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Jim found the door open, a backpack in the middle of the floor, and Sandburg sitting on the couch. He had his hair tied back today. Jim noted that without really thinking about it, the same way he noted that Sandburg was wearing the black and white checked shirt Jim liked over a green T-shirt, the same way he noted the fine shadow of stubble at the angle of Sandburg's jaw. While he was noting those things more or less subconsciously, with a kind of pleasant buzz at the back of his mind, he also noted that Sandburg wasn't currently noting anything. He was just staring straight ahead.
"Sandburg?"
It took a second, but Sandburg blinked eventually and looked up. Jim almost took a step back. Sandburg was closed up tight, walled in. Jim had never seen him look like that before. "Blair?"
"Hey, Jim."
"Hey."
Jim waited, not really sure what to do. There was something wrong, obviously, and he wanted to ask, but he wasn't sure how. Hands in his pockets, he looked at the floor, thinking furiously. He took his hands out of his pockets and folded his arms.
Sandburg stood up. "I'm gonna get some water."
Jim's eyebrows went up. There was a half-full water bottle sweating, sans coaster, on the coffee table. Still, Sandburg pulled another one out of the fridge. He twisted the cap off, tilted it back, and drank most of it standing there while the cold seeped out of the refrigerator and the motor at the back kicked in.
"I guess I'll get a shower," Jim said.
"Yeah. Okay."
"I'll come back down when I'm done. We can...you want to grab that dinner?"
"What?"
"Liberty Brothers," Jim said patiently. "We were going to go." Sandburg just looked at him, blank-eyed. "Ribeyes thick as your arm?"
"Yeah, okay." Sandburg nodded. "Dinner sounds good. I'll pick up in here a little."
"You don't have to--"
"Nah, I wrecked it." Sandburg looked around the living room, which was pretty much okay except for the water bottle thing. His eyes weren't getting any better.
"Really, it's okay."
"Did I tell you Simon called?"
"No, you--"
"Nothing major, he just wants us in a little early tomorrow so we can go over some things with Rafe and Brown."
"Okay."
"I told him we would, but if that's a problem you can just say I--"
"It's okay, Sandburg." Jim took a step toward him. He wanted to reach out somehow, help hold Sandburg together, but he never had before, and he wasn't sure how to start. "We'll go in early."
"And we're out of milk."
"Sandburg."
"We can maybe pick some up on the way back," he said, looking at Jim seriously. "I drank the last of it when I came in. And maybe we should pick up some toothpaste, too. I made a list, it's on the fridge door. I can go myself if you don't want to, I got paid yesterday so I'm good, and it's my turn anyway. And my mother called." Sandburg blinked and looked at the floor. "That's why the door was open. I heard her talking on the machine so I just ran in to grab it--"
"Okay," Jim said, trying to stem the flow of information. "It's not a big deal."
"She's in Nebraska, some kind of retreat or something, I kinda zoned on the details."
"Right." Jim nodded, and Sandburg didn't say anything, just looked at him, so he figured maybe something more was called for. "I, uh, hope she has a good time." He turned and headed for the stairs.
"Yeah," Sandburg said, "and, it turns out, my father died."
Jim stopped. For a split second that he was going to be really ashamed of later, he thought about not turning around. Just heading on up the stairs. He could come back down later, and Sandburg wouldn't be so much like an exposed nerve, so raw, he would have reconsidered by then and this whole thing that was about to happen could just not happen. Because they were new at this, this whole partner thing, the friend thing; they were total amateurs, and fathers were definitely Advanced Friendship, friendship at the graduate level.
He turned around. Blair had his arms wrapped around himself, holding it all in, and he smiled at Jim with a bullshit smile and the most miserable eyes Jim had ever seen. When Jim took a step closer, Blair took a step back, his eyes never wavering from Jim's, and it didn't seem like he even knew he'd done it.
"It's really okay," he said.
"Blair."
"I'm okay, Jim. I didn't know him."
It was written all over Blair's face, what a huge difference that didn't make. At a loss, Jim just looked at him. The reaching out thing seemed both more necessary now, and more impossible. If he touched Blair now, one of them would fly apart. "I'm sorry."
"It's just that I didn't know him."
"I know."
"I mean, I didn't even know his name till half an hour ago. His name was David. He got hit by a car." Blair laughed, a weird little laugh, and tilted his head back. He looked at the ceiling for a minute. Jim moved closer, and Blair snapped his head back down and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. They came away wet. "You know, the funny thing is Naomi told me he didn't feel any pain, it was really sudden, too fast for him to know what hit him, and that's just what she said when my cat died when I was eleven. Another victim of negligent driving, man, I am starting to see a pattern."
Jim moved closer still. He was right there now, right in front of Blair, close enough to smell him, and the combination of sympathy and sadness and wanting turned that spot into a really confusing place to stand. "Blair, I'm going to-- Can I--"
Blair dropped his arms to his sides. "Yeah." He nodded really fast. "Yeah. Please. Okay?"
Jim put his arms around him. It was weird and good. Blair's arms came up and went around Jim's waist, tight. He made a sound, buried in Jim's shoulder, a raw, pained sound that broke Jim's heart. Jim held on, his arms wrapped awkwardly around Blair's shoulders. He didn't know where to put his hands, so he put them on his own arms and just stood there, his face against Blair's hair, breathing.
