SILENCE
by sharilyn
EMAIL: Sharilyn
Rating: R-ish for sensuality, suicidal images.
Summary: Blair and Jim deal with the aftershocks of a call gone bad.
***********
Rafe had said it was bad; but it wasn't until Major Crimes Captain Simon Banks actually
laid eyes on the two of them that he realized just how traumatic it must have been.
As they sat side by side on the same gurney in the ER, both Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg
looked remarkably unscathed as far as physical injuries went; but it took Simon's
practiced eye little more than a cursory glance to ascertain that neither man was anywhere
close to being all right. They sat silently--not the silence of mere exhaustion or
physical duress from injuries or even the expected intractability of post-traumatic shock.
No; the silence which surrounded and enveloped both men possessed an intensity that seemed
to suck all the air from their side of the room, creating a heavy vacuum devoid of sound,
breath, or movement and imparting a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of
the room itself.
Jim and Blair huddled in the midst of this oppressive noiselessness, two disturbingly
still figures caught and preserved in amber, both of them completely oblivious to the
strangely muted rush and bustle going on around them out beyond their small island of
existence. Harsh overhead lighting beat down on them where they sat, legs dangling limply
off the side of the white-sheeted gurney they shared; and beneath the light's unforgiving,
fluorescent wash, both men looked pallid and drained and strangely diminished, as if their
bodies had begun shrinking in direct proportion to the measure of glaring light and
crushing silence bearing down on them.
Simon wanted to call out to them in a voice made taut with some sudden, nameless sense of
desperation; but when he opened his mouth to form one man's name, or both, he found that
the oppressive atmosphere emanating from their side of the curtained-off cubicle had
flowed over to the very spot he himself now occupied, depriving him of the will or the
ability to speak. All he could do was to stand in helpless stasis, his impressive height
and bulk reduced to insignificant obscurity in the face of whatever this was that held his
men in such frightening thrall.
As he stood in mute torment, unable to break through the frigid chrysalis of isolation
encasing and enclosing the figures on the gurney, Simon recalled Rafe's earlier, terse
description of all that had befallen Ellison and Sandburg this evening, and he longed to
surge forward with his usual brusque forcefulness and to snap them out of their eerie,
unnatural stillness, back into the land of the speaking and the living. If he could only
move toward them right now, he knew what he would most likely say: What happened to you
two tonight was terrible and tragic, no doubt about that; but you've both lived through
some equally harrowing, life-threatening scenes before this one...so it's time to pull
yourselves together, to be grateful you're both alive even as you grieve for the life of
that young woman you weren't able to save. And it wasn't a total loss; at least you
rescued that woman's baby. Because you two were there on that roof tonight, that little
girl now has the chance to grow up. If he could speak, that's probably what he would have
said, Simon reflected ruefully.
But the words wouldn't come, and the two men across the room from him displayed no sign of
relief or satisfaction at having rescued a precious soul today. Their silent withdrawal
was absolute, their bodies aligned so closely against one another's that they were
touching all along the length of their thighs and arms, hips and shoulders bumping and
fitting together like puzzle pieces on the side where they'd melded almost into one.
As he observed them with worried absorption, Simon could see signs of the physical toll
tonight's dramatic rescue attempt had taken on his men; both bore ugly scratches and
abrasions on their arms where they'd been driven at the last to a brief, fierce struggle
with the suicidal young woman they'd been sent to save. And while Blair's list of injuries
was more extensive than Jim's, Simon reflected somberly to himself that Sandburg was
actually the one who had gotten off the luckiest from the ordeal. After all, he was the
one who'd survived what should have been a fatal plunge off a seven-story rooftop (and it
HAD been fatal for the rescued baby's unfortunate mother). Thank God the hapless police
observer had bounced off a jutting downspout on the way down, the force of his body's
collision with it deflecting the parabola of his descent just enough to land him smack in
the middle of a fifth floor balcony instead of plunging straight down to the unyielding
sidewalk far below.
Even now Simon couldn't quite puzzle out the hard, mathematical science that could
adequately explain or account for the one-in-a-million lucky break Sandburg had received
when he'd tumbled helplessly off the rooftop along with the suicidal woman he and Ellison
had been trying so hard to save. All the captain knew was that Blair's survival--with
little more than scrapes and bruises and battered ribs to show for his fall--smacked more
of the ineffably miraculous than of mere, dry statistics and probability. It was too bad
that the young mother who'd pulled Blair over with her had died, meeting her fate before a
crowd of horrified onlookers who were as helpless to save her as Blair had been. She had
left behind a host of unanswered questions and one small, fragile life wrapped in a pink
blanket--a life Jim Ellison had wrestled away from its struggling mother and had held
clutched desperately to his chest as he'd stood on a rooftop edge seven stories up,
watching in stunned horror both the woman's and his partner's swift, helpless plunges
toward death.
Simon could only imagine the terror Sandburg must have felt as he'd gone from rescuer to
victim and had attempted to wrest himself free of the crazed woman's hold, succeeding at
the last instant but not in time to prevent himself from toppling over the roof's edge
right behind the doomed female; and knowing that Jim had to have experienced an almost
equal sense of horror as he watched his best friend fall ripped at Simon's guts now with a
raw, sick pain that helped him to better understand the profound silence emanating from
the two men on the gurney. Both men had faced death before while on the job, and they'd
taken too many turns in this very ER to even count. Each of those times had been traumatic
in its own way, but this...
