Work Text:
Table For Nine
by PsychGirl
Author's website: http://www.snycock.livejournal.com
Inspired by events and conversations at Moonridge 2007. This is for Rae, Janet, Ande, Linda, Marilyn, Gerri, Chris, and Kathy. Credit for the title goes to Ande.
The Barnstormer and its environs are a fictional construct. Any similarities between it and any actual restaurant - oh, say, like The Log Cabin - is purely coincidental.
Written for SXAR dues March 2008
Blair sighed, leaning on the bar and watching the sun as it started to sink behind the tall pine trees. He hated pulling Sunday nights. The place was always deserted; the weekend tourists had usually left and the locals were hunkering down at home, preparing for the coming workweek. They were out of everything, yet God forbid he closed early - might get some paying customers who didn't mind being forced to choose between meatloaf and fish.
Oh, who was he kidding? Sunday night, Monday night, or even Friday night - he hated them all, hated this place, hated this small mountain town and its small-minded inhabitants. For God's sake, they didn't even have a public library - you had to drive fourteen miles down the mountain to Allenspark for that.
Not that he could do that. The Volvo had been on its last legs when he'd gotten here, the drive from Cascade plus the 8,000 foot climb proving to be too much even for its formidable engine. Plus he'd nearly totaled it one night taking a curve in the road too fast. Now it was safely ensconced in Pete's Auto Body and Used Car Shop, awaiting his payment to reclaim it. Pete had given him thirty days, eyeing the Volvo with an almost lustful gaze, and allowing as, if Blair didn't manage to make the payment, "I might be able to get a good price for that, even though it's a foreign car".
Which brought him to the Barnstormer and his quiet, boring Sunday nights. Pete had introduced him to Red and Kate, the owners of the restaurant, and they had kindly offered to let him work at the restaurant to earn the money he needed to pay Pete for the repairs on the Volvo. It was very generous of them, considering that he'd not had any way of proving that he wasn't the vagrant he'd appeared to be. He'd gotten mugged his first night in town, and his backpack - including his wallet, all his money, and his laptop - had been stolen. Red and Kate had seemed sympathetic, and let him stay in the spare room over the kitchen, but at the rate he was going, drawing these Sunday and weekday night shifts, it was going to take him way more than thirty days to pay Pete off and get the Volvo back. Not that he had anywhere in particular to go.
He sighed again, watching the sun make its lazy way down towards the mountain. After the press conference, when they'd offered him the badge, he'd tried to look appreciative, tried to make the right faces, but he'd just been putting up a front. He'd been having enough trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that he'd just trashed his academic career; to have to face becoming a cop was just too much. And Jim, smiling at him, but with this look in his eyes like he was drowning and Blair taking a place at the academy was his only lifeline.
And, really, when you got down to it, that was the problem. Jim needed him, needed him more than he'd ever needed anyone, and Blair wasn't used to being needed. Being depended on. Naomi and he had always been as free as the wind, moving around from place to place as the desire struck them, or when things got too heavy. Even once he was enrolled at Rainier, he'd head out on an expedition, throw himself into a new research project, anything, just to avoid that feeling of being stuck. The look in Jim's eyes had terrified him. He'd babbled some excuse about being tired once they'd gotten back to the loft; the next day, once Jim had left for work, he'd thrown a few things in his backpack and headed out of town, leaving behind a hastily-scribbled note about needing to get his head together and thanks for not making him pay rent for four years. Coward, he berated himself angrily.
If he was really being honest - and what else did he have to do, at 5:45 on a Sunday evening in a deserted restaurant - it wasn't the look in Jim's eyes that had had him so scared. It was the fact that he was sure that that look was mirrored in his own. "Detach with love," Naomi had always said, and he'd taken that to heart, cherishing the people who came into his life but never allowing himself to become too attached to them. Until Jim. He wasn't sure exactly why or how it had happened, whether it was a Sentinel thing or a Guide thing or just a Jim and Blair thing, but he'd realized, that day in the bullpen, seeing the look on Jim's face, that he needed Jim. Needed him like water, or food, or air.
