TS fic for Sentinel Thursday challenge #547 ("create")
fic for sentinel-thurs challenge #547 - create
fandom: the Sentinel
title: Mr. Ed Might Have Liked Kimchee If He'd Ever Gotten To Try It, Who Knows?
length: ~ 2560 words
category: slash, or at least sort-of slash
rating: R (language)
notes: AU, sentinels and guides are known, (possible, sort-of) bonding (if you want to make it that)
It's been way too long since I've been able to play in the Sentinel Thursday sandbox - so what do I do, the first chance I get? Write something I never thought I would (see the notes above). Writing is funny that way.
Inspired, in part, by unbelievable2 quoting a classic bit of TS dialog in a recent post. :-)
Posted here instead of on Sentinel Thursday due to its length.
Also? Please feel more than free to point out any wonkiness or other issues -- neither time nor perspective are entirely my friends right now, and I may be perpetrating fic upon you all that should have stayed incommunicado on my hard drive...
Mr. Ed Might Have Liked Kimchee If He'd Ever Gotten To Try It, Who Knows?
"Fill this out, please." The receptionist handed Jim a clipboard with what looked to be a dozen sheets of paper attached and gestured at the row of uncomfortable-looking, shop-worn upholstered chairs that were lined up against the far wall. "You can have a seat over there." The smile she gave Jim was bright and about as real as the plastic ficus sitting beside the slightly smudged window.
Jim eyed the chairs warily, sighing when the chair he chose - the least lumpy-looking of the lot - turned out to have hidden depths, literally. He could have gone to the downtown office instead of this backwater branch that was clearly suffering from its proximity to both the university, with its campus-full of perpetually broke students, and one of Cascade's poorer neighborhoods. Could have and would have, if the downtown office wasn't directly across the street from Headquarters. All it would take would be for one joker who knew Jim to see him entering a Create-A-Mate's doorway -
Damn Simon. So Jim had missed the trace of formaldehyde at the scene of a homicide last week and the two blonde hairs on the arm of the couch at another crime scene earlier in the month. He was still a hell of a lot better than Peters in Burglary and Wayans in Vice, neither of whom gave Forensics even a token run for their money very often. Simon was just pissed off that Homicide's Isuku had been kicking Jim's ass - if only marginally - lately, with consistent results that had Forensics practically gushing.
Still, Simon had an undeniable point. "Sign on the door says 'Major Crime Unit,' Jim," he'd said. "That means we're the best CPD has to offer. I don't need some hotshot sentinel in Homicide showing up my department's sentinel; I need the best here. Fucking get a guide already."
Fucking get a guide. Right. Maybe Jim would get lucky and there wouldn't be anybody compatible enough to be useful. Simon was generally a reasonable man - and boss - and wouldn't keep beating a dead horse if Jim could show him the horse's death certificate. A receipt from Create-A-Mate and the paperwork to document a couple of unsuccessful attempted matches should serve just fine as that death certificate, then Jim could go back to doing his job his own way, unencumbered by any pushy guide.
Might as well get the show on the road, then. He looked at the top sheet of the questionnaire, where 'Create Your Guide' was printed in bold type, and rubbed his forehead. A glance at the questions on the page - and the questions on the other ten pages - had him not only rubbing his forehead but also clenching his jaw. 'Favorite TV Shows' he could understand, and 'Preferred Gender,' but 'Vocabulary Level Desired' and 'Bathroom Habits' - what was this, kindergarten? Some kind of hidden-camera audition for a trashy reality show?
Jim had to sit hard on an urgent desire to dump the clipboard in the ficus's pot and hit the sidewalk. Simon, he reminded himself; he was doing this for Simon. To appease Simon - well, to fake him out, but hopefully Simon would never know that. At any rate, there was no reason he had to think about any of these questions before he answered them. No reason to even consider trying to answer them honestly, not when he had absolutely no intention of finding - or 'creating,' as the marketing slogan would have it - a compatible guide.
He picked up his pen. Question #1.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The receptionist graced Jim with another fake smile as he handed her the clipboard. "We'll input this into the computer and have the preliminary results for you by Wednesday morning," she said. "And how will you be paying? We accept MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and cash. No personal checks, please."
