Guidelines Power Play, Chapters 12 &13
Aug. 5th, 2006 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lit_galGuidelines: Powerplay
Guess what?? Chapters 12 and 13! If this keeps up, I might actually get to my Angel bunny I'm supposed to have written by August 11th... or not (we'll see)
Jim shifted in the front seat of the truck, casting his hearing out like a net over the hovel he watched. Boards covered one window, but the rain and wind of the summer storm rattled the others so that Jim could hear the dull tinkling of raindrops against the glass. A loose board from the porch swung on a rusty nail with a squeak, and the music from the television inside warbled as the storm pushed at the sound waves before they reached Jim's truck nearly a block away.
The sound of tires hissing against the wet road blended together to a river of sound that he allowed to flow past him. As much as he hated being dependant on anyone, even Blair, he had to admit that he hadn't used his senses so comfortably since Peru… since those lonely months after the crash that he tried to forget.
A car took a corner too quickly, but the whine of the tires simply slipped past him as he concentrated on the sound of something squishing through the mud of the hovel's backyard. It took only seconds to decide that Hanes had let his dog outside. Jim could hear the four feet squelch across the yard, sinking into the muck as summer rains and the heat made it feel more like Peru than Washington.
Beside him, Blair signed and turned a page on whatever book he was reading by the light of the flashlight he held in his teeth.
"Interesting reading?" Jim asked casually. Blair dropped the flashlight into his hand.
"Oh, man, yeah. Susan Anton's new book on biological anthropology and the development of Sentinels. She hypothesizes that Sentinels actually process information differently rather than having different senses. Studies on Sentinels show atypical connections between the primitive brain and the sensory functions of the neocortex.
"In English?" Jim asked. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Blair straightened up and flicked off the tiny flashlight.
"That was the English version. The other version included phrases like the striatum of the basal ganglia and the rapid sympathetic neural responses in the prefrontal cortex," Blair answered.
"You keep talking dirty like that, and we'll have to cut this stakeout short," Jim teased. Blair snorted, but at least snorting was an improvement over the silence or listening to Hanes' dog flop in the mud of the backyard. More and more, Blair fell quiet, leaving Jim suspicious and uneasy. Pushing the feeling aside as paranoia, Jim tried to start a conversation. Usually, Blair filled any time with long descriptions of native rituals or his personal interpretations of Rafe's courting style. Now Jim struggled to think of a topic.
"So, you ready for the snot-nosed brats to show up tomorrow morning?" Jim asked, and then he narrowed his eyes as Blair's heart sped up.
"First day jitters," Blair answered quickly even though Jim hadn't commented on the physical reaction. "I always get like that until I meet all the new classes. You never know when you're going to have some jerk in class who heckles you, or this one time I had a girl who wore a miniskirt and no underwear, and you do not want to know what she did in the front row." Blair's burst of speech ended abruptly, and Jim shifted in the seat, stretching his leg until a stiff knee popped.
"So, are you doing okay with the senses?" Blair asked as the tapping of rain against the truck slowed down to a few random drops.
"Fine." Jim focused on a dirty window and his vision cooperated by zooming in on the broken slat of the blinds. Inside, he could see the flickering glow of the television and a shadow as Hanes crossed the room. "Nothing but Hanes watching Knight Rider, and this man seriously needs to get a life," he reported.
"No joke. Three days and the only thing we have to show are two sore butts, and I can think of better ways to get a sore butt," Blair complained. "You hungry?"
Jim shook his head before it occurred to him that in the dark, Blair probably couldn't see anything as groped the snack box on the seat. "No, I'm good," Jim answered instead. "Rafe should be here in an hour, and then he and Ricardo can baby-sit for a while."
"Man, you think he'd do something by now." Blair's fingers sorted through the box, pushing Kleenex and a package of Life-Savers and some beef jerky out of the way before finally closing over a foil wrapped trail bar. "I mean, if he and Carasco want to move the drugs in from Canada, someone has to do something, right?"
"It's not always high speed chases," Jim pointed out. "Police work can get downright boring. If this case goes right, we'll collect a little information, find the names of the Canadian connections, and then come back with a dozen officers for a nice quiet arrest."
"Uh huh." Blair sounded dubious. "Since I've known you, between us we've had a high speed chase with a military truck, a terrorist kidnapping, a boat rescue with a fiery explosion, a gun battle ending with another truck crash, and a foot chase through an apartment complex. I'm not seeing much of that boring police work you keep talking about."
"It has to get boring some time."
"Keep telling yourself that," Blair shot back. "But at least we ditched the USSP for a while."
Jim froze, his brain refusing to cover for his lie of omission fast enough.
"Jim?" Blair asked almost immediately. Jim flinched. With most people, he could lie even better than his guide who had obfuscations down pat. After all, covert ops with the USSP required more deceit than Jim had ever truly felt good about, but he let down his guard around Blair and the lies just didn't come naturally. He coughed.
"I thought Wilke took off after the whole "incident that didn't happen" you and Rafe dragged me away from," Blair said, confused.
"He's keeping his distance, so it's fine," Jim snapped. The last thing he needed was Blair getting even more uptight because of Wilke or the USSP, and that meant keeping the two guides as far apart as possible.
