TS Ficathons Story
My fourth ts-ficathons story. Gracious me. My prompts were 'All's fair' and 'In the harsh light of day'. Well, we know how 'All's Fair' got used. 'In the harsh light of day' is here if you look.
When I asked for beta help, I had a positive stampede, which was very flattering. So, many thanks to runriggers, knitty_woman, princessofg and cross_stitchery, who looked at this and pronounced it good, except for just one or two adjustments that were needed here and there. Also, I'd like to thank spikedluv and sara_merry99, the mods of ts_ficathons, for all their hard work.
Where Do We Grow To?
Slash, PG, 3,200 words
Jim's father dies. Jim deals.
In William Ellison's house, there was a place for everything and everything indubitably in its place. There was no slack in this rule, not even for boys. And for some things, there was no place at all. Jim can still remember his ten-year-old, outraged despair when his father threw out his comic books. Billy Batson couldn't 'shazam' himself out of that one, the Justice League had its hands tied, there was no escape for Scott Free.
Jim's bedroom remained tidy until he left home and the Army made sure that he never had the chance to indulge a slob's rebellion. When Jim came to making a home of his own, he discovered he was enough his father's son to need a place for everything and everything in its place. Carolyn liked order too - that, at least, was never a source of contention.
A place for everything includes Blair's belongings these days. Jim can cope with clutter. He just can't stand disorganised clutter. Blair has been known to call him Martha Stewart, which always earns Blair retaliation; anything from a finger flipped at him, to the most vicious noogie that Jim can summon. Blair picks his moments carefully so Jim assumes that he must like the attention. It's kind of interesting how much clutter Blair has picked up over the last few years; books and artefacts and magazines and the occasional photograph. Once an anthropologist, always an anthropologist, even when his day job is policing.
There isn't a specific place for the man himself because he's everywhere. Right now, he's on the couch, in his thrift-store robe that has that vaguely burned smell that Jim associates with old wool. Blair's feet are up on the couch, and sections of the newspaper are scattered on the floor below, along with a cup of coffee. Blair's hair is everywhere too. He grew it out after the obligatory haircut for the academy and then he just let it keep on growing. It's as long as it's ever been, well below the bottom of Blair's shoulder blades now. He puts it in a braid fairly often, and there's a strange fascination for Jim in winding the long rope of hair around his hand.
Blair rolls the first section of the paper into a sort of baton and throws it towards Jim. "Check out Cartwright's cartoon on the editorial page. They're not letting go of the mayor's latest foot-in-mouth outbreak yet."
Jim snags the paper out of mid-air, proud of the feat because Blair's baton arrangement has barely survived its flight.
"You couldn't shift your ass to hand that over?" he queries.
"I'm comfortable," Blair says. He wriggles his toes and lifts his cup to take a sip of coffee with a blissful expression on his face.
Jim unfolds the paper properly, starts at page one. "So I see. Some people got up earlier and put clothes on so that they could bring home bagels and a newspaper."
"That's because some people are organised and morning people." Blair leans back and smiles. "And some people are not."
"Some people might like their efforts to be appreciated," Jim growls.
"Then those people had better get *their* asses over here."
Jim abandons the Cascade Herald and moves to the couch, where he sits next to Blair, hip to hip, both of them shifting so that there's room. "I just feel that there's something wrong with this scenario," Jim laments.
Blair leans to kiss him, morning-bearded skin rough against Jim's, his breath coffee-scented. "The problem, man, is that you're dressed." Blair's right hand is braced against Jim's shoulder, the other is making a direct attack on the tidy tuck-in of Jim's shirt. Blair is wearing nothing under that old robe, and Jim kisses the shoulder that's revealed as one side slips away. And that's the exact moment when the phone rings.
"Damn it," Blair curses. He looks in Jim's face, and for one moment Jim can see the hope that they'll simply let it go to the answering machine. Then Blair's expression turns resigned. "Go answer it. I can wait."
