The Sentinel and all related characters are the property of Paramount and Pet Fly Productions. No copyright infringement is intended. Please don't sue me. There's no money, property nor prospects, to speak of. Only two dogs, Teddy Bear, the spawn of hell and BooBoo Bear, his big old donkey girl sister. (Trust me, you do not want to go there.) No betas were hurt in this writing of this piece. All mistakes are mine.
This story was written for Suki, my Moonridge Auction story winner.
Being the peach that she is (and one of the most patient people on earth), she's graciously agreed to let me post this to SXF. Thanks!
F.Y.I.:
J.G. - Junior Grade.
Willie Mosconi -- 14-time world pool champion from 1941 to 1957.
Mensch -- Yiddish term meaning a good, kind, decent, human being.
Bufonophobia - Fear of toads.
At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one's lost self.
BRENDAN FRANCIS
So where the hell are they?
Put the folders where I can find them, I asked nicely.
Nowhere in sight. Typical.
Organize the evidence shots so that I don't have to go hunting for them like the last time, I reminded him pointedly.
I could find Jim Hoffa easier.
And where was the blood analysis and toxicology report from forensics? I knew Serena worked overtime to have them ready.
Well, by process of elimination - I "am" a detective, after all - if the paperwork wasn't on my partner's desk or the "in" basket, and not in mine either, it had to be put away for safekeeping. R-i-g-h-t. It was so safe, nobody would be able to fool around with it. Because nobody could find it.
Everything I needed to finish this bitch of a report had to be in one of the drawers. And that was going to be dicey.
For a while now, life with my roommate was like the whole Tupperware episode, but in reverse. Everything of Detective Blair J. Sandburg's had a "Do Not Enter" stenciled on it. "His" files. "His" food. "His" life. It was fucking infuriating.
And pretty much what I deserved. I'd been trying my level best to be good about leaving Blair's stuff untouched. I hadn't put my hand on any of his "property," here or at the loft, unless I asked first.
My rationale and excuse for everything used to be that I needed what I needed when I needed it. Sandburg rolled with the punches back then. "Hey, no problemo, little buddy. Mi casa es su casa." Nowadays, it was a different story. "S2D2, Jim - 'Same Shit, Different Day.' Stop it."
Easier said than done. And anyway, this wasn't personal. I wasn't tossing a friend's pace for contraband or illegal substances, for God's sake. This was strictly business - police business.
That was my story and I was sticking to it.
Sandburg's desk calendar read: Rachel 8:00 PM. Hell. Officer Rachel Solomon, the brunette who'd just graduated from the Academy, with legs up to his chin. The first time I met her, she'd certainly made it no secret that she liked the cut of Blair's jib just fine.
Had Sandburg been dating her?
Was it casual, or something heading toward serious?
And why didn't I know anything about it?
Good question. Too bad there wasn't a good answer floating around.
Back to finding the reports.
The center pull-out desk drawer held no big surprises: paper clips, a few Bics, refills for the stapler and tape dispenser, along with a really old packet of sunflower seeds (I could read the "DATE TO BE SOLD BY" on the cellophane. My partner should have dumped them in October.) Also rattling around was a well-thumbed, leather-bound copy of THE PROPHET he'd gotten as a gift from his mom when he was maybe six or seven. (Naomi Sandburg thought it was a better primer than the "See Dick and Jane" books most first graders read.) Over the years, the book had traveled halfway around the world with the two of them. Sandburg told me that as a kid, he'd sometimes slept with it - his version of a teddy bear, I guess. The little volume used to be kept on Blair's nightstand, back at the loft.
Not anymore. Like a lot of stuff that was important to my partner, it had migrated to the bullpen desk or his locker, as if he needed someplace "safe" to store his valuables. Someplace away from me. The thought of that released weird, nameless fears deep in my gut.
And I still hadn't found the freaking Parnell files. The left-hand verticals were teeming with notes, manuals, and copies of software begged, borrowed, and stolen -- sorry, 'allocated' -- over the last few years, each finagled by Sandburg the Schmoozer from some poor, helpless sap who didn't see it coming. (It's impossible to say "no" to the guy. Believe me, I've tried.)
The top right-hand drawer housed my partner's back-up gun; the middle one, a pair of lightweight gloves Blair bought from a street vendor two Saturdays ago. It had actually been sunny that afternoon, so we took in a neighborhood fair together. It was like the old days when Sandburg first started living at the loft, and there was always some event he'd drag me to. "You'll have a great time, man. Trust me." (Coming from Blair's mouth, I thought those were two of the scariest words in the English language.) He paid little or no attention when I carped about never having any time to myself, and about having him underfoot day in, day out. Perfect example: right after Larry, the Barbary Ape, trashed the loft and made his 'great escape,' Sandburg decided I needed a little relaxation, which translated into "Road Trip." The kid muscled me into attending some highbrow lecture about Tlingit fertility rites. In Tacoma, no less. I was halfway there before I realized he hadn't said 'Klingon.' (You should have heard me bust his chops about that.)
Yeah, back when the bloom was on our rose, Sandburg always had a quick answer to my grumbling about how I'd always been alone, worked alone - and liked it. "That's no way for a sentinel to be, Jim," he'd informed me more than once. "You gotta go with the floe. Press the flesh. Meet your tribe head-on."
"What, like a collision?" I groused. But I did it. I listened to Blair and "went with it." Right up to the day he stopped talking about everything under the sun, except for the basics. You know what I'm getting at -- that awful space between two partners when they have nothing much to say to one another any more. Polite, sterile, numbing. What's the Old Spanish proverb? "Be careful what you wish for - you may get it?" I didn't know how good I had it. You never do, until it's gone. So, I'd gotten pretty much what I'd wanted. Fuck the Spanish and their proverbs.
I yanked the bottom drawer open, with more force than I meant to use. Everything shifted to the front. Something caught my attention: a slightly worse-for-wear envelope, half-buried under Sandburg's box of Panda Licorice. (He always kept a stash around, which I raided every once in a while. I'd never say it out loud, because it would have meant Blair would be right about one more thing, but I'd really come to like its pungent taste.) I pulled the envelope out for a closer look-see. This was the kind photographers used, made with a heavier gauge cardboard stock to protect the contents. My sensitive nose had no trouble distinguishing Blair's unique scent all over it (aloe, cinnamon, and Ivory soap), but no one else's. And I knew the 9" x12" envelope hadn't actually come through the mail, because there wasn't any gum residue in the center or the corner. That meant there'd never actually been a label or stamps anywhere on its surface.
FOR BLAIR SANDBURG
JUNE 21ST
"I know you think that 'what's yours is yours, and what's mine is negotiable,' Jim, but now that we're partners, I'd really like the courtesy of being 'asked' before you go looting through my things." Our captain almost bit his unlit cigar in half. He'd refereed more than a few of these set-tos between Sandburg and me. But it hadn't sounded like our usual slap-and-tickle routine. This time, it sounded ... real - not an ultimatum, but its damned first cousin.
Stung by Blair's words, and the determined look on his face, I half-nodded as I huffed, "Okay, okay," before swinging the conversation into less dangerous waters.
After that, I carefully walked the straight and narrow between me and the No Man's Land of Sandburg's newly staked territory. I hated this wall that kept us apart - even if I'd been the one who'd supplied the mortar and bricks to build it.
Fuck it. You can't go to hell more than once. (At least that's what the parish priest used to tell me and my little brother, Stevie.) Besides, who'd be the wiser? My partner was scheduled to testify in court until the late afternoon, and my senses would certainly give me a "heads up" warning of his arrival. If not, I guess Blair would just add this latest transgression to the growing list of "Things That Make Jim Ellison An Asshole."
I sniffed at the ink. No real clues there. But I figured the mystery envelope couldn't have been in this drawer for more than 90 days. That's because the desk had belonged to now-retired Detective Milt Farrington, and he'd gotten his 20-year gold watch right around the time Blair officially came on-board. My partner spread the party line around that it wasn't very cost-effective to let a perfectly serviceable piece of furniture go to waste. Good story, like most of Sandburg's yarns. But the fact of the matter was that Blair had been jonesing for the old desk. He seemed to naturally resonate with its battered, weathered look and ... "character" was the word Sandburg used. (That may explain the feelings he has about me. Had about me.)
