SIX
***

"Ellison," Jim snapped into the phone.  God, this week had just gone from horrible to mind-numbingly catastrophic, so whoever was calling could just deal with getting snapped at.  He squinted at the clock.  2 a.m.  Oh hell, yes they could deal with getting snapped at.

"Detective?" an unfamiliar voice asked on the other end.  Jim rolled over and flipped on his bedroom light, and in the process, he managed to scatter his newly-signed divorce papers across the floor.  Fuck.

"Yeah," Jim said, his hand reaching for a shirt as he tucked the phone between his shoulder and his ear.

"This is Officer Clark with the two-five.  Dispatch gave me your number because we have a situation with a victim down on Fifth."

Even though Jim hadn't seen Sandburg in nearly two weeks, not since the day he had arrested the man and gotten his last solid lead on the gay-bashers, his guts instantly tightened at the street name. He knew.

"Blair Sandburg?" Jim asked as he pulled the shirt on, struggling to keep the phone from getting tangled in the cord as he buttoned over the t-shirt he'd worn to bed.  The pants had seen better days, but Jim couldn't reach the closet from here, so they'd do.

"Yeah.  He won't go to the hospital, and he's driving my partner crazy, but he asked for you."

"Is he hurt?" Jim asked, shoving his legs into the pants.

"No, not seriously.  It looks like a group of teenagers—"

"I'm on my way," Jim said as he checked his weapon and slid it into the holster.  Given Blair's luck, Jim wasn't betting on some harmless teenage prank.

"My partner will appreciate knowing," Officer Clark answered, but Jim didn't answer.  He dropped the phone onto the cradle and headed down the stairs, searching for his shoes, and cursing when he had to backtrack to get them from his bedroom closet.


Jim was still cursing as his front tire hit the curb in front of the warehouse on Fifth Avenue.  If not for the police cars whose lights made the building glow with pools of blue and red light, Jim would have thought he had the wrong address. 

An old, rusted van sat on the street, lopsided with one tire flat.  The buildings were dark, and a single pool of yellow light half-way down the block provided the only light other than the flashing squad cars. This wasn't a residential area.  Hell, this wasn't even a safe area to walk through much less live in.

Jim got out and flashed his badge at the officer who stood next to the two parked cruisers.  In this neighborhood, someone had to watch the cars or the hubcaps would get stolen.  At the far end of the street, on the far side of that pool of light, a group of young people hovered near a corner.

"What happened?" Jim asked, his guts pulling him toward the warehouse, but he needed to know what he might be facing.

"Home invasion.  Did some graffiti.  The victim took a couple of nasty hits," the officer shrugged, clearly not concerned by the call.  Part of Jim breathed a prayer since the officer wouldn't be so disinterested if something serious had happened.  Jim focused on that and not the sudden burst frustration that left him wanting to snap at an officer who couldn't be bothered to even pretend to care.  Jim just nodded curtly and headed into the warehouse.

The graffiti started outside the door.  "Fag" in yellow paint welcomed him.  Jim carefully avoided touching anything in the area as he used an elbow to nudge the door open farther.

Inside, Jim could see more.  Profanity covered the floor in ragged letters, and Jim stepped around the edges, the sharp stench of paint competing with the dust and musk of the warehouse.  Jim had been in places like this before, plenty of times, but he usually found a dozen crack addicts shooting up in the corners.  He hadn't expected a high-priced rent boy or a teaching fellow from the university to squat in a place like this.

As he turned the corner, he spotted Blair sitting, leaning forward so that his long curls hid his face as he sat on an old, sagging red couch.  An officer stood nearby, and a second one walked the room, taking notes by the low light filtering out of the kitchen. 

"Blair?" Jim asked.  The man looked up, and Jim could see the swollen face and the split lip immediately.

"Oh man, thank god.  These… officers… obviously need a little refresher course in police procedure because when I know more about proper investigation techniques than they do, there is a serious problem."  Blair burst off the couch with his normal enthusiasm, so Jim tried to tell himself that the injuries couldn't be too serious.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Blair answered as he came close, pushing his hair back so that the dim light shone on his swollen jaw.  "I'm just frustrated.  They are not listening to a word I say.  Not a word."  Blair turned around to glare at the two uniformed officers, and Jim focused on them.

"Officer Clark?" Jim asked.

"That's me," the taller man who was taking notes said.  "Detective Ellison, thank you for coming."  The man's voice has an honest relief to it, so Jim suspected that Blair had probably given the officers a hard time.

"What's going on?"

"Straight forward push-in, but then they did the damage instead of looking for anything to steal," Clark started.

"Because they were trying to intimidate me.  I told you this is about the upper-west side beatings.  I told you that you need to get a crime scene unit down here."  Blair sounded ready to explode, and Jim revised his early conclusion. Blair had *definitely* given the officers a hard time.

"There's no evidence of any link to any other cases."  Clark offered Blair an exasperated look.

"Except where I'm working on the attacks as part of my research and then three guys just happen to break into my place."

"The three suspects didn't make any reference to the other attacks."

"Because they were too busy trashing my place.  Man, what does it take to get through to you guys?"

"If there were any evidence…"

"Oh, and you should hear what that one said," Blair interrupted as he gestured toward the second officer.  "He'd just as soon arrest me.  Me.  What happened to victim's rights?  And you'd better believe that I am filing a formal complaint."

"Officer?" Jim asked, his voice neutral.

"I didn't mean anything… I mean, I didn't even mean for him to hear."  The kid couldn't be more than twenty, probably fresh out of the academy, and Sandburg could push the buttons of the most seasoned cop.  Hell, Sandburg pushed Jim's buttons, and Jim had years on the force and in the military.

"So, if I don't hear you saying shit like that, it doesn't count?  Man, your logic is seriously flawed.  Seriously."

"My partner made an ill-advised joke," Clark interrupted, and Blair returned to glaring at him.  "One suspect sprayed the room while the other two held Mr. Sandburg.  When suspect number one spray painted Mr. Sandburg's clothes, which we have bagged, the second suspect let go of him, and Mr. Sandburg disabled the third suspect so he could get to the phone."

"Kicked him in his balls hard enough to make him wish the things would just fall off," Blair agreed.  "But you need to get someone down here to check for fingerprints or fibers."

"I thought they had on gloves," Clark said as he faced Sandburg, his frustration showing through his cracking veneer of civility.

"Enough," Jim said to both.  "Blair, get a change of clothes and your toothbrush," Jim ordered.  Blair opened his mouth, but Jim didn't even wait for the protest to start before he turned to Clark.  "Call for a crime scene unit, and tell them that Major Crimes wants someone down here within the hour.  They'll need lights to work in here, so warn them."

