TS Ficathons story
And here it is. My ts_ficathons prompts were Suzanne Tomaki, Simon's office, and crossbow. I'm not at all sure about the title, but it needed one and this was all I could think of. And sadly, this manages only to be pre-slash...Many thanks to elmyraemilie for the beta.
Debrief
Even when the media took the police point of view, newspapers and television channels had ambivalent status with cops. Simon’s tight-pressed lips suggested that today the Cascade Herald wasn’t his favourite information and recreation source.
“ ‘Crossbow Vengeance on Cascade Streets’,” he quoted distastefully, gesturing at the newspaper on his desk.
“Better than rocket launchers,” Jim offered. Only in the matter of scale, though. He was aware enough of how the simplest things could injure or kill.
“Thank you for adjusting my point of view, Detective. Perhaps *you’d* like to talk to the Commissioner for me.”
“I’ll pass, sir.”
“I’m not surprised.” Simon sighed. “Wish I knew why the Herald had to banner this story.”
“It’s not exactly surprising, Simon. Indigenous people coming after the big corporation that illegally exploited their land - it’s a great story from a media perspective - mixes elements of traditional news with that little extra novelty factor.” Jim knew that Blair was trying to run a sort of interference, but still winced. He recognised Simon in a rhetorical mood, even if Blair didn’t seem to, his hand unsuccessfully trying to swipe back his unruly hair.
“I’m waiting on that little extra novelty factor of you waiting to be invited before contributing, Sandburg,” Simon remarked blandly. He remained unabashed at the look of boyish reproach sent his way, and darted one suspicious look at Jim before he flapped his hands with irritation that was less formal and more familiar. “Go on, the pair of you. This little briefing is now officially over, and I need some fortification before I go and see the Commissioner.” Blair lifted his eyebrows, and Simon scowled. “Coffee!”
“Great idea,” Jim said, and grabbed Blair’s elbow to steer him out of Simon’s office.
Safety achieved, Jim shook his head. “I’m starting to think that you’ve got a mean streak, Chief.”
That distracting hand ran through Blair’s hair again. Just a hand, one that Jim had seen plenty of the last couple of years, so why did he get this urge sometimes to engulf it in his own so that he could map out the structure and the texture of it?
“Me? You’re kidding, right?”
“No more playing dumb social scientist to bait the nice police captain.”
Blair’s smile was still tired, but genuine enough. “So I brought some familiar interaction into an uncomfortable situation that needed to be lightened up. And you could see it, Jim. He was thinking, ‘that damn fence-sitting academic’ but that has to be better than thinking about how he’s going to tap-dance around the fact that Cascade’s finest apparently can’t find a bunch of Peruvian indigenes in kilts and war-paint.”
“Yeah, guess I let my rep as super-cop down there.”
Blair’s face blossomed into amusement. “Yeah, man, guess you did. Especially given that you’re a by-the-book kind of guy.”
Jim leaned back against his desk, and wearily pinched the bridge of his nose. It had been a fraught week. “That’s me, Sandburg. By-the-book.”
“And everything’s okay?” It was a serious question and Jim gave it a serious answer.
“Everything’s fine.” Maybe it wasn’t right to think of the Chopec men as innocents - they’d killed Torrens after all - but Jim kept remembering what Incacha said. ‘There is only justice.’ And Jim’s vision of justice couldn’t accept Incacha’s tribesmen undergoing the rigours of the US courts. Better to let them slip away under the care of the sympathisers who’d helped them track down the executives of Cyclops Oil. Obstructing the course of justice wasn’t a charge that Jim wanted to face, but he’d covered tracks before, just not so much as a cop. He owed his friend, and there was still hard work to be carried out on Incacha’s behalf, to see his remains returned to where they belonged.
Blair settled himself behind the desk. “If Cyclops survives all this, I expect they’ll be going for some rebranding. The Greek myth *is* about a man-eating monster. I did a little research; their opponents in eco-activism have used that analogy before and they’ll get more pointed about it as this mess works its way through the system.” Maybe that was an oblique way of offering support, but Jim was grateful for it. Jim Ellison, defender against man-eating monsters. Sounded better than Jim Ellison, the man who let innocents get hurt and killed because he couldn’t make up his mind about what the hell he wanted.
