Shadows and Siege 4
Two years ago, a secret covert ops organization called Section One showed up in Jim's loft to recruit Jim and Blair (~read Shadows of the Past~). Now, two years later, Section's new head, Nikita, tells Jim that he's supposed to work with a traitor from Stargate Command named Makepeace to get rid of a group of invading aliens called goa'uld.
Shadows and Siege Part 4.
Sequel to Shadows of the Past
Fandoms: Primary: Sentinel. Secondary: La Femme Nikita, Stargate SG-1
Slash
Rated: ADULT?
Author's Note: Some people are having trouble remember the minor characters I've pulled from canon (Le Femme Nikita and Stargate) so small graphics are included.
Shadows and Siege part one
Shadows and Siege part two
Shadows and Siege part three
The black-shirted operative opponent slid out of his cover, bringing his zat up as he quickly moved to take new cover behind a pillar. Jim silently cursed, broke position and moved to cover the new man even as he tried to figure out who the operative was targeting. No one should be there. As he moved, he caught sight of brown curls through the fonds of a squat palm plant.
The black shirt came around the opposite side of the pillar, his zat already held out, and Jim tightened his finger on the trigger, flinching as the air electrified and made the hair on his arm stand up. Blue trails flickered across the man's body as he jerked forward, twitched and fell to the ground.
"Sandburg!" Jim snapped, and Blair's head popped up with that wide-eyed expression that made it so hard to chew the man out, but this was the third time he'd screwed up, which put him one up on Tobias. When they'd been training with Michael, Blair had learned this shit at a speed that had amazed Jim, but now Blair was worse than in his first year as a ride-along.
"Which simulation are we running?" Jim demanded, his arms crossed as he glared at his guide, and there was the slow blush as Blair glanced around. One by one, the others stood up from their own positions as they realized the training simulation had officially ended. Karl Jurgen, Blair's supposed partner during this maneuver was already twenty yards farther, and Blair was completely out of position. Jim sincerely hoped that he could keep the situation from turning into a firefight where Blair had to cover someone, but it could happen. It could happen, and he needed to know that Blair had his head in the game.
"Oh man, okay, I'm supposed to be with Karl. I'm sorry… I'm just not really with it today, you know?" Blair looked around at the various members of the… Jim hesitated to call them a team. Clare Tobias had an expression of sympathy on her face and Karl Jurgen was studying Blair with that almost amused expression he so often had. Makepeace, however, looked like Simon after four hours of meetings with the mayor. His aggression set Jim's teeth on edge, but rather than risk alienating the man, he glared at the black-shirted operative now groaning his way back to consciousness before glaring at his guide.
"You should have been in position, and then I wouldn't have had to shoot someone. This isn't a game, Chief." Jim could feel his anger surge, fed by the worry that Blair wasn't taking this seriously enough. Taking a deep breath, Jim waited to see if anyone was going to try to jump to Blair's defense. While he couldn't allow them to make excuses for his very-obviously distracted guide, an attempt to defend him would at least show some sign of camaraderie.
Blair blushed and then shoved his zat gun back into its holster. "I said I'm sorry." Blair's voice had that tight edge that warned of a coming explosion, and Jim could feel his guts knot. The last thing he needed was for Blair to get his righteous indignation going. The guys at the station might think of Blair as being laid back, but Jim knew that the man had a temper and if pushed far enough, he turned into a vicious verbal time bomb ready to explode.
"Sandburg, Knudsen, sit this one out. In fact, take Tobias and Jurgen with you and get something to eat while we run a few additional simulations," Jim ordered as he split the team. Bruhn and Knudsen exchanged a quick glance and Makepeace's already sour expression turned a shade more sour.
"Jim, I'm okay. I promise, I'll do better next time," Blair quickly vowed with an almost desperation that Jim could read in his face.
"It's fine, Chief. Just get something to eat, do whatever you do to get your head back in the game, and come back ready to work in an hour."
Blair stared at him for a second, for long enough that the others had all gathered near the door leading out of the massive training room. "Chief, just take a break," Jim said more softly, and slowly Blair nodded.
"Hey, I could use some lunch anyway," he shrugged as he headed for the door. Tobias reached out and touched Blair's arm, and Blair smiled at the woman before the small group headed out into the corridor.
The door had no more swung shut before Makepeace had moved to a position near Jim. "Sir, they are not battle ready, Sandburg and
Tobias in particular. We should reconfigure the team without them."
"I didn't ask your opinion, soldier," Jim commented coldly. Something had Blair distracted today, but then he'd been up most of the night reading those damn reports, so that something might be as simple as a lack of sleep. Jim allowed his hearing to track Blair through the halls of Section to the nearby communal area where the others were ordering some food. Tobias was nervous. Her mistakes had been more random-sometimes rushing the plan and other times totally missing her cue. And Knudsen was still hesitant to follow Jim's orders.
"Sandburg's a liability."
"Stand down, Captain," Jim snapped.
"Colonel Ellison." Makepeace sounded ready to blow.
"I said stand down." Jim turned and glared at the man, daring him to take this just one step farther. Bruhn looked from one to the other in concern until Makepeace finally nodded and stiffened.
"Yes, sir."
Jim scrubbed his face and struggled with his own fraying temper. If he had to guess, he'd say that Knudsen and Bruhn were Nikita's fallbacks… ready to report on any problems and possibly assassinate any member of the team going outside Section guidelines. Jim had seen Michael shoot a member of his own team in the back of the head for not following an order-and a rather trivial order at that-so Jim had no illusions about Section's ruthlessness. And Nikita had to know that Jim would never take that kind of disciplinary action, so it made sense that someone on the team would. Getting angry with Makepeace would simply put the man's life in danger and possibly convince Nikita that none of them were capable of handling this mission. Jim didn't really want to find out what failure led to.
He took a deep breath and continued with a calmness that he didn't feel. "Our mission is to get Sandburg and Jurgen as close as possible for as long as possible. Bruhn, let's run simulation five without you trying to watch Knudsen. Makepeace, you have point," Jim said as he started walking back toward the far end of the football sized room. "Scenario five," he called out to the Section operatives playing hostiles and the techs running the holograms and pyrotechnics.
"Yes, sir," Knudsen barked the words out like a recruit in bootcamp and Jim resisted an urge to just go back to his room and shut himself in. They weren't a team. They weren't going to be a team in a few days.
Listening in on the other half of their team, Jim could hear Blair's voice rattling on about how he was usually much better with missions. No one was rushing to reassure him. Jim gritted his teeth and spent a moment listening to that distant conversation.
