Taking the Trip by Bluewolf, illustrated by Bonanza

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Blair Sandburg lay without moving for a long time after he wakened, half afraid to open his eyes, his mind still numbed by the vividness of his dream.

He had been back in the warehouse, living in a corner that still had two walls and a drooping roof - just enough to give him the illusion of having shelter from the elements.

Eventually he forced his eyes open and looked round the comforting familiarity of his small room in the loft, trying to understand the reason for such an odd dream.

But he knew.

It was something left over from the day Jim threw him out of the loft, although on their return from Sierra Verde Jim had driven him straight to the motel where he had been staying, helped him pack the few things he had left there, paid the bill for him, and brought him back to the loft with the quiet comment, "This is your home, Chief, for as long as you want"; then next day had taken him to the university and without fuss collected the other boxes Blair had stacked in his office there, taking them back to the loft and unpacking them while Blair resumed his academic life. When he got home that night, it was to find all his things in their accustomed place; sensing Jim's embarrassment over his Alex-inspired actions, he simply said, "Thanks, Jim" and then dropped the subject.

But they never had really talked about what happened, and Blair was far from certain how to introduce the subject. Jim, he knew, didn't want to; not yet, anyway; and he himself? He wasn't sure just how he felt. He wanted to discuss it, to see how Jim felt about it all now that Alex was no longer fogging his senses, but he appreciated that Jim would find it difficult... and remembering the touch of hurt he had experienced when Jim said, 'I don't know if I'm ready to take that trip with you', at a time when it would have been natural to discuss it, he was reluctant to force the issue.

And yet...

Did his subconscious mind really believe that Jim wanted rid of him? Had he subconsciously seen things in Jim's body language that said, "Go"? Heaven knew he had seen Naomi outstay her welcome a few times when he was a child; times when he knew it was time to move on but she had apparently not seen it yet. It was interesting, though, he reflected; when that happened, after she eventually moved, Naomi had never referred to those people again, never tried to contact them again... almost as if she had been testing them and they had failed to meet whatever criteria she had been setting. But he had never consciously seen anything in Jim's behavior that said he had stayed too long until that day... and, thinking about it, Blair knew he had realized even then that Jim's body language had been at odds with his words.

All it had meant was that Jim needed elbow room, he told himself. Hell, everyone needed elbow room from time to time! He still remembered, far too vividly he sometimes thought, one day when he was barely seven, when he had felt smothered by the constant company of people and had wandered away to get some solitude. Unfortunately the commune was on the edge of desert land and, attracted by the emptiness, he had wandered into that desert, not knowing he would need water, not realizing he would need something to cover his head... By the time he realized how thirsty he was, he was already suffering from the early stages of heatstroke. Luckily it was fairly late in the day, the sun was setting and the heat dropping, but it was next morning before he was found, by which time he was also thoroughly chilled by the early-morning cold.

The incident hadn't discouraged him from exploration, but it had taught him to be careful.

He might have suspected that Jim still needed elbow room but had taken him back to the loft out of a sense of guilt, but he had been told how Jim reacted when they found him in the fountain; Simon told him, Brown told him, Megan told him - all independently of each other, and although the detail varied slightly, the one thing all three had been certain of was how utterly devastated Jim had been. It was Megan who added, "He wasn't even doing anything to try to revive you when you moved - he was just caressing your face. And Sandy, it was a caress. I don't think I ever saw anyone show that much love for someone, in public."

Secretly, he had treasured those words, his hurt soothed by them. So just why had he dreamed that he had not moved in with Jim, but had been forced to stay in the ruin of the burned-out warehouse?

He sighed as he switched on the light to check the time. 3.15. He'd had less than an hour of sleep - yes, just about long enough to sink into REM sleep and have a vivid dream. He was tired, too, bone-tired, but he was no longer sleepy.

With an automatic movement he reached for a book - something to occupy his mind till he felt sleepy again - then let his hand drop again without lifting it. He felt no enthusiasm at all for reading anything. He, who had absorbed books all his life, who had always loved reading, felt no enthusiasm at all for opening a book.

He was, he realized, totally stale. Meditation no longer helped him. He needed a complete break. He didn't actually want one, he knew, but he certainly needed one. Yet how could he have any sort of break without deserting his sentinel? Jim had learned a lot of control, but even so there was still the chance that he would zone out.

Blair sighed again, and switched off the light. Perhaps if he just lay quietly, tried to empty his mind, tried to relax, he would sleep again. But if he did, would he dream again? Would he dream again that Jim didn't want him there?

He drew a deep, shuddering breath. Perhaps... perhaps it was time to move on.