Jim slid his MasterCard across the desk to her and tried not to wince at the total as he signed the charge-card receipt. "Maybe now you guys can spring for some decent chairs or a real plant, hire somebody to wash the windows," he muttered, as pleasantly as he could, and the receptionist's artificial smile tightened.
"I'll pass your suggestions along to my supervisor," she said, sounding like she was speaking between gritted teeth, and Jim felt a certain petty satisfaction at her displeasure. After all, his morning had been pretty lousy so far; why shouldn't her morning have a low point or two? And anyway, even though Create-A-Mate offered a variety of matching services, sentinel and guide matching was their specialty, according to their advertising. Sentinels who were in the market for guides deserved to have a reasonably comfortable place to park their butts while they filled out Create-A-Mate's inane questionnaire. Even metal folding chairs would be better than the lumpy disaster Jim had spent the last twenty minutes being tormented by.
'You do that," Jim said, with a smile that was absolutely as fake as the receptionist's. "Have a nice day."
He was almost at the door when it opened to admit another customer, the first one Jim had seen since he arrived. "Watch out for the chairs," he warned as the guy blew past him in a rush, receiving a quick glance out of very blue eyes, a puzzled smile, and an "Um, thanks," for his trouble.
He also received - if only because he turned to watch - a good look at the ass that was probably about to encounter one of Create-A-Mate's torture-chamber chairs, and he nearly flinched. An ass like that deserved better.
Deserved a hell of a lot better.
Deserved -
Hell, no. Not a chance. Jim wasn't hooking up, even casually, with some guy he bumped into at a matchmaking business. That could only lead to trouble.
Still….
No. Jim shook his head at himself and headed out onto the sidewalk.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The butterfly seemed completely out of place, too fragile for a busy Cascade street front, fluttering aimlessly along a stretch of sidewalk that didn't offer it so much as a dandelion growing in a crack in the concrete. It lit for a moment on top of a parking meter, its wings outspread, and the sunlight caught the feathery iridescence of its -
"What the fuck?"
A hand was clamped around Jim's wrist and his face was all but mashed into… a plate glass window? A plate glass window with lettering that read, as he pulled back from it, "Create-A-Mate" - what the fuck? He'd just been looking at - looking at -
"The stroller, man," a voice said from the vicinity of his right shoulder. "Double wide. She wasn't stopping for anybody, neither was her dog, and you looked like you were, you know, zoned. You could've been sidewalk kill. Well, maybe not kill exactly, but -"
Jim tuned out the voice for a moment and looked down the sidewalk, his glance immediately landing on the back of a woman pushing a double-wide baby stroller at a ruthless pace, with what appeared to be a tank-sized Rottweiler walking on lead right beside the stroller. They took up the whole width of the sidewalk, and he had to concede, reluctantly, that the voice had a point: without intercession, he might've ended up flattened out on the sidewalk, wearing a set of tire marks and/or paw prints. Nothing lethal, but still, potentially, bruising. And embarrassing.
He sighed and turned to his rescuer.
Who had very blue eyes, long, chestnut-brown hair, a regrettably sixties' taste in clothing, and was indisputably the owner of the ass Jim had been admiring right before he left the Create-A-Mate office.
"I know it's not any of my business," Blue Eyes said as he let go of Jim's wrist, "but what were you…" He trailed off, sounding sheepish, and Jim rethought the frown he'd been about to level at the guy.
It really wasn't any of Blue Eyes' business, but… "A butterfly," he said, a little shortly. He hadn't zoned in eight months, for Christ's sake. Good thing Simon hadn't been around to catch this.
"Whoa, yeah, that could do it," Blue Eyes said. "To be able to see a butterfly's wings like that…" He closed his eyes for a moment and seemed to shake himself, and Jim got the impression he was trying to shake off a certain amount of wistfulness.
"You know I'm a sentinel," Jim said, and it was a statement of fact, not a question.
Blue Eyes raised his eyebrows with obvious incredulity. "Duh? Zoned out on a busy sidewalk?" The eyebrows lowered, and the sheepish note returned to his voice. "Besides, your questionnaire was still sitting on top of the desk in there." He jerked his head towards the Create-A-Mate office they were standing in front of.
