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The room was getting smaller.
That was all Blair could figure, the only viable explanation. He liked the room, it was a good room filled with good stuff, but the walls were closing in. He looked at the doors and the window and they were definitely getting closer together. There was less floor than there used to be. He itched to measure it, but he wasn't that neurotic.
It drove him out into the living room. The living room, now, that was big. It wasn't actually just a living room, point of fact -- it was a living room and a kitchen and a hallway and a staircase. It was clean out here and the light was better. Jim was winning the war against chaos out here. Blair dropped onto the couch and spread his stuff out around him. Out here, he could work.
He was grading essays. It wasn't his favorite activity. Some of the undergrads didn't have a clue, and some of them were so good it made him twitchy. There was one girl in particular who did work he could barely match now. Where did people learn to write like that? She was brilliant, and it bothered him. Part of him hoped she'd stay in the program and use that amazing mind to enrich his field. The rest of him kind of hoped she'd go into nursing.
He surfaced, temporarily, when Jim came in.
"Hey, Sandburg." Jim shrugged out of his jacket, surveyed the room, and frowned slightly. "Workin' hard?"
Blair looked at his stuff. It had expanded to fill the space available, as stuff often does. There was probably a coffee table under the papers somewhere, but to find out would require special excavation equipment. "Sorry about the mess..."
"Don't worry about it." Jim smiled and turned toward the kitchen to get a beer. Blair frowned. Even through the smile, Jim was still obviously worried about it.
"I can work in my room," Blair offered.
Standing in the few feet of space that weren't quite living room or kitchen, Jim looked around again. It wasn't really so bad. It looked kind of lived in. Nice. Sandburg would have to get that stuff off the coffee table when he went to bed, of course, but it was okay to have it there for now. Carolyn used to spread out her work over the coffee table like that, until books and papers spilled off the coffee table and onto the floor. She had a desk but she wouldn't use it. Said it made her feel like she was still stuck at work.
Jim had privately thought it was working at home that made her feel like she was still stuck at work, but he'd kept that to himself. She took the desk with her when she left. He figured there were probably little pastel, porcelain children all over it now. She took all of those with her when she left, too, thank God.
"It's fine, Sandburg," Jim said. "You're good. Just don't leave it all there when you're done."
"I wasn't raised by wolves, man."
"In that case," Jim said, deadpan, "you could use a haircut, too."
Sandburg flipped him off casually and looked back down at his papers. Jim stood there for another minute, watching, then went upstairs to wash up before dinner. He'd chased a guy four blocks through a windless, blazing heat. His knees hurt, he smelled bad, and the perp got away from him. Took Rafe nearly running the guy down in a Honda Civic to pull him in. Rafe had stepped out of the car grinning, never broke a sweat. It was just wrong. And the car wasn't even American.
Feeling cleaner, Jim went back downstairs. Sandburg was still there, hunched over the same paper. His hair went down over his shoulders and left an upside down V of bare skin on the back of his neck. He was making blue marks in the margins of the page, and not even Sentinel vision could make sense of them. Jim pitied the kid who was gonna have to read it.
"Sandburg."
Sandburg grunted, but didn't really answer.
"Hey, teach. You eat yet?"
It took a minute, but something filtered through. Jim watched as Sandburg surfaced, blinking. "What?"
"Food. You remember food. We need it to live."
Blair leaned back and let the blue book fall to the cushions beside him. His spine made angry noises, but it felt good. He leaned further back, letting his neck go limp and his head tilt over the back of the couch, and it felt even better. Jim walked up close and leaned in so Blair could see him. Upside-down Jim.
"Food sounds good," Blair said. "What are you making?"
"Chinese delivery."
"Even better."
Blair got up and went back into his room to get his wallet off the dresser. He looked at the walls again, just to check their progress, but if they'd moved in again it was too small a change to detect. He grinned at himself, grabbed his wallet, and pulled out a ten. His grin faded.
"Uh, how expensive is this Chinese delivery, Jim?" he asked from the dresser. Until Friday, that ten was pretty much it.
Jim came to the doorway and looked in. His eyes scanned the room fast before he looked at Blair. "What?"
Blair blinked. "You didn't hear me?"
