Thursday had been tough. He’d had
to chase not one, but two fleeing
suspects, both involving gunfire
and an eventual tackle, and Jim
Ellison was wiped. He cranked his
shoulder slowly, intermittently
trying to ease the ache as he
drove the long trip home, a heavy
rain hitting the windshield, the
SPLAT! of each individual raindrop
on the glass and the
thunk-drag-thunk of the wipers
aggravating his dull headache. No
Guide to help him tone down the
senses—and somehow the damn dials
worked less and less with the
continued absence of Blair’s
input. It was probably the way
things were meant to be, otherwise
Guides could have been temporary
instructors, not the permanent
partnerships Blair had always
implied.
A sense
of futility washed through him,
leaving an odd dullness behind. No
more keen observations, no more
speculations, no theorizing and
hypothesizing, no more arcane lore
flooding from that hyperactive
mouth and agile mind. The words
still flowed (nothing to sneeze
at), sometimes unencumbered,
sometimes halting,
uncertain—lost—but the mind behind
them was no longer his brilliant
partner. Blair was functioning at
about a four-to-five year old
level, and the gains seemed
infinitesimal sometimes when
compared with the seizures that
still occurred all-too-frequently
for Jim’s comfort.
It was
just . . . hard. Too hard. He
missed his partner, his friend. He
missed the strength he’d come to
lean on. Jesus, he was tired.
Jim
sighed once, pinched the bridge of
his nose, trying to alleviate some
of the pressure, then worked his
shoulders again, unconsciously,
and shifted purposefully in the
seat. Tough shit. You’ve got a
couple hours of therapy exercises
to face, not to mention that the
kid is gonna take one look at your
sad-assed face and know something
is wrong. He might not be the old
Blair, but . . . .
But,
somehow, Blair was often still
attuned uncannily to his moods.
Sometimes, like the four-year-old
he seemed to be internally, the
man was focused solely on himself,
absorbed with his own concerns and
fears to the exclusion of anyone
else, the needs of others
nonexistent in his limited
universe. But, far more often than
with a true child, Blair would
study his former lover with a
quiet frown and ask,
"Whatsamatter, Jim?", or "Jim,
what’s wrong? Are you sad?", or
"What hurts, Jim?", the tone of
his voice lower than the higher,
lighter register it generally
encompassed, something oddly
closer to his old "guide voice",
unconsciously comforting. Jim
usually covered up whatever he’d
been feeling, reassuring the other
man that nothing was wrong,
brightly suggesting something to
change the subject, distract his
broken Guide, but that seemed to
work only some of the time—and
less and less frequently with any
kind of total success. More often
than not, Blair would go along
with the change of subject, but
remain faintly troubled, giving
Jim uncertain glances as they
played or talked or read or
watched TV, as though it were
difficult for him to believe that
his adored ‘most love’ would lie
to him, but something in him knew
things weren’t completely right
with the man who was his entire
world.
Up to
this point, Blair had seemed to
make few connections with his
former life. He’d known his
mother, calling her "Mommy",
rather than the ‘Ma’ or ‘Mom’ or
even ‘Naomi’ he’d used before (and
Jim had never really understood
how anyone got in the habit of
calling a parent by their first
name, but he’d always just
relegated it to being part of the
vast Sandburg Zone and left it at
that), but had seemed to know that
he belonged with Jim,
somehow, although neither had ever
brought up much about their
previous relationship. Blair had
seemed oddly incurious and
accepting, and Jim had felt
simultaneously devastated and
relieved at Blair’s lack of
questions and his odd passiveness
regarding his current life
respective to his past. Maybe part
of that was due to the fact that
regaining any use of his
faculties was a fucking miracle,
and something to be cherished.
Maybe Blair himself was confused
about his former life and mulling
it over until it made some sense
to his current childlike mind. He
was more hesitant, now, about
vocalizing his thoughts. Where
once ideas had spilled from him in
a tumble of words, now he stopped
and haltingly puzzled through the
simplest of things in the damaged
pathways of his brain before
verbalizing his thoughts, and when
the words came, they sometimes
came with heartbreaking
uncertainty, faltering as though
Blair somehow did know
that he was lacking some knowledge
he’d previously possessed.
Christ,
some knowledge. How about
everything, every-fucking-thing?
You didn’t witness the destruction
of a mind like Sandburg’s and then
say, "oh, well" and move on. You
mourned it and grieved and tried
to get past it, and then you
watched a man whose thoughts had
been quicksilver struggle to
comprehend counting to twenty and
you died all over again, grieved
all over again, a hundred times an
hour, a million times a day.
Fuck.
And
then you tried to back off from
it, tried to see the positive
side, tried to remember how good
this warm, trusting, reasonably
happy person could make you feel
when you got right down to it and
looked at everything from a relative
point of view. Because things were
peachy, relatively
speaking. Blair wasn’t dead.
Blair wasn’t hooked up to a vast
array of tubes, or a respirator.
He wasn’t in a vegetative state,
or relegated to a wheelchair.
He was
getting better, still. Still
progressing, if in small
increments.
Amazingly,
that didn’t cheer him up.
Astonishingly enough, tonight he
just felt bitter and depressed and
wholeheartedly pissed off.
Contrary to all of this fucking
great news, the urge to just go on
a rampage and break into
microscopic pieces the sick
motherfucker who had done this to
his Guide was like some kind of
underlying, single-minded
imperative.
Right.
I’m on a mission from God, he
thought with an audible snort,
darkly amused, his anger lessening
just a bit at the vague attempt at
humor, and he relegated the urge
for revenge to the back burner.
Oh, it would happen, but Ellison
wasn’t in any big hurry. There
were a lot of options, all of them
untraceable, all of them
unconscionable, all with a certain
macabre appeal, and Ellison
planned to sift through them,
anticipating, before deciding
which held the most satisfaction.
Prison, even for a cop, was too
good for Henderson . . .
particularly since the bastard was
being kept apart from the general
population for his own safety. Jim
snorted again at that, and hoped
the rat-fuck enjoyed his peaceful
solitude while he could. He’d
destroyed something beyond price,
and Jim didn’t even need to get
his own hands dirty to take the
son of a bitch down.
As the
house came into view, Jim sighed
in some disapproval at the
not-unexpected sight of his
once-Guide, once-lover standing on
the porch as he had every day so
far this first week back at work,
waiting for Jim’s return in the
pouring rain. "Jesus, Chief," he
muttered, knowing that people
didn’t really catch cold or flu or
develop pneumonia from standing in
the cold and the wet, but worrying
anyway, despite what was obviously
a multitude of layers protecting
his loyal young friend, the
topmost layer a practical gray
slicker with a hood. The face
within that hood broke into a
delighted grin, and Blair started
his daily flight down the steps to
meet Jim, thankfully taking it
slow on the slippery wood. It was
then that Jim noticed the unopened
umbrella in his hand, and grinned
himself. "What a maroon," he said
fondly, his mood suddenly
lightening at the man’s approach.
Blair met him as he got out of the
truck. "Hey, Chief, wouldn’t that
thing work better if it was open
and over your head?"
Blair
handed the umbrella over, and
wrapped his arms around the larger
man. "’S not for me, Jim, it’s for
you. I’ve got my raincoat on, man,
see?" He looked up at Jim with
that Look, that damned, adoring look
that without fail wiped away huge
amounts of stress and lightened
Jim’s outlook on life in general,
then guilelessly added a smile to
it for good measure, a smile that
said, I’m happy to see you, I love
you, you are my entire universe.
"Open it so you don’t get wet."
Jim did
as he was told, then held the
umbrella over both of them as he
locked and shut the truck door,
then accompanied Blair to the
front door where his caretaker,
Emma, was waiting, obviously
having kept an eye on her charge
in case of the seizures that were
becoming less frequent, while
allowing him some autonomy. "Hi,
Emma." "Jim’s home." The two men
spoke simultaneously, and Jim’s
tone was nearly as cheerful and
contented as his Guide’s, their
arms still looped casually around
one another.