"Blair? Something wrong, Chief?"

"Jim! I... Sorry, man, I didn't mean to disturb you. I had a nightmare, that's all. Just a silly nightmare. Can't even remember what it was about," he added mendaciously. Jim could usually tell when he was manipulating the truth, but if his heart was already racing there wouldn't be much difference for the Sentinel to note.

"You weren't dreaming about Alex, were you?" Jim tried to prompt him.

"No. No, I don't think so." He shook his head, wondering just how much he could say. "I think it was an older memory - maybe even from before I knew you."

"Before...? Chief, what bad things ever happened to you before you knew me?"

Blair sighed, damning himself for that momentary slip-up - he had never confided any of the problems of his childhood to anyone - but knowing he could use this to mislead his friend. "When I was a kid - you'd be surprised. There were times we had nothing, had to sleep anywhere we could find shelter, raked through garbage hoping to find some edible scraps... not often, Naomi usually seemed to land on her feet and most of her boyfriends tried being nice to me to get her to be nice to them, if you see what I mean... and sometimes we moved into a commune for a while if she couldn't find anywhere else. I remember one winter though... I was ill, really ill, but Naomi was between boyfriends and didn't have money for a doctor and even if she had, there wasn't the money for drugs. She managed to get me south to where it was warmer, but that wasn't enough. She didn't really know where she was going, and somehow ended up on a Zuni reservation. Because I was just a kid, and ill, they gave us shelter, treated me with herbal medicine... I don't think I've ever been really warm since, though, except when I've been on an expedition in a tropical region."

"So you came to Cascade. Don't get me wrong, Chief, I'm glad you did, but couldn't you have found a university someplace warmer?"

"Yes, but not one with such a good anthropology department."

Ellison moved to the side of the bed and sank down beside his guide. "You're trying to mislead me, Blair. Trying to distract me. You've not slept well for ages, have you. Not since we got back from Sierra Verde."

"I... No, I haven't." Suddenly, he felt that he had to tell someone, reluctant though he was to inflict this on his friend. "I'm tired, Jim. Too tired to sleep. And I feel stale; I've no enthusiasm for anything any more. I've been thinking - maybe I should go to St Sebastian's for a couple of weeks - it's a completely undemanding environment, I can unwind there... "

"And then come back and inside twenty-four hours you're back to being strung as taut as an overwound watch spring? Blair, something's seriously wrong and until you resolve that, you're never going to be able to relax properly. Is... Am I the problem?"

"Not really. Well, yes, in a way I suppose you are. I mean, like, I know you couldn't help yourself the way you reacted over Alex. I can understand you trying to protect her. But it hurt when you went chasing after her, after what she did."

"I didn't want to. It was... it was like with Laura, know what I mean? Only more so. I didn't want Alex but I couldn't help myself. She was calling the shots, Chief. She knew she needed a Guide, but at the same time she didn't want to surrender what she saw as her power to a Guide's influence. She thought it would diminish her even though she knew that when you were with me, I was stronger than she would ever be. But because she knew how much I depended on you, she was acting to separate us.

"When I dreamed that I killed you, all I knew was that I had to do something to protect you - try to protect you. But I did the wrong thing. Instead of keeping you close I sent you away - left you vulnerable."

"That's a typical scenario in folk tales, you know, Jim."

"You've lost me, Chief. A typical scenario?"

"The Oracle foretells something - the person, usually a king, who asks what is in his future is told that something unpleasant will happen - he acts to prevent it and because he did - and only because he did - it does happen.

"The classic case is where a king asks for a horoscope for the son who has just been born, is told that the boy will one day kill his father, so the king sends the baby away, maybe even orders him to be killed - but the boy survives, is brought up not knowing who he is, and as an adult does kill his father, possibly even by accident, not knowing until too late that's what he's done. But if he'd been brought up as the prince, the situation would never have arisen."

Ellison studied his friend closely, aware of a defeated note in his voice. Usually Blair was enthusiastic when he imparted those snippets of information; but it seemed to the worried sentinel that his guide was speaking as if from habit, and he was far from sure what he could do to restore his friend's enthusiasm for life. All he knew was that he had to try, and if it meant opening himself, talking about things he normally repressed, then he would. "And that's what I did, in spades."

"But you brought me back, too, Jim. You broke the sequence because you wouldn't let me stay dead."

"Wouldn't? No, Chief. Not wouldn't. I... I couldn't let you go. I need you. I don't think I ever really needed anyone before. Blair, I'm no good without you. I realize that now. Before... before, I could admit to myself that you helped me, that... that without you I'd no real control, but I wouldn't admit even to myself that without you I was only half the man I could be.