"So, Hannu? Isn't that a girl's name? Man, that must not be such a easy name for a soldier to have, huh?" Blair asked. Jim flinched and wondered if he was going to have to go rescue his guide. He didn't feel any easier when a long silence followed.
"Blair... that must not be such an easy name for a man to have," Knudsen finally retorted.
Blair immediately began laughing, the sound bouncing and skittering on the concrete and steel separating Jim from his guide. "Oh man, you have no idea. I learned to talk fast and run faster when I was a kid, but it's not like I have a whole lot of manliness to defend. I let the alpha dogs bash their heads into each other while I just watch from a safe distance, anyway. But you? You like ooze testosterone."
"I... I ooze testosterone?" Jim knew that Knudsen's English was perfect, so he was guessing the confusion he could hear was because the man was trying to understand Sandburg.
"Totally," Blair agreed enthusiastically.
"I actually have had no trouble with the name. Hanne is common enough for a woman, but Hannu is Finnish. I am named after my grandfather."
"Ah. Cool. Blair means 'dweller of the plains and fields.' Mom was totally into wandering the earth and getting in touch with her spiritual truths, so she wanted to give me a name that would remind me to do the same. Of course, then I went and hooked up with a cop and started taking on gunmen with water hoses and vending machines, so I'm not so sure it worked."
Jim could hear the disbelief in the silence, but then if he hadn't been there for Blair's adventures in creative weaponry, he probably wouldn't believe it either. And then without taking a breath, Blair was off on how his necklace was topaz, which had supposed mystical properties to sharpen thinking and encourage both creativity and pragmatism. When Blair then went off on the placebo effect of psychological talismans, Jim made a mental note to pin his guide down later and figure out what was running through the man's head to get him so worked up. Luckily Tobias was off on the refractive properties of gemstones and Jurgen was happily chatting away about psychological crap. He should have known that Blair would win over the two scientists even if Makepeace clearly still had issues. Makepeace's issues had issues when it came to Blair.
Relegating his guide to the back of his mind, Jim ran the scenario with just Makepeace and Bruhn, watching as the two made it through four checkpoints before Bruhn got tagged. Unlike traditional war games, the opposition was using live fire, and the zat blast caught Bruhn in the middle of his stride so that the jolt make him jerk upright and then fly forward off a step and toward the ground helplessly.
"Hold fire," Jim called as he trotted out from behind his cover, shoving his own zat back into its holster as he hurried to check on the man.
Off to the side, Makepeace was frowning, but Jim didn't have time for the hardass Marine. No way could Makepeace have made colonel if he didn't know how to build a team, but the way he pounced on every mistake was putting everyone on edge. Kneeling next to Bruhn, Jim turned the man's head to check out the damage from the fall. He groaned and started twitching his way back to consciousness when one of the Section opposition members handed him a damp rag.
"You're going to have one hell of a swollen nose tomorrow," Jim said as Bruhn blinked. He handed over the cloth, and Bruhn reached up and wiped the blood off his face as he rolled to his side.
"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't see him."
"It's okay. Cooper's a sneaky one," Jim said as he nodded at the Section man who had stepped back as the opposition team in black waited to see what Jim would order. "We're all making mistakes at this point. Let's call it for the day and get an early start tomorrow."
"Sir? We've only been at it for four hours," Makepeace argued. Jim didn't even acknowledge the complaint as he helped Bruhn up. Bruhn's eyes watered a bit, which didn't surprise Jim considering that his nose was still trickling blood. The shock of a zat was bad enough, but falling on your face definitely deserved some time off.
"Why don't you head to medical and see if they can get you cleaned up so you don't look like a mugging victim tomorrow," Jim suggested.
"I'm fine, sir," Bruhn immediately protested.
"I know you are soldier, but you're going to be badly bruised, and medical can minimize that bruising. That wasn't a request." Jim took his hand off Bruhn's arm and gave him a stern look.
"Yes, sir," Bruhn quickly answered as he pressed the cloth to his nose and headed for the exit.
"Are we dismissed sir?" one of the black-shirted operatives asked… Jim thought it was Itzhak, but he'd met so many people that he couldn't be sure. Blair would know.
"Yeah, let's knock off and meet here tomorrow at 0600 hours," Jim said, knowing that Blair was going to have a fit, but they really did need serious time practicing. "Have tech support sent all reports from the mission to my quarters."
"Jason will want to debrief personally," the man suggested hesitantly.
"Then have him call my quarters, but I want those reports delivered," Jim ordered as he turned and headed for the door. If he was supposed to be a commander, he had to take command, and between the Section operatives who only nominally obeyed and team members who were clearly questioning his authority, he wasn't having much success.
Walking down the hall, Jim ignored Makepeace shadowing him and swiped his security card through the reader and opened the door to the lounge. Jurgen and Tobias were sitting hip to hip right across from Blair who was talking about the eating patterns of the Cofan tribes of Ecuador and Colombia, poking the air with his fork. Knudsen sat a little separate from them, eating his fish and watching the others carefully. When Jim and Makepeace came in, Knudsen studied them, his eyebrows lowering in concern when Bruhn didn't follow.
"He fell and bruised his face. I sent him to medical," Jim said to the man before even greeting anyone else. Knudsen stood up. "Go check on him," Jim suggested as he jerked his head toward the door. Knudsen didn't need a second invitation; he dropped his fork and headed out of the lounge immediately.
"Will he be alright?" Jurgen asked, and at least the man was showing some concern. Blair looked outright sick with worry, which didn't surprise Jim at all.
"Oh man, what happened?" Blair asked before Jim could answer. Jim stood beside his guide and stole a few French fries off his plate.
"He got zatted and fell down some stairs. Training accidents happen," Jim shrugged. A white-uniformed server with gray hair came through the far door to take their meal orders, and Jim ordered a large meal for himself even while stealing Blair's food.
"You could wait for your own fries," Blair complained once the server had gone.
"They always taste better when I steal yours," Jim teased as he sat down next to Blair. "So, has he been boring you with that mystical crystals crap?" Jim asked the other two. Tobias' mouth just about fell open, but Jurgen just gave a huff of laughter.
"Dr. Sandburg is a fascinating man," the profiler offered as he looked from Jim to Blair and back again. Oh yeah, Jim definitely had the impression that the man knew more than he was saying.
