Disclaimer: The main characters are not mine, this is an amateur effort written purely for the fun of it, and no money has exchanged hands, and it is not intended to breach the copyright of Paramount and Pet Fly Publication.

With thanks to Lois, Gail, and Nancy for the beta reading and the input.

This story is for Dawn, Meercat, Sabrina, Olwyn, Rogue, Lois, Gail, Nancy and for everyone that has helped me through the year.

For Eileen for all your help and support, without you there would never be web page.

Wishing you all a most Happy Christmas.

Best Wishes

Sue

Set in the GDP Series.

This story comes after the events of Making of a Dark Guide, and those in the story curve of Be Sure your sins.

Sentinel Christmas

Blair

Blair stood back from the Christmas tree.  His head tilted slightly to one side as he examined it almost critically.  He moved forward to adjust a piece of tinsel.  It was a sensory feast of colour. With great reverence he took the tissue paper covered parcel from his partner James Ellison, and unwrapped a crystal angel for the tree.  Holding it up to the light Blair could see the colours of the tree reflecting in the ornament’s ridges and plains. 

Jim stood behind him and slid his arms round Blair’s waist, pulling the smaller man against him.  Blair patted Jim’s arm and allowed his body to sink back against the much larger man.  His mind opened, his barriers dropping, allowing Jim to join with him. 

Together they placed the angel on the tree, in its place of honour next to the crystal bell from their first Christmas together as Sentinel and Guide.  All together they had been bonded for eighteen months, which now included two Christmases.

A lot had changed in those eighteen months, Blair mused, as he revelled in the feeling of being cherished and cared for.

He had arrived at the Cascade PD a beaten and abused Guide, thrown at the feet of an out-of-control Sentinel. Instead of a monster, Blair had found his salvation in one James Joseph Ellison. 

The man should have been a nightmare.  He was ex-military, a cop, all hard edges, ‘my way or the highway’.  Yet he had let Blair take control of his own life.  Allowing the Guide to pick the way he wanted to bond.  Knowing the traumatic effect of lying on his stomach, pinned down, he had let the Guide find the most comfortable position. Jim had been patient when Blair had woken him in the night screaming at night terrors, taking him to his bed to make sure that he slept and felt safe and protected, cocooning him in his Sentinel’s arms and senses.

He could have been treated as nothing more than a tool to help his Sentinel work; instead he had been treated as a person, given his life back.

Blair smiled as he felt Jim dip his head and scent at his neck, so he tilted his head back exposing more of his throat.  His empathic power reached out and wrapped around Jim’s mind, soaring as he felt it open at his touch.  There were no barriers between them.  He could hear the big guy purring against him, and he knew that the rest of the tree and dinner could wait.

All through the day in the Bull Pen, he had been aware of the small touches to his arm, his back, his shoulders.  Translated into the language he was fluent in -- Jim Speak -- his Sentinel wanted to bond.  The need was not strong enough to result in him being tugged into the Sentinel suite, but it gave a promise of a Sentinel night once they got home.

Early in their pairing Jim had found it hard to put into words all his needs, which had resulted in some spontaneous primal pouncing.

Blair could not stop a smile as he remembered one incident that stood out.  Jim had pounced, and he had managed to avoid it only to find himself trapped and thrown over a broad shoulder, carried upstairs, tossed onto the bed, pinned, and expertly stripped. 

Blair suppressed a laugh as he remembered his clothes laying scattered round the room, the tee shirt hanging from the light fitting. A none too controlled Sentinel had worked his way over Blair, mapping, touching, sniffing, and nuzzling him as he had been claimed right down to the bone, all because an insane Sentinel had made the mistake of trying to force Blair to his knees and claim him. There had not been enough of the guy left to make a smear on the wall. 

Jim had been mortified when he had come back to his senses, in more ways than one, and Blair had had to talk pretty quick, blurring a few facts to get him to calm down. He’d known his Sentinel well enough even then to know that he needed control, and the primal scared him, only recently was he starting to embrace it.

Blair was honest enough to acknowledge that the sheer size and power of Jim Ellison had been intimidating.  But then he had realised that Jim was a pussycat where his Guide was concerned.  Jim would rather cut off a hand than hurt him. His own personal fluffy, 6 foot 2 inch, Sentinel teddy bear. Blair chuckled at the mental picture. Jim was the one person that would never hurt him.

As he stood in front of the Christmas tree he could feel the bond increasing, like the buildup of molten lava in a volcano.  The tension in the body that held him, the low growl, then the nip to his throat that made him gasp.  Yes, it was nearly time.

The bond between them burned with a passion that blotted out all other feelings.  It was not a sexual union, although he had heard others say different.  It was the ultimate connection between Sentinel and Guide, more intense than any carnal experience, and he had had more than a few of those.  The primal bonding was more charged and intense.

But tonight it would be slow and mellow, the moment he stepped into the apartment he had known that Jim would remain close, the gentle touches would increase, as did the need for the Sentinel to connect.  Blair had been surprised that Jim had managed to wait long enough for them to even put the tree up.

The bond marked the joining of two minds, information and memories, thoughts and emotions, exchanged between them in a millisecond.

But Jim hesitated, and he felt a shimmer through their link.

“Good news, Mine.”  Jim’s voice was a whisper against the young man’s ear, Blair could feel the breath brush his skin.  The endearment was pure Sentinel; it could be thought of as a Sentinel proclaiming his ownership of the Guide, but in the bonding link, Blair knew differently.  It was Jim’s way of reassuring him that they were one.

