Blame by Glacis. Rated NC17, spoilers for
season two episodes of Without a Trace.
No copyright infringement intended.
FBI~FBI
“Martin.”
He looked up from the file to see Jack staring down
at him. The light was too low to tell
for certain, but it looked like there were tears in Jack’s eyes. Martin swallowed. His mouth was dry. This was it.
He was out. Viv
was out. It was all his
fault.
“I got the report back from OPR. You and Vivian are cleared for duty.”
His mouth fell open, but he couldn’t for the life
of him think of a thing to say. The
stare in Jack’s eye sharpened to a glare, and his voice dropped until only
Martin could hear what he said.
“Don’t ever lie to me again.”
I didn’t want to!
I told her we should go to you but…
Martin couldn’t squeeze the words out past his tight
throat. “Sorry. I’m sorry,” he finally choked.
Jack glared at him for a moment before, the disappointment
edging out the anger and crushing Martin where he sat. Jack nodded, once, abruptly, then turned on
his heel and stalked off.
Martin sat there, staring blankly. A few minutes later Viv
stomped around the corner. Martin
transferred his stare from the wall to Viv. He had no idea how bewildered he looked. He’d done what she told him. It was all his
fault. He didn’t know what to do
now. Her expression hardened. She’d told him one of them should tell Jack,
so he had. Wasn’t that what she wanted
him to do? He was confused. About everything, except
one thing.
He was to blame for all of it.
Viv didn’t say anything. She walked
past him, over to her desk, dumped some files on it and started reading
them. Martin swiveled in his chair, looked
at her for long enough for her to say something if she’d wanted to, before
giving up and returning to his own work.
The case continued on without them. Martin watched the wife of the prime suspect
go into Jack’s office, coming out half an hour later in custody. Looked like the wife was
the prime suspect herself. Martin
sighed.
There wasn’t a damned thing here for him to
do. His head was splitting, nobody was
talking to him, and he didn’t know what to say if anyone tried. He gave it up as a bad deal and did something
he almost never did.
He went to a tavern on east 93rd where
the bartender didn’t ask questions. He
ordered a shot of Drambuie, no ice, then two more
shots when the first one didn’t make a dent in his headache. By the fourth shot he couldn’t remember why
he didn’t do this very often. Until Jack sat down next to him.
Oh, yeah, that was it. Drinking made him nuts. Funny, though. A good
“What does guilt do to you?” the hallucination who
looked and sounded just like Jack asked quietly, accepting a beer from the
bartender.
“Talk when I think I’m just thinking,” Martin
informed it solemnly. The mirage
nodded. “Like now. I hated lying to you, you know. But she was right. It was my fault. All of it. If I’d’a told you
like I wanted to I’d’a felt better cuz I c’n take my lumps but she said it would be…” he lost his train
of thought.
The Jack-image had the kindest eyes. Martin shook away some of the fuzz from his
brain and decided the world looked better fuzzy, so he picked up the fifth
shot, already lined up like a little soldier.
A hand came out to stop him but he got it down before warm fingers
wrapped around his wrist. “Wow, for a ‘lucination you’re really… hot.”
The Jack-image blinked at him. Martin sighed, feeling his eyes tearing up,
hating himself a ridiculous amount at that moment. Not, unfortunately, enough to keep his mouth
shut, though.
“She said it’d be her ass on the line, cuz daddy’s little boy would come through the shit
stink-free. She’s probably right. She’s usually always probably right. But I wanted to tell you. But she said no, cuz
what could you do? Hell, dad’s already
gone after you with a shotgun, practically, he’s just lookin’
for an excuse, and my fuck-up’s all the ‘scuse he’d
need. My fault. I din’t want to lie
to you. Hated that. See, this is why I don’t drink. I can’t shut the fuck up. I’m stupid when I’m drunk. She was still right.”
“No,” the weirdly-warm Jack-dream said firmly. “You were right. Your instincts were right. Don’t ever lie to me. We can work with anything as long as you tell
me the truth.”
God, he was incredible. Smart and empathetic and brilliant and a lot
of other multi-syllabic complimentary but true adjectives Martin couldn’t
remember because his brain was pickled.
And he was warm.
So Martin leaned over and kissed him.
To his dim surprise, he didn’t fall right through
the dream-Jack. In fact, strong hands
caught him by the shoulders and held him in place; while dream-Jack didn’t kiss
him back, he didn’t punch him, either, which was an encouraging sign. At least Martin’s subconscious wasn’t
homophobic. Just confused. Sad. Guilty.
Horny.
“Think I need a cab,” Martin muttered in the ear of
his hallucination. “I’m gonna pass out soon, and the bartender isn’t gonna be too happy ‘bout me kissing a guy nobody else can
see.” The Jack-mirage opened its mouth
to say something and Martin filled it with his tongue.
Hmm. Dream-Jack tasted really
good. Like coffee and imported beer.
And shock.
It wasn’t a very long kiss, for all it was a pretty
deep one. Martin pulled himself back the
best he could without falling off his stool, and propped one elbow on the bar,
resting his cheek on his hand.
“Bartender,” he asked politely, “please.
Cab. Home. Now.”
The world fuzzed out a little after that. It seemed like the bartender and imaginary
Jack had a conversation, but that must have been the whiskey talking. Not long afterward he was in a car, and it
looked like Jack was driving, but that fit in with the whole drunken
Jack-taking-care-of-Martin theme of the evening, so Martin drifted and ignored
what couldn’t be happening.
Then they were at Martin’s door, though Martin
didn’t remember giving the cabbie his address.
That was okay, though, because warm ghost Jack was gingerly patting his
pockets looking for his keys, and if Martin hadn’t been plastered off his feet
it wouldn’t have gotten him hard. And
getting hard because your hallucination was accidentally feeling you up was
just pathetic, so it was a good thing nobody’d ever
know.
Martin told his imaginary companion every thought rambling through his brain as
he fumbled the keys out of his pocket and into the warm hand. Then he stumbled through the doorway on the
heels of his hallucination, kicked the door shut using muscle memory because
his aim was fucked, pulled the heavy black coat off the broad shoulders, pinned
the hallucination to the door so it couldn’t get away, and kissed it again.
It was hard.
Which apparently surprised the dream Jack as much as
it did Martin, because suddenly the warm hands were hard, too, pushing him
away, and Martin didn’t want that at all.
“Please,” he said, and “I’m sorry,” and “I’ll never
do it again,” and “My fault.” Somewhere
in there he’d wrestled his imaginary boss and maybe lover to a standstill and
gotten the black trousers undone and the cotton boxers pushed out of the way
and the hard hot real-tasting cock in his mouth. And the hard hands were on his head, then in
his hair, and they weren’t hard anymore, but they were still warm.
And Jack tasted like bitter salt, as much as coffee
and beer. But at least Martin wasn’t
talking anymore.
Neither was Jack.
In the morning, Martin woke up with a splitting
headache. A glass of water and three
aspirin were on the table next to the bed.
His jacket, tie, belt and shoes were off. His shirt was untucked. His knees were sore, and so was his jaw. He’d come in his pants.
He didn’t remember getting hard.
He also didn’t remember getting to bed. Everything was pretty blurry after the first
couple shots of whiskey. He’d dreamed of
Jack, and guilt, and Viv, and his father, then Jack
again.
Somehow, he had a suspicion that Jack tasted like
coffee and beer and salt. He also knew
he’d never find out for sure. Because Jack would never say a word. And Martin would never ask.
It was all Martin’s fault.
Again.
END