Disclaimer: I'm not making any money off of this, so please don't sue me. I just can't get these guys out of my mind...but they belong to Paramount and Pet Fly.
Warnings: none, really. Some very mild pre-slash, and some language. Spoilers for Siege, The Debt, Cypher, and Love and Guns.
I read a post somewhere online where the writer was ranting about how cold and inconsiderate Jim was towards Blair at the end of Love and Guns, and I so did not see that, so I wanted to write a fic describing Jim's thoughts after the episode ends. And me being me, I just can't help throwing a little slash in there...
Written for SenseXangstRevisited dues, August 2006. However, most of the stuff in italics was written by Bruce Kalish, who wrote Love and Guns. Not betaed, so all mistakes are mine.
oooOOOooo
"Have you been talking to Drennan? I'm trying to have a little Chinese food here and she's telling me that MSG is a hallucinogen. I think she needs some talking to. Would you straighten her out? Want some noodles?"
"Not right now, okay, Jim?…"
"All right."
Jim turned and slowly walked back to the dining room table, poking at the noodles in his bowl. Damn. In the few months he'd known Sandburg, he'd never known him to let anything affect him this badly.
Drennan looked up as he approached. "Your partner's not joining us?" she asked.
"No, not right now. I think he's pretty beat. Long day," Jim said, sitting down and putting his bowl on the table. He'd lost his appetite. He tried, but couldn't block, the nearly inaudible hitches in breathing he could hear coming from Sandburg's room. Suddenly he realized that while he'd been listening, or trying not to listen, Drennan had been talking. "Sorry, I didn't catch that?" he said.
"I said, how did you end up with a civilian partner, anyway?" she asked. "You hardly seem the type to put up with someone like that."
Jim bridled. "What do you mean by that?" he said, a little more heat in his voice than he intended.
Drennan raised her uninjured hand as if to ward him off, laughing. "Easy there, down, boy. It's just that you're ex-military, pretty straight-laced, by-the-book…I just figured you'd find someone that…uh…creative a pain in the ass to have around."
Jim reached for his beer, a smile playing around his lips. "Well, I won't deny that Sandburg can approach things in a pretty unique way, but it's worked for us so far." He took a swig from his bottle; at Drennan's raised eyebrow he put the bottle down and pointed a finger at her. "His first day on the job, the day he came to the station to get his credentials, was the day the station was taken over by Garrett Kincaid and the Sunrise Patriots."
Her eyes widened. "I remember hearing about that. That was just a few months ago."
Jim nodded. "I was out at lunch, but Sandburg was inside when the takeover went down. He took out two of Kincaid's men, without a gun, and managed to keep his cool even when he got captured."
"Hell of a first day," she conceded. "I seem to remember something about you handcuffing yourself to a helicopter?"
"Yeah, Kincaid was trying to escape. He had Sandburg with him. I was hanging on to the helicopter skid, but if it hadn't been for Sandburg, I don't think I would have been able to close the deal. He pushed Kincaid out of the helicopter, and then used a flare gun to force the pilot to fly back to the station." Jim smiled and shook his head, half in admiration and half in disbelief over his partner's actions that day.
Drennan gave him a speculative glance. "Okay, so he's braver than he looks, I'll give you that. But if he wants to be a cop, why doesn't he just join the academy?"
Jim chuckled. "He doesn't want to be a cop. He's a grad student in anthropology. He's…" He paused for a moment. Sometimes it was hard to remember the cover story. "He's writing his dissertation on cops, something about a closed society, so he asked Simon if he could follow me around."
"And you were okay with that?" she asked, eyebrows raised in disbelief. "'Cause you certainly didn't seem happy having some Fed tagging along."
Jim grinned at her, patting her on the cheek as he rose to clear the dishes. "Aw, don't sell yourself short, Drennan. Now that you've got that major-league chip off your shoulder, you're darn fun to have around." She made as if to help him, but he waved her off and returned to the table with two fresh beers.
"Seriously, the fact that Sandburg's not a cop turns out to be an asset a lot of the time. We had a serial killer here in Cascade, David Lash…" God, would he ever be able to speak that name without that sick, twisting feeling in his guts? He couldn't remember ever feeling so helpless. In spite of his assurances to Simon, he hadn't been at all confident that he'd made the right choice. Carolyn had urged them to consider other possible sites, which was the smart thing to do, but all he could think about was that the clock was ticking and time was running out. Even as they'd gone into action, he'd been terrified that his hunch was wrong, that they'd find nothing and he'd return to the loft only to find Blair in the bathtub, staring up at the ceiling with empty eyes, yellow scarf tied around his neck…the moment he'd heard Blair's voice, arguing with Lash, he'd felt a wave of relief so powerful it had made him momentarily dizzy.
He realized that Drennan was looking at him, an odd expression on her face; and that he had been silent for the last several minutes, lost in his memories. "Sorry," he murmured, clearing his throat, "ah…it was a pretty gruesome case. Anyway, Sandburg was the one who put it all together. He was able to go into this nightclub unobtrusively and get the information that connected the three victims. That was the break we needed – we realized that Lash was impersonating his victims, stealing their identities." Of course, it was Sandburg's work on the case that had attracted Lash to him in the first place. If he hadn't been involved…Jim dragged his mind away from that train of thought. He didn't want to relive that night again, and he really didn't want to explain it to Drennan. He'd had enough of that with IA.
"So how did he end up here?" she asked, gesturing towards the small room.
Jim snorted. "You should have seen where he was living when I met him – in a huge warehouse, with no heat, and with a Barbary ape." He shrugged in response to her look of incredulity. "I don't know, some kind of research project. Anyway, Sandburg didn't know it, but he was living next door to a drug lab. He figured it out, though, once it blew up. He didn't have any other place to go, so I agreed to let him stay here for a week…" He trailed off, remembering how his initial opposition had crumbled in the face of a pleading Sandburg. He also realized that that week had been over long ago. Maybe he should talk to Sandburg about finding his own place. The loft would be awfully quiet without him around, though…and it wasn't so bad, having a roommate. He became aware that Drennan was giving him that odd look again. "Well, the ape left after a week," he said, defensively.
"Oh, from what you've said, I can understand why you guys want him around. I'm just impressed that you were willing to look beyond the weird clothes, the long hair, and the earrings."
Jim smiled. "That's Sandburg for you. He's got a knack for worming his way into things even when you're trying to keep him out."
"I can see why he'd be a good choice to go undercover," Drennan admitted. "With his background he'd do a good job of schmoozing with Carrasco."
Jim said nothing, suddenly feeling like he'd been punched in the gut.
Drennan was silent for a moment, then looked at her watch. "It's getting late. I should go, I've got an early flight back to D.C. Can I use your phone to call a cab?"
Jim demurred, insisting that she let him drive her to the hotel; Drennan insisted that it wasn't necessary. They argued back and forth, and finally Jim gave in, but only because she agreed to let him pay for the cab. When the cab arrived, Jim came downstairs with her and made sure that the fare was taken care of. She opened the door to the cab, turned around, and gave him an awkward left-handed handshake.
"Thanks for dinner. And for the pep talk, before." She smiled at him. "It was a pleasure working with you, Detective Ellison. I hope we can do it again sometime. I promise I'll leave the attitude at home this time."
Jim grinned at her. "The pleasure was all mine, Agent Drennan. I'll look forward to it."
oooOOOooo
Drennan sighed as the cab pulled away from the curb. Rare to find a man like that in this day and age. Compassionate, yet strong; gentle, yet powerful; sensitive, yet undeniably masculine. She shook her head ruefully as the cabbie drove off down the street, unable to resist a glance back at the loft. Blair Sandburg was going to be one lucky man, if and when Jim Ellison ever got a clue.
oooOOOooo
Jim went back upstairs to the loft and cleaned up the dishes from dinner, putting the rest of the noodles in the fridge for Sandburg in case he got hungry later. He'd thought he might relax, try to find a good movie on television or something, but instead found himself wandering restlessly around the loft, looking at pictures of Sandburg on various expeditions.
Drennan's last comment still bothered him. I can see why he'd be a good choice to go undercover, she'd said. But he wasn't, Jim thought. He wasn't supposed to be undercover. He's not a cop, he hasn't been trained for that sort of thing. He was just supposed to get information...
Oh, like Sal?
Jim frowned. He could still see Sal's body on that rocky, rain-swept slope, torn and bloody. Drennan had arrived and he had turned on her, furious. Remembered fragments of their conversation floated through his mind.
I was just trying to motivate him.
Well, you motivated him right into a body bag. You happy?
…we need information…
…I don't see any information. All I see is a corpse.
Money was Sal's weakness; Jim had yelled at Drennan for giving him $500, knowing that the snitch wouldn't be able to control himself, that he'd talk too much and get in trouble. But was he any different? He had used Maya as a lure to motivate Blair to dig up information on Carrasco. He knew how Sandburg was around women; hell, he'd dated more women in the few months Jim had known him than Jim had dated in his entire life. Shouldn't he have known, shouldn't he have foreseen that Blair was going to fall for Maya?
You're supposed to protect your partner, Drennan had said. But he hadn't. He'd practically shoved Blair into the lion's den, unprepared and vulnerable. By the time he'd realized his mistake, Blair was in too deep; he couldn't make Blair see what kind of danger he was in.
If Maya hadn't called him…his knees suddenly turned to water and he found himself in front of the curtain to Blair's room, gripping the doorjamb to hold himself upright, suddenly struck by a vision of that rocky slope again, only this time the torn and mangled body was Blair's…
He clung to the jamb until he regained his equilibrium, then moved silently inside. Blair lay on his back, deeply asleep, one arm flung up above his head, his face turned away from the door. Jim moved to the side of the bed and looked at his sleeping partner. His heightened senses could detect the salt in the air, but he didn't need Sentinel sight to see the tear tracks streaking Blair's face.
The funny thing was, just a few weeks ago he'd thought that Blair might have a thing for…him. After the incident with Lash, he'd been determined to see that Blair got some rudimentary firearms training. One Saturday he'd taken him down to the range and taught him the basics. The two of them had been in the small, enclosed space for several hours. Plus, he'd had his hands all over Blair, teaching him the proper grip, showing him how to aim, adjusting his stance. He'd been pretty sure that he'd caught the scent of arousal off of him. Not that he'd minded…
Jim pushed that thought unceremoniously to the darkest recesses of his brain. Enough of that, Ellison, he told himself. Those kinds of thoughts will get you nowhere. Clearly you were wrong. He's straight as an arrow, or he wouldn't have fallen so hard for Maya.
He realized that Blair had fallen asleep fully dressed, and on top of his blankets and coverlet. He didn't want to wake him up, but he knew he'd get cold if left like this. Coming to a decision, he turned on his heel and walked silently from the room.
He went upstairs and dug around in the back of his closet until he found what he was looking for: a quilt that his mother had made for him when he was little. It was one of the few memories he had of her, her sitting in the evenings sewing by the fire while his father watched television. He shook it out. It smelled a little musty – it had been years since he'd last used it – but it was thick and warm.
He took the quilt downstairs and went back into Blair's room. Leaving the quilt on the floor momentarily, he went to the foot of the bed and slowly untied Blair's shoes, being careful not to wake him. He slid Blair's shoes off and then picked up the quilt and covered him with it, tucking it in around his feet. Blair sighed and shifted restlessly, muttering something. Jim ruthlessly squelched the sudden impulse to stroke his hair; he reached out instead and gently squeezed his shoulder.
He went back into the living room, feeling a little more settled. He watched TV for a while, the volume turned low. After the news was over, he flipped off the TV and made his usual evening circuit around the loft, checking windows and doors, making sure everything was secure. He stopped at the curtain across Blair's door and listened, but heard only the even, deep breathing and the slow, steady heartbeat of deep sleep. He paused at the staircase to his bedroom, looking up, and then headed back to the couch. He stretched out, pulling the afghan from the back and covering himself with it. He figured he'd sleep down here tonight. Just in case Blair woke up and needed something.