“Cyclops Oil can look after itself. You and me - we have reports to write.”
“We as in me?”
“You, oh mighty wielder of wooden sticks against gun-toting thugs.”
Blair shifted in his chair. “Ah, come on, Jim, you already read the riot act over that last night.”
“I had cause.”
Blair waved his hand, dismissing any cause Jim thought he had, and leaned over to look for something in his pack. His hair fell every which way and Jim studied the curved line of strong neck revealed. All that hair might have fallen away from Blair’s neck while he lay prostrate and bleeding on a rain-wet Cascade street, but that clearly wasn’t an issue to Blair. Jim shook his head, and got back to work.
***
The loft - home, albeit with gaps. The couch where Incacha lay had been removed into storage, awaiting assessment for insurance; it was, of necessity, also available for forensic inspection. Jim couldn’t look at the empty space in the living area without thinking about Incacha lying there, bleeding his power and his life away, while Blair looked on in astonished distress and Jim… Jim couldn’t help, couldn’t protect his friend, either to save his life or to offer him the death dignities that were owed his status and beliefs.
Blair must have followed the line of his sight. “Thinking about Incacha?”
“Yeah.” Jim would have been happy to leave it there, but this was Blair.
“It’s hard, I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Jim’s voice was hard.
“Yes, I do, Jim, because I think about Janet.”
“It’s not quite the same, Chief.” Jim tried to soften his tone, but he really didn’t want to talk about this right now.
“Well, maybe not.” Blair, however, clearly was in the mood to talk. “But what happened…it’s like the worst nightmare for a cop, isn’t it? Innocent people getting hurt because of what you do or don’t do.” Blair stood up and started walking, an aimless pacing from the window back to the dining table. “That’s why Suzanne Tomaki left the Tacoma force, isn’t it. Because somebody innocent got killed?”
“That was different. Suzanne - she made a bad error of judgement, and she knew it. And in case you’re wondering, my career plans still include police work.” What about you, Chief, Jim wanted to ask. Do your plans still include police work?
Blair folded his arms around himself, as if he was cold. “And I didn’t make an error of judgement bringing Janet into things?”
“She was employed by a corrupt company as a PR consultant for environmental issues, Chief. You think that she wouldn’t have had to face some tough issues eventually?”
Blair shrugged. “Probably.”
“Get on with it, Sandburg.”
“What?” The surprise on Blair’s face seemed genuine.
“Let’s get to my errors of judgement, before the suspense gives me a stroke.”
“Jim…”
“If the sentinel thing had been up and running, maybe Janet might be alive, or Incacha. I wouldn’t have lost him when he gave us the slip.”
Blair looked across the airy expanse between him and the view out the windows. “Who knows, man, who knows? That’s what I’ve been thinking about, that you don’t always see where your choices are going to lead you. The trouble with your senses started with somebody getting hurt, and you were trying to feel your way to the right course of action. Who knows how things would have panned out.” Blair took a deep breath. “Janet might still be dead. And the Chopec - they probably would have confronted Yeager anyway. Incacha might still be dead, because it’s not like you were going to lock him a holding cell.”
“Que sera, que sera?” Jim queried bitterly.
Blair crouched down by Jim’s chair, his elbows leaning against the upholstery. Sneaky little bastard, always creeping under the wire, flying under the radar. “Whatever will be, will be? Doris Day, you are not.” His eyes looked straight into Jim’s. “Will you still be a sentinel? Even when you make mistakes with it?”
Jim put out his hand to finger a lock of Blair’s hair. “What about you? Going to keep riding that rollercoaster, even when people get hurt?”
Blair’s eye’s flicked sideways to the hand so close to touching him rather than his hair, and nodded. “It’s more than just a rollercoaster. That wasn’t my best metaphor, y’know?”
Reluctantly, Jim released Blair’s hair, let every last strand slide slowly through his fingers.
“Metaphors make a man thirsty. Want a beer?”
Blair’s head ducked, and then his face tilted back up wearing a resigned expression. “A beer? Sure. Wanna make a toast?”
“To Janet and Incacha? Why not?”