Jim picks up the phone and crisply pronounces "James Ellison", irritated with himself as much as the interrupting caller. He hears someone's hitching breath, and then Sally speaks. "Jim. It's your father. He's in the hospital. He had a stroke." Jim hears another shuddery breath. "I'm so sorry. They don't - they don't expect that he'll last long."
"Which hospital, Sally?" It's his 'just the facts, ma'am' voice, utterly calm, which is no surprise because everything in him feels like ice.
"Mercy," Sally tells him. "I'll call Stephen for you." Stephen was the one who stuck around the old man, but Jim is the elder son. Sally has always been a traditionalist in her way.
"We'll be there soon," Jim says and puts the phone back, and stares at it like he doesn't know what it is. Blair appears at his side.
"Your dad?"
Jim nods, wordless.
"I'll get dressed."
Blair is ready to move fast, but he when he shouts out an inquiry from the bathroom about whether he should shave, Jim tells him yes. It takes time, but somehow Jim doesn't think that it's appropriate to visit his father accompanied by the wild man of Borneo. Jim picks up while he waits - does the dishes, sorts the newspaper, straightens the bed, brings order to the place where they were going to spend their day off.
Blair comes down the stairs. "We'll take my car," he says.
Jim shrugs. He suspects he could drive, maybe even might prefer to drive himself, but he knows there'll be an argument if he tries. Instead, he climbs obediently into the passenger seat and lets Blair take him to the hospital - that place where his father is.
***
The hospital room is a reasonable size - for a hospital room. Jim and Blair and Sally crowd it. Sally is quiet, although there's a hint of tears in her eyes, and her voice is not quite steady. But she stays calm and controlled. She'd never have lasted as William Ellison's housekeeper, and kept William's sons' affection as well, if she hadn't had steel in her.
"You should go home," Jim tells her, his hands gentle on the bird-bones hidden under her plump shoulders. "We all have cell phones, the hospital knows what's what. Do you need money for a cab?"
Sally shakes her head. "My sister is coming to get me." She walks over and gently presses William's hand. She leans down and says quietly, to William as much as to Jim, "I will come back later." She leaves, not before giving Jim a quick hug, and patting Blair on the shoulder. "You will look after him," she orders Blair, who nods ruefully and says, "I try."
Jim watches her go, embarrassed by this formal exchange of responsibility. He's been a grown man for a few years now. "Yeah, you're a trier, Chief." But his eyes turn to his father, lying still in the bed, one eye shut, the other half open, but unseeing, one side of his face odd and twisted. William's breathing rasps, usually steady, although now and again there are terrible, long, snorting sounds. Jim hopes his father isn't aware. He would hate that he was making those uncouth, pig-like noises. Jim pulls up a chair and sits by the bed and takes his father's hand. He doesn't say anything and neither does Blair, who stands behind Jim with hands warm on Jim's shoulders, his own breathing quiet and steady.
"Meditating, Sandburg?" Jim asks.
"Not exactly."
"I'd like to be alone with Dad for a while. Want to take a walk?"
"I can do that. See you later." Blair's hands grip briefly on Jim's shoulders and he leaves.
William's hand sits in Jim's like a cool, bony crab. 'No respecter of persons'. Where did that thought come from?
Jim clears his throat. "Hey, Dad." His voice is low and swallowed up by the room and the beeps and hum of machinery and the stertorous sounds from the old man in the bed. "We sort of got ourselves together the last few years, but..." Jim stops. "I guess that you guessed, but I never actually said anything, and maybe this is the last chance. So. Blair and I - I always figured you knew, but yeah, we're together. We're lovers. I'm gay. Bisexual anyway." The words drop away and nothing happens. His father doesn't miraculously jerk upright to declare that no son of his is a pansy. Neither does the wrath of God descend in the form of alarms and a crash-cart, not that both Jim and Sally haven't passed on the contents of William's living will by now. William's hand doesn't even twitch. That's that, then, Jim thinks. Left things kind of late there, Jimmy boy. He sits in silence until Blair comes back. Jim looks up as the door opens, unsure of his reasons for what he said to his father, words that the man probably didn't even hear. A simple explanation, or revenge? A last hope for acceptance? He doesn't think that the second option applies, but he wishes he could be sure.