Simon had to acknowledge to himself that for some reason this latest brush with disaster
had a completely different aura to it, something so dark and empty and cosmically tragic
that it scarcely bore thinking about. He had only to see the taut, wholly awful silence of
two of his best, most field-experienced men to comprehend that as partners and as
individuals, Jim and Blair had come close tonight not only to death but to the permanent,
soul-shattering loss of a shared bond that had come to be essential to both. Over the past
year Simon had noticed the changing and deepening of that bond into something fierce and
powerful and vaguely disturbing in its intensity; but he'd attributed the swift evolution
of the men's once-tentative working relationship to Jim's need for Blair to help him gain
mastery of his preternaturally heightened senses. The very nature of Jim's abilities
required Sandburg's almost constant presence at his side, and Simon supposed such close
proximity for so many hours a day would have served either to strengthen and reinforce the
connection between the two men or would have driven both of them completely bonkers within
a very short time.
Looking at the two of them now, the usually no-nonsense police captain decided he could
safely make a guess as to which direction Ellison's and Sandburg's connection had taken.
And while he'd seen evidence here and there of the solidifying of this incredible
mental/emotional link between them, he hadn't realized just how profound the
transformation in each man had become. They were bonded now in ways not even the most
ardent of devoted lovers could ever hope to fully comprehend, and the near loss of one of
the duo on that rooftop tonight had sent both men into a post-traumatic zone of
immeasurable intensity. Simon could only stand growling in frustration at the apparent
lack of understanding or intervention by the ER staff in response to the devastating
impact tonight's rescue call had had on his men; and as his ire and concern mingled and
grew, Banks finally found both voice and momentum enough to make his presence known and to
try and get some actual help for the conjoined figures still seated oh so quietly and
rigidly on that damned gurney.
As he barked out a request for medical attention for his men, using his most peremptory,
Captainish tone, Banks reflected inwardly that later both men would need to be grounded
enough to do their jobs, to make their reports and pick up the pieces of this terrible,
senseless night's work; but for now, they needed the bracing strength and gruff comfort of
their captain, the solicitous care of both medical and psychological counseling and
attention, and whatever else it took to snap the two of them out of the withdrawn,
absorbed silence that hovered over them like a malevolent spirit. Simon just hoped that
Ellison and Sandburg would be able pull some of that weird, funky sentinel/shaman voodoo
out of their hats to help see them through this latest near catastrophe in the ongoing
saga of their partnership.
********
(Same night... hours later....)
Their lovemaking was astoundingly violent, a surging, crashing maelstrom of strong muscles
grappling for dominance, teeth and lips biting, sucking, licking, laving, fingers bunching
and gripping, scrabbling and scratching, gliding and sliding and caressing over hot,
sleek, hungry skin. No words were spoken the first time--the loft was breathlessly silent
save for the primitive, needy language of grunts and groans, of sighs and sharp hisses and
the wet, fierce impact of flesh against flesh, of flesh INTO flesh, wringing harsh, hoarse
cries of ecstasy and release from dual throats.
The second time sparse words were interspersed here and there amongst the short, guttural
cries of need and pleasure, a husky "Chief...God!..." mixing with the other's
soft, urgent rasps of "Jim...yes...love you, love you so...fucking...much..."
Sobs, breathless laughter, noises of kissing, loving, followed several satisfyingly long
moments later by a second, mutual explosion of almost unbearable climax. And afterward,
Blair's quietly desperate plea as they lay entwined and perspiring mightily: "Don't
let go; Jim, man, just...stay like that, keep your weight on me...don't let me fall off
the edge...crazy I know, the floor's RIGHT THERE...but still...sorry, Jim, sorry... "
And Jim's low-voiced, fiercely intense reply: "I've got you, this time I've got you;
hold onto me, Blair, not letting go, never again...safe now, safe in our home, in our
bed...together."
And later still, sticky and puffy-eyed and hollowed out by restless, stilted dream
snatches (nightmarish bits more like, filled with images of darkness and death and endless
tumbles into bottomless oubliettes), both men awoke again to nestle closer even than
before, Blair's flyaway brambles of hair rubbing against Jim's face and tickling his nose
while Jim's immensely strong, lightly furred legs twined snugly around Blair's, his feet
curling behind Blair's calves to press the other man as close to him as he could. And this
time they REALLY talked, talked in slow, laborious, careful words of the immensity of the
terror of this night--this veritable lifetime--just past.
But cutting into the admissions of fear and grief there was talk of courage and luck, as
well, a recounting of the saga of survival and the inexpressible joy of continuing on
together; and in those predawn hours of discourse and touching and of connecting anew, the
ugly, indelible specter of Blair's desperate figure pinwheeling off that roof faded into
softer, safer, belovedly intimate images of the two of them falling, together, over the
precipice of a far different drop.
There was still trauma, still horror and anger and the grief of a life senselessly spent
and of a small child who would never know her mother; but a satiated, comfortably
exhausted Jim reflected now that Simon had been more right than he could have known when
he'd gruffly informed the two of them earlier tonight to 'go home and do that 'thing' you
always do to get your heads on straight again." The next few days--even
weeks--wouldn't be easy, especially for Sandburg; but Jim knew that together they would
summon the strength, comfort, and mutual support needed to see them through this latest
near tragedy. For now he had the most vital necessity of his soul nestled right here
close, heartbeat to heartbeat in the warmly enfolding silence of their bedroom; and as
Jim's eyes drifted shut on one last glimpse of Sandburg's exhausted, sleep-softened face,
the grateful detective slid one strong arm around the other man's shoulders to anchor him
securely in their bed and in his grasp.
"I've got you, Chief; you can rest safely now," he whispered in Blair's ear; and
indeed Blair did, sleeping peacefully entwined with his sentinel as the first, faintly
roseate hues of dawn crept into the loft.
~The End~
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