Title: Serious Moonlight

Author: Silk

Fandom: The Sentinel

Pairing: Jim/Blair

Rating: R

Status: New/Complete

Email address: silkn1@worldnet.att.net

Date: 8/22/01

Webpage: www.angelfire.com/ny4/tinsel/

Disclaimer: All things Sentinel belong to Pet Fly and Paramount. Not me. Not making any money on this either.

Archive: Yes to WWOMB and CKoS

Series: No

Warnings: angst

Summary: Contemplation is good for the soul, but what about the heart?

Notes: The R rating is for occasional bad language. Set post-TSbyBS. Alternating POV.

As always, this is for Tinnean.

Serious Moonlight
By Silk

I never wanted to be different. All my life I wanted to be normal. Whatever that is. Myself, I think normal is a place on the time-space continuum that you can never reach, no matter how hard you try or how fast you go.

I tell myself that non-conformity is an exalted state of being. Which I'm sure it is, if you can get past the ethnic slurs, racial epithets, sexist remarks, and generally poor taste that people exercise when they talk to one another these days.

I didn't ask for this, y'know. I've got enough problems as it is, what with being too short, earring-impaired and molto hairy all over my furry little body. Then there's the free-floating violence that comes from working as a police observer with Jim. I've been shot, drugged, kidnapped....yawn, been there, done that. I've had mystical experiences that seemed like hallucinations and vice versa.

I survived falling in love with my very male partner. No, he doesn't know. That's why I survived. I've been drowned and I've come back from the dead. That last one still haunts me. I know it haunts Jim. He may not be in love with me, but he is the poster boy for Self-Imposed Guilt Trips. Everything, and I do mean *everything*, is his fault. Now I ask you, is that self-absorbed or what?

Y'know, I have to laugh at the way everyone assumes that the lil guy will just keep right on subjugating himself to the big guy. I realize I have no life outside of Jim. I gave that up after the dissertation fiasco. There wasn't much left to give up, actually. It was all pretty much gone by then. Time and indifferent treatment will do that.

But here I am, on the eve of taking one step closer to the abyss, standing on the balcony, looking at the full moon...and wondering why in hell I am still here. Jim is a Sentinel. His enhanced senses are the result of biology, genetics, anatomy and physiology. I'm his Guide. I don't have special powers. I'm a bright guy, but I'm no fucking genius, and I've never really gotten the hang of common sense. My intuition isn't that much better than anyone else's. So why me?

I don't have a genetic advantage that predisposes me to hold this job. I don't speak Quechua. I can't protect him. At least...not enough. And I want to. I love him. I fucking do. Isn't that stupid? I'm not even the right sex for him. I don't have long red hair or kissable lips and I haven't got a decent motive for murder. Well, not yet, anyway.

But I can't give up on him. If he pushed me away for the next hundred years, those would be *my* bones pushing right back. I no longer have any life of my own to offer him. We already share everything of consequence. Except a bed. But that's not Jim's fault.

He doesn't know. He thinks we're just good friends. But good friends don't touch each other the way we do. The way we *used to*. If the Academy is Jim's way of making up for all of the things that were taken away from me, so be it. I accept whatever he has to give.

But I don't want to go. In my heart of hearts, I know that the only reason I'm doing this is for him. Not for myself.

Maybe that's not the best reason in the world to become a cop. But it's the only one I have.

***

I never wanted to be different. All my life I wanted to be normal. Whatever that is. Well, if normal is the opposite of special, then it's forbidden fruit on the branch of a tree I can never reach.

I was born this way, according to Sandburg. Genetically engineered by old Mother Nature herself. I didn't ask to be like this. To have heightened senses that turn music into noise, art into grotesquerie, and everyday living into hell. I'm not happier now that I've gained a modicum of control over my life. I *am* the Better Mousetrap. I *am* the fucking Sentinel, for Christ's sake. I *am* Blair Sandburg's pet lab rat and Holy Grail, all rolled into one.

Hallelujah. I have seen the enemy and it is *me*, Goddammit.

I took those wonderful senses and buried them as deep as I could, which, for someone skilled in the art of repression, is pretty damn far. Then I made sure to blame Sandburg. He never saw the blow coming.

But I did. Some friend I am. I never even told him to duck.

I blamed Sandburg for things he didn't even know. Like the fact that I love him. I would do anything, literally *anything*, to keep him in my life. Even getting him a spot at the Academy. Which I know he doesn't want.

So here I am, standing in the darkness of the living room, watching moonlight bathe the face and hair of the man I love. Wondering how I can get the courage to tell him that I can't let him make one more sacrifice for me. Cause soon...there won't be anything left of the Blair Sandburg I met four years ago.

And that would be a tragedy I just can't live with.

End