Burning Clean
by Mab
I got the idea for this while listening to REM's 'Electrolite'. Fans may recognise some references.
"I can't believe I set the video up wrong again."
Jim sighed. It wasn't his problem precisely, except that he had to listen to Blair bitching about it. Blair had applied the big-eyed look to convince him to add the classic movies to the cable package, and he'd thought, 'why not' but he might as well have saved his money. Blair, despite his immense competencies in so many things, couldn't programme the video recorder if his life depended on it. Their schedules, and that little lack in Blair's technical skills, meant that they always seemed to end up in the local Blockbuster, hunting up whatever classics of cinema that Blair had missed.
Jim summoned his reserves of sweet reason. "If you'd remember that it's channel four on the video then you'd be fine. And setting it to record a year in advance is just a little over-organised."
And now they were on stake-out, and Blair was bitching, and Jim was remembering the last time they'd been in the video rental place. He'd observed Blair sidling around the shelves, looking for some acceptable offering, calling out suggestions, "hey, Jim, what about 'Bullitt'? You know, Steve McQueen?" or "Jim, you a James Dean fan? `cause they've got 'Rebel Without a Cause' here." He'd watched Blair jitter at the counter as he hunted in his wallet for his membership card, Sandburg the perpetual motion machine, his face as mobile as the rest of him. Blair had looked up at him, his face twisted like some boyish friendly gargoyle, his newly shorn hair upright in loops and waves where Blair had raked his hand through it while trying to make up his mind about his video selections. Jim had looked down at him and realised that he looked simultaneously like a complete dork and the most beautiful thing Jim had ever seen.
And now the beautiful dork wouldn't shut up, although he was keeping his voice low, in deference to Jim's efforts to keep tabs on the warehouse they were watching - ostensibly soon to be an arson target, given its recent transfer of ownership to a man who had more than his fair share of enemies. Blair's voice ran on, and Jim let it grab more of his attention than it ought.
"With my luck, it'll probably blow up at five seconds past midnight, courtesy of Y2K anyway. Did Simon drop any hints about the New Year roster?"
"Nah, he says that drawing up the thing is suffering enough without sharing it around the office. Besides, you know that the family guys tend to get dibs on the holiday time. Hoping to watch the ball drop with somebody special?"
"Do I detect a note of innuendo in your tone there, Jim?"
"You're a detective now, Sandburg, feel free to detect whatever the hell you like."
Blair shifted on the bench seat of the truck. "Well, no, not really. I just wanted to know if the roster was done yet. You think that this year will make any difference?"
"To what?"
Blair's voice took on portentous depth. Jim half expected him to warble the theme from 'The Twilight Zone'. "The coming of the new millennium. You think it'll make any difference to the holiday madness that's Christmas-New Year in Cascade?"
Jim cast his senses out around the warehouse surrounds. Nothing. Complete quiet. Well, not quite complete. There was the quiet splat as rain-water dripped off eaves and wires onto cement, the muted roar of the city all around them, but not so much as a stray cat stirred nearby.
"Probably not. This town'll be crazy regardless. Technically, it's not the beginning of the new millennium anyway, Chief."
"Yeah, I know, I seem to recall hearing you have this discussion with Rafe in the break room yesterday morning."
"Well, technically it's not," Jim said mulishly. "You count from one to ten, so you should count from one to two thousand so..."
"Two thousand and one is the new millennium. Well, you're right."
"What was that?" Jim put his hand up to his ear in a questioning gesture that even Blair would catch in the dimness.
"Nobody loves a smart ass, Jim."
Jim looked across at Blair smiling gently at him from the passenger side and thought 'you do,' wondered if Blair even knew what shone out of his face sometimes.
Blair carried on. "You can't blame people for being fascinated by the way that the two and all those zeroes fall into place. Calendars and their significance - in the end culture is just the way that people do things, and if the way that they do things is to decide that the twenty-first century starts with the end of this year, then that's how it happens. Only dry academics and the occasional pedant actually give a damn." Blair turned his head to look out the window, and Jim felt guilt twist hard in his chest, even though Blair was the one who'd introduced the "A" word to the conversation.
"You think that the planes'll fall out of the sky and all that jazz?"
"No, and neither do you. I think it'll be a perfect example of the paradoxes of preparedness." Blair's hand lifted as rhetorically as the confined space would permit. "And lo, there were warnings in the land that everything computer with a date reference would crap out, and yea, the IT specialists worked their butts off to prevent disaster. So of course, nothing will happen, and everybody will say, 'so what the hell was all the fuss about?' It's human nature."
