Flesh and Blood and Heart

[lit_gal]

Flesh and Blood and Heart
Sentinel x Mag 7 (Tucson 7 AU)
Jim/Blair (established relationship)
2010 Moonridge story

A call reveals a truth about Jim's past that he's not ready for. Blair is enough family for him, so the thought that he's related to a con artist in Tuscon does not please him. Unfortunately for Jim, once you poke the Tucson 7, they're likely to poke back.

Curious about these Tucson guys?  Check out Sunstroke, Insanity, and Faith (which introduces a very odd group of law enforcement officers/con men/vigilantes).






Chapter 9

Jim stared out the front window as Blair followed his mother's directions to the restaurant. The way his stomach was feeling, he wasn't going to be able to eat anything.

"I can't believe the traffic in this place," his mother commented with a disapproving sigh.

"The traffic isn't the most unbelievable thing here," Jim said. Blair had been keeping up a string of small talk, but now he fell silent. Immediately, the air in the car turned hostile; at least, that's what it felt like.

"I suppose it's not. You always were honest, James, and sometimes Ezra had a problem separating honesty from hostility, that's why I wanted us to talk without him."

"Oh, he was recognizing hostility just fine," Jim disagreed. Usually when he felt this hostile toward someone, he was pointing a weapon at them or arresting them, so this was a more subtle form of hostility for him, but he was feeling hostile, alright.

"James," she said, her voice thick with disapproval.

"Hey, how about this weather?" Blair blurted out. "Which is a much safer topic than, I don't know, expressing disapproval for the son you abandoned."

"I never-" She stopped.

"Abandoned me? Yeah, mom, you did." Jim turned around in his seat and looked at her.

She dropped her gaze away from his. "I never meant to."

"So, you accidentally left? You wandered away from the house and forgot how to get back?" Jim couldn’t keep the words from slipping out of him.

"James, there is no need for sarcasm."

Jim snorted. "If I'm not sarcastic, I'm going to turn mean, mom. So if you want to do this little lunch, those are your two choices."

"You were never this rude as a child."

"I was never this angry as a child," Jim countered. That seemed to make her pause. He could practically see her gather herself up, her back stiffening until she could meet his gaze directly.

"While your anger is certainly justified, to show anger is always a sign of weakness, James. To get what you want-"

"Enough with the life lessons," Jim snapped. "What's the point? I'm looking for honest answers, and you're giving me lessons on how to control my emotions to manipulate others. Chief, we might as well head back because I'm going to have bleeding ulcers if I try and have lunch with this woman."

"Your father threatened to have me arrested if I didn't leave town," she blurted out, and Jim twisted around in his seat so fast that his back muscles sent up a warning twinge.

"He what?"

"Oh man, that actually sounds like your dad," Blair said. Jim noticed that he wasn't even trying to turn the car around.

"I don't know how much you know about my past-"

"The fact that you're a grifter? I know you were conning men before you ever met Dad. You conned some guy named Colfax at the place where he worked. Is that how you met him?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head like she wanted to deny some or all of it, but Jim wasn't buying that. A person didn't get accused of cheating that much without there being at least some fire behind all the smoke. "I was working with someone," she finally admitted. "Your father thought he could save me from that life, and I suppose he did… for a while. We were both young and stupid and we thought that if we wanted something badly enough, we could have it. Time taught us differently."

"So, you decided to dump me and Steven along with Dad?" Jim could understand the divorce. He'd grown up listening to their fights turn more and more vicious, so he approved of their divorce; however, she hadn't just left her husband. Jim just couldn't understand that.

"I didn't have a choice."

"Because you wanted to start a new life." Jim spit the words out in his disgust for her.

"Because your father said that if I showed up, he was going to have me arrested for theft and sent to prison. James, I would never have left you… not you and not Steven. I even tried to have a friend get you from the school, and your father nearly caught her. If I could have stayed and fought for you and gotten even partial custody or visitations, I would have. However, had I stayed, I would have ended up in prison on evidence that your father had a private investigator both dig up and invent." She looked around the car like she expected something to pop out and save her from this conversation. Nothing did. "I always taught you to cover your tracks, and that is exactly what I always did," she said fiercely, "but that didn't stop your father's henchmen from creating tracks where I hadn't left any."

Jim frowned, not sure how much he should believe. He wanted to believe this so much that he just didn't trust his own judgment.

Blair spoke up. "You couldn't afford to go to prison because you were pregnant with Ezra, weren't you?" He was using his gentlest voice, and Jim, struggling with his own shock, watched his mother for some sort of reaction.

Her face lost all expression. "Leave Ezra out of this."

