Author's webpage: http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Station/8862/index.html

Author's disclaimer: Not beta'd. My first sentinel story. Just felt compelled! Contains some unpleasant imagery balanced with some more than pleasant imagery!

Author's notes: The catalyst for this story was Patricia Nell Warren's classic gay love story, THE FRONT RUNNER. It is gorgeous and wrenching, please read it.

Snifles. Jim, sprawling on his queen-sized bed and staring up through the skylight at Orion, one leg off the bed, one leg on, wondered whether his usually dry-eyed roommate would mind a little comforting. It wasn't as if the kid cried often, hell no. Sandburg might be emotive, demonstrative even, but like most men he seldom shed real tears. Jim had only seen him cry once, after Maya and the inevitability of a first-time broken heart. Blair had rejected his offer of noodles that time, noodles! Being an even more stoic type himself, Jim wasn't really much in the 'offering comfort' department. Noodles. What the hell had be been thinking? A broken heart was hardly a cold.

Still. Jim felt an almost overpowering urge to creep down the stairwell as only an ex-covert ops sentinel might sneak, tiptoe over to the couch where he had last seen his partner immersed in some paperback, and just, well, just make sure he didn't want or need anything. Like some noodles. The thing is, Ellison could hardly bear to see Sandburg unhappy, much less crying. Unhappy Blair tended to look like a cute five-year-old whose puppy had just been hit on the interstate. Bewildered and mortally sad, bottom lip trembling, wine-dark eyes wide but unseeing. That was sad Blair, sans tears. Tearful Blair, oh god, Jim thought he would rather lose a few fingers than imagine tears streaming down that beautiful face and do nothing.

He quickly rolled himself out of bed and was moving down the stairs without his customary grace in his haste to comfort his roommate. So much for Stealth Jim, he thought wryly, hoping that his presence wouldn't embarrass Sandburg too much.

Looking a bit rumpled and maybe just a wee bit older than five in one of Jim's own Cascade PD t-shirts and his boxers, Blair lifted his red-rimmed eyes to Jim and gave him a weary little smile, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand and finally with the bottom of the t-shirt. His glasses rested precariously on the edge of the coffee table. The novel clasped between his knees, Sandburg sniffled and swallowed as Jim approached the couch.

"What's up, big guy?"

"Blair." The big cop found his own voice kind of choked as he regretfully realized that he didn't have the faintest idea of what to say outside of the inane, 'are you alright?' or 'what's wrong?'. He hadn't planned it, not really. He hadn't even thought about it. If he had had any thought, it was, 'maybe this will keep me from having to SAY anything.' He wriggled onto the couch, lifting up his smaller partner and fitting himself behind him. And then Blair was wrapped in his embrace, curls tucked beneath his chin, wet face pressing against his warm chest as the younger man began to cry again. I love you, Blair, Jim wanted to say as he tightened his muscular arms around his partner. I love you. But what came out was just "Blair."

"I'm sorry, man." Blair's whisper, a little small and congested, reached Jim's sensitive ears. "It's just this book I've been reading, god, I haven't cried over a book in years."

Jim, who had never cried over a movie, much less a book, crinkled his eyebrows in confusion.

Blair seemed to sense his inability to empathize.

"It's not just the book, Jim. It's everything wrong with the whole fucking world, you know? Everything evil that you just can't fix and you can't stop, not even you, not even a sentinel. It's the evil in people's minds. They take something so fucking perfect and beautiful and pervert it and KILL it, Jim."

"What book is this?"

"The Front Runner." Blair took a deep breath and snuggled into the embrace of his sentinel. "You know that Saturday is the Belmont?"

Jim frowned at this apparent non sequitur and pulled back a bit to look at his partner. "What about it?"

"Well, that horse that almost got auctioned off, Charismatic. He won Kentucky, he won Phreakness, and now he's racing in the Belmont. This gorgeous horse that suddenly everybody loves because he's fast, Jim, he's world-class, he's like the best there is, right? Well, imagine that because, say, Charismatic's owners are Jews--just pretend that maybe they are, okay?"

