Recovery: Fanfic 100
Nov. 11th, 2005 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lit_galRecovery: Comfort Food (4753 words)
Post-TSbyBS: Jim and Blair start on building a new relationship.
Big one today! It makes up for no post yesterday... or the day before
Check out my progess and read previous parts HERE
055. Spirits
Blair groaned in frustration as he looked around and saw the blue jungle around him. For the umpteenth time he wondered whether these were Sentinel dreams or whether his subconscious had simply chosen to turn any dream that involve Jim into a visit to this blue jungle that Jim had described so many times. Blair had described both options to Jim, and as usual Jim had been a little less interested in exploring the options than Blair had. As far as Jim was concerned it didn't matter whether the messages came from Blair's own subconscious or some mystical beyond: they were important. One nice side effect, however, was that Jim was far more willing to talk about his strange dreams now that Blair was tormented by his own.
Tonight the dream seemed to feature the Spirit animals. Blair rarely saw his own wolf in the streams; Jim's cat was a far more normal feature. However now the cat and the wolf slowly circled each other in a clearing. Blair walked through the trees and approached the two animals.
"Have you guys ever considered just coming right out in telling us what's important?" Blair demanded wryly. As he expected the animals didn't answer. In fact they continued their circling as if Blair wasn't even there. Blair sat down on the top of a fallen log and watched them.
If this was a mystical message from beyond, Blair was missing it. The only thing he noticed was that the two animals really had no business being in the same environment. Of course, the irony of his own spirit animal being a cold-loving wolf wasn't lost on him either.
Blair watched as the sleek, black cat darted to one side, and the wolf lowered its headed and whined. The cat darted back the other way, and now the wolf's whine took on a more pathetic edge. Blair rolled his eyes. He did *not* sound like that! Blair pulled his legs up under him and sat cross-legged on the log as he waited for the animals to do something interesting enough to be worth spending his evening with.
God, now he understood why these things annoyed Jim so much. Blair wondered if he was asking too much to just wish that either the mystical beyond or his own subconscious would spell things out a little clearer. These blue dreams inspired a sort of desperate need, but without a clear message, that feeling was really more frustration than any sort of useful motivation. Even though Blair had forgiven Jim for kicking him out of the loft, Blair never really understood it until he started having the damn dreams for himself.
The cat darted around to the side again, and the wolf was clearly growing more frustrated. Blair tried comparing this to their current situation, but it didn't make sense. For the first time, he and Jim were finally working together as partners and as equals. When Blair came up with a strange theory, Jim listened instead of rolling his eyes. And when Jim insisted that something was true, Blair turned his gift of persuasion on everyone else in the room. They weren't working together exclusively any more, but over half of Blair's cases had Jim as the second detective. So really, there was nothing for the wolf to get frustrated about in the cat's frantic jumping didn't seem to have anything to do with Jim.
Now the cat was acting like it had gotten into catnip, racing toward the wolf playfully and then bounding away. The wolf made little puppy sounds, but it didn't try and follow the cat's antics. What the hell were they doing? This certainly didn't look like anything National Geographic ever recorded.
The wolf finally seemed too tired to even react when the cat nipped at it. It sat down and whined unhappily. Then, seemingly out of energy, wolf flipped over to its side and showed its stomach. Blair stared in horror at what he saw. Well it didn't take Freud to figure that one out, especially when Blair's spirit animal was so well endowed.
Blair turned his attention to the cat, getting off the log and crouching down so that he could try and see between the animal's legs. The cat took another run at the wolf, and Blair got a nice full frame image of exactly what he was looking for. Great. So now he just needed to decide whether this was some message about his Sentinel from the beyond, or if this was some Freudian wishful thinking bubbling up through his dreams. As Blair watched the cat play, he wondered how the poor thing could even move with that hard on.
056. Breakfast
Blair watched as Jim wandered the kitchen in his boxers, stirring the scrambled eggs slowly with one hand while he added chopped peppers with the other. Because he'd grown up wandering from one commune to another, Blair had never really had a close male friend until Jim, and Blair wondered whether males normally ran around the apartment in boxers.
Blair sighed in frustration because it wasn't a question he could go around asking people. He had woken up with a determination to find out whether Jim was interested in him, but faced with a life-sized Jim cooking in his boxer shorts, Blair realized he couldn't tell the difference between normal and interested.
"Chief, you planning on setting the table or standing there with the plates in your hand all morning?" Jim's voice broke Blair out of his thoughts and he hurried to put the plates on the table just as Jim came walking over with the pan.
"What's up with you this morning?" Jim asked as he used the spatula to dump a pile of eggs onto each plate.
"The Bray case," Blair quickly obfuscated. That case was bothering him, but not nearly as much as the casual way that Jim's arm brushed his as Jim went back to put the pan in the kitchen sink.
"Is that the assault case?" Jim asked as he ran water in the pan and looked over his shoulder.
"Yeah," Blair answered as he pulled a bowl of cut cantaloupe pieces out of the refrigerator. The apartment kitchen was much smaller than the loft's kitchen, and Jim's hip bumped his as Jim passed him. With the refrigerator door open, there really wasn't much room to get by without the hip bump so Blair wasn't sure whether to count that as a hint or not.
"Who are you working with on the case?" Jim asked as he sat down to breakfast, and Blair followed, putting the bowl of fruit on the table as he sat down.
"Russo," he said. "I think the man was ready to beat the hell out of the two mechanics at the shop across the street," Blair admitted with a disgusted sigh. "I know those guys are covering for someone, but threatening to bury them under the jail if they don't talk is not the best approach."
"Oh, I don't know. I've used that approach several times myself," Jim pointed out. "With the right guys, you can leave them begging to tell you what they know."
"Yeah, but these two? Oh man, they look like rejects from Conan the Barbarian, and the more Russo growled, the more they got their backs up." Blair rolled his eyes at the other detective's antics.
"So go back without him," Jim said around a mouthful of eggs. Blair looked up in utter shock and disbelief. He had only earned Roth's trust back so that he and Jim were working cases together on a regular basis instead of being permanently separated at work.
"Or not," Jim quickly added with a shrug as he looked at Blair expression.