Tobias was still shaking her head in disbelief. "But if you were training, how could you have heard that? The enhancement of senses I understand, but the dispersal rate of the sound waves with the physical barriers between the two of you should have prevented any sort of eavesdropping." Clare Tobias stared at him, her pixy face clearly shocked and confused. Blair just looked at Jim with just as much confusion but for a totally different reason, and Jim gave his guide a little shrug. Section knew all about his senses; the team needed to understand as well.
"It's impossible," Tobias said quietly, and that was the word that was guaranteed to set Blair off.
"No way," Blair told Tobias after a brief, shocked pause. "Physical barriers are like totally meaningless. Jim's hearing can interpret the echoes off physical barriers and analyze each sound wave without the two distortions cancelling each other. We did a whole series of tests when we were working on overcoming white noise generators," Blair said enthusiastically.
"You can hear past white noise? Consistently?" Jurgen leaned forward and studied them even more carefully. Jim just reached over and stole more of Blair's fries.
"Oh man, if you're going to steal something, steal the carrots. Vegetables are our friends," Blair complained without trying to actually stop Jim from grabbing more.
Jurgen leaned back in his chair, and Jim chewed on another fry as Tobias finally got her mouth closed. "That's remarkable."
"Coming from a woman who sees aliens as normal, I'm not sure how to take that," Jim joked, finally feeling some of the tension easing in the room. Makepeace continued to sit silent, but at least four of them were talking.
"Only as a compliment."
"I'm more fascinated with Dr. Sandburg's coaching," Jurgen offered as he leaned forward again-always moving. "Dr. Sandburg, if you have taught Jim to listen past white noise, then you truly are remarkable considering--."
"It's not like I do anything," Blair said quickly as he shrugged. "Jim's the one with the hearing." Jim could smell the distress starting to poison the air around Blair with a sharp stink.
"Dr. Sandburg, I find it amazing that you have taught Section a lesson about not underestimating the companion, and yet you find it so easy
to underestimate yourself. For someone with such wisdom and insight, you are a conundrum," Jergen said with a wry smile as he leaned his chin on his hand.
Blair opened his mouth to say something back, and Jim caught Blair by one arm and stood up. "Right now, Blair and I need to have a little talk. We'll be right back, so just give us a second," Jim assured them before anyone could go and suggest they go back to quarters. To come together as a team, they needed to just talk and to trust each other with information that would start to built trust, but he couldn't concentrate on small talk when Blair's distraction had obviously just turned into something darker.
"But-" Blair started, but Jim had pulled him out of the room before he could even form a protest. In the hallway, Jim let go of Blair's arm and waited for the explosion.
"Oh man, that was so not cool. If you want to talk, then you can ask to talk, not grab me like some fucking kid you're pulling out of the room," Blair snapped. Jim leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms, waiting for Blair to get past the distracters and fess up to whatever was bugging him. Blair crossed his arms and glared right back.
"Well?" Blair finally demanded.
"You're the one who's off his game and now smelling of fear. You want to tell me what's going on?" Jim just waited as silence filled the corridor.
"What? You take the fucking cake. I'm in the middle of secret conspiracy central here, and you wonder why I'm freaking out? Cut me some slack, already."
Blair turned to storm back to the breakroom, and Jim caught him by the arm and yanked him back. "Oh no, you were in there discussing the magical, mystical properties of topaz half an hour ago. Now you're freaking out. Talk to me, Chief."
"Spiritual," Blair said mulishly.
"What?" Jim blinked as he tried to figure out where he'd lost the conversation, but it was a common feeling whenever he was around Blair.
"Topaz. It's a spiritual property, a way to remind myself that I have to think clearly and be practical. It's just a psychological focus," Blair explained, slipping neatly from the anger distraction to the lecture-mode distraction. Jim had always thought of himself as an intelligent, insightful man, but it had taken him two years to figure out just how many ways his guide had to manipulate the world, including him.
"Forget it, Chief. I don't care if topaz is spiritual or sexual. I want to know what has you upset."
Blair froze, his scent growing even sharper as he stared at Jim with wide, blue eyes.
"Chief?"
"No way. No. No, I cannot do this now. This is too freaking weird," Blair muttered, and Jim started feeling a sense of dread. Blair never panicked until after the crisis was over, so if Blair was losing it, Jim could feel a very real need to panic clawing up his own guts.
"Chief, you're really worrying me here."
"Jim, I don't even know where to start. I mean, I can't."
Jim responded to Blair's attempts to physically back away by grabbing his guide and pinning him against the wall with his own body, his chest pressing into Blair's chest and his hands resting on either side.
"We need to trust each other. You need to trust me. Blair, I need you by my side in this or I can't pull this off," Jim said, barely breathing the words in Blair's ear and still aware of how dangerous they were. Blair was almost shaking. "Blair, what the hell has you so spooked?"
"Oh, man. Fuck."
"Blair, does this have anything to do with the reports you read last night?" Jim waited, leaning his weight into Blair to silently warn him that they were discussing this even if he had to sit on Blair. Even without an answer, Jim knew he was on the right track because Blair smelled of fear and sweat. "Take this one thing at a time. Tell me one thing from those reports last night," Jim urged.
"Sentinels are addicted to pheromones," Blair blurted. Jim took a step back in surprise, and Blair glanced down the hall as though considering running for it. Reaching out, Jim caught his arm and pulled Blair close.
"Okay, what do you mean addicted?" Jim asked, struggling to stay calm as dark fears whispered… reminded him of Laura and Lila and Veronica and even Caroline. He fought down a gut-level urge to just deny and attack. He might have except in the middle of Section, he couldn't afford to explode.
"Where's the Ellison denial and anger?" Blair asked, looking up at Jim. "I mean, this is totally attacking your sense of control, and let's be honest: you aren't always the most rational when it comes to control issues."
"I'm trying to be rational," Jim said tightly as he had to rein in another stab of anger. "Just explain what you mean by addicted."
"Addicted," Blair said with a snort. "Addicted as in you need pheromones, initially to keep the on-line senses stabilized but then eventually just good old fashioned addicted--medical withdrawal if you don't have access to pheromones type addicted."
"Any pheromones or a particular one?" Jim asked suspiciously and suddenly a few things started making a strange sort of sense.
"Oh man, that way lays the weirdness."