He laughed aloud, short and without mirth, and ran the damp cloth over the spotless bar for the hundredth time. He hadn't planned to fall in love, and certainly not with his tall, good-looking, taciturn, very male cop roommate. And straight, Sandburg, don't forget straight, he admonished himself. As in so not interested in your short, hairy ass.
But Jim just needed him because of the senses, not the way Blair needed him, not because Blair had become an essential part of his life when he wasn't looking. Once his feelings were out of the box, though, he couldn't put them back in. And he couldn't face the prospect of endless days and nights living with Jim, pining after him and knowing that his love wouldn't be reciprocated. So he'd run, scared, and now he was stuck here. And not just because of his lack of funds and the fact that his car was in hock. He didn't have any place to go. For the first time in his life, no destination sounded good except the one that lay a thousand miles behind him. But he couldn't go back there. Now that's irony, he thought. I thought I was getting away, but I've just ended up stuck worse than ever. Gloom settled over him as he gave the bar another swipe.
The bell over the door tinkled and Blair looked up, surprised. An attractive middle-aged woman walked in; thick, dark hair cut in a pageboy. "Are you open?" she asked brightly, her British accent sounding strange to Blair's ears after weeks of mountain drawl.
"Uh... yeah," he said, wiping his hands on his jeans and coming out from behind the bar. "How many?"
She looked over her shoulder, to where several other women were coming through the doorway. "Six of us right now, but there'll be nine of us all together." She looked up at him, an impish smile on her face. "Could we have a table outside?"
He grinned in response, unable to help himself. "Sure," he replied, leading her and the others through the restaurant and out to a long, glass-topped table on the patio. The sun was hovering just above the tall pine trees, and he adjusted the umbrellas, tilting them and pulling them down so that they blocked the majority of the rays. "How's this?" he asked.
"Oh, this is perfect, thanks," she replied, and he ducked into the kitchen to try and find the menus as well as something to write their orders on.
After several minutes of searching, he finally found an order pad with a few sheets left on it, and hurried back outside to find out what they wanted to drink. It was quite an unusual group, he thought, as he took their drink orders. Two Brits, three Americans, and a Scot. He liked the Scotswoman's accent the best and spent a few minutes trying to imitate it; unsuccessfully, if the eye-rolling and laughter were any indication.
Although they were a pretty mirthful bunch to start with. The other British one, she was the total antithesis of the first: tall, reserved, with short grey hair; but her stories clearly had all the others in stitches. None of the Americans were locals; two were from the Midwest and one was from the South.
"Do you have cherry Coke?" one of the Midwesterners asked.
"No, but I can make one," he replied, and was pleased to see a warm smile stretch across her face as she nodded her head.
"Okay, then," she said.
They decided to wait to order until the rest of their party came, but, at the dark-haired Brit's urging, ordered fried mozzarella to tide them over. "You can never find this in the U.K.," she explained, an almost orgasmic look of anticipation on her face.
He headed for the kitchen to put in the order, grinning to himself, their laughter and good humor infectious. His heart felt lighter than it had since he'd left Cascade.
"Be sure you tell them that we're out of ribs, and chicken, and all the German specialties," Charlie, the cook, growled at him. "Oh, and the meatloaf, too."
"Yeah, Charlie, I know," he replied, pulling beers and pouring sodas. But once he'd gotten all the drinks assembled on a tray, Ned Johnson and four of his friends came in, and so he had to get them seated and find menus for them as well.
By the time he got back out to the patio, three other women had shown up: another American, short, with snow-white hair; a woman who cheerfully informed him that she was Canadian; and another Brit; this one so shy and quiet that he felt it necessary to keep teasing her, trying to get her to say something.
