Control Issues
Rated ADULT
Angst Ahead!

Chapters 31-35
Jump to Chapters (1-5) (6-10) (11-15) (16-20) (21-25) (26-30) ... (36-40) (41-48)

THIRTY ONE
***
"Jim, wake up. Oh man, move your bones," Blair shoved at the lump under the sheets of his old bed, and before he could react, he found himself grabbed and shoved face-first into the mattress, a sharp pain between his shoulder blades keeping him there and one arm pinned at the small of his back.

"Who? Blair?" Jim asked, his voice still blurry with sleep, but at least the pressure on Blair's back disappeared. "What the hell?"

Blair shifted to his side and rolled his shoulder to ease the pain in his back. Of course, that made the stiffness in his still healing shoulder ache more, and Blair decided that he just might need to take one of the pain pills the hospital had sent home with him.

"Wow. Talk about waking up cranky." Blair said shakily as he sat up. He could feel his muscles shake with adrenaline.

"Are you okay?" Jim asked as he rubbed his eyes.

"Yeah, hey, no problem." Blair studied Jim. He was a big man, and Blair was always surprised at how quickly Jim could move.

"Blair?" Jim finally asked in the silence. Blair stared at Jim's chest, the way his muscles flowed under the skin as Jim pushed himself up.

"Yeah?"

"Did you want something?" Jim prompted, and Blair blushed. This wasn't his bedroom any more, and he really didn't have that good of an excuse for invading Jim's privacy, especially not the morning after Jim had specifically asked for a little space. Yeah, he had an excuse, just not a good one. Luckily, Jim looked more amused than upset, but after the whole discussion last night, Blair knew he didn't have a right to go crawling in bed with the guy and making this whole situation harder. Blair quickly slid off the bed and stood beside it, inching back.

"Oh man, yeah, this is not what it looks like."

"And what does it look like?" Jim sat the rest of the way up so that the sheets pooled around his waist, and Blair looked over the railing to the living room below. Stared at it, in fact. He should paint. The walls were dingy.

"Okay, I actually don't know what this looks like," Blair admitted without looking at Jim, "but this is not me trying to push that whole conversation from last night. I was meditating last night, not just about… you know… but also about the case, and I think I came up with something," Blair said. He'd expected to explain more, possibly justify and maybe even plead and beg a bit, but Jim just nodded.

"Whatever this is, Chief, can it wait until I pee or do we need to do this right now?"

"Hey, this can wait for peeing and breakfast and maybe a call to Eli because he's going to really appreciate your offer to help," Blair agreed as he inched faster toward the staircase. Shit, he really had overstepped some boundaries here, so they could probably both use a little distance.

"Chief?" Jim called when Blair reached the top step. He sighed. "Sorry about the manhandling. You just kind of startled me."

Blair finally looked back toward the bed. Jim had one leg slung over the side, and Blair tried hard to focus on Jim's face and not the leg or the chest or the way his shoulder had that really nice curve that Blair couldn't seem to get, even during that three month bit where he'd gone to the gym every day with Rick.

"No problem," Blair brushed off Jim's manhandling without pointing out that he hadn't minded in the least. Okay, he'd minded the whole pain part, but that was Kincaid's fault, and if not for the whole sore shoulder, Blair would not mind at all being face down on a mattress for Jim. Blair took a deep breath and focused on the blanket hung on the living room wall as he tried to bring his thoughts back to safe territory. "I should not have woken you up like that. Ranger reflexes. Seriously impressive. Seriously."

"You just caught me in the middle of a dream," Jim admitted. Blair opened his mouth, about to ask about it when Jim shoved the covers off and with only the boxers on, Blair had a view of Jim's morning erection. Instead of asking, Blair just fled downstairs without another word. After all, a man could only count on ethics to carry him just so far before old-fashioned lust beat it up, shoved it in the closet and took over the brain.

Blair stuck his head in the refrigerator in search of appropriate breakfast food and left it there as Jim padded downstairs and disappeared into the bathroom. "Eggs, eggs or eggs," Blair mused as he checked the shelves. "Man, we're both going to be on cholesterol pills if we don't get some healthy food in the house. I used to be so good about that," Blair complained to the refrigerator. He knew full well why the healthy food had disappeared. It was the same reason why the spider plant near the window was slowly turning brown and why he was down to two shirts that might pass for clean if Jim didn't stand too close. Given Jim's nose, that might mean Jim needed to keep at least fifty yards upwind.

If his midnight revelation didn't pan out, Blair certainly had cleaning to keep him busy for at least a day or two. Blair filled a glass with water and snagged the phone on his way to watering the dying spider plant. Dialing Eli's number, he tucked it into his shoulder and focused on not dumping water all over the rug as he tried to save his plant.

"I'm really sorry there buddy. You put up with so much, don't you?" he asked the plant.

"Blair?" a voice asked from the other end of the phone.

"Eli?" Blair just about choked. "Man, I didn't hear your phone ring. I was just talking to my spider plant, sorry about that." Blair could feel himself blush as he finished watering the suffering plant.

"Blair, it's good to hear from you. I take it you got the situation with your arrest worked out."

"Oh, yeah," Blair cringed, realizing he hadn't told Eli once the charges were dropped. "It all got cleared up a couple of days ago."

"Well, that's good. Of course, I appreciate that it gave you time to finish the article on the Institute. I should have my edits back to you by Tuesday, and I have a confirmation from Clark over at Anthropological Footprints to publish the full article. This is quite the feather in your cap." Eli chuckled. "That Sandburg luck comes through for you again."

"I don't know that luck had much to do with it."

"Oh my boy, if you hadn't brought something pretty amazing to the table this semester, I'm afraid the Chancellor would have pressed the issue of your dissertation. You finished your course work two years ago, and continuing to take a few random classes will not permanently postpone your obligation to finish a dissertation… at this point, I think the committee would accept a dissertation on just about any topic as long as it actually got finished."

"Eli," Blair breathed, cringing as he glanced toward the bathroom. Okay, getting dressed down was bad enough, but if Jim were listening…

"But Blair, this new article—this has all the fire and passion I have missed. Your work on the remaining tribal Sentinels of Samanjata, Zambia was incredible, but lately you have just been writing…" Eli paused.

"Crap. Yeah, I know," Blair admitted. He'd picked subjects based on how well they would give him cover for his work with the Sentinel division, which is why he'd been writing that article on public space when he met Jim. His heart hadn't been in any of it. "But Eli…"

"I'm not sure I would call it crap. You have always produced solid, well-documented efforts; however, your inability to commit to a dissertation is endangering your enrollment in the program. Now that you seem to have found a passion again, I can tell you that your time at the university was clearly in danger."

"Oh man, really?" Blair asked. He trusted Eli. The man had told him the truth even back when Blair was the obnoxious sixteen-year-old wunderkind who everyone else avoided. But this truth… this was truth Blair really didn't need to hear right now.

"I fear so. That's one reason why I am so excited about this new hypothesis of yours. I hope you've called to tell me that you've reconsidered your position."

Blair took a deep breath, and then paused. Okay, so Aldo couldn't get a warrant, and Sheila wouldn't help with some illegal Sentinel observation. That didn't mean the man was above illegally tapping the phone. "Eli," Blair started slowly. "My time restrictions working with the police department make it really hard for me to throw myself into the work. You're asking me to…"

"To be an anthropologist," Eli interrupted. "I remember a time when you illegally crossed the Zambia-Zimbabwe border. I remember a certain young man who spear hunted in Irian Jaya without any of the proper papers. Blair, those were some of your finest moments as a student of anthropology, and you did not worry about… time restrictions."

"Oh man, that is not fair. Yeah, my time with the police means I have a few time restrictions, but it was my work with the police that totally led to this new hypothesis," Blair argued. He wandered over to his main bookshelf and absent-mindedly scanned the titles as he formed his arguments. He couldn't break the law. Police were held to a different standard. He might lose custody of Jim. Blair closed his eyes as he even considered that. It wouldn't happen. He'd run with Jim first, but he hoped it didn't come to that, either. Blair just had to find a way to wake the world up to the fact that Sentinels deserved respect, and he had to get Jim to see that the system wasn't slavery. Yeah, it sucked, and Blair was going to do his best to change that, but it wasn't slavery.

"Blair, this is important work, but if you allow time restrictions to stop you from doing your work..."

"No way. I can totally do the work, but the time restrictions just mean I can't collect data from primary sources. But that's not why I called," Blair quickly added when Eli sighed heavily.

"Oh? I really do wish you'd think about this."

"Jim said he could help you out if you still wanted to do some of the primary source interviews," Blair quickly cut off the rest of Eli's comment. Eli was his mentor and the closest thing Blair came to having a father, but he sure didn't need a lecture, especially when Eli just didn't understand the consequences. Yeah, Blair was happy to bend the rules with the best of them, but he wouldn't put his guardianship of Jim in danger… not for his job with the police or for his research as an anthropologist.

"So, you changed your mind? I'll admit that I'm surprised," Eli said after a moment of silence.

"Yeah, well I didn't change my mind as much as I had Jim override me since it's his life," Blair admitted. "And he's right. He can help, and one of the reasons I requested a Sentinel was for help with anthropological research. I think I got trapped by my own logic there."

Eli laughed. "It's good to hear you back to your old self," he said kindly. "And if your time restrictions keep you from joining us, I respect that decision."

"Thank you, Eli."

"I still think you're wrong, but you're going to have to make your own choices. And I'm glad to hear that Mr. Ellison is up to the challenge of dealing with your stubbornness."

"Hey!" Blair objected without actually taking offense. "I am not stubborn. I just stand up for myself."

"In any and all situations, even when it's not particularly warranted," Eli agreed with a laugh. "It's one of the things that makes you such a good scientist; you are never so impressed with someone's credentials that you blindly accept their conclusions. And that includes me."

"Eli," Blair said, not really sure what to say.

"I'm sure that Mr. Ellison and I will get along fine. And you're more than welcome to join us if you reconsider your time restrictions. So, I have today and tomorrow clear on the calendar, and if that doesn't work, we'll have to look at next Thursday."

Instead of answering, Blair just about squealed when a cold wet hand landed on his arm, and the phone fell to the floor with a clatter.

"Fuck!" Blair cursed when he spotted Jim, smiling evilly as he toweled his short hair with one hand while the other still hovered above Blair's arm. "You dick!" Blair complained loudly, reaching out and jabbing at Jim's stomach, but the man danced back away, leaving Blair punching air.

"You might want to get the phone," Jim teasingly laughed as he danced back away from another attempt to poke at him.

"Eli!" Blair gave up on physically retaliating and grabbed the phone from the floor.

"Blair, are you alright?" Eli demanded over the phone, his voice sharp.

"Yeah. I just have a roommate with a bad sense of humor and cold damn hands," Blair said. "He is either feeling particularly sadistic, or he'd rather make the time arrangements with you himself. One or the other. Anyway, I'll check the email for the revisions because I have today, Monday and Tuesday off."

