"So," Jim said. "You angry?"
Blair paused on the stairs, turned to look down at Jim behind him with an instantly worried
expression. "Are you off-line or what?"
Sometimes Jim forgot how well Blair knew the range of his senses -- better than Jim did himself,
probably. "No. I-- You don't smell angry or anything." It almost sounded normal to say that.
Maybe just in comparison to the rest of their week, it sounded normal.
"Okay, then. I'm not." Blair caught Jim's suspicious look, and he summoned a tired smile.
"Seriously. I'm not faking you out or anything. If I could. Which I don't think I could -- do you
think I could?"
"You don't -- you're not as loud, I mean as noisy -- you're less obvious than most people."
Harder to read, harder to know. Eighty percent of what Blair thought and felt was right there like
his face was a Jumbotron screen, but the other twenty percent was on permanent mute. Jim
blamed the damn meditation. "Maybe you could, if you were trying."
"I'm not trying," Blair promised. "Right now, all I'm trying to do is get up a flight of stairs so I
can go to bed. I'm hot, I'm filthy, I'm wired, and seriously, man, I'm just...there's too much. I
don't even know what I am. Sick of this country, is what I am. Ready to go home."
"Tomorrow," Jim promised.
The hotel room had a key, a real key. Metal, with notches. Blair fumbled with it, but he shook
his head when Jim reached out to help him, and Jim backed off. Blair got the key in, and Jim
could hear the deadbolt clack back as he twisted it. "Is this your room, too?"
"I think so. Sandburg-- "
"Jim." He had one palm flat against the door, the fingers of his other hand tugging at the looped
chain dangling from the key. His hair was coming loose all over the place, but Jim's eyes
automatically zeroed in through the curls, seeking Blair's eyes. They were open, but lowered.
Blair had taught him that, how to weave through the excess, how to see what mattered and
discard the rest. "Jim, can you? Can you, uh...."
"You want me to go?"
His head sank a little lower. "I'm not mad. We're not having a fight or anything, I just...."
"We could fight."
Blair laughed hoarsely. "What, just for the hell of it?"
"No, but if you wanted to get mad. I mean, if you *are* mad. You-- That's fine. You should
probably be mad. You could yell at me, or...something."
"Of course I could yell at you. What, you think I need your permission to be mad at you? Trust
me, James, if I am, you'll be the first to know. I'll yell and everything. I'm really not mad."
The ceilings in this hotel were lower than in America, and it was a disorienting effect. It made the
whole hallway seem wrong somehow, or like Jim himself was suddenly a different size. He
wanted to get out, and Blair wanted to get in the room, and yet there they both stood. Jim missed
the days -- last week, for example -- when he could plan things, and execute his plans. When his
body didn't wear him, instead of the other way around.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Not your fault."
"Still sorry."
"We're both alive. It's a good week."
It was not a good week. He could still taste Alex in his mouth; she tasted like plums, and
tobacco, and sea salt.
Jim laid his hand against the side of Blair's head, soft-jagged hair pressing its grillwork patterns
into his skin, bone of Blair's skull like stone underneath. No, like -- like bone. Just like bone.
Like the remains of dead things, under living skin.
Blair turned at the waist, a jerky motion, and surprisingly fast. Not so fast that Jim couldn't have
reacted, if he'd wanted to. He didn't want to. Blair wrapped his fingers around Jim's wrist,
pressed his eyes closed, pressed his lips to the heel of Jim's hand. Released him, just as quickly,
and looked at the key in the doorknob again. "We can talk later, okay?" he said, nothing more
than a whisper. "Okay?"
"Yeah. Get some sleep."
There was an afternoon in there, and an evening. Jim was vaguely aware that he was roaming
Sierre Verde, prowling it, really. He talked to Meghan once, and Simon twice, and he wasn't
listening, even to the parts where Simon said *Are you listening?* and *Jim, go home. You have
to rest.* He walked past docked speedboats, past stands that sold candles and rosaries, past a
bakery that almost numbed his nose with cinnamon. He walked, with nothing on his mind but
letting Blair rest, and waiting to be let in.