"There's an okay garden courtyard here," Blair says. Jim nods, and when Blair comes closer Jim catches up his hand and kisses the back of it. It's a gesture he's occasionally made in private before, but never anywhere that could be regarded as public. Handholding, Jim thinks, by Ellison men. What is the world coming to?
"I - uh- I told Dad. About us," Jim clarifies.
Something fond and exasperated crosses Blair's face. "Good, that's good, Jim. What now?"
"I'll wait for Stephen to get here." He stays linked with the hands of both men, his father, and Blair, just for a few seconds longer, before he lets go of Blair's warm hand.
***
Harsh smells are what you expect in a funeral home when you're a sentinel. All the lushness of expensive carpets and roses and lilies and beeswax can't hide the smells that you aren't supposed to notice, the chemicals and the smell of decay and the mix of grief and relief and expectation. It's not always relief at the end of a loved one's pain, or expectation that the dead receive a dignified send-off. Jim's a cop. He knows what people are like.
Blair is sitting in the chapel pew, wearing a top-coat over his suit. It is, Jim thinks, probably the first proper coat that Blair's ever owned, since Jim certainly doesn't count that old coat that Blair wore back before he even moved into Jim's apartment. Blair had bought the coat the same time he bought a decent suit. "Time is going to come that I'll need it, man, and at least it's warm." It looks damned incongruous with the long braid hanging down against the fabric. Jim braided Blair's hair for him before they left, needing something mindless to do, liking the distraction of catching up all the mass of hair and wrestling it into order. He told Blair that he didn't need to wear the full regalia of suit and tie, but Blair smiled and said, "It's a mark of respect, Jim. You and your Dad never talked about us, I know, but he knew; he wasn't stupid any more than you are. And he was okay with me, and he was totally a suit kind of a guy so I feel I should wear a suit to his funeral service."
"And a braid," Jim said, stroking down the length of hair one last time, feeling the rough silk of it against his palm.
"And a braid," Blair agreed serenely.
It's a small group in the chapel. William Ellison made many acquaintances but not a lot of friends in his business career, and many of both have been winnowed by age. But there's one old friend of William's whom Jim knows well, with his daughter standing near, and Sally and her sister. There's Stephen, looking thunderous because his ex-wife has insisted that she couldn't get to the funeral in time, even with a financial boost, and she didn't want to expose the children to a funeral anyway. Carolyn gives Jim a smile and a careful peck on the cheek, and looks flustered but not displeased when Jim catches her up in a hug. She protests that it was a good chance to see her family, not that big a deal that she's here, but Jim is still pleased that she came. Simon is there; and Megan, which surprises Jim. He supposes that she's there to provide moral support to Blair, although Blair is bearing up nobly under the strain of bereaved Ellisons. It wasn't Blair's father, after all, and Jim prides himself that he hasn't been a difficult son of a bitch at home. Just - quiet.
***
Light. The scrapbook in his hand is light, even though it's filled with the weight of the years that Jim and William never spoke to each other. Jim looks at the cut-out picture of his wedding to Carolyn. That does bother him, that he didn't invite his father. He knows that his refusal to include William, or Stephen, poisoned his relations with his in-laws, and maybe his wife. They sat around and back-bit and gossiped and said that Carolyn had bitten off more than she could chew there. They were right about that too. His father would have liked Carolyn, Jim knows. He'd have admired her poise and intelligence, considered that Jim had made a wise choice. At least Jim stayed friends with his ex-wife - that's something.
Blair - his father didn't dislike Blair, Jim knows that too. But he never quite knew what to make of him. Join the club, Dad, Jim thinks, watching Blair's hands gently and deftly place books in various cardboard boxes. His father read a lot of crime novels the last few years. "I don't sleep so well at night, now, and most of what's on tv makes me want to puke." William had grinned when he told that Jim that. It's not in Blair to be rough with books, not even book-of-the-month-club crime selections.
"Nearly done, man."
