SquidgeWorld Archive

Title: Two Sentinels, part 1
Fandom: The Sentinel
Author: ne'ichan
Email: faestion1@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Summary: Guides are increasingly rare, so Sentinels must share them.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the show.
Author's note: This was my second way of dealing with the idea that brought about 'Out There'. This is absolutely AU.

"Ellison, Rafe, my office," Simon Banks, the hulking captain of Major Crimes barked, then he turned and barreled back into his office.

I looked at Ellison. Jim Ellison shrugged his broad shoulders.

"I didn't do anything. What did you do?" He whispered, Sentinel soft, so I barely heard him, running a hand over his dark, short cropped hair. I shook my own dark haired head.

We started moving towards the captain's office.

"Not me this time, partner. Gotta be you." I murmured as we headed towards the open door into Simon's lair.

Cautiously, we entered, peering around the room.

Max, Simon's grey-haired guide, was pouring coffee into two mugs. One with milk, and one without, for me and Ellison, respectively. I took the cups, and handed one to Jim without looking at what it held, Jim looked down at his mug, made a face, and exchanged our cups. He did not drink milk in his coffee, and I wouldn't touch the stuff black, I also liked plenty of sugar in it, but Simon didn't keep sugar in his office. If you drank Simon's expensive coffee you drank it without sugar.

I took the other cup, the one Ellison handed me, frowning, then realized I'd given Jim my pale, tan brew by mistake. I set my cup on the edge of Simon's desk. I couldn't bring myself to drink any of it, at any rate. Not until I knew why we were being called on the carpet.

"Sit down, gentlemen. Your requisition has finally come through." Simon rumbled, crossly. He slammed a folder onto the top of his desk, shuffled it around.

Max settled into his chair behind his Sentinel, after putting a final cup of coffee next to the big man's elbow. I could see Max's right eye, big and brown, a few sprigs of hair, and part of his body, that was it. The rest was hidden, hunkered down behind Simon's massive form. Max was close enough to touch Simon, but he wasn't doing it yet. Simon always growled, Max was probably waiting for the real explosion, before he tried to soothe his Sentinel.

Jim and I exchanged a puzzled look, staring at each other blankly, until the seemingly random statement clicked. I drew in a breath. Oh. OH.

"Our guides...." I began, leaning forward. YES. It was about fucking time. We'd put in the requisitions the first day they paired us together in Major Crimes, more than three years ago. And finally the SSD, the local station of the Social Services Division, was getting around to us. Hot damn. Getting assigned a guide was a big deal now, not like it had been a few generations ago. Back then all Sentinels had guides. Now, most of us used public guides who lived at the huge Social Services Divisions. Social Services had become the largest department of the U S Government.

"Requisition?" Ellison interrupted me, his attention focused on the singular word. That brought me up short, too. One? Which one of us was being left out? He was older, but he'd also already had one guide. I'd never had a personal guide, ever. So, was it going to be me, or Ellison?

"Yes. Requisition. As in one. You two are a paired Sentinel team, you work together every day. You live together in Police Sentinel housing. You spend more than ninety percent of your time together. Guides are in short supply, far shorter supply than Sentinels. It has taken three years to get you one guide. The SSD is of the view you can make do with one. 'Take it or leave it', was the phrase they used, I believe." Simon growled. I could tell he knew it wasn't fair. And that he couldn't do anything about it. I knew he'd tried.

Simon didn't get to be a captain by being stupid. Sentinels, even paired ones, didn't like to share their guides. Sentinels were very territorial. I could swear to that fact personally, as could my partner, James Joseph Ellison, the reigning Mr. Possessive. Simon would have objected to forcing us to make do with one guide, he knew it would be a huge problem for Jim.

Ellison had a hell of a time during our SSD bonding sessions. Ellison always had to be pried away from the unmatched guides they set him up with. The local station never gave him the same guide twice. It was painfully obvious he would lock on to one and match, if given the opportunity.