"Detective?" Clark asked, shocked.

"I am so too big as a person to say I told you so," Blair muttered as he wandered toward the bedroom, but he muttered it loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Officer," Jim called to young recruit, the one who had backed up into the shadows near stacked wood pallets just to avoid the whole fight.  "Escort Mr. Sandburg, make sure that you clear anything he picks up to take with him.  This one is by the book."

"Yes, sir," the officer answered as he followed Blair.  However, Jim also noticed that he kept his distance.

"Detective, the evidence connecting the upper-west side attacks to this… it just isn't here," Clark protested.

"And when you get your promotion to Major Crimes, you can make that call," Jim said as he looked at the man calmly.  "You'd be wrong, but you could make the call."  Jim didn't explain or elaborate, he waited with his arms crossed as he watched Clark.  For a moment, nothing moved, and then Clark reached for his radio.

"Dispatch, this is Charlie nine-one.  I need a CSU unit on scene."

"Charlie nine-one.  CSU dispatched, estimating 20 minutes," the voice eventually answered.  Jim watched silently.

"Advise that they'll need interior lights.  Conditions aren't ideal," Clark added.

"Charlie nine-one.  Lights needed on-scene, confirmed," the dispatched offered.  Clark dropped his hand and looked at Jim.

"I didn't see any evidence of a connection."

"What else did you not see evidence of?" Jim asked.  His fraying temper wouldn't allow him to just walk away on this one.  "I'm not seeing evidence of any attempt to remove valuables, which is the standard motivation for a push in.  There was no sexual assault, no kidnapping."

"They clearly don't like Sandburg," Clark defended himself as he gestured toward the floor and the huge yellow letters that spelled out words Jim didn't even want to look at.

"Then they would paint his car.  The level of aggression in the initial attack does not match the profile of someone who just wanted to spray paint some obscenity.  That level of aggression indicates a much more serious assault would have taken place here if Sandburg hadn't disabled one of the attackers.  Sandburg ripped into you because you weren't thinking." Jim watched the officer stiffen.

"I don't plan to make a report to your captain," Jim said, "but understand that you fucked up here."

Jim turned away, and Blair stood in the doorway from another room, a backpack in his arms and his eyes wide.  Jim could see a small crust of blood on his lip.

"And I'm putting in a call for an ambulance," Jim warned him.  "When the EMT's get here, you will let them take a look at that and take pictures for the file," Jim said as he considered the damage.  Blair froze for a second and then blinked into movement, slinging his backpack over one shoulder as he stepped closer.

"I'm fine.  Man, I’m more pissed about the graffiti.  I'm never getting my security deposit back if that shit doesn't come up."

"I don't care about your security deposit, but you will let them look at your face or I will drag you down to the hospital handcuffed.  Which is it going to be?" Jim asked as he faced off against Blair.  He expected mouth.  He expected threats.  He wouldn't have even been surprised if Blair cursed him out.  Instead, Blair sighed heavily.

"Fine."  Blair sounded anything but fine, but at least he'd agreed.  "They can look at it, but only after I see someone actually trying to collect evidence," he suddenly added, negotiating.

"Deal," Jim quickly agreed.  He would take any victories he could get with Blair.  "Why don't you wait in my truck?"

"Oh hell, yeah.  I don't think I can look at this place right now," Blair agreed as he looked around the warehouse.  Jim stepped forward and slipped a hand to Blair's back, urging him out of the crime scene.  He didn't like seeing Blair next to those hateful, yellow words, and he really didn't like thinking what might have happened if Blair hadn't fought back.

Jim felt the familiar sting of failure again.  One more victim was in the hospital, this time barely holding on to life, Blair could have died, and Jim still wasn't any closer to catching these three.  He'd be damned if they were getting another shot at Sandburg, though.  No fucking way was Jim going to let that happen, not even if he had to go against Simon's order to keep the kid as far from the station and the investigation as possible.



SEVEN
***

Jim typed, struggling to push all his feelings to the side as he simply recorded Blair's story.  One of the detectives from the night shift, Detective Maud, had given up on pretending to do his own paperwork as he listened to Blair unemotionally describe the fight that could have very easily ended up with Blair's skull crushed.

Normally, Jim had to sort through a witness's anger and fear and shock in order to get the facts, but Blair just rattled off cold details about as emotionally as he might recite a recipe for pancakes.  Subject one had spray painted the words and demanded to know what Blair thought of them.  He then asked if Blair would rather suck his cock or have a baseball bat taken to his own.  Subjects two and three had held him down; subject three had fisted his hair and slammed his face into the concrete when he'd struggled.  He had kneed subject three after subject two had released his arm.

The only hint Jim had that this had actually happened to Blair was the way the man would touch himself.  He would rub an arm as though he could still feel the hands holding him down or touch the swollen lip with his finger.

"Man, I have got to pee," Blair suddenly burst up from the chair, and before Jim could say anything, he'd darted from the room.

"You want me to show him..."  Maud asked as he gestured toward the door.

"He's been here often enough to know where to find it," Jim said dryly as he filled in his own portions of the report.  One more visit, and Jim was going to make the kid type up his own witness statement.  Besides, he probably needed some time alone.  No matter how unemotional he acted, Jim knew that fear and anger lurked just under the veneer of calm.

"I keep waiting for him to pop."

"He will, eventually," Jim agreed grimly.

"Tough little guy, fighting back like that."

"Lucky, you mean," Jim corrected the other detective.  "He's lucky he's not the latest victim of these gay bashers."  Jim stopped and stared at the information he'd typed into the top of Blair's witness report for the third time.  What the hell was he doing living in an area like that?  What if he hadn't reached that phone?  What if he hadn't rolled fast enough and subject number one's bat had landed on his back?  Fuck.

"I'm just glad the case is yours, because I sure wouldn't want this one," Maud said before wandering off, and Jim fought down a wave of anger.  He bit it back, knowing that he wasn't angry with Maud as much as with the attackers and with Blair for refusing to steer clear of the danger.

"Man, can we get this done and over with?" Blair asked, and Jim jerked, startled by the man's sudden return.  He would have bet that Blair would have a good cry or maybe a good scream in the bathroom, but he just looked tired.

"Just finishing," Jim agreed as he printed the report.  The bullpen was quiet. Vice and Traffic might bustle at night, but Major Crimes slowed to a lazy drawl.  He hurried across the floor to grab the report and drop it on Simon's desk before he headed back.  Blair had sagged into the witness chair again, his head resting on his hands, his elbows on his knees as he hunched over.

