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Nuance
part 2 of 2
Sandburg made it easy to give him some privacy by the simple expedient of disappearing for most of the morning, returning just after noon with a big stack of paper on the Clay and Hollingsworth families from Research and a vending machine spread that pre-empted any suggestion Jim might have made about lunch.
It looked like paper wasn't all he had picked up in the Research Department, either, because he was talking a mile a minute in metric again: "Man, Jim, Deanna Murphy is her name, and I am telling you, legs like you have never seen. And smart, too-- I noticed she was reading Lorca. In Spanish even." He was eating a burrito out of the machine-- a burrito! As if what was in it wasn't right there on the label!
"Hey! I've got an idea!" He smacked Jim on the arm with the hand that didn't have refried beans on it. "Can you check her out and see if she's seeing anybody and if she has any objection to dating a guy who's not all six feet tall and four feet wide and, like, well, you?"
"Jesus, Sandburg, what am I now, your pimp? No way I'm going to do surveillance on some innocent woman just because you're too lazy to just ask her out." Jim snagged Blair's bag of M&Ms and started picking out the blue ones.
Blair didn't seem too upset at the failure of that scheme. As a matter of fact, Jim could swear that he was looking... satisfied. As though he'd given the class a test and they'd passed it, every one of them.
He looked sharply away. Blair was aware of his attention. Jim couldn't help invading his privacy, no matter how hard he tried. And worse still, he couldn't do anything to protect him. Anything at all.
"So look," Jim said, standing abruptly. "I was going to head downtown." Sandburg gave him an inquiring look, and Jim flashed him one of the phone messages. "Barrett Clay's ex-wife and son-- I figured it couldn't hurt to interview them. Personally."
"Hmm? Oh, yeah," Blair said, digging through the stack of folders. "I think the initial interview report is in here. The son is a doctor, right? Oh, here, Nicholas Mitropoulous-- what, he took his mom's maiden name back? What's up with that?"
"Must be easier to spell."
Blair rolled his eyes. "So we can assume he's got some hostility-- and he didn't have an alibi, did he?"
"He's not a suspect," Jim said. "I just figured I could get a little more info face-to-face, if you know what I'm saying."
"Okay," said Blair, drumming his fingers on top of the stack of folders from Research. "So, I could come along, or I could stay here."
His voice was casual. Almost too casual, and Jim blinked. He'd been trying so hard not to read his partner that he was just realizing that Sandburg was trying equally hard not to allow himself to be read. What came through was very much like what Jim had seen on television: a highly disciplined focus on one idea at a time and an intentional damping of anything else. Who knew Sandburg was such an actor?
"I think I can get this one on my own," Jim said, unsettled. "One of us might as well get through these reports."
"Okay," Sandburg said, but even that single word was wrong. He should have complained about being left behind at the station. Or made some smartass comment like "I'll be expecting flowers on Secretaries' Day," or something besides settling coolly into Jim's chair and gesturing at his vending-machine bounty. "You gonna eat, or what?"
Jim tipped his palmful of M&Ms into his mouth, grabbed the most appealing-looking thing on the desk-- a ham sandwich encased in saran wrap-- and shrugged his jacket on one-handed. "There. Happy?"
Blair settled back in Jim's chair, spread his hands. Jim watched out of the corner of his eyes, under the pretense of putting on his jacket. "Sure," Blair said. "Deliriously. Oh, Jim--"
Jim turned back, but Blair was already staring down at the desk, pen tapping against a folder. "What?"
"Allison dropped my class," Blair said. Jim could only see the top of his head, and his voice betrayed nothing. "Remember, the girl from Rainier? Her sister has leukemia."
It shouldn't have made him angry; it made absolutely no sense to get angry. Hadn't he just been vowing to give the guy some space?
To get irritated with him for making that easier-- it made no sense at all.
Jim went to the front desk at Cascade General and had Nicholas Mitropoulous paged. Finding himself an uncomfortable chair in the reception area, he settled in and prepared to wait.
He watched the medical personnel come and go, talking quietly to each other. Everything seemed oddly damped down, and then Jim realized that he had his senses down almost to normal. Another protective reflex. Hospitals just put him on edge these days. The scents were the worst part: The mingled reek of blood, disease, antiseptic and latex permeated the building. Sound was almost as bad.
It was hard to relax, hard to bring his senses down. Sandburg always told him to focus on something simple, something calming, and so Jim tried his usual routine, blocking out everything but human voices. Here, doctors and nurses were talking in the trauma rooms that lined the hallways to either side of the lobby. Voices full of tension, worry and frustration. They grated. He blocked them out, and tried to focus on the small group bustling around the front desk.
"Yo, Jeff, the barfing third-graders in three? Doctor Hayes doesn't think they've ingested anything more toxic than paste. But we are gonna need a clean-up."
"Oh, that sounds like fun," the masculine voice answered.
"Tell me about it. And Shelley says Mr. Edelman is getting extremely agitated-- how about starting him on 50 of Demerol?"
"Sure thing," said the nurse behind the desk, then turned back to her private conversation. "Look, Abby, I'm just saying. We all saw the signs, and we should've admitted the kid to psych last week when he came in."
"He wasn't critical then. Look, we did all we could-- just shut up about it in front of Mitropoulous," Abby hissed, and Jim raised his eyes, searching out and finding the dark-eyed med student coming down the hall. He zoomed in on the blue-and-white nametag. Mitropoulous.
Nick Mitropoulous had straight dark hair that fell across his forehead and thick black-framed glasses that intensified his dark, weary eyes. "Hey, guys," he said, leaning across the desk. His voice was low and rusty. "What'd we get from the lab?"
"CBC shows a low white blood cell count," said the blonde nervously. It took almost no effort to hear her trepidation, but pinning down the source of it was a bit harder. Setting his jaw firmly, he let the dials slide up a notch. It wasn't coming from being the messenger of bad news. More like apprehension in the face of someone who might respond unpredictably, no matter what the news was.
"Damn it," Mitropoulous hissed under his breath, flipping through the chart handed to him by the blonde. "Anyone check this guy for bites?"
The male nurse, Jeff, was lost. "Bites?"
"Insect bites," he clarified sharply. "Ants, spiders, ticks--"
The blonde looked even more taken aback. "It's too early for tick season."
Jim stood and began approaching the desk, watching Mitropoulous. Behind the thick lenses of his glasses, the kid's eyes were way past tired. Probably nearing the end of a long shift; banked rage was all that was keeping him awake at this point. "Have you seen the fucking chart?" Nick tossed it at the male nurse's chest. "We've got rigid abdominals, muscle pain and vomiting, and now a low white count-- I want you checking for bites, blisters and rashes, now-- and get Bradley in for a consult!"
Teeth gritted in frustration, he turned away, almost bumping into Jim. "Can I help you?" he asked, meaning 'Get out of my way.'
"Detective Ellison, Major Crimes." Jim flashed his shield. "I called ahead. Is this a good time?"
"Uh-- sure, I guess," Nick said uncertainly. Unlike a patient or nurse, Jim wasn't someone below him in the hospital's hierarchy. It was unsettling for him to switch gears so suddenly. "Is this going to take long?"
"It shouldn't. I just have a few questions."
"Okay. I'm just gonna be outside!" Nick called over his shoulder, and led Jim out of the lobby. "We can talk out here. Mind if I smoke?"
"Go ahead," said Jim as they walked out into the concrete entryway. The wind had picked up, making it seem colder out than it really was.
Ignoring the chill, Nick leaned back against on a concrete pillar. Taking a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his white coat, he shook one out, then patted his pockets with a grimace. "Shit. Got a light?" he asked, not really hopefully.
"No, sorry," Jim said, experiencing a sudden deja vu.
Nick sighed and stuffed the pack back in his pocket. "Screw it," he muttered. "So this is about my dad, huh? I already talked to the cops once."
"I know," Jim said. "I just have a few more questions. You hadn't lived with your father since you were fourteen?"
Nick shook his head, and pulled off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I spent a few summers with him," he said, "after he and my mom split up, but it wasn't real comfortable. I mean, you've met Annie." Jim nodded, and Nick tipped his head back and closed his eyes. "I didn't blame her for the divorce... but I didn't like her much, either."
"You didn't blame her?" Jim said, keeping his voice light, trying to indicate curiosity and not insulting disbelief. Amazing how much easier it was to say what you meant, when you could read how people were really reacting.
"Mom wanted to believe that Annie was this... gold-digger, homewrecker type, and Dad just another victim in the whole mess," Nick shrugged, putting his glasses back on. "I gave him credit for making his own damn stupid decisions," he said, looking straight at Jim. "I didn't know... I was just so pissed off at his whole attitude towards our family."
"You didn't know what?"
"Camille Mason told me about it at the estate hearing yesterday," Nick muttered. "My scholarship... I got a free ride through med school from this charitable fund. For Greek-Americans studying cardiac surgery." He grinned a little crookedly. "I thought I hit the jackpot. Turns out my dad set the whole thing up." He stared off across the parking lot. "I hadn't talked to him in years. Don't even know how he knew I wanted to be a surgeon."
Jim nodded, then glanced back at the hospital doors as they swung open with a bang, and female voice broke the silence. "Doctor M, the hiker in observation three's disoriented and spiking a temperature. Margit needs you, now!"
Nick sighed. "Sorry, Detective, I gotta go. You get everything you need?"
"Yeah, sure. Thanks!" Jim called after him as he headed for the door. He stood there by the hospital doors for a while, thinking, and then headed back to the truck.
Jim was driving on auto-pilot as he came down the hill from the hospital, thinking on two tracks at once. Nick's anger was one clear note, overriding every other thing that might have attracted Jim's attention. Like a squeal of feedback, it had made Jim edgy... edgy enough to wonder for a moment if he was on the wrong track with Annie Clay. Maybe Blair was right, and she'd had nothing to do with her husband's murder.
After all, this whole emotional nuance thing was still new. When the senses had first kicked up, they hadn't always been helpful. He gritted his teeth with embarrassment, remembering Carolyn's wide eyes as he freaked out in the middle of her favorite cafe.
So maybe he'd misread Annie. It was possible. Sure, maybe she hadn't been telling them the entire truth, but there were lots of things people didn't want to spill to strangers. Especially cops. He remembered the twitch of her glossy mouth as Blair brought up Barrett Clay's infidelity. Could that have been it? Who knew, maybe the young wife had been having her cake and eating it too.