"One Sentinel, one guide." Ellison growled, menacingly. The three of us in the room with him jumped, even 'Ironman' Banks flinched. Max shrank further behind his Sentinel. Ellison glared at him. I didn't, it wasn't Max's fault the SSD was screwing us, but had given Simon his own, albeit much older, guide. Max was not up to field work. But, this was not the time to point that out to Ellison.

"Not any more, Ellison. New rules. Read 'em and weep. No one gets their own guide any more. Not here in Washington State. In fact only essential employees get guides assigned to them, the rest use the group guides at Division Headquarters. Partners share one guide. Or do without, they'd be happy to keep the two of you on the rolls, let you continue as you are." Simon growled even deeper, no happier than Ellison or me with the ultimatum.

I winced at that idea. I hated bonding with a different guide every week. It wasn't a full bonding, but it kept us functioning. Ellison was having a lot more trouble with it than I was, but he was also ten years older than me, and a little bit more sensitive. OK, a lot more sensitive.

Ellison was the most gifted Sentinel I had ever met. Even so, he was about to be put on a desk job when I started work at the Cascade PD. For some reason I turned out to be a pretty good match for him, unlike the other Sentinels they'd tried to partner him with.

Pairing us stabilized him to the point he became the best detective in the PD again. And I learned from him. We were, once we got used to each other, the best team in Major Crime. Not having a guide of his own was harder on Jim than it was on me.

If he and I had not paired, he'd have gone off the deep end by now, or been on the suppressive drug therapy. An addict. I couldn't let that happen. I'd take the guide and cope. Somehow. For my partner.

Ellison and I looked at Max. Simon shook his head. "Come on, men, you are detectives aren't you? New bonds, you idiots. Disrupting old bonds won't work, you know that. It will just get more Sentinels killed to try it. And it won't work. You know it, Jim. Once the bond is set, that's it."

You see Jim had had a guide of his own, almost twenty years ago when he was in Special Ops. His guide had been killed, and that was the end of Ellison's seven year Ranger career. Sentinels without guides weren't allowed in Spec Ops. They tended to be unpredictable. They might forget an Op if they ran across an unmatched guide. Free for the taking so to speak. Jim hadn't done that, but his career was over as soon as Danni died.

Sentinels establish pretty early, at puberty, most often. Guides may not establish until they are into their twenties.

Danni was Ellison's guide from the time Jim was thirteen, Danni had been twelve years older. A tough and wiry woman, guide-small, athletic rather than curvy. Jim at thirteen had been taller than she was already. Jim had spent almost six months stabilizing after Danni's death. After recovery, he'd been discharged straight from the army into the Cascade Police Academy Sentinel Program.

Now the SSD was screwing us, giving us a choice between sharing one guide or not having a guide at all. I felt bad for myself, but I felt worse for Ellison. Still, there was only one real choice. I was enough for Jim to stay sane, but having a guide would be so much better.

"I'm up for it." I said before Jim could blister Simon's ears with how he really, really felt about the situation.

"We'll take it." I added, when Jim drew in an outraged breath, putting a hand on Jim's forearm and squeezing down, hard. Jim knew what that meant. Shut up. Now.

I heard his teeth grinding. But, he managed not to let the words, that were fighting to get out, actually get out.

I noticed Max was completely behind Simon at this point, one of his hands was visible clutched around the side of Simon's waist. Taking no chances, but I knew Ellison would never willing hurt a guide. Not even in the towering rage he was caught in this minute.

I ran my free hand across Jim's lower back, simulating a guide's touch. I leaned in closer and barely whispered words of calm to him. I wasn't a guide, but I was getting pretty good at helping my partner anyway. Paired Sentinels were almost as good as a guide/Sentinel pair. I had no idea how a Sentinel/Sentinel/guide match was supposed to work out. It had to be a new set up, 'cause I'd never heard of anyone I knew in one of the multiple pairings.

