Author's webpage: http://www.spiderine.com

The Rules of Attraction

Part 8

Disclaimer: Characters from "The Sentinel" series belong to Pet Fly. My imagination belongs to me. "On The Road" belongs to Jack Kerouac. "The Kasidah of Haji Abdul El-Ynezdi" belongs to Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton. "Pale Blue Eyes" belongs to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. I didn't write "Waiting for Godot," either. No copyright infringement is intended; passion is its own reward.

NOTES: 1) This is part 8 of this work, and it is truly the Episode That Would Not Die. At the end of part 7 I made some noise about how part 8 would be the conclusion, but that ejaculation was premature. <eg> It turns out that I'm lousy at gauging how much I can say in how many pages, so there will be one more installment. Don't worry, this story does have an ending, and that ending will take place in Cascade. I really do know where I'm going with this, I promise!

Having said that, we now return to our regularly scheduled Notes:

2) Yes, there actually is an "El Bar Golf" in Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima. Yes, I have way too much time on my hands; thanks for asking. 3) This story takes place at some undetermined time in the third season, after "Warriors" but before "Sentinel Too". 4) Write me! 5) Nikolaia is a harsh taskmistress. <whimper> It's still all her fault. <grovel>

How do you stuff a world into a backpack?

Some things fit easily. A small monkey-hide ball. A pipe carved out of bone. A feathered claw necklace. Other things you bring with you by leaving them behind, like a faded blue sweater lying crumpled in a young boy's hammock. But how do you fit a sunrise over a river? A grieving mother's tears? The cackle of an old trickster shaman? A thousand memories of love and pain, death staring from the eyes of a python, the ecstasy of a first sloppy kiss with tongue and everything, the smoky vision of a man running on four legs through a forest of dreams... How do you pack a tiny world, sheltered by a vast green canopy that only seems endless, timeless?

Blair Sandburg jammed the last notebook into his pack and wrestled the zipper closed.

Jim Ellison heard the zipper shut and asked, "Are you finally ready now?"

Blair turned. His Sentinel was lying in their hammock, wearing only a pair of olive green cargo pants and a Jags cap pulled down over his closed eyes. The hair under the cap was a little shaggy, overdue for a trim by a couple of weeks. The body was taut, and brown from their time in the sun. Even at rest, it seemed ready to spring into splendid motion. Like an Italian race car gunning its motor at the starting line. Like a great black cat, poised between the stalk and the pounce.

A heady rush flowed up Blair's spine and he realized that he was leaving nothing behind. Never would again. All the heat and ecstasy, the green shade and glowing sunrise, even the danger and the pain, and the love... oh, yeah, definitely the love... everything that mattered... it all traveled with him now. Packed neatly into the body and soul of the man lying in the hammock.

Blair smiled. "Yeah. I'm ready now."

Jim swung out of the hammock to his feet in one smooth motion and pushed the cap out of his eyes. "You know," he said with a small lopsided grin, "we could still cut back over the ridge and head through the brush..."

"Oh, no," smirked Blair. "You don't get off that easy. They're waiting for us in the village." He came over and put his hand on Jim's shoulder, and the smirk was gone. "Come on, man. Who knows when you're going to see them again? It could be another ten years! We are not leaving without saying goodbye." He gave Jim a quick peck of a kiss, and added, "And that's final."

Jim sighed and grumped, "Fine."

Blair hefted his backpack and swung it over his shoulder with a barely audible "oof."

Jim glanced at him. "Listen, Chief, I packed pretty light. I could take some of that crap if you want."

"Yeah, right, and listen to you bitching all the way to Iquitos?" Blair laughed. "No way! I trekked it in, I'll trek it out. I'm a big boy now."

Jim made a face and unzipped his pack. "Give me the books," he said.

"Don't worry about it, okay?"

"I'm not worrying about it," insisted Jim. "Just hand over the damn books."

"Forget it!" Blair turned away and prepared to leave the shelter.

Jim grabbed his arm. "Goddammit, Sandburg! I am not going to bitch, and you have nothing to prove. My pack is lighter than yours. There's no reason not to even out the load. Now would you please give me the damn books!" he demanded. "I want to carry your fucking books!"

A slow grin spread over Blair's face. "Aw, Jim, that's sweet," he said. "You want to walk me home from school too?"

Jim huffed for a couple of seconds. Then he glowered, "You got a problem with that?"

"No problem at all." Blair dropped his pack and opened his arms. "Well, hell," he said. "I guess this means we're going steady."

Jim stepped forward into his Guide's embrace. "You are such a shit," he bitched into the top of Blair's head.

"Yeah, I know," Blair smiled up at him. "We have that in common, at least."

The two men kissed deeply, and when the kiss broke, Jim looked at Blair and stroked his face. And said, "Now give me the fucking books."

Once the luggage issue was sorted out, Ellison and Sandburg made their way down the trail to the village. An outsider wouldn't have noticed anything special going on. Everyone appeared to be going about their usual tasks. But to someone who knew the Chopec, it was evident that people were being just a bit too offhand in finding excuses to hang around the clearing. To stay available. Nobody wanted to make too big a deal about their leaving, in case it might seem that they were expected never to return, or in case some malicious spirit might notice the fuss and plague the two men with ill luck on their travels. It was up to Jim and Blair to say farewell in their own way, in their own time.

The chief and a couple of older men were sitting in a circle outside his shelter, knotting a fishing net out of lengths of handspun fiber rope that they stretched with their toes as they passed and tied the lines. Jim and Blair stopped by and squatted near the circle casually, waiting for an opportunity to enter the conversation.

The chief looked at Blair and mentioned, "Asikatuq, I remember you asked me once if I knew anyone who speaks Spanish. I have a cousin who married into another village, where some young men know that tongue."

Blair knew better than to ask if those men could be trusted; the chief wouldn't have mentioned them if it were otherwise. He simply nodded and handed the chief a piece of paper torn from his notebook. Written on it in clear block letters was Jim's and his names, the address and telephone number of the loft in Cascade, and the words CARGAS INVIERTAS. "This paper says where Enqueri and I live in the north," he explained. "If you need us, you shouldn't risk any more of our men in a journey to the north. It's not safe for the Chopec." The chief and other elders nodded in agreement; the death of even one tribesman was a great tragedy, and several young men had already been lost along with Incacha.

Blair continued, "The people of the north have a ... a tool that speaks far away. If you need us, give this paper to someone who speaks Spanish, and they can go to a town where they have this tool, and use this paper to speak to us. Someone will help them do it."

The chief nodded. "I will keep the paper dry."

"We will come," Jim said.

"Allillann~ari," the chief nodded [That's all, then], and he and the elders returned to their work. Jim and Blair waited a moment, then got up and wandered off.

As they crossed the clearing, Qisa jogged up and stopped them, grinning in a way that showed he wasn't about to stand on ceremony and wait for them. One after the other, he grabbed them in big hugs and called them, "Wawqe'y" [my brother]. "It will be at least six months," he said to both men, "before all the talking is done and the gifts are exchanged. I wanted to run off with her now and get it over with," he confessed, rolling his eyes, "but Riri wants the big ceremony."

Jim nodded sagely and shrugged. "Believe me, I know exactly what you mean. It's a woman thing. Don't get in her way."

"Me? Are you crazy?" the hunter laughed. "I know what's good for me! But," he continued seriously, "I hope you will come back when Riri and I are married."

"We'll try, wawqe'y," Jim tried to explain, "but it's a long journey to make very often."

"But we'll try our best," added Blair. "You and Riri are lucky to have each other. You'll be good together."

"I know," Qisa smiled.

Jim cleared his throat and said, "Qisa... make sure Riri knows..." He stopped and shrugged. "Just make sure she knows."

Qisa nodded in understanding and slapped Jim in the shoulder. He unslung from around his back a long, intricately decorated blowgun and quiver of darts and handed them to Blair. "Watch out for snakes, little brother," he laughed, lightly slapping him on the face. "Ratukama!" [See you later!] Then sprinted off before they could reply.

Ellison looked at the weapon dubiously and shook his head. "They are never going to let that thing on the plane."

"Sure they will," Blair assured him. "We'll wrap it up and check it with the luggage. I'm an anthropologist from a university, and this is an important cultural artifact." He grinned and winked. "I've done this a thousand times. When I'm finished with them they'll want to get rid of me so bad they'll let me through with a bag of grenades."

"That I can believe," replied Jim with just a millimeter's worth of smile.

Blair brightened. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I came back from Papua New Guinea and I was carrying this --"

Jim threw up his hands defensively. "No! And I don't want to know!"

Before they could explore this fascinating topic further, Kipu ran up to them and exclaimed, "Mamay says not to bother you! I'm not bothering you, am I?"

"Course not!" Blair replied indignantly, squatting down to the boy's eye level. "We were just coming over, right, Enqueri?"

"Absolutely," Jim assured him. He crossed his arms and mock-scowled down at the boy. "I wanted to make sure you keep your promise. No more cliff diving, right?"

"I promised!" Kipu protested.

"And you'll listen to Qisa and not make trouble for your mamay," Jim continued grimly.

"Qisa said it's time for me to learn to shoot," said the boy proudly. "He says I'm too old to play with the girls." He paused and gave Blair a confused look. "But you do. I told him that."

Jim snorted a laugh, and Blair gave Kipu a sheepish little shrug. "Well, it's kinda different for me," the shaman tried to explain. "It's complicated."

"Qisa said he likes you a lot, but you can't shoot worth monkey shit. Is that true? Is it because you play with the girls?" Kipu asked curiously.

That set Jim laughing even worse. Blair glared at him, then told Kipu, "No, it's not because I play with girls. I'm a crappy shot because I didn't learn how when I was a boy. If you pay attention to Qisa, he'll teach you and you'll be a great shot when you grow up no matter what. Okay?"

"Okay," Kipu answered doubtfully. "But you know a lot better stories and games than Qisa does..." He looked up tentatively. "Mamay says it's rude to ask when you're coming back. But you are coming back, right?"

Blair sighed. "Enqueri and I live a long way away, farther than the mountains. We're going to try to come back, but it may be a long time."

"Well then, I'll just come to see you," the boy said, setting his face determinedly. "Then you can show me your forest."

"Kipu," said Jim, "Qisa is going to be like your tatay now. It's important that you do as he says. Much more important than coming to see our forest."

"When I grow up I can do whatever I want," Kipu answered defiantly. "Play with anybody I want, even travel across the mountains. You do."

"Asikatuq and I... we're not really like other people," Jim explained gently.

"No! You're much more fun!" the boy replied. "I mean," he explained to Jim, "sometimes you're scary -- you try to be scary, but you're still fun. And you're lots of fun!" he told Blair, grabbing him in a tight hug.

Blair hugged him back. "Just be a good boy," he said quietly. "Listen to your mamay and tatay, and don't worry about growing up, okay?" The boy nodded. "Now, we have to go talk to the grown-ups. Go and play, and don't fuss. It's bad luck." He kissed the kid on the head, gave him a little push away, and stood up. "Go on."

Kipu backed off slowly, gave a little wave, and turned and ran off.

Blair exhaled. "Man, I hate this part!"

Jim shrugged. "I wanted to sneak out the back, but no..."

"Scaredycat," smirked Blair.

"I'm not a scaredycat, I'm scary," Jim replied smugly.

"You try to be scary," teased Blair, "but you're still a fun cat. Come on, let's hit my mom's and get this over with."

"Now, she's scary."

"Amen to that, brother."

Iaqu assumed this was going to be her son's last decent meal for days, if not months -- if not until she saw him again. She had no idea what passed for food among the people of the north, but her son had told her they didn't eat cassava or monkeys or grubs or anything proper. No wonder he'd looked so skinny and pale before she'd gotten her hands on him. He probably saved all the decent food he found to give to that ox of a man of his. Enqueri. His Enqueri. Not a husband, not a wife, more than just a friend. Her son's man. A man who seemed carved out of stone, but who bent like a twig if her son so much as looked at him. Whatever was going on between those two, Iaqu preferred to keep deliberately vague in her mind, as some kind of spirit thing that of course wasn't normal -- since when were spirits ever normal? It was enough for Iaqu that the big warrior visibly worshipped the ground beneath her son's feet, that he made her son happy, that he was a good provider. Though how good a provider he could be had to come under question when her son was so pale and skinny, clearly malnourished, probably overworked. She'd heard of shamen who got so caught up in the spirit world that they'd forget to eat; her son was obviously one of those. The spirits were close to him, and Iaqu knew that while being close to spirits was an important and wonderful thing, it was not always a good thing. And it was always a hard thing. And while all this spirit work was going on, who was taking care of her son's stomach? She'd have to have a talk with that man of his.