"Hey, Chief, do you have family you can stay with?" Jim asked as he rested his hand on the man's shoulder.

"Nah.  I think my mom's in New Mexico at a retreat.  No biggie."

"You can't stay at the warehouse," Jim said, not only because the CSU wouldn't have cleared it but also because Jim didn't want Blair anywhere near that place, not until the shock had worn off and preferably not until these three were behind bars.  Jim mentally vowed to bench his two other open cases until he had some sort of lead on this one.

"No joke," Blair laughed roughly as he stood up, grabbing his backpack from the floor.  "I'm not sure I ever want to see that place again. I have a couple of friends' places where I can crash," he said, shaking off the mood of despair as he smiled up at Jim.  "No problem."

"And where would these friends live?" Jim asked as he ushered the man out of the precinct and into the elevator.  Blair shrugged, and Jim narrowed his eyes at the attempted evasion.  When the elevator jerked to a start, Blair had to grab the handrail to keep his balance, and Jim reached out and rested a hand on Blair's back, helping to steady him.

"Darwin, I'm not leaving until I see your ass safely behind a secure door, so start talking."

"Someone's been practicing his Dom voice," Blair said as he gave a salacious wiggle and leaned back so that he pressed against Jim's thigh.  Jim used his hand on Blair's back to physically push the kid forward.

"Some people just have it naturally," Jim shot back, and that made Blair shut up—at least for a couple of seconds.  The elevator doors opened on the garage level, and Jim headed for his truck.  "Now, where am I driving you, taking you to the door, and checking the security before I leave?" Jim asked.

"Man, if I show up with a cop, no way am I going to get a warm welcome," Blair protested.  "Just drive me to Rainier, and I'll be fine."

That's when the truth occurred to Jim.  "Darwin, you are NOT crashing on some dorm room floor," he growled.

"I've slept in worse places."

"I doubt that you've slept in more dangerous."

Blair snorted.  "Oh man, I need to tell you about the Kombai tree people one of these days."  He kept chuckling even as they reached the truck, and Jim stopped by the passenger side.

"Dorms have lots of people coming and going.  How hard do you think it would be for them to push in there?" Jim demanded.

"Give me a break, Detective," Blair said, his eyes narrowing.  "Dorms are full of people, so no way would they break in there.  I mean, yeah, if I stayed in my office some bad shit could happen, but with all those people around... no way would they have the privacy they needed to fuck with me."

"Listen, Junior," Jim snapped, his own temper and exhaustion conspiring against his logic.  "If they want to shut you up, they'll get in there.  And I doubt they wanted to just intimidate you.  The last victim is lying in intensive care, his brain swelling so badly the doctors had to cut a piece of his skull open.  If you've stirred them up enough to come after you, they aren't going to stop at fucking with you.  So, if these idiots get it in their heads to come back with a gun... are you really prepared to deal with the consequences of that?"

For a second, Jim had no idea what Blair would do.  The man stared back angrily, his lips pressed together so tightly that a drop of blood leaked from his cut lip.  "What do you want from me?" Blair demanded.

Jim backed off a step, and Blair used the opening to start walking angrily away, his back stiff with rage. 

"Chief," Jim called as he started after him.

"No, you're right.  I can't drag other people into this with me.  I'm just not thinking clearly tonight," Blair said as he kept walking toward the glowing exit sign.

"So, where are you doing?"

"I can just camp out.  No biggie."

Jim reached out and grabbed the backpack, pulling on it so that the strap over Sandburg's shoulder spun him around. 

"You are not sleeping on the streets," Jim warned as soon as Blair faced him.  Now he was angry.

"What are you?  My mother?  No, scratch that, Naomi knows better than to tell me what to do in that tone of voice," Blair answered as he jerked the pack out of Jim's grip.

"Get back to the truck," Jim said as he hurried after Blair's retreating back.

"Make me," Blair gave Jim a sarcastic smile, the kind Jim usually saw on seven year old boys taunting an older brother over a baseball mitt.

"Damn right I will," Jim answered.  "You sit your ass on the concrete, and I will arrest you for vagrancy.  You sit on a street bench for more than ten minutes, and I'll arrest you for loitering.  If the only way I can keep you safe is to throw your ass in a holding cell, I'll fucking follow you all night until I get a good enough reason to do it."   Jim stopped in front of Blair, crossing his arms as he looked down at the witness.  For a second, Jim spotted a flash of anger, and he braced for an explosion right there. Instead, Blair sighed.

"Man, you take the whole alpha-dog thing just two steps too damn far, you know that, right?" Blair asked tiredly.

Taking that as permission, Jim reached out and took the backpack with one hand while he took Blair's arm with the other, aiming the man back toward the truck.  "Yep," he agreed.

"I'm totally not happy at the thought of a night in a cell, so is there some sort of compromise we can make?"

"I'm not taking you to holding, Chief," Jim said as they finally got back to the truck.  "You can stay with me for the night."  Jim unlocked the door and stood by it, waiting for Blair to climb in.

"Oh man, the witness goes home with the big, bad, dominant detective.  This so sounds like the first sixty seconds of a porn movie, before the dialogue degenerates into moans and grunts and a few good slaps of flesh against flesh," Blair said with a leer and a wink.  "Where's the ba-chicka-wa-wa music when you need it?"

"Get in the truck."

"Sir, yes sir," Blair agreed with the world's sloppiest salute before he climbed in.  Jim tossed the backpack at the man's feet before he went around to the driver's side.


By the time they had reached the loft, Blair's mood had improved.  Unfortunately, Jim's frustration was approaching critical mass.

"Hey, nice place," Blair said as he dropped the backpack next to the door.  He turned to face Jim and slowly walked backwards, rolling his hips seductively in time to some music in his head.  "Where's the bed?"  Blair licked his lips salaciously, but that just drew Jim's attention to the injuries again, and he took a deep breath.

"Your bed for the night is right there," Jim gestured toward the couch as he locked the door and then moved to check the windows.

"Oh, come on.  I always pay my way, so customer's choice," Blair shimmied forward and ducked his head so that he could look up at Jim through the lashes.  "Want to play puppy?" he asked as he wiggled his ass.  Jim's cock gave an involuntary twitch, and Jim clenched his teeth as he gave Sandburg his darkest glare.

"The holding cell is still an option," Jim warned his houseguest.

"So, is that your game?  Want to play bad cop and arrest the suspect?" Blair held out his hands, wrists together.  "If you're good, I'll even resist arrest."

"I'll get some sheets." Jim headed for the storage room under the stairs as he tried to ignore Sandburg and his own traitorous body, a body that reminded him that it had been too damn long since he'd felt anything but his own hand.