I was going into this with both eyes wide open, and one hand on my taser, expecting trouble. It wouldn't do to let Ellison kill me because I wasn't watching my back around him while we were learning to bond to "our" guide. Jim had killed four men he held responsible for killing Danni. He was more than capable, still deadly. Sentinels are a hell of a lot stronger than mundane men. He had training I didn't. So, I was younger by a decade, who cared? Ellison was the more dangerous of the two of us, hands down.

Jim let me touch him, in fact he leaned into my touch, burying his face in my hair, using my familiar scent to calm himself. I felt the muscles in his back begin to ease. Simon watched us, looking like he was trying not to react.

Back when Simon was a kid, Sentinels were almost never paired. Sentinels touching Sentinels was frowned on. Discouraged. Simon was fighting his natural prejudice and doing a fine job, but he still fell back on his childhood conditioning at times.

Jim and I were on the cusp of the newer generation, when guides became increasingly rare, or Sentinels became more common, depending on your perspective, and changes in Sentinel social structure became necessary.

A Sentinel of Simon's generation might chose a male lover, but a mundane male, not another Sentinel. A guide's gender was incidental. Pretty much unimportant, at least from a Sentinel's point of view. A guide was a guide. You damn well took care of your matched guide no matter what your sexual preference was. And, you treated all guides with respect, even unmatched ones.

There were no normal female Sentinels. They went crazy for some unknown reason. They could not bond. No one had figured out how to stop or change it. Female guides were completely normal, as were male guides. It was the luck of the draw as to the gender a Sentinel was assigned to.

Right now, Jim and I had no idea if we were being offered a male or a female guide. Both of us were heterosexual. So, I would prefer a female guide, but I'd take either, happily. As my uncle, the only other Sentinel in my family said, "a guide, is a guide, is a guide". And you'd damn well better treat any guide you got like gold.

If we got a male, well, I'd teach myself how to please him. 'Cause no guide of mine was going to have to go to someone else for anything that was in my power to provide. Long talks with my uncle had taught me that as well. Police Detective or not, if Uncle Paul heard I wasn't treating my guide right, he'd take a strap to me.

As for Jim, he'd already had a female guide. They'd gotten along well. I assumed that meant he'd taken good care of Danni. I had trouble picturing Ellison letting his guide, of any gender, go out for a little slap and tickle on the side. If we got a male, Ellison was going to do his part. I knew I could bank on it. He might be difficult, and temperamental, with that famous temper every one in Major Crimes, make that everyone in Cascade, was familiar with, but he was a honorable guy. You could count on Jim Ellison.

"He's here." Simon's voice drew me back to the here and now. "Your guide is here."

Jim and I turned towards the three shapes in Simon's doorway. Two big Sentinels, fully armed, towering over a smaller figure, and two more giants standing guard in the bullpen behind them. On the black market, unmatched guides brought a fortune. So, they were always escorted until they were matched. Once matched, they were pretty much useless for sale elsewhere.

The SSD's work now consisted of sixty percent guide related business. That included being the home of the the Army's SPUs. Sentinel Protection Units. Units specifically trained and designed to protect and escort guides. They were trained up to the level of the Special Forces. All big, intimidating, and very well armed Sentinels.

Jim was hyper-focused on the smaller shape in between the two SPU officers in the doorway.

Long, curly, chestnut hair, pulled back in a ponytail. A full mouth, large, dark blue eyes, sort of olive toned skin, a faint five o'clock shadow. The rest of him was hidden in the baggy SSD jumpsuit zipped up to his neck.

What I could see was fucking gorgeous. He was also frightened out of his wits, but he'd lifted his chin, determined not to show it.

Ellison snarled, he had the smaller man away from the SPU guys and behind him in less time than it takes to tell. He shoved the kid between himself and me, so we bracketed him, protecting him from whatever might harm him, or scare him.

I thought that I knew just what was scaring our new guide, us. But, I also knew you don't tell Jim Ellison things like that when he's dealing with a guide. I was feeling more than a little protective myself. My hands were automatically running over the guide, assuring myself he was unharmed while Jim confronted the SPU soldiers, with obvious hostile intent.