In any event, nobody was going to walk away from her shelter hungry if she could help it. She'd prepared accordingly, and began the onslaught the moment her son and that man of his sat down on the mat, with fish balls and spicy young greens and tiny birds baked in mud shells. And those were just the appetizers.

She waited until their mouths were happily crammed with food before she addressed her son with the affectionate term she would have used if he'd been with her as a small boy. "Wawa'y, I think that tribe of yours in the north is too big. I think they make you work too hard."

Jim and Blair exchanged a glance before Blair returned his face to his food and replied, "It's a lot of people to watch out for, Mamay, but Enqueri and I have a lot of friends to help us."

"A lot of friends to get you into trouble, I bet," Iaqu snorted. "Warriors. A lot of running around and yelling and being big men fighting off other big men."

"We help people, Mamay. We take care of our tribe."

"So who takes care of you?" she asked pointedly.

"I do," Jim answered quietly.

Iaqu continued to address her remarks to Blair. "I think you don't eat enough and don't get enough sleep. I see you running around half the night with somebody and coming to eat in the morning with your hair wet. I see you eat like a bird and give somebody most of your meat. It's good for hunters to eat meat, but if there's not enough for both of you it means that somebody isn't doing his job and bringing back more. You're too skinny. You should eat meat and nuts and fat, it will make you strong."

Jim couldn't suppress a small laugh. "That's it, Chief," he said in English. "When we get home I'm putting you on a diet of Wonder Burgers and pork rinds."

/Not with your head shoved in a bucket of algae shake you won't,/ Blair smiled silently, then said to his mother, "Enqueri takes good care of me." /In his own sick, twisted fashion,/ he added.

"Love you too, Sandburg," Jim murmured into his food.

"As long as somebody remembers that it's not about being a big man, that taking care of you doesn't mean pulling you out of trouble that he got you into in the first place," Iaqu pointed out.

Blair laughed. /She's got a point./

"Fuck you too, Sandburg," Jim smiled.

/Later./ "Mamay, I'm a grown man," Blair said gently. "I do this because I have to. I want to. Enqueri and I take care of each other, and together we can take care of the tribe. Enqueri..." he started, looking over to Jim. Then he turned back to Iaqu. "Mamay, let him talk to you. Please?"

Iaqu hesitated for a moment, then turned, head cocked, to look Jim full in the face.

Jim met her gaze with his, clear as the sky. He said, "Your son is a strong warrior. I can't promise you he will never be in danger, that he will never feel cold or wet or hungry. Or pain. Or fear. But I promise you that if he does, it will be so that many, many others can sleep safe and warm. And I promise you that he will never be alone."

Iaqu took a deep breath and turned to her son, who was watching his warrior, eyes like stars dancing. Whatever he was seeing was something a person was lucky to see once in a lifetime. Again, she cocked her head to Jim and sighed, "Bring him back to us."

Jim nodded. "If I can, I will."

She stood and picked up a pack basket, shoving it into Jim's grasp. "I packed food for the trip," she said. "Make sure he eats."

Before Jim could reply, she turned and pointed a finger to her son. "Make him bring you back."

"Mamay," Sandburg giggled, "I don't make him do anything."

Iaqu grinned and snorted at that. Suddenly she was bustling them out of the shelter. "What are you doing hanging around here?" she harangued them. "You have a long way to walk. The sun doesn't stop for you, you know, no matter how you act. Warriors and spirits, hmph. Big men." She darted in to give her son a quick hug, then backed away just as quickly. "Don't do anything too stupid." She turned away and abruptly became very busy doing something else.

The guys picked up their stuff, backed off and headed out across the clearing. "I hate this," said Blair. "I hate this. Man, get me out of here."

"We're out, Chief," Jim assured him. "Before we get stuck with any more crap to carry."

"That's not crap," Blair pointed out. "That's food! And the basket will be empty by the time we reach Iquitos."

"Yeah, but who's going to be carrying it?" Jim grumbled. "You want those books back now?"

"Ha! Serves you right for opening your big mouth!" grinned Blair. "Tell you what. I'll carry the food, you carry the blowgun. You're the one who knows how to use it."

"You just want to be near the food," said Jim as they juggled, passed and rearranged the load again.

"I'm saving you from yourself," Blair answered.

"You say that a lot."

"You need a lot of saving."

In order to get out of the village, they had to pass the men's house. Sandburg's father was waiting for them. They strolled up to him, and he nodded. He pointed back up the ridge and said, "If you follow that way you will reach the road in ... it used to be five days' walk. Now, maybe three." He shrugged with a flash of bitterness. "The men with the guns and the roads come, and the jungle is smaller than it used to be."

There was nothing to be said to that, so the two men nodded. Pato said, "Keep your feet dry," and walked away from them. And that was it.

Sandburg said, "After all this, a few days of hacking through the jungle is going to seem like a vacation, I swear!"

"Smile when you say that, Chief," said Ellison grimly. "Tell me again before we reach the road."

"You have no sense of adventure," Blair objected.

"I had a sense of adventure, and it got shot," Jim countered. "You have no sense of reality."

"Reality is overrated, man. And just what do you mean by reality, anyway? There's a whole lot of different realities out there..." Blair began, as Sentinel and Guide melted into the depths of the forest, bickering without cease.

By the time the sun was low in the sky and the shadows were stretching along the ground, they'd both shut up. Couldn't argue when every swipe of the machete raised up a cloud of gnats and mosquitoes that seemed intent on diving right into your nose and mouth. But they'd found a rhythm soon enough, and were making better time than either of them had expected. It turned out to be easier if Sandburg took point with the machete, carrying a limited load, while Ellison followed, lugging the bulk of the crap and keeping Blair pointed in the right direction. When the going got really tough, they'd drop everything and take turns slashing way ahead, wrestling the jungle into cooperation, and ferrying the luggage up to the last open point in the trail they'd broken. Then they'd start the whole procedure up again.

Still, Sandburg was right, it did beat the shit out of trying to convince your mother-in-law that you weren't letting her son starve. Jim grimaced to himself -- it had been bad enough persuading Naomi that associating with fascist pigs wasn't going to be the death of Blair, but now he had two of Sandburg's moms to deal with! And what Naomi was going to say if she found out that her son was being investigated nightly by one of those fascist pigs... especially when she'd given every sign of being interested in a little up close and personal interrogation herself... with tongue and everything... maybe they could avoid the whole issue, Jim thought desperately. Maybe they could just keep slogging through the jungle and get themselves lost for another few years and avoid the whole issue.

Jim wiped the grime and sweat from his brow and peered through the upper canopy. "I'd say we're just about losing the light, Chief. I can get us through for maybe another hour or two, if you want to...?"

Blair paused and stretched a bit. "Whatever you want, man, whatever you think is best. Let's do it."

Jim took another look at his Guide and thought better of it. "Actually, I don't know about you, but I could use a break. What do you say we call it a day?"

Sandburg plopped himself down crosslegged in place and exhaled, "Bitchin'." And spat out a mouthful of gnats.

Jim dropped the stuff he was carrying and gathered it all into a pile. "This is as good a place as any to spend the night," he said. "Why don't you clear us a firepit and I'll do something about bedding."

With a stifled groan, Blair got to his feet and came back to join Ellison. "Bed is good, man. But don't go to any trouble on my account, I can sleep anywhere." It was like someone had pulled a plug to let hours of backed-up Blairtalk pour out. "You know that. We go camping all the time. We get kidnapped all the time too," he babbled. "You know, once I slept in the trunk of a car, did I ever tell you that? I can sleep on the ground no problem. I've slept in bathtubs, man, in those disgusting molded plastic seats in bus stations. You should see some of the places I've slept. I mean --"

"Firepit," Jim cut him off, pointing at the spot where he wanted it dug.

"Fire is a good idea too," Blair started, dropping lightly to his knees and scrabbling through the layers of decaying foliage until he could find clear ground. "I mean, fire is a great idea! Fire is the idea, you know? The first idea, before the wheel, before painting or arrowheads even. It's such a great idea!" He picked a beetle out of the litter and watched it crawl over his hand with hardly a pause for breath. "I mean, it's warm here all the time, which is great, it's so great not to be cold for a change, you know?" He shook the beetle off. "But fire is good for light too, not that you need light, Jim, and dark is good, dark is natural, right? I don't have a problem with dark ..."

Jim let him jabber on while he stripped off springy boughs he could use for bedding. Blair's heart was beating strong and steady, his breathing deep and calm. He was okay, just exhausted. He was just broadcasting.

Over years of stakeouts and road trips and just living within spitting distance of each other Jim had learned that sometimes Blair talked, and other times he just... broadcasted. Radio Free Sandburg, all Blair all the time, broadcasting 24-7 over station KSEN on all your dials.

Sure, it was annoying as hell sometimes. But Jim wouldn't try to filter out or dial down his Guide's voice any more than he would try to stifle his heartbeat. And now Sandburg had learned how to do it with his mouth closed, which was truly frightening. Because most thoughts that Blair didn't vocalize aloud -- what damn little that was -- were part of an ongoing internal chat with himself that could bubble into unaware subvocalization at any moment, and that meant that from now on Radio Free Sandburg was on the air.

What was he going to tell the guy: stop thinking so loud, Chief?

So Jim had basically learned to consider it as much a part of his own personal atmosphere as Blair's heartbeat... but different broadcasts were important in different ways. Sometimes the words were important. Sometimes not. "Jim, look out!" could cut through a broadcast like an air raid siren, but it was the urgent tone and jackhammer heartbeat that went along with those words that really got Jim's attention. Same with "Jim, come back to me." It wasn't really the words that counted. Sandburg knew a thousand and one ways to say "Jim", and each one spoke volumes.

When Sandburg was broadcasting, Jim paid as much attention to the rhythm, the tone, the air currents of his gestures, Blair's breathing, heartbeat and scent as to the words themselves. It was background music. His personal soundtrack. No matter what Blair was actually saying -- and make no mistake, it was often fascinating, sometimes brilliant -- the music told Jim what was important. Jim, I'm nervous. Jim, I'm scared. Jim, I have this incredible idea. Jim, I'm just so overjoyed with life.

Jim, I'll follow your footsteps blindly through the pitch-black jungle, then drop to sleep in my tracks. Just watch where you swing that machete, okay?

Music.

Still, fuck that.

Jim grinned to himself and listened to Sandburg describe how the first ceramics had been made as art devoted to the fire spirits. It was true that Sandburg could have been perfectly comfortable curled into a burrow of leaf litter, sleeping with beetles crawling through his hair. Hell, Ellison could have been happy with less. But he and Sandburg spent more than their share of nights together in every kind of lousy, dangerous, miserable, just plain fucked-up crazy circumstances imaginable. Tonight no one was chasing them, no one was shooting at them, and Jim was making them a bed. Because he could.

Got a problem with that?

Arms full of foliage, he turned back to Blair, who was sitting on the ground next to his firepit, still talking, part to Jim, part to himself, part to the lizard he was letting run up his arm. "You know, salamanders used to be considered fire spirits -- and I know this isn't a salamander, it's a lizard, but it just got me thinking, you know? People used to think salamanders could go unharmed through fire, I guess because they look kind of slimy." He looked up at Jim, shook off the lizard and smiled. "I mean most myth is based in fact, right?"

The firepit was just fine, a large area cleared of organic debris with a small depression banked up in the center. They weren't cooking; they didn't need much. Jim smiled and dropped the bedding. "Sure, Chief," he grinned, and pointed at the pack basket. "Let's eat."

"Yeah!" exclaimed Sandburg, launching himself at the basket and beginning to dig. "Oh, man, we hit the jackpot, Jim!" He pulled out a bundle of small packets of cassava paste wrapped in leaves. "Chopec grape leaves! Does Mamay rock or what!" Dug around some more, pulled out a container and opened the lid. "And bugs! The fat kind!"

