Author's disclaimer: The Sentinel belongs to Pet Fly, UPN, Paramount, etc. This is not for profit, but for love.

Author's notes: While not precisely ep related, it has S2P2 references.

Imagine My Surprise

by Brighid

Okay, so maybe in retrospect, "Who the hell pissed in your algae shake, Chief?" was not the best way to get Blair to talk about what's been bugging him lately. It was, however, a damn fine way to learn how to say 'fuck you' in about, oh, eight languages. At least, I assume it was 'fuck you', based on the hand gestures and door slam. For all I know, it might have been "Would you like fries with that?" but I'm betting on 'fuck you'.

I really have been working on the insensitive jerk thing; the fact that I noticed something had crawled up his ass and died is a major improvement, trust me. For most of my life, I've gone around with a set of blinders on. It was a survival thing, really. In my house, you needed 'em so the shit didn't hit you on its way over to the fan. In the military, it was pretty much SOP as well. Part of the whole don't ask, don't tell, but on a big scale. Not that I let crap go down, mind you. But some things, you just didn't notice because it wasn't your place to notice -- like the kid sobbing in the bunk next to you, or the guy who's girlfriend left him more bruises than hickies. The personal shit. The private places.

I wore those particular blinders into civilian life. Carolyn will testify to that, probably loudly and at length. I never noticed when a Hallmark moment was called for, or a head rub or sympathy screw, you know? I never really picked up on it when she hit a bad place, and even if I did notice it, I had no idea about what do with the information. It was like some sort of exotic ritual that no one had bothered to initiate me into. It's not that I didn't care, it's just that I never really knew what to do about it.

Sandburg's been working on that. He noticed pretty early on that I didn't get some of the -- what'd he call 'em? -- finer nuances of interpersonal relationships, and has made a point ever since of cueing me into them. Usually it involves an elbow to the ribs or a slap upside the head, but he's doing his best. And he always offers a suggestion. Sometimes I even listen. When that happens he either high-fives me or shoots me a mega-watt smile. That smile is a hell of an incentive. When it's around, when he's using it.

Sandburg hasn't smiled in over a week. Nine days, to be precise. Almost to the hour, really. Nine days ago he shot me a grin and wave and headed out to campus to go to some sort of departmental meeting. By the time I got home again, it was gone, AWOL. He was curled up on the couch, pretending to read, scowling at the book like someone had just published "101 Reasons Why Burton's a Fruitcake" and letting a mug of some pissy-smelling tea go cold beside him. I got a growl for a greeting and grumble for a goodnight, and that's about as much communication as we've had ever since.

Three days ago I tossed his room for pods -- you know, the big people-sized ones -- because whoever the hell I've been living with is not Blair. Not my Blair. One day he's a hyper-kinetic squirrel storing up sentinel trivia like nuts for winter, and the next he's a surly asshole who's only interested in testing my patience. It's not the usual crap, either. In fact, it's the total absence of the usual crap that's the problem. He doesn't talk my ear off. He doesn't hack away at his computer until three a.m. in flagrant violation of the ten p.m. noise curfew. He doesn't cook weird smelling foods, or nag me about my arteries or anything like what I've come to expect over the last three years, and it's driving me frigging nuts. I'm about ready to put an APB out on him. Will the real Blair Sandburg please come home?

I should've been smoother this morning; it's not like the little schmuck hasn't been set on blow for days already. The last thing likely to get him to open up would be my ham-handed attempts at starting a dialogue. I just sort of figured that he might blow up at me, yell at me for awhile and stick around long enough for us to get beyond yelling. I wanted to open him up a bit, to let the dark stuff out. I wanted to be there for him. I just didn't quite know how. Obviously.

It's Friday, and I've got the day off because I'm taking the weekend for one of the guys. Maybe I'll head down by Rainier, and pick the kid up something good for lunch. Hold it out like a peace offering, and then when he's eating I'll sit on his scrawny chest and keep him pinned until we hash whatever this is out.

Sounds like a plan to me.

You know, since they moved Blair upstairs I've only managed to breeze past the department secretary station once without being stopped. I think it happened that time because my gun was drawn. Today is no different. Moira Killarney is there as usual, about five feet tall and a hundred years old and waving a plate of cookies at me as I go by.

"Detective Ellison! Come have one! Angela brought them in fresh this morning!" She's looking at me with these huge blue eyes, only slightly cloudy with age, and it's impossible to get by her. I'm wondering if the PD shouldn't scoop her up for front desk duty -- nothing escapes her.