"Still catching up on missed classwork?" Eli asked as Blair tried to ignore the way Jim stood close in jeans and no shirt and all those muscles.

"Yeah, something like that," Blair vaguely agreed. "So, Eli Stoddard, this is Jim Ellison." Blair held the phone out and Jim raised one eyebrow in an expression Blair couldn't quite decipher. He flipped the towel over one shoulder and took the phone.

"Dr. Stoddard," Jim said, and Blair wandered back toward the kitchen.

Unlike Jim, Blair couldn't hear the other end of the conversation.

"No, I heard," Jim quickly said. "I understand Blair's time constraints, but if I can help, I will."

Blair was surprised at the honestly friendly tone from Jim. Usually Jim was a little more… grumpy… with new people. Since he had nothing else to cook, Blair pulled the eggs out of the refrigerator. God, he didn't even have the fixings for an omelet. He had cheese, but adding cheese to eggs wouldn't exactly help their hearts.

"We're working something today, but can I call you later today and let you know if tomorrow works?" Jim asked. Pause. "Blair has your number?" Longer pause. "I'll try, but he's pretty stubborn, you know."

Blair put down the fork he'd been using to scramble the eggs and he crossed his arms. Jim smiled sweetly at him, and somehow, on him that expression looked more smug than sweet.

"I'll call you later tonight, then," Jim said into the phone. "I'm looking forward to meeting you, Dr. Stoddard." Pause. "Eli, then. Please, call me Jim. Mr. Ellison sounds like my father." Pause. Jim laughed. "I'll talk to you later then. Have a good day." Jim clicked the phone off and headed for the kitchen.

"Are you making breakfast?" Jim asked as he put the phone back on the cradle and pulled the towel off his shoulder.

"*I'm* stubborn?"

"Hell, yes," Jim agreed as he came in and grabbed the bowl of eggs Blair had just scrambled. He turned on the burner under the pan and poured the eggs into it.

"Man, I got nothing on you. You are the Grand High Poobah of Stubbornness, Ellison."

"I'm focused-- determined-- goal-oriented. You're stubborn," Jim disagreed. "So, what did you come up with last night?"

Blair hesitated. Last night it had seemed so important, and this morning, he'd woken with a sense of urgency, but now, facing Jim, it seemed a little potentially stupid.

"Chief?" Jim asked, turning his back on the eggs.

"Can we go through the scene again? I just want to double check something."

"Sure. After breakfast?" Jim asked as he gestured toward the egg pan with the spatula he'd picked up.

"Yeah, no problem," Blair agreed as he grabbed for the loaf of bread for toast. He fell silent as they fixed breakfast, and Jim kept shooting him curious looks, but Blair did his best to ignore them. His feelings were raw and he suddenly didn't want to look like an idiot in front of Jim. Desperately didn't want to look like an idiot.

Over breakfast, Blair focused on eating, keeping his mouth full to avoid the nervous babble that threatened to spill out. He didn't think Jim wanted to know what Australian aborigines ate for breakfast. Luckily Jim finished as quickly as he did.

"So, where do you want to sit?" Jim asked as he dropped the two empty plates in the sink. "And fair warning, I've never had that much luck with sensory recall."

"You haven't?" Blair asked, nerves suddenly replaced with curiosity.

"To be fair, I don't have that much luck with memory in general." Jim shrugged. "The couch work or do you want to go upstairs?"

"The couch is fine," Blair agreed. He perched on the arm of the nearby chair while Jim sat and let his head relax and loll back onto the couch. "So, what's so hard about sensory recall?"

"I just don't always recall," Jim shrugged. "If I know I have to recall the information later, I can usually do it."

"Oh man, with your levels, you should be like amazing."

"No one's perfect. I guess this just isn't my thing. So, where do you want to start?" Jim asked.

Blair took a deep breath. He knew exactly what he wanted, but this kind of work sometimes led to false memories if the memory was too guided. "Okay, let's start with when you first knelt on the ground, when you told me to shut up."

Jim tilted his head up to look at Blair for a second, but then he let his head fall back as he tried to pull up the memory.

"Let's start with breathing slowly. I want you to slowly dim your senses. Let the levels all drop. Breathe in. Control your senses. Dial it down. Breathe out." Blair paused. Despite Jim's warning, he was quickly falling into the trancelike state where memory would become reality. Skipping the bit with lowering the levels on each sense separately, Blair moved right to the memory itself.

"Focus on the feel of the grass under your hand as you lean on the ground," Blair coached. He watched as Jim's frown smoothed out.

"There's a twig poking my hand."

"Did you look down at it?"

"No. I'm focusing on the footprints," Jim said, his voice strangely distant. Blair shifted forward and put his hand on Jim's knee to anchor the Sentinel with touch as he cast himself back into his memories.

"Describe the footprints," Blair whispered. For a second, Jim didn't say anything. He kept his eyes closed, but he rolled his head from one side to the other as though considering the scene.

"A woman wearing heels. I can see the crushed blades of grass."

"Let that one go. What other footprints do you see?" Blair prompted, struggling to keep the excitement out of his voice.

"Jim tilted his head. "It's like a hologram. When I turn my head, I can see where the bent grass is different; it reflects light differently. I can see the children's footprints. One of the sneakers has a ripped sole."

"Where did they walk?" Blair asked. Jim's hand came off the couch and landed on top of Blair's hand where it rested on Jim's knee. Jim frowned. "You're looking at it right now, this is no big deal," Blair promised. The frown smoothed.

"The one with the ripped sole walked around in a circle. He walked over by the bench."

"He?" Blair asked. The frown returned for a second.

"Raul. His sneakers… one was ripped when I saw him on the Taylor's property. The other kids… most moved to the spot and stood. One of the smaller feet ran. He went…" Jim's words trailed off.

"Hey, that's okay, relax," Blair coached.

"I didn't look at that ground closely enough," Jim admitted tensely, his back going stiff, and for a second, Blair thought the moment had broken without him getting what he wanted… what he needed. Luckily, Jim breathed out and relaxed back into the couch.

"Push those footsteps aside, what else do you see?" Blair asked. Jim's hand over his own tightened, and Jim tilted his head to the side.

"One pair of dress shoes, the man with the limp. Tracks from work boots."

"Okay, focus on the work boots." Blair leaned forward as though he could will Jim to see what he needed Jim to see.

"One or two people. The same boots, but the footsteps are different."

"How?" Blair asked. He watched the furrows appear on Jim's face as the head tilted. "Okay, it's okay. Describe one of the sets of footprints," Blair changed the suggestion when Jim's back started going stiff again.

Jim relaxed into the guidance. "One set. Big man, but walking quickly. The side of his foot is dug in at one point like he's turning too fast. Erratic." Jim started sitting up, and for a moment, Blair was afraid he had lost the memory, but the eyes remained closed and Jim moved as though looking at the ground. "He's moving around the area, pacing."

"Good," Blair praised him, and he was lucky Jim was in a near trance or that would have earned him a head-whap for sure. Right now, Jim was so far into the memory that the hand that gripped Blair's own didn't even twitch. "What about the other work boots? What's different about them?"

Jim frowned. "They're deliberate. They walk to the hill from the curb."

"Where do they go from there?"

Jim shook his head. "Nowhere. I can't see them anywhere," Jim turned his head and got stiff.

"Oh fuck." Jim jerked his hand back and punched the seat of the couch in frustration as the memory broke. "Shit, I told you, I’m not good at this shit."

"Hey, no, you did great!" Blair hurried to assure him, but Jim just gave him a skeptical look. "Hey, you know me with my hypotheses?"

"Yeah?" Jim asked, drawing the word out suspiciously.

"Man, listen to this one. There were workboots there, and that day, you said they were recent."

Jim nodded. "They were. I remember they overlapped the police tracks in several places. They even overlapped the children's prints."

"Awesome, that will give us a time frame, or at least it will as soon as I'm off suspension and can go talk to them because no *way* is Brown getting near them."

"Don't trust him to avoid saying something stupid?" Jim asked. Blair looked over to see Jim watching him with amusement.

"Overprotective, Hispanic mother plus Brown's big mouth. Oh yeah, that'd go over well," Blair snorted as he got up and started pacing the living room. "But listen. If that were a cemetery employee, he would have cleaned up the gifts the kids left. He would have pulled down the last bits of police tape."

"He would have cut the grass," Jim finished. Blair paused in pacing long enough to turn and see Jim looking at him with the beginnings of a smile. "But he didn't do that."

"Which is totally strange. The piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit. You don't think… I don’t know, that I might be reading too much into this?" Blair asked. Nice, now he sounded like an insecure twit needing reassurance. Blair mentally kicked himself.

"Sounds like a lead to me. And Blair, I'm not sure, but I think there was only one guy. The tracks walking up to the hill were steady and regular, but no tracks like that led away from the hill, the tracks going away from the hill were angry, deep heel impression and irregular depth."

"Man. It fits. He comes to see the place, and maybe he's mad that people have turned his special place into theirs by leaving the display."

"He wanted to have a place where it was just him and Kari," Jim agreed. "Or maybe the display scared him. Maybe he thought someone would see him."

Blair shook his head. "Man, he would've just run. But who knows what he's thinking. I just know this is a lead, man. This is a good lead. Fuck, how did I miss that?"

"Hey, I missed it, too," Jim pointed out. Blair smiled at the man's attempt to reassure him.

"Yeah, but you're just a rookie. I'm the experienced cop," Blair teased. Jim reached out and smacked the side of Blair's head. Instead of second guessing what he might have said wrong, Blair just aimed his own hit for Jim's stomach as he went for the phone. Suspension or no suspension, this lead wouldn't wait three days with rain in the forecast.

THIRTY TWO
***
"Caro, you are a goddess!" Blair practically bounced out of the car when he spotted the dark-haired woman, and Jim followed, still shocked that the kid had talked them onto a newly reopened crime scene not more than a day after being suspended. But then again, he doubted Banks had time for more than two words over the phone, so he probably just gave up. Jim knew the feeling. After years of working with men who made their points with actions, and sometimes fists, he wasn't always sure how to handle Blair, much less win a fight with him.

"Blair, for giving up part of my weekend, I better be something more than just a goddess. Goddess is for when you want me to rush your DNA samples." The woman gave Blair a look that was half warning and half indulgent amusement.

"Man, you are like Tiamat who created the world. You are Aruru, the mother of all goddesses, and Athena the wise and Inanna the beautiful all wrapped up in one," Blair promised as his hands gestured widely.

"Hmmph. Seems like those are all war goddesses, are you trying to tell me something?" The woman crossed her arms and tilted her head as she considered Blair out of the side of her eye like a hawk about to pounce on a mouse.

"Only that you're even scarier than Sheila in IA, and twice as beautiful."

At that, the woman couldn't keep up the glare any more. She laughed and shook her head. "Yeah, yeah. Just keep sweet-talking, especially if you're going to want a rush on the analysis."