Jim peeked into the container. The plump white grubs were crawling around in a bed of greens. "We'd better eat those tonight while they're still alive," he commented. He plucked one and popped it into his mouth. It burst between his teeth like a cherry tomato, spurting herb-tinged juice over his tongue. "She went through a lot of trouble to do all this for us."

"She rocks!" Blair repeated. "We can skewer these over the fire and they'll get all drippy and sizzly."

"Sadist," Jim smiled fondly, kneeling to arrange the bracken into a bed.

"Hey, man, you like them raw. And twitching," Blair countered with a grin. Then his attention dove back into the basket.

Jim finished spreading smooth palm fronds over the top of their bed, then moved to assemble a small fire in the pit, lighting it with one of their precious blue-tips. He used matches to keep the night at bay; Sandburg used them to make magic. Typical.

In no time at all the food basket was much lighter. Night had fallen quietly, darkness closing around a small flickering circle. Jim stared at the fire absently, treating himself to sensations. Warm fire to his face, slight breeze at his back. The satisfying ache of muscles well used. Chirping insects, rustling leaves. Sandburg with a full, contented stomach, positively glowing in the firelight, going on about the pentatonic scale in Peruvian composition while under the surface he broadcasted his own music: Jim, I feel safe. Jim, the night is beautiful. Jim, it's good to be here with you.

"Jim, check it out, I got this really great idea!"

Jim glanced over at a grinning Sandburg and twitched a smile. "What's up, Chief?"

"Gimme the matches."

That got Jim's full attention. "Chief, what the hell is going on in that head of yours?"

"Just go with me for a minute, okay?" Blair asked. "You're going to love where we end up, I swear!"

Famous last words. But he tossed Sandburg the matches just the same.

Blair got up and stood behind him a few feet back. "Do you hear me, Jim?"

"Is this a hearing test?" Jim chuckled. "You can do better than that."

"No," Blair said, in a voice that was both calm and brimming with excitement. "I mean, do you hear me?"

Oh. Jim settled himself and tried to breathe deeply, the way Sandburg had taught him, letting all distracting sensations fall away before his Guide's voice, his Guide's heartbeat. "Yeah, I hear you," he answered softly, already half in trance.

"Great. Now close your eyes and dial up touch."

Easy enough. "Got it."

"Okay. Now, the fire in front of you is warm, the air behind you is cool," Blair breathed in a slow, mesmerizing murmur. "Feel the difference... warm in front, cool behind... separate them... like a line running down your body... heat in front, cool behind... feel it..."

"I feel it." It tingled, a line running around the outline of his body where the heat of the fire met the cool breeze at his back, two separate clear sensations barely touching in a tingling line. "I feel it."

"Great." Jim heard the scratch of a blue-tip match behind him, and Blair said, "Now what?"

"You lit a match."

"Feel it," urged his Guide. "Feel the tiny point of heat behind you, separate from the larger heat in front. Separate from the cool air behind you. Feel it."

Jim reached out to the tiny point of heat, a small flickering dot of fire behind his back, apart from everything else... "Yes."

A pause. "What now?"

He extended his sense of touch a little further, and said, "The match is out now."

"But...?" Blair whispered urgently.

But? But... Jim concentrated, trying to stretch a muscle that didn't physically exist. Contacted the slightest, tiniest spot of warmth. "But the match head is still smoldering," he said. "Right? It's still warm."

"Yes!" Blair exclaimed.

Jim opened his eyes to see Blair bounding into his face, beaming. It made him feel stupidly pleased with himself, and he didn't even know why.

Blair sat crosslegged in front of him and leaned both palms on Jim's knees. "I got one word for you, Jim," he beamed. "Synesthesia."

"Syn...? Is that a venereal disease or the girl who gave it to you?"

Blair shook his head. "Don't play dumb with me, Jim. It's beneath you. Synesthesia," he repeated, and the hands were off and running. "The transmutation of sensory information. Like the piggyback thing taken to extremes, only much, much cooler! Tasting colors, hearing smells," he explained to Jim's blank look. "It's a documented phenomenon, and it has your name written all over it, dude!"

Jim shook his head dubiously. "Hate to break it to you, Chief, but I don't really want to hear what I smell. Half the time I don't even want to smell what I smell."

"Yeah, but I got another word for you," Sandburg beamed, rocking slightly side to side, like a kid ready to spring a surprise. "Infrared. How'd you like to see heat, Tarzan?"

Now that was a word he could get behind, that was a word he could use! "If this works... You really think you can do that, Chief?"

"I think you can," Blair tempted. "Give it a shot?"

"Hell yeah!"

"Well, all right!" Blair leapt to his feet and started pacing, thinking, gesturing. "All we need is the right sensory key..." He stopped talking out loud for a moment, but Jim heard him broadcast, /key, sensory key, something you know well... warm.../ And suddenly Blair was stripping out of his clothes. "Get up, Jim!"

"Uh... Sandburg... what are you doing?" Jim stood up and grinned. "Are we still on the same page here or did I miss something?" he asked, popping open the button fly of his pants. "Not that I mind..."

A naked, radiant Sandburg bounded up to him and laughed, "Dude!" grabbing his hands. "You don't need to do that," he said. "I mean, you can if you want, hell, I got no problem with that! But I wasn't thinking of that -- I mean not explicitly," he grinned. "At this exact moment."

"Then how about giving me a clue, here, Chief?" Slightly embarrassed, rebuttoning his pants.

Blair wriggled up against Jim's body and insinuated him into a hug. "Jim," he started, "you do about ninety times better with this stuff if I don't give you a clue! You do really well with linear, but sometimes linear is not what we want, get me?" He gazed up at Jim like he was asking for candy. "Just go sideways with me, okay? Please? Trust me?"

Blair Sandburg, naked, squirming exuberantly in Jim's arms and begging, "Trust me..." It made Jim feel like there was steam pouring out his ears. He ran both hands down Blair's smooth back and squeezed his ass hard. "Kiss me," he said roughly.

Blair threw his arms around Jim's neck and gave him a kiss that could stop the world on its axis. Then broke the kiss, leaned back and waited, smiling.

"Tell me what to do," Jim whispered into Blair's neck.

"C'mere," said Blair, stepping back and positioning Jim with his back to the fire. He took Jim's broad hands and plunked them onto his shoulders. "Okay now," he said intently, trapping Jim into his gaze. "You know me, right? You know this body," gesturing at himself, "you could probably map every inch of it, right?"

Jim snorted a laugh. "You're pretty full of yourself there, Chief."

"Am I wrong or am I right?"

Sigh. "You're right."

"Right. Close your eyes and dial up touch."

"Fine."

"Okay." Pause. "Imagine my body, but concentrate on my body heat... Find the contours of my body, but paint them in heat..."

Ellison concentrated and ran his fingertips over Blair's torso, hardly even touching him, touching the warm air that touched him. "You're warm, yeah Chief... but it's not like I see it or anything..."

"Use your touch to guide your sight."

"My eyes are closed."

"Doesn't matter. You've used infrared scopes, you know what heat is supposed to look like. Use it as a... a metaphor. You're letting your eyes know how to interpret the information so they'll know what to look for when they're open. Nice and linear."

"Sez you."

"It's getting late. You want to stand here and bitch all night?"

"So what else is new?"

Sigh. "You know, if you want me to whup your ass, it can be arranged."

Ellison coiled and his eyes snapped open. Blair stood there smiling, and reached out one hand to lightly touch his shoulder. "Just kidding," the Guide said mildy. But the music said different.

Ellison's eyes narrowed, but Blair met his gaze implacably, openly, still smiling patiently. They stood in place, eye to eye, with their fingertips lightly to each other's chest, with a tension that positively crackled between them...

But then Sandburg laughed and shook his head. "Come on. We're just wasting energy. It's late, we're both beat, let's forget this and get some sleep." He broke contact with Jim to brush his hair from his eyes, and turned toward the fire.

"No, wait, let's do it," Jim blurted before he could stop himself.

"Nah, man, we're both getting punchy. It was a dumb idea anyway, let's go to bed."

"Come on, Sandburg!" Jim growled. "Let's just do this and get it over with already!"

Blair threw up his hands and sighed, "Fine. All right. Whatever." He moved them both back into position. "Now close your damn eyes and let's do this."

Jim closed his eyes. "Fine. You're still fucking warm."

"You piss me off. Put the scopes on, asshole."

"Just watch me." In his mind Jim took what he knew of Blair's body, all the slopes and planes and contours, and matched them slowly with the dips and rises of the heat he could sense coming off that same body. Like plotting points on a topological map. The higher points were brighter, the cooler points were darker. Easy. Just like using a scope. "Got it. No problem."

"Fine." Sandburg broke contact with him and took a step back. "Still got it?"

"Got it." No problem. He was glowing red against the cooler air.

"You think so?" said Blair. "Now what?"

The warm red glow in Jim's mind moved one arm. "You raised your right arm to the side," Jim said.

"Oh yeah? How many fingers?"

Jim concentrated, finding the heat and imagining that he was focusing the heat the way he focused his eyes. Tightening the beam. Blair's hand zoomed into sharp red resolution. "Three fingers, Chief."

Blair exhaled, "Yeah..." /Shit. Eyes closed!/

With his eyes closed! Jim froze. "Chief! Holy shit!"

"Don't move!" Blair gasped, bubbling with excitement. "Don't do anything. Stay right there." He turned and ran off. Jim could see -- see! -- his heat signature fading into the dark.

/Okay,/ Blair's voice came on the air. /Open your eyes and find me./

Jim opened his eyes. It was dark, but he could feel the difference between the heat of the fire behind him and the cooler air in front. He cast out his tactile sense, reaching for heat in front of him that was separate from the fire behind. He could use what little light and shadow his eyes could distinguish to guide the sense of touch toward the heat. He could map the heat and interpret the map by reading it like an infrared scope. Blair was standing hidden in the deep, broken shadows-against-shadows of a clump of saplings, about 20 yards off. His body was radiant with heat.

/How many fingers?/ He raised both glowing arms. He was holding...

"Two thumbs up, Chief!"

"YOU RULE!" Blair jumped and pumped his fists in the air. He plunged through the stand of saplings and launched himself at Jim like he was going to leap right into his chest, but instead just slammed up against him, rocking them both back a step, and wrapped himself around Jim, wrapped his arms around his neck and grabbed his head and kissed him, huge and wet and sloppy, wrapping Jim in enthusiastic joy. Under the kiss he was bubbling, /you can do anything, anything, anything! Fucking wonderful!/

Jim grabbed him by the hair and gnawed into his ear, "You're a fucking genius!"

Blair threw his head back and howled, "I got a million of 'em!"

"I can see you in the dark, I can see you with my eyes closed!" Jim hissed.

"YES!"

"I can hear you with your mouth shut!"

"YES! Oh god Jim, I know that must suck!" But he was screaming with laughter as he said it.

Suddenly Jim was laughing too. "Sometimes it really sucks," he bit into Blair's neck.

Blair gasped "Oh god Jim," but he was still laughing. "I'm so sorry!" He grabbed Jim's face and kissed him again. He rocked against Jim's chest and lost both their footing and "Oof!" into Jim's mouth as they tumbled to the ground, still giggling madly.

"We have a bed," Jim growled into Blair's neck as he rolled them over, crushing himself against Blair's giggling, squirming body.

"Yes we do," gasped Blair. "Thanks for the bed, Jim." He wriggled out from underneath Jim -- the tickling ripple of Blair's hairy body up his chest sent Jim reeling -- and scrambled for the bed. Jim took off after him, throwing himself onto the pile of fronds and tearing open the buttons of his fly with one hand. Blair grabbed his pants and yanked them down to his ankles, catching them on Jim's boots; he laughed as Jim kicked and cursed and they both managed to work everything off without booting Sandburg in the face.

Tossing Jim's pants to one side, Blair collapsed on top of him, wriggled all over him, licking into his ear, "I love you, I love you, you can do anything, you're so fucking wonderful..." as he stroked his face and neck, writhing, stroking Jim's body with his hair and skin, trapping Jim's cock between his legs and sliding, grinding it against his own in their matted sweaty hair.