The two SPU guys were no rookies. They were out of the office and backing up until they were out of our threat zone. Then they waited until Simon dealt with the formalities. As soon as they were out of range, I let Jim take over the cataloging of the guide.

Jim glanced up at me, at my hands on the shaking figure's shoulders but he didn't attack me, or tell me to back off. So, I touched our guide trying to steady him while Ellison examined him. When Jim started to reach up and begin to unzip the jumpsuit I decided it was time to intervene. The guide flinched at the hand on his zipper.

"Jim." I said. One word. It brought him up short. He looked at the trembling guide, at just where we were. And decided it was not a good place to undress the guide.

Simon cleared his throat.

"This is Blair Sandburg. Your guide." He said to us. I couldn't stop the smile. Simon fanned the paperwork that he needed to fill out. It was quite a stack. I was glad newly bonded Sentinels weren't the ones expected to complete the paperwork. It would never get done.

"Don't touch me, man." The guide said....Blair said, irritably. And he stepped away from us.

"I didn't ask for this, and I don't want any part of it. Guides are human, too. You can't go around treating people like this. Just grabbing them off the street and telling them their lives have changed. It isn't right." The young man continued, angrily.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I had to try to make some sort of conciliatory gesture. I loved his voice right from the start, rich and sweet almost fattening, even though I hated what he was saying. I held out my hand.

"I'm Brian Rafe, "I told him. I inclined my head at Ellison. "And this is Jim Ellison."

Ellison was itching to get his hands back on the guide. His big hands were clenching and releasing. No explosion from the smaller man, he just looked at me with those incredible eyes. So, I tried more.

"We're your new Sentinels." I told the smaller man.

Sandburg's eyes bugged out at that.

"Sentinels? Two? No offense but, I don't want even one. No way. I just want to go back to school, and forget all of this. The test has got to be wrong, I mean there are tons of ways test results can be skewed, or just plain erroneous. Operator error, misinterpretation, bad samples, mix up in identities, not cleaning the machines.... You see. Lots can go wrong and bingo, you end up with a false positive. Probably what happened, I certainly don't feel like any kind of empath. No one in my family has ever been a guide, and guide traits are definitely linked to familial genetics. My mom...."

"That's enough, Chief, we get the picture." Ellison was standing as close to the kid as he could without actually touching him. Blair didn't seem to have any problem with that. He still looked spooked, but he was standing a half inch away from a six foot four, two hundred and twenty pound, muscle bulging Sentinel, who was tightly focused on him, without batting an eye. Sorry kid, my vote is, you are a guide. He wasn't exhibiting the normal panic I'd expect in this situation from a mundane, he was showing a guide's instinctive trust of a Sentinel to do him no harm. To protect him.

"So, you'll let me go back to Rainier?" Blair asked, brightly.

Ellison shook his head. Simon watched, impassive. I itched to touch Blair, again. I'd liked touching him. He was my guide. I'd been soothed and balanced just from resting my hands on his shoulders. All the evidence I needed. Yep, a guide. My guide.

"Nope." Ellison said.

Simon spoke up from behind me.

"Sign this." He handed me a piece of paper. I saw it had both of our names on it and Blair's, with a description of Blair that was pretty detailed. Two nude photos of him were attached, one from the front and one from the back. There was a small diagram of a naked male figure with arrows and scribbles on it depicting his various birthmarks and scars. Just like they'd document dings on a rental car.

I thought it would not be a good thing to let Blair see the paper. I signed my name and handed it to Jim, sort of pushing him over to Simon's desk and out of Blair's line of sight. He scrawled his impatient signature, and pushed it back at Simon.

"Go home, detectives. Work this out. As of now you are on stand down until your match is stable." Simon grumbled. But I could tell he was pleasantly surprised at how little fireworks resulted from this morning's events. I nodded at Jim to lead the way, and I followed, keeping Blair in front of me.

"You know, I don't think I want to go any where right now. Where are we supposed to be going? Hello? Anyone listening to me?" Blair piped up as we moved him across the bullpen. I kept my hands on him. Patted him. I leaned in closer.