There was a moment when it was time to let go. Jim pulled back, slow, because he didn't want Blair to think he wasn't comfortable. His hands were a little unsteady, so he shoved them into his pockets and looked with great warmth and concern at a place just over Blair's shoulder.
Blair retreated a step, hugged his own arms again, and looked just as deliberately at the floor. "Thanks."
"Hey."
"I guess I freaked a little--"
"You had good reason."
"I don't usually... I'm not a flake, Jim."
Now Blair looked up and met Jim's eyes squarely, so Jim had to really look at Blair, too. "I don't think you're a flake. You're tougher than anybody I know, Sandburg."
Blair blinked once. "Really?"
"Yeah."
"That's... that's really cool, Jim, for you to say that."
"Well, I mean it. You don't back down from things."
"Wow." Blair looked at him some more, with a different look on his face, one Jim couldn't pin down. "Thanks, man."
He did mean it. Blair was tough. He had a good heart, and he didn't scare easy, and he was smart. Really smart. Cops hadn't cornered the market on quick thinking, either; Blair had that in spades. He'd gotten through a lot of stuff since they met. He'd get through this, too.
"I was on my way to shower," Jim said. "We don't really have to go eat."
"I want to."
"You sure?"
"Yeah." Blair smiled and looked a little better. A little more solid. "It'll be good for me. Drown my trauma in protein and cholesterol."
"That's very primitive, Sandburg."
Blair nodded. "I own my history."
"I hear you."
"We are the past, man."
"Like the Neanderthals," Jim said seriously. "Only, with MasterCard."
Dinner was going well. Blair wasn't talking much, but he was eating. He was eating a lot. He had the chicken and shrimp, with extra chicken and shrimp, and a Caesar salad with extra Caesar, extra bacon, and extra salad. He drank two beers, and during dessert he had the waitress bring a pot of coffee. For dessert he had possibly the largest slice of key lime pie Jim had ever seen. Many limes had given their lives for that pie.
Jim had a steak. It was pretty big, and well done, seasoned just the way he liked it. He could never make a steak taste like that at home. He also had a huge baked potato dripping with butter and sour cream and cheese, and a house salad. Liberty Brothers didn't screw around with their salads -- you got a gigantic bowl of lettuce so fresh you could smell the rain on it. He suspected them of having a garden on the roof, but he didn't ask. He didn't want to ruin the mystery.
When they did talk, Jim tried to distract him. It wasn't a tough job, and Blair wasn't fighting him on it. They talked about the food, and about Jim's latest case, which wasn't all that interesting. He was deep in that ninety percent of his job that was made up of boredom and paperwork. He didn't have any exciting stories to tell, none that he was willing to tell, anyway, but he could talk about the work and what he thought of it, just like this was any other night. He wasn't really feeling all that great about his job, to tell the truth, what with all the watching and the forms and the fact that Rhonda had started locking up the supply closet.
She'd caught him hanging out next to it a few days ago and snitched to Simon, which prompted Simon to write a snippy email and send it out to the entire department. He'd cc'd Jim separately so everybody could see. It was a lot snippier than the situation warranted, and Jim had resolved never to say a single nice word about anything Rhonda ever wore again. He never had in the past, so maybe she wouldn't notice, but he would know. Every time she looked nice and he didn't say anything, he would be not saying anything with a pure fire of purpose. He would know that now it was personal.
All he'd wanted was something to write with. It wasn't his fault Sandburg kept stealing his pens. He needed the full box if he expected to make it through the week.
"There are forms, Jim." Blair was working hard for the smile, but it was there.
"I know that."
"She has a little email thing. You send the little email thing, she sends you pens. She made the form herself."
"You know, there was a time cops didn't have to go begging for the supplies we needed to carry out our appointed tasks. To protect and to serve." He jabbed his fork into his salad with a little more force than was strictly necessary and took a quick look up to see if Blair was watching. "There was a time, if a cop needed a pen, he could just go get one out of the damn supply closet."
Blair grinned, a better effort this time. "Yeah, but you weren't just getting one pen out of that supply closet, were you? You were getting enough pens to open up a franchise."
"It's not like I was planning to sell them on street corners."
"How does Rhonda know that?"
"Faith," Jim said, leaning back in his chair. He smiled, looking Blair over, feeling pretty good about the ease on Blair's face, the relaxed set of his shoulders.
"Faith," Blair said. "Really."
"Faith and trust. Respect for the men who keep the streets of this city safe--"
"Ha!"
"--relatively safe--"
"She's got barbarians at the gate, man, she's gotta keep her eye on the goods. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
"Yeah? Well the price of this meal is temporary silence. So unless you want the tab..."
"I told you, I just got paid."
Jim grinned. "So, buy me some pens."
"No," Blair said. "But I'll give you some of my pie."
Jim thought about it. Ton of pie, over there, and did Blair really need the sugar rush? He probably wasn't gonna sleep tonight as it was. Taking some of that off his hands was the least a friend could do. "Hand it over."
