![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Guidelines, Power Play 10
Okay, we're trotting right along with our updates.
Guidelines Power Play:
Yep.... Another update
ALL CHAPTERS
"Tanner." Blair was tying his shoes when he heard Jim's voice at the door. He pulled the last loop tight and trotted down the stairs, anxious to play referee before any permanent damage got done.
"Ellison," Charlie answered. "So, Blair here?" he asked after a second.
"Hey, Charlie, I'm glad you could come over. Jim's just leaving," Blair said, breathing carefully and hoping Jim would put any stress indicators down to his annoyance that Jim and Charlie couldn't stand each other.
"So, just hanging around to sniff me or did you want to make a threat or two before you left?" Charlie asked as he stood in the hallway. Blair watched Jim's back tighten, his jaw muscle bulging as the man stared down.
"I think you know what happens if you do something stupid," Jim answered quietly, and Blair could almost see the shiver go through Charlie.
"We're watching a movie or two. God, we aren't going to go to Southtown and pick up some hookers for S&M play. Chill out," Blair said as he stood next to Jim. He leaned over so that his shoulder pushed into Jim's arm, and the sentinel's gaze went from Charlie down to Blair.
"Hookers?" Jim asked, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, you know, a guy's got needs," Blair teased back, leaning a little harder so that their bodies pressed together. Jim stared down at him and then snorted.
"Chief, you'd do a table leg." Jim reached up and ruffled Blair's hair before Blair could defend himself.
"Man, knock it off. You do not know how hard it is to comb this out," Blair complained as he struck out at Jim's stomach with a playful punch. He never connected; Jim snatched his hand midair and pulled forward. Before Blair could regain his balance, Jim snaked his other arm around Blair's neck and bent him over before delivering a serious noogie. Jim's knuckled rasped across the top of his head, and Blair squirmed as he tried to escape. After a couple of seconds, Jim let go and Blair got in a good punch to Jim's stomach before backing off and brushing his hair back out of his face. Then he glared at his chuckling roommate.
"Yep. So stay out of trouble or I'll let my tyrannical self loose to deliver a noogie every hour," Jim threatened cheerfully. Blair glared as he finger-combed his curls.
"Dude, no convincing required. Staying out of trouble," Charlie squeaked and held his hands up in surrender as Jim turned toward him.
"You do that," Jim said, the friendliness of a moment ago frozen under a grim tone. Grabbing his keys off the side table, Jim headed out the door without a backwards glance. As soon as he cleared the doorway, Charlie darted inside.
"Oh man, thanks for coming over," Blair said as he started toward the bathroom. Unless he planned on pulling his hair out by the roots, he needed detangling spray and a comb.
"Hey, no problem. I've seriously missed our munchies and making fun of the movies nights. So, what's on the agenda? We haven't poked holes in the latest Cruise movie." Charlie leaned against the side of the door as Blair struggled to get his hair back in shape.
"Nope, no time for anachronisms and internal continuity flaws today. We have work to do."
"Shit, you are so trying to get my killed, aren't you?" Charlie asked as he leaned his head sidewise into the door jam. "You promised Mr. Forehead we were staying in, and if we aren't staying in that means I'm driving you somewhere, and if I drive you somewhere, I am so getting blamed for whatever happens."
"You worry too much," Blair said as he repaired the damage to his hair and considered just cutting it all off and starting over. Of course, if he did that, Jim would probably stop finding imaginary bits of twigs or paper in his hair, using it as an excuse to run his fingers through the long curls, and Blair stopped that train before he ended up considering table legs with Jim out of the loft.
"Dude, why do you think I get stoned so much?" Charlie pointed out, but Blair noticed that his friend also didn't argue. "So, where am I taking you?"
"You're driving *us* to the university," Blair answered as he put the comb down and turned to his friend with a conspiratorial grin.
"So you can go to your office and stay away from people like, say, Kelly or Dean Edwards?"