Jim closed his eyes and struggled to take a few deep breaths as he realized where Blair was going. Fighting every instinct, he let go of his guide and took a step back. It explained the fear. "Blair, I’m not going to take this farther than you're willing to go just because Section has told you that a Sentinel-guide relationship is sexual. I know you're not gay, so if Section thinks we're having sex just to get my senses to work better or because I'm addicted and out of control, they're wrong. We're friends, and I wouldn't do that." Jim kept his voice low and calm as he tried to will Blair to believe him. If Blair ran for it and never wanted to see him again, Jim would understand. He would do his best to blow Section to kingdom come for dropping this little bomb in their laps, but he'd understand Blair's fear and respect his choice.
"Buddy, you have issues," Blair huffed, and suddenly Jim totally lost track of the conversation again. Blair was supposed to be nervous, afraid of Jim; instead he was in Jim's face poking him in the chest. "I'm the one who's had a thing for you since the day I saw you in the hospital. I'm fucking horny for you, and me leaking pheromones into the air hijacked your Sentinel physiology, which so totally explains why you let me move Larry into the loft because, man, that was so out of character."
"Wait," Jim interrupted before Blair could get off on another tangent. "Two years ago, I told you I was bisexual, and you didn't think to fucking mention that you've had a thing for me since day one?" Jim demanded. Okay, he was angry. He had fucking opened up, and Sandburg had just totally denied him any chance to know something he had every right to know.
"You told me you'd had an affair with a commanding officer."
"Exactly."
"Exactly," Blair said in a smug tone of voice that Jim was just not understanding.
"Sandburg, make sense."
That made Blair sigh. "Gay men, and bisexual men who are in a relationship with another man are far more likely than the average person to have a strong preference for a particular physical type."
"So I'm not your type?" Jim asked, still trying to sort the Blair-logic.
"You are not this dense, Jim." Blair crossed his arms and glared as though Jim were saying something bizarre.
"Obviously, today I am."
"Fine. I'll just spell it out for you. I'm not your type, and I didn't want to lose our friendship by making you say that out loud so that it was uncomfortable between us."
"You're not my type?" Jim asked incredulously.
"That's what I said. Man, you are acting like a real dick about this. It's not like I knew you were getting addicted to my pheromones; of course, I should have figured something out considering that you lost your mind every time a pretty girl started panting after you."
"Their pheromones," Jim said softly, and that really did make him flinch. Being addicted to Blair's pheromones he could deal with, but his track record with women was bad enough that the probably needed to tell Simon about this so he could keep Jim off any cases where his judgment could be compromised… again.
Blair was nodding. "The more attractive someone finds you, the more their pheromones affect you. And normally, your guide would shield you from that, but…" Blair let his words trail off with a vague wave of his hand.
"Because we haven't had sex, I'm vulnerable," Jim said as the turned that thought over in his head. The practical solution seemed pretty obvious to him.
"It's not like we have sex and 'bam!' you aren't vulnerable." Blair rolled his eyes, and Jim's incipient lust vanished.
"Okay, what is it like?"
"When a Sentinel and guide have sex over a long period of time, the pheromone receptors gradually adapt to accept only the pheromones from the guide. A Sentinel who hasn't chosen a companion, an undedicated Sentinel, can work with anyone who finds him or her attractive, but it's like the most interested partner gets the Sentinel's attention."
"Wait, Lila liked me more than you did? Chief, considering how that came out, I'm offended." Jim backed up to the far wall and leaned against it as he tried to sort out his feelings. He needed Blair's pheromones, but Blair obviously wasn't all that attracted to him, but Blair was attracted, and a murderess bitch actually wanted him more than Blair. This wasn't a good place to start a relationship.
"Oh man, you're getting defensive now."
"I think I'm entitled. You're interested, but not as much as Lila or Veronica were."
"Think about it. When Veronica showed up, I was broke, I was borrowing money from you and stressed, and still getting over Alex's death and man, I felt so guilty about that. She was on campus to see me, and some wacko just shoots her, and I'm still not sure I'm buying the Section line about her being some master criminal. I was too screwed up to have the hots for you, so of course I wasn't doing my job. And I've been thinking about every case where your instincts got all turned around. Laura was right after I lost Maya. Lila was a week after Roy Williams died. I so totally was not doing my job."
"Your job?" Jim raised an eyebrow.
"My job. As the guide, I’m supposed to be your shield so you can't get hijacked, only because you aren't physically attracted to me, it's all messed up. I mean, we can totally keep working together, but as an undedicated Sentinel, you'll always have that vulnerability, although if I stop dating, I think I could probably…"
"Stop!" Jim said, one hand out as his head spun from the overload of information. "Blair, are you attracted to me?" Jim asked as he held up one finger. Blair opened his mouth, and Jim cautioned him, "One word-yes or no because I am out of patience for obfuscations here, Chief."
Blair narrowed his eyes. "Fine. Yes."
Jim held up a second finger. "I'm attracted to you. I don't know where you get this shit about a man only wanting a certain physical type, but I'm far more interested in what a person does than what he looks like."
"Wait, you mean-"
"Three!" Jim interrupted as he held up a third finger. "I trust you, and I try not to start a sexual relationship without trust no matter how attractive I find the man or woman." He held up a fourth finger. "Do you trust me?"
"Absolutely! But-"
"That was a yes. Blair, we trust each other, we like each other, we're sexually attracted to each other, we live together. I have to ask why we haven't been having sex."
"This could totally complicate things," Blair said cautiously.
"Yep," Jim agreed as he flung an arm around Blair's shoulder and pointed his guide back toward the break room. "Now we have a team that needs some team building, so we're going to talk and share stories and find out if this labyrinth has a pool table in it. Right after I have lunch."
"Just like that?" Blair asked, and Jim assumed he meant the having sex part and not the team playing pool together.
Jim stopped, his hand still resting on Blair's shoulder. "Do you want to give this a try?"
Blair chewed on his lip and frowned for a second. "I want this more than anything, but if you don't want me, if you're just doing this because you'd rather have my hormones screwing you up than be vulnerable…" Blair took a deep breath, "just please don't do that to me, man."
"I'm not, Blair," Jim promised, and he used his thumb to trace the edge of Blair's jaw. "I am attracted to you. I never thought you were interested because dated so many women. If I thought I'd stood a chance with you, I would have made a fool out of myself a long time ago."
"We suck," Blair said softly.
"I do," Jim agreed with a smile. "I'm hoping it goes both ways." Before Blair could answer, Jim had swiped the security card through the reader, and the door to the lounge slid open. Jim's lasagna and fries sat waiting, and Makepeace was eating with single-minded dedication as Jurgen and Tobias chatted about some study on stress and performance.