"God, Chief, god," Jim panted, hands groping for Blair's ass and digging into the tight rich muscles. "Just... just.. please..."

"Anything, Jim," Blair hissed, grinding his hips tightly into Jim's groin.

And Jim started laughing heartily, gasping through the laughter, "Just try... not to... think so goddamn loud all the time, okay, Chief?"

Blair burst into laughter too and flopped over onto the leaves beside him. "Oh, man!" he exclaimed, hiccupping with giggles. "You got it! I mean, as much as I can, I'll try to watch out for it, I'm really sorry, man, that really must suck..."

Jim felt giddy. And Sandburg really was asking for it. He rolled over and knelt up, straddling Blair's shoulders, and smiled down at him. "Just shut up," he rumbled, rolling his head back, "and suck already."

/I can do that too,/ said Blair with his mouth full.

In the dead of night, Sandburg woke to Jim's huge hand -- it felt huge -- covering his mouth, and Jim's voice whispering, "Freeze."

Blair froze. It was dark, the fire was out, he couldn't see for shit. Most of him froze; but in his throat he was going, /whatisit whatisit Jim Jim whatisit?/

"Shhh," Jim whispered. "Just relax and don't move." Blair thought he heard Jim fumbling into the brush beside him, and thought he felt something tickling his throat. Something not Jim tickling his throat -- /oh god not Jim Jim god not Jim oh god oh Jim oh shit whatisit Jim whatisit/

"Shhh," Jim whispered. "Stay still. Close your eyes, misq'iy." Blair squeezed shut his eyes and something twitched and something flicked and he flinched in spite of himself against the pressure of Jim's hand and then the hand was released and he shuddered and exhaled and Jim settled back down beside him. "It's okay, Chief, go back to sleep."

"What was that!" Blair screeched.

"Nothing, go to sleep," Jim mumbled into his neck.

Blair sat up like a shot and poked him in the shoulder. "Why did you wake me up?"

"Didn't want you to wake up in the middle and flinch before I got it off you," Jim grumbled and rolled over.

He poked Jim again. "Jim! What was it? Jim! You're not going to sleep until you tell me! La la la la! Jim, I'll sing, I swear I will! What was that?"

Jim rolled back onto his back and pulled Blair on top of him. "Just a scorpion," he grumbled. "I gotcha covered, Chief. Go to sleep."

"A sc -- what!" Blair squawked into Jim's chest, flailing his arms.

"Shhh, misq'iy, sleep. I got you covered," Jim mumbled, rubbing in long smooth strokes up and down his back. Blair settled against his chest and slowly calmed down.

"Jim?" he whispered.

Jim grunted.

"Jim? Next time, don't wake me up, okay?"

Jim nodded and rolled them both over and rumbled, "Covered."

Blair had no problem with dark, and Jim had them covered. The second night, they hiked well past sunset and camped without a fire. Because they could.

"So there are these two guys, see..." Sandburg declaimed with theatrical gestures, squinting at the brilliant sky from under the visor of Jim's Jags cap, "these two total clowns are stuck in the middle of nowhere, and there aren't any trees!"

"There's a tree right over there," said Jim, pointing.

"Yeah, there's one tree," Blair conceded. "That's right." He shifted his pack and looked around. There was one, count it, one tree. The rest was broad, rolling, verdant, rock-strewn -- pastureland. As far as the eye could see. Almost as far as the mountains. And the mountains were tiny, dark and green, misty, far away, like another world.

They'd found the road early that morning and followed it, and the more they followed it the more it led them into civilization.

But civilization didn't always mean people. And roads didn't always mean rides.

"And these two guys, they've been walking for ever, seems like, and they stop under the one tree," Blair continued, stopping under the tree and leaning against the trunk to pick a rock from the sole of his boot.

"And they're waiting for something that never comes!" he yelled, throwing his head back and his arms out to the universe.

A bird in the tree heard him and startled into flight, squawking off into the distance.

Jim rolled his eyes. "Are you done now?"

"I am not even started yet! There's a whole dance routine coming up!"

"Drink this," Jim said, pushing a water bottle at him. "Take a load off. You're going to boil your brain if you keep going on like that."

Blair took the water. "Sorry, Jim. Thanks."

"And we don't have the water to waste on you screaming at the top of your lungs," Jim pointed out.

"Yeah, I know," Blair sighed. "Sorry. I was just... This place reminded me of something I used to read a lot and I was getting... literary there for a moment." He took a drink of water.

"And you're being really annoying, Chief. Really," Jim said tersely.

"Really?" Blair questioned perkily.

Jim threw him a look that could shatter glass. "Give me my hat," he said quietly. Blair passed him the Jags cap and Jim jammed it on his head. "Something will come along soon enough," Jim continued reasonably. "Or we'll find somewhere with a phone or a radio we can use to arrange some kind of ride. We're making good time." Blair passed him back the water bottle and Jim took a drink. "As long as you don't slow us down by yelling yourself into heat exhaustion." He pulled strips of smoked meat out of the nearly empty pack basket. "Here. Eat this," he said, offering one to Blair.

Blair shook his head. "No thanks, Jim. I'd just as soon not eat another monkey for a long, long time. A little too close to home, you know?"

Jim paused with the food halfway to his mouth. "And for the past how many weeks you've been eating exactly what, Darwin?" he asked pseudo-suspiciously.

"Ha ha that's funny, Jim," Blair deadpanned. "I mean, when it comes down to it, well, sure, when in Peru, you do as the Chopec -- people work hard to put that on the table. But as long as there's a choice, come on," he shrugged, "99% of your DNA and everything, it's a little too Donner party for me, dude. Can I have some more water?" he asked, and Jim passed the water bottle back automatically.

Seemingly oblivious to Jim's baffled look, Blair continued, "Though we are in the right part of the world for that, macrogeographically speaking, of course," taking a big swig. "That planeload of athletes went down into the Chilean Andes, right?" He glanced over to Jim and failed to swallow just a tiny flash of grin.

Jim groaned out of his pack. "You're sick, Sandburg," he said.

"I'm sick?" Blair mock-protested happily. "We are in the right part of the world for sick, mi amigo, macrogeographically speaking, of course. Way up north Mexico way the Aztecs chowed down human brains on a regular basis. So one man's sick is another man's sweetbreads." He shrugged and rocked a bit on his heels. "But hey, they also did coffee enemas, and while that's not someplace I'd ordinarily go, right now a big fucking iced coffee sounds so damn good that I wouldn't put it past myself to --"

"Whoa!" called Jim, throwing up his hands in a big Time Out. "Stop right there!" He boggled. "Where do you get this stuff? Are you feeling okay, Chief?"

Blair laughed and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Jim, I'm just letting off steam, I guess." He sighed and looked around them at the road and landscape. "You know, I must have read 'Waiting for Godot' about 20 times when I was a kid, and I never wondered why there were no trees..." he mused, "I mean yeah, metaphysically, sure, solitary universe and all... but it never occurred to me," he continued with a tense little laugh, "that it really might have been because some lousy qowi-fucking asna'ya had cut them all down!" he ranted.

"Jesus, Sandburg!" Jim exclaimed. He stared at Blair for a moment, and added, "Sit down, right now," putting his hand on Blair's shoulder and encouraging him to sit in the shade of the tree. "You are all over the place, Chief," he said with concern, sitting down beside him. "I mean," he shrugged with a nanosmile, "ordinarily you're the weirdest person I know --"

"Thanks man, coming from you that's a compliment."

Jim groaned and continued, "-- but right now you have me worried that your brains are frying. We need those brains. Weird and all. Drink more," he urged.

"Hey man, weird is line one in the job description," Blair said, taking another drink. "They put ads in the paper --" using his free hand to line up the words in the air before him -- "Shaman Wanted: Must Be Weird."

"Yeah, well, that's just an excuse. You don't have to cultivate it, you know," Jim groused. "Professional lunatic isn't exactly what I'd want on my resume."

"Depends on the job," Blair countered reasonably. "It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it." He looked curiously at Jim for a moment, then glanced away. "I'm glad I was able to help Riri and Kipu, after all," he mentioned. "Kipu's a great kid."

"Yeah," Jim said. He glanced at Blair, took a breath and grumbled, "Qisa says the kid said he wants to be a shaman when he grows up."

"Really? Wow!" Blair bounced, brightening immediately. "That would be perfect!"

"No, it wouldn't!" Jim blurted. "He and Riri aren't too thrilled about it."

"Why not?" Blair asked, a bit offended, the bounce losing altitude. "Kipu's bright, imaginative, introspective..."

"You mean he's the loner that everyone beats up on," Jim pointed out.

Blair flinched and looked askance at his partner. "Harsh, Jim."

"It's true," Jim said gently.

"Yeah, well, someone's got to do it. It's not just going to be you and me forever, Jungle Jim," Blair retorted, rallying. "Someone has to watch out for the Chopec, and it can't always be two gringos to the rescue." He leapt to his feet, paced a few feet away, then turned back to face Jim. "Or am I the only one who doesn't get a kick out of this whole White Man's Burden scenario?" he asked pointedly.

"Jesus, Blair!"

"Jim, it's great, it's -- it's an honor, the honor of my life," Blair insisted, starting to pace, "that the Chopec have accepted me this way, but you and I can't always be there, and won't always be there. Shit happens. Someone has to be ready," he said simply. "And I don't know about you, but I'd rather that someone be a Chopec."

"But, Kipu? That little kid?"

Blair shrugged. "He can start to learn now. If he can start to learn to hunt, he can start to learn a lot of things. At least he wants to do it."

"Well, he's just a kid, and Qisa thinks it's because he's been without a dad for so long. Now that he's around he can be more of an... influence on the kid, I guess."

"Oh, an influence," Blair repeated, nodding emphatically.

"Yeah," Jim said, embarrassed.

Blair sighed and tightened his lips, frowning. "Not every shaman takes it up the ass. Or pitches, you know. Or do you?"

Jim scrambled to his feet. "Jesus, Blair!"

"Then what!?" Blair exploded. "What the fuck else are we talking about here?" He threw his arms up in the air and paced back and forth in front of Jim. "We're not talking about protecting the tribe, oh no, because big macho monkey-gutting warriors are a great influence on the kid, time to teach him to kill, right, Jim? If it really was about protecting the tribe there'd be no problem, because that's what a shaman does, right, Jim? Right? So it's not about what a shaman does, maybe it's about who a shaman does -- or rather who this shaman does! And maybe it's a good idea that this shaman doesn't become an influence! Right, Jim? Am I right?"

"For god's sake, Blair!" spluttered Jim. "It's not about -- you can't -- you can't blame Qisa and Riri for wanting their son to be normal!" He tried to explain, "Not everyone wants their kid to grow up to be the town freak!"

Blair stopped dead and stared at Jim, frankly astounded. "Hello?" he asked, cupping one hand around his ear. "I hear an Ellison calling, but his name sure ain't Jim!"

"What the fuck does that mean?" Jim bellowed, the tendons in his neck cabling.

"I mean that you spell the F-word F-R-E-A-K, and you only use it when you're channeling Wild Bill!"

"Listen, you hairy little --" Ellison yelled, grabbing Blair by the t-shirt, stretching the fabric and yanking Blair into his face. Then he froze for a moment before continuing: "Truck!" He turned suddenly and walked into the middle of the empty road, scanning the horizon.

"What? Hairy little truck?" Blair asked, then switched gears. "Oh! Truck!" He pulled Jim off the road. "Here. You sit down. How long before it gets here?"

"What? Just a minute," Jim said. "I'm going to flag it down."

"No, no!" protested Blair. "You scary, me fun, remember? Sit under the tree with our stuff, and I'll flag it down. And put your shirt on!" He moved Jim into position. "You standing in the middle of the road says, 'Hi, I'm going to hit you over the head and steal your truck'," he explained, trotting back into the middle of the road. "Me standing in the middle of the road says, 'Hi, I'm a stupid tourist, and me and my lunkhead friend are lost'," he grinned.

"Lunkhead?" Jim growled, shrugging into a t-shirt.