However, Blair was shaking his head. "I mean, I'm not an expert in genetics, but I don't think a half-brother would qualify as a first degree relative. No way. Second maybe, maybe third… I'd have to look it up, but Ezra and Jim are first degree relatives."

"You can't know-"

"Yeah, mom, we do," Jim interrupted before she could change the topic. "Is Ezra one of Dad's sons?" Jim might not be a fan of his father, but he remembered the sinking horror when that nurse had called-the fear that he had a son out there that he'd unintentionally abandoned. He wouldn't wish that on anyone, and while his father had made plenty of mistakes as a father, he had never abandoned his children. This would kill him.

"Your father…." Her face twisted with anger. "He made his choices." Her chin went up and her face slowly settled into a resolute expression that masked most of the anger-most, but not all.

"Fuck." Jim rubbed his face. Why the hell had he ever come down here? Curiosity killed the cat, and Jim was feeling halfway dead already. If his mother kept talking, she might finish the job.

She looked from one of them to the other. "How could you know? I gave birth to Ezra at home and had a doctor falsify his birth certificate so that his birthday is off by two months. How could you know that he was William's son?"

Jim didn't bother answering, so Blair had to step into the conversation. "He was tested for a bone marrow bank. Genetically, he's Jim's first degree relative, and when we first got the news, we thought Jim had a son out there from his days in the army. That's why we ran checks on his name."

"Ah." Leaning back in the seat, she seemed to have aged a good decade in the space of five seconds. "Well, Ezra does have more heart than common sense. Look at his friends if you question that."

Jim snorted. He was pretty sure that Ezra's heart was as shriveled as Scrooges', but he didn't feel like getting into that conversation, not when his head was spinning.

"He does have some weird friends. Totally weird. Completely and entirely weird," Blair agreed. "What is up with them?"

Maude seemed to pull an aura of grace around her shoulders like a shawl as she gave a little laugh. "If you want to pump me for information, you'll have to be more clever than that, young man." She reached into the front seat and gave Blair's shoulder a little pat. "Ezra's friends are his business. And if I happen to think that he would be better off moving somewhere else and developing relationships that are less likely to involve gunfire, that is between Ezra and me. This is our street." She pointed to the right and Blair aimed the car where Maude pointed him.

Jim still hadn't quite rearranged his feelings to match his new reality as they walked into a restaurant that clearly had found a clearance sale on topical lawn accessories. The back wall was a huge mural of a bay in vivid blue and bright green and bamboo "trees" and plants randomly strewn about made it difficult to thread their way through to the tables to the back where the hostess offered them a seat.

"Man, kitsch central," Blair breathed, his voice not even a whisper.

"Ah, but they have excellent food," Maude answered as she sat down and picked up a menu. "You should try the BúnChảGiòGàNướng. Grilled lemon grass chicken with a crispy roll and this wonderful nuoc mam sauce. You will not regret ordering it."

The woman seating them smiled at her. "You have been before?"

Maude nodded. "Indeed. My son, Ezra Standish, brought me… apparently, this is a favorite of his friend Josiah, and Ezra wanted to share the treasure he'd found."

The woman's face lit up. "Josiah Sanchez?" Jim narrowed his eyes at his mother as the hostess's face broke out into a delighted grin. "HìnhbóngĐạođức. Yes, Josiah. And I know of Ezra. He is your son?"

"He is," Maude said with undisguised pride. The woman caught the arm of a passing waitress and they talked to each other in words so fast that they blurred together. Jim, however, focused on glaring at his mother. While Josiah annoyed Jim in general, he respected the man's work in the community and his past as a soldier. Jim's mother was simply abusing Josiah's name to get good service at a restaurant. It offended Jim's sense of fair play, and he might have said something, except Blair kicked him under the table.

"Yes, yes, we will bring you something special," the hostess said before she darted off toward the kitchen. Now they were alone, and Jim kept right on glaring at his mother.

"That is a very unpleasant expression, James."

"It matches how I feel then," James pointed out.

Maude had been opening her obnoxiously turquoise napkin, but now she paused to study Jim. "I haven't hurt anyone by doing a little name dropping."

Jim crossed his arms. "You're just abusing the name of a man who fought for his country."

"Oh good heavens. What is it with Josiah that makes people so sanctimonious? I will have you know that the last time Ezra played that particular card, Josiah told him not to bother. Josiah finds me refreshingly self-interested." Maude's words shocked Jim a little since he hadn't expected Ezra to take Josiah's side in that conflict.

"So selfish?" Blair asked.

"Selfish implies that I am taking from someone else. I am simply looking out for my own interests. Using Josiah’s name does not diminish his reputation," she said with a little handwave.