Jim could feel his gaze sharpening, and Blue Eyes went on hastily, "I didn't read any of your answers, okay? I just saw that it was the 'Create Your Guide' one, and I'd have to be pretty dense to not get that you're a sentinel."
"All right," Jim said, because fair enough. "You know what I was in there for," - which wasn't entirely true, but Blue Eyes didn't need to know that - "so what about you? Create A Roommate? Create A Frisbee Partner?"
Blue Eyes huffed a laugh. "A roommate wouldn't hurt, actually. A Frisbee partner I don't need since I work at Rainier, otherwise known as Frisbee Central, and I can get in on a game any time I want."
"Professor?" Jim said, a little skeptically - more likely barista at a coffee shop; Blue Eyes didn't look old enough, or serious enough, to be a professor.
"Maybe someday. After I get my PhD." Blues Eyes stuck out his hand. "Blair Sandburg, anthropology grad student, TA, and unfortunately impecunious guide."
Jim shook the offered hand automatically. "Guide," he said flatly, instead of introducing himself. Was this some kind of setup? Was Blue Eyes - Sandburg - on a fishing mission?
Sandburg shrugged. "Guide," he agreed. "Not that I'm going to get to be that any time soon, not on a TA's salary. Have you seen the prices in there? Okay, right, of course you have. 'Create Your Guide.' Right."
Something about Sandburg's attitude tugged at Jim. It wasn't that he was sorry for Sandburg, but…. "If it makes you feel better, the guide I asked for on that questionnaire doesn't exist. At least I hope like hell she doesn't exist."
"She?" Sandburg asked. He sounded… disappointed? Or was Jim imagining that? "You hope she doesn't exist?" Sandburg went on, and yeah, Jim must've been imagining the disappointment; the only emotion in Sandburg's voice now was puzzlement.
"Would you want to end up partnered with a six-nine, purple-haired former curling champion for the University of Manitoba who has five rugrats under the age of eight and a fondness for Mr. Ed reruns and kimchee served with strawberry ice cream?"
There was a moment of stunned silence from Sandburg. He narrowed his eyes - eyes that were alight with laughter - and said, "You're shitting me."
Jim couldn't help his chuckle. "Yeah, I am. It wasn't quite that bad. But close; I tried, anyway."
"Tried to not get a guide, when you were forking over a small fortune to match up with one? That's kind of seriously screwed up; you know that, right?"
Jim shrugged. "I'm fine without a guide, but my boss thinks I'd be just a little bit better with one."
"So you're playing the game, but rigging it so you can't win. That's beautiful," Sandburg said, and his smile looked… well, admiring, actually. And appreciative.
Abruptly, Jim felt almost sorry that life had worked out this way - here he was, not wanting something that he could - at least probably - have, and here Sandburg was, wanting something he couldn't have. "I guess you've tried other routes," he said to Sandburg, aware that he sounded a little awkward.
"Other routes?" Sandburg looked mystified briefly, but before Jim could continue, he added, "Oh, you mean me finding a sentinel to partner with? Yeah, sure. Bulletin boards, mixers, the personals - everything but the kitchen sink, man."
"That's too bad," Jim said, and meant it. Sandburg seemed like a decent guy, and the more Jim talked with him, the more decent he seemed. Decent and somehow oddly familiar.
And, well… intriguing, above and beyond the blue eyes and the ass and the way his voice sounded mellow and smooth, or the way Jim could smell exactly how the skin at the base of his throat would taste, spicy and addictive and -
Fuck. Fucking Christ.
Jesus fucking Christ.
"Wait here," he said to Sandburg, and paused only long enough to receive a nod from Sandburg and a confused-sounding, "Yeah, okay, sure. What -" before he was back inside the University Avenue office of Create-A-Mate.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"I don't get it," Sandburg said, staring at the clipboard.
"Now who's being dense?" Jim said, shooting Sandburg an exasperated look. He tapped the bold print at the top of the page. "'Create Your Sentinel' - ring a bell?"
