A Fair Distance: Comes a Time. Chapter Eight
Title: A Fair Distance: Comes a Time. Chapter Eight.
Fandom The Sentinel
Author: Laurie
Type: Slash
Rating: PG-17 (for the series)
Word count: 1989 words
Warnings: Link to warnings for the entire series
Written for Sentinel Thursday Challenge 168: Family
Beta’ed by t_verano She gives good beta.
Summary for A Fair Distance: A year after Blair left Jim, and Cascade, they meet again in a small Tennessee town. Blair's been arrested and is being held for questioning at the request of the Cascade PD.
This is the third and final arc to the story, and the two earlier arcs, A Fair Distance:Running on Empty and A Fair Distance: Ball and Chain, as well as several time stamps, can be located at my LJ here or at Artifact Storage Room 3 here or at AO3 here. I believe that AO3 has a nifty feature that allows you to download onto E-readers.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
Steven stormed into the ICU waiting room around three in the morning. He began talking to me in a furious whisper, confident that I would hear him.
“I want answers, Jim. The other detectives either don't know what's going on or they don't want to tell me. I deserve to know why Dad died and what in the hell Sandburg has to do with it. Didn't he leave Cascade a year ago? How's he mixed up in this? All I've been told is that my father committed suicide during a gun battle in his own damn house! And I know Sandburg was there, and he's sick and you're glued to his damn side. But I'm your brother, and you owe me! Let the nurses do their job in there and you come out here. Or I'm coming in there, and I'm betting you really don't want me to do that, do you, Jim? I swear I don't want to cause a scene, but I will if that's what it takes to get your attention away from that kid. You won't even return my phone calls, and you're not the only one with a temper. Mine's ready to blow. You've got five minutes, and then I'm barging in and we will have this conversation in the ICU!”
Steven wasn't the only one whose temper was on a short fuse. Ever since Blair's vital signs had started to improve, I'd been replaying what I'd seen when I'd entered Dad's house. Steven had questions? So did I. But Blair wasn't going to be in any shape to answer them for a while. His condition had been upgraded from critical to serious, but he still needed the ventilator to help him breathe; I'd detected two more times that he'd stopped breathing on his own.
He was in medical restraints for now, to prevent him from yanking at any of his tubes if he woke up in an agitated state. I double-checked them. Sometimes patients still managed to tear out their breathing tubes, even restrained, and without me there to watch him I wanted to be sure he'd be safe.
I was angry. Angry at Dad for harassing Blair and trying to kill him. I was angry that he'd killed himself. But I was also angry with Blair and Henri. Blair should never have gone to Dad's house in the first place. If he'd been straight with Henri about Dad wanting him to stop by Henri would have at least checked with me about it. And Henri shouldn't have taken Blair's word that I was on board with a private visit. He'd known Blair for years now, and he should have remembered that Blair could slant things, especially if he thought it would help somebody else.
I'd had hours after Blair had returned to his physical body to think about what I would have done if he had asked me about stopping over at Dad's. I would have told him to wait, that we'd go over together tomorrow, and if Dad had some concerns about me then I should be involved with discussing it with him.
But one person I wasn't angry with was Steven. He was an innocent victim in all of this, and I hoped that he hadn't seen Dad dead on the floor. I knew I'd never forget the sight, and I didn't want my little brother to remember our father like that.
I kissed Blair on the forehead and laid my hand over his heart for a moment. He'd stayed asleep most of the time, but the sorrowful looks he'd given me when he had roused for a moment or two expressed his worry and regret without him needing to speak.
It wasn't Blair's fault that Dad had chosen to kill himself. But if I knew Blair Sandburg, he'd feel guilty about it anyway. I would have to be careful not to use him for an emotional punching bag, to relieve myself of the anger that I felt burning in my veins.
I left his curtained area of the ICU and stopped at the nurses' station to tell them I would be in the waiting room talking to my brother, but if Blair woke up, to come and get me right away. I'd be listening for trouble, but at least the two assholes who'd been shot were out of the picture. One was in a regular room, recovering from the gunshot wound to his shoulder, and the other guy had coded in the OR.
Steven lost his assertiveness, his tall body seeming to shrink, as soon as I opened the door and walked over to where he was standing, all alone, by a small plastic table that held a coffee pot and Styrofoam cups. There were several couches along the walls, and an open cupboard held blankets that family members could use to try to get some sleep while the people they cared about were in Intensive Care.
He looked at me, eyes red and puffy, his usually well-groomed look all rumpled, sandy hair uncombed, and I saw right through his adult veneer. This was the little brother I'd tried to take care of when we were kids, and it seemed like it had always fallen to me to try to explain the crappy things that had happened to us. “Mom can't live with us anymore,” and “Bud was killed by a bad guy,” and “I'll be there, but Dad has to go away on a business trip and can't come to watch you play on the All-star team.”