"Well, when you leave, make sure that you pay for your own self-interests, because if you take food from these people, that would be selfish," Jim warned.

Maude sighed and arranged her napkin in her lap. "I knew your father and his afternoon morality would be a poor influence."

"My father?" Jim demanded, his voice getting louder as she insulted the only parent that had bothered to stick around.

"Hey," Blair said loud enough to cut him off. "Let's just calm down. So, Maude, not to change the topic to something less likely to result in assault charges, but you have some seriously impressive hearing."

Jim could see the way every little muscle in her face and neck tensed. "Oh?" she said with indifference that didn't match her reaction.

"I mean, I barely whispered my comment, and you heard it. You must be able to hear a pin drop."

"Yes, well I am blessed that way." She smiled, but now Jim could smell the first hints of distress under her perfume.

"She's hiding something," Jim said. She turned a furious look toward him, and Jim just raised an eyebrow as he dared her to contradict him.

"Actually, I was wondering if this was a topic better discussed another time," she said with an artificial calm. Her scent, however, continued to sour."Perhaps when it's just the two of us," she finished.

With a laugh, Jim shook his head. "You think I have a problem trusting Blair? Oh, that's rich."

"James, you can show as many bad manners as you like, but that will not-"

Jim cut her off. "Don't you dare-"

"So, your hearing," Blair said loudly as he gave Jim a truly hard kick under the table. "You're hiding something about it?"

For long seconds, the table was silent. Jim met his mother's glare without flinching. He wasn't a ten-year-old boy crying because the mother he'd loved more than life had disappeared on him. He wasn't going to beg for her love or compromise his beliefs. Eventually, she sighed. "Hiding? No. I was just trying to not mention anything, out of deference to James." She tilted her head toward him.

"Because you know he can do the same thing?" Blair guessed.

Some of the tautness left her body. "Perhaps Ezra is correct about you two being more than just friends. He always did have a better nose for that than I did. If so, I'm glad that James managed to escape his father's Puritanical streak long enough to make his own choice about who to love."

"Ezra, you know about his sense of smell?" Blair asked. Now that the conversation was getting into the senses, Jim could see the nervous energy start to build.

His mother shifted uncomfortably. "Of course I know. I'm his mother."

"Oh man. I mean, I always thought the senses were genetic, but I didn't have any proof. The perfume smellers and tasters I tested… they generally didn't have family with the senses."

Maude's eyes narrowed, and for the first time, Jim got a sense that she could be a dangerous woman if she set her mind to it. "You have an interest in the senses?" she asked, her voice slow and calculated.

Despite the rather overt hostility, Blair grinned and nodded. "Before I switched my dissertation to minority interactions with the police, I was studying people with enhances senses. That's how I found Jim."

Jim watched as his mother's face lost most of its color. A little part of him, a sadistic part, rejoiced in making his mother so uncomfortable. She certainly deserved a little punishment. Jim picked up his glass and stared at the water. "Blair helped me with the senses when they were out of control," he said, taking a drink and watching as his mother’s vital signs surged wildly. Sweat gathered in tiny beads along her hairline and her heart pounded.

She gave a slight frown. "Out of control?" she asked as though the answer were trivial.

Jim nodded. "I thought I was losing my mind."

"Why?" Now she seemed genuinely confused.

Blair glanced over, and Jim gave him a small nod. If they could get some information out of his mother, Jim didn't care what she knew about his senses. It seemed that both she and Ezra had some enhanced senses of their own, and one thing Jim believed in was his mother's ability to cover her own ass. "He was having zone-outs where he focused too much on one sense, and then these spikes where a sense suddenly turned all the way up-they really screwed with his head," Blair explained.

"One sense would go out of control? You have multiple then?" she asked carefully.

"All five," Jim agreed.

"Oh god." Her face lost all color and she grabbed for the edge of the table. Either she was a superb actress or she was close to collapsing. Jim tensed, caught between wanting to move to her side and wanting to dismiss it all as some sort of con woman's trick. Blair shifted his chair over and put a comforting hand on Maude's shoulder. When she looked up, her eyes were glassy. "James, I am so sorry," she said. "I never dreamed you would have all five. I knew you had sight and hearing, but I didn't see any signs of the others when you were young. I would have spent more time working with you on control and focus." Her hands came halfway up to her face before they dropped back down to the table. "I would have found a way to steal you away from your father if I'd known. I swear, James. I never would have left you to struggle with that."

"You know people with all five," Blair said, his voice shocked.