"Hi,
Jim," the motherly woman answered,
smiling at them both. "Tonight,
you’re on your own for dinner,
fellas."
Jim’s
face fell exaggeratedly. "Guess
the grace period’s over. Back to
the old grind." Emma had fixed
dinner and had it ready when Jim
arrived home the first three
evenings of the work week, despite
his insistence that it wasn’t
necessary. The food had been good,
too, the old-fashioned kind of
home-cooked stuff you’d expect
from somebody who looked like
Emma.
"Actually,
I’ve been fired from that duty by
our friend, here," she said
good-naturedly, reaching out to
tousle Sandburg’s curls. "Seems he
missed cooking with you. He was
very diplomatic about it, though.
Corporations could learn a thing
or two from his methods."
"Teaching
was always Sandburg’s specialty,"
Jim agreed quietly, hugging the
younger man to him with a flash of
memory: Blair, delivering the
tail-end of a lecture with
animated enthusiasm and passion to
a class of spellbound freshmen,
while Jim lounged at the back of
the hall waiting for him,
interested despite himself. Now,
the memory brought with it a
twinge of sadness, of renewed
loss. It happened so often, Jim
just as quickly shoved it aside
with practiced near-ease. It
almost didn’t hurt.
"Teaching?"
Emma questioned carefully. She
hadn’t been told much of anything
about Blair’s former life; Jim had
simply given her the basics
regarding his current needs and
regimen.
"He was
a teaching fellow at Rainier,
working on his doctorate in
Anthropology," Jim said simply,
all too aware of the concerned
blue gaze directed up at him from
the figure plastered to his side.
"Probably a good idea not to . . .
" His eyes flicked meaningfully
down at the smaller man, and the
woman took the hint immediately.
"No,
no," she agreed readily, dropping
the subject as requested. She gave
Blair a friendly smile, and said,
"I’ve got to get moving,
youngster, if I’m going to get
home through this rain. You want
to get my things for me?"
Blair’s
concerned frown lingered
speculatively on Jim’s face for a
moment, then he squeezed his
friend’s waist gently and said,
"Sure, Emma," his tone serious
rather than the usual eager
agreement. His arm slid slowly
from around Jim, and he seemed a
bit preoccupied as he made his
careful way into the kitchen, the
braced leg dragging somewhat.
"How
did he do today?" Jim asked, as he
asked every evening.
"A lot
better today. He was kind of quiet
after you left, but he didn’t seem
frightened or upset . . . I think
he was just missing you." Emma
smiled. "He talks about you all
the time, you know. ‘I wonder what
Jim’s doing; is Jim eating lunch
now?’ Today he kept saying that he
thought you had a headache; it was
kind of an odd fixation, I
thought." Her tone was
affectionate.
I did
have a headache. Most of the day.
"Maybe
he’s just worried about it
affecting his other
fixation. Camping On Saturday."
She chuckled. "That boy must really
love camping. When he wasn’t
talking about your day or your
headache, that’s all I heard from
him. He was really cute; he’d get
this look on his face, like it was
his fondest dream come true, and
sort of hug himself. I think it’s
done him a world of good, taken
his mind off the daily separation
anxiety, you know? He ate lunch
today like he’s been starving for
a week—not too far from the truth,
considering how he picked at his
food the first three days," she
commented wryly, "and he might get
tired out early tonight. He didn’t
really take a nap; he just laid
down for a little while on the
couch and closed his eyes, but he
never really slept. After a while,
he said he wasn’t tired and just
wanted to look at ‘books and some
old stuff’ for awhile.’ I think he
went through some photo albums and
notebooks from a box in the
storage room. I hope that was all
right, that he was allowed in
there." Emma raised her eyebrows
questioningly, presumably in
reaction to Jim’s frown.
"Yeah.
Yeah, that’s okay, Emma," he said,
a little absently, wondering what
had prompted Blair’s foray into
the extra bedroom full of unopened
boxes. Maybe it was just
curiosity, something oddly lacking
from Blair’s personality in the
first months of his recovery.
"It’s just a lot of our old stuff
that I haven’t found a spot for
yet." If rummaging through the
boxes gave Blair satisfaction,
great. He’d wondered lately,
anyway, if he shouldn’t go through
some of Blair’s many artifacts and
masks and fetishes and pull some
of them out, spread ’em around the
place. He’d felt unsure about it
though, about what kind of
reaction it would spark, and had
subsequently let it slide.
The
subject under discussion returned
bearing raincoat, purse, umbrella,
clear plastic rainboots, and a
rather battered hardback book with
no dust jacket. As Jim relieved
him of the coat and helped the
older woman into it , Emma said,
"The book’s for us to
read, Blair. Let’s just leave it
here; maybe Jim’ll read some of it
to you later. It was a favorite of
my boys when they were growing
up." That last to Jim.
He
focused in on the title—Gorilla
Adventure, by Willard
Price—and grinned. He’d read that
series himself when he was in the
fourth and fifth grades. Jim
wondered absently if Blair had
read them in his boyhood.
Maybe Naomi would know. Or maybe
not. By the time Blair would have
been nine or ten, the books would
have already been kind of
outdated, and Naomi might not have
approved of her son reading about
the adventures of two boys who
helped their father capture wild
animals for zoos, although that
was probably unfair. Jim got the
impression that Naomi had never
censored her son’s voracious
appetite for books. In any case,
they’d be new to Blair now.
Almost
as though he were reading Jim’s
thoughts, Blair said, in some
disapproval, "I liked it,
so far, but . . . they should take
pictures, right, Jim? The
animals belong in the wild."
This,
from the man who’d once had a
Barbary ape watching TV for weeks
on end. But, to be fair, Blair had
always been interested in animal
conservation—even now, a nature
program was one of his favorite
pastimes, and he remembered
information from the shows that
Jim never expected, astounding him
days later with questions he’d
obviously been
pondering—deceptively
simple-sounding questions to which
Jim frequently did not have
answers, like, "Do you think the
one kind of animal knows what the
other animals’ sounds mean?" or,
on a more philosophical plane,
"Jim, is it right for the people
taking pictures of those baby
lions getting killed by the big
lion . . . you know, they didn’t stop
it. Is that right?" He’d had to
think about that one for awhile.
"We-e-ell, I dunno, Chief. I
think, even though it looks really
close-up, the guys behind the
camera are actually pretty far
away. They’re just using a special
lens to make it look
close-up. Besides, what could they
do? Anyway, that’s what happens in
nature. They’re just showing us
the bad stuff along with the good,
y’know?" Blair had sighed. "Yeah.
I know. Those babies looked so
scared," he’d said quietly, almost
to himself. "I wanted somebody to
save them." Jim had given his
shoulders a squeeze. "I know."
Even Jim had thought it
was kind of sad. But those scenes
didn’t stop Blair’s interest in
every nature show he could find,
everything from Wild Kingdom
reruns to Kratt’s Creatures
and Nature. Not to mention
the psych and human behavior
courses on at the crack of dawn
Saturdays on the local access and
PBS stations. Jim didn’t think
Sandburg understood half of what
was being said, but he sat there
anyway, like a sponge, silently
riveted to the screen and soaking
up the images as he absently
spooned cereal into his mouth or
mechanically chewed his toast,
while Jim slumped bleary-eyed over
coffee, having been called out of
bed at an ungodly hour to assist
his friend in getting out of his,
into his brace, and in front of
the TV.
He
didn’t even want to think about
the man’s passion for The
Discovery Channel. He’d missed a
fair number of football games
after an application of those
deadly weapons known as Blair
Sandburg’s blue eyes, pleading
with him to forego football for
some documentary on open heart
surgery, or the mysteries of
animal migration, or strategies
from WWII (actually, that last
he’d enjoyed), or whatever. It
wasn’t like Blair actually knew
what was on and argued for any one
program specifically. He just
picked up the clicker, homed in
unerringly on Discovery, and
stubbornly insisted on watching
whatever popped up on the screen.
Jim thought Blair knew about his
guilt at those times; he had
to—he used it like a precision
tool to get his own way.
"Hey,
Jim . . . right? JIM."
