Archive of Our Own ^beta

Author's disclaimer: The boys don't belong to me and never will, no matter how many falling stars I wish upon. :)

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death (having lost) put on his universe and yawned: it looks like rain today
ee cummings
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Blair Sandburg wasn't really the type to lose things. Sure, sometimes a paper wandered here or a magazine meandered there, but usually he could corral things somewhere by his bed or near the window of his office at school, if he needed them badly enough. His stuff knew when not to push his limits.

But this time, he was looking for an umbrella belonging to Megan, and damned if it hadn't wandered off to Never Never Land and left him behind. Or maybe it had joined the lost socks in the dryer, or that one mysterious red sock that seemed to hang out in the washer. He couldn't be sure.

So far, he'd checked everywhere--even checked Jim's room, which was destined to bring the wrath of Jimzilla down upon him sooner or later. This closet was the last place he could think to search, and the last place he wanted to look. The only stuff it held was the stuff Jim had packed up before kicking him out of the loft. The stuff Jim had so kindly given him a few days to move when he realized that really, no human could vacate his or her home in three hours. The stuff Blair hadn't bothered to unpack because he had this jittery, nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach, this idea that Jim'd be kicking him out again soon and so what was the point?

He'd spent a few days at Megan's before moving back in with Jim, and now Megan's favorite umbrella was missing and he did remember having used it, so it had to be around somewhere. If he had just stayed with Megan--which he could have done, they got along great and she'd offered to share her space until she went home--he wouldn't be looking through all these unmarked boxes and seeing his life packed neatly away, ready for transport.

But Jim, noble, righteous, stupid Jim had cone knocking on Megan's door, white-faced and suffering from miserable headaches and sensory spikes and guilt. So Blair had packed the few items he'd just unpacked and quietly followed Jim home. Like a puppy, he thought as he opened yet another box of notes. Like a goddamned little puppy, and wasn't that just the saddest thing in the world for a man who apparently had a wolf for an animal spirit?

And that damned umbrella had to be around somewhere. How could he miss it? It was neon blue and bright yellow, with purple stripes, and it hadn't cost Megan more than two dollars but she really really wanted it back. "Have you ever seen anything more beautiful, Sandy?" she'd asked dreamily as she twirled it. "I don't think I have, unless I count Rafe." That'd made Blair laugh for the first time in days, and he owed Megan and the umbrella for that.

So the search had become a crusade--he had to admit, mostly because Jim was home and he didn't really feel like being either fussed over or ignored. In his life these days it was one or the other, and all the extremes were driving him crazy. Move in, move out, don't need you, help me, ignore, coddle.

Die. Live.

Blair was pretty tired of the extremes, and figured that was his right. In fact, he was pretty sure that he was entitled to be an asshole for the next few weeks--if not months.

But he couldn't.

No, Naomi Sandburg's idiot son was cooking delicious meals that he couldn't eat and whipping himself into a cleaning frenzy because he had another week of recuperation time coming and no one in the world believed that he was all right when he said he was all right.

And now this thing with Megan's umbrella, and he had to confront all the boxed up pieces of his life.

"Bastard umbrella's probably already dead," he grumbled, but then sympathized with it for just a minute. "Dead doesn't suck so bad," he said to reassure it. "Not for me, anyway. A lot of pain that went by fast and then blue forests full of interesting stuff. I'm not so sure what kind of spirit guide an umbrella has, but it's probably something like a butterfly, so really, you've lucked out."

He shoved aside another unmarked box after realizing that it was Carolyn's. "What, does the man collect toys from the people he tosses out?" he asked the unfound umbrella. "Does he keep this crap like trophies from his high school football days?"

The umbrella didn't answer, of course, so Blair sighed and kept digging. Jim Ellison hadn't beaten him down with his you-gotta-get-out moods or his you-gotta-help-me moods, so he could just take the ancient African artwork he'd shoved willy-nilly into a box full of tacks and paperclips, and he could shove it all up his ass. Sideways. Teach him for being a trophy hunter.

Blair finally spotted a bit of bright blue neon high on a stack towards the back and made his way over to it, relieved--unfortunately, it turned out not to be Megan's umbrella. On the other hand, it was Blair's favorite old windbreaker, the one he'd missed this spring.

He'd actually missed a lot of things. Like working with Jim regularly--Simon wouldn't even let him sit in the bullpen if he followed Jim to the station, he had to sit in the Captain's office and do his schoolwork like Daryl on visitation. That was the way it was going to be until a doctor had OK'd his lungs--and even then, he was pretty sure the Captain and Jim would find a way to keep him safe at home for another week or two, minimum.

He missed Rainier too. He'd had long conversations with the guy who'd taken over his classes, knew things were going along as well as could be expected, but it made him nervous to not know what exactly was going on in his classes for such a long period of time.