Maude nodded. "My grandfather. My family calls the senses 'the touch.' If a baby is born with the touch, it's said that he will grow up to be an expert at working a mark. I've used my hearing to work a situation more than once, and Ezra's enhanced touch makes him an unbeatable card player; however, when someone is born with all five, the touch is so much harder to control." She ducked her head and was silent for a moment. When she looked up, she seemed to have found some of her composure again. "Oh, it can be done. My grandmother used to tell stories of the ways she helped grandfather uses his touch, and he was an expert. The family still tells stories about him." She smiled.

"He was a con man?" Jim guessed.

Maude sat up a little straighter. "He was a businessman."

"Would that be a businessman who has to run from the law?" Jim asked without mercy.

"The law? No." Maude smiled. "When a man has all five senses touched, his ability to cover his own trail is very well developed. However, he might have run from one or two tar-and-feathering parties." She smile turned wry.

"Great. I come from a long line of crooks." Jim leaned back in his chair. Blair had been so convinced that being a Sentinel included some moral imperative to protect the tribe, but if his mother was right, it was more like a moral imperative to use the senses to their best advantage in order to steal from the tribe.

"There is not a conviction in the whole family, James Ellison. Children born without the touch are never allowed to get involved in family business, and if we are sometimes outside the traditional confines of the law, then perhaps that is because we have unique needs." The starch was back in her voice now, and she'd blinked the glassiness away so that her gaze was calm and in control again.

"All criminals say that," Jim pointed out. There were only two things you could count on from criminals: they would always claim innocence and they would always insist that they were unique and the law shouldn’t apply to them.

Maude gave an offended sniff. "You talk like I'm some common thief."

"You are," Jim pointed out.

"Man, enough," Blair hissed as the waitress showed up with a large tray of food. Jim bit his tongue and smiled as she loaded dish after dish onto their table.

"For the friends of Josiah. On the house," the waitress announced happily.

"Josiah would rather the free food go to the homeless. We can pay," Jim insisted, giving his mother a sharp look.

"Of course we'll pay," Maude said as if she'd never considered anything else. "One simply doesn't take advantage of friends. James is quite correct."

"Oh no," the waitress said. The hostess came over, and the waitress went off in Vietnamese.

"No, we insist. This is a gift," the hostess said.

"Thank you," Blair said before Jim could protest. "But we insist on leaving a gift in return."

Both the waitress and the hostess smiled and gave a little bow as they moved away from the table.

"And the trick is to leave a gift of equal or greater value," Blair said softly. "So, maybe we can table the big issues until we eat because, man, this smells wonderful."

"It does. I'm glad I thought to recommend this place." Maude reached for one of the dishes.

"You heard Blair talking, didn't you?" Jim asked.

"Pardon me?"

"You heard that Blair wanted to go to a Thai place and that I was going to go for burgers or steaks."

Maude had been putting sauce on her plate, but she carefully put the small dish back down. "I did."

"Why?" Jim couldn’t figure out whether his mother truly hated steaks that much or if she'd just been feeling petty enough to want to manipulate Jim into eating something he didn't like. Sometimes he'd caught her doing things like that to his father, and at ten years old, it'd been a great game.

She flushed and looked down at the table. "I see a lot of your father in you. I wanted to see how much."

"Uncool," Blair said with a snort.

She looked over at him and rested a hand on his forearm. "William made a point out of never trying anything new and avoiding anything I loved. It was a poor start to a relationship. I thought I would see if James had inherited any of that petty behavior. And now I see that he hasn't." She looked over at Jim and smiled, and Jim tried very hard to not feel proud that he had passed his mother's test.

Chapter 10

"Oh man, that was wild. I mean, your mother knows craploads of people with enhanced senses. When I was doing the sentinel dissertation, I would have killed to meet her." Blair sat down on the hotel bed, his eyes sort of glazed over in shock. Jim knew how he felt, even if the reasons he felt that way were a little different. When he'd dreamed of finding his mother, this reality had never even crossed his mind.

"Yeah, but her family shoots holes in your theory, Chief," Jim pointed out.

"How's that?"

Jim sat next to Blair on the bed. "You always said that a Sentinel is driven to protect the tribe."

"Yeah? And?" Blair looked at Jim blankly.

Maybe Blair was just too tired to track logically, but Jim could see a huge hole in that theory now. "Chief, they're all criminals."

"Criminal would imply they'd been convicted."

Jim glared at Blair. "Do not start with me."

With an eye roll, Blair just shoulder bumped him. "Man, you are wound tight. Come here," Blair squirmed back onto the bed and patted the spot, inviting Jim to join him on the bed.

"I have a headache," Jim said dryly even though he sat where Blair suggested. The fact was he couldn't think about sex when his mother's misadventures were still making his stomach churn.