Was the envelope one more thing brought from the loft? I didn't think so. I would have come across it at some point if Blair had stored it there. Plus, if my partner had had this out in plain sight, I guarantee it would have been a hundred times dirtier, pressed into service doubling as a drink coaster or impromptu message pad. I ran my finger under the unsealed flap, and pulled out the contents. One professionally developed photographic print appeared, its backside facing up. The "Kodak" logo was visible on the thick stock. However old it was, it hadn't been handled all that much. (If it had been, I'd have picked up whorls of fingerprints immediately, or at least, sniffed out any body oil residues on it.)
A voice in my head was yelling, "Danger, Will Robinson." Good thing I can dial down almost anything these days. As I continued playing Sherlock Holmes and paid no attention to the warning, I figured that even if my partner caught me and decided to rip me a new one, my guide would forgive me, like always. Right?
As for how my friend would react ... hell, "friend" was such a bullshit, smokescreen word. Blair was that, all right, but more -- much more. It had been that way for a while now. Even with everything that had happened in the past year, I thought we could build toward ... who was I kidding? Just the opposite was happening. I could see Sandburg slipping away from me, like going under for the third time at the Hargrove Hall fountain. And as chilling as that image was, I was even more terrified that I'd never have the guts to tell him how I felt.
When had the change occurred? Maybe it was after Danny Choi got killed. Or when that lunatic David Lash kidnapped Sandburg and I almost lost him. Desperately searching for Lash's hiding place, with the clock running, I was tortured with the "what ifs." What if Blair didn't survive this time? What if I'd found him, lifeless, a tied yellow ribbon cutting into his neck? And what if I never got a chance to tell him Sandburg was more than just a warm body helping me with "the sentinel thing?" What if I never said the words out loud and he never heard them?
Well, the mother of all guardian angels must have been looking out for us, because I got my partner back. The "what ifs" were mothballed. Blair and I fell back into our status quo - me, Major Crimes' resident hard-ass detective, him, the academic tagalong working on his thesis.
But I swear that's when the itch for my roommate got firmly implanted under my supersensitive skin. And, the universe kept kicking me in the butt to do something about it. I urged the universe to go fuck itself. Even when the whole Alex Barnes thing exploded around us and almost tore us apart for good, a better man would have bitten the bullet, sucked it up, whatever, and finally said something. Like "Glad you're not dead anymore, Sandburg." Or maybe, "Glad you're in my life, Sandburg."
Not me.
And then, the dissertation fiasco bit us on the ass. (Thanks, Naomi - call before you visit next time.) My secret - our secret - leaked out. Since Blair couldn't chance it that the world would discover my abilities, he took the incoming hit. Like every soldier who's ever fallen on a grenade to save his buddies, Sandburg stood behind a bank of microphones and did the only thing he could. He lied for me. "My desire to impress both my peers and the world at large drove me to an immoral and unethical act. My thesis "The Sentinel" is a fraud." I have that image burnt into my memory, as if it were done with battery acid.
After Sandburg's 15 minutes of fame (or infamy) were over, he was left with a second loss -- this time, his academic life and everything he'd worked so hard for. All to protect me. And STILL I couldn't come clean, couldn't confess that I loved him. What the hell does that say about me?
Sandburg might have had other options, but Simon and I couldn't let it be. We got up in his face about being a cop and my official partner. Right about where I'm standing now, we threw Blair a shiny new badge, like some kind of lifeline. Neither of us really considered Sandburg's feelings or the fact that maybe there might be a fair number of our brothers in blue who'd never thought much of Blair to begin with and were pissed at the "free pass" it seemed to be.
Somehow, we made it through. But I can't pretend it wasn't at a cost. Even though Blair was now a Detective J.G., there was something off. Life with a capital "L" seemed to be passing for normal, but only if you weren't looking too closely. We didn't discuss, argue over, or even mention any of the important stuff. All of that became "elephants on the couch" - big, ponderous threats that crowded out everything else. As we were treading water in all the muck, I did what I do best. I ignored everything, and went to Plan B. I shelved the idea of an "us" outside the bullpen -- an "us" that might have included shared bank accounts, pillow talk, buckets of lube, and playing "hide the nightstick" as often as we could. I couldn't even get near telling him that I loved him. And asking that maybe, just maybe, Sandburg could overlook my shortcomings -- like lack of hair and that I skew male - and love me back.
The "male" thing isn't an issue for me, because I've I walked both sides of the street for a lot of years now. I've always kept a low profile about my preferences. Even when I joined the Army, I mostly dated women because I liked women - still do. But I found outlets when I needed them. In those nameless, God-forsaken military backwaters, the need to feel close to another human being sometimes became overwhelming. You could always find guys looking for same-sex "accommodations" -- discreet, expedient, and as much about proximity and relief as they were about passion. If you made it back - and in Covert Ops, it was by no means a certainly - then, R&R spent in "fuck and run" mode gave you ass-throbbing proof you were still alive.
That part of my life ended after I was rescued in Peru and came back to Cascade. (What had the headline read? "Beyond the Call: G.I. Survives Jungle Ordeal.") Everything had changed. I'd survived, but everything I knew seemed to have evaporated into thin air. When you can't find a handful of people who even know your name - much less anything about you - you get royally spooked, let me tell you. You have to figure it's a sign from heaven: time to clean up your act, time to transform ex-Captain, ex-Ranger, ex-spook James Joseph Ellison back into an upright, white bread model citizen.
Into someone who'd "fit."
Big mistake. Huge, although I didn't know it at the time. If I had, I think I would have avoided the second: marrying Carolyn Plummer. (She's my ex now, in case you're wondering how that worked out.) I figured the "I do"s would help me be "normal." It might mean no more out-of-whack senses that I'd gotten saddled with in South America. No more feeling and acting like a freak. Just an average Joe/Jim with 9-to-5 job, a mortgaged house in the suburbs, two cars, and 2.3 kids to round out the picture.
Some Higher Power must have been paying attention, because the rug rats were spared Carolyn and me, and were born to some other couple. He (or She) smiled twice and sent Blair Sandburg on a collision course with me - via an exam room at Cascade General.
I don't know where I'd be now, if it weren't for Sandburg, but I can take an educated guess. I'd either be enjoying an all-expenses paid padded cell somewhere, or, I'd be lying under a police-provided headstone, killed in the line of duty because I was incapacitated by a sensory spike in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sandburg, my savior.
Even now, when I look at Sandburg, I still see my geeky rescuer, just a handful of years out of his teens (well, maybe a big handful of years). All eyes and elbows, practically falling over himself with excitement. Even back then, there was a lot more to Sandburg than met the eye: he was a world traveler a few times over even before he was "legal." (The stamps on Blair's civilian passport outnumbered mine.) At Rainier University, Sandburg was a brilliant student and respected teaching assistant. My partner could also be a grade-A pain in the ass, and as tenacious as a pit bull when he needed to be. (Combine Indiana Jones with the Energizer Bunny, and you have a rough idea of what exploded into my chaotic life.) I found that out first-hand as Sandburg got up close and personal me a sentinel - me. A living, breathing anthropological equivalent of the "Holy Grail. What did he call me? Oh, yeah ..." ... a behavioral throwback to a pre-civilized breed of man." That hooked him, alright - it gave him enough wood to build a log cabin. But it was friendship, and a sense of finally belonging somewhere, that reeled Blair in and kept him in my life.
All the same, you had to admire the kid's moxey. In his relatively short life, he survived malaria, voodoo charms, having Naomi for his mother, living in a coldwater warehouse next door to a drug lab, and me with all of my baggage.
