Title: "All You Need Is a Cape, Ellison.", chapter 12

Author: Alexis Rogers

Category: Drama, Episode Related: survival

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: b/d, s/m, m/m, angst, Other: see story notes

Pairing: J/B

Summary: Jim and Blair spend time unwinding after Jim's experience at Mass.

Series/Sequel: Series. This chapter will make no sense without the previous ones, which are available at the author's website or directly from the author. If you email me for chapters, please let me know what format you can handle and the size of the files. I can go as large or small as necessary.

Do not repost or forward this story without the author's knowledge and consent.

Disclaimers: I don't own the Sentinel guys; if I did, I'd let them hug each other on camera. And I'd go for RB's liplock idea as well. I have no wish to infringe of the copyright of Pet Fly Productions, UPN, Paramount, Viacom or anydamnbody else.

My fiction contains consensual sex between two or more men and is not meant to be read by those who object to explicit homoerotic sexual material. Or minors. The law says anyone under the age of consent can't read this. If you don't like the law, change it. Remember: one person can make a difference.

WARNING: This story contains many elements of *bdsm*, including but not limited to incest, spanking, whipping, nudity, enemas, butt plugs, general discussion of *bdsm*, including fisting. If you are uncomfortable with the subject, don't read the story.

{text} = Jim's thoughts.

All You Need Is a Cape, Ellison 12
by Alexis Rogers
5 August 1997

Jim sat with his back against a tree on this Sunday evening in California. Blair was sleeping, his head resting on Jim's crotch while Jim carded his fingers through the silky curls. Visions of his mother, the panther, the jungle, Patrick's church and his life in general flowed through his mind like he was channel surfing but without a remote control.

"Hello," said an older teenaged girl with long, dark hair and deep blue eyes.

"Ah, hi," Jim stammered, not expecting to see a female in the retreat.

"I'm Victoria and Daddy Michael said I should talk to Blair." She dropped onto the blanket that Jim and Blair shared for their picnic lunch and Blair's nap.

"He's asleep." Jim pointed down. "You look like Jason, you know?"

She nodded. "And my mother and my grandmother. Strong Italian genes."

"May I ask why you're here?"

"I came with my dads to tell my grandfathers good-bye. I'm going to a church camp in the morning and I'll be gone for two weeks."

"How, ah, I mean, just how serious is the religious thing around here?"

"Grandpa Charlie added it to his life about the time Jason and Michael met, and he encourages all the men to participate as much as they're comfortable with."

"And what about you?" Jim asked.

"Nosy, aren't you," she replied with a typical teenage attitude.

"I'm curious. I'm new here and I'm a little overwhelmed," Jim admitted.

"Truthfully, I get questions from the guys all the time, and some days I'm fine with it and some days I get the attitude." Victoria shrugged her shoulders and her hair fell in soft folds. "I'm a teenage girl, probably straight because nobody in my all girl Catholic high school does a thing for me, with gay parents and gay grandparents."

"Is Catholic school as bad as I remember?"

"Probably worse," she smiled. "I'm there to keep me away from boys, although if you ask my dads, they would say it's because it's the best place for me to get an education."

"Over protective?"

"The understatement of the year," she feigned.

"I can't blame them, Victoria, you're a very beautiful young woman and the world is a very ugly place."

"Yes, and I'm very protected, but one day I'll have to venture out on my own."

"Jason said you were going to be a doctor and he's very proud of you."

"Daddy Michael and I are trying to decide where I should go and what I should study. I'll probably do my undergrad work at Berkeley. Besides being a good school, it's where my dads and my grandfather went. But the question is where I go after that. Daddy Michael thinks I should look into alternative medicine, like organic medicine. Maybe study in Germany because organic medicine is very important there. That's why I wanted to talk to Blair, because daddy says his knowledge of herbology is equal to Grandpa Lloyd's."

"Why is that important?" Jim asked, his hand still in Blair's curls.

"Have you been to the hospice?"