"Daddy going to take care of me?" Blair asked sweetly?  "Going to take a hairbrush to my ass for being bad?"

Jim stopped his hand half way to a set of sheets when the cold shudder shook him.

"Chief, I worked vice and arrested pedophiles for far too long to even consider that," Jim said as he grabbed the sheets and flung them at Sandburg.

"Oh, Daddy's mad," Blair mocked with wide-eyed innocence.

"Don't—" Jim growled.

"Or maybe I'm trying the wrong approach.  I bet you get tired of being in charge, of always having to be in control.  Maybe you need someone to tie you to the bed and take control away.  Let you go free by tying you down."

Jim froze as Blair closed in on him until they stood chest to chest and Blair looked up predatorily.

"I don't normally switch, but for this body, I'd do it." Blair reached up and rested his hand on Jim's arm.  Jim stepped back and he hit the wall, jerking his arm away from that touch. Looking at Blair in shock, he suddenly realized that Blair didn't look scared or sorry or even particularly lustful, he looked… expectant.  Jim smiled as he remembered something Blair had said to Sulley.

"It's not going to work, Chief.  I'm not throwing you out of here, so if it makes you happy, you get as crass as you want."  He patted Blair on the arm and headed for the kitchen.  "The 'scare the straight guy off' game didn't work for Sulley, and it sure as hell won't work for you."

"Fuck," Blair cursed.  Then he picked up the sheets that had fallen to the ground.  "And I'm not buying the straight part," Blair said as he headed for the couch.

"Excuse me?" Jim asked.  God, it was nearly five in the morning.  He really didn't have the active brain cells required for a debate with Sandburg.  He wished that he trusted himself enough to take Sandburg upstairs where the kid couldn't make a run for it, but Jim knew he'd reached the limits of his own self-control when it came to his witness.

"Please, you're about as straight as a paperclip.  If you were straight, that would have worked," Blair said irritably as he spread the sheet over the couch.  "Straight and a prick would have meant you chasing me out of here with your fist.  Straight and a decent guy would have led to stumbled excuses and you pointing out that you're not gay right before rushing to explain that there's nothing *wrong* with being gay."

"You think you know me that well?" Jim demanded as he grabbed a glass of water and eyed the stairs to the bedroom. He wondered if he could make a run for it or if Blair would just chase him and finish this increasingly odd conversation.

"Totally, man," Blair said as he peeled off his shirt and dropped onto the couch.  "At first, I so totally misjudged you, but I have you nailed now," Blair nodded.

"It's late, so you can tell me all about it tomorrow, okay Chief?" Jim watched as Blair pulled off his shoes and sank into the couch.  Blair made a muttered noise that might have been an agreement, but Jim just watched to make sure the kid actually sank into sleep rather than playing some con and sneaking out.

Soon enough, Blair's breath evened out.  Jim went over and moved the key table a few inches so that the door would hit it if Blair tried to open it.  Hopefully, the keys hitting the floor would wake Jim if Sandburg did a runner.  Before heading for his bedroom, Jim detoured over to Blair's sleeping body.  Grabbing a blanket off the chair, he draped it over Blair.




EIGHT
***

"Simon?" Jim asked, his voice little more than a whisper.

"Ellison?  Where are you?"

"At home," Jim said as he turned his back to the sleeping man sprawled over the couch.  During the last days with Caro, Jim had spent plenty of nights on that couch, so he knew just how miserable it was, but Blair snored lightly, his lower lip moist with a faint drool trail and his hair a tangled mop.

"And does this have anything to do with the report I have on my desk this morning?"

"Sandburg's here," Jim confirmed.

"What?  Have you lost your mind?  I'm starting to think that I need to take you off this investigation before you compromise it beyond repair."  Simon had sounded distracted up to the point, but now Jim had all his attention.

"I couldn't just drop him off at a friend's house, Simon.  It was them, and if he's stirred them up enough to become a target, they'll try again."

"So you took him to your house?"  Simon's voice carried all the disbelief Jim had felt when he first woke up.  The events of last night had seemed so reasonable, but with a few more hours sleep under his belt, Jim knew that a defense lawyer would twist this into something ugly, especially considering just what Blair did to pay for college. However, right now Jim tried to focus on keeping his witness alive, not on just how screwed they would be at trial.

"At least I'm ready if they show up," Jim defended his actions.

"Jim."  Simon sounded tired.

"He's trying to stop these guys.  I agree that his methods are questionable, but I won't leave him unprotected so they can come back and finish the job."  The silence on the other end told Jim that at least Simon was thinking about it.

"And you're sure it was them?"

"Fairly certain.  It fits."

"Damn it," Simon swore. "I can't get a safe house based on 'fairly certain'."

"You couldn't get Sandburg to go into a safe house even if the brass approved it," Jim pointed out, and Simon sighed.

"The kid's a real pain in the ass."

"Tell me about it," Jim agreed.  "He didn't like the idea of coming here any more than you did.  When I pointed out that he'd be putting his friends in danger if he crashed on their couches, he was going to 'camp out', as he called it."

"Sleep on the streets."

"Yeah," Jim agreed. Blair's logic defied description.

"I'm surprised you could talk him out of it."

"I threatened to follow him around all night and arrest him the minute his ass touched concrete," Jim admitted.  That made Simon laugh outright.

"Good to know you're giving him back some of the shit he dished out earlier.  But Jim, this is so far outside regulations that your neck is on the line if something happens."

"I know, Simon, but if they tried once, they'll try again, and this time, they'll bring something more than spray paint and a baseball bat."  The couch creaked.  "He's waking up.  I need to talk to him about his schedule, and then I'll call you back," Jim said as the snoring lump on the couch shifted.

"If you can't work the case, this is going to get messy.  You can't get caught up on protection patrol, even if I was willing to sign off on it, which I can't without more than 'fairly certain' to back it up.  There's talk of bringing in a task force," Simon warned, and Jim ground his teeth.  Great, more cops to generate paperwork and step all over the evidence, and less quiet for Jim to actually think.

"I'll catch them," Jim promised grimly.  He had no idea how, but he would.

"Keep yourself safe," Simon answered, and then the phone went dead.

Jim hung up and turned his attention to the couch.  Sandburg's arm flopped out from under the blanket Jim had thrown over him last night, and he scrubbed his face.

"Oh, man," Blair groaned.  "Every bone in my body hurts."

The EMT's had cleared Blair, so Jim suspected it probably had more to do with stress and a night on the couch than injuries, but he reached out and grabbed Blair's arm, pulling him up.

"Come on, let's make sure you haven't broken anything new since last night," he urged as Blair's eyes drifted half-open, only to shut again.

