Christmas Lights

by Lyrica

"Hey, Jim…"

Jim Ellison looked up from the tangle of Christmas lights between his feet. His partner was seated at the kitchen table, nose
buried in his laptop, totally oblivious to Jim's frustration with the strings of lights or the ache in his knees from being crouched so
long. "What, Chief?"

Blair turned from the screen, his forehead creased in a frown. "What color is Santa Claus to you?"

Jim blinked at him, surprised enough that he used it as an excuse to stop working. He had one good bulb in his fingers, and he
was substituting it for one after another of the lights on the line, looking for the bad one that was preventing the string from
lighting. He was beginning to suspect that there was more than one bad one, and that he was fighting a losing battle. "Come
again?"

"On one of my lists, we're talking about the ethnocentricity of Santa Claus. About how most of the images we see are WASP."

"Oh." One of Blair's many lists. That explained it. "And what's the consensus? What color is Santa?"

"Well, the explanation I like best is that, since we get our perception from our parents, Santa is cast in their image. Of course,
there's still the old ruling class thing. Most images are cast to reflect the ruling class of the society. And that's--"

Jim returned his attention to the jumble of lights, allowing Blair's words to become a background rumble. Now he knew why it
was important to buy the lights that didn't go out when a bulb was bad. "You know, Sandburg…" he interrupted as he replaced
yet another bulb in an attempt to revive the string of lights. The green electrical cord with its dozens of white bulbs remained
stubbornly dead. "…you're the conservationist here. So why am I the one dicking with these damned lights? We could just
throw these out and buy new ones. They cost all of $1.99 a string."

"That's a total waste. There's probably only one bad bulb there, or a loose one. Are you gonna answer me? What color is Santa Claus for you?"

Jim frowned. Blair hadn't even blinked or changed the pitch of his voice. The younger man just continued blithely on, assuming
that Jim was going to continue his mission because Blair wanted him to. "I don't guess I've ever given Santa much thought. I
mean, now that I think about it, I saw a black guy dressed as Santa at the mall yesterday. But it didn't make an impression until
you asked just now."

Jim looked ruefully at the lights crisscrossing over the toes of his Nikes and picked up where he'd left off. Bulb out, new bulb in. No response from the string of lights. "What color is he to you?" he asked to keep Blair talking. His job as savior of the Christmas lights was, at least, less monotonous with conversation to distract him.

"*He*, Jim?" Blair asked with a grin. "He? That's kind of an assumption, isn't it?"

Just to reassure himself, Jim re-checked his test bulb on a good string of lights. It would really piss him off to discover he'd
tested 499 bulbs only to discover that his test bulb had died. "Only you would think of Santa Claus as a woman, Sandburg."

"Well, of course. Who do you think taught me about Santa Claus?"

Of course. Naomi. "I wouldn't have thought Naomi would go in for that sort of thing. And I thought you were Jewish." Just how deeply Jewish, Jim wasn't sure, and he wasn't about to let his mind go there.

"We are, sort of, but I wasn't given any more religious instruction in that faith than any other. Naomi taught me to understand
and respect all faiths. And she thought it was important for me to fit in with what the kids around me believed. So she let me
believe in Santa. But I didn't believe for long. I figured out the truth really early." Blair grinned as his gaze focused, not on Jim,
but on the past. "I realized that Santa's handwriting on the gift tags looked just like Naomi's. When I confronted her with it, she
just smiled and said, 'My little boy's growing up.'"

Jim let his gaze drift, too, picturing that Blair from the photos Naomi had shown him. Small and wiry, blue eyes too big for his
face, pale as a porcelain doll and just as beautiful. There was an innocence about Blair, a joy, that was childlike still. It was,
alternately, charming and irritating.

Blair refocused and came back to the present, and Jim smiled at him, glad to have Blair in his present. "How old were you,
Chief?"

"Um-m, not quite five, I think. How old were you when you realized there was no Santa?"

Jim shrugged and rapidly shuffled through another few lights. "I can't remember ever believing in Santa, Chief."

"Never? Oh, come on, Jim. With your white-bread family? How could you not?"

"Christmas wasn't that great a time for us. Especially after my mom left."

Blair turned away and rapidly shut down his laptop. Then he came over and crouched nearby. "But there must have been a
time, before she left…?" He said it very gently, tentatively, in that non-threatening way he had of inviting Jim to open up, granting him in advance that they would close the discussion if Jim wanted.

Because he said it that way, Jim thought about it, absently testing bulbs as he tried to remember Christmases past. The scents of cinnamon and peppermint and pine. The warmth of a fire. The twinkling lights reflected in the glass ornaments. He could
remember something bubbling on the stove, giving off a scent so delicious his stomach rumbled in the present. Suddenly, so
suddenly he didn't even have time to protect against it, the memories crystalized, became something specifict--the scent of apple pie, baking. Stephen was nearby, sleeping, breathing with a baby's softness. His parents were downstairs. But he could hear his
mother… His mother's voice, laughing softly, huskily, saying…

The memory hit him like a blow in the middle of his forehead, and his fingers clenched around the string of lights. His mother's
voice…'You'd better hurry, Bill, or I'm going to do the boys' Santa without you.'

The room spun, corners pulled out of square, and he fell back onto his butt. Sat down hard on the cold floor. Soft laughter and
joy woven through the husky tone, like a ribbon through soft lace.

He strained, going deeper, trying to hear the voice again. The room and everything around him-- the warm scent of Blair, the
hard seams of the floor, the crackle of the fire, the twisted wires in his hands--all receded. Grayed out in his search for the
voice.

"Jim? Jim!"

This voice, more familiar than his mother's, and present, penetrated the fog. It drove back memories before they swallowed him. Blair was on his knees, crowded close, hands on him. Warmth in the middle of his back, heat gripping his wrist.

"Jim, man, are you okay?"

Jim shook himself. Threw off the dizziness of memory and the shock of sliding back into the present. "I didn't believe," he
whispered. If he'd had time to think, if Blair's hand hadn't been so warm and comforting, rubbing larger and larger circles on his
back, he might have had time to censor his words. To push the memory back down. But it sprang, bright and shining like a new
string of lights, to the tip of his tongue. "I was…I was…" He struggled to do the math, to figure out how young he must have
been, but he couldn't focus well enough. "I heard her talking. I heard them downstairs, setting up everything. Stephen was a tiny
baby. Sleeping in his crib."

He looked at Blair, unable to ask for help, but hoping it showed on his face. "I heard them setting up the stuff from Santa. I
heard them…"

Understanding the disbelief in Jim's voice, Blair said, "Where were you, Jim?"

"In the nursery. Upstairs. At the back of the house."

"Oh, wow. Your Sentinel abilities…even then." Blair looked at him, his eyes shining. "Wow."

Jim tensed, bracing for that moment when Blair's fascination, his obsession with the whole Sentinel thing, would take over and
swamp what he was saying. But Blair fooled him, shamed him for thinking his partner so shallow. Blair settled at his side, shifting until his legs formed a protective vee around him. Jim could feel the warmth along one thigh and low across his hips, even though they weren't quite touching, even through the layers of his jeans and Blair's sweats. Blair re-established a light grip on his wrist
and waited quietly.

Jim knew what Blair was offering, and he knew no matter what he chose, Blair would accept it. There were times when Blair
pushed him. This wasn't one of them, and Jim could sense it. It happened so often now, understanding without words, that it
shouldn't have surprised him. It shouldn't have sent a shiver, like fingers on skin, down his spine. But it did. A shudder and a
glowing warmth that lit him from within and stole his voice.

After a moment and a deep breath, Jim nodded. He looked away from Blair, allowing his gaze to focus on the frost that coated
the balcony doors. The room slipped away, sight and scent and hearing, but not the way it had before. Not so completely that
he couldn't feel his fingers and his toes. Because Blair was there with him, warm fingers on the pulse point of his wrist and in the
small of his back. A connection that bound his skin to his flesh to his bones to the present.

He followed the memory, the way he would have followed a trail of evidence. Finding first the bed that he lay in, sheet clean and crisp beneath, blanket warm above. Orange glow of a nightlight in the nearby bathroom. Stephen sleeping nearby. And his
mother's voice was there. 'Jimmy's going to be so excited when he sees his tricycle! I wish I could wake him now, just to see his face. You don't think he's too young for it, do you?'

He heard his father's response, but the voice wasn't clear the way his mother's was. He strained to understand, but he was so
overwhelmed by the love and excitement in his mother's voice that he lost the thread of all of it. For a moment longer, his
parents' voices were there, hollow and echoing but unintelligible. Then Blair's touch replaced the dance of memory, becoming
tangible as pressure on his skin rather than just a thread of warmth twining through.

"I couldn't have been more than three, or four. But I remember…" He turned his hand, scrabbling at the fingers that held his
wrist so firmly. The words spilled out of his mouth, and he had no hope of erecting the dam that normally kept the tide back. "I
remember, Blair. I heard them. And it was all her doing. My mother's. All the Christmases. She was our Santa, and I heard.
That's why I never believed. She loved us, Blair. She loved…me."

"Of course she did, Jim. Do you doubt that?" Blair responded automatically. If he found his partner's death grip on his fingers
strange, he didn't mention it. He simply returned the pressure.

It snapped Jim back to silence. "Yeah, I-- That is, I--" Sanity and preservation began to filter back in, and he closed his mouth
with an audible snap.

Blair was looking at him, blue eyes dark with intensity, and Jim knew that expression, as well as he'd known the previous one.
Blair wasn't going to let this go. The muscles between Jim's eyes stabbed as a frown formed. "She didn't want anything to do
with us. After."

"And like all kids do, you thought it was because of you. Oh, Jim…" Blair leaned his forehead against Jim's arm.

Jim leaned into the touch for just a moment, then pulled away. It was too comforting, too comfortable, to rest there. "Chief…
She left all of us, not just my father. She was barely there. She…she didn't have time to even stay with us. Even when my father
would ask her."

"Sentinel hearing again?" Blair said softly. Not waiting for an answer, he slid closer to Jim. "That still doesn't mean it had
anything to do with you, you know. Some people just aren't cut out to be parents. I mean, even Naomi was more like a good
friend to me than a mom when I was little. It was only after she got older that she started to make parent sounds. When I was a
kid, it was more like having a best friend or a big sister than a mom. She didn't want to be the type of settled, responsible
person that society required of a mother."

"She never left you, Chief." Jim couldn't stop the catch in his voice. Couldn't stop the anger and anguish of a young boy from
seeping into his tone. He immediately turned away, releasing Blair's hand, taking up where he'd left off with the lights.

"No. But I still know that your mom loved you. And I didn't need a memory to tell me. Nobody could know you and not love
you."

Jim looked up from the lights. Inside, he grasped, fumbling, for something to protect him. For the nonchalance that had stood
him in such good stead for all his life. Outside, he couldn't stop the quaver in his voice. He couldn't stop the wish that filled his
heart from whispering out. "Nobody, Chief?"

"Nobody." Said with such surety. Such belief. Blair smiled at him, an expression rivaling a thousand strings of lights. A thousand
suns. "You remember that day when we were tracking the Switchman? I told you to put your hands behind your back, and you
looked at me like I was crazy, but you did it anyway. That was when I knew."

"Knew what?" He cleared his throat as the words came out, because he couldn't believe the plea he heard in it. The hope.

"That I loved you. Because you still didn't believe. You still weren't sure about me. If I remember right, you called me a
drugged-out hippie. But something in you trusted me anyway. Enough to turn your back on me. I mean, you didn't know me. I
could have done anything. Slapped cuffs on you…" Blair's voice trailed away, came back husky and rough, muffled against
Jim's sleeve. "In fact, I've had a recurring fantasy of doing just that. But that was when I knew. When you trusted me, in spite of
your misgivings. I knew I'd love you forever."

Blair touched his face, light tracing on his cheek and jaw. Blair touched him a lot, always had. But never like this before. Never
with his fingertips slipping into his hair, never with his thumb brushing the corner of his mouth. Never with his face so close that
Jim could feel the soft warmth of his breath on his neck.

"Forever." Jim tried the word out. It didn't sound half so scary as his head told him it should, or half as good as his heart knew it was. Blair loved him. Forever. And he said it in a way that made forever seem possible. That made trust inevitable. A shivering
warmth grew from somewhere in the pit of his stomach, threatening to overcome him. He took a deep breath and the control
that he'd fought all his life to maintain came easily, but it didn't feel so much like hiding as it had in the past. "Handcuffing fantasies, huh?" he said lightly.

Blair blushed and grinned, and his thumb slipped across Jim's lips. Blair's heartbeat leapt to the accompaniment of heat across
his body. "Oh, yeah. Handcuffing fantasies. Shower fantasies. Elevator fantasies. Sentinel testing fantasies. Lots of fantasies."

Jim twisted and reached for him, dropping the lights from fingers suddenly tingling in anticipation of touching his Guide the way
he was being touched.

As the string of lights hit the floor, they blinked to life. Five hundred tiny lights glittering white and bright, totally unnoticed by the
two men who sat in their midst.
 

The End