So it should have been no big surprise that Blair survived the Police Academy. More than that, he pulled some of the highest marks the staff there had ever seen. (His scores in marksmanship and weapons training weren't too shabby, either.) When the dust finally settled, Blair graduated at the top of his class, got a diploma signed and seal and delivered from the Police Commissioner's hand, and took his place next to me in the truck and in the bull pen "officially." I figured everything would be, more or less, same-old, same-old, except now Sandburg would get a salary and actually be able to pony up some rent money. But as my partner's so fond of saying, "The only thing constant in life is change, Grasshopper." (Apparently, the kid mainlined episodes of Kung Fu when he was a college undergrad.) So, with the first paycheck came the changes.
Like Sandburg's hair. From the day we saved a busload of tourists on the Cascade Harbor Bridge, Blair had always kidded me about not cutting that mop of his if he ever attended the Academy. The most he'd ever do was tie it back and threaten it into submission with a handful of non-toxic glop. Joining the "fraternity in blue" for real was another story. The anthropologist in Sandburg saw it as a necessary rite of passage. So my partner first trimmed his mane to a manageable length. Then it got cut, pretty much, off. I almost had a zoneout when Sandburg walked in, practically hairless. But as bad as it was, if that had been the only change, I might have been able to roll with the punches.
The new wardrobe threw me for an even bigger loop. Maybe the clothes had to do with Blair's finally having that damned steady job and enough folding money to stop shopping in bargain bins or thrift shops. (He actually started buying retail. It was like one of the fucking signs of the Apocalypse.) Or it could have been that Sandburg was just tired of being my grungy shadow.
The only thing I knew was that the combination of the two -- cropped hair and clothes that actually fitted -- made my partner look polished and ... grown-up. Like some variation on a theme - the theme of Blair Sandburg, the kid I remembered who used to wear whatever the hell was almost clean and happily lived under my stairs. Without a door, even.
My reaction? I hated it. I hated it every time I looked at Sandburg's hair, now combed and actually styled, and the color-coordinated, un-flannel matching outfits he wore. I hated the fact that Blair didn't even seem to notice how edgy I was about it. And, most of all, I really hated that my opinion didn't much matter to anyone but me. At least, that's how it felt.
While I was wading in the deep end of the "feel-sorry-for-Jim-Ellison" pool, the almost-forgotten picture nearly slid out past my fingers. I made a grab for it, cursing under my breath. (Christ, I could just see trying to explain how creases and coffee stains got on the damned thing. "How did a hidden photo get splashed with cold decaf from my mug? Beats the hell out of me, chief. Uh, why do you have your service revolver pulled, buddy?").
Might as well take a look at what I was risking the Wrath of Sandburg for. I pulled the photo all the way out, flipped it over and ... God, it was a black and white portrait of Blair. Nothing recent -- maybe from around the time we first met. Sandburg's hair was long and threatening to explode around his face. He was clean-shaven, his skin unlined, his lips, full and wet, his eyes, so light they were almost transparent as he stared out of the picture ...
I've never seen anything - or anyone - so gorgeous in my life.
Even with sentinel sight, I couldn't make out the background, diffused for effect, except that it was someplace outdoors, and Blair was wearing a suit. That should have helped narrow it down. When had he ever owned, much less worn, an actual suit, other than at his own Bar Mitzvah? Sandburg was young in the picture, but not that young.
I knew the photo couldn't be from a formal PD affair, because if it were, my partner'd be in a tux, which I'd have forced him to rent. (Hey, if I have to get rigged up in a monkey suit, everybody does.) Besides, at ritzy get-togethers, Sandburg usually pulled his hair back and gelled it. (The gel always made his hair look brushed with starlight, but that's neither here nor there.)
The more I looked at the face, as striking as it was, the more I saw things I probably hadn't back then -- different layers to the whole Sandburg puzzle. The expression hinted at some unnamed, all-consuming sadness. Something that could break your heart, and maybe had his.
Damn. Where was this taken? And by whom? I flipped the photo over to the back again. A small "Photography by Danielli" imprint was at the very bottom, with an address and old phone number. (The area code for that section of Cascade had changed a couple years ago.) Danielli. It didn't ring any bells. Who was this Danielli character, why had he snapped Sandburg's picture, and why had I never seen it before? Why had my partner kept it from me? Was it just one more secret, one more bit of information placed "in the vault," away from my prying?
All of a sudden, I was royally ticked. Sure, Sandburg always talked a good game about "opening up" and "sharing," but he never really did. He kept the "Private" sign tacked up on his walls - even the invisible ones --, even with people he was supposedly close to. I wouldn't be surprised if there were gaps in what Naomi knew about her son, ones big enough to drive my Ford through.
I guess I'd been kidding myself all along. Here I'd thought I knew my partner pretty well, because I could fill up a couple of those blue books on him. There were the obvious vitals: male Caucasian, approximately 5'8," 158 lbs. Blue eyes, brown hair. No distinguishing features. (Being my guide didn't count.) No criminal record.
On the less cut-and-dry side, Sandburg had no food prejudices I'd ever observed, which meant, if push came to shove, he'd eat anything that didn't eat him first. Blair was blessed with a surprisingly good singing voice, and liked accompanying himself on the Fender Stratocaster guitar that sat in his room next to the futon. It was supposedly a gift to Naomi from legend Jimmy Hendrix. The tale Blair spun about it was a pretty damned good one, but I took anything either Sandburg told me with a grain of salt.
My partner was pierced in a few places I'd seen (and probably some I hadn't), sported no tattoos, was afraid of heights, and had had his head shrunk from the time he was in Pampers. Blair had an ear for languages, speaking several fluently, and cursing like a native in a bunch more. And because his higher education started at 16, Sandburg was always in school, whether it was teaching or being a student.
That's why one of Blair's most irritating qualities was that he knew something about virtually everything. (What's the fear of toads called? My roommate's your go-to guy.) So, it went without saying that Blair Sandburg was one smart customer.
But there were other things about Sandburg equally important. Kind, generous, perceptive, and funny as hell, one minute; quirky, unpredictable and prone to flights of "obfuscation, " the next. (If his back was against the wall, Blair could lie like a rug. At the very least, Sandburg banked around the truth like Willie Mosconi running a pool table.)
All in all, Blair Sandburg was a piece of work you didn't come across very often. Ask the throngs of women who'd camped out on our doorstep wanting a piece of the prize -- wanting Sandburg and everything he could offer. But he hadn't settled on anybody just yet. On the one or two occasions when I thought about of my partner marrying, moving out, and getting on with his life (as depressing as it was), I figured the person who'd finally have a lock on Sandburg would be as extraordinary as he was -- or the luckiest S.O.B. on the planet. Or both.
But as much as I'd learned about Sandburg in the past four years, it was only a drop in the bucket compared with what he'd amassed on his thesis subject - me. Blair knew where the bodies were buried from all the chapters of my life. He'd seen me through everything from A to Z, including some incredibly ... complicated choices in women. (The running joke around the squad room - never said when I was within earshot, mind you -- was that Jim Ellison couldn't get serious about anyone he hadn't exchanged gunfire with.)
Yeah, when I looked back on it, I had to admit that my run-ins with the Lauras, the Lilas, and the Veronicas who visited the Ellison Zone made dangling from a helicopter with a paramilitary maniac clinging to my leg look like child's play.
I couldn't stop staring at Blair's face in the picture. None of the features were perfect -- each was a little askew, missing symmetry by a few millimeters. But somehow, it all hung together. If I used words for something other than knocking out a police report, I'd probably say it was a face that you could love until five minutes past forever.
And then there were Sandburg's eyes -- eyes that could charm the devil into doing good works or make a saint think twice about sticking to the straight and narrow. Those stunners could invite you over, pull you in, and make you never want to leave. They had with me. What turned them into the ghosts I saw in the photo?
Maybe it wasn't so much a "what" as a "who." Who could have bruised that beautiful soul so badly? Who had Blair been staring at - longing for -- when the photographer snapped this?