"Oh man, I read that piece," Blair said as he sat at the table, reached over, and stole some of Jim's fries. Jim smiled as he sat at the table. There just might be hope for them.
Shadows and Siege Part 4.
Sequel to Shadows of the Past
Fandoms: Primary: Sentinel. Secondary: La Femme Nikita, Stargate SG-1
Slash
Rated: ADULT?
Author's Note: Some people are having trouble remember the minor characters I've pulled from canon (Le Femme Nikita and Stargate) so small graphics are included.
Shadows and Siege part one
Shadows and Siege part two
Shadows and Siege part three
The black-shirted operative opponent slid out of his cover, bringing his zat up as he quickly moved to take new cover behind a pillar. Jim silently cursed, broke position and moved to cover the new man even as he tried to figure out who the operative was targeting. No one should be there. As he moved, he caught sight of brown curls through the fonds of a squat palm plant.
The black shirt came around the opposite side of the pillar, his zat already held out, and Jim tightened his finger on the trigger, flinching as the air electrified and made the hair on his arm stand up. Blue trails flickered across the man's body as he jerked forward, twitched and fell to the ground.
"Sandburg!" Jim snapped, and Blair's head popped up with that wide-eyed expression that made it so hard to chew the man out, but this was the third time he'd screwed up, which put him one up on Tobias. When they'd been training with Michael, Blair had learned this shit at a speed that had amazed Jim, but now Blair was worse than in his first year as a ride-along.
"Which simulation are we running?" Jim demanded, his arms crossed as he glared at his guide, and there was the slow blush as Blair glanced around. One by one, the others stood up from their own positions as they realized the training simulation had officially ended. Karl Jurgen, Blair's supposed partner during this maneuver was already twenty yards farther, and Blair was completely out of position. Jim sincerely hoped that he could keep the situation from turning into a firefight where Blair had to cover someone, but it could happen. It could happen, and he needed to know that Blair had his head in the game.
"Oh man, okay, I'm supposed to be with Karl. I'm sorry… I'm just not really with it today, you know?" Blair looked around at the various members of the… Jim hesitated to call them a team. Clare Tobias had an expression of sympathy on her face and Karl Jurgen was studying Blair with that almost amused expression he so often had. Makepeace, however, looked like Simon after four hours of meetings with the mayor. His aggression set Jim's teeth on edge, but rather than risk alienating the man, he glared at the black-shirted operative now groaning his way back to consciousness before glaring at his guide.
"You should have been in position, and then I wouldn't have had to shoot someone. This isn't a game, Chief." Jim could feel his anger surge, fed by the worry that Blair wasn't taking this seriously enough. Taking a deep breath, Jim waited to see if anyone was going to try to jump to Blair's defense. While he couldn't allow them to make excuses for his very-obviously distracted guide, an attempt to defend him would at least show some sign of camaraderie.
Blair blushed and then shoved his zat gun back into its holster. "I said I'm sorry." Blair's voice had that tight edge that warned of a coming explosion, and Jim could feel his guts knot. The last thing he needed was for Blair to get his righteous indignation going. The guys at the station might think of Blair as being laid back, but Jim knew that the man had a temper and if pushed far enough, he turned into a vicious verbal time bomb ready to explode.
"Sandburg, Knudsen, sit this one out. In fact, take Tobias and Jurgen with you and get something to eat while we run a few additional simulations," Jim ordered as he split the team. Bruhn and Knudsen exchanged a quick glance and Makepeace's already sour expression turned a shade more sour.
"Jim, I'm okay. I promise, I'll do better next time," Blair quickly vowed with an almost desperation that Jim could read in his face.
"It's fine, Chief. Just get something to eat, do whatever you do to get your head back in the game, and come back ready to work in an hour."
Blair stared at him for a second, for long enough that the others had all gathered near the door leading out of the massive training room. "Chief, just take a break," Jim said more softly, and slowly Blair nodded.
"Hey, I could use some lunch anyway," he shrugged as he headed for the door. Tobias reached out and touched Blair's arm, and Blair smiled at the woman before the small group headed out into the corridor.
The door had no more swung shut before Makepeace had moved to a position near Jim. "Sir, they are not battle ready, Sandburg and
Tobias in particular. We should reconfigure the team without them."
"I didn't ask your opinion, soldier," Jim commented coldly. Something had Blair distracted today, but then he'd been up most of the night reading those damn reports, so that something might be as simple as a lack of sleep. Jim allowed his hearing to track Blair through the halls of Section to the nearby communal area where the others were ordering some food. Tobias was nervous. Her mistakes had been more random-sometimes rushing the plan and other times totally missing her cue. And Knudsen was still hesitant to follow Jim's orders.
"Sandburg's a liability."
"Stand down, Captain," Jim snapped.
"Colonel Ellison." Makepeace sounded ready to blow.
"I said stand down." Jim turned and glared at the man, daring him to take this just one step farther. Bruhn looked from one to the other in concern until Makepeace finally nodded and stiffened.
"Yes, sir."
Jim scrubbed his face and struggled with his own fraying temper. If he had to guess, he'd say that Knudsen and Bruhn were Nikita's fallbacks… ready to report on any problems and possibly assassinate any member of the team going outside Section guidelines. Jim had seen Michael shoot a member of his own team in the back of the head for not following an order-and a rather trivial order at that-so Jim had no illusions about Section's ruthlessness. And Nikita had to know that Jim would never take that kind of disciplinary action, so it made sense that someone on the team would. Getting angry with Makepeace would simply put the man's life in danger and possibly convince Nikita that none of them were capable of handling this mission. Jim didn't really want to find out what failure led to.
He took a deep breath and continued with a calmness that he didn't feel. "Our mission is to get Sandburg and Jurgen as close as possible for as long as possible. Bruhn, let's run simulation five without you trying to watch Knudsen. Makepeace, you have point," Jim said as he started walking back toward the far end of the football sized room. "Scenario five," he called out to the Section operatives playing hostiles and the techs running the holograms and pyrotechnics.
"Yes, sir," Knudsen barked the words out like a recruit in bootcamp and Jim resisted an urge to just go back to his room and shut himself in. They weren't a team. They weren't going to be a team in a few days.
Listening in on the other half of their team, Jim could hear Blair's voice rattling on about how he was usually much better with missions. No one was rushing to reassure him. Jim gritted his teeth and spent a moment listening to that distant conversation.