He only had American money in his pocket, but that was more than good enough in this part of
town. He thought about buying a candle that smelled like melon and strawberry. He ended up
buying a cup of coffee and a mixed bag of hard candy down by the hotel desk instead. He ate one
piece, a sour apple Jolly Rancher, and he tried to run a little test, to see if he could make himself
zone completely on the sweet, chemical flavor. He came close, but he never really lost his
awareness -- at least, not any more than it had been lost most of the day. He went back up to the
room at nine-thirty, and let himself in.
The room had two narrow beds, a sink, a table, and a wide, gabled window that looked out
toward the harbor, although Jim wasn't sure that a regular person would actually get an ocean
view. From Jim's perspective, it was nice, though. Blair was lying flat on his bed, hands folded
behind his head, and as soon as Jim shut the door, he started talking. "Did you have trouble
sleeping in the church? Well, I guess you did, because of the dreams -- or, well, I guess you must
have slept. Because of the dreams. But I couldn't get comfortable. It wasn't just the pews, you
know, it was the whole trip. Heavy-duty Catholic, you know? Saints in agony everywhere you
look, and there's Blair Sandburg, the gay Christ-killer, and I don't know, maybe it's the setting.
Usually I'm cool, all religions are pretty much the same, you know? But the whole paradigm
here, it's so *Catholic.* Like, reliquaries and Purgatory Catholic. Very pre-modern, very intense.
It's very syncretic, man. The Latin American church, it's as much native as it is Euro. It's not
that different from the Afro-Carribean religions, transcendent but primal at the same time. The
Virgin of Guadalupe-- "
"I'm sorry," Jim said. "You have no idea how sorry I am."
"You're sweet. I'm not mad, though."
"Because it was a...Sentinel thing?"
"Yeah," Blair said, a little too shortly. "I figure it's got to be harder for you than it is for me.
You're basically a shaman, Jim. The spirits ride you, God knows why they wanted you, but that's
who you are, like it or not. I like it, you know? I like being.... Fuck, oh, fuck." He covered his
face with both hands, and breathed in and out, steady and controlled. "I love you," he said, his
voice warped by passing into his own skin and out the other side. "And this is you. This is us."
"I got you some candy."
His hands separated, like a theater curtain being drawn away from his face. "Why?"
"Because I...." Am sorry, so fucking sorry? Want you to owe me as much as possible so you
can't ever leave? Know that you like it but never buy it because you have socioeconomic
positions on refined sugar? Need you to smile? "Because you don't like flowers."
Blair smiled. "You looked this up in the handbook, didn't you? The married-guy handbook."
"Actually, I'm flying by memory. Part of the formal divorce proceedings include having your
handbook confiscated, and being beaten severely over the head with it by your wife's lawyer. But
I'm pretty sure -- it may have been Chapter Twelve -- I'm pretty sure that you bring flowers when
you get caught..."
"Sucking face with the woman who shot your partner in the chest?"
"But you told me once that you never send flowers because dead bouquets have no soul. You
really have to go and complicate things, you know that, Sandburg?"
Blair pushed himself up on one elbow. "What kind of candy?"
"Well, let's take a look." Jim sat on the other bed; they were pushed close enough together that
Jim's knees were flat up against the edge of Blair's mattress. He held the bag open between
them. "Jolly Ranchers, butterscotch, lemon drops. Something -- I don't know what those are.
Lollipops."
"Are those the kind with bubble gum in the middle?" Blair asked, reaching into the bag.
Before he thought about it, Jim pulled the lollipop right out of Blair's fingers, saying, "You don't
want that."
"What? I don't?"
"Well, not yet. Because the bubble gum.... You want to save that for last, when you're done
with the candy. Then you can chew the gum."
Blair was looking up at him with something like awe. "You.... Man. You have a candy system.
You have a...a *lollipop system.* What, do you have a -- a five-year taffy plan, too? What --
God, Jim! What in the fuck happened to you in early childhood, man? Just tell me, I swear I
won't laugh." Jim didn't believe that for a minute, principally because Blair was already laughing.