Jim shook his head. "Tomorrow'll be my first day."

"When you see those men, you'll understand the need for research and a cure. Every time I see a new patient, I remember that when Ronald Reagan was President, he allowed twenty six thousand people to die before he ever said the word AIDS in public. After all, the virus was only killing fags, so let it do its work. Well, now it's killing men and women in third world countries, another group of people that no one cares about. Someone has to care."

"I can lend you my soapbox," Blair mumbled, "but you're preaching to the choir."

"I'm sorry," Victoria lowered her voice. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Jim helped Blair sit up, favoring his injured leg and positioning him back to chest. "He recognized another crusader," Jim teased. "Blair, this is Victoria Anderson."

"I like your passion and caring," Blair offered, his blue eyes alight with interest.

"How can I not be passionate? I've spent my whole life in the gay community where death is an everyday occurrence."

"And you think you can change that?" Jim pushed.

"Someone has to. It might as well be me," she pushed right back, making Jim smile.

"Do you think the answer's in organic medicine?" Blair asked, leaning back in the circle of Jim's arms.

"Daddy Michael doesn't believe the answer is in traditional medicine, a discipline to which he's been dedicated for years." She twisted blades of grass through her slender fingers. "He's been studying some of the cancer treatments and thinks we should incorporate all forms of treatment, like diet and exercise and spirituality, into one that will work our patients."

"When did they become *your* patients?" Blair asked softly.

"Huh?" She stared at Blair. "I'm not sure. Maybe they always have been. I'm the odd man, ah person, out here, you know. I'm the one who doesn't fit, but I belong here in a way I can't begin to understand or explain."

Jim heard the panther purr and he smiled. "I hear that," he mumbled.

"What?" she asked.

"The destiny thing," Blair explained. "I was about your age when I started with college courses and I was intrigued by closed cultures and other aspects of anthropology. My interest and education brought Jim and me together, where we're supposed to be."

Victoria looked at Jim but did not say anything.

"Maybe I started my training early, too," Jim admitted, "but maybe I didn't understand." He was silent for a while, trying to organize his thoughts. "I'm a cop. It's my job to protect people. I was a good cop before I met Blair, but with him beside me, I'm a better cop. Like I'm using all the training from my own life to be the best that I can be." He tightened his arms around Blair.

Victoria looked down, a sudden sadness displayed on her face.

"What?" Blair asked.

"Everyone here works in pairs, or triples, and I seem to be alone, maybe destined to be alone."

"I don't mean to be insensitive, but isn't that a typical teenage reaction?" Blair asked.

"Don't patronize me," Victoria's snapped.

"I'm not," Blair explained. "I wasn't a typical teenager either, but it doesn't mean that I didn't experience the growing pains, the hormone stuff, the depression, the isolation. It's tough on all of us. You and I have people around us to love and support us. Jim didn't have anyone."

Victoria's body language changed completely as she shifted towards Jim. "Is that true?"

"I managed," Jim muttered, not willing to be manipulated by these two.

"Are you an orphan? I mean technically, J.M. and I are orphans."

"In that my parents are dead, yeah, I guess I am." Jim shifted his back against the tree and pulled Blair closer.

"What about you, Blair?" Victoria asked.

"I never knew my dad. My mom says she doesn't even know who he is."

"And that makes you sad," Victoria observed.

"It's the abandonment issue. Children who lose parents or never knew them have to deal with it."

"Yeah," she shrugged. "Grandpa Charlie worked with us, helping us to cope with the loss. I have days when I wonder what my life would be like if my parents were still alive."

The vision of his mother in the chapel tugged at Jim, but he refused to acknowledge it. He was not prepared to go there right now.

"Do you regret your life?" Blair asked. "Surrounded by gay men?"

"Sometimes," she admitted, "but not often. Grandpa Lloyd is very perceptive. He picks up when I'm disturbed and he makes me face it. He told me one day I might be his greatest challenge because I was the first girl he had to raise after more boys than he wanted to count. He sends me to Father Patrick a lot."

