A Thin Strand of Winter

Notes: This story was written for the 2011 Big Bang for The Sentinel fandom.  The quotes book-ending the story are from the song Last Year’s Shoes by the Muttonbirds.

Summary: After the events of ‘The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg’, Blair turns down the detective’s badge. Jim comes to a hard decision of his own. This story features beautiful art by Helvetica.

You had a strange year, didn’t you?
People only too happy to take what was there for the taking

 

Jim unlocked the door and stepped into the loft. He’d been a week without the cane and he was managing well, and the physiotherapist, Aileen, had told him that his next session would be his last. After that, she’d given him a schedule for working back up to his normal gym routine. Something, at least, was working out and would return to normal.

Blair was cooking – a simple stir-fry that left the air of the loft sharply scented with onion and garlic and ginger. He lifted his head and smiled. “Hey. How’d things go?”

“Fine,” Jim said, and hung his jacket on the rack by the door. “Thanks. For cooking.”

Blair’s head was bent over the wok again. “Nothing else to do,” he said. “I might as well be useful.”

Jim headed for the fridge and grabbed a beer. “I’d have thought you had plenty of things to schedule, Sandburg.” Lawyers meetings. Petitions to Rainier and Unemployment. Job interviews.

Blair turned the food in the wok over with a quick hand. “Nope. Some things in life are hurry up and wait. So I’m waiting. Your leg’s doing good?”

The beer bottle cap rattled in the bottom of the immaculately clean trash bin, and Jim turned away to sit at the table. His eyes hurt – it was a bitch being a sentinel when someone was cooking anything volatile. Onion, ginger; they left their vaporous traces behind and the next thing you knew your eyes itched and you felt even more pissed off with the day than usual.

“Yeah. I’ll be back in the gym next week.” The beer bottle sat in front of Jim, untouched as yet but far more attractive than the words that he forced out next. “Simon told me that he hasn’t heard from you yet. About whether or not you’ll accept the academy offer.”

Blair dished the food onto plates without a twitch. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s past time I dealt with that,” he said, neutral as if he was discussing the weather.

Blair put the plates on the table. Jim stared at his meal, at the mix of colour and texture – the corrugation of the meat, the porousness of the carrot, the smooth, doughy noodles, and realised he had no appetite at all. Blair sat down and started eating his own meal with more resolve than enjoyment.

Jim took a swallow of beer. “You won’t go to the academy, will you?”

Blair’s hand halted in space, and he stared at his plate before looking at Jim, his lips drawn back hard against his teeth as if he didn’t really want to talk. But he had to anyway.

“No, I won’t. It’s not my thing, never would have been. It’s not that I’m not grateful, because I am. But it wouldn’t have worked.”

“Why not?” It came out a growl, a noise from the back of Jim’s throat, and maybe the back of Jim’s heart.

“Jesus, Jim. Just stop it, huh? Holsters are not my fashion statement. And you’re the one who doesn’t want to be outed as the freak of nature, and if you can think of anything that’s going to proclaim you one more than me trotting alongside you as Watson to your hyper-sensed Holmes, then you tell me, because I can’t think of it. What the hell were you and Simon thinking?”

Jim’s fist clenched around his fork. “What were you thinking?”

“We’ve been through this. We been over it and over it. I know I panicked, but I wasn’t the only one, and the press conference did what it had to.” Blair took a mouthful of food and spent a long time chewing before he swallowed. “It did what it had to, and there are consequences to that, and I can deal, okay? It’s not like I’m going to starve. Lucas is pretty hopeful that we’re going to get an acceptable offer out of Berkshire for the out of court settlement soon. It’s not like I’ll be set for life, but I’ll have enough to keep me going. No starving in the gutter for Blair Sandburg, okay?” Lucas was Lucas Riley, the lawyer that Blair had engaged. Jim had never met him.

“You still need a job. Unemployment payments aren’t exactly raining down on you like manna.”

“So it’s lucky that I’ve been living here rent free then.” Blair shifted in his seat. “Speaking of that…. David Courson, you haven’t met him, he’s a guy I know from my psych classes, he’s got family shit hitting the fan, he has to go back East for a while but he doesn’t want to give up his apartment, so I’m going to house sit for him.”

Jim was feeling less hungry by the second. “Is that so?”

Blair smiled, but Jim could see the strain behind it. “Yeah, that’s so, man. Clearly the universe is telling me something, and I think it’ll work out pretty – whoa!”

Jim’s fist hit the table hard. Plates and cutlery rattled. Jim, being what he was, being a sentinel, could feel the vibrations travel down the table leg and disperse in the floor underneath his feet.

Blair’s eyes went wide, before he shut them and wrapped calm around himself. “Jim – it’s not that I want to move out, man…”

“Then why do it?”

Blair’s head was tilted towards Jim, but his eyes looked off somewhere to the right of Jim’s shoulder. “It’s time. That’s all. It’s time.”

“Setting the scene are you? Sandburg the lying fantasist gets kicked out on his ass by his betrayed friend. What if the friend was offering his forgiveness and understanding? How about that scene, huh?” Jim suspected that the glare on his face probably wasn’t suggesting that much forgiveness and understanding but something softened in Blair’s expression, anyway.

“It’s a good scene. But it’s still time. But if the – uh, betrayed friend decided that the lying fantasist could come around for a few beers now and again, that would work.”

Jim felt sick to his stomach. “Christ, Chief. You know that you’re welcome here any time you like. You know that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Blair pushed his plate away, still half full. “I’d better get started organising.” He looked at Jim, shy suddenly. “Is it okay if I leave some of my stuff here? Storage? Your place is more secure, and David’s place isn’t that big, and I’ll only have to shift it later anyway.”

Blair had set himself up so thoroughly in the loft that Jim had found it hard to believe in that history of the peripatetic Sandburg. But if he left his things here, he’d have reasons to come back for more than just a beer shared with that stupid bastard, Jim Ellison.

“Leave it all behind if you want,” Jim said, and then wondered if he’d just given Blair permission to shuck off everything and disappear into anonymity.

“I think I’ll want a few familiar things, but thanks,” Blair said ironically. The next “Thanks, Jim,” was quieter and not ironic at all. Blair stood and left the table, scraped his plate into the trash and then carefully rinsed it. Jim still wasn’t hungry; his beer looked better than the food, but he ate everything in front of him. Blair had made it and it would be wrong to waste it. He kept telling himself that, even though he didn’t really want it at all.

***

Simon hadn’t seen or heard anything from Blair since the offer of the badge and when Blair bulled his way into his office when Simon knew that Jim was out at a physio appointment and said, “Hey, Simon, I have to talk to you. Is this is a good time?” he knew what Blair was going to impart. The man looked like he was fronting up to the gallows.

Blair’s nervous determination (and the fact that Jim and his sentinel super-hearing were out of the building) told Simon everything that he needed to know, and he sighed, and leaned back in his chair and said, “It’s as good a time as any. Take a seat, Blair.”

Blair’s eyes narrowed at that. Between Jim and Simon, he was cued to recognise his first name as a sign of serious business at best, and serious trouble at worst. Then his face cleared slightly, as if he’d realised that Simon had done half the job already. “I can’t accept the offer of the academy, Simon. I’m incredibly grateful, and I really, really appreciate the way that you put yourself on the line for me like that, but I can’t… He faltered, and then wound himself up again, a jerky clockwork toy. “It would present way too many issues. And to be honest, I never really saw myself as a cop. “ He laughed, that staccato chuckle that was Blair’s smokescreen for nerves. “I mean, can you see me flashing a badge? Carrying? Not my scene, at all.”

“I see.” Simon didn’t say anything more. Instead, he examined Blair, the way he might have examined someone sitting in an interrogation. Blair smiled, but it started slipping into a bad case of fidgeting, a tic on his face to go with the restless fingers which drummed on Blair’s thighs, and the twitchy foot.

“You’re sure?” Simon said at last. “It was an honest offer, Blair. I think that you have the makings of a good cop.”

“Maybe you do, but I don’t, Simon. An investigator, maybe, but not a cop.”

Simon inclined his head, and waited.

“I mean, come on. After everything I said, on television no less, there is no way that I’m going to be taken seriously as a cop. I admitted to being a fraud.” Blair said it matter of factly, with a deprecating smile and a small wave of one hand. ‘What can you do? I’m a fraud’ that little wave said. It looked almost natural, like Blair genuinely felt nothing more than vague regret. Given that Simon had been observing his police observer for over three years now, he sincerely doubted that.

“I’m disappointed, I won’t pretend otherwise. The Ellison/Sandburg team has been good for the Major Crimes closure rate. “

“Oh, hey, hey, Simon, that was Jim. You know that was Jim.”

Simon’s eyebrow lifted. He’d had to support Blair’s ego a time or two – Blair knew full well that he’d been valuable, and now he was downplaying his contribution? Damn, when the kid did self-abnegation, he did it at full-throttle, just like everything else.

“I think I disagree with you there, but you know your own mind. If you’re not going to the academy, what comes next?” Simon asked.

“I’ll find something. It’s been a Sandburg tradition since Mom wandered around Haight-Ashbury. You go knocking on the doors of the cosmos and you wait for something interesting to answer, you know?”

“Can’t say as I do,” Simon said, like a straight man to a really bad joke. “Seriously, Blair, cut the bullshit. If you don’t want to take the badge, and I’m not saying that you’re wrong about that, then what options do you have?”

“I’m checking things out while I wait for the lawsuits to work out. No problem, Simon, no problem.”

Simon stared at the man sitting across the desk. Blair looked older these days. There were no lines on the good-looking face, no grey in the hair, but Blair had always had a spring in his step and a light in his eyes, and Simon hadn’t seen either of those things for quite a while. He shifted in his seat. He was only working part-time hours at the moment, and certain angles pained him. Still, Simon supposed he should be grateful for Zeller’s penchant for a fancy, high tech bullet. It had cut straight through him on a clear path, with none of the messy ballistic freakery that normal bullets indulged in.

Simon considered the mood that Jim had been in this morning when he came in. He’d been subdued, but not noticeably foul-tempered the last few days. “Does Jim know about this? About your decision?”

Blair looked startled. “Why wouldn’t he know?” Simon raised an eyebrow and jerked his head towards a bullpen empty of James Ellison, sentinel. Blair turned his own head. “Hey, no, we’re cool, Jim gets why I’m not doing this, but I wanted to see you in private, I guess. Symbolic, Simon, because I figured I owed you a lot. You chose to stake your professional reputation on the offer, and I… I really want to thank you for that. It was a lot more than I expected.”

Simon felt unexpectedly moved. “Thank you, Blair. You’re welcome. “ He rubbed his hand over his forehead, willing to admit , if only in the privacy of his thoughts, that he was grateful for Blair’s refusal far more than he was grateful for Blair’s appreciation. But Blair Sandburg the civilian presented almost as many issues as Blair Sandburg the cop. “So, you’re telling me officially. What do I need to know unofficially? How’s Jim taking this?”

Blair shifted in his chair. “Like I said, we’re cool.”

Simon resisted the urge to say ‘Uh-huh’ in a tone of voice that he’d learned from his son. Nobody did scornful disbelief quite as well as a teenage boy. From Simon’s own observations, Jim Ellison was cool with the permanent loss of his partner of three years because he was refusing to actually consider the matter.

“You’re cool. I get it. But I still have to consider how I’m going to manage Jim through a major change. You’re not going to tell me that he’s happy with this.” Blair looked like he might say something and Simon lifted a hand. “If there’s fallout – I’m Jim’s captain. I need to know what I’m going to be dealing with. Just how many rads are we talking here?” He might need to deal with the fallout as Jim’s friend, too. If Blair wasn’t joining the academy, then Simon wondered if he’d stay in Cascade at all.

“Simon, maybe he’s not happy about how this turned out. I can’t say that I’m that happy about it either, but Jim’s had time to come to terms. It’s not like I ever bent his ear with happy jabber about my upcoming law enforcement career.” Blair sounded exhausted. Simon sympathised. He remembered from the end with Joan just how tiring not talking could get. “I’m not going anywhere in the short term, and I’m certainly staying in Cascade at least until we’re sure that Jim is stable in regard to his senses. He’s worked fine without me hanging over his shoulder. “

“But he’s worked best with you.”

There was a flash of anger, before it was stuffed back down again. “I’d be a damn poor teacher if Jim couldn’t figure out how to work without me. He’ll be fine. But like I said, I’m staying in Cascade for a while at least to confirm that, and to help you work out some alternatives if Jim needs them. I figured on Joel as a possibility. If you think that Joel would be okay with that.”

Joel would be Simon’s first choice too. Joel had a deep surety that Jim’s occasional tempers wouldn’t ruffle, and there was a genuine liking between the two of them that would balance out the sense of betrayal in Major Crimes that Jim had been keeping secrets. Nobody who’d ever seen Jim in action particularly believed in the press conference.

“I think that Joel would be good with Jim. Keep him steady.”

“Yeah.” It came out hoarse, and Blair cleared his throat. “Well, I guess I’d better go. Things to do, man, things to do.” Blair stood, and Simon stood also, albeit more cautiously.

“You take care, you hear me? And keep me posted. No disappearing into the night to some damn commune unless you leave a forwarding address. The occasional phone call might be appreciated.”

Blair grinned, a shadow of his usual cocky manner. “Oh, I’ll let you know if anything exciting happens.” He took a tentative step forward, and then said, “Ah, what the hell. You’re not the boss of me,” and put his arms around Simon. “You take care, too.” The hold was gentle, considerate of Simon’s recent injuries, and Simon carefully returned it, as if Blair was a physical casualty, as well. It went on maybe a touch too long.

“Enough new age sensitive stuff, Sandburg.”