"You are just going for the title of schmuck king tonight. I'm trying to offer you a backrub," Blair got his hands on Jim's shoulders and started working the hard muscles.

Just that pressure made Jim cringe. "Actually, I wasn't kidding about the headache," Jim admitted as he realized that he could feel his heart pounding through his whole body. It was like he was one giant, oversensitive mass.

"Considering you're tied into one giant knot, I’m not surprised." Blair gentled his touch, but he continued working on Jim's shoulders and neck. For a long time, they were quiet. Blair rubbed, and Jim tried to unclench his tight body.

"They're criminals, Chief. Maybe they haven't been caught yet because they're using the senses, but they are definitely not out to protect the tribe," Jim said sadly. He'd liked the whole myth Blair had created-the sense that he was destined to serve and protect. Then again, when he was seven, he'd liked to pretend to be Superman, and that wasn't exactly the case.

"Sure they are," Blair said with more confidence than made sense.

"Okay, did we have lunch with the same woman? I'm pretty sure my mother is a cold manipulative…" Blair's thumbs dug into his back a little too hard. "Ow. Shit," Jim cursed.

"Sorry,” Blair offered immediately, but his tone was less than apologetic.

"Yeah? You don't sound sorry," Jim pointed out.

"Well then, sit still before we have another accident." Blair's hands gentled again, and Jim looked over his shoulder suspiciously before settling down again. "Did you hear the way she talked about the family?" Blair asked.

"You mean like they were a giant criminal enterprise?"

"Yeah, well she left them to marry your dad and it seems like they kept their distance, so it's not like their some gang of thugs, but I have to admit, the way she talked about them, I expected her to start referencing Don Corleone and horseheads. But the family is her tribe. She was doing her best to protect them."

Jim snorted. "She'd flip on them in a second if she thought she could make a profit out of it."

"Really? Are you sure about that?"

"I’m not sure of anything anymore," Jim admitted.

"Yeah, well it sounded like she just had a different definition of tribe than you. Of course, it also sounded like she had a different definition than Ezra."

"You caught that, huh?" From the various complaints and snide comments, it was pretty damn clear that his mother didn't like Chris or Buck or any of the other men who regularly hung out at the Players Only. She didn't like the violence, and as far as Jim could tell, she didn't like that Ezra occasionally stuck his neck out to help someone else.

"Oh man, she seriously hates the guys he hangs with," Blair said in an amused voice.

"They interfere with her theory that people should be manipulated and discarded." Blair's fingers dug a little deep. "Ow," Jim complained again.

"Sorry." Again, he didn't even try and sound sorry.

Jim went to push Blair's hands away. "Maybe we should stop."

Blair batted Jim's hands aside and went back to the massage. "Just relax, you big baby. Anyway, not to poke a hole in your theory, but she stayed married to your dad for ten years. That's a little long to stick around if you're just setting up a mark. It sounds like they really loved each other, and it sounds like her family gave her space to follow her heart."

Shaking his head, Jim quickly disagreed. "Trust me. Growing up in that house, there was yelling and screaming and manipulating and lying, but there was not a lot of love."

"Hey, the more you love someone, the darker it can get if it goes wrong."

Jim pushed away from the bed and turned to face Blair. "That's bullshit."

"Hey, it's the people we love that we let close enough to hurt us." Blair's confident expression slowly faded as he looked at Jim. "Jim?" he called, his voice soft and confused.

Jim's stomach was churning. "It's bullshit, Sandburg. That whole crap about being destined to hurt the one you love-I don't believe it." He shook his head like he could make it untrue if he denied it vehemently enough.

"Whoa, hey." Blair held his hands up in surrender and started knee walking to the end of the bed. "That is so not what I said. No way do I believe that all love twists. I only meant that *if* love twists, the greater the love, the uglier it gets. No way do I think all love goes bad."

Jim just stared at Blair, his guts in knots and he thought about their love ever turning that ugly.

Crawling off the end of the bed, Blair walked toward him slowly, his hand reaching out for Jim, but Jim stood statue-still.

Blair shook his head. "Oh man, your fear complex is showing again. No way are we ever going to turn on each other. I love you, you big idiot." Blair moved close enough to rest his hand against Jim's chest.

"It's just… neither one of us has good role models for this, you know?" Jim asked. He slowly brought his own hand up and placed it on the back of Blair's.

"I totally know. I've been winging it for years, in case you hadn't noticed." Blair gave a little laugh and a shrug.

"Yeah, me too."

"Oh, I noticed. Trust me, if I was going to turn on you, it would have been the day you threw away my durian fruit." Blair's eyes twinkled with laughter.

