I do not own these characters. Just playing here. No money made, nothing of value to give up.

My first Sentinel fic. Be kind, I am still getting a (metaphorical) feel for Jim and Blair. For Alyjude who inspires, Legion who is just plain terrific, and Saraid who was one of my first TS slash touchstones. I am a fan. A quiet fan, but a fan none-the-less. As always, for G. You know who you are.

In first person POV- pretty obvious really. Pre-slash. Tame. PGish for a couple of bad words. Oh, and there are song lyrics, but this is not a song-fic per se. Song lyrics and album information at the end of the story for the two slightly quoted songs. 'nuff said.

Begin Part the First:

Sure, I bitch and moan about the tests. I mean who wouldn't? But really? They're the best things I do. The best. Don't believe me? Fine. Not my problem.

I was in the Army. Covert ops. If there is one thing I know about it is practicing something until it is instinctive. That doesn't mean I don't hate doing them. And yes, I do hate doing them. Correction; I hate that I need to do them. But I also need the control. And the tests offer that to me. So I'm in training again. I'm nearly forty years old, and I'm back in boot camp. Weirdest damn boot camp I ever did see, with - what was that I called him? A neo-hippie witchdoctor? He is all that and more, but...

At first I wasn't looking at this the right way 'round. I thought of the senses as a nuisance. I thought I wanted them gone. But they are the best weapon in my well trained, quite considerable, "warrior" arsenal. And they're useful in more ways than offensive. They are the best early warning system, weather predictor, the best fucking edge over the criminal element. Sandburg would flip if he knew I thought all that.

I have been told on occasion that I am an anal-retentive control freak. And that I have - how do those tree-hugger people put it? Ah yes, I have "issues" with control - quotes and all. Well, I figure I cannot control something I don't work with and use on a daily basis. It's like working out. I need my body to perform as I am accustomed to it performing. It can't do all I require of it if I don't work out. Same thing with my senses. So I work them out.

I hate that he has got me pegged. He takes one look at me and can catalogue all my moods, and emotions, and responses. So I bitch and complain about the testing, but between you and me and the lamppost? I practice each one of them every chance I get. Stretching my senses to the fullest. Relaxed on my bed I can check out each individual person within a two block radius- tracking by their heartbeat. I keep my fingers tuned into the nubbly stitching on my bed spread. That monofilament thread may be touted to be "invisible" but it feels like corrugated cardboard to me. Piggybacking smell to hearing, I know when each of them last ate, and what they had, whether they showered that morning or the night before (or not for a few days), if they got lucky last night (or, again, not for a few days), if they drink coffee in the morning or not, and sometimes what brand of toothpaste they use.

I usually only do this Sentinel Check of my neighborhood late at night or early in the morning, when only a few people are out and about, and the bakery downstairs has just begun to bake for the day. And I keep to the public areas, the streets, parks, stores. No residences. Ever. I don't think I want to know how many times a week the Perkins' on the next block make love, or the arguments the Strangs have across the street, as their marriage dissolves. I don't want to know little Sally Kimball cries herself to sleep every night because she hates school. I don't want to hear the horrible hateful things people say and do to each other in "the privacy of their own home." I also don't want to know the good stuff. Ever since Sandburg figured out I can sense human pheremones, I smell enough of it on the people I come into contact with on a daily basis, I don't need to seek it out.

I got enough of that type of eavesdropping when my senses were out of control, and during sensory spikes the first couple of years. Thanks to Sandburg and his testing, I can filter out the private spaces in the neighborhood, and focus on the overall well being of my... tribe, silly as that sounds in modern day Cascade. Even now when the occasional spike hits I get glimpses of other people's lives I'd be more comfortable not knowing.

So, yeah. After the bitching and complaining is over, and I've gotten Sandburg to agree to do some odd little thing I can't be bothered with just to keep him off balance, I do the tests. Sure, I feel a bit like a lab rat. But I did stranger things in the Army that made me feel a whole lot worse for less personal or professional gain. When you weigh Sandburg's ingenious thoughts on new ways for me to use my senses, it's worth it. The more control I have, the more ways I use them, the more I need Sandburg to guide me. He is an odd combination of guru, drill sergeant, and mad scientist, and I can't even imagine the hole in my life and soul if he ever left me.

In the immortal words of some random, weird, hippie folk singer he listens to (I think she is a friend of his mother's) -- for me? He is 'the kind of love I'll never recover from.'

But if you tell him, no one will ever find your body, capiche?

End Part the First.

Begin Part the Second:

He says he hates them. But occasionally, (okay, very occasionally) I find him practicing. Practicing, you ask? Oh, yes. When he thinks I'm not paying attention. He gets this little crinkle between his eyes when he is concentrating on one of his senses. Gives him away every time. I've studied the man for years. I know he grumbles and groans just to keep some control over what he does when. And he'll even bargain chores around the loft just to keep me in line.