"I just really want to know."
"We would go trick-or-treating. At Halloween." Jim hadn't thought about Halloween in years,
except in a graffiti-control capacity. The smell of candy reminded him, butterscotch and sharp,
sour lemon. "My brother and I pooled all our candy, and we wrapped it up in separate bundles,
four or five pieces in each one, depending on how big the pieces were. Chocolate mixed with
other stuff, never all the chocolate in one place. We stapled them shut, and we'd unwrap one
little pouch each day for the next...however many weeks, however long we could stretch it out. It
was better than scarfing it all down at once. Every day you unwrapped this handful of candy, and
it was still Halloween. Every day."
Blair opened his hand, leaving the lollipop in Jim's custody. He dipped back into the bag and
unwrapped a watermelon Jolly Rancher instead. He eased back onto his back, turning it over and
over in his mouth with a rhythmic, wet sucking sound. "My mom would burn these big candles
on Halloween. Shaped like a skull. I used to leave some of my candy out in front of it, for the
spirits of the dead. Dia de los Muertos, Samhain."
"Those are Catholic, too."
"Syncretic. Indigenous harvest rituals adapted into Catholic cosmology. See, here's the thing
about spirits. They don't have to like us very much. Plenty of them don't, especially because
farming, that's basically seizing control of the land's fertility, like stealing from the earth. But
then there are ancestor spirits, and they're like cosmic lawyers. They were human once, so they
get that we have to eat, and they help make everything cool with the land spirits so the tribe gets
its harvest. So they get a cut of it, like ten percent off the top. Only not ten percent, really. It's
symbolic. First sheaf, last sheaf, whatever. Local custom. And then the Catholics came along,
and suddenly it's God who doesn't necessarily like us too much, because of what assholes we
generally are. But the saints, they get it. They've been there. They put in a good word. All
Souls, All Saints. Same trip, really. It's just a Sentinel thing. Somebody's out there, looking out
for the little guy."
"I always know that if I let you talk long enough, whatever you're talking about will eventually
become a Sentinel thing."
"You're my life, man," he said lightly, tossing a lemon drop in the air and catching it in his mouth.
Jim reached across the space between beds and rapped Blair's forehead sharply with the round
candy end of the lollipop, wrapped in wax paper. "Are you hiding something from me?" Blair
laughed, and Jim hit him again. "I'm fucking serious, Blair. You cannot be this okay with all of
this. Will you just say whatever you're thinking and get it over with?"
"Hello?" Blair said in a weird voice, not his own. "McFly? Hello, McFly?" He raised an
eyebrow expectantly at Jim, who had no idea what that should mean to him. "Seriously, man,"
Blair said, with the air of one who's suffered nearly as much of this as he can tolerate. "You need
to watch some movies sometime."
"If you don't act like a human being right now, I'm going to be waiting for the rest of my life for
the other shoe to drop."
"You want me to get mad at you so that your life will be easier? Now, that's very interesting,
Jim. That kinda reveals something about your approach to extending emotional support." Jim hit
him on the nose with the lollipop, and Blair laughed and winced at the same time. Jim did it
again, and Blair said, "Okay, enough! Look, I'm not mad, okay? I just.... I put in my hours, you
know? Library time, fieldwork, numbers, notes, all those fucking *tests.* I worked really hard for
this, Jim. I worked *really hard* to be your partner, harder than I've ever had to work for
anything my whole life. She didn't do *anything,* you know? She was just born with it. Legs,
lips, superpowers, spirit guides. You. I practically kill myself -- okay, no, wait, I *do,* I get
*killed* for the Sentinel thing, and at the end of the day, I'm just this guy. You ever seen that t-
shirt, Jim? I Want to Be Barbie, The Bitch Has Everything?"
Jim let the lollipop rest against Blair's lips, and he got quiet. "She's not the winner here, Chief. If
she ever goes home, it'll be strapped to a gurney and Thorazined up to her pretty, blue eyeballs."
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Barbie."
"Little pink syringe. Molesting Male Nurse Ken sold separately."