"Shit, he's here, isn't he?" Blair demanded, twisting in his seat as he peered out into the dim yellow light that did little more than highlight the streaks of rain.
"Drop it Junior. He's not doing anything but observing."
"Oh man, what is *up* with these people. He pisses you off so bad that you chase him out of the squad room and he *still* won't just go away." Blair twisted all the way around in his seat, but Jim trusted the darkness and rain to hide the old seventies Volkswagon bus with Wilke in it.
"Chief, the USSP guides are never going to walk away; you know that," Jim pointed out as Blair flopped his body around the other way and studied the darkness to the north.
"What the hell is wrong with these people? Why don't they just take 'fuck off' for an answer?" Blair demanded of the air.
"Hey, calm down. You're the one who explained illusionary power bases to me for three days. They aren't going to walk away from a threat to whatever power they think they have." Jim listened as Blair's heart skipped quickly in his chest, and again wondered what the hell had happened between Wilke and Blair that his guide got so upset every time his name came up.
"Man, I know all the psyche shit behind it, but who the hell do they think they are to keep pushing and pushing? They're dicks!" Blair pounded a fist into the dash of the truck, and Jim blinked in surprise as his normally calm guide had a miniature fit. Hell, Blair might have resorted to stomping and throwing things if the rain hadn't kept him in the cab of the truck.
"Whoa, slow down there, Chief."
"This totally sucks. What the hell is wrong with people who can't take 'no' for an answer. Hell, they don't even seem to understand 'fuck off' as an answer!"
"Chief, knock it off. We're on stakeout here," Jim barked as Blair reached for the door handle of the truck.
"No way am I going to sit here and not give him a piece of my mind," Blair snapped as he yanked on the door. Jim's hand darted forward, grabbing Blair just he pushed the door open. Humid air rushed in dragging the smell of wet cement and mud and grass into the cab. Unfortunately, the overhead light in the cab also went on, making them a target if anyone happened to look out of a dirty, cracked window.
Cursing, Jim yanked Blair's arm hard enough to physically slide Blair across the seat. Throwing himself across Blair's lap, Jim grabbed for the open door, catching the handle with his fingertips and slamming the door closed again. Under his stomach, Blair squirmed and pushed at him, and Jim sat up.
"What is your malfunction?" Blair demanded.
Clenching his teeth against the answer he wanted to bark out, Jim held Blair's arm as his guide struggled. An elbow caught him in the stomach just hard enough to sting, and Jim caught Blair's second arm, pulling his guide so that he slid over the seat until his back pressed up against Jim's chest, where Jim wrapped arms around him and held him still.
For a second, Blair strained. Then he sagged back into Jim, the fight going out of him with a sigh. "Oh man, I’m just so tired of fighting. Why won't they all just go away?" Blair nearly whispered. Jim held tighter, shifting his arms so that he hugged Blair rather than trapping him.
"They will eventually. We just have to wait them out, Chief."
"Shit." The panic that had motivated Blair seconds ago dissipated so that the body that slumped in Jim's arms panted quietly as the racing heart slowed. "I just want our life back."
Jim could smell the distress in the sharp body odor rising from Blair. "We will," Jim promised. "But now is not the time to lose it. Look out there." Jim used on arm to gesture out toward Hanes' house. "What do you see?"
"A house that a rat would be ashamed to bring a date home to," Blair answered after a minute.
"Exactly. And if Hanes had been looking out the window when the cab light went on, what would he have seen?" Jim asked.
"Oh man. Hanes. Shit. How bad did I fuck this up?" Blair's heart had nearly recovered from the early panic, but now it started speeding again.
"We're fine. He hasn't moved from the television, but Chief, you can't go off half-cocked. We made a deal… remember?" Jim asked as he finally let Blair go. For a second, Blair remained leaning against him, his heart pounding so that Jim could feel the beat through his own skin.
"Me junior partner, you senior partner," Blair said in a tone more sarcastic than serious.
"Blair," Jim said with a clear warning in his tone, at least, he hoped the warning was clear enough.
"Yeah, I know. I fucked up. I broke a pretty basic rule because I wasn't listening to you on the police work part of the job," Blair admitted. Jim could see the red spreading in Blair's cheeks, even in the dark.
"No harm, no foul," Jim let his partner off the hook. "But if you want to back me up in the field, I have to trust you to keep your cool."
"Hey, that's totally not fair. I've kept my cool through kidnappings and murder scenes and more kidnappings."
"Yeah, but whatever happened between you and Wilke, you need to get over it," Jim said. Blair looked away, his expression strangely guilty. "Blair?" Jim asked quietly, hoping to get an explanation about what happened to trigger these moments of fury. Instead Blair settled back into the passenger side seat and stared out into the darkness. Jim opened his mouth, but then Blair shifted so that Jim got a good look at his back.
Jim sighed and cast his hearing out over Hanes' hovel again. He might not know how to reach Blair when he got in these moods, so he would have to trust Blair to tell him if he needed something. Shifting in his seat, Jim just couldn't escape the feeling that he was missing something, something important enough to make his usually gregarious guide silently stare out into the rain. Hopefully Rafe and Ricardo would come soon, and he could try to pry some information out of Blair over a late dinner.