I try to make the tests as painless as possible, and I know he practices when I'm not around. When no one is around. It worried me at first. What if he zoned? What if he ignored danger because he was trying one of my made-up-off-the-top-of-my-head-tests? But I realised, when he began making huge strides in actually using his unique abilities, that he's practicing them. Probably somewhere he feels safe, like the loft. Probably when I am concentrating on other things, or maybe not there at all.

It took some time to figure him out, but I now work new training suggestions into casual conversations, mentioning a next step, or something he should "remind me to bring up later, when we have time to work on it," and next thing I know he's using these techniques in the field. How do you think he picks up on concepts like "piggybacking" so quickly? If he wasn't as dedicated to being a tribal protector he wouldn't care. He wouldn't view it as such a huge responsibility to learn how to use his senses to the fullest. He is growing in his abilities so fast I can barely keep up with him, even as he protests hotly through my suggestions and tests as he does.

I've noticed that there is no real heat behind any of his protests. Jim is not a stupid man. In fact he is really very intelligent, he just doesn't feel the need to show how smart he is. I envy that sometimes. He is so very confident in his own abilities that he doesn't feel the need to fight for territory like practically every other man I know.

For all our advances, man is basically two steps from caveman status. And I mean all of us. Don't believe me? Think "mob mentality." Think LA riots. Think holocaust. Think any war in the last century. Think weapons of mass destruction. Is it sane to keep building weapons that can kill every life on the planet fifty times over? Engineer viruses that can wipe out whole populations? These trends are specific to the human race, though. No other animal on the planet visits such horrors on each other, on such a grand scale.

Perhaps we need our tribal protectors more now than we ever have before. These special individuals who can do incredible and amazing things, things no one will believe without seeing it first hand. And perhaps the very fact that they must work in secret, when in the times they were recognized and known they held high rank within the social structure of the tribe, also says something about the evolution of the human race. We've lost something precious those so-called uncivilized heathens knew. Everyone has a place in the tribe, and it takes all of us to survive. We, as a race, have lost that. We no longer know that depending on others doesn't make us weak, it makes us strong.

Anyway, I was talking about Jim and his senses before I wandered off topic. Specifically, Jim working on his senses when he thinks I'm not paying attention. I've studied the man for almost four years, now, and I know the way to get him is with honey, not vinegar. So if I play along like I don't think he's taking me seriously, if I 'suggest' something gently, maybe mention it offhand, that's when I'm most likely to get Jim to do something... Because he'll have thought about it, considered it, seen that it is a good suggestion, and then he'll feel comfortable taking it, because it will have been his idea to do so. I push, and he turtles right up. He'll pull back and I'll be lucky if he even grunts in my direction. But if I drop the Reese's Pieces one at a time, I'm more likely to get ET to follow me home.

Cultural references aside, we've got an unspoken language working here. I don't really think he doesn't know I'm on to him, it's just the way we operate. Our very own 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. I'll mention something casually, and if a week or so later he comes back with a seemingly random question, I'll know he's done the thinking required, and wants more information to assist him.

I suppose that this is the reason why I've been thinking lately of just risking it all- the past four years of friendship, roommates, partners. Maybe one of these days I'll just give him something more to ponder than the next interesting thing he might be able to do with his senses. Maybe one night after dinner, cleanup, and TV, I'll just let it slip. 'Oh, Jim, just an FYI, a little 411- I'll love you til the day I die, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.' And I'll slip into my bedroom and shut the door for the night and just let my confession stay out there in the universe.

In my most private fantasies, he'll let it percolate in the back of his brain for a while, and decide for himself that he loves me too, and we'll be together forever.

Sappy.

It'll never happen. But maybe someday I'll have the courage to own up to how I feel and can stop wondering if tonight is 'the night when I cross the line, is tonight the night that something happens?'

End Part the Second.

...So here am I lookin' at you
Oh, tell me what are we gonna do?
Am I destined to be a regret?
Are you that one I'll never forget?
Years from now will we curse the day You let me let you walk away?
Isn't this too dear a price to pay
For the freedom of going separate ways?

This is the kind of love you never recover from Don't tell me that I'm gonna find another one to take your place I never will escape the truth
At times like this when the moon is right When the air is foggy like it is tonight I'll think about how sweet life would be if you would stay with me Oh stay with me
This is the kind of love you never recover from Don't tell me that I'm gonna find another one to take your place Try to face the truth
Let me hold you close tonight
The fog has lifted and the moon is so bright think about how sweet life would be if you would stay with me Oh stay with me
This is the kind of love you never recover from This is the kind of love you never recover from.

*Excerpted from "The Kind of Love You Never Recover From," which is by singer/songwriter Christine Lavin, on her album Attainable Love (and the not very flattering description of her is wholly Jim Ellison... no offense intended).*

...Is tonight the night when I cross the line? Is tonight the night something happens? I feel wild, I feel goosed,
I feel scared, I feel juiced,
I fell bounced like a ball,
What I don't feel is small,
I feel where I belong
I feel strong most of all...

*Excerpted from "Cross the Line," a song in the 1996 musical Big based on the movie of the same name. This particular song also seems to fit Blair pretty well.*

End Duet by Etakyma: etakyma@yahoo.com

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