He gave them the bad news about the menu choices, which led to groans and requests for his recommendations. "Well, the tilapia's good," he told them. Several of them ended up ordering that, with the rest opting for burgers or sandwiches off the lunch menu. Except for the American with the gorgeous white hair - she ordered pasta primavera, on his assurance that it didn't have any broccoli in it. "I'm not kidding," she told him sternly, "one tiny piece of broccoli and I'm sending it back. I really don't like broccoli."
Things got busy after that; Ned and his buddies all ordered burgers, so Charlie commandeered him to help prep and cook and plate. He had his hands full for a while, but he could hear the cheerful conversation and bubbling laughter coming from the patio, and he couldn't help smiling every time he glanced out there. They looked like they were having so much fun.
That was in stark contrast to Ned's group, who ate mutely, glaring at him sullenly, and then stiffed him on the tip. He breathed a sigh of relief as he watched them walk out the door.
Charlie followed soon after, having given the kitchen a cursory cleaning. "Desserts are in the fridge if you need `em. Don't you let them stay too late, you hear?" he told Blair.
He raised a hand in acknowledgement. "I hear you, Charlie." One of the drawbacks to living in the tiny room over the restaurant was that he always got to close the place. Although tonight it didn't seem like such a burden.
The women had moved inside; once the sun dropped below the trees the wind had picked up, making the patio fairly chilly. They were discussing ordering dessert, which, Blair had to admit, the Barnstormer was justly famous for. It was the dark-haired Midwesterner's birthday, and the others were teasing her, saying something about spanking.
Now that his attention wasn't split across his other duties, he could indulge his curiosity. "So, how did you all meet?" he asked, as he was handing out the desserts.
The tale was told in fragments, with laughter and good-natured ribbing liberally dispersed within. It seemed there was a wild animal sanctuary in the town. He'd seen the signs for it but hadn't really had the time or the means to check it out yet. But every year they held an auction at the zoo, to raise money, and the women had all traveled here to participate in it. For some it was their first time, others had been many times before, but they had all met and connected through the event, at first online, and now in person.
Their story intrigued the anthropologist in him - a part of him, he realized, that had been bruised and bloodied by the press conference, but wasn't down for the count yet. It was a testament to the power of the Internet, he mused, that such a divergent group - different ages, different backgrounds, from different countries - could form a sense of community so powerful that each would travel hundreds, if not thousands, of miles to be a part of it.
He noticed the dark-haired Brit looking at him speculatively. "And what about you?" she asked quietly, ignored by the other women, who were engaged in conversation among themselves. "You're not from around here?"
"No," he said, a rueful smile lifting one corner of his mouth. "I'm from Cascade, up in the Pacific Northwest. I was... traveling and I kinda got stuck here."
She gave him a knowing look. "Traveling. Because of something?... or someone?"
His cheeks flushed and he swallowed around the lump in his throat. He opened his mouth, intending to obfuscate, but for some reason the truth came out instead. "Both, really."
Patting his shoulder gently, she smiled at him. "Don't worry. It'll turn out all right."
He turned away, blinking against the sudden threat of tears, and busied himself with writing up their check at the bar until he had regained his composure. They tipped him beyond generously, making up for Ned's group more than twice over. In thanks, he made up a batch of German Chocolate Cake shots - vodka, rum, and coconut liquor; a recipe he'd learned in grad school - and they all toasted each other, tossing the drinks back in carefully choreographed order.
The bell over the door tinkled as they left, calling their goodbyes out to him cheerfully. He waved and called out in return as he cleaned up the bar and a bittersweet heaviness settled over his heart. The evening had been a fun distraction, but now he had to return to the real world and the dismal facts of his current situation.
The bell chimed once again and he looked up, grinning. "Did you forget some--" His words trailed off as the breath was sucked from his lungs.
Jim Ellison stood in the doorway.
He was frozen, unable to speak, unable to move, gaping at the man as if he was a ghost.
Jim sauntered in and leaned against the bar, looking around. "Nice," he commented sarcastically, his face set, his expression cold. "This where you're getting your head together?"