Blair pushed the plate across the table, sliding other plates out of the way. When Jim reached for it he really wanted to brush against Blair's hand, but he didn't. For one thing, it was pretty hard to accidentally brush against somebody's hand when that somebody is a guy and knows all the same hand tricks you know. For another, though, he was afraid it would just be taken as comfort even if he did grab Blair's hand the way he wanted to, and afraid that it might be taken as something other than comfort, and also a little afraid if he had Blair's hand in his, he might actually forget to let go.
He wasn't a letting go kind of guy.
He picked up the fork and ate, instead. He still watched Blair, out of the corner of his eye, but Blair had lost the moment of good feeling and gone back to staring at his plate. The staring didn't look so normal now that there wasn't any food there to stare at, but the pen thing had been pretty much it for Jim in the way of distracting chatter. The only other things he thought of for topics of conversation involved criminals or car maintenance, and he wanted to cheer Blair up, not bore him to death.
"Jim?"
He looked up. Blair was watching him, frowning, his eyebrows drawn together over concerned eyes.
"Yeah?"
"I asked if you were ready for the check."
"I haven't finished my pie."
"You barely touched your pie. Which is actually my pie, but we'll let it slide."
"You gave it to me. It was a gift."
"I'm sure you'll treasure it always, since it doesn't look like you're planning to actually eat it. Come on, let's get out of here. The waiters are giving us the evil eye."
They were. Two kids, one blond and one redhead, and neither one looked old enough to shave. They looked at Jim and Blair, then they looked at the clock, then they looked, significantly, at the rest of the empty restaurant.
"Okay," Jim said. "The ch--"
It was by his hand before he could finish the word. He fished out his credit card, glared at Blair just in case he had any ideas about paying, and handed it over.
"I wasn't even silent," Blair said.
"You were. For about five minutes."
"Half my personal best."
"It was worth it."
"I'll get the next one."
"Damn straight you will," Jim said, and then shut up because the waiter was back with a receipt to sign. Jim added a tip, signed it, and stood up just as Blair did. Together they walked out to the truck, through the cool air, quiet again.
This was a good quiet, Jim thought, and was a little surprised how after only a year, a bit more maybe than a year, he could tell the difference. Blair seemed okay, all in all; the blank and raw look was gone from his eyes. He was drawn into himself, but not quite all the way in. Jim could reach him if he needed to, but he didn't need to, not when he could see things were getting better. They got into the truck; Jim turned on the heat and the radio, and hummed a little under his breath as he drove them home. Blair tapped out the rhythm on his thighs, which was a little distracting, but also good.
And Jim had gotten away with paying for another meal, which he kind of
liked doing when he got the chance. It let him feel like he was giving
something back for all the stuff Blair did for him, and he didn't have to
do anything against his nature like say please or thank
you or I like you, or for instance, stay.
It was a good trade off, Jim thought, and on the whole, dinner had gone pretty well.
Sometimes in the night, Blair would get up for water, or to go to the bathroom, or to write something down, some little thing that woke him up and that he was mortally afraid of forgetting. He never turned a light on, so it was a wonder he ever could read those notes in the morning. Still, Jim had never heard him complain about it, so he supposed they were legible enough.
Jim woke up when Blair did, because not even the earplugs could dampen his senses to the point of ignoring noise inside his own house. He knew when someone was moving around downstairs, even when it was someone moving really quietly, even when it was someone who was supposed to be there. It was nice, kind of, to hear somebody else's house-sounds. It was something he'd missed after Carolyn left, before Blair came.
Usually, though, when Blair got up, he was only up for a few minutes, and then Jim would hear him get back into bed, settle himself, check the alarm about fifteen times, and finally start snoring again. Not really snoring, but kind of huffing a little in his sleep. Tonight, none of that happened.
Blair sat on his bed -- Jim heard it creak -- but he didn't lie down; it didn't creak that much. He sat there for a long time. Long enough for Jim to get curious and take the ear plugs out, long enough for Jim to sit up on the edge of his own bed and frown and start to wonder what the hell was going on.
And then Blair got up and started to get dressed. And that was enough to make Jim get up and start to get dressed, and by the time Blair got to the door of his bedroom, Jim was also at the door of Blair's bedroom, so that when Blair opened the door he found Jim standing there, dressed in jeans and a blue flannel shirt and sneakers, keys in his hand.
"So," Jim said. He jingled the keys a little and looked at the strap of Blair's backpack, which was over his shoulder, and at the keys in Blair's hand. "I hope you don't think we're going in your car."
Blair blinked at him. His hair was kind of messed up, and he hadn't shaved, and he needed to. "Going where?"
Jim rolled his eyes. "You tell me, Sandburg. You're the one who packed. I thought maybe we were just going out for donuts."
"Did I wake you up?"
"No, I'm just a really well-dressed insomniac."
"Not that well-dressed."
"Where are we going?"
Blair looked at the front door like he really wanted to be on the other side of it. "You don't have to come, Jim."
"You don't have to go," Jim said reasonably.
"I think I do."
"You're grieving, Blair. You're out of your head. Wait till morning, and if you still want to go to wherever, I'll take you." He watched Blair's eyes, which were troubled, but clear, and for just a second he hesitated. Just a second, and then: "So, where did your dad live, anyway?"
"How did you--"
"What do I do for a living?"