Jim sighs. "Yeah." Nearly done and then the remaining contents and the house itself will be sold, and the proceeds added to William's not unsubstantial estate. Jim knows the basics - a rough one-quarter each disposition to Stephen, Jim, Stephen's children and Sally. Sally has already been given the run of the place, to take what mementoes she wants, and Jim suspects that his father's old bathrobe is amongst them. Stephen, with Jim's agreement, took quite a few of the more valuable items. Jim doesn't care. He never wanted his father's *money*. They've already sorted out the older photographs. Jim let Stephen have most of those too. He has children who might care about their ancestors.
Blair looks up, to observe the open scrap-book page that Jim isn't really seeing right now.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, I guess. Just thinking that technically I'm an orphan." Jim shakes his head. His mother has been gone nearly fifteen years now, killed in a car accident. "Stupid, huh?"
"Not at all," Blair says. "Psychologically, it's a perfectly common feeling. You've been an adult for twenty-plus years, but he was still your dad, just like Grace was still your mom."
The intimacy of those little words, 'dad', 'mom', sparks irritation in Jim. It was his dad, damn straight, and he's dead now, and watching Blair get ready to earnestly spout some psychobabble about how whatever Jim feels is perfectly appropriate makes Jim think 'enough already'. He opens his mouth to say so, but his throat tightens and to his humiliation, nothing comes out, nothing at all. He makes some wordless gesture, and Blair, his eyes bright, zips across the small space to put his arms around Jim.
"Yeah, I know, 'shut up, Sandburg'." But Blair doesn't sound pissed, more relieved than anything.
Jim might have his doubts about some aspects of Blair's upbringing, but one thing you have to say about a man raised by Naomi Sandburg: he gives warm, unashamedly encompassing hugs, while Jim snivels quietly because, shit, his daddy really is gone.
***
Of all the things that Jim really doesn't want to deal with, at any time, dreams in that moonlit jungle are close to the top of the list. But he's learned to go with the flow with some things at least, and there's a weird pleasure when he realises that this time, he *is* the jaguar, padding through the darkness on broad paws covered with sleek, dark fur. He belongs in this place in this shape. He can scent something up ahead, not prey exactly, but something he needs to track, to find. It's easy to sink into the hunt, to not feel or care, just move on with purpose. Whatever, no, whoever, is ahead of him knows that he's being followed. Jim can hear the noise of heavy breathing, smell the fear sweat, but his quarry can't escape. He's driving it towards the river and the falls and the steep cliffs of the gorge. There's nowhere to go but over once they reach there, and there's something sad in Jim that knows that won't happen.
He bursts out of the vegetation to the open ground at the top of the gorge, and there the man is. He's tall, sandy-haired, not young, but still strong enough to have kept ahead until now. He turns back to Jim, the fear scent heavy in the air and rising from the ground where the man's feet have set. Jim stalks forward. He knows this man, prey but not prey, and with a huff he drops to his belly on the ground, and waits. He waits what seems like a long time, while the man makes whatever choice he has to by the edge of the gorge, before Jim feels a shaking hand rest in his fur. Then there's a weight on his back and shoulders as the man leans on Jim's furred body, handfuls of pelt held fast in his grip. They stay like that for a long time, and it's what Jim remembers when he wakes up. That, and the fact that the man was his father.
Jim rolls over in bed, curious but not upset. He stares up into his ceiling and decides that it doesn't matter what sort of dream it was. Blair and he have talked the dreams to death (or at least, that's how Jim feels about it. Blair, he's not so sure of), their exact nature, symbolism and relationship to the waking world. Blair has a lot of hundred dollar words for those conversations, and it amuses Jim how many of them he doesn't need to have explained to him anymore.
Jim takes a breath, slow and steady, and exhales again. He feels okay about the dream and he feels okay about his dad. He turns his head. Blair is in the bed next to him, right where Jim needs him to be, with his hair strung out over the pillow like a dream-catcher. Jim rests the back of his hand lightly against the skin of Blair's arm. Blair is still deeply asleep. Jim decides that he'll tell Blair about the dream when he wakes up. It's getting lighter; dawn of a new day.