There might have been the suggestion of a sniff as Blair drew back. Only the suggestion. “Yeah, I know. Can’t dilute the testosterone around here, that’d be interfering with the natural order of things.” Blair’s smile was firmly attached as he walked to the door. “See you, Simon.” The door shut behind him, and Simon carefully sat back down again, and contemplated the tidy order of his desk. He wondered if Jim would have plenty of time to come to terms with Sandburg leaving town, and shook his head. People moved on. Jim would have to deal – which would mean that Simon would have to deal too. He wished Blair well and as part of that, and not entirely selfishly, he hoped that Blair found some work options within the greater Cascade area.

***

Blair found work at a sandwich bar, seven ‘til four. It paid a wage, not an impressive one, but he got a free lunch out of it as well. Jim had raised an eyebrow, but hey, Blair needed work, and he didn’t feel like hawking his resume around places that might be interested in an anthropology background. Just the thought of the sheer obfuscation and manoeuvrings that he’d need in a job interview so close behind the press conference tired him. Getting the bread in and out of the oven and offering the ‘two cookies extra’ special felt a lot more his speed these days.

He checked his watch. Jim had said that he’d come and pick Blair up, the criminals of Cascade permitting, and that they’d watch the game and eat take out back at 852 Prospect, a description that Blair meticulously recited in his head. 852 Prospect, Jim’s place; not ‘home’. When he heard the bang on the glass door he turned his head, a smile already on his face, until he saw that it wasn’t Jim. It was Eli Stoddard, the mane of his prematurely white hair aglow even in the weak evening sun.

Leo didn’t look up from the refrigerator he was wiping down. “Sounds like your ride’s here.”

“Yeah. See you tomorrow.” Blair grabbed his things and headed out the door before Leo could look up and see that it wasn’t Jim, who’d turned up often enough to be remembered.

“Hey. Eli. What brings you here?” Blair said, the door slamming behind him.

Eli looked irritated. “I wanted to talk to you. And you don’t answer your cell phone, and I didn’t want to call you at Detective Ellison’s.”

“You wouldn’t find me there anyway. I moved out a while ago.” Blair could guess why Eli hadn’t wanted to call him at the loft. Blair wasn’t sure that he’d trust Jim not to listen in to a phone call either. He couldn’t see it as a betrayal of trust, because he understood how Jim would need to know what was going on. Guilt and a desperate, frustrated sense that things needed to be put right? Blair knew those feelings when he stood up in front of those tv cameras. Blair had moved out because he urgently needed space where he could physically freak out without worrying about how Jim, his friend and his sentinel, was going to interpret his pounding heart and uncontrolled breathing.

Eli frowned at Blair’s news. “In that case, it would have been nice to leave a forwarding address.”

Blair shrugged. “My lawyer knows how to get in contact with me.” It was cold, he knew that, especially to Eli. Blair had a modicum of self-knowledge. He knew what Eli was to him – teacher, mentor; a father figure, one of several, and certainly one of the more important ones.

“Since I want to talk to you and not to your lawyer, that’s not much use to me,” Eli said dryly. “There’s a bar down there, it’s decent. Let’s go in there. The spring may be on its way but it’s still far too cold out here for me.”

“This isn’t a good time, Eli. I’m expecting Jim. He said he’d give me a ride.”

Eli adjusted his glasses. “Hopefully, I won’t keep you long. And if Detective Ellison wonders where you are I’m sure that he can track you down.”

Blair jerked his head to glare at Eli, wishing for Jim or Simon’s height, the better to intimidate and stare Eli down. “That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” Eli said gravely. “Come on, Blair, I’m not standing out on the street like some hood indulging in stand-over tactics. Let’s have a drink.”

“Oh for… yeah, sure, let’s have a drink.” Blair stepped forward with a will, Eli close behind him, and opened the door to that familiar bar smell of cigarettes and booze. The sooner he and Eli had their talk the sooner he could get away again. Two anthropologists walk into a bar, Blair thought. “Beer. Whatever they have on tap is fine,” he told Eli and sat down at a small table tucked into a corner at the back of the room. At just after four on a week day, it was quiet enough.

Eli returned with two beers and sat down also. He passed Blair’s drink across the table and took a small sip of his own.

“The university has put a committee together to consult on the suit your Mr Riley has brought on your behalf. I’m on it.”

Blair took a large gulp of his beer, hoping it might wash down the hurt that crawled up his throat. “In that case I’m pretty sure that we shouldn’t be talking to each other, Eli.”

“I’m pretty sure of it too, but for some strange reason I decided to do it anyway.”

“And why would that be?”

Eli shook his head. “Because the waste of your situation makes me sick. Damn it, Blair, you’re being shafted, have been since you made Edwards look a fool over that Ventriss mess, but since nearly all the current damage is self-inflicted…” Eli took another sip of his beer. “Rainier was led astray by Berkshire, we’ve got our own suit against them – ”

“Berkshire’s got nothing to do with my suit with Rainier. Rainier took plenty of action on their own, without authorisation. Christ, I’m not seeking anywhere near the damages I could have asked for, I’m getting Lucas to go comparatively easy on Rainier….” Blair was embarrassed by the strain in his voice and by the need to justify himself to Eli.

“Your suit against Rainier would be considerably strengthened if you’d admit that your dissertation is valid. So long as you’re claiming that you falsified it, Rainier is completely justified in fighting this all the way. You know that, Blair. You know that.”

“I thought you were on Rainier’s side,” Blair jeered.

“I’m on Rainier’s committee, as a senior professor in your field with personal knowledge of you, and I’m trying to fight for you as best as I can, but your situation is desperately untenable. And will remain so as long as you present yourself as a liar.” Eli’s face was twisted in frustration. “You were one of the most promising students I ever had, and it’s come to this…. I could weep, Blair.”

Blair felt as if he could weep too. His throat was dry and he took another swallow of his drink. “I’m not going back on my public statement.”

“Does Detective Ellison understand exactly what you’ve done for him?” Eli’s voice was filled with contempt.

“Jim’s not stupid,” Blair said.

“So he’s perfectly happy that you’ve ruined your career? He understands that you’ve condemned yourself to a future of crappy menial jobs?”

“That’s not what I said. Jim’s not stupid, but what he understands is that I’ve tried to undo the damage I’ve done to his reputation and his career. And I’m not condemned to a future of crappy jobs, that’s manipulative bullshit, Eli. I’ve got a perfectly valid Masters degree, and once the worst of this is past, there will still be options open to me.” Blair jabbed his index finger against the table in emphasis.

“Where? Not in Cascade, that’s for sure.”

Score a point for Eli. Blair hoped that the shock of a bulls-eye didn’t show on his face. “Maybe not. But I’ll worry about that after the legal side of things is squared away.”

“I’ll give you a reference if you need it, of course,” Eli said stiffly. “Blair. Things would go much more easily if you weren’t on record as a liar – a fraudulent liar, at that. You received two substantial grants to support your PhD work….”

“And I’ll be able to pay those back when I get my settlement from Berkshire, and that’s not that far off now, hopefully. My position with them is a lot less ‘untenable’.” Blair put bitter echoing emphasis on the word. “Look, Eli. I understand, I really appreciate how you’re putting yourself on the line here, but I did something really stupid, and I have to put it right, okay? And that means making every effort to restore the status quo for Jim.”

Eli shook his head again. “That genie’s out of the bottle.”

“Then I’m going to stuff it back in again.”

“Look, I know how it can be. We’re not robots, we get attached to people, we make friendships – ”

Blair shoved his chair back and stood. “No. I said it when we came in here. There is no way we should be discussing this. I have to go.” Blair grabbed his jacket and clenched his fist around it because otherwise his hand might start shaking. He shoved the door open and walked out onto the street, shrugging his jacket on against the chill and fumbling for his phone. Jim would probably think that Blair had flaked on him, and he was entering Jim’s number when he saw a familiar figure leaning against a concrete building corner.

Blair felt even sicker than before. Had Jim been listening to Eli suggesting that Blair throw him under the bus in the interests of the Rainier lawsuit? Had he heard Eli’s assessment of Blair’s McJob future? He slowed his steps, and Jim lifted a hand in greeting and walked towards him. He looked calm, and his smile was welcoming.

“Leo said that you’d already gone, but I figured you’d be around since it was game night.”

Blair had trouble believing that Jim hadn’t eavesdropped, if only to figure out where he was and if it was worth waiting for him. And if Jim had done that… Blair scrutinised Jim’s face, which was innocent of any strong emotion, just showing that warm, friendly smile. Maybe Jim hadn’t listened. Maybe Jim was cutting right back on using the senses; something clenched a heavy hand around Blair’s heart at that. But no. Jim had a way with him that Blair had seen sometimes when Jim was undercover, or conducting an interrogation; it was quiet and restrained, just like he was now. Jim had heard at least some of it. Blair knew it and stared at Jim, wondering if his own emotion and suspicion was clear in his face. Probably. “Yeah, yeah, I… uh, I had a drink. Down there.” He waved his hand back to indicate the bar.

They stared at each other, and Blair felt stupidly dizzy as if he could see into Jim’s head if he simply focussed hard enough. But then Jim pivoted himself to face down the street away from the bar, a hand on Blair’s upper arm to hurry him along, before he let go and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, I can imagine you’d need a drink after a hard day’s sandwich making. Come on, I’m parked around the corner. Do you want the Golden Phoenix or Jasmine Garden tonight?”

“How rich are you feeling?”

Jim smirked. “Jasmine Garden it is then.”

“Man, you cops are way overpaid.”

“Not particularly, but you’ll never know, now will you?”

The sharp bite of Jim’s retort made Blair feel obscurely more comfortable than that earlier careful smile. “Gotta be me,” he said.

“You’re good at that , I’ll grant you.”

They reached the truck, and Blair allowed himself to stare some more as Jim walked out on the street side to unlock the doors. Blair’s hair was still long and scraped back in a tight tail for work – Jim was the one who’d had a hair cut recently. What Blair had called Jim’s ‘matinee idol’ look was gone and his hair was now as close cut as Blair had ever seen it. There was nothing to be brushed back, just a short, harsh scrub of bristle, with the scalp showing through if the light hit at the right angle. Between that and the leather jacket Jim wore, he looked more like a thug than a cop. Jim looked up from unlocking the doors. “Get in, Sandburg. There’s a beef and black bean sauce with my name on it at the Jasmine.”

Blair followed his orders and got in. “Their home-made noodles for me. Those things are addictive.”

“Empty carbohydrate. There’d better be some protein to go with that. And some vegetables.”

Blair leaned his head back against the seat and inhaled the familiar scent of the cab. “Yes, mother, I promise to have some nutrition along with my MSG.”

“Good,” was all Jim said, before he pulled out onto the road. The drive was quiet – Jim picked up their food, and they returned to Prospect and ate and watched the game, and Blair leaned back on Jim’s couch in a state of happy torpor. He’d eaten himself into oblivion and thoroughly enjoyed the process.

Jim brought him uncomfortably back to awareness. “How are things going? The legal case?”

Indigestion suddenly unsettled Blair’s comfort. “It’s fine,” he said, eyes shut. Let it be, he said silently. Let it be, Jim.

“That’s what you always say. Seriously, Chief. How’s it going?

“Lucas thinks that we’re pretty close to settling with Berkshire. It’s not as if they’ve got much leverage.”

Jim nodded. “Yeah. I still can’t figure it out. How the hell that fuckwit thought that he could get away with… with what happened.” Jim’s eyes were on the tv, not on Blair. His angry suspicions were a bad memory for them both.

“Apparently a little birdie whispered in Lucas’ ear that Sid Graham has bi-polar, which certainly explains a few things, but presents me with a problem because all my favourite revenge fantasies have gone up in smoke. If he was mentally ill, it’s all different, y’know?” Blair had felt genuinely bad when he’d found out, but knowing that Sid was maybe not entirely responsible didn’t change the number of times Blair screwed his karmic balance with dreams of kicking Sid Graham’s ass three times around Cascade’s city limits.

Jim’s face was stern. “You’re a kinder, gentler man than I am, Chief. Guess I’ll just have to work on the revenge fantasies for both of us.”

Blair threw back his head and laughed, way harder than the remark deserved. He wound down to see Jim watching him, a bemused look on his face. “You all right there?”

“I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“Yeah.” Jim sighted down the remote like he was aiming his gun, and indulged some pointless channel changing. “So I’ve heard.”

“I should go,” Blair said, standing and patting down his pockets to confirm the presence of wallet and keys, before he went to get his jacket.

Jim stood too. “Okay.” He grabbed his own coat, and the two of them walked down the echoing stair well. “Wish you’d let me lend you that money, Chief,” Jim said once they were out on the street.

“Driving me around is cheaper than giving me money to repair my baby,” Blair replied. “Trust me.” This was another old argument. Jim had made barely a peep of protest over Blair’s decision to not take up the academy offer, but the state of the Volvo was a perpetual subject for conversation when they were in agreeable moods and for quarrels when they weren’t.

“You just like having a chauffeur,” Jim grumbled, turning his collar up against the chill wind coming off the sound.

“Damn straight,” Blair said. It was true, in its way. He liked Jim driving him around, the same way he liked sitting in the loft eating take-out and watching the tv. They were comforting, orderly, wonderfully mundane things, rituals that Blair wasn’t willing to give up, and they kept Blair steady in the middle of the shifting quicksand that was his life now. Jim kept offering those things, and Blair kept taking him up on those offers, even though he knew that he should keep his distance from Jim if he was going to stuff the genie back in the bottle the way he’d told Eli he would.