Blair’s grip on his arm and his
insistent voice brought Ellison
back from his reverie.
"Uh,
yeah. Right, Chief. They oughta
just take pictures."
Emma
had retrieved a plastic rain hat
from the pocket of her coat, and,
keys in hand, was ready to leave
for the day. "So. See you
tomorrow, Chief ?" She
smiled.
Blair
shook his head, and replied
firmly, "Emma, only Jim
calls me ‘Chief’."
"Sandburg
. . . " Jim said carefully, unsure
the words deserved a rebuke. It
was Blair’s right to choose his
own names and nicknames, to reject
usage he didn’t approve, just like
anyone else . . . and something in
his chest warmed at Blair’s
assertion that ‘Chief’ was solely
Jim’s territory.
Blair
looked up at him questioningly,
hesitating, and Jim grinned down
at him reassuringly. "You’re
pretty adamant about that." There
was a note of praise in the
teasing words that Jim couldn’t
hide.
"That’s
okay, Blair." Emma took it in
stride. "See you tomorrow, then?"
Blair
smiled at her, untroubled once
again. "Yep. Tomorrow. Friday.
And, on Saturday—" The smile
broadened, lit up the room.
"On
Saturday, you go camping." Emma
finished for him, and laughed.
"God save us." She waved as she
went out the door, and Blair stood
and watched her get in her car and
drive off, waving one last time in
that odd childlike way he’d always
had of closing the fingers down
over the palm. Even before the
shooting, he’d waved like that.
For some reason, rather than
annoying Jim, he’d always found it
strangely appealing, that this
grown man waved good-bye like a
three-year-old. Well . . . it had
annoyed him at first, just like
everything about Sandburg had
annoyed him at first.
The
little bastard had grown
on him—insidiously, sorta like a
fungus. Jim grinned at Blair as he
shut the front door and shut out
the cold, and Blair smiled back,
innocently, his attention moving
to the metal fastenings on his
raincoat, prying each one open
with some difficulty and a great
deal of concentration. Jim itched
to just do it for him, but Blair
would (rightly) object if Jim
tried it, so he stayed where he
was and just watched.
"Whaddaya
want for dinner, Junior?"
Blair
frowned in thought as he struggled
with one of the recalcitrant
fastenings, and Jim wondered what
he would say. When Blair had done
more than half of the cooking at
the loft, his tastes had been
exotic and varied. And healthy.
Now, his palate seemed a lot more
limited, and he had developed a
heretofore nonexistent taste for
sweets. Like the kid he often
seemed to be.
"What’ve
we got?"
The
question surprised him. Usually,
Blair simply pulled some favorite
preference out of his head,
expecting the makings to
automatically exist, somehow.
"I’m
not sure, Chief; let me check." He
hadn’t scoped out the fridge and
freezer for a few days; he’d taken
Blair for fast food both days last
weekend, sticking to the
drive-thru, and Emma had done the
cooking every night since. He
opened the refrigerator and stared
into it. "Hot dogs, cheese, stuff
for salad, broccoli, eggs, milk.
Lessee what’s in the freezer . . .
hamburger, chicken—"
"Cheeseburgers,
man. And salad. And tater
tots—have we got tater tots?"
Jim
searched for a moment. Sounded
good to him. One small silver
lining to the big cloud: Sandburg
now enjoyed hamburgers and pizza
with the rest of America. "We have
tater tots," he announced
momentously, as though the last
words should have been ‘lift off’,
and held the bag aloft in triumph.
Blair
nodded, still preoccupied with his
raincoat. "Tater tots. All right!
And cheeseburgers. Let’s toast the
buns, huh, Jim? And Everything
salad." (Jim’s term for a salad
with something more than just
lettuce and tomato, coined when
lettuce and tomato was the only
kind of salad Blair would tolerate
. . . as recently as last week.)
Jim looked at his friend in
puzzled but pleased surprise.
"Hey,
Chief, great! Since when did you
decide you liked Everything
salad?"
Blair
hung up his coat and shrugged a
little. "Just felt like it." The
coat dropped from its precarious
perch, and Blair sighed,
laboriously bending over to pick
it up and carefully re-hanging it.
"Stay, coat!" he muttered with a
scowl. This time, it did, and
Blair joined Jim in the kitchen.
"I’ll
help," he offered, touching Jim on
the arm as Jim put the package of
hamburger in the microwave to
defrost.
"You
bet your ass you will," Jim agreed
in a mock-growl, gently cuffing
the younger man on the side of the
head. Blair gave him a brilliant
smile.
"I’m
gonna tell my mom that you keep
hitting me," he said smugly,
maneuvering to one side of the
refrigerator door to open it, and
holding on as he leaned in to
retrieve two kinds of lettuce, the
bag of tomatoes, and an onion. He
eyed the rest of the ingredients
dubiously, then turned awkwardly
toward the kitchen table with his
hands full. "Not gonna spill it,
not gonna spill it, not gonna drop
it," he murmured to himself as he
walked the few steps to deposit
the vegetables on the table.
"Yess!" he said softly in triumph,
then carefully made his way back
to the fridge for more salad
ingredients. "It’s too cold and
rainy to go in the pool, right
Jim?" He once again grasped the
edge of the fridge tightly to lean
down for a cucumber, a green
pepper and a bag of radishes. He
pondered for a moment, still bent
unsteadily, then grasped the
celery, as well. "Carrots," he
reminded himself in evident
exasperation with his own
forgetfulness, and leaned in again
with infinite care.
"Yeah,
Chief. We’ll have to do the indoor
exercises tonight." Jim sighed
inwardly; they were a pain in the
ass compared to the ease of the
water routine.
Apparently,
Sandburg was aware of that; he
looked at the larger man
apologetically as he lurched back
to the table and dumped his
ingredients on it a little
hastily, catching himself from
overbalancing. "I’ll work really
hard, Jim. I’ll work so hard that
you can just sit back and watch
me, ‘kay?"
Jim
eyed the other man closely, and
gave a rueful smile. "Doesn’t work
that way, buddy. I’ve got to do
the work with you, give you the
resistance."
"What’s
‘resistance’, Jim?" the tone was
more one of grasping for a
forgotten concept, asking for a
reminder than for an initial
definition.
"It’s
pushing against something, not
just letting it bowl you over. You
know, you push against me, and I
provide the resistance by pushing
back." He demonstrated with his
hands, palm to palm.
"Resistance,"
Blair repeated to himself,
imitating the palm gesture.
"Resistance." He nodded. "I
remember, now." He started to sit,
then pushed himself clumsily back
to a standing position. "Bowl,"
he told himself, then added a
list. "Knife, cutting board—Jim,
you have to do the onion, right?
It needs the sharp knife—giant
fork, giant spoon. Can I do the
carrots in that thing with the
turny handle? You have to do the
tomatoes, too." He washed his
hands conscientiously, then went
through the long process of
retrieving the items he needed,
while Jim agreed with him about
the tomatoes and onion, and got
down the mini, manual food chopper
and set it on the table. He could
make the entire salad in a
fraction of the time it would take
Blair (not the least of the time
loss due to the fact that Blair’s
fine-motor control wasn’t up to
sharp knives, making it necessary
for him to settle for a
slightly-serrated table knife that
could get through the celery and
radishes and cucumbers, if not
very easily. Jim would cut the
carrots into chunks that could go
into the hand-cranked chopper, and
would retrieve the results when
Blair was finished to avoid Blair
touching the sharp blades.) But
Blair needed the practice, and he
hated feeling useless—and Jim
could time the rest of the food to
accommodate him. It wasn’t the
smooth efficiency with which they
used to mesh, preparing a meal in
tandem, but it still felt good to
work together. Comfortable. Jim no
longer had to exert much control
to keep himself from taking over
Blair’s efforts to help, and only
offered assistance when it was
really needed, and Blair was
getting better at a variety of
tasks, negating the need for much
help.
"Your
headache’s better, huh, Jim?" The
blue eyes fixed on him briefly,
penetratingly, before returning to
the task at hand.