"Right." Blair nodded and fiddled with his keys. He started to put them in his pocket, then pulled his backpack around his body to shove them into a side compartment. While his head was down he said, "I can't sleep."
"I know," Jim said. "I heard."
"I'm just lying there staring at the ceiling, and all I can think is, am I really here? Am I really alive, living and breathing and alive, because my father isn't, he wasn't real, and now he's dead. I'm not grieving."
"I know grieving, Sandburg."
"Yesterday I didn't give a damn about my father."
"I don't give a damn about mine today."
Blair shook his head, and looked away. "I don't get why this matters now."
"Sandburg..."
"No, it's okay. I'm fine. I just need to go there."
"It matters now because he's where you came from, and you're all about where people come from. We are the past, I own my history..."
"That was just bullshit to get you to buy me dinner."
"Congratulations, it worked. Just tell me this place is somewhere on this side of the country, because if I have to book a flight--"
"I need to go alone."
Jim shook his head. "I can't help you meet that need, I'm sorry."
Blair looked up sharply. For a second he just stared at Jim, and then he started to smile. "Carolyn made you go to a marriage counselor."
"Maybe I'm just naturally sensitive to the feelings of those around me."
Blair looked at Jim for a long moment, considering. "Maybe you are," he said, and the smile got warmer, and Jim found himself smiling back, like an idiot, goofy and drunk on it in the middle of the night.
"So," Jim said, finally, when he remembered they were having a conversation. "Where to?"
"Deer Park. It's a few hours east."
"You got an address?"
"Yeah."
"Got a map?"
"I was gonna pick one up."
"I have a map."
"No," Blair said, eyes crinkling up at the corners. "Really?"
"Are you fucking with me? Now, in my own house, in the middle of the night, when I'm about to drive you God knows where?"
"Yes, Jim. I am."
Jim smacked Blair in the back of the head and shoved him through the door, grinning still, but an easier grin, a more familiar one, the grin of a guy who was back on land he recognized. Driving was good. It was a way to touch Blair and be around him and hear him talk, all things he was learning to love to do, and if it was a little morbid, a little inappropriate to their purpose, well, Jim would just have to handle that a little at a time. He'd do what he could to make the trip okay for Blair, and maybe, maybe when they came back and Blair had a grip on things, and didn't need a friend like he needed to breathe anymore, well -- maybe then Jim would say something, or do something, so that Blair had a fair view of the playing field.
Maybe not, but the possibility was there.
There would be donuts. This was settled on the way down in the elevator, though the provenance of the donuts was still in question all the way to 6th Avenue. There was a Donut King at the corner of Marion and 6th. It wasn't the place Jim really liked, but the place he really liked didn't open until five, and by five he hoped to be at least an hour east on 90. It wasn't a bad place, and they had the good buttermilk donuts, so he was okay with it. And they'd be fresh.
There was a 24-hour mini-mart across the street. Jim and Blair parted company. Jim was back in ten minutes with an even dozen, four bottles of OJ, and two pints of chocolate milk. It took Blair a little longer, but he came back loaded down with a bag of Doritos (ranch), a bag of Fritos (chili cheese), a six-pack of 7-Up, a steaming styrofoam cup of cappuccino, and a Snickers bar. They put the food between them on the front seat and stared at each other.
"I was buying for both of us," Blair said defensively.
"We're stopping short of the Atlantic, Sandburg."
"People get ugly when they run out of food on a road trip. Think of the Donner Party."
"So the logic behind the Fritos is, if we run into Paiute raiders we'll have something to bargain with."
"90 is a long and lonely road, Jim," Blair said seriously.
At four a.m. on a Thursday morning it was a long and empty road. The low beams of the Expedition cut through a dense white fog. Inside, the smell of donuts mixed with the smell of new car, and Jim thought that Heaven, if there were a Heaven, would smell just like that. The wheels hummed under him, a steady, comforting sound, and beside him Blair's breathing was just as steady, just as comforting.
He kept his eyes on the road, but the rest of his senses were focused a foot to the right. He tried to tell himself it was something he couldn't control, some kind of protective sentinel instinct, but that was just Blair's voice in his head. The Jim voice said he could control it if he wanted to, he knew he could control it if he wanted to, and if he knew that and he wasn't controlling it, there was a reason. He ignored both voices and thought about turning on the radio, until he realized Blair was asleep.
He pulled a bottle of chocolate milk out of the bag beside him and cradled it between his legs while he worked quietly, one-handed, at getting the donut box open. He got it, spilling white flakes of sugar on the seat in the process. He drove through the dark and the fog, eating his donut, drinking his chocolate milk, and occasionally looking over at Blair.
On the whole, he couldn't think of a lot that was wrong with his life at the moment.
Blair came awake hard, shocked out of a doze into a confused, blinking rush of adrenaline. Information poured in: he was in a truck, it was dawn, it was cold, it was -- Jim's truck? -- and his back hurt. His back hurt really a lot.
Jim's truck. Deer Park. His father. And the inside of his mouth tasted like the inside of somebody's shoe, and it wasn't just his back, his head was pounding pretty good, too. The driver's side door was open, and cold was coming through it.
