Old War Horses 25

[lit_gal]

Title: Old War Horses
Firefly x Sentinel
Mal/Jayne, Blair/Jim
Rated: ADULT
Taming the Muse prompt:

Malcolm Reynolds fought for the Browncoat rebels. They wanted their freedom. They lost. James Joseph Womak was a commander for the Alliance, determined to bring justice to the common people. His side won, but he still lost.

This time on Old War Horses:
The plan is starting to come together, a few of River's cryptic messages make a little more sense, but right now, Jim doesn't care. Right now his friend and lover is silently suffering, and Jim has concerns that, to him, are bigger than a universe falling apart.



If you want to read the early chapters, go to Twisting the Hellmouth. 

If you want to read the most recent chapters, use tags.

25.

Jim escorted Blair back to their quarters.

“Oh man. Okay, I know you do not have warm and fuzzy feelings for your father. Do you really think River wants you to go to your father?”

“I don’t know,” Jim said, opening their quarters and standing to the side while Blair went down into the room.

“That is going to be one wild meeting. Wild.”

“Yep,” Jim agreed as he followed Blair into the room.

“So, is he safe… I mean, will he turn you over to the Alliance? I may complain about Naomi not naming my father, but man, that is way better than having a father who would turn you over to the Alliance. And seriously, do not even get me started on the dog thing. I mean… who kills a kid’s dog? That is so not cool.”

Jim watched as Blair paced the small room. He had too much energy for the small space, but Jim let him pace off as much energy as he could. “Are you planning on contributing to this conversation?” Blair finally demanded.

“No, not really.”

That made Blair stop in his tracks. He stood near the tiny table and stared at Jim like he couldn’t recognize him. “You are so in denial,” Blair said, poking a finger in Jim’s direction.

“No, squirt, I’m not. I know my father is an asshole and that his emotional abuse sent me running to the Alliance because I wanted to find a better authority figure.”

Blair frowned, but he didn’t have an immediate answer for that. Either that, or he didn’t want to admit that Jim was the self-aware one in this relationship. Oh, he had plenty of other issues including an ongoing self-worth issue and a fatalism born in the bowels of the Institution. However, he was far more self-aware than Blair who could see everyone’s faults but his own. Considering that he was a psychiatrist, Blair had this huge blind spot when it came to himself.

Blair crossed his arms. “Why do you have that look on your face?”

“What look?” Jim asked with as much innocence as he could muster. Blair’s eyes narrowed more.

“Oh no. You are getting ready to say something I do not want to here, and let me make this one hundred percent clear James Joseph Womak Ellison. I am going to Osiris with you. I am your partner. Partner. You hear that? Partner, as in the person who goes with you, not the person who gets left behind every time you think it’s more convenient.”

Jim gave a snort. “Considering that we’re both on a Browncoat ship old enough to have belonged to my great-grandfather as a young man, I clearly don’t leave you behind all that often.” Jim didn’t mention that he’d like to leave Blair behind more. He’d been an officer long enough to know that some battles were unwinnable.

“So… you aren’t going to tell me to stay behind when you visit your dad?”

“I don’t know that either of us are going to see William. Unless River comes right out and tells me to go see him, I don’t plan to go near the man,” Jim said firmly. The comm system came on with an electronic pop that suggested Kaylee needed to fix something in the unit. River’s voice filled the room.

“Coming right out and telling,” she sang and then the comm system popped again and went silent. Jim sighed. He didn’t know what annoyed him more: having a reader constantly monitoring his thoughts or having to visit his father.

“Oh man. That is….” Blair’s voice trailed off.

“Irritating?” Jim guessed.

“No way. I mean, River is trying to help, and I am not that easily irritated, unlike some people,” Blair gave him a look. “But is River monitoring everyone all the time or is she just monitoring us because she’s trying to communicate? The readers at the Institute were emotionally shut down. River… man, she has done an incredible job of recovering. I wonder how well she would perform on a Cummings-Nguyen personality inventory?” Blair stopped, his expression slowly turning suspicious. “What?” he demanded.

With a sigh, Jim sat on the edge of his bunk and considered possible attack strategies. With Blair, direct usually worked, but when he decided to develop a blind spot, he could really wallow in his own cluelessness. “Nothing, Blair. I just thought you’d be tired.”

“No way. I stayed up longer as a student. I’m fine.”

“Are you?” Jim asked, all lightness gone from his voice. He’d seen Blair’s pain during the op, and he wondered how much of that Blair was hiding. He’d seen young men do that in the war—swallow the pain down until it threatened to eat them alive. He didn’t want that for Blair.

“Yes,” Blair snapped, looking even more confused. “You’re the one who has to face your father.”

Making a face, Jim shrugged. “In the name of war, I’ve done worse,” he pointed out. The memory of young Browncoat bodies floating in space came to mind. Mal and his kind were idiots fighting to protect criminals and their right to exploit the weak, but Jim and his Alliance troops were idiots fighting to protect a criminal government and their right to exploit everyone. Some days he wished he’d died back before realizing how wrong he’d been… how wrong they’d all been.

Sitting next to Jim, Blair let his hand rest on Jim’s knee. “Bad memories?” he guessed.

“Yeah,” Jim agreed with a huff. “Fighting in war leaves you some rough and bloody memories. I can remember every fallen soldiers—every man I shot and every soldier I tried to save.” Jim looked down at his hands. He hated letting his control over his emotions slip because sometimes they raged out of his control. He’d feel this hot loss, this burning hatred and raw grief, and he’d slip into a dark place that he had trouble returning from. It was easier to lock it all down, but it was also hypocritical of him to keep his own emotions locked down when he needed Blair to admit to a little pain of his own.

Jim looked over, and Blair was swallowing, his fingers twitching as though he was still doing chest compressions to try and save one of the Blue Sun workers.

“Even when you know you’re right… even when you know you’re serving the greater good… it’s hard,” Jim said gently.

Now Blair recognized the trap Jim had set, and he flew off the bed, stopping only once he’d reached the far side of the room, his arms wrapped around his waist. “Oh man, do not turn this back on me,” he said, his words angry, but his tone barely hiding the pain.

“Blair, you know you have to talk about this.”

“No. No I don’t. I’m the psychiatrist here, so I should know.”

“I’m the combat-experienced officer,” Jim countered. “Do you think I don’t understand? I’ve held my hands over bleeding arteries while men I knew bled to death in my arms.”

“And that’s not what I did,” Blair shouted. “I didn’t know these people. I didn’t have emotional bonds to severe and I don’t have to live with the guilt of pulling the trigger because I didn’t!”

“I know,” Jim agreed.

“I mean, Jayne and Mal were the ones who did that mayhem. If anyone should feel guilty, they should,” Blair went on, ignoring Jim. Jim didn’t even bother to point out that neither Mal nor Jayne were the type to feel guilty. Well, not for enemies, anyway. Jim had seen Mal flinch when someone would mention missing crew, so he figured Mal carried his own guilt, even if he denied it. Jayne, however, was the least emotionally complex, most direct, and least guilt-prone person Jim had ever met.

Blair started paced. “They pulled the trigger. I mean, I can come up with a dozen different scenarios that would have resulted in fewer deaths. Did you know there are knockout gases that can take down an adult in under five seconds?” Blair’s pacing grew more frantic, which left him almost spinning in circles in the small room. Jim watched, reassured by the fact that the emotions were coming out now. “Or food,” Blair blurted out, “we could have put sedative in the food. I mean, everyone has to eat, right? When they sent out for food, we could have put sedative in it.”

The plan had enough holes in it that Jim didn’t bother answering. Inara’s customer would have discovered the missing key, and anyone who didn’t eat would have had time to put the office into lockdown, not to mention that they didn’t have that much sedative, they didn’t have a way to intercept any food order, and anyone who ate too much of the sedated food would have died anyway. Jim kept all that to himself as Blair’s emotions spun out, his brain working through all the “what-ifs.”

“Man, I could have brought up a dozen different plans, and I didn’t. I stood there and let Mal and Jayne shoot a whole bunch of people. What does that say about me?” Blair froze, turning a tortured expression toward Jim.

“That you feel empathy, even when you’re dealing with the enemy, and not many men are good enough to do that,” Jim answered quietly.

Blair shook his head. “I didn’t, though. If I had empathy, I would have found another plan. I would have realized that Mal and Jayne’s plan would lead to massive gunfire. I don’t think those two know any other solution.”

“Probably not,” Jim agreed. His opinion on Browncoat morality might have changed, but he still considered their strategy vastly inferior.

“What’s wrong with me that I didn’t argue with them? Why did I just go along with it. Man, cleaning up after the fact is not the same from stopping the mess in the first place.” Blair’s eyes shone with tears, and now Jim could see them reach the real emotion that had been souring Blair’s scent since they came back to the ship. Inching closer, Blair looked at Jim like he was expecting an answer. “What is wrong with me that I can’t do the right thing up front?”

“You do, Blair,” Jim promised, but Blair shook his head.

“No, I admit I’m at fault and try and clean up the mess, but that is not the same thing. Not even close. Not even in the same ‘verse. Man, I suck.”

“Blair,” Jim interrupted, reaching out to catch Blair’s arm and pull him into a hug. “You’re a good man. Any mistakes you’ve made dwarf in comparison to mine. If you forgive me, you have to forgive yourself.” Jim knew his words hit home when Blair gave a strangled sob, his fingers clutching Jim’s shirt.

Jim remembered Joel Taggart, his friend who had fought for the Browncoats—his friend he had killed. After a hard case, Joel would always want to sit around and remember other cases, other detectives, other friends. Simon Banks would challenge Jim to a game of darts and then throw those darts hard enough to work out his anger. On hard cases, he traded the darts for a shooting competition at the local range. Henri Brown would offer to drink him under the table or take him to a horse race or a bare-knuckle prize fight. Rafe would offer some upscale club where the Womak name would open doors and they could politely drink themselves to oblivion before some well-dressed maître d’ poured them into a cab and paid to ensure their safe delivery back him. Every man had his own way of decompressing after a hard mission. For Jim, he used to stare out at the black for long hours, his pain raging as he sat silent in the dark. But for Blair, only tears could ease this pain.

Blair hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d tried to save every one of those injured prisoners. Tomorrow he’d realize that. Tonight Jim backed up to the bunk, pulling Blair with him. Settling back, he tugged Blair onto the bed, and Blair allowed himself to be maneuvered into place between Jim’s legs. And then Jim let Blair cry. Hitting the switch to plunge them into darkness, Jim lay stroking his fingers through Blair’s hair and listening to the ragged breathing as Blair excised his demons. Tomorrow would be better; Jim had to believe that. Otherwise they were in serious trouble because when they reached Osiris, Jim knew he didn’t have the strength to deal with his father alone. Blair wasn’t the only one carrying demons.