"Staying away from those two is on the top of the list," Blair promised as he brushed by Charlie and headed for the kitchen. He needed to grab a sandwich before going to do battle with the lying university bastards. "I don't think we'll run into them at the antro labs," he said with his head in the refrigerator. When he pulled back out, Charlie was looking at him as though he had just grown a second head… one scarier than Jim.
"What?" Blair asked.
"Dude. You've already been accused of vandalizing the labs. You are like persona non grata over there… seriously non with the grata."
"Which is why we aren't going to be seen," Blair answered with smile. He'd be damned if he'd let Kelly bulldoze him out of the bedroom just because he'd let her do a little dominating in it.
"Dude, I'm the irresponsible one. And now? First it's the Neanderthal with breaking out of the loony bin and now it's you with this whole Kelly disaster. I'm telling you, I'm not cut out to be the responsible one," Charlie complained.
"Don't give me that shit, Charlie. I hate it when you tear yourself down like that."
"Yeah, well if you ever saw my GPA, you'd know it's true."
"Right, that's why they asked you to teach—because you're a failure." Blair used his most sarcastic tone as he slapped sliced turkey onto bread for a couple of sandwiches. "You want American or mozzarella cheese?" Blair asked as he wrapped the turkey.
" Mozzarella. Look, I never said I failed, but there is a definite lack of success going on. I'm irresponsible-boy."
"Charlie," Blair sighed in frustration as he slapped the sandwiches shut. "I don't need you to disarm the bomb and save the world from terrorists. I just need you to drive me over to the university so we can do some snooping around in the sensory lab."
"Right, because whoever did sabotage the lab left a big sign that says 'Guilty Person This Way.' Dude, you have been hanging out with the cop too long. And speaking of cops, why don't you have tall, dark and menacing check out campus?"
"Don't bring Jim into this," Blair pointed a mustard knife toward Charlie in warning. Charlie rolled his eyes.
"Right… I'll make sure not to bring a *cop* into a case of destruction of private property. If your lady friend at campus security can't clear you, you're going to have a whole lot of cops involved," Charlie pointed out. However, Blair noticed that his friend was already digging around for his keys in his pocket.
"It's not going to go that far."
"Yeah, right. And who's going to keep it from blowing up in our faces?" Charlie asked, the keys jingling merrily as he pulled them free.
"We are," Blair answered with confidence as he shoved one sandwich toward Charlie and it into the second one. Chewing and swallowing quickly, Blair gestured toward the door. "Now come on, I want to get to the university."
"Dude, you are seriously crazy," Charlie groaned as he followed Blair out the door. "Your Neanderthal is going to chain you to the bed and kill me."
Blair followed Charlie down the hall toward the Anthropology lab. As long as Kelly kept playing dirty, Suzanne was never going to clear his name, so it was up to him to do it, and to do it before Jim got involved and decided Blair couldn't handle one ex-lover with a grudge… and a set of lock picks… and a small psychotic streak.
Blair felt like kicking himself for ever getting involved with the woman, but he firmly believed in not kicking someone when he was down, and he qualified as down. If the university didn't lift his research suspension, he couldn't hold up his half of the deal he'd made with Karn, and Blair didn't even want to think what would happen at that point.
If it came down to it, Blair knew he'd follow Jim back into the USSP, but he really didn't want to go there. As a confirmed non-conformist, working with the police strained his self image. He'd turned into a bureaucrat able to untangle the red tape involved in having a Thai parade or charm the commissioner into taking a meeting with the imam of the Cascade mosque. At least he could tell himself he served the people and not the police. But the USSP… Blair didn't want that life, and he didn't think Jim did either. So, if it came down to them or Kelly, Blair was taking the bitch down.
Charlie turned a corner, and then immediately doubled back so that they collided in a tangle of arms and legs until Blair could back up and away from Charlie who seemed to be panicking.
"Edwards, Edwards," Charlie finally panted, and Blair grabbed his friend's t-shirt and pulled him toward the men's room, where he was almost certain Dean Edwards wouldn't follow. The old-fashioned wood door with the frosted glass cutout glided closed just as heels started tapping down the hall.