"So, Hannu? Isn't that a girl's name? Man, that must not be such a easy name for a soldier to have, huh?" Blair asked. Jim flinched and wondered if he was going to have to go rescue his guide. He didn't feel any easier when a long silence followed.
"Blair... that must not be such an easy name for a man to have," Knudsen finally retorted.
Blair immediately began laughing, the sound bouncing and skittering on the concrete and steel separating Jim from his guide. "Oh man, you have no idea. I learned to talk fast and run faster when I was a kid, but it's not like I have a whole lot of manliness to defend. I let the alpha dogs bash their heads into each other while I just watch from a safe distance, anyway. But you? You like ooze testosterone."
"I... I ooze testosterone?" Jim knew that Knudsen's English was perfect, so he was guessing the confusion he could hear was because the man was trying to understand Sandburg.
"Totally," Blair agreed enthusiastically.
"I actually have had no trouble with the name. Hanne is common enough for a woman, but Hannu is Finnish. I am named after my grandfather."
"Ah. Cool. Blair means 'dweller of the plains and fields.' Mom was totally into wandering the earth and getting in touch with her spiritual truths, so she wanted to give me a name that would remind me to do the same. Of course, then I went and hooked up with a cop and started taking on gunmen with water hoses and vending machines, so I'm not so sure it worked."
Jim could hear the disbelief in the silence, but then if he hadn't been there for Blair's adventures in creative weaponry, he probably wouldn't believe it either. And then without taking a breath, Blair was off on how his necklace was topaz, which had supposed mystical properties to sharpen thinking and encourage both creativity and pragmatism. When Blair then went off on the placebo effect of psychological talismans, Jim made a mental note to pin his guide down later and figure out what was running through the man's head to get him so worked up. Luckily Tobias was off on the refractive properties of gemstones and Jurgen was happily chatting away about psychological crap. He should have known that Blair would win over the two scientists even if Makepeace clearly still had issues. Makepeace's issues had issues when it came to Blair.
Relegating his guide to the back of his mind, Jim ran the scenario with just Makepeace and Bruhn, watching as the two made it through four checkpoints before Bruhn got tagged. Unlike traditional war games, the opposition was using live fire, and the zat blast caught Bruhn in the middle of his stride so that the jolt make him jerk upright and then fly forward off a step and toward the ground helplessly.
"Hold fire," Jim called as he trotted out from behind his cover, shoving his own zat back into its holster as he hurried to check on the man.
Off to the side, Makepeace was frowning, but Jim didn't have time for the hardass Marine. No way could Makepeace have made colonel if he didn't know how to build a team, but the way he pounced on every mistake was putting everyone on edge. Kneeling next to Bruhn, Jim turned the man's head to check out the damage from the fall. He groaned and started twitching his way back to consciousness when one of the Section opposition members handed him a damp rag.
"You're going to have one hell of a swollen nose tomorrow," Jim said as Bruhn blinked. He handed over the cloth, and Bruhn reached up and wiped the blood off his face as he rolled to his side.
"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't see him."
"It's okay. Cooper's a sneaky one," Jim said as he nodded at the Section man who had stepped back as the opposition team in black waited to see what Jim would order. "We're all making mistakes at this point. Let's call it for the day and get an early start tomorrow."
"Sir? We've only been at it for four hours," Makepeace argued. Jim didn't even acknowledge the complaint as he helped Bruhn up. Bruhn's eyes watered a bit, which didn't surprise Jim considering that his nose was still trickling blood. The shock of a zat was bad enough, but falling on your face definitely deserved some time off.
"Why don't you head to medical and see if they can get you cleaned up so you don't look like a mugging victim tomorrow," Jim suggested.
"I'm fine, sir," Bruhn immediately protested.
"I know you are soldier, but you're going to be badly bruised, and medical can minimize that bruising. That wasn't a request." Jim took his hand off Bruhn's arm and gave him a stern look.
"Yes, sir," Bruhn quickly answered as he pressed the cloth to his nose and headed for the exit.
"Are we dismissed sir?" one of the black-shirted operatives asked… Jim thought it was Itzhak, but he'd met so many people that he couldn't be sure. Blair would know.
"Yeah, let's knock off and meet here tomorrow at 0600 hours," Jim said, knowing that Blair was going to have a fit, but they really did need serious time practicing. "Have tech support sent all reports from the mission to my quarters."
"Jason will want to debrief personally," the man suggested hesitantly.
"Then have him call my quarters, but I want those reports delivered," Jim ordered as he turned and headed for the door. If he was supposed to be a commander, he had to take command, and between the Section operatives who only nominally obeyed and team members who were clearly questioning his authority, he wasn't having much success.
Walking down the hall, Jim ignored Makepeace shadowing him and swiped his security card through the reader and opened the door to the lounge. Jurgen and Tobias were sitting hip to hip right across from Blair who was talking about the eating patterns of the Cofan tribes of Ecuador and Colombia, poking the air with his fork. Knudsen sat a little separate from them, eating his fish and watching the others carefully. When Jim and Makepeace came in, Knudsen studied them, his eyebrows lowering in concern when Bruhn didn't follow.
"He fell and bruised his face. I sent him to medical," Jim said to the man before even greeting anyone else. Knudsen stood up. "Go check on him," Jim suggested as he jerked his head toward the door. Knudsen didn't need a second invitation; he dropped his fork and headed out of the lounge immediately.
"Will he be alright?" Jurgen asked, and at least the man was showing some concern. Blair looked outright sick with worry, which didn't surprise Jim at all.
"Oh man, what happened?" Blair asked before Jim could answer. Jim stood beside his guide and stole a few French fries off his plate.
"He got zatted and fell down some stairs. Training accidents happen," Jim shrugged. A white-uniformed server with gray hair came through the far door to take their meal orders, and Jim ordered a large meal for himself even while stealing Blair's food.
"You could wait for your own fries," Blair complained once the server had gone.
"They always taste better when I steal yours," Jim teased as he sat down next to Blair. "So, has he been boring you with that mystical crystals crap?" Jim asked the other two. Tobias' mouth just about fell open, but Jurgen just gave a huff of laughter.
"Dr. Sandburg is a fascinating man," the profiler offered as he looked from Jim to Blair and back again. Oh yeah, Jim definitely had the impression that the man knew more than he was saying.
Tobias was still shaking her head in disbelief. "But if you were training, how could you have heard that? The enhancement of senses I understand, but the dispersal rate of the sound waves with the physical barriers between the two of you should have prevented any sort of eavesdropping." Clare Tobias stared at him, her pixy face clearly shocked and confused. Blair just looked at Jim with just as much confusion but for a totally different reason, and Jim gave his guide a little shrug. Section knew all about his senses; the team needed to understand as well.