When I asked for beta help, I had a positive stampede, which was very flattering. So, many thanks to runriggers, knitty_woman, princessofg and cross_stitchery, who looked at this and pronounced it good, except for just one or two adjustments that were needed here and there. Also, I'd like to thank spikedluv and sara_merry99, the mods of ts_ficathons, for all their hard work.
Where Do We Grow To?
Slash, PG, 3,200 words
Jim's father dies. Jim deals.
In William Ellison's house, there was a place for everything and everything indubitably in its place. There was no slack in this rule, not even for boys. And for some things, there was no place at all. Jim can still remember his ten-year-old, outraged despair when his father threw out his comic books. Billy Batson couldn't 'shazam' himself out of that one, the Justice League had its hands tied, there was no escape for Scott Free.
Jim's bedroom remained tidy until he left home and the Army made sure that he never had the chance to indulge a slob's rebellion. When Jim came to making a home of his own, he discovered he was enough his father's son to need a place for everything and everything in its place. Carolyn liked order too - that, at least, was never a source of contention.
A place for everything includes Blair's belongings these days. Jim can cope with clutter. He just can't stand disorganised clutter. Blair has been known to call him Martha Stewart, which always earns Blair retaliation; anything from a finger flipped at him, to the most vicious noogie that Jim can summon. Blair picks his moments carefully so Jim assumes that he must like the attention. It's kind of interesting how much clutter Blair has picked up over the last few years; books and artefacts and magazines and the occasional photograph. Once an anthropologist, always an anthropologist, even when his day job is policing.
There isn't a specific place for the man himself because he's everywhere. Right now, he's on the couch, in his thrift-store robe that has that vaguely burned smell that Jim associates with old wool. Blair's feet are up on the couch, and sections of the newspaper are scattered on the floor below, along with a cup of coffee. Blair's hair is everywhere too. He grew it out after the obligatory haircut for the academy and then he just let it keep on growing. It's as long as it's ever been, well below the bottom of Blair's shoulder blades now. He puts it in a braid fairly often, and there's a strange fascination for Jim in winding the long rope of hair around his hand.
Blair rolls the first section of the paper into a sort of baton and throws it towards Jim. "Check out Cartwright's cartoon on the editorial page. They're not letting go of the mayor's latest foot-in-mouth outbreak yet."
Jim snags the paper out of mid-air, proud of the feat because Blair's baton arrangement has barely survived its flight.
"You couldn't shift your ass to hand that over?" he queries.
"I'm comfortable," Blair says. He wriggles his toes and lifts his cup to take a sip of coffee with a blissful expression on his face.
Jim unfolds the paper properly, starts at page one. "So I see. Some people got up earlier and put clothes on so that they could bring home bagels and a newspaper."
"That's because some people are organised and morning people." Blair leans back and smiles. "And some people are not."
"Some people might like their efforts to be appreciated," Jim growls.
"Then those people had better get *their* asses over here."
Jim abandons the Cascade Herald and moves to the couch, where he sits next to Blair, hip to hip, both of them shifting so that there's room. "I just feel that there's something wrong with this scenario," Jim laments.
Blair leans to kiss him, morning-bearded skin rough against Jim's, his breath coffee-scented. "The problem, man, is that you're dressed." Blair's right hand is braced against Jim's shoulder, the other is making a direct attack on the tidy tuck-in of Jim's shirt. Blair is wearing nothing under that old robe, and Jim kisses the shoulder that's revealed as one side slips away. And that's the exact moment when the phone rings.
"Damn it," Blair curses. He looks in Jim's face, and for one moment Jim can see the hope that they'll simply let it go to the answering machine. Then Blair's expression turns resigned. "Go answer it. I can wait."
Jim picks up the phone and crisply pronounces "James Ellison", irritated with himself as much as the interrupting caller. He hears someone's hitching breath, and then Sally speaks. "Jim. It's your father. He's in the hospital. He had a stroke." Jim hears another shuddery breath. "I'm so sorry. They don't - they don't expect that he'll last long."