But the means didn't quite make sense now. Hiring a hit man was a big investment, and it usually meant a financial motive. Mitropoulous was a doctor, with no family to support and no student loans to pay off. He'd been angry, sure, but angry enough to cold-bloodedly arrange his father's murder?
Then again, you had to be a little cold to make your living cutting into helpless bodies. What was it they said about surgeons having God complexes? Sandburg would probably know.
Barrett Clay's first wife, Penelope Mitropoulous, owned a small pottery shop called Bowl of Joy, situated in one of Cascade's artier districts. From outside, it smelled of different varieties of clay, both dry and wet, and the cool chemical paint-smell of glaze. When he walked in, Jim was surprised by its dusty, old-world ambiance. He'd been expecting something glossy and high-rent, but the shop was simply one small room lined with plain metal shelves, stacked thickly with clay vases, bowls, plates and kettles.
In the center of the room, a few wooden blocks of different heights had been set up to serve as more display space. Here, the vases displayed sheaves of wheat, and the plates were set with shining silver, dusted lightly with fine, white particles of dry clay.
"Can I help you?"
Jim turned to the dark-eyed woman, dusting her hands as she emerged from the back room. She, too, surprised him by being neither glossy nor high-rent.
This woman had probably never been as polished as Annie, but even dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans stained with clay and glaze, she was striking. Aristocratic. There was something about her neck, her long pale arms, that demanded the adjective. Her mouth was sweet but wide, her nose prominent and bumpy. Her hair tumbled in wild coils around her shoulders, glossy black except for a few long streaks of gray, directly front and center. "Penelope Mitropoulous?"
"Yes?" She pushed one of the gray curls behind her ear, smudging her cheekbone with reddish clay in the process.
"Ma'am," Jim said, offering her his hand. "I'm Detective Jim Ellison, Major Crimes. I'm currently in charge of the investigation of your ex-husband's death."
"Barrett?" she said softly, her hand pausing in his for a moment. She had long, elegant fingers, but her knuckles were swollen and red with work. "Oh. Yes. Of course." She blinked, lips slightly parted, and Jim saw that she was surprised. Not expecting another visit from the police so soon was a part of it, and not really understanding why they'd want to talk to her at all was also part. "What can I help you with, Detective?"
"I just have a few questions. This won't take long," Jim said and Penelope nodded. "You hadn't spoken to your husband recently?"
"No. Not for years." To Jim's surprise her hands were shaking slightly, and the next sound out of her mouth was a quiet sob. He reached out, feeling entirely clumsy, and put a hand on her shoulder as she turned away, covering her mouth with her palm.
"I'm sorry," he said, and she waved her other hand apologetically, turning and crossing behind the shop's counter for a box of tissues. A stab of irritation hit Jim-- he should have brought Blair along, no matter how edgy his partner was suddenly making him. Blair was better at handling this kind of thing.
"No, no--" Penelope blew her nose, threw away the tissue, and got another to dab at her eyes with. "I'm sorry."
"I know it must have been a shock," Jim said, knowing that the officers who'd interviewed her in the first place had probably said exactly the same thing.
Penelope winced, and Jim suddenly realized he had no idea what she was going to say next; he had damped down his senses without knowing it. Slowly, he put his hand on the counter between them and opened them all up, watching the gloss of tears in her eyes, the twist of regret in her lips-- and loneliness, an aching wave of loneliness that almost choked him.
"I still," she said, and stopped, pressing her lips together tightly to keep her mouth from trembling. "I still loved him," she said, and Jim knew that the only reason that her statement was phrased in the past tense was Barrett Clay's untimely death-- that only his death could ever have caused Penelope Mitropoulous to stop loving her ex-husband. She sighed, and looked up at him ruefully. "Are you married, Detective?"
Jim hesitated. "Divorced," he answered, dropping his shoulders just a quarter of an inch, trying to convey some kind of affinity in his voice. Trying to echo back what he was receiving: the kinship of the dumped.
And it seemed to work; she smiled a little. She was remembering things she'd heard about cops, and how stressful their jobs were. She sniffled slightly again. "I know it's foolish, but Barrett... I was just twenty-one when we were married. And you don't forget fifteen years of marriage." Or at least I don't, she was thinking. But that would've been a jab at her ex-husband. And Penelope still couldn't do that out loud. Dead or not.
Jim nodded. "Did you know Annie Hollingsworth well?"
"No." Penelope shook her head. "I only met her once or twice. Nick spent a few summers with Barrett after the divorce, but he was so angry with his father, I doubt he really--" She caught herself suddenly, eyes narrowing fiercely. "Nick had nothing to do with this."
"He's not under any suspicion at this time, Ms. Mitropoulous," Jim assured her. "I'm just trying to get a better feel for the situation, as it was..." He stopped as Penelope's eyes widened in shock, then filled with tears again.
"Annie," she said disbelievingly. "Oh, no. That little bitch!" More tears pooled in her eyes, and spilled over, and this time she let them slide down her cheeks. "I knew she was using him, but-- but I never thought she was a murderer."
"We're not actively investigating Ms. Clay, either," Jim said neutrally.
Penelope inhaled sharply. "But you think she did it, don't you?"
Jim looked away. "You said she was using him," he said. "Using him how?"
"Well," Penelope waved a hand, frowning. "Just, in the sense that..." She stopped, sighed heavily and started over. "Well, I suppose they were using each other," she admitted. "Annie wanted a big house and the good life, and Barrett wanted to be married to a twenty-one-year-old. Again. I don't know. Maybe it would've been easier for me to-- to let go if I thought they were really in love with each other. But I never saw that."
Jim nodded slowly. "Thank you, Ms. Mitropoulous. If I have any more questions, I'll call."
Blair was making rummaging noises in the medicine cabinet when Jim got home. "Hey," he said as Jim hung up his coat. "How'd it go?"
"Fine," Jim called back, heading to the fridge for a beer. His throat felt as rough as cardboard; he'd done too much talking today, not to mention breathing in that silky clay-dust from Penelope's shop. "How 'bout you-- anything interesting?"
"Depends on what you call interesting," Blair said. "Annie Clay has two older brothers, Jeff and Roland, both of whom have won or placed in various trap-shooting contests in Texas. Neither one has a criminal record, but she's got this second cousin in Oregon who's got a couple of pretty nasty assault charges, and among other things makes amateur bear-hunting videos."
Jim raised his eyebrows. "The second cousin-- that was in the files from Research?"
"Well, the stuff about her brothers was," Blair said, a twinge of something-- was that guilt? in his raised voice.
"Uh-huh," Jim said, half-grinning already.
He heard the bathroom door gently kicked open, and Blair crossed into the living room, both hands holding something to his right earlobe. "Yeah, well, I got through all those files, so I thought I'd look up Annie on the 'Net. I got the usual hits: wedding announcement in the Herald, blah blah. Then I found her grandmother's site, complete with Hollingsworth family history and genealogy. Then I had this George Orwell moment of conscience..."
"Millisecond of conscience, you mean," Jim poked, taking a long drink of his beer. Well, it was only to be expected. He'd left Blair alone all afternoon. Annie Clay was just lucky the CPD didn't have her medical records, too.
"Yeah, yeah, and then I started looking up stuff," Blair said, leaning over the kitchen counter, "and found this online article in a hunting and fishing mag about Ken Guthrie, he's the cousin, and you wouldn't fucking believe all the nasty stuff they do to bears and-- what? What?"
Jim realized that he had been giving Blair a funny look. "What's that smell?" he said almost accusingly, then added "Your ear is hot."
"Yeah, allergic reaction," Blair said. "That earring with the glass beads? Lacquer must've worn off--" and when Jim opened his mouth, "No safety lectures, all right? I usually buy nickel free, but you can't really be sure of the metal content when you're buying jewelry off the back of a cart in Turkey."
There was something about that smell... "Annie Clay smelled like that," Jim said suddenly.
"What, peroxide?" Blair lifted his hand to show the cotton ball. "Well, it's used to bleach hair, too, but I doubt those curls of hers have ever seen a chemical."
"No, I can tell bleached hair. It sounds different," Jim said absently. "Now that I think about it, her ear was hot, too."
"Just one or both? Usually you'd get an allergic reaction on both sides. Unless you were only pierced on one side, but she doesn't seem the type--"
"No, just on one side--" Jim closed his eyes, remembering--"and not as hot as yours. And not just the lobe, either. All up the side of her ear."
Blair frowned. "A couple of fresh cartilage pierces would account for that, and she'd be cleaning them a couple of times a day with peroxide even if they weren't infected-- but Jim, man, she really doesn't seem like the type to get--"
"She doesn't seem like the type to hire somebody to off her husband, either, Sandburg," Jim said. "I've got to talk to her again."
Through the two-way mirror they could see Annie Clay sitting in a chair, hands clasped in her calico-clad lap, and Camille Mason in a lemon-yellow suit with her arm around Annie's shoulder. Annie looked up as Jim opened the door-- at him, past him to Blair-- and Jim stopped in his tracks. "Ms. Clay... Ms. Mason... we'll be with you in a minute." He shut the door again.
"What?" Blair asked. Confused.
"Go get Megan."
"What?" he said again, this time baffled and annoyed.
"She thinks you're... look, just go get Megan."
Blair headed off to the bullpen, shaking his head and muttering to himself-- Jim caught a "temperamental bastard" that was surely pitched for maximum audibility.
Jim looked through the mirror, focusing closer, closer-- and saw the glint of metal through the fall of Annie Clay's chestnut hair. "A couple of new cartilage piercings," Blair had said, and there they were.
Camille Mason was standing-- no doubt delivering a last-minute reminder about the wisdom of keeping one's mouth shut in interrogation rooms, though Jim didn't bother to pick his hearing up-- by the time Megan arrived with Blair right behind her. "You be the good cop," Jim told her. "Get her to talk about her cousin Kenneth Guthrie. I need to watch her for a while."
"Righto."
"Hey, why not me, man?" Blair held Jim's arm. "I thought she liked me, Jim, I was nice to her!"
"Maybe you were a little too nice to her." Blair glared at him. "Look, I don't know why. I just think she'll be more comfortable with Megan, okay?" He could hear Blair mumbling to himself again as the door swung shut.
"Ms. Clay," Megan began, "tell me about your relationship with Kenneth Guthrie."