I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him hard. He gave a choking sob, and I held him until he sniffed, and freed himself.
“Jim, I've been calling and calling.”
“My phone's lost, turned off; probably it's at Dad's house. I'm sorry, Stevie, I'm so damn sorry. Blair almost died, and I needed to stay with him. And I want answers as much as you do. Let's get some coffee, and I'll tell you what I know, okay?”
We sat down with Styrofoam cups clutched in our hands, and I felt exhausted; I could smell the anxiety and anguish pouring off my tired brother.
Gently, I told him what we'd learned about Dad's involvement with harassing Blair and why Blair had gone to Dad's house yesterday evening. There was a lot of missing information that we hoped Blair might be able to fill in when he felt up to it..
Steven shook his head. “I just don't get it. I never heard Dad complain about Blair, well, except when all that mess with the news media happened and we thought he had been playing you. But he knew Sandburg had given up his career to make things right; we talked about it at the time.” He narrowed his eyes. “What aren't you telling me, Jim?”
I shrugged. It wasn't like I was going to keep Blair my dirty little secret or anything.
“Before Blair left Cascade last year, we had been lovers for a while. But Dad didn't know that. We didn't tell anybody. Things got fucked up, or to be truthful, I fucked things up and Blair left. I didn't see him again till very recently. He was considered a possible suspect in a murder case that I was investigating. We did a lot of talking and we're together again. Steven, he's good for me, and I love the guy.”
Steven's eyes widened but he didn't interrupt.
“I was going to tell Dad. I knew he wouldn't like it, but I thought he'd come around after he got to really know Blair.”
I shoved a hand through my hair, frustrated all over again with Dad. God.
“I dunno, Stevie. Maybe he resented Blair after the dissertation mess and wanted him gone from my life. Maybe he already thought we were lovers and it repulsed him. We might never know why he did what he did. I think he shot himself on impulse, though, because he knew the police were on to him and would find out that he'd drugged Blair. The two thugs that had the shootout with the cops, Henri Brown heard enough of their talk to realize Dad had hired them to get rid of Blair's body.”
“You and Blair... he's your boyfriend? Is he going to be okay?” Steven sounded a little bewildered, but then I'd thrown a lot of stuff at him.
“It was touch and go for a while, but he's gonna make it. I had to stay with him, or I think he might have just let go and passed on.”
“I didn't know that you still did anything with guys. I thought it had been just a teenage thing.” Steven had spied on me a few times, when there had been some mutual groping with guy friends when I was a kid, but he'd kept my secret.
“I guess you could say that I'm bi; I don't really care for labels. Anyway, Blair is it for me, for the rest of our lives. I hope you'll give him a chance, Steven.”
Steven scrubbed his hands over his face. “I don't dislike Blair. I just don't know him very well. You're my brother, and I don't want to lose touch with you ever again. If Blair's with you, then it's okay with me, and we'll be fine. Invite me to dinner sometimes, and I'll do the same for you guys. Come on out to the racetrack, have some fun. I seem to recall that Blair had some kind of whacky system for betting, didn't he? I remember him being teased by your friends.”
“Yeah, he did.” I almost smiled, remembering how Blair had ducked behind me, when it looked like he was being hassled by the guys, and how protective I'd felt about him. Then l'd realized he was laughing at them, safely ensconced behind me, and that he probably deserved whatever they wanted to dish out to him. I knew he wouldn't be hurt. So I'd stopped being his shield and let the guys grab him. In truth, that strong, protective reaction had made me feel uncomfortable, and I'd wanted to distance myself a little from feeling his body so close to mine.
“Jim, I know there's an autopsy being done. And I'll tell you what I'm hoping. I'm praying that Dad had a brain tumor or some other medical problem that made him act the way he did.”
“I'll be praying right along with you. What do you want to do about a service? Have a public one or just the family?”
We talked it over and decided to keep the service private, only family, really, and Sally. Poor Sally had been told about Dad's death. She couldn't return to the house since it was a crime scene so she was staying with her sister. Steven said Sally had cried so hard when she was told what had happened that her sister had been afraid she'd have to drive Sally to the hospital for a shot of Valium.
I heard Blair start to stir, and I told Steven I had to go back. We hugged again, and then he left to go home to try to get some sleep.
I didn't see me getting any sleep for the rest of the night. Blair sometimes called me a watchman, and that was what I would be for him. I'd know if he developed any other problems; if he had another out-of-body experience that went south, then I'd ask for reinforcements from the spirit world to keep him here with me.