"Which hospital, Sally?" It's his 'just the facts, ma'am' voice, utterly calm, which is no surprise because everything in him feels like ice.
"Mercy," Sally tells him. "I'll call Stephen for you." Stephen was the one who stuck around the old man, but Jim is the elder son. Sally has always been a traditionalist in her way.
"We'll be there soon," Jim says and puts the phone back, and stares at it like he doesn't know what it is. Blair appears at his side.
"Your dad?"
Jim nods, wordless.
"I'll get dressed."
Blair is ready to move fast, but he when he shouts out an inquiry from the bathroom about whether he should shave, Jim tells him yes. It takes time, but somehow Jim doesn't think that it's appropriate to visit his father accompanied by the wild man of Borneo. Jim picks up while he waits - does the dishes, sorts the newspaper, straightens the bed, brings order to the place where they were going to spend their day off.
Blair comes down the stairs. "We'll take my car," he says.
Jim shrugs. He suspects he could drive, maybe even might prefer to drive himself, but he knows there'll be an argument if he tries. Instead, he climbs obediently into the passenger seat and lets Blair take him to the hospital - that place where his father is.
***
The hospital room is a reasonable size - for a hospital room. Jim and Blair and Sally crowd it. Sally is quiet, although there's a hint of tears in her eyes, and her voice is not quite steady. But she stays calm and controlled. She'd never have lasted as William Ellison's housekeeper, and kept William's sons' affection as well, if she hadn't had steel in her.
"You should go home," Jim tells her, his hands gentle on the bird-bones hidden under her plump shoulders. "We all have cell phones, the hospital knows what's what. Do you need money for a cab?"
Sally shakes her head. "My sister is coming to get me." She walks over and gently presses William's hand. She leans down and says quietly, to William as much as to Jim, "I will come back later." She leaves, not before giving Jim a quick hug, and patting Blair on the shoulder. "You will look after him," she orders Blair, who nods ruefully and says, "I try."
Jim watches her go, embarrassed by this formal exchange of responsibility. He's been a grown man for a few years now. "Yeah, you're a trier, Chief." But his eyes turn to his father, lying still in the bed, one eye shut, the other half open, but unseeing, one side of his face odd and twisted. William's breathing rasps, usually steady, although now and again there are terrible, long, snorting sounds. Jim hopes his father isn't aware. He would hate that he was making those uncouth, pig-like noises. Jim pulls up a chair and sits by the bed and takes his father's hand. He doesn't say anything and neither does Blair, who stands behind Jim with hands warm on Jim's shoulders, his own breathing quiet and steady.
"Meditating, Sandburg?" Jim asks.
"Not exactly."
"I'd like to be alone with Dad for a while. Want to take a walk?"
"I can do that. See you later." Blair's hands grip briefly on Jim's shoulders and he leaves.
William's hand sits in Jim's like a cool, bony crab. 'No respecter of persons'. Where did that thought come from?
Jim clears his throat. "Hey, Dad." His voice is low and swallowed up by the room and the beeps and hum of machinery and the stertorous sounds from the old man in the bed. "We sort of got ourselves together the last few years, but..." Jim stops. "I guess that you guessed, but I never actually said anything, and maybe this is the last chance. So. Blair and I - I always figured you knew, but yeah, we're together. We're lovers. I'm gay. Bisexual anyway." The words drop away and nothing happens. His father doesn't miraculously jerk upright to declare that no son of his is a pansy. Neither does the wrath of God descend in the form of alarms and a crash-cart, not that both Jim and Sally haven't passed on the contents of William's living will by now. William's hand doesn't even twitch. That's that, then, Jim thinks. Left things kind of late there, Jimmy boy. He sits in silence until Blair comes back. Jim looks up as the door opens, unsure of his reasons for what he said to his father, words that the man probably didn't even hear. A simple explanation, or revenge? A last hope for acceptance? He doesn't think that the second option applies, but he wishes he could be sure.