Jim nodded, wondering where Sandburg was going with this.

"So someone doesn't want Charismatic to win the Triple Crown because of this. Here is this amazing animal who was so undervalued at first and has just risen up against the odds to be the favorite. He's turning the corner of the last lap at Belmont and he's in the lead, Jim. He's just pounding down the lane and the crowd is on their feet, screaming his name. But in the crowd is this Jew-hater with a long-range rifle. And Jim, it's just one shot and Charismatic is down, dead, the other horses thundering by him..."

Jim could see tears forming in Blair's baby blues once again. "Jesus, Chief, I would fucking kill that bastard."

"You would." Sandburg gave an aborted little chuckle and sniffled again as he leaned his head into Jim's chest. "That's why I love you, Jim. You're so fucking noble. You'd probably kill Billy's murderer, too, even if he was gay."

Welcome to the Sandburg Zone, Jimboy. Ellison scrambled to make sense of his partner's speech. Love? Gay? "Who's gay, Sandburg?"

"Billy Sive, the front runner. The human Charismatic." Blair twisted in Jim's arms until he was facing away from the larger man, reclining against Jim's broad chest. He brushed his sturdy fingers over the arms encircling his middle. "Billy Sive. Sometimes--" here Blair slipped into his thoughtful 'mental essay' mode, "sometimes," he repeated, "you don't realize that you love something until it's ruined. I was just reading this book, you know, someone on one of my lists recommended it, and there he was. Beautiful and strange with his blue eyes, glasses, and his curly hair and his Hindu ways."

Jim smiled a knowing smile.

"He's just this perfect runner, dedicated and delicate, you know? A real athlete. And he's in love with his coach and they've finally gotten together, got married, and have this idyllic LIFE together. The kind of life that plenty of gay men have and most wish they had, but that you never see portrayed in the media. In spite of all the prejudiced shit they've had to endure. A normal life, you know? One night you cook, one night I cook. Video renting. Grocery store shopping. Mowing the grass. Making love."

"Sort of like us," Jim offered, spontaneous for once, "except for the making love part."

"Exactly like us, Jim. Yes. So Billy is really good, you see? And he gets to go the Olympics on the track team. He wins a gold medal, Jim. And he and his husband spend the night in a motel, loving each other. Billy has one more race and he's the favorite. But there are people out there who don't think a gay man ought to be representing the U.S. in the Olympics. It's 1980, a little more uptight than now, even though god knows that kind of thinking is still around. So Billy is ahead and coming up on the finish line, but one of these fucking sick people is in the stands with a gun and he's a crack shot, Jim. And Billy's down with... with blood...all over the track. Oh god."

Rage. Black sweltering rage, and Jim was trembling in its grasp, holding Blair and just shaking with it. Behind his eyelids Blair was covered with blood, his glasses splintering into Jim's hand, dying in the sun. The waste of it all just overwhelmed him.

"Twenty-one months, Jim." Blair finally said with a sigh, turning to wrap his arms and legs around Jim. He touched his forehead to his partner's and rubbed his back soothingly. "Not quite two years. That's how long Billy and his husband knew each other. And then one day Billy was gone and that was it. All the time they got, man. It made me think about us, you know. You're in the line of fire like every other day and hey, usually, I'm right behind you."

"You never stay in the truck, Chief. You've got to stay in the truck." Jim squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shake images of a bloody dead Blair out of his head. It was much, much worse than tearful Blair.

"Carpe Diem. I want to get to the making love part, Jim." Blair whispered in his ear and then Jim's eyes opened in surprise as Blair kissed him like it might be their last night on Earth. And it might, Jim thought, wrapping his hands in his new lover's hair and opening his mouth for more.

And Blair, alive and warm in his arms, was ever so much more appealing in his happiness, so Jim kissed his mouth and then his cheeks and moved up to lick the leftover tears from his eyes.

"Thank god I didn't offer you noodles," Jim said. Blair laughed, heavy in his embrace, glasses sitting on the coffee table, just glinting there.