"… will pay. The board of regents refuses to submit the claim to insurance, and I support their decision. The person who did this…" Her voice faded down the hall along with the sound of tapping feet, and Blair rested his palm against the cool tile as his heart pounded heavily.
"I can't. I can't. I can't do this. Oh, dude, I so can't do this," Charlie mumbled, and Blair reached over and put a hand on Charlie's shoulder. Despite Charlie's belief that he had some great weakness that made him incapable of doing anything right, Blair knew the strength in his friend. He spoke to that strength.
"We can do this. You and I both know Kelly did this, and we're going to prove it," Blair insisted.
"And the broken knob found in your office? And the fact that you were in that protest? And what about the sign-in sheet with your name they found in the trash? I hate to say this, but she has well and truly set you up. I think it's time to get out the big guns, and by that I mean call the fucking Neanderthal."
"What? You think Kelly's smarter than us?"
"In criminal matters, I'm voting 'oh fucking hell yeah,'" Charlie immediately answered.
Blair glared. "I can take care of this myself." Charlie rolled his eyes, but he didn't argue the point. Blair smiled in triumph. "So, Edwards and whatever crony she brought along today are gone. Who does that leave in the lab?"
Charlie didn't answer immediately. "Blair, does the term 'over our heads' mean anything?" he asked. Blair refused to answer as he crossed his arms and waited. Charlie sighed and then sagged back into the wall with a groan. "Lewis. He was the only other person in the lab."
"Okay, you distract Lewis and I'll check the logs," Blair said as he cracked the bathroom door open. With the term not officially started, only the rare graduate student wandered the campus. When Blair didn't see anyone, he slipped out into the hall.
"Blair, if you get caught in there…" Charlie hissed.
"Yeah, yeah, Edwards will eat my liver with onions. Man, if I don't prove Kelly did the damage, she's going to be eating my liver anyway," Blair said without even turning to look at his friend. He trusted that Charlie was just behind him.
"Shit. Just as long as you know this is a bad idea."
"Bad, schmad, just get in there and start distracting," Blair said with a nod. Despite the evidence stacking up against him, he knew Kelly had left some sort of trail. And unlike Suzanne, he didn't intend to play nice about proving it.
Charlie passed him as and then turned the corner, pulling open the heavy lab doors before greeting Lewis with a loud "Dude." Blair listened as Charlie spun a tale at warp speed, his obfuscations blending with equal parts truth and flat out lie as he maneuvered the man toward the office at the far end. Glancing either way in the hall, Blair pulled the door open slowly and slid inside.
The vision machine lay in disassembled parts across the floor, bits of it twisted and bent and snapped viciously. Blair tried not to think about the fury, and the weapon, it would have taken to do so much damage. Quickly, he scanned the sign-in sheet. Suzanne had let him get a look at the forged sign in sheet campus police had found in Blair's office, so he scanned the page for the same light blue felt tip pen.
None of the pens matched, but on the sheet just under the top one, he did find something interesting. Kelly Newman had no interest in any part of anthropology that involved senses, so her name in her scrawling handwriting came as a surprise. Blair glanced toward the office before snapping open the binder and slipping out the page. It might be only a small piece of the puzzle, but both anthropology and the case work he'd done with Jim had taught him that small mattered. Small solved cases. Small saved his ass and put Kelly on the hot seat. Smiling, Blair crept back out of the lab and hurried outside; he'd meet Charlie over at Hargrove.
"Well, that was a giant waste of time," Charlie said as he perched on the corner of Blair's desk.
"I don't know; we found out that Kelly had been there the day before," Blair said as he paced the room. The pig's blood attack had led to all new tile being put down, so a sour grout-smell filled the air. But at least the campus police had taken down the barriers they'd put up while they searched every corner for more evidence that Blair had taken a sledgehammer to a million dollar machine.
"Yeah, and that means exactly nothing since she wasn't there the day of."