"Hey, Mrs. Killarney!" I take a cookie and suck it back in two bites, and hell, it's good, so I take another under her approving gaze. "Thanks."

She nods at me. "Young man like you needs a little treat now and again, especially with no wife to take care of you!"

I laugh, but don't try to argue. We've had this discussion before, and I haven't a hope in hell of winning it.

"What brings you by, Detective Ellison?" she asks, and all of a sudden I've got the feeling that I'm under a laser sight. It's like she's waiting for something; I can see it in the brightness of her gaze, the slight inclination of her head as she watches me.

I hold up the deli bag I'm carting. "I brought Sandburg some lunch. He left without breakfast, and he's been cranky enough lately without adding low blood sugar to the mix. I figured I'd save you people from him with a well timed pita."

Something in her expression shifts, softens a little, and her mouth turns down slightly. "Blair doesn't have his office anymore," she says gently.

I blink at her. "They put him back in the storage room?" I shift on my feet, ready to head back down the stairs, but she just shakes her head at me. "Are you trying to tell me he doesn't have an office anymore?" I know I'm snapping at her, and I regret it even as it comes out. She seems to understand, though. She just waves me closer and drops her voice.

"Apparently when Blair put in to change his thesis, some members of the department felt it was in bad form on his part. What with his absences, and his admission that his first thesis was a washout ... well, they've put him on probation. He's lost his teaching fellowship, he's lost his office, and he might not get to go forward with his new thesis. At least," she leans back, as though distancing herself from the situation, "that's what I've heard."

Shit. I feel like someone's taken my guts out and replaced them with ice. I'm so cold that I think I'm burning, if that makes any sense. Rage thunders through me, and I'm not sure where to direct it. At me, for letting him go this long? At him for keeping his yap shut about the whole mess? Or at the pencil necks who let someone as bright as Sandburg slip through because he's not real good with doing the traditional? Somehow I manage to swallow it all back, lock it in place.

Mrs. Killarney's watching me, and I can see the echo of my own anger in her eyes. "He hadn't told you." She shakes her head. "That boy needs to be spanked!" she sighs. For some reason it makes me laugh, and then it's not so hard to hold on, after all.

"So, if he's not in his office, and he's not teaching, he would be...?" I ask gently.

She tilts her head slightly as she thinks. "The library, the grad student lounge, or the pub in the Student Union Building," she offers at last.

I tip a slight salute to her. "Thanks for the cookies, Mrs. Killarney. And the intel." I turn and head back to the stairs.

"Give him a smack for me," she calls out.

I really like that old lady.

So, he isn't in the library, and he isn't in the grad student lounge. I managed to scare the piss out of the kids who are there, though. Their heartbeats went so high I was tempted to search 'em for the hell of it, but a weed bust is small time, and let's face it, the last thing I need to be doing is alienating my partner here on campus.

He's doing just fine on his own.

I find him in the pub. It only takes me a second to spot him in the smoky depths, squirreled away in a back booth with a dog-eared book and a beer glass. It's obviously not his first, but he's not toasted, just working on it. He looks ... he looks...

... lost.

Shit.

I stand here, and just watch him, and I realize that in the middle of all my anger, there is an unhealthy streak of fear. I'm looking at a man who's burning all his bridges. Christ, he seems to be sending them fucking sky-high. That is a warning of some sort, I know it even if I can't understand it, can't exactly name it. I just know it is, and it makes me a little sick in the gut. There are forty feet between us, and every beat of his heart seems to double the distance.

He's trying to get lost. Or run away.

Shit.

I sidle up to him, slide into the booth across from him, and toss the deli bag over. "So, were you gonna tell me, or were you just gonna leave a Dear Sentinel letter?" I ask, keeping my voice gentle and working on making eye contact even if he isn't. Naomi would be so proud of me.

"Moira," he says at last, fingering the bag.

"Moira," I confirm. "Which hurts like hell, Chief, 'cause I thought we were working on the whole 'talking' thing. Or is that rule just for me?" He glances up at last, and I find myself falling into the empty spaces of his eyes. My gut drops out entirely; I thought he was running away, but now I think he's already gone.

"There's nothing to talk about, Jim," he says, and the anger of the last nine days is gone, replaced by a weariness that belongs to a much older man. "I can't publish the Sentinel thesis. Shit, man, Megan saw Burton's book and linked it to you in seconds. Hell, almost everyone here links it to you, despite the whole anonymity song and dance we've gone through. Which means that if I defend, and if I publish ... you come out of the closet, Jim. And that can't happen."

