smile could be directed at me right after Jim Ellison said, "I love you, Chief."
*That* would be worth everything.
***
I think I'm in deep kimchee here. Something happened today that may have inadvertently exposed how I feel about my favorite -- well, my only -- Sentinel.
We were sitting at our respective desks in the Major Crimes bullpen fulfilling our usual functions. Like always, Jim was complaining about the tons of paperwork that detective have to do. Like always, I was *doing* the tons of paperwork that detectives have to do. My back was away from the hallway, so I didn't see former Assistant D.A. Beverly Sanchez stepping out of the elevator. She'd gone into private practice about two years ago. Office scuttlebutt was that the smart lady lawyer was making a six-figure salary at Lehman, Hoch, and Brewster, Attorneys-at-Law. It sure looked it. She was dressed for success, and, it seemed to me, for some serious one on one with somebody. Or some *body.* I'm not sure, but she and Jim might have had a thing going when they'd first met. But that was then. A lifetime ago. So long ago, I wasn't even living with Jim, for God's sake. Anyway, my friend picked her up on his radar by sight and scent the minute the doors slid opened. He smiled at her -- but not with The Smile. The one he used was still pretty damned ingratiating. And infuriating. I could feel my blood surging in anger, directed at my best friend for being a jerk, and at Beverly for being an unexpected, unwelcomed interloper. Christ, I suddenly realized, I was green-eyed-monster jealous, but was trying my damnedest not to show it, and not succeeding.
Anyway, we'd all been shooting the breeze for a while when Ms. "Butter Wouldn't Melt in Her Mouth" Sanchez said something that started me on the road to hell (you know, the one that's paved with good intentions). Beverly had been looking Jim and up and down for a minute, as though she were a carnivore and he was the last porterhouse steak in the free world, then said,
"You've hardly changed Jim." Unexpectedly, she extended a finger and touched his face, brushing near his cheek. "Except maybe for the laugh lines. But they look good on you." Her words seemed to freeze us in time and space. Jim smiled really broadly down at the attractive brunette, a little embarrassed, but unfortunately, pleased with the unsolicited, highly suggestive comment. As if on cue, little wrinkles around those beautiful, laser blue eyes popped out invitingly, I swear to whatever deities handle unrequited lovers. That's when I put my size 8 1/2 Nikes into my mouth, right up to the laces by saying: "He's had a lot more to laugh about these days, Beverly."
Unfortunately, my semi-innocuous statement had more than a little of the proprietary edge to it. It was enough to make detective Brian Rafe and his partner, Henry Brown, swing an astonished look from me to Jim and back again to my reddening face. My hand to God, I saw "light bulbs" go on over their respective heads. Beverly's eyes widened almost comically, as her own light bulb flickered and whatever her original plans was, whether to whisk my roommate off for a quick lunch or just a quickie, the smart Mrs. Sanchez changed plans in midstream, mumbled some save-face story about having somewhere else to be, waved a hasty goodbye, pivoted on expensive, stiletto heels, and vanished almost as quickly as she had materialized.
Oops. The silence was the loudest thing in the room. All of a sudden, everybody got very busy, and went back to whatever the hell it was that they were doing or were not doing before I began nailing my own coffin shut. Speaking of nails, Jim nailed me with a look I'll never forget.
Fucking oops.
Wait a minute. Maybe not. The look wasn't one of revulsion. Or horror. If I were a betting man -- scratch that, I *am* a betting man -- if I were on the outside looking in, I'd say Jim's somewhat surprised face said, "What?" or maybe "Yeah?"
No. What it said matched the words that softly escaped his lips. "C'mon, Sandburg, we need to talk."
Here it comes. The old "It's been great, but pack it up, and move it out by nightfall, little pard."
Resigned to seeing my life as part of Jim Ellison's "Dirty Harry" world ending and all my nascent hopes withering on the vine, I was just about to step into the elevator with the looming presence taking up the rear, when an iron grip pinched my left arm, and pulled me into the stairwell.
The stairs. Six floors to the ground level. Enough time for Jim to scare the shit out of me and/or beat the crap out of me. The fire door swung shut, emitting an unpleasant, tinny sound of finality that could double for what I envisioned was going to happen to my future.
In the blink of a black panther's eye, I found myself being swung around, and tossed, not ungently, against the wall on the landing. I felt a large, powerful, well-chiseled torso effectively pinning me in place. No escape. No respite. My arms were spread-eagled, like a sad, trapped, helpless specimen, Guidus erectus.
Funny thing, though. Apparently, I wasn't the only one 'erectus.' Swiveling my hips to make sure I was bumping up against a concrete expression of Jim's interest, this Blessed Protectee lifted passion-black eyes to scan his Blessed Protector's face. Son-of-a-bitch. The Smile, the God-damned Smile, was there, warming me to the bone. Or boner. Whichever.
And I was right. The only thing better than The Smile was that it was followed by "I love you, too, chief."
As I reached to touch the laugh lines, Jim ran that enormous paw of his down over my chest, tweaking the nipple with the ring through it, ghosted over my abs until it rested on my dick. He patted Mr. Happy fondly, as though the one, true love of my life had just found something of his that he'd been looking for. "So what do you say we go home, Sandburg, and create some new laugh lines on this old face?"
As Sentinel James Joseph Ellison began to kiss me as eagerly, as aggressively, and as expertly as I've ever been osculated, I made a mental note, even as the toes on my right foot were curling and the ones on my left were melting to do just that. After all, it's the least I can do for my best friend.
And for The Smile.
Correction. For *my* smile.
Comments please