"I wasn't listening."
"You weren't listening?"
Jim frowned. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned against the door. "I don't, always." Leaning like that, he should have looked relaxed, but he didn't.
"Hey, I didn't mean--"
"I know."
"I'm just still trying to figure out how this whole Sentinel thing works, Jim."
"And I'm just telling you. I don't always listen."
Blair nodded rapidly. "Right. Because if you did, that would be--"
"--creepy," Jim finished.
"Right."
For a minute they just looked at each other. Jim kept leaning and Blair kept standing at the dresser with his wallet in one hand and a ten dollar bill in the other. Then Jim looked at the wallet and the ten and frowned. "I got it," he said.
"No, no," Blair said. "I got it, I'm the sponge here --"
"You're a guest, Sandburg. I got it."
"That's gonna make me feel really weird. I can pay my own way, Jim."
Jim rolled his eyes. He remembered this from Carolyn, too. "How did I know we were going to end up talking about our feelings?"
"I'm serious. I'm standing in front of you being totally serious about this, Jim, and I'm telling you I can't have you carrying me on everything."
"Who said anything about everything? I think you're really generalizing here, this is just dinner. You need to focus on the present conflict, Sandburg, not worry about the ones that might come up somewhere down the road."
Sandburg looked at Jim, his eyebrows drawn together. He blinked. "That -- okay," he said. "That actually makes sense." He looked really unflatteringly surprised.
"Thank you. There's a menu on the fridge."
"Right," Sandburg said, still staring.
Jim grinned and went out into the kitchen. He moved dishes from the dishwasher to the cabinets, and was still grinning when Sandburg came in to check out the menu. He wiped his hands on a towel and when Sandburg decided what he wanted, Jim made the call. He stopped grinning, but he was still in a pretty good mood. Round one to the landlord.
When the food came, Sandburg stayed on the couch and watched while Jim handed the delivery guy a credit card. When Jim turned back to the couch Sandburg didn't say anything, just looked at Jim thoughtfully and accepted his boxes of rice and chicken. They shoved books and papers off the coffee table and ate in companionable silence, not quite looking at each other.
Later, Jim decided, he'd call Carolyn up and apologize. He was on a roll. Maybe they could process.
Blair looked out the window, absently tapping his fingers against the notebook on his lap. He had his hair tied back but it wasn't doing much to help with the heat. He'd peeled off the shirt that he'd actually needed for warmth earlier in the day, and now his t-shirt was sticking to his body like it was made of plastic. It wasn't supposed to get this hot this soon. He didn't even want to think about what he must smell like, and he especially didn't want to think about what he must smell like to Jim. Jim, sitting on the driver's side, ignoring the weather like somehow it just didn't apply to him.
He was supposed to be in class. Ask anybody in the anthro department and they'd tell you, yeah, Blair Sandburg was supposed to be in class. He'd covered it by calling in a favor with Sarah, so it wasn't like he'd left the kids staring at an empty podium or anything, but still, he wasn't comfortable. There was a very strong sense of being in a place where he wasn't supposed to be and doing stuff he wasn't supposed to be doing. He would have called it guilt except he felt the same way when he ditched a class for really legitimate reasons. Chained to a freakin' dentist's chair in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, his future murderer practically drooling on him, he'd still managed to wonder, *fuck, who's gonna take my classes?* So guilt wasn't in it.
It was just displacement. Somewhere in a parallel universe there was a Blair Sandburg who was teaching bands-tribes-chieftains-states to bored freshman instead of sitting in a hot truck on a hot day, checking out a hot tip about some hot diamonds with Mr. Cool.
"What?"
Blair looked over. Jim was staring at him, frowning. "What?"
"You said something."
"No I didn't."
"You did, you said something about a potlatch, I heard you. You're not paying attention."
"I di -- I did?"
Jim didn't say anything. Blair watched him, waiting for something else, but Jim just looked away. After a few seconds, Blair did too.
"I know this isn't as intellectually stimulating as what you're used to, but we're out here for a reason, Sandburg."
Blair turned sharply. "I never said --"
"I never said you did. I know this isn't your usual MO, that's all, I'm just trying to be understanding here."