I was so focused and oblivious to everything and everybody around me, but I didn't even hear Sandburg's entering the building, a good two hours earlier than he should have been. I missed my partner taking the elevator up and walking into the bullpen passed some of the other gold shields, dressed in his "court" outfit - sports jacket, tie, dark slacks, flashing grin -- until he was practically standing on top of me.
"Hey, guys. Hey, Jim. Would you believe Judge Tennet adjourned early --"
When Blair saw what I had in my hand, he stopped mid-sentence. Sandburg's face turned ashen, and the ever-present smile crumbled away. Everything around us -- the squad room, the other detectives, the sounds of the computers and office equipment -- faded away.
There was only me and my partner. My visibly-furious, ready-to-explode partner. Fists clenched, veins throbbing on the side of his forehead and neck, Blair struggled to keep his voice and himself under control.
When Sandburg finally spoke, his words were twisted with barely-contained rage. "Put it back."
"Chief -"
"Put it back."
"I just -"
Blair poked me in the chest with his index finger. "Did you not hear me? I SAID PUT IT BACK." I didn't know what line I'd crossed, but it must have been a doozy in my partner's book. It looked like I was going to give Pandora a run for her money in the screw-up department.
"Calm down, Sandburg." The wrong thing to say.
"No. I won't. You said ... you promised ... that you'd respect our 'agreement' ... but, there's nothing about me you respect, is there?"
"You're way off base, chief."
Blair wasn't even going to give me a chance to lie badly. "Am I? Am I, really?" Anger sizzled from every pore of his body. I could literally see it. "Uh-huh. You know what, Jim? I have to get away from you -- right now -- or I'm going to say a load of ... stuff--"
"Take it easy, chief. Give me a minute to -"
"Not this time. I am outta here." With that, my partner did an about-face. Head down, jaws clenched, he took a few running steps out past two other detectives, Brian Rafe and his partner, Henry Brown. Sandburg answered H's "How they hanging, Hairboy?" with, "Ask him - and get out of my way," as he tossed a venomous, over-the-shoulder look in my direction. That was right before he roughly elbowed past a stunned Brown.
It showed me just how upset Blair was. Sandburg would never talk or act that way to a stranger, let alone a good friend.
Except for today. I'd done it again: fired another salvo at our relationship -- another direct hit by yours truly. And then he was gone.
Shit.
I had to try to catch up with my partner. I'd just broken - or bruised the hell out of -- something between Blair and me and I needed to fix it.
"Rafe, tell Simon I'm heading out. Now. Tell him it's an emergency." I didn't wait for a reply. The guys - and that included Megan Connor, our Aussie transplant -- knew better than to question the convoluted shit that went on between Sandburg and me.
It was part and parcel of my particular brand of luck that the elevator picked today to break all land, sea, and air records to reach the parking garage. Even though I took the stairs three at a time, and kicked the basement garage door open, I arrived just as Blair's Volvo roared out of the exit on Merrick Street.
Standing there, the envelope still clutched in my hand and egg on my face, I probably looked as much of a schmuck as I felt.
Nah. Not even close.
All the way back to the loft, the old Ford acted up - stalling and backfiring at a half-dozen lights - as if it knew I'd done something to upset Sandburg. (Maybe it bore a secret passion in its truck heart for my partner.) Anyway, by the time I pulled into my regular space in front of 852 Prospect, I saw the Volvo, parked badly, with heat trails coming from its hood. It looked as mad as its owner.
From #307, I could hear cabinets slamming and questions about my parentage bouncing off the walls as clearly as if I'd been up there taking the abuse in person. I weighed whether I should do a couple of laps around the block to give my roommate extra time to cool down. All right, so I did violate Sandburg's personal space and touch his stuff without permission. Again. Sue me. Jesus, I'd touched him all the time. And he liked it. (Well, he didn't hate it or I would have stopped.) So what was it about this one particular thing - this fucking photograph - that suddenly made me glad Blair wasn't a postal worker?
Better meet fate head on. I opted for the stairs, which gave me an extra 10 seconds to figure out what I could possibly say to make things right again. I unlocked the front the door and opened it carefully, like I was going into a potentially dangerous situation. Potential, hell. My guide's working knowledge of sentinels made him the most dangerous man in the most dangerous city in America - at least to me.
I took my shoulder holster off, and hung it on its usual hook next to the door. Sandburg didn't even acknowledge my presence. He stood in the kitchen - a bag of pasta in one hand, gleaming "weapon" in the other.
"Don't even start." My partner warned, jabbing the air with a colander -- the one from IKEA big enough to use for a laundry basket. Blair's body was working on autopilot, doing what it was accustomed to do on Tuesdays. We had sort of a standing "date." It involved anything Italian for dinner and watching whatever ball game ESPN was carrying. But, not after what happened at the bullpen earlier, those plans were dead in the water.
"Chief..."
"YOU'VE GOT THE FUCKING THING WITH YOU!" Blair screeched, when he saw I still held the damned envelope in my hand. Disgustedly, he threw the bag of pasta and the colander into the sink so hard they practically bounced. I heard the veneer chip as the metal skittered across it. "This is *SO * the straw that broke the camel's back ... you go through my ... just ... beats ... the ... cake ..." Sandburg sputtered, mixing metaphors, even as he picked up a dishtowel and starting wiping the cutting board at fever pitch. His voice drifted between incensed and injured. "You're supposed to respect ...you ... you said you would ..."
Blair wasn't wrong. I had promised to respect the new parameters he'd laid out - as much as a sentinel could where his guide was concerned. "And that my room and my personal ... were going to be 'off limits.'"
Again, he was right. "I did. It is --"
"Then, I guess I need to make up a list and have you sign it. With witnesses. Notarized. The whole nine yards. The whole enchilada."
I leaned against the room stanchion hard enough to etch a line between my shoulder blades.
"What? Nothing to say? 'Panther' got your tongue?"
I took what my partner was dishing out because, in my heart, I knew I had it coming. But here was the thing, and maybe it was all tied up in the whole, weird sentinel-guide bond. Even as Blair savaged me, trying to hurt me the way he'd been hurt, I could still feel my partner's body in sync with mine. Our breathing, the blood running through our veins, and hundreds of other circadian rhythms -- they were the same. I wonder if he knew that?
"... You had - have - no right to go through 'my' desk at work. Just because you're my partner. Are you listening to me?"
"Look, Sandburg, I'm sorry. I needed your notes on the Parnell case, so I could finish up that mother of a report before Simon -"
"And what? You figured they were in with 'that'?" Blair moved like a bob-head doll as he gestured toward the envelope. "'Sorry' isn't going to cut it this time, Jim. You're up a creek." The dishrag whizzed past my left ear. "Without a frigging paddle."
Okay. If I couldn't dazzle him with footwork, maybe I could blind-side him with bullshit.
"Sandburg, I swear I wasn't rooting around to be nosy. I was just looking for ... for ..."
"You said you were looking for my notes."
"I was." I tried not sounding defensive. Or guilty. "I was ... looking for ... uh ... licorice, too."
"Licorice, huh?" I was surprised the words didn't burst apart, gnashed out as they were between my partner's small, even teeth. "You know, Jim, you are such an God-awful liar, it would take a dozen pens and three weeks to explain why."
See, this is the reason I tried not to lie to Sandburg any more than was absolutely necessary. I waved the photo toward him in a placating gesture, trying to coax Blair to come take it.
"Here, chief. And I really 'am' sorry for ... you know." I offered it the way you would if you were dealing with any other hostile primate.
But Homo sandburgicus wasn't taking the bait. "Don't 'chief' me. I'm going to take a shower and -"
"-Process?" When he heard me channeling Naomi at her worst, the temperature in the room dropped into single digits.
"Uh, no, Jim. I'm going to stay in there so long your kids will have to use cold water. Oh, and unless you want an earful, you'd better not listen in."
"I wouldn't -"
"Sure you would. You have. Just DON'T."
"Okay, okay." I shot for a tone someplace between soothing and talking a jumper off a ledge. "I'll take over dinner chores. How's that? Then, afterwards, we can sort this out. You know, talk about -"
Blair didn't even wait for me to finish. He turned on his heel, pretty damned theatrically if you asked me, and stalked down the hallway. I heard him griping under his breath as he went. "... bad enough I can't even piss ... let alone jack off ... without an audience ..."