Jim walked up behind Blair, and Blair turned that bright smile toward him. "Carolyn, this is Jim Ellison. Jim, Carolyn Plummer, head of our Technical Support Division."

Jim held out his hand, and despite the fact that he had told himself that he would hate Carolyn for flirting with his bond-mate, he could at least appreciate her sharp wit.

"Nice to meet you. So, Simon said that you spotted tracks that we might still be able to get a record of."

"Hopefully," Jim agreed as he looked at the hill. The police tape was back, and a patrol officer stood to one side as a middle aged man with a huge mustache set up a camera.

"John and I are going to take photographs of any treads you can identify."

"Simon's really rolling with this one. Man, if I'm wrong..." Blair started, and Jim felt aggravation at the doubt in Blair's voice.

"Brown and Rafe talked to the owner. He hasn't had any workmen or maintenance men in since last month," Carolyn quickly assured him. "He called in all his employees, and there are only two workmen that ever do grounds work around here. The cemetery itself is full, so most of their business comes from the crematory attached to the back of the mortuary. Brown's interviewing everyone up at the main building."

"Oh man. This could be the clue, the one that finally goes somewhere." Blair's voice had a sort of determined wonder, and that tone settled Jim's nerves.

"Personally, I'm impressed that you could see any prints at all in this mess, Jim," Carolyn offered as she started walking toward the hill, a pile of small rulers on yellow plastic in one hand. "So, just point to the ground, and we're going to try and get some forensic evidence."

Jim paused a half second, hating the fact that he wasn't reliable enough to testify, but that someone who was fully competent had to see the evidence. Hopefully all their fancy cameras and expensive lenses would capture what was so obvious to his eye.

Jim ducked under the police tape and knelt down as he searched for the work boot tracks. Behind him, he could hear Blair muttering about how the killer was going down. Jim felt a flash of guilt as he realized how, for a week, the kid had shoved all that energy into some dark corner because of Jim's bad mood. But that was one more reason to keep him at arm's length. Jim didn't want to hurt Blair any more than he obviously had.

"Here," Jim pointed to a section of grass. Carolyn knelt down behind him and held out a yellow ruler.

"I don't see anything. Can you put this just to the right of the footprint?" she asked. Jim took it and placed the yellow ruler on the grass before spotting the next print and the next one. Carolyn had to go back for more plastic rulers by the time Jim finished marking every footprint. Hopefully the photographer would be able to get scientific proof of at least a few of them.

"Okay, that's it," Jim said as he backed out of the maze he'd created.

Carolyn whistled as she knelt down at the edge of the field and squinted at the grass. "Okay, John, we have our work cut out for us. Let's use a full range of filters and lenses because I don't think this one is going to be easy."

"Not easy? That's an understatement," the photographer complained quietly as he moved in. Jim backed away to let them work.

"Hey, Chief," Jim stretched his neck and blinked to clear his vision.

"Oh man. That's a lot of footprints." Blair was staring at the hill, and Jim glanced over at the field of yellow rulers.

"He paced a lot." Jim shrugged. He'd done what he could, and now he had to hope that Carolyn was as good as Blair seemed to think.

"Brown and Rafe are talking to the employees," Blair said absentmindedly.

"Blair. Chief," Jim called, trying to get Blair attention away from whatever had enthralled him on the hill, and Jim only hoped it wasn't Carolyn's ass as the woman bent over to get a new angle. But then again, Jim should be encouraging that before he and Blair got too close for either of them to back out of this bond.

"Yeah?"

"We're suspended. We need to get out of here before Simon hands us both our asses on a plate," Jim pointed out.

"Oh man, you're right. I just… Man, I hate this."

"Hate what?" Jim asked in confusion as he looked around. The patrol cop just stared into space, clearly bored off his ass, and Carolyn and the photographer were busy clicking away.

"Man, how could I miss that?"

Jim snorted. "Yeah, because you're Superman, so any mistakes on your part are entirely unforgivable."

"That's harsh," Blair said as he poked Jim in the side with an elbow.

"It's called sarcasm, Junior."

"I think I recognized it."

"I don't doubt you do," Jim agreed. "So, let's get out of here before you start brooding. I'll treat you to lunch with some of my newly deposited military loot."

"Yeah, that sounds good," Blair agreed. "Let's just let Brown and Rafe know that we were here."

"No problem," Jim agreed. Blair started toward the main building, and before Jim realized it, he had flung his arm over the shorter man's shoulders. And that left a dilemma. If he left it there… well, Jim could already feel the tendrils of need curling up through his nerves. But if he pulled his arm back, Blair might think Jim was rejecting him again.

Walking past the flat headstones, Jim searched his memories as he watched the curled mop of hair Blair had pulled back into a ponytail.

"I am not your Guide, Sentinel," Incacha had said. Jim ignored him and focused on sharpening his knife.

"You're my companion," Jim had finally answered.

"Yes. But not your Guide." The word he used had a connotation of spiritual or emotional guide, and Jim sighed as he finally looked up from the knife.

"You're the whole tribe's Guide. I am a member of the tribe. Therefore, you are my Guide." Jim frowned, trying to let Incacha know that as far as he was concerned, the conversation was over. Incacha just smiled back and slowly shook his head.

"No, I am the tribe's Shaman. I am not a Guide, so I cannot be your Guide."

"You're my bond-mate," Jim snapped. He stood up and started to walk away, but a hand landed on his arm, holding him in place because Jim couldn't fight back against Incacha. He'd never allowed his Sentinel instincts to control any part of him, so even now, months after joining the tribe, he shivered at the gut-level control Incacha had over him.

"I am your bond-mate, but Omili is my mate."

Jim shrugged. That was a familiar ache, one that he could easily live with.

Incacha sighed. "You must find your Guide, Enquiri. You must find one whose heart aches for you just as you ache for them."

"No!" Jim snapped. "That's not the way it is for Sentinels. We bond. And if, as you say, I have to go back if the Army comes, you'll just be handing me over to slavery where they'll force me to bond to someone who doesn't even care about me. But then, maybe you don't care about me either, at least maybe you don't care about me beyond what I can do for the tribe." Jim snarled the words and threw the knife down so that the point sunk deep into the ground, dulling the blade he had just sharpened. Jim had stormed off, and Incacha had not even tried to follow, not that time.

"Hey, Brian!" Blair called out, and Jim slipped out of the memory with a blink.

"Blair. I heard the Cap really landed on you yesterday."

Blair shrugged. "Okay, I might have been a little out of line, and I apologized this morning for that. So, Jim and I are going to head out."

"Yeah, that's right, Hairboy. Given your luck lately, I don't even like being on scene with you," Henri Brown pushed out the doors from the mortuary office, a wide smile on his face.

"Yeah, yeah. You're the one in hot water with Carolyn, and trust me, I would far rather have Simon pissed at me than Caro!" Blair shot back. Brown laughed.

"You keep telling yourself that. You're going to be answering domestic disputes on Thanksgiving the way you're going."

"You hope because that's the only thing that will save you from doing it," Blair jabbed his finger in the air with a smirk.

Jim took a step forward and pushed Blair behind him.

"Jim?" Blair asked, his voice wary, but Jim just held up a hand for quiet.

"Fuck. He's doing the Sentinel thing," Brown backed away, but Jim took a step in his direction, his senses coming to full alert so that the hairs on the back of his arms stood up.

"Jim, what is it?" Blair asked, a hand landing on Jim's arm and keeping him back when he would have pursued Brown who kept backing up.

"I don't know," Jim admitted.

"Okay," Blair said slowly. "Okay, let's start with sight. Focus on just sight; put the other senses aside for just a second. Does something look wrong with Brown?"

"Hey, I am looking fine, thank you very much," Brown quickly answered, but Jim could see the beads of sweat and the minute twitches as his muscles contracted nervously. However, nothing looked wrong. Jim shook his head.

"Okay, let's move on to sound. Dismiss your sight. Turn it down until you don't notice the details, and then really listen."

Jim followed Blair's directions, letting the world grey out as he focused on each sound. The wind whistled through branches, leaves rubbing against each other loudly. Four heartbeats outside. Six more muffled heartbeats inside. The sound of the shutter on the camera clicking as Carolyn worked. The patrolman's feet shuffling, breathing, quiet curses, cars, a plane far overhead, a squirrel's nails skittering over bark. Jim almost lost himself in it when fingers tightened into his arm and he shook off the sensation of drowning in sound.

"All normal," he said, aggravated.

"Okay, this is a hard one. Smell. Focus on Brown this time. What is bothering you about Henri?"

"Considering what he had for breakfast, you really might not want to do that," Rafe said softly. "I told you to skip the horseradish on those eggs."

"I'll give up horseradish altogether if Jim just cuts out the creepy stuff."

"It's not creepy. Man, this is normal Sentinel behavior, and if you can't be respectful…"

Jim cut off the incipient argument by pulling Blair forward as he walked toward Brown, sniffing the air.

"It's there," Jim said.

"Horseradish. Even I can smell that," Rafe commented, but Jim shook his head.

"What's there?" Blair asked.

Jim frowned, unable to place the odor he could faintly smell clinging to Brown. "Okay, it must have something to do with this case. Focus on the scent and think back to all the places we visited yesterday."

Jim growled as the scent came to him so powerfully that he clutched at Blair to stay upright.

"Jim!"

"Blair? Should we call someone?" Brown asked. Jim narrowed his eyes and stared at the mortuary building.

"Yeah," Jim said, interrupting Blair. "Call Banks. The killer is here."

Not waiting for a reaction, Jim started forward, heading for the door.

"Jim!" hands pulled at him, but for once, Jim ignored them as he simply pulled Blair with him into the building. "Oh man, Jim, come on. You don't want to do this."

"Oh, I so do," Jim countered as he came around the corner into the main waiting room where six people sat around or stood with expressions that ranged from aggravated to bored. Jim cocked his head as he considered them, waiting for his smell to identify the prey. That gave Blair time to get in front of him and stand with his hands on Jim's chest and his feet braced.

"Jim, no way, man. Come on, my mom's friend Jim would so not be doing this," he hissed. Luckily, the kid was short enough that Jim could look right over his head. One of the two workmen sat up.

"What is this?" a man in a suit demanded as he stepped forward. Jim moved toward him, pushing Blair physically back.

"Dan, Dan just get out of his way," a woman suggested as she got up and pressed against one of the walls.

"I will not have some out of control—"

"Button it," Jim snapped as he reached down and grabbed Blair's arm, holding him in place as he sidestepped around his guide, despite Blair's frantic attempts to hold him.

"You. You were at the Taylors. The scent of you was all over the gardener's shed in the back, right where Kari Taylor played," Jim said, his voice low and soft and slow as he moved toward one of the workmen. The man was middle aged, his face heavily lined and leathery and his body lumpy with hard-earned muscle and fat. The other worker quickly stood and backed away, and Jim dismissed him.

"Damn it, Jim!" Fingers grabbed at Jim's belt, dragging him back, and Jim slowed as Blair's weight dragged at him again.

