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There were times when Jim had a perfect roommate. Times when there would be no noise violations, no messes left in the common areas, no odd smells, no unexpected guests, no waiting to use the bathroom, no weird, foreign substances in the fridge. Basically these times were midterms and finals. Basically these times were when Blair Sandburg was hardly ever there.
For about a week and a half at the end of semester—roughly half that for midterms—Sandburg was running around, meeting with students and advisors, spending his days in classes or working with Jim and his nights holed up in his office where he could keep himself awake with his music blasting loud enough to rattle bookshelves while he finished up research papers, studied for and wrote up tests, tallied and recorded grades, and generally existed on coffee and ran himself into the ground.
The first time or two, Jim just sat back and enjoyed the peace and quiet at home. After that he spent a lot of the time not worrying over whether the kid was going to work himself straight into a hospital bed. Hadn’t happened so far, and Jim had grudgingly allowed himself to trust that even if his best friend could be a bit overzealous when it came to his schedule, the kid knew his own limits. So by now Jim had the routine down. Knew what to expect. Essentially a week and a half where every house rule was followed to perfection and his life was as predictable and orderly as it ever got. Followed immediately by a patented Sandburg crash and burn.
It was evening on the final day of spring semester, and 8:00 saw Jim sitting on the couch sort-of-watching the intro to Martial Law when, after much scraping of key in lock, the door finally swung open slowly on its hinges, and Sandburg lurched in, doing a fair impression of a zombie. Jim knew better than to say words to him at this point. Words would only confuse him. Sandburg had the now-familiar, post-finals-week glaze to his eyes as he made a half-hearted attempt at getting his keys in the basket by the door. Didn’t make it—didn’t even really get close—and they fell to the floor with a k-chink.
House Rule 8: Keys go in the basket.
The kid shuffled forward a bit, didn’t even manage to get the door closed behind him, and his backpack hit the floor in the middle of the entryway.
House Rule 1: Keep the door securely shut and locked, whether you’re home or not.
House Rule 4: Sandburg, get your crap out of the doorway before someone trips.
Blair’s jacket was next, and it gave him more trouble than thin denim really should’ve, but eventually after some confusion and a lot of muffled whining on his part, it let him go and ended up sort of slung across the floor near the kitchen table.
House Rule 5: Hang your coat on one of the hooks. They’re right by the door.
Sandburg looked around with half-lidded eyes, almost trembling with exhaustion, all disheveled and—yep, that shirt was on inside out—until at last he spotted Jim sitting on the end of the sofa. He nodded once, very serious and satisfied, like Yes, that is correct. That is acceptable to me. He took a step forward and frowned a deep-thinking frown, then sort of wheeled around to the kitchen and managed to work out the mechanics necessary for getting a new bag of Doritos out of the cabinet without crying or lifting his arm very much higher than his head.
He staggered back to the living room, coming up behind Jim and plaintively handing him the bag of chips.
House Rule 6: Food stays in the kitchen/dining area.
With a roll of his eyes, Jim opened the bag and started to hand them back to his very sleep-deprived and probably somewhat malnourished friend when Blair just sort of collapsed awkwardly and clumsily over the back of the couch to land on the seat cushions. He reached over and pulled the pillow from under Jim’s arm toward himself and settled his curly head down on it right on top of Jim’s lap. Then he somehow found Jim’s free hand and sort of half tugged it down on his head, half nuzzled his head up under it.
House Rule 3: No climbing on furniture.
Addendum A: That means keep your feet on the floor.
Addendum B: The floor is never lava.
House Rule 9: No…feelings. Or hugging. Or…just…nothing Carolyn would call "adorable" or want to have pictures of to use as blackmail material.
And even if Carolyn had moved away, that last one still counted.
“Please?” The voice was half-muffled by the pillow and sounded so tired and hopeful.
“Ugh,” Jim said gruffly. “You’re pitiful.” But he began kneading the kid’s head at the base of his skull. It surprised Jim. Usually for the Sandburg crash and burn, Sandburg ended up staggering to his bedroom by the stairs or sprawling next to Jim on the couch, or, once, he’d wound up sleeping on the floor under the kitchen table. He didn’t do this…closeness thing so much. The kid hadn’t ever asked for comfort this way, not really. Jim had tried the scalp massage thing once when Sandburg got this random, awful migraine out of the blue, and the kid had just been so sick and in pain. It had seemed to help relax him a little. Since then, he’d do it if there was a bad nightmare or one of those too-frequent concussions because it helped and it made sense and Rule 9 didn’t apply to things that helped and made sense.