Jim glanced at the clock, hearing familiar footsteps in the hall. He had truly hoped Blair would have a license before classes started, and he really wished he could have pried something out of his tight-lipped guide before adding the stress of teaching. He knew Blair snapped at the very mention of Wilke, but he couldn't get Blair to admit to any fight. And now he had to send Blair off with Teller with no better understanding of Blair's moods than he'd had yesterday.
"Blair, you going in to work early today?" Jim called up the stairs. Blair appeared at the top of the stairs, tendrils of wet hair sticking to the front of his shoulders as he buttoned his jeans.
"No, why?"
Jim slipped the pan of eggs over to a cold burner before going to the door and yanking it open with a growl just as Charlie reached the loft. Charlie stood in the open frame, wide eyes and a spreading coffee stain down his striped shirt from jumping in shock. The now-empty coffee cup dangled from one hand, and as the man's heart slowly recovered, Jim had the grace to feel just a little guilty.
"Oh shit, this was my favorite shirt, and I'm never going to get this out now," he complained as he walked in without an invitation.
"Charlie?" Blair asked as he came down the stairs in his bare feet.
"What? You expected Brad Pitt?" Charlie snorted. "Do have a paper towel or something?" Charlie asked as he held his shirt out away from his body and stared at it morosely.
"I mean, why are you here?" Blair asked, and Jim waited to hear the answer to that. For Charlie to be half an hour early, geneticists somewhere had made pigs fly.
"Didn't you... I thought..." Charlie stuttered to a stop and looked up. "Oh shit. I could have slept another half hour, couldn't I? Damn, this is *not* my day."
"Why did you think? Oh, never mind," Blair added. "Let me dry my hair and we can just head to work a little early." Blair hurried down the hall, his bare feet slapping against the floor.
"Hand it over," Jim said as he held out a hand.
"Oh, hey! I am not carrying; trust me when I say I am not insane enough to ever carry around you," Charlie nearly squeaked as he threw his hands up in surrender. Jim looked at the man and used every ounce of self control to not laugh.
"I meant the shirt," he finally pointed out, his hand still held out. "I'll rinse the coffee out before it sets and Blair can loan you a shirt." Jim watched with amusement as Charlie finally lowered his hands and made an "oh" shape with his mouth without actually saying anything. He pulled the shirt up over his head, surrendering it slowly, and Jim rolled his eyes as he turned to the sink. He'd come home covered in crap from the alley often enough that he kept stain releaser under the sink. On his way over, he slid the eggs back onto the hot burner to finish cooking.
"Good to know you don't bring your shit here," Jim said as he turned the water on and thrust the shirt under the flow.
"Oh fuck yeah; I have many flaws, but I'm not suicidal," Charlie answered absent-mindedly, his eyes dancing across every surface in the kitchen without looking at Jim. Even while scrubbing the shirt and watching the eggs, Jim couldn't miss the sudden, nervous shift in Charlie's behavior. Draping the now cleaned shirt over sink divider, he rinsed his hands and then grabbed the pan off the stove, shoving scrambled eggs with mushroom and sausage onto two plates with a spatula.
"So, you two aren't, I don't know, joined at the hip anymore," Charlie said carefully.
"Spit it out, Teller," Jim said as he grabbed a fork and stabbed his eggs as he stood near the sink.
"It's just, is this," Charlie waved a hand toward Jim and then toward the short hall that led to the bathroom, "permanent?" Jim glanced toward the bathroom where the sound of the hairdryer weaved in and out as Blair softly cursed through a tangle. He couldn't contain a small smile at the idea that they truly were permanent.
"I take it from that expression that's a big old sappy yes," Teller chuckled, and Jim cleared his expression and glowered at Teller who suddenly took a step backwards as he held his hands up.
"Kidding. Just kidding," Teller insisted. "I'm just checking. So, have you thought about coming over and surprising Blair for lunch?" Teller asked, crossing his arms over his pale chest in an exaggerated show of casualness that set Jim's teeth on edge. Jim stabbed his eggs with a fork and shoved them in his mouth as he stared silently at the half-dressed man in his living room. Eventually, Charlie started talking again.
"You know, you could just stop by the anthropology department around eleven or so, after Blair's office hours, before that seminar class at one."
"And why would I want to do that?" Jim finally asked, watching Charlie squirm a bit as he looked around the room uncomfortably.
"I don't know. I just thought…" Charlie looked toward the bathroom and for one flashing moment, Jim could see panic and worry shining through.
"Charlie?" Jim put his plate down on the counter and started toward the man who still refused to make eye contact. Jim stopped near the door as he could smell the bitter fear.
"Whatever is going on, you need to tell me if it has something to do with Blair's safety," Jim said quietly. Charlie looked like a beaten dog about ready to run for the hills.
"Oh, no way, nothing like that," Charlie protested, looking at Jim for the first time since losing the shirt, and Jim could see the minute twitches in the man's eyes.
"Teller," Jim kept his voice quiet even as he clenched his jaw between words and tightened his fists. "If something is wrong, and you don't tell me, you are going to get seriously hurt," he warned the man.
"Hey, that's like police harassment… or something," Charlie's voice started strong but trailed off when he looked at Jim's expression. Jim forced himself to change tactics.
"Charlie, I need to protect Blair. I need to know he's okay, and you're seriously scaring me here. You really wouldn't like how much I overreact when I get scared about my guide being in trouble. And if *you* think there's something wrong, I don't doubt there's serious trouble."
