Sentinel Fic: They Have To Take You In 1/9
Fic: They Have To Take You In
Warning: This chapter contains graphic descriptions of Blair-torture and medical procedures.
This chapter turned out to be a little too long for LJ, so I had to break it in two.
One
Standing outside the Guide Training and Assignment Center, Jim looked up at the building with revulsion. It was a perfectly ordinary building-brick, 1970’s architecture, small windows half plugged up with air conditioning units. It could have been an office building, or an elementary school.
It wasn’t. He’d have left if he could, just gotten in his car and drove away, but the last time he’d tried that, Captain Banks had told him in no uncertain terms that if he missed his required appointments with G-TAC, he could consider himself suspended without pay until they granted him another appointment and he kept it.
He didn’t have to take a Guide. No one could make him do that. He just had to go into the place, listen to what they had to say, and walk out again.
He could do this.
Taking one more deep breath, he went inside.
#
Sagging against the shackles, no longer able to keep his feet under him, Blair fought just to raise his head and look his tormentor in the eye. “Why are you--”
“Silent!” Another blow took his breath away for a moment.
As soon as his breath returned, he continued, “-doing this to me?”
The smarter ones, the more experienced ones, they just didn’t answer. Didn’t engage, just kept demanding behaviors and hurting him when he didn’t present them. This one was newer, though, and hadn’t learned yet. “Because you need to learn your place. You were disobedient and surly with your Sentinel. We need to break your bad habits and replace them with good ones.”
“No,” Blair said, spitting blood. “Why are you doing this?” He wasn’t asking “why me?” He knew why it was him. But he’d never gotten a satisfactory answer from a trainer about why them.
The trainer hit him again, this time a stinging slap to his face. “Be silent unless you’re spoken to.”
“Make me.”
The trainer did.
#
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Ellison. They just put down new carpet in my office upstairs, and this was the only room that was available.”
His case worker was a new one, a young woman named Lorelei Marks. She seemed nice enough; a perfectly ordinary office worker. Not for the first time, he wondered what made someone want to work in a place like this.
It was the first time he’d been down to the sub-levels of the building. Unlike upstairs, where the ugliness of the place was hidden behind bland, ordinary office furnishings, this level looked like a prison, with concrete walls and heavy reinforced doors.
They weren’t heavy enough to shield what was going on behind them from Sentinel hearing. Miss Marks, though, seemed unaware that down the hall, some poor bastard was having the shit beaten out of him. Jim wondered if she knew-she couldn’t hear, of course, but did she know what they did down here? Was it possible to work here and not know?
The room they were sitting in looked almost like one of their interrogation rooms, down at the station: single-bulb overhead light, table, two chairs on opposite sides of it. It smelled the same, too, like industrial cleaning products and fear.
“I understand you’ve been reluctant to engage a Guide in the past, Mr. Ellison,” Marks was saying. “Can I ask what brought you here today?”
“I won’t be engaging one today, either. My captain insisted I come down.”
“Well, let’s see if we can change your mind.”
Jim barely listened as she went over profiles of Guides who had “tested as highly compatible with you, Mr. Ellison.” While she talked about their talents, hobbies, and attributes, he listened to the Guide down the hall.
They were going at him-her?-with some kind of whip or strap, the blows coming so fast that the Guide couldn’t catch his breath. When the trainer stopped-out of breath himself-the Guide said thickly, “…bes’ you c’n ‘oo?”
It was a man, and he was just about done in. So brave, but Jim could hear the exhaustion in his voice, the desperation. Under the table, Jim’s hands clenched involuntarily into fists. If there was any real justice, he’d be putting a stop to these people, not chatting with them. But he had to stay calm. Just stay calm, and get out. Stay calm, and get out.
“-cup of coffee?” Miss Marks was asking. He wasn’t sure if he nodded, but she seemed to take whatever response he’d given as assent. “I’ll just run up and get some for us-you can look over the files while I’m gone.”
On the way to the door, she paused. “Mr. Ellison?”
“Yes?”
“It would be best if you stayed in this room. There are some training suites on this floor, and it can be upsetting for the Sentinels. I’m sure you understand. Back in a tick!”
Upsetting. That was one word for it. He looked at the profiles, each accompanied by an 8x10 photo and a gruesome sort of resume. Jeff, for instance, was fluent in three languages, a gourmet cook, and sexually submissive with both males and females. Rachel was familiar with all standard office software as well as law enforcement databases, skilled in therapeutic massage, and a virgin who hoped to one day bear her Sentinel’s child.
Jim wondered if any of them had spent time in the training suites, and what kind of cheerful little descriptions they’d put in the poor bastard down the hall’s profile.
He was sobbing now, down the hall. “No-no, don’, I won’, please, do--” A shrill, inhuman cry ripped through sublevel three as the Guide screamed like a dying rabbit.
Without conscious thought, Jim found himself on his feet and running down the hall. He burst through the door of the “training suite,” just as the trainer himself was leaving through another door.
For a split second, he wavered between tending the injured Guide and going after the assailant. But a soft whimper from the Guide made the decision for him. He hurried to the Guide’s side, chanting, “It’s all right, it’s all right,” as he unfastened the manacles that held him spread-eagled against the wall.
Some detached part of his mind knew that it was not at all all right. The man was covered in bruises and welts, and three fingers on his right hand were bent back and twisted, obviously broken. It had to have been those injuries that had forced that horrible scream from his throat. They were so new, Jim could see the fingers swelling up like sausages before his eyes.
But except for that one, small, clinical part of his mind, Jim was focused on caring for the Guide. Scanning the room for danger, he quickly pulled the Guide into a protective embrace and settled both of them in the corner farthest from the door. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” he kept saying as the Guide sobbed and whimpered.
As the Guide’s crying quieted and his heart rate slowed, and no further danger presented itself, Jim slowly renewed his acquaintance with reason.
He almost wished he hadn’t. There was no way he could protect this Guide-sitting in the corner of the training suite shielding him with his body was not a long-term solution. But it had been bad enough when the Guide was an abstraction, suffering at the end of the hall. Now that the other man-hardly more than a kid, really-was huddled up against him in his arms, he could no more walk away and leave him there than he could rip out his liver and leave that in G-TAC.
It was an impossible situation, and when the door opened and Lorelei peered in, he was almost glad to find that his instincts took over and left him responding with a primal growl.