"Does he want you to be a nun?" Blair asked.

"Huh?" She was clearly surprised. "No one ever said that but it might be easier than the chastity belt they seem to want me to wear." There was anger in her voice.

"Cultures protect their women," Blair offered. "Why would this one be any different?"

"So I have to become a nun because my daddies want to protect my virtue?" she snipped.

"I don't think your parents want you to be anything you don't want to be," Blair continued. "But I do think that most parents have trouble with their children's sexuality."

"My dads were sexually active with each other when they were my age," she stated defiantly.

"And you think that should make a difference in how they view you?" Blair retaliated.

"Yes, I do. I expect them to be more open about me because they are more open with me. Why should it matter that I'm a girl?"

"How do you want me to answer that: academically or practically?" Blair challenged.

Victoria stared at Blair.

"You don't want an answer, do you? You just want to be rebellious?" Blair continued.

"Maybe," she surrendered. "I want all the answers and I want them now and when I don't get them, I lose my patience."

"And what happens when the answer isn't what you want it be?"

She glared at Blair, then laughed. "I pout."

Blair's laughter joined hers. "Me, too."

"So what's happening here?" Michael asked as he sat down on the blanket beside Jim and Jason sat beside his lover.

"The adolescents are comparing notes," Jim offered.

"I don't think anyone has a pleasant adolescence," Michael commented, "at least from their own perspective."

Jason's face darkened.

"What?" Michael asked, reaching his hand to Jason.

"I was thinking about what we, what you, were going through when you were Victoria's age." Jason squeezed Michael's hand.

"What Daddy?" she asked, concern clearly visible on her face.

"Maybe it's time you knew why Daddy Michael is so protective of you, my angel," Jason said. "It might help if you understood that he didn't have anyone to protect him."

"Are you sure you want to do this here? Now?" Michael shifted uneasily.

"Yeah," Jim added, "If this is a private conversation..."

Jason took Michael's hand. "Charlie has always encouraged us to share our feelings and I think you, Jim, need to understand that other people face difficulties and overcome them. I also want you to know that sharing those traumas in a supportive group also helps. So, with this, I tell our daughter something she needs to know, and I demonstrate to you and Blair that even the worst things in life can be handled."

"Daddy Michael?" Victoria scooted on the blanket until she could hold Michael's other hand. "This sounds really bad."

"It's bad, honey," Jason released Michael's hand and shifted until he was behind his lover, wrapping arms around him. "But not as bad as when we were your age and dealing with it."

"Worse than two protective fathers trying to make me into a nun?" Victoria settled in front of Michael and took both his hands.

Michael nodded. "I've always considered Lloyd and Charlie as my parents because they rescued me from the streets after I fled my very abusive real father."

"He hurt you?" she asked, astonishment in her voice. "Daddy, how could anyone hurt you?"

"Honey," Jason whispered, "just listen to him because this is very painful, even after all these years."

"He would get drunk, and beat my mother. I'd try to stop him and then the man would start in on me." Michael was silent as the memory displayed on his face. "One night, he threw my little brother against the wall -- and --" Michael dropped his head.

"Jimmy died that night," Jason continued, "and Michael was so horrified that he suppressed all the memories of his brother until after we became lovers and it started to surface."

"It hurt so bad," Michael managed around the tears he did not try to stop. "I couldn't protect him. He was just a baby, only three years old, and I couldn't do anything to protect him. And then I just forgot him."

"How old were you, Daddy?" Victoria leaned forward and wiped the tears from Michael's face.

"He was seven," Jason supplied.

"Daddy, seven year old boys are not superman and they should not have to protect their little brothers from their father."

Blair pushed closer to Jim, turning and kissing his neck. "It's a very ugly part of our modern life."

Jason placed his head on Michael shoulder. "I wanted to protect you and so did Jimmy."

"What? How?" Jim asked, wondering why he was part of this conversation.

"Little Jimmy is our Guardian Angel," Jason explained.

