Spring/96

you said you were the king of liars, but i
realize now that i have been deceived
  --road movie to berlin

   "Look, I don't see what your problem is here. You told me I had an obligation to publish. I published."
   The man glaring at Blair from across his desk was vaguely familiar to Jim. He was some sort of big deal in the anthropology department, and lord, right now he did not look happy with Jim's partner. Blair was sitting up very straight behind his desk, which wasn't like him, and though he looked calm, Jim could hear his heart pounding.
   "I recommended," the man growled, "that you secure publication in an internationally respected journal. I had thought you could easily draw from the material you are preparing for your doctoral thesis. As you are well aware, publication is supposed to reflect well upon this university."
   Jim's stomach clenched. Sure, Sandburg joked about publishing a book, but it hadn't occurred to him that there might be real pressure on the kid to publish in academic journals. Fortunately, it seemed that Sandburg had found some way to avoid spilling their secret.
   "My article," Blair was saying, "*does* reflect well on Rainier. Do you have any idea how widely read the JIR is? And people actually do read it -- they don't just leave it lying around the office so people will think they're well-informed. You know a lot of the contributors are from ivy-league schools. Contributing to the JIR just says that the university doesn't have anything to prove."
   The man frowned.
   "I suppose that's fair enough," he said. "But the next time you publish, I expect that it will be in a more scholarly forum."
   Blair's heartbeat was slowing.
   "Oh, yeah. Absolutely."
   Jim waited outside while they finished their conversation. When the older man passed him in the hall, he went in and took the abandoned chair.
   "That was a hell of a tapdance, Chief."
   Blair grinned.
   "Whatever works. What are you doing here?"
   "Thought I'd see if you were free for lunch. What's the JIR?"
   In response, Blair tossed a magazine at him. Jim caught it and looked at the cover.
   "Journal of Irreproducible Results? That ... I thought you didn't want irreproducible results."
   "You don't. It's satirical."
   Jim flipped through the magazine. It looked like all of the other journals Blair left around the loft. Okay, granted, the article on "Sign and Symbol in the Oeuvre of Jim Carry" seemed little strange, but by and large it was ... well, nothing Jim could make heads or tails of.
   "This is supposed to be funny?"
   As the words came out he realized they might be offensive, given that Blair had been published in this thing, but Blair didn't seem to mind.
   "You might actually like it," he said. "It's pretty disrespectful to the whole scientific method thing. I read an article once where a guy spent two pages going over the significance of his receipt from Burger King."
   Jim nodded.
   "I'm starting to see how you got published in this."
   "Well, I didn't have a whole lot of choice. I didn't want to write about you, and I'm not working on anything else right now." He looked unsettled for a second, then it cleared and he smiled. "I'm good for at least six months, anyway. And I don't care what Steckler thinks -- I'm totally happy to be in the JIR."
   Jim opened the magazine to the table of contents and saw Blair's name. It was strange ... he'd never known anyone who'd had anything in a magazine before. The closest he'd ever come to publication was being quoted in the press.
   "Is this a big deal? You said a lot of people read this, right?"
   Blair seemed surprised by the question.
   "Um ... yeah. All over the States, Canada, Australia, Europe ... why?"
   "Just wondering if I should buy you lunch."
   "Jim," Blair said, smiling, "never *wonder* if you should buy me lunch. Of course you should."
   Jim could tell from the look in Blair's eyes that he understood what the lunch was really for ... which was fine, because that meant Jim never had to thank him in words.

Fall/96

avalanche or roadblock, i was a snowball in hell
  --snowball in hell

   "You okay, Chief?"
   Blair was looking at the cut on his arm with profound distaste.
   "You think this is gonna need stitches?"
   Carefully, Jim placed his hands on Blair's arm.
   "Let me see."
   The perp hadn't cut him too deep, but it was a long enough gash that Jim doubted it would heal without help.
   "I think so. Get in the truck and I'll take you to the hospital."
   Blair was still scowling at his arm.
   "The university's getting kinda dodgy about my insurance," he said. "Apparently I fall outside of the expected risk level for professors."
   Jim grabbed Blair's good arm and hauled him to his feet.
   "I'll see if I can get the department to cover this one. Now, get in the truck, and try not to bleed on the upholstery."
   Blair made a face at him, but he got moving, which was all Jim wanted.
   "You really think the department will cover it? I mean, my ride-along's expired, and technically I'm not supposed to get involved in fights."
   Jim tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
   "I think the department owes you one. I'm surprised that you remembered you're not supposed to be involved in fights."
   "Yeah, right," Blair said. Jim glanced at him and saw something dangerously close to a smirk. "Next time I'll stay in the truck and let you get your ass kicked."
   "Another empty promise," Jim said, and they rode to the hospital in comfortable silence.

Summer/97

the rain falls down without my help, i'm afraid,
and the lawn gets wet though i withhold my consent ...
  --it's not my birthday

   "Sandburg. Ellison. My office."
   It was always worse when he said Blair's name first. Jim didn't know why that was, but it was unfailingly true. He hadn't mentioned that observation to Blair, but the look on the kid's face told him he didn't need to. Blair had figured it out for himself.
   "What is it, Simon?" Jim asked reasonably, hoping to remind the man that they were all friends. Simon narrowed his eyes.
   "Shut the door."
   Blair pushed it shut and looked at Jim. He seemed about five years old, and Jim had to fight the urge to place himself between Simon and Blair.
   "Did either of you happen to catch the ten o'clock news last night?"
   "What channel?" Blair asked.
   "Any of them!" Simon said, more loudly than was necessary. Jim dialed his hearing down.
   "No sir," he said. "We were pretty tired, considering."
   "I can understand that. Maybe that explains why every channel had ahold of the fact that there was an armed *civilian observer* inside that warehouse during the bust!"
   Yeah, Jim was definitely glad he'd turned down his hearing.
   "Sir, we didn't-" Jim said.
   "Simon, I didn't-" Blair said.
   "Save it," Simon suggested. "I know neither of you spoke to the press. Apparently they saw Sandburg with a gun and asked one of the patrolmen who he was. But they wouldn't have asked any questions about Sandburg if they hadn't seen him." He turned on Blair. "Why the hell weren't you in the truck, and why did you let reporters see you with a gun?"
   Blair still looked miserable, but he'd recovered a little from the time they'd entered the office.
   "Can I take the last part first?" he asked. Jim, who had watched Quiz Show with him earlier that week, bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Simon's left eyelid twitched.
   "Just answer me."
   "They saw me with a gun because I was tired and I wasn't thinking. My bad. As for the truck thing, Jim had a zone-out last week and I thought it would be better if I was with him. I thought you wanted me to-"
   Simon held up a hand.
   "All right, the damage is done. Just ... try to be more careful next time. In case you gentlemen have forgotten, we're all breaking some rules, here."
   "We haven't forgotten," Blair said, glancing at Jim. "But Jim and I close a lot of cases. The press is starting to notice that, you know? I don't know if we can control it."
   "This isn't fair." Simon was rubbing his temples and looking with open desire at the Aspirin bottle he kept at the end of his desk. "Best team we've had in the history of this department, and I have to keep one of them away from the press."
   Blair was so pleased by the praise that he forgot about the problem. Jim could see it slip its chains and run from Blair's mind.
   "Look, Simon," Jim said, "I want to keep working with Sandburg. I think you want that, too. But he's right; we can't control what the press latches onto ... not while we're concentrating on the job." He clapped Simon on the shoulder. "It's a good thing you have a gift for damage control."
   Simon grumbled and complained and told them they could go. He saved his final comment until they were back at Jim's desk, and Jim was pretty sure he didn't mean to be overheard. Sometimes he just forgot.
   "I'm good, but I'm not a miracle worker. I can't do this forever."

Fall/97

there's only two songs in me and i just wrote the third.
don't know where i got the inspiration or how i wrote
the words. spent my whole life just digging up my music's
shallow grave for the two songs in me and the third one i just made
  --number three

   "Chief? Isn't it a little cold for you out here?"
   It was late in October, and late at night. Jim had to look twice to convince himself that Blair really was out on the balcony, and not even wearing a coat.
   "It's okay," Blair said distantly. Jim grabbed a blanket from the couch and went to wrap it around Blair's shoulders.
   "If you catch pneumonia," he said, "your wheezing will keep me up at night."
   Blair smiled and caught the ends of the blanked with one cold white hand.
   "It's good to know you care."
   "What are you doing out here, anyway?"
   Blair thought about that, and he took his sweet time. Jim wanted to shake him.
   "Just thinking," he said finally. Without conscious instruction, Jim's hands came up to grab Blair and give him a shake. The sound of Blair's voice stopped them. "You know how Incacha told me to become the Shaman?"
   It wasn't exactly a distant memory for Jim.
   "Yeah. I was there."
   "And I asked him how to do that?"
   "Yeah."
   Blair pulled the blanket tighter.
   "He never did tell me."
   Jim put a hand on Blair's shoulder. The blanket made him feel as though he were reassuring a teddy bear.
   "You'll figure it out."
   "Yeah." He relaxed under Jim's hand. "It's not like I've had an instruction manual so far."
   "And you haven't fucked up *that* badly."
   "Go ahead," Blair said, turning to him. "Laugh it up. It's your sanity I'm playing with. Did you get anywhere with the arson case?"
   Jim wouldn't have thought he'd ever see the day when Blair wouldn't want to talk about sentinels and shamans, but that abrupt change of subject sent a pretty clear message. Weird ... but he wasn't going to kick.
   "Looks like you were right about the graffiti. We found the same message within a block of the second and third buildings. Could be a coincidence, but right now it's the best lead we've got."
   "*Very* cool." Blair's eyes shone. "Maybe I'm not much of a shaman, but I'm a decent detective. Right?"
   Jim didn't have the heart to tease him.
   "Yeah," he admitted, patting Blair's cheek. "For a civilian observer, you're not too bad.

Spring/98

words falls out of my pockets, and cats dance under my feet.
this colourful spell under which i live protects me from all i write.
  --birds fly

   Every time a key clicked, Jim felt it against his skin. It wasn't painful, but it made him itch. he got that way sometimes, mistook one sensation for another. Sandburg said there was a word for it, cinna-something or other. Cinna, cinness ... Jim couldn't remember, and damned if he was going to ask.
   Whatever it was, it would probably be in that fucking dissertation. Maybe he'd put it in the "my roommate's a nutcase" chapter, the one right after "my partner's a coward".
   Blair had been typing for days, as if they'd never had words, as if he'd never offered to throw his work away. Apparently everything was settled.
   And to be perfectly fair, what else could Jim expect the kid to do? He'd been stalling on his dissertation for years. This was his career, and they'd had an agreement from the start.
   When Blair had said that it was about friendship, Jim had sort of assumed their deal had changed, but Blair had never actually said so, and he did have to make a living. As Simon pointed out from time to time, this little arrangement couldn't continue forever.
   But hell, it had worked for three years. If they were careful not to rock the boat, couldn't they just keep going?
   And what did Sandburg think was going to happen when he did finish it? It wasn't going to be any big secret who his subject had been ... it was as plain as Blair's home address. Didn't the kid realize that he was going to cause all kinds of trouble?
   The clicking stopped. Footsteps traced a path from Blair's room to the fridge, a line Jim was sure would be worn into the floor before long. He rolled out of bed and went down the stairs.
   "You thinking of giving it a rest soon, Chief?"
   Blair was downing a bottle of juice. He raised his eyebrows and set the bottle on the counter.
   "Noise bothering you?"
   There were a lot of things Jim could have said, but he settled for
   "Yeah."
   "Okay. Sure. Sorry about that."
   With that out of the way, Jim should have turned to go back to bed, but his mouth had other plans.
   "How's it coming," he asked. Blair shrugged.
   "Making progress."
   Jim nodded. Blair nudged the fridge door shut with his elbow and went back to his room.
   *Fuck you, too, Chief*, Jim thought. He stood at the foot of the stairs for a very long time.

Summer/98

wake me when it's over; touch my face. tell me every
word has been erased
  --everything right is wrong again

   He didn't take Blair home from the hospital that first night. They wanted to keep him for observation, check for signs of pneumonia. It was supposed to be pretty common in cases of near-drowning.
   Or absolute, unqualified drowning. The kind people die from.
   Jim had the strangest feeling that he could just step off the balcony and float to the ground, that none of the laws of physics applied to him anymore. Not to him, and not to Blair.
   You had to be pretty far above the law if you could bring someone back from the dead. If you could do that, you could do anything.
   Which meant there was no need to worry about a stupid little dissertation.

Fall/98

now it's over; i'm dead and i haven't done anything that i want ...
or i'm still alive and there's nothing i want to do
  --dead

   Jim hated like poison having to ask for help. And Blair knew that.
   On that beach, eyes narrowed against the sun, Blair had turned down Jim's request for help. He'd claimed to be out of his depth, but when wasn't the kid out of his depth? He was a short guy spending his life in the deep end.
   Jim could remember being forced to accept Blair's help. He could remember a time when the kid would have turned cartwheels if Jim had ever deigned to ask him for anything. And if he'd discovered a strange attraction between sentinels, if he'd found the temple of the sentinels and had all of his work confirmed ... he would have been flying.
   Instead, he just seemed tired. Irritated. When he was working with Jim on a case, that was about the only time he seemed happy. And he hardly ever talked about school anymore.
   On the other hand, he was back at the loft, and they were getting along. Being enough of a pessimist, to believe that he was living in the best of all possible worlds, Jim was inclined to leave well enough alone.

