Shades of Grey

Pairing J/B
Warnings: this is sort of dark, especially compared to my usual fare.  Some oblique violence, some language.

Reassurances: Jim and Blair love each other and, in my world, will never hurt each other.

Notes: This was inspired by a story that I was exposed to at ZebraCon.  I couldn't help but think, "Hey, Jim would do that for Blair…"  Credit for the story listed at the bottom.  Beta'd by the lovely ladies at Sen-Betas

Please send feedback to: kungfunurse@visi.com


*_*_*_*_*


Not again.  Please Lord, not again.

Jim prayed, quietly, solemnly, to the God that had given him up.  The Christian God of Sunday school lunches and good Lutherans everywhere had abandoned him, bartered him away like an unwanted child.

He had new masters now, and he shivered in fearful awe of their power over him.

When had it started?  Was there a delineating line between then and now?  Was it even possible to point to a specific time, a place and say, "Yes, that's it?  That's when it all started going horribly, terrifyingly wrong?"

Or worse, beautifully, freakishly right?

Jim shut his eyes, trying for a moment to forget where he was, what he was engaged in.  Because if he could forget what he was here for, then he could forget *who* he was here for.  Doing this for him.  Doing this *to* him.

And damnit, that wasn't fair.  Jim raked his nails down his shoulder, the sharp/dull pain distracting him from the revolting task ahead.  Sandburg hadn't asked him to do this, and he'd certainly try like hell to stop Jim if he knew.  God, the thought of Blair staring at Jim in horrified realization…it didn't bear thinking of.  But just the fact that Blair was there, back in the loft, eyes too old with pain and survival, drove Jim out here.  Drove him to do this… this *thing*.  

*Wrong*, his mind whispered.  *This is wrong*.

And Jim nodded, eyes still clenched shut, firmly believing that quiet judgment.  Yes, oh this was wrong.  Wrong and terrible and so fucking necessary that his eyes opened up again without his say-so, and his hand stopped tearing at his own skin and sent feathering touches down his body, checking pockets and tools.  His body didn't care, didn't give a damn that Jim was a cop, that he was a man, that he wasn't, God damnit, *wasn't* a … say it, you fucking coward.  Say it!

"Murderer," he whispered out loud, condemning himself and the sleeping man across the street in one breath.

Perhaps, a distant part of his mind murmured, perhaps it had started when he'd fallen out of that airplane, back into the jungle and the wild, messy, insect-filled heat of it all.  He'd become possessed, cursed, so beloved of the spirits that one had singled him out and taken him for itself.  Or maybe it had started earlier, years and years ago, and there was a very good reason why he'd chosen not to remember his time with the Chopek.  Or why old Bill Ellison had locked his boy in the closet and called him a freak.

His body continued its task, ghosting along the rooftops and landing with a soft *thud* on the balcony.  Then, easing through the doors, he flowed as quiet as frost across the carpet.  Jim scented the air and grimaced at the acrid tang that fouled his sinuses.  This man, this living hulk of breathing flesh thing, was no longer of the tribe.

In a futile struggle, Jim tried a final time to stop this.  "I'm a cop, not a killer.  Not a killer!" he muttered his defiance.

*But HE is*, whispered the dark, gravelly voice that invaded his dreams and answered Incacha's questions with Jim's mouth.

"Then we arrest him, make him stand trial.  That's what we do, that's who we are!"

*Protected*, murmured the dark voice.  *Only we can defend the tribe from him.*

"Tribe, what tribe?" Jim struggled, clasping his hands over his ears as he loomed over the Senator's bed in an eerie, twilight nightmare.  "That line may work for the Chopek, but in Cascade, where are the borders?  Who decides what the tribe is?  Who is my fucking tribe?"

*Blair, blairblairblairblairblair……*

Blair.  The ultimate arbiter, the voice of sanity, Jim's only link to his humanity.  The dark, gravelly voice that whispered to him of the jungle had nearly devoured him whole before Blair had danced his way into Jim's life; before the Sentinel had decided, with every sense locked on the young man, that Blair would do for them just beautifully.

*….blairblairblairblairblair….*

And this breathing dead thing before him, this pale excuse for a man, had almost taken Blair away from them.  The ebb and flow of Blair's breath as he struggled through surgery, the strangely vacant echo in Blair's body where a kidney once nestled, the sharp retort of a silenced rifle, these things kept the Sentinel up nights, and drove Jim to this desperate act of love.

*…blairblairblairblairblairblairblair…*

Surrendering to the Sentinel, ready to do anything to remove the cloying tang of "other" from their nose, Jim bent over the senator's bed and set about their work.  The ritual was quiet and simple, and they were ready before another minute had passed.  The shooter's death had been a little death, hard and cold, a broken-necked corpse in a nameless grave.  This man, though, had purchased himself a far greater pain.  He would receive so much more than the small death.  This was the mind that had birthed the evil, that had ordered Blair's murder, and only the final death, the soul death, would do.  Now gagging from the putrid smell, Jim sealed his lips over the senator's mouth, and stole the murderer's breath.  