"Hey, I don't know what you're…" The worker stood, an unconcerned expression on his face. However, mid-word he turned and bolted through an arch to a hallway on the far side of the room.

Jim tried to follow, but Blair was all but plastered onto him now, and the killer was fleeing. Jim tried pulling Blair off, peeling him arms away like the skin of a banana, but the man clung like a monkey, and hissed as Jim's increasingly frantic attempts aggravated his sore shoulders.

"Blair," Jim growled a warning.

"Not happening," Blair snapped right back.

Unable to see any other way, Jim reached up and pressed his thumb into the baroreceptor in Blair's carotid artery, carefully checking to make sure he only pressed the artery and didn't damage it. Immediately, Blair's grip loosened, and one hand let go altogether to grab at Jim's wrist. Jim held it for a second longer, until Blair looked slightly dazed, and then he pulled himself away from Blair.

"Stay here!" Jim called as he started down the hallway, the stench of fear in the air hanging heavy, like a trail of neon breadcrumbs that Jim could follow to the prize. Jim slammed out a door into the chilly air, afraid the trail would lead toward the parking lot. Instead it angled back toward the trees guarding the rear of the cemetery.

"Brown!" Jim bellowed as he took off running. Blair had given the suspect just enough of a head start that Jim couldn't see him, but he could smell the sour fear and hear the racing heart and see where feet had crushed the grass. People were running behind him, but Jim ignored those voices as he heard rusted hinges creak open.

"Shit," Jim cursed, realizing the killer had some sort of shelter. The minute Jim reached the trees, he could see the wood shed on the far side of a dirty creek, and smell the gun oil.

Charging across the stream, Jim jerked the rough door open just as the suspect put the gun to his own head.

"Oh no you don't," Jim snapped as he threw himself forward, tackling the man so they both crashed to the ground. Rakes and hoses fell over them as Jim pointed the gun to the ground a scant second before it went off with a deafening boom. Temporarily stunned by the noise, Jim loosened his grip, and the killer squirmed back, away from Jim and the tangle of hoses and equipment.

Before he could get more than a foot, Jim reached out and grabbed the gun arm, slamming it into the rotting wood floor over and over until finally the gun dropped out of his numb fingers. Only then did Jim stand up, dragging the now-crying man with him.

"You are not killing yourself on my watch. You can damn well go to jail and pay for what you did." Jim came out into the light, draped with landscaping equipment and pulling the man who now babbled softly in Spanish.

"Jim?" Brown asked weakly. Jim looked up to see Brown and Rafe and Carolyn Plummer, all with their guns drawn, but the weapons pointed to the ground.

"I don't get paid to do paperwork. He's all yours," Jim warned Brown. The man had time to put his gun away and pull out handcuffs before Jim shoved the suspect his way.

"I didn't mean to kill her. She was so beautiful. An angel," he babbled even as Brown started reading him his rights.

"Jim, you okay?" Carolyn asked as Jim started pulling the hoses off him, dropping the coils to the ground before he stepped clear.

"Fine. I recognized the smell from the Taylor place. He must work in both places, which is why he brought Kari here."

Brown and Rafe just looked at him incredulously before pulling the suspect away. Carolyn holstered her gun, but she continued to stand there, blinking silently as Blair finally showed up, pale and not running very fast, but managing a good trot.

"Stay there?" he demanded as he came up, and without warning, he punched Jim's arm hard enough to actually sting.

"Ow," Jim complained as he frowned. "Nice, I catch the bad guy and you hit me."

"STAY THERE?!" Blair demanded loudly.

"With two sprained shoulders, low blood pressure, and a bloodstream full of pain killers, yeah, stay there," Jim said reasonably as he crossed his arms and glared down at Blair, daring him to argue with that logic.

"And what fucking gun were you going to use to protect yourself?" Blair demanded, his face quickly turning from white to a bright shade of red.

"I should… you know, collect some evidence. We don't want this one squirming away," Carolyn excused herself as she backed away.

"Blair," Jim said softer once they were alone. He reached out to rest his hand on Blair's shoulder, but Blair stepped back, his body still tight with anger, and that was not good for muscles still trying to heal from the damage Kincaid had inflicted.

"Don't you 'Blair' me. You went running off after a fucking killer. You fucking disabled me so you could go running off after a fucking killer, you fucking asshole."

"I couldn't let him get away," Jim said calmly, well aware that Blair's panic was enough for both of them. He refused to allow his own instincts to react to the sharp smell of Blair's adrenaline in the air. His nose itched, and Jim took a deep breath, cataloguing the new scents leaking from Blair.

"Henri and Brian were right out front. You could have fucking sent them in. No, you have to go charging in and then you have to go charging out after him, you fucking… I need a bigger word than fucking. I need something that encompasses just how incredibly, overwhelmingly, pig-headedly—"

"Chief," Jim called, holding up a hand to stop the tirade which he could see building to epic proportions. "You're right, I should have waited for Brown and Rafe to get in place. But other than that, I did what I had to do."

"You fucking disabled me. I would have backed you up if you hadn't pulled some fucking Vulcan neck thing."

"Pressure points," Jim said quietly. "It just dropped your blood pressure a bit. I needed to catch him, and I couldn't get you off me without hurting your shoulders."

"Just dropped my blood pressure. Just… Ellison, I don't even have words. You could have died."

"I didn't," Jim said quietly. "Okay, I fucked up today, rushing in instead of working with the team. How is that different from what you did yesterday?"

"Yesterday? Is this about proving some point? What? I scare the shit out of you, so you do it in return?" Blair dropped his hands to his side, staring at Jim blankly, his heart still pounding. Jim could hear police cars pull up, Banks shouting for information.

"Blair, we both sometimes act without thinking. You tried to stop me, and I was desperate to catch the guy."

"What if he'd killed you?" Blair asked again, and Jim could practically smell the fury turn to fear.

"He didn't. I'm not that easy to kill; ask Manuel Noriega."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that," Blair said, his voice now shaky with emotion. "That's really one thing more than I can handle at this point. Why did I have to get the covert ops Sentinel with the Superman complex?" Blair asked the sky. Jim tried reaching out again, resting his hand on Blair's shoulder, and this time, Blair didn't retreat.

"Man, if you ever leave me behind again, I am putting hot sauce in your underwear," Blair threatened as he inched forward.

"Do it, and you'll be bald the minute you fall asleep," Jim threatened right back as he pulled Blair to his chest and wrapped his arms around his Guide. He was so screwed. The blind panic in Blair's eyes, Jim had seen that same expression in the mirror when his 'rescuers' had dumped him in the brig. He knew that special sour stench of blind terror and desperation and loss still clinging to Blair. For months after he lost Incacha, he'd smell it in his sheets every morning when he got up.

"It's okay, Blair. We'll figure it out," he promised, not willing to even tell his Guide just how much they had to figure out. For one second, Jim indulged in a fantasy—not of dragging Blair off to Canada but of dragging him to Incacha because Jim sure didn't know what the hell they were supposed to do now. Blair's arms reached around his waist, and Jim tightened his hold and allowed his cheek to rest on the top of his Guide's head. Oh yeah, he was screwed; he just couldn't bring himself to care at that exact moment.

THIRTY THREE
***
"Oh man, I warned you, radioactive kittens, man. Boom. Wow… Simon was just about to burst a blood vessel."

"I was there; I saw it," Jim pointed out . "Personally, I think he was more angry about you hiding the physical pain you've been suffering than anything else."

Blair waved that comment away with a dismissive hand as he headed into the loft. "The doctor cleared me, we had his permission to be on scene, and we weren't trying to do anything more subversive or dangerous than tell Brown we were taking off. We're totally in the clear. But, man. Finally! We nailed him. Okay, you nailed him which, when I think about it, is even better."

Blair circled the room, a hyper sprite flitting from place to place. "Man, the next time Brown gets all pissy about you doing your Sentinel thing, I am so rubbing his nose in the fact that you used less force than he generally does when he makes his arrests." Blair spun to face Jim. "This one time, he was chasing down this gang member who had done a drive-by shooting that killed a three-year old, and he tackled the guy right into a dumpster which, you know, happens, but then he managed to drop him in the gutter and hit the suspect's head on the top of the car when he was putting him in. Man, I thought Simon was going to blow a whole lot of blood vessels that day."

"Chief," Jim interrupted, because right now it seemed like Blair might just keep going and going and going.

"And Herrera using two *different* fake ID's to get work…."

"Yeah, I get it, Junior," Jim tried jumping in. He was struggling with the words to start the conversation they needed to have, but Blair just kept talking so much that Jim couldn't quite get his thoughts together. Jim chickened-out and went for the easier conversation: the one about the case. "I get that there really wasn't a way to connect him to both scenes. I just think the Taylors are going to feel guilty for a long time. Hiring illegals… hell, hiring anyone without a background check and reliable identification…."

"Totally stupid, yeah," Blair finished the thought for him. "But we caught him. He was so sure he was in the clear." Blair jerked his fist, a sign of hard-earned victory, as he circled the living room couch again, this time with a half bounce. "No *way* he thought we'd connect him. And if you hadn't been there--. Oh man, he could have gotten away with it."

"Blair," Jim tried again. This time his Guide actually stopped and looked at him.

"Yeah?"

"We need to talk."

That stopped Blair. He froze near the end of the couch and stared at Jim for a second. "Okay, you have that tone like Karen Lowinski had right before she told me I was too short for her," Blair said with a weak laugh and a shrug, but the energy drained from him. His hands hung at his sides.

Jim snorted. "This is more the picking out the rings conversation," he admitted. Blair blinked, frowned, and blinked again.

"Uh… what?"

"Just… let me try and get through this," Jim practically begged as he stepped forward and put his hands on Blair's shoulders. He guided Blair over to the couch, and Blair sank down, his face still wary. Pushing aside a stack of anthropology magazines, Jim sat on the chest they used as a coffee table and rested his hands on Blair's knees.

"Jim?" Blair asked uncertainly.

"You thought I didn't want you to back me up, that I didn't trust you," Jim said, making a guess based on the distress he'd smelled on Blair at the scene.

"Okay, when you use the covert-Vulcan neck pinch thing, it kinda gives a guy the impression that you don't want him tagging along. It was a reasonable assumption. You didn't want me hurt; you did something you so should not have done. Now can we skip round four of this same old conversation?"

"Blair, I do trust you to back me up," Jim said seriously, looking straight at Blair to try and emphasize just how much he meant that. Blair's injuries might have concerned Jim, just like he had told Simon on scene, but he trusted Blair.

Blair bit his lip and then seemed to brace himself. He looked away, but his heart pounded out a fast rhythm that told Jim he was paying attention. Jim tightened his grip on Blair's legs, leaning in.

"Blair?" Jim asked.

"Why?"

The question startled Jim. "What?"

"Man, I get why you might not want me to back you up because you're covert ops Ranger guy, and I'm the one who barely passed hand-to-hand combat in the Academy. Okay, the trainer said I was impressive at fighting dirty and getting in a low blow or two, but…" Blair shrugged.