"I... I...." He couldn't even come up with a reasonable lie, he realized. He ducked his head, shame burning in his cheeks. "I'm sorry," he whispered thickly.
Turning to face him, Jim slammed his hands down on the bar. "Why, Sandburg? Can you at least answer me that?"
He shook his head miserably, throat too tight to speak, unable to meet Jim's gaze.
"Damn it, Chief," Jim hissed, "I need you."
At that he raised his head, looking directly at Jim, his hopeless truth weighing on him like bricks. "Not the way I need you to need me," he blurted out. Then he closed his eyes, not wanting to see the disgust and revulsion flow across Jim's expression, wondering if the next thing he felt would be Jim's fist against his face.
Something touched his jaw gently and he almost flinched. "Are you so sure about that?" Jim said softly. And the next thing he knew Jim's mouth brushed lightly against his; teasing, yet tender.
His eyes flew open in astonishment. Jim was looking back at him with a combination of fondness and exasperation, mixed with a tinge of apprehension. "You... you never said...." Blair stuttered.
Jim dropped his gaze. "No, I know, I... I didn't know how...." He looked up at Blair again, the anxiety a little more evident now. "But it's okay, right?"
He couldn't respond, his heart and throat too full to answer in words. Instead, he reached out, grabbing Jim's shirt in both hands, and pulled him in for a deep, passionate kiss, filling it with all the love and desire he could muster.
There was a raucous explosion of clapping and cheering from outside the restaurant. He pulled away from Jim slightly and saw, in his peripheral vision, nine pairs of eyes gazing avidly at them from the window next to the door, nine faces bearing brilliant smiles.
Feeling shy all of a sudden, he let Jim go. "What's up?" Jim asked, giving him a quizzical look.
He chuckled. "You know those women you passed on the way in?" he asked.
Jim looked confused. "What women?"
Blair frowned at him. "The women in the parking lot. Nine of them." Jim continued to look at him blankly, and he exhaled in exasperation. "You must have seen them. They had dinner here. They left just before you came in."
"I didn't see anyone, Chief," Jim replied, an amused grin pulling at the corner of his mouth even as he raised a hand to check Blair's forehead. "You feeling okay?"
He brushed Jim's hand aside and came around the bar to look out into the parking lot. It was empty, deserted except for Jim's battered blue-and-white truck. "I'm fine," he said absently, puzzled. They had just been there. How could they have disappeared so quickly? And how come Jim hadn't seen them?
Seeing Jim's truck brought a new question to mind, though. "Jim?" he asked, turning back to face him, "how did you know where I was?"
Jim looked nonplussed, a faint line between his brows. "I... I don't really know," he said haltingly. "I just got in the truck and started to drive. Something told me which way to go, where to turn. I... I guess it was luck."
Blair turned back to look at the empty parking lot, his mind spinning. Nine women. Nine muses. The daughters of Zeus; responsible for bestowing inspiration upon mortal minds.
It couldn't have been. Could it?
Jim cleared his throat and Blair turned to look at him. "Uh, Chief," he began. He was wearing that sweet bashful look that made Blair's heart turn over in his chest. "I'm...ah, I'm hoping I can crash with you tonight. I came straight here; I didn't have time to get a hotel room or anything."
Blair thought about his narrow, rickety cot upstairs and his barren closet of a room. Then he remembered that the Barnstormer had a big gas fireplace in the main room, with a thick bearskin rug stretched out in front of it. He grinned at Jim. "I don't think it'll be a problem, man," he said happily. "You want something to eat? You must be starved."
"Sure," Jim replied, a wide and brilliant smile breaking across his face that made Blair's heart do flip-flops again.
As they headed off to the kitchen, Jim's arm looped across his shoulders, he offered up a silent prayer of thanks, just in case someone was listening.
End
Table For Nine by PsychGirl
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Disclaimer: The Sentinel is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount.