River's Edge

by Lois RH Balzer

  “Why so close?” Blair asked, but he came anyway, although every muscle in his body was clearly signaling his desire to turn and run.

  Jim settled Blair sideways between his legs, arranging him the same way they had been immediately after Blair had freaked out in the police station garage. The detective was working from memory; he had been blind then from the effects of the Golden drug, but he had remembered the overwhelming need to absorb Blair’s pain and confusion into himself.

  He got comfortable now, resting his chin on top of Blair’s head and drawing the shivering body closer yet. Blair’s arms were crossed over his chest. Still, trying to protect himself, and Jim moved his right arm beneath them, not letting his partner close himself off at all.

  “This is a little too weird, Jim,” Blair muttered, trying to breathe properly and calm down.

  “Trust me on this, Sandburg.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Now what?”

  “Now you rest.”

  Blair tried to tilt his face up to look at him, but Jim’s secure hold on his head with his left hand left the young man no maneuvering room. “Rest? If I couldn’t sleep in the tent, how the hell am I supposed to go to sleep like this?”

  “I didn’t say that you had to sleep. I realize that may not be possible yet. But I want you to rest. To be still. To let go of it all.” The shaking grew stronger. “You’re not going to fall apart, Chief. I’ve got you.”

  “Easy for you to say. You don’t have an octopus wrapped around you.”

  “Shhh.”

  “This is stupid, Jim. Not one of your best ideas.” Blair fidgeted, his heartbeat still fast. “What if Simon got up and saw you doing this? He’d really wonder then what was going on with us. He knows I’m nuts, and he’d think you were nuts, too. This is crazy, man.”

  When Simon spoke, Jim had to hold tight to keep Blair from bolting. “I don’t know about that, Sandburg. I was there the first time, remember? Ellison kept you safe then, why not now?”

  “I don’t need to be kept safe. I’m fine. I just need a bit of time to get my head together.” Blair was fighting him now, but he still had no room to do so.

  Simon laughed. “Sandburg, I haven’t noticed you as ever having your head on straight, so why should I be wondering about it now? Just trust him. He trusts you.”

  “Well, maybe he could trust me that I’m okay. What about that? Huh?” Blair called out as Simon returned to his tent.

  “Shhh,” Ellison whispered. “You’ll wake Daryl.”

  “Don’t shush me!”

  “Just for a little while, Chief. For me. Just sit here and be quiet and let me do what I feel I have to do, okay?”

  Blair suddenly stopped moving. “It’s not going to work, Jim,” he said softly.

  “What isn’t going to work?”

  “Whatever you want from me. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “Listen carefully, buddy. I just want you to sit quietly and relax. That’s it. Give me fifteen minutes of your time. That’s not so much, is it?” Jim looked up as Simon and Daryl slipped out of their tent and headed down along the river’s edge. Simon flashed a hand signal that said they’d be gone for thirty minutes, and Jim nodded, smiling faintly. “Just sit still and rest for a bit.”

  *

  Fifteen minutes. He shivered. It wasn’t really so long. All the experiments he had done on Jim, couldn’t he just cooperate for a few minutes?

  Blair fought the urge to squirm, to fling off the hands that had trapped him. He’d sit quietly and give Jim his fifteen minutes. Not a minute more, but he could have fifteen. Probably only fourteen by now. Maybe if he counted the seconds off, it wouldn’t—

  “Shhh.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Blair muttered.

  “Just relax, buddy. Everything’s okay.”

  Everything’s not okay, Jim. I messed up today, in case you didn’t notice. I freaked out and tried to beat up a police captain’s son. I thought he was on fire and he wasn’t. That’s not okay, Jim. And it’ll probably happen again. And again. I’m a major liability now. No way will Simon let me go on the field with you. What if I go nuts during a bust? Or on a stakeout? You don’t get it, do you, Jim? It’s over.

  “Shhh. Just take it easy. Let it go. Let it go.”

  Let what go? There’s nothing to let go here, Jim. I’m fucked up. No good. End of road for Tonto. When is it going to hit you that you’ve got to find yourself a new partner? Simon will haul you in when we get back and let you know what your options are, but I can bet that I’m not one of them. Maybe I can still help you with your senses and stuff. Maybe I can even go with you to the office and help with paperwork. But that’s it. Blair Sandburg can no longer be trusted. He sees Golden fire people stalking Cascade. Better call the fire department, man.

  “Shhh. I’m here, Chief. Let it go, buddy. I’m here.”

  You don’t get it, Jim. Blair could feel the tears welling up in his eyes. Jim just wasn’t realizing what was happening. It was over.

  He took a deep breath and let it out, holding his eyes open wide until they dried up. He was not going to cry. Absolutely. No way.

  He’d do this for Jim, this sitting thing. Fifteen minutes. Maybe Jim would feel better, feel he was doing something. The campfire crackled and Blair shivered again, the reaction setting off another bout of the shakes. Ain’t nothing going to help here, Jim. Any minute now I’m gonna see the Golden fire people again, probably over seven feet tall and doing the watutsi. It’s over; the fat lady is singing.

  Well, one thing wasn’t over yet; he had only used up maybe another two or three minutes at the most. Damn. At least ten more minutes of this. He squirmed, trying to make himself more comfortable. His head hurt. Aching and pounding. He felt like someone had stomped on it.

  “Rest …” Jim’s voice said, softly, and the hand on his forehead began a slow massage on his temples, easing the tightness.

  “How did you know I have a headache?” Blair asked, trying to look up and see Jim’s face.

  “Shhh.”

  “Damn it, man, I’m just trying to ask a question here …”

  “Trust me, Chief.” Jim gently pushed Blair’s head against his shoulder and resumed the massage. “Shhh.”

  I’m trying, Jim. I want to trust you. He closed his eyes and tried to let go of some of the tension in his body, but his stomach felt like it was tied in a thousand knots. He could hear the fire snapping behind him, the smell of burnt wood. Something flickered at the edge of his vision. I’ve got my damned eyes closed and I still can see them. He remembered very little of what had happened before at the police garage. Just being scared. And angry that they would hunt him down and try to hurt Jim. The Golden fire people. No! Don’t be a jerk, Sandburg. There aren’t any Golden fire people. That’s what Jim had said to him. Well, sort of … No, he couldn’t remember Jim saying anything like that. It wasn’t the kind of thing Jim would say.

  He could feel Jim’s hand massaging his forehead. He was starting to feel numb all over, his head heavy. His throat hurt, though. When did that start? Probably will get pneumonia from sitting around soaking wet before. I’ve already missed too many classes this year. I can’t miss the meeting on Tuesday. Two classes— Was I crazy? Why did I sign up for two classes? I should have just agreed to one class, not two. One class would have been okay, although when you’re shot through the leg it doesn’t matter how many classes you have to teach, you’re going to miss them all for a while. Is Jim going to make me go back to the hospital? That would be so not cool. The doctors. All their questions and poking and prying. Shining lights in my eyes all the time. “I can’t sleep in the hospital, Jim.”

  “Shhh.”

  “I can’t. It’s not going to happen.”

  “Shhh.”

  His throat still hurt. It felt like there was some big lump caught in it. It was hard to swallow. Great … I’m getting sick. Sure, why not? I can’t do this anymore. He couldn’t swallow. His
chest hurt, too. His ears were ringing slightly. He felt the palm of Jim’s hand over his heart, the warmth working its way through his flannel shirt to calm the pain. To break it up. Into little pieces. His throat hurt. His head hurt.

  He was crying.

  God, Jim, don’t let go.

  *

  Ellison felt the tears dripping down onto his hands, knowing his partner’s misery was in each one of them. “Blair, remember what the doctor said. Your emotions are going to be a little sensitive for a while, a little exaggerated. Try to go with the moment here. Keep in mind that the things you are feeling are a little out of proportion to how things actually are, okay? I know it and you know it. Go with it. Don’t try to fight how you feel.”

  A very small nod was followed by some major shivering, and Jim wrapped himself more securely around his partner. “Let it go, Blair. Let me carry the ball for a while. You’ve done great, but you need to relax. Simon and Daryl have gone for a walk and won’t be back for a while. We’ve got time.” He kept talking, feeling Blair listening. “You need to have a break. I’ve got the ball. It’s secure. It’s safe. I’m not going to let you fumble it, but you have to give me all the responsibility for this, for just a little while. Can you do that?”

  At first, there was no response, just the tears and the intermittent shaking. Blair leaned against him, resigned to sitting in such close proximity, and he could feel Blair quit fighting. Jim tried to relax, to remind himself that Blair was breathing, even if he was still. He hadn’t been breathing in the police garage, though. That feeling, holding him while he stopped breathing, was the single most horrifying thing Jim had lived through. He couldn’t see; he couldn’t do anything when they had pulled Blair from his grasp. He could hear them working on him, but he couldn’t see. Having four other hyper-senses did nothing for him, when all he wanted to do was see what was happening.

  The breathing in his arms altered slightly, and Jim slammed back into the present with a momentary surge of panic. The quiet tears had turned into a sob, and then another. As if a huge weight was lifted off Ellison’s chest, he took a deep, ragged breath, and placed his cheek back on top of Blair’s head, feeling each gut-wrenching sob echo silently through his partner’s chest, each hot tear that fell from his eyes. Blair’s hands clutched at his arm now, but he was not trying to pull it away; he was trying to hang on.

  There we go. You’re not broken, Chief. I didn’t break you down. I let you go free.

  The sobs died down and switched to an equally silent crying that seemed to be pouring from Blair’s heart. Instead of trying to hide his face in his hands, Blair turned his face into Jim’s chest, burrowing into the safety net there.

  “I’ve got you, buddy,” Jim whispered. “I’m not letting go.” That seemed to bring on another wave of tears, but soon the body in his arms began to relax, bit by bit. Cried out, exhausted, tired of fighting, all of those things. But Jim knew that beneath it all, Blair understood this time. It was a safety issue. There was a safe place to deal with whatever he needed to deal with, and that place was exactly where he was right now, with Jim.

  “I won’t be able to keep you safe all the time. There are things out there that are beyond my control. But I want you to know that I will do my best. And I need you to work with me on this. I need you to respect my need to protect. I know what that costs you, but I feel my Sentinel abilities strongest when you’re around, so you’re going to have to deal with this protection need of mine. My need to guard you and make sure you’re safe. Occasionally the need to hold you and know that you’re all right. Believe me, it’s for me more than it is for you. I need to feel that you’re okay.”

  “I feel like crawling under a rock and hiding,” Blair whispered, his eyes tightly closed.

  “How about just sitting here with your Blessed Protector for a while?”

  “Are my fifteen minutes up yet?” A soft laugh accompanied the question.

  “Not yet. I’ll let you know. Just sit and be quiet.”

  *

  Simon Banks let his arm drop to rest on his son’s shoulders as they walked back to the campsite. It had been a long, difficult evening to what had started out as a relaxing day of hiking and fishing with friends. He knew that Daryl was trying hard to take it all in stride, to be cool about it, but the intensity behind his stare as they approached the two men sitting by the fire, showed that the whole experience was still unnerving him.

  Hell, it’s unnerving to me, and I understand what happened, Simon thought. He looked at them now, the police detective and his partner, and while the silence and stillness of the younger man was a far cry from the hysterical screams that had cut through the riverside a few hours earlier, the empty staring eyes said that all was not yet well. But it was a damn sight better than it was before.

  Ellison still sat back against a log, his arms completely surrounding his partner. Blair was a no longer the hunched ball he’d been when they left, facing away from the fire, his wrists crossed firmly over his chest. Instead, he was sitting sideways now between Ellison’s bent legs, head resting against the taller man’s shoulder, his body relaxed and peaceful. His eyes were open, but Simon doubted he was aware of much yet.

  There was no doubt that Ellison had heard them returning, not with the super-hearing the man possessed, but the detective made no motion to talk to them, nor to offer any explanations nor reassurances. His attention was totally focused on restoring his partner.

  “Come on, Daryl,” Simon said to his son, softly, steering him back to their tent.

  Daryl stopped and looked back, giving a little nod, as though figuring something out. “Like David and Jonathan,” he said softly.

  “Who are they? Friends of yours?”

  The dark eyes rolled up at him, looking at him as though he was only slightly above an imbecile. How the hell did the kid do that so easily? “From Sunday School, Dad. David and Jonathan.”

  “Oh. Right. Uh … King David, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And … Jonathan was …” Simon knew he was trawling for answers to something his son assumed he knew.

  “This prince whose father was trying to kill David.”

  Well, that made sense. No … actually it didn’t make sense. “How do Jim and Blair remind you of two warring kings?”

  “They were best friends. I remember hearing about them while ago at church, thinking they were really strange. They, like, declared their love for each other, and said they’d die for each other, and they loved each other more than women, and all that kind of shit. That their love was somehow sacred or something. But it didn’t seem like they were about to jump into bed with each other or anything. They just cared. It was weird.” Daryl shrugged. “It didn’t make any sense before. Just made me feel uncomfortable. Kinda looking around at the other guys and imagining how they’d react if I said anything like that. But it’s like that with them, isn’t it? The same kind of love as David and Jonathan. Kinda cool.”

  Simon felt the tears in his own eyes, and he blinked them back, looking up. “Yeah, son. I guess it’s the same. Kinda cool.”

  Daryl turned away suddenly, and ducked into the tent. Once inside, the teenager dropped down to his sleeping bag. “Shit, Dad. It’s hard to believe that’s Blair. He looks like a zombie.”

  “He’ll be okay. When we get up in the morning, he’ll probably be back to normal. Remember what we talked about?” Father and son had been walking along the lake shore for a while, talking—really talking—about some pretty heavy things. Blair’s flashback, a relic from the infamous “Golden” drug spiked on his pizza five months before. Drugs in general. Then drugs in specific, drugs that Daryl was hearing about, that his friends were using. The laws. The gangs, the drug dealers, the crime lords. The whole sordid scene. Prostitutes and addicts. White collar users and recreational drugs. The teenager asked questions and Simon did his best to answer them—not tough-nosed as a cop, but as a tenderhearted father.

  “Are you sure he’ll be ok
ay?” Daryl’s eyes were fastened on a spot on his sleeping bag, his finger picking at the irregularity in the fabric. “He sounded awful before. The stuff he was doing …”

  “Blair was scared. Terrified, remember? He thought you were on fire. And then later he thought there were beings trying to kill you both. He had every reason to scream.”

  “I know.” Daryl threw himself back to his pillow. “Shit.” He stared up at the roof of the tent. “Shit, Dad. Why would someone do that to Blair? He’s not a cop.” The eyes widened suddenly as a thought occurred. “You could have eaten the piece of pizza.” Daryl looked over at him, meeting his eyes suddenly, and Simon’s heart almost broke at the horror on his child’s face.

  “I could have,” he admitted. He didn’t know what else to say. He couldn’t lie to Daryl about this.

  The whole, overwhelming concept was a little too close to home now and Daryl sat up and impulsively through his arms around his father’s neck. “Shit, Dad.” The word was so expressive in a teen’s mouth.

  “Yeah. I know, son.” They stayed that way for a few seconds before Daryl drew away, self-conscious and needing space suddenly, and Simon released him immediately. “Get some sleep. I’m going to check and see if Jim needs anything.”

  Daryl nodded, pulling off his boots and his jeans and crawling into the sleeping bag, his back turned to his father.

  Simon waited a moment, until he had himself a bit more together, before he went out of the tent. Ellison had shifted position slightly, but still sat the way he had that day in the police station garage, his body wrapped protectively around his partner, shielding him from the madness of the outside world.

  “You okay, Jim?”

  “Yeah.” Ellison looked up and smiled. “David and I will just sit here a little while longer. He’s almost asleep.”

  Simon chuckled. “Daryl’s obviously better read than his father. I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about at first.”

  “It’s a good analogy. I’ll have to mention it to Sandburg sometime, if the need arises. He usually gets flighty if I get emotional on him.”