"He's a relative on my mother's side," Annie said, softly but without hesitating.
"Your... second cousin, I think?"
Jim listened absently, senses ticking up and down to take in Annie's pulse, temperature, minute shifts in posture, changes in the muscles around her eyes and mouth. It was amazing to remember sitting in this room, just a few days ago, and picking up only the crudest outlines of what she was thinking and feeling-- just that vague feeling of wrongness. And today he could sense a whole range of emotions from her, three-dimensional, full of nuances.
The first time, he saw, she had been lying reflexively, out of fear, the way a child lies to escape punishment. Now her fear was muted. She wouldn't lie today, not unless they rattled her very badly. If they asked her an incriminating question point-blank, she'd say, "I don't remember" or "I can't answer that." Camille had coached her well, and Annie was feeling comfortable. It was familiar to her, saying as little as possible, knowing that if she got into trouble her protector would speak for her--
A protector. A childlike woman. An earful of new jewelry. Suddenly all the clues clicked into place. It was all Jim could do not to interrupt Annie in the middle of tracing out her family tree.
"Ms. Clay," he said as soon as she finished speaking. She started a bit; maybe she'd forgotten he was there. "Tell me about your new earrings. When did you have your ear pierced?"
Megan and Camille were both staring at him. Annie blushed a little and tucked a curl behind her ear. "Um... a week ago Tuesday," she said.
Barrett Clay had been murdered on Monday. Jim could feel everyone in the room making the connection.
"Your husband," he said after a moment. "You said he--" he consulted his notes, unnecessarily--"'He always took care of me. He looked after me in his own way.' Would you say he was protective of you?" She nodded. "Perhaps overprotective?"
He almost held his breath waiting. She wasn't going to go for that. Her lawyer would kill her if she did, no sane person would go for it--
"Yes."
Camille Mason put her arm around Annie's shoulder again, and Jim could feel her sending waves of "Shut up shut up shut up" at her client. Annie must have felt it too; she leaned forward out of the circle of Camille's arm.
"For instance, jewelry in the cartilage of your ear-- that's not something he would have cared for, is it."
"Cared for." It was almost a snort. "He would never have allowed it."
"And yet you're an adult-- soon to be a mother," Jim went on. "I would think you could be trusted to be responsible for a decision like that."
A brief pause. "Yes." And Jim knew he had her.
Megan's look said she didn't know what Jim knew, but he was onto something and she was more than happy to mine the same vein. "Your cousin Kenny," she said. "You talked with him quite recently, didn't you? In--" and she ostentatiously checked the phone log--"early June, twice. And yet you've never called him before in the entire time you and Mr. Clay have lived on High Street."
Megan hadn't actually asked a question, but Annie would have given her an answer anyway if Camille hadn't stopped her. But the comment had served its purpose, and Jim shot Megan a grateful look: Annie now thought the police department had extensive knowledge of Ken Guthrie's recent activities.
"Your husband traveled a great deal," Jim said, and Annie's head whipped around to face him. She was confused about this new direction. "It's too bad," Jim went on," that he didn't take you along on some of these trips." Quick flash of resentment, and he pushed forward, more and more sure that he was right.
"Let me ask you," he said, "about the trip you've planned. Will this be the first time you've seen Paris?"
Annie's emotions whiplashed wildly at that: shock and terror, and then a strange, sudden peace: They know everything. I don't have to decide whether or not to tell the truth any more. It's out of my hands now.
Most people, Jim thought, really want to tell the truth. The trick is to make that the least inconvenient alternative.
"Ms. Clay," Jim said gently. "We both know that Kenneth Guthrie fired the gun that killed your husband. If you'll testify and help us convict him, we can help you, too."
And after another breathless pause, she said, "Yes. All right."
Blair was waiting for him at the interrogation room door, and he fired off two questions before Jim could open his mouth: "Paris, where the heck did that come from? And, hey, why Megan and not me? I was nice to her. I thought she liked me."
"She thinks you're funny-looking," Jim told him. "And she's a rich man's wife, Sandburg. She doesn't trust a man who's being too nice to her."
"Funny-looking? I'm not-- hey!" But before Blair could demand an answer, he was interrupted by Simon's handshake.
"Nice work, guys," he said. "I knew you two were up to something. How'd you crack her story, Jim? did you smell something at the crime scene?"
"Better, it's way better, Simon, you are so not going to believe this." Blair launched into a barrage of explanations and amplifications and verbal footnotes, pointedly ignoring Jim's best keep-your-mouth-shut signals. "And the greatest thing is, it's all totally scientific, nothing supernatural about it, but for all practical purposes it's just like ESP! In fact, if you read carefully you'll see that the literature on ESP is full of hints that the subjects may have had enhanced senses, which is exactly--"
"Whoa." It should have been obvious even to Blair that Simon did not want to hear what he was hearing. "Are you saying-- Jim is he saying that you read that girl's mind?" His face said: Please tell me that's not what he's saying.
"Not exactly," Jim said, and Simon's shoulders went down a fraction, only to tense back up when he went on, "but from the outside it probably looks like that. I don't understand it myself," he added apologetically.
"It's so cool," Blair said. "I mean, he picked up from the beginning that she was lying, but he got a confession from her by figuring out that she was getting ready to jet off to Paris. Paris!" he laughed as the three of them made their way back to the bullpen. "Paris, man, if he can read that on her, what's next, telling me where I'm going to lunch?"
"Brie's, of course, you've been thinking about their pancakes ever since we saw those blueberries at the farmer's market," Jim said absently. "And I didn't exactly see Paris on her. That was a lucky guess."
"Well, that's good to hear," Simon said dryly.
"Yeah," Jim said, "all I could get from her was somewhere in Europe. I just figured she wasn't really the type for London."
Simon blew out a gusty breath. "As long as you eventually wind up with admissible evidence and no broken laws, Jim, I suppose how you get it is your business." At his weary tone, Jim turned and saw him thinking sadly, "Jim, my old friend, I was a lot more comfortable with you when you were normal" --and then Simon saw him looking and quickly turned away.
It was a good thing the rest of Major Crimes didn't know about this new development, Jim thought, or nobody would ever look him in the eye again. He looked out over his co-workers-- fine officers, good friends, people he would trust with his life-- and he had never felt so distant from them.
There was Megan returning to her desk, thinking of the taste of pasties from a luncheonette two blocks from Sydney police headquarters and of the thousands of miles between here and there. One quick glimpse of her loneliness took his breath away. There was Rafe shouting congratulations as he passed and mentally updating his checklist of everyone's case rates-- "I've still got more convictions, though," he was thinking, "and that's all solid police work, no lucky guesses and no hocus-pocus bullshit."
Brown was ribbing Joel over a white bakery bag while he tried to remember whether his MasterCard was maxed out, and Joel was offering a good-natured grin while his contempt for Brown fought it out with his contempt for himself--
Jim saw the stairs in front of him and realized with a shock that he had turned himself almost in a circle in an effort not to look at Blair.
And when Blair said, "Hey, I've got papers to grade if you don't need me," Jim could hear that he'd noticed, that he knew Jim was looking away on purpose. Sorry, sorry, Jim said silently, but I just can't stand knowing just what kind of freak of nature you think I am-- and he was surprised at how normal his voice sounded when he said, "Sure, go ahead, Chief, I'll probably be home late."
There wasn't much paperwork to do. Or, rather, there was a lot of paperwork. Just not enough. Jim finished it up by ten o'clock, and sat there at his desk for a while. There might be dinner waiting for him at home, but Blair hadn't called to tell him either way.
He wasn't that hungry anyway.
The parking garage was dark and cool. He stood and stared at the truck for a moment, letting the cold seep in under his dark leather jacket, through the thin knit of his sweater, till it sank deep into his skin. He put his hand out, and touched the cool metal of the truck, and thought about going to Salem's.
Maybe I need to walk, he thought, pulling his hand away from the truck. He was just on edge; there was always a letdown after a case was closed. Tensions lessening, that was all. He'd been sitting at his desk all day. A walk would help him settle.
He went for a walk.
It was getting worse, he realized suddenly. When had it started getting-- for lack of a better word-- louder? He could practically see the life story of every person he passed on October Street. College kids sitting outside the bars, playing chess and drinking coffee or vodka and Sprite and looking up at the stars. The one with the horn-rimmed glasses didn't know how she was going to pay her parking tickets, and she'd already asked her parents for money this month-- desperation, blame, shame. The one with the spiky blond hair was thinking that if he got this new job, his girlfriend would want to move into a new place-- but, shit, he'd miss his roommates, and what were they gonna do about the dog? Change, fear, loss...
Walking by the cheap arty movie theater on Elm, every couple was like an open book-- right there, that guy hates Hitchcock, but his date loved the movie, and he's a fucking swimmer and hot-- and stepping in front of them, that girl's boyfriend was over-analyzing every little detail, talking on and on, but it was better than sitting at home with the cat, again, and--
How could he go home like this? He couldn't. He just couldn't... Maybe tomorrow, he could get up early and head to the station before Blair woke up, but then, shit, then what? Volunteer for a stakeout? But that was risky. Chances were, Blair would cancel whatever he had going and join him. That was what he usually did, anyway. Amazing how the same patterns repeated themselves in a person's life. The job hadn't been an escape from Carolyn, either.
The last major fight he'd had with Carolyn was so brief a storm that Jim didn't really think of it as a fight. That had been one of Caro's good points, actually-- she could let the little things go in a way Jim never really could, but she never backed down from an argument when there was something important at stake. They'd gotten into a few shouting matches, and usually it was a good thing, it cleared the air. They'd have some make-up sex, cuddle, and the next day they could talk.
Except for the last time. It was funny; now he couldn't even remember why they'd been arguing. Oh, the situation was clear, Carolyn's sister was getting divorced and needed someone to come and help with her kids, but why had they not been able to let it go? At work, under their breath, louder on the way home from work and continuing while Carolyn packed, off and on, silence stretching out to end with a snap that just spawned more silence.
Jim had carried Carolyn's suitcase down to the car-- she wasn't ready to go yet, and if he had to stand around for her one more minute-- damn it, he would have paid for the taxi already just to avoid this jaw-grinding aggravation. He pushed open the door of 307, thinking about whether he could get away with asking Carolyn to hurry the fuck up, if she was in such a hurry. But apparently she was ready to go, standing in the kitchen, travel bag in hand. He hadn't really seen her. That had been his mistake.