I want to argue with him, but there's a part of me that agrees. We've been together too long, the links are too obvious. He publishes, I go public. Still, it pisses me off that he didn't talk to me first before just going ahead and toasting his dissertation. "That's assuming that I'm unwilling to go public, Chief."

He shoots me a look and shakes his head. "Don't even go there, man. You still colour-code the tupperware and iron your underwear. There is no pod under your bed upstairs. You are not ready to go public, end of story. Besides," he adds softly, "it wouldn't be safe, Jim. I can't take that risk, all right? That's one roller coaster I'm not ready to climb on. Not now, not ever."

I nod. "Okay. Fine. Still doesn't explain why you haven't said dick to me about what's going on here." He flinches a little, distracts himself by chugging down the last of his beer, waving the waitress over to get a new one. I resist the urge to reach across the table and shake an answer out of the little shit.

At last he sighs. "I've just been trying to sort things out. I needed ... space to do that." His hands are busy, tearing little messy strips off the deli bag, the pita, the napkins. I guess maybe he's torn up inside like that, and his hands are just trying to find a way to let it out.

"Sort what out?" I ask, reaching out and stilling his hands, laying mine over them, holding them steady. I'm a little surprised to find that his hands are bigger than mine, broad and square and workman strong. Seems right, though, when I think about. He'd have to have big hands, to carry me like he has the last few years.

He stares at our joined hands a minute, puffs at a stray curl that's escaped out of his hair clasp. "Who I am, really. What I want out of life." He smiles at me, and it's a sad smile, no light in it at all. "I mean, I spent years, man, fucking years looking for you, right? Or rather, the Sentinel. You were my Holy Grail, man. You were it for me. I had enough data for my dissertation within the first year. And if that had still been what I wanted, I would have gone for it. But it wasn't. Suddenly it wasn't the Sentinel I was dealing with, it was Jim Ellison. I wasn't just researching you, I was partnering you, guiding you ... I'd gone goddamned native, man. Totally lost my objectivity. Bad academic! Bad, bad academic!" he quips, but it sounds empty, and it makes me shiver.

"You reached that point two years ago, Chief. Why is eating you up now?" I ask, not sure I want the answer.

"Because I've finally figured out that I'm a first-class fuck-up, and I finally know what I've got to do about it, and I can't do it," he says softly, so softly even I can barely hear. "Shit, Jim. I thought I wanted a Sentinel, I thought you needed a teacher. I thought, this is cool, I can have this. And then I thought, shit, we're friends, and yeah, I can have this too, and that's cool. But I can't have you as the Sentinel anymore. It's way too dangerous for the Sentinel to exist where others might get the idea that they can have him, too, y'know? And without the Sentinel, there goes the need for the ride-along, and the friendship." I start to protest, but he pulls a hand free and reaches across the table to shut me up. "No, Jim. I know you're not that shallow, that we are friends, but you don't need me, you haven't for a while. I can't be an anthropologist with you, and you don't need me to be a guide to you ... and I can't be a partner to you, not anymore, not without the polite fiction of my diss. That means that it's over, that it's done and I should just move on."

Well, I wanted to know. I just didn't expect it to tear my heart out.

"You are such an arrogant little asshole, you know that?" The words are out of my mouth before my brain's even registered them. "Jesus, Darwin. You make all these decisions about who we are, what we are to each other, about what I need from you without even once bothering to check in with me and see what I thought! I mean, I do have a stake in our relationship. I do have thoughts and feelings on the matter. It would have been nice," I squeeze the hand I still have, tug him across the table towards me, " to have been able to talk this out!"

He yanks his hand back, his eyes no longer empty but absolutely blazing with rage. "Fuck you, Ellison. You don't do relationship discussions. If you did, Carolyn would still be living in the loft, not me!" Ouch. The kid comes out fighting. I like it better than the apathy, though. I can work with it. I can use it.

"Yeah, like you're so hot with them yourself, Sandburg. That's why you had to hide from Sam for three frigging weeks after breaking up with her but not bothering to tell her. Glass house, pal, and your ass is hanging out!" I snarl, egging him on. Maybe we'll get somewhere this time.

The bag and the pita and the napkins get shoved to the side, and he's leaning across the table, in my face and spitting mad. I can smell the beer he's drunk, the slight sandalwood smell of his deodorant, the musk of his sweat in the places the deodorant doesn't cover. "Fuck you, Jim. I've tried talking to you, you know? But you always have something else to do, some smart-ass remark to make, some way of deflecting it. You get pissed at me for the thesis, but you won't talk over why. You freak over Alex, but you won't take the time to talk it through. I fucking die, and all you manage is a lame joke about rent. I know you've got thoughts and feelings, but it's like goddamned pulling teeth to get anything out of you." The rage cools, and he leans back into his half of the booth. A small, tired smile plays over his lips. "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctoral candidate, not a dentist!" he says softly, sadly. "Was a doctoral candidate, anyway," he amends.

