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Hurricane Sandburg whirls into the loft a good four hours late.
It’s not like Jim is marking every minute. He’s not the kid’s keeper. It’s a break from routine, is all, and Jim values his routines. They’re one of his few remaining bastions against the disarray Sandburg seems to generate natural as breathing. So of course he hears the slammed door—winces despite himself—and reluctantly tears his eyes away from the Jags game while a sodden blur of tans and browns beelines to the kitchen—
“Shoes,” he calls pointedly.
Sandburg kicks them off—right there by the stove, what the hell? —and apparently decides to shed the rest of his outerwear for good measure. He goes back to it only once, and not to clean it up—no, it’s to push his jacket out of the way to dig something shiny out of his knapsack, along with a small box, but only after he’s ransacked the organized tool drawer for what Jim can tell, by size and shape, is likely a matchbook.
Jim would be on his feet demanding answers if he wasn’t so damn perplexed. As it is, he’s trying to compose a measured, reasonable response at the flagrant disregard of so many house rules simultaneously when Sandburg drops onto the couch next to him with a thump, snatches the remote from the coffee table, and turns off the TV.
“That’s—” Jim begins to protest, annoyance surging hot into full-blown frustration, but the look on Blair’s face stops him short.
If he hadn’t already learned to read people meticulously under his father’s unknowing tutelage, the Army would have drilled it into him. It’s about patterns, really, and patterns can be learned. They can be predicted, to a degree. If necessary, they can be exploited. Even deliberately ignoring social mores is a strategy, one Jim is no stranger to wielding to his own advantage.
The excessive chaos is the aberration. The vacant hollow of Blair’s eyes is the pattern.
“I’ll bite,” Jim says carefully. Stepping around mines. “What’s going on?”
Blair smiles tightly. “Celebrating my heritage, Jim.” He sets the—menorah, that’s what it is—on the table. It, and the box of candles (beeswax, Jim can smell them) clatter, and Blair motions to himself with a jerky wave of his hand. “Sandburg, remember?”
Hanukkah. Right. Jim had—noted it, with the kind of detail reserved for observations that aren’t immediate threats or resources: assessed, cataloged, and stored. Mistake, he realizes, obviously too late. The tripwire is invisible.
“I wasn’t going to assume.”
No response. Try again.
“Besides, you seem to have as many traditions as you do first dates.”
Blair’s continued silence at the intentional jibe would be a Hanukkah miracle, except for how surreal it is. It’s like he’s channeling all his energy into his hands instead, sliding two small tapers out of the box, arranging them with purpose, striking one of the pilfered matches with more force than warranted.
Jim barely resists the urge to grab the damn thing himself. “Sandburg, you could have told me—”
Only Blair’s head moves. He meets Jim’s scrutiny evenly, almost blankly, without his common you’re not listening to me or can you hear yourself exasperation.
He’s also still holding the lit match, burning steadily down to his fingertips.
Jim keeps his tone steady, despite the chill shivering down his spine. Like flying a heli into a headwind. “You gonna use that?”
It’s like he doesn’t even exist after Blair turns back to the candles, as Blair starts murmuring, unbroken, in what must be Hebrew. Blair has to know Jim can hear him, but this—prayer, presumably—either doesn’t have to be private, or he doesn’t care.
“Did you see them?” Blair asks eventually—unexpectedly, given that he switches seamlessly back to English from one sentence to the next. Before Jim can ask for clarity, Blair adds, “Like out of some B-rate horror movie. I see them every time I close my eyes—”
Sometimes, Jim hates the accuracy of his memory.
“Hey,” he interrupts, abruptly sliding to his knees to wedge as much body as will fit between the coffee table and the couch. He pats Blair’s distant face, which contorts in sudden anger as blue eyes snap to his in fervid clarity; he wonders, for a moment, if Blair might shove him right into the flames.
Good, Jim thinks vehemently. Not like he wants to be singed, but better anger. Better anger than the emptiness he should have seen coming. Blair’s recounting of his danger at Lash’s hands, his curious questions, were too practiced in their lighthearted ease. “I’m gonna put these away if they bother you that much,” he warns.
(That maybe he deserves Blair’s anger and its consequences for his shortcoming, Jim sets to the corner of his mind—to be examined later, or maybe never. An early Army lesson, or at least the one Jim took most to heart: never leave a man behind.)
“You can’t take this,” Blair argues. Jim hears his pulse speeding. “This is helping. This is me.”
“How about we just relax—”
“Shut up, man!” Blair shifts in his seat, about to rise; Jim grabs his shoulders and holds fast, even when Blair tries to twist away (he might be wiry, but he’s solid). “Impossible second chances under astronomical odds! How often does that happen? We survived, I survived—”
“Listen to me,” Jim demands, call-for-backup sharp, stay-down-Sandburg sharp.
Thank God it works; Blair freezes, the candlelight flickering off his still haunted face like a flashbulb.
Jim almost wants to laugh, hysterical. He really wants to hit something. He chokes it down, and down, and down. “It’ll get better. You’ll get better, Blair. Give it time.”