|
B.J Sandburg.
by
Jim was pretty sure Blair was losing his mind. It was a tough break too, the kid had a lot of promise as a real person, now that he was emerging from his over long adolescence. Peering round the doorway Jim shook his head in dismay. Sandburg was so convinced he was right over all this nonsense, that he was in there right now laying out women’s clothes. Women’s clothes, for god’s sake! Jim passed a hand over his eyes with a sigh, turning back to the comfortable lounge area and collapsing on a couch. His instinct now was to knock back some hard alcohol as quickly as possible, but he knew he had to keep a clear head. When Blair woke up tomorrow morning and this bizarre thing hadn’t happened, he was going to need someone with all his wits about him to help. And, as usual, that person would be James Joseph Ellison. A delicious scent reached Jim’s nostrils and he groaned in dismay, realising Blair was spraying that damn perfume around again. The one that had lead to that first terrifying conversation, where Blair had revealed the cracks that were beginning to show in his sanity. Jim let his memory drift to that day, just a week before. 000 "What the heck have you been spraying in here?" Jim wheezed, waving his hand in front of his watery eyes as he closed the front door behind him. Blair emerged from his bedroom, an apologetic smile on his face. "Sorry, man, I didn’t expect you home so soon." "H wanted to swap surveillance shifts with me," Jim explained, trying to dial down his sense of smell as he unbuckled his holster and hung it over one of the lethal looking hooks by the front door. "He’s not still dating that Monica person, is he?" Blair called back over his shoulder. "I don’t gossip about my fellow officers," Jim said repressively, pulling a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and knocking back a gulp. "But, yeah, he is." "Damn, I tried to warn him about that one," Blair said from his room, and Jim wandered over to prop himself up in the doorway. "Yeah, well some people just have to learn the hard way," Jim said absently, frowning as he studied Blair repacking a small expensive looking bottle of perfume away into a shiny cardboard box. "Speaking of which, I didn’t think you were dating anyone at the moment. Who are you buying fancy scent for?" Blair closed the box carefully, flicking a quick glance at Jim. For a moment he looked away, and Jim prepared for the lie to come. He had known this kid for three years, and he’d long ago reached the point where he could pick the truth from a Sandburg patented lie. It was obvious Blair was bracing himself to tell a whopper, when at the last moment he relaxed his shoulders with a sigh. "I guess there’s no delaying this any longer," he said to himself. "Delaying what?" Jim asked suspiciously. "The truth," Blair said resolutely. "Maybe you better be sitting for this," he said thoughtfully, cruising past Jim and grasping his arm, practically towing him across the room to the lounge. "Ah, maybe I better be standing," Jim said, pulling out of Blair’s gentle hold as they reached the couch. "I may want to yell, and I do that much better in a vertical position." "Okay," Blair agreed. "But I guarantee you’ll need that seat soon enough." Jim just stared him down, and Blair squared his shoulders, a resolute expression on his face. "Jim, I know you’re down with the concept of a wider universe than is accepted by the average man, right?" "Oh, I don’t like this beginning," Jim muttered. "Bear with me, man," Blair counseled, gesturing soothingly. He turned on his heel and began to pace the area, looking for all the world as if he were lecturing a classroom full of sweaty college students. "You and I have seen some pretty weird shit since this whole Sentinel thing started, there’s no denying that. You’ve accepted it because it’s so much a part of your natural state, and also because you haven’t had much choice." "I had a choice, Sandburg," Jim corrected. "I could have made like a chicken and run around the room flapping my arms." "Exactly," Blair pounced, pointing a finger at Jim. "That’s it exactly. We must accept the reality of our world, even when it contradicts everything we know is true. Everything we are told is true, any way." "Sandburg, if this is your way of telling me you dress up like a woman in your spare time, I don’t want to know, okay?" "A woman?" Blair stared in surprise. "Why would you say that?" Jim frowned, it wasn’t like Blair to be so slow. "The perfume," he reminded him. "Isn’t this what we’re talking about?" "Oh, yeah," Blair chuckled in relief. "The perfume. Right. Get to it, Blair," he lectured himself. "Jim, you might have noticed my family is... a little different." "I haven’t met that much of your family, Chief," Jim said reasonably. "But they don’t seem much weirder than the average family." "Well, they are," Blair said firmly. "I don’t know the scientific details of it all, I’m not sure I want to. In the family it’s just known as ‘The Curse’. Naomi never let me call it that. She said we should consider it a blessing, but whatever you call it, it’s coming, and there’s no way to avoid it. That’s why I had to tell you." "Tell me what?" Jim burst out, exasperated. "Stop beating around the bush, okay?" Blair sat down