"Better than Godzilla," Blair pointed out, catching sight of the pickup truck growing larger as it sped up the hilly road. "If you want to hitch a ride, that is." He waved his arms over his head.

It turned out after a little negotiation in Spanish with the driver that about twenty bucks American could get them a lift all the way to Iquitos, provided they didn't mind riding in the truck bed.

Sandburg had no problem with truck bed. Neither did Lunkhead.

"Wahoo! We are On The Road!" yelled Sandburg with the wind whipping tendrils from his ponytail and his fists in the air, kneeling up in the bed of the pickup at 70 miles an hour. "We are as good as on the plane! We are at Wonder Burger, man!"

"Sit down!" Ellison yelled, yanking him by the belt loops of his cutoffs until Blair toppled beside him. "We have an eight-hour drive to go! And then some!"

"Aw, come on, Jim, this makes me feel like a kid again!"

"And that would be what, last week?"

Blair rolled his eyes happily. "I grew up in the back of one truck or another, Jim! This thing is like a rocking cradle to me, bumps and all! Naomi always said that when I was a baby she used to have to drive around with me half the night to get me to go to sleep. She says it was the karmic price she paid for being on the road so much when she was pregnant. And when I was born. And when --"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it."

"This," Blair said, waving an arm to encompass the speeding landscape, "this is like coming home, man." He closed his eyes and rocked to the rhythm of the wheels hitting the road, humming a few bars of the blues to himself before coming out with a quiet wail of "Cryyyyy, cryyyyyy baaaaaby!" in a surprisingly decent falsetto.

"You can sing," Jim said, surprised.

Blair opened his eyes and looked at him funny for a second. "Come on man," he said. "Mom's friends with their collections of Sixties classics, whaddaya think? Had to find my role models somewhere. I was a short kid with curly hair, horny as a goat. Ergo, Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey. Why do you think Naomi gave me that guitar? She had to give me something else to wang on!" He demonstrated with a little masturbatory air-guitar solo a la Page.

Jim snorted. "So, you were like in a band or something?"

"Oh sure, man!" Blair bragged. "Humpin' amps, humpin' babes..." He looked at Jim from the corner of his eye to judge the effect, caught the "yeah, right" microgrin on his partner's face, and deflated. "No, Jim," he sighed. "To be in a band you have to stay in one place long enough to practice with people. Most of the time it was just me and Purple Haze in the bedroom. Most of the time I didn't even have an amp. All the music's up here, my friend," he said, tapping his head and wiggling his eyebrows. "And out there," waving at the road zipping past.

"That's gotta suck, Chief," Jim said, brow wrinkled in retroactive concern.

A slow smile bloomed on Blair's face. "You could have heard it, Jim. If you'd been there, you could have heard it. Even without an amp, I heard the sound of the strings. You could have heard it like a concert. I could have played for you, and you'd have heard it no problem."

Jim put on his best grump expression. "Well, you're not a kid now, and I'm not Naomi. The last thing we need is for you to go flying ass over head out of the truck. And then we'd be stranded again because the driver would know you're a fucking psycho."

"The only people for me are the mad ones," Blair chanted happily, reclining on the truck bed with one elbow on his pack. "The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time --"

"-- the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn..." Jim continued, enjoying his Guide enjoying the glory of sheer movement. He shook his head with a twitch of smile. "Talking about you, Chief."

"Isn't that what I keep telling you?" Blair insisted gleefully.

"He was also talking about Cassady, and Cassady got drunk one night and got hit by a train," Jim answered more seriously.

"Cassady didn't have a Sentinel to keep an eye on," Blair grinned and reached out to take Jim's hand. "We're going home, Jim." He rolled over onto his back, his blue eyes soaking up the blue sky. "Home, man! What a word... never whoulda thunk it..."

"Yeah," Jim said, looking down at Blair's hand in his. Blair's filthy broken fingernails, jungle-grimy brown hand. Sweaty, wild-musk and moss-smelling fingers, whorls on the fingertips scarred and callused but deeply etched like labyrinths --

Jim jerked his head up with a snort, reflexively squeezing Blair's hand in his. "It's going to be weird," he blurted.

"You think?" Blair laughed, squeezing back but not taking his eyes off the endless, cloudless sky.

"I think," Jim said. He exhaled. "I think it would be a better idea if we went straight back to the loft instead of the cabin." He let Blair's hand drop. "Back to the World."

"Right with you there, man," Blair agreed, lacing his hands behind his head. Then he popped up, pulled the elastic from his ponytail and gave his head a shake. "I'm thinking you, me, ESPN, fire in the fireplace, Triple Jade with Garlic Sauce only a phone call away..." He lay back down with his hands behind his head and wriggled, a long insinuating ripple running down his entire body. "Hell yeah..."

"I'm thinking," Jim cleared his throat and continued, "that maybe we shouldn't be getting too... " he shrugged and looked down and mumbled, "...comfortable..."

Blair sprang upright. "Who's comfortable?" he asked quickly, sliding over to face Jim with his back propped against the far wall of the truck bed. He stretched out and casually crossed his legs. "Though a flush toilet might be nice..." he added wryly, risking just a quick once-over of Jim's face.

Jim's face was a granite block, tense with seismic activity below the surface. His eyes were pale and pleading. "Chief," he said, "back to the World, Chief..."

"Riiiiiight," Blair nodded slowly. "Of course, Captain. Back to the World. Nice and neat. Like a fucking guillotine. That's cool. Nothing lasts," and he was still nodding, a bit faster now, breathing a bit faster too, and the hands were popping from his lap like popcorn on the burner. "That's cool. I hear that. Everything back in the nice little box."

"Chief! You can't..." Jim's neck and shoulders strained like everything from the neck up was trying to keep the rest of him from springing to Sandburg's side. His fists clenched in his lap and he closed his eyes. "Come on, Chief! You can't live in Cascade like it's the middle of a jungle!"

"No worries, man!" Blair said, arms flying a cross-hatch defense in front of him. "I hear you. It's all good. Hell, it's all great! It's been real, man, it's been surreal in fact, but you're right, gotta know when to say when, I mean this is the topper, right? And what a hell of a finish, talk about your big bang of a finish, I mean no pun intended, I am not going there, believe me that is one thing you don't have to worry about Jim because there are some things even I know to keep out of the public sphere, I mean even if they wouldn't throw me out of the program it's not something I'd want to address in my defense, you know?"

Jim's eyes flew open. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Hell, Jim, what do you think I'm talking about? My dissertation! What an ending! This'll be bigger than 'The Serpent and the Rainbow'! We are talking Castanedaville here, man! I mean once I get done with changing all the names and everything, for fuck's sake even I know enough to change the names to protect the innocent, right, Joe Friday?" He didn't give Jim a breath's space to respond before plowing on. "I mean, initiation as a shaman? That's gotta blow the committee's mind!" He pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his elbows on them.

"You're talking about your dissertation?" Jim exclaimed, catching up, eyes practically bugging out of his head. "I was talking about... about -- I was talking about things here, real life things!"

"Yeah, well, so am I," Blair nodded, as if he were prompting a slow student. "And you're right, I mean, what could top this little excursion, right? I'd have to come up with a hell of an encore! So it's really cool that we're heading right back to Cascade, in fact it's really convenient, dude, it gives me some extra time to get my shit together, get my crap out of your hair, get my hair out of your crap. That is, if you don't mind my taking maybe a couple of days, Jim, if a couple of days is cool with you...?"

"Chief!" Jim blurt out, exasperated. "All I did was mention --"

"It's cool, Jim," Sandburg the steamroller assured him, "you don't have to draw me stick figures. I may have overstayed my welcome, but at least I hear the clue bell when it tolls for me."

"Sandburg, slow down!" Jim almost yelled. He paused a moment, but continued before Blair could start up again. "Stop a minute, Chief, and just pretend you're talking to someone who can't read your mind, for god's sake!"

Blair laughed the most bitter laugh Jim had ever heard from him. /And who would that be, Jim?/

Jim's breath caught. "Goddammit, Chief..." he whispered.

"Let me put it in small words, Jim," said Blair. "Nice clean little color-coded boxes. Back to the World, right, Jim?"

"Well, that's what I said..."

"No more you, me, hot-cha-cha, right?"

"Well, yeah..."

"So this little soldier knows marching orders when he hears them, Captain. It's cool. Give me a couple of days when we get back to the World, and it's hasta luego. Tell Simon thanks for putting up with me, and I'll send him a real nice letter and a basket of fruit or something. And you're both invited to dinner with champagne when I pass my defense, and you're both invited to my graduation. I mean, I wish I could do more, but if I want to keep your name out of my dissertation I can't even dedicate it to you or anything, you know? Sorry, man."

"Sandburg, that's..."

"It's been really cool, man. Thanks."

"Sandburg!" Jim yelled frantically, cramming the words in edgewise. "Nobody said you had to leave, for fuck's sake! It doesn't have to ... change ... anything," he struggled to explain. "We just leave it where it belongs. We go back to how it was."

Blair stared at him with his mouth open and a part of Jim's mind realized he'd finally found something that would Shut Sandburg Up.

For a moment, anyway. "You're kidding, right, Jim?" Blair ventured, a nervous smile skittering over his face. "Don't fuck with my head like this, man, it's been a long day and I'm dancing as fast as I can here. You just told me you don't want to fuck me anymore, right?"

Jim sat up straight and said, "Right. Yes. That's right." But the voice was kind of rough.

"That's after you told me you think of me as the town freak, with all the glory that implies on Planet Ellison."

Jim grimaced. "I didn't mean it like --"

"And you still want me to live with you?" Blair slammed the words in, stiletto-sharp.

"Chief, I didn't think --"

"No, man, you didn't think!" Blair laughed, shaking his head, eyes registering disbelief. "You sincerely did not think. That was a masterpiece of not-thought, that was. Come on, Jim! You really expect to just pick up where we left off?"

Jim looked over and was trapped into the depths of Blair's steady, incisive gaze. He couldn't reply, he could only shrug helplessly.

Blair pushed on. "You want me to keep living in that little room in your loft? Riding in the cozy little cab of your truck? Making dinner with you, sorting the goddamned color-coded laundry with you, doing hours of tedious paperwork with you -- for you -- watching the game next to you on the sofa -- without my feet on the goddamned coffee table... and that's not even going into the serial killers, bullet holes and car crashes, that's just gravy -- and never being able to touch you? Knowing what we've been to each other? Knowing what you think of me?"

"Chief," Jim groaned. "Not like that, it's never been like that. I don't think of you like -- I've always... touched you," he insisted.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I don't have that much strength of character," Blair admitted. "What about you? How about it? Me, steaming up the shower, sleeping in that little room, dirty socks in the hamper..." He cocked his head and looked at Jim strangely. "What would it smell like, Jim? How would it feel to hear my heartbeat, smell my scent so close, have me all around you all the time... and never be able to touch? Would it smell... familiar?"

Jim rolled his head back and groaned, "Stop..."

Blair shook his head sadly and went on. "Because I can't do it anymore, Jim, I know I can't do it, and I don't even have the senses. I can't touch you and not want you, Jim. I never have," he said softly. "Always, always wanted you, always want you. I can't not want you. I never even had to touch you to want you, and my gods, I need to touch you like nothing else on earth, Jim." He shuddered and looked off to the speeding horizon, clutching both arms around his knees. "No matter what kind of freak that makes me."

"Blair!" Jim pleaded hoarsely.

"Jim," Blair whispered softly, eyes still far away. "I need to touch you." /Need to touch you, Jim./

A desperate tremble ran through Jim from head to toe, and his eyes flew to the window in the back of the truck's cab, through which he could see the driver impassively watching the road ahead.

Blair followed his glance and chuckled sadly. "Yeah..." he sighed, and looked away.

Jim slowly knelt up, reached out, leaned across the space between them and lightly laid his hand on Blair's knee. Blair shuddered and closed his eyes. "Gods, Jim, gods..."

"Blair," Jim croaked. "Please, I... I -- "

Blair looked over into a pair of eyes like pale cracking ice.

"What do we do, Chief?" Jim begged. "Please, misq'iy. What do we do now?"