He patted Jim’s arms, the word always warmed him. Then he felt a joyful excitement bubbling through his Sentinel’s mind.

“Dr. Claydove called me to the Institute today.”

“Jim, you should have called me. I would have...”  Blair found himself silenced by a finger to his lips.

“You were where you should be, taking your exam.  That was more important.  Now Dr. Claydove has told me that in two years time the laws governing the treatment of Guides is up for renewal.  Only this time, they’re going to be abolished, because Claydove has the backing now. He’s bringing in a pilot programme of Guide emancipation in Cascade.  It’s a two-year programme to monitor the changes needed.  You already have your own bank account, and as of the 25th of December, the use of the leash on a Guide is abolished -- it’s now illegal.  You no longer have to kneel to anyone, and that includes Claydove. If you’re discriminated against, it’s illegal. The rest comes in on the 1st of January.”

Blair began to lose his breath.  Immediately he felt himself spun round and a concerned Jim was coaching him with his breathing and helping him to the sofa as he felt his legs began to give way.

“Oh my God!  How?  Why?”

“Money, Chief.  Political power, lots of factors.  But the impression I got was that Claydove has been working to this for a while, and finally all the pieces have come together.  It's also got something to do with the New GDP that Slater has been recruiting.  I know its not going to change overnight.  There are going to be GDP, and Sentinels, who are going to fight the changes.  But there will be changes, and they will be here to stay, I promise.” 

Jim cupped Blair’s face, and his thumb brushed away the tears that fell.

“I am just sorry it took so long, and that you... that I...” He trailed off.

“Jim, you protected me.  Sometimes you had no choice but to make me kneel, and to leash me.  But don’t you think that I could feel through our link your disgust, your loathing, when you did it?  You hated it, man. I know that.”  Slightly shakily, he added.  “Jim... claim your Guide.”

Sentinel Christmas

Jim

Jim Ellison was well aware of his reputation at the PD.  He would have to have been blind and deaf not to notice the way that other people reacted to him.  But he honestly had given up even caring anymore.  They got just what they saw. 

He had made an effort with Carolyn, though, allowing her inside the walls of his heart.  But as his marriage faltered, so too the walls rose again until she had also been locked out.  His only salvation had been Major Crimes and a captain who'd had the guts to take him in.  If Simon hadn’t, Jim had the common sense to know that he would have been in the morgue by now.  No one could keep bucking the odds he had.

Now he was no longer alone; he had been given a Guide.  They who had taken away his freedom of choice in the name of saving his life, had given him the one thing that he had run from, a Guide.

He could still remember the filthy, stinking creature they had thrown at his feet, as if they were feeding a tender morsel to a wild animal. That had been Blair Sandburg, his future Guide; frightened and abused, the young man had still tried to do his best for Jim.

Jim sat on the edge of the bed they used as a bonding platform.  The GDP still had a fit over that, but Jim and Blair had used it to start with because he had refused point blank to allow his injured Guide to lie on something as hard as an exercise mat.  Now he watched his Guide sleep, his second favourite Guide pastime.

Blair was so mellowed out by the bond that he had sunk into a peaceful sleep.  Reaching out, Jim placed his hand on Blair’s stomach, and then lightly brushed his ribs.  In his sleep, his Guide tried to brush Jim’s hand away, ticklish.

But he had felt what he needed.  His Guide was putting on weight, and it was staying on.  The doctors had given the Sentinel all sorts of warnings about his Guide’s mental state, that Blair might have eating disorders, even be suicidal.  But Blair had come through the horrific ordeal reasonably intact. 

That wasn't to say that he didn't have flashbacks, but they had learned to deal with them, day by day, one at a time.

Now Jim’s life was built around the hyperactive bundle who he'd taken into his life. Other Sentinels might laugh, but they certainly never did it to his face.  His world was his Guide, and he would make a difference for Blair.

Some of the GDP might think that they could ignore the new rules, and he knew there would still be people who would be prejudiced against Guides.  You couldn’t change people overnight -- tell them one day a person was a virtual slave, and the next tell them the same person was a citizen, and expect the change over to run smoothly.

The Clan meeting in the New Year was going to prove interesting, but he already had the backing of the other Sentinel Primes.  And Simon Banks had already started the transition at Major Crimes, making sure the officers were all aware of the changes.

Blair reached up and snagged the front of Jim’s sweater.  He pulled him down, pushing and tugging until he got in the position he wanted, and then virtually climbed onto Jim.

The growl he gave Blair wouldn't fool anyone; Jim was where he wanted to be.  When Blair stretched out over him into his favourite position of a curly head on Jim’s shoulder, face pressed to his throat and an arm round his waist, Jim just sighed contentedly and tightened his grip on the smaller man.

Later they would eat, but now it was just enough they were together. Overhead, the first of the winter snow began to fall onto the skylight.  It was cold out, but inside the loft, warm and safe. 

He pulled Blair a little tighter and then cocked his head to one side as he heard the mechanism on the old clock tower opposite the loft draw itself up to chime midnight. Just as it struck, he whispered,  “Merry Christmas, Blair.”

“Merry Christmas Jim.”  Blair’s voice was slightly muffled by the sweater, but there was no mistaking the increase in the hug.

Together they would face the future, and the challenges of the New Year, with relish.  It would not be easy.  But they would win.  Cascade, and the GDP, would never be the same again, because no one would ever stand against the Clans.

The End

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