"How did you - look, I can't afford -"
"How did I get this? With difficulty, since Betsy in there didn't see eye to eye with me about letting one of their proprietary questionnaires out of their office, even if it was only going as far as the sidewalk just outside their door. As far as affording it goes, don't worry about that. Just… maybe I can help you answer some of the questions on there, so you get them right. If you're interested."
The stare Sandburg leveled at Jim felt like it was stripping him to the bone. "Maybe you can help me, so I get the answers right?" Sandburg repeated slowly. "So I'm guessing we're not looking at purple hair?"
"Or six-nine, or female," Jim agreed, and refused to admit to himself that the tight feeling in his stomach was due to anything as ridiculous as nervousness.
Not that this whole situation hadn't become ridiculous.
"Okay," Sandburg said, still slowly, but with a half-smile that did a lot to ease the tightness in Jim's stomach. "So… what, six-two? Brown hair?"
"Mmm," Jim said, "that's a good start. Second page, there's a question about preferred careers for your potential partner. You might want to consider 'detective, Cascade PD, Major Crime Unit' for that. If you're interested, that is."
"I can consider that, yeah," Sandburg said. His smile widened a little. "Is there a name I should be considering along with the rest of this?"
And there it was, suddenly, the look in Sandburg's - Blair's - eyes that Jim had been waiting for, hoping for, since he'd had his own ridiculous epiphany ten minutes ago. "Jim," he said to Blair, "Jim Ellison. Your sentinel, if we're both lucky."
"Holy crap," Blair said. He sounded dazed, and Jim couldn't really blame him. After all, this kind of thing rarely happened. Sentinels and guides worked together, sure; became partners, friends if they were lucky, sometimes even lovers and spouses. But this kind of thing, this improbable, inexplicable, almost immediate connection, this need, out of the blue….
"Holy crap, hell," Jim said, and he could feel himself grinning like the fool he undoubtedly was. "You know what they call this, don't you?"
"Yeah," Blair said, and he was grinning now too, and it was fucking ridiculous and fucking goddamn wonderful. "Holy Grail time."
Fucking ridiculous. Holy Grail time.
Fucking goddamn wonderful.
fandom: the Sentinel
title: Mr. Ed Might Have Liked Kimchee If He'd Ever Gotten To Try It, Who Knows?
length: ~ 2560 words
category: slash, or at least sort-of slash
rating: R (language)
notes: AU, sentinels and guides are known, (possible, sort-of) bonding (if you want to make it that)
It's been way too long since I've been able to play in the Sentinel Thursday sandbox - so what do I do, the first chance I get? Write something I never thought I would (see the notes above). Writing is funny that way.
Inspired, in part, by unbelievable2 quoting a classic bit of TS dialog in a recent post. :-)
Posted here instead of on Sentinel Thursday due to its length.
Also? Please feel more than free to point out any wonkiness or other issues -- neither time nor perspective are entirely my friends right now, and I may be perpetrating fic upon you all that should have stayed incommunicado on my hard drive...
Mr. Ed Might Have Liked Kimchee If He'd Ever Gotten To Try It, Who Knows?
"Fill this out, please." The receptionist handed Jim a clipboard with what looked to be a dozen sheets of paper attached and gestured at the row of uncomfortable-looking, shop-worn upholstered chairs that were lined up against the far wall. "You can have a seat over there." The smile she gave Jim was bright and about as real as the plastic ficus sitting beside the slightly smudged window.
Jim eyed the chairs warily, sighing when the chair he chose - the least lumpy-looking of the lot - turned out to have hidden depths, literally. He could have gone to the downtown office instead of this backwater branch that was clearly suffering from its proximity to both the university, with its campus-full of perpetually broke students, and one of Cascade's poorer neighborhoods. Could have and would have, if the downtown office wasn't directly across the street from Headquarters. All it would take would be for one joker who knew Jim to see him entering a Create-A-Mate's doorway -
Damn Simon. So Jim had missed the trace of formaldehyde at the scene of a homicide last week and the two blonde hairs on the arm of the couch at another crime scene earlier in the month. He was still a hell of a lot better than Peters in Burglary and Wayans in Vice, neither of whom gave Forensics even a token run for their money very often. Simon was just pissed off that Homicide's Isuku had been kicking Jim's ass - if only marginally - lately, with consistent results that had Forensics practically gushing.