"God damn you, Jim," Blair breathed, dropping his head onto his knees, forehead burning into the back of Jim's hand. "Why do we always have to do everything the hard way?" He looked up at Jim, full of love and fatigue and exasperation. "Why," he abruptly erupted into Jim's face, "do you always make us go through hell and back to get to the real question?" Suddenly he grabbed Jim and pulled him back against the wall of the truck bed beside him. Wrapping both arms around his Sentinel's waist, he leaned into his shoulder. "I hate you," he whispered brokenly into Jim's chest. "You suck," he insisted, voice catching. "You motherfucking asshole," he hissed sharply as Jim's arm slid around him, held him, rocking him.

Jim leaned into the top of Blair's tangled, unwashed head. He spared one quick glance at the still-thank-god-oblivious driver and wrapped his other arm around his partner, pulling him against his chest, rocking him tightly and whispering, "Sorry, sorry Chief, sorry...." Blair clung to him, cursing him and telling him how much he sucked with increasingly ingenious complexity in an increasingly calm, relaxed murmur.

Finally, the whisper stopped, and Sandburg mumbled into his armpit, "Coulda just asked, asshole."

"I'm an asshole." Jim said it like a promise.

Blair shook his head. "You're not an asshole, Jim. We have shit to talk about, absolutely. But Jesus on a pogo stick, man!" He glared up at Jim. "The train wreck is optional!"

"Sorry, Chief," Jim said again. "I -- I'm trying my best here."

"You try like you drive, man!"

"Hey!" Jim protested. "Now that's low!" He deflated. "Yeah, I suck. I just... want to do what's right here, Chief."

"There's your first mistake," Blair snorted.

"Look, you know as well as I do there are reasons -- there are ways to do things and we can't ... do what we like because ... there are reasons," Jim explained reasonably.

"I know exactly what you're saying," Blair nodded, thinking how truly weird it was that he did. "There are perfectly good reasons why we have to play these particular cards really close to the chest, dude, I am with you one hundred percent here. But that does not mean we're going to fold!" He dug his fingers into Jim's arm, caught Jim's eyes in a dark, feral stare. "Fold is not an option, Captain!" he said fiercely.

Jim looked at Blair like he was seeing him for the first time, like every time was the first time. "You're right," he said, like the one thing he was looking for just fell into his lap. "Fold isn't an option. So what do we do now?"

"What do you think? We play the hand we're dealt, man. And we cheat," Blair shrugged, and scrambled to sit up straight next to him. "Covert Ops. Obfuscations. Business as usual, if you ask me." He glanced over at Jim slyly and ran one finger up his ribs. "Plus hot-cha-cha, of course."

"Of course," Jim answered gamely.

"That's assuming," Blair jabbed the finger, "that you can bring yourself to do the wild thing with the town freak."

"Come on, Sandburg! Don't you ever let up?" Jim groused, flinching. "I said I was sorry."

Blair pulled hair out of his mouth. "I know you're sorry. I'm sorry too. We're not kids, Jim. Sorry doesn't make it go away." He shrugged. "Still there, still gotta talk about it."

Jim's face said that a tax audit would be a preferred alternative.

"You got a better idea, Jim? Look around," Blair said with a sweep of his arm. "Plenty of nothing going by at way over whatever the speed limit is around here. Hours of it. Cascade is getting closer by the minute, and once we get on the plane it just starts getting closer faster. We have a lot of shit to sort out. To process," he emphasized. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to do it hurtling over the Pacific packed into a tin can alongside hundreds of my closest sardine friends. Know what I mean, kemosabe?"

Jim grimaced and nodded. "Yeah..." He sighed, then sat up as if he'd made a decision, taking a deep breath and starting, "Chief, you know I don't think of you as a freak. I mean, not anymore. Not in a bad way," he continued lamely, then caught his idea and went on, "It's not me, it's everyone else -- wait, let me finish," he said, holding up his hand at Blair's tell-tale intake of breath. "Gimme a minute here, Chief." He paused and Blair nodded, motioning him to go on.

"Okay," Jim said. "I look at you and me from the inside out, and I see... you and me. It's the most natural thing in the world, or the most amazing thing in the world, or maybe both sometimes. But it's you and me. Even the crap -- it's you and me crap. Everybody else, though," he sighed, "looks at us from the outside in, and they see --"

"'Midnight Cowboy'," Blair interrupted, nodding eagerly. "Pinky and the Brain."

"Who the hell is that?" Jim spat.

"Sorry, man, cartoon reference," Blair replied, wiping it out of the air with his hand. "But I see what you mean. I know where you're coming from, and I get where you're going."

"You get it? Even if I think of you as weird, and believe me Chief, you are twelve o'clock high on the weird clock -- "

"Yeah, yeah, yeah..."

"I don't think of you as weird the same way they think of you. Us. It. As weird," Jim clarified.

"And 'they' think weird is bad, all kinds of weird is bad," Blair expanded, making little quote marks in the air at appropriate points, "and you worry about what 'they' think."

"That's right," Jim said, nodding. "We have to live in their world, Chief."

"We have to live in a fucked-up world sometimes, Jim," Blair shook his head. "A fucked-up world," he repeated wistfully, then snorted a laugh. "You know... you know what my first thoughts were the moment I saw you?" he suddenly asked Jim, touching him on the shoulder. "In the hospital. I pushed my way in there with the chart and the lab coat and looked at you, and you know what I thought?"

"There's a sucker born every minute?"

"I thought, 'Holy shit, it's you!'," Blair said. "I swear to god, Jim."

"You're shitting me." Jim stared. "I think I heard you," he said softly.

"What!"

"I think..." Jim persisted. "There was a lot of shit going on in that hospital, Chief. It was hard to separate everything enough to keep my head on straight as it was, you know?" Blair nodded and Jim continued, "But I know it wasn't me who was thinking that, I just heard it. And I remembered it." He shrugged. "From somewhere, from somewhere in all the shit going on. I didn't get it. I didn't really... recognize you --" he quickly glanced to Blair then down, "-- until later. Too much shit. Couldn't smell you. Until the office. Sorry," he shrugged, like it was something to be sorry for.

"Whoa..." breathed Blair. Then suddenly he leaned back and burst out laughing. "Oh man! We live in a fucked up world, Jim!"

"What's so funny now?" Jim blustered.

"Can you imagine?" Blair laughed. "Can you imagine if we didn't live in a fucked up world? Wow!" He shook his head. "I know I have. A thousand times, man. I must have gone through that office scene a thousand times, a thousand different ways. And now to hear you say that... Whoo!" he blew out a breath and crossed his eyes for good measure. "Hot damn!" He laughed and shook his head and gave Jim his most provoking grin. "I'd have had you bent over my desk with your pants around your ankles in about eight and a half seconds."

Jim gave his best show of bristling. "That long?" he grumbled.

"Shit yeah man, I'd have spent the first six seconds waiting for you to say yes!" Sandburg whooped with laughter. "I am nothing if not a gentleman, Jim!"

The muscle in Jim's jaw fluttered and Jim's neck went purple. He shook his head and rumbled under his breath for a moment before sighing and admitting, "Floor." He shrugged sheepishly. "I always saw it on the floor."

Blair goggled with an open-mouthed smile like he'd caught the Easter Bunny and now all the candy in the world was his forever. "The floor?!" he spewed. "That floor hasn't been swept in years, Jim!"

"I know!" Jim blurted, astonished at himself. "It's filthy!"

Blair couldn't resist. "Wow. I would have been so wrapped up in you..." He laughed again. "When we were done -- that first time, I mean -- and believe me, Jim, I have no illusions, that would have taken about the big 20 seconds tops -- I would have just looked down at you and told you, 'Let's go home. And where is home, by the way? I need to know where to forward my mail, because from now on I go where you go, and we are going to spend the rest of our lives within touching distance of each other, and did I mention my name is Blair?'" He shook his head again. "Wow. Shit."

Jim rumbled and grumbled and looked up at Blair and down again a few times, and finally came out with, "Mine's stupid."

"I bet it's wonderful," Blair urged him in a voice filled with humor and affection.

Jim grumbled and mumbled and came out with, "...sick..."

Blair shook his head. "No," he corrected him. "Wonderful."

Jim looked at him askance, and took a deep breath. "Okay," he exhaled, then looked down at his hands. "After... you know, the wall... the floor..." another quick glance at Blair and then down, "well..." He straightened up and swallowed and spit it out. "Okay. I pick you up and carry you downstairs. And there are a couple of people who try and stop me, and I have to beat the crap out of them, okay?" he said defensively. "Sick, right?"

"No," Blair breathed. "Pure as spring water."

Jim threw him another glance, his nostrils flared like flags. "So then I put you in the truck and take you back to the loft," he plowed on quickly, "and lock the door behind us, and spend the next week and a half with you in me up to the ears, and me just -- just... covering you with come until --" he stopped and clenched his fists and breathed heavily.

"Until...?" Blair whispered.

Jim exhaled again. "Until you smell right. Until you smell like me, like nothing but me, and I can smell you on me, down into the bone." He looked at Blair defiantly. And Blair just looked back at him, saying nothing, a smile on his face like the Universal Definition of Yes. Jim saw the expression and softened. "And I suppose that somewhere in there I tell you to keep your feet off the goddamn coffee table." And chuckled. And shrugged and confessed, "And then Simon calls," making Blair crow, "Oh, man, this is priceless! Go on!"

Jim glared at him a moment before shrugging again, and went on. "And I have to tell Simon not to expect me in for a while, that everything's okay, that I just... you just... that my Guide just showed up -- though, you know, I didn't have that word until later..." he shrugged again, "and don't worry, Simon, you'll meet him, I'm not taking another five steps without him --" a quick glance at Blair again and down -- "but, you know, we can't leave the loft yet. Until he smells right."

"Wow, that's beautiful, Jim," Blair smiled. "And I suppose," he nodded, going with it, "that I call the department and tell them to cancel my classes, that I just met my Sentinel -- and shit yes did I have the word for it, I could have given them documentation! And we're not leaving the loft until he says it's okay, and if I'm going to spend the rest of my life learning him by heart I've got a lot of catching up to do, man!"

Jim looked up. "Learning... by heart...?"

"Oh yeah," Blair vowed. "Every blink, every twitch. Oh yeah."

Jim bridled. "What do you mean by that, Sandburg?"

"Just what I said, Jim," Blair said. "By heart."

Jim couldn't help but ask again curiously, "What do you mean?"

Blair sighed. "Like... like, there's that little crinkle in the corner of your right eye that means you've just said something you think is funny and can't see why nobody else gets the joke."

Jim looked like he was getting bad news from the doctor, but steeled himself and asked, "What else?"

"Like..." Blair closed his eyes. "This one's a new one for me..." He sighed. "Before you go to sleep, you know? If you're really, really happy... you make these little kneading motions with your toes, like a cat." He opened his eyes and looked over at Jim, and softly said, "Like that, Jim."

Jim just looked at him for a second. Then groused, "I don't know if I like that, Chief."

"Like it!?" Blair exclaimed. "Like it? This has nothing to do with like, Jim. Do you think I like this? Do you?" he prodded, but didn't leave space before going on. "For shit's sake, you monitor me, don't you? Heartbeat, respiration, hormones in the sweat, shit like that, right?"

"Sure," Jim said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Well, shit, you think I like that? You think I like that you know the state of my blinkin' bowels better than I do? That you can hear what I'm mumbling to myself in my goddamn throat? I'm just doing the same thing, Jim, with the only tools I have for the job! Monitoring you! You think this is about like? That this is about --" he cut himself off and considered Jim sharply for a moment.

Jim just looked at him, waiting for whatever he'd come up with next. Blair sighed. "Here's a clue for you, Jim. A big fat honkin' clue. What's the one word that has not come up in this conversation so far?"

Jim shrugged. "Armadillo?" he hazarded. "Though I wouldn't put it past you..."

"Love, Jim," Blair said quietly. "It's not about love, is it?"

"Says who?" Jim bellowed. "You think I don't love you now? That I'd put up with all this shit if I didn't love you? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I mean this is bigger than love. This is like obsession. This is way beyond love, Jim."

Jim looked at him simply, puzzled, like they were speaking different languages, and said, "Nothing is beyond love."