“Mmhm,” Sandburg agreed absently, and really it was more of a sigh as some of the tension drained from a body that was still shaking a little bit from having been kept going way too long.
“You’re not eating Doritos on my lap,” Jim stated as fact, because the kid better not even try it. Blair didn’t even like those things. Said they were poison.
“Those’re for you,” he mumbled, and his tone might’ve been entirely considerate or it might’ve been entirely grouchy, there was no way to tell.
Jim huffed half a laugh. Aha. So Sandburg’s sleep brain had this whole thing figured out. Feed the Sentinel/pillow so he will be content and unconcerned with getting up. There was some frighteningly poor logic. Sandburg’s sleep brain was worthless. “Don’t plan on moving for awhile then?”
“Never. N’ver moving. This is my tomb. For ‘ternity. Like a pharaoh.” He curled a little closer.
“So Egyptology class. I take it you aced that.”
“Mmhm. Pharaohs ‘lways got buried wi’ their serv’nts.”
Jim paused and asked rather threateningly. “You think I’m one of your servants, King Tut?”
“Mm?” Blair didn’t seem rather threatened. Didn’t even seem to know what he’d been saying much less what Jim had. He did seem to notice the Sentinel had stopped massaging his head and so either reprimanded or comforted, “Shhhh…” and patted Jim’s leg until he started again.
That was all she wrote for semi-coherent Sandburg. About twenty seconds after that, he was out like he’d never even heard of consciousness. And Jim was trapped on the couch with a bag of Doritos while Sammo beat up bad guys on TV. He looked around the quiet apartment and it occurred to him that his roommate had just waltzed in and broken nearly all of the Unwritten House Rules in one fell swoop, and there was some part of him that should feel offended and irritated about that. Usually he was. But as he sighed a resigned sigh and pulled the afghan off the back of the couch to drape over his sleeping friend, he figured it might be okay if the Unwritten House Rules weren’t always all-important.
Jim Ellison had always had house rules. All through his childhood and into adulthood. And that was about courtesy and responsibility and ownership, and there had never been room for things like exceptions. But at some point, through some magic of the post-finals crash, Jim could see all these broken rules, the stuff strewn about, the chip crumbs on the sofa, the freaking kid snoring softly in his lap, and somehow it didn’t feel like he’d been disrespected in his own house. It felt like he was trusted. In his own home.
Maybe that was the difference. He’d always had house rules. But at some point the loft had become less house and more home. Maybe homes had different rules. Maybe homes had different rules about having rules.
At just on nine o’clock, while Chuck Norris was Shatnering the opening to Walker, Texas Ranger, Sandburg all the sudden sat halfway up, still appearing entirely asleep. “Jim?” he called with as much urgency as he was capable.
“Yeah?”
Sleepy eyes never quite managed to focus on him. “I finished school.” It seemed exceedingly important to him for Jim to know that.
“Yeah. I know.” It had been a rough semester. Probably an impossible one for a normal human person, Jim thought with a touch of disapproval and a touch more pride. But it was over, and Blair had apparently finished well, and he was only teaching one class for the summer term, which comparatively would seem like a vacation. So Jim knew he’d be saying goodbye to the days of having a perfect—largely absent—roommate for awhile.
“’n’ I missed you,” Blair said all at once. And he was not awake. But he was honest. Just deliriously, cluelessly sincere.
Jim stared at him for a second. All blinky-eyed and serious and hair going everywhere, and Freaking…just…Rule 9! No respect ever for Rule 9. But he found himself saying, “Yeah, okay. Shut your mouth now.” Because occasionally Shut your mouth could grudgingly mean Missed you too, Chief. And occasionally, Jim would gladly trade all the quiet days of having a “perfect roommate” for the chaotic mess that settled contentedly back down on the pillow, face tucking itself in a couple inches below Jim’s sternum until Jim’s hand was stupid carding through his curls again. Apparently Jim would be staying for the duration of Walker. Fine. But he'd be a martyr about it. Sandburg squirmed a bit under the blanket until he could kick his shoes off the side of the couch. They hit the floor one by one with twin thuds.
House Rule 7: Take your shoes off at the…
Jim sighed. “Ah, screw it. Whatever. Yeah, you sleep now while you can, kid. Because in the morning, better believe it, you’re cleaning all this up.”
Blair made an overly-theatrical, woeful sort of sound. “You’re…bad roommate,” he whined into Jim’s shirt and then passed out again, and Jim finally let himself grin about… In reality, he wasn’t sure whether he was grinning because the whole scenario was a little bit amusing—amid everything about it that was exasperating—or because he was somehow, actually, for no real reason, kind of happy.