"You're just looking for an excuse to feel me up, admit it," Blair grumbled as he let himself be pulled to his feet.

"You should check out the mirror before you say that, Chief.  You're no treat when you wake up."  Uneven clumps and tangles of hair hung in Blair's face, and he pushed them back, flipping Jim off at the same time.  Jim laughed. 

"Where's it hurt?"

"Where doesn't it?" Blair asked as he started shuffling toward the bathroom.

"Come on, don't make this a fight," Jim asked, and Blair stopped and looked at him through one blurry eye.

"Fine, my shoulder hurts, happy?" Blair said as he rolled his right shoulder.

"God, you wake up cranky, Sandburg," Jim said, but he moved in, letting his left hand rest on Blair's shoulder while he used his fingertips to explore the muscle.  A knot coiled just under the skin, and Jim teased the edges of it, pressing with his fingers into the flesh.  Blair groaned.

"Fuck, yeah," Blair said as he let his head fall forward.  Jim pressed harder, kneading the reluctant muscles as Blair twitched and moaned. Shit.  Usually by now Caro was either pushing him away, complaining that he was too rough, or the massage had led to groping and sex that couldn't wait for them to stumble up the stairs.

It'd been a long time since a back rub had led to the second, but now Jim's body remembered the moves even as Jim's attention focused on the bend of Blair's neck and the sleep-warmed scent of his hair.  Jim drifted closer, his eyes following that exposed neck, the backbone creating a ridge that vanished under the neck of his undershirt.

"Damn, you're good.  I could get you a job if you ever want to do some moonlighting," Blair said, and the spell broke.  "Between your Dom voice and those hands, you'd make a killing."  Jim backed off,  blinking as he turned toward the kitchen to hide his erection.

"Man, I wouldn't mind a little more," Blair complained.

"Catch a shower, Chief.  You don't smell like a rose."  Jim walked to the refrigerator, looking for eggs and a fast way to cool himself off.  Opening the door and letting the cool air swirl around him seemed the fastest.  Fuck, what the hell was wrong with him?  Jim took deep breaths of cold, stale air that smelled faintly of molded bread.

"I'm not the only one who wakes up cranky," Blair muttered, but he wandered past, and Jim heard the bathroom door slam shut. Leaning forward, Jim rested his forehead against the open edge of the refrigerator, letting the cold burn him.  Simon was right.  He needed to get the kid out of here before something happened to tank this case... something like the lead detective fucking one of the key witnesses, a witness who had irrevocably tangled himself into the facts of the case until Blair Jacob Sandburg and the evidence against the attackers couldn't be teased apart.

Forcing his body under control, Jim reached for the remote and flicked on the television as he started fixing breakfast.  These days, breakfast usually meant catching something as he went through the drive-thru on his way to work, but Jim managed to get together scrambled eggs and toast by the time the shower stopped. He focused on the mundane: hot pans and eggshells and the toast crumbs scattered across the counter.  I kept his brain from wandering back to the smell of Blair and the line of his neck.

The morning newscast had a woman in a pink suit cheerfully describing the deaths of three people in a car accident as Blair came out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam.  His hair trailed over his bare shoulders in wet tendrils, and a silver nipple ring peeked out from some impressive chest hair as Blair scrubbed his arms with the towel.

"Man, that smells good," Blair said, and Jim put a plate on the table, ignoring the sudden memory of Blair in that leather harness, clutching a blanket around himself while he berated the officers at Mr. Espinoza's house.  When Jim had walked in on that, he had made a few judgments about the man who had gestured wildly, making the silver ring on his wrist restraint jingle. Yeah, and most of his judgments had been dead wrong.

Jim turned back to the kitchen and grabbed his own plate and fork before sitting at the table next to Blair.

"I know I acted like a complete asshole last night, and I really appreciate you not actually throwing me in jail, even if the threats were a little over the top," Blair said before shoveling more eggs in.

"You're welcome," Jim said, ignoring the rest as he watched the news.

"A popular teacher from Rainier was attacked last night," the woman chirped, and suddenly Sandburg's warehouse appeared on the screen, the CSU van still there as the first pink rays of morning crept over the hard edges of the buildings.

"Blair Sandburg has been researching police effectiveness in minority areas, including the now-infamous West Bashers, a gang responsible for a dozen attacks against the gay community.  Police won't comment, but three men matching the general descriptions of the West Bashers broke into the warehouse apartment and attacked Mr. Sandburg."

The image changed to a smiling Blair standing next to an older man, both of them knee deep in trenches decorated with little white flags. Each held up a trowel triumphantly and the other man had what appeared to be a huge bone.  "Mr. Sandburg, shown on the left, was treated at the scene and taken into protective custody as a material witness."

The picture changed to a new man, a man entirely too familiar to Jim.  "The latest victim, Raul Mendoza, died less than an hour ago at Cascade General after clinging to life for three days after being attacked outside the Teddy Bear Cabaret."  The picture returned to the anchor, who smiled as she turned to a new camera.  "Moving to economic news—"

Jim clicked the television off and looked at Blair.  The man had lost most of the color from his face, and Jim could imagine how he felt. He remembered the delayed shock after his own helicopter crash in Peru.  He'd kept things together for hours... maybe even days, and then the fear and the horrible truth crashed down on him so hard that he sat and stared at his arms and tried to figure out why he had survived and others hadn't.  Last night, Blair hadn't just fought off teens who were trying to teach him a lesson.  He'd faced three murderers.  With his bare hands, he had fought for his life and won.  Jim waited for the explosion.

"I'm--"  Blair stopped, his words failing.  Jim could see the confusion, and he just waited for the reaction.

"I need to get out of here," Blair said as he stood, shoving his chair back with enough force to make it tip over and rattle to the ground.  Blair stared at it a second as though trying to figure out why it had fallen.

"Blair, we need to talk about this." 

"Oh, man, they put my face on TV.  They said I was a witness.  Fuck. They know I work at Rainier."

"They probably knew all that before.  Blair, think through this with me," Jim said calmly, even though he knew Blair's ability to think clearly had probably ended about the time the shock set in.

Blair didn't even answer; he detoured to the couch where he grabbed his shirt, pulling it over his head as he headed for the door.  The detour gave Jim enough time to get between Sandburg and escape.

"Move," Blair warned darkly.

"Not going to happen, Junior," Jim said as he braced himself.  Blair was spinning out of control, and Jim wasn't letting his witness walk the streets alone, panicked and disoriented.  Blair would have to get through him first.

"Oh man, you do not want to piss me off right now.  So, move." Blair's voice trembled with rage.