Victoria gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. "I've seen him. I mean I didn't know it was him, but I've seen the angel. I thought it was my imagination."

"When?" Jason asked.

"The first time was shortly after mom and dad died. I was in my room, my new room at your house, and it was night and I was crying, and this baby angel floated down onto my bed. He stroked my face and told me that my new daddies would take care of me. I thought it was just a dream."

"How did you feel after you saw the angel?" Blair sat up, full of curiosity.

"I went back to sleep and it didn't hurt so bad," she admitted.

"And you've seen him again?" Michael raised his head and looked at her.

" When Jeremiah and Nehemiah moved in, I was kind of afraid, you know, and the angel said they needed you like J.M. and I needed you. And then he disappeared through the door to their room."

"Do you know if they saw him?" Jason asked. "Father Patrick'll want to know."

"I don't know." Victoria looked confused. "I thought I was seeing things."

"Father Patrick saw him first," Jason continued. "Michael and I had been sedated after some very difficult counseling sessions dealing with Michael's father and the death of Jimmy, and Patrick was sitting with us. He saw Jimmy on the footboard of the bed, watching us sleep."

"Did you sleep all wrapped around each other, like you do now?" Victoria asked, grinning.

Michael blushed. "Yes, sweetheart, Jason wraps himself around me every night, thinking he can protect me."

"The way you think you can protect me?" Victoria challenged.

"I never wanted you to see the ugliness of the world," Michael offered.

"Then you should never have let me out of my room. Daddy, the world is ugly and you can't stop that. But there's beauty in the world, too, and the love you two have shared with J.M. and me is a special part of that world." She threw her arms around Michael, hugging him and knocking him to the ground on top of Jason.

Blair, his blue eyes bright with interest, watched until the three of them were seated again. "Have you seen the angel any other time?"

Victoria pushed her hair out of her face. "He was at the hospital that night when Daddy Michael was so upset he wouldn't put the baby down. It was the angel who whispered to me what to do. I thought I was so upset I was hallucinating."

"What did he say to you?" Jason asked.

"He told me 'Daddy Michael' needed me." She smiled at both men. "I'd never thought about you guys as my fathers before then. You were my 'uncles' and I loved you, but I had a father and a mother." Tears glistened in Victoria's dark blue eyes.

"It's okay," Michael assured. "I'm not really your father."

"Not anymore than Charlie and Lloyd are your fathers," she countered, "but you think of them that way."

"And they went through all the ordeal with us." Michael reached for Jason's hand. "Lloyd helped me find my parents. My father had been killed in a barroom brawl and my mother was confined to a locked facility. She died not ever knowing who I was. She'd retreated so far inside herself that none of us could reach her. But most importantly, Lloyd and Patrick helped me find Jimmy's body so it could be properly buried."

"Will you show me?" she asked softly.

Michael nodded.

"When you get back," Jason said, "we'll all go."

"I wish you had told me sooner," Victoria scolded.

"It wasn't time," Jason responded. "But I need you to understand why Michael wants to protect you."

"And why," Michael smiled at his lover, "Jason tries to protect all of us."

"I'll try to be more patient with you, with both of you," she promised. "But you can trust me, you know, I'm not a child."

"What do you want us to trust you with?" Jason asked hesitantly.

"Sex would be a good place to start."

Jason and Michael gasped at the same time.

Victoria smirked. "You see?" she said to Blair. "They've been sleeping together since they were sixteen, but they can't even say the word to me."

Jason opened his mouth, but Victoria cut him off. "Even Grandpa Lloyd won't discuss sex with me. I have to go to the library and out on the net. I have to read about how two men make love to each other in 'The Joys of Gay Sex' and 'The Kiss of the Whip'."

"Victoria," Blair soothed in his guide voice, "many parents can't talk to their children about sex."

"But I don't have just any parents." Her voice rose. "I have gay parents who profess they trust me, but won't talk to me about sex. Do you think I don't know what you two do in the dungeon?"