Dawn. A misty grey kind of morning, no color to it at all. Looking out the windshield, Blair guessed they were probably still somewhere on 90. Out the back window he could see Jim -- facing away, his head tilted back, circling his arms to work out some of the tension. The line of his shoulders was stiff; Blair's back twinged in sympathy.
He slumped down into the seat, trying to stretch out his spine. It didn't really help. He closed his eyes, breathed in some of the morning. Still a long way to go before they got to Deer Park. He didn't know what he was going to do when he got there, but getting there still seemed important.
He climbed out of the truck, waving when Jim turned to check out the noise. It felt good to be on his feet, and if his legs were cramped, he didn't even want to think about how Jim's must feel. He looked over at Jim again, watched him walk part of a wide circle around the truck. He was looking better already, steps evening out, turning fluid. Jim moved good. Really good.
Blair met him at the front of the truck. "I can drive for a while."
"No, I'm good."
"Seriously. You look wiped, Jim, you should catch some Zs."
Jim looked down at him and grinned. "I'd sleep better knowing I was behind the wheel."
"I'm an excellent driver."
"Oh, I'm sure you are."
"I have a perfect driving record, Jim. And I think you've seen how well I handle the big rigs, so..."
"Know what else is perfect, Sandburg? My new truck."
"Sports Utility Vehicle," Blair scoffed.
"Truck."
"My great-aunt Hilda drives one of these."
"I'd like to meet the old gal. She's obviously got great taste in trucks."
Blair looked at Jim carefully. His eyebrows were up, his face innocent as a baby's. Blair narrowed his eyes. "You don't trust me."
Jim put a hand over his heart. "You hurt me. It's not you, Sandburg. It's me I don't trust. If you scratched my truck, I might not be able to prevent myself from killing you."
Irritated, a little miffed, Blair looked down at the gravel shoulder. He shook his head and looked back up, and when he caught Jim's eyes they were bright and amused and the only cheerful color on a dull, grey, foggy morning. Against his will, Blair's mouth quirked up. "Paranoid bastard."
Jim clapped him on the shoulder. "Half true," he said, still smiling, and went around the open door to slide into the driver's seat.
Blair got in beside him. "You sure you're good to keep driving?"
"I'm a cop, Sandburg. I've got orange juice, I've got donuts. Throw in some of those Doritos, and I can keep this up for days."
Blair snorted. "You've got some seriously repressed negativity about your profession, man."
Jim glared over at him, said nothing, and started the truck.
"You sure you don't want to talk about it?"
"Yes."
"I'm just saying, that stuff can poison you, Jim. We could, I dunno, we could process. See if we can get some closure."
"You're not gonna shut up about the therapy thing, are you. It was two sessions, it was Carolyn's idea, and--" He looked at Blair hard and sighed. "You're not gonna shut up about it."
"'I' statements, man." Blair grinned. He was starting to feel better about the trip, the truck, the whole morning. "It's all about the dialogue."
Jim's lips pressed together in a thin, pale line. He threw the truck into gear and hit the gas. Gravel spun back from the tires before they got traction.
Blair faced front, sneaking an occasional glance at Jim. Jim kept his eyes on the road. After a few seconds, when he couldn't not say it any longer, Blair said, "I hope none of those rocks scratched your paint job."
"Fuck off, Sandburg," Jim said, and turned on the radio with a vicious twist.
"So, how come you hate your dad?"
"Wh-- what? Where the hell did that come from?" Jim looked over at Blair suddenly, his eyes wide and startled. The truck swerved alarmingly, and Blair reached up and grabbed the dash.
"Whoa. Sorry. I guess I hit a nerve. Forget I said anything, okay?"
"You didn't hit a nerve. Where'd you come up with me hating my father?"
Blair looked straight ahead and didn't say anything.
"Sandburg--"
"Ah," Blair said, nodding. "I definitely hit a nerve."
"I do not hate my father. Not every guy who doesn't have a great relationship with his father has to hate the man, you know?" Jim's voice lost its edge. "It's complicated."
"Look, I'm sorry I opened my mouth, okay? I was just trying to distract myself by fucking with your head. It was an impure impulse, and I'm sure my aura will suffer."
Jim looked over at Blair again, and Blair looked back this time, trying to apologize all over again with his face. It was better to apologize that way, because then the other guy could just nod and the conversation could be over. Guys were good that way. Jim's eyes were warm and soft and understanding, and Blair thought maybe he'd dodged the bullet. Everything inside him felt so brittle.
"Well, I don't forgive you for that," Jim said kindly.
Blair blinked. "You don't?"
"No, I don't. Why should I?"
"You're right." Blair sighed and leaned his head back against the seat. "I'm so fucked up right now, Jim."
"I know that."
"You want to belt me one? It's okay if you do."
"I don't want to belt you. I just don't want you smacking me around because you're freaking out. Look, just eat a donut or something. The box is under the seat."
Blair nodded. It was fair. He didn't want a donut, but he didn't want to keep trying to pick a fight, either.
He closed his eyes. He figured they had maybe an hour to go. The movement of the car beneath him made him feel kind of cushioned. Held up, wrapped up, somehow. The miracle of good shocks.
He didn't get a donut. He did drift off to sleep, after a while.
"He wasn't the most caring guy in the world."