"But it could…" Blair started.
"Yeah, exactly. It *could* mean something, but it *could* mean absolutely nothing," Charlie interrupted, sliding off the corner of the desk. Blair could see the tremor in Charlie's hand where he held on to the edge of the wood. "If that broken knob hadn't been in your office, you could be free and clear. If you hadn't hooked up with the human grouch, you could be off researching the changing tribal power relations with the lovely Sarah Ang. If I hadn't pulled that same grouch out of the loony bin, you could have been buried in some government facility for the rest of your life. There are a lot of could's floating around, and not one of them means shit," Charlie started at a near yell, but by the end of his tirade, his voice had dropped to a near whisper, as if he had no energy left.
"You know, you make sense when you're not stoned," Blair said quietly. Charlie looked at him for a second, emotionless, and then he gave a small huff of laughter.
"I make sense when I'm stoned too, you just have to be stoned with me to understand my greatness."
"I'll pass," Blair said. He could tell from the uncoordinated movements of Charlie's body, that Charlie wouldn't last too much longer without a fix. Blair bit back words like rehab and withdrawal before they could slip out of his mouth.
"So, what's our next step, oh fearless leader?" Charlie finally asked in the awkward silence.
"Oh man, look at the time. We need to get back to the loft before Jim gets back," Blair said as he picked up the sign-in page and folded it carefully. "We can do more digging around tomorrow or Saturday.
"You're determined to fix this before students show up on Monday, aren't you?" Charlie asked tiredly.
"Man, the way Kelly can twist people around, if I don't get this fixed before then, she's going to have a platoon of kids in Edwards' office claiming I set up the local 'orgy for grades' exchange." Blair said, and even worse, he believed it.
"Yeah," Charlie agreed softly. Blair would have felt better if he hadn't, but he had to face the truth. He had until Monday to clear his name, or the shit was going to start rolling downhill faster and faster. If he wasn't careful, all his careful manipulations and deals were going to crumble.
"So, home Jeeves," Blair joked. Charlie rolled his eyes as he started out the door.
Guidelines Power Play:
Yep.... Another update
ALL CHAPTERS
"Tanner." Blair was tying his shoes when he heard Jim's voice at the door. He pulled the last loop tight and trotted down the stairs, anxious to play referee before any permanent damage got done.
"Ellison," Charlie answered. "So, Blair here?" he asked after a second.
"Hey, Charlie, I'm glad you could come over. Jim's just leaving," Blair said, breathing carefully and hoping Jim would put any stress indicators down to his annoyance that Jim and Charlie couldn't stand each other.
"So, just hanging around to sniff me or did you want to make a threat or two before you left?" Charlie asked as he stood in the hallway. Blair watched Jim's back tighten, his jaw muscle bulging as the man stared down.
"I think you know what happens if you do something stupid," Jim answered quietly, and Blair could almost see the shiver go through Charlie.
"We're watching a movie or two. God, we aren't going to go to Southtown and pick up some hookers for S&M play. Chill out," Blair said as he stood next to Jim. He leaned over so that his shoulder pushed into Jim's arm, and the sentinel's gaze went from Charlie down to Blair.
"Hookers?" Jim asked, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, you know, a guy's got needs," Blair teased back, leaning a little harder so that their bodies pressed together. Jim stared down at him and then snorted.
"Chief, you'd do a table leg." Jim reached up and ruffled Blair's hair before Blair could defend himself.
"Man, knock it off. You do not know how hard it is to comb this out," Blair complained as he struck out at Jim's stomach with a playful punch. He never connected; Jim snatched his hand midair and pulled forward. Before Blair could regain his balance, Jim snaked his other arm around Blair's neck and bent him over before delivering a serious noogie. Jim's knuckled rasped across the top of his head, and Blair squirmed as he tried to escape. After a couple of seconds, Jim let go and Blair got in a good punch to Jim's stomach before backing off and brushing his hair back out of his face. Then he glared at his chuckling roommate.