Blair kept telling himself that he was only in Cascade to see the court cases through – not because he couldn’t let go of Jim, any more than Jim could seem to let go of him. It was clearly crazy, whenever Blair was in the mood to step back and rationally consider the situation. But there never had been anything rational about Blair’s involvement with Jim, right from the start. They’d seen each other through violence and insanity, and resurrection and visions. Blair had thought he’d been ready to cut ties when he stood up in front of the tv cameras, and he’d discovered that it was just as easy to lie to himself as it had been to everyone watching him.

Easy to lie, and far easier to let Jim drive him back to his borrowed, temporary apartment and for Blair to pretend that he wasn’t surreptitiously watching his friend throughout the whole drive.

***

Megan got into the habit of buying her lunch from the sandwich bar on Walnut Street where Blair worked. Naming streets after trees where there were no trees still amused her. Presumably there used to be a walnut tree somewhere but now there were only concrete low-rise buildings and a sidewalk broken up with an island of sad, straggly perennials ringed with a beach of planking seats. Today’s lunch was more like brunch, but Megan had been up half the night and she figured she deserved some time out.

“Hello, stranger. You’re early,” Blair teased her. “And is it the usual for the lady, today?”

“Yeah, thanks, Sandy. And two of those little raisin cookies. I’m splashing out .”

Blair packaged her order, and she took it from him with a smile before going outside. It was very warm for spring, and she was starving, so she sat down on the ugly bench seats and devoured her food. She was nearly ready to go, brushing crumbs from her lap, when Blair appeared at her side. “You came early enough that it’s my break,” he said, sitting down with his own wrapped packet of food.

“You get one, do you? I had visions of you chained to the floor in there, labour relations being what they are over here.”

Blair chuckled. “You shouldn’t listen to everything that you hear.”

“Oh, I don’t, mate. I don’t.” She watched him eat with as much ravenous enthusiasm as she’d felt earlier. He’d lost weight, she realised. The strong bones of cheek and jaw were that little more pronounced. Sometimes Blair had a tiny roll of fat sitting just behind his chin. It was nowhere to be seen now.

“You need feeding up,” she said.

Blair swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. “No, I don’t. Jim takes me under his Mother Hen wing and stuffs me full of Chinese food regularly.”

And that, Megan thought, is the least that bastard can do. But she didn’t say it out loud. Blair was touchy about discussing Jim Ellison. Perhaps not surprisingly, Jim Ellison was touchy about discussing Blair.

“Well, in between Jim feeding you, I think that I might feed you as well. I’ve been yearning for a proper roast meal, and if I can find some lamb I’ll cook it for both of us. Pavlova, too.”

Blair’s eyebrow lifted. “I thought that a shrimp on the barbie was the proper expression of Australian indigenous cuisine,” he said.

“We have hidden depths, Sandy.”

“More like hidden cholesterol.”

“No insulting the indigenous cuisine. What about,” Megan did some mental calculation as to her shifts for the next week, “ Thursday night?”

“Thursday tends to be Jim night,” Blair said, and then smiled ruefully. “That did not quite come out the right way.”

“No doubt.” Megan left it at that. “The next Wednesday then?”

Blair looked uncertain, and his hands waved with some indeterminate message. “My car is out of action. I couldn’t ask you to drive me all over town.

“I like driving,” Megan said. “Especially on the wrong side of the road. I get a forbidden thrill out of it.”

Blair perked up at the innuendo – he never could resist an invitation to flirt. “Uh huh. What else do you get forbidden thrills out of, Detective Inspector?”

Megan grinned, a copy of the broad grin all over Blair’s face. “Come and have dinner and find out.”

“You’re on.”

“I have to get back. I’ve wagged from the PD long enough.”

“You do that on purpose, don’t you? Drop your exotic Australian colloquialisms into the conversation just to confuse us poor Yanks.”

Megan sighed. “It’s not that hard, to be honest. Confusing Yanks.” On impulse, she hugged Blair. She was sure he needed one, and the tight grip he had on her only confirmed it. “Next Wednesday,” she told him, “assuming that your crazy city doesn’t throw up anything especially strange in the meantime.”

“Wednesday,” he repeated, and she left him behind for the brisk walk back to the PD.

Entering Major Crimes, she saw Ellison sitting at his desk, and felt her mouth purse in annoyance. Henri, Rafe, and two uniform officers were bunched together discussing something or other, and it was easier to go the long way round to get to her own desk, which meant passing Ellison. As she walked in front of his desk she saw his head lift, and a tight, distracted frown creased his forehead. If you knew him it was easy to notice the quick inhale, and dull anger lit itself under Megan’s breastbone.

She stopped and leaned on both arms over the front of Ellison’s desk. “Yes, Jim,” she said pleasantly, and very, very softly, “I did see Sandy at that stupid little hole in the wall where he has to work these days. And if you don’t want the approximately five people in this building who haven’t figured out what you are to finally connect the dots, you really need to stop doing things like sniffing me in the middle of the office.”

Ellison’s face was unreadable, given that Megan couldn’t get much out of blank arrogance. He leaned back slightly and looked Megan in the eyes. “Maybe you’re right, there, Connor,” he said, with perfect conversational politeness.

“Maybe I am,” she said, and continued on her way.

***

Whatever doubts Jim had about himself through the course of his life, he’d never really doubted his courage until he met Blair. Blair started out sounding like he thought Jim walked on water, until ‘fear-based reactions’ had whistled like an arrow out of the dark. Everyone had fears and everyone reacted to them, and Jim didn’t like Blair making an example out of him in that chapter and he’d told Blair that, out loud and plain.

He’d been loud and plain because it had stung like hell, because Blair kept uncovering too many things that Jim was afraid of facing. Things like ‘Hey! I’m a freak of nature!’ ‘Hey, I brought my friend back from the dead and that was some freaky shit!’ ‘Hey, I don’t have a clue what’s going on between that friend and me, but it’s sure not your average friendship.’ And last ‘Hey, my friend just junked his reputation and entire life’s work for me, and what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?’

Jim had reached the point where he knew what he had to do. He didn’t like it, but then courage was about facing things. That left him walking up the path to his father’s front door and ringing the doorbell while his guts lay tangled like a mess of loose string at the bottom of a disorganised drawer. He wondered if Blair would feel betrayed that Jim broached this with his father first, or if he’d be encouraging. Blair had been weird about Jim’s difficult family relationships and almost manically approving of the small steps that Jim had taken to mend them.

His father opened the door. Jim thought that he would when he knew that Jim was visiting, rather than leave it to Sally. “Hi, Dad.”

Bill Ellison gestured. “Come in, son, come in.” Jim stepped into the hall which was gracious and well-lit and familiar – somewhere that his father had lived for years, the way that Jim could see himself living in the loft for years to come. Permanency, a settled home – not a borrowed, grace and favour arrangement like Blair’s. “Cascade’s doing that four seasons in one day thing, again. Spring takes a long time to turn into summer, doesn’t it?”

Jim shrugged. “Weather does what it wants to. How are things going?”

Bill smiled politely. “Quietly. That’s fine by me. I’m getting a little old for excitement. And how about you, Jimmy? Reporters leaving you alone?”

Jim averted his eyes, and took a good look at his father’s house instead. “Yeah, things are quiet.”

“So this is just… a family visit, then?” Bill sounded doubtful. Whatever else Jim might think about his father, he’d never thought him a stupid man. That was some of Jim’s resentment, he knew that. His father wasn’t stupid but there were things he just couldn’t understand or accept, which left Jim with the knowledge that the apple had fallen close to the tree and put out vigorous, twisted growth. There was a lot that Jim had been unable to understand or accept happening the last year or so.

“No, it’s not just a family visit. I’ve got something to tell you, something that I want your help with, if I can get it. But you need to know about it, however it goes.”

His father sighed. “I knew that there wouldn’t be an end of it yet.” He ushered Jim into the comfortable sitting room, where Jim’s heels sank into the carpet like quicksand. “A drink?” Bill asked.

“Still drinking the good bourbon?”

“I don’t drink bad anything, Jimmy, you know that.”

Jim sat down in one of the easy chairs. “Then I’ll have a bourbon.”

The bourbon was delivered to him in a heavy crystal glass, and his father sat down too. “What’s he done now?”

“He’s got a name.”

Bill made a small gesture of apology. “This is about Blair, I take it.”

“Yeah.” Jim sipped his drink. It was smooth in his mouth, subtle with flavour, and warm going down. He needed the warmth. “Are you happy with what happened?”

“Which part of what happened are we talking about? I wasn’t happy about private family business being spread across the news.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Dad. You know that.”

Bill lifted his glass, and stared into the liquid as if it was a crystal ball and he could see the future in it. “Blair had his reasons for what he did. They were good reasons.”

“They were bullshit reasons.”

“Protecting you? Giving the police a chance to do their job rather than jumping around all three rings of a media circus?” Bill took a sip of his drink. “I’d say they were excellent reasons.”

Jim put his expensive glass of expensive liquor on an end table and leaned forward in his chair. “What do you think that Blair’s going to do now?”

“Sue the hell out of the publishers and get on with his life?”

Jim swallowed. The fine bourbon had an aftertaste that he knew was made up of his own bitterness, rather than the failings of the distiller. “And how is he going to do that?”

Bill stood, cradling his glass in his palms. “Do you want me to get him a new lawyer? Pay his fees? It’s not unreasonable.”

“Blair’s found himself a lawyer he’s happy with.” Jim still leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his thighs, his head bowed. “I need your help in discreetly sounding out some PR firms. Depending on what they advise and charge, I may need a loan from you. I’d want that done legally – documentation, agreed rate of repayment.” He looked up and delivered his last sentence with a bite that he immediately felt ashamed of. “If I end up owing your estate I don’t want any arguments between me and Stephen.”

Bill put out a hand against the solid wood of his cabinetry, an old man needing something to hang on to. “That’s a businesslike proposition you’ve just presented.” There was a silence, in which Jim straightened in his chair but didn’t look at his father. “If you think that you might need a substantial sum then you may want to rethink how you spend it….” Bill paused. “Blair deserves some recompense, I agree with that all the way.”

Jim stood. One hand was clenched, and it beat against his thigh as he glared across the room. There was a roaring in his head, and a roar in his voice. “We are not buying him off, god damn it! That is not what this is about!” He sucked in some air and spoke more quietly. “I want his name cleared, and there’s one way to do that. The only question is whether you’re in or out, because I’m going ahead anyway.”

“Yes, well that won’t be anything new,” Bill snapped. The words were sharp but his face was strained and pale. “Did Blair put you up to this?”

“He doesn’t know anything about this. Yet.” Jim wasn’t going to ambush Blair with any sort of fait accompli, but he wanted to see what the way might be first. Marshall his troops, decide on the disposition of his arms – however pitiful they might be. “For god’s sake, Dad. We can’t let this pass. I can’t let Blair throw away his career and his reputation for me.” The adrenaline rush of anger was receding, leaving Jim feeling sick and tired again. Resentment, he could do, but it was harder to stay angry with his father these days.

“And what about your career and reputation? That young man will have made assurances to you about privacy and confidentiality and instead you ended up all over the news!” Bill’s voice rose. “And now it finally looks like it’s settling down and you want to stir the muck all over again? Throw away your own career? Jim, every low-life that you ever put away will head straight to his lawyer demanding a retrial.”

“Not necessarily.” Jim didn’t say anything about his future. His past was easier to deal with. “I had a case that went badly. Simon and I – we started figuring out the pitfalls, and we worked out a few protocols.” He sounded almost reasonable, which was a lot more than both Simon and he had been in the aftermath of the Juno case.

“And you of course, always follow protocol. You’ve been in and out of the papers as a hero cop, Jimmy. You don’t get that sort of profile following ‘protocols’.”

“Is it all stored in your scrapbooks? If you followed me that closely, you’ll know that way too many of my cases were whack jobs who didn’t need just my evidence to put them away. So I can track someone, hear them. Any evidence put up in court was solid, Dad. Let the bastards appeal.”

“You’re being naive,” Bill snarled.

Jim strode towards the door. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’. I wish I could say that it was nice seeing you.”

“Damn it! Wait!” Jim was out in the hall when his father said, “Please, Jimmy.” He halted, and then turned, hating himself for being manipulated with one little word.

Bill stood in the doorway. He didn’t look like a Machiavellian mastermind, which was a pity, because Jim figured that he was going to need one of those. Bill looked like a tired old man, but when he looked at Jim there was the light of battle in his eyes.

“You’re going to do this anyway?”

“I told you that already.”

Bill shook his head. “You never were one for small talk, were you, Jimmy?”

“There never seemed to be much point in it with you.” Jim couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice.

“I’ll ask around. Although you could do it all yourself with one press release.” His father’s voice was angry, almost malicious.

“I want it done properly,” Jim said tautly. He knew what the end would be, but he wanted to contain the damage, as far as he could, and he knew what his own patience was with media bullshit. He needed someone to keep him on track, and help cushion the blows for people like Simon – and his father. And if that didn’t work, then Jim guessed he’d turn into a hermit and hide somewhere, and Blair would just have to go on Oprah without him.

“This isn’t a pony you can ride without falling off at some point. “

“Then I’ll have to take my falls, won’t I?”

Bill sighed. “You didn’t finish your drink,” he said. Jim thought a moment, and then accepted the implicit invitation. There were things to work out, and his father was right. He kept good bourbon.

***

Blair sniffed the air appreciatively. “Smells good.”

“So it should for the hoops I had to jump through for it. I started out thinking I’d just get a rack of lamb and then I decided I’d go all the way back to childhood and get a leg roast. I got stared at like I was from Mars so often I wanted to pull out a gun and start shooting.” Megan sounded frazzled, even to herself, but there were times when she was reminded that she was truly in a foreign country. It had taken longer than she’d expected to track down the helpful butchers. In a spirit of mischief she’d even inquired after mutton, and been very kindly advised that there was no demand for ‘muttons’. She decided that she’d tell Blair that. They could do with the laugh.