That also seemed to be able to Shut Sandburg Up. For a moment. A menu of about fourteen different expressions auditioned on Blair's face in the space of about a second and a half before he seemed to settle on the Mildly Sardonic and Wary Combo with a side of Quizzical. "And you would know this?" he asked.

"Better than you would, Romeo," Jim smiled thinly. "At least I tried. At least I stuck around." He thwarted the imminent onslaught of Sandburg's reply with one lifted hand. "I'm not saying I was good at it," he added, shaking his head, "but I tried. I admit it, we didn't know shit, me and Carolyn, I was totally packed away, totally sealed off, and she was frozen in ice -- but we tried. We made a go of it. Love isn't ... moonlight and roses, Chief. That's romance. That's different. Love is day-in-day-out crap. Love is --" he sighed. "You don't know what love is until you're in the middle of the most hellish, repetitive, vicious argument you've ever been in, with someone you've spent all your days and nights with, and you're this far from ripping their fucking face off with your hands, and you're this far from telling them to go fuck themselves forever, and you're this far from slamming the door behind you... maybe you do it, or maybe you don't, but either way you love them." He sighed. "As much as you can know how to love, anyway. You don't know shit from love until you've promised someone you'd love them forever, and then ripped their heart out. On purpose or not. And known that you were doing it while you were doing it, and still loving them while you did it." He shrugged. "Love is knowing you've tried your best, and calling it quits as the best thing for both of you. And still loving them when they're calling you things you wouldn't call a drill sergeant on the second bottle of tequila. Sometimes even still loving them with their blood on your hands." The jaw clenched. "It's all in there, Chief. People are capable of anything. Plenty of room for a little obsession," he shrugged. "Read some case files. Fuck, read some literature."

Blair looked at him like one of them wasn't getting it, but he couldn't tell which of them it was. "Jim," he said, "people in love can usually sit four feet from each other across a truck bed without needing to touch each other like it's a blood transfusion or something. They may think they can't, but they can. They think they can tell what the other one is thinking, but they don't usually get a direct satellite feed. They don't usually dream each other's dreams, do they? Do they, Jim?"

It sounded like he was asking seriously, like he really wanted to know. Jim shook his head. "Every love story has its own craziness. This is just ours. It doesn't make it any different. Doesn't mean it's not love." A corner of a smile showed up and decided to stay. "People in love always dream each other's dreams, Chief. Just... maybe not at the exact same time."

The clue bell was finally tolling for Sandburg. Like, all the cards had suddenly shuffled into place and life had dealt him a royal flush. With tongue and everything. "Jim..." whispered Blair, and Jim suddenly got this weird feeling like maybe he could leap tall buildings in a single bound, if he got a good running start....

Jim flashed an eye through the window to the cab of the truck, and finding nothing to worry about at present, crooked a beckoning finger at his partner. "C'mere, Chief." He slid around and down so he was lying flat on the truck bed with his head right under the back cab window, where the driver couldn't see him.

Blair scooted over to join him, and they lay on their sides facing each other, heads propped up by bent elbows. Jim ran a finger along Blair's jaw, reading the beard stubble like Braille. "I'm sorry I said what I said, really fucking sorry, misq'iy," he whispered. "You're right. Fold isn't an option. But we still have to live in a fucked-up world."

Blair reached out to stroke Jim's hip. "I'm sorry too, Jim. You really scared me there. I hit the Big Red Button. Shouldn't have done that. Sorry, man."

"I just don't want you to think ..." Jim sighed. "It's just... Covert Ops shouldn't be for this, Chief. Out of everything in the world to have to keep secret... I just can't see a way around it, you know? Not without lying about it. The last thing in the world I want is to lie about you. I don't want you to think I'm ashamed of you. Us. This. But I can't see a way around it. There really isn't one, is there?"

"You were willing to throw the whole thing over rather than lie about it," Blair considered slowly. "Give it all up for the sake of honor. Yours and mine... My Lochinvar," he smiled, blooming. "You nincompoop." He leaned over and lightly brushed his lips to Jim's, a feather-light touch that they both felt as a static shock. Jim's tongue flicked out to run along Blair's lower lip, then quickly retreated like a small animal into its den. Blair's tongue darted out in its turn, running over where Jim had licked as if he liked the taste. Smiling, Jim let his finger follow the path of Blair's tongue, and smiling, Blair sucked it into his mouth.

"Gotta admit it, I still don't like the idea of lying about this. It feels wrong," Jim murmured, watching a second finger disappear between Blair's wet lips.

Blair shrugged and mumbled something around Jim's fingers, so Jim removed them, making Blair laugh. "Burton," Blair repeated more clearly, licking spit off his lips.

Jim couldn't keep from snorting a laugh. "I can't wait to hear this one..."

"You know, man. Our good old friend Captain Sir Richard F. The explorer, not --"

"--the actor," Jim nodded with a twitch of smile. "Yeah, I know, I've heard it before, remember?" His mouth took a dive into Blair's neck.

"Well, I mean, what you're worried about is just a social construct, Jim," Blair started up, wiggling back to get a little distance so he could focus properly on Jim's fondly rankled face. "It's a game," he said, warming to his subject. "Everybody agrees to play by the same rules. But what nobody tells you, what you have to figure out yourself, is that you can surf the rules. There are big, basic rules, ones that people tend to carve in stone, Thou Shalt Not Kill type rules. Codes of Honor: do what you say, say what you mean, mean what you do. Stuff like that, deep timeless rules. And then there are the little rules, and those change. From place to place, time to time. They mean almost nothing in the big picture, the million-year eye-blink of Vishnu, right? So you keep your... your compass, say, pointed north on the real rules, and surf the little local speed traps. Get it?"

"Your point being exactly what?" Jim asked, not knowing whether to be intrigued or perplexed or irritated, and settling for all of them.

"The point being, Joke 'em if they can't take a fuck, man!" Blair smiled. "When it comes to the big rules, the real game, it's all in here," he continued more seriously, pointing at Jim's head. "And here," pointing at Jim's heart. "Burton knew that," he insisted. "He struggled with the little rules all his life so society would let him live by his own big ones. He didn't always win. But he knew what counted." Then Jim saw him put on what Jim thought of as Sandburg's Quote Face. "Do what thy manhood bid thee do," Blair quoted. "From none but self expect applause. He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws." He shrugged. "Burton. Talking about you, Jim."

And the clue bell tolled for Jim. "That's the real shit," he said wonderingly.

"He was the real shit," Blair agreed, nodding. "So are you. Us. It."

Jim grabbed his face. "All of it, Blair," he growled.

"All of it, Jim," Blair promised. "No more big red button. Laundry, paperwork, serial killers, coffee table... all of it, man."

They kissed like somebody was trying to tear them apart, tangled together under the open sky. Then lay together for a long while just watching the road pass.

Finally Sandburg sighed and squirmed in Jim's arms and whined, "Are we there yet?"

"Five more minutes, Chief," Jim lied with a gentle smirk, picking absently through Blair's tangles. "Why don't you get some sleep, in this lovely rocking cradle?"

"Naaaah, not sleepy," Blair responded. "Wired, in fact. Maybe I'll get some reading done though..."

"You can read?" Jim scoffed. "Reading in a car always makes me want to puke, and in the back of an empty pickup truck --" he shook his head and made a face.

"I can read anywhere," Blair boasted. "One of these days ask me to tell you the one about the motorcycle and 'Sonnets From The Portuguese' and a sophomore named Cheryl." He scootched his ass up to a sitting position and rested Jim's head in his lap. "But why don't you get some sleep, Jim? You didn't get much the past couple of nights, did you, watching out for things that go bump in the night."

"Right," Jim bitched, rubbing his face cozily against Blair's furry thigh. "With the bumps and the pings and the guy behind the wheel torturing his clutch like he's trying to get it to confess. Not to mention the empanadas he had for lunch."

Blair laughed. "Knock yourself out, man." He reached over and grabbed his pack, dragging it closer and unzipping it.

"Fuck you, Sandburg," Jim grumbled happily with his eyes closed. "Knock yourself out yourself."

"No man, I mean it," Blair said absently, rummaging. "Put yourself out. Find something comfy and zone on it. I'll cover your ass." He pulled out a notebook and opened it, resting it on Jim's head. "I'll cover your face, too," he smirked. "Keep the sun off."

Jim batted the notebook off his head, rolled over, and laid his teeth into Blair's thigh. Just enough to make Sandburg jerk and yip.

Blair's hand splatted down onto Jim's face and rocked his head back and forth. "Be good, Jim," Blair mock-scolded. "If you're good, one of these days I'll tell you how I decoded your silverware tray."

Jim's eyes popped open. "What the --?" he mumbled, perplexed. But he didn't move.

"Shhhh... Just relax, man, close your eyes and relax..." Blair stroked his face with the tips of his fingers.

Jim closed his eyes. "Talk to me..." he murmured.

Blair giggled gently, "Man, that's something I wish I could have on tape. You asking me to talk."

"Piss off, Sandburg," Jim purred. "You're gonna do it anyway, so you might as well do it. Sing to me..."

"Sing to you?" Blair whispered.

Jim nuzzled something along the lines of "...nice voice..." into Blair's leg and rolled over. Then clearly declared, "No more Quechua. Sick of Quechua."

"You got it, man, as far from Quechua as we can get." Blair smothered a small laugh and let his fingers trail over Jim's face and neck, spiral around his ear, lost in thought. "Gotcha covered," he whispered.

Jim sighed and grumbled himself into a more comfortable position in Blair's lap. Blair started humming almost tunelessly, droning more than anything, letting his fingers play almost absently over Jim's skin, as the Sentinel settled and his chest started to rise and fall slowly, heavily. It wasn't until the Guide heard the deep, rhythmic breathing he'd decoded to mean real sleep that he let the tune take on words: "...thought of you as my mountaintop, thought of you as my peak, thought of you as everything I had but just couldn't keep... I linger on your pale blue eyes... linger on... your pale blue eyes..."

"This one's for the Sumerians, who invented beer!"

Clink clink "To the Sumerians."

"Though have you ever had Sumerian beer, man? Sumerian beer sucks, man! Flat as piss, man! Which reminds me..." Blair scraped back his chair and stood.

"Again!? Jesus, Chief, you must have used every flush toilet between Iquitos and Lima!" Jim growled, and had to stifle a small belch.

"Not the one on the plane, man, even I couldn't go there," Blair protested. The puddle-jumper flight over the Andes was best left unmentioned. "You gotta hand it to indoor plumbing, Jim, though I have no problem with going au naturel, dude, but plumbing is the way to go --"

"I know, Chief, we toasted Thomas Crapper half an hour ago," Jim pointed out. "And the Romans an hour before that."

"So just hang out, grab some more of those peanuts off the bar, will you? I'm going to go and pick up some more munchies, some chips or something, something really gross with petroleum-based creme filling, maybe some newspapers, I'm jonesing for print, yeah, and a couple of those really lurid fotonovelas, sure..." Blair wandered out of the airport bar, leaving Jim to sit, contemplating frosty beer and neon brand-names and Thomas Crapper and salty peanuts and lousy dance music on the cheap stereo. Any one of them was still a marvel at this point, infinitely zone-able, but put them all together and it felt like some kind of skewed Disneyland. He felt like he was on a three-day pass and all bets were off. Better even, because Sandburg was there, and the image of him at large, bouncing around on his own in the main departure terminal of Jorge Chavez International Airport -- shit, it should have been terrifying, but for some reason and several beers it was liberating, damn it, like putting a frog in someone's bed when you were a kid.

The luggage was checked -- even the blowgun, in one of those tubes like you used for architect's blueprints, care of Rainier, no questions asked -- and it wasn't his damn problem anymore, the only thing to do was wait for the flight to Cascade to be called, and what better way to kill a couple hours than El Bar Golf, centrally located in the main terminal, with frosty beer and flush toilets and salty peanuts and local league futbol on the tube. And Sandburg At Large, no telling what he'd get up to. Jim stifled a smile in a mouthful of beer.

In no time at all Blair was back, with newspapers from three different cities but all named the Times, two issues of something called Sexi Sensationel and a bag of Na-Cheezy Chips. Jim was almost disappointed. Almost.

