HOW BLAIR GAVE JIM THE BIRD

(Painting of the loft door poster by Suse ~ Art by Suse ~ used by permission.)

Content: Slash Jim/Blair No Sexual Situations No Violence 5/15/00 This story takes place after "The Sentinel, by Blair Sandburg." Obsenad: short piece written for the Senad mailing list.  How that red heron got onto the loft door. A kind soul on Senad gave me the real story behind the Red Heron poster on the back of the loft door, which has always intrigued me. This is my fictional tale about its origin.  Thanks to Lazy Typist for her beautiful painting of it. With thanks and apologies to Pet Fly, and proceeding under the assumption that forgiveness is easier to ask than permission.... WARNING: bad pun.

Mist hung heavy in the cool evening air. It formed crystalline beads on his eyelashes, and for a moment Blair stood still, transfixed by the tiny rainbows that the setting sun created within sharp-focus range of his near-sighted eyes.

He blinked again, and the minute miracles of color dropped away. His cheeks stretched in a yawn and he extended his arms and followed through with the rest of his body. It had been a long day. But another bullet had been dodged.

He smiled to himself. Not literally ... five of the six small missiles that the kidnapper's weapon had flung at Jim had been dodged, but the last one had torn through the muscle and flesh of his right calf, dropping the big detective hard and taking at least a year off of Blair's life before he had realized that the wound wasn't a mortal one. Still, the kidnapper had been taken down, the woman and her baby restored to their family, and Jim carted off to the hospital. Now he was grumpily but safely in bed, drugged but still feisty and making life hell for the nurses.

All too soon, Blair thought wearily, it would be his own turn. Jim would be released in the morning. Earlier in their partnership Blair might have remained at his friend's side throughout the night, but past experience had taught him that this small reprieve before the patient was remanded into his care was a breather that he could not afford to squander. He had things to do.

He strode through the fading light across the parking lot toward his car, detouring now and then to childishly and delightedly send his sneakers splashing into the more inviting puddles. Amazingly, the car started with the first turn of the key. As he let the engine idle itself into an operating mood, Blair reached into one of the outer pouches of his backpack and tugged out a small postcard. He regarded the image with a self-satisfied smile, pulled his cell phone from another pocket of the battered bag, and dialed a number.

"Camille? Blair. Yeah, a long time." He smiled again, a bit sadly this time. "OK. Hey, remember a long time ago, when you needed some slides for your freshman class? Well, I'm calling in your marker."

~~~

"Dammit, Sandburg! This car was built for munchkins!"

"Well, Jim, what do you expect? According to you, I am a munchkin. And with your leg like that, you know you couldn't get into or out of your truck ... even if you'd let me use it to pick you up. Which you wouldn't."

"Stop being reasonable and get me out of here, Chief," Jim growled. He gripped the roof of the Volvo with one hand and extended the other. Blair took it and Jim heaved himself upright, but the painkillers he'd ingested turned on him and he overbalanced and teetered forward. Blair was quick to slide under his shoulder. Breathing hard, Jim clung to the anchor of his partner for a moment until his head cleared.

"OK, Jim ... slow and easy now. You're in luck. The elevator's working this week."

"If I'd had any luck this week, that bastard would have missed me and I wouldn't need the elevator."

"If you'd had worse luck this week, he would have hit you in the head instead of in the leg and you wouldn't need the elevator."

"Oh, shut up."

They made their way into the building and, after a short ride and a few steps down the hall, finally found themselves in front of number 307. Home. Jim relaxed a bit as his friend unlocked the door and swung it wide, then leaned heavily on Blair as they made their way into the apartment. He aimed for the couch, swayed, corrected, and settled heavily into the cushions.

"Remote. Beer. In that order."

Blair grinned. "Remote's on the table in front of you. No beer on those painkillers."

"Damn." Jim leaned forward and grabbed the small black box, then stopped and regarded the object upon which it had been resting. "What's this?"

The heartbeat in the kitchen spiked, and the teakettle rattled against the metal coil of the stove burner. "Use your senses, Jim. Start with your sight. Should be obvious."

"OK, I'll rephrase the question, Professor." The heartbeat spiked again, and Jim winced ... he'd forgotten that he'd retired that particular nickname when his partner gave up the chance to ever use it legitimately. "Um ... why is there a box of acrylic paints on our coffee table?"

"It's all a part of the plan, Jim."

"Plan? What plan?"

"OK. It's like this.... "

~~~

"Damn, Sandburg. I hate to admit it, but sometimes you're really bright."

"Thanks, Simon. I think."

"You're welcome. I'm sure."

"Hey, where's my beer?"

"Why of course, Jim. I'd be glad to get you a cold beverage." Blair grinned at the police captain standing next to him. "Artists. Temperamental buggers, you know."

Simon nodded gravely. Blair tugged the refrigerator door open and produced three frosty bottles. Simon twisted the tops off and handed two to Blair before claiming the third one for himself. He watched as Blair handed Jim his beer and returned to the kitchen, and they both leaned back on the counter and regarded the tableau before them.

Jim Ellison was perched on a kitchen stool before the front door of the loft, beer in one hand, paintbrush in the other. A scattering of crumpled paint tubes and an extremely messy palette littered the plastic-covered table nearby. Red paint stained his hands, his jeans and the canvas drop cloth on the floor, and his face was twisted in stern lines of intense concentration, jaw twitching and lower lip grasped tightly between his teeth. If it hadn't been for the paint on his nose and the crack of his ass peeking out from the low-riding waistband of his worn Levis, Simon might have been able to control the amused smile that kept creeping across his face.

Blair made no effort at all to conceal his own mirth. "How do you keep a moron entertained?" he whispered to his boss, secure in the knowledge that Jim's entire focus was on his task and the comment would go unheard.

Simon snorted. "What gave you the idea?" he asked.

"That cool card you gave him when he was in the hospital," Blair answered.

"Not the image, Sandburg." Simon tried again, rephrasing for specificity. "What gave you the idea?"

"Oh." Blair got it this time, and grinned. "Well, you know what a jerk Jim is when he's bored. I knew if I was gonna survive his convalescence, I'd need to give him something to do. He's been complaining about the stain on the door and threatening to paint it ever since I moved in ... he was ragging about it again just last week. And a friend of mine in the art department at Ranier owed me a favor. So I had her blow up the image and outline it on shelf paper, traced it onto the door, got him the paints and brushes, and aimed him at it. Old detective trick."

Simon was lost again. "Old detective trick?"

"Yeah." Blair took a long sip of his beer, and glanced sideways at the captain. Mischief twinkled in his blue eyes as he delivered his punch line.

"You gotta distract someone, you throw them a red heron."

~ 30 ~