Blair draped his jacket over the back of a chair. “Yeah, you don’t want to go waving your gun around. Can’t give the PD a bad name, now.”

“Doesn’t seem to stop Ellison.” At Blair’s quick, stricken look, Megan shook her head. “I mean in general, Sandy. He hasn’t got in any more trouble recently than usual.”

Blair screwed his face into the quizzical grimace that he wore sometimes. “Well, that’s something. He’s not in the papers. That has to be worth something, right?”

“I expect so,” Megan said. She couldn’t make it nonchalant enough, and Blair’s gaze sharpened.

“Here,” he said, putting a bottle of wine on the table. “It’s a robust little red, according to the label. Should go fine with the sheep meat.” He grinned at her.

“Oh, you didn’t need to do that,” she scolded.

Blair shrugged. “Hey. You get invited to dinner, you bring something.” There was a stubborn tilt to his chin, and Megan forbore any further comment. Usually, Blair smiled and made himself useful and fitted himself in around people, and then surprised and pissed off everyone by his ability to dig his heels in so hard it was a wonder he could pull his feet up again.

“Right. Well, make yourself useful and open it and pour us a glass. I could do with some booze in me.”

“Show me where you keep everything, and I’ll oblige.”

She led him to the tiny kitchen, and he poured the wine, and inquired, not very subtly, after the staff of Major Crimes in general, and Jim in particular. Megan answered as best she could, and tried to keep the sour tone out of her voice when she talked about Ellison. He and Blair were still friends, and Blair had given up a lot for Jim. She didn’t have to like it, though.

“Oh wow!” Blair exclaimed when she got the meat out of the oven, with only the smallest twinge from her shoulder. “Are we supposed to eat all that? We will explode.”

Megan laughed. “You can’t have it all even if you want to. I had to borrow a mixer from Evie – a friend of mine – and I promised her a meal out of our leftovers. Lamb fritters sound good. Same with the pav – I made it to Mum’s recipe because I knew what I was doing with the quantities and if we eat it all we’ll be sick. Go and sit down – I know what I’m doing. You can do dishes afterwards if you’re that determined to be the good guest.”

She dished and they still made serious inroads into the meal; Megan found herself having one of her home-sick patches and the food reminded her of comforting things that seemed too far away. When she brought the pavlova out in all its glory, though, she saw an odd look on Blair’s face.

“What? Worried you’re going to explode after all?”

“No, no. It’s just, oh god, this is weird and goes back to something that happened years ago…” She made encouraging noises as she served the dessert, and heard all about Maya Carasco, and her ‘very special pastry’. She couldn’t help laughing, although she tried not to be unkind about it.

“I’m sorry, but I’m just imagining it all. Never mind the undercover scene. Some poor little South American virgin trying to seduce you and talking about Mama and Papa and happy domesticity. Oh, god. What was she thinking?”

Blair leaned back in his chair, his cheeks flushed with good food and wine, and maybe some irritation, too, despite the smile on his face. “Hey, no fair, this was my big tragic love affair, here.”

“Sandy, the girl was dumb.” Megan was well lubricated with the robust red, and a second bottle of wine that she’d dragged out when the first was gone. “I’m sorry, but she was, and I don’t mean the seduction scene. What you’ve told me about the second time she turned up in Cascade… I feel sorry for her, but truly. You would have gone bonkers.”

“Maybe.” At her look, he rolled his eyes. “Okay. Yes. All that earnest, dumb sweetness would have driven me crazy, eventually. But I didn’t like hurting her. Definitely not one of my finer moments.” His hands were wrapped around his glass. He’d drunk less than she; she wasn’t so far gone that she hadn’t noticed.

“Why didn’t you take the detective’s badge?” Megan blurted.

Blair’s face flushed a deeper red again. “Any number of reasons. “ It was a notably terse answer, especially after the expansive, and sometimes giggly conversation they’d had over dinner.

“So name some,” Megan said and poured some more wine into Blair’s glass. He stared at it, took a couple of generous swallows, and glared at her.

“I’m not cop material.”

Megan leaned her hand on her chin. “And?”

“Megan, this has been a really nice evening. Let’s not spoil it, okay?”

“Everybody knows you lied at that bloody press conference.”

“So long as they don’t hold their own conference and blab to the media, they can know whatever the hell they like.”

Blair looked steeled for all the verses of ‘We Shall Not Be Moved’ followed by a speedy martyrdom. Megan shook her head. “I don’t get why Jim’s worth it. I really don’t.”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘you don’t get it’? Jim’s my friend, for god’s sake. You don’t have to get it,” Blair snapped. “You just have to accept that I’m an adult who can make his own decisions. It was a lovely meal. Thanks.” He stood and grabbed his jacket, and Megan rose from her own chair and followed him.

“Sandy!”

He turned and snarled, “And I really wish that you wouldn’t call me that.”

“Blair. I’m sorry, I really am. But I get pissed off by this whole thing.”

“You don’t need to, “ he said. He sounded surprised. “You don’t need to.”

“Of course I need to. I’m your friend and I hate seeing you in a shitty situation.”

Blair tilted his head, as if thinking, before he smiled. She knew that smile. It was glib and reassuring and fake. “It’s not that bad. And I’ve lawyered up – Berkshire is going to end up paying me a shitload of money.”

“That’s not the point. Damn it.” Her meal sat heavy and sour in her stomach now. Maybe she shouldn’t have spoken, but she couldn’t truly regret it.

“Hey. Hey, Megan. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Really.”

He reached for her and took her in a hug and she wrapped her arms around him, embarrassed and relieved that he wasn’t simply storming out the door. They stood together for long moments, Blair’s face hard against her cheek – so that she couldn’t see his face, she realised, aware of the tension in his arms. His hold shifted slightly, although it didn’t relax, and then his hand touched her waist and gently caressed upwards along her ribs to the top of her back. He shifted again, and this time drew his head back to look at her. There was a knowing, determined look on his face, before he kissed her. It was a good kiss, which Blair followed up with gentle pecks along the line of Megan’s jaw.

She tried to be sensible. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“Why not?” Blair asked. His voice had dropped deep. It amused her sometimes, the variation in register that he had. Not now. But he stopped. “Are you seeing someone?”

“With my hours? Not likely.” Besides, she’d always planned on a return to Australia, and leaving someone broken-hearted or with hard choices wasn’t part of that plan.

“Then it’s okay. I’m not going to tie you down. And you, mate,” he teased, “are no Maya Carasco. “I think it’d be fun. What about you?”

“Fun, is it?”

“I could do with some. Most people are pretty open to the idea of fun.” His smile widened and became sly. “I haven’t made you scream, yet.”

Megan raised one eyebrow. You cocksure bastard, she thought. “I’d like to see you try.”

“All right!” he said, as if she’d promised far more than that, and kissed her again.

***

Blair woke up early, in Megan’s very pink bedroom. She’d grinned in challenge when she’d opened the door and Blair had decided that sex was more important than interior decorating advice. He stretched gently; he was better at sex than interior decorating anyway. A man had his priorities, but now the priority was getting out of bed, gathering his clothes, and having a shower.

Blair had acknowledged himself a nosy shit since he was small, and that meant that bathrooms were always treated as an investigation. It went right back to childish survival instincts in new places, of which there’d been many, and understanding that as an adult hadn’t actually broken the habit. He opened drawers and sniffed bottles ( he definitely approved of Megan’s green tea and vanilla body wash) and he was grateful for the salon quality conditioner. He rationalised that bathrooms, while intimate, were nonetheless shared spaces, and soothed any occasional pangs of shame with the knowledge that he would never investigate someone’s bedroom in the same way. Not casually anyway.

The only bathroom he’d ever actively chosen not to surreptitiously check out was Jim’s. James Ellison, with his eyes that could see Blair’s fingerprints, and his nose that could smell Blair’s traces, and his sense of touch that could find minuscule traces of heat, had been investigated rather more obviously and brashly. Out of the shower, Blair stared at himself in Megan’s bathroom mirror and hunted his hair tie from where it had fallen to the floor. Leo would give him crap about turning up in yesterday’s clothes, but at least Blair was getting laid. No strings, friends with benefits. Healthy fun. Stress relief. He sighed, and smoothed his hair back, and went quietly back into the bedroom to find his shoes.

Megan was awake, looking dishevelled but still very pretty in the light of her bedside lamp. Her long dark hair hung over one shoulder, resting against the pale skin of her breast. No modest sheet clutching for Megan Connor. “Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning,” Blair returned, and sat on the edge of the bed to kiss her. She smelled ripely of the previous night’s sex, especially in contrast to Blair’s freshly showered skin, but it didn’t bother him; it was more evidence of a job well done. “I did check the bus timetable. Earlier in the week, so you just stay in bed. I can get to work on the bus company.”

Megan leaned against the head board. “Checked that out, did you? That was very enterprising of you.”

Blair grinned. “That’s me. Enterprising.” He lifted his eyebrows to emphasise how ‘enterprising’ he could be. “But I was more thinking about what might happen if you got blitzed on the wine and couldn’t drive me back. Which was wise of me, right?” He kissed her again. “Thanks, Megan.”

“For dinner or sex?” she inquired.

“Oh both. Definitely both. Maybe I could return the favour one of these days.”

“Dinner or sex?” Megan asked, one eyebrow arched in query.

“Definitely both,” Blair said.

“Why am I not surprised,” Megan said. “I might take you up on that, mate.” She got out of bed and wrapped a silky, lavender-coloured robe around her. “Have you got time for a coffee? And don’t look so guilty, I’m a morning person.”

Blair affected a look of horror. “What, naturally?”

“Yes, naturally.” She walked out into the living area, calling behind her, “Well? Come on, Sandy, am I doing coffee for one or two?”

“Two,” he said, following her. “As long as it won’t take long.”

“No worries, I make coffee the plunger way. None of your fancy percolators in this flat.” She smirked. “Sorry. Apartment.” She put a kettle on the stove element, found coffee paraphernalia, and efficiently made two cups, then handed one to Blair before she sat at her table to drink her own. Her face turned in a three quarter profile that emphasised the line of cheek and jaw and made her look suddenly stern – a warrior goddess, beautiful and implacable – and Blair remembered how the way she spoke, and didn’t speak, about Jim had bothered him the previous night.

“Megan, how are things going with Jim?”

“I told you, he’s fine.”

Blair shook his head, suddenly regretful that he’d have to go soon. Or perhaps it was just as well that he had a cast-iron excuse to get out.

“I mean with you two. Because last I remember, you and Jim were good colleagues in a ‘anyone you can shoot I can shoot faster’ cop sort of way, but that’s not the vibe that I’m getting at the moment.”

Megan sighed, and brushed hair back from her face. “Jim said something, did he?”

“No. Should he have?”

“I’m sure Jim’s big enough to fight his own battles. Usually.”

Blair sat down opposite Megan. “I’m not liking the sound of that.”

“I am perfectly professional.”

Blair’s heart sank. “Oh, Megan. Come on.”

She shook her head. “Look. I get that there are issues with Jim being a sentinel. And I get that you made what you thought was the right decision.” Something hot and sick flashed in Blair’s gut at the clear implication that Megan thought he’d made a wrong decision. “And yes, I have personal issues…” She shook her head, not at Blair; but at something that she saw behind her eyes. “I had a friend, back in Aussie. She made a big sacrifice for a family member, and she got shafted. And like I told you last night, I get angry for you sometimes.”

“And like I told you, you don’t have to. Jim and I are fine, and the idea that you’re…” Blair paused, diplomacy deserting him for moment.

“Behaving like a big meanie pants to poor widdle Jimmy?” Megan asked, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

Blair just managed not to choke on his coffee. “Yes,” he said, unable to entirely avoid coughing. When he had his breath back he said pointedly, “Exactly. No behaving like a meanie pants, okay? The last few months won’t have been a piece of cake for Jim either, and I was assuming that all of Major Crimes had his back.”

The humour in Megan’s face frosted over, before she nodded. “Fine. I won’t dip his pigtails in the inkwell anymore.”

“I’m serious, Megan.” He rose from his chair and stood next to her, almost ready to go now, anyway. Megan nodded again, and Blair looked down at her, his tough, unyielding, beautiful friend, and considered that between Megan and Sam (and Jim, a little voice whispered, let’s not forget Jim) maybe he should reconsider the idea that he didn’t really have a type.

“I know you are, Blair.” Megan’s mouth quirked in a smile. ‘See how serious I am too,’ that smile and the use of his proper name said.

“I have to go,” Blair said, and bent to kiss Megan. “Catch up with you at lunchtime?”

“Not today. But I expect you’ll see me around tomorrow.”

“Okay. See ya,” and with that Blair was out the door and on his way to the bus stop.

***

The day had been good – a case wrapped up, a murderer spilling his guts. Joel had smiled in a way that would have shocked the donut girl, who had more than once expressed her charmed opinion that Joel was a gentleman and gentle man as well. She’d never been in an interrogation room watching him play bad cop, assessing evasion and cutting through lies just as precisely as he used to disarm bombs.

“How about a beer to celebrate, Jim?” he asked.

Jim considered the neatness of his desk, almost as neat as the case they had against Mr Jason Mckenzie of Bellevue Heights, and nodded and pushed his chair back. “You’re a man with plan.”

“Damn straight,” Joel said with a gentleman’s smile, reverting to quiet good nature now that the chase was over. “Murphy’s?”

“Yeah, I’ll meet you there.” Tired, Jim took the elevator, and dropped down through the never-ending rush and roar of people to the comparative quiet of the parking garage. The doors opened and Jim headed for his truck until he stopped. A few bays down and slightly to the left, he could see Megan and Sandburg, could hear them as soon as his sight zeroed in. Megan laughed about something, and Blair rolled on his heels the way he did when he was amused or pleased with himself, and then he bounced forward a little to kiss Megan. The fact that Major Crimes’ warrior woman had at least an inch, maybe two on him in her stocking feet, and towered over him in her heels, didn’t seem to bother him at all.

“I don’t know why I agree to these things,” Megan said, but she sounded entertained, not irritated.

“You agree to these things because you’re an intelligent woman who’s open to new experiences. You came to the wet PNW all the way from sunny Australia. You’re intrepid.” Blair’s voice was warm, and perhaps slightly wistful at the mention of sun. It had been a grey week. He was spreading the bullshit, as ever, but Jim knew the sound of Blair spreading bullshit because of enthusiasm rather than manipulation. Megan could have agreed to anything – Jim had certainly been led unexpected places under the influence of a pleading expression and a fast-talking mouth.

“I must be,” Megan said, clearly entertained, before her gaze flicked across the garage and she saw Jim. “You and Joel brought McKenzie in, I heard. Good work, ” she called. Some of the chill between them had melted in the last week or two, and Jim knew who he had to thank for that. That Blair had seen or heard enough that he’d intervened with Connor – Jim had very mixed feelings about it, and about the fact that Connor was willing to follow Blair’s lead.

Blair turned towards him too, and with a sinking feeling, Jim watched the changes – changes that maybe only someone who was a sentinel and Blair’s friend as well might have noticed. The ease became fake and the voice showed small signs of strain. With Connor, Blair could relax, and Jim hadn’t even noticed how on edge Blair was around him until he’d seen him with another friend. “Hey, is that the case where you thought the husband did it?”

Jim was closer now and could speak conversationally. “That’s the one. He wasn’t as clever as he thought he was, and now he’s just one more punk ass. Joel and I are going to have a beer.”

“Great, great,” Blair said. He sounded genuinely pleased, but there was something in his eyes. Regret? Blair had declared that he wouldn’t be a cop, even if he hadn’t believed that the declaration of fraud made it impossible, but Jim wondered if Blair missed the old days the way that he did, with an ache that made him irritable and moody all too often.

“Yeah. Thanks. Better not keep Joel waiting. Have fun, kids. Don’t go breaking each other’s hearts.” Jim hunched his shoulders – he sounded like a grumpy grandfather, and why the hell he should care whether Blair and Megan twisted each other into pretzels and ground each other to crumbs was beyond him.

Megan made a ‘huh’ sort of noise, curious and interested rather than offended. Blair lifted his hands in front of him in a warding gesture and grinned. “Oh, man, we do not have that sort of relationship. See you Thursday?”

“Might have to be the weekend, Chief. I’ll let you know.” Jim threw a loose salute at the two of them, walked on, and got into his truck. He felt depressed all of a sudden – let down with the end of the case, as he often was. Let down with the reminder of how Blair used to be, and wasn’t so much around him anymore – happy, not anxious or watching his words. “Damn it,” he whispered, and drove the truck out into traffic, and made his way to Murphy’s Bar.

Joel was already there. He’d found them a booth, and there was a second beer waiting on the table.

“Figured we could try one of the local brews,” Joel said. He sipped his own drink with sensuous contentment.

Jim sat and picked up his own, and sniffed it suspiciously. Finding the scent acceptable, he took a sip. “Not bad. You’re turning into quite the connoisseur.”

“Quality over quantity,” Joel said, toasting Jim with his glass. “Here’s to Marlene McKenzie. May she rest easy.”

“Marlene.” Jim lifted his glass in his turn. He’d never known Marlene McKenzie alive. The two of them sat there quietly and drank, while around them the bar grew noisier.

Joel leaned over the table towards Jim. “Blair was mentioned in the Herald’s Sunday magazine.”

Jim stared at Joel, and suppressed a small pang of betrayal at the ambush. “I know. My Dad pays for a press cutting service and he told me about it.” It had been all of two lines, in a piece that was about scientific frauds in general. An envelope, with the cutting in it, was probably in Jim’s mailbox right now. His father had said he’d send it on.

Joel looked at Jim with mournful curiosity. “Blair really messed things up for himself with the press conference, didn’t he?”

“Looks like it.” Jim didn’t try to qualify it, didn’t try to suggest that time would improve Blair’s reputation or opportunities.

“That’s a real shame. Blair’s a good man.”

Anxiety twisted Jim’s gut into knots. He already knew what Megan Connor thought of Blair’s decision, and of Jim. He lifted his head, and said, “Yes he is.” He didn’t see any of the dislike he’d seen so often in Megan, but he realised that what he’d thought was a protective distance in Joel over a nasty murder was something else altogether.

“He’s suing the publishing company, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. And Rainier.”

“What do you reckon his chances are?” Joel’s eyes were sympathetic; they invited confession, as if Jim was one the shits they dragged in to the interrogation rooms.

Jim made a sawing ‘so-so’ gesture with one hand. “He seems pretty hopeful about the Berkshire case.”

“That’s something. And Rainier?”

Jim took a sip of beer and looked out over the bar and its patrons. “He doesn’t talk so much about Rainier. It’s early days for that one.” Jim’s index finger tapped against the table surface. It wasn’t sticky, but it was dull – wiped down one too many times with a damp, dirty rag. “You keep your ear to the ground, Joel. You want to tell me what the wider department makes of him?”

Joel leaned back in his chair and frowned as if disappointed, before he looked Jim in the eye. “I’m kind of surprised you have to ask me that.”

Jim wondered if the flush he could feel on his skin was as obvious as it felt. “So, you think I should just eavesdrop on my fellow cops instead of concentrating on the job I’m being paid to do?”

Joel raised his eyebrow at Jim’s tone. Even Jim could hear the defensiveness in it. “Major Crimes knows that Blair’s press conference was a crock of shit. The higher-ups know it too because they grilled Simon like barbecue was going out of fashion before he got shot, but they’re happy to let it ride. No skin off their noses now that the press has moved on to the next new thing. There are plenty of the PD willing to believe that Sandburg lied – there’s nothing but bullshit ever came out of universities.” This had the taste of a direct quote. “There’re others that think that you might have an edge with your sight or your hearing, but they believe that Blair talked you up to look good for his paper.” Joel smiled. “Which he didn’t. It’s amazing what the mind isn’t willing to accept even when it’s the only explanation. Even with trained observers.”

“If I let things stand,” Jim said, “it would blow over soon enough. People would joke about Supersenses Ellison, but in the end, not many would give a damn, would they?”

Joel shrugged, like a snail withdrawing into its shell. “Yeah,” he said. “It would probably blow over.”

Jim clenched his hands in his lap. His beer sat unfinished on the table, but, for a change, he didn’t want it. His father had been busy, and back home sitting on the coffee table, there was a fat envelope with names that Bill Ellison thought could be useful – companies based in Cascade and in Seattle , a couple that were out of state.

“I can’t let it stand, Joel. I can’t.”

Joel narrowed his eyes. “Does that mean what it sounds like?”

“If it sounds like trouble then yes. That’s what it sounds like. I can’t let Blair do this. He blindsided me, there, and it’s taken a while to get my shit together, but I can’t let him do this.” Jim tried to dredge some humour up from somewhere. “Maybe I’ll be able to sit at my desk without Connor looking like she’s thinking about where to bury my mutilated corpse.”

Joel laughed at that, his dark eyes suddenly warm. “You have that right. If that woman could fire the hate-on she has for you out of her gun, you’d be one dead man. Severely scorched, anyway.” He frowned. “Is what’s happening with her and Blair what I think it is?”

“Blair calls it ‘friends with benefits’.” Where did Jim get the right to say those words with that level of bitterness, he wondered. It was none of his concern where Blair put his dick, never had been; but the laughing, teasing warmth – that used to be his. He had to share, maybe, but he got more than a fair share, and he knew it.

“Not serious, then?” Joel asked.

“When was Sandburg ever serious about a relationship?” Jim scoffed.

Joel tilted his head in vague assent. “Depends. He can be serious about his friendships.”

It was like the sound of the bar became a wave and it crashed over Jim, before he surfaced, barely able to breathe. “Yeah. There’s that.” Jim stood, awash with adrenaline as if he’d faced down someone with a gun. “I’d better go. I have things to organise.”

Joel lifted the nearly empty glass to him. “Good luck,” he said.

“I’ll need it,” Jim muttered as he walked out of the bar into the cool night air. He shivered and pulled his collar up around his neck before he walked to his truck. His face, strained and grim, was reflected in the glass of the side window. “Suck it up, Jimmy,” he told himself, and got in to drive home.

He let himself into the loft, which was empty and orderly the way he’d left it that morning. He hung his jacket up, flung his keys on the small table by the door, and stalked across the floor to the fridge to grab another beer. It wasn’t as cold or as subtly flavoured as the drink he’d shared with Joel, but it was cold enough, and he savoured it, and the quiet of his home after the noise of the bar before he walked over to the bathroom, turning on the shower and shucking off most of his clothes. On an impulse, he turned off the water, thinking that he’d finish his drink first. Then, with the bottle retrieved from the end table and cool and slippery in his grasp, he walked over to Blair’s old room and opened the double doors.

There were boxes there, neatly stacked and labelled, and Jim stared at them a moment, remembering other boxes, not quite a year ago, lying jumbled over the floor of the living area. It was a wonder that Blair hadn’t moved out after that fiasco. Blair hadn’t needed the old futon, which was made up with a single sheet tucked around the mattress and a blanket laid over the top. Jim sat on it, his back against the wall, knees drawn up, and wondered when he’d been crazier. When he’d been seeing visions of spotted jaguars and Alex (and bringing Blair back from the dead), or when he’d accused Blair of selling him out? He gulped nearly half the bottle down, and gasped afterwards. He could track the process of intoxication, and tonight, damn it, he was a lightweight. One and three quarter beers and he was buzzed. Atypical reactions to drugs were part of the sentinel deal. He chugged the last of his drink and put the bottle on the floor, hearing the clink as glass hit wood.

Most of Blair’s boxes were filled with books and notes, although some of them were keepsakes and artifacts. Jim got up and dug into the boxes without a thought, although not without care. He picked through bits and pieces, and thumbed through an envelope of photographs. It was a group of young people, nobody Jim recognised except for Blair, who was beaming and clearly delighted with the world and his place in it. Jim put the pictures away.

On the top of one box, wrapped in acid free tissue paper, was the Burton monograph. Jim took it out and carefully unwrapped it. He held it close to his face and inhaled, and smelled old paper and something elusive that might be the oils and dust from Blair’s skin, before he opened the cover and looked at the frontispiece – the warrior, the sentinel. Jim felt almost dizzy with remembrance, and he put the book back in its nest of tissue and wrapped it up. He couldn’t believe that he’d brought Blair back from the dead so that he could sprinkle onion and jalapeno on someone’s sandwich – because, sure, it was all about Jim Ellison, he thought disgustedly. He laid the book gently down where he’d found it, and returned to the futon, restless and wired, not sleepy at all, despite the long day.

Experimentally, his hand brushed against his groin. This was the answer to that excess energy and tension, a simple, uncomplicated act of getting off. He reached into his shorts and worked his body, going slowly, drawing it out and trying to make it good, because he wanted to sleep after this, and he needed to kick the stress out of his system, just for the time it would take to drag his body up the stairs and fall into his own bed and into sleep. He could do this here, it was his own home and he could jerk off where the hell he chose, and he stared at the same ceiling that Blair had slept under for over three years, before he bit his lip and shut his eyes, his breath hitching through his nostrils as he came.

Gradually, he came back to himself and stared at the mess on his hand. He could wipe it on his shorts, they’d survive, but he also wiped at least some of it on the sheet of the futon, wondering idly what traces might sink through to the mattress. He stood, fumbling awkwardly with his underwear, and decided washing the sheet could wait until tomorrow. He took a shower, and stood a long time under the warm spray, loose with endorphins and the settled inevitability of a hard decision made. He was seeing Blair over the weekend, and he’d tell him then. Maybe Blair would have some suggestions and contributions over the choice of who they’d use to guide them through the mess that they were heading for.

He hoped that Blair wouldn’t be too pissed at him for taking so long to get to this point. He hoped that he’d get a decent night’s sleep.

***

Today, Blair thought, was shaping up to be crappier than usual, and that was saying something.

Lucas Riley was flicking through the sheaf of papers on his desk, before he adjusted his glasses. “I sorry that I can’t be more encouraging about the prospects for the Rainier suit, Blair.”

“So you’re advising me to drop it? Come on, man, are you a lawyer or a mouse?”

Lucas lifted one eyebrow. “Meep? Of course, I’m obliged to carry out a client’s instructions, but you’re not in a strong situation here, and Rainier has a very good firm working for them. I’d like to think that we’re on the verge of an acceptable settlement with Berkshire – I may be a lawyer but I’d hate to see all of that money go on legal costs.”

Blair tilted his head back, and took a deep breath, trying to calm his hammering heart. “Damn it – they had no right –“

“They’re seriously considering a counter-suit – you did lie about the progress of your dissertation, after all.” Lucas sighed. “Grant money. Rainier’s reputation. Academic ethics. They could put the ball back in your court with considerable force. I’m not saying that you can’t carry on with this action, Blair, but I think that you need to think hard about what your expectations are.”