Blair opened his eyes. He could barely see. He rubbed at them only to find his glasses in the way. He took them off and rubbed at his eyes again, then put his glasses back on. Only now his glasses were smudged, so he was still pretty much legally blind.
He sat up a little straighter in his seat, blinked a few times, and looked over at Jim. Jim was looking back, expectantly, his eyes intent. Blair wished they were a little more intent on the road. "Um, what?"
"You asked."
"I...what did I ask, exactly?"
"About my father. You know, if you're gonna ask questions like that the least you could do is keep up with the conversation."
The scenery had changed. They were going through more trees now, and the road had narrowed, and the sky was darker and lower. It looked like it might rain soon, but then it always did. "Jim... I asked that question about one hour and two naps ago. And then I had to apologize for like a year."
"He wasn't home much. I left home early, and we just kind of fell out of touch."
Blair frowned. Jim's face was perfectly still and calm. It ached a little, to look at him. He didn't know Jim really well, not nearly as well as he ought to know him before they started having conversations like this, not nearly as well as he wanted to know him. He'd been an idiot to start this up in the first place, and he'd be an idiot if he kept it going.
Still, Blair knew a fake calm when he saw one.
"Jim. Come on, man."
"What?"
"You don't just lose touch with your family." He watched Jim to see if he was getting it, because this was simple, this was basic family arithmetic. Only Jim wasn't getting it, he was just closing up instead of getting it, which made Blair a little angry, and a little sad.
"I did."
"It's never that easy, man. Family is never that easy. These ties, Jim, they call them ties for a reason. You don't just forget to be in touch. You go out of touch for a reason."
"When did this get to be about me?"
"When you answered the question I retracted. You obviously want to talk about this. So, talk, man. I'm one big wall of listen over here."
Jim glared across the front seat, which was okay with Blair; it was better than the give-me-my-space face he'd been making before. Blair took it as a sign of progress, even when Jim turned to watch the road again. After a second of silence he had to pop Jim on the arm to get him talking.
"Christ. Who's the therapist now?"
"Fine," Blair said. "You want this to fester? Fine, go ahead. Just don't wake me up so I have to watch next time, okay? Fester in silence."
"It's my truck," Jim snapped. "I can fester however I want."
"I may be a little fucked up, man, but you've got levels of fucked up going on over there that I can't even touch."
"That your official diagnosis, Doc? I'm having trouble translating the technical jargon, you know, cause I'm just this big man-shaped chunk of repressed and undereducated neurosis over here."
"Well," Blair said brightly, looking out the window. "As long as we're on the same page."
So, he was an asshole. Jim understood this on a gut level. He really shouldn't have said anything about his dad in the first place, back at the loft. But hell, who knew Blair would grab the ball and run like that? He looked over at Blair, who was tilted back in his seat and pretending to be relaxed and asleep, and felt like a jerk.
It wasn't that he didn't want Blair to know anything. It was just that Jim didn't really know what there was to know. His relationship with his father was complicated, and he didn't like to think about it, so he hadn't thought much about it and didn't really have much to say. It was all wrapped up with Stephen, and Blair didn't even know about Stephen, and it was a little late now to say, "Oh, by the way, I have a little brother I forgot to mention." Especially since he'd lied about it on the forms Blair made him fill out back at the beginning.
And now there was Blair's dad to think about. Jim figured that's what they really were thinking about anyway, the both of them, so he didn't have a lot of guilt about not spilling his guts. Snapping at Blair like that, though. That was a lot like kicking a guy when he was down.
"So, I'm an asshole," Jim said softly. He knew Blair could hear him.
"I thought you were a big man-shaped chunk of repressed and undereducated neurosis."
Not even pretending he'd been asleep. Jim nodded and didn't say anything. He'd had that coming.
"Maybe we shouldn't talk about the whole father thing," Blair said.
Jim cringed a little, on the inside. He'd seriously fucked this one up. He kept driving, and tried to think of a way to unsay the sharp things he'd said -- or at least the sharp way he'd said them, because some of the actual words, Blair had bought and paid for. He couldn't think of anything, though, so he just gritted his teeth and squeezed the steering wheel harder than was really necessary and kept driving. He figured they had maybe half an hour to go.
Blair said, "About half an hour now, huh?"
"Yeah." Jim bit off the word. "I guess."
"You want one of these donuts?"
"Not really."
"I'm gonna have a donut." Blair started rummaging around under the seat.
So now Blair thought he couldn't talk to Jim about the current big issue of his life. It was great, it was just peachy, and it was Jim's fault. It had been so long since Jim had wanted to actually share anything with anybody, it was like he had pins and needles in his heart. He didn't know how to go about it with a guy, anyway. Hell, he didn't know how to go about it with anybody.
He looked at the curve of Blair's back, and he wanted to touch it, run his hand up over the flannel, up into Blair's hair. He wanted to do it because nothing he said was the right thing to say, and he wanted to offer something, but the truth was he wanted to take something, too. And it was the wrong time. And it was starting to look like the right time wasn't going to come any time soon. So of course he didn't do it, and then he couldn't, because Blair was sitting up and looking at him with a really strange expression.
"Jim?"
"Yeah?"
"Jim, you look... You don't look good."