"There's an okay garden courtyard here," Blair says. Jim nods, and when Blair comes closer Jim catches up his hand and kisses the back of it. It's a gesture he's occasionally made in private before, but never anywhere that could be regarded as public. Handholding, Jim thinks, by Ellison men. What is the world coming to?
"I - uh- I told Dad. About us," Jim clarifies.
Something fond and exasperated crosses Blair's face. "Good, that's good, Jim. What now?"
"I'll wait for Stephen to get here." He stays linked with the hands of both men, his father, and Blair, just for a few seconds longer, before he lets go of Blair's warm hand.
***
Harsh smells are what you expect in a funeral home when you're a sentinel. All the lushness of expensive carpets and roses and lilies and beeswax can't hide the smells that you aren't supposed to notice, the chemicals and the smell of decay and the mix of grief and relief and expectation. It's not always relief at the end of a loved one's pain, or expectation that the dead receive a dignified send-off. Jim's a cop. He knows what people are like.
Blair is sitting in the chapel pew, wearing a top-coat over his suit. It is, Jim thinks, probably the first proper coat that Blair's ever owned, since Jim certainly doesn't count that old coat that Blair wore back before he even moved into Jim's apartment. Blair had bought the coat the same time he bought a decent suit. "Time is going to come that I'll need it, man, and at least it's warm." It looks damned incongruous with the long braid hanging down against the fabric. Jim braided Blair's hair for him before they left, needing something mindless to do, liking the distraction of catching up all the mass of hair and wrestling it into order. He told Blair that he didn't need to wear the full regalia of suit and tie, but Blair smiled and said, "It's a mark of respect, Jim. You and your Dad never talked about us, I know, but he knew; he wasn't stupid any more than you are. And he was okay with me, and he was totally a suit kind of a guy so I feel I should wear a suit to his funeral service."
"And a braid," Jim said, stroking down the length of hair one last time, feeling the rough silk of it against his palm.
"And a braid," Blair agreed serenely.
It's a small group in the chapel. William Ellison made many acquaintances but not a lot of friends in his business career, and many of both have been winnowed by age. But there's one old friend of William's whom Jim knows well, with his daughter standing near, and Sally and her sister. There's Stephen, looking thunderous because his ex-wife has insisted that she couldn't get to the funeral in time, even with a financial boost, and she didn't want to expose the children to a funeral anyway. Carolyn gives Jim a smile and a careful peck on the cheek, and looks flustered but not displeased when Jim catches her up in a hug. She protests that it was a good chance to see her family, not that big a deal that she's here, but Jim is still pleased that she came. Simon is there; and Megan, which surprises Jim. He supposes that she's there to provide moral support to Blair, although Blair is bearing up nobly under the strain of bereaved Ellisons. It wasn't Blair's father, after all, and Jim prides himself that he hasn't been a difficult son of a bitch at home. Just - quiet.
***
Light. The scrapbook in his hand is light, even though it's filled with the weight of the years that Jim and William never spoke to each other. Jim looks at the cut-out picture of his wedding to Carolyn. That does bother him, that he didn't invite his father. He knows that his refusal to include William, or Stephen, poisoned his relations with his in-laws, and maybe his wife. They sat around and back-bit and gossiped and said that Carolyn had bitten off more than she could chew there. They were right about that too. His father would have liked Carolyn, Jim knows. He'd have admired her poise and intelligence, considered that Jim had made a wise choice. At least Jim stayed friends with his ex-wife - that's something.
Blair - his father didn't dislike Blair, Jim knows that too. But he never quite knew what to make of him. Join the club, Dad, Jim thinks, watching Blair's hands gently and deftly place books in various cardboard boxes. His father read a lot of crime novels the last few years. "I don't sleep so well at night, now, and most of what's on tv makes me want to puke." William had grinned when he told that Jim that. It's not in Blair to be rough with books, not even book-of-the-month-club crime selections.
"Nearly done, man."