The consultation had gone distinctly downhill from there, and Blair had tramped down several flights of stairs and shoved solid glass doors open with cold hands and a heavy heart. He caught the bus that stopped closest to Jim’s, and walked along Prospect with hunched shoulders, his hands clenched and jammed into the pockets of his jacket. He didn’t particularly want to see Jim, tonight, he realised. It wasn’t the way it was just a few months ago, when if he was pissed at his friend that he could simply disappear behind the doors to his room and burrow under his bedding. He almost took out his cell phone to make his excuses, but then Jim’s building was in his view, and somehow, he couldn’t. He hoped Jim appreciated this – when Sandburgs didn’t want to be somewhere, they were usually adroit about finding a smooth exit.

He pushed open the downstairs door, and decided that he was too tired to walk up any more stairs. Instead he waited for the elevator to clank its way towards him, and leaned his head against the wall as it jerked upward once more, aware that he was exhausted. It was Saturday tomorrow. Maybe he’d just crash on his old futon.

Jim must have heard him coming, because the door opened when he approached.

“Hey, party tricks,” Blair said brightly.

Jim’s face clouded. “I don’t do ‘tricks’, Sandburg.”

“Oops. Put the wrong foot forward already, and I’m barely inside the door.” Blair hung up his jacket. Something smelled good. “Are you cooking tonight?”

“Yeah. Just spaghetti, that’s all.” Jim walked back to the stove, and wielded a long-handled wooden spoon before he unhooked the colander from the rack of pans and utensils. “How was the day?”

Blair slumped down at the table. “It was a day, man. Just a day.”

He must have given too much away, because Jim said with sharp concern, “You’re okay? Because I’ve had days that sounded like this day and they were never a lot of fun.”

Blair tried to straighten in his chair. “Today was not fun, but some days are like that. Tomorrow is another day.”

“As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again?” Jim said, and put a plate of spaghetti in front of him.

“Not if you keep dishing up portions this size, no. There goes my eighteen inch waist.” There was silverware already on the table, and Blair picked up a fork and started eating, with Molly’s face suddenly clear in front of him. One of his nicer girlfriends, even allowing for the Gone with the Wind fixation. Blair twirled spaghetti. A lot of things were gone with the wind these days, Molly among them.

Jim joined him. Jim had the knack of eating spaghetti neatly, which fascinated Blair. Maybe it was secret army training. Watching Jim, he realised that maybe he wasn’t the only person who’d had a less than sterling day. Even allowing for it being Jim Ellison sitting in front of him, it seemed that more rigidity than usual was poking up the Ellison spine.

“I should have got us some beers,” Jim said.

“Yep,” Blair said. “Failed your Miss Manners there.”

Jim flipped him off and rose to go the fridge, returning with two bottles. “Got your Miss Manners right here, sport.” His face changed, then, and Blair felt anxiety rise.

“What’s up?” He looked at the beer, feeling a frown crease his forehead. “Am I going to need a beer?”

“Maybe.” Jim sat down, opening his beer and taking a good swig. “We need to talk.”

“Are we getting eschatological here? Because you saying those words is definitely a sign of something potentially apocalyptic.”

Jim leaned forward, his elbow resting on the table. “How about we take it as a sign that you need to shut up and listen?”

This was nothing good. “Oh, I am all ears, man.”

Despite Jim’s need to talk, and Blair’s declaration of his all ears state, Jim looked like he was having trouble finding the words. Blair had a vision of what was coming – Jim telling him that it was time to stop dragging out this farce, that Blair had it right when he moved out, that…

“I want to go public with the sentinel thing.”

Time froze, along with the surface of Blair’s skin and the blood inside him. He opened his mouth, and nothing came out, so he tried again. “Are you fucking crazy?”

Jim’s hands lifted from the table in a dismissive ‘so what if I am?’ gesture. “Probably. Look. I know that I am way too late with this, but I think that this is how it has to be. I – uh – I got my Dad to get me some names –“

“You talked to your Dad about this.” Blair’s voice was a flat line. “And I’m not visiting you in the funny farm so I guess that he didn’t commit you. So this is what, folie a deux? The craziness running in the family?”

“Could we maybe can the insults, and get down to working this out?”

Blair was still cold, but he could feel fire roiling somewhere. “No. No, there’s nothing to work out. Nothing is going to happen.”

“Why not?” The question was ominously gentle. Blair had watched Jim through the windows of interrogation rooms, and he knew what that quiet meant. He took a breath, and then another one, because there was no air in all this spacious apartment. Jim’s apartment.

“You said it yourself, way back when. You don’t need the bad guys to know that you have an edge. And come on….” Blair tried to think over the roaring in his head. “You made it pretty clear that you don’t want a public profile as a freak, you want your family let alone, you want to be able to do your fucking job, Jim, and where do you think that’s going to fit into the media circus that you want to crank up again?” He pushed his chair back. There was no air in here, and Jim was way too close. He stumbled to his feet.

“Will you listen to me? This is what I talked to Dad about, getting somebody, somebody in PR to help us do this thing properly.”

“PR!” Blair nearly shrieked it. “You think that you’re just going to get some slick ass corporate suit to wave a magic wand and put the lid on this? Jim Ellison is a sentinel, there’ll be a press conference for Friday 2pm, and please respect his privacy in the meantime!” He turned on his heel, walking a few steps. “And the PD – they’re going to be so fucking pleased about this. What about Simon? You aren’t the only person you’re dragging under here, besides you and your father and Stephen. And what about me? I had enough of the glare of the media spotlight before and let me tell you, man, I am in no hurry to roast in it again.”

Jim stood too, one moment by the table, the next looming over Blair. “Will you calm the fuck down?” he demanded with distilled Ellison exasperation.

“No. No, I will not calm the fuck down.” Blair felt like he could shake apart. “Jim, you cannot do this, I will not let you do this.”

“Why not? Why the hell not?” Jim’s voice rose. “Christ, Sandburg, I just want to put this thing right.”

Blair considered that for a moment. Considered going back to Lucas with the news that they had a whole new approach for the Rainier lawsuit. The Berkshire negotiations, too. If Jim really was a sentinel, a new discovery, rather than Blair’s lie – didn’t that just put a new spin on things. Lucas would be ecstatic. Jim, on the other hand, was something else. Blair could imagine just how ecstatic Jim would be following round after round of interviews and dog and pony shows.

“Some things can’t be put right.”

“That’s bullshit. That’s bullshit, Sandburg.” Jim was furious, red-faced with it in a way that Blair had very seldom seen. Anger in Jim Ellison tended in a glacial direction, but it seemed that having his grand gesture thrown back in his face lit a fire. Join the club, fucker, Blair thought, and made the only sane decision he was capable of, which was to get the hell out of there before his own rage jumped whatever breaks Blair had erected the last few months and started a firestorm.

Blair headed for the door, but was whirled around by Jim’s grip on his arm. “You can keep your fucking hand to yourself! And let me tell you something else, I don’t need you to condescend to me from on high and rescue my ass.” He was shaking with rage. Now Jim wanted to go public? A day late and a dollar short, to say the least, and Blair wanted out of there before he said anything else, because he needed time to give up the fantasy that he and Jim were ever going to come back from this. All these months they’d been pretending, and it had taken Jim trying to do the right thing to finally absolutely piss Blair off.

“What – I am not condescending to you,” Jim growled. But he let go, before he pressed fingers up against his brow ridges. Blair could see where the colour fled under the pressure, as if Jim was trying to push his fingers through, under the skin to the bones. “I thought you’d be pleased,” he said. It nearly broke Blair, hearing Jim that disappointed, that distressed.

Anger kept Blair from breaking in his turn. “No you didn’t,” he spat. “You thought I’d be grateful.” He turned his back on Jim, then, and grabbed his things and was out the door and out on the street, sprinting for the bus stop. He beat the bus to the stop, barely, and climbed on, handing over his money and throwing himself down into a seat. It was getting late and it was dark outside, and Blair saw his face reflected in the window. He caught his breath because, fuck, he looked like a crazy man. Men with those eyes stood on street corners and yelled hoarse incoherencies to an eyes-averted city. He turned his head and stared at his knees and the back of the seat in front of him.

The walk from the stop to his building was without incident, which was good because Blair had a crazy idea that he could actually be dangerous in this mood. He barged into his apartment (David’s apartment) and stared at the space like he’d never seen it before. It was objectively pleasant, if small – studio accommodation with a tiny kitchen, because people living in this modern block on this side of town supported the service industries and went out to eat. There was his bed (unmade), and a stack of old suitcases liberated from Goodwill used as makeshift storage. Shelving against one wall, filled with a mix of clutter and books that he didn’t have time or inclination to read because he tried not to be here more than he had to.

Tea, he thought, and filled the kettle and put it on the stove. Tea, and meditation. He’d left dirty clothes on the floor on his way out that morning, and he picked them up and stuffed them into the plastic bag he used between his occasional visits to the local laundromat. He nearly missed a pair of shorts and picked them up, before slumping down to sit on the bed, rocking back and forth with the dirty shorts crushed in his grip. “Gotta clean up your messes, man,” he said out loud, and sobbed the once before he choked it back. The kettle began to whistle.

“Tea,” he told himself. The shorts went in the bag. He made a cup of herbal tea and drank it, and then he lit his dwindling store of candles – all of them – and turned off the electric light. The glow of the candles relaxed him, made the room more comforting, his space. Blair sat on the floor in a loose cross-legged pose, and tried to think about what had happened at Jim’s with a calmer heart.

‘You thought I’d be grateful’. If that wasn’t projection, then Blair didn’t know what would be. It wasn’t Blair who was supposed to be grateful; it was Jim, wasn’t it? But why should he be? Jim didn’t owe him for trying to fix something that should never have been broken in the first place. Blair took a breath, and another, and thought of Jim and the tension in his face as he’d made his offer which Blair had essentially kicked back in his face. Blair scrubbed at his own face, and decided that circumstances between the two of them were getting ridiculously O Henry.

Meditation was failing him right now, but he stayed where he was, because there was something comforting in the sit and the candlelight. He shut his eyes and indulged a daydream, the sort that he’d had way back when he first met Jim, and that even then had made him embarrassed for himself. Fame and fortune? What a callow shit he’d been. But a tawdry glow still shone on the mental image of him being interviewed by someone prestigiously popular, or sitting in a bookstore somewhere signing autographs. Those daydreams had been fine and fun when the Sentinels were amorphous, square-jawed shades, but now the only sentinel Blair had was Jim and Jim stood so far outside those silly dreams that it was surreal, and meant that Blair had to stand outside the dreams too. Blair shook his head, all the calm deserting him again, and then started violently when someone banged on the door.

He kept quiet, and wondered sourly what over-sauced frat boy was using his door as a percussion set before he realised who it had to be.

“Sandburg, open the god damn door!” If Jim hit any harder Blair wouldn’t need to open the door – it would shiver to pieces in its frame.

“Jim?” He couldn’t quite believe it – he’d known that they ‘d have to hash it all out again, but he’d assumed that he had until tomorrow at least. He untangled his legs and stood and opened the door.

Jim walked in like he owned the place. “You were expecting someone else?”

“It’s not impossible,” Blair told him.

“Rather have the Aussie Wonder Woman would you? Sorry, you’re stuck with me.”

Jim smelled suspiciously beery. “Oh, man. Tell me that you did not drive here?”

“Why shouldn’t I drive here, Sandburg?” Beery, flushed and belligerent. Oh, this was not good, and Blair’s compact space offered none of the loft’s options for escape. There was only the two of them and a pile of shit that really did not need to be stirred.

“Because you’re drunk! For fuck’s sake, Jim, there’s only so far the senses can compensate, assuming that you haven’t drowned them in the booze.”

“I am not drunk. I wish I was.”

“Jim….” Blair looked around him. There were two stools by the breakfast bar and no way was Blair perching himself on those. Blair sidled towards the sink – at least he could lean there.

The flush on Jim’s handsome face was a red bar across his cheekbones. Jim’s hands seem to have borrowed some energy from Blair, chopping forward in front of him, blades ready to slice through any arguments that Blair might offer. “Are you ready to listen to sense?” Jim asked.

“When you’re ready to talk some.” Jim sputtered, while Blair stared, fascinated. He’d never seen Jim quite like this – frustrated and blustering, and curiosity cut the edge of some of his own anger and frustration.

“I am talking sense. What happened – it’s not right, Chief. Everyone thinks you’re a liar – or else you’re not a liar, and I’m a fucking coward.” Jim straightened and said with tipsy dignity, “Which I am.”

“Hey, hey, where did that come from?” Blair’s shocked, frantic mind threw up that night when it seemed to him that everything had first started turning to shit. “I told you that the fear-based responses thing isn’t about cowardice.”

Jim advanced and poked Blair in the chest, his finger feeling like it might bore all the way inside. Blair was shoved against the edge of the sink with no retreat available. “You are not a liar.”

“I know that, and you know that, and that’s the important thing. It doesn’t matter what other people think.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Jim’s scorn was razor-sharp. “If you and I are the only people who know that you’re not a liar then it matters, and I’m not going to stand for it. I’m not.”

“Oh you’re not? So where was all this determination back when the shit hit the fan?”

Jim’s face flushed darker. He straightened, and backed away. “Like I told you. I’m a fucking coward. You shouldn’t have to give up everything just because I’m scared of a few tv cameras.” He stood there, miserable and pleading, and clearly terrified, and Blair’s defences and determination crumbled.

“Oh, man. Oh, Jim.” Hands out, he took the approximately two very small steps needed to be close enough to be gathered up in Jim’s distinctly alcoholic embrace. “Hey,” he muttered, with no idea as to what he was saying. “Hey.” He wound his arms around Jim, his friend, this person that he just couldn’t disentangle himself from and didn’t want to, which was something that had frightened the hell out of Blair more than once. He burrowed his head against Jim’s shoulder, meeting the edge of his jacket zipper, before Jim’s hand lifted his chin, and Jim’s mouth latched onto his.