Still, Simon had an undeniable point. "Sign on the door says 'Major Crime Unit,' Jim," he'd said. "That means we're the best CPD has to offer. I don't need some hotshot sentinel in Homicide showing up my department's sentinel; I need the best here. Fucking get a guide already."
Fucking get a guide. Right. Maybe Jim would get lucky and there wouldn't be anybody compatible enough to be useful. Simon was generally a reasonable man - and boss - and wouldn't keep beating a dead horse if Jim could show him the horse's death certificate. A receipt from Create-A-Mate and the paperwork to document a couple of unsuccessful attempted matches should serve just fine as that death certificate, then Jim could go back to doing his job his own way, unencumbered by any pushy guide.
Might as well get the show on the road, then. He looked at the top sheet of the questionnaire, where 'Create Your Guide' was printed in bold type, and rubbed his forehead. A glance at the questions on the page - and the questions on the other ten pages - had him not only rubbing his forehead but also clenching his jaw. 'Favorite TV Shows' he could understand, and 'Preferred Gender,' but 'Vocabulary Level Desired' and 'Bathroom Habits' - what was this, kindergarten? Some kind of hidden-camera audition for a trashy reality show?
Jim had to sit hard on an urgent desire to dump the clipboard in the ficus's pot and hit the sidewalk. Simon, he reminded himself; he was doing this for Simon. To appease Simon - well, to fake him out, but hopefully Simon would never know that. At any rate, there was no reason he had to think about any of these questions before he answered them. No reason to even consider trying to answer them honestly, not when he had absolutely no intention of finding - or 'creating,' as the marketing slogan would have it - a compatible guide.
He picked up his pen. Question #1.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The receptionist graced Jim with another fake smile as he handed her the clipboard. "We'll input this into the computer and have the preliminary results for you by Wednesday morning," she said. "And how will you be paying? We accept MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and cash. No personal checks, please."
Jim slid his MasterCard across the desk to her and tried not to wince at the total as he signed the charge-card receipt. "Maybe now you guys can spring for some decent chairs or a real plant, hire somebody to wash the windows," he muttered, as pleasantly as he could, and the receptionist's artificial smile tightened.
"I'll pass your suggestions along to my supervisor," she said, sounding like she was speaking between gritted teeth, and Jim felt a certain petty satisfaction at her displeasure. After all, his morning had been pretty lousy so far; why shouldn't her morning have a low point or two? And anyway, even though Create-A-Mate offered a variety of matching services, sentinel and guide matching was their specialty, according to their advertising. Sentinels who were in the market for guides deserved to have a reasonably comfortable place to park their butts while they filled out Create-A-Mate's inane questionnaire. Even metal folding chairs would be better than the lumpy disaster Jim had spent the last twenty minutes being tormented by.
'You do that," Jim said, with a smile that was absolutely as fake as the receptionist's. "Have a nice day."
He was almost at the door when it opened to admit another customer, the first one Jim had seen since he arrived. "Watch out for the chairs," he warned as the guy blew past him in a rush, receiving a quick glance out of very blue eyes, a puzzled smile, and an "Um, thanks," for his trouble.
He also received - if only because he turned to watch - a good look at the ass that was probably about to encounter one of Create-A-Mate's torture-chamber chairs, and he nearly flinched. An ass like that deserved better.
Deserved a hell of a lot better.
Deserved -
Hell, no. Not a chance. Jim wasn't hooking up, even casually, with some guy he bumped into at a matchmaking business. That could only lead to trouble.
Still….
No. Jim shook his head at himself and headed out onto the sidewalk.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The butterfly seemed completely out of place, too fragile for a busy Cascade street front, fluttering aimlessly along a stretch of sidewalk that didn't offer it so much as a dandelion growing in a crack in the concrete. It lit for a moment on top of a parking meter, its wings outspread, and the sunlight caught the feathery iridescence of its -
"What the fuck?"