*_*_*_*

Blair was flipping idly through his journal, paying more attention to the Animal Channel than to Anthropological theories tonight.  He grimaced when the phone rang, and grunted in pain as he twisted to get the receiver.

"'Lo? Sandburg/Ellison house."

"Sandburg?  Thank God, is Jim there?"  Simon's voice snapped across the line.

Blair sighed and tossed the journal on the floor, giving it up as a bad job.  "Nah, man, didn't he tell you?  Jim packed up his waders and the butane stove and hightailed it to the fishing opener."

A heartbeat of silence, then, "Sandburg, are… are you sure about that?  I mean, there's no chance he could still be somewhere here.  In Cascade."

"Simon!" Blair exclaimed, glancing at Jim's truck keys in their basket, "The man is gone.  Road trip of the gods, off to the happy fishing grounds so there is, like, no way I'm gonna let you try to find him and talk him back into work early.  He's been so totally unable to relax since my, well, the shooting, and the man needs his time away-"

"Stop, just breathe.  Dear Lord you just finished surgery, why can't you get post-op pneumonia like normal people?"

"Ha, ha.  Funny, Simon.  You're a riot.  Now this is me, hanging up the pho-"

"Wait, uh, Blair.  You're sure, I mean, *positive* that Jim's gone up north.  Right?"

Blair lounged along the sofa, relaxing into the discussion now.  "Sure Simon, why?  What's up?"

"It's just, this case landed on my desk tonight and I, well, never mind."  

"Umm, okay…"

"Damnit Sandburg!  Look, Lash is dead."

"Uh, yeah, Simon, not exactly a news flash, there.  What the hell does-"

"Will you shut up for a minute?  Yeah, there's Lash, but what about Ventris?  Or-"

"Wait, what about Ventris?"

A pause, then, "Didn't Jim tell you?  He's dead, Sandburg.  Found face down in his toilet four months ago.  Someone just held his head down while the poor bastard kicked and pissed on the floor."

"Jesus," Blair whispered, eyes trained on the hunting cats on the screen.

"And it's not just them.  Dead people are turning up from all over the country, and the only connection they had to each other was you!  They'd all taken a shot some time or another at you!"

"Me?  Now wait just a minute Simon, you're not saying that I'm-"

"No, of course not.  You couldn't hurt a damn flea, kid."

"Then…no, Simon.  NO.  Jim's a cop, man!  He's, like, a force for good and there's no way, no *way* he'd cross that line!"

"Sandburg.  Alex Barnes is dead."

Blair just stared ahead, watching the lions feasting and bickering amongst themselves.

"The doctors say heart attack, but Jim was gone to a convention about that time.  Sandburg?  Blair, are you listening?  All I'm saying is maybe you want to find somewhere else to go for a few days.  Take a little vacation yourself?"

Blair gently fingered his new incision, then deliberately twisted his mouth into a sneer.  "Fuck you, Simon.  You hear that?  Fuck you!  Jim's a good man, and I don't believe that crap!  I won't!  Jim's on a fishing trip.  You hear me?"

"Okay, okay, settle down before you bust something!  Just cool it, alright?"  Simon took a deep breath himself, then started again.  "So, you're sure about Jim.  I mean, for Christ's sake you live with the man, so you'd know.  Right?"

Blair heard the pleading in Simon's voice and decided to take things down a notch.  "Yeah Simon," he replied in complete honesty.  "There's no way Jim could hide something like that from me.  I know him.  Utterly."

"Okay, well, good."  Simon said with relief.  "Just, just get better soon, damnit.  I need my detective back."  

"Sure, Simon.  Say, sorry about swearing at you and all, it's just-"

"Yeah, don't sweat it.  We're all keyed up right now."  The affection and apology was clear in Simon's voice, too.  "G'night, Sandburg.  And say hi to Jim when you see him."

Blair yawned, then beeped the handset off and cradled it against his chest.  Stillness settled through the loft again, broken only by the jungle cats now lying in the sun, cute fuzzy babies rolling and pouncing on errant bits of nothing.

Blair watched the lions, his mind contemplating another, darker cousin of theirs.  It always amused him to consider Man's fascination with panthers.  Man eaters, fierce killers, the only wild cat that would kill when it wasn't hungry, seemingly just for the sake of the kill.  Or perhaps for its own, feline reasons, he mused.  

Blair chuckled and stretched gingerly on the couch.  Jim would be home soon, and now he'd have to cook up a reason to keep the big guy away from the phone.  And the windows.  And something would have to be done about the truck, at least until tomorrow night…

Blair's mind whirled and spun, intent on protecting the man who worked so hard to protect him.  Someday soon he'd have to sit his Sentinel down and tell him that he didn't have to hide.  Not from him.  It wasn't murder when you killed in self-defense, and that's all Jim was doing; protecting himself by protecting Blair.  And that's what he'd tell Jim, just as soon as he thought Jim could stand to hear it.  Until then he'd keep making plans, keep clearing away loose ends.  He smiled again and turned dark eyes towards the door.  "Come home soon, Jim," he murmured to himself.  "Come home to me."
 
fin


Notes: This story was inspired by a Professionals story, "The Werewolves of London".  If you like Pros, I'd highly recommend it.

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