Jim shook his head, his fear and bad mood dispelled by one of Blair stupid jokes. "Chief, the whole building cheered me on when I threw that shit in the dumpster. Hell, mice abandoned the dumpster when they caught a whiff of it."

"Har, har. So it smells a little."

"I've smelled corpses that aren't that rancid."

"It tastes wonderful," Blair said without denying the stink. Jim had come home gagging, and he was pretty sure Blair had only gotten them because the new woman in the building had been vamping over Jim like a fox in heat. The topic of pheromones still got Blair a little twitchy, but one think Jim knew for sure, he hadn't been able to smell any pheromones over the rotten flesh smell of the exotic fruit.

"I wouldn't know since I’m smart enough to never eat something that smells like it died last week."

"Whatever. My point was that love doesn't have to turn bad. No way. Look at what we've gotten through."

Jim sighed. "Me freaking out over your dissertation." He still felt some twinges of guilt over that, and Naomi's complete and total meltdown hadn't done anything to alleviate the fear that he'd really screwed Blair by reacting to the dissertation so strongly. At the time, he had no idea that Blair would tank the whole thing just to make him happy. Hell, if he'd known that, he would have been tempted to plaster on a fake smile and live with it.

"Okay, that was a tough one," Blair admitted, "but now that I changed topics, man, there were so many problems that I know I did the right thing."

"Really?"

"Totally. I had a sample size of one… yeah, that's really good science,” Blair said sarcastically as he rolled his eyes at himself. “And the anthropological guidelines demand I protect the identify of my subjects. Exactly how was I supposed to do that when you're the only cop I worked with? No way. That was one of my more boneheaded moves. And hey, we survived me being idiotic enough to try and push the dissertation. "

"We survived Laura," Jim pointed out.

"Pheromones from hell," Blair agreed, nodding. "And we survived my golden fire people. Man, there is nothing more embarrassing than trying to shoot your hallucinations in front of an entire station full of cops. I'm surprised you didn't pull my ride-along after that stunt."

"Hey, that wasn't your fault. Besides, I'm the one who was walking around with a gun pretending to be fine when I was blind. Trust me, you weren't the only one who should have been benched that week."

Blair fell silent, but he moved closer so that he could lean into Jim. "We're a pair."

Jim wrapped his arms around Blair. "We are."

"So, I guess we're stuck with each other."

Jim pretended to think about that. "If not, we're going to end up with two random people who probably deserve better."

Blair snorted. "Damn I'm tired," he whispered as he leaned more of his weight into Jim. "It's not even my family drama, and I'm ready to collapse."

"It is your family, Sandburg. If I have to put up with Naomi, you get to put up with Maude."

"Man, that is not fair. I already have to put up with William." Blair had him there. Of course, now Jim was starting to have an odd sort of sympathy for his father. Being married to Grace or Maude or whatever her name was-it couldn't have been easy.

"We'll put finding your father on the agenda and even it out later," Jim joked gently.

"After this?" Blair made a choking noise like the very thought was killing him. "No fucking way. I am done with family, thank you very much."

"Well, I don't think family is done with us. We have footsteps in the hall."

Blair groaned and leaned his forehead into the middle of Jim's chest. "Maybe it's just another guest," he said hopefully.

"He's muttering our room number," Jim pointed out.

"Fuck."

"Not with company coming, thanks." Jim smiled as Blair drove an elbow into his side. Letting go of Blair, Jim moved to the door, waiting for the knock. When it came, Jim immediately opened the door, the safety bar still in place. The man on the other side was handsome, blond, blue-eyed, and young enough to perhaps even qualify as cute. Jim recognized him immediately.

"Vin Tanner,” Jim said wearily. “I wish I could say I was surprised, but-"

"You're not," Vin finished for him. He flashed a bright smile. "I was hoping you'd have a minute to talk."

With a sigh, Jim closed the door and flipped the bar open so he could let Vin inside. "So, I think you're the last of the seven to show up."

"The seven?" Vin asked.

Blair offered his hand. "Hey, Blair Sandburg," he introduced himself, "and every time we tried to look into one of you, we kept hitting roadblocks in the official records and all these mysterious references to ‘the seven’ through more informal channels. If I believed half of what's said in some of the chat rooms, I'd have to think you guys were setting yourselves up as the next incarnation of Robin Hood. I mean, I am seriously tempted to call Adrienne Clarkston. She does work on the creation of cultural mythology in an urban setting, and you guys are right up her alley."

"And you're Jim's partner," Vin said with a smile. It still didn't make Jim like him.

Jim closed the door. "I've had about all I can take for one day, so if you're here to say something, say it."