Right before he ducked into the bathroom, Sandburg sent a withering look in my direction that could freeze hell and its suburbs. The slamming of the door guaranteed my ears would be ringing for the rest of the night. The shower was turned on at full-blast. It sounded as angry as Blair.
"If you're still tuning in, I'm just about to start lathering my balls."
My partner could really be prick when he set his mind to it. And I still hadn't found out jack shit about the picture. Better see to dinner. If that went south because of something I did or didn't do, I had a feeling I'd be eating saltines and an old can of salmon that had been here when I moved in.
Worse, I'd be eating them alone.
After putting the water on to boil for the whole-wheat angel hair, I pulled out a container of marinara sauce, dumped it into a small pan on the stove, crumpled in a few basil leaves, and started it simmering. Basil was Sandburg's favorite herb. I remembered the first time we'd cooked together, back in those distant "courtship ritual" days. Blair asked if I liked herbs. When I said no, what with the "taste" problems I'd been having, he chortled, "Too bad. 'Herb' likes yours." The kid must have laughed a solid five minutes. I looked at my roommate like he was a few so far out that buses didn't go there. I did that a lot back then. "Sandburg, tell me now, are you out of your mind?"
"No, it's right behind the 'yarrow.' But, you can use basil instead." The non sequitur answer was so stupid, it made me laugh. It was the first of many.
While the sauce warmed through, I tore up some romaine lettuce, chopped cucumbers, radishes and peppers, and tossed them into a salad bowl along with a handful of chickpeas. There was leftover garlic bread from Alfeo's Restaurant that I popped into the toaster oven.
I uncorked the Chianti Rufina, a gift from Steven the last time he visited, and tasted it. It was smooth and full-bodied. Rule of thumb: if you're going to eat your words, you might as well have a good bottle of wine to wash them down.
Forty minutes - and a tankful of hot water - later, Blair reappeared. Steam still hung onto his entire body. It made his short hair curl into unruly ringlets. My partner had shaved, so his face was smooth and glistening. With a thick towel wrapped around his neck, and wearing only soft, gray boxers, Sandburg was a wet-dream come true. And something more. It hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. There he was. The kid in the picture. Blair Jacob Sandburg, the one who'd tumbled down the rabbit hole of my life four years ago.
And don't think my dick didn't notice. I was hard like I couldn't remember being. I turned away from the cause of all the sudden activity below my belt, and tried brushing away the same invisible crumbs from the countertop Sandburg had earlier.
"Is the food ready yet, 'Martha,'?" Blair was apparently throwing me a bone, if not a full-fledged olive branch.
I wanted to return the favor.
In spades.
"I'm nowhere near being Martha Stewart, chief. I've never done time." As I was attempting some good old-fashioned banter, I felt Blair right behind me, pressing up against my ass, looking over my left shoulder to see how dinner was progressing. I jumped away from his groin like I'd been burnt by a propane torch.
"Jesus Christ, Sandburg! You're ... wet." Granted, it wasn't a great choice of words, but I figured "Your cock is so hot, the smoke detectors are going to go off," wasn't the way to go.
Blair didn't seem to notice my fancy footwork. "Dickwad."
"So, we're talking again?"
Sandburg answered by gesturing with his favorite finger - the middle one. All but ignoring me, he inhaled deeply, savoring the yeasty-smell of the capellini. "You have to keep stirring or it'll stick. Move out of the way, Jim." Blair picked up a slotted spoon and swirled the boiling water around.
It might have been wishful thinking on my part, but Blair seemed a little less hostile. Like if he were going to cut off my dick, at least he'd use something sharper than a butter knife. You have to thank heaven for little favors.
I decided not to say or do anything else. I'd let Sandburg make the first move. For the 15 minutes or so, the two of us stood there, making dinner - Blair on pasta duty, me mixing my "special" salad dressing -- like we'd done a thousand times before. I also filled the silent space by pouring my partner a glass of wine and handing it to him.
"Thanks."
Dutch courage being the order of the day, I refilled my own to the top.
"You'll like it. It's the one my brother brought us." Had Sandburg heard the emphasis I put on "us?"
Did it matter to him anymore? Had it ever? Then, I saw the envelope sitting on the coffee table where I'd laid it. Maybe he'd calmed down enough for me to broach the subject.
"So, about what the photograph ..."
"Leave it alone, Jim." Blair took a sip of chianti, before moving into the living room, and throwing himself down on the couch. I turned off everything that was cooking, and followed him, like a scent hound hot on the trail of its quarry.
"Just give me a clue here, buddy. What's the big secret?"
"No secret. Just none of your business."
"Look, chief, I don't know what I did -"
"Are you serious?" Sandburg slammed his wine down on the coffee table. "Haven't you been listening?" His hands were flailing around, telegraphing just how angry he still was.
As if I'd needed more proof, Blair kicked the edge of the table with his bare foot, which had to have hurt like blue blazes. I saw droplets of the ruby-colored liquid splashing out of the wobbling glass. What's more, his body language dared me to say anything about House Rule #134 being broken. *Unless they're in casts, no feet on the furniture. *
"You're a real piece of work, Ellison."
"I've been called a lot worse, Sandburg. Just usually not by you."
"You haven't been listening hard enough."
Years of watching and learning at the hands of Sandburg, the Guiltmaster, hadn't been wasted. "Come on, chief. Talk to me. Isn't that 'what friends do?'"
"Don't think I don't see right through you, you bastard."
"Hold on a minute." I raised my hand. "Are you saying we shouldn't even bother talking? That we're not friends enough any more?" I was hitting my guide below the belt -- hell, hitting him where he lived. It was low, I admit, but, son of a bitch, if it didn't worked.
"No, Jim! I'd never say that. Ever! If we were ... just friends ..." Blair grabbed his half-empty glass, and peered down into its heart, as though the script of whatever he was going to say was floating there. He took a gulping swallow before speaking again.
"This is so fucking hard to say ..."
"Take your time, chief. I'm not going anywhere."
"It happened at Rhonda's wedding." That was Rhonda Baxter, Simon Banks' secretary and indispensable right-hand man -- right-hand person - and Major Crime's resident miracle-worker. Rhonda got along with all of the gold shields good enough, but she absolutely adored our unofficial observer. You didn't have to be a brainiac to know why. Sandburg was the one who could fix Rhonda's computer when the techies were nowhere to be found. He'd give her plants to resuscitate. "It's another 'ex-cyclamen,' Rho'. If you can't bring it back to life, nobody can!" And Blair always remembered to ask about her younger brother who was an Air Force corporal, stationed in Germany.
On a more sobering note, Rhonda told me she'd never forget the day that Sandburg saved a lot of lives - hers and Captain Joel Taggart's included - when the Sunshine Patriots took over the police building and held them all hostage.
My partner was the first in Major Crime who knew about Rhonda's engagement. (Sandburg's data-gathering and grapevine are legendary.) Over coffee in the break room, he found out that her fianc was an up-and-coming vice-president at Sovereign Bank, in the Small Business Division. In short order, Blair also learned that Joe McAnena, the groom-to-be, was a transplanted New Yorker, an avid skier and mountain-biker who liked brewing his own beer and loved basketball. The two had been introduced by Julie Baxter, Rhonda's younger sister, had gotten a loan from Joe to open her New Age bookshop. Much against her big sister's wishes, she'd set the two up on a blind date. Rhonda and Joe were engaged a few months later. Sandburg culled all of this information in less than 15 minutes. I shouldn't have been surprised. Shooting the breeze was like mother's milk for him. (For me, it was under the heading of TMI - too much information. Actually, WTMI. 'Way too much information.') Joe's a good guy, even if he isn't a cop. In fact, he was invited to the weekly squad poker game more than once, and encouraged to leave some of his ready cash behind. Most importantly, you didn't need sentinel vision to see how happy Rhonda was.