"Blair, I would rather have you at my back than the trigger-happy kids I led in the Army. You think first, and that's always the best backup."

This time it was Blair's turn to snort. "Yeah, like I was thinking when I went in after Dessy?"

Jim leaned back. "Part of that is my fault. I only needed you to stay for a minute or two while I centered on the room, but I didn't tell you that. But when I think about how you handled me in that airport—that showed some serious balls and a lot of clear-thinking, especially since you knew about…" Jim stopped, the memory of neck bones snapping under his hand stealing the word.

"Hey, not your fault." Blair quickly slipped into support mode and sat up, ready to escape the couch and end the conversation. Yep, the kid knew Jim had something serious to say, he just didn't want to hear it.

"Chief," Jim sighed.

"Okay, fine. Look, whatever this is, just say it before I have a heart attack, okay?" Blair practically begged, his hands coming to rest on top of Jim's hands. "You're really freaking me out here, and after hours of paperwork and Mount St. Simon, I'm really too tired for a panic attack right now."

"You know the Institute is wrong about most things Sentinel, right?"

"Oh, yeah. I think we established that. The whole idea of Sentinels having no control? I would have given anything to have Wendy there with her camera when you took Herrera down. Talk about shaking up a world view or two. And that would have been a much better exclusive than Simon putting Herrera in the car in handcuffs."

"And they're wrong about bonding?" Jim prompted.

Now Blair frowned, tilting his head at Jim as he obviously tried to figure out what was coming next. "Yeah," he said slowly.

"And they're wrong about guardians."

"Well, yeah, I get that. The whole 'guardians' thing is way out of line. Man, you told me that in no uncertain terms the very first day you came here. I think back on what a schmuck I was, and I want to whap myself upside the head," Blair laughed. "Sentinels don't need guardians… or at least their need for a guardian is no more than anyone else, because the learned helplessness of the whole system—man, that can seriously fuck with a person's head."

Jim started to open his mouth, and Blair held out his hand to stop him. "Hey, I know that you do not like hearing this, but some Sentinels, the ones who have been raised to believe they can't control themselves, they still totally need guardians. Control is a learned behavior, and the whole system conspires against them. But when it comes to Sentinels who show control, like you, I'm with you, man. You need a companion and not a guardian. Check."

"Shit. Can I get a word in here?" Jim demanded as he exploded up from the coffee table and paced to the window.

"Jim?"

"Guides bond too," Jim announced, his eyes firmly focused out at the sky.

"The what do what?"

"Guides," Jim started again. "Incacha said I couldn't stay with him." Jim paused, and suddenly a warm hand rested on his back, Blair silently pressing, silently offering support. Jim smiled as he smelled the aggression on Blair. While he appreciated the fact that Blair cared enough about him to get pissed, the pain of losing Incacha wasn't more than a dull memory now. "Incacha said that while he could be my bond-mate, he couldn't be my Guide." Jim stopped, struggling to put his ideas into order, especially when he suspected Blair wasn't going to like them much.

"What's a Guide?" Blair asked in the silence.

Jim laughed darkly. "Damned if I know. Incacha said that some souls, they are pulled towards a Sentinel on the spirit plane."

"You mean like the mystical stuff?" Blair asked. Stuff. Jim took a deep breath and firmly ordered himself not to talk about the panther that had led him to Blair. One major paradigm-shifting disaster at a time.

"He said that a Sentinel could bond to anyone, but that a Guide would complete the bond. He said I couldn't stay with him because I needed to find my Guide. He said my Guide needed to bond to me as badly as I needed to bond to him."

"So, you're looking for a Guide?"

"I found a Guide," Jim sighed as he focused on the dark leading edge of a flat-bottomed cloud that threatened rain. He hadn't particularly wanted a Guide, but he had found one anyway. And now he had choices that were even more complicated than before.

"Whoa, you're losing me here, Jim."

Slowly, Jim turned around to find Blair staring up at him in confusion. Jim allowed himself to reach out and brush his hand against Blair's cheek before resting it on his shoulder. "Hey," Blair offered softly, "Whatever this is, man, we'll, you know, be okay."

"Blair, when you thought I didn't want your backup, how did you feel?"

"Not my best moment," he admitted, shrugging self-consciously and looking down.

"You smelled like a Sentinel whose bond is breaking," Jim said quietly. Blair's eyes snapped up to him.

"What?"

"You thought I'd rejected you, and you put out this scent… I've smelled it before."

It took Blair a second of blinking before he could come up with a response, but the slow smirk was not the reaction Jim had wanted. "Oh buddy, you *so* hit your head today, didn't you?" Blair huffed.

"Blair."

"Way out in left field." And the hand gestures were back.

"I know the smell," Jim said firmly. "I smelled it every morning I woke up grieving for Incacha and ordering myself not to turn south and try and run for Peru. I smelled it on Ursula, this Sentinel who they brought back to the Institute after her guardian died. Even after she was out of isolation, every once in a while one of the kids in there would thoughtlessly bring up bonding, and she got that same smell. That's what you smelled like."

Blair was shaking his head now. "Jim, I don't know what you smelled, but that's impossible."

"Blair, there was something between us, right from that moment at the airport. I know I started feeling pulled toward you the first time I was here, when I thought you were just trying to help me."

"Jim, you're a Sentinel. Look, I don't know whether you hit your head really hard or if Incacha had smoked some interesting greenery before coming up with this theory, but Jim, come on, do you know what this sounds like?" Blair reached up and rested his hand on Jim's arm as though to soften the blow, but Jim could feel the frown start even as he ordered himself to deal with the denial calmly.

"No stranger than saying that I have instinctive behaviors that influence my decision making," he commented. Blair at least had the grace to flinch away from that.

"Hey, I hear you. But don't you see? You're totally projecting here. You're frustrated and so to make yourself normal again, you invent this whole thing no one else has ever heard of and now everyone bonds and you're normal again. Jim, I hear you. I totally get how you could…"

"Can it," Jim snapped. "I'm not saying that everyone bonds. If everyone bonded, I would have stayed with Incacha, even if I was second to his wife for the rest of my life, even if I slept in a corner of their hut until I was so old my knees wouldn't bend any more. Incacha said that most Sentinels have only a bond-mate, someone they bond to. But he said he had a vision where I found my Guide, and that my Guide would bond in return."

"A vision?" Blair asked. Jim pressed his lips together and counted backward from a hundred as he struggled with his temper.

"Okay, Freud would call that a subconscious desire being expressed, so I'm all in favor of visions. Perfectly mentally healthy. Naomi goes on that whole vision quest thing all the time, man. I don't think she's had an actual vision yet, but I can respect the holistic mental health approach here."

"Chief, you're talking yourself into one serious whap on the head," Jim warned as he turned away and leaned against the brick wall, focusing on the building's chill to keep him from exploding. "You were in distress because you thought I rejected you. I could smell that. And now that I see what you're like when I'm not acting like an asshole, I think you've been in bond distress for the last week or so. You said it yourself, you nearly killed the damn plant."

"Hey, just a little clinical depression, and I have been in therapy since I was old enough to talk, so that's not exactly evidence of anything, and Spidey's going to be fine. Back when I was a TA at Rainier, he had a near death experience every semester when students turned in their finals."

Jim could hear Blair cross the living room and sit down heavily on the couch. Silence filled the room, or at least a Sentinel version of silence. The heater made the building vibrate softly, water flowed through pipes to one of the other apartments, and a plane engine dully roared overhead, oddly out of sync with Blair's heartbeat.

"I know what I smelled. And I know I caused it, both today and during my week of impersonating an asshole. I didn't understand," Jim said quietly, feeling his way around the apology. He could throw out words like "sorry" easily enough, but now—knowing that he had caused Blair the ripping pain of a strained bond—he found he just couldn't say the words. He meant them too much. Jim floundered with that bit of illogic.

"Jim," Blair said slowly. Then he burst up from the couch so fast that Jim spun, his senses thrown out in search of the intruder.

"Ketosis!" Blair shouted as he headed for the bathroom.

"Blair?" Jim followed, hearing the sound of Blair digging through the medicine cabinet, and flinching at the sound of most of their stuff getting strewn around the small room. "Hey, let's not trash the place," Jim suggested as he reached the open door and found himself faced with the full force of Hurricane Sandburg leaving a trail of debris in his wake.

"Ketosis!" Blair repeated triumphantly, holding up a small box of medical supplies. His fingers worked first the cardboard and then the little plastic bottle as he talked. "If you're right, which you so totally are not, then my body has to be in ketosis from the prolonged stress. Purple strip, I'm feeling a stressed bond, either that or I have a serious-ass medical condition, but that's not likely. Man, you should see the physical they make you go through to become a cop."

"Blair, I never said you'd have the same metabolic reaction."

"Oh yeah, keep on backpedaling, Ellison," Blair said as he unzipped his pants and aimed at the toilet. Dipping a strip into the yellow stream, Blair started counting. "One thousand one… one thousand two… one thousand three…"

Blair stopped peeing at one thousand nine. He stopped counting at one thousand eleven. By then, the beige strip had turned such a dark shade of purple that Jim felt a little worried and a lot guilty. The kid's body was throwing out ketones like a starving man, and Jim carried the blame for that. He'd had Blair so convinced that he wanted to break the bond that his Guide had suffered the pain of a stressed bond.

"Fuck," Blair breathed as he looked down at the incriminating strip with a drop of yellow clinging to the edge.

"Why don't you wash up, and I can fix us some hamburgers," Jim suggested quietly, backing away from the door. He waited for a second in the hall, seeing if Blair would object to his leaving or want the privacy, but Blair just stared down at the incriminating strip. Jim nodded and headed for the kitchen. He'd just upended the man's universe, the least he could do was give him the illusion of privacy.

"Double fuck with icing," Blair said softly as Jim reached the kitchen.

Jim could relate with that sentiment. Maybe it was being in the same city, but he couldn't escape the memory of his father's birds and bees and Sentinels talk with him. He'd walked away from the football field with his knees trembling, looking at every bush as though there were some guardian ready to spring out and rape him right then.

It had taken years before Jim trusted a single thought or impulse he had. If he wanted ice cream, he'd wonder to himself whether he wanted it because he liked ice cream or if it was some weird Sentinel thing. Of course, he was handicapped by the fact that his father made sure that Jim couldn't research Sentinels in any way, shape, or form, so Jim didn't know if Sentinels had a weird ice cream thing.

And his father would reinforce that fear, constantly suggesting that Jim couldn't make a single decision independent from his Sentinel instincts. If he rushed to Stevie's defense against that idiot Aaron, his father would demand to know if Jim was trying to out himself as the watchman of his tribe. His father had tried to drive as many wedges between Jim and Steven as he could. Looking back, Jim wondered how many of those games Steven was in on, and how many times Steven was just another victim.