"Shit," Charlie looked toward the bathroom again, and Jim suddenly realized the man had intentionally come early so that he would have a chance to tell Jim something. Glancing back toward Jim and then to the bathroom again, Charlie took a deep breath. "Buddy, he has always picked 'em scary. The more psychotic the woman, the more he goes chasin' after her skirt or, more likely, her leather boots."
"And you think I'm one more in a long line of scary," Jim guessed. For a moment, Charlie tensed up, and then he gave a coughing laugh.
"Yeah. But you're different. You look at him and…" Charlie broke off and glanced out of the side of his eye. Jim could guess what Charlie meant.
"And I get sappy?" Jim finished for him.
"Yeah, totally. You look at me and you are one seriously terrifying son of a bitch, but you look at him and it's all different."
"Charlie, listen to me," Jim said in his best 'talk the insane man off the ledge' voice. "You came here because you're a good friend trying to protect Blair. You know I love him, and I will do whatever I have to in order to protect him. He's going to come out of that bathroom in a second, and if you walk out that door without telling me what the hell is going on, I'm going to worry, Blair is still going to be in trouble, and you're going to feel just as bad as you do right now."
"Fucking logic. Never did like the damn stuff," Charlie choked out. He paused as he looked toward the bathroom again before reaching some decision inside his own soul. "There's this girl named Kelly, and Blair dated her last year, and finally had the balls to tell her to take a hike because she was like—" Charlie gave an exaggerated shiver of horror. "She was way past normal scary and into restraining order land, but Blair always said he could handle her."
"You think he can't," Jim said, checking for Charlie's reaction.
"I think he doesn't know how crazy crazy-Kelly can get. He needs someone to watch his back because she's been giving him a hard time, and the more he ignores her, the angrier she's getting, and the weirder stuff is getting at Rainier."
Jim heard the hair drying turn off, and he held up a hand for silence. Charlie instantly froze. "Thank you," Jim whispered before going back to the kitchen. Did he feel like a heel for talking behind his partner's back? Oh yeah, but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to keep a closer eye out. Charlie clearly didn't want to tell him about the girl, and the fact that he still did tell suggested that she might really pose a danger to his guide. Jim expected the irrational panic to rise at the thought of an aggressive woman threatening his guide, but instead he found himself logically considering plans for handling this, including showing up for an unexpected lunch with his partner as Charlie suggested.
"Hey, it'll just be another second," Blair said as he came out of the bathroom, his curls now mostly dry and bouncing as Blair hurried down the hall with a hair tie between his teeth. Blair stopped short when he spotted Charlie. "Oh man, where's your shirt?" Blair asked in horror.
"I washed it," Jim said dryly. He wasn't exactly likely to jump Charlie's bones. "I figured you could loan him one," Jim shrugged as he took Blair's breakfast and tilted it into a plastic container. If his guide wouldn't eat at home, Jim would just send the food with him.
"Yeah, I can do that," Blair said in a weak voice. "Just wait here a sec," he said to Charlie and then he practically dashed at the stairs.
Jim looked at the stairs where Blair had disappeared and then at Charlie, not even bothering to hide his confused expression because some days he didn't understand anything Blair did.
"I don't like to take the shirt off in front of people," Charlie shrugged, but then he dropped his gaze to the floor, and Jim focused in his vision. Faint half moons and circles of smooth, stretched skin littered the bits of stomach not hidden by the crossed arms, and Jim froze at the sight of those familiar scars. He looked up at Charlie with a growing sense of anger that someone would do that.
"Hey, water under the bridge," Charlie quickly said. "If I went around crying over spilt milk, I'd spend a lot more time crying, and what with the classes I don't show up for and the TA job I suck at and all the quality time I spend stoned and watching cartoons, I just don't have time for the crying," he quipped, and then Blair was flying back down the stairs, thrusting one of Jim's black t-shirts at the man. Even though Jim was a lot larger, the t-shirt had been a gag gift from Rafe and Brown—one of those muscle shirts that clung to every curve, so it actually fit on Charlie's smaller frame much better than Jim.
"I'll get this back to you," Charlie said, the brashness and shining humor gone from his voice.
"Don't bother. I'll never wash out the stink of marijuana," Jim casually dismissed the shirt as he leaned against the square pillar, waiting for Blair to finish tying his shoes so that he could give his guide the container of eggs and a plastic fork. He suspected that Charlie didn't want him making a big deal out of what he had seen.
"That smells better than the disinfectant you spread around like incense," Charlie answered, and Jim could almost see the man putting that more confident shell on over the person whose skin carried the marks of cigarette burns… a lot of them.
"It's called clean. If you ever cleaned your apartment, you might recognize the smell," Jim shot back. Charlie gave him a half smile as Blair stood up and took the container of eggs.
"If you two are through sniping, I'm dressed, Charlie's dressed, and we might as well head for work," Blair interrupted. "See you at the station at about three?" Blair asked as he picked up his bag with his laptop and slung it over his shoulder. Jim held out the eggs, and Blair took them with a roll of his eyes.
"You bet," Jim answered, not mentioning his plan for an early lunch. Blair headed for the door, and Charlie followed without any further comment about either his warning or the history he carried etched into his skin.
Guess what?? Chapters 12 and 13! If this keeps up, I might actually get to my Angel bunny I'm supposed to have written by August 11th... or not (we'll see)
~12~
Jim shifted in the front seat of the truck, casting his hearing out like a net over the hovel he watched. Boards covered one window, but the rain and wind of the summer storm rattled the others so that Jim could hear the dull tinkling of raindrops against the glass. A loose board from the porch swung on a rusty nail with a squeak, and the music from the television inside warbled as the storm pushed at the sound waves before they reached Jim's truck nearly a block away.
The sound of tires hissing against the wet road blended together to a river of sound that he allowed to flow past him. As much as he hated being dependant on anyone, even Blair, he had to admit that he hadn't used his senses so comfortably since Peru… since those lonely months after the crash that he tried to forget.
A car took a corner too quickly, but the whine of the tires simply slipped past him as he concentrated on the sound of something squishing through the mud of the hovel's backyard. It took only seconds to decide that Hanes had let his dog outside. Jim could hear the four feet squelch across the yard, sinking into the muck as summer rains and the heat made it feel more like Peru than Washington.
Beside him, Blair signed and turned a page on whatever book he was reading by the light of the flashlight he held in his teeth.
"Interesting reading?" Jim asked casually. Blair dropped the flashlight into his hand.
"Oh, man, yeah. Susan Anton's new book on biological anthropology and the development of Sentinels. She hypothesizes that Sentinels actually process information differently rather than having different senses. Studies on Sentinels show atypical connections between the primitive brain and the sensory functions of the neocortex.
"In English?" Jim asked. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Blair straightened up and flicked off the tiny flashlight.
"That was the English version. The other version included phrases like the striatum of the basal ganglia and the rapid sympathetic neural responses in the prefrontal cortex," Blair answered.
"You keep talking dirty like that, and we'll have to cut this stakeout short," Jim teased. Blair snorted, but at least snorting was an improvement over the silence or listening to Hanes' dog flop in the mud of the backyard. More and more, Blair fell quiet, leaving Jim suspicious and uneasy. Pushing the feeling aside as paranoia, Jim tried to start a conversation. Usually, Blair filled any time with long descriptions of native rituals or his personal interpretations of Rafe's courting style. Now Jim struggled to think of a topic.
"So, you ready for the snot-nosed brats to show up tomorrow morning?" Jim asked, and then he narrowed his eyes as Blair's heart sped up.
"First day jitters," Blair answered quickly even though Jim hadn't commented on the physical reaction. "I always get like that until I meet all the new classes. You never know when you're going to have some jerk in class who heckles you, or this one time I had a girl who wore a miniskirt and no underwear, and you do not want to know what she did in the front row." Blair's burst of speech ended abruptly, and Jim shifted in the seat, stretching his leg until a stiff knee popped.
"So, are you doing okay with the senses?" Blair asked as the tapping of rain against the truck slowed down to a few random drops.
"Fine." Jim focused on a dirty window and his vision cooperated by zooming in on the broken slat of the blinds. Inside, he could see the flickering glow of the television and a shadow as Hanes crossed the room. "Nothing but Hanes watching Knight Rider, and this man seriously needs to get a life," he reported.
"No joke. Three days and the only thing we have to show are two sore butts, and I can think of better ways to get a sore butt," Blair complained. "You hungry?"
Jim shook his head before it occurred to him that in the dark, Blair probably couldn't see anything as groped the snack box on the seat. "No, I'm good," Jim answered instead. "Rafe should be here in an hour, and then he and Ricardo can baby-sit for a while."
"Man, you think he'd do something by now." Blair's fingers sorted through the box, pushing Kleenex and a package of Life-Savers and some beef jerky out of the way before finally closing over a foil wrapped trail bar. "I mean, if he and Carasco want to move the drugs in from Canada, someone has to do something, right?"
"It's not always high speed chases," Jim pointed out. "Police work can get downright boring. If this case goes right, we'll collect a little information, find the names of the Canadian connections, and then come back with a dozen officers for a nice quiet arrest."
"Uh huh." Blair sounded dubious. "Since I've known you, between us we've had a high speed chase with a military truck, a terrorist kidnapping, a boat rescue with a fiery explosion, a gun battle ending with another truck crash, and a foot chase through an apartment complex. I'm not seeing much of that boring police work you keep talking about."
"It has to get boring some time."
"Keep telling yourself that," Blair shot back. "But at least we ditched the USSP for a while."
Jim froze, his brain refusing to cover for his lie of omission fast enough.
"Jim?" Blair asked almost immediately. Jim flinched. With most people, he could lie even better than his guide who had obfuscations down pat. After all, covert ops with the USSP required more deceit than Jim had ever truly felt good about, but he let down his guard around Blair and the lies just didn't come naturally. He coughed.
"I thought Wilke took off after the whole "incident that didn't happen" you and Rafe dragged me away from," Blair said, confused.
"He's keeping his distance, so it's fine," Jim snapped. The last thing he needed was Blair getting even more uptight because of Wilke or the USSP, and that meant keeping the two guides as far apart as possible.
"Shit, he's here, isn't he?" Blair demanded, twisting in his seat as he peered out into the dim yellow light that did little more than highlight the streaks of rain.
"Drop it Junior. He's not doing anything but observing."