A hand was clamped around Jim's wrist and his face was all but mashed into… a plate glass window? A plate glass window with lettering that read, as he pulled back from it, "Create-A-Mate" - what the fuck? He'd just been looking at - looking at -
"The stroller, man," a voice said from the vicinity of his right shoulder. "Double wide. She wasn't stopping for anybody, neither was her dog, and you looked like you were, you know, zoned. You could've been sidewalk kill. Well, maybe not kill exactly, but -"
Jim tuned out the voice for a moment and looked down the sidewalk, his glance immediately landing on the back of a woman pushing a double-wide baby stroller at a ruthless pace, with what appeared to be a tank-sized Rottweiler walking on lead right beside the stroller. They took up the whole width of the sidewalk, and he had to concede, reluctantly, that the voice had a point: without intercession, he might've ended up flattened out on the sidewalk, wearing a set of tire marks and/or paw prints. Nothing lethal, but still, potentially, bruising. And embarrassing.
He sighed and turned to his rescuer.
Who had very blue eyes, long, chestnut-brown hair, a regrettably sixties' taste in clothing, and was indisputably the owner of the ass Jim had been admiring right before he left the Create-A-Mate office.
"I know it's not any of my business," Blue Eyes said as he let go of Jim's wrist, "but what were you…" He trailed off, sounding sheepish, and Jim rethought the frown he'd been about to level at the guy.
It really wasn't any of Blue Eyes' business, but… "A butterfly," he said, a little shortly. He hadn't zoned in eight months, for Christ's sake. Good thing Simon hadn't been around to catch this.
"Whoa, yeah, that could do it," Blue Eyes said. "To be able to see a butterfly's wings like that…" He closed his eyes for a moment and seemed to shake himself, and Jim got the impression he was trying to shake off a certain amount of wistfulness.
"You know I'm a sentinel," Jim said, and it was a statement of fact, not a question.
Blue Eyes raised his eyebrows with obvious incredulity. "Duh? Zoned out on a busy sidewalk?" The eyebrows lowered, and the sheepish note returned to his voice. "Besides, your questionnaire was still sitting on top of the desk in there." He jerked his head towards the Create-A-Mate office they were standing in front of.
Jim could feel his gaze sharpening, and Blue Eyes went on hastily, "I didn't read any of your answers, okay? I just saw that it was the 'Create Your Guide' one, and I'd have to be pretty dense to not get that you're a sentinel."
"All right," Jim said, because fair enough. "You know what I was in there for," - which wasn't entirely true, but Blue Eyes didn't need to know that - "so what about you? Create A Roommate? Create A Frisbee Partner?"
Blue Eyes huffed a laugh. "A roommate wouldn't hurt, actually. A Frisbee partner I don't need since I work at Rainier, otherwise known as Frisbee Central, and I can get in on a game any time I want."
"Professor?" Jim said, a little skeptically - more likely barista at a coffee shop; Blue Eyes didn't look old enough, or serious enough, to be a professor.
"Maybe someday. After I get my PhD." Blues Eyes stuck out his hand. "Blair Sandburg, anthropology grad student, TA, and unfortunately impecunious guide."
Jim shook the offered hand automatically. "Guide," he said flatly, instead of introducing himself. Was this some kind of setup? Was Blue Eyes - Sandburg - on a fishing mission?
Sandburg shrugged. "Guide," he agreed. "Not that I'm going to get to be that any time soon, not on a TA's salary. Have you seen the prices in there? Okay, right, of course you have. 'Create Your Guide.' Right."
Something about Sandburg's attitude tugged at Jim. It wasn't that he was sorry for Sandburg, but…. "If it makes you feel better, the guide I asked for on that questionnaire doesn't exist. At least I hope like hell she doesn't exist."
"She?" Sandburg asked. He sounded… disappointed? Or was Jim imagining that? "You hope she doesn't exist?" Sandburg went on, and yeah, Jim must've been imagining the disappointment; the only emotion in Sandburg's voice now was puzzlement.
"Would you want to end up partnered with a six-nine, purple-haired former curling champion for the University of Manitoba who has five rugrats under the age of eight and a fondness for Mr. Ed reruns and kimchee served with strawberry ice cream?"