"Fucking… I really need a bigger word," Blair breathed from the bathroom, the toilet seat making a creaking noise as Blair sat down. Jim focused on the meat as he let Blair take some time to get his thoughts back together. It was hard to learn that your decisions weren't totally your own, that you had some drive sunk deep into your brain that was just as strong as another man's urge to breathe.

"Well, fuck," Blair sighed. Jim understood just what the kid was thinking. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to help.

THIRTY FOUR
***
Jim silently ate his cheeseburger, watching as Blair picked at the salad. He was particularly interested in rolling the small tomato over the pile of greens and then herding it back again with his fork.

If only Jim had the magic words to make this easier, he'd use them, but he didn't. Hopefully a little incense and some drum music would get Blair back on track a little quicker than Jim's own tortuous path to accepting not only his senses but his instincts. Okay, he only sometimes accepted his instincts, but he had learned to appreciate his senses. Blair glanced up at Jim again before shoving a fry in his mouth.

"Well, aren't you going to say it?" Blair asked, breaking the long silence.

"Say what?"

"Oh man, I can think of any number of things you could say."

"So, why don't you say them for me?" Jim asked, curious as to where exactly Blair was going.

"I'm thinking you'd start with 'what's good for the goose is good for the gander,'" Blair said, thunking his fork down on the table.

"Blair," Jim said softly.

"I am like this world-class schmuck because I never got it. I mean, I've studied Sentinels for how many years, and I just never got it, you know? Not in the gut. Not really." Blair pushed his plate with his half-eaten cheeseburger away so he could rest his elbows on the table. "Realizing that someone else has this key that fits your emotions, man, this is…"

"It's hard."

"I mean, I spent all that time telling you to stop denying your instincts."

"You didn't exactly say that," Jim objected.

"Oh, I thought it. I totally thought it. And now… it's not just instinct, that's not why I like you," Blair explained in halting words.

"I know. Instinctively, I'm pulled toward you, but that doesn't change the fact that I respect who you are and what you've done," Jim agreed.

"And then there's me making fun of you and Incacha, not that I feel sorry about making fun of Incacha after what he put you through, but I was way out of line with the comment about you getting hit in the head. But despite the whole out of line thing, I still feel a need to slug Incacha." Blair stopped suddenly, a sour expression flitting across his face.

Jim sighed, practically able to hear the fears in Blair's brain. "Your anger is all yours, Blair. Maybe if Incacha were right here you might feel some sort of instinctive competitiveness since he was my first bond-mate, but he's thousands of miles away, so any feelings you have are just you."

"Wow, you've got your telepathy tuned in today," Blair gave a strained laugh.

"I've been there. And you're too tough to let this throw you for long." Jim hadn't finished his burger, but he pushed his own plate aside and focused on his Guide. His Guide. A little part of Jim had always though Incacha had made up that story and that vision just to get rid of the crazy Sentinel who had pushed into the Shaman's life and home. Maybe not.

"Should we tell someone?" Blair asked uncertainly. Jim thought about that. Yeah, the scientist in Blair probably wanted to confirm the results and write a paper and give a lecture, but Jim wasn't sure that was the best approach.

"Blair, if society has trouble dealing with Sentinels, who are one quarter of one percent of the population, how do you think they'd deal with someone who seems to be unique?" Jim asked.

Blair stared silently at Jim. Outside a truck laid on its horn and tires screeched, but no crunch of metal followed.

"Nearly three-quarter of a million Sentinels and one me." Blair thought about that for a second. "Canada's sounding good," he sighed.

If Blair were serious, Jim would have done a jig. That just wasn't a serious tone of voice; it was a defeated one. "I don't think anyone is likely to guess your secret identity," Jim pointed out, "but this does change a few things."

"Like you running," Blair quickly concluded.

"I don't know what to do," Jim agreed. "I don't want to hurt you, and now that you're bonded, I know it will hurt more than you can imagine."

"Hey, I already did the stress-ketosis thing, and forewarned is forearmed. I'll stock up on enough anti-depressants to keep an entire jihad cult mellow and happy. But…" Blair stopped.

"You want me to stay." Jim said the words slowly, praying that Blair would disagree because Jim was already fighting every instinct he owned, and leaving when his Guide asked him to stay… Jim could feel a cold dread as he realized he might not have the strength to do that.

"Jim," Blair paused. "Jim, we could make a difference. Yeah, the system is unfair, but we could help change that. If we could change the laws so that you had more freedoms and so that Sentinels didn't have to fight for every privilege… I know it isn't a perfect world." Blair's voice trailed off.

Jim stood up and retreated to his window, the one where he could fill his vision with sky without seeing the sprawl of the city below. "You really think we could change things?" he asked. He just didn't know; he didn't know if that was enough to sacrifice his freedom and he didn't know if they could actually make a difference in a system that had developed over hundreds of years. Even worse right now, he didn't know what it would eventually do to the relationship between him and Blair if he stayed because Blair had asked him to.

"You risked your life to protect the country," Blair said. "Is this really all that different? Man, I promise I will be less of a schmuck now because I totally get how freaky this bond is. We're in this together, equals to the end, man. And if you say we run, then hey, we'll start picking out curtains for a Canadian cabin. But is changing your country really less important than defending it?"

Jim stared out into the sky and felt his mind circling that question. This was one of those cases where Jim couldn't decide how much his instincts or his resentments of his instincts influenced his logic. "You're stubborn, you know that?" Jim finally answered with a question.

"Year of the pig, man: studious and stubborn."

Jim laughed and turned around. "You were born in the year of the pig? I should have guessed." Blair's heart rate made a familiar little jump. Cocking his head, Jim considered Blair, and after a second, Blair started to blush. "Blair?"

"Hey, have you ever heard of 'invasion of privacy'?" Blair asked as he turned and headed back for the kitchen. "I think this is all a little too freaky right now, so we can totally talk about this later. Besides, aren't you supposed to give Eli a call? I mean, helping him identify Sentinels who function outside the system would be like this huge monumental step toward change."

"What are you trying to obfuscate your way out of?" Jim demanded dryly as he followed.

"Okay, fine, I'm not year of the pig, okay?" Blair stopped near the table, rolling his eyes as he grabbed dishes.

"Wait, you lied about your sign? Okay, what difference does that make?" Jim asked. "Virgo, Leo, Year of the Dragon, Year of the Pig—it's all just mumbo jumbo."

"Hey, like Naomi says, the Chinese were making complex astrological observations when the English were still picking fleas out of their beds," Blair jabbed a finger in Jim's direction. Then the indignation dissolved into a shrug. "But yeah, the whole thing probably is a bunch of hooey."

"But hooey your mom believed in." Jim understood how a parent's beliefs just sort of oozed through the cracks and settled in, even when you didn't want them to.

Blair shrugged. "Yeah, she put a lot of stock in it."

"So why lie? Your mom has to know your real birthday."

"Man, do not get her started on that--year of the monkey."

"And?" Jim asked, not sure what that was supposed to mean.

"Enthusiastic, fun-loving, impish, and intelligent."

"That's not sounding like something to hide. Hell, it sounds more accurate than any other horoscope I've heard. I'm a Gemini, but do you see me as someone quick to talk, wishy-washy, and always trying to be the life of the party?" Jim sat on the arm of the couch and waited for an explanation that actually made sense.

"Monkeys also get easily distracted or confused and they have a little problem with morals. They tend to not have many. They aren't evil or anything, but they're more about what works for them than doing what's right. Mom was so sure I was going to be born a rooster with yin influences. She wanted that talent and devotion and steadfastness, and she said that a boy born into a yin influence wouldn't be as ruled by his testosterone. But then I had to get born early and slip in at the tail end of monkey, and do not make that into a pun," Blair warned darkly. "And a yang-influenced monkey to boot."

Jim cringed. Okay, if Naomi had discussed her disappointment in this much detail, the woman had probably left some pretty deep marks.

"Oh Chief."

"Hey, do not go there. Like you said, it's a bunch of hooey, but no way would anyone buy me as a rooster because steadfastness is not my thing, so I just default to year of the pig. Caring, intelligent, occasionally taken advantage of: they make great teachers. I considered going for year of the dog, which is the year after rooster, but I fit "obedient" even worse than I fit "steadfast."

"Blair, you have more morals than anyone else I've worked with," Jim promised. He expected a smile; instead, Blair flinched back, physically retreated behind the table.

Slowly, Blair started shaking his head. "No way. Man, I thought I had ethical standards, but I'm re-evaluating. Part of being an ethical person is putting yourself in someone else's shoes. And man, I didn't do that. I told myself I understood Sentinels, but after this, no fucking way. I was totally lying to myself."

"That doesn't make you unethical. You helped people," Jim said quietly. He was starting to get a little worried about the unpredictable turns this conversation kept taking, but Blair wasn't an immoral man. Jim had seen enough evil in the world to know that for certain.

"Thomas Hardy said it. Don't do the immoral thing for moral reasons. And I may have thought I was doing right, but now… How much of that was fear? Sentinels are like scary, powerful creatures. And how many people did I hurt because I never *really* thought about their side of it. I mean, I went and I did something so totally stupid, even when my mom came and burned sage and had this spiritualist in to help me see the true path."

Jim waited. Blair was still pacing, his hands violently punctuating his words with little jabs into the air, but the distress still radiated.

"Man, I became part of the system. I told myself I wanted to make the world better, but I was playing hero. I wanted to ride to the rescue, and when some traumatized Sentinel would cling to me, I felt like some sort of superman. Fuck." Blair stopped, and Jim could see the tremors in his muscles. "How much of that was the Guide thing?" Blair asked, his eyes finding Jim, as though Jim had some answer.

"How much of what?" Jim asked, not entirely sure he was following Blair's logic simply because Blair's logic seemed to be twisting all out of shape.

"Me wanting to help Sentinels. Me wanting to work with them. The fact that Sentinels would cling to me. How much of that is because I'm a Guide?"

"Chief, don't do this to yourself," Jim begged. "Don't try and rewrite your whole life as nothing more than you following some instinct. You chose to help Sentinels because you're a good person."

"Yeah, well that whole monkey thing is sounding a little more accurate. I was getting what I wanted: I got to play hero." This time, Blair wandered to the window and took up Jim's normal post staring out over the city and toward the sea.

"So, if I felt good saving a village from drug dealers, that makes me a bad person?" Jim asked.

"I'm not talking about you," Blair snapped in frustration, looking back toward Jim before focusing out the window again.

"Oh, you are. You're talking about human nature here, Blair. If you felt good about helping someone who's been abused, that makes you a good person. A bad person would hurt them more."

"Man, knock it off with the emotionally supportive shit. It's freaky. I'm supposed to be the touchy feely one, here." Blair's voice had at least a touch of humor in it now. Feeling the tone shift, Jim got up and stood behind Blair and put his hands on Blair's hips. For the first time, he allowed himself to touch more than a shoulder, to let his hands linger. Blair leaned back into him, and Jim curled his arms around Blair's stomach.

"I can care about you because I care about you. It doesn't have to be some bond," Blair whispered, his hands resting on Jim's own.