with a thump. "Okay," he agreed, a little breathlessly. "Here goes. At age thirty, every person in our family, through the female line, changes sex." Jim tilted his head, waiting for the punchline. "What?" he said when none was forthcoming. "We change sex," Blair expanded, looking a little more relaxed. "The females turn into males, the males into females. Get it?" "Oh, I get it," Jim said, shaking his head. "The perfume smell was to disguise whatever noxious drug you’ve been smoking in here, right?" "The perfume was an early birthday gift from Mom. I turn thirty in five days Jim, remember?" "Yeah, I have your Reader's Digest Gift subscription all wrapped up," Jim retorted. "Guess I should have gone for the pink paper and bow instead of the navy blue, hmm?" "You’re not taking me seriously," Blair nodded. "That’s okay, I didn’t really expect you to believe it without the evidence of your own eyes. That’s just the way you are." "Okay now, jokes over," Jim ordered, beginning to feel uneasy at the calm certainty in Blair’s voice. "You’re scaring your Sentinel here, okay?" Blair stood up, slapping Jim on the arm bracingly. "Don’t worry about it, man," he said cheerfully, and Jim felt a surge of hope. "Like I said, I didn’t expect you to believe me, but you needed to be prepared. And to understand what I have to do over the next few days." "Do?" Jim said, his heart back in his boots. He followed Blair to his room and watched as the young man flipped open a spiral notebook and ran his finger down a list. "My years sabbatical at the university starts Monday," Blair reported. "My I.D is all ready, just waiting for a photograph of the new improved me. I have some clothes, but I’m not sure what size I’ll be, so I’ll wait to-" "Stop, stop, stop!" Jim said, striding into the room and wrenching the notebook from Blair’s hand. Blue eyes looked up at him in surprise, and then understanding. "It’s okay, Jim," he said gently. "I know it’s hard to believe, really I do. I was twelve when Naomi changed, and believe me, having your mother turn into a man for a year is not something you get over real quick." "A year," Jim repeated numbly, more for something to say than anything else. His heart was tight with fear and dread had settled in his stomach like an unwelcome guest determined to stay. "Yeah, didn’t I mention that? The transformation is for about a lunar year. Don’t ask me why, like I said, the reasons for all this are lost in the mists of time." "Time," Jim agreed, mind racing. What was a man supposed to do when his partner and best friend suddenly chucked his gears and started trailing his chain? Should he call someone? Who? Jim?" Blair questioned, and Jim blinked, focusing on that youthful, stubbled face. Odd, how those blue eyes could look so sane, so reasonable, while all the time that once sharp mind was now being powered by a hamster running aimlessly in a wheel. "Chief, sit down for a second, okay?" Jim said gently, drawing the younger man to the edge of the bed. "Okay, Jim," Blair said amiably. Jim looked at him sharply for a moment, sure he detected humour in that guileless gaze. "Chief, if this is a joke, say so right now, okay? No bullshit." "It’s no joke Jim," Blair said dutifully. "Damn," Jim muttered. "I could have waited until my birthday, and let you wake up to the new me," Blair pointed out reasonably. "But that would have meant lying to you all week, while I quit being your partner at work and told everyone I was going away for a year. And I don’t want to lie to you, Jim." "You can’t lie to me," Jim reminded him blankly, absorbing the words. Quit being his partner? "No," Blair said meaningfully. "I can’t, can I?" Which was his subtle way of reminding Jim that he wasn’t lying now. "Damn," Jim repeated. "Okay Chief, I can see you really believe this... story. Fine, if you believe it, I do too, right?" "Right," Blair agreed, smiling with the corner of his mouth. "Humour the loony, Jim, it’s okay." "Well, what else am I supposed to do?" Jim exploded, not unaware of the irony of appealing for advice to the man he wanted advice about. "Play the waiting game," Blair counseled. "It’s not like I’m burning any bridges this week, right? Not quitting anything so much as taking some leave. Easily reversible if The Curse doesn’t kick in and I don’t become the beautiful B.J Sandburg, Blair’s intelligent young cousin from California." "Waiting game," Jim gasped, seizing the straw like a lifeline. "Yeah," Blair said, patting him on the arm kindly. "If I don’t change, well, you were right, and I need some help. If I do change, then you admit the universe is a lot weirder than you thought, and we make the best of the next lunar year, right?" "Loony year you mean," Jim muttered, feeling like he was on one of those crazy rides at the amusement park, being flung from despair to hope to suspicion to absolute terror. "And you’ll get help?" he insisted. "When you don’t... change, you’ll get help?" Blair laid a hand over his heart, a sincere smile on his face. "I promise," he swore. ******** So, Jim spent the weirdest five days of his life, even counting the time he went on heat for an evil slut-sentinel with homicidal tendencies. He watched Sandburg cheerfully going about the business of closing up his old life for a