"You know, it's really weird to be the rule following one here," Blair complained. "I was always the one trying to slide around the rules."
"People change, Chief."
"Yeah, I guess," Blair said, suddenly disquieted by the realization that, in some ways, he was more a part of the cop culture in Phoenix than Jim was. Entirely too weird.
"So, how are you going to handle Russo's permanent case of testosterone poisoning?" Jim asked.
"I figure I'm just going to tell him he's a Neanderthal and tell him to just stay back." Blair didn't expect Jim to start laughing.
"What?" Blair demanded.
"I'm just remembering that first day when you called *me* a throwback," Jim admitted.
"Well, hopefully he won't slam me into a wall," Blair laughed. He watched as Jim reached down to scratch himself. Okay, was that a signal or just a stray itch?
"He better not," Jim said as he continued scratching.
Blair resisted the urge to roll his eyes again, but even though he had meant the Blessed Protector comment as a joke, Jim really did take the idea of protecting the guide to heart. Since he couldn't come up with an answer that didn't either condone Jim's over protective streak or sound bitchy, Blair just ate in silence.
Jim was putting breakfast away at a good pace, his eyes going from the newspaper laid out next to his plate over to Blair and then back down again. Blair tried to remember if Jeff and Russo did that... kept taking small glances at him. He didn't think so. That went into the hint column.
Jim finished his food and stood and stretched. As Jim's arms rose up, the boxer rode down low enough for Blair to see a few stray hairs trailing from Jim's belly button down to the waistband of his boxers. When Blair looked up and saw Jim looking at him with one eyebrow cocked, Blair realized he'd been staring. He opened his mouth to come up with some excuse, but Jim started talking first.
"You done with your plate, Chief?"
"Um, yeah," Blair managed to get out. He held up his plate and Jim snagged it on his way to the kitchen. Okay, if Jim was trying to hint, wouldn't catching Blair staring at his groin be a good time for a few hints? So, were the lack of hints there a hint?
"Since it's my morning for dishes, you have 10 minutes if you want to use the shower first. Otherwise, I'm getting in there whether you're finished or not," Jim called from the kitchen. Blair stood in the apartment's dining room looking at Jim's back at the sink. Okay, had Jim just said what Blair thought he just said?
Blair hurried for the bathroom as he considered the evidence. At this point, he was starting to form a hypothesis, but he couldn't afford to be wrong here. As Blair slipped his robe off and got under the spray of hot water, he smiled. He would do what all scientists did when faced with a hypothesis. It was time to do a little testing.
057. Lunch
Blair slid into the seat across from Roth.
"So, this is new -- having lunch in the middle of a workday. What's up?" Blair asked as he picked up the menu.
"What? Do I have to have a reason to invite one of my detectives to lunch?"
"Oh man, am I going to be in trouble if I say yes?" Blair laughed as he started scanning the various menu items. He was having trouble finding anything that wouldn't trigger an instant heart attack. It was funny, he'd spent months in Mexico on various expeditions, and Mexicans ate quite healthy, but for some reason when Americans made Mexican food, they managed to make it about as healthy as Wonderburger.
"Nice, Sandburg. I try to invite you out for a little small talk, and this is what I get." Blair would have been a lot more upset had Roth not had an amused expression on his face. Countless hours on the firing range together meant that Blair could read Roth nearly as well as he could read Jim.
"Hey, as long as I'm not in trouble again, we can have all the small talk you want. I'm not, am I? In trouble I mean." Blair clarified as he looked up.
"Have you done something that you should be in trouble for?"
"No way man!" Blair insisted as he put his menu down.
"Good to hear. Something's come up, and I wanted to talk to you about it." Roth waited a half beat, just long enough to let Blair know this was serious.
"They're looking for somebody to head up a new unit out of the downtown precinct, and normally I would say you didn't have nearly enough experience. Normally, that is, but this might be a real opportunity for you. The brass wants to set up a special crime unit modeled after some unit they have in New York: A unit that would handle rape and sexual abuse cases exclusively." Roth stopped to take a drink of water and gesture at their tardy waitress. It didn't work.
"You have one hell of a reputation in that area," Roth finally continued. "Better than any other cop I know. The question is, whether you want me to throw your name in the hat." As Roth's words sunk in, Blair stared at the man in utter shock. From the minute he had taken the badge from Jim in Simon back in Cascade, he knew he could do the job. Somehow though, he didn't actually expect to be this good at it. And in truth, he had no idea what to say, which is pretty much what he then said.
"Wow, Cap! I mean, I really don't know what to say. I totally appreciate you even considering me, but I don't know if I'm ready for something like that."
"Son, you're as ready as you're going to be. The only question is whether you want it. Some people, like Russo, want the promotions but they'd never be able to handle the administrative work. Others, like Jim and Bets, would be great, but they don't want to move up. They're detectives, and they don't want to be anything else. You're a little harder to figure out though. I know you can do the job, I just don't know whether you want to. So, when Daniels from downtown asked for names, I told them I have to talk to you."
"Captain, this means a lot to me after some of the crap I've had flung at me in this last year or so. But I don't know whether other people are ready for a cop with more experience in anthropology than police work."
"They're ready, Sandburg. Why do you think Daniels called me in the first place? Trust me, I don't have another detective who can deal with sexual assault cases the way you can. Every other detective in my department hides in the bathroom when it comes to rape cases. And I can't blame them since those cases are the ones little tear you apart as a cop. But you take every damn one. You do the job right, and the brass knows that."
"Oh man, I really have to think about this," Blair admitted. He had endured so much change in the recent past that he wasn't sure he was ready for more. But then again, he'd always thrived on challenge, and it was a challenge.
"You need to talk to your roommate?" Blair shot Roth a sharp look. His Captain hadn't said anything when Blair had changed his address to Jim's apartment, but the tone of voice Roth used just now made it clear that some bug had crawled up Roth's butt. Blair just wasn't sure which possible bug had committed the crime..
"Jim would support me whatever decision I made. As long as he gets to run down criminals, he's not actually all that picky where he works." When Roth's expression changed to one of shock, Blair had to parse his own statement. When he looked at it from Roth's point of view, he could see how strange it seemed.