Blair asked, “To sentinels and animal spirits?”
Jim stood up to go to the fridge. “Why not?” he said, and turned back to see Blair smile.
Debrief
Even when the media took the police point of view, newspapers and television channels had ambivalent status with cops. Simon’s tight-pressed lips suggested that today the Cascade Herald wasn’t his favourite information and recreation source.
“ ‘Crossbow Vengeance on Cascade Streets’,” he quoted distastefully, gesturing at the newspaper on his desk.
“Better than rocket launchers,” Jim offered. Only in the matter of scale, though. He was aware enough of how the simplest things could injure or kill.
“Thank you for adjusting my point of view, Detective. Perhaps *you’d* like to talk to the Commissioner for me.”
“I’ll pass, sir.”
“I’m not surprised.” Simon sighed. “Wish I knew why the Herald had to banner this story.”
“It’s not exactly surprising, Simon. Indigenous people coming after the big corporation that illegally exploited their land - it’s a great story from a media perspective - mixes elements of traditional news with that little extra novelty factor.” Jim knew that Blair was trying to run a sort of interference, but still winced. He recognised Simon in a rhetorical mood, even if Blair didn’t seem to, his hand unsuccessfully trying to swipe back his unruly hair.
“I’m waiting on that little extra novelty factor of you waiting to be invited before contributing, Sandburg,” Simon remarked blandly. He remained unabashed at the look of boyish reproach sent his way, and darted one suspicious look at Jim before he flapped his hands with irritation that was less formal and more familiar. “Go on, the pair of you. This little briefing is now officially over, and I need some fortification before I go and see the Commissioner.” Blair lifted his eyebrows, and Simon scowled. “Coffee!”
“Great idea,” Jim said, and grabbed Blair’s elbow to steer him out of Simon’s office.
Safety achieved, Jim shook his head. “I’m starting to think that you’ve got a mean streak, Chief.”
That distracting hand ran through Blair’s hair again. Just a hand, one that Jim had seen plenty of the last couple of years, so why did he get this urge sometimes to engulf it in his own so that he could map out the structure and the texture of it?
“Me? You’re kidding, right?”
“No more playing dumb social scientist to bait the nice police captain.”
Blair’s smile was still tired, but genuine enough. “So I brought some familiar interaction into an uncomfortable situation that needed to be lightened up. And you could see it, Jim. He was thinking, ‘that damn fence-sitting academic’ but that has to be better than thinking about how he’s going to tap-dance around the fact that Cascade’s finest apparently can’t find a bunch of Peruvian indigenes in kilts and war-paint.”
“Yeah, guess I let my rep as super-cop down there.”
Blair’s face blossomed into amusement. “Yeah, man, guess you did. Especially given that you’re a by-the-book kind of guy.”
Jim leaned back against his desk, and wearily pinched the bridge of his nose. It had been a fraught week. “That’s me, Sandburg. By-the-book.”
“And everything’s okay?” It was a serious question and Jim gave it a serious answer.
“Everything’s fine.” Maybe it wasn’t right to think of the Chopec men as innocents - they’d killed Torrens after all - but Jim kept remembering what Incacha said. ‘There is only justice.’ And Jim’s vision of justice couldn’t accept Incacha’s tribesmen undergoing the rigours of the US courts. Better to let them slip away under the care of the sympathisers who’d helped them track down the executives of Cyclops Oil. Obstructing the course of justice wasn’t a charge that Jim wanted to face, but he’d covered tracks before, just not so much as a cop. He owed his friend, and there was still hard work to be carried out on Incacha’s behalf, to see his remains returned to where they belonged.
Blair settled himself behind the desk. “If Cyclops survives all this, I expect they’ll be going for some rebranding. The Greek myth *is* about a man-eating monster. I did a little research; their opponents in eco-activism have used that analogy before and they’ll get more pointed about it as this mess works its way through the system.” Maybe that was an oblique way of offering support, but Jim was grateful for it. Jim Ellison, defender against man-eating monsters. Sounded better than Jim Ellison, the man who let innocents get hurt and killed because he couldn’t make up his mind about what the hell he wanted.
“Cyclops Oil can look after itself. You and me - we have reports to write.”