Winter/99

the truth is where the sculptor's chisel chipped away the lie
  --the statue got me high

   "I think I'm in trouble."
   Two hours of meditation. Two hours of incense and chanting and candles and that incredibly annoying tribal music, and *that* was what the professor came up with.
   Jim knelt in front of him.
   "You're always in trouble, Sandburg. The next time you're wondering what your problem is, ask me and I'll save you some time."
   Blair uncrossed his legs and scooted back to lean against the couch.
   "Okay, swami. What kind of trouble am I in?"
   *I don't know* Jim didn't say. *But you're unhappy. There's something wrong with your soul.*
   "Can't be a woman," he said instead. "You don't meditate over women. I'm not having trouble with my senses and I'd know if it had to do with the station, so I guess it has to be about school."
   Blair smiled, but he didn't mean it.
   "Good guess, Kreskin."
   Jim sat down, hoping it wouldn't be a long conversation. He was reaching the age where he couldn't sit on the floor without feeling it in the morning.
   "You want to talk about it?"
   The flash of humour in Blair's eyes was unexpected, but sure as hell not unwelcome.
   "I can't believe you're asking me that."
   "It's a limited time offer," Jim said. "Make up your mind."
   "It's been almost four years since we started this."
   There must have been a ghost in the loft, because Jim felt a definite chill.
   "Yeah," he said softly. "That's about right."
   "That's four years of stalling on my diss. Well, okay, technically it's two and a half years of stalling. It's four years minus ninety days of riding with you against department policy. Increasingly against policy. I've fired guns. I've done undercover work. And I really liked it, by the way. I like police work. I told you that before, but I don't think you were paying attention. I don't ever want to stop."
   "I pay attention to you, Chief." Jim looked at his hands. He had to do that to make sure they were still there, because he couldn't feel them. Hell of a time for his senses to start acting up. "I heard you the first time."
   "It's coming apart, Jim. I can feel it. I've told so many lies to so many people I can't remember them all. I don't really care about my diss anymore; I have no legitimate position on the force, and I'm supposed to be your shaman but I have no clue what I'm doing. It's all fucked up."
   He was shaking. Jim looked into those wide, tharn eyes and suspected this was as honest as Blair had ever been with him. It might have been as honest as Blair had been with anyone.
   "What do you mean, you don't care about your diss?" He was careful to keep his voice low and even, not wanting to make this worse for Blair. "Are you..." Jim stopped. He could side step the issue, but it wouldn't be fair. Not when Blair was telling him some truth. "You finally get fed up with me, Chief?"
   Blair looked confused.
   "What? No, Jim ... you and my diss, that's two different things."
   That was a gross oversimplification of their situation, but Jim couldn't help it -- he loved the sentiment. He leaned forward and placed his hands on Blair's face.
   "You don't want to be a professor anymore?"
   Blair shook his head.
   "I ... I don't think I do."
   From the tremor in his voice, Jim got the impression Blair had never said that aloud before. He probably hadn't even admitted it to himself.
   "What about your dissertation?"
   "I don't know. I don't want to write it. I don't care." He gave a quick, sharp laugh. "Jim, I love *you*, but this whole sentinel thing is starting to have a lot of bad resonance for me."
   Jim moved to sit beside Blair, slipped an arm around him. Blair rested his head against Jim's shoulder, and Jim turned his head to feel those soft curls against his mouth as he spoke.
   "It's okay, Chief," he said. "You don't have to decide anything right now. If you don't want to write your dissertation, you don't have to. If you don't want to be a professor, don't. We'll figure something out. You have a roof over your head and you know where your next meal's coming from. If you need some time to think, go ahead and take it."
   "What if I can't be your shaman?"
   "I yam what I yam," he said, earning a slight smile. "And you are what you are. If there's any guidance you're supposed to give me, you probably will."
   Blair put an arm around Jim's back.
   "Something's coming to pay me back," he said. "Can you feel it?"
   Jim sighed.
   "No. You're just neurotic. Think happy thoughts."
   "I died," Blair said. "But you brought me back. So it's going to be something else."
   Jim tightened his hold on Blair.
   "Blair, all of that is over."
   Blair tried to sit up. Jim held him in place. When Blair kept struggling, Jim reluctantly let him go.
   "Just remember that you're my best friend and I really love you, okay? Because I don't think it's done with us yet."
   He went to his room, leaving Jim to put the candles away and tell himself that there wasn't electricity humming outside the windows and he couldn't feel a sharpness in the air.
  
--all quotations from They Might Be Giants