Jim studied Blair's profile, clearly visible, thanks to sentinel sight, in the barely there light of distant street lamps, and pondered human nature. Be careful what you wish for - you might get it. He'd wanted the dissertation out of their lives. He'd hoped that somehow there would be a way for Blair to keep working with him. He'd sometimes thought that Blair had the makings of, if not a likely cop, then certainly a good detective. Now Jim had those things he'd wanted, could watch Blair work his way into his new role with intelligence and even flair; and all of it was subtly spoiled.
"Wish I could be a fly on the wall of the cabins of some of those survivalist nuts when they realise that civilisation hasn't gone to hell in a handbasket. I've never understood people who actually want everything to go up in smoke."
"The apocalyptic outlook's quite interesting as a psychological study. The desire for a fresh slate, wiping everything clean, just like New Year's resolutions, only on a catastrophic scale. The need to feel that you're part of something bigger than normal life, the need to be tested. Not to mention an arrogance that your preparation and your talents mean that you'll be in control of your fate, and laughing at the suckers who didn't listen to you doom-saying..." Blair faltered a little, as if he'd just realised that the psychology of disaster might have specific resonance. But then that was Blair, never figuring out that the abstract could be very specifically personal until a little late in the game.
"Well." Jim's voice was sour. He'd started the conversation after all. "I suspect we'll all keep muddling on as normal."
Blair snorted. "Jim, we work in Major Crimes. In Cascade. Normal takes on a meaning not usually applied by the wider population."
Jim found that he had mixed feelings about looking forward to a usual year of murder and theft. Just a nice normal year of finding out how Blair behaved when he was being a cop instead of a grad student.
"It'll be a different kind of normal for you, no matter how it works out."
Blair was looking out the windscreen into the dark.
"Yeah."
Jim opened his mouth to say something, and Blair turned his head back to him.
"Chief..."
"Don't, Jim. Just let it go. Big breath in, big breath out. Easy." And it was like Blair's breath carried through the air to Jim, a warm moist breeze carrying whiffs of regret, but determination as well.
"I don't know if I can."
"Everything changes, man. Seasons for everything."
"If I hadn't been such an ass, and an asshole..."
"Jim, I was stupid. And you can get away with a lot of things in life, but stupid delivers karmic balance pretty damn speedily. It could have been a lot worse. We're still friends. I get to eat, which is like, a major plus." There was rueful laughter in Blair's voice. "I have whole new career paths to chart out."
Jim leaned across to Blair. "I'm sorry." He tried to make it something he was giving, rather than taking, offering up his anger and disbelief, rather than asking for Blair's reassurance. Blair couldn't see much, he knew, but he still felt that Blair's eyes were burning into him and seeing Jim's needy fear that one day Blair Sandburg would figure out that he'd made a poor bargain. Jim reached out his hand, put it on Blair's shoulder.
When he was sixteen, and hanging out with friends on a beach, he'd watched some guy try to help his camp fire along by throwing gasoline onto the few pathetic flames. Jim remembered his face, the 'that wasn't what I was expecting' expression as the gas and vapour flashed in a trail between the idiot and the fire before his plastic gas can exploded.
Jim thought he must have just the same dumb expression on his face as that simple touch, just Blair's jacket rough against the palm of his hand, blazed back along his arm. Something went to bits inside him - fear, hesitation, it was gone, and he leaned forward to kiss Blair.
Blair made a surprised sound, but his hands reached up to Jim's shoulders to pull him close, not push him away. Jim was warm all over, in his unheated truck, in December. But no matter how good this kiss, the position was awkward and he was going to dislocate his kneecap on the stick shift if he wasn't careful, and they were on stakeout. He pulled back, but he didn't let go.
"Um. Wow."
Jim chuckled, happily giddy. "Eloquent as ever."
Blair sat back. Jim could still feel the flush on him, and he was overcome with a rush of tender lust as Blair adjusted himself in his pants.
"So, is there mistletoe hanging from the mirror here, or what?"
"Do you want there to be?"
Blair reached out to take Jim's hand.
"Definitely, man. Wreaths. Garlands. Forests."
Jim squeezed Blair's hand, rough against his skin in its woollen glove. "We can think about it later." He squeezed again in apology for his timing. "After we finish here."
"No problem, Jim. The new millennium is coming. Plenty of time."
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