"Well, you suck at it pretty bad."
"Obviously," Jim huffed. One minute this stuff worked on Sandburg and the next minute it didn't. He was starting to remember why therapy was stupid.
"This is plenty stimulating. Sitting here in this nice big truck, staring at the sidewalk for two hours, learning what it feels like to be the cheese on a pizza, I live for this stuff."
"Now you think you're being funny."
"I don't have to think I'm being funny. I know when I'm being funny. And you have got some serious issues with your education, man. Not everybody has to have an advanced degree to contribute to society. I hope you don't lay that trip on any of your underlings at work."
"To --" Jim stopped, and looked at Blair, hurt. "You don't think I contribute to society?"
"You know, you're right, you *don't* always listen."
"I don't have any issues with my education. I graduated college at the top of my class." Not that it had impressed anybody but Sally. By that time dear old dad had moved on to other projects. Still it was a major accomplishment. It wasn't like that stuff came to him naturally.
"You're a really smart guy, Jim."
Jim glared. "I know that."
"Well, okay then. Cut it out with the picking on the geek stuff. I may have spent some time in the ivory tower in my day, but that doesn't mean I can't -- hey, is that the guy?"
Jim's head whipped around. That was the guy, coming out of the side door of Ferezzi's Gold and Diamond Emporium and looking up at the sky like he expected an air strike. Christ, these guys. "Let's move."
He climbed out of the truck, slid his shades on, and stared down the street. The air felt solid, hot and heavy. He came around the back, waited for Sandburg to get out, and locked his door.
Sandburg looked up at him, grinning. His eyes were huge. "We takin' him down?"
"We're following him," Jim said. He rolled his eyes and gave Sandburg a shove to get him moving.
"You could totally shoot him from here."
Annoyed, Jim didn't look over. "He's not dangerous."
"He could be armed," Sandburg said. "He could be packing heat."
Now Jim did turn. The kid was thrumming. "You read a book, didn't you."
Sandburg turned his grin on the sidewalk. "I...uh. Did a little research."
"Jesus Christ."
It was dark, and a little dusty. Jim had to keep fighting off the urge to sneeze. Sandburg was pressed up against his side, silent and smug. Jim had never known anybody so glad to be hunted by a homicidal nutcase. If Williams would just go search some other part of the building, Jim could use his cell phone to call for backup. Williams, unfortunately, was stubborn enough to search the second floor for twenty minutes and stupid enough not to find them. At this point Jim was almost hoping he'd find them. Then he could just punch the guy out and maybe get home in time for dinner.
In the meantime, Jim waited. He didn't know Sandburg really well yet, but he thought he had him pegged on this one. He had a little bet with himself about how long it would take. If he won, he was going out to Liberty Brothers for a nice, thick steak. If he lost, he'd eat whatever Sandburg cooked. Sandburg wasn't bad in the kitchen, so even losing would still be kind of a win. As long as Jim didn't have to cook for himself.
"So," Sandburg whispered. He had to lean in really close to say it, and he barely said it at all, just a whisper of breath against Jim's ear. "I told you he was armed."
Jim didn't answer. He felt too good to trust his own volume. Liberty Brothers was in his future, and then also Sandburg's breath on his ear had felt really nice. He glanced down, and even though it should have been pitch black, his eyes pushed for available light and showed him Sandburg's face. In the dark, Sandburg's eyes were huge and vacant.
It was kind of creepy. Jim looked away and concentrated on the warmth of Sandburg and the clattering, clumsy search going on outside. He could smell Sandburg's sweat.
He fished his cell phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open and the tiny screen lit up. He dialed dispatch and quietly, quietly, gave their location.
"Good move," Sandburg whispered. "How long?"
Jim held his hand up with his fingers spread, then remembered that Sandburg couldn't see him. He whispered, "Five."
They waited some more. There was a shelf just over Jim's head so he had to tilt kind of sideways to stay standing. It put his nose practically in Sandburg's hair. Jim wasn't really sure he liked that. Parts of him were sure, but inside he was not too comfortable with it. Sandburg lived in his house, after all. It didn't seem right.