"Yep. So stay out of trouble or I'll let my tyrannical self loose to deliver a noogie every hour," Jim threatened cheerfully. Blair glared as he finger-combed his curls.
"Dude, no convincing required. Staying out of trouble," Charlie squeaked and held his hands up in surrender as Jim turned toward him.
"You do that," Jim said, the friendliness of a moment ago frozen under a grim tone. Grabbing his keys off the side table, Jim headed out the door without a backwards glance. As soon as he cleared the doorway, Charlie darted inside.
"Oh man, thanks for coming over," Blair said as he started toward the bathroom. Unless he planned on pulling his hair out by the roots, he needed detangling spray and a comb.
"Hey, no problem. I've seriously missed our munchies and making fun of the movies nights. So, what's on the agenda? We haven't poked holes in the latest Cruise movie." Charlie leaned against the side of the door as Blair struggled to get his hair back in shape.
"Nope, no time for anachronisms and internal continuity flaws today. We have work to do."
"Shit, you are so trying to get my killed, aren't you?" Charlie asked as he leaned his head sidewise into the door jam. "You promised Mr. Forehead we were staying in, and if we aren't staying in that means I'm driving you somewhere, and if I drive you somewhere, I am so getting blamed for whatever happens."
"You worry too much," Blair said as he repaired the damage to his hair and considered just cutting it all off and starting over. Of course, if he did that, Jim would probably stop finding imaginary bits of twigs or paper in his hair, using it as an excuse to run his fingers through the long curls, and Blair stopped that train before he ended up considering table legs with Jim out of the loft.
"Dude, why do you think I get stoned so much?" Charlie pointed out, but Blair noticed that his friend also didn't argue. "So, where am I taking you?"
"You're driving *us* to the university," Blair answered as he put the comb down and turned to his friend with a conspiratorial grin.
"So you can go to your office and stay away from people like, say, Kelly or Dean Edwards?"
"Staying away from those two is on the top of the list," Blair promised as he brushed by Charlie and headed for the kitchen. He needed to grab a sandwich before going to do battle with the lying university bastards. "I don't think we'll run into them at the antro labs," he said with his head in the refrigerator. When he pulled back out, Charlie was looking at him as though he had just grown a second head… one scarier than Jim.
"What?" Blair asked.
"Dude. You've already been accused of vandalizing the labs. You are like persona non grata over there… seriously non with the grata."
"Which is why we aren't going to be seen," Blair answered with smile. He'd be damned if he'd let Kelly bulldoze him out of the bedroom just because he'd let her do a little dominating in it.
"Dude, I'm the irresponsible one. And now? First it's the Neanderthal with breaking out of the loony bin and now it's you with this whole Kelly disaster. I'm telling you, I'm not cut out to be the responsible one," Charlie complained.
"Don't give me that shit, Charlie. I hate it when you tear yourself down like that."
"Yeah, well if you ever saw my GPA, you'd know it's true."
"Right, that's why they asked you to teach—because you're a failure." Blair used his most sarcastic tone as he slapped sliced turkey onto bread for a couple of sandwiches. "You want American or mozzarella cheese?" Blair asked as he wrapped the turkey.
" Mozzarella. Look, I never said I failed, but there is a definite lack of success going on. I'm irresponsible-boy."
"Charlie," Blair sighed in frustration as he slapped the sandwiches shut. "I don't need you to disarm the bomb and save the world from terrorists. I just need you to drive me over to the university so we can do some snooping around in the sensory lab."
"Right, because whoever did sabotage the lab left a big sign that says 'Guilty Person This Way.' Dude, you have been hanging out with the cop too long. And speaking of cops, why don't you have tall, dark and menacing check out campus?"
"Don't bring Jim into this," Blair pointed a mustard knife toward Charlie in warning. Charlie rolled his eyes.
"Right… I'll make sure not to bring a *cop* into a case of destruction of private property. If your lady friend at campus security can't clear you, you're going to have a whole lot of cops involved," Charlie pointed out. However, Blair noticed that his friend was already digging around for his keys in his pocket.
"It's not going to go that far."
"Yeah, right. And who's going to keep it from blowing up in our faces?" Charlie asked, the keys jingling merrily as he pulled them free.
"We are," Blair answered with confidence as he shoved one sandwich toward Charlie and it into the second one. Chewing and swallowing quickly, Blair gestured toward the door. "Now come on, I want to get to the university."
"Dude, you are seriously crazy," Charlie groaned as he followed Blair out the door. "Your Neanderthal is going to chain you to the bed and kill me."
Blair followed Charlie down the hall toward the Anthropology lab. As long as Kelly kept playing dirty, Suzanne was never going to clear his name, so it was up to him to do it, and to do it before Jim got involved and decided Blair couldn't handle one ex-lover with a grudge… and a set of lock picks… and a small psychotic streak.
Blair felt like kicking himself for ever getting involved with the woman, but he firmly believed in not kicking someone when he was down, and he qualified as down. If the university didn't lift his research suspension, he couldn't hold up his half of the deal he'd made with Karn, and Blair didn't even want to think what would happen at that point.
If it came down to it, Blair knew he'd follow Jim back into the USSP, but he really didn't want to go there. As a confirmed non-conformist, working with the police strained his self image. He'd turned into a bureaucrat able to untangle the red tape involved in having a Thai parade or charm the commissioner into taking a meeting with the imam of the Cascade mosque. At least he could tell himself he served the people and not the police. But the USSP… Blair didn't want that life, and he didn't think Jim did either. So, if it came down to them or Kelly, Blair was taking the bitch down.
Charlie turned a corner, and then immediately doubled back so that they collided in a tangle of arms and legs until Blair could back up and away from Charlie who seemed to be panicking.
"Edwards, Edwards," Charlie finally panted, and Blair grabbed his friend's t-shirt and pulled him toward the men's room, where he was almost certain Dean Edwards wouldn't follow. The old-fashioned wood door with the frosted glass cutout glided closed just as heels started tapping down the hall.
"… will pay. The board of regents refuses to submit the claim to insurance, and I support their decision. The person who did this…" Her voice faded down the hall along with the sound of tapping feet, and Blair rested his palm against the cool tile as his heart pounded heavily.
"I can't. I can't. I can't do this. Oh, dude, I so can't do this," Charlie mumbled, and Blair reached over and put a hand on Charlie's shoulder. Despite Charlie's belief that he had some great weakness that made him incapable of doing anything right, Blair knew the strength in his friend. He spoke to that strength.
"We can do this. You and I both know Kelly did this, and we're going to prove it," Blair insisted.
"And the broken knob found in your office? And the fact that you were in that protest? And what about the sign-in sheet with your name they found in the trash? I hate to say this, but she has well and truly set you up. I think it's time to get out the big guns, and by that I mean call the fucking Neanderthal."
"What? You think Kelly's smarter than us?"
"In criminal matters, I'm voting 'oh fucking hell yeah,'" Charlie immediately answered.
Blair glared. "I can take care of this myself." Charlie rolled his eyes, but he didn't argue the point. Blair smiled in triumph. "So, Edwards and whatever crony she brought along today are gone. Who does that leave in the lab?"
Charlie didn't answer immediately. "Blair, does the term 'over our heads' mean anything?" he asked. Blair refused to answer as he crossed his arms and waited. Charlie sighed and then sagged back into the wall with a groan. "Lewis. He was the only other person in the lab."
"Okay, you distract Lewis and I'll check the logs," Blair said as he cracked the bathroom door open. With the term not officially started, only the rare graduate student wandered the campus. When Blair didn't see anyone, he slipped out into the hall.
"Blair, if you get caught in there…" Charlie hissed.
"Yeah, yeah, Edwards will eat my liver with onions. Man, if I don't prove Kelly did the damage, she's going to be eating my liver anyway," Blair said without even turning to look at his friend. He trusted that Charlie was just behind him.