"You want us to tell you what we do in our bedroom?" Jason stammered, horrified.

"If I were one of the rescued boys here, you'd tell me," Victoria stated defiantly.

Blair chuckled. "She's right, you know."

"This is really difficult," Michael admitted.

"Daddy," Victoria turned to Michael, "I don't need all the details. I don't need to know if Daddy Jason prefers a belt to a paddle..."

Jason gulped.

"I need you to trust me enough to discuss the subject of sex with me like you would discuss it with any of the males here. I had to go to Kenneth to discuss birth control and he shuffled me off to a woman OB/GYN."

"You're using birth control?" Michael shouted.

"Would you prefer that I wasn't?" Victoria snapped.

"Maybe Blair and I should go to our room," Jim suggested.

"There will be no cop outs here," Victoria declared.

"Victoria," Michael asked calmly, "are you sexually active?"

"No, Daddy, I'm not, but I might like to be and I would like to think that the two greatest parents in the world could discuss sex with me like they do with everyone else."

"You know," Michael said to Jason, "I think she's been spending too much time with Charlie. She certainly knows how to push our buttons."

"Daddy Michael, Daddy Jason, I love you both very much, and you treat me like an adult most of the time. You shared the painful story of Jimmy so I know you trust me, but we have to be able to talk about sex. Grandma lives in another generation and while she loves you both, you can bet she never thinks about what you guys do in bed. And me, well, she wants me to be a nun worse than you guys do."

Jim watched and listened, trying to remember if his father had ever mentioned sex and decided that he had not. Even thinking about his parents having sex was more than Jim could handle. He was glad that he was not Victoria's father.

"Sweetheart," Michael said, "we don't want you to be a nun, unless that's what you chose to be. We want what's best for you, and we want you safe and happy. From now on, we'll discuss whatever you want."

"As long as it doesn't involve the intimate details of our sex life," Jason amended. "Michael and I love each other and we're very athletic about demonstrating that love, but I don't think that's something I can talk to you about."

"Some things are easy to see. I know when you guys spend a wild weekend out here because you send Daddy Michael flowers and take him dancing."

"That's what works for us," Jason defended. "And when you meet someone special, you'll find that you won't want to discuss the specifics with us either."

She glanced at her watch. "I'll concede the point only because it's getting late and I want to say good-bye to Grandpa Charlie and Grandpa Lloyd."

"And tell Father Patrick about the angel sightings." Jason stood and held out his hand.

Victoria took Jason's hand, then embraced him after getting to her feet. "I love you, Daddy."

"I love you, too, baby." Together, they held out hands to Michael.

"Good night," Blair said to the trio as they ambled off in the twilight.

"We're never having children," Jim declared softly.

"Does that mean I should go back on the pill?" Blair teased.

"That's not funny."

"They're a family, probably a more functional family than any we know. She was right, and she pushed her parents until they realized she was right. Could you have done that at her age?"

Jim shook his head. His family was the last thing he wanted to talk about.

"Do you remember when we came back from Peru? The first time we went together? And all that stuff happened to you and you wouldn't talk to me?"

"And that damn cat," Jim pointed to the panther that was now lying on their blanket, "was staring at me from my bedroom demanding that I tell you."

Blair turned slowly until he was across Jim's lap, facing him. "So tell me now and avoid the frustration."

"How am I supposed to handle spirit guides and guardian angels and stuff that doesn't make sense?"

"You mean, like the way we love each other?"

"Sometimes." Jim kissed Blair gently. "It's like the emotion is so intense that I don't know how to put it into words."

"So you aren't going to tell me what happened in the chapel?"

"I'm just not ready to talk about it. Can you give me that?"

"Yeah, I can." Blair rested his head on Jim's shoulder. "Would you like me to leave you alone? Or can we just sit here like this?"

"I'd like to sit and hold you and not talk or think or anything."

"I can do that," Blair promised.

End "All You Need Is a Cape, Ellison.", Chapter 12.