In some
astonishment, Jim realized it was.
Had it simply been a case of
stress, alleviated when he came
into his home and the comforting
presence of his Guide? Damaged or
not, there was still something
about proximity to Blair that
soothed his frayed nerves, that
grounded his senses. But . . . how
did Blair know what he was
feeling?
"How’d
you know that, Chief?"
A
minute shrug. "You don’t look so
scrunchy."
"Scrunchy??"
Blair
demonstrated a pained face,
features pinched and, well . . .
scrunched.
Jim
smirked, amused. "Yeah, well . . .
I guess I don’t feel so
scrunchy."
"Good,"
Blair said softly. Then, even more
softly, big-eyed and solemn, "I
don’t want you to hurt, Jim."
Jim’s
heart constricted at that. After a
moment, he crossed the kitchen in
two long strides and cupped
Blair’s cheek, rough with five
o’clock shadow, hunkering down
beside Blair’s chair to look up at
him. "I know," he said, just as
softly. He smiled gently at this
man who had been his lover, and
who still loved him—and was
loved—beyond reason. "Thanks,
Chief." He stroked the skin
beneath his fingers a couple of
times, the bearded portion prickly
on the upstroke, catching the
rough places on his fingertips,
the skin smoother, softer over the
cheekbone and temple, then gave
the cheek two quick, affectionate
pats before he stood . . . wanting
instead to kiss him, needing
to kiss him. Not on the cheek. Not
on the forehead . . . .
Jesus,
forget it. Stop.
Just . . . .
He
remembered the feel of that mouth
opening beneath his, remembered
the scent and taste of his Guide.
It was only a little different
now—medications had altered it,
but underneath the chemical
changes was still an essential
olfactory signature that was
intrinsically Blair Sandburg, and
he wanted that scent surrounding
him, that taste on his tongue,
wanted to bury himself in it in
ways that were not just
platonically affectionate, wanted
to feel whole again. He backed off
fast, went to take the thawed
hamburger out of the microwave.
Those
eyes were still looking at him,
wide, utterly open, utterly
vulnerable, studying him intently,
and Jim couldn’t take it—that
beautiful, beautiful face, those
eyes—couldn’t function under what
felt like the gentle scrutiny of
his very soul, of things best kept
under wraps, and he said softly,
"Better keep movin’ on that salad,
Chief. I’m starting on the
burgers."
Blair
complied, once again busying
himself with clumsy cucumber
slices. "Just one more day, and
then we’ll be camping. One more
day," Jim heard him say in a low
voice that was nearly a whisper,
and the words were filled with a
longing and a sheer, almost
reverent sense of wonder and
happiness that washed over Jim and
made him so glad he hadn’t said
‘no’ to the whole idea. It wasn’t
like he could’ve said no,
anyway—no way in hell— and it
wasn’t much of a hardship—they
still had all their camping
equipment in the cabin’s attic,
and setting up a tent for one
night was the easiest thing he’d
ever done to make Blair this
happy.
"So,
Sport, we’ve got hot dogs, and
we’ve got marshmallows and
chocolate bars and graham crackers
for this little outing Saturday,"
he said, quickly slapping
hamburgers into shape between his
palms and seasoning them, not
looking at Blair, trying to get a
little breathing space. "What else
do we need?"
"Sleeping
bags," Blair responded promptly.
"That’s
okay, I’ll take care of that
stuff. I was thinking more along
the lines of food. Stuff to do."
"Where
are we going to make a fire?"
Blair asked.
"I can
clear a spot, no problem. Food,
Chief, think food."
"Hey .
. . beer!"
Jim
gave him an apologetic look.
"Can’t. Not with your seizure
medication."
Blair
didn’t seem too disappointed,
merely sighed, then nodded in
acceptance, absorbed in his
thoughts, and in tearing the
lettuce into the salad bowl.
"Hey .
. . don’t make the pieces too
small, remember?" Jim cautioned.
Blair nodded again, looking up at
him with a quick, sunny smile
before returning to his task.
Seeing that the other ingredients
were coming along at a reasonable
pace, Jim pulled out a skillet and
turned on a burner beneath it.
"You want Worcestershire sauce on
yours?"
Blair
considered it. "What’s that?" he
asked finally. Jim pulled the
bottle out of the fridge and
showed it to him. Blair regarded
it dubiously.
After
an agonizing moment of indecision,
Jim said, "I’m starvin’, here,
Chief. I’ll make a couple with,
and a couple without. You can
taste it and see if you like it,
deal?"
"Okay,"
Blair agreed easily, returning to
his salad prep. His next query
surprised the hell out of the
Sentinel. "Don’t you have to turn
the oven on, Jim, for the tater
tots?"
Jim
looked over at him in pleased
astonishment. Sure, Blair knew the
potatoes went in the oven, but the
concept of pre-heating it was a
new concept gained . . . or
possibly remembered. "Yeah. Did
Emma tell you that?" he asked
curiously.
"Emma’s
at home," Blair reminded him. "You
said it the last time we made TV
dinners—gotta turn the oven on for
awhile, first. Every time. Right?"
"Absolutely."
Jim turned the oven to the
specified temperature.
There
was a comfortable silence for a
moment, broken only by the sounds
of Blair painstakingly sawing
celery into bits, and the sizzle
of hamburgers, then Blair said
slowly, pensively, "I remember
doing this before. You and me,
making—cooking." He smiled a
little, clearly reminiscing. "It
was at the loft." Silence again;
then, the smile audible in his
voice: "You had an apron. With
flowers on it. I thought it was
funny."
"Oh,
yeah?" Jim growled menacingly.
"Yeah."
Blair wasn’t fazed; he simply
grinned to himself as he started
on the green pepper with more
enthusiasm than finesse, then
snorted. "Man, you looked funny in
that apron. Really funny."
He laughed.
"Ha,
ha, Sandburg." Jim scowled,
keeping up the pretense.
"You looked
like a big dork," Sandburg
clarified happily, snorting again.
Again,
Jim felt that twinge of
astonishment, of excitement, as
Blair used a term he hadn’t
employed since his former life. He
was ecstatic at being called a big
dork. "What did you say?"
he threatened, grinning so hard it
hurt. Oh, yeah, say it again.
"You
looked like a big dork," Blair
offered with a small, gleeful hee
, still focusing on his green
pepper pieces.
Jim
couldn’t help it, he moved to
Sandburg and bent to put his arms
around him from behind in a quick,
gentle hug, brushing his lips
across the top of the curly head.
"Love you, you little
dork," he murmured.
Blair
didn’t turn around, or stop what
he was doing for more than a brief
instant, but Jim could still hear
the delighted smile in his voice.
"Love you, too, Jim. You big
dork."
Jim
squeezed him a little harder
before letting him go and standing
up. He went to flip the burgers,
then pulled cheese slices from the
fridge. Good ol’ pasteurized
processed American cheese food
product, Jim thought happily.
Getting out hamburger buns, he
stuck them on a cookie sheet in
the oven to toast for a short time
while dumping tater tots onto
another cookie sheet. "How hungry
are you?" he asked, pausing with
the bag suspended mid-tilt.
"Me?"
"I
don’t see anybody else in this
room I could be talking to," Jim
said dryly.
"Oh . .
. well . . . I dunno. Hungry."
"Really
hungry? Really, really
hungry? Emma said you ate a pretty
big lunch," Jim reminded.
"Do
lots of tater tots." Decisively,
Blair cut to the chase as he
picked up the ‘giant spoon and
fork’ and started mixing the
salad, adequately, if not too
adroitly.
"Gotcha."
He slid the potatoes into the
oven, checked on the buns, and set
the timer. Quickly getting a knife
and slicing onion and tomatoes, he
dumped them into Blair’s salad
bowl, pulled out the toasted
hamburger buns and asked, "You
want the cheese melted over the
burger in the pan, or slapped cold
on top of it when it goes on the
bun?"
"Melted,
man. I like melted."
Sandburg gathered up the spilled
bits of salad from the table and
put them back in the bowl.