Oh, there. The warped and twisted frame of an umbrella, obviously long dead. Good because it wasn't Megan's umbrella, bad that an umbrella had to die alone. It was just frames, no nylon, and Blair decided to call it Umbrella Bones and take it upstairs with him. He'd give it a proper burial there. "Oh, Mighty Umbrella Bones," he said with proper reverence. "How...mighty...was your reign--get it, reign, rain?--and how terrible your vengeance. May the clouds of Heaven pour down upon you forever and ever, amen."

The amazing thing was that he didn't even feel silly talking to the umbrella. He'd been assured time and again that he had suffered no brain damage--a miracle, his doctor's claimed--but sometimes he felt...different. Even stranger than usual. And other times it was like he was restless in his own skin, uneasy, feeling like a little part of the big cat had come with him when Jim had brought him back from the dead.

Jim hadn't mentioned feeling anything new and unusual, so Blair wasn't going to ask if he felt like he carried a bit of the wolf inside himself now. All in all, it wasn't so important, he was sure. Just something he was curious about--and he'd learned what curiosity did to the wolf.

Blair sat back on his heels, rested the rusty umbrella on the floor by his windbreaker, and stared into the gloom.

He had to wonder if he had somehow weakened Jim in that moment of joining. Endangered him. What if the gods decided someday that Jim Ellison had already wasted some of his life on a worthless cause and decided to rid him of the rest before he did another stupid thing? What if someday he was facing a vicious battle with illness or disease and didn't have the strength to go on because he had given so much to Blair? What if, in saving Blair, in cheating Fate, in sending Death off without cab fare, Jim had somehow been hurt?

Not worth thinking about, Blair assured himself when he realized that he was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. Absolutely not. Best to go on excavating the closet and ignoring everything that happened more than three seconds ago. Attention span of a goldfish, get it?

He got it, and went back to digging. His back started to hurt after a while so he crawled backwards out of the closet, rose to his feet with a groan, and put a hand on the small of his back. And then he spotted it, hanging neatly by the door, completely uncovered and bright as daylight. He groaned again and grabbed Megan's umbrella, realizing that Jim must have put it there sometime while Blair was starting to resettle himself. He wondered what Jim had thought of it, and the idea made him smile.

"I'm the first thing you'll see in this new life," he said quietly to the umbrella, twirling it around. "The first thing I saw? Well, I thought it was rain, actually, and that seemed pretty great. Rain in Purgatory, you know. It was just the fountain though. So don't go getting your hopes up--I'm just a short guy with abandonment issues, a million student loans and a great old car. I was dead once but now I'm alive--kinda like you, sure. Just an ordinary umbrella in a big, cloudy world."

He put both umbrellas on the jacket and looked back at the rest of the boxes. Now that he'd spent so much time surrounded by his stuff, he kind of wanted to bring it all back upstairs but he really didn't want to send Jim into spasms again--

"I think it's time, Chief," Jim said from behind him as if he'd been conjured by Blair's thoughts. Blair jumped to his feet and staggered a little but caught himself. Jim took up most of the doorway, leaned nonchalantly against the door frame, staring at him and the jacket and the umbrellas.

"Time for what," Blair asked stupidly.

He couldn't see Jim's face, but he could feel the wave of regret and guilt, of determination. He closed his eyes and sighed, trying to break the bond between them, but it was impossible. Whatever bond had been left behind when wolf met jaguar had remained, and there was just no fighting it.

"Time for you to move back upstairs," Jim said, and Blair wasn't even sure he'd said the words out loud.

"Why?" he asked, still not opening his eyes. He felt Jim's hesitance and nearly smiled.

"The loft is looking a little...barren, Chief. Don't you think?"

We're talking about more than the loft, Blair thought, and suddenly he went from thinking that it was good, yes, best to leave everything in the closet to smiling at Jim with his eyes wide open. Then he nodded.

"It has, hasn't it." He grabbed the junk he'd pulled from the boxes and headed for the stairs. Jim put a hand on his face before Blair could pass him on the stairs, rubbed his thumb across Blair's cheekbone. Too sharp, Blair knew, he'd been losing too much weight, but that didn't explain why Jim winced as if he'd been cut. Blair wasn't sure he wanted to understand, anyway. He just looked at the tough, elegant hand that had touched him, half expecting to see blood, finding nothing but calloused skin.

"Welcome back, Chief," Jim said quietly, and Blair smiled. Then he trotted up the stairs and called Megan, hung up his jacket and headed for the kitchen.

"I could use you in soup and Jim would never notice," he told Umbrella Bones, then grinned. "But I won't do that to you. Au revoir, good friend." And he dropped the rusty metal into the trash can, put the windbreaker back on, and went to help Jim move the rest of his stuff back upstairs.