Blair barked out a laugh and dug the heels of his hands into his eyesockets. "Don't, man, don't
make me laugh at that. You are fucking *bent.*"
"Vice. It warps you much worse than Major Crimes does. Six weeks, and everybody starts
looking like the bad guy. Talk about no winners."
"Jim, are you straight?"
"No."
It was easy to say, really. Only after, while he waited for Blair to think of something to say in
response, did Jim feel something painful in his throat, like a piece of candy lodged there and
refusing to melt. "I take it back, you know?" Blair said, low in his throat. "I don't want to earn
this. I don't want some kind of payoff, like when you retire, and the company gives you a watch?
I don't want you because I deserve you."
"Who said you deserve me?"
Blair's arm lolled out, and he socked Jim in the leg without much energy. "I know I'm not
exactly the evolutionary front-runner."
"And who the fuck invited evolution to weigh in, here?"
"Well, who invited any of this in, you know, Jim? You didn't exactly apply and interview for the
Sentinel job. This is us, and I know you love me. I'm not some total ball of neurotic insecurity,
I'm not *stupid.* You love me, but Jesus, Jim, you've never touched me like I saw you touching
her. I'm not placing blame. I'm not mad. I'm just trying to be honest."
"It's different with you." It sounded at least twice as lame out loud as it had sounded in Jim's
head, and really, it sounded pretty lame in his head, too.
"My point exactly."
"And if I kissed you now," Jim said quietly, "it would be weird, wouldn't it? Like I was trying to
prove something."
"Kinda weird. Yeah."
The lollipop was still resting near the corner of Blair's mouth. "You want the bubble gum now?"
Jim offered. Blair nodded. Their fingers brushed as Blair took it from him, and Blair looked at it
intently as he unwrapped it; for a moment, Jim thought he was trying to avoid Jim's eyes, but then
he realized how dark it had become in the room and figured that Blair was just trying to see what
he was doing.
It was grape flavored, and the smell of Blair's breath was strange now, a sharp blend of too-
intense, unnatural fruit flavors. Blair crunched into it instead of sucking, going straight for the
gum. "With her, Chief-- Blair, with her it would've been one night, and a lifetime of evil spirits."
"You have no romance in your soul, man," Blair said, and the affection in his voice couldn't quite
mask the sadness. "You want me to be happy being your every day? I am. Jim, I swear I am. I
wouldn't trade it for anything. But still, I...."
"I swear to God, Blair." He couldn't keep his voice steady; it was like an earthquake going on at
the base of his throat, upsetting everything. "I *swear* to you, the only reason -- I promise you.
As soon as I can't -- taste her anymore -- you'll have it. One night, every day, all souls, all saints,
any fucking thing you want, I swear. And not because you deserve it or you worked for it or you
were born for it or any such shit. Just because...I have visions of you. Because *I* deserve you,
fuck evolution, fuck God and the nature spirits, fuck everything, I don't care anymore who wants
me to do what, except for you."
Blair's eyes had gone wide in the darkness, and he was nodding in his even, placating way, the
way he did when he was afraid that Jim was wholly or partially out of control. "Okay," he said.
"Okay, when-- whenever. But, I mean, you're sort of emotional right now, a lot's happened, and
I won't hold you to anything if-- "
"I will. I'll hold us both to this. This is stupid, Blair, this is fucking *insane.* How many times
have we done this, and then not held each other to it? How are we going to justify this to
ourselves, the next time one of us -- one of us dies, and we still -- "
"Okay," Blair said again, his soothing voice. "I hear you. If this is what you want Jim, I mean if
it really is, then.... Then you know that I do, too."
"Blair, how the hell many ways do you want me to say this?"
"Okay! Jeez. I'm just saying, if this is only coming out of a place of fear, then-- "
"Sandburg, I hope this isn't your demonstration of what romance is supposed to look like.
Because I haven't been taking notes or anything."
Blair snapped his gum, and it sounded like a fucking gunshot. Trust Blair to play merry hell with
Jim's nerves, even at a time like this. "Maybe we should both just shut up, then."
"Now this sounds like a marriage."
Blair blew him a kiss.