It breaks me to see it. Something inside of me twists and turns and just hollows out at his words, at his eyes, at the space between us. "Okay, then. Shut your mouth and listen, and don't interrupt. Can you do that, Darwin?" I growl finally, as the silence grows too heavy. He nods, going a little wide-eyed. "I love you."

He opens his mouth with a slight popping noise, but I shake my head threateningly, and he closes it right back up again. "You are my best friend, Sandburg. You're so there for me that half the time I forget you're not attached to me. You drive me nuts sometimes, but I'd go crazier without you than with you. Yeah, sure, maybe I don't need you in the field with me all the time, and maybe your thesis would be a problem, but you bowing out, you taking off is not the answer, because you're still necessary, Chief. I was freaking out when I met you not because I needed someone to walk around and hold my hand and wipe my ass -- though that helped at first -- but because I was too damned alone. It's so freaking easy to get totally detached from everything, y'know?" He nods at me, getting this sort of thoughtful look in his eyes. "I think that's somewhere in all this genetic throwback stuff you dreamed up. The need for distance, the need for isolation. My senses drive me away from others because after awhile, all the input is just tiring. And the need to stand alone, the inability to connect because it might impair my ability to do my job, to keep my watch ... it's hard on a person. Sometimes you're the only thing that keeps me from flying off into nowhere. You anchor my life the same way your voice or your hand anchors me in a zone. You keep me from going all jungle primitive in traffic, you remind me about the human component of my job, you provide me with ... a life, Chief. I mean, we're not exactly Wally and Beaver, but we're family. You're what I come home to, Sandburg. You're what makes it a home."

He is silent for a long time, just staring at me, with thoughts flickering behind his eyes like trout in a stream. I can't even begin to figure out what's going on his head. He smiles at last, and while it isn't exactly the one I've been looking for, at least it isn't as sad as before. "I think I need to re-check for pods," he says at last. "Wow. I wasn't expecting that. I wasn't ... ready for that," he confesses. He sighs, and digs around for his wallet to pay for the beers he's had. "C'mon, Jim. Let's go home." He stands, and holds out his hand to help haul to me to my feet.

I let myself brush against him on the way up, let myself intrude upon his personal space; I've missed him. I am surprised by the sputter of his heartbeat as we touch, the rapid flush of heat that suffuses him. His gaze meets mine for a moment, half-lidded and expressionless, and then he just turns away. "C'mon, big guy. Let's go home," he repeats quietly, moving away from me once again.

Close, Ellison, but no cigar.

I wake up to a small sound, faint and muffled, something the white noise generator should have filtered out. Almost unconsciously -- the kid's got me trained good -- I reach out my senses to track the noise. For a moment or two there is nothing, but then it comes again: a harsh, stifled breath...

... Sandburg.

I'm down the stairs before I even take the time to think about it, down the stairs and through the french doors of his room. He's curled up around his pillow, body shaking like it's coming apart. Maybe it is. Which means it's up to me to hold him together.

Somehow he fits against me, somehow we interlock and I'm able to hold him, able to keep him from flying apart. At first, he's all instinct, trying to crawl into me, like a child seeking comfort. As time passes, he tries to pull away, struggles to be free of me. I'll be damned if I'll let him go this time.

Finally, he gives up; his body goes limp with exhaustion, and he lies almost peacefully against me. "You shouldn't have done this, Jim," he sighs, and his voice makes the room seem darker than three a.m.

I shake him slightly. "The hell I shouldn't!" I growl. "Christ, Chief. I was supposed to lie upstairs and listen to that? What kind of monster do you think I am?"

He chuckles at that, a sticky, unpleasant noise. "This is not about you, Jim."

"No, it's about you, Sandburg. About the fact that you're goddamned miserable and it's breaking my heart here, 'cause there's not a damned thing I can do about it. I'm supposed to be your Blessed Protector, and I can't even figure out what the enemy is, let alone how to fight it."

He pulls away, sits up in the bed, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them protectively. "The enemy is me, Jim," he says hoarsely. "I'm my own worst enemy."