I shoved my angry feelings down deep inside me. They could wait. I wasn't going to deal with them anytime soon.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
A Fair Distance: Comes a Time. Chapter Nine
Fandom The Sentinel
Author: Laurie
Type: Slash
Rating: PG-17 (for the series)
Word count: 1989 words
Warnings: Link to warnings for the entire series
Written for Sentinel Thursday Challenge 168: Family
Beta’ed by t_verano She gives good beta.
Summary for A Fair Distance: A year after Blair left Jim, and Cascade, they meet again in a small Tennessee town. Blair's been arrested and is being held for questioning at the request of the Cascade PD.
This is the third and final arc to the story, and the two earlier arcs, A Fair Distance:Running on Empty and A Fair Distance: Ball and Chain, as well as several time stamps, can be located at my LJ here or at Artifact Storage Room 3 here or at AO3 here. I believe that AO3 has a nifty feature that allows you to download onto E-readers.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
Steven stormed into the ICU waiting room around three in the morning. He began talking to me in a furious whisper, confident that I would hear him.
“I want answers, Jim. The other detectives either don't know what's going on or they don't want to tell me. I deserve to know why Dad died and what in the hell Sandburg has to do with it. Didn't he leave Cascade a year ago? How's he mixed up in this? All I've been told is that my father committed suicide during a gun battle in his own damn house! And I know Sandburg was there, and he's sick and you're glued to his damn side. But I'm your brother, and you owe me! Let the nurses do their job in there and you come out here. Or I'm coming in there, and I'm betting you really don't want me to do that, do you, Jim? I swear I don't want to cause a scene, but I will if that's what it takes to get your attention away from that kid. You won't even return my phone calls, and you're not the only one with a temper. Mine's ready to blow. You've got five minutes, and then I'm barging in and we will have this conversation in the ICU!”
Steven wasn't the only one whose temper was on a short fuse. Ever since Blair's vital signs had started to improve, I'd been replaying what I'd seen when I'd entered Dad's house. Steven had questions? So did I. But Blair wasn't going to be in any shape to answer them for a while. His condition had been upgraded from critical to serious, but he still needed the ventilator to help him breathe; I'd detected two more times that he'd stopped breathing on his own.
He was in medical restraints for now, to prevent him from yanking at any of his tubes if he woke up in an agitated state. I double-checked them. Sometimes patients still managed to tear out their breathing tubes, even restrained, and without me there to watch him I wanted to be sure he'd be safe.
I was angry. Angry at Dad for harassing Blair and trying to kill him. I was angry that he'd killed himself. But I was also angry with Blair and Henri. Blair should never have gone to Dad's house in the first place. If he'd been straight with Henri about Dad wanting him to stop by Henri would have at least checked with me about it. And Henri shouldn't have taken Blair's word that I was on board with a private visit. He'd known Blair for years now, and he should have remembered that Blair could slant things, especially if he thought it would help somebody else.
I'd had hours after Blair had returned to his physical body to think about what I would have done if he had asked me about stopping over at Dad's. I would have told him to wait, that we'd go over together tomorrow, and if Dad had some concerns about me then I should be involved with discussing it with him.
But one person I wasn't angry with was Steven. He was an innocent victim in all of this, and I hoped that he hadn't seen Dad dead on the floor. I knew I'd never forget the sight, and I didn't want my little brother to remember our father like that.
I kissed Blair on the forehead and laid my hand over his heart for a moment. He'd stayed asleep most of the time, but the sorrowful looks he'd given me when he had roused for a moment or two expressed his worry and regret without him needing to speak.
It wasn't Blair's fault that Dad had chosen to kill himself. But if I knew Blair Sandburg, he'd feel guilty about it anyway. I would have to be careful not to use him for an emotional punching bag, to relieve myself of the anger that I felt burning in my veins.
I left his curtained area of the ICU and stopped at the nurses' station to tell them I would be in the waiting room talking to my brother, but if Blair woke up, to come and get me right away. I'd be listening for trouble, but at least the two assholes who'd been shot were out of the picture. One was in a regular room, recovering from the gunshot wound to his shoulder, and the other guy had coded in the OR.
Steven lost his assertiveness, his tall body seeming to shrink, as soon as I opened the door and walked over to where he was standing, all alone, by a small plastic table that held a coffee pot and Styrofoam cups. There were several couches along the walls, and an open cupboard held blankets that family members could use to try to get some sleep while the people they cared about were in Intensive Care.
He looked at me, eyes red and puffy, his usually well-groomed look all rumpled, sandy hair uncombed, and I saw right through his adult veneer. This was the little brother I'd tried to take care of when we were kids, and it seemed like it had always fallen to me to try to explain the crappy things that had happened to us. “Mom can't live with us anymore,” and “Bud was killed by a bad guy,” and “I'll be there, but Dad has to go away on a business trip and can't come to watch you play on the All-star team.”