year, and opening up the way for a new life for a young woman named B.J Sandburg, who was spending a year studying Criminal Science at Rainier University, and who would be staying at Jim’s place while her cousin, Blair, traveled for his year’s sabbatical. Blair explained that Naomi had contacts who had made up enough I.D for him to get through the year, most of it just awaiting photographs. "I hope I’m attractive," Blair muttered to himself as he hung a pair of jeans on a hanger over the desk lamp. The jeans were old ones of his he’d accidentally shrunk while trying to age them, and he explained to Jim he’d kept them just in case they fit the new him. Jim resisted the temptation to stick his fingers in his ears as Blair quietly speculated on what his new shoe size might be, and whether he would have large boobs. Quietly, he thanked god that this week was almost over. Soon they would retire for the night, and in the morning Blair would awaken with the same shaped feet, no boobs, and all his manly bits intact. Then they could finally start to get past this lunacy and back to the real world. "I’m going to bed," Blair said, dropping down on the couch opposite Jim. "If I sit up any longer I really will drive myself nuts." Jim attempted a smile. "Night, Chief," he managed. Blair sighed. "I’m sorry all this has been so hard on you, Jim," he said sincerely. "I really thought about just telling you I was taking a real sabbatical for a year, and taking off." Alarmed, Jim raised his eyebrows. "Why didn’t you?" Blair’s smile faded and he raised one shoulder in a tiny shrug. "To tell you the truth," he said quietly. "I’m a little... scared." Jim felt his heart strings tug at the quiet confession. So Blair, the real Blair, was in there somewhere, and he still had enough sanity left to know he was in trouble. Jim stood and hauled Blair to his feet, wrapping a comforting arm around his waist in a manly hug. "It’ll be okay, Chief," he assured him, feeling for the first time in days that it just might be. "Really?" Blair said, looking into Jim’s eyes. Jim couldn’t resist noogying that frown-creased forehead. "Really," he repeated, chuckling as Blair laughed helplessly, squirming to get free from his restraining arm. "Go to bed, Chief," he advised, allowing the smaller man his freedom. "It’ll be okay in the morning, you’ll see." "Yeah," Blair agreed, nodding slowly. He smiled at Jim, staring at him for a long moment, as if he thought the older man was the one who was going to go away, and then he dropped a sly wink at him and turned on his heel. "Please let it be all right," Jim whispered to himself as Blair’s door closed behind him. ******** Sometime in the night an odd wind blew, stirring the old walls of the apartment and shaking the trees in the lot out back. The river beat restlessly against the creaking old docks, and down in the street an old soda can tumbled and rattled down the gutter. And then the odd wind died away, leaving only the night's silence behind it. ******** Jim listened as the wind faded, blinking away the mists of his deep sleep. Sounded like Cascade was in for some of its famous Autumn weather. He turned over, seeking a comfortable position and the return of sleep, but for some reason Morpheous would not be coaxed. The Sentinel scanned the area automatically, picking up his Guide’s breathing and heart rate first, and then widening his reach, tracking sleepers all through the building, and the swish of the wheels of one lone car as it passed the building and disappeared into downtown Cascade. He tracked back to Blair. Was his Guide’s heart rate a little different, his breathing a little off? Maybe the young man was sick? Knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, Jim climbed out of bed, shrugging into his worn old robe and jamming his feet into soft scuffs. He shuffled down the stairs, absently admiring the play of moonlight over the shining hardwood floors, and calculating it was well past midnight. At Blair’s door he paused, pushing it open a crack, smiling as the sound of steady breathing reassured him. Blair sounded fine from down here. He peered in. Breath froze in his throat as his mind raced to catch up with the information his senses were sending him. Blair's scent, Blair’s shape, the moonlight outlining the figure beneath the sheet, that unmistakably feminine scent trickling thought he open door. Suddenly Jim’s butt was on the hardwood floor, and the room was tilting crazily around him. The door slammed open with a crash as he hit the deck, and Blair sprang up in bed, his curls dancing madly around his face, his breasts bobbing beneath his vest. His breasts... Jim had never swooned in his life, but he was pretty sure that’s what he did as Blair thrust his legs out of the bed and stumbled over. "Jim?" he said urgently. "Are you... okay...?’ Blair’s hand went to his throat as a soft light voice emerged, and then he was gazing down at that soft female hand, and further down to that soft female swell of breasts. Jim could only watch as amazement turned to shock, then fear, and then dawning delight as realisation washed over the young man’s face in rapid succession. "It happened," he whispered. He stumbled back to the bed, fumbling for the bedside lamp and switching it on. Jim flinched, more from the sight of the heart-shaped butt presented to him, rather than the bright light. "It happened!" Blair repeated, shouted, crowed. His new voice was soft and low, and he couldn’t seem to get over it. "Listen to me, Jim," he said loudly, exultantly. "Look at me!" Jim couldn’t do anything else. His rational mind was telling him he should look under the bed, search the closet, put on his shoes and go looking for his Guide, as soon as he slapped this imposter silly for scaring him so badly. But his rational side didn’t have a patch on his Sentinel senses, which were under no illusions about this. This was Blair. There was no mistaking those bright blue eyes, those cheek bones, that firm little chin, which made his face distressingly heart shaped in this feminine incarnation. Those curls, framing the fine skinned face, now without a hint of stubble. Even the hands, the feet, the shape was Blair, but subtly altered so that they were unmistakably a woman’s hands, a woman’s feet. A woman’s body. Jim resolutely ignored the soft curve of breasts beneath the khaki vest, and the curved legs emerging from black shorts. Blair was running his hands over his arms, down his chest, to his legs. "I can’t believe it," he was saying. "I mean, I always knew it would happen, I always believed it would. But now, wow! Wow, Jim!" "Wow," Jim managed. His voice sounded like he had been screaming, and he remembered his joking comment about running around flapping his arms like a chicken. Should he be worried that the thought seemed vaguely appealing right now? "I have boobs," Blair said, pulling his vest away and peering down at his chest. "Hmm, B cup, I’d say. Mom was right." Suddenly Jim’s sense of self preservation kicked in, and without another sound he began to crawl away. The floor was comfortingly hard and real beneath his knees, and he locked his sight on the stairs. If he could make it upstairs, to his bed, then this would all be fine. This nightmare would be over and he wouldn’t have to face the reality of a partner who was now a size B cup. Of course, he knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, nothing in his life ever was. He made it through the kitchen before Blair noticed he was gone, and came trotting out. "Hey, Jim, are you okay, man? Why are you on the floor?" Jim ignored him, resolutely crawling along, eyes fixed firmly on the floor boards. Then he couldn’t ignore him any longer, Blair was crouching in front of him, reaching out and touching his head with slim fingers. Suddenly absolutely sure he didn’t want those alien hands anywhere near him, Jim drew back. Blair’s feminine scent was teasing his nostrils again, and Jim turned down his sense of smell with a savage twist. "Jim, man, you’ve got to snap out of this," Blair said quietly. "Go away," Jim said rudely, not meeting Blair’s eyes. He sat back, crossing his legs and looking over towards the window. It was still pretty dark outside, dawn was a long way off yet. "I can’t," Blair said sadly. "This is me now, for the next lunar year. Thirteen lunar months. Twenty-eight day months." "I... I don’t believe this," Jim persisted stubbornly, still looking away. His peripheral vision told him Blair was also sitting cross-legged on the floor. "I didn’t believe in spirit animals until one saved my life," Blair pointed out. "I didn’t believe in ghosts until one helped you solve a fifty year old murder." "Yes, you did!" Jim accused, whipping his head around to meet Blair’s eyes. The expression on that alien face was strangely familiar, and Jim met it ferociously. "You always believed in this weird shit! I’m the one who didn’t believe!" "So why does the weird shit always happen to you?" Blair asked sympathetically. Jim watched his lips form the words, heard the new voice say them, gazed into the blue eyes looking back at him with such empathy. "To me?" he whispered. "I’m not the one who turned into a woman." "I was wondering when you’d notice that," Blair chided. A chuckle burst out of Jim before he could help it, and then another. He held up a hand as tears of laughter streamed from his eyes. "Don’t hit me," he wheezed. "I’m not hysterical." "Well, I don’t know why not," Blair said reasonably. "I’ve had thirty years to get used to this idea. You’ve had five days." Jim was still chuckling, wiping at the tears on his face. "This is nuts!" "I know," Blair agreed. "You..." Jim pointed at Blair. "You have no dick!" And then he collapsed again, falling back on the floor, half laughing, half crying. Blair pulled back the loose waistband of his shorts and peered in. He then turned a look of mock mournfulness on Jim, making him crack up even further. "Please, Sandburg," Jim begged, holding his sides. "Please tell me this is just a nightmare." Blair reached out and pinched Jim’s side, drying up the other man’s laughter and making him yelp. "Ouch!" "Nope, not a dream," Blair reported. He stood up lithely, shapely legs unfolding, and stood looking down at Jim, hands on his hips. Her hips, Jim thought, eyes wide as they took in the full picture. "I’m gonna try on some of my clothes," Blair said. "You better practice calling me B.J." Jim just lay on the floor as Blair trotted away. "I need a drink," he muttered. "B.J." ******** End of Part One.
|