Blair's voice drew me back. "The picture was taken right after the ceremony, when they were serving cocktails and hors d'oeuvres in the hotel garden." Sandburg and details - a union made in heaven.
"June, right?" That had been almost three years ago. The only thing I usually remember about weddings is that the bride's the one in white, the chicken tastes like vulcanized rubber with sauce on it, and I have to bring a damned gift.
"Yeah, The twenty-first." The 21st had been printed on the envelope. "At that cool place -"
"- The Westhaven. Out near the cliffs." The Westhaven Inn was one of the swankiest resorts in Cascade. If you wanted to make a splash, you had your party there. Rhonda's family was more than well off, a fact that came as a big surprise to most people in Major Crimes. (Seems kind of sad, considering we're all supposed to be hotshot detectives.) Except, of course, for Sandburg, who knew. Rhonda's parents had been friends of the hotel's original owners, which was how they landed a prime Saturday in June for the wedding.
My partner and I went stag, but for different reasons. Blair was solo because Sam from Forensics had found out about Jenny from Rainier. (Even back then, I told the kid if he wasn't careful with his 'double-booking' women, he'd end up singing soprano.) I lone-wolfed it. With my senses as hinky as they were back then, I didn't want to take the chance of zoning out in front of a date.
"You were standing next to Carolyn under one of the flowering trees. She was in a yellow sundress. You wore your dark blue suit." My partner stopped his recollection for a minute, as if the whole scene were playing out at the Sandburg Drive-in in his mind and he didn't want to skimp on the details. "Carolyn leaned toward you. You lowered your head and she whispered something in your ear." There was a wistfulness in Blair's voice as he continued. "You laughed and gave her a smile, Jim. Right then, I knew I wanted that smile for ... me."
"Sandburg-"
"No. Let me get this out ..." My partner's Adam's apple bobbed frantically as he swallowed. " ... While I still have the nerve." From the erratic breathing, I wondered if Blair was on his way to hyperventilating. "I also knew it was never going to happen. NEVER. IN. A. MILLION. YEARS. If it wasn't your 'ex,' then it'd be Beverly Sanchez or Wendy Hawthorne or somebody new." Sandburg ran two fingers back and forth across his eyes. "Never me. I mean, who was I trying to kid? It was just some pipe dream ... that even if you were ... I probably wouldn't be the one ..."
"Chief ..."
"Jim, let me finish. You're going to laugh at this. Up until that day, I hadn't realized just how drop-dead gorgeous you were. I mean, I knew empirically that you were - are -- but the 'light-bulb' never snapped on over my head like it did at the reception. You're the kind of good-looking that makes women go crazy. Men, too, for that matter."
"Cut it out, Sandburg." If Blair hadn't been running on emotional fumes, and suffering as he shared the long-buried secrets, I would have been pretty damned pleased by what he'd said.
"Here's the thing, Jim ..." my partner paused and looked at me, those wide eyes of his glistening in the early evening half-light. "I want you to have it all."
"All 'what'?"
"Just ... everything, man. I want you to be happy, and loved, and in control of your senses. Even if it's ... without me."
You had to love the guy for being such a... what's the Jewish term, mensch? I know I did. I started inching closer to him on the sofa. He didn't seem to notice until our hips touched.
"And just how could I do that, chief, without you? Without the one person who, right from the start, stood between me and my eating a gun? The one who's kept me sane and ... I don't know about 'happy' ... but certainly less miserable for the past four years?" An honest-to-God blush ran riot over Blair's cheeks and forehead, as I pushed my home-court advantage and grabbed his hand. "Christ, Sandburg, I'm bad with this kind of shit, but I thought you knew just how fucking important you are to me." He tried to jerk his fingers out of my palm, but I wasn't letting go. "What kind of future would it be without you? C'mon, chief. Admit it. I'm right."
Falling back into the safety net of habit, my partner joked a little. "Yeah, well, maybe water parboiled my brains."
I let go of Sandburg's hand and patted his face.
"So, you think people think I'm hot?"
Smiling under my fingers, Blair nodded as he shifted his weight, not so much to pull away from me as to dig into the couch for support. "But that's just icing on the cake, and not even a drop in the bucket compared to what and who you are. There's, like, so much more." A kind of longing crept into his voice. "I guess being surrounded by all that happiness at Rhonda and Joe's wedding made me want to get some for myself ..."
"You deserve it, too, buddy. More than anyone in the whole world. You're one of the best people I've ever known. You don't lose sight of the 'big picture' very often - the things that are really important. And nobody could ever ask for a better partner. Or friend."
"You mean that?"
"I wouldn't have said it otherwise."
We sat, mutually embarrassed - and touched by the mutual revelations. Then, Sandburg smiled at my clumsy attempt at reconciliation - or seduction, I honestly wasn't sure which. It was the same smile he'd used on me at our first meeting, in that broom closet of an office at Rainier.
"The whole world, huh?"
"Well, maybe the continental United States, except for Jersey." I picked up the envelope, pulled out the photo and turned it toward him. "This guy deserves it all, Blair."
And even as I was saying his name (something I hardly ever did unless he was shot or in danger, which, for Sandburg was alternate Thursdays), a remarkable thing happened. I found myself back at Rhonda's wedding. Like the time Blair helped me remember a message from my first Major Crime partner, Jack Prendergrast. I'd screwed up retrieving on an old answering machine, and he'd wound up dead. Five years later, I solved Jack's murder - with my new partner's help.
The Sandburg magic, or whatever the hell it was, was working again. Just this time, I was getting the equivalent of a visual foot up my sentinel ass, linking me to a full-blown sensory memory.
"I can see the whole thing, chief." I practically heard Sandburg shift into 'guide' mode.
"You can, Jim?"
"Yeah."
"God. The last time - the 'Jack' thing - it was only auricular." He'd remembered, too. "This has a visual component, as well?"
I nodded. Sandburg looked like someone who had just been given Jag playoff tickets on the Stadium floor. A place somewhere around my heart warmed at the expression on his face. I loved making him that happy, and never wanted to stop.
"Wow. This is like so fantastic. Tell me what you're 'seeing.'"
Tilting my head back and resting it against the sofa, I relaxed my eyelids. What Sandburg had described earlier came rushing back, crystal clear, as though I'd been standing in the dark and suddenly bolts of lightning illuminated everything around me. It had been a lot different from where I'd been standing that day.
"It was sunny and warm. Carolyn was being, well ... Carolyn." Through my skin, I could feel Blair nodding, probably combined with the 'I hear you' look he'd mastered over the years. My ex had been grilling me about what was going on in my life. Why did I look so contented, so ... happy? Caro couldn't let it alone. "Who's doing the honors, Jimmy? Some ripe, young thing who still has homework to do?" Damn it, if she wasn't right. Carolyn nailed it in one. I had met some ripe, young thing, who, it turned out, was still doing homework. Someone who'd become such an integral part of my life, I almost couldn't remember back to when I'd worked alone, lived alone, been alone, and actually liked it that way.
Someone I loved.
What I couldn't share with Carolyn the Inquisitor was that the "someone" in question was a ripe, young male anthropologist. (It didn't matter that I thought Sandburg saw me as a combination big brother, friend, roommate, and thesis subject - anything but a lover. Believe me, nothing would have registered with the ex-Mrs. Ellison after the guy thing.) I decided not to share that part of the conversation with my partner just yet.
"I was half-listening to the Plummer Family newsletter, when I swung my eyes over to where you all were milling around. Henry and Rafe were attacking the trays of seafood appetizers. I picked up their conversation, about raw oysters being 'Viagra on the half shell.'"
Sandburg smiled wondrously, as he also recalled the conversation. "Yeah. Nobody could convince Simon to give one a try."
"You were sitting on bench off to the side, looking almost --" Edible was what I desperately wanted to say out loud. But "- respectable" was what I opted for.
"You've called me a lot of things over the years, Jim, but that's a new one."
"Well, you had on that suit your cousin loaned you ..." Blair didn't really have any "party" clothes back then - no 'good' clothes, to speak of. He'd nixed my laying out any cash to buy him something to wear. Instead, he opted to borrow a suit from Robert, the bookie. The 'wages of sin' must have been good, because the outfit was Italian, tailor-made and expensive.
With hair down and shining in the late afternoon sun, wearing the designer threads and a diamond stud (from my days in Vice) in his ear, Sandburg could have passed for some celebrity who'd taken a wrong turn heading toward his private jet at the Cascade airport, and ended up at a party for the locals.
"I just didn't want to look like a dork."
"A dork? No. You looked ..." I started fumbling for words - or maybe just the right ones. "... Good ... And your face ..." Another lightning bolt had hit me. "I just realized ..." We'd both gotten it wrong. The two of us were a pair of prized assholes.
"What, Jim?"
"That I lo -- ... do I have to say this out loud, Sandburg?"
Well, I guess you could hand in a paper." Blair's smile was like a moonlit on a mountain lake. "'Osrals' usually count for more." That's Sandburg for you - a smart ass to the end.
"Dick." I cuffed the side of Blair's head, but it was more of a caress. I ended up snagging some hair in my fingers. It felt so good; I decided not to let go.
"Jesus, Sandburg. The 'look' that day ... It had nothing to do with Carolyn. It was for you, Blair."
"For me?"
"Yeah. You, chief. Along with a whole bunch of feelings. Feelings, you know?" I bumped his thigh with mine to punctuate the suggestion.
"So, you're saying ..."
"That I love you, doof." I knocked on his forehead. "What you've got locked up inside here." My hand lowered and touched his bare chest, where the heart was beating in staccato time. "And here." Pretty much running out of breath - and nerve -- I stopped and waited.
My partner's eyes began to brighten incrementally, like stars going supernova. "'Love'?"
I nudged his ribs with my elbow. "You heard me."
"You love me." As Sandburg digested the words, I watched years literally slip away.
"You love me." The tough edges, most of which had a Jim Ellison imprimatur, disappeared.
"You love me." There sat Blair Sandburg. The only thing missing was a blue ribbon vest and a copy of THE SENTINELS OF PARAGUAY.
"Wow." Mission accomplished.
I thought I'd better stop massaging Blair's chest because my fingers were a little too close to the nipple ring he'd started wearing again. If I touched it, my lower regions would go off like a Roman candle. Instead, I let my hand drop, and went back to where this had all started. The photograph.
"Now, chief, spit it out. What about this?"
"Rhonda and Joe sent it to me a few months after the wedding. It was one of their album proofs. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to keep it away from you. I didn't want to have to explain it."
"You mean like now."
"Yeah. So I took it to Rainier. My luck -- Laurie saw it." Laurie Fletcher was one of the Anthropology Department secretaries, who'd been a good friend to Blair, even after everything went to hell. "Out of nowhere, she guessed who I'd been looking at. Color me 'stunned.' She ..."
"She, what, chief?"
"She knew how I felt, Jim. Laurie told me she'd known from the first time she saw us together at some faculty party."
"Smart lady."
"She said I should tell you. But, you were my thesis subject and my roommate and my best friend and I ... I just couldn't." Blair looked down at the knuckles of his tightly clenched fist, and avoided making eye contact. "I don't know why I just didn't rip it up and throw it away."
I grunted a little. "Neanderthal lite," Sandburg once dubbed it. "Well, it's a great picture."
Sandburg swung those soul-stealer eyes of his up and looked through the forest of thick lashes. I was a goner whenever he used that 'Bambi Meets Svengali' look on me.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
"So, Jim, where do we go from here?"
"If I said I wanted you in my life ... that way ... you'd be good with it?"
Blair hesitated for a split second before delivering a classic one-two punch that fighter Sweet Roy Williams would have been proud of.
"Jim, you're what makes it life for me. Don't you know that?"
I felt pole-axed. Nobody's ever said anything so potent and so naked, to me in my entire life.
"Jesus Christ, No pressure there, Sandburg."
"Well, that's how it is." The Bambi eyes were back again, with such infinite tenderness shining at me, it was almost painful into look into them. I had to do something, so I moved as close to my partner as I could, without actually crawling on his lap, and tucked a strand of hair behind his left ear.
"Sandburg, you're sure?"
"... Yeah. I'm sure. " The tone wasn't exactly a set-the-world-on-fire happy one. It had more of a "Fuck, I just stepped in something" ring to it. I chalked that up to everything between us being in a state of flux. Too many unknowns. Too much water under the bridge.
High time to change that.
"For a guy in love, you don't sound exactly shouting-from-the-rooftops thrilled, chief. Maybe what you need is a little good, old-fashioned incentive." With that, I grabbed the ends of the towel, pulled Sandburg into my arms and kissed him. It was an open-mouthed, spit-swapping, knock the stuffing out of you, curl-the-toes-on-both-feet heart-stopper, if I do say so myself. I'm a really good kisser.
It surprised the hell out of Blair, but he got over it quickly, and returned the favor. My partner chewed on my lips, like he was trying to eat me whole. (The boy's got a lot of natural talent going for him.) His body didn't so much melt as anneal onto mine, like we were becoming one indistinguishable mass of flesh, blood and bone. Make that "bones," as in two of them, because both our dicks were ready to come out and play big time. Frantically, we grabbed one another, arms and legs tangling wildly. Rolling back and forth, and almost off, the couch, I landed on the bottom, with Sandburg splayed across me and the TV remote he'd misplaced the night before sticking me in the rear.
"Hang on a minute, chief ..."
"What's wrong, Jim?" Blair gasped, a little fearfully, as if he'd expected me to slam on the brakes and say, "Sorry, Sandburg. I was just fucking around with your head." As if everything that had just passed between us was going to disappear in a puff of smoke. Not this time. I pulled the remote from between my butt cheeks and threw it onto the coffee table.
I brushed away a renegade curl from over Blair's eyebrow. "Relax, buddy. I just meant that if anything was going to get shoved up my ass, I was sort of hoping for something a little more ... personal. Know what I mean?"
A tiny chuckle escaped from my partner's full, wet lips - right before he lowered his head to my chest and exploded with laughter. I rubbed my chin back and forth on the top of Sandburg's head. I swear I almost started purring.
"Look at me, chief." I needed to milk my partner's mouth again. When Blair tilted his face up, we locked lips a second time. My tongue rammed its way home and sluiced down his throat as far as it would go. We finally pulled apart because I had a half of one breath left and Sandburg's eyes were threatening to stay permanently crossed. He rested a nanosecond before latching onto my shoulders and kneading them with experienced fingers.
"Personal, huh? I'll show you personal."
Riding me like a pony, Blair seesawed his erection against mine. What did it feel like? Well, once, I touched a live wire while I was doing some electrical work in the loft. The current ran through my entire body and I saw stars. Make that galaxies.
Getting physical with my partner was like that, except it didn't involve a visit from paramedics.
At least not yet.
"Bed. Now." Crazed by equal parts of love and lust, I vaulted up, pulled Blair to his feet before flinging him haphazardly over my shoulder. The kid was a lot heavier than he looked, so it took a damned fine balancing act for 'Caveman Jim' to stagger up the stairs and get the still-laughing Sandburg just where I wanted him. And that was on that gorgeous back of his, with a fine sheen of sweat dancing all over his golden skin, legs spread open and waiting for me.
One good toss and Blair's body tumbled easily onto the yellow comforter. I could smell how ready Sandburg was, fueled by desire finally realized. I needed to get him out of those gray boxes, which I did posthaste, then flung the damp underwear over the loft railing.
Naked and stretched out in front of me like a banquet, my partner was the picture worth a thousand words. Our eyes locked, and Sandburg's telegraphed it was my turn. I actually broke the zipper on my pants, and nearly shredded my shirt pulling it over my head. I finished up the compulsory portion of my performance by executing a near-perfect swan dive onto the comforter. (Even the East German judges would have given me top scores for form and artistic interpretation.) The weight of my body on the mattress caused Sandburg to roll in my direction. His wet, needy cock hit me first. I have to say it was pretty impressive.