"Shit. Just as long as you know this is a bad idea."
"Bad, schmad, just get in there and start distracting," Blair said with a nod. Despite the evidence stacking up against him, he knew Kelly had left some sort of trail. And unlike Suzanne, he didn't intend to play nice about proving it.
Charlie passed him as and then turned the corner, pulling open the heavy lab doors before greeting Lewis with a loud "Dude." Blair listened as Charlie spun a tale at warp speed, his obfuscations blending with equal parts truth and flat out lie as he maneuvered the man toward the office at the far end. Glancing either way in the hall, Blair pulled the door open slowly and slid inside.
The vision machine lay in disassembled parts across the floor, bits of it twisted and bent and snapped viciously. Blair tried not to think about the fury, and the weapon, it would have taken to do so much damage. Quickly, he scanned the sign-in sheet. Suzanne had let him get a look at the forged sign in sheet campus police had found in Blair's office, so he scanned the page for the same light blue felt tip pen.
None of the pens matched, but on the sheet just under the top one, he did find something interesting. Kelly Newman had no interest in any part of anthropology that involved senses, so her name in her scrawling handwriting came as a surprise. Blair glanced toward the office before snapping open the binder and slipping out the page. It might be only a small piece of the puzzle, but both anthropology and the case work he'd done with Jim had taught him that small mattered. Small solved cases. Small saved his ass and put Kelly on the hot seat. Smiling, Blair crept back out of the lab and hurried outside; he'd meet Charlie over at Hargrove.
"Well, that was a giant waste of time," Charlie said as he perched on the corner of Blair's desk.
"I don't know; we found out that Kelly had been there the day before," Blair said as he paced the room. The pig's blood attack had led to all new tile being put down, so a sour grout-smell filled the air. But at least the campus police had taken down the barriers they'd put up while they searched every corner for more evidence that Blair had taken a sledgehammer to a million dollar machine.
"Yeah, and that means exactly nothing since she wasn't there the day of."
"But it could…" Blair started.
"Yeah, exactly. It *could* mean something, but it *could* mean absolutely nothing," Charlie interrupted, sliding off the corner of the desk. Blair could see the tremor in Charlie's hand where he held on to the edge of the wood. "If that broken knob hadn't been in your office, you could be free and clear. If you hadn't hooked up with the human grouch, you could be off researching the changing tribal power relations with the lovely Sarah Ang. If I hadn't pulled that same grouch out of the loony bin, you could have been buried in some government facility for the rest of your life. There are a lot of could's floating around, and not one of them means shit," Charlie started at a near yell, but by the end of his tirade, his voice had dropped to a near whisper, as if he had no energy left.
"You know, you make sense when you're not stoned," Blair said quietly. Charlie looked at him for a second, emotionless, and then he gave a small huff of laughter.
"I make sense when I'm stoned too, you just have to be stoned with me to understand my greatness."
"I'll pass," Blair said. He could tell from the uncoordinated movements of Charlie's body, that Charlie wouldn't last too much longer without a fix. Blair bit back words like rehab and withdrawal before they could slip out of his mouth.
"So, what's our next step, oh fearless leader?" Charlie finally asked in the awkward silence.
"Oh man, look at the time. We need to get back to the loft before Jim gets back," Blair said as he picked up the sign-in page and folded it carefully. "We can do more digging around tomorrow or Saturday.
"You're determined to fix this before students show up on Monday, aren't you?" Charlie asked tiredly.
"Man, the way Kelly can twist people around, if I don't get this fixed before then, she's going to have a platoon of kids in Edwards' office claiming I set up the local 'orgy for grades' exchange." Blair said, and even worse, he believed it.
"Yeah," Charlie agreed softly. Blair would have felt better if he hadn't, but he had to face the truth. He had until Monday to clear his name, or the shit was going to start rolling downhill faster and faster. If he wasn't careful, all his careful manipulations and deals were going to crumble.
"So, home Jeeves," Blair joked. Charlie rolled his eyes as he started out the door.