Blair’s
sudden appetite was an
improvement. And a relief. Jim
hoped like hell it lasted.
Compliant as he usually was, his
friend had quietly resisted eating
much over the past months,
requiring that every meal be
turned into a long session of
coaxing, appealing to his sense of
loyalty and his need to please Jim
in order to get a bare minimum of
sustenance into the man. Blair
ate, eventually, but it was so
obviously without pleasure and
took so much effort for so little
result that it made mealtimes a
little difficult.
Now, he
was apparently ravenous. Unless
his eyes were just bigger than his
stomach. Sometimes, what he thought
he wanted (or, more often, what he
thought Jim wanted him to
want), and the actual extent of
his appetite were wildly
divergent. Jim shrugged. That was
what the fridge was for; Jim was
good at finishing up leftovers.
He
looked over as Blair struggled out
of his chair and went to the
fridge, peering inside, then
emerging with two bottles of
dressing. He fumbled one of them,
almost-but-not-quite catching it
before it fell. "Shit." Luckily,
it was plastic, and, after
exhibiting a quick look of
annoyance, Blair sighed, took hold
of the refrigerator door and
carefully eased down to pick up
the bottle. "Sorry, Jim."
"’S
okay," Jim said easily, putting a
steadying hand under Blair’s arm
and nudging the refrigerator door
shut. "No big deal."
"It
didn’t spill," Blair agreed. He
placed the bottles on the table
carefully, and reached a little
clumsily for the vegetable
leavings on the table to start
cleaning up.
"Let me
get that," Jim offered.
Blair
shrugged him away. "I can do it,"
he said, his voice a bit sharp.
"Yeah,
I know you can," Jim said amiably,
"but I can do it faster, and we’re
about ready to chow down, here."
He didn’t bother to wait for a
reply, just efficiently picked up
the mess around Blair’s persistent
efforts, depositing the bits in
the trash then bringing the waste
can over and holding it out for
Blair to deposit the pieces in his
own hands. Blair complied, but his
look was reproachful.
"I
could do it, Jim," he said,
sounding hurt.
"I
know, Chief," he reiterated
gently, feeling a little guilty
even though it was such a
non-issue. "We just did it
together, okay?" he offered.
Those
eyes looked at him, resigned. "I
guess," Blair said reluctantly,
clearly not agreeing, but
unwilling to fight over it.
Without
thought, Jim put the arm not
holding the trash can around the
other man’s shoulders and bent to
touch his head to Blair’s. "Don’t
be mad at me, huh, Chief?" he
coaxed softly, apologetically. He
felt a hand pat him on the back
and he smiled. "I’m just really
hungry."
Placated,
Blair’s expression cleared at
that. "Okay."
Jim
released him, then, and set out
utensils and two glasses of milk,
then loaded up their plates and
brought them to the table, where
Blair managed to get more salad on
their plates than on the table,
and the two men spent a few
moments applying dressing and the
mustard and other necessary burger
accoutrements Jim had grabbed from
the fridge, then dug in. Eyeing
his friend with open satisfaction,
Jim watched Blair eat with
enthusiasm, enjoying the sight.
They
didn’t talk much, too busy
cheerfully emptying their plates,
except for Blair’s contemplative
suggestions around a mouthful of
cheeseburger as to the camp-out
menu, and Jim’s teasing
admonitions not to talk with his
mouth full, spoken around his own
mouthfuls. And every once in
awhile, Blair would stop
everything for a moment and just
gaze at Jim with sheer happiness,
and say with a sigh of
contentment, "We’re going camping.
We’re really going camping."
"Yeah,"
Jim snorted once, inwardly just as
pleased by Blair’s obvious
pleasure, "in the backyard."
"Yeah,"
Blair said enthusiastically, hands
expressively waving away the
disparaging tone of Jim’s comment.
"We’ll have a big fire. We’ll be
in the tent . . . " He hugged
himself, as if trying to contain
all of his excitement.
"Someday,"
Jim promised, "we’ll go fishing
again, camp in the wilderness."
Blair
nodded at that, but apparently the
excitement of an imminent camp-out
in the backyard was far greater
than that of some hazy future trip
to parts unknown.
Jim
idly thought back to one of their
fishing trips before, the water
clear, Blair grinning at him with
that damn fishing spear held aloft
in triumph, the not-too-shabby
catch in his other hand, raised
proudly . . . . Simon had joined
them on that trip, and Jim
wondered again if he should make
overtures toward a reconciliation
with his old friend. He was still
angry, he acknowledged, standing
to clear the table, still felt a
sense of betrayal, still partially
blamed Simon . . . but Simon was
concerned, was worried about
Blair, genuinely wanted to see
him. Jim looked over at his
friend, who was getting awkwardly
to his feet to clear his own
dishes from the table, and thought
it might just make Simon realize
what, ultimately, his dismissal of
Jim’s suspicions had done to
Blair, if he were confronted with
the results. Let him see it, let
him face his mistake, let him take
his share of the guilt.
Jim
silently took the plate Blair
handed him at the sink, and said,
"Hey, buddy, think you can get the
exercise mat down and spread it
out on the floor? I’ll do the
dishes, we’ll watch the WNBA game
for a few minutes—let our food
settle—then it’s workout time."
"Sounds
like a plan," Blair said, having
recently rediscovered the phrase.
It always sounded a little
incongruous when paired with his
big-eyed, innocent expression, and
Jim laughed.
"Great."
He swatted the other man lightly
on the backside. "Get to it."
"Another
hit. More hitting," Blair noted
without rancor. "I’m tellin’ my
mom, Jim." He left the room
cheerfully.
When
Jim heard Blair wrestling with the
fairly heavy mat, he called out as
nonchalantly as he could manage,
"Blair, do you remember Simon?"
The
movement and grunts of effort from
the living room ceased abruptly,
and Jim heard Blair’s heartbeat
accelerate. There was no response
for a very long thirty seconds,
then a hesitant, quiet voice said,
"He didn’t like me."
Oh,
jeez . . . how to explain to Blair
his former relationship with the
Major Crimes captain? "I . . .
Chief, I think he just pretended
not to like you . . . an act, sort
of, to make him look . . . tough,
I guess. Strong."
The
sounds from the other room
resumed, but, again, for a long
moment there was no reply. "He . .
. wasn’t nice to me. He yelled at
me," Blair finally said,
contradicting Jim’s words, but
sounding a little uncertain of his
conviction.
"He
just liked to give you a hard
time," Jim said reassuringly. "I
mean, he went fishing and to ball
games with us and stuff,
remember?"
Another
pause. "I don’t know." Rustling, a
dull thud as the mat hit the
floor, a sound suspiciously like
Blair stumbling and following it
down and a quiet ow. "I
guess."
"Are
you okay? Did you fall?" Jim
queried, alert, but not unduly
worried. Blair fell a lot, his
large motor skills still dicey,
particularly in the lower
extremities, when signals from the
brain sometimes got tangled up and
consequently made him clumsy; he’d
gotten pretty good at catching
himself and minimizing the damage.
"Yeah,
on the mat. I hit my funny bone on
the coffee table. I’m okay." That
last rang out in cheerful
reassurance, warning his Blessed
over-Protector off.
"Good."
Jim finished up the dishes, and
dumped the skillet in the soapy
water to soak, then ventured
uncertainly, "Blair . . . um, what
if I let Simon come by for a short
visit?"
"Tonight?"
Blair’s heart pounded again, and
his voice sounded scared and
unhappy.
"No,
not tonight," Jim replied quickly,
moving to the living room to see
his friend fighting to open the
exercise mat. So far, the mat
looked like it was winning. It was
only half-open, part of the
accordion folds beneath the Guide
sprawled disheveled on top of it,
hair in his face. As Jim watched,
Blair painstakingly got his knees
under him, moved with agonizing
difficulty onto all fours, then
struggled to kneel upright,
panting as he ran a hand back
through his sweaty hair. Slowly,
he walked backward on his knees,
the braced leg only partially
cooperative—Blair leaned onto his
stronger leg for each ‘step’ back
and manually moved the weaker
beyond where it was able to travel
under its own power, then repeated
the process until he was far
enough back to allow the space
needed to finish unfolding the
mat. "I was thinking sometime
soon, though." Blair’s convulsive
swallow was audible as he put his
weight onto his right arm and
stretched out with the left to tug
the accordion open the rest of the
way with a subsequent grunt.