"Gee, thanks. We've been driving for hours, Sandburg, you're not exactly fresh as a daisy yourself."
"No, I mean..."
"What?"
"Just...nothing." Blair frowned and looked away. "I guess I'm still a little disoriented."
Jim looked over, and then turned back to the road. In fifteen minutes they'd be there. He'd seen a few signs for Deer Park already. Not long at all. Still--
He looked over again, and caught Blair's eyes, which were trying really
hard not to look miserable. And then he stepped on the brakes, not as
hard as he would have liked. He pulled the truck over on the wrong side
of the road, where the shoulder was wider.
Fuck the right time. He probably wouldn't know it if he saw it anyway.
"Uh...you know we're not there yet, right?"
"Get out of the truck."
Blair blinked at him. And then he glared. His eyebrows drew together hard, and he said, "Look, I said I was sorry."
"Blair, would you just get the hell out of my truck?" Jim opened his own door and climbed out as a sign of good will, leaving the door open so Blair could scoot across. Which Blair did, still with that angry look on his face, like he really was expecting Jim to pop him one or leave him on the side of the road. Or both. Jim really liked Blair a lot, but he was starting to think the guy was kind of a moron.
"Okay, I'm out of your truck. What now?"
Jim closed the door and stood in front of Blair. He could look down at Blair, which he kind of liked. Even mad as hell, there was something kind of warm and generous about Blair's face. Being furious didn't really fit on him; it never really looked like it would last.
Blair leaned back against the truck, crossed his ankles, and folded his arms. It might not last for long, but it was still there now, and Jim was going to have to deal with it. Jim put his hands in his pockets and opened his mouth to say something, and then two things happened at once: it started to rain, and Blair started to smile.
Jim forgot what he was going to say. He just looked. He couldn't stop looking: Blair smiling at him, Blair with the rain falling on him and plastering his hair down and running off the tip of his nose. Jim just stood there, helpless, smiling back at Blair and blushing like a teenager.
"Jim, man, can we get back into the truck?"
"I'm really sorry about your dad. I know it hurts."
"Does it?" Blair looked away. "I don't know, man. I don't know what it feels like. It's like I've lost track of myself in here."
"I haven't lost track of you."
Blair's eyes flashed up, and Jim blushed. But he held his ground, because somebody here had to. The look between them got warmer, and stronger, until both of them looked away at the same time, and Blair said, "Thanks, man." His voice wasn't really very steady.
"You are who you are, Blair. That hasn't changed since yesterday."
"Can we go home?"
Jim blinked. Rain was running into his eyes, into his ears, and he had to blink again. "What?"
"I don't need to go. I mean -- I think I needed to go, but I don't need to now. I-- maybe I should talk to Naomi first. I don't know. It's not the right time."
"We're fifteen minutes away."
Blair nodded. "Let's just go home."
"Are you sure?"
"No, not really."
"Blair...we'll do whatever it is you need to do." Jim put his hands on Blair's shoulders, which were starting to get pretty soggy, and squeezed. "Just tell me what that is, and we'll do it."
"You are being, like, preternaturally understanding here."
"It's a hidden talent." Jim moved a step closer, thinking Blair probably wouldn't even notice, and if he did notice, he'd just think Jim was huddling for warmth. "Don't tell anybody, okay?"
"I don't know what to do with this. I'm supposed to be grieving, and I don't feel anything like I'm supposed to."
"Sometimes that's what grief is like, Chief."
"I don't know what to do with it," Blair said again. "I don't know where to put it."
Jim smiled again, quickly, hard. It was the kind of smile that felt like it was sunk deep. Like it had roots. "You're kind of a control freak, aren't you, Sandburg."
"Oh, yeah." Blair nodded rapidly, a weird, not-quite-good grin on his face. "I got issues, man. I need help."
"You got it," Jim said, and took the last step in, and closed his arms around Blair and held him tight.
"Jim--"
"You can tell me to back off, or you can shut up, okay, Blair?"
"Okay." Blair nodded, and didn't say anything, and wrapped his arms around Jim and held on even tighter than Jim was.
Jim closed his eyes and pressed his face into Blair's hair. It was wet, and there was some kind of chemical thing in it that made it slick, and it stuck to Jim's nose, and his cheek, and a bit of it to his eyebrow. He didn't care. He held on, feeling weird and bad and good at the same time. Turned on and guilty about it at the same time. Proud of himself, and a little creeped out, at the same time. It didn't matter. He held on anyway. It seemed like that was what Blair needed.
There came a time when it was time to let go. Jim felt it, and he was pretty sure Blair felt it, too, because Blair's grip eased up a bit.
Jim's didn't ease up. He just held on some more. And after a minute, the strength was back in Blair's arms again, and he was squeezing Jim so tight he couldn't breathe, and pressing his face into Jim's shoulder, moving, closer than Jim had hoped for. His hands were squeezed into tight fists full of the back of Jim's shirt, and it felt good, really good, until Jim started to suspect that maybe Blair wasn't okay.
"Blair?"
"You're really freaking me out, Jim."
Jim let go. There was no space between the words and the movement. He was holding on, and then he suddenly wasn't. He didn't even remember making the decision.
"I'm sorry."