"Is there anything else," he'd said, already turning back into the hall, "or are we ready--"
There was a thump as Carolyn dropped her bag, and Jim looked up, only now seeing the tears streaming down her face, the mingled rage and sorrow as she hissed, "You're not even looking at me-- why don't you ever look at me!"
Thank god she was in San Francisco, Jim thought suddenly. He really didn't want to know all the things that Carolyn had never said out loud.
At the time, he'd only stood there, staring. He'd never pushed her to tears before. He'd seen her cry, once or twice, but never like that, like it was tearing her up. He hadn't thought it was possible for her to be that out of control, emotionally... He hadn't ever seen her like that again, either. It had been their last real fight. He figured she'd given up on him after that. It hadn't happened all at once, but little by little she stopped fighting him on certain things. Small issues at first, then larger ones. She'd just accepted that he would never be able to understand her, and so she stopped talking to him about certain topics, one by one; her family, her feelings, children.
They had been fighting more and more often, so perhaps the results would have been the same either way, but when it ended, it was quiet. She wouldn't engage anymore, just retreated from the battlefield. And when there was no more ground to give she had retreated entirely from their marriage, leaving Jim braced behind the heavy walls of his encampments, entrenched, unable to follow or grasp her in any way.
He stood and looked up at the balcony windows of the loft. Their glossy blackness revealed nothing, reflected nothing. The whole building was dark and quiet. So often it had been a haven to Jim, an oasis of calm, its thick, solid walls blocking the noise of the city, its elevation lifting it above the scent of reeking dumpsters and exhaust fumes, from the noise of the masses. So often Jim had looked forward to coming home, knowing the loft would be a warm, quiet place, away from the grit and stench and crazy people, but tonight walking in off the street was like inching forward into a dark cave. He'd walked into firefights with less trepidation.
God only knows what Sandburg really thinks of you, he thought grimly as he climbed the stairs, heart running and thudding in his chest. He made himself keep climbing, though he could feel a weighty burden pressing down on his shoulders more heavily with each step.
But he didn't really have to wonder. Sandburg had written it down in black and white, hadn't he? In the first chapter of his diss, right there. Paranoid. Fear-based. Coward. And you got so damned angry. But then he said you'd read it wrong. Said he didn't really think that. Well, no, of course not. Jim Ellison's no coward, not paranoid, certainly not incapable of intimacy-- god, he could just imagine how this chapter was going to read. The Sentinel: his ability to interpret non-verbal cues and emotional nuances, in which The Sentinel wakes his partner up in the middle of the night and fucking begs him to make it go away. Hell.
Blair probably knew all along I wouldn't be able to handle it, Jim thought, keys in hand, and froze just outside the door.
Of course. Blair had known. The tests... maybe it had been a long time since they'd done any real testing, but even that first day had seemed rather perfunctory, hadn't it? As if Blair's heart wasn't really in it. Look at her, look at him, tell me what you see-- but nothing really hard, nothing that pushed Jim's limits or even nudged them a little. Everything Jim had learned about his new ability, he'd learned himself: watching basketball, playing poker, at that awful university party. It didn't fit. Blair always pushed, but Blair hadn't pushed this time.
No, of course not. He'd known.
The knowledge cut Jim, but it also made it easier to turn the key in the lock and go in. He was still a failure, but at least Blair would accept it. At least he wouldn't be too disappointed.
The loft was dark; Jim felt his eyes adjust, and adjust again, to see the familiar shapes of home. He found himself hesitating outside Blair's room, pausing with a hand on one of the cool glass panes of the French door. Blair's sleeping breaths were slow and regular, a familiar homey sound that had meant peace and safety in the loft for almost three years.
It was calming just to stand outside Blair's door for a moment and breathe with him. Closing his eyes, Jim pushed open the door, and Blair's breathing grew incrementally louder, deeper.
"Blair," Jim said, taking a few clumsy steps forward and kneeling by the low futon shoved into the corner of the room. "Blair, wake up," he said, louder. "Sandburg! Come on. Wake up."
Grimacing, he opened his eyes, reaching forward to jostle Blair's shoulder, and stopped, his hand hanging in space. Jim had stood his share of night watches, guarding comrades while they slept, and he'd found that most men when asleep just looked stolid and cowlike in their unconsciousness. But Blair's sleeping face, framed by dark tangles of hair, clear of all emotion, was still powerful, evocative--
"What?" Contrarily, Blair squinched his eyes closed as he came awake. Immediately Jim wrenched down his night vision. The room was horribly dark, but even that was not enough and so he bent his neck, staring intently at Blair's wrinkled sheets, moved by some powerful instinct for self-preservation he could not explain or ignore. "Jeez, Jim," Blair was muttering sleepily, "what time is it?" Pushing himself up on one elbow, he stretched out an arm toward the lamp on his nightstand.
"Don't." Jim stopped him with a sudden move, then pulled his hand back, away from the sleep-warm aura emanating from Blair's skin.
"Jim?" The weary slur was gone from Blair's voice, replaced by the tight awareness of something off. "What's wrong? What is it?"
Closing his eyes again helped Jim pull his hearing in, crank it down to normal. "Look, this thing-- I can't do it any more. I want to turn it off," he said, disliking the panicky volume of his own voice. "You have to help me."
"Okay," Blair said quietly. The sheets rustled as he pushed himself into a sitting position, leaning back against the wall. "Just calm down for a second. I don't know if this is something you can just turn off, but we can try, all right? Whatever you want."
Jim could only hear the words, which meant he couldn't really hear Blair at all-- not the rich, low working of his lungs or his heart, not his hands moving in the air to gesture or offer a reassuring touch. It was uncharacteristic. It felt wrong, in more ways than one. He flushed with shame in the dark, realizing how badly he wanted Blair to touch him.
"I just can't," Jim growled, because somehow he had still expected an argument, a pep talk, a flood of belief that would have drowned him, trapped as he was in the pit of his failure. "It's too much. You don't know, Sandburg," he said, wishing for a moment that it was Blair with this knowledge, so he could hear just how hopeless Jim was. He barely stopped a harsh laugh from escaping his throat. If it was Blair with this ability, there'd be no problem, would there? Blair would have been great with this, and even if he wasn't saying it, he probably thought Jim was over-reacting. Freaking out. Shutting the new knowledge out simply because it was new. Or scary. Like he always did.
"Jim, it's okay, really. Look, maybe we were wrong to push this in the first place," Blair said quickly. "The original sentinels, they were out there, you know, patrolling the borders, not very socialized. But you--"
He was hiding something. Jim heard it, flinched and bowed his head further, not wanting to know or hear.
"--you live in this city, there's all this extra input, crowds of people you can't get away from, so I understand, you know? It's not... this isn't the way it should be."
"Why are you doing this?" Jim asked sharply, and heard the low thump as Blair's shoulders tensed against the wall.
"I'm trying to help," Blair said, an odd anger making his voice creak.
"You've had that little speech memorized for days, haven't you?" Jim shot back, too broken to be really angry. "Just waiting for me to come crawling, right?"
"Jim!" Blair huffed wordlessly, and his hands clenched in his sheets. "I haven't," he said tightly, and now there was more anger, but it was false, a mask. He was still hiding. "You're not listening. This isn't a failure, it's overload. We've been here before."
"They weren't alone," Jim said. "The sentinels."
"Jim--" Blair replied, and he was terrified, afraid for the both of them, and shit! Jim was wide open again, and he could hear the muscles of Blair's throat click as he swallowed, the tiny hitches in his breath, the effort it was taking him to breathe normally when his heart was pounding, racing, hammering so hard it fucking had to hurt.
"They had partners, right? To watch their backs," Jim said, and took a deep breath of his own. "I'm not alone. I have you." He looked up, and Blair jerked his head away, facing the shadows in the corner of the room. His shoulders were tense, but still flat against the wall, as though he was facing a firing squad. He flinched, hearing Jim fumble for the lamp.
"Don't," Blair said, but Jim barely heard the word, lost in the meaning. Blair's voice was uneven now, shaky, spelling a thousand possibilities Jim couldn't begin to sort through.
His own hands were shaking, but he had to know. It scared the hell out of him, maybe more than anything had ever scared him, the fear that he might see nothing more than a twisted shadow of himself in Blair's eyes-- but he had to know. The lamp came on with a click--
and Jim saw. He could see it in Blair's hands. They were shadowed, half-hidden, clutching the rumpled sheets, but he could see it, he could see it in Blair's tense and curled hands: the guilt, the fear. The dizzying, desperate wanting.
Blair loved him. It was in the shallow movement of his chest and the rasp as he breathed, and suddenly, like a black and white picture becoming color, it was in the stillness of his shoulders, and in the silence between breaths as well. The burn of desire, the ache of need. Blair loved him. Jim struggled to breathe himself, trying to understand the sudden overwhelming and inarguable knowledge. Where did this certainty come from, and how--? And then he realized.
He had always known.
"Oh," he said, and Blair flinched away from the soft sound. Despair was in every line of his body-- oh, god, Blair was thinking, he hates me, he pities me--
"Blair, no," Jim said, stunned into awkward syllables. Words caught in his throat, and he was kneeling on the futon, straddling Blair's legs clumsily, and reaching out for his shoulders. "Look at me--"
"Goddamn it," don't touch me, just don't say anything-- Blair twisted his head away further, tumbling curls masking his face, and it was there in the curve of his neck, like a panicked animal: fear. Anguish. Desire. Just go, Jim, he was pleading silently, just leave me the fuck alone--
"No," Jim rasped. "Look at me." He tugged at Blair's shoulders, already gathering the words that would reassure him, convince him. And then Blair turned his head, and looked at Jim. And the yellow glow of the lamp spilled across his face in seeming slow motion, like a sunrise illuminating the desert. And Jim was speechless.
Blair's eyes were like cathedral windows: illuminated, beautiful. Revelatory, full of miracles and meaning. Shadows slid across his face, disguising and revealing the dawning awareness, the terrible doubt.
"Listen to me. Listen, Blair. It's not just you," Jim said, raising shaking hands to brush Blair's hair back from his face. Smiling, he dropped one hand to run a thumb over Blair's lips. Blair gasped. "Don't be afraid."
"But--" Blair said tightly.
Jim kissed him softly, lightly, once.