"No, it doesn't," Jim quickly agreed.

"Or guilt or some overdeveloped sense of shame for being born in the year of the monkey. I can just like you."

"Yeah, I like to think I'm likeable, most days," Jim said softly. Blair huffed, but he also leaned his head back so that it rested against Jim's shoulder. "Blair, I like you, and the bond—the bond will always be between us, holding us together—but that doesn't change the fact that I like how gutsy you are and how you throw yourself into everything you believe in."

"Is that why you told me to stay behind?" Blair joked weakly.

"I can like you and be your bond-mate without appreciating your habit of hiding your weaknesses, but then some people have told me I'm not perfect either," Jim agreed. "I don't see it myself," he joked.

"You're a neat freak. I can't leave magazines around without you putting them in a neat stack somewhere."

"Hey, I knocked that pile of magazines onto the floor just a few minutes ago," Jim defended himself. "Does it bother you?" he asked as he glanced over his shoulder at the apartment. The first day he'd been here, books had been strewn over the table, magazines had been scattered in one corner of the living room, and dishes had been just sitting on the counter. Now the kitchen was spotless, the magazines usually were in a pile on the coffee table / storage chest, and the books were all neatly tucked into the bookcases covering one wall.

"Nah, it's actually less embarrassing when someone comes over now," Blair dismissed Jim's fear that he was taking over the loft. Fingers slowly stroked Jim's forearms, tracing warm circles on the skin.

"And I *might* have played 'poor me' once or twice," Jim added.

"Yeah, I think you could play it a few hundred times and still be within your rights."

Silence filled the loft as the shadows lengthened and the sky slowly faded from violet with streaks of reds and oranges. Under his fingers, Jim could feel every breath Blair took and hear not only the steady beat of his heart, but the rush of blood through his veins and the rumbles of a stomach that was obviously still upset. Jim tightened his hold.

"We'll be okay," Jim promised softly. When Blair had hung in chains in Kincaid's warehouse, Jim had made a choice: he'd put Blair's safety ahead of his own freedom. Knowing how deeply the depression had taken hold of Blair during the stressed bond and knowing how much pain the man seemed to carry beneath that flippant exterior, Jim could guess what would happen if Jim left. The best case scenario included a nice institution and a lot of quality pharmaceuticals. The worst was something Jim wasn't even willing to consider.

"We'll be okay," he repeated as he made his decision. His Guide wouldn't leave Cascade; he wouldn't leave his Guide. Jim watched the sun sink under the horizon, and he allowed himself to grieve for his lost freedom. His heart aching, he simply clung more tightly to his Guide and let himself sink into the comfort of his Guide's touch tracing figures on his arms.

THIRTY FIVE
***
The sound of Blair's cell phone blasting tinny music a couple of inches from his ear yanked Jim out of sleep.

He fumbled at the side table before realizing the sound came from somewhere lower. Cracking open an eye, he grabbed the corner of Blair's pants and pulled them close enough for him to grope in the pocket. The irony of groping Blair's pants without getting to grope Blair rattled around in the back of Jim's brain, but he shoved aside the small part of him that complained at the unfairness and fished out the phone. For a half second, he considered flinging it against the brick wall. With a sigh, Jim flipped it open instead.

"Hello?"

"Uh. Is Sandburg there?" a deep voice on the other end asked.

"Blair," Jim said, prodding the mass currently drooling on his arm. "Blair!"

"Day off," Blair muttered and then he moved in closer, probably so he could drool on Jim's chest.

"It's Simon," Jim said as he poked Blair in the shoulder with the edge of the cell phone.

A bleary, blue eye appeared out from under a mass of tangled curls. "Simon?" Blair pulled his hand up and rubbed his face before taking the phone.

"Simon?" Blair asked, his voice still slurring with sleep. Jim relaxed back into the pillows and let his fingers trace the top of Blair's shoulder. Last night, Blair had accepted the invitation to sleep with an awkward shyness that didn't quite match Jim's image of the man. He'd laid in bed stiff until he had finally fallen asleep and reverted into a heat-seeking octopus that pressed closely to Jim's side. Jim half expected an awake Blair to flee the bed or at least flee the embrace, but instead he just lay his head on Jim's chest, the phone to his ear.

"I need you two down at the station," Simon immediately announced in a distracted voice. Jim caught the faint sound of paper rustling, and he got the distinct impression that the man was doing something else, something he considered more important.

"We're off suspension?" That perked Blair up. He pushed himself a few inches up from the bed, his free hand braced on Jim's chest, and the casual connection made Jim just want to stretch out like a big cat in the sun. He'd known the awkwardness between them had thrown Blair off, but Jim was starting to suspect that his own moods had suffered some because of the conflict.

Simon snorted in amusement. "No chance. You and Ellison still have two days. I should tack another day onto the end just for talking me into letting you go on-scene with the Taylor case."

"Oh man, you wouldn't."

"I would. At least, I would if we weren't already short-handed. I just need you to come in and go over your statements one more time."

"Why?" Blair asked suspiciously. He started sitting up and discovered his legs tangled with Jim's. When a knee brushed Jim's cock, Blair blushed and pulled away. Jim could smell desire, but he could also see the individual capillaries in his face swell with blood as embarrassment overrode the desire.

"You aren't going to like it," Simon warned, and Blair frowned as he rolled away from Jim. "Aldo wants to go over the statements. Actually, he wanted me to call you two in last night, but that…" Simon's voice started to rise in aggravation, but then he took a deep breath. "Aldo does not dictate how I run my department," he finished calmly.

"When is this asshole going to get a clue? Man, we were doing exactly what we were supposed to be doing. And legally, Jim could have given that killer a few good hits, so we're looking like saints all around. Aldo has zippidy doo-dah to complain about."

"Yeah, come tell him that so he gets his ass out of my department," Simon suggested.

"I just woke up," Blair said as he sat up at the edge of the bed. Jim reached over and used a single finger to trace the hairs on the back of Blair's arm. The desire and the embarrassment both intensified.

"Yeah, I gathered. Just get down here as soon as you can, preferably within the hour."

"I'll try my best."

"Don't try, do. I don't want you avoiding him so I have to put up with his attitude." Simon sounded gruff, but then he sighed. "Look, Blair, a lot of people are starting to whisper that Aldo is going too far. Just hang in there a little longer, and even his captain will have to admit that this is a personal vendetta."

"Great. So I can look forward to a morning of Asshole Aldo."

"Yeah, just do your own asshole impression right back at him; you have it down pat." Without waiting for an answer, Simon hung up the phone and Blair flipped his phone shut.

"Too fucking early," Blair mumbled as he rubbed his face again.

"I'm getting lazy, I used to be up at dawn every morning," Jim mused. He stretched his senses so that he could hear the traffic on the street and the sounds of the bakery below them.

"Man, and you call me weird?" Blair was silent for so long that Jim started worrying. He sat up behind Blair and gently fingered a soft curl.

"Blair?"

"Thanks for letting me sleep up here," Blair nearly whispered.

"It's a nice way to wake up," Jim answered.

"Yeah, well after I got pushy with you over sex the other day, I'm just glad you trusted me to share the bed. I was way out of line."

"It's fine, Chief."

"You were trying to keep me from bonding, weren't you?" Blair asked. Jim paused, his fingers resting against Blair's back as he tried to figure out what to say. The worst part was that he didn't know what Blair wanted or needed to hear. Should he say yes, he was trying to prevent the bond and protect Blair? Would Blair feel better if he said no, he had no idea about the bond and it was all Jim's own hang-ups? And worst of all, Jim wasn't quite sure why he had retreated from the offer.

"Maybe," Jim finally said. "I don't know. I didn't want you hurt if things got out of hand, but part of that was just me trying to deal with this." Jim let his hand fall away from Blair's body and rest on the mattress.

"Trying to deal with the fact that you didn't want to stay but you didn't want to leave me?" Blair asked. The voice had a strange tightness to it.

"I don't want to leave you. But a few days ago… there were too many things that needed to be said."

Blair nodded slowly. "And I was ready to jump your bones. Man, when you told me you needed space… I was down there struggling with this incredible need to strip naked and charge up those stairs, and I kept telling myself that assaulting you was so not cool and I was likely to get my skull cracked for pulling a stunt like that."

"I wouldn't hurt you," Jim said quickly. He silently cursed his decision to not smash the phone because the lazy comfort of just holding his Guide was infinitely more enjoyable than this awkward shifting, this struggle to find their balance in a new relationship.

"I know. But if I came running up those stairs stark naked…."

"I would have had sex with you," Jim finished. Blair tilted his head and looked at Jim.

"You would have?"

"Oh, yeah," Jim agreed, drawing the words out as he nodded.

"You mean I could have been having wild monkey sex for the last two days, and I settled for snuggling?" Blair asked with a crooked grin.

"Brat." Jim smiled back, the tension easing. "Besides, you weren't offering wild monkey sex last night."

Blair sat up a little straighter and sat silent for a second. "I would have except…"

"Except it's really strange when you don't know how many of your own feelings you can trust," Jim finished for him.

"Oh man, totally," Blair agreed. "Have you ever… I mean, other than Keith because I really am so not interested in hearing about Keith. Or Incacha. Fuck, I think I'm jealous. Man, this is not good for the karma."

Jim chuckled. "Sometimes I pushed the senses back so far that I would just forget them. There was a girl or two then."

"Just girls?" Blair leaned back on the bed and considered Jim.

"Yeah, Darwin, just girls. The military and an open lifestyle are not a good mix. Just because the regulations allow something does not mean the rank and file soldiers are going to let it slide."

"So are you interested in guys?" Blair frowned, his concern obvious. Jim sat up, smiling as he reached over and curled fingers around the back of Blair's neck and carefully pulled him close enough for a kiss. It was slow. Jim mapped Blair's mouth with his lips, feeling them slowly open to him. Using a tongue, he slipped into Blair, tasting, touching, feeling the body heat slowly rise as the scent of desire curled around them in wisps that clung to their skin.

Jim pulled back and Blair sat, his eyes closed and his mouth still slightly open. "I'm interested in you," Jim answered.

"Okay. Wow," Blair breathed, his eyes coming open. "And now you want me to go to work?"

Jim considered that. His timing probably could have been better. He shrugged.

"Oh man. I cannot believe I have to get out of bed after a kiss like that. As a man, I never turn down an offer of sex. Well, except for Susan Karalla who bordered on…" Blair whistled and made a loony-toons circle with his finger near his head. "What a nutcase." He paused. "But Simon will have us doing traffic if we're late, and somehow I don't think we want a quickie. Of course, it could be over quick. It could be over embarrassingly quick," Blair said wryly as he shifted, pulling at his boxers where Jim could see an impressive erection pressing against the fabric.

"If it was over quick, I'd just start over from the beginning and keep going," Jim said as he felt his own cock ache in response.

"Officially not helping," Blair complained. "Fuck, I have to get out of this bed now or I'm going to be so late that Simon is going to have me directing traffic at the go-cart races."