I sit up, swing my leg around him, almost but not quite touching him. "Explain." It's an order, but I give it as gently as I know how. I watch him breathe, cueing up my vision to watch him, shamelessly using my senses to catalogue him. The stutter of pulse is back, as is the flush, and he smells ... he smells different. Deeper. Through the tears and the sweat, he smells like something dark and sweltering. Something inside me curls with awareness, even if I can't name what it is.

He rocks slightly, shifting the bed beneath us. "Shit, man. It's just, I'm always wanting the impossible ... more than I have, more than I can have, y'know? I want a Sentinel, and I get one, and that should be enough, but then I want a friend, and then I've got that ... and it's ... it's more than I have any business expecting, really. And I want to be everything man, and I want you to be everything ... and it's almost, it's so close to everything that it's driving me fucking crazy here, but it's not quite enough, and I'm such a shit, such a selfish shit, because I want it all, and I have no right to it ... and I can't just leave, I can't just detach with love, or let it go, 'cause, jeez, for the first time something's got me, not me it ... and I am making, like, no sense here, am I?" he asks ruefully, tipping his head back bit to glance at me.

I am a college graduate -- with honours, though I don't mention it often. I am a police detective. I can, occasionally, put the pieces together ... especially with Sandburg's recent tutoring in the finer nuances of interpersonal relationships. Especially with Sandburg right here in front of me, warm and wanting and despairing. "You've only ever brought home women," I say at last, and it's a question.

His sad mouth quirks up in something that is more grimace than smile. "Imagine my surprise," he says drily, eyebrows lifting in self-mockery. "That's part of my problem, really. I am, like, such a hypocrite, here. Always preaching love the person, not the package, but when it happens to me, it's like whoop!whoop!whoop! hetero panic-attack city. Man." He sighs and presses his face down against his knees.

For a long time we are both silent, wrapped up in our own thoughts. I can't even begin to guess what's going through my head. I can barely keep track of what's going on in mine. I notice, and not for the first time, that he's beautiful. Even in stillness, even huddled up, he's beautiful. It's not in abstract, either. It's not a distant thing. It's right here and real as the smell of sweat and tears and longing. I know I love him more than I've ever loved anyone. I know I need him. I know that things cannot go the way they are. There is only one thing I don't know, and there's only one way to figure it out.

I reach around and wrap an arm around him, pulling him back against my body. With the other hand, I pull aside the soft curtain of his hair, and press my face into the sweaty hollow between his shoulder and neck. He starts to protest, starts to wriggle, but I tell him to just shut-up, to just let me do this. He shudders once, briefly, and surrenders.

He smells ... good isn't the word. It isn't a good smell. It's an ... everything smell. It crawls inside me, hollows me out and leaves me hungry. I press my face against him harder, open my mouth and add taste to smell, running my tongue along the cords of his neck, the hot throb of his artery. At first, it feels gentle, tender, and that in itself is a miracle, a wonder. I've loved women, enjoyed their smallness and fragility, but none of them have ever made me feel this gentle, this ... careful. It's like nothing I've ever felt before.

Sandburg moans under me, a helpless noise, and all of a sudden tenderness slides into need. This, then, is the answer, white-hot and hungry. I twist him in my arms, pull at him as my mouth covers his and swallows him, consumes him. He tastes even better here, a mix of dinner and heat and Blair that sets me shaking, sweating, gasping. It goes on forever, somehow landing us over on our sides, mouths never once breaking contact until another shudder rips through him and he pulls away.

"I don't want your goddamned pity, man. I don't want you doing this to keep me around," he whispers harshly, breathlessly. "I couldn't stand that, man. I couldn't survive that, you understand?"

I smile at him, and there is more than a trace of predator in it. "Sandburg, there's no pity here. No mercy, either," I add, pressing my body against his, letting him feel just how ruthless I can be. "I've already said that I love you. Now I'm just showing you."

His irises are dark, almost obliterated by pupil. I know it has nothing to do with the lighting, but he's not ready to give in. "You've only ever brought home women," he says, and it's a question.

"Imagine my surprise," I reply before swooping in and launching a full-out assault on his mouth. When he's too damned out of breath to question anymore, I let my body move against his, let him feel what I'm saying in the hard, ragged thrust of my hips. "Hope you were careful what you wished for, Blair, because you're going to get it. Repeatedly."

His body pushes back, answering me, and he's smiling at me now, the first time in almost ten days. It's beautiful, a wide, shit-eating grin. He's back, he's Blair again, and I'm so fucking glad I think my heart might just explode. I kiss his eyes, his nose, the corners of his smile, just to welcome him home, just to make sure he gets the picture. Just to make sure he understands that I get the picture. It took awhile, but I got the picture.

Imagine my surprise.

An End