"Hey, chief, you got a license to carry that?"
Blair flashed an incredibly sexy smile, as he fell back on his elbows to give me a better look. "No. But I've got a learner's permit to take it out for a test drive." The delicious piece of real estate was swaying back and forth, trying to get my attention. It worked. When I bent down to kiss its plum-colored tip, the damned thing got frisky, and tried to club me on the forehead. All I could think of was one of those nature shows where someone off-camera whispers, "You have to be careful -- they go for the eyes first."
Blair's breathing hitched, as I sucked his dick into my mouth and hummed around it. Sandburg was sweating like crazy. I could feel the moisture from his genitals seeping down the inside of his thighs.
Head tossing from side to side, fingers clutching at the covers to anchor himself, hips thrusting up into my face ... this was Blair Sandburg in the throes of passion. Finally, here was the love scene I'd paid my two bucks for.
"Jim ... stop ... or I'm gonna ... come ..."
But there was no way I was letting that happen. Not yet. I let Blair's almost-purple organ slip from between my lips. It looked ready to explode. I reached for the lube and condoms in my nightstand drawer.
"You done this before, chief? Been with a guy, I mean?" Depending on the answer, we'd figure out who was going to do what to whom.
"Not since I moved in with you." He looked at me through half-lowered eyelids.
"So, what's your pleasure?"
"Fuck me, Jim ..."
Ripping a condom open and suiting up, I then squeezed a dollop of Astroglide on my left hand and smeared it all over myself. "Hey, we aim to please."
"Let's hope your aim's good, partner."
"You gotta an answer for everything, don't you, Sandburg? Flip onto your stomach, chief, and let's get this show on the road." I tried to sound as confident and as take-charge as I could, given the fact that my dick was so stiff, I could have sunk molly bolts into the wall with it.
Blair sighed and did what I asked. "Okay."
"Good boy."
"You don't know the half of it, Ellison."
I looked down at my partner and took a few seconds to appreciate the scenery again. The sweat ran down Sandburg's muscled back the way rivers in paradise must look. His ass, half in the air, swayed to an unheard music, and waited so trustingly for me to ...
"Jesus, chief ..." I moved my hands up his spine, and stopped to capture a bead of perspiration on the right side of his neck. Blair began making mewling, begging noises. I bent down and brushed my lips against his ear. " ... You're so fucking beautiful ..."
"Jim ... Jim ..." Sandburg moaned, chant-like. I wanted to devour him right there on the spot and leave nothing for anybody else. I chewed on Blair's neck and throat, not hard enough break the skin, but so that sentinel eyes would be able to see my mark on the sweet, ripe flesh.
My guide squirmed in every direction - more out of pleasure than pain -- grunting, cursing, and bargaining to get what he wanted: me. In him.
Who was I to refuse? I spread Sandburg's cheeks, and stroked the pulsating hole with my slick index finger. As I penetrated him slowly, Blair's mantra changed.
"Oh, fuck, Jim ... more ... more ..."
I obliged, pushing in farther and farther, rotating the finger in ever-widening circles, like a drill-bit mining for gold. Sandburg pressed back wildly, trying to impale himself on my hand. Could anything ever be more erotic? How did I ever live without this connection? I drove a second wet finger into him, urgently, relentlessly. Blair clenched tightly around the two, daring me to try to extricate them.
"Relax, Sandburg, I got something better in mind."
"Better, huh?" My smart, beautiful boy was nothing, if not goal-oriented. He released the intruders. I pulled Blair's hairy legs backward to get deeper access.
"... So good ... so good," I whispered over and over. Sandburg's body stilled. He relaxed long enough for me to surprise his most guarded, most secret place -- with my tongue. I swiped at the rosebud opening, licking him like the catnip he was to this two-legged feline. I could feel the blood surging through Blair's groin, smell the semen a hair's breadth away from spilling all over. He was close. Every one of my senses was imprinting this moment on my body and my soul. I'd never forget it.
"You asleep back there?" Interrupting my reverie, my partner complained, and drummed his fists into the blankets for emphasis.
Pushy little bastard. "You gotta a bus to catch, Sandburg?" God, how I loved him.
"Turn me over."
"What?"
"I want to see you, Jim. I want to see your face the first time you come inside me."
"But-"
"The only 'butt''s going to be mine - in your face." The yellow pillowcase muffled Sandburg's laugh. It was rich, low, unguarded, inviting. This was Sandburg in love.
Christ, the day after I die, I'd still be able to hear that laugh.
I flipped him like pancakes on a Grand Slam breakfast. I couldn't stop running my hands all over Blair's athletic body, as I pulled that tantalizing ass of his closer. And there "it" was -- the face looking up at me. The one from the picture. The one that had started all this. Now it was for me - only for me.
My sentinel fingers had gauged Sandburg's readiness before, so I knew he was as loose as he was going to get. If I did this right, I'd make Blair hurt so good he'd never want anyone else ever again.
"Open up for me, babe..." I lined myself up with that reddened, gleaming backdoor to heaven. In one long, slow, steady stroke, I pushed into my lover. It was like the best Christmases and birthdays and holidays and places you've ever been and things you've ever done, all rolled up into one. Sandburg's body relaxed around me, as though it recognized me for the old friend and forever lover that I was. Am. The more I gave, the more he accepted. It was so right. Blair was mine. I was his. No one else for either of us, ever again.
We fit.
Lock and key.
Sentinel and guide.
Sandburg and I rocked back and forth, for God knows how long, in the rhythm of longtime partners. Then I sensed a change, as his heels dug deeply into the small of my back, and his hands gripped my upper arms with punishing strength. I knew we were just one last thrust away from orgasm. I pushed hard and fast and deep. Blair's body squeezed my dick with such force I popped like the cork from a bottle of vintage champagne. There was a weird harmony to our twin screams that'll probably be reverberating in space until some unsuspecting alien craft picks them up.
As the two of us collapsed into a spunk-covered sleep, wrapped tightly in one another's arms, all I could think of was a little green man running our lovemaking words through some kind of universal translator.
I wonder what "I'm coming!" sounds like in Martian?
Early the next morning, I felt Blair mouth "I love you" while nuzzling my hip bone, and thought about how this whole thing was going to change our lives -- how reckless it might be. But as I patted the back of Sandburg's sweat-soaked head, gently encouraging a change in direction - south would be good -- I realized I didn't care. I figured I'd just add 'reckless endangerment' to the James Ellison rap sheet. This would be a new one for the books: the "reckless endangerment" of loving Blair Sandburg.
I must have said it half out loud.
"Guilty as charged, man." My lover chortled, as he went back to sucking the soul from my body. Since dawn, he'd been trying to kiss me unconscious by planting sweet butterflies on my face, my eyelids, my throat, my nipples, around my navel, and everywhere else his imagination sent him. You know, I could definitely become addicted to Sandburg's kisses. Addicted ...
"Funny word ..." At least, I though so, seeing that I was adding a spanking, brand-new dick to my well-ordered existence. And it looked like I'd be enjoying it. A lot.
Blair stopped for a minute and looked up from what he was doing. "What about dicks?"
"Nothing. Go back to ... what you were ... oh, God ..."
Yeah, I guess to someone listening in, it might have sounded like rutting, pure and simple. But, it was something more. Like the look in the picture. It wasn't just want. Or need. It was a yearning -- the kind of single-minded desire that could be your undoing.
On the plus side of the column, loving someone like that could make you whatever - whoever - you were meant to be.
And over the weekend, when Blair and I opted for downtime rather than risking body parts actually falling off, I'd go out and buy a frame for his picture and hang it up here in our bedroom. I could look at it, touch it, and kiss it, if I wanted, whenever I wanted. Then, I'd do the same to the original.
Okay, so it sounded a little kinky. But as kinks go, it's one I could live with.
End Yearning by akablonded: akablonded@aol.com
Author and story notes above.
Disclaimer: The Sentinel is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the
stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount.