He cut his thumb while he was chopping onions, and it first it didn't really hurt, but then it did.
Later, after he'd all but forgotten about it, it hurt like a sonofabitch, and the deep, dull pain was
distracting, and then irritating, and finally he gave up in defeat, totally robbed of his enthusiasm
for cooking or his taste for paella, in fact of his taste for life in general. All over a little cut on his
left thumb, and Blair Sandburg was a pretty analytical guy, so he knew the cut was not the
problem, but it just seemed like...too much. He threw the cutting board, vegetables and all, in the
refrigerator and ignored it.
Ten thousand square feet. Blair laid down on the couch, and he couldn't shake the image of a
floorplan, life-sized, laid out over his actual floor, with ten thousand one-foot-square blocks
marked off. He could count them. He could checkmate an opponent by the time he made his way
over to the front door. They had letters on them, and if he stepped on the wrong one because his
Greek was rusty, they'd give way --Blair Sandburg's life, a Steven Spielberg production.
Sure seemed like it, lately. Blair smothered a snort of laughter in the sofa cushion, as Sean
Connery bellowed in his ear from the inside, "You call this anthropology?!" Action!Sandburg,
furiously taking notes amidst the gunfire, devoting himself to the sociobiology of getting the hell
out of the way of the pretty red dot on his shirt.
Jim's friend had died. So that was that, and there it was. If he'd been thinking that somehow Jim
Ellison, mighty tribal Sentinel, was going to keep him alive.... Well, back when Sentinels had had
partners, nobody but nobody was toting a high-powered rifle with a laser scope.
His thumb was throbbing now, just a gentle little pulse to remind him he was still in pain. Blair
flicked open his jeans with the other hand and tried to jerk off, just for something else to think
about, but his mood was in no way conducive, and he couldn't get more than half-hard, and he
had the insane urge to get the onions back out of the fridge and go at them again with the knife,
go totally Jack the Ripper on what was supposed to have been his supper.
Great. He'd been a police observer for, like, a week and a half, and he was harboring some severe
thoughts about what kind of serial killer career you could have in the produce section. He'd done
the reading on all those experiments that measured the energy levels of plants and how they
fluctuated when plants were threatened or mutilated. At the time it had seemed almost beautiful,
like this mystic, unseen world of feeling and connection was surrounding him all the time, shy and
patient and responsive, but now he was really dwelling on onion fear and onion pain, and it gave
him a weird, Silence of the Lambs feeling to think about those vegetables in his refrigerator,
waiting for their eventual destruction in what had to be mute veggie hysteria. This cop thing, this
was just getting him way keyed up, and he'd barely gotten started. He was crossing the thin blue
line into savage mental acts of terrorism and ethnic cuisine.
But Jim's friend had died. There was definitely no getting past that. And sure, Jim had really gone
all out to do the avenging angel routine, put everything on the line to do right by his friend's
memory, and that was touching as hell and it made him like Jim just a hell of a lot, but still. Still,
Jim was a great guy and a great research subject, very observable, very cool about working Blair
into his routine, all things considered, and none of that mattered at the moment, because his
thumb hurt and he really was so not interested in taking a bullet. Not for Jim Ellison, not for
Rainier U, not for Cascade or for science and damn sure not for Sir Richard Burton, so at this
point Blair was kind of wondering if there was any reason to be taking bullets, or even thinking
words like "taking bullets."
Nothing sprang to mind.
Blair walked back into the kitchen, his dick still hanging indecisively out of his jeans, and Jim's
home number was scrawled in pencil on his wall between the phone cradle and the light-switch.
He was tempted to call off the whole deal here and now, just to say, Jim, man, I'm so not the right
guy for this job, look, we'll get you a real partner, like a cop, someone who can back you up just
like you said, someone who can get you out of a zone, and if you want to we can still run some
tests, work on the control thing, but like evenings and weekends, man, gunfire-free. You don't
need the pressure, I don't need the pressure, I was a moron, I thought it was a game but it's not,
my bad, but thank you for having me.
Tempted, but only a little bit. Blair didn't do break-ups over the phone, and he wasn't planning on
starting now. He was just thinking ahead, laying a little groundwork. Maybe say he was sorry
about Danny --what with one thing and another, Blair didn't think that had ever actually been
*said,* or at least he was deep in shock with his mouth running on cruise control when he'd said it
--and leave Jim to wind down and think about that. Maybe Jim would come to the right
conclusions on his own steam.
Somehow, though, when Ellison answered the phone with just his last name, a nice brisk Ellison-
reporting-for-duty kind of sound even though it was nine-thirty at night, Blair lost it totally and
just blurted out the first thing that came to mind, which tragically happened to be, "I cut my
thumb, man."
There was a pause. "Sandburg?"
"Yeah, yeah, it's me. I was --you know, fixing some dinner, and I...." Well, if this pathetic display
didn't convince Ellison that Blair was out of his league in Major Crimes, Blair just did not know
what ever could.
"Cut your thumb," Ellison finished for him, and the very blandness of his tone could have been
mocking but actually wasn't, quite.
"Yeah, listen, I'm a total idiot. You're off the clock, you don't need this. I'm sorry, I'll get--"
"Sandburg." Even as tired as Jim sounded, his voice commanded attention. Blair liked that. He
wondered if it was a genetic adaptation, or if Jim was just that kind of guy.
He looked down at his own bare feet, at his dick, everywhere but straight ahead, which was
stupid. Sentinel or not, no way could Jim give him the hairy eyeball from halfway across town.
Which was good, because already Blair could tell that the Ellison Evil Eye was going to turn him
into a goofball kid every time he got drilled with it. If he hadn't been a cop, Jim could have been a
boys' vice-principal somewhere. Or maybe a football coach. The kind of guy you called "Coach,"
or possibly even "Sarge," and had definitely never been all that keen on Blair Sandburg. "Yeah,
Jim?"
"Is there something you want to tell me?"
"I think I might want to give this ride-along thing some more thought," Blair admitted, not
because he'd revised his policy on break-ups, but just because it didn't feel like a phone thing. It
felt like Jim was right here, arms folded over his broad chest, fixing Blair with that detached and
impatient gaze.
And then suddenly he just *wasn't* there, and Blair noticed that first, and the dial tone in his ear
second. Jim had hung up on him.
Blair hung up the phone, and a corkscrewed curl of his hair got tangled up in the corkscrewed
cord of the phone without him noticing, but it pulled free on its own as Blair slid down the wall
until he could feel his heels under his ass.
Well...dammit. Not his finest hour, there. Blair felt small and cowardly, even though he didn't
really think that in a civilized world you should have to apologize for not wanting to get shot at
when you weren't even a cop, or getting paid. Was that really the only measure of a man's
courage, in the 1990s --his willingness to wade into gunfire for the sake of his career? No way;
the stagecoach was on its own. Blair was a *grad student.*
And that guy was a cop, he knew what he was doing, and he'd died right there in the street while
Blair watched. No way, no matter how casually Jim tried to drop it into conversation ("signed up
for some firearms training"), no way you could just stick a gun in someone's hand, put his name
down for a couple of hours on the firing range, and turn him loose like that, like he'd just be...fine.
Like he'd just be totally fine, which of course he would not, because he was not. Already he
wasn't fine, and it had only been a week and a half.
Blair grabbed for the phone again and dialed frantically. "*What?*" Jim barked, and Blair didn't
let it spook him this time; he just plowed right on through, saying "Jim, I'm *serious,* man, this is
nuts. You need a partner, not an observer."
"I thought you were my partner, Sandburg," he said, deceptively casual, tense but just kind of
interested, ready to sort this out.
Absently, Blair picked at one toenail, which was already slightly torn and probably should come
off before he got it caught on sock threads or something. "I'm strictly an observer, Jim, you know
that. That's not fair to you; it puts you at a serious disadvantage, and I can't be responsible for
that." He hadn't known he was feeling that until it came out, but in retrospect it was definitely
true. Much as he didn't like the idea of exit wounds in his back, just almost that much he didn't
like the idea of Jim getting capped because he was trying to save Blair's incompetent ass from real
live danger, or because he didn't have the right kind of back-up for the job.
"Right, I forgot." The contempt in Jim's voice startled Blair, but he didn't take offense. This was a
pretty pathetic scene, all around. "You're my partner when it suits you and an observer when you
flake out on me."
"Yeah, yeah, that's me," Blair agreed, not angry, but getting a little impatient to have this done
with. "I'm a flaky little hippie punk. Time to write me off, totally lost cause, man."
"So you're bailing on me."
"No, I --just for the, on the, you know, the street work, man, the thin blue line crap. We'll stick
with the tests still --no strings, there's not enough here for a diss or anything, but I'd just feel
better about you being back at work if I knew you were practicing with the senses. You can talk
to the Captain, and whoever you and he think would be a good partner for you, I'll give him the
scoop, and that way you'll have someone to help you with the zone-outs. I mean, I'm not hanging
you out to *dry,* here, man."
Unsettlingly, Jim didn't respond to that, which in itself seemed to be an answer. He could feel Jim
busily being too proud to argue with him, too off-kilter and confused just to come right out and
say *Yes, you are.*
No, he *wasn't,* though, that was the thing. He would help Jim; he wanted to, it was no trouble,
totally on Blair, the least he could do.
The very least he could possibly do, for a man who hadn't so much as called the department and
asked for a copy of Blair's transcript before volunteering to pull some strings to get Blair into the
honest-to-God *police academy.* No tests, no apps, no tricks, just Blair Sandburg in the right
place at the right time saying the right thing, and he hadn't even remembered saying anything
about partners, but whatever he'd said, Jim had just picked it right up and held the door open for
him. The least he could do for that kind of willingness to trust, was...what?
"I'm a little bit freaked," Blair said, and this time he was still blurting, but even after the fact it
sounded like the right thing to say. "I'm just...this whole thing is just blowing my mind. You
know?"
"Yeah, Sandburg, I know," and suddenly Jim didn't sound like the high school gym teacher from
hell anymore, not even a little bit. He sounded like exactly the guy you'd call up if, say, your kid
was snatched off the playground or someone phoned in a bomb threat to your synagogue. The
guy who been there and done that, but still hadn't gone numb yet. "Put a Band-Aid on your
thumb, drink a glass of water, and get some sleep."
"Man, it's not even ten --what is this, summer camp?"
"Okay, macrame yourself a Band-Aid, drink a Cherry Coke, and run your shorts up the flagpole.
Do whatever, just give yourself a little break before you go rushing out of this."
"Yeah. You're right."
"I'll talk to you later."
"Yeah."
So it was a quarter til ten, and Blair was kind of back where he'd started --he was hungry and sort
of edgy, itchy, like nothing was working out exactly right, but hey, at least he still had a thesis
subject. Maybe if he gave it a little more time, got some writing done, just let things mellow out,
this urge to weasel away and never be seen again would disappear.
He laid down again and touched his dick without really thinking about it, but this time it leaped
right to attention; he could feel it getting warmer in his palm, which after the first little thrill wore
off actually scared the living hell out of Blair, because he was lying there thinking of Ellison's
brainwashing blue stare, those thick arms crossed in front of him, the inexplicable, utter
confidence of the way Ellison had dragged him in and swept him along. And that was so, so
stupid. If there was anything more stupid than getting hard for an arrogant, self-destructive,
seriously troubled guy like Jim "Coach" Ellison, Blair couldn't think of it at the moment.
Too bad, though, because Blair was not the kind of guy who could repress the truth once it
presented itself to him --avoid the truth, sure, but before the fact, not after --and the truth was, he
was lying here. Hard. Thinking about Jim's voice and the way he stood perfectly still when he
stopped to listen to something Blair couldn't hear. Turned on, which had absolutely zero to do
with being stupid or smart or much of anything except maybe neurochemistry and the fact that he,
well, liked Jim just a hell of a lot.
It was impossible not to, for the millionth time, wonder what sex felt like if you were a Sentinel.
Come on, that was the first question he'd wanted to ask, and he might have, if it had been anyone
else, but Jim just seemed so stressed and scared about the whole thing that Blair didn't want to
come across like he was making light of the situation in any way. Still, as Blair fingered his Jim-
induced hard-on with light, deliberate fingers, it occurred to him that just a touch like this, just the
long line of one finger crooked around the crown of his dick and rubbing softly, would have to
blow through Jim like the best sex Blair had ever had. The thought made him shiver, and he took
a tighter grip, got down to business, and since it seemed futile not to think of Jim, he just...did it.
Thought about Jim, pictured him, just went for it. Blair shoved down his jeans and went for it with
both hands, and he barely even noticed when the short, wiry hairs covering his crotch pricked that
injured thumb and made it sting bitterly.
Maybe, he told himself afterward, lying on his side and breathing heavily with his eyes closed, it
was an adrenaline thing. Being shot at, the confrontation with an urban gang, all the rest of it, no
way it hadn't shaken up his system. Maybe the arousal was more like his body's fine-tune, priming
itself for more danger to come by releasing hormones into his system that made him feel horny
and invincible.
Maybe he just liked Jim, so Jim had been the first fantasy that came to hand, so to speak. Blair
didn't know if he was buying any of this, but a guy could hope, because holy shit, he had enough
to worry about as a ride-along with the CPD's Major Crimes unit without worrying that he was
broadcasting "I think you're the coolest; you wanna screw like rabbits?" like a shortwave radio
every time he got near Jim Ellison.
He was not suave when he was smitten. Blair knew this through bitter personal experience. He
was just a big dork, just like Kim was apparently telling all her friends. He'd feel insulted about
that, but hey, it wasn't like a state secret or anything. He was a dork --not all the time, but when
he was feeling lovelorn, yeah, he was. Good call.
Not that he was lovelorn over Detective James Ellison. Not yet, and please, *God,* not ever. He
was probably just tired, and coming down off a whole lot of tension, and uncomfortably aware in
the back of his mind that his future was gearing up to change in ways he wasn't sure he could
accurately imagine, and in ways that would have everything to do with Jim and Jim's job and Jim's
senses and Jim's need for someone to watch his back and Jim's smooth, sneaky way of pulling
some strings and requisitioning whatever he thought he might need, up to and including Blair
Sandburg.
The telephone woke him up, which was Blair's first clue that he'd gone to sleep at all, and he
managed to stagger into the kitchen to answer it without getting more than a little tripped up in
his own jeans. "Yeah, hi," he said breathlessly. It was almost one a.m. according to the
microwave.
"Sandburg, I was *sleeping.*" Jim's voice, a little aggrieved, accusatory, but not in a combative
way. More laid over a foundation of *Why would you hurt me like this?*
"Oh, man, I'm sorry," Blair said, before reality caught up with him. "Hey, Jim --you called *me,*
man. I was sleeping."
Jim, of course, did not apologize on autopilot. Jim's autopilot probably did not have an apology
subroutine. "Not just now," he said, and the duh was implied. "This week. I was...sleeping at
night."
Blair took a minute to flatten that thought out and look at it in its entirety. "You've been having
trouble sleeping. Since the senses kicked in?"
"Yeah. The --the noises. They were just everywhere. It was like my bed was in the damn
freeway."
"Sure, I could see that. Yeah, that's gonna be a problem. Your senses evolved to tell you what
you needed to know about the *jungle,* man, there's no way they're built to handle city life. The
pollution, the noise, let alone the fact that you have to hide them from"
"Thanks, Sandburg, I get that," he said dryly. "The point is that...I've been sleeping. This week."
"This week."
His pause could have meant almost anything, but Blair was betting on embarrassment. Mighty
tribal hero-man was having a moment, here, and he didn't like it one little bit. A true cross-cultural
phenomenon; thank you, testosterone. "Week or so. Yeah."
*Since me.*
Ah, hell with it.
"Since me?"
For almost a full minute, they were just silent together on the phone, and it was strangely intimate.
Blair was used to conversation, hell, he had more conversations in any given day than some
people did in a month, but it was strange and a little depressing how rarely he felt like he was
really on the same page as anyone he was talking to. Like they were thinking in tandem, two
different strides but down the same road. He liked the feeling; he went looking for it on a regular
basis. He just wouldn't have guessed, before the fact, that he'd have that feeling standing alone in
the dark listening to some big, handsome cop with more inhibitions than Blair had unpaid bills.
Who wasn't even saying anything.
When he did say something, it wasn't inhibited at all, not at *all,* and Blair had to admit that, if
he'd been guessing, he would have been wrong yet again. He totally had not imagined that Jim
would yell like this, would just unleash on him with wildness in his voice as he said, "Sandburg,
you worthless little shit, no way you're walking away from this! You gave me your word that you
could help me and by Christ, you are going. To. Help. Me!"
"Whoa, man, slow down! I said I'd help"
"Your goddamn tests can go to hell. I am not your fucking pet, and you can't just hand me over to
somebody else with a bigger backyard. I need a *partner,* Sandburg, I need someone I can
fucking count on, and you are it. I don't have anyone else, so whatever your deal is here, you'd
damn well better learn to live with it, because I have to live with this!"
Blair could feel his mouth hanging open, and words were everywhere, like he'd just dropped a
huge box full of them, but picking them up and putting them into sentences could take all night.
Carefully, Blair let himself lean against the wall, the plaster cool on his cheek, and he wondered if
Jim could hear his heart pounding over the phone.
"Jim," he finally said, because there were lots of Jims lying on the floor, it was an easy one to grab
and start working off of. "You can't --you don't even know me. Neither one of us could possibly
commit"
"I can. I am. I'm doing it, right now. You want to see someone *commit,* here it is. I'll do what I
have to, Sandburg. I'll do the tests, I'll be your lab rat, I'll tell you whatever you need to know.
You won't get hurt. I'll take care of that. I'm in this with you if you're in this with me."
Somehow it was just so much, way too much, to be the focus of this man's desperation and his
incredible clarity. Blair took a ragged breath, thinking, *Crazy, what's he talking about, this is a
diss, not a marriage, he can't just have the rest of my fucking life because he really, really wants
it!*
He knew already, though. That the power of Jim Ellison really, really wanting something was not
subject to basic natural laws like reason and justice and Blair Sandburg's chancy-at-best
willpower. Son of a bitch...he was going to take everything, and there wasn't a damn thing Blair
could do to stop him. Even if he wanted to.
"Sandburg...." The soft imitation of patience, his voice mimicked a request when Blair knew good
and well that they were already way past requests and permission. "Who the hell else am I going
to talk to about this? About...anything? I need back-up, and I'm not talking about the fucking
gun."
"I know," he said. "I hear that."
"Nobody's going to hurt you, Sandburg."
*Let me just call up Danny Choi and tell him the good news,* Blair thought acidly, but at least he
retained enough control not to let that come out of his mouth. Instead, he muttered, "You don't
know that. Look, I'm not some sniveling coward, this is just --a *lot,* you know?"
"Nobody's going to hurt you."
Blair rolled his eyes; Jim could be a pit bull when he latched onto a concept. Already, that was
pretty incredibly obvious; Blair knew that one, even if he'd been wrong about most everything else
so far, all the way from the beginning of the partnership, which apparently hadn't been at all about
saying the right thing or Jim's willingness to trust, and totally about panic and any port in a storm.
Totally about Jim just about to lose it, because nobody was on his page, or listening to him, or
calling to complain about thumb injuries, and there was Sandburg in the right place at the right
time and running off at the mouth, which was maybe what Jim needed more than a whole team of
anthropologists.
"Nobody's going to hurt you."
With a shock, Blair realized that he wasn't just obsessing Jim was soothing him, trying in his hard-
ass, commanding-officer way to pick Blair up out of the swamp of his fears. This was Coach
Ellison being...supportive. Blair snorted a laugh and turned his face against the wall, smothering
eyes and sound against the padding of his flannel sleeve. He was shaking all over, and if he didn't
stop laughing, it was going to morph into complete...veggie...hysteria....
"Nobody's going to hurt you."
"I know, I know!" he said, just to shut Jim up, but Blair surprised himself by...knowing it. He did
know. He didn't know how he knew, but he wasn't Danny Choi, and he wasn't going anywhere.
Not yet. Not for a long time.He knew this was more than a diss. He knew that no one had ever
needed him this goddamn much before, probably never would again. He knew that he'd toughen
into this job with a little experience. He knew he had power here, the kind of power that made
strong men like Ellison beg and swear, the kind that stopped fucking bullets, and maybe all of it
was more adrenaline-induced delusions of grandeur, some kind of serotonin high, possibly, but it
felt a whole lot like knowing.
"Yes," he was saying, muffling it into his sleeve, but then, Jim would have no problem hearing
him, would he? "Yes, I'll stay. You've got me, babe." It was supposed to be a joke, like a Sonny-
and-Cher joke, but it didn't sound like one, even to Blair, and he liked the fact that it sounded not
funny at all. Dork. "Now go to bed; you're gonna have an aneurism."
"I think my health can take yelling at you," he said calmly, and not a little smugly.
"Let's hope," Blair sighed. "I'll see you at work, okay?"
Blair hung up on his partner and went to bed, where he had muddled dreams of sharp teeth trying
to eat him whole, and woke up inexplicably refreshed and brave.