"It's impossible," Tobias said quietly, and that was the word that was guaranteed to set Blair off.
"No way," Blair told Tobias after a brief, shocked pause. "Physical barriers are like totally meaningless. Jim's hearing can interpret the echoes off physical barriers and analyze each sound wave without the two distortions cancelling each other. We did a whole series of tests when we were working on overcoming white noise generators," Blair said enthusiastically.
"You can hear past white noise? Consistently?" Jurgen leaned forward and studied them even more carefully. Jim just reached over and stole more of Blair's fries.
"Oh man, if you're going to steal something, steal the carrots. Vegetables are our friends," Blair complained without trying to actually stop Jim from grabbing more.
Jurgen leaned back in his chair, and Jim chewed on another fry as Tobias finally got her mouth closed. "That's remarkable."
"Coming from a woman who sees aliens as normal, I'm not sure how to take that," Jim joked, finally feeling some of the tension easing in the room. Makepeace continued to sit silent, but at least four of them were talking.
"Only as a compliment."
"I'm more fascinated with Dr. Sandburg's coaching," Jurgen offered as he leaned forward again-always moving. "Dr. Sandburg, if you have taught Jim to listen past white noise, then you truly are remarkable considering--."
"It's not like I do anything," Blair said quickly as he shrugged. "Jim's the one with the hearing." Jim could smell the distress starting to poison the air around Blair with a sharp stink.
"Dr. Sandburg, I find it amazing that you have taught Section a lesson about not underestimating the companion, and yet you find it so easy
to underestimate yourself. For someone with such wisdom and insight, you are a conundrum," Jergen said with a wry smile as he leaned his chin on his hand.
Blair opened his mouth to say something back, and Jim caught Blair by one arm and stood up. "Right now, Blair and I need to have a little talk. We'll be right back, so just give us a second," Jim assured them before anyone could go and suggest they go back to quarters. To come together as a team, they needed to just talk and to trust each other with information that would start to built trust, but he couldn't concentrate on small talk when Blair's distraction had obviously just turned into something darker.
"But-" Blair started, but Jim had pulled him out of the room before he could even form a protest. In the hallway, Jim let go of Blair's arm and waited for the explosion.
"Oh man, that was so not cool. If you want to talk, then you can ask to talk, not grab me like some fucking kid you're pulling out of the room," Blair snapped. Jim leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms, waiting for Blair to get past the distracters and fess up to whatever was bugging him. Blair crossed his arms and glared right back.
"Well?" Blair finally demanded.
"You're the one who's off his game and now smelling of fear. You want to tell me what's going on?" Jim just waited as silence filled the corridor.
"What? You take the fucking cake. I'm in the middle of secret conspiracy central here, and you wonder why I'm freaking out? Cut me some slack, already."
Blair turned to storm back to the breakroom, and Jim caught him by the arm and yanked him back. "Oh no, you were in there discussing the magical, mystical properties of topaz half an hour ago. Now you're freaking out. Talk to me, Chief."
"Spiritual," Blair said mulishly.
"What?" Jim blinked as he tried to figure out where he'd lost the conversation, but it was a common feeling whenever he was around Blair.
"Topaz. It's a spiritual property, a way to remind myself that I have to think clearly and be practical. It's just a psychological focus," Blair explained, slipping neatly from the anger distraction to the lecture-mode distraction. Jim had always thought of himself as an intelligent, insightful man, but it had taken him two years to figure out just how many ways his guide had to manipulate the world, including him.
"Forget it, Chief. I don't care if topaz is spiritual or sexual. I want to know what has you upset."
Blair froze, his scent growing even sharper as he stared at Jim with wide, blue eyes.
"Chief?"
"No way. No. No, I cannot do this now. This is too freaking weird," Blair muttered, and Jim started feeling a sense of dread. Blair never panicked until after the crisis was over, so if Blair was losing it, Jim could feel a very real need to panic clawing up his own guts.
"Chief, you're really worrying me here."
"Jim, I don't even know where to start. I mean, I can't."
Jim responded to Blair's attempts to physically back away by grabbing his guide and pinning him against the wall with his own body, his chest pressing into Blair's chest and his hands resting on either side.
"We need to trust each other. You need to trust me. Blair, I need you by my side in this or I can't pull this off," Jim said, barely breathing the words in Blair's ear and still aware of how dangerous they were. Blair was almost shaking. "Blair, what the hell has you so spooked?"
"Oh, man. Fuck."
"Blair, does this have anything to do with the reports you read last night?" Jim waited, leaning his weight into Blair to silently warn him that they were discussing this even if he had to sit on Blair. Even without an answer, Jim knew he was on the right track because Blair smelled of fear and sweat. "Take this one thing at a time. Tell me one thing from those reports last night," Jim urged.
"Sentinels are addicted to pheromones," Blair blurted. Jim took a step back in surprise, and Blair glanced down the hall as though considering running for it. Reaching out, Jim caught his arm and pulled Blair close.
"Okay, what do you mean addicted?" Jim asked, struggling to stay calm as dark fears whispered… reminded him of Laura and Lila and Veronica and even Caroline. He fought down a gut-level urge to just deny and attack. He might have except in the middle of Section, he couldn't afford to explode.
"Where's the Ellison denial and anger?" Blair asked, looking up at Jim. "I mean, this is totally attacking your sense of control, and let's be honest: you aren't always the most rational when it comes to control issues."
"I'm trying to be rational," Jim said tightly as he had to rein in another stab of anger. "Just explain what you mean by addicted."
"Addicted," Blair said with a snort. "Addicted as in you need pheromones, initially to keep the on-line senses stabilized but then eventually just good old fashioned addicted--medical withdrawal if you don't have access to pheromones type addicted."
"Any pheromones or a particular one?" Jim asked suspiciously and suddenly a few things started making a strange sort of sense.
"Oh man, that way lays the weirdness."
Jim closed his eyes and struggled to take a few deep breaths as he realized where Blair was going. Fighting every instinct, he let go of his guide and took a step back. It explained the fear. "Blair, I’m not going to take this farther than you're willing to go just because Section has told you that a Sentinel-guide relationship is sexual. I know you're not gay, so if Section thinks we're having sex just to get my senses to work better or because I'm addicted and out of control, they're wrong. We're friends, and I wouldn't do that." Jim kept his voice low and calm as he tried to will Blair to believe him. If Blair ran for it and never wanted to see him again, Jim would understand. He would do his best to blow Section to kingdom come for dropping this little bomb in their laps, but he'd understand Blair's fear and respect his choice.