"No!" Blair hadn't let go, and when he continued not to let go, Jim swallowed hard and made himself look at Blair's face. "No, this is good. I'm okay with this."
Warily, Jim put his arms back around Blair. If this was the wrong thing to do, it was going to hurt a lot. On the bright side, if it was the wrong thing to do, and Blair was the one who'd told him to do it, it wouldn't be Jim's fault. "What am I doing that's freaking you out, then?"
"I'm better at being a friend than I am at having one."
"Yeah." Jim felt something loosen up in his chest. "Don't think I hadn't noticed that."
Blair laughed. It was the first okay sound he'd made since they got out of the truck, and it made the rain feel a lot less cold. "Sorry."
"You just gotta learn to relax a little, Sandburg. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but...you're kind of a tightass."
"Yeah, well, it takes one..."
"Right, right." Jim smiled down into Blair's face. "Hey. I really am sorry about your dad."
"I am too." Blair turned -- he turned in Jim's arms, which made the whole thing -- it made it less comforting and more something else. He had his arms over Jim's now, around his waist, and yeah, it was something different now, because Jim hadn't let go, and he didn't think if he tried to let go that Blair would let him. It wasn't a way guys hugged each other for comfort, Jim was pretty sure. Blair looked at the road and hugged Jim's arms to him and leaned back. And yes, this was good. Oh, yeah. Jim smiled all he wanted because Blair couldn't see him, after all, and hung on as much as he wanted to.
"We can still go," he said into Blair's ear. Blair turned his head a little to hear it, and Jim's mouth was right there and Jim was almost kissing Blair on the ear, but also kind of not. He didn't move.
"If I go, he'll still be dead, and I still won't have ever had a chance to know him, and he still won't have ever known me, and it'll just be me and a rock with his name on it, you know? I'm sorry, man, I thought I could do this."
"I'd be there, too. You, me, and the rock."
"I know that," Blair said. "I know." He tapped his fingers on Jim's arm, and turned his head closer to Jim, and then Jim did have his mouth on Blair's ear in a way that was a lot more kiss than communication. Jim held absolutely still. "You're freaking me out again," Blair said quietly.
"Me, too." Jim moved the not-quite-a-kiss from Blair's ear to his hair, which felt a little safer, but still good, and Blair started breathing again.
"You're not worried about, you know, taking advantage of my fragile emotional state?"
"I was." Jim sighed into Blair's ear. "My own less than steady emotional state got me past it."
"This is like, some kind of thing, then."
"I don't know," Jim said. He was waffling. Yes would be good, but yes would also be pretty scary. "Yeah. Maybe."
Blair laughed. Okay now, not all the way, but a lot better than he had been. He let go of Jim's arms, and Jim let him move away. He just stood there looking at Blair with his hands back in his pockets and a grin on his face that he just couldn't make go away.
"Let's go home, Jim."
"Right now? In the middle of the thing?"
"I don't even know what the thing is." Blair smiled, and Jim was already smiling, so that was all okay. Except Blair was over there against the truck, and Jim was standing here grinning like an idiot in the rain, and Blair didn't know what the thing was. But maybe they could figure it out on the way home.
"You can get back in the truck now," Jim said, and opened the door.
"Chivalry," Blair noted on the way over the driver's seat.
"Yep."
"Definitely some kind of thing."
The rain was still drizzling down on them. Jim turned on the wipers and put the truck into gear. Beside him, Blair was looking out the passenger side window. Jim could see a faint reflection there, and in the reflection Jim saw a tiny, almost not there kind of smile on Blair's face. Jim turned the truck around and they headed back the way they came, away from Deer Park, away from their spot by the road, which was okay because Jim was pretty sure he remembered the mile marker. They drove for a while in complete silence, the defrost doing almost nothing to clear the windows. Jim could see anyway, so it didn't really matter.
Ten miles down the road, Blair turned sideways on the seat and said to Jim, "We were supposed to be at the station early today."
Jim checked the clock. "We're not gonna make it."
"I know. You think Simon will be pissed?"
"I think Simon's a dad. He'll understand. It'll be okay."
"I know."
Jim looked over. Blair was trying so damn hard. "Everything will be okay."
Blair nodded. He kept looking at Jim, which made Jim's face feel warm. He was pretty sure he was turning red. Slowly, Blair started to smile, and Jim's face got hotter, until he had to look back at the road and glare to make it stop. Which turned out not to actually work. "What?" Jim snapped.
"You want some Fritos?"
"No." Blair opened the bag and the smell of it floated over, and Jim said, "Okay, yes."
Blair smiled and held out the bag. Jim grabbed a handful and met Blair's look over the top of it. It was a good look, an okay, almost cheerful look, and it made Jim wonder if Blair would maybe offer him more than Fritos when they got home. And that made him feel like kind of a perv, because after all of it, he was actually a little concerned about Blair's fragile emotional state. At least, he was trying to be. It would be easier if Blair would stop looking at him like that. Now Jim had a handful of Fritos and a mouth so dry he couldn't eat any. He frowned a little harder at Blair.
"More where that came from," Blair said, grinning.
Jim swallowed hard, dropped the Fritos back into the bag, and turned back to the road.
Oh, yeah. Definitely a thing.