"Blair, if you want to be pissed, go right ahead, but you are not walking ou--"  Jim didn't finish before Blair flung himself forward, and Jim caught a fist in the gut.  The kid could hit.




NINE
***

Jim fell back into the door, but before Blair could retreat, he grabbed the man's wrist, holding on as Blair slid down into an old-fashioned panic attack, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

Desperately pulling back, Blair gave a half -strangled cry as he kicked out at Jim's feet. While it'd be easy to disable Blair, Jim struggled to hold on without doing any actual damage.

"Knock it off," Jim snapped as Blair yanked him forward a step. Blair's hip hit a table, and a lamp went tumbling to the floor with a dull thud. Luckily it didn't break because Jim really didn't want them to end up wrestling in the broken shards. The noise startled Blair so that he turned half away, and Jim lunged forward.

Slipping an arm around Blair's shoulder, Jim braced his hand behind Blair's neck in a headlock, and for a strange flash of a second, he could swear that Blair's racing heart pounded in his ears, the stench of fear stung his nose. The hallucination threw him off balance enough that Blair wiggled forward, almost escaping before Jim could tighten his hold. Using his weight to manhandle Blair, he shoved the smaller man toward the couch.

Silently, Blair fought, his muscles hard under Jim's hands even as he fell face-first on the cushions. Jim let his weight pin Blair down.

"Calm down, Chief," Jim said softly, Blair's hair catching in the stubble of his beard so that it clung to him as lay on the smaller man. Small, but definitely not a weak. Blair bucked, and Jim struggled to hold on without causing damage. He was a determined little bastard.

Even though Blair wasn't talking, he panted heavily, and Jim used his free hand to pull his belt off. When the leather touched Blair's skin, Blair bucked again.

"Get the fuck off me," he demanded as he finally found his voice. Jim let Blair out of the headlock only to grab his wrists. When Blair tried to twist away, Jim put a knee into the small of his back.

"Chief, when you can ask me that in a calm tone of voice, I will," Jim said as he finished wrapping the belt and fastened it. Even through the fabric of the shirt, Jim could see the muscles bunch and strain as Blair wordlessly fought the restraint.

"Are you getting off on this? Forcing me down?" Blair finally demanded once he had given up on wiggling free.

"No, I'm not," Jim said honestly. "But I'm not letting you walk out there when you're so panicked that you can't think straight.

"You have no right to hold me here. This is so against the law. You pigs are all the same," Blair snarled. Jim moved off of Blair with a heavy sigh. Blair strained to sit up, and Jim helped, putting his hand on Blair's arm to help him struggle up to a seated position. Then he sat next to him. When Blair tried to stand, Jim used an arm across his chest to hold him on the couch.

"Where are you going, Blair?" Jim asked, ignoring the murderous glare.

Blair ignored him and yanked against the belt, his lips pressed tightly together. Jim watched without comment as Blair fought first the belt and then Jim's hand holding him down. The man's eyes were dilated black, but eventually, the adrenaline and fear that drove him failed so that he slumped.

"Where were you going, Blair?" Jim asked again impassively.

"Out." Blair spat the word.

"Out where?"

"What the fuck does it matter to you?"

"It matters because I don't want you going off half-cocked," Jim said patiently. He couldn't count the number of times a distraught mother flew at him, sometimes with fists and sometimes with tears. More than once, a father or a brother or a son had taken a swing just because Jim was there and the killer wasn't, so this wasn't new territory.

"Un-fucking-tie me."

"Show me that you have control, and I will. Now, where were you going?"

Blair threw himself against the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling with tear-brightened eyes and a clenched jaw. God, the man was stubborn. The kid might play at being a sub, but he sure wasn't easy to push around, not even when Jim was doing it for his own good. Jim suspected that some part of Blair understood that Jim wanted to help, which is why Jim hadn't been subjected to the dirtier side of Sandburg's fighting style: biting and kicking out at a man's balls. The three intruders had certainly underestimated Blair's ability to defend himself.

"Talk to me, Chief," Jim asked eventually as the silence became too much for him.

"Why the fuck did they have to say that?"

"The news," Jim said, not really asking as much as confirming that he was following Blair's scattered mind as it twisted.

"They'll fucking know where I work. Fuck."

"Chief, they tracked you to your apartment, so the chances are that they already knew you worked at Rainier. You weren't safe the minute you put yourself into the middle of this investigation."

"So this is my fault?" Blair demanded as he sat up, leaning forward and obviously struggling against the belt again. His shoulders dipped and swayed as Blair squirmed.

"No, this is the killers' fault," Jim said calmly. "But anyone who challenges criminals has to accept that it comes with certain dangers." He knew he had reached the more logical parts of Blair when the struggles stilled again.

"I couldn't just walk away."

Jim could almost feel the emotions wash past him like a weather front as the fury turned to despair and fear and a bone-deep weariness.

"I understand that. Even Simon gets it, and he probably respects you for it even if he does think you're a pain in the ass," Jim promised.

Blair gave a half-laugh that turned into something dark and strangled. "Untie me," he said, but this time the words didn't have the tinge of hysteria from earlier.

"Are you going to punch me again? You hit hard for a pipsqueak," Jim said even as he reached over. Blair turned his back to Jim and presented his hands.

"I can't believe I did that."

"Oh, I can. I had this father lay me out flat once when I started at vice. The guys never let me forget it."

"But it's such a stereotype, to turn fear and distress into anger. Naomi raised me better."

Jim finished pulling the belt away, but Blair continued to sit on the couch sideways and stare away from Jim. "Blair, we need to think this through logically."

Blair dropped his head onto his hands, his body hunched into the increasingly-familiar pose of despair. "I'm totally screwed, aren't I? Shit. You know that old story about a lifeguard having to protect his own life first or he won't save anyone? I just couldn't walk away, especially when I found out about how many people they'd... Oh man, I totally lost sight of that whole lifeguard parable. I'm just totally and completely screwed." Blair followed his own logic as he processed the fear that now settled into him, and Jim waited until his voice had fallen to silence.

"No you aren't," Jim said firmly. "This might be a break on the case," Jim reasoned, hoping that Blair's desire to help catch the three men-turned-killers would help him overcome the fear. "Someone you talked to stirred them up, which means one of your contacts knows the killers. And someone who knows you by name passed that name on, either intentionally or accidentally by talking about you. So, we just backtrack your movements until we find the connection."

Blair got off the couch, retreating to the window where he looked out at the gray sky. "Man, even if you throw me in a holding cell until this is over, I can't ethically give you the names of anyone I've talked to. Maybe a holding cell would be the safest place for me right now," he told the window.