Shock, yes, and definite terror, although not of the gay panic variety. Jim’s mouth was simply spelling out that things were going to change (again) and Blair had always thought that he was okay with change, until the end of three years of partnership taught him once again that he was useless at self-understanding. He remembered that Jim was drunk, before he decided that it didn’t matter a damn and kissed Jim back, his hands sweeping up the back of his jacket. Jim shuddered at even that indirect touch and Blair wrapped one hand around the back of Jim’s neck and put the other on the small of Jim’s back where there was only the thin layer of a t-shirt between Blair’s palm and the heat of Jim’s body.

There was some clumsy, unimportant shuffling and they hit the mattress. The bed frame held, although it creaked in a protest that Blair barely registered because they were down together, and god, Jim was nuzzling along his neck, his eyes shut, a desperate intensity in his face. The muscles in his back shifted as he moved and Blair pressed his palms down, trying to map every one of those small shifts. But when Jim’s hand cupped over Blair’s groin, some semblance of sense returned. Blair might want this, might strain and gasp for it the way he’d strained for breath face down in water, but it was too much. It was too much when there were other things still to be dealt with. And besides, Jim was drunk. Blair made a clear noise of protest and pushed back against Jim’s chest. It took a moment for it to register, before Jim jerked back in something that looked like panic and rose from the bed like a marionette with the strings jumbled.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, that… I know that you and Megan…” His voice was soft and slurred, and he frowned, before looking around confusedly. Looking for the jacket that he was still wearing, Blair realised.

“Jim.” Blair sat up on the bed and put out a hand. “You don’t have to worry about Megan. I mean, it’s not like that, I love her like a sister.” The absurdity of that hit him about the same time as Jim’s look of stricken disdain, and he said, “Well, okay, an incestuous sister, but what I mean is, it’s not like that with us, I told you that.”

Jim looked unconvinced, and Blair shut his eyes for a moment. All the points appeared to be converging, and Blair found looking at the sharp end was intimidating the hell out of him. He swallowed.

“Come here.”

Jim shook his head.

“Just come and sit down here, because we’re not sitting on those stupid little bar stools, and we have a shitload of stuff to discuss. Maybe after you’ve slept off the booze. We could talk tomorrow. I can offer you dry toast and coffee which is about all you’ll be able to cope with anyway.”

Jim approached and sat gingerly on the bed. “At least this thing isn’t as rickety as your futon.”

“And you’d know that how?” Jim looked startled, his eyes wide and then hastily averted like Blair had caught him out in something genuinely incriminating. “Never mind. Take your jacket off. And your shoes.

Jim did so and then, with a look around the room and a penetrating examination of Blair, he lay down, grunting as he adjusted one of the pillows. “If you try to talk me out of this tomorrow, Sandburg, so help me I will never forgive you. And I am not that drunk.”

Blair smiled at the qualifier. “Not a three beer queer then?” he asked and barely restrained the urge to clap his hand over his mouth.

Jim leaned up on one elbow. “No! Jesus, is that what you think of me?”

Blair leaned back against the cream-painted wall. “I don’t know what to think. Given that this is the first time that you’ve put the moves on me, what the hell else am I supposed to think?”

It was like the steel roller doors going down over shop fronts on the rough side of town – a quick slam and all there was to see was an ugly blankness. “Shouldn’t have taken my damn shoes off,” Jim muttered, and angled himself upright and put his feet on the floor, stretching out for the abandoned shoes.

Blair shoved himself right behind him, clutching at the broad, tight shoulders in their gray t-shirt. “No way, you’re not going anywhere, you’re not safe to drive, Jim, you’ll kill yourself or somebody else.”

“I can walk.”

Blair quietly prayed that Jim wouldn’t think of taking a cab. “All the way back to Prospect? Are you crazy?”

“Looks like it,” Jim said hopelessly. He sat there, head bowed, one shoe in his left hand. “How did we make such a mess of it all, Chief? I don’t get it.”

“Ah, Jim.” Blair leaned against Jim, his face pressed into the warm skin of Jim’s neck, and took a breath shuddery with hard feelings. “Look, sleep here,” he coaxed, still holding on. “We’ll talk about this in the morning, okay? We’ll talk, and we’ll work something out. You’ve got tomorrow off, right?”

“Yeah.” Jim sounded utterly weary and disheartened. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Then let’s try and sleep. Okay?”

Blair moved back to make room and Jim lay back down again, turned on his side towards Blair. “We’re talking tomorrow and you’re with me or not, but it’s still happening. I am not kidding about this.”

Blair smiled. “Yeah, okay. I get it. You’re serious. Shit will happen.”

“Don’t patronise me,” Jim muttered. “I’m not that drunk.” Of course, you aren’t, Blair thought. It’s only about the tenth time you’ve protested how sober you are. Jim looked young in the candlelight, and earnestly determined, and Blair swallowed, and on an impulse extended his arm to slip it under Jim’s neck. Jim sighed and nestled against Blair, and shut his eyes. “I miss you,” he said softly. “And it was my own damn fault. Stupid….” Blair might have thought that he was going to sleep, except that one heavy, muscled arm moved to lie across Blair, and held on tight.

Blair lay still, staring up at the ceiling as the candles gradually burned down. Jim was snoring softly, but Blair was still awake when the last of them guttered and went out.

***

When Jim woke it was daylight, softly filtered through tasteful drapes, and he was alone in the bed although not alone in the room. Blair was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a paperback in his lap. He looked freshly showered, his hair still damp in places, his skin with a glow on it in the soft morning light. The room was quiet, the only noises the small ones of a modern building and Blair’s steady breathing. His heartbeat, Jim noted, had sped up as Blair realised that Jim was awake.

“Good morning,” Blair said, with a slight edge that suggested that he doubted just how good a morning it might actually be.

“Morning,” Jim said, rolling over experimentally.

Blair smirked at the lack of the ‘good’ in the greeting. “Bathroom’s behind you,” he said.

A grunt was Jim’s only reply. His head was bearable. His eyes felt rough, though, and his skin was tight and his mouth was utterly disgusting. He lifted himself carefully from the bed and shuffled into the bathroom. Piss first. Shower next. Then…. He sighed. He was still determined, but last night he’d been primed and ready, and he’d thought that this morning that it would have been all done and dealt with. And now everything was still in front of him and in addition Jim, full of fury and Coors, had jumped Blair as if Jim’s tongue down his throat would be some crowning rhetorical argument.

What had been simply heaviness sitting under Jim’s sternum jumped unpleasantly and he burped disgustingly. A heavy sulphur smell permeated the room to be only half-heartedly sucked up by the fan. Jim moaned, more in disgust than anything. He knew what was going to happen. His stomach was going to stay fine, just fine, until something new hit it – water, coffee, it didn’t matter. Jim considered his options, and then sank to his knees in front of the toilet and stuck his fingers down his sensitive sentinel throat and let the inevitable happen. He knelt there, drained and shaky, and there came the equally inevitable knock on the door.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, Chief.”

He would be now. He could shower, and put his stale clothes back on and go out there and force Blair Sandburg to see sense.

“I just need to shower. I’ll be fine. Make me some coffee, will you?”

“Okay,” Blair said, but he hovered by the door for a few moments more. Jim heaved himself to his feet and stripped and washed and rinsed his mouth under the shower head. He leaned against the wall of the shower cubicle and remembered last night: Blair’s face before he’d left Jim’s home, the narrowed-eye fury of it; Blair’s face when he’d let Jim in, resigned and exhausted; Blair’s face when Jim had been crawling all over him, wide-eyed and turned on before he’d shoved Jim back. “Christ, you’re a fuck-up sometimes,” he said quietly, letting the words be lost in the steady stream of water.

He ought to feel lighter stepping out of the bathroom; he was purged and showered and as ready for action as he ever would be.

“Hey,” Blair said. “Coffee’s ready. And I got some other stuff out for you.” There was a large glass of water and two white pills sitting on the counter. Blair was sitting on one of the stupid narrow stools. Jim took a look around the apartment with dislike – it was all carefully designed for show rather than comfort. Jim preferred his own home, and he had a feeling that Blair did too.

Jim swallowed the pills down with the water – sweet acetaminophen and H2O – and then he perched his ass on the other stool and sipped his coffee. Blair sat facing the counter, his hands wrapped around the coffee cup and a nervous expression on his face.

“Look, man, I want to apologise for the shit fit I threw last night. It was out of line when you were trying to move things forward for us, and I’m hoping that we can just get past it, okay?”

Jim considered this blurted explanation; he was suspicious of that last section and said so. “Just so long as getting past it isn’t code for you expecting me to drop this, because that isn’t going to happen.”

Blair’s elbows leaned on the counter and the backs of his interlaced fingers pressed against his mouth. Then he sat straight, and laid his palms flat against the shiny surface. There was something judicial about him, something stern. He didn’t actually look at Jim.

“If the big reveal turns to shit, just what do you see as your options?”

“I like how you assume that I haven’t thought about this,” Jim said with only minor irritation. “If there are issues about operating as a detective in MC because of the senses, I can transfer sideways. I can ride a desk…” Blair opened his mouth and Jim said, “Keep it zipped until I’m finished, Chief.” Blair subsided. “I’m not getting any younger. I’d have to stop jumping onto moving vehicles eventually. Another option might be the SWAT team. Someone who can really pinpoint where the perps are before the team goes in? Who can monitor what’s going on in a very fast-moving situation? Useful, wouldn’t you say? And I don’t have to be in the middle of the op if you’re going to worry about my safety.”

“I worry about that as much as you do.” Blair turned his head and his smile was rueful.

“If the PD isn’t an option, I can do private investigation and security. It’s a cliché but there’s a reason for that.”

Blair rolled his eyes. “Yeah, man, I can just see you dealing with the divorce cases and the spoiled celebrities.”

“Or I can liquidate my assets and hide in a cabin in the mountains. I figure I should see what happens before I make any definite plans.” Jim was quite proud of his tone. It had just the right level of calm sarcasm.

“That’s not funny.”

“Sandburg. Come on. Work with me on this, will you?”

Blair remained very still, a frown puckering his brow. His hands remained flat-planed upon the speckled granite counter. “Why?”

Calmness was a mere facade. “What do you mean, why? I don’t have amnesia about last night, and I’m damn sure that I told you exactly why.”

Blair’s hands moved, fluttering to his face, where they scrubbed his skin as hard as they had pressed into the counter-top. “You’re serious about this.”

Give me strength, was all Jim’s prayer. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I thought that, I – uh. Jim, the whole point about what I did, I was trying to fix things, you know?”

“I know, Chief. I know.” Blair still wasn’t looking at him. “And now I’m trying to fix things too, but, shit! Wouldn’t it be better if it was us who fixed things?”

Blair bent his head and chest to the counter, his face buried in his arms and his shoulders shaking. For one moment of horrified outrage Jim thought that Blair was laughing, and then the horror shifted because Blair was crying. Jim had seen Blair on the verge of tears before. After Lash, god yes, and that mess with that little Chilean girl, but he’d never seen or heard anything this abandoned from his friend, ever.

“Hey,” Jim said. He stood and put his hands on Blair’s shoulder and tried to drag him around but Blair stayed where he was, and in desperation Jim hauled his stool closer and sat, before leaning down to place his own arm and face upon the counter to be level with Blair, his free hand patting futilely at Blair’s hair. “Hey, hey, Blair, Chief, hey, don’t.” Jim didn’t know what he said, simply stayed bent and confused and convinced that he’d finally broken his friend, until Blair cried himself out, until the rough sobs diminished to heaves and hitches of breath.

“Oh. Oh, man,” Blair said and pushed himself upright, Jim just a second or two ahead of him. Blair was a mess – red faced, red eyed, smeared with tears and snot. “Give me a minute, will you.” He slid off the stool and grabbed a handful of tissues from a desk, mopping at his face and blowing his nose. “Oh my god,” he said tiredly. “I think I must have run the entire gamut of humiliating behaviour the last few months.” He blew his nose again. “This is going to be wild.” He sounded more bewildered than enthused. “Your father is in on this?”

“Not particularly willingly, but yeah. He’s in on it.”

Blair took a breath. “And he’s picked out some PR companies?”

“Yes,” Jim said again. He felt like an idiot, but he was too busy watching Blair, and he didn’t know what else to say.

“Wild,” Blair said again. “That is just – wow, so totally not anything that I would have expected.”

“I guess not,” Jim said. He stood and walked to Blair and put his hands on his shoulders. Blair’s face was still heated from the crying jag, and Jim could feel him tense under his hands. “About last night, like I said, I remember everything that happened, and I…” He stopped.

“When?”

Jim blinked. “When what?”

“You’ve always been what, bi? Gay? Because if it’s the last one then, man, you have repression down to an even finer art than I realised, because I would have sworn you were straight.”

“Maybe I was just horny,” Jim retorted, stung far more than he’d expected by Blair’s clear confusion. He took his hands away from Blair’s shoulders, those warm, solid shoulders that had felt right in his hands, and returned to his neglected and now tepid coffee. “But then so were you.” His gaze was locked on the tiny kitchen area, nowhere near Blair at all.

“Was it after the fountain? Was that when it was?” Blair’s voice was a tight-throated growl.

Jim ran a finger over the rim of the cup. “Before, maybe. But not that much before.”

“Me too,” Blair said softly. “Me too, Jim. I just wish you didn’t have to get shit-faced before you could admit it.”

Jim shrugged, trying to loosen his shoulders. “I was the one who was admitting it, Sandburg.”