He only regretted it because the Guide in his lap cringed. “It’s okay,” Jim told him again. “It’s all right. You’re doing fine, Chief. Not mad at you. Here.” He struggled out of his jacket and wrapped it around the kid’s shoulders. The Guide was naked, and while most of his trembling had to be from fear and shock, covering him up would help a little. “There. That’s it.” Should he try to set the fingers? They looked bad, probably multiple fractures. And setting them would hurt. No, he decided, it could wait. The Guide was clinging to Jim with his uninjured hand, and didn’t look like he could handle any more pain than he was in right now.
The kid was trying to say something, now. “Whuh. Whuh,” was all he could manage.
“Who am I?” Jim guessed. “My name’s Jim. I’m a Sentinel.”
The Guide coughed and spat some blood onto the floor near them. “Puh-p’eez,” he managed to get out, sounding like he was begging.
Please. “What?” Anything, Chief, anything you want-just let me find a way to get you out of here first. The thought surprised him. When had he decided that? But he didn’t have to decide, any more than he had had to decide to act when he heard that scream, that he wasn’t leaving G-TAC without this Guide.
“He’p?”
“Yeah. Yeah, Chief, I’m going to help. I just haven’t figured out how yet. Any ideas?”
Jim wasn’t too surprised when the Guide didn’t answer. He sat there, clinging to the Guide, the Guide clinging to him, for a few minutes, until they were interrupted by a tap at the door. “Mr. Ellison?” Lorelei Marks called.
He took a few deep breaths, reassuring the Guide and schooling himself to respond rationally. “Yes?”
“May we come in?”
We? “You, and who else?”
“Guide Sandburg’s trainer.”
The Guide in his arms let out a whimper of protest. “No. Only you. And don’t touch him.”
Lorelei came into the room, carefully staying out of arm’s reach. “Mr. Ellison, I know it must be upsetting for you to see this part of the training process,” Lorelei said. Jim recognized her tone, or rather her lack of tone-she was trying very hard not to let some emotion show in her voice. The question was, which one? “Guide Sandburg has been a very difficult case, and unfortunately the training staff have had to be very severe with him.”
“No shit,” Jim growled.
Lorelei smiled tightly. “It does happen that he’s very compatible with you. If you’d be interested in him, we could notify you when his training is complete.”
“When?”
“Training will probably take another month or two.”
“Not acceptable.” If Sandburg looked this bad now, who knew what they’d do to him in another month?
“If you’d like to put him down, we could discuss the timetable in more comfortable surroundings.”
“No.” He wasn’t letting go of the Guide until he had him back in his own territory. His apartment, that was. Where he could keep him safe. “He’s mine.”
“Mr. Ellison, he is not yours. He’s under G-TAC’s control. In fact, if you leave now and come upstairs, the strong emotions you’re feeling right now will begin to fade almost immediately.”
On one level, Jim knew she was right. He had a strong drive to protect Guides, even unattached ones or other Sentinels’ Guides. This Guide’s obvious distress was affecting him on an instinctive level.
On another level, however, what she was saying as an obscenity, a blasphemy. “No,” he growled.
“If you’ll just give the matter a little time, Mr. Ellison, we can keep working on Sandburg’s training, and if you still feel so strongly about him--”
“I said no!” If the Guide hadn’t been in his lap, he’d have thrown himself at her.
But Sandburg was there, and he was struggling to sit up. “J-Jim?”
When he looked down at his Guide, meeting his eyes, Lorelei, the room, the whole rest of G-TAC might as well not have existed. “Yeah, Chief?”
“Whas’ happening?”
“I don’t know, Chief. I’m not going to let them hurt you again.”
The kid was clearly fighting to stay lucid, not to pass out from shock or start screaming or crying again. “Why?”
Because you’re mine. But Lorelei was right, the Guide wasn’t his. And the way the kid was looking at him, those pale blue eyes boring into him, it was like there was something riding on this answer. Sandburg wasn’t just looking for reassurance. “Because it’s wrong,” Jim said. “And because when we get out of here, I’d like you to be my Guide, if you’ll have me.”
Sandburg rested bonelessly against him for a moment before he said softly, “I don’ wanna Bond. I’ll guide ya, but I don’ wanna Bond.”
The primal Sentinel in him growled a protest at that, but Jim forced it down. “Okay. That’s fine, we’ll do it that way.” Less than an hour ago, he hadn’t wanted to Bond, either. Still didn’t really. Not the part of him that made the decisions.
“…nice ‘o me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be nice to you, Chief. Don’t worry about that.”
“My han’ hur’s.”
“I know it does. I’m going to get it taken care of real soon.”
“’anks Jim.”
The little Guide was fading out, into something between unconsciousness and natural sleep. With as much pain as he was in, he must be exhausted to be able to doze off like that.
Exhausted, and feeling safe for the first time in God knew how long.
The door opened with a soft click, and Lorelei came back in. Jim hadn’t even noticed she left. She had a blanket over one arm, which she carefully slid across the floor to him. “I thought you might want to…”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Carefully, he tucked his Guide-the Guide-into it, removing the jacket and folding it up to serve as a pillow, instead. The woman didn’t offer anything else, so finally he said, “What happens now?”
“What do you want to have happen?” she asked kindly.
“I’m taking him with me. Today.”
She nodded. “You understand that’s a considerable departure from procedure.”
“I don’t care.”
She gave him an understanding smile. “But we do appreciate how upsetting this has been for you. We should never have brought you into this part of the building.”
That was not at all the part of this that should never have happened, but Jim controlled himself. Getting Sandburg out of here was the important thing. If he had to play along, just a little, to accomplish that…he would play along.
“I’ve spoken with the Director, and while he doesn’t like the idea, he’s willing to agree to let you take the Guide with you, on a trial basis.”
There was only one important part of that sentence. He was taking Sandburg with him. “Okay.”
“You’ll have to work with us in monitoring his progress and completing his training, and there are several waivers you’ll have to sign. The Director’s assistant is working on them now.”
He nodded. Yes, yes, he’d sign anything.
“It looks like he’s resting comfortably now-perhaps this would be a good time to go upstairs and take care of those forms?”
Jim looked down at the Guide. He didn’t want to leave him alone in this place, even for a second.
“I promise, no harm will come to him. We’ll have the both of you on your way in, say, twenty minutes?”
Twenty minutes, and he’d be right in the building. “All right,” he finally agreed, easing Sandburg off of his lap and tucking the blanket more closely around him. “Be right back, Chief,” he whispered to the Guide.
#
Once she had the big Sentinel tied up with the Director’s secretary, waiting for those damned forms they had to pretend Sally was drawing up on the spot, Lorelei ducked into her soundproofed inner office and got Charlie, Sandburg’s trainer, on the interoffice phone. “Break the rest of his fingers,” she ordered, without preamble.