He didn't have words to offer, so he followed Blair, standing behind him at the window and letting his hand rest on Blair's shoulder. Like last night, Blair leaned back into Jim's body, but unlike last night, he didn't wiggle invitingly or look up with a salacious invitation in his wink. He just continued to stare out the window as he just sagged into Jim.

"Can you at least tell me where you went? Which clubs?" Jim put his free hand on Blair's other arm.

"Man, I want to."

"I won't compromise your ethics. I won't ask you to reveal anything about who you talked to, just give me a place to start. Please. Trust me with that much, Blair," Jim pleaded. He could feel Blair's fatigue soak into him through his hands on the man's arms. Blair let his head fall forward.

"If I do this, I have to go with you."

"Blair, that's not a good idea."

"It's my research. I have to make sure that my actions don't negatively impact the people who talked to me. I want to be there. I want to make sure that it's you and not some idiot like Clark doing the interviews."

"I give you my word," Jim assured him.

Blair was silent, and Jim knew exactly what the man was thinking. The high-priced escort who could trust himself to a partner who tied him up for sexual gratification couldn't bring himself to trust Jim with another's privacy. Struggling with his own disappointment at that, Jim cursed himself for what he was about to say. Simon was going to hang his bloody hide from the office wall.

"You can come," Jim agreed. Blair looked back at him, disbelief in his eyes.

"Are you sure this isn't a trick to get me back to the station so you can throw me in a cell?" Blair finally asked.

"I thought you said you'd go without me needing to trick you if I said that was the best way to keep you safe," Jim countered.

Blair shook his head as he straightened up and stood up on his own two feet. "I probably would," he agreed. "It's not that I don't trust you..."

"Chief, I understand. Trust isn't easy. So, we'll retrace your steps together, and all you need to tell me is where you've gone. But," Jim warned firmly as he pointed at Blair, "you listen to what I say. If I tell you to hit the floor, you drop without asking why. If I tell you to stay in the truck, you stay. And if I tell you to get to safety, you run. You don't worry about me or anyone else."

Blair swallowed, his Adam's apple bouncing nervously as he looked at Jim and nodded. "Okay, I can do that. You're the cop, so I'll follow your lead." Yeah, Jim would believe that when he saw it. Suddenly Blair smiled. "I have a lot of experience with taking orders," he said impishly with a waggle of his eyebrows. Jim watched while the man pulled the mantle of sexuality and self-confidence around his shoulders like a well-loved fur coat.

"For someone with experience, you don't do it very well," Jim snarked back, perfectly willing to play along with this facade Sandburg used. Jim had his own cover, his own ways of hiding the pain of his divorce and his intense loneliness and guilt, so he could sympathize with the need for that buffer from the world.

"Oh, I do it very well," Blair disagreed. "You should order me to my knees some time."

"Telling me what to order you to do is not how I see it working," Jim said dryly as he wandered back toward the kitchen and the abandoned plates.

"Wait, you see it working... some other way?" Blair asked. Surprise replaced the sexual tones of a second ago, and Jim flinched.

"That came out wrong," Jim made his excuse.

"Riiight," Blair agreed suspiciously. Jim just focused on the dishes.



TEN
***

"Where's the kid?" Simon asked immediately as Jim walked in the bull pen.  Simon stood next to Jim's desk, a file in hand, and Jim wondered if he was retrieving a file or leaving a new one.  He prayed it was the first.

"He insisted on teaching a class.  I dropped him off, and put the fear of God into security if they didn't post a guard in his room.  I'll pick him up in a couple of hours when he's done," Jim said, ignoring the just-slightly confrontational tone in Simon's voice.  Hell, Jim had screwed this up enough that Simon had a right to get cranky.

"You mean he's coming back here?" Rafe asked as he looked up from his own files.  The youngest of the Major Crimes detectives gave a comically exaggerated shudder.  "The kid has a mouth on him," he laughed.

"You should have heard him after you fled for the bathroom," Jim joked back.  Simon didn't look impressed.

"He's something else."  Rafe shook his head as he typed something into his computer.  "Thanks for the warning.  I'll make sure I have my own witnesses to interview far, far away this afternoon."

"Right now, we have to discuss just where this gay-bashing case is going," Simon interrupted the banter.  "This is a murder case now, and I called in the assistant DA," Simon said with a curt nod towards his office.  Jim looked, and through the blinds spotted Gary Birdsell with his dark suit and sand-blond hair.  The lawyer's baby-face made him seem like a soft target, but in front of a jury, the man turned into a vicious shark.  He saw Jim and smiled widely and waved, looking more like a young surfer someone had given a haircut and stuffed in a new suit than an assistant district attorney with one of the best records in the state.

"You called in the big guns."

"We have to do something to save this case," Simon pointed out.  He started toward his office, and Jim followed.

"Hey, Jim.  I still owe you a drink after the Little case.  Then again, after this, you may owe me a whole case of beer," Gary said as they came in the office.  From another DA, the words might have come out angry, but Gary just chuckled as he held out his hand in greeting.  "Not like you to get so tangled in your own paperwork."  Jim shook the offered hand.

"I'm blaming Sandburg," Simon said as he pulled the blinds on the office windows so they would have more privacy.

"He's made my life interesting.  I usually just get the boring old homicides, but I have questions of privilege and the contamination of witnesses and reliability and some truly salacious descriptions of kinks I hadn't even heard of."  Gary sat down and clicked open his ubiquitous briefcase stuffed with files.  He pulled out one tagged with a neon orange sticky note that announced "Well 'n Truly Fucked."  Gary might do subtle well in front of a jury, but in private, the man rivaled Sandburg in bluntness.  He dropped the file dramatically on Simon's desk before opening it and rifling through the loose pages.

"If you want to use him as a witness… well, I wouldn't recommend it," Jim said seriously as he dropped into the chair next to the lawyer.  "The kid has a mouth that runs about two steps ahead of his brain sometimes.  You put him on the stand, and you'll never know what to expect."

"I would have taken that into consideration before he slept at the lead detective's house, but now it's a moot point.  He's not getting anywhere near the courthouse on any day I'm in front of a judge," Gary said, and again, words that would have come with condemnation from any other DA just brought a quiet laugh.  "I enjoyed the officers' reports from their first encounter with him, though."  He held up a sheaf of papers held together with a binder clip.  "I thought witness statements were boring, but half the reports would make for good stand-up comedy and the other half used so many euphemisms I couldn't actually tell what happened."

Jim shook his head as he remembered that first sight of Sandburg.  "He wasn't taking their shit," Jim agreed.