Jim sighs. "Yeah." Nearly done and then the remaining contents and the house itself will be sold, and the proceeds added to William's not unsubstantial estate. Jim knows the basics - a rough one-quarter each disposition to Stephen, Jim, Stephen's children and Sally. Sally has already been given the run of the place, to take what mementoes she wants, and Jim suspects that his father's old bathrobe is amongst them. Stephen, with Jim's agreement, took quite a few of the more valuable items. Jim doesn't care. He never wanted his father's *money*. They've already sorted out the older photographs. Jim let Stephen have most of those too. He has children who might care about their ancestors.
Blair looks up, to observe the open scrap-book page that Jim isn't really seeing right now.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, I guess. Just thinking that technically I'm an orphan." Jim shakes his head. His mother has been gone nearly fifteen years now, killed in a car accident. "Stupid, huh?"
"Not at all," Blair says. "Psychologically, it's a perfectly common feeling. You've been an adult for twenty-plus years, but he was still your dad, just like Grace was still your mom."
The intimacy of those little words, 'dad', 'mom', sparks irritation in Jim. It was his dad, damn straight, and he's dead now, and watching Blair get ready to earnestly spout some psychobabble about how whatever Jim feels is perfectly appropriate makes Jim think 'enough already'. He opens his mouth to say so, but his throat tightens and to his humiliation, nothing comes out, nothing at all. He makes some wordless gesture, and Blair, his eyes bright, zips across the small space to put his arms around Jim.
"Yeah, I know, 'shut up, Sandburg'." But Blair doesn't sound pissed, more relieved than anything.
Jim might have his doubts about some aspects of Blair's upbringing, but one thing you have to say about a man raised by Naomi Sandburg: he gives warm, unashamedly encompassing hugs, while Jim snivels quietly because, shit, his daddy really is gone.
***
Of all the things that Jim really doesn't want to deal with, at any time, dreams in that moonlit jungle are close to the top of the list. But he's learned to go with the flow with some things at least, and there's a weird pleasure when he realises that this time, he *is* the jaguar, padding through the darkness on broad paws covered with sleek, dark fur. He belongs in this place in this shape. He can scent something up ahead, not prey exactly, but something he needs to track, to find. It's easy to sink into the hunt, to not feel or care, just move on with purpose. Whatever, no, whoever, is ahead of him knows that he's being followed. Jim can hear the noise of heavy breathing, smell the fear sweat, but his quarry can't escape. He's driving it towards the river and the falls and the steep cliffs of the gorge. There's nowhere to go but over once they reach there, and there's something sad in Jim that knows that won't happen.
He bursts out of the vegetation to the open ground at the top of the gorge, and there the man is. He's tall, sandy-haired, not young, but still strong enough to have kept ahead until now. He turns back to Jim, the fear scent heavy in the air and rising from the ground where the man's feet have set. Jim stalks forward. He knows this man, prey but not prey, and with a huff he drops to his belly on the ground, and waits. He waits what seems like a long time, while the man makes whatever choice he has to by the edge of the gorge, before Jim feels a shaking hand rest in his fur. Then there's a weight on his back and shoulders as the man leans on Jim's furred body, handfuls of pelt held fast in his grip. They stay like that for a long time, and it's what Jim remembers when he wakes up. That, and the fact that the man was his father.
Jim rolls over in bed, curious but not upset. He stares up into his ceiling and decides that it doesn't matter what sort of dream it was. Blair and he have talked the dreams to death (or at least, that's how Jim feels about it. Blair, he's not so sure of), their exact nature, symbolism and relationship to the waking world. Blair has a lot of hundred dollar words for those conversations, and it amuses Jim how many of them he doesn't need to have explained to him anymore.
Jim takes a breath, slow and steady, and exhales again. He feels okay about the dream and he feels okay about his dad. He turns his head. Blair is in the bed next to him, right where Jim needs him to be, with his hair strung out over the pillow like a dream-catcher. Jim rests the back of his hand lightly against the skin of Blair's arm. Blair is still deeply asleep. Jim decides that he'll tell Blair about the dream when he wakes up. It's getting lighter; dawn of a new day.