I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him hard. He gave a choking sob, and I held him until he sniffed, and freed himself.
“Jim, I've been calling and calling.”
“My phone's lost, turned off; probably it's at Dad's house. I'm sorry, Stevie, I'm so damn sorry. Blair almost died, and I needed to stay with him. And I want answers as much as you do. Let's get some coffee, and I'll tell you what I know, okay?”
We sat down with Styrofoam cups clutched in our hands, and I felt exhausted; I could smell the anxiety and anguish pouring off my tired brother.
Gently, I told him what we'd learned about Dad's involvement with harassing Blair and why Blair had gone to Dad's house yesterday evening. There was a lot of missing information that we hoped Blair might be able to fill in when he felt up to it..
Steven shook his head. “I just don't get it. I never heard Dad complain about Blair, well, except when all that mess with the news media happened and we thought he had been playing you. But he knew Sandburg had given up his career to make things right; we talked about it at the time.” He narrowed his eyes. “What aren't you telling me, Jim?”
I shrugged. It wasn't like I was going to keep Blair my dirty little secret or anything.
“Before Blair left Cascade last year, we had been lovers for a while. But Dad didn't know that. We didn't tell anybody. Things got fucked up, or to be truthful, I fucked things up and Blair left. I didn't see him again till very recently. He was considered a possible suspect in a murder case that I was investigating. We did a lot of talking and we're together again. Steven, he's good for me, and I love the guy.”
Steven's eyes widened but he didn't interrupt.
“I was going to tell Dad. I knew he wouldn't like it, but I thought he'd come around after he got to really know Blair.”
I shoved a hand through my hair, frustrated all over again with Dad. God.
“I dunno, Stevie. Maybe he resented Blair after the dissertation mess and wanted him gone from my life. Maybe he already thought we were lovers and it repulsed him. We might never know why he did what he did. I think he shot himself on impulse, though, because he knew the police were on to him and would find out that he'd drugged Blair. The two thugs that had the shootout with the cops, Henri Brown heard enough of their talk to realize Dad had hired them to get rid of Blair's body.”
“You and Blair... he's your boyfriend? Is he going to be okay?” Steven sounded a little bewildered, but then I'd thrown a lot of stuff at him.
“It was touch and go for a while, but he's gonna make it. I had to stay with him, or I think he might have just let go and passed on.”
“I didn't know that you still did anything with guys. I thought it had been just a teenage thing.” Steven had spied on me a few times, when there had been some mutual groping with guy friends when I was a kid, but he'd kept my secret.
“I guess you could say that I'm bi; I don't really care for labels. Anyway, Blair is it for me, for the rest of our lives. I hope you'll give him a chance, Steven.”
Steven scrubbed his hands over his face. “I don't dislike Blair. I just don't know him very well. You're my brother, and I don't want to lose touch with you ever again. If Blair's with you, then it's okay with me, and we'll be fine. Invite me to dinner sometimes, and I'll do the same for you guys. Come on out to the racetrack, have some fun. I seem to recall that Blair had some kind of whacky system for betting, didn't he? I remember him being teased by your friends.”
“Yeah, he did.” I almost smiled, remembering how Blair had ducked behind me, when it looked like he was being hassled by the guys, and how protective I'd felt about him. Then l'd realized he was laughing at them, safely ensconced behind me, and that he probably deserved whatever they wanted to dish out to him. I knew he wouldn't be hurt. So I'd stopped being his shield and let the guys grab him. In truth, that strong, protective reaction had made me feel uncomfortable, and I'd wanted to distance myself a little from feeling his body so close to mine.
“Jim, I know there's an autopsy being done. And I'll tell you what I'm hoping. I'm praying that Dad had a brain tumor or some other medical problem that made him act the way he did.”
“I'll be praying right along with you. What do you want to do about a service? Have a public one or just the family?”
We talked it over and decided to keep the service private, only family, really, and Sally. Poor Sally had been told about Dad's death. She couldn't return to the house since it was a crime scene so she was staying with her sister. Steven said Sally had cried so hard when she was told what had happened that her sister had been afraid she'd have to drive Sally to the hospital for a shot of Valium.
I heard Blair start to stir, and I told Steven I had to go back. We hugged again, and then he left to go home to try to get some sleep.
I didn't see me getting any sleep for the rest of the night. Blair sometimes called me a watchman, and that was what I would be for him. I'd know if he developed any other problems; if he had another out-of-body experience that went south, then I'd ask for reinforcements from the spirit world to keep him here with me.
I shoved my angry feelings down deep inside me. They could wait. I wasn't going to deal with them anytime soon.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
A Fair Distance: Comes a Time. Chapter Nine