Vin looked over in surprise. "Well, I can see a day with Maude left you in a good mood. Actually, you're in the same mood Ezra's usually in when his mother visits. Before moving here, I never did have the opportunity to be grateful for being an orphan."

Jim just crossed his arms without answering.

"He's not the type for small talk, is he?" Vin asked Blair.

Blair shook his head. "Not even a little bit."

"I can respect that. Anyway, Chris said that he thought he'd made a bad impression on you. He also said that my cover is blown to hell."

"What?" Blair's back went stiff at what he perceived to be an insult. "No way would we blow someone's cover. No fucking way. You're cover is totally safe."

"He means that we know, not that we've told someone else," Jim explained. Blair wasn't a cop, and he tended to think of all law enforcement as working together in some sort of brotherhood. The reality was closer to a whole bunch of siblings who generally didn't like each other, got jealous, and threw terrible tantrums when one of them got a toy the others wanted. The whole reason most local law-enforcement hated the feds was because they had so much more funding and better toys. It was like having a brother with a medical degree. You just naturally hated them.

"Oh." Blair gave Jim an odd look, and Jim mentally scheduled time to explain the reality of inter-agency relationships to Blair. Clearly, Blair still thought that Jim was the only one with an attitude when it came to other cops pushing in on his cases.

"Yeah, well my captain said that you two check out, so since you know who I am, I thought I'd introduce myself."

"You did a background on us." Jim was too tired to even care.

Vin nodded. "Seems fair since you did one on me. So what gave me away? If I have a hole in my cover, I'd rather know before some crook with a gun finds it."

Jim pursed his lips. If he told Vin, it might come back on Jack Kelso who had gotten ahold of the records, but Vin had a right to protect his cover. "I might have seen a record of a cop being shot on scene at a drug dealer's house," Jim admitted.

"Shit. My name was on that?" Vin lost about half his color.

"No," Jim assured him. "But when your friends started talking about Ezra helping when you were shot that day, it wasn't hard to put the two facts together."

Vin nodded. "And most people down here know that story, so I'd better get Captain Rodriguez to do a little housecleaning in the files."

"Before Ezra finds out?" Jim guessed.

Vin laughed. "Ezra knows. Hell, most days it amuses the hell out of him that Chris and I spend so much time at his place. He says it keeps him on his toes, and you know, he actually manages to keep everything illegal out of my line of sight. He's an impressive man."

"He's a criminal."

Vin frowned and studied Jim. "Captain Rodriguez and Chris both said you were some sort of hard-ass, but if that's all you see when you look at Ezra, I don't think hard-ass is a strong enough word."

Jim could feel his temper start to fray, but Blair jumped in before Jim had a chance to say anything offensive. "Hey, maybe that's because of what you guys are letting us see. I mean, everywhere we turn, someone is trying to corner us. It's a little unsettling."

Vin didn't answer that immediately; he seemed to think it over for a second. "Okay, I have to give you that one," he admitted. "The gang can be a little overpowering. Even Josiah who does his best to never get in anyone's face. He still makes these little comments that keep you up at night worrying at things." Vin looked back toward Jim. "Look, I didn't mean to show up and back you into any corners. I just wanted to know if I was compromised and how I could plug any leaks. I would have sent Chris since he knows you better, but he said that you two weren't exactly getting along. And Buck… well, he plans to avoid you until you get over being mad about the fact that he let it slip that you were the same Jim Ellison who was doing a background check on him."

"That was him?" Jim demanded. His fraying temper frayed a little more.

"Yep," Vin agreed.

"Oh man, he has a streak of suicidal, doesn't he?" Blair made a face at the very stupidity of that move.

"He's a bounty hunter who has a local cop and a drunk FBI agent backing him up, I think suicidal is a safe bet," Jim agreed.

Vin tilted his head to the side and got a look on his face that came close to amusement. "You're still trying to figure that out, aren't you?"

"I don't give a shit," Jim quickly answered.

"You lie as well as Ezra,” Vin said with a short laugh. “Oh, Ezra can bluff and he can embellish, but when it comes just flat out lying, he doesn't have it in him. But if your Ezra's brother, you're family, and you already know I'm a cop, so I figure I can't compromise my position any more than it already is. If you want to ask something, ask." Vin leaned against the wall like he was settling in for the long haul.

"Anything?" Blair asked suspiciously.

Vin seemed to think about that. "As long as it's about my time in Tucson, yeah."

"Okay… what are you and Chris investigating?" Jim crossed his arms and waited to see what kind of lie Vin would come up with. He focused on the detective's pupils and the muscles around his eyes and the scent rising from his skin.