"Go," Jim said, using his foot to give Blair a little shove.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm going under protest; I want that on the record," Blair said as he pushed himself up and padding toward the stairs in boxers and his undershirt.

"Noted." Jim agreed. "And Blair?"

Blair paused on the top step, looking back.

"Maybe this afternoon after I get back from working with Eli we could see where things go."

"It's a date," Blair said with a smile. The smile widened into something a little more wicked. "And you know, I'm a big old man-whore with a reputation of putting out on the first date." Blair hurried down the stairs without waiting for an answer, and Jim just shook his head, listening as Blair took care of himself in the shower, crying out when he came.

Jim might have to make a few compromises… okay, more than a few… but he'd done that before. What had Blair asked him, whether changing his country was worth the same sacrifices as defending his country. Jim had risked his freedom and his life every time he'd walked into enemy territory. He had no illusions about what the terrorists would have done to him if they had caught him waiting to take his shot at their leader. He was a soldier. Listening to Blair hum in the shower, Jim also had to admit that life certainly promised to have some bright spots as well. Jim reached up and fingered the warm, smooth metal around his neck; he rarely even noticed it any more. Maybe it was time for a new plan.

Jim walked down the hall in front of Blair. The man trailed behind, explaining to some uniform from Traffic how the tribesman of Whatchamacallit made up with their wives after screwing up. Jim somehow doubted that making a mash of insects or using body paint was going to get this guy back in his wife's good graces.

"Yeah, but…" the red-haired victim of Blair's lecture tried to interrupt.

"Don't you get it?" Blair asked. "Come on. Do something that's really hard for you. Yeah, the mashed ants might not be her thing. But man, find something that hard. Do something tedious or unpleasant. Do something she likes."

"Maybe take her to the ballet?" the guy said uncertainly.

"Cool! Hey, if she likes ballet, definitely. And that's totally in line with rule number two. Make it public. If you can't paint yourself red, do something her coworkers will see. Send flowers. Embarrass her by delivering a gourmet lunch. Man, human nature never changes. She'll eat it up."

"I could take flowers and tickets over to the school after work."

"Totally. Man, you're off the couch already," Blair encouraged him.

"Thanks Blair, you're a lifesaver."

Jim stopped at the door to Major Crimes and glanced back at Blair. "Ants and red paint?" he asked.

"Hey, symbolism. It's all about the symbolism."

"Sure it is, Dr. Ruth," Jim laughed as he pushed through the doors into the bull pen. He wasn't surprised to find Detective Aldo sitting on the edge of his desk, flipping through some file. Jim made a mental note to disinfect that corner of his desk later.

"Aldo. What rock did you crawl out from under?" Blair asked with a false cheerfulness as he came around Jim. He had his arms crossed as he stopped a few feet away from the IA detective.

"Original, Sandburg. Original and biting in its sarcastic wit."

Jim stiffened. The man was just a little too cheerful, and anything that made Aldo cheerful made Jim's skin crawl.

"Look, let's just get this interview over because being this close to you is making my skin crawl."

"Well, there's been a small change in plans," Aldo commented as he went back to looking through the file.

"Good, then I'm out of here," Blair snapped. Jim felt a creeping fear sink into him, and he slid sideways so that he stood close enough to feel Blair's body heat.

Aldo stood up straight. "I have a protective order here." Aldo pulled a paper out of the folder and handed it to Blair as he walked past the pair. Jim ignored the paper, focusing on Aldo as the threat, even as the man walked toward the doors to the bullpen.

"Blair?" Brown asked as he stood and started toward them. Jim glanced over, and Blair had turned white. By the time Jim looked back up, two Institute employees were coming through the doors to Major Crimes. Aldo stood to one side of the doors and watched with a smirk, but Jim didn't focus on that. He found himself watching the white-uniformed SI workers with a despair that bordered on nausea.

"What the hell have you done?" Blair's voice was low and dark and little more than a whisper as he crumpled the paper. "You son of a bitch; what have you done?"

Jim tightened his jaw and allowed himself to reach out for Blair, resting his hand on Blair's back. Jim kept his eyes focused on the shorter of the two Institute employees—the one with the chains.

"I'm getting Simon," Brown said as he headed for the doors, shooting Aldo a withering look as he went.

"No way. No fucking way," Blair hissed, but even though he denied it, everyone in the room knew the truth, which is why Aldo was smirking and why Blair had tremors rolling through his body so that Jim could feel them.

"Sentinel Ellison's involvement in the Taylor case breaks so many regulations that not even you can charm your way out of the consequences of this one. Too bad you seem so fond of him, but they'll find him a guardian who isn't some wanna-be cop." Aldo said with an unctuous concern that made Jim's blood pressure rise.

"Fine. You want to come after me? Then fucking come after me! Come on!" Blair's voice rose to a near screech as he lurched forward. Aldo stepped back in the face of Blair's fury, his head thunking against the wall as he hit it. But Jim caught his companion by the neck and reeled him in before Blair could physically attack the man.

"Do it! Finish your career right here!" Aldo yelled as he stepped forward. Blair twisted and Jim almost lost his grip. Scrambling, he grabbed Blair's arm mid-swing and jerked him back.

"Cool it!" Jim yelled, tightening his grip on Blair's arm and neck as he struggled to control the squirming ball of frustration and fury. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim could see the SI workers freeze, but he didn't have time for them. He slipped an arm around Blair's waist and physically manhandled Blair into the back corner near their desks.

Blair didn't really fight Jim, he just squirmed and thrashed, forcing Jim to drag him through the maze of desks. A stray leg caught a trash can, sending it skittering across the floor and bouncing off a desk leg.

"What is going on here?" Simon's voice bellowed. Jim ignored the chaos behind him and focused on Blair's pounding heart.

"Breathe, Sandburg. You're going to give yourself a heart attack."

"They can't do this!" Blair's impassioned declaration was the logic of a six-year-old, but Jim wished for just one second he could be half as idealistic as Blair. The man expected the world to be fair despite the number of times the universe had gone out of its way to prove otherwise.

Behind them, Simon and Aldo still traded low, angry words, but the Institute employees had finally started moving again, inching closer to the back of the room where Jim still used a hip to keep Sandburg corralled.

As the Institute employees moved toward them, Jim could see the open pain in Blair's eyes. Using the grip he'd maintained around Blair's waist, Jim pulled Blair into an embrace, resting his cheek on Blair's head as silent shudders shook the smaller body.

"They can't do this," Blair repeated softer this time, the words barely breathed and spoken just for Jim. Jim tightened his arms around Blair.

The room had gone silent, and Jim could tell that both Simon and Aldo were gone, although he didn't remember them leaving. Blair's hands finally came up and slid around Jim's waist as he held on with just as much desperation.

"Sentinel Ellison?" a crisp voice called, just a hint of New England under the surface, but Jim ignored it as he breathed Blair-scent and felt his companion's heartbeat echo though his own body.

Maybe he could do this. Maybe he could live with the damn collar and the slavery if he could have Blair, but there would always be someone like Aldo, something like the Institute waiting in the wings. And Jim couldn't let himself believe that he and Blair would be left alone because life really did just like to take a crap on James Joseph Ellison's head.

"Sentinel Ellison?"

"You can't have him." Blair twisted to the side where he faced off against the two employees while still standing in the circle of Jim's arms.

"Detective Sandburg, this order clearly—"

"Save it," Jim snapped before he focused on Blair, cupping Blair's cheek to force the man to look at him. "Chief, we've only got one chance here, and that's for you to use that silver tongue of yours on the judge. Making a scene here is just going to make it harder to convince the judge that you aren't a total flake."

"Nice, you're insulting me." Blair's voice cracked, and Jim could see the wet brightness in his eyes.

"It's what I do," Jim shrugged.

Blair's arms tightened around his waist as Blair leaned forward and let his cheek rest on Jim's chest.

"God, I'm sorry. It's my fault," Blair muttered.

"Hey, just come and get me back, okay," Jim said quietly, struggling to get Blair to focus on what he needed to do now. What worried him was that the bond between them was still struggling to recover from the strain of earlier, and now Blair trembled with emotion. Jim knew what it felt like when the bond overrode all rational thought, but if Blair allowed that, they were both in serious trouble. Putting his hand under Blair's chin and lifting it, he forced Blair to focus on him.

"Did you break any laws or rules?" Jim asked quietly.

"No way. Man, I was on the side of the angels the whole way," Blair immediately retorted, the truth of his belief clear for any Sentinel to hear.

"Then just come get me, Blair," Jim said quietly. He could see as the rational truth finally sank in past the panic. Slowly, Blair nodded.

"You bet. Man, I'll be there to drive you home," he promised as his arms loosened. The pain hadn't left those eyes, but at least now Blair gazed up at him with determination instead of panic. Now Jim just had to battle his own panic. He turned his head to face the two SI guards.

"Sentinel Ellison, I have an order to remove you from your guardian's custody until a hearing can determine your placement. This separation may be just temporary," the short man offered soothingly. Yeah, soothe the crazy Sentinel—make sure he didn't get too crazy.

"Yeah, yeah," Jim said tiredly as he slowly loosened his grip. For a second, Blair just hung on tighter and then he let go, stepping back reluctantly. "Chief, the hearing has to take place within forty-eight hours, so I'm trusting you to figure out when it is and to show up dressed in your Sunday best." Jim backed up a step, and Jim found himself wishing he had just tucked the kid into the trunk and run for Canada when he could. The man with the chains stepped forward.

"I'll be there, promise," Blair vowed weakly. He swallowed heavily, his Adam's apple bobbing.

Jim angled his body toward the Institute employee while keeping his eyes on Blair.

"Hands," the man prompted, and Jim dutifully held out his hands. He refused to watch as steel locked around his wrists, focusing instead on Blair's wide eyes.

The employee took a half step back, and Jim realized that the man was waiting on him. With a sigh, he lifted his arms and hooked the wrist chains behind his head. The employee stepped forward and started bucking the belt around Jim's waist.

Watching the top of the man's head as he locked restraints around Jim's ankles, Jim felt the helplessness curl into his guts like worms burrowing into his skin. He wouldn't be able to clear the chain from behind his neck in time to defend himself, but that was the whole point. They had the power.

The employee pulled the center chain up through the ring in the belt, and Jim slowly brought his hands down so he could lock the end of the center chain to Jim's wrist chain.

"Jim, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Blair said, and Jim could hear the strain.

"Not your fault, Sport," Jim said, already focusing on his Ranger training. The old officer's voice echoed in his head. Never argue with captors. Any argument you start, they'll end because they have the power. You hide whatever power you gain—whether that's a piece of information or a rusty pocketknife.

Jim focused on those remembered bits of advice instead of focusing on the way he had to shuffle, his hands held close to his waist or the way he had already started to sweat under the restraints or the way Blair watched him leave, panic and guilt in his eyes.

Next Section

Return to Text Index

Return to Graphics Index

Send Feedback