"I mean it," he whispered, then tightened his hands in Blair's hair and really kissed him, taking it beyond reassurance, deeper than kindness. Warm. Wet. Blair's lips were so warm, and his mouth tasted of life, not of bitter chlorine or cold bile but warm life, Blair's want and his joy.
Or maybe the joy was Jim's own, he thought, as Blair's lips moved under his. Dizzied by the heat rising between them, he twisted to the side, pulling Blair with him, Blair's body covering him as Jim landed on his back on the bed. Blair's warmth was still in the sheets under Jim's back, and his breath was hot against Jim's face as he gasped for air when Jim pulled away. "Are you hearing me, Chief?"
"Yeah," Blair stammered, turning his head away to hide his face. Jim caught his chin, turned it back. Blair's eyes were bright. "I hear you." he said. "Are you serious?" Be serious, Jim, please.
"Yeah, I'm serious," Jim said, and Blair relaxed in his arms.
"Oh, man," he sighed, then planted his hands on Jim's chest and pushed himself up over Jim, studying him intently. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Out. Walking," said Jim, and wrapping his arms around Blair, pulling him back down. It was too good to be close like this, to have Blair's body against his. He might never let go again. "I was scared."
He felt Blair's breathed 'ah' of understanding. "Of this?"
"Well, no," Jim said, and couldn't help but smile. "I didn't know about this."
"What?" Blair pushed a tangle of hair out of his face. "You didn't-- How could you not know?"
Jim shook his head. "I just didn't. I guess I wasn't looking for it-- I swear, I didn't have a clue."
"But if you didn't know, then why have you been avoiding me all week?" Blair demanded.
"Me?" Jim said. "I don't think so, Chief. You were the one avoiding me, remember?"
"Uh, yeah, 'cause I thought you knew!" Blair said. "I thought you were freaking out, or feeling sorry for me, or-- well, anyway, I didn't want to deal with that," he muttered, then tensed suddenly. "This-- this isn't you feeling sorry for me."
"You're not that pathetic, Sandburg," Jim said dryly, and got a quick punch in the shoulder for his trouble.
"Thanks bunches," Blair said, sarcastic and reassured.
"Maybe I didn't see it in you," Jim mused against the nape of Blair's neck, "because I was trying not to see it in myself." Blair shuddered, leaning his head back against Jim's shoulder, and Jim took a slow breath. "I want to..."
Blair looked up at him. "Jim?"
"Let me show you." The bed was too small, so he pulled Blair till he was sitting on the edge. He knelt on the floor between Blair's feet, cupping the back of Blair's neck with his hand and guiding his head down for a kiss.
They kissed, and the floor was hard reality under his knees, but Jim's hands were tingling, sweating, and his mouth was somewhere else entirely. In the twilight zone. Fantasy. Dreamland. Because nothing real could be this fucking good, Blair's hands on him, pushing his jacket off his shoulders, unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt, stroking his face and touching him... "I couldn't look at you. Too damn risky." Jim gritted into Blair's chest. "I didn't want to know what you really thought of me."
"I think you're an idiot," Blair said, and kissed his forehead. "I mean, not to shock you or anything, but I can tell the difference between your blue shirt and my blue shirt-- and you think I'd spend one weekend a month scrubbing perfectly clean bathroom tiles for just anyone? And--"
"I love you, too," Jim whispered, and Blair's indrawn breath was disbelieving, illuminated, joyous: music. If only he could show Blair what he was seeing... Jim sighed, and brought his other arm around to hug Blair tighter, and kiss his mouth. Blair's skin was getting hotter everywhere Jim touched him, his breathing getting quicker, and Jim moved his hand, not even consciously reaching for Blair's cock, just drawn to the source of the heat, compelled to meet Blair's need.
He pressed his palm firmly against the soft, worn flannel boxers and Blair gasped and stiffened, fingers digging into Jim's shoulders, getting harder and growing under Jim's hand. My hand, Jim thought. My touch. I'm doing this to him. And desire struck like lightning through his whole body, his own skin suddenly burning, every inch of it ultra-sensitive.
"Jim," Blair said, "Jim, can you--"
"Yeah. Yeah, sure." Reluctantly taking his hand away from that hot, live heat, Jim leaned back on his heels, shucking off his jacket and shirt with clumsy, shaking hands.
They both smiled, and then Jim stood, stripping quickly, feeling the sharp shocks of lust like static electricity, leaping between them, as Blair sat very still and watched. Jim knelt before him again, naked but uncaring. He wasn't cold any more. He knew what he wanted. He wanted Blair to feel... He wanted Blair to feel. Blair bent his head, helping Jim tug his tank top over his head, and Jim took a too-loud breath, almost a gasp, as he lowered his hands to the waistband of Blair's boxers, fingers prying at the elastic band. Blair sat still, but his muscles tensed as Jim knelt forward to kiss the bare skin of his stomach, to inhale the warm scent of his body.
"Please," said Jim, and Blair leaned back on the bed, feet still on the floor, and lifted his hips slightly. Jim tugged his boxers off quickly and bent his head, basking in the shimmering heat. Jesus, if he touched Sandburg half as much as he wanted to from now on, Cascade would have a long, hot summer-- a fucking heatwave, this year and every year. He inhaled deeply, welcoming the pure infusion of sweat and lust.
He lowered his mouth to the ridge of Blair's hipbone, fastening his teeth on the curving jut of bone and biting gently. Then he moved closer, laying a wet, open-mouthed kiss on the sensitive hollow of Blair's hip. Blair shuddered, throat clicking as he choked down a whimper, or a gasp, and Jim traced his tongue slowly along the curve of bone, tasting the warmth.
Lifting his head, he blew over the wet, sensitive skin. Blair grunted, chest heaving, and Jim leaned over the bed to look him in the eyes.
"Let me hear you," he said softly. Blair stared at him, wild, terrified, turned on-- and nodded.
Lowering himself to his knees again, Jim settled between Blair's spread thighs. He kissed the inside of Blair's knee and heard Blair's high gasp, "ohgod--" then turned his head and pressed his lips to the scar that marred the opposite thigh. "Oh my god." Blair was moaning now, shaking. Enough stalling. Enough waiting. "Please, Jim. I gotta, oh-- oh. Jim."
He took Blair's cock in his hand and tasted it, laving the head with his tongue. Salt. Bitter. Wild. His mouth watered. It was intoxicating, the hard needy twitch in his hand, the taste burning against his lips. When Blair untangled his hands from the sheets to trace the lines of Jim's face and neck, to brush caresses across his bare shoulders, Jim broke into a sweat, and took more into his mouth.
The scents of salt and sex mingled in the small room as they moved against each other. And when Blair began to moan in earnest Jim fell further in, freely abandoning himself to the senses he rarely allowed himself to trust. Touching, listening, loving, he let himself sink into the ocean of sensation, falling so deep that the surface seemed miles away.
His senses strobed randomly, somehow without disorienting or distracting him, so that one moment the world was a murky swamp of sex and sweat, Blair's thundering heartbeat pulsing in his mouth, filling him utterly, jarring his bones. And then in another flash there were only soft breaths and softer-edged shadows lapping the body moving minutely beneath him, all sensation centered in the smallest, most careful brushes of skin against skin, palm pressed to thigh, tongue to cock. And somehow Blair knew; somehow Blair could make love to Jim even when he was completely lost. In those moments when the gentlest touch became almost more than he could bear, he could feel Blair's hand hovering over his skin, blocking the heat of the lamp, a heartbreakingly gentle shadow-caress.
He wasn't necessarily trying to speed Blair to his climax. In fact when it came, it was much too soon, and passed too quickly for Jim to gather it all in-- the taste and scent of Blair's come, the soft choked breaths and rhythmic scouring sound of Blair's hair against the sheets as his head thrashed from side to side.
"Jim," Blair breathed, his arms flung wide, knees sagging apart, his chest rising and falling jerkily. "Oh, Jim." He lifted his hands slightly from the bed in a shaky, beckoning gesture, and Jim heaved himself up, clumsily, onto the bed, wanting Blair's heart singing beneath his own. After a moment or two, Blair turned his head to look into Jim's eyes, and smiled.
"God," Jim said hoarsely, "I wish I could show you-- I wish you could see--" He pressed his mouth to Blair's, and Blair kissed him back enthusiastically, breathlessly, his ragged breathing becoming Jim's new, definitive knowledge of desire.
He brought his hands up to touch Blair's face and gasped, stiffening-- suddenly thrown back to the last time he'd lain sprawled over Blair's body, touched his face, tasted his cold, bitter mouth. He closed his eyes, pushing that memory aside-- it had no place here, not now. Trauma, he thought, and kissed Blair suddenly, searchingly-- it was a period of traumatic isolation that triggered the senses in the first place, so maybe--
He buried his hands in wild curls, breathing in Blair's scent, not wanting to think about it, not wanting to remember. Blair was nuzzling Jim's throat, licking his collarbone, but still the memories flooded his mind, unchecked.
A week ago, he'd looked at Annie Clay and seen wrongness.
Two weeks ago, during the Ventriss case, he'd looked at his partner and seen a stranger. Hell, perhaps even that had been an early manifestation of this nuance thing. Blair's anger and hurt had been disconcertingly visible, burning too hot--
He broke away, clutching Blair's arms tightly, opening up his senses with an effort until Blair's heart was thunder, his breath the tide-- listen, Jim told himself, listen, he's here. Look and see, he's fine.
"Please," he said, and began pressing desperate kisses to Blair's face. Blair lay back, chest heaving, mystified but submitting. He only touched Jim's arm gently; a strange touch, but familiar. A guiding touch, as if even now Blair were keeping watch over him. A keening noise rose in Jim's throat-- "God," he strangled the cry of loss in its infancy, "I love you, I love you."
"I love you," Blair whispered, but only a little more than a month ago, on a cold, clear morning, Blair had been lying on the grass utterly stilled, heart and breath and words all gone, no matter how hard Jim listened, no matter how hard he looked. What could be more traumatic than losing Blair, even for a moment? Living even briefly in that void, that chasm of total, unforgiving isolation-- well, it was no fucking wonder.
He loved Blair. He needed Blair. He'd needed to know. Jim came back to himself, realizing with a hot shock of embarrassment that there were tear tracks on his face, wetness on Blair's throat-- and a flushed mark as well, not even neat enough to be a love bite. Christ. Tears and hickeys. He pulled back slightly. "Sorry, I..."
