Title: What matters most
Fandom: The Sentinel
Characters/Pairing: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg
Prompt: Desecrate
Rating: General
Summary: Blair learns a lesson
The damage was painful to even look at. Metal had been twisted and bent until the original shape was no longer recognizable. Once it had been a place of safety, of protection, now it was little more than the sum total of it's parts. And the parts were not even close to recognizable as what they'd begun life as. Fabric that had once cradled bodies was now ripped apart, the stuffing within drifting down the road in tufts and tidbits, polyester snow drifts that seemed so serene next to the carnage.
Metal twisted around trees, embedded deep into the wood and likely spelling doom for the grove. Perhaps they would heal, bark growing over the intruder, but they would never be the same again. Nor would Blair Sandburg's life ever truly be what it was before. He had destroyed the most precious thing in his best friend's life and he couldn't even fix it. Not now. Maybe not for a few dozen years.
In the blink of an eye his life was going to change, his heart falling like a stone as he heard the sound of Jim's voice behind him.
"Chief?! Chief!"
A moment later the Cascade police detective swept his partner and guide into his arms, hugging him fiercely. It didn't matter who saw. Blair was on his feet and if he was a bit bloody around the edge, that was okay, just so long as he was alive and standing and okay.
"Jim, I'm sorry. There was this wolf in the road and I swerved to avoid him and then the next thing I knew I had hit the tree and the truck wrapped around it and oh god don't kill me for wrecking your truck, I didn't mean to and I swear I'll pay for it and..."
"Chief, are you okay?"
"And I know it might take me a million years but I'll make it up to you, I swear and... What?" He blinked, owlish, staring up at his partner. "What did you ask?"
Jim chuckled, smoothing blood matted curls back from Blair's face. "I asked if you're all right?"
Frowning, he touched the cut on his brow. "A few bumps and bruises, my ankle is kind of sore and this gash on my head that the paramedic says bled worse than it really is."
Nodding, he hugged Blair again. "That's all that matters, Chief. That's all that matters.