"He’s, uh, been asking about you,
wants to know how you are."
Mission
accomplished, Blair pushed himself
upright again with effort and
knelt there, very still, his fists
clenched white-knuckled at his
sides, his hair hiding his face.
"No. He’ll think I’m . . ." The
words faltered. " . . . stupid,"
he finally whispered. Devastated
by the pain in that one word, in
the other man’s posture, Jim
opened his mouth to speak, but
found himself speechless at this
evidence that Blair was aware of
what he lacked, and Blair
interrupted him, head still
lowered, not looking at Jim at
all. "He doesn’t like me, Jim. He
doesn’t like me."
Jim
moved to Blair’s side, dropped
down beside him and pulled him
close, wordlessly rocking him for
a moment. Finally, he said,
"That’s not true."
Blair’s
head nodded sharply, contradicting
Jim’s words. "He doesn’t like you
to be with me."
"Well .
. . that might make him
uncomfortable, how close we are,
but that’s tough shit, Chief," Jim
said in a low voice, breathing
into the sweaty curls, inhaling
the dizzying scent of Blair’s
shampoo. Hastily, he tried to dial
down his sense of smell, with
limited but adequate success. "But
even so, he’s a friend. Really.
He’s worried about whether you’re
okay."
Blair
shook his head repeatedly, then
moved to pull away from Jim’s
embrace. "I want to watch
basketball," he said unsteadily
but determinedly, his vulnerable
stance, his tone begging Jim to
let him change the subject. "Okay,
Jim? You said we could." He didn’t
look at the older man, and his
voice wavered again.
Jim
dropped it. "Okay. WNBA. But just
for a while. I’m kinda beat, and
we still have to do at least an
hour of your exercises."
Blair
nodded silently and crawled over
to the couch, looking pretty beat
himself as he dragged himself up
and settled onto it at one end,
passively waiting for Jim to get
the remote and turn on ESPN. Jim
had a brief, heavenly fantasy of
skipping the therapy session for
one night, but dismissed it
sternly. No way was he starting
down that slippery slope. Blair
needed the strengthening routine.
There were lots of nights when it
was tiring, but it had to be done.
Tonight was no different.
Sitting
on the other end of the couch, he
glanced over at Blair as they
watched the game, seeing his
friend begin to relax as he became
involved with the action onscreen.
A moment later, he checked again,
to find Blair checking on him.
He grinned, and Blair smiled back
a little shyly, then grew serious
again. "Jim?" he murmured.
"Yeah?"
"C’mere;
lie down here." Sandburg beckoned
with his hand, then patted his
leg, wanting Jim’s head in his
lap.
Jim
hesitated, not certain it was such
a great idea . . . but Blair’s
expression was so entreating, his
eyes so full of that look of
adoration that Jim sighed,
capitulation pretty much a
foregone conclusion. He gave up.
Stretching out on his side, he
pillowed his head on Sandburg’s
near thigh, facing the TV and
getting comfortable. "Okay?" he
asked.
"Yeah,"
Blair said softly. One hand rested
warm and comforting on Jim’s
shoulder, the other began slowly
stroking his hair with a gentle
touch. It felt good,
soothing—uncomplicated. Lulling
him in the uncanny way Blair’s
touch always did.
"Don’
let me fall ‘sleep, Sandburg," he
cautioned drowsily after a few
moments of that hypnotic caress.
"Gotta do y’r workout."
"I
know. We will," Blair promised.
A
moment later, Jim was right on the
edge of dropping off when Blair
said, almost too softly to be
heard, "Simon’s your friend, isn’t
he, Jim?" There was a note of
wistfulness in his voice that
puzzled Jim’s half-somnolent
brain.
"Yeah,"
he answered vaguely, still closer
to sleep than awareness. Things
were still rocky between them,
but, yes . . . he thought he and
Simon could salvage the fragments
of their friendship.
Silence
reigned but for the low volume of
the TV for a few moments, those
fingers still ghosting through his
hair tenderly.
"Okay.
He can come," Blair whispered
simply. He pressed a quick,
audible kiss to Jim’s shoulder,
then a second slower, more
contemplative one.
Jim
awoke fully at that. "What made
you change your mind?" he asked
his friend gently, feeling Blair’s
mouth still resting against his
shoulder.
Blair
heaved a soft sigh. "He’s your
friend. You have to help me all
the time, but he can do things.
You should go fishing, Jim. You
should go to a ball game." That
wistful note was back.
He’d
said they’d done those things with
Simon. Blair meant that he should
do them again, now, with Simon. With
Simon, and without Blair.
Because Blair required help all
the time, and his Guide was
offering him an out, a break.
Oh,
god. Oh, god.
Jim
reached back and up, rubbing that
head full of curls. "We’ll go
soon, Chief, okay?" he said with
studied casualness. "You and me. We
should go fishing; we
should go to the ball game . . .
and we’ll see about asking Simon."
"There’s
a lot of steps at the ball game,
Jim," Blair said dubiously, his
voice vibrating through Jim’s
shirt as his lips moved against
Jim’s shoulder. "What if I have to
pee?"
"We’ll
sit close to the bathroom."
"I
might not make it. I might have an
accident. And the seats are high
up. What if I get dizzy?" Great.
His own personal, earnest devil’s
advocate, trying to get Jim to see
what a burden he was.
"I’ll
hold onto you, Blair; I won’t let
anything happen to you. I’ll stick
to you like glue," Jim
promised firmly. He softened his
voice, wheedling a little. "If I
go to a ball game, I want you
there, huh? Otherwise, we might as
well watch it here." His fingers
tightened around a handful of soft
hair, tugged on it for emphasis.
Without volition, his hand
lingered, fingers sinking into
silken tendrils, the mass of curls
twining around them, filling the
spaces between them, warm and damp
from sweat closer to the scalp.
Playing with it brought the scent
of Blair’s shampoo and conditioner
forth, wafting it through the air
around them and Jim inhaled
deeply, picturing Blair,
shirtless, as he’d clung to the
edge of the kitchen sink that past
Sunday, bent forward so that Jim
could wash his hair for him, his
body wedging the smaller man in
place so that he wouldn’t fall as
he maneuvered his head under the
faucet. Jim had gotten an
erection, feeling that firm,
malleable ass against his thighs,
and he’d quickly shifted to place
the side of his hip against his
partner so that Blair wouldn’t
feel the hard length of him poking
the small of his back. Now, he
ruefully let go of Blair’s hair,
ruthlessly told his burgeoning
erection to get lost, and decided
that some good old-fashioned hard
exercise was a good idea. For both
of them. The Simon issue was
obviously an uncomfortable one for
his friend, and he didn’t like the
direction it seemed to be leading
Blair’s emotions, causing this
unexpected self-doubt.
"I
don’t know, Jim. Maybe. Sometimes
. . . I don’t like it when people
stare at my bad leg."
"They’re
curious, Chief. That’s all.
They’re probably just wondering
what happened, whatever. You know
how people are. You stared at
other patients in PT when you were
in the temporary care facility,
remember?"
"Yeah,"
Blair replied slowly, his tone a
little lighter than it had been.
Unable to speak much yet at that
time, he had stared,
openly and at length, intently
absorbing every movement around
him as though searching for any
clue to help him with his own hard
road back to mobility. But it had
been something more, too. Some
tenacious fragment of the Guide
and anthropologist within the man
had been almost instinctively at
work; Jim could have sworn it—a
residual abiding interest in human
interaction, blue eyes cataloguing
every grunt of pain, every moan,
every murmur of encouragement and
muttered curse of frustration with
the same odd empathy and
emotions-on-his-sleeve that had
more often than not always
characterized his observational
M.O. Detachment had never been
Sandburg’s strong point. He could
do detachment, feign objectivity,
but it was simply a mantle of Good
Science, and almost diametrically
foreign to his nature.