Blair chuckled with strained humour. “Yeah, so you were. I’ve gotta give you points for that, you were definitely the guy who initiated the whole kissing deal.” Jim wasn’t looking at Blair but he could feel his approach, hear it. Then Blair’s hand was on Jim’s shoulder, encouraging him to turn so they could face each other. “So I guess that means that move number two is my move, right?” Blair moved into Jim’s space. His arms wrapped around Jim’s ribs and his head tilted upwards. “The way I see it, Jim, we have two options.” Blair paused, a broad grin lighting his face. “Either we dig you a trench or we find me a box, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.” With Blair’s regained calm, Jim found his own control slipping. His voice was rough and he leaned down to smell Blair, that familiar early morning smell that he’d stored in his memories without even noticing. “Whatever you say, Sandburg.”

***

Jim had paid the bill, and Simon suggested a last toast with the dregs of alcohol and raised his glass to them all – Jim, Blair, Joel, Megan; Eli Stoddard, too, who looked far more at ease than Jim felt. “To the advancement of science,” Simon intoned with heavy irony. Blair lifted his palm to his face and shook his head, but then he extended his glass along with the others. There was a mutter of ‘science!’ and a ‘good luck’ from Joel, and then they drank. There was silence, before Eli was the first to move, standing, and smiling at them all. “It’s been fascinating. Truly.” His gaze moved to Jim. Jim raised one brow, and Eli merely smiled pleasantly. “Truly,” he repeated. “But I’d better be getting along. I have a three o’clock class to drone into submission.”

Blair stood too, and hugged Eli. They were of a height, the two of them. That and the crazy hair, and the anthropology fixation; Jim supposed it was no wonder that they got along. “Thanks, Eli.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for. To be honest, I’m rather enjoying myself.”

Blair pursed his lips to repress a smile. “You’re a shit stirrer.”

“Hah! Maybe I am. But it’s purely for the love of my field, you know that.”

“Yeah.” Blair shook his hand vigorously, looking suddenly overwhelmed. “I’ll contact you later next week, okay?”

“Make sure you do.” Eli took in the rest of the table with a turn of his heels and a cheerful face. “It’s been a pleasure. I look forward to developments.”

“May they be small ones,” Simon said with a tight, polite smile, and Jim winced. He hoped for ‘small’ developments along with his captain. He saw Blair watching Simon and then him, and lifted a hand and tried to look reassuring. Blair frowned.

“Guess it’s time to break up the club,” Jim said.

Simon checked his watch. “True words. I have a briefing to check over. And as for you two,” – he pinned Joel and Megan with a captain’s glare, – “there’s still crime out there. And since I’m stuck with bureaucracy the city is going to have to rely on you, God help us.”

“That’s assuming that media stardom doesn’t sweep us all up,” Joel said.

“I don’t think that stardom is quite what Cascade needs right now,” Simon said repressively.

“And after I promised my wife, too,” Joel said, before he stood and took Jim in a solid hug. “I know my lines, Jim. No deviation.”

Jim tried to put the sudden surge of affection into his grip around Joel’s shoulders. “I think that you’re one man I’d trust with an ad-lib, big guy.”

Joel chortled. “Don’t tempt me.” Blair got the same wrap-around embrace.

Megan smiled, but didn’t offer Jim a hug. “Good luck, Ellison. If nothing else, I’m going to have some interesting stories to tell my family.” In her eye was the dozenth iteration of ‘Do right by Blair’. Jim hadn’t been found wanting to this degree since his ex-father in law had walked Carolyn down the aisle. Jim spared a moment’s gratitude that Naomi wasn’t there. Blair, on the other hand, received an affectionate hug, a lingering kiss on the mouth, “For old time’s sake”, and good luck wishes, while Jim tried to not fume too obviously. If there was one person who knew exactly where matters stood between Blair and Jim right now, it was Megan, and the look in her eye as she waved goodbye made it very clear that Jim wasn’t anywhere near forgiven yet.

Whatever. He didn’t need Connor’s forgiveness. Blair looked slightly dopey, the way he always did when he was kissed. It was enough to piss Jim off all over again, except that Blair looked at him then, and there was something in his eyes – affection, self-deprecating amusement – that comforted Jim. He decided to consider the bright side – so he had a ‘sensitive’ guy. He grinned.

“Something amusing, Jim?” That was Simon, looking slightly drawn despite a good meal.

“Private joke.”

“I see,” Simon said. His eyes flicked to Blair, who’d come round the side of the table so that they stood in a small knot, suddenly unwilling to go their own ways. “Well, I guess that it’s nearly show-time.”

Jim looped his arm over Blair’s shoulders. “Yes, sir, I guess it is.” Blair felt jittery, and his back was board tense.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.” He eyed Jim’s grip on Blair. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Blair chuckled at that, his nervous ‘heh heh’. “I don’t know, man, just how limiting would that be?”

They stepped outside into a mild, overcast day, and Simon paused and grinned. “I’m offended, Sandburg. Nobody likes to be underestimated,” he said with a guffaw, while Blair did a quick double take. Then Simon turned left and strode down the street towards his car.

“No underestimating Simon Banks. Check,” Blair muttered, before Jim steered him right, towards where he’d parked the truck. “I still reckon we could be kind of limited, though,” he said, lifting his head to look at Jim. Innuendo lurked in his eyes.

“Maybe.” No way was Jim putting this new thing with Blair together with any associations with Simon, who was his friend, and his boss. (For how much longer? That would depend on ‘developments’, wouldn’t it?)

They reached the truck and they got in. Blair sat next to Jim, his head leaning back against the seat, and he took two deep breaths in, and blew them out slowly through pursed lips. “Holy shit, tomorrow’s the day.”

Jim didn’t say anything, just turned the key in the ignition. Looking at the extended, vulnerable line of Blair’s throat, it struck him that driving home and going to bed sounded like the best idea he’d had in a long time. But then Blair dashed those hopes.

“Can we drive to the Point?”

“Why?”

Blair glared at Jim over the top of his glasses. “Because I want to go to the Point.” He sighed. “I just want – some fresh air. Communing with nature, listening to the eternal roar of the sea. I don’t know, man. It feels like the thing to do.”

Jim looked at the street out in front of him. Everything was dull under the grey sky, and there was a hint of coming humidity in the air. “Okay. We’ll drive to the Point.”

“Yes!” Blair’s voice was fervent with quiet enthusiasm.

There were only a few cars in the parking lot at Point Bellingham. It was a week day and the Point, studded with rocks and not notable for the swell, was popular more for fishing from the rocks than for swimming or surfing. But much of the beach itself was sand, and Blair got out of the truck and inhaled the smell of salt water and seaweed with a look of deep pleasure.

Jim leaned against the hood of his truck, staring out at the surrounds, and Blair in particular, who turned to smile before he set off down the beach to the tide line. Once there, he took off his shoes and socks and turned up the cuffs of his beige chinos and stood at the edge of the rush of the water. Jim sat with his back to a rise of dune and watched, not tempted by cold water that didn’t involve a wetsuit and surfboard. The wind off the sea was gentle, and Jim lost himself in the whistle of it and the cry of gulls. It was more peaceful than the last time he’d been on a beach with Blair, trapped then in conflicting instincts and anger. The pound of Blair’s feet through the sand brought him back, and Blair threw himself down, his pants still rolled up and damp, his shoes dropping uncared for beside him. His eyes were shut, and his face calm and Jim looked his fill. No, no conflict. Maybe some anger still, but Jim would simply have to deal with that. Things progressed, people and emotions changed.

“Sufficiently communed?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Blair’s eyes remained shut. “Good for me to look at something bigger than myself.” He sat up, shoulder to shoulder with Jim, and the sea-wrack smell was gone from Jim’s nostrils. There was only Blair – the smell of shampoo and soap and deodorant, sweat, the gently bitter scent of dead and dying skin waiting to be washed away, everything that marked Blair as alive and present.

“Water… doesn’t bother you.”

Blair grunted in rough amusement. “I haven’t been inside the Aquatic Centre since Alex. I think it’s the chlorine stink. Sets me off every time.” Jim watched him carefully, but the calm remained. Blair was coping by avoidance, if nothing else. “Our bodies have pretty much the same proportion of salt as the sea, did you know that? My tears are as oceans,” he murmured. Then he shifted. “One of Naomi’s friends – he’d recite poetry in bars. I always remembered that line. The great enclosed in the small,” Blair’s hand gestured at the sea, “the small enclosed in the great.” He laughed. “Shut me up if I’m boring you, right?”

“You don’t bore me.”

“Good. Even if I know that one reason I don’t bore you is because I piss you off half the time. Speaking of which, you probably need to know that there’ll be a substantial sum of cash in your checking account in the next couple of days, and I wouldn’t want you worrying that some crime lord is trying to set you up with fake bribes or any of that shit.”

Jim’s irritated, bemused, “Wait, what money, Sandburg?” ran over the top of Blair’s sentence, and they finished speaking together, until Jim repeated, “What money, Sandburg?”

“The Berkshire money comes through shortly. And I directed Lucas to pay about ten percent of my settlement to you, once he’s deducted his own costs, and come on, Jim, you don’t need to look that pissed.”

Jim rose to his feet and took a deep breath, hoping to inhale some forbearance as well as air. “Why wouldn’t I look pissed? What am I supposed to do with your fucking money?” He kept the worst of the brusqueness out of his voice. Things progressed.

“Well, you can spend it or you can invest it, or you can give it away. They seem to be the usual ways that people deal with filthy lucre.” Blair’s fingers gifted ‘filthy lucre’ with air quote gestures. “If you want to give it away, I have a couple of suggestions as to appropriate charities.”

“Why the hell would you give me your money?” Jim asked, aghast.

Blair stayed sitting on the sand, but instead of a sprawl he drew his legs into a tailor sit. Some of the calm was dissipating now.

“Only some of my money. I don’t love you that much.”

“Well, thank Christ for that,” Jim retorted. “How about I just transfer it right back to your bank account?”

“Nope. Can’t do that, because then I’ll just transfer it back to you.” Blair scrambled to his feet, his beachcomber appearance at odds with the determination on his face. “Look,” he said, laying a hand on Jim’s arm, “I want you to take it, okay? It’s symbolic; recompense.”

“I don’t want recompense!” Jim’s voice was rough with anger and confusion. What the hell was Blair thinking?

“Okay, you don’t want to receive it, self-sufficient bastard that you can be, but I want to give it. I really want to,” Blair said, like a kid mentioning a much desired toy just before Christmas. “Getting money out of Berkshire – good old Sid screwed you over just as much as he screwed me, so why shouldn’t you have a share of their money? To the victors, the spoils, right? I’d give you half of it if I didn’t think that you’d kill me.” Blair’s smile was lop-sided, and provocatively hopeful.

Jim couldn’t think of a time when he’d felt less like any sort of victor. But his confused mind grabbed on to one idea. ‘I want to give it’, Blair had said, and Jim wondered if the little shit even knew what he was asking. He never knew with Blair – overt and unsubtle manipulation lived side by side with the clueless innocence that he shared with his mother. Jim swallowed. The thing was that, manipulative or innocent, both Blair and Naomi so often just wanted to help.

“What makes you think I won’t kill you anyway? We haven’t got enough to think about without you playing Andrew Carnegie?”

Blair clearly didn’t take the death threat at all seriously. How unusual. “Well, we are trying to win friends and influence people,” he said reasonably, like this was a discussion about which restaurant they should try one Saturday night. Jim decided that this wasn’t the moment to discuss whether Blair had the right Carnegie. “And maybe the timing isn’t the greatest, but you never know what’s coming so now is just as good a time as any.

“Chief…” Blair’s face lit up at the nickname, and Jim admitted defeat. “Okay. But I’m not doing anything with it. And I may yet come back to you for advice about those charities.”

“Okay, that’s good.” Blair sat down and began brushing at sand, and screwed his feet without their socks into his shoes, before rolling his pants legs down. He was intent on this task, like nothing else was happening, not today, not tomorrow, and Jim was overcome with a sense of absurdity.

“So, this cash. Does this make you my sugar daddy?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve gotta admit, I’ve always thought that I had the looks for it, but I’m getting long in the tooth for that sort of thing.”

“You… You nut!” Jim had the impression that ‘nut’ was not the word that Blair originally intended. “This is an important gesture I’m trying to make here.” Offense and amusement appeared to be fighting an equal battle.

Jim gave up the effort at humour. “You don’t need to make gestures. We’ve both had enough gestures to last a lifetime.” He crouched beside Blair. “No. More. Gestures,” he said with gentle emphasis.

“Not even rude ones? Because if you can’t flip the bird at most of Cascade your driving pleasure is going to be, like, halved.” Blair stood, holding a hand out to help Jim up. He took a look around them, and apparently decided that no-one was close enough around to make him let go of Jim’s hand on the walk back to the truck. “And if there’s no more gestures, then we can’t do this either.” His hand tightened around Jim’s, warm and a little sweaty. The wind at their backs gusted for a moment, and blew Blair’s hair into his face.

Jim shrugged. “This is different,” he said.

“Yeah, sure, Jim.” Blair’s free hand swiped at his hair. He looked back at the sea with a wistful expression.

“We’ve both got a shitload of cash, right?” Jim asked. “We can find another beach if we need to. I could teach you to surf.”

“All the important stuff?”

Jim stepped over the rails separating the parking lot from the beach, and let go of Blair’s hand to get out his keys. “Damn straight. Important stuff first. Always.”

 

Lace up last year’s shoes, see how they feel
You’re not the same person anymore.
There’s something new about you
A thin strand of winter in you
Something that wasn’t there before.
Is this how it feels, is this how it feels?
Is this how it feels to find love?