The minutes passed slowly. Neither of them said anything else. Outside, Williams' search seemed to get further away, then closer, over and over. He seemed to be looking in drawers now. Blair knew he was short but he wasn't that short. He tried to look at Jim, but of course he couldn't see a thing. Jim could see, though. Blair tried to remember if he'd done anything embarrassing since they climbed into the closet, like, maybe picking his teeth or checking his pits or something. He was kind of self-conscious about being stuck in a closet with Jim and Jim's nose, but nothing too bad came to mind.
Finally, finally, Blair heard something other than Williams and Jim's breathing. A shout, a thud, other voices. The rattle of the doorknob.
The rattle of the -- ?
"Fuck," Jim said, sincerely, in his normal voice.
"Uh, Jim--"
"You didn't."
"Me?!"
"You came in after me, Sandburg!"
"You pulled the door shut--"
"Well, I didn't lock it. Jesus."
Blair counted to ten in his head and reached into the pocket of his backpack. It took a minute to reach into it because he couldn't find it, but when he did find it, he pulled out a pen. When he pushed down on the top, the bottom lit up.
He looked up at Jim. "I didn't lock it."
Jim blinked in the sudden light. "You had that in your backpack all along."
"So? You didn't need it."
"So I didn't need a migraine from trying to see in the dark, either, but you weren't stingy with that."
"I gave you a migraine," Blair said. He glared at Jim, who was just a vague outline even with the penlight, and shoved him a little. "You're stepping on my foot."
"Poor guy."
"Stay on your own side. And why don't you break the door down or something, Mr. Brilliant. I have to think of these things?"
Jim flushed. He knew it would come back to that sooner or later. "So it is about me only having one degree past high school," he said angrily. "Some opinion you have of my contribution. I knew it."
"Fuck," Blair said sincerely, and threw his own shoulder at the door. It hurt, a lot, and the door didn't give. He'd dropped the light, too, and they were back in darkness.
"It's called momentum, Einstein, and we don't have any."
Breathing hard, rubbing his shoulder, Blair scowled to himself and didn't say a word. Jim was still standing on his foot, it still hurt, and they were still locked in.
After a minute Jim said, "They're going to find us sooner or later."
"Maybe they'll think we made it outside."
"You don't know Simon. He won't stop till he knows we're okay."
Blair gave it some thought. He was younger than everybody but Rafe, he was a geek, he had long hair, and they'd seen him wearing tie dye. All of that put together was hard to overcome, but most of them were getting past it. He'd proven he was pretty tough, and resourceful, and generally a good guy to have at your back. Brown was going to start teaching him how to shoot, and even though Blair didn't really want to know how to shoot, he was willing to go through with it as a kind of initiation rite. They were starting to respect him.
"Maybe if we both hit the door at the same time," he said morosely.
Jim couldn't take it. Sandburg was pathetic. It was a good thing it was dark because he wasn't sure a friendship could survive one of the members ever seeing the other look quite that pathetic. He turned the doorknob.
The door opened smoothly and bright daylight poured in.
Sandburg blinked at the light, then blinked at the door, then blinked at Jim. His eyes slowly got less raccoon-like as they adjusted to the brightness. Nice eyes.
Not really happy eyes, though.
"You son of a bitch," Sandburg said wonderingly.
"I jimmied it while you were, uh."
"Dislocating my shoulder."
"Right after that, yeah." Jim couldn't help it; he grinned. That didn't make Sandburg really happy, either, but hell. He was having steak in a few hours. He'd won a bet. And Sandburg, well. Happy or not, Sandburg still smelled pretty nice. "Sounds like the party's downstairs," he said, gesturing to let Sandburg lead the way.
"I don't think you're stupid," Sandburg said. He didn't move.
"Yeah, you do."
"I just think we have different methods of processing information."
Yeah, Jim thought. Like you process it and I don't. He looked at Sandburg, then at the utility closet they'd just busted out of. He felt idiotically fond of it. "It's okay, Sandburg," he said, kindly. "You'll learn."
"You're an asshole," Sandburg muttered darkly, pushing past him. "See? I'm learning already."
Watching him go, Jim shook his head and smiled. He wondered, idly, if Sandburg would be hungry later.