"Buddy, you have issues," Blair huffed, and suddenly Jim totally lost track of the conversation again. Blair was supposed to be nervous, afraid of Jim; instead he was in Jim's face poking him in the chest. "I'm the one who's had a thing for you since the day I saw you in the hospital. I'm fucking horny for you, and me leaking pheromones into the air hijacked your Sentinel physiology, which so totally explains why you let me move Larry into the loft because, man, that was so out of character."
"Wait," Jim interrupted before Blair could get off on another tangent. "Two years ago, I told you I was bisexual, and you didn't think to fucking mention that you've had a thing for me since day one?" Jim demanded. Okay, he was angry. He had fucking opened up, and Sandburg had just totally denied him any chance to know something he had every right to know.
"You told me you'd had an affair with a commanding officer."
"Exactly."
"Exactly," Blair said in a smug tone of voice that Jim was just not understanding.
"Sandburg, make sense."
That made Blair sigh. "Gay men, and bisexual men who are in a relationship with another man are far more likely than the average person to have a strong preference for a particular physical type."
"So I'm not your type?" Jim asked, still trying to sort the Blair-logic.
"You are not this dense, Jim." Blair crossed his arms and glared as though Jim were saying something bizarre.
"Obviously, today I am."
"Fine. I'll just spell it out for you. I'm not your type, and I didn't want to lose our friendship by making you say that out loud so that it was uncomfortable between us."
"You're not my type?" Jim asked incredulously.
"That's what I said. Man, you are acting like a real dick about this. It's not like I knew you were getting addicted to my pheromones; of course, I should have figured something out considering that you lost your mind every time a pretty girl started panting after you."
"Their pheromones," Jim said softly, and that really did make him flinch. Being addicted to Blair's pheromones he could deal with, but his track record with women was bad enough that the probably needed to tell Simon about this so he could keep Jim off any cases where his judgment could be compromised… again.
Blair was nodding. "The more attractive someone finds you, the more their pheromones affect you. And normally, your guide would shield you from that, but…" Blair let his words trail off with a vague wave of his hand.
"Because we haven't had sex, I'm vulnerable," Jim said as the turned that thought over in his head. The practical solution seemed pretty obvious to him.
"It's not like we have sex and 'bam!' you aren't vulnerable." Blair rolled his eyes, and Jim's incipient lust vanished.
"Okay, what is it like?"
"When a Sentinel and guide have sex over a long period of time, the pheromone receptors gradually adapt to accept only the pheromones from the guide. A Sentinel who hasn't chosen a companion, an undedicated Sentinel, can work with anyone who finds him or her attractive, but it's like the most interested partner gets the Sentinel's attention."
"Wait, Lila liked me more than you did? Chief, considering how that came out, I'm offended." Jim backed up to the far wall and leaned against it as he tried to sort out his feelings. He needed Blair's pheromones, but Blair obviously wasn't all that attracted to him, but Blair was attracted, and a murderess bitch actually wanted him more than Blair. This wasn't a good place to start a relationship.
"Oh man, you're getting defensive now."
"I think I'm entitled. You're interested, but not as much as Lila or Veronica were."
"Think about it. When Veronica showed up, I was broke, I was borrowing money from you and stressed, and still getting over Alex's death and man, I felt so guilty about that. She was on campus to see me, and some wacko just shoots her, and I'm still not sure I'm buying the Section line about her being some master criminal. I was too screwed up to have the hots for you, so of course I wasn't doing my job. And I've been thinking about every case where your instincts got all turned around. Laura was right after I lost Maya. Lila was a week after Roy Williams died. I so totally was not doing my job."
"Your job?" Jim raised an eyebrow.
"My job. As the guide, I’m supposed to be your shield so you can't get hijacked, only because you aren't physically attracted to me, it's all messed up. I mean, we can totally keep working together, but as an undedicated Sentinel, you'll always have that vulnerability, although if I stop dating, I think I could probably…"
"Stop!" Jim said, one hand out as his head spun from the overload of information. "Blair, are you attracted to me?" Jim asked as he held up one finger. Blair opened his mouth, and Jim cautioned him, "One word-yes or no because I am out of patience for obfuscations here, Chief."
Blair narrowed his eyes. "Fine. Yes."
Jim held up a second finger. "I'm attracted to you. I don't know where you get this shit about a man only wanting a certain physical type, but I'm far more interested in what a person does than what he looks like."
"Wait, you mean-"
"Three!" Jim interrupted as he held up a third finger. "I trust you, and I try not to start a sexual relationship without trust no matter how attractive I find the man or woman." He held up a fourth finger. "Do you trust me?"
"Absolutely! But-"
"That was a yes. Blair, we trust each other, we like each other, we're sexually attracted to each other, we live together. I have to ask why we haven't been having sex."
"This could totally complicate things," Blair said cautiously.
"Yep," Jim agreed as he flung an arm around Blair's shoulder and pointed his guide back toward the break room. "Now we have a team that needs some team building, so we're going to talk and share stories and find out if this labyrinth has a pool table in it. Right after I have lunch."
"Just like that?" Blair asked, and Jim assumed he meant the having sex part and not the team playing pool together.
Jim stopped, his hand still resting on Blair's shoulder. "Do you want to give this a try?"
Blair chewed on his lip and frowned for a second. "I want this more than anything, but if you don't want me, if you're just doing this because you'd rather have my hormones screwing you up than be vulnerable…" Blair took a deep breath, "just please don't do that to me, man."
"I'm not, Blair," Jim promised, and he used his thumb to trace the edge of Blair's jaw. "I am attracted to you. I never thought you were interested because dated so many women. If I thought I'd stood a chance with you, I would have made a fool out of myself a long time ago."
"We suck," Blair said softly.
"I do," Jim agreed with a smile. "I'm hoping it goes both ways." Before Blair could answer, Jim had swiped the security card through the reader, and the door to the lounge slid open. Jim's lasagna and fries sat waiting, and Makepeace was eating with single-minded dedication as Jurgen and Tobias chatted about some study on stress and performance.
"Oh man, I read that piece," Blair said as he sat at the table, reached over, and stole some of Jim's fries. Jim smiled as he sat at the table. There just might be hope for them.