There was a moment of stunned silence from Sandburg. He narrowed his eyes - eyes that were alight with laughter - and said, "You're shitting me."
Jim couldn't help his chuckle. "Yeah, I am. It wasn't quite that bad. But close; I tried, anyway."
"Tried to not get a guide, when you were forking over a small fortune to match up with one? That's kind of seriously screwed up; you know that, right?"
Jim shrugged. "I'm fine without a guide, but my boss thinks I'd be just a little bit better with one."
"So you're playing the game, but rigging it so you can't win. That's beautiful," Sandburg said, and his smile looked… well, admiring, actually. And appreciative.
Abruptly, Jim felt almost sorry that life had worked out this way - here he was, not wanting something that he could - at least probably - have, and here Sandburg was, wanting something he couldn't have. "I guess you've tried other routes," he said to Sandburg, aware that he sounded a little awkward.
"Other routes?" Sandburg looked mystified briefly, but before Jim could continue, he added, "Oh, you mean me finding a sentinel to partner with? Yeah, sure. Bulletin boards, mixers, the personals - everything but the kitchen sink, man."
"That's too bad," Jim said, and meant it. Sandburg seemed like a decent guy, and the more Jim talked with him, the more decent he seemed. Decent and somehow oddly familiar.
And, well… intriguing, above and beyond the blue eyes and the ass and the way his voice sounded mellow and smooth, or the way Jim could smell exactly how the skin at the base of his throat would taste, spicy and addictive and -
Fuck. Fucking Christ.
Jesus fucking Christ.
"Wait here," he said to Sandburg, and paused only long enough to receive a nod from Sandburg and a confused-sounding, "Yeah, okay, sure. What -" before he was back inside the University Avenue office of Create-A-Mate.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"I don't get it," Sandburg said, staring at the clipboard.
"Now who's being dense?" Jim said, shooting Sandburg an exasperated look. He tapped the bold print at the top of the page. "'Create Your Sentinel' - ring a bell?"
"How did you - look, I can't afford -"
"How did I get this? With difficulty, since Betsy in there didn't see eye to eye with me about letting one of their proprietary questionnaires out of their office, even if it was only going as far as the sidewalk just outside their door. As far as affording it goes, don't worry about that. Just… maybe I can help you answer some of the questions on there, so you get them right. If you're interested."
The stare Sandburg leveled at Jim felt like it was stripping him to the bone. "Maybe you can help me, so I get the answers right?" Sandburg repeated slowly. "So I'm guessing we're not looking at purple hair?"
"Or six-nine, or female," Jim agreed, and refused to admit to himself that the tight feeling in his stomach was due to anything as ridiculous as nervousness.
Not that this whole situation hadn't become ridiculous.
"Okay," Sandburg said, still slowly, but with a half-smile that did a lot to ease the tightness in Jim's stomach. "So… what, six-two? Brown hair?"
"Mmm," Jim said, "that's a good start. Second page, there's a question about preferred careers for your potential partner. You might want to consider 'detective, Cascade PD, Major Crime Unit' for that. If you're interested, that is."
"I can consider that, yeah," Sandburg said. His smile widened a little. "Is there a name I should be considering along with the rest of this?"
And there it was, suddenly, the look in Sandburg's - Blair's - eyes that Jim had been waiting for, hoping for, since he'd had his own ridiculous epiphany ten minutes ago. "Jim," he said to Blair, "Jim Ellison. Your sentinel, if we're both lucky."
"Holy crap," Blair said. He sounded dazed, and Jim couldn't really blame him. After all, this kind of thing rarely happened. Sentinels and guides worked together, sure; became partners, friends if they were lucky, sometimes even lovers and spouses. But this kind of thing, this improbable, inexplicable, almost immediate connection, this need, out of the blue….
"Holy crap, hell," Jim said, and he could feel himself grinning like the fool he undoubtedly was. "You know what they call this, don't you?"
"Yeah," Blair said, and he was grinning now too, and it was fucking ridiculous and fucking goddamn wonderful. "Holy Grail time."
Fucking ridiculous. Holy Grail time.
Fucking goddamn wonderful.