"No." Blair put his arms around Jim's shoulders, drawing him close again. "Not with me, all right? Not any more."
Jim took a breath, resting his head on Blair's shoulder again, surprised at himself and surprised how easy it was to just let go. To let it all go. To stay locked in Blair's arms, discovering comfort in the hollow of his neck, peace in the warm throb of his pulse and the musky scent of his skin. Fresh tears pricked at his eyes.
"I lost you," he whispered.
"No. I'm here." Blair curled up close to him, and Jim hissed as Blair's thigh brushed against his cock. "I'm right here," Blair whispered, and god, Jim was hard; his erection had flagged slightly during his moment of panic, but now the need for release was almost making him shake.
And when he lifted his head, brushing Blair's curls away from his face, tasting the softness of Blair's lips, his heart pounded with a new and joyous apprehension. This too would change him, would bind them, and Jim found uncommon joy in knowing that it was Blair taking his hands, interlocking their fingers and clutching Jim with uncommon strength.
Jim shuddered as his lover began to twist and writhe underneath him, the slickness of sweat and come contrasting with the wiry scrape of his hairy body and his hard and unyielding muscles.
"Oh, jesus," he gasped, "that's good, you feel so good..." Pushing Blair's hands down into the bed for leverage, he began to thrust tentatively against Blair's willing body.
"Yeah," Blair gasped, squeezing his hands harder. Sweat fired the easy slide as their palms kissed. "Come on, do it harder, do me--" Blair shifted, pulling his feet up onto the bed, clutching Jim's body between strong thighs, arching beneath him, writhing, "Jim, can you, oh--" He broke off, bucking his hips up against Jim's helplessly, "I want you to--"
"Oh, fuck--" Jim grunted, tensed, and came all over Blair-- shocks exploding in his gut, behind his eyes, sending flashes like fireworks up out of the darkness. Clutching Blair's fingers tightly, he thrust jerkily against Blair's belly, shamelessly, over and over, grinding their bodies together in a desperate attempt to draw out the moment until the ecstasy receded.
"Shit," he panted, eyes stinging, and tried to take a deep breath. Aftershocks permeated his body, relaxing every tensed muscle, down to his curled toes. Eyes closed, Jim wiggled his fingers in a weak experiment, and then clumsily began to unlace his cramped fingers from Blair's.
They rolled apart, and Blair stretched sensuously, arching one shoulder up off the bed before collapsing again. "Oh," he said, "that was so fucking good. Oh, Jim."
Jim blushed, kissed Blair on the temple, lay back, and tried to remember how normal breathing went. Eventually he shifted. "You have, um..."
"Hmm?"
"Tissues, or something?"
"Good thought." Blair said, pointing languidly. "Desk."
"Right." Jim reached over and snagged the box. "You want to go upstairs?" he asked after they were both reasonably cleaned up. "Your bed's a little cramped for two."
"'s cramped for one," Blair mumbled into his pillow.
"C'mon." Jim tugged at his arm.
"Mm-mm." Blair shook his head, pulling Jim down and tossing a knee over his legs to trap him. "It's late, it's warm, I couldn't move if I wanted to."
Jim shrugged agreeably, lying back. "Actually," he said, "we have to get up in four, five hours anyway to talk to the DA."
"What you mean we, white man?"
"Oh yeah, you left," Jim realized. "Annie's going to cut a deal. If we can get Guthrie--"
"Jim." A square hand landed gently over his mouth. "Sleep, okay?"
"Okay," Jim murmured against Blair's palm. Turning over onto his side, he gathered Blair in his arms, and pulled the covers up over them both.
Pale morning light filtered in through the curtained French doors to Blair's room, waking Jim up as the morning sunlight moved across the loft. He looked down at the dark head resting on his shoulder, not really wanting to wake Blair up. Feeling his warmth life in every pulse and twitch and breath, for as long as humanly possible, forever-- that would be good, great. Heaven on earth. But still, they had to get moving. He sighed, and the slight movement of his chest nudged Blair out of his slumber.
"Mmph," Blair said sleepily, one hand moving up over Jim's arm. He clutched Jim's bicep for a moment, and then his eyes went wide. He jerked away, staring up into Jim's face.
"Yep," Jim answered, smiling. "It really happened."
Blair looked down at his hand on Jim's arm. His grip tightened a little, and he took a breath.
"Hell no, I'm not having second thoughts," Jim said, pulling Blair a little closer. "And I'm not pissed off, either. Well, maybe a little-- I mean, I should have figured this all out a couple of years ago, right? But now--"
Blair's mouth fell open. "Jim," he blurted, "you have to stop that, seriously."
"What?" Jim said, startled, loosening his grip on Blair's waist.
"Not that," Blair said, and laughed. Sitting up, he grabbed a pillow from over Jim's shoulder and hid his face in it for a second, shaking with muffled laughter. After a moment, he peeked over the edge and explained, "Look, Jim, no offense, but-- you can't be in my head all the time. It's creepy."
"Didn't I tell you last night I couldn't dial it down?" Jim growled, half-embarrassed, looking away. "So maybe you should have helped out, instead of jumping my bones."
"Jumping your bones?!" Blair gaped. "Exactly whose bones got jumped, man--" and then Jim couldn't keep a straight face any more and started snickering.
Blair shook his head disgustedly and whapped Jim in the chest with the pillow. Clambering out of the bed, he laughed to himself. "This is how it's gonna be?" Crossing to his closet, he pulled out his gray bathrobe and shrugged into it. "We do tests, you bitch about 'em. We have hot sex, you want to go back to the tests..."
"I'll tell you something, Chief-- if those old tests had been anything like last night, you'd have heard a lot less bitching," Jim said. He yawned as he got out of bed, scratching under one rib.
Blair was leaning against his dresser, obviously enjoying the view.
"What?" Jim asked, just to get Blair to look up at his face.
Blair grinned. "Well, I wasn't exactly expecting this reaction."
"What, this one?" Jim said, and kissed him hard and fast, wanting to drive away the last remnants of Blair's apprehension. The stubble rasping against his cheek was even more prominent than it had been last night; a strange sensation, but not unpleasant, not by any means. "I'll admit this is all pretty new to me, but I'm with you a hundred percent here."
"Pretty new?" Blair squinted at him, then stepped back. "Wait a minute, man. How new is pretty new?"
Jim shrugged expressively and stepped past Blair into the hall, leaving his clothes scattered on the floor. Sunlight glowed faintly through the balcony doors and Jim smiled, enjoying the sensation of the sunlight playing across his bare skin. "You know... pretty new."
"Oh, man." Blair covered his mouth with one hand. "So you just figured this out last night? That you liked me, I mean. In a sexual way."
Jim sighed, ducking into the bathroom. "What's the big deal?"
Blair reached out and blocked the door before Jim could close it. "Jim," he said earnestly, "I have a rule about this."
Jim laughed as he turned to the sink, running cold water and splashing it on his face. "Oh, god," he groaned. "You and your rules."
"Yeah, okay," Blair choked on nervous laughter as Jim scrubbed his face with his hands. "Two rules, then-- I don't eat at restaurants with synonyms for 'fat' right there in the name, and I don't sleep with virgins!"
"Oh, for crying out loud," Jim said. Leaning over, he shut the bathroom door firmly in Blair's face.
"I'm serious!" Blair raised his voice. "You don't even know, Jim--"
"Don't worry about it." Jim stepped into the shower and turned on the water, waiting for it to reach a warm temperature before stepping under the spray. "I'll learn to love again!"
The rush of water through aged pipes did little to muffle Blair's sharply muttered "Not if I have anything to do with it!"
As they stepped over the threshold into the Major Crimes bullpen, Jim instinctively laid his hand on the small of Blair's back to steady himself. Blair glanced up at him searchingly, but as Jim looked around, he was surprised and relieved to find that this morning, Major Crimes almost seemed like a different place.
Maybe it was because it was early. The morning shift had just started, and the bullpen was mostly empty. Rafe, Dills, and a uniformed cop were loitering next to the coffee machine, and Megan was across the room by the donut cart, dithering between a glazed donut and a maple bar. Jim laughed a little to himself, realizing that of all the people in the room, only Rhonda was actually at her desk and working. The morning sun gleamed in through the long windows in Simon's office and filtered through the blinds, lighting up Rhonda's blonde hair. She seemed pleased about something; Jim glanced away easily before he could tell exactly what, and breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe today wouldn't be so bad.
"Hey, Jim, Blair." Rafe said as they passed his desk, his voice clear of any resentment. "Morning."
"Yeah," Jim said, and headed for the donut cart. There was something different about Megan's hair; Jim observed her slight, tense knowledge of it before he actually noticed that it was a shade or two off-- closer to maroon than mahogany.
Crossing to the donut cart, Jim solved one of Megan's problems for her by taking the last maple bar. Then he twirled a finger next to his own ear till she blushed. "Hey, Connor. Do something different with your hair?"
"Yes, well." Megan smiled awkwardly. Ahh-- that was it, the stylist had screwed up. Left the color in too long or something.
"It's nice," Jim said. Handing his maple bar and a napkin to Blair, he dug in his pockets for some change. "Rafe was right; brings out your eyes. Sandburg, you want anything?"
"Um. I'm good," Blair said.
"Ellison," Simon said, and Jim turned to see his boss standing in the doorway of his office. "Good work yesterday," Simon said, and Jim could see his silent apology in the set of his shoulders, and under that his unchanged high regard for Jim. There was still a battle going on, an uncomfortable struggle with Jim's sudden strangeness, but partly with his own shortcomings as well. "D.A. Chambers is waiting for you in the conference room," he added gruffly.
"Good morning to you too, sir." Jim's mouth quirked a little, and then he gave up his poker face and grinned back, trying to project that it was okay-- hell, that as far as he was concerned, everything was great!-- and saw the tight lines around Simon's eyes disappear.
"Well," Simon raised his eyebrows, leaning against the doorframe. "Somebody's awfully chipper this morning."
"Hey, case closed! What's not to be chipper about?" Blair jumped in, just a little too brightly.
Simon raised an eyebrow, pointedly. "You don't have your guy yet, Sandburg."
"No. Well." Subdued, Blair cleared his throat, gesturing sharply to Jim. "C'mon, better not keep the DA waiting, man."
The representative from the District Attorney's office was Ted Chambers, a pretty good guy; Jim had met him a few times before. He nodded hello as Jim and Blair entered the conference room, then returned his attention to Camille Mason, sitting across the table, who was digging her heels in on one point or another. Annie sat at the end of the table, a paper cup of hot tea in her hands. Decaf, Jim noted by the scent, decaf because of the baby, although she desperately wanted a shot of something stiffer.
Casually, Blair pulled Jim over to the window, lowering his voice so as not to disrupt Ted and Camille's negotiations. "You're a psycho, you know," he muttered. "You're so bad."
"Where's the harm?" Jim asked quietly, through a mouthful of his maple bar. "They like each other. I can tell."
"I'm not talking about Rafe and Megan, I mean grinning at Simon," Blair whispered. "What the hell is that? And for god's sake, Jim. Stop humming."
"I'm not--" Jim said, and then realized that he was. He stopped.
"Gentlemen," District Attorney Chambers motioned them over to the table. "It appears we're ready to proceed..." He handed Jim the written form detailing the extent of Annie's cooperation with the police, and the reduced charges the D.A.'s office would be offering in return. "Looks good," said Jim, handing it back. "Thanks, Ted."
"Any time."
Jim escorted Ted to the door, then turned back to see Blair already sitting next to Annie, laying a hand on her shoulder supportively. She glanced up, and he took the apparently untouched cup of tea out of her hands, setting it on the table, next to the phone.
"Do you know what you're going to say?" Blair asked quietly. Annie nodded, smoothing her hands over her skirt, and picked up the phone.
Kenny answered on the first ring, and Jim cocked his head, eyes narrowing.
"It's me," said Annie. "I wanted to know if you still wanted me to, um, take care of the money the way we agreed?" There was an indrawn breath, and Annie interrupted before he could shout. "I just wanted to be sure, Kenny," she said quickly, her voice wavering. "They called me in to question me again--"
"You didn't say nothin' about--"
"I didn't tell them anything," Annie said, and Jim winced; if Guthrie were a tenth as sensitive to the emotions straining her voice-- but apparently he wasn't, because he was going into a detailed explanation of where the second half of his payment was to be deposited.
Blair waited a moment, then spoke under his breath. "Where is he? Can you hear anything?"
"Boats. Water," Jim muttered into Blair's ear. "He's at the waterfront,"
Blair made an impatient gesture. "Great, very good, Jim, that narrows it down to, what, nineteen miles? What else?"
"Um... music. Recorded music. 'Yankee Doodle Dandy.'"
Blair made a face. "Okay. Some sort of weirdo with a CD player, whatever. What language are people speaking?"
"English immediately around him," Jim said. "But there's a lot of Spanish being spoken close by. A lot of Spanish." He listened again. "There's something strange about the music, some sort of odd, metallic percussion instrument." Then something in Guthrie's voice caught his attention. "We've gotta get out of here," he said.
"What, what, we're only halfway through the conversation here, man!"
"He knows something's wrong-- he's gonna bolt as soon as he hangs up the phone." Jim scribbled a note and pushed it onto the table in front of Annie: "Keep him talking as long as you can." Her voice faltered momentarily as she read it, then picked up speed again, determined: "But, Kenny, if somebody asks--"
He listened again when they were in the truck and was reassured to hear that she was still talking, and that Guthrie's voice didn't betray any knowledge that he was being strung along. "We've got about ten, fifteen minutes to find him," he told Blair. "After that, he's off for someplace offshore, and we may never see him again."
"Right. Can you hear him from here?"
Jim tried. "Maybe if I knew exactly where he was, I could follow a familiar sound or something," he said. "But no. We'll have to go with the clues we've got." He was weaving through traffic expertly, judging each driver's intent by the tilt of a head, the posture of a shoulder.
"Right," Blair said, ticking off on his fingers: "English around him, Spanish nearby, 'Yankee Doodle Dandy,' which you never hear except at parades or something, weird metallic... whoa. Did it sound like just one instrument, Jim? Was there enough for it to actually be a parade?"
"Yes." Then Jim thought about that. "No. The music itself was recorded, I'm sure of that. And it wasn't moving."
"But it sounded like a parade?"
"Maybe. I don't know," he began, but Blair was already grinning.
"Got it, got it, I know exactly where it is! You want Galliard Street at, um, one of the tree streets, Elm or Chestnut, there's a mercado and then right next door there's a dance school, man, what you were hearing was tap shoes-- wait! Left, left, left, Jim, Elm is a one-way street!"
By the time they pulled into the parking lot of El Supermercado Cardenas, Jim could hear Guthrie's voice over the pounding feet of the Little Charmers Dance Academy. The hitman's agitation was still increasing as they passed the mercado's storefront and turned the corner into a little shaded plaza. "He's gonna be unpredictable," he told Blair.
"Oh, great. A scared guy with a gun is my favorite kind of scared guy."
Jim looked past a cluster of women in bright suits, escaping from jobs at some bank or office, and there behind a chest-high stone planter full of yellow poppies was their hitman, pacing nervously with a cell phone to his ear.
"Him?" Blair sounded astonished.
"You were expecting maybe a sharkskin suit?" Jim responded.
With his red-blond beard, red T-shirt and denim vest, Kenny Guthrie wouldn't have looked out of place on the road crew of a Wynonna Judd concert. The wooden heels of his cowboy boots scraped the brick pavers as he paced. "Annie, I told you twice already. You put the money in the account at First National, and then you just forget about everything, you hear me?"
"I just wanted to make sure, Kenny--"
"'Cause once I'm out of here," Kenny interrupted, talking over her harshly, "we're home free, got it?"
"Listen, Sandburg, a guy this jumpy, our best strategy--" A sudden spike in Guthrie's pulse made Jim stop in time to hear him hiss, "You ratted me out, you treacherous bitch!" He was looking straight at Jim, and the phone clattered to the ground as he reached inside his vest.
"Police!" Jim shouted to the crowd, and then only slightly more softly, "Shit, Sandburg, he's gonna grab the girl in pink--" Jim started forward, but he was too late; Guthrie had already pulled the woman against him, tugging her head back by her sleek black hair and snugging the gun barrel under her jawbone.
"Stay back, now, just stay back," he said. "You don't want innocent people getting hurt."
Without breaking eye contact, Jim spoke softly to Blair. "He hasn't spotted you, Sandburg, you can--"
"-- get around behind him if I go through the mercado," Blair finished, already running back the way they came. Jim used his hearing to track him.
What he had to do was figure out a way to get the woman out of danger. The rest of the crowd had scattered, but at Jim's slightest move, Guthrie pressed the gun at her harder. "Not a step," he growled.
Jim chanced a look at the hostage's face. She was wide-eyed, afraid, but not panicking, and he could feel her focus her attention on her breathing, bringing it into a yoga pattern. He gave her a tiny nod, half "good job" and half "trust me," and turned his attention back to Guthrie.
"Listen to me, Guthrie," he said. "Don't be stupid. Let the girl go. She's got nothing to do with this."
Jesus, the man was strung tight. "You're standing between me and a nice fast boat to the Philippines, dude," he said. "You're standing between me and freedom. And she's standing between me and you."
In the mercado, Blair's voice stood out in the murmur of the crowd: "Por favor... los azules... gracias..." He was almost all the way to the back of the store. Then, in a slightly louder but still matter-of-fact voice: "Jim. There's a shipping entrance out the back. I'll be coming around the corner about fifteen feet behind him. Try to keep him from moving too far."
"So you tell me, dude," Guthrie spat, "why I shouldn't kill her and you both? I've got a body count as long as your arm. What's a couple more?"
Shit. Sandburg was the talker. Jim wished he was here to field this one. And then Blair's voice came again: "I'm in the alley. Might wanna remind him that cop killing's a hangin' offense."
Jim sighed. "Got any capital crimes behind you, Guthrie?" he asked, and saw that hit home. "Shoot the girl and you will be caught. Shoot me and you will die."
He saw Guthrie's arm jerk minutely, then tighten again. "You gotta catch me first," he growled. "I can play hide-and-seek in the islands for--"
And Jim almost felt the shock of a booted foot to his instep, knocking him off balance, the cold of a gun under his ear, the iron grip of a hand pulling his other arm free so that the hostage sagged to the bricks. His own gun was already in his hand as Sandburg's voice, steady as a day at home, said, "Come on, Jim, arrest the guy already."
"See, this is what we should do every day," Blair said as the elevator lurched and began to carry them up to the loft. Jim looked at him curiously, and Blair smiled. "Make sure and catch the bad guy by eleven. Get all the paperwork done by five. And kazam-- Simon lets us go early, and we actually get to eat at a decent hour. See how that works?"
"Sounds like a plan." Jim smiled as the elevator doors opened, but he tensed a little as they walked into the loft. He dropped his keys in the basket by the door, and turned to Blair, who was shrugging off his jacket. What now? He'd been thinking about it all day, really, and especially all afternoon as they worked on the arrest report. Would Blair want a kiss as soon as they walked in the door? Or would it be awkward?
It was suddenly awkward. He stood still, and watched Blair hanging up his jacket. Carolyn had always appreciated a 'hello' kiss, just as a gesture. But then, they'd worked in different parts of the building and not really seen each other during the day. It was strange. He'd never worked that closely with Carolyn, but he'd never missed her either. Why would he have? She was only a floor or two away.
But he'd been with Blair all day, it wasn't as if they hadn't seen each other-- and yet Jim missed him. He missed something, anyway. It had been hard, not being able to touch Blair the way he wanted to, now. Hard not to hold his hand in the middle of the bullpen. He missed last night, he realized. He missed what they'd shared, the intimacy.
"Hey," Blair said suddenly, "something's weird."
Jim glanced at him. "What?"
Pressing a hand to his forehead, Blair narrowed his eyes. "Someone in this room is thinking about sex." Jim stared at him for a second, and then grinned. "Oh wait. It's me," Blair said, smiling back. "Never mind."
"Don't you never mind me," Jim said roughly. Moving forward, he slid a hand into Blair's hair, and Blair's arms came around his waist. "I've been thinking about this all day."
"Mmhmm," Blair said against Jim's mouth, and they kissed deeply for a long while. And if this kiss didn't say hello, it said other things. Like I missed you and I'm right here. And welcome home.
"You're over the virgin thing, right?" Jim asked, breathing in the warm scent of Blair's hair. "'Cause I want to hear the story, there."
"What story? There's no story," Blair said distractedly, untucking Jim's shirt in the back.
"Sure there isn't," Jim said, grinning, and jumped slightly as Blair slid his hands slowly up Jim's back. "Cold hands, Sandburg... Okay, so what's this about my blue shirt, then?"
"Oh. See, I actually do know which one is yours," Blair confessed. "I just wear yours sometimes because..."
"Jesus, Sandburg-- I think that's the cutest thing I've ever heard."
"Fuck off," Blair said into Jim's shoulder, then squeezed him hard before letting go. "Anyway. I was saying something about dinner?"
Jim grinned, decided to let him change the subject for now, and headed into the kitchen. He was pretty sure there was chicken in the fridge. And-- yep, there was a whole container of peanut curry left over from the last time they'd ordered in. "How's Indian chicken sound?" he asked.
Blair snorted. Jim turned his head to look, and began to laugh at the sight of Blair barely restraining himself from making chicken noises. No-- a silly chicken voice with an accent.
"What?" Blair said defensively.
Jim stopped chuckling with an effort. "You're a fucking nut, Chief," he said fondly. "Set the table, will you?"
"Okay," Blair said, looking oddly pleased for some reason. "Sure."
The scent of spices and cooking meat were permeating the kitchen area as the food warmed up, making Jim's mouth water. He breathed deeply, stirring the curry as it heated up on the stove. A good red wine would suit a meal like this, he thought, and hell if it wasn't a special occasion. He turned around to suggest it to Blair, who was stretching up to reach the top cabinet, pulling down a faceted crystal glass in each hand.
"I'm putting wineglasses on," Blair said as he set the glasses down next to their plates. "you want to pick a red?"
"No, you go ahead," said Jim, and turned back to the curry, a quiet joy swelling in his chest. "I'm almost done."
It grew dark outside while they were fixing dinner. They hadn't turned on any other lights, only the hanging lamps in the kitchen and above the table, creating an warm island, a small space that they shared as they sat down together.
"So what are we now?" Jim asked, looking across the table at Blair.
Blair paused in the middle of a contented sigh, but he didn't look offended, just curious. "What are we now?" he repeated. "Uh, depends on what you're looking for. You want a handy label, a dictionary definition, or what?"
"How about a category?" Jim said. "I mean, basically what?"
Blair grinned, forking up a bite of curry and savoring it for a moment. "How about 'partners'?"
"Partners?" Jim repeated, startled at how well the old term still fit. Blair just sat across the table, smiling at his plate as he continued to eat. And after a moment, Jim began to smile as well. "Sure. I guess that works."
"Good," said Blair seriously, and picked up his wineglass. "To partners, then."
"Partners." Jim reached across the table and tapped his glass against Blair's, listening to the twin chimes as they rang together and faded. "I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page," he said, taking a short drink, "you know."
Blair looked at him over the rim of his own glass. "Yeah, I know. Pass the salad-- hey, wait a minute, what's this 'just wanted to make sure'? What happened to the Amazing Kreskin?"
"Don't call me that. I'm not kidding." Jim pointed with his fork.
Blair waved that aside. "Well?"
"You said not to, remember?" Jim took another drink of his wine; the first bite of curry he'd taken was beginning to make his tongue burn. "You said it was creepy."
"Yeah, but--"
"Hang on a sec." Jim stared over Blair's shoulder, rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth absently. After a few moments, Blair rolled his eyes and reached across the table for the salad himself. The movement startled Jim into movement again. "That's... strange," he said, coming back to earth. "Yesterday I was having trouble shutting things out. Last night especially. It just got to be too much..."
"And today that didn't happen?" Blair asked.
"No," Jim shook his head. "Well-- I don't know. It wasn't bad. No one was depressed, or pissed off, or guilty..."
"What, Annie Clay didn't have guilt?" Blair raised his eyebrows. "And, hey, you're the Sentinel and all, but Kenny seemed pretty pissed off to me."
"No," Jim said, then corrected himself. "No, they were, I guess. But... it was like it didn't touch me."
"Okay, so today for some reason, the more positive--" Blair stopped, and then began to laugh. "Okay, so I'm an idiot. God, why didn't I see this?"
"See what?"
"That you're not a magic decoder ring, you're a person, a person who's affected by his emotions," Blair explained. "And your emotions are tied in with your brain chemistry-- whether it's fear and anxiety or falling in love, you get these profound physical expressions of it, in the chemical metabolism of your brain. So it just makes sense that, well..." He sighed. "You have been kind of quiet, lately. Ever since Alex," he added, and looked startled as Jim reached across the table and clasped his hand. "I think it's be safe to say you've had a lot of strong... not so positive emotions in your system."
Jim squeezed his hand and nodded slowly. "So, because I was off my game..."
Blair nodded. "Your emotional state affects the emotions you read from other people. Today you felt good, so you were more sensitive to certain... shades on the emotional spectrum, for lack of a better metaphor."
Jim began to chuckle to himself. "So you did fix it."
"Well," Blair began, but he was smiling, too.
"You did," Jim said. "You did help." Impulsively, he caught Blair's hand, eyes fluttering closed as he kissed the square knuckles once, then set to biting, gently. Blair sat very still, eyes drifting closed. "You always do."
"Ah. Yeah. But Jim," Blair said breathlessly, "you know I'm-- ohh-- all for the hot sex solution to any given problem, but realistically, you can't hang onto the bliss twenty-four seven, you know?"
"Why not?" Jim said, slipping his left foot out of his shoe. He grinned, encountering Blair's sock-clad ankle under the table. "I've got a good health plan. I'll go on Viagra."
"And stroke out in a month?" Blair fought to keep a straight face.
"And die happy," Jim agreed.
"Jim, I'm being serious," Blair protested. "You're infatuated with me right now, you've got love chemicals in your brain, endorphins and shit, no wonder you've been such a doofus-- oh," he said, as Jim's foot inched up a little farther. "Jim, come on. I'm being serious!" he said, tugging his hand out of Jim's grip.
"Is 'doofus' a scientific term?" Jim asked as he pulled his foot back.
Blair leaned across the table. "What I'm trying to say is, we can't ignore this. You'll either be depressed all the time because you're picking up stuff that makes you more depressed-- or, or, like today, the psycho bullpen yenta. And either way it'll affect your work-- you can't let your emotions color what you're reading off people, or you'll be worse at it than you were before this whole thing kicked up."
Jim grimaced. "So, any suggestions?"
"I don't know." Blair thought for a moment. "There's no way to totally regulate your emotional state. Besides, like, heavy medication. Maybe I should teach you to meditate," he mused.
"God," Jim groaned, and reached for the wine bottle, refilling his glass dramatically.
"Toughen up, Jim," Blair said unsympathetically. "It's not electroshock, I'm just thinking it'd be a good way to get you more in touch with your emotions."
"Just get my gun. Shoot me now," Jim teased. "But seriously."
"Seriously?" Blair teased back, leaning forward and running his foot up Jim's leg.
"Yeah." Jim grinned across the table at him. "We don't have to do that now, right? See, right now there's no problem, because I'm all... infatuated," he said, and Blair shook his head, laughing. "No, come on. We can put off the tests and stuff for a while. Just till we get through the honeymoon phase, right?"
"Okay, and how long--" Blair lost his smile suddenly, and his foot dropped to the floor with a soft thump.
Jim leaned forward, tense and apprehensive before he even knew what he was reacting to. "Blair?"
"Uh. Nothing." Blair was staring down at his plate, lips parted-- something, loss, shock, warring in him, and Jim was standing, pulling Blair to his feet and holding him close before he knew what he was doing.
"Blair, it's okay."
"You don't even know what I'm upset about!"
"So tell me."
"Well-- If other people's emotions can affect you like that," Blair blurted, "what if you were just happy today because I was so happy-- I mean, could you just be mirroring--"
Jim sighed and clamped Blair's head to his shoulder with one hand, cutting off the flow of words. "I loved you yesterday night before I even walked in the door," he said, "and I loved you on Sunday and I was so fucking lonely without you. And I loved you last month with your beat-up face and your shitty attitude. So I think," he said, feeling Blair relax against him, "I think you can believe me when I say it now."
After clearing the table, they were quiet for a while, and the comfortable silence lasted until they were almost done washing and drying the dishes. Standing by the sink, Jim had one more question waiting for an answer. He wondered whether he should even ask-- was it too blunt to just come out and say it? He could just wait until they were in bed and try to sense how Sandburg felt about it, but then, that was part of what Blair thought was creepy, so...
And besides, his other question had gone over okay. So finally Jim decided to just go for it. Rinsing the last plate, turning off the water, he turned to Blair. "So, um..."
Blair was leaning against the counter sleepily. His eyes were dark and heavy-lidded. "Hmm?"
"Last night, you said--" Jim frowned and started over. "You didn't exactly say it, and, well, we didn't get the chance, but I kind of... I got the feeling that you wanted..."
"I wanted something?" Blair prompted, and then blinked. Jim watched, fascinated, as Blair recalled parting his thighs to cradle Jim, hands clutching tight, pulling Jim's weight down on top of him... Blair's face flushed a little, a heat so slight no one else could have even perceived it.
And Jim's heart began to pound as Blair stretched slightly, and was suddenly utterly unreadable. Focused intently on his task, he folded his dishtowel slowly and deliberately, then set it down. Casually, Blair brought his right hand up to clutch his shoulder, rolling it to work out the kinks.
Jim watched tensely as Blair leaned back against the counter, studying the kitchen floor with a strange kind of smile, totally composed.
"We don't-- I just thought--" Jim broke off as Blair altered his stance, planting his feet firmly apart. Still looking away, he tilted his head, letting the curls fall away from one side of his neck. Jim made an involuntary noise low in his throat, almost able to taste the sweet salt of the skin, right there.
Slowly, Blair brought his hand up, trailing his fingers along a slightly reddened mark on his neck. Jim hadn't noticed it before, but oh, he remembered making it.
"Hey, Jim?" Blair began to smile as he met Jim's gaze, and god, it almost hurt-- it was like staring into the sun.
"Yeah?" he managed. His mouth was dry.
Blair grinned at him, wicked and wolfish. "Read my mind."
[end]
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November 11, 2000
http://trickster.org/res/nuance.html