"Hey Jim, check it out, I got you something."

God exists, Jim thought smugly. He grabbed for the chips and asked, "You couldn't get Ranch?"

"No, dude, this!" Blair scooted into the chair opposite Jim and plonked a small jewelry box on the table between them. "Open it."

Jim gave him a look known to give men in maximum-security prisons nightmares, but Blair just smiled. "What?" Jim muttered. "Now you're proposing or something?"

"Hey man, you're the one who promised my mamay," Blair retorted. "Some places, that's as good as registering a china pattern. Open it," he repeated, pointing.

Grumbling, Jim picked up the box and opened it, telling himself that whatever it was, he'd asked for it. It was -- "Are you sure this is the right box, Chief?" -- a pair of tiny black stud earrings. Shiny black, but not all black, black with like trails of smoke through it. Like drops of a cloudy night coalesced.

"Saw them, thought of you. Us. It," Blair shrugged, momentarily embarrassed for once almost into Jimspeak. "I thought, why should I be the one to go home with all the fun jewelry and tats and toys and shit? So, you've still got that earring hole --"

"How did you know about that?" Jim reared back.

"I've licked it, Jim," Blair reminded him. "Anyway, it's snowflake obsidian from the Lake Titicaca region," he said, referring to the ear studs, as if anybody cared. "The black is really glossy, kind of like you know a cat's fur," he mentioned quickly and off-handedly, "and the white is really more kind of gray and smoky if you look at it, and for a moment it reminded me of well you know," he shrugged, "and now that you look at it it's a really dumb idea, isn't it."

His hand darted forward to grab the box back, but Jim splatted it to the table. The moment Jim let go it darted back to the edge of the table where it tapped and fidgeted vigilantly.

Jim picked one of the ear studs out the box. The tiny bead of black volcanic glass looked like a drop of oil on his broad fingertip as he fumbled to find the long-unused piercing in his own left ear. Once it was securely fastened, he glanced over at Blair and self-consciously asked, "Does it look stupid?"

"No, no, very severe, very conservative," Blair rushed to reassure him, "Elegant really. Masculine, but self-assured, not overcompensatingly macho or... and you don't really want the fashion report, do you," he wound down sheepishly.

"There's two of them," observed the detective through narrowing eyes.

"Well yeah, I said it was a dumb idea," Blair backpedaled. "I figured, you know, I always have room for one more." He shrugged, suddenly engrossed in the departure-and-arrival monitor over the bar.

Jim looked at him over a small sip of beer. "Nope," he said smugly, just to watch him squirm for a second. "You've got too many as it is." He reached across the small table, tucked Blair's hair behind his left ear and deftly popped out the two silver rings that hung there. He dropped them in the hand that still lurked and tapped at the edge of the table.

Jim tilted his chair back slightly and said, "You've got room for one. One." He let slip a corner of complacent smile.

Blair found himself stuffing the two silver rings into his pocket and grabbing for the remaining stud and hoping he wouldn't drop it. He picked a piercing at random and jammed it through. "One is good. I can do one. I think," he giggled, then caught himself and cleared his throat. "I mean, if it's a hell of a one, sure." He looked at Jim and repeated, "A hell of a one..." shaking his head with a smile.

Jim smirked. Then, as if something had just occurred to him, said, "You know, I have something for you too, Chief." He reached into his pocket. "I didn't buy it." He snorted. "That's the truth." He pulled his hand from his pocket and slapped it onto the table with a clack. When he pulled it away, on the table was a dull metal cylinder with a copper-jacketed tip. A bullet.

Even Blair knew this was a time to just keep his mouth shut and wait for it.

"You know," Jim said conversationally, almost off-handedly, "I've had that thing for years now. Never really paid attention to it, never bothered with it really. Just one of those little things that sits on that little tray on the dresser with the cufflinks and tie tack you wear once a year, you know?"

Blair laughed, "Most people have whole drawers full of that kind of stuff, Jim."

Jim shut him up with a look. "So I never paid too much attention to it," he repeated. "Some kind of good luck charm from when I was in the military, from one of the dozens of times I didn't end up in a bag." He shrugged. "And I stuck it in my backpack before this trip, for no real reason I could come up with. And I want you to hang onto it for me, that's all."

"Jim..."

"It's weird," Jim continued as if he hadn't heard Blair, as if such a thing were possible. "I didn't remember what that bullet was, what it meant, until, you know, that night in the hut..." he looked at Blair for confirmation, and Blair nodded -- he knew what Jim was talking about, all right: that long night of smoke and visions. The hell, the gun in Jim's mouth, the taste of cold metal and powder solvent...

"These senses," Jim went on in a low voice. "If I can't control them... there's only one thing standing between me and eating that bullet," he said, nodding at the squat cartridge between them on the table. "When you boil it down, that's what it comes down to. Me... these senses... that bullet... and my Guide. You." A quick stony glance to Blair, and then down to his hands. "Keep an eye on it, would you?" His eyes flicked up to the monitor, and he stood up. "Come on, Chief, they're going to call our flight."

Quickly standing too, Blair blurted, "Are you kidding?" before he could stop himself. He grabbed the bullet and tied the flanged end into the claw necklace that hung around his neck. The feathers had been torn off by their three-day trek out of the jungle, but the two jaguar claws were still strung there, and now the bullet hung tightly bound between them. "I'll never take it off!"

"Don't get too carried away there, Chief," Jim muttered, embarrassed. "Uh, listen, why don't you go on ahead and I'll catch up. My turn to take a piss."

"Flush one for me, man!" Blair called far too loudly for Jim's preference, let alone his hearing, as he grabbed their stuff and took off down to the departure gate.

Some minutes later, strolling down the endless wide corridor of the terminal, Jim wasn't surprised to hear Blair's voice wafting back at him; he would have been far more surprised if he couldn't. But the tone, though, and the response it was getting...

"Oh, man, you gotta be kidding!"

"I'm sorry, sir, you'll have to step aside."

"I'm telling you, this is a mistake!"

Sandburg At Large, Jim reminded himself grimly, breaking into a controlled trot. No telling what he'd get up to.

Blair wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. A couple of security personnel had clustered around him at the metal detector, waving handheld detectors over his outstretched arms and legs. Another guard was going through the papers and Sandburg's satchel and shaking the bag of chips as if he were checking for a secret toy surprise.

Jim slowed to a walk and put on his Cop Attitude as he strolled up to the guards. "Is there a problem here? This man is with me."

"Really?" a guard said intently, looking Jim up and down. "That's interesting. Would you step through the detector, please?"

"Not until you tell me what's going on here," Jim replied sternly, aware that once he passed the metal detector there'd be no way to get back to Blair without a fight.

"We suspect your... companion is attempting to bring unauthorized weapons aboard the aircraft. Can you tell us anything about this, sir?" the guard asked neutrally.

The blowgun? But that was checked, Jim thought. No way they could be catching that now...

"I keep telling you," Blair insisted, "if I was going to be smuggling the shit, would I be wearing one?"

The guard turned to Blair. "Then perhaps you could tell us, sir, why you're bringing live ammunition aboard the plane." He held up the necklace with the bullet tied into it.

Jim rolled his eyes. He knew he should have stuffed the bullet into his backpack like he had for the flight down, but ever since that long night in the smoky little hut in the forest ... well, he'd just wanted to know it was there, the small, solid and substantial weight in his pocket on the trek out. He should have known better.

He reached into his pocket for his shield, figuring to put a stop to this nonsense, but was cut short by Sandburg's cool response to the guard: "I told you, it's a religious symbol."

"Really?" replied the guard mockingly, scowling at Blair. "You worship the bullet, my friend?"

Blair pointed to the small gold crucifix hanging around the guard's neck. "If Jesus came back today, you'd be wearing a little electric chair."

The guard reared back. His eyes narrowed as he and Blair stood, staring each other down. Jim held his breath and wondered what it was going to take for that police captain friend of Simon's in Lima to get them out of lockup without blabbing the whole thing to Simon. He really, really didn't want Simon to get a call from Sandoval telling him that his best detective team was being detained in Peru, even on a bullshit charge.

It was a game of chicken, a battle of heartbeats, each pounding with steadfast determination; neither man was giving an inch. Sandburg simply held the guard's gaze like a snake mesmerizing a monkey. And finally the guard shook his head and handed the necklace back to him. "I hope you enjoyed your stay in Peru, sir," he said, dripping sarcasm from every pore. "Have a safe flight."

"Thanks!" Blair said with a smile as brilliant as his twinkling eyes, hanging the necklace around his neck. "I had a great time; you can bet I'll be back!" He winked at the guard and turned to Jim. "Come on, man!"

Blair had to wait while Jim went through the detector and was subjected to a search that reminded him of his days on Vice. Jim wondered idly if the guard believed in cavity searches on a first date, and considered asking him if he'd respect him in the morning. But he thought better of it, and finally the two travelers were set free to enter the departure area with their dignity reasonably intact.

"See, man?" Blair told him blithely as they raced to board the plane. "Piece of cake! I told you, I've done this a thousand times!"

Piece of cake? Jim thought, mind boggling. Well, he supposed, compared to bullet holes, serial killers and car wrecks...

At long last, they were jammed into cramped, musty-smelling coach seats, and the 767 was hurtling over the Pacific like a jet-propelled sardine tin. The movie was some idiotic comedy, and half the passengers had their headphones turned up so high that Jim was grinding his teeth, beginning to wonder whether temporary insanity caused by low-fidelity feedback and bad dialog would be an admissible defense for the justifiable homicide of an entire planeload of tourists. And it didn't come anywhere near to drowning out the creaks and groans of the fuselage, the godawful drone of the ventilation system that still couldn't get rid of the stink of fuel, the navigator in the cockpit complaining that he needed a raise, and the blabbing of their fellow passengers. The pathetically flimsy sleep mask and foam earplugs provided by the airline were worse than useless -- not to mention scratchy. Next time, Jim admonished himself, packing light would be no excuse for not taking along his own heavy sleep mask and white-noise generating earplugs. They were small. And worth their weight in platinum.

In the window seat beside him, Blair squirmed and sighed and fidgeted and jammed the miniscule airline pillow against the wall, trying to get comfortable and having as little success as Jim was. Usually, Blair could sleep anywhere; Jim was surprised he wasn't out like a light.

Grumbling, Blair turned, slammed up the armrest between them, and propped the pillow against Jim's shoulder, snuggling into Jim and sighing. Jim stiffened.

Blair sprang upright. "Sorry, dude."

"No, no," Jim groaned. "I'm just not --"

"No, man, you're right, it's cool, I wasn't thinking. Discretion is key." He flopped over again and leaned against the wall.

"I just can't get comfortable, Chief," Jim sighed.

Blair sat up again. "Neither can I," he shook his head. "I think it's been too long since I've slept without using a big slab o' Sentinel for a pillow." He scratched his head and winked at Jim with a wry smile. "But it's no biggie. I'll deal."

Jim's jaw twitched. "Um..." he said thoughtfully, "do you know any of the people on this plane?"

"No..." Blair slowly replied.

"Neither do I," Jim responded decisively. He put his arm around Blair's shoulders and pulled him back over against his chest.

Blair looked up at him doubtfully. "Uh, Jim, are you sure about this? I mean, it's your call and all..."

Jim set a carefully neutral gaze on the undersized, fuzzy movie screen and settled Blair's head to his shoulder. "Joke 'em if they can't take a fuck," he muttered defiantly.

"You tell 'em, Tarzan," mumbled Blair with a tiny smile. He snuggled himself into Jim's arm, sighed cozily and promptly passed out.

Jim closed his eyes and shifted position slightly, resting his head against Blair's dark, fragrant curls. All of a sudden he found it effortless to filter out the plane noises, the movie dialog, the scratchy seat, the odors of crowded humanity and microwaved food. He lost himself in deep, easy breathing, a serene, hypnotic heartbeat, a mellow herb-and-musk scent. The universe that was his Guide, safely in his arms where he belonged, skin to skin, exquisite and complete...

Out there was a fucked-up world just waiting to get in their face. But he'd worry about that later. Sheltered in the first perfect peace he could ever remember, the Sentinel slept.

----------to be concluded. Really! I swear!--------------