"Oh man, what is *up* with these people. He pisses you off so bad that you chase him out of the squad room and he *still* won't just go away." Blair twisted all the way around in his seat, but Jim trusted the darkness and rain to hide the old seventies Volkswagon bus with Wilke in it.
"Chief, the USSP guides are never going to walk away; you know that," Jim pointed out as Blair flopped his body around the other way and studied the darkness to the north.
"What the hell is wrong with these people? Why don't they just take 'fuck off' for an answer?" Blair demanded of the air.
"Hey, calm down. You're the one who explained illusionary power bases to me for three days. They aren't going to walk away from a threat to whatever power they think they have." Jim listened as Blair's heart skipped quickly in his chest, and again wondered what the hell had happened between Wilke and Blair that his guide got so upset every time his name came up.
"Man, I know all the psyche shit behind it, but who the hell do they think they are to keep pushing and pushing? They're dicks!" Blair pounded a fist into the dash of the truck, and Jim blinked in surprise as his normally calm guide had a miniature fit. Hell, Blair might have resorted to stomping and throwing things if the rain hadn't kept him in the cab of the truck.
"Whoa, slow down there, Chief."
"This totally sucks. What the hell is wrong with people who can't take 'no' for an answer. Hell, they don't even seem to understand 'fuck off' as an answer!"
"Chief, knock it off. We're on stakeout here," Jim barked as Blair reached for the door handle of the truck.
"No way am I going to sit here and not give him a piece of my mind," Blair snapped as he yanked on the door. Jim's hand darted forward, grabbing Blair just he pushed the door open. Humid air rushed in dragging the smell of wet cement and mud and grass into the cab. Unfortunately, the overhead light in the cab also went on, making them a target if anyone happened to look out of a dirty, cracked window.
Cursing, Jim yanked Blair's arm hard enough to physically slide Blair across the seat. Throwing himself across Blair's lap, Jim grabbed for the open door, catching the handle with his fingertips and slamming the door closed again. Under his stomach, Blair squirmed and pushed at him, and Jim sat up.
"What is your malfunction?" Blair demanded.
Clenching his teeth against the answer he wanted to bark out, Jim held Blair's arm as his guide struggled. An elbow caught him in the stomach just hard enough to sting, and Jim caught Blair's second arm, pulling his guide so that he slid over the seat until his back pressed up against Jim's chest, where Jim wrapped arms around him and held him still.
For a second, Blair strained. Then he sagged back into Jim, the fight going out of him with a sigh. "Oh man, I’m just so tired of fighting. Why won't they all just go away?" Blair nearly whispered. Jim held tighter, shifting his arms so that he hugged Blair rather than trapping him.
"They will eventually. We just have to wait them out, Chief."
"Shit." The panic that had motivated Blair seconds ago dissipated so that the body that slumped in Jim's arms panted quietly as the racing heart slowed. "I just want our life back."
Jim could smell the distress in the sharp body odor rising from Blair. "We will," Jim promised. "But now is not the time to lose it. Look out there." Jim used on arm to gesture out toward Hanes' house. "What do you see?"
"A house that a rat would be ashamed to bring a date home to," Blair answered after a minute.
"Exactly. And if Hanes had been looking out the window when the cab light went on, what would he have seen?" Jim asked.
"Oh man. Hanes. Shit. How bad did I fuck this up?" Blair's heart had nearly recovered from the early panic, but now it started speeding again.
"We're fine. He hasn't moved from the television, but Chief, you can't go off half-cocked. We made a deal… remember?" Jim asked as he finally let Blair go. For a second, Blair remained leaning against him, his heart pounding so that Jim could feel the beat through his own skin.
"Me junior partner, you senior partner," Blair said in a tone more sarcastic than serious.
"Blair," Jim said with a clear warning in his tone, at least, he hoped the warning was clear enough.
"Yeah, I know. I fucked up. I broke a pretty basic rule because I wasn't listening to you on the police work part of the job," Blair admitted. Jim could see the red spreading in Blair's cheeks, even in the dark.
"No harm, no foul," Jim let his partner off the hook. "But if you want to back me up in the field, I have to trust you to keep your cool."
"Hey, that's totally not fair. I've kept my cool through kidnappings and murder scenes and more kidnappings."
"Yeah, but whatever happened between you and Wilke, you need to get over it," Jim said. Blair looked away, his expression strangely guilty. "Blair?" Jim asked quietly, hoping to get an explanation about what happened to trigger these moments of fury. Instead Blair settled back into the passenger side seat and stared out into the darkness. Jim opened his mouth, but then Blair shifted so that Jim got a good look at his back.
Jim sighed and cast his hearing out over Hanes' hovel again. He might not know how to reach Blair when he got in these moods, so he would have to trust Blair to tell him if he needed something. Shifting in his seat, Jim just couldn't escape the feeling that he was missing something, something important enough to make his usually gregarious guide silently stare out into the rain. Hopefully Rafe and Ricardo would come soon, and he could try to pry some information out of Blair over a late dinner.
~13~
Jim glanced at the clock, hearing familiar footsteps in the hall. He had truly hoped Blair would have a license before classes started, and he really wished he could have pried something out of his tight-lipped guide before adding the stress of teaching. He knew Blair snapped at the very mention of Wilke, but he couldn't get Blair to admit to any fight. And now he had to send Blair off with Teller with no better understanding of Blair's moods than he'd had yesterday.
"Blair, you going in to work early today?" Jim called up the stairs. Blair appeared at the top of the stairs, tendrils of wet hair sticking to the front of his shoulders as he buttoned his jeans.
"No, why?"
Jim slipped the pan of eggs over to a cold burner before going to the door and yanking it open with a growl just as Charlie reached the loft. Charlie stood in the open frame, wide eyes and a spreading coffee stain down his striped shirt from jumping in shock. The now-empty coffee cup dangled from one hand, and as the man's heart slowly recovered, Jim had the grace to feel just a little guilty.
"Oh shit, this was my favorite shirt, and I'm never going to get this out now," he complained as he walked in without an invitation.
"Charlie?" Blair asked as he came down the stairs in his bare feet.
"What? You expected Brad Pitt?" Charlie snorted. "Do have a paper towel or something?" Charlie asked as he held his shirt out away from his body and stared at it morosely.
"I mean, why are you here?" Blair asked, and Jim waited to hear the answer to that. For Charlie to be half an hour early, geneticists somewhere had made pigs fly.
"Didn't you... I thought..." Charlie stuttered to a stop and looked up. "Oh shit. I could have slept another half hour, couldn't I? Damn, this is *not* my day."
"Why did you think? Oh, never mind," Blair added. "Let me dry my hair and we can just head to work a little early." Blair hurried down the hall, his bare feet slapping against the floor.
"Hand it over," Jim said as he held out a hand.
"Oh, hey! I am not carrying; trust me when I say I am not insane enough to ever carry around you," Charlie nearly squeaked as he threw his hands up in surrender. Jim looked at the man and used every ounce of self control to not laugh.
"I meant the shirt," he finally pointed out, his hand still held out. "I'll rinse the coffee out before it sets and Blair can loan you a shirt." Jim watched with amusement as Charlie finally lowered his hands and made an "oh" shape with his mouth without actually saying anything. He pulled the shirt up over his head, surrendering it slowly, and Jim rolled his eyes as he turned to the sink. He'd come home covered in crap from the alley often enough that he kept stain releaser under the sink. On his way over, he slid the eggs back onto the hot burner to finish cooking.
"Good to know you don't bring your shit here," Jim said as he turned the water on and thrust the shirt under the flow.
"Oh fuck yeah; I have many flaws, but I'm not suicidal," Charlie answered absent-mindedly, his eyes dancing across every surface in the kitchen without looking at Jim. Even while scrubbing the shirt and watching the eggs, Jim couldn't miss the sudden, nervous shift in Charlie's behavior. Draping the now cleaned shirt over sink divider, he rinsed his hands and then grabbed the pan off the stove, shoving scrambled eggs with mushroom and sausage onto two plates with a spatula.
"So, you two aren't, I don't know, joined at the hip anymore," Charlie said carefully.
"Spit it out, Teller," Jim said as he grabbed a fork and stabbed his eggs as he stood near the sink.
"It's just, is this," Charlie waved a hand toward Jim and then toward the short hall that led to the bathroom, "permanent?" Jim glanced toward the bathroom where the sound of the hairdryer weaved in and out as Blair softly cursed through a tangle. He couldn't contain a small smile at the idea that they truly were permanent.
"I take it from that expression that's a big old sappy yes," Teller chuckled, and Jim cleared his expression and glowered at Teller who suddenly took a step backwards as he held his hands up.
"Kidding. Just kidding," Teller insisted. "I'm just checking. So, have you thought about coming over and surprising Blair for lunch?" Teller asked, crossing his arms over his pale chest in an exaggerated show of casualness that set Jim's teeth on edge. Jim stabbed his eggs with a fork and shoved them in his mouth as he stared silently at the half-dressed man in his living room. Eventually, Charlie started talking again.
"You know, you could just stop by the anthropology department around eleven or so, after Blair's office hours, before that seminar class at one."
"And why would I want to do that?" Jim finally asked, watching Charlie squirm a bit as he looked around the room uncomfortably.
"I don't know. I just thought…" Charlie looked toward the bathroom and for one flashing moment, Jim could see panic and worry shining through.
"Charlie?" Jim put his plate down on the counter and started toward the man who still refused to make eye contact. Jim stopped near the door as he could smell the bitter fear.
"Whatever is going on, you need to tell me if it has something to do with Blair's safety," Jim said quietly. Charlie looked like a beaten dog about ready to run for the hills.
"Oh, no way, nothing like that," Charlie protested, looking at Jim for the first time since losing the shirt, and Jim could see the minute twitches in the man's eyes.
"Teller," Jim kept his voice quiet even as he clenched his jaw between words and tightened his fists. "If something is wrong, and you don't tell me, you are going to get seriously hurt," he warned the man.
"Hey, that's like police harassment… or something," Charlie's voice started strong but trailed off when he looked at Jim's expression. Jim forced himself to change tactics.
"Charlie, I need to protect Blair. I need to know he's okay, and you're seriously scaring me here. You really wouldn't like how much I overreact when I get scared about my guide being in trouble. And if *you* think there's something wrong, I don't doubt there's serious trouble."