"Hey." I said into his ear. "Relax. We'll talk at home. Where it is safe. Jim and I are a little distracted right now, we wouldn't be able to concentrate. Alright?"

"You can't concentrate? Try this on for size. Last week, I am sitting in the library, doing some research, and out of the woodwork these two guys show up. They were big, I mean monsters, in SPU uniforms and with guns. 'Mr. Sandburg, please, come with us.' And that was that. I was taken to the Social Services Division building before I could figure out what the hell was happening. They are handling me with kid gloves, super polite, but they won't let me go anywhere. Practically picking me up and carrying me so I won't get my feet wet. Since then I haven't been able to talk to any one. No teachers, no students, no friends, and not even my adviser. I have some lady assigned to me, my administrator, to make sure I am being treated well. She actually slept in my room. Today, finally, I think I am getting out, that they realize they've made a mistake, and instead, I end up here. No one telling me anything, not explaining anything, until that guy in there said I was your guide." He threw up
his hands, causing Ellison, who was scanning for threats, to startle and flinch.

He was a motor mouth. Crap. Jim and I got along well living together because we were both quiet men. This man wasn't going to shut up for a second. Probably talked in his sleep, knowing my luck. I kept repeating to myself, 'this is your guide, this is your guide, Bri,' deal with it.

Ellison, ignoring the telling of the tale, took us through the police department like a battering ram. Barreling through, snarling at anyone who got in the way, literally showing teeth. People pretty much jumped out of his path. He was always good at clearing the way through a crime scene, too. Even other cops gave him room.

Sandburg kept up the chatter, going on and on about statistics and the impossibility of his actually being a guide. Oh, and how he needed to get back to the university and turn in the outline for his next chapter. Then he moved on to how inhumane the treatment of guides was, anyway. How against the US constitution it was to force innocent men and women to give up their entire lives to serve someone else. How integral personal choice was in a democracy. Which, in case it had escaped us, the United States was.

Christ, the kid could talk. I figured his age at about twenty three or so. I was surprised he was a doctoral candidate so young. If I was interpreting his continual prattle correctly.

Then I had a frightening thought. What if he wasn't? What if he was a nut? Just thought that he was a scholar, just thought he was earning his doctorate? He could be mental. My blood practically froze on that thought.

In the middle of me analyzing myself into a bout of nausea we arrived at Jim's truck.

Ellison urged the guide inside with gentle firmness, the kid not even pausing in his rant, arms still waving. Jim buckled him in, dodging the punctuating arms, and I climbed in on the passenger's side, Jim on the driver's side. I turned, every hair standing on end as we left the parking structure. I couldn't stand it.

"Blair. Sandburg. Please." I begged him. "Be quiet, huh?"

He stopped his ramble and looked at me. I looked back. His eyes were normal. He had none of the insane glitter of a mental case. I kept staring. He stared back, blessedly silent. Then his eyes went wary, narrowed as he looked me over.

"Are you OK? Why are you looking at me like that?" He asked cautiously. "I mean, you aren't some kind of wacko or anything, right? I mean it would be just my luck...."

I shook my head, more relieved than I had been in a long time. The kid was just a talker. He wasn't crazy, thank god. Jim drove, his entire focus on the road. He wasn't even aware of the subtext going on between our new guide and me. That was Ellison for you. And a clear indication of his desperate need of a guide. His focus was too complete, it put him at risk for a serious zone.

When we went to a crime scene lately, things had escalated to the point that I had to keep plastered to his back in order to keep him functioning. Not the simple and discreet guide touch at the small of his back. I mean full body length pressed to him. He never said a thing about it. Though the other cops around usually made up for his silence with their razzing of the two of us.

I was relieved beyond measure when we drove up to the Sentinel housing complex. My skin was jumping from being confined in the cab of the truck, stuck against the body of a stranger, even if he was my guide. I practically leaped out of the seat, nearly tearing the seat belt out in my haste. Fuck.

ne'ichan