“Ma’am?” The trainer sounded confused.
“The little shit said he doesn’t want to Bond, and Ellison agreed,” she explained, angry that she had to explain. That was one thing that would change once she had her promotion. “I want him completely helpless. If Ellison has to feed him and wipe his ass, they’ll Bond whether they like it or not.”
“Are you joking? He’ll rip me apart with his bare hands!”
“He’s up here,” she said impatiently. “Just do it, fast, and lock yourself in your office until he’s gone if you’re scared of him.”
“I really don’t think that’s necessary, Miss Marks,” Charlie said. “They seemed pretty attached-I was watching on the closed-circuit. And Ellison, he’ll go completely primal.”
“It’s my decision, and if you want to keep your job, you’ll do as I say.”
She waited, until Charlie finally said, “Yes, Ma’am.”
#
Blair woke, suddenly, when the door opened. That sound had signaled pain and terror for so long that it had him instantly on the alert.
The Sentinel was gone-if it hadn’t been for the blanket around him, and the fact that he was no longer shackled to the wall, Blair would have thought it had all been a dream, or a hallucination brought on by severe pain. This was the first time, in all his sessions, that the trainers had done anything that could cause permanent damage. Up until now, it had all been soft tissue injuries-beatings, burns, electric shocks. Coupled with starvation, thirst, and sleep deprivation, those were bad enough. And the psychological tricks, of course-keeping him naked, confusing his sense of day and night, stress positions, the occasional kindness meant to throw him off his guard.
Maybe that was what the Sentinel had been. Some kind of a trick. That made more sense, was more likely than…that that a Sentinel really wanted to help him.
Before he could think about it any longer, the trainer covered the few steps over to him. “Crazy bitch,” he murmured, grabbing Blair’s uninjured hand.
He struggled to free himself, but he was too weak. The trainer forced all four of his fingers back, snapping them with a sickening crunch that had Blair screaming, and then, when the pain hit, flailing over onto his stomach with dry heaves. Without a good hand to support himself with, he was lying face down in his own bile and spit, but that was better than drowning in the stuff.
Still holding on to his hand, the trainer gave his thumb a vicious twist until it, too, broke. He barely noticed when the trainer half stood up, hesitated, then said, “Fuck it,” and bolted out the door.
This, Blair thought through a haze of pain, this might do it for him. Pain, he could handle. But those were his hands. If they weren’t set properly-and he knew that wasn’t going to happen for free-he wouldn’t be able to type, write-hell, he wouldn’t even be able to hold a fork.
The other door, the one the big Sentinel had come through-crashed open with a boom like the wrath of God. He managed to raise his head between heaves-it was the Sentinel again. Jim. He screamed, with a sound of animalistic rage, and threw himself against the door through which the trainer had disappeared.
After pounding at the door and screaming for a few more seconds, the Sentinel stopped, as suddenly as he’d arrived, and dropped to his knees beside Blair, his tone as gentle as a mother with a newborn. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have believed her-we’re going, now.”
He carefully eased Blair up by his shoulders, taking care to avoid jarring his injured hands. “What?” Blair asked intelligently. If the Sentinel was in on it, was helping them break him, he wasn’t going anywhere with him.
Except that he apparently was, because the Sentinel was lifting him into his arms, cradling him like a groom carrying his bride across the threshold. “Can you get your arms up against your chest? Don’t worry about hanging on, just keep them stable. That’s it.”
Tucking his arms up against his chest was a good idea, but it was painful. He grayed out, and when he was next aware of his surroundings, they were up on one of the higher levels, the ones with carpet, and his Sentinel was yelling. “-long enough for you to break every goddamn bone in his body? Fax the papers to the station. Have them delivered to my house. Cram them up your ass for all I care about the goddamn papers!”
Then they were moving again. A set of glass double doors loomed in front of them. Blair wondered if they were just going to crash through them, but at the last second, the Sentinel turned to shove them open with his shoulder, and they were outside, in the first sunlight Blair had seen in at least a month.
“It’s okay,” Jim was saying. “I’ll get you home, it’ll all be okay. First we need the car. Here it is. Careful, I’m not going to drop you.”
Jim didn’t drop him, but being heaved into the passenger seat of the big truck jarred his broken bones; Blair imagined the rough ends grinding against one another. He must have screamed a little, because the Sentinel growled, going alert and looking around them for a moment. “It’s okay,” he said again. “Okay. Okay. Right there.” He slammed the door beside Blair, and a moment later reappeared, getting into the truck on the other side. “Home, I have to get you home. No. Have to get those hands seen to. I can’t set them myself, you need x-rays. Hospital. Hospital first, then home.”
Blair gave up on trying to understand what was happening. He held his arms tight against his stomach, trying to keep his hands as still as possible as Jim swerved around corners and stopped short at red lights, and tried to imagine himself outside his body, beyond the pain. None of the meditation techniques he’d learned would stand up to this much pain, but he could try, keep it bearable.
Oh, God, his hands.
#
The one mercy in the whole terrible day was that as soon as the ER personnel took one look at Sandburg, they rushed him through triage with no waiting, and when Jim managed to get out the key words, “my Guide,” they were quickly detoured into a small, but private, treatment room. He was given just enough time to get Sandburg settled comfortably, and to stake out the most defensible position in the room, before the doctor tapped on the door and asked if Jim was ready for him to come in.
By that time, Sandburg was sitting up on the edge of the gurney, wide-eyed and alert, leaning back against Jim’s chest. The rough blanket from G-TAC was still wrapped around him, and Jim’s jacket was helping to pad his hands on his lap. He shied violently at the doctor’s approach, and Jim’s arms reflexively tightened around him.
“I’m going to need to touch your Guide to examine him. Is it all right if I start by checking his eyes and ears?” the doctor asked Jim.
“You ready for that, Chief?” Jim asked, looking down at him. “It’s all right, I’ve got you.”
“Okay. Okay, I’m rea’y.” He was speaking a little more clearly now, but was still having some trouble with his hard consonants. Some kind of injury to his mouth, Jim guessed.
The doctor looked into Sandburg’s ears and had him follow a light with his eyes. “I don’t think there’s any significant head trauma. I’d like to assess his spine next. Can you ask him to make a fist?”
“Can’,” Sandburg said. “Bu’ i’s nuh my spine, i’s my han’s.”
“His fingers are broken,” Jim explained.
“What about his other hand?”
“Both of them.”
“Wai’,” Sandburg said, “Can you, move, uh…”
Jim carefully unwrapped the jacket from around his hands. God, they looked even worse than he had remembered-not just twisted, but badly swollen. He reached for them, meaning to check if circulation was impaired, but hesitated. “Can I?”
After a moment, Sandburg nodded.
As gently as he could, Jim touched his fingertip to each of Sandburg’s in turn, feeling the tiny, reassuring thrum of the Guide’s pulse in each one. “His circulation’s okay,” Jim reported. “For now, anyway.”
“That’s very good to know,” the doctor said, with some hint of surprise.
“I had some medic training in the service. I understand that you have to check his for spine injuries and internal bleeding before you move on to the obvious, but can you hurry it up a little? Hey, Chief, show him that you can wiggle your toes.”
Sandburg did. “’is, ‘oo,” he added, wiggling his right thumb. “’as ‘e o’ly one ‘ey didn’ ge’.”
The only one they didn’t get. Jesus. “Here,” Jim said, easing away from Sandburg so that the doctor could get his hands on his spine, but carefully keeping his hands on the Guide’s shoulders. “Be careful, he’s all banged up.”
The doctor quickly pressed along Sandburg’s spine and hips, and palpated his abdomen. The latter produced a small whimper from Sandburg, and had the doctor backing quickly toward the door as if Jim was likely to take a swing at him, but they quickly found that the pain was from the necessity of moving his hands, not from any internal injury.
“And his respiration is fine,” Jim added. “Shallow and rapid, but that’s the pain. Show him you can take a deep breath, Chief.” The Guide did, and Jim listened carefully to the reassuring sound of his lungs filling with air. “Okay.”
“Okay,” the doctor said, a little taken aback. “We can start him on something for the pain, if that’s all right with you.”
“Yeah, do.”
“And some IV fluids, for the shock?”
Jim nodded, not entirely sure why the doctor was asking him, instead of telling him.
“I’ll have the nurse start those, and then as soon as the medication starts to take effect, we’ll get some x-rays of those hands.”
The doctor left, writing something on his chart as he went. “You okay, Chief?” Jim asked, while they were alone for a moment.
“Yeah. Yeah. Hur’s.”
“I know. They’re going to give you something for it in a minute. She’s going to need your arm, though, and that’s going to suck,” Jim warned him. “Which one do you think, right or left?”
Sandburg closed his eyes, letting his head drop against Jim’s shoulder. Jim didn’t think he was going to get an answer, but the Guide finally said, “Right.”
“Okay. Let’s try to get it out where she can get at it-nice and slow.” There was a pillow at the top of the gurney, so he pulled that closer and carefully transferred Sandburg’s right arm from the makeshift pillow on his lap to the real one, and eased it around to his side. “Okay, that’s good. You’re doing great.”
Sandburg spasmed slightly, like he was trying to cough or hiccup. Jim realized after a moment that he was trying to laugh. “No’ doin’ an’ing,” he pointed out.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to.”
Moments later, the nurse came in. “I have some IV fluids and morphine for your Guide,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly, as if Jim were hard of hearing or didn’t understand English.
“Good. We’re ready for them,” Jim said, gesturing slightly toward Sandburg’s right arm.
“Oh, my gosh. He really is in bad shape, isn’t he?” the nurse asked, hanging the bag of fluids and attaching a needle to the tube.
“Uh-huh.”
Tearing open a little packet, she held an alcohol wipe just over Sandburg’s arm. “I’m going to have to disinfect the area with this first. Is that all right?”
There was the asking again. “Yes.”
She did that. “Now I have to put the needle in,” she announced, and waited.
“You ready for that, Chief?” Jim asked.
The Guide nodded. He winced a little as the needle slid in, but kept his arm still. Once the needle was taped down, Jim helped him put his arm back in his lap-he seemed to feel better with it there. While they were working on that, the nurse injected the morphine into the IV line. That, for some reason, she didn’t feel the need to tell him about. Saying, “The doctor will be with you again shortly,” she left them alone again.
Moments after the drug hit his bloodstream, Sandburg sighed heavily and went limp in Jim’s arms. “You okay, Chief?”
“Um…be’ur.”
Better. “Good. Good, the medicine’s working, just relax.” He wondered if he should try to help the Guide lay down. But if the doctor really was coming right back, he might as well stay sitting up, since he’d need to for the x-rays anyway. Jim compromised by trying to settle him in a more comfortable position on his chest.
When the doctor did finally come back, Sandburg was just about unconscious, and clearly feeling no pain. The doctor arranged his hands into different positions on the portable x-ray machine he’d brought, carefully announcing each action before he performed it, but the Guide barely made a peep through the whole thing.
“I’ll put a priority on these,” the doctor said, “but processing the images will take a little time. Then we’ll be able to decide whether to operate or just put casts on them.”
Once the doctor had left, Jim shook Sandburg slightly in his arms. “Hey, Chief?”
“Muh?” He opened one eye blearily.
“You want to lie down for a little while?”
“’kay.”
Sandburg didn’t seem to like being flat on his back, so Jim got him settled on his side. There were some blankets piled on a shelf nearby, so he peeled off the G-TAC one-which had stuck to several of the Guide’s wounds-and covered him with one of the new, clean ones. “All right, Chief? Anything else you need?”
Sandburg shook his head slightly, so Jim pulled up a chair and put one hand on the Guide’s shoulder, the other on his hip, and waited.
#
He wasn’t sure that life had ever been quite this good. He was warm, and it was quiet, and most of all, nothing hurt. There was-okay, there was a snake made of ice running into his arm, but that wasn’t so bad, really. Once it got eight or ten inches inside him, the ice melted and it was fine. And he had a vague idea that the snake had something to do with why it didn’t hurt. So, yay snake.
That big Sentinel hadn’t gone anywhere, either. Just sitting next to him, like one of those lions in front of a library. Maybe Blair had pulled a thorn out of his paw, and that was why the lion wasn’t hurting him. “Nice kitty,” he said, and giggled.
“What was that, Chief?”
Right. He’d bitten his tongue earlier, when someone had hit him in the face, and now it was all swollen up like a slug. Ick. He didn’t like slugs, especially in his mouth. He opened his mouth; maybe the lion would see the slug and take it out for him.
“That looks bad. We’ll, uh, we’ll ask the doctor for something to put on that as soon as he comes back.”
Blair wondered what he wanted to put on the slug. Salt, maybe. That would be better, he supposed, than if the lion picked the slug out of his mouth. He might poke through its skin with his claw, and then Blair would have a mouth full of slug guts.
Also, there was some reason he wanted to keep the slug, but he forgot what it was right now.
#
Go to the rest of the chapter
Warning: This chapter contains graphic descriptions of Blair-torture and medical procedures.
This chapter turned out to be a little too long for LJ, so I had to break it in two.
One
Standing outside the Guide Training and Assignment Center, Jim looked up at the building with revulsion. It was a perfectly ordinary building-brick, 1970’s architecture, small windows half plugged up with air conditioning units. It could have been an office building, or an elementary school.
It wasn’t. He’d have left if he could, just gotten in his car and drove away, but the last time he’d tried that, Captain Banks had told him in no uncertain terms that if he missed his required appointments with G-TAC, he could consider himself suspended without pay until they granted him another appointment and he kept it.
He didn’t have to take a Guide. No one could make him do that. He just had to go into the place, listen to what they had to say, and walk out again.
He could do this.
Taking one more deep breath, he went inside.
#
Sagging against the shackles, no longer able to keep his feet under him, Blair fought just to raise his head and look his tormentor in the eye. “Why are you--”
“Silent!” Another blow took his breath away for a moment.
As soon as his breath returned, he continued, “-doing this to me?”
The smarter ones, the more experienced ones, they just didn’t answer. Didn’t engage, just kept demanding behaviors and hurting him when he didn’t present them. This one was newer, though, and hadn’t learned yet. “Because you need to learn your place. You were disobedient and surly with your Sentinel. We need to break your bad habits and replace them with good ones.”
“No,” Blair said, spitting blood. “Why are you doing this?” He wasn’t asking “why me?” He knew why it was him. But he’d never gotten a satisfactory answer from a trainer about why them.
The trainer hit him again, this time a stinging slap to his face. “Be silent unless you’re spoken to.”
“Make me.”
The trainer did.
#
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Ellison. They just put down new carpet in my office upstairs, and this was the only room that was available.”
His case worker was a new one, a young woman named Lorelei Marks. She seemed nice enough; a perfectly ordinary office worker. Not for the first time, he wondered what made someone want to work in a place like this.
It was the first time he’d been down to the sub-levels of the building. Unlike upstairs, where the ugliness of the place was hidden behind bland, ordinary office furnishings, this level looked like a prison, with concrete walls and heavy reinforced doors.
They weren’t heavy enough to shield what was going on behind them from Sentinel hearing. Miss Marks, though, seemed unaware that down the hall, some poor bastard was having the shit beaten out of him. Jim wondered if she knew-she couldn’t hear, of course, but did she know what they did down here? Was it possible to work here and not know?
The room they were sitting in looked almost like one of their interrogation rooms, down at the station: single-bulb overhead light, table, two chairs on opposite sides of it. It smelled the same, too, like industrial cleaning products and fear.
“I understand you’ve been reluctant to engage a Guide in the past, Mr. Ellison,” Marks was saying. “Can I ask what brought you here today?”
“I won’t be engaging one today, either. My captain insisted I come down.”
“Well, let’s see if we can change your mind.”
Jim barely listened as she went over profiles of Guides who had “tested as highly compatible with you, Mr. Ellison.” While she talked about their talents, hobbies, and attributes, he listened to the Guide down the hall.
They were going at him-her?-with some kind of whip or strap, the blows coming so fast that the Guide couldn’t catch his breath. When the trainer stopped-out of breath himself-the Guide said thickly, “…bes’ you c’n ‘oo?”
It was a man, and he was just about done in. So brave, but Jim could hear the exhaustion in his voice, the desperation. Under the table, Jim’s hands clenched involuntarily into fists. If there was any real justice, he’d be putting a stop to these people, not chatting with them. But he had to stay calm. Just stay calm, and get out. Stay calm, and get out.
“-cup of coffee?” Miss Marks was asking. He wasn’t sure if he nodded, but she seemed to take whatever response he’d given as assent. “I’ll just run up and get some for us-you can look over the files while I’m gone.”
On the way to the door, she paused. “Mr. Ellison?”
“Yes?”
“It would be best if you stayed in this room. There are some training suites on this floor, and it can be upsetting for the Sentinels. I’m sure you understand. Back in a tick!”
Upsetting. That was one word for it. He looked at the profiles, each accompanied by an 8x10 photo and a gruesome sort of resume. Jeff, for instance, was fluent in three languages, a gourmet cook, and sexually submissive with both males and females. Rachel was familiar with all standard office software as well as law enforcement databases, skilled in therapeutic massage, and a virgin who hoped to one day bear her Sentinel’s child.
Jim wondered if any of them had spent time in the training suites, and what kind of cheerful little descriptions they’d put in the poor bastard down the hall’s profile.
He was sobbing now, down the hall. “No-no, don’, I won’, please, do--” A shrill, inhuman cry ripped through sublevel three as the Guide screamed like a dying rabbit.
Without conscious thought, Jim found himself on his feet and running down the hall. He burst through the door of the “training suite,” just as the trainer himself was leaving through another door.
For a split second, he wavered between tending the injured Guide and going after the assailant. But a soft whimper from the Guide made the decision for him. He hurried to the Guide’s side, chanting, “It’s all right, it’s all right,” as he unfastened the manacles that held him spread-eagled against the wall.
Some detached part of his mind knew that it was not at all all right. The man was covered in bruises and welts, and three fingers on his right hand were bent back and twisted, obviously broken. It had to have been those injuries that had forced that horrible scream from his throat. They were so new, Jim could see the fingers swelling up like sausages before his eyes.
But except for that one, small, clinical part of his mind, Jim was focused on caring for the Guide. Scanning the room for danger, he quickly pulled the Guide into a protective embrace and settled both of them in the corner farthest from the door. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” he kept saying as the Guide sobbed and whimpered.
As the Guide’s crying quieted and his heart rate slowed, and no further danger presented itself, Jim slowly renewed his acquaintance with reason.
He almost wished he hadn’t. There was no way he could protect this Guide-sitting in the corner of the training suite shielding him with his body was not a long-term solution. But it had been bad enough when the Guide was an abstraction, suffering at the end of the hall. Now that the other man-hardly more than a kid, really-was huddled up against him in his arms, he could no more walk away and leave him there than he could rip out his liver and leave that in G-TAC.
It was an impossible situation, and when the door opened and Lorelei peered in, he was almost glad to find that his instincts took over and left him responding with a primal growl.
He only regretted it because the Guide in his lap cringed. “It’s okay,” Jim told him again. “It’s all right. You’re doing fine, Chief. Not mad at you. Here.” He struggled out of his jacket and wrapped it around the kid’s shoulders. The Guide was naked, and while most of his trembling had to be from fear and shock, covering him up would help a little. “There. That’s it.” Should he try to set the fingers? They looked bad, probably multiple fractures. And setting them would hurt. No, he decided, it could wait. The Guide was clinging to Jim with his uninjured hand, and didn’t look like he could handle any more pain than he was in right now.
The kid was trying to say something, now. “Whuh. Whuh,” was all he could manage.
“Who am I?” Jim guessed. “My name’s Jim. I’m a Sentinel.”
The Guide coughed and spat some blood onto the floor near them. “Puh-p’eez,” he managed to get out, sounding like he was begging.
Please. “What?” Anything, Chief, anything you want-just let me find a way to get you out of here first. The thought surprised him. When had he decided that? But he didn’t have to decide, any more than he had had to decide to act when he heard that scream, that he wasn’t leaving G-TAC without this Guide.
“He’p?”
“Yeah. Yeah, Chief, I’m going to help. I just haven’t figured out how yet. Any ideas?”
Jim wasn’t too surprised when the Guide didn’t answer. He sat there, clinging to the Guide, the Guide clinging to him, for a few minutes, until they were interrupted by a tap at the door. “Mr. Ellison?” Lorelei Marks called.
He took a few deep breaths, reassuring the Guide and schooling himself to respond rationally. “Yes?”
“May we come in?”
We? “You, and who else?”
“Guide Sandburg’s trainer.”
The Guide in his arms let out a whimper of protest. “No. Only you. And don’t touch him.”
Lorelei came into the room, carefully staying out of arm’s reach. “Mr. Ellison, I know it must be upsetting for you to see this part of the training process,” Lorelei said. Jim recognized her tone, or rather her lack of tone-she was trying very hard not to let some emotion show in her voice. The question was, which one? “Guide Sandburg has been a very difficult case, and unfortunately the training staff have had to be very severe with him.”
“No shit,” Jim growled.
Lorelei smiled tightly. “It does happen that he’s very compatible with you. If you’d be interested in him, we could notify you when his training is complete.”
“When?”
“Training will probably take another month or two.”
“Not acceptable.” If Sandburg looked this bad now, who knew what they’d do to him in another month?
“If you’d like to put him down, we could discuss the timetable in more comfortable surroundings.”
“No.” He wasn’t letting go of the Guide until he had him back in his own territory. His apartment, that was. Where he could keep him safe. “He’s mine.”
“Mr. Ellison, he is not yours. He’s under G-TAC’s control. In fact, if you leave now and come upstairs, the strong emotions you’re feeling right now will begin to fade almost immediately.”
On one level, Jim knew she was right. He had a strong drive to protect Guides, even unattached ones or other Sentinels’ Guides. This Guide’s obvious distress was affecting him on an instinctive level.
On another level, however, what she was saying as an obscenity, a blasphemy. “No,” he growled.
“If you’ll just give the matter a little time, Mr. Ellison, we can keep working on Sandburg’s training, and if you still feel so strongly about him--”
“I said no!” If the Guide hadn’t been in his lap, he’d have thrown himself at her.
But Sandburg was there, and he was struggling to sit up. “J-Jim?”
When he looked down at his Guide, meeting his eyes, Lorelei, the room, the whole rest of G-TAC might as well not have existed. “Yeah, Chief?”
“Whas’ happening?”
“I don’t know, Chief. I’m not going to let them hurt you again.”
The kid was clearly fighting to stay lucid, not to pass out from shock or start screaming or crying again. “Why?”
Because you’re mine. But Lorelei was right, the Guide wasn’t his. And the way the kid was looking at him, those pale blue eyes boring into him, it was like there was something riding on this answer. Sandburg wasn’t just looking for reassurance. “Because it’s wrong,” Jim said. “And because when we get out of here, I’d like you to be my Guide, if you’ll have me.”
Sandburg rested bonelessly against him for a moment before he said softly, “I don’ wanna Bond. I’ll guide ya, but I don’ wanna Bond.”
The primal Sentinel in him growled a protest at that, but Jim forced it down. “Okay. That’s fine, we’ll do it that way.” Less than an hour ago, he hadn’t wanted to Bond, either. Still didn’t really. Not the part of him that made the decisions.
“…nice ‘o me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be nice to you, Chief. Don’t worry about that.”
“My han’ hur’s.”
“I know it does. I’m going to get it taken care of real soon.”
“’anks Jim.”
The little Guide was fading out, into something between unconsciousness and natural sleep. With as much pain as he was in, he must be exhausted to be able to doze off like that.
Exhausted, and feeling safe for the first time in God knew how long.
The door opened with a soft click, and Lorelei came back in. Jim hadn’t even noticed she left. She had a blanket over one arm, which she carefully slid across the floor to him. “I thought you might want to…”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Carefully, he tucked his Guide-the Guide-into it, removing the jacket and folding it up to serve as a pillow, instead. The woman didn’t offer anything else, so finally he said, “What happens now?”
“What do you want to have happen?” she asked kindly.
“I’m taking him with me. Today.”
She nodded. “You understand that’s a considerable departure from procedure.”
“I don’t care.”
She gave him an understanding smile. “But we do appreciate how upsetting this has been for you. We should never have brought you into this part of the building.”
That was not at all the part of this that should never have happened, but Jim controlled himself. Getting Sandburg out of here was the important thing. If he had to play along, just a little, to accomplish that…he would play along.
“I’ve spoken with the Director, and while he doesn’t like the idea, he’s willing to agree to let you take the Guide with you, on a trial basis.”
There was only one important part of that sentence. He was taking Sandburg with him. “Okay.”
“You’ll have to work with us in monitoring his progress and completing his training, and there are several waivers you’ll have to sign. The Director’s assistant is working on them now.”
He nodded. Yes, yes, he’d sign anything.
“It looks like he’s resting comfortably now-perhaps this would be a good time to go upstairs and take care of those forms?”
Jim looked down at the Guide. He didn’t want to leave him alone in this place, even for a second.
“I promise, no harm will come to him. We’ll have the both of you on your way in, say, twenty minutes?”
Twenty minutes, and he’d be right in the building. “All right,” he finally agreed, easing Sandburg off of his lap and tucking the blanket more closely around him. “Be right back, Chief,” he whispered to the Guide.
#
Once she had the big Sentinel tied up with the Director’s secretary, waiting for those damned forms they had to pretend Sally was drawing up on the spot, Lorelei ducked into her soundproofed inner office and got Charlie, Sandburg’s trainer, on the interoffice phone. “Break the rest of his fingers,” she ordered, without preamble.
“Ma’am?” The trainer sounded confused.
“The little shit said he doesn’t want to Bond, and Ellison agreed,” she explained, angry that she had to explain. That was one thing that would change once she had her promotion. “I want him completely helpless. If Ellison has to feed him and wipe his ass, they’ll Bond whether they like it or not.”
“Are you joking? He’ll rip me apart with his bare hands!”
“He’s up here,” she said impatiently. “Just do it, fast, and lock yourself in your office until he’s gone if you’re scared of him.”
“I really don’t think that’s necessary, Miss Marks,” Charlie said. “They seemed pretty attached-I was watching on the closed-circuit. And Ellison, he’ll go completely primal.”
“It’s my decision, and if you want to keep your job, you’ll do as I say.”
She waited, until Charlie finally said, “Yes, Ma’am.”
#
Blair woke, suddenly, when the door opened. That sound had signaled pain and terror for so long that it had him instantly on the alert.
The Sentinel was gone-if it hadn’t been for the blanket around him, and the fact that he was no longer shackled to the wall, Blair would have thought it had all been a dream, or a hallucination brought on by severe pain. This was the first time, in all his sessions, that the trainers had done anything that could cause permanent damage. Up until now, it had all been soft tissue injuries-beatings, burns, electric shocks. Coupled with starvation, thirst, and sleep deprivation, those were bad enough. And the psychological tricks, of course-keeping him naked, confusing his sense of day and night, stress positions, the occasional kindness meant to throw him off his guard.
Maybe that was what the Sentinel had been. Some kind of a trick. That made more sense, was more likely than…that that a Sentinel really wanted to help him.
Before he could think about it any longer, the trainer covered the few steps over to him. “Crazy bitch,” he murmured, grabbing Blair’s uninjured hand.
He struggled to free himself, but he was too weak. The trainer forced all four of his fingers back, snapping them with a sickening crunch that had Blair screaming, and then, when the pain hit, flailing over onto his stomach with dry heaves. Without a good hand to support himself with, he was lying face down in his own bile and spit, but that was better than drowning in the stuff.
Still holding on to his hand, the trainer gave his thumb a vicious twist until it, too, broke. He barely noticed when the trainer half stood up, hesitated, then said, “Fuck it,” and bolted out the door.
This, Blair thought through a haze of pain, this might do it for him. Pain, he could handle. But those were his hands. If they weren’t set properly-and he knew that wasn’t going to happen for free-he wouldn’t be able to type, write-hell, he wouldn’t even be able to hold a fork.
The other door, the one the big Sentinel had come through-crashed open with a boom like the wrath of God. He managed to raise his head between heaves-it was the Sentinel again. Jim. He screamed, with a sound of animalistic rage, and threw himself against the door through which the trainer had disappeared.
After pounding at the door and screaming for a few more seconds, the Sentinel stopped, as suddenly as he’d arrived, and dropped to his knees beside Blair, his tone as gentle as a mother with a newborn. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have believed her-we’re going, now.”
He carefully eased Blair up by his shoulders, taking care to avoid jarring his injured hands. “What?” Blair asked intelligently. If the Sentinel was in on it, was helping them break him, he wasn’t going anywhere with him.
Except that he apparently was, because the Sentinel was lifting him into his arms, cradling him like a groom carrying his bride across the threshold. “Can you get your arms up against your chest? Don’t worry about hanging on, just keep them stable. That’s it.”
Tucking his arms up against his chest was a good idea, but it was painful. He grayed out, and when he was next aware of his surroundings, they were up on one of the higher levels, the ones with carpet, and his Sentinel was yelling. “-long enough for you to break every goddamn bone in his body? Fax the papers to the station. Have them delivered to my house. Cram them up your ass for all I care about the goddamn papers!”
Then they were moving again. A set of glass double doors loomed in front of them. Blair wondered if they were just going to crash through them, but at the last second, the Sentinel turned to shove them open with his shoulder, and they were outside, in the first sunlight Blair had seen in at least a month.
“It’s okay,” Jim was saying. “I’ll get you home, it’ll all be okay. First we need the car. Here it is. Careful, I’m not going to drop you.”
Jim didn’t drop him, but being heaved into the passenger seat of the big truck jarred his broken bones; Blair imagined the rough ends grinding against one another. He must have screamed a little, because the Sentinel growled, going alert and looking around them for a moment. “It’s okay,” he said again. “Okay. Okay. Right there.” He slammed the door beside Blair, and a moment later reappeared, getting into the truck on the other side. “Home, I have to get you home. No. Have to get those hands seen to. I can’t set them myself, you need x-rays. Hospital. Hospital first, then home.”
Blair gave up on trying to understand what was happening. He held his arms tight against his stomach, trying to keep his hands as still as possible as Jim swerved around corners and stopped short at red lights, and tried to imagine himself outside his body, beyond the pain. None of the meditation techniques he’d learned would stand up to this much pain, but he could try, keep it bearable.
Oh, God, his hands.
#
The one mercy in the whole terrible day was that as soon as the ER personnel took one look at Sandburg, they rushed him through triage with no waiting, and when Jim managed to get out the key words, “my Guide,” they were quickly detoured into a small, but private, treatment room. He was given just enough time to get Sandburg settled comfortably, and to stake out the most defensible position in the room, before the doctor tapped on the door and asked if Jim was ready for him to come in.
By that time, Sandburg was sitting up on the edge of the gurney, wide-eyed and alert, leaning back against Jim’s chest. The rough blanket from G-TAC was still wrapped around him, and Jim’s jacket was helping to pad his hands on his lap. He shied violently at the doctor’s approach, and Jim’s arms reflexively tightened around him.
“I’m going to need to touch your Guide to examine him. Is it all right if I start by checking his eyes and ears?” the doctor asked Jim.
“You ready for that, Chief?” Jim asked, looking down at him. “It’s all right, I’ve got you.”
“Okay. Okay, I’m rea’y.” He was speaking a little more clearly now, but was still having some trouble with his hard consonants. Some kind of injury to his mouth, Jim guessed.
The doctor looked into Sandburg’s ears and had him follow a light with his eyes. “I don’t think there’s any significant head trauma. I’d like to assess his spine next. Can you ask him to make a fist?”
“Can’,” Sandburg said. “Bu’ i’s nuh my spine, i’s my han’s.”
“His fingers are broken,” Jim explained.
“What about his other hand?”
“Both of them.”
“Wai’,” Sandburg said, “Can you, move, uh…”
Jim carefully unwrapped the jacket from around his hands. God, they looked even worse than he had remembered-not just twisted, but badly swollen. He reached for them, meaning to check if circulation was impaired, but hesitated. “Can I?”
After a moment, Sandburg nodded.
As gently as he could, Jim touched his fingertip to each of Sandburg’s in turn, feeling the tiny, reassuring thrum of the Guide’s pulse in each one. “His circulation’s okay,” Jim reported. “For now, anyway.”
“That’s very good to know,” the doctor said, with some hint of surprise.
“I had some medic training in the service. I understand that you have to check his for spine injuries and internal bleeding before you move on to the obvious, but can you hurry it up a little? Hey, Chief, show him that you can wiggle your toes.”
Sandburg did. “’is, ‘oo,” he added, wiggling his right thumb. “’as ‘e o’ly one ‘ey didn’ ge’.”
The only one they didn’t get. Jesus. “Here,” Jim said, easing away from Sandburg so that the doctor could get his hands on his spine, but carefully keeping his hands on the Guide’s shoulders. “Be careful, he’s all banged up.”
The doctor quickly pressed along Sandburg’s spine and hips, and palpated his abdomen. The latter produced a small whimper from Sandburg, and had the doctor backing quickly toward the door as if Jim was likely to take a swing at him, but they quickly found that the pain was from the necessity of moving his hands, not from any internal injury.
“And his respiration is fine,” Jim added. “Shallow and rapid, but that’s the pain. Show him you can take a deep breath, Chief.” The Guide did, and Jim listened carefully to the reassuring sound of his lungs filling with air. “Okay.”
“Okay,” the doctor said, a little taken aback. “We can start him on something for the pain, if that’s all right with you.”
“Yeah, do.”
“And some IV fluids, for the shock?”
Jim nodded, not entirely sure why the doctor was asking him, instead of telling him.
“I’ll have the nurse start those, and then as soon as the medication starts to take effect, we’ll get some x-rays of those hands.”
The doctor left, writing something on his chart as he went. “You okay, Chief?” Jim asked, while they were alone for a moment.
“Yeah. Yeah. Hur’s.”
“I know. They’re going to give you something for it in a minute. She’s going to need your arm, though, and that’s going to suck,” Jim warned him. “Which one do you think, right or left?”
Sandburg closed his eyes, letting his head drop against Jim’s shoulder. Jim didn’t think he was going to get an answer, but the Guide finally said, “Right.”
“Okay. Let’s try to get it out where she can get at it-nice and slow.” There was a pillow at the top of the gurney, so he pulled that closer and carefully transferred Sandburg’s right arm from the makeshift pillow on his lap to the real one, and eased it around to his side. “Okay, that’s good. You’re doing great.”
Sandburg spasmed slightly, like he was trying to cough or hiccup. Jim realized after a moment that he was trying to laugh. “No’ doin’ an’ing,” he pointed out.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to.”
Moments later, the nurse came in. “I have some IV fluids and morphine for your Guide,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly, as if Jim were hard of hearing or didn’t understand English.
“Good. We’re ready for them,” Jim said, gesturing slightly toward Sandburg’s right arm.
“Oh, my gosh. He really is in bad shape, isn’t he?” the nurse asked, hanging the bag of fluids and attaching a needle to the tube.
“Uh-huh.”
Tearing open a little packet, she held an alcohol wipe just over Sandburg’s arm. “I’m going to have to disinfect the area with this first. Is that all right?”
There was the asking again. “Yes.”
She did that. “Now I have to put the needle in,” she announced, and waited.
“You ready for that, Chief?” Jim asked.
The Guide nodded. He winced a little as the needle slid in, but kept his arm still. Once the needle was taped down, Jim helped him put his arm back in his lap-he seemed to feel better with it there. While they were working on that, the nurse injected the morphine into the IV line. That, for some reason, she didn’t feel the need to tell him about. Saying, “The doctor will be with you again shortly,” she left them alone again.
Moments after the drug hit his bloodstream, Sandburg sighed heavily and went limp in Jim’s arms. “You okay, Chief?”
“Um…be’ur.”
Better. “Good. Good, the medicine’s working, just relax.” He wondered if he should try to help the Guide lay down. But if the doctor really was coming right back, he might as well stay sitting up, since he’d need to for the x-rays anyway. Jim compromised by trying to settle him in a more comfortable position on his chest.
When the doctor did finally come back, Sandburg was just about unconscious, and clearly feeling no pain. The doctor arranged his hands into different positions on the portable x-ray machine he’d brought, carefully announcing each action before he performed it, but the Guide barely made a peep through the whole thing.
“I’ll put a priority on these,” the doctor said, “but processing the images will take a little time. Then we’ll be able to decide whether to operate or just put casts on them.”
Once the doctor had left, Jim shook Sandburg slightly in his arms. “Hey, Chief?”
“Muh?” He opened one eye blearily.
“You want to lie down for a little while?”
“’kay.”
Sandburg didn’t seem to like being flat on his back, so Jim got him settled on his side. There were some blankets piled on a shelf nearby, so he peeled off the G-TAC one-which had stuck to several of the Guide’s wounds-and covered him with one of the new, clean ones. “All right, Chief? Anything else you need?”
Sandburg shook his head slightly, so Jim pulled up a chair and put one hand on the Guide’s shoulder, the other on his hip, and waited.
#
He wasn’t sure that life had ever been quite this good. He was warm, and it was quiet, and most of all, nothing hurt. There was-okay, there was a snake made of ice running into his arm, but that wasn’t so bad, really. Once it got eight or ten inches inside him, the ice melted and it was fine. And he had a vague idea that the snake had something to do with why it didn’t hurt. So, yay snake.
That big Sentinel hadn’t gone anywhere, either. Just sitting next to him, like one of those lions in front of a library. Maybe Blair had pulled a thorn out of his paw, and that was why the lion wasn’t hurting him. “Nice kitty,” he said, and giggled.
“What was that, Chief?”
Right. He’d bitten his tongue earlier, when someone had hit him in the face, and now it was all swollen up like a slug. Ick. He didn’t like slugs, especially in his mouth. He opened his mouth; maybe the lion would see the slug and take it out for him.
“That looks bad. We’ll, uh, we’ll ask the doctor for something to put on that as soon as he comes back.”
Blair wondered what he wanted to put on the slug. Salt, maybe. That would be better, he supposed, than if the lion picked the slug out of his mouth. He might poke through its skin with his claw, and then Blair would have a mouth full of slug guts.
Also, there was some reason he wanted to keep the slug, but he forgot what it was right now.
#
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