"Shit," Charlie looked toward the bathroom again, and Jim suddenly realized the man had intentionally come early so that he would have a chance to tell Jim something. Glancing back toward Jim and then to the bathroom again, Charlie took a deep breath. "Buddy, he has always picked 'em scary. The more psychotic the woman, the more he goes chasin' after her skirt or, more likely, her leather boots."
"And you think I'm one more in a long line of scary," Jim guessed. For a moment, Charlie tensed up, and then he gave a coughing laugh.
"Yeah. But you're different. You look at him and…" Charlie broke off and glanced out of the side of his eye. Jim could guess what Charlie meant.
"And I get sappy?" Jim finished for him.
"Yeah, totally. You look at me and you are one seriously terrifying son of a bitch, but you look at him and it's all different."
"Charlie, listen to me," Jim said in his best 'talk the insane man off the ledge' voice. "You came here because you're a good friend trying to protect Blair. You know I love him, and I will do whatever I have to in order to protect him. He's going to come out of that bathroom in a second, and if you walk out that door without telling me what the hell is going on, I'm going to worry, Blair is still going to be in trouble, and you're going to feel just as bad as you do right now."
"Fucking logic. Never did like the damn stuff," Charlie choked out. He paused as he looked toward the bathroom again before reaching some decision inside his own soul. "There's this girl named Kelly, and Blair dated her last year, and finally had the balls to tell her to take a hike because she was like—" Charlie gave an exaggerated shiver of horror. "She was way past normal scary and into restraining order land, but Blair always said he could handle her."
"You think he can't," Jim said, checking for Charlie's reaction.
"I think he doesn't know how crazy crazy-Kelly can get. He needs someone to watch his back because she's been giving him a hard time, and the more he ignores her, the angrier she's getting, and the weirder stuff is getting at Rainier."
Jim heard the hair drying turn off, and he held up a hand for silence. Charlie instantly froze. "Thank you," Jim whispered before going back to the kitchen. Did he feel like a heel for talking behind his partner's back? Oh yeah, but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to keep a closer eye out. Charlie clearly didn't want to tell him about the girl, and the fact that he still did tell suggested that she might really pose a danger to his guide. Jim expected the irrational panic to rise at the thought of an aggressive woman threatening his guide, but instead he found himself logically considering plans for handling this, including showing up for an unexpected lunch with his partner as Charlie suggested.
"Hey, it'll just be another second," Blair said as he came out of the bathroom, his curls now mostly dry and bouncing as Blair hurried down the hall with a hair tie between his teeth. Blair stopped short when he spotted Charlie. "Oh man, where's your shirt?" Blair asked in horror.
"I washed it," Jim said dryly. He wasn't exactly likely to jump Charlie's bones. "I figured you could loan him one," Jim shrugged as he took Blair's breakfast and tilted it into a plastic container. If his guide wouldn't eat at home, Jim would just send the food with him.
"Yeah, I can do that," Blair said in a weak voice. "Just wait here a sec," he said to Charlie and then he practically dashed at the stairs.
Jim looked at the stairs where Blair had disappeared and then at Charlie, not even bothering to hide his confused expression because some days he didn't understand anything Blair did.
"I don't like to take the shirt off in front of people," Charlie shrugged, but then he dropped his gaze to the floor, and Jim focused in his vision. Faint half moons and circles of smooth, stretched skin littered the bits of stomach not hidden by the crossed arms, and Jim froze at the sight of those familiar scars. He looked up at Charlie with a growing sense of anger that someone would do that.
"Hey, water under the bridge," Charlie quickly said. "If I went around crying over spilt milk, I'd spend a lot more time crying, and what with the classes I don't show up for and the TA job I suck at and all the quality time I spend stoned and watching cartoons, I just don't have time for the crying," he quipped, and then Blair was flying back down the stairs, thrusting one of Jim's black t-shirts at the man. Even though Jim was a lot larger, the t-shirt had been a gag gift from Rafe and Brown—one of those muscle shirts that clung to every curve, so it actually fit on Charlie's smaller frame much better than Jim.
"I'll get this back to you," Charlie said, the brashness and shining humor gone from his voice.
"Don't bother. I'll never wash out the stink of marijuana," Jim casually dismissed the shirt as he leaned against the square pillar, waiting for Blair to finish tying his shoes so that he could give his guide the container of eggs and a plastic fork. He suspected that Charlie didn't want him making a big deal out of what he had seen.
"That smells better than the disinfectant you spread around like incense," Charlie answered, and Jim could almost see the man putting that more confident shell on over the person whose skin carried the marks of cigarette burns… a lot of them.
"It's called clean. If you ever cleaned your apartment, you might recognize the smell," Jim shot back. Charlie gave him a half smile as Blair stood up and took the container of eggs.
"If you two are through sniping, I'm dressed, Charlie's dressed, and we might as well head for work," Blair interrupted. "See you at the station at about three?" Blair asked as he picked up his bag with his laptop and slung it over his shoulder. Jim held out the eggs, and Blair took them with a roll of his eyes.
"You bet," Jim answered, not mentioning his plan for an early lunch. Blair headed for the door, and Charlie followed without any further comment about either his warning or the history he carried etched into his skin.
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Date: 2006-08-06 03:12 am (UTC)enjoyable and added nice little bits to the characters,
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Date: 2006-08-06 05:41 pm (UTC)