"Considering the reports, we're lucky he isn't filing suit for some of the officers' actions. Although luck might have less to do with it than the fact that a jury is not likely to award a settlement to a man who makes a living dressing up like a dog for sex.  The country is amazingly prudish considering the amount of pornography that gets sold every year."

Simon grunted, and Jim glanced over toward him.  Simon nursed a coffee without even offering any, and his expression suggested that he just wanted the meeting over, probably so that he could rip into Jim in private.  "So, how do we salvage this from here?" Simon asked.

"Legally, we ignore Sandburg as a witness.  I suggest passing the assault in his apartment over to the local precinct…"

"The gay-bashers case is mine," Jim protested, and Gary held up a placating hand.

"The gay-bashers case, yes.  But Jim, you don't have actual evidence linking the cases, and having you investigate a push-in smacks of inappropriate involvement. In court, I can keep out any mention of Sandburg except in his official role as an anthropologist studying police relations, but don't make this any messier for me.  I mean, I know I'm good, but let's not test the limits of how good I am at this."

Jim rubbed his face as he braced himself to tell them the next part.  "I agreed to let Sandburg ride along if he would, in return, identify the locations of his various interviews," he confessed.

The room fell silent.

"Well, that's…" Gary stopped.  The man who made a living with words obviously ran out of them as he leaned back in his chair and considered Jim in surprise.  Simon recovered his voice first.

"What the hell were you thinking?  Jim, I don't know what has gotten into you, but as of right now, you are off this case."  Simon didn't even sound angry; he had that low, quiet voice that Jim occasionally heard the captain use on his son—the voice that suggested that Simon was milliseconds away from exploding and trying hard to control it.

"Not so fast.  If you take him off this case, it's going to give the defense attorney a basis to challenge everything he's done.  Jim collected the Sulley's witness statement and got the composite drawing, and the hairs collected at Sandburg's apartment may prove valuable in a couple of weeks when the DNA comes back.  This is evidence I can't afford to lose at trial," Gary interrupted.  "Besides, I want to know what has made the Ice Man thaw out enough to bend his almighty rules."

"That's a good question.  Care to answer that one?" Simon asked, his voice still tightly controlled as he leaned forward.

"The suspects wouldn't have gone after Blair unless he made some sort of connection they see as dangerous, which means I need to find that connection before these guys attack again.  I need to backtrack Sandburg's movements, but he won't give up any information without riding along.  He says he has an ethical obligation to the people he interviewed, and he doesn't want them harassed."

"Ethics?" Simon demanded.  "I'm surprised he knows the word."

"I don't know.  In court I could easily paint him as a zealous researcher with a strong ethical code for what he's done on his own.  But Jim, if he's with you, I can't claim that he's acting as a researcher.  To a jury, he'll end up looking like some kook trying to force himself into the middle of a police investigation."

"He is," Simon growled.

"If we don't act, this is going to get ugly.  Now that they've killed someone, these three know the stakes have risen. They'll either try to disappear so that we never catch them, or they'll get such a rush out of the victim dying that they'll want to kill again. Sandburg is the key to finding them before either happens."  Jim laid his logic out as simply as he could and waited while Simon's face slowly melted from controlled anger into weary resignation.

"Solid logic, but juries care more about appearances than logic," Gary pointed out.

"Then give him a reason to ride along," Jim said, the solution suddenly simple.  "He's doing his dissertation on police relations with minority groups, so make it official."

Simon froze, not even blinking for several seconds as the shock set in, but Gary nodded.

"It would give the jury a reasonable explanation for his involvement, and since he has been working on this research already, it explains his earlier actions."

"Jim, do you have any idea what you're asking?" Simon demanded, not nearly as quick to jump on the Sandburg bandwagon.  "You want to take Sandburg with you in the field on an official basis? The kid is a walking trouble magnet.  You've known him for three weeks, and he's already been in here often enough that the ladies in the cafeteria know his name."

"That's just it, Simon," Jim explained.  "I don't know the names of the cafeteria workers, and they don't know mine, but Blair has a way of getting in with people.  Steve Sulley never would have come forward without Blair there, and if I have Blair with me while I canvass the area again, maybe that will work to my advantage.  I walk in there as a cop, and they'll shut up, but if they see me coming in with Sandburg, if I take the approach of someone who's trying to protect him as a witness and as my official ride-along, maybe someone will talk.  Simon, it's perfect."

"Perfect."  Simon snorted the word, making it clear just how not-perfect he considered the whole situation.

"It would make things a lot easier in my office.  I can't prosecute this case without having Sandburg come up, and I'd much rather have an explanation ready for the judge and jury.  Since Sandburg's sideline as a provider of sexual services is so prejudicial, I can even get that excluded.  But Jim, this can't just be for the one case.  I know you'll get these guys, but it'll take months for the trial, and if a defense lawyer catches wind that Sandburg only rode along on this one case, we're back to sounding suspicious." 

"Great.  Rafe and Brown avoid the squad room when the kid is here, and no other department is going to want him in the middle of their investigations, not with his habit of sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong."  Simon sounded cranky, but Jim also noticed that he was already considering the practical requirements of bringing Blair in, meaning that he'd already made his decision.

"He can ride with me."  For a second, Jim remembered coming home with another puppy.  At twelve years old, he'd burst in the back door carrying a tiny floppy eared golden retriever-mix from the neighbors, and he'd promised his father that he'd take care of the dog.  While his father stared at him over the paper in shock, Jim had vowed to give up Saturday cartoons to clean the yard and pay for dog food out of his allowance.  Back then, it hadn't worked.  Remembering Sandburg's puppy routine, Jim couldn't help feeling like he was making the same promise again, but Simon was a lot more reasonable than his father.

"Damn right he'll ride with you.  No one else is going to clean up this mess you've made," Simon agreed.  He shook his head sadly.  "I don't think you have any idea how much trouble you two have let yourselves in for."

"Hey, I've only read witness statements, but I like the guy," Gary insisted.

"Wait until you meet him to say that. He's the most aggravating little shit I've ever met," Simon said, but Jim noticed that the captain looked almost amused. "Get the paperwork taken care of before you let him anywhere near the first witness," Simon ordered.

"Yes, sir," Jim agreed.

"Simon, I need to talk about the Anderson case." Gary shoved all the paperwork back into the file with that orange sticky note and dropped it back into the briefcase before pulling another file out.  This one had a yellow sticky with WTF in large block letters.

"I'll go start the paperwork now," Jim said as he stood up.  Maybe he could even escape the office without an ass-chewing.  Simon gave an absent-minded nod as he took the file Gary passed over the desk, and Jim left, smiling.  He had himself a brand new puppy.

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