Blair realized that he implied that not only would Jim accept his decision but that Jim would go along with him. Blair frowned a bit at the realization that he and Jim might be letting the pendulum swing a little too far back the other way. He didn't have the right to make decisions for Jim anymore than Jim had a right to make decisions for him. Blair had never been very good at relationships, so he didn't have that many healthy or long-term relationships to compare to, but he wondered if everyone had this much trouble keeping a healthy balance.
"Well, give it some thought. Daniels needs to know within two weeks who's willing to take the job so that he can do the background research and present the mayor with some recommendations."
"Captain..." Blair started, but Roth interrupted him.
"Save it, Sandburg," Roth said. "Don't ruin my appetite with any of your great emotional revelations."
"Oh man, you totally need to get in touch with your emotional side."
"Some of us don't want to be that in touch, Sandburg."
"You're going to die of emotional constipation, you know."
"Most men do, Sandburg." Roth answered as he picked up his menu, his smile only half concealed. Blair glanced and saw the waitress headed their way, and he picked his own menu up as he went back to the task of trying to find himself the meal that was least likely cause permanent heart damage.
058. Dinner
Falling down onto the couch, Blair sighed in frustration. He'd had a heck of a time ditching Russo long enough for his little side trip to the video store, but now he was stocked up. Time for a little hypothesis testing. Since Jim wasn't home, Blair started preparing for his evening.
He started by actually cleaning up the living room, shoving his various piles of case notes and National Geographic magazines and half finished crossword puzzles back into his room. Jim was getting better about biting his tongue, but Blair knew that he still got annoyed on occasion, and Blair needed to make sure than any reactions tonight were from the movie and not from Blair's work scattered across the room.
Blair tucked his messenger bag with the three video options between the couch and the side table since he really didn't want the titles showing. The goal was to find out if Jim was interested, not announce his own interest. Okay, on to step two. Blair went to the dining room where he had dropped plastic bags full of supplies from the grocery store.
By the time Jim came in the door, Blair had a nachos grande sauce warming on the stovetop, bowls of chips on the dining room table, and both chairs on the side of the table that would let them watch the television.
"Hey, Chief, what smells so good?" Jim called as he stuck his head in the door. Blair looked up with red swollen eyes from cutting onions.
"Nachos," Blair said with a smile as he struggled not to wipe his eyes. Since he was cutting jalapeño peppers, touching his face with his hands right now would be a very bad idea.
"Smells great," Jim said as he leaned over Blair to look at the pan of cheeses and refried beans and tomatoes and onions and peppers and ground beef and spices.
"Hope so," Blair said as he sniffed. "Making it really clears the sinuses."
"Yeah, I can see that. Go wash up and I'll finish the jalapeños," Jim offered. For one second, Blair thought about the fact that he wanted Jim to be in a good mood and a Sentinel who got jalapeño on his skin would be a cranky Sentinel, but then Jim took the knife from his hand and pushed Blair to one side with his shoulder. Blair really did want to wash the pepper from his hands and blow his nose, so he abandoned Jim to finish up while he went for the bathroom.
When Blair reappeared four hand washings later, Jim had set the table and the nacho sauce sat between their two plates.
"Something good on TV tonight?" Jim asked curiously, probably because of how Blair had moved the chairs.
"Karen down in records recommended this movie that came out a few years ago," Blair answered as he walked over to his bag and flipped the top open. His hand hovered over the three choices before he settled on "Wedding Banquet" and popped it in the VCR.
He and Jim sat and dipped chips into the same bowl as they watched the young, male Wai-tun collect his rent from his tenants before going home to his young, male lover Simon. Or actually Blair watched Jim as Jim watched the movie. Was that a grimace? If so, was Jim feeling sorry for Wai-tun whose parents didn't know their son was gay? Was Jim disgusted by the fact Wai-tun and Simon were getting a little handsy? Was that smile because the movie was damn funny or had Jim figured it out and was he laughing at Blair's little experiment?
Jim continued to tear into the nachos as he watched Wai-tun's parents show up from Taiwan. Blair was almost sure that Jim rolled his eyes at Wai-tun and Simon moving Wai-tun's stuff to the basement so they could pretend to be just friends. Blair was feeling pretty good about the whole experiment until he noticed Jim starting to squirm a bit in his seat. Jim's eyes wandered away from the screen as Wai-tun had a sham marriage to try and please his parents.
When Jim got up to take his dishes to the kitchen in the middle of Simon and Wai-tun trying to find a little private one-on-one time, Blair was truly confused. He just wished that Jim would be a little more consistent as a test subject.
"Do you want to turn the movie off?" Blair asked and then he tried not to hold his breath. He didn't need for Jim to get suspicious, especially if Jim wasn't dropping hints and Blair had just imagined the whole thing.
"No, it's fine," Jim insisted as he came back out. "Go ahead and watch; I'm just going to do a little paperwork."
"If you don't want…"
"Sandburg, watch your movie. I just can't get into something with subtitles."
"It isn't all in subtitles," Blair pointed out. Jim just gave him one indecipherable glance as he settled in on the couch and proceeded to do his paperwork while ignoring the movie. Blair cursed silently as he realized that was what he got for not controlling all the variables. Blair considered switching over to Jeffery since it didn't have subtitles, but two gay movies in one night might be a little suspicious, and Blair really did want to find out what happened to Simon and Wai-tun. Blair sighed and moved to the opposite end of the couch so he could watch the rest of the movie.
059. Food
Bets' laugh filled the whole room as Jeff told the world's stupidest joke. Blair wasn't sure whether she was laughing at the joke or Jeff, but he found himself laughing along. The break room was done in plastic cornucopias and ugly orange streamers. Blair would have accused one of his coworkers of having wretched taste, except the decorations were so old that he suspected that they predated any of the detectives in the room.
A table on the far side of the break room held the various dishes that different detectives had brought for their mini-Thanksgiving celebration. Looking at the buffet, Blair realized that he could tell a lot about the people from the food that they brought.
Russo had brought nachos, but not the type that Blair had fixed for Jim. No, his red plastic bowl was filled with a concoction that Blair suspected was made up of equal parts refried beans and Velveta cheese. Maria was clearly the homemaker of their crew. Blair didn't go out with her often, but when he did he had gotten hints that she had survived a rough life, and now she was determined that her children have better than she did. Being a cop was hard, being a cop and a single mother and a damn good single mother -- that was a lot harder. And even though Maria's time was at a premium, she had taken the time to make homemade tamales wrapped in corn husks.
Jeff, who always tried his best, had brought a cake. However, from the perfectly even frosting, Blair suspected that it had come straight from Fry's grocery store. Betts had brought fried chicken, a recipe she said came straight from her grandmother. She had also made various and colorful threats against the first person who made a comment about a black woman bringing fried chicken while glaring at Russo. Captain Roth had brought a green bean salad that had probably been made by his wife. Blair wondered if he was stretching the metaphor by pointing out that Roth had brought food good for the unit.
Last but not least, Blair's eyes fell on the dish at the end. He wondered what it revealed to others that he and Jim had brought chicken stir-fry.
060. Drink
Blair wandered over to Roth while Jim and Russo argued sports teams either amicably or close enough to amicable to fool Blair.
"So, you know that offer you made earlier," Blair said as he leaned against the wall next to his captain. Roth turned and looked at him.
"Yeah?" Roth asked.
"I think I'm going to say 'no'," Blair said as he watched Russo playfully punch Jim's arm. Jim gave Russo a suspicious look that led to Russo punching Jim's arm again.
"Is this your decision or his?" Russo asked.
"I didn't even tell him the offer was on the table," Blair honestly answered. "I just don't think I want to trade in my life right now," Blair admitted.
"Well, you can lead a horse to water…" Roth let his voice trail off. "Daniels wants you, ya know. The chance to move up this fast just won't happen again."
"And that's okay. Man, it's never been about the money or the position," Blair pointed out as he watched as Jeff jumped in on the conversation between Russo and Jim. Jim rolled his eyes in exaggerated dismay, and Jeff shook a finger toward Russo.
"If you're sure...."
"Oh yeah, I’m sure," Blair answered as he reached around Roth to snag a bottled water. "I'm already where I want to be. I don't really want to be led to any new water."
061. Winter
"You know," Blair offered as he followed Jim with the remains of a chicken stir-fry, "one Native American legend says that the great creator made winter to punish the people for complaining about the heat." The sun had set while everyone had stuffed themselves from the buffet, dishes from the support staff, the custodial staff, and the technical staff added to the detectives' offerings of food as the day went along. Precious little work actually got done, but Blair figured the crime rate in Phoenix wouldn't skyrocket because of one day of communal rest on the day before Thanksgiving. Besides, Wednesday wasn't a big crime day.
"Funny, I always assumed winter came from the rotation of the Earth," Jim said dryly.
"Ha, ha, man," Blair answered. "Seriously, it was a whole moral about people being punished for not appreciating what they have."
"Considering we live in Arizona, I appreciate winter very much," Jim pointed out as he unlocked the truck door and took the bowl from Blair. He reached in and used an old sweatshirt to brace it on the seat so that it hopefully wouldn't tip over.
"Yeah, there are a lot of things in my life that I appreciate," Blair said.
"Yeah, Junior. Me too." Jim turned around and let his hand fall on Blair shoulder. Blair stood there in the dim light of the streetlamp feeling the warm pressure of Jim's hand and he smiled up at his partner. Jim smiled back and then stepped past Blair, his hand sliding down Blair's arm and disappearing as Jim walked around the truck. Blair got in the truck and buckled up as Jim climbed in the driver's side. Oh yeah, no matter where their relationship did or didn't go, Blair appreciated it.
Post-TSbyBS: Jim and Blair start on building a new relationship.
Big one today! It makes up for no post yesterday... or the day before
Check out my progess and read previous parts HERE
055. Spirits
Blair groaned in frustration as he looked around and saw the blue jungle around him. For the umpteenth time he wondered whether these were Sentinel dreams or whether his subconscious had simply chosen to turn any dream that involve Jim into a visit to this blue jungle that Jim had described so many times. Blair had described both options to Jim, and as usual Jim had been a little less interested in exploring the options than Blair had. As far as Jim was concerned it didn't matter whether the messages came from Blair's own subconscious or some mystical beyond: they were important. One nice side effect, however, was that Jim was far more willing to talk about his strange dreams now that Blair was tormented by his own.
Tonight the dream seemed to feature the Spirit animals. Blair rarely saw his own wolf in the streams; Jim's cat was a far more normal feature. However now the cat and the wolf slowly circled each other in a clearing. Blair walked through the trees and approached the two animals.
"Have you guys ever considered just coming right out in telling us what's important?" Blair demanded wryly. As he expected the animals didn't answer. In fact they continued their circling as if Blair wasn't even there. Blair sat down on the top of a fallen log and watched them.
If this was a mystical message from beyond, Blair was missing it. The only thing he noticed was that the two animals really had no business being in the same environment. Of course, the irony of his own spirit animal being a cold-loving wolf wasn't lost on him either.
Blair watched as the sleek, black cat darted to one side, and the wolf lowered its headed and whined. The cat darted back the other way, and now the wolf's whine took on a more pathetic edge. Blair rolled his eyes. He did *not* sound like that! Blair pulled his legs up under him and sat cross-legged on the log as he waited for the animals to do something interesting enough to be worth spending his evening with.
God, now he understood why these things annoyed Jim so much. Blair wondered if he was asking too much to just wish that either the mystical beyond or his own subconscious would spell things out a little clearer. These blue dreams inspired a sort of desperate need, but without a clear message, that feeling was really more frustration than any sort of useful motivation. Even though Blair had forgiven Jim for kicking him out of the loft, Blair never really understood it until he started having the damn dreams for himself.
The cat darted around to the side again, and the wolf was clearly growing more frustrated. Blair tried comparing this to their current situation, but it didn't make sense. For the first time, he and Jim were finally working together as partners and as equals. When Blair came up with a strange theory, Jim listened instead of rolling his eyes. And when Jim insisted that something was true, Blair turned his gift of persuasion on everyone else in the room. They weren't working together exclusively any more, but over half of Blair's cases had Jim as the second detective. So really, there was nothing for the wolf to get frustrated about in the cat's frantic jumping didn't seem to have anything to do with Jim.
Now the cat was acting like it had gotten into catnip, racing toward the wolf playfully and then bounding away. The wolf made little puppy sounds, but it didn't try and follow the cat's antics. What the hell were they doing? This certainly didn't look like anything National Geographic ever recorded.
The wolf finally seemed too tired to even react when the cat nipped at it. It sat down and whined unhappily. Then, seemingly out of energy, wolf flipped over to its side and showed its stomach. Blair stared in horror at what he saw. Well it didn't take Freud to figure that one out, especially when Blair's spirit animal was so well endowed.
Blair turned his attention to the cat, getting off the log and crouching down so that he could try and see between the animal's legs. The cat took another run at the wolf, and Blair got a nice full frame image of exactly what he was looking for. Great. So now he just needed to decide whether this was some message about his Sentinel from the beyond, or if this was some Freudian wishful thinking bubbling up through his dreams. As Blair watched the cat play, he wondered how the poor thing could even move with that hard on.
056. Breakfast
Blair watched as Jim wandered the kitchen in his boxers, stirring the scrambled eggs slowly with one hand while he added chopped peppers with the other. Because he'd grown up wandering from one commune to another, Blair had never really had a close male friend until Jim, and Blair wondered whether males normally ran around the apartment in boxers.
Blair sighed in frustration because it wasn't a question he could go around asking people. He had woken up with a determination to find out whether Jim was interested in him, but faced with a life-sized Jim cooking in his boxer shorts, Blair realized he couldn't tell the difference between normal and interested.
"Chief, you planning on setting the table or standing there with the plates in your hand all morning?" Jim's voice broke Blair out of his thoughts and he hurried to put the plates on the table just as Jim came walking over with the pan.
"What's up with you this morning?" Jim asked as he used the spatula to dump a pile of eggs onto each plate.
"The Bray case," Blair quickly obfuscated. That case was bothering him, but not nearly as much as the casual way that Jim's arm brushed his as Jim went back to put the pan in the kitchen sink.
"Is that the assault case?" Jim asked as he ran water in the pan and looked over his shoulder.
"Yeah," Blair answered as he pulled a bowl of cut cantaloupe pieces out of the refrigerator. The apartment kitchen was much smaller than the loft's kitchen, and Jim's hip bumped his as Jim passed him. With the refrigerator door open, there really wasn't much room to get by without the hip bump so Blair wasn't sure whether to count that as a hint or not.
"Who are you working with on the case?" Jim asked as he sat down to breakfast, and Blair followed, putting the bowl of fruit on the table as he sat down.
"Russo," he said. "I think the man was ready to beat the hell out of the two mechanics at the shop across the street," Blair admitted with a disgusted sigh. "I know those guys are covering for someone, but threatening to bury them under the jail if they don't talk is not the best approach."
"Oh, I don't know. I've used that approach several times myself," Jim pointed out. "With the right guys, you can leave them begging to tell you what they know."
"Yeah, but these two? Oh man, they look like rejects from Conan the Barbarian, and the more Russo growled, the more they got their backs up." Blair rolled his eyes at the other detective's antics.
"So go back without him," Jim said around a mouthful of eggs. Blair looked up in utter shock and disbelief. He had only earned Roth's trust back so that he and Jim were working cases together on a regular basis instead of being permanently separated at work.
"Or not," Jim quickly added with a shrug as he looked at Blair expression.
"You know, it's really weird to be the rule following one here," Blair complained. "I was always the one trying to slide around the rules."
"People change, Chief."
"Yeah, I guess," Blair said, suddenly disquieted by the realization that, in some ways, he was more a part of the cop culture in Phoenix than Jim was. Entirely too weird.
"So, how are you going to handle Russo's permanent case of testosterone poisoning?" Jim asked.
"I figure I'm just going to tell him he's a Neanderthal and tell him to just stay back." Blair didn't expect Jim to start laughing.
"What?" Blair demanded.
"I'm just remembering that first day when you called *me* a throwback," Jim admitted.
"Well, hopefully he won't slam me into a wall," Blair laughed. He watched as Jim reached down to scratch himself. Okay, was that a signal or just a stray itch?
"He better not," Jim said as he continued scratching.
Blair resisted the urge to roll his eyes again, but even though he had meant the Blessed Protector comment as a joke, Jim really did take the idea of protecting the guide to heart. Since he couldn't come up with an answer that didn't either condone Jim's over protective streak or sound bitchy, Blair just ate in silence.
Jim was putting breakfast away at a good pace, his eyes going from the newspaper laid out next to his plate over to Blair and then back down again. Blair tried to remember if Jeff and Russo did that... kept taking small glances at him. He didn't think so. That went into the hint column.
Jim finished his food and stood and stretched. As Jim's arms rose up, the boxer rode down low enough for Blair to see a few stray hairs trailing from Jim's belly button down to the waistband of his boxers. When Blair looked up and saw Jim looking at him with one eyebrow cocked, Blair realized he'd been staring. He opened his mouth to come up with some excuse, but Jim started talking first.
"You done with your plate, Chief?"
"Um, yeah," Blair managed to get out. He held up his plate and Jim snagged it on his way to the kitchen. Okay, if Jim was trying to hint, wouldn't catching Blair staring at his groin be a good time for a few hints? So, were the lack of hints there a hint?
"Since it's my morning for dishes, you have 10 minutes if you want to use the shower first. Otherwise, I'm getting in there whether you're finished or not," Jim called from the kitchen. Blair stood in the apartment's dining room looking at Jim's back at the sink. Okay, had Jim just said what Blair thought he just said?
Blair hurried for the bathroom as he considered the evidence. At this point, he was starting to form a hypothesis, but he couldn't afford to be wrong here. As Blair slipped his robe off and got under the spray of hot water, he smiled. He would do what all scientists did when faced with a hypothesis. It was time to do a little testing.
057. Lunch
Blair slid into the seat across from Roth.
"So, this is new -- having lunch in the middle of a workday. What's up?" Blair asked as he picked up the menu.
"What? Do I have to have a reason to invite one of my detectives to lunch?"
"Oh man, am I going to be in trouble if I say yes?" Blair laughed as he started scanning the various menu items. He was having trouble finding anything that wouldn't trigger an instant heart attack. It was funny, he'd spent months in Mexico on various expeditions, and Mexicans ate quite healthy, but for some reason when Americans made Mexican food, they managed to make it about as healthy as Wonderburger.
"Nice, Sandburg. I try to invite you out for a little small talk, and this is what I get." Blair would have been a lot more upset had Roth not had an amused expression on his face. Countless hours on the firing range together meant that Blair could read Roth nearly as well as he could read Jim.
"Hey, as long as I'm not in trouble again, we can have all the small talk you want. I'm not, am I? In trouble I mean." Blair clarified as he looked up.
"Have you done something that you should be in trouble for?"
"No way man!" Blair insisted as he put his menu down.
"Good to hear. Something's come up, and I wanted to talk to you about it." Roth waited a half beat, just long enough to let Blair know this was serious.
"They're looking for somebody to head up a new unit out of the downtown precinct, and normally I would say you didn't have nearly enough experience. Normally, that is, but this might be a real opportunity for you. The brass wants to set up a special crime unit modeled after some unit they have in New York: A unit that would handle rape and sexual abuse cases exclusively." Roth stopped to take a drink of water and gesture at their tardy waitress. It didn't work.
"You have one hell of a reputation in that area," Roth finally continued. "Better than any other cop I know. The question is, whether you want me to throw your name in the hat." As Roth's words sunk in, Blair stared at the man in utter shock. From the minute he had taken the badge from Jim in Simon back in Cascade, he knew he could do the job. Somehow though, he didn't actually expect to be this good at it. And in truth, he had no idea what to say, which is pretty much what he then said.
"Wow, Cap! I mean, I really don't know what to say. I totally appreciate you even considering me, but I don't know if I'm ready for something like that."
"Son, you're as ready as you're going to be. The only question is whether you want it. Some people, like Russo, want the promotions but they'd never be able to handle the administrative work. Others, like Jim and Bets, would be great, but they don't want to move up. They're detectives, and they don't want to be anything else. You're a little harder to figure out though. I know you can do the job, I just don't know whether you want to. So, when Daniels from downtown asked for names, I told them I have to talk to you."
"Captain, this means a lot to me after some of the crap I've had flung at me in this last year or so. But I don't know whether other people are ready for a cop with more experience in anthropology than police work."
"They're ready, Sandburg. Why do you think Daniels called me in the first place? Trust me, I don't have another detective who can deal with sexual assault cases the way you can. Every other detective in my department hides in the bathroom when it comes to rape cases. And I can't blame them since those cases are the ones little tear you apart as a cop. But you take every damn one. You do the job right, and the brass knows that."
"Oh man, I really have to think about this," Blair admitted. He had endured so much change in the recent past that he wasn't sure he was ready for more. But then again, he'd always thrived on challenge, and it was a challenge.
"You need to talk to your roommate?" Blair shot Roth a sharp look. His Captain hadn't said anything when Blair had changed his address to Jim's apartment, but the tone of voice Roth used just now made it clear that some bug had crawled up Roth's butt. Blair just wasn't sure which possible bug had committed the crime..
"Jim would support me whatever decision I made. As long as he gets to run down criminals, he's not actually all that picky where he works." When Roth's expression changed to one of shock, Blair had to parse his own statement. When he looked at it from Roth's point of view, he could see how strange it seemed.
Blair realized that he implied that not only would Jim accept his decision but that Jim would go along with him. Blair frowned a bit at the realization that he and Jim might be letting the pendulum swing a little too far back the other way. He didn't have the right to make decisions for Jim anymore than Jim had a right to make decisions for him. Blair had never been very good at relationships, so he didn't have that many healthy or long-term relationships to compare to, but he wondered if everyone had this much trouble keeping a healthy balance.
"Well, give it some thought. Daniels needs to know within two weeks who's willing to take the job so that he can do the background research and present the mayor with some recommendations."
"Captain..." Blair started, but Roth interrupted him.
"Save it, Sandburg," Roth said. "Don't ruin my appetite with any of your great emotional revelations."
"Oh man, you totally need to get in touch with your emotional side."
"Some of us don't want to be that in touch, Sandburg."
"You're going to die of emotional constipation, you know."
"Most men do, Sandburg." Roth answered as he picked up his menu, his smile only half concealed. Blair glanced and saw the waitress headed their way, and he picked his own menu up as he went back to the task of trying to find himself the meal that was least likely cause permanent heart damage.
058. Dinner
Falling down onto the couch, Blair sighed in frustration. He'd had a heck of a time ditching Russo long enough for his little side trip to the video store, but now he was stocked up. Time for a little hypothesis testing. Since Jim wasn't home, Blair started preparing for his evening.
He started by actually cleaning up the living room, shoving his various piles of case notes and National Geographic magazines and half finished crossword puzzles back into his room. Jim was getting better about biting his tongue, but Blair knew that he still got annoyed on occasion, and Blair needed to make sure than any reactions tonight were from the movie and not from Blair's work scattered across the room.
Blair tucked his messenger bag with the three video options between the couch and the side table since he really didn't want the titles showing. The goal was to find out if Jim was interested, not announce his own interest. Okay, on to step two. Blair went to the dining room where he had dropped plastic bags full of supplies from the grocery store.
By the time Jim came in the door, Blair had a nachos grande sauce warming on the stovetop, bowls of chips on the dining room table, and both chairs on the side of the table that would let them watch the television.
"Hey, Chief, what smells so good?" Jim called as he stuck his head in the door. Blair looked up with red swollen eyes from cutting onions.
"Nachos," Blair said with a smile as he struggled not to wipe his eyes. Since he was cutting jalapeño peppers, touching his face with his hands right now would be a very bad idea.
"Smells great," Jim said as he leaned over Blair to look at the pan of cheeses and refried beans and tomatoes and onions and peppers and ground beef and spices.
"Hope so," Blair said as he sniffed. "Making it really clears the sinuses."
"Yeah, I can see that. Go wash up and I'll finish the jalapeños," Jim offered. For one second, Blair thought about the fact that he wanted Jim to be in a good mood and a Sentinel who got jalapeño on his skin would be a cranky Sentinel, but then Jim took the knife from his hand and pushed Blair to one side with his shoulder. Blair really did want to wash the pepper from his hands and blow his nose, so he abandoned Jim to finish up while he went for the bathroom.
When Blair reappeared four hand washings later, Jim had set the table and the nacho sauce sat between their two plates.
"Something good on TV tonight?" Jim asked curiously, probably because of how Blair had moved the chairs.
"Karen down in records recommended this movie that came out a few years ago," Blair answered as he walked over to his bag and flipped the top open. His hand hovered over the three choices before he settled on "Wedding Banquet" and popped it in the VCR.
He and Jim sat and dipped chips into the same bowl as they watched the young, male Wai-tun collect his rent from his tenants before going home to his young, male lover Simon. Or actually Blair watched Jim as Jim watched the movie. Was that a grimace? If so, was Jim feeling sorry for Wai-tun whose parents didn't know their son was gay? Was Jim disgusted by the fact Wai-tun and Simon were getting a little handsy? Was that smile because the movie was damn funny or had Jim figured it out and was he laughing at Blair's little experiment?
Jim continued to tear into the nachos as he watched Wai-tun's parents show up from Taiwan. Blair was almost sure that Jim rolled his eyes at Wai-tun and Simon moving Wai-tun's stuff to the basement so they could pretend to be just friends. Blair was feeling pretty good about the whole experiment until he noticed Jim starting to squirm a bit in his seat. Jim's eyes wandered away from the screen as Wai-tun had a sham marriage to try and please his parents.
When Jim got up to take his dishes to the kitchen in the middle of Simon and Wai-tun trying to find a little private one-on-one time, Blair was truly confused. He just wished that Jim would be a little more consistent as a test subject.
"Do you want to turn the movie off?" Blair asked and then he tried not to hold his breath. He didn't need for Jim to get suspicious, especially if Jim wasn't dropping hints and Blair had just imagined the whole thing.
"No, it's fine," Jim insisted as he came back out. "Go ahead and watch; I'm just going to do a little paperwork."
"If you don't want…"
"Sandburg, watch your movie. I just can't get into something with subtitles."
"It isn't all in subtitles," Blair pointed out. Jim just gave him one indecipherable glance as he settled in on the couch and proceeded to do his paperwork while ignoring the movie. Blair cursed silently as he realized that was what he got for not controlling all the variables. Blair considered switching over to Jeffery since it didn't have subtitles, but two gay movies in one night might be a little suspicious, and Blair really did want to find out what happened to Simon and Wai-tun. Blair sighed and moved to the opposite end of the couch so he could watch the rest of the movie.
059. Food
Bets' laugh filled the whole room as Jeff told the world's stupidest joke. Blair wasn't sure whether she was laughing at the joke or Jeff, but he found himself laughing along. The break room was done in plastic cornucopias and ugly orange streamers. Blair would have accused one of his coworkers of having wretched taste, except the decorations were so old that he suspected that they predated any of the detectives in the room.
A table on the far side of the break room held the various dishes that different detectives had brought for their mini-Thanksgiving celebration. Looking at the buffet, Blair realized that he could tell a lot about the people from the food that they brought.
Russo had brought nachos, but not the type that Blair had fixed for Jim. No, his red plastic bowl was filled with a concoction that Blair suspected was made up of equal parts refried beans and Velveta cheese. Maria was clearly the homemaker of their crew. Blair didn't go out with her often, but when he did he had gotten hints that she had survived a rough life, and now she was determined that her children have better than she did. Being a cop was hard, being a cop and a single mother and a damn good single mother -- that was a lot harder. And even though Maria's time was at a premium, she had taken the time to make homemade tamales wrapped in corn husks.
Jeff, who always tried his best, had brought a cake. However, from the perfectly even frosting, Blair suspected that it had come straight from Fry's grocery store. Betts had brought fried chicken, a recipe she said came straight from her grandmother. She had also made various and colorful threats against the first person who made a comment about a black woman bringing fried chicken while glaring at Russo. Captain Roth had brought a green bean salad that had probably been made by his wife. Blair wondered if he was stretching the metaphor by pointing out that Roth had brought food good for the unit.
Last but not least, Blair's eyes fell on the dish at the end. He wondered what it revealed to others that he and Jim had brought chicken stir-fry.
060. Drink
Blair wandered over to Roth while Jim and Russo argued sports teams either amicably or close enough to amicable to fool Blair.
"So, you know that offer you made earlier," Blair said as he leaned against the wall next to his captain. Roth turned and looked at him.
"Yeah?" Roth asked.
"I think I'm going to say 'no'," Blair said as he watched Russo playfully punch Jim's arm. Jim gave Russo a suspicious look that led to Russo punching Jim's arm again.
"Is this your decision or his?" Russo asked.
"I didn't even tell him the offer was on the table," Blair honestly answered. "I just don't think I want to trade in my life right now," Blair admitted.
"Well, you can lead a horse to water…" Roth let his voice trail off. "Daniels wants you, ya know. The chance to move up this fast just won't happen again."
"And that's okay. Man, it's never been about the money or the position," Blair pointed out as he watched as Jeff jumped in on the conversation between Russo and Jim. Jim rolled his eyes in exaggerated dismay, and Jeff shook a finger toward Russo.
"If you're sure...."
"Oh yeah, I’m sure," Blair answered as he reached around Roth to snag a bottled water. "I'm already where I want to be. I don't really want to be led to any new water."
061. Winter
"You know," Blair offered as he followed Jim with the remains of a chicken stir-fry, "one Native American legend says that the great creator made winter to punish the people for complaining about the heat." The sun had set while everyone had stuffed themselves from the buffet, dishes from the support staff, the custodial staff, and the technical staff added to the detectives' offerings of food as the day went along. Precious little work actually got done, but Blair figured the crime rate in Phoenix wouldn't skyrocket because of one day of communal rest on the day before Thanksgiving. Besides, Wednesday wasn't a big crime day.
"Funny, I always assumed winter came from the rotation of the Earth," Jim said dryly.
"Ha, ha, man," Blair answered. "Seriously, it was a whole moral about people being punished for not appreciating what they have."
"Considering we live in Arizona, I appreciate winter very much," Jim pointed out as he unlocked the truck door and took the bowl from Blair. He reached in and used an old sweatshirt to brace it on the seat so that it hopefully wouldn't tip over.
"Yeah, there are a lot of things in my life that I appreciate," Blair said.
"Yeah, Junior. Me too." Jim turned around and let his hand fall on Blair shoulder. Blair stood there in the dim light of the streetlamp feeling the warm pressure of Jim's hand and he smiled up at his partner. Jim smiled back and then stepped past Blair, his hand sliding down Blair's arm and disappearing as Jim walked around the truck. Blair got in the truck and buckled up as Jim climbed in the driver's side. Oh yeah, no matter where their relationship did or didn't go, Blair appreciated it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-11-11 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-11 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-11 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-11 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-11 10:56 pm (UTC)Oh. Umm, yeah. That helps. Hee!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-12 12:26 am (UTC)I love Blair finally understanding Jim's frustration with the cryptic blue jungle dreams . . . although it got a lot less cryptic at the end, didn't it, Blair?
You are doing the dynamics of this new unit so well--normally, one of the things I adore is having Simon and Rafe and Megan and H and Taggart all interacting, but I've really gotten fond of this new "family" too--a tribute to your fine characterization and dialog!
Thanks so much for this lovely long post.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-12 12:56 am (UTC)And that dream didn't take a whole lot of interpretation, did it?? I'm glad that you're liking the original characters, too. It's hard to write a story with a lot of original characters and still have people read. But I really love Bets and Jeff and Russo and Roth (warts and bad habits and all).
Oh yes.
Date: 2005-11-12 02:17 am (UTC)*ahem*
However now the cat and the wolf slowly circled each other in a clearing.
God, now he understood why these things annoyed
toJim so much.Also: Blair has a loooootttt of education in social and spiritual things: interpreting the symbolism of dreams should be fairly easy for him.
but over half of Blair's cases had Jim
ias the second detective.He didn't have the right to make decisions for Jim anymore than Jim had a right to make decisions for him.
Well, give it some thought.
"Save it, Sandburg," Roth said. "Don't ruin my appetite with any of your great emotional revelations."
"You're going to die of emotional constipation, you know."
The break room was done in plastic cornucopia
asand ugly orange streamers.Captain Roth had brought a green bean salad that had probably been made by his wife.
Re: Oh yes.
Date: 2005-11-12 02:37 am (UTC)And as far as the dreams, even the most experienced psychoanalysist will struggle to get to the true meaning of a dream, so while Blair is open to exploring the meaning of his dreams, he isn't likely to just "get it." Well, not unless animals with huge hard ons go rolling over onto their backs. That one is a little hard to miss.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-12 02:28 pm (UTC)(sorry, will back off now from yelling at fictional characters - again..)
Loved that Roth offered him the job, and that Blair felt confident enough to turn it down - although I get the feeling Jim will go apeshit if he ever finds out and insist Blair should have accepted.
Off to read the next part now.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-12 09:03 pm (UTC)I'm glad that you see how turning down the job shows Blair's confidence. He doesn't need another job because he actually does like the one he has now. But I think you're right that Jim would be a little shocked that Blair had taken the promotion, and he might just worry that he was holding Blair back. In his own way, Jim is just as insecure as Blair.
Recovery 55-61
Date: 2005-11-12 09:49 pm (UTC)055. Spirits
I LOL'd over the spirit animals with hard-ons :) Don't have to stretch too much to interpret that dream...
056. Breakfast
Otherwise, I'm getting in there whether you're finished or not -- Woohoo! I did a double-take just before Blair did. After a line like that, he still isn't sure if Jim's interested?! But good for him for wanting to test (and prove) his theory instead of jumping (ahem) to conclusions.
057. Lunch
Ooh, nice plot twist! I like Roth more and more; he's a good captain. And there it is, unmistakable affirmation: Blair is a good cop, and has earned the respect of the Phoenix police department. Interesting observations about maintaining a healthy balance (Blair's getting better at understanding himself, yay), and I loved the end of the exchange:
"You're going to die of emotional constipation, you know."
"Most men do, Sandburg."
058. Dinner
Hee! Silly Blair; Clever Plans almost never work out. (Hey, Blair had three DVDs: Wedding Banquet and Jeffrey were two -- what was the third?
059. Food
Interesting observations about what party food choices say about the people who bring it.
060. Drink
Jim and Russo argued sports teams either amicably or close enough to amicable to fool Blair -- cool! And I'm not surprised that Blair turned down the job. Somehow I don't think Roth is, either. Interesting that Blair didn't tell Jim the offer was on the table. I wonder if that will bite him in the ass down the road...
061. Winter
Aw. :)
Re: Recovery 55-61
Date: 2005-11-12 10:01 pm (UTC)I think the spirit animals are just as frustrated with Blair's obliviousness as we are
056. Breakfast
Oh he has his theories, but like most people, he isn't going to put his neck on the line without doing a little double checking and testing first.
057. Lunch
I do think Roth is a good captain. More than that, he recognizes that being a cop isn't some testosterone-driven activity that requires the brain of a Neanderthal. People who think that Blair wouldn't make a good cop forget that most cops never shoot anybody. Their job is to help people and to figure out crimes. Blair can do that! Of course being a cop on TV involves a lot more shooting, and that would probably tear Blair into little tiny emotional pieces
058. Dinner
Wouldn't you just like to know ;-) I'll give you a hint, they were increasingly obvious.
059. Food
It's funny, but no one is picked up on the one thing I was trying to show. The important thing there was that they didn't bring two dishes, they brought one.
060. Drink
I think Jim would be a little shocked and possibly hurt that Blair never talk to him about the job. But I wanted Blair to make this decision by himself and not because of what he thought Jim wanted.
061. Winter
thanks
Re: Recovery 55-61
Date: 2005-11-13 01:09 am (UTC)Lemme guess: The Birdcage? :)
It's funny, but no one is picked up on the one thing I was trying to show. The important thing there was that they didn't bring two dishes, they brought one.
::dopeslap:: Duh, of course! OK, now I feel stupid. But no one else got it either,did they? Maybe you need to make it clearer?
Re: Recovery 55-61
Date: 2005-11-13 01:11 am (UTC)And you're right on the movie.