"What aren't we?" Vin asked with a laugh. His body didn't show any signs of deceit. "It actually started with Josiah."

"Whoa, you're investigating Josiah?" Blair demanded.

"No, but the investigation started with Josiah. He's been down here with the poor for decades. They trust him. So when the illegals and the poor have a problem and they don't trust the police, they go to Josiah. If they need money for bail or a loan, they go to Buck. He's about the only man down there who will treat the poor fairly. So those two are so deep into the underground community, that they get information no one else can."

"And you found a way to tap that fount of information," Jim guessed. Cascade had its own underground, and when Jim had worked Vice, he'd spent most of his time trying to get close to smugglers, dog fighters, drug dealers and con artists who all used this hidden society and its network of semi-legal businesses and laundering schemes.

Vin nodded. "Yep.At least that's what my superiors think. Chris showed up a little later; he knows Buck from the army, so they sent him in to try and figure out why Tucson PD suddenly had a better hold on the drug and money trafficking through the area."

"They wanted in on the busts." It was just like the fed to get jealous that someone else was getting more glory.

"Probably," Vin agreed. "Chris insists they just wanted a quiet place to dump him."

"Because he's a drunk?" Blair asked the question without any accusation in his voice, which was better than Jim would have done, but Vin still looked at him in shock for a second before answering.

"Because his family was killed and no one wanted to watch him slowly commit suicide."

Blair cringed. "Oh man."

"Yeah, Chris has his demons, but then, we all do. But I'll tell you this, I trust these men at my back, and I don't say that easily."

Jim studied Vin as he asked his next question. "Including Ezra?"

"Yes," Vin answered immediately and without showing any signs of a lie. "Look, I understand why you have a problem with him. I'm lucky. The first time I met him, I got shot. It let me see what kind of man your brother is. He'll talk big about covering his own ass, and if he can get away with it, he'll cut corners-no question. But when I was bleeding, he ran me across a parking lot under fire instead of staying safely inside. He pitched a fit and called us all crazy when we decided to go after Josiah instead of calling the police, but he was there with us, gun in hand, complaining the whole way. I only got to see his record later, after I'd already decided that I liked him, despite his mouth and his attitude."

For some reason, that proclamation of support just made Jim more uncomfortable. "What do you want me to do, sing a chorus of kumbaya with you?" Jim demanded.

Blair turned away like he was looking for something on the bedside table. "Man, your cynical is showing way too much," he whispered Sentinel-soft.

"I tell you what," Vin offered. "Buck has a job tonight, and I was going to play backup. I'm going to suggest that I'm busy and have him call Ezra. Maybe if you see them in action, you might have a different impression of your brother."

"Action?" Jim studied Vin. This man might be a cop, but he wasn't one to play by the books. Jim's first partner in Major Crime had been the same, before he'd ended up dead, stuffed in a trunk with his good name ruined. As a cop, if you played it too close to the edge, you risked falling over, and that could be a nasty fall. Vin might be willing to overlook a few indiscretions in order to keep his cover, but Jim wasn't willing to live in that morally gray and dangerous place. "If I see something illegal, I will report it," he warned Vin.

"Fair enough," Vin agreed with a nod. "Just make sure you keep quiet because Buck gets twitchy when someone mentions your name right now. Oh, and avoid aftershave. Ezra has a nose on him like a bloodhound. I'll call about nine and let you know where they're going to be."

Without another work, Vin tilted his head toward each of them, an odd gesture that Jim had noticed in several of the others as well. He suspected they lived together as well as working together-that was about the only way men picked up each other's habits. Sometimes in the army, units would do that-develop a unique tic that marked them as part of a particular group. His silent farewells over, Vin headed out the door."

Jim stood and looked at the door for a second before turning to Blair.

Blair had a bright smile on his face, like this was somehow exciting. "Okay, I am officially dying of curiosity."

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?"

"Because you're in a bad mood?" Blair guessed with an even wider smile. Jim narrowed his eyes and lunged at Blair, but the man danced backwards. "Hey, I'm just calling 'em like I sees 'em," Blair said with a lilt to his voice. Before Jim could come up with a retort, Blair grabbed a book off the nightstand and headed for the bathroom. "The spa tub and I have a long and intimate date. If you go down for an afternoon snack, grab me some fruit, okay?"

Jim didn't comment as Blair disappeared. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Jim toed off his shoes and stretched his neck. So, they had several hours before Jim would supposedly get a whole new view of his brother. Glancing at the clock and then the bathroom door, Jim made up his mind. Stripping off his shirt, he headed toward the bathroom to make it a threesome with the tub.