Jim
shrugged, turned onto his back to
look up at Blair’s curious frown.
"So, people stare at other people,
even when they’re not different.
It doesn’t mean anything bad,
necessarily. Besides, first they
look at the brace, and then they
look at that gorgeous smile, eh,
Chief?" Jim grinned and lifted a
hand to lightly slap the other
man’s cheek. "I gotta tell ya, the
brace isn’t what’s gonna stick in
their minds."
"Hitting
again, Jim," Blair warned,
cheering up.
"Yeah,
yeah; you’re gonna tell Naomi. So,
now you’ve got me keyed up about
this. We could go to a Jags game .
. . maybe Simon could get us some
great seats; he knows Arthur Dell,
the team’s owner, remember."
"He
does?" Blair’s tone was doubtful
as he obviously cast his mind back
to try to remember, visibly torn
between his apprehension regarding
Simon and the lure of choice
seats.
Jim
raised his hand as though swearing
a vow. "Scout’s honor."
Blair
digested that thoughtfully until
Jim said briskly, "Okay, off your
butt, Sandburg, and on the mat.
Enough lazing around; we can watch
the rest of the game from the
floor. Time to make good on that
promise to work hard tonight." His
mouth said the words, but his body
wasn’t ready to move just yet.
Subsequently, he grinned when
Blair said, "I can’t get off my
butt, Jim, till you get off my
leg." Jim noticed, however, that
Blair had resumed stroking his
head. Heaving a deep breath, he
said, "Right," determinedly, and
rolled up and onto his feet in one
quick move, then extended a
helping hand to his partner,
hefting Sandburg to his unsteady
feet and keeping hold of him until
he had his footing. Blair followed
him amicably to the mat, and got
himself down onto it, lying back
so that Jim could remove the
brace, eyeing the procedure
intently, brows knitted in
concentration.
His
Guide had been in dead earnest
when he’d sworn earlier to work
really hard. The exercises, simple
as they would seem to an
able-bodied person, were arduous
for Blair, and he and Jim were
both drenched in sweat by the end
of the session two hours later,
Blair having insisted on the full
drill, pushing himself beyond
exhaustion by simply switching
muscle groups when one area
trembled from over-exertion. As
they did some comparatively easy
stretches and range-of-motion
movements to cool down, Blair’s
right leg was seized by painful
muscle cramps, tremors running
along the quads and calf muscles,
his leg jerking spasmodically. He
cried out once, then pressed his
lips together tightly and surged
upward to frantically grab at his
thigh with both hands,
instinctively massaging the
muscles with a desperate grip. Jim
quickly took hold of the calf and
worked at the spasms there with
knowledgeable fingers, digging in
and rubbing to the litany of
Blair’s whispered, "Shit, shit,
shit. Oh, shit. Oh, ow. Ow, ow.
Ow, ow. Oh, man, oh, shit."
He was
white with pain when the agonizing
tremors finally eased, going limp
with relief as he lay back down,
and Jim continued to firmly and
efficiently knead the muscles in
his leg with a sure grip, then
worked the length of the other leg
for good measure. After a moment,
Blair resumed the range-of-motion
exercises with his arms, clearly
too tired to move, but persevering
anyway, and Jim carefully worked
his feet and ankles, aware of what
his Guide needed more from
instinct than from the routine.
"Better?" Jim asked softly. Blair
simply nodded.
"Bath,"
Jim said uncompromisingly, knowing
it was the better option for
fatigued, overworked muscles, and
completely unwilling to go over
the arguments against showers.
Upshot: showers weren’t safe, and
Blair couldn’t manage them alone,
and Jim didn’t trust his body
anymore not to react. For a long
time, guilt and sorrow had kept
attraction and arousal for his
altered Guide non-existent; now it
occurred regularly and at
will—perfectly normal if his
partner were a functioning,
consenting adult.
Blair
wasn’t. End of story.
He
wasn’t a child, either, of course.
He was something strangely in
between. Something Jim loved
deeply. Sex just wasn’t an option
anymore. Now if he could just get
his libido to take note of that
undeniable fact, life would be one
hell of a lot easier.
And
that meant avoiding showers where
he would have to undress and get
in with his wobbly Guide. Sure, he
helped a naked Blair in and out of
the tub, touched him while washing
his back (tried not to look while
Blair knelt with his help and
washed his butt, his genitals),
but at least he was still
dressed and could conceal his
reaction to the man.
Gotta
install that bench and handrail so
he can sit in the shower. And get
a rougher textured bath mat.
It
wasn’t procrastination. It was
just that making the place
accommodate Blair’s needs was an
ongoing process—researching
the changes as much as
implementing them. The adaptations
weren’t things you thought about,
or knew even existed, until they
were necessary. But the shower
setup could enable Blair to be
more independent, and could allow
Jim to hover on the other side of
a closed curtain to monitor for
difficulties. This weekend, he
promised himself as he checked out
the bath water—Blair liked it
hotter than Jim would have made it
on his own and had consistently
complained that the water was too
cold, that he was freezing,
so now Jim tested the temperature
according to his friend’s
preferences, a nude Blair waiting
in tired silence on the toilet
seat.
"You
got pretty sweaty, there,
Chief—want me to wash your hair?"
Blair
nodded. "It’ll stink if you
don’t."
"Okay."
It wouldn’t, really, to normal
senses, but Jim did find it mildly
unpleasant, and he realized that
Blair meant his response with that
in mind. It was a chore; Blair’s
hair required more than a quick
going over. It was a
lather-rinse-repeat process (heavy
on the rinsing, with Blair’s thick
profusion of curls), followed by a
conditioner combed through first
with fingers to loosen the worst
of the snarls, then a wide-toothed
de-tangling comb, then another
rinse. Thankfully, Blair just
usually let it dry on its own to
promote the curls, which tonight
meant a towel-drying, then a towel
on the pillow when he went to bed
with it damp.
Jim had
never once thought of asking him
to cut it, even now, when he would
have given a small third world
country to just fall into bed. Or
at least, never since his first,
initial contempt of the
anthropologist’s appearance, of
beauty that even then had
discomfited him with a twinge of
interest, of desire that did not
sit well with his macho
sensibilities. That reaction had
faded fairly early in their
relationship as Blair’s courage
and loyalty, his tenacity and
willingness to go to any lengths
to help Jim edged out his previous
distrust, and he’d been able to
appreciate Sandburg’s beauty as
simply part of Sandburg, pleasing,
but no more remarkable than any of
the other traits that bound him to
his Guide. The hair was a major
component to the appeal, and if it
took half an hour to wash it, then
that was what it took.
Getting
Blair into the tub ("Feels great,
Jim," Blair said with a sweet,
blissful smile, eyes closed as he
sank into warm water), Jim kept a
secure grip on his upper arm as he
helped the other man back to dunk
his hair under, then sat him up.
Kneeling beside the tub as Blair
obligingly tipped his head way
back—exposing a strong throat and
prominent Adam’s apple that Jim
avoided noticing—he quickly worked
up a lather and scrubbed
efficiently at Blair’s scalp, the
vigorous ministrations of his
fingers jostling the other man’s
head matter-of-factly. Blair
simply endured it complacently,
bringing his hands up to help keep
the soap and water out of his eyes
as Jim used a plastic jug to scoop
and dump water over his hair. Soap
in the eyes was not
something Blair endured, calmly or
otherwise, and Jim did his best to
avoid it after his first
misguided, unconcerned,
be-a-man-about-it attempts to
rinse Blair’s hair months ago—the
results had not been pretty. Oh,
all the soap was out of those
streaming curls; it had been the
streaming eyes, the barely
verbal curses and the baleful
red-eyed glare that had originally
clued Jim in, prompting the
be-a-man retort. Removing the
fists knuckling at his eyes, Blair
had given Jim such a look of
disbelieving reproach that Jim
didn’t know whether to laugh or be
ashamed of himself.
"Hurts,
Jim," Blair had said angrily, eyes
squeezing shut against the sting,
and had fumbled to take the
plastic container from Jim,
frustrated when Jim didn’t let
him. "Stop it! Me." Jim
had ignored him that time and just
gotten on with the job.
Consequently,
Blair had avoided shampooing for
over a week, and resisted
violently when Jim finally
insisted, manhandling him into it
until they were both soaked, Blair
was shaking with rage and
anticipated discomfort, and Jim
had to force his head back for the
rinse cycle, hand tight enough on
his Guide’s jaw to leave bruises.
(Even then, he reflected, he
hadn’t made the logical threat—to
just cut all the hair off and wash
the remainder with a soapy
washcloth.) It had been a lesson
that had prompted Jim to pick up a
bottle of baby shampoo, which
Naomi regretfully told him didn’t
work on adult scalps when Blair
called her to haltingly complain.
So now
Jim had learned, and washed
Blair’s hair in the kitchen sink
when he could, and took great
pains with the rinsing procedure
when they were stuck with the tub,
Blair cooperating willingly once
he realized Jim was trying to make
it a pain-free task. With the
therapy exercises a daily thing,
Blair’s hair was either sweaty or
chlorine-soaked by the end of the
session, and required washing a
lot more often than had been his
wont before the shooting, when
twice a week was sufficient. They
were going through his conditioner
like it was going out of style, he
noted ruefully as he worked it
liberally through the tangled
mass, starting on the endless task
of de-tangling. Blair spoke up as
he began to work on the opposite
side from Jim.
"I
could do this part all by myself,"
he offered, and, in fact, he was
capable of it, if slow.
"I
don’t know about you, but I’m
beat, Sandburg," Jim confessed.
"We do it together, it gets done
faster"—and you have an excuse to
touch him and look at his naked
body—"and we can both hit the
sack."
"Okay."
Blair sounded relieved.
Eventually,
the hair was done and rinsed,
Blair’s body was clean, and Jim
got a tight grip on his wet arms
and assisted him up and out of the
draining tub, wrapping a large
bath sheet around him, then
toweling his hair vigorously until
it was merely damp. Blair stood
there passively, yawning, before
surprising Ellison by sliding his
arms sleepily around Jim’s waist
and simply holding him, resting
his damp head on Jim’s shoulder.
"I love you, man," he said
quietly.
Jim
returned the embrace with some
trepidation, but his body
thankfully didn’t react with more
than a warm rush of affection, of
love and belonging, that Blair’s
arms always bestowed on him. "I
know. I love you, too."
He let
Blair hold him a moment longer,
needing it, then slowly released
him with a pat on the arm and
picked up a hand to check his
fingernails, glanced down at
small, nicely shaped feet to
assess the state of his toenails.
(Blair had always gone on and on
about how elegant and
aesthetically whole or complete or
some other bullshit New Age-speak
Jim’s feet were, waxing rhapsodic,
but Jim couldn’t see it. But Blair’s
feet were small and precise, and
he just liked them.) Thank god, no
clipping required.
Seeing
that his partner was moving in
slow-mo, Jim took over the
drying-off, then hustled him into
the boxers and t-shirt Blair had
voted for a few days ago,
banishing the pajamas Jim had been
putting him into each night (‘Man,
they twist me all up. Get rid of
’em’), then turned the unresisting
man to face the sink and handed
him his toothbrush. Blair fumbled
with the toothpaste cap, took
three attempts to get paste on the
bristles while Jim stood there
wondering if it was ever gonna
happen, then slowly and carefully
brushed his teeth. After spitting
one last time into the sink, he
tried to aim the toothbrush handle
into the small hole of the holder,
and finally gave up with a sigh,
his fingers uncooperative, and
simply passed it back to Jim, who
took it gratefully and stuck it in
the slot.
"You
want me to read to you before bed?
Or you wanna watch some TV?" Jim
offered. It was a little before
Blair’s internal clock usually
declared lights-out, but his
flagging demeanor had exhaustion
written all over it, and Jim hoped
the answer would just be ‘bed’,
which was where he’d be headed
right after.
The
curly head shook slowly. "’M
really tired. Aren’t you tired,
Jim?" he said, the question
clearly rhetorical as Blair’s gaze
assessed his condition. "You said
you were beat."
"I am."
"Gimme
another hug." Without waiting for
Jim’s foregone consent, Blair
hugged him again, fiercely, then
smiled up at him. "‘Night, Jim."
"‘Night,
buddy." Jim squeezed him back.
"The rail’s down, so you can get
into bed. I’ll bring you your
medication."
Blair
nodded, and headed off to his
room, limping gait unsteady
without his brace, hand trailing
along the wall, his voice floating
back. "I don’t like the rail, Jim.
I feel trapped."
"Not
open for discussion, Chief," Jim
said amicably from the kitchen.
When he reached Blair’s room, the
younger man was ensconced in the
bed, the covers a little out of
whack, his damp hair on the
pillow.
"I
forgot the towel."
"I’ll
get it." Jim gave him his
medication, then got the towel and
placed it over the pillow as Blair
lifted up to accommodate him, then
straightened the covers around his
Guide. He was pulling up the rail
and locking it into place, when
Blair said softly, "Kiss me."
Jim
looked at him for a moment then
leaned down to gently kiss Blair’s
prickly cheek. Blair grabbed his
shirt front before he could rise
and leaned up to kiss him back—on
the mouth. Flustered, Jim turned
so that the kiss landed on his
cheek instead, the soft, warm
pressure of Blair’s lips
lingering, and felt Blair’s
unwavering gaze as he stood up,
feeling uncomfortable and
uncertain. "Uh, g‘night."
Blair
closed his eyes tightly. "‘Night,"
Blair said, and the weariness in
his voice didn’t seem to stem
solely from physical fatigue.
"One
more day, then camping. One more
day," the fervent whisper followed
Jim out the door as he shut off
the light.
"Yeah,
Chief," he said softly. "One more
day." A familiar scent from
Blair’s bath-warmed body drifted
out with him, and he realized why
he had felt uncomfortable at
Blair’s kiss. It wasn’t like Blair
didn’t occasionally kiss him on
the mouth, but the kisses were
never . . . they weren’t . . . The
smell wasn’t just soap, or Blair’s
natural scent, but also . . .
pheromones. They were faint, but
they were present. Blair hadn’t
given off pheromones since before
his injuries—or, at least Jim
didn’t think he had. No wonder
he’d felt odd.
Fifteen
minutes and a quick shower later,
he fell into bed, and, nearly
asleep, turned up his sense of
hearing and listened for the
comforting sounds of his Guide
sleeping.
He got
one hell of a shock.
Breathing,
not slow and even as expected, but
quick, hard. Panting. Heartbeat
pounding. Smell kicked in: scent
of pheromones and arousal heavy in
the air, redolent with
pre-ejaculate. More sounds: small
vocalizations of need, rustle of
bedclothes, movement of the
mattress . . . friction of skin on
smooth, taut skin, its rhythm
increasing. It went on for what
seemed like an eternity while Jim
lay there, his heart pounding, the
sounds inexplicably terrifying him
for a moment or two. Finally, with
a small choked sound, Blair
obviously climaxed, the scent of
semen hitting his nose. Then, a
soft sigh, more rustling sounds .
. . was Blair cleaning himself up?
Eventually, heartbeat and
respiration falling into sleep
rhythms . . .
Without
thinking, his own heart still
racing in that odd panic, Jim got
out of bed and padded down the
hall to Blair’s bedroom and stood
in the open doorway. Bringing up
his sight, he gazed into the dark
room at his sleeping partner, the
smell of male arousal and
completion still strong, Blair’s
body sprawled loosely, utterly
relaxed, his features peaceful.
Beautiful. Mouth slightly open,
dark lashes contrasting with pale
skin. Jim shivered, watched a
moment longer, his heart gradually
slowing to normal, then ruefully
went back to bed, not sure what he
felt, not sure what was causing
that weird hollow in the pit of
his stomach.
Finally,
the day catching up with him, he
slept.
changes
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