"A sentinel needs his guide - his shaman. I think I knew that - but I resented it, too. Being dependant. Until I lost you.

"And Chief... In the temple. In the pool. That was how Sentinels in the past developed - expanded - their abilities. Maybe their guides went there too, once - there had to be some reason for the place having two pools, I don't think it was normal for two sentinels to go there together. I saw visions... and you were there in them every time, helping me.

"In Peru, when we went to help Simon and Darryl, I told you I didn't know how I got my powers back. Truth is, I just didn't want to speak about it. I saw the panther and an old shaman who offered me a choice. To be 'normal' or to accept the sentinel's gift. If I accepted it, went forward, I had to step over a cliff - a cliff I could see quite clearly - though it meant I would die. I chose to accept it. Of course, the cliff was metaphorical, but I made the choice to go over it.

"Then Incacha passed on the way of the shaman to you. But you never had the sort of trial that I did. You didn't even know what your spirit animal was, and it's odd that I saw it first... and killed it. I don't know... maybe I was trying to deny how much I needed you. Then you died - and that was your trial. Being willing to come back. But it was another trial for me, too. If I hadn't been able to bring you back, I think I would have lost my abilities again - and this time, it would have been permanent. Because I failed my guide."

Blair reached out and laid his hand on Jim's for a moment. "We both failed, man. I did try to tell you about Alex, the day I met her, and you stopped me - "

"The woman you saw at the precinct? And I said I didn't want to hear about her. You said, 'Later', but later was too late."

"Yes. But then I decided not to tell either of you about the other till I could bring you together in a controlled situation. My biggest mistake was thinking that I could help you both - but I have this need to help. It's built into me, like it's in my genes. But I'm your guide, Jim. A guide can only work properly with one sentinel, probably the one he's drawn to in the first place. He's drawn to his proper sentinel. Yes, Rainier has this great anthropology department, but I think that even at sixteen I was drawn here because you were here, even though it took me nearly ten years to find you. I spent those ten years finding out about sentinels. It was a sort of apprenticeship, I suppose. But then my trying to help another sentinel weakened our link and left us both vulnerable. If she'd been a proper sentinel, with a sentinel's instincts, it wouldn't have mattered so much - she'd have been grateful for the help, but known she still had to find her proper guide. But somehow she missed out on the instinct to protect."

"Yes. And I was on edge because I knew something was badly wrong in Cascade, and I ended up doing all the wrong things."

"Your sixth sense was being triggered."

"Guess so. Though I'm not quite sure exactly what my sixth sense is."

"We'll work it out. Her sixth sense had to be the ability to confuse people."

"She certainly confused me," Ellison admitted wryly.

Blair smiled - a mere shadow of his old smile, but seeing it comforted his friend. "Nothing like that will ever happen again, Jim. If another sentinel shows up, I'll tell you - and absolutely the only help I'll offer him is to advise him how to find his guide, if he doesn't already have one."

Jim smiled too. "You know, Chief, I'm surprising myself - I feel better for talking about this."

"Me, too. We've finally taken that walk, Jim. Or at least, we're taking it."

"Yes... we are, aren't we." Ellison hesitated for a moment. "Think you'll be able to sleep now?"

"I'm not sure... Jim - would you stay here tonight?"

"I could, but my bed's bigger. More comfortable. And more room to... re-establish our partnership? No - reinforce it is probably more accurate. Come upstairs?"

"Reinforce... Does that mean what I think it does?"

"It means... really relax you, in the best possible way." He pulled Blair close and closed his mouth over the slightly parted lips.

Blair yielded to his partner's coaxing tongue, opening his mouth a little more and moaning his pleasure at the gently demanding kiss. For a moment he could only submit gladly, then his male ego kicked in and he began to respond, actively caressing the invading tongue with his own.

At last they drew slightly apart. "Come upstairs?" Jim asked again.

"Try to stop me," Blair whispered. "Reinforcing our partnership sounds really good, man."

"On a regular basis?"

"As regular as you want." Blair's smile was much closer to his normal ebullient one.

"For the rest of our lives?"

"Sounds good to me, man."

Ellison stopped part-way up the stair, and turned to look down at his Guide. "I do love you, you know."

"Yes, Jim. I do know." It was true. Memory of his nightmare had already faded and he truly could no longer remember exactly what had wakened him so terrifyingly so short a time previously.

They would have problems in the future, he knew. They would certainly have to remain in the closet; cops were not exactly encouraged to act on being gay. But those were things that would have to be dealt with later, as they arose.

For now they were together, Guide and Sentinel, and together they were invincible.

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