“We as in me?”
“You, oh mighty wielder of wooden sticks against gun-toting thugs.”
Blair shifted in his chair. “Ah, come on, Jim, you already read the riot act over that last night.”
“I had cause.”
Blair waved his hand, dismissing any cause Jim thought he had, and leaned over to look for something in his pack. His hair fell every which way and Jim studied the curved line of strong neck revealed. All that hair might have fallen away from Blair’s neck while he lay prostrate and bleeding on a rain-wet Cascade street, but that clearly wasn’t an issue to Blair. Jim shook his head, and got back to work.
***
The loft - home, albeit with gaps. The couch where Incacha lay had been removed into storage, awaiting assessment for insurance; it was, of necessity, also available for forensic inspection. Jim couldn’t look at the empty space in the living area without thinking about Incacha lying there, bleeding his power and his life away, while Blair looked on in astonished distress and Jim… Jim couldn’t help, couldn’t protect his friend, either to save his life or to offer him the death dignities that were owed his status and beliefs.
Blair must have followed the line of his sight. “Thinking about Incacha?”
“Yeah.” Jim would have been happy to leave it there, but this was Blair.
“It’s hard, I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Jim’s voice was hard.
“Yes, I do, Jim, because I think about Janet.”
“It’s not quite the same, Chief.” Jim tried to soften his tone, but he really didn’t want to talk about this right now.
“Well, maybe not.” Blair, however, clearly was in the mood to talk. “But what happened…it’s like the worst nightmare for a cop, isn’t it? Innocent people getting hurt because of what you do or don’t do.” Blair stood up and started walking, an aimless pacing from the window back to the dining table. “That’s why Suzanne Tomaki left the Tacoma force, isn’t it. Because somebody innocent got killed?”
“That was different. Suzanne - she made a bad error of judgement, and she knew it. And in case you’re wondering, my career plans still include police work.” What about you, Chief, Jim wanted to ask. Do your plans still include police work?
Blair folded his arms around himself, as if he was cold. “And I didn’t make an error of judgement bringing Janet into things?”
“She was employed by a corrupt company as a PR consultant for environmental issues, Chief. You think that she wouldn’t have had to face some tough issues eventually?”
Blair shrugged. “Probably.”
“Get on with it, Sandburg.”
“What?” The surprise on Blair’s face seemed genuine.
“Let’s get to my errors of judgement, before the suspense gives me a stroke.”
“Jim…”
“If the sentinel thing had been up and running, maybe Janet might be alive, or Incacha. I wouldn’t have lost him when he gave us the slip.”
Blair looked across the airy expanse between him and the view out the windows. “Who knows, man, who knows? That’s what I’ve been thinking about, that you don’t always see where your choices are going to lead you. The trouble with your senses started with somebody getting hurt, and you were trying to feel your way to the right course of action. Who knows how things would have panned out.” Blair took a deep breath. “Janet might still be dead. And the Chopec - they probably would have confronted Yeager anyway. Incacha might still be dead, because it’s not like you were going to lock him a holding cell.”
“Que sera, que sera?” Jim queried bitterly.
Blair crouched down by Jim’s chair, his elbows leaning against the upholstery. Sneaky little bastard, always creeping under the wire, flying under the radar. “Whatever will be, will be? Doris Day, you are not.” His eyes looked straight into Jim’s. “Will you still be a sentinel? Even when you make mistakes with it?”
Jim put out his hand to finger a lock of Blair’s hair. “What about you? Going to keep riding that rollercoaster, even when people get hurt?”
Blair’s eye’s flicked sideways to the hand so close to touching him rather than his hair, and nodded. “It’s more than just a rollercoaster. That wasn’t my best metaphor, y’know?”
Reluctantly, Jim released Blair’s hair, let every last strand slide slowly through his fingers.
“Metaphors make a man thirsty. Want a beer?”
Blair’s head ducked, and then his face tilted back up wearing a resigned expression. “A beer? Sure. Wanna make a toast?”
“To Janet and Incacha? Why not?”
Blair asked, “To sentinels and animal spirits?”
Jim stood up to go to the fridge. “Why not?” he said, and turned back to see Blair smile.