AUTHOR: Demon Faith
FANDOMS: The West Wing, The Sentinel
PAIRINGS: Will Bailey/Blair Sandburg (Sam/Will and Jim/Blair implied)
SPOILERS: TWW - up to California 47th, nothing beyond. The Sentinel - set well after The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg (so pretty much everything)
RATING: PG-13
WARNINGS: Melancholy, angst, sexual situations
SUMMARY: The Seeker and The Lost - two men need saving from the shadows of their loves.
DISCLAIMER: The West Wing is the intellectual property of Aaron Sorkin, I care not what the world thinks; Pet Fly owned The Sentinel and did very well with it, bravo! I make no money from this pleasure.
NOTES: I am fond of Geeks in Glasses. It is undeniable that Will and Blair both fall into this category. Two-in-one was too good to resist - Neen said she knew I'd do it. No one is surprised, methinks.

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He was not a huge fan of smoky bars, of cheap beer and cheaper women. He avoided their eyes, slipped past carefully, and sat in the corner. Ordering a double vodka would make him look like an alcoholic, especially at noon on a Friday, but he was past caring by now. The girl gave him a look, but he dropped his eyes. He had some sense left.
He was not sure why he was taking this so badly. It wasn't a big deal, not important - he had a good job, a steady future. He worked at *The White House*, for goodness' sake, he had no personal stake in this. Except he did, a very personal entanglement indeed, and he went by the name of Sam.

Will shut his eyes, remembering the broken whisper amongst the static - "I lost. I lost everything." And he couldn't even lie to him, tell him that he still had Will, that they would get through this, because they both knew it for a lie. Will couldn't take Sam to him whilst they stood in the national spotlight, dance together as if it were just the moon and stars, not the flash of the press cameras in the night. Sam knew how much those could sting.

California called to him, an insistent tug on his soul - find Sam, drag him home, kiss it better. Yet maybe he wanted to be left: those were the vibes that rang out from that half-drunken telephone exchange that ended in heated words and Sam's angry slam of the receiver. The call had lessened now.

Toby had noticed his distraction - what a great show for the new boss - and had given him a weekend's leave. This could be his great surf-shop-trawl, but no, he was in an interstate bar, bleeding from the heart and watching the door as if his saviour, his dream would just wander through.

The door opened.

~

Another day, another bar on the road. Jim would call it the Gypsy's Curse - forever wandering, a restless soul. 'A little too much Wolf, Chief.' He could almost smile at that.

The police academy had a million dropouts cruising America; he was nothing special. His career had blown up, Jim had offered him another just like that - as if a lifetime's work could be a replaced by a pretty silver badge. He had always known that Jim lived on a different plane, but he had no idea just how distant it could be.

The argument had sealed it - so he had dropped some test grades, let his hair grow a little past regulation, talked back to a trainer… Simon had passed the buck to Jim, and Jim had exploded. 'I don't understand your problem, Sandburg. You've done this job for years, I just…' He had slipped into disappointment - oh, he could never handle Jim's disappointment.

There was a world of difference in watching Jim's back, protecting him from himself and juggling this Sentinel gig, and being the model cop Jim was used to. He would always ask questions first and shoot later, believe the woman and the child, long to touch Jim in public when everyone was watching, kiss him good in the Bullpen and claim him once and for all…

It was so much easier to simply dodge the bullets, and hold-up when one caught you, finally stop soliciting every girl's phone number and just sit Jim down for a much-needed conversation in the loft. That part had worked for a time, until the dissertation from Hell and his career suicide to save Jim's life.

Oh, it was worth it for certain; he could still say that now. All he had was himself - no job, no Jim and the barest smidgen of self-respect. It was with all this that Blair Sandburg entered yet another dive bar.

He shook out his hair, almost back to 'normal' now, and readjusted his glasses. The bar was dark and smoky - no chance of recognition as 'that geek liar', a good chance of half-decent liquor.

"You want a beer? You look like you need one."

He started at the voice and turned to the man moving from the darkest corner to perch at the far end of the bar. Jim called it the Depressed Drunkard's stool, and this guy seemed well on his way - short black hair, slightly mussed, eyes bleary behind his glasses, a slight frame that was misleading, if the grip he had on his glass is any indication. None of these things stopped Blair from pulling up a stool and accepting the offer. In fact, it rather encouraged him.

They drank in silence for a few minutes until Blair's curiosity got the better of him and he needed to know something about the man.

"So, uh…"

"Will."

Blair frowned, as the man turned to him with a tired smile. "And yes, there's a surname with that."

There wasn't much to say in reply. The man wore a crisp suit, and he fairly reeked of politics - this close to Washington, almost everyone picked up the stench. Here was a man with purpose, in a bar on a lonely road. The 'why' jumped to his lips, and Will started, pausing for a moment as if to assess the situation and work out the real question asked.

"Lost love," he said bitterly, with another half-smile that ached. Blair wondered if Jim smiled like that now when he thought of him.

"The lost," he muttered, and Will looked at him piercingly.

"Did you break her heart?"

"I hope not." Blair closed his eyes, ignoring the assumption easily enough.

"Then she was lucky."

The words cut him though he didn't know why. "She really hurt you."

"It doesn't matter." Will recovered himself, a glimmer in his dark eyes. "Another beer?"

"My round." Blair signalled to the barman and considered his new companion. There was much to observe, but all he could see was the pain taut beneath his skin, the longing for a woman who was not there.

And Blair thought of Jim.

~

Will knew the sensible thing would be to grab a motel room now and escape. He was too tipsy and tired to consider driving and his new friend was engaging and enthralling and…straight. Interesting company, with a trace of Sam's spark behind his soft eyes. They didn't burn like Sam's though, not the piercing ice and passionate blue flames of anger and desire. Oh, Will needed this break.

"I'm Blair, by the way. In the interest of full disclosure."

"Occupation?"

"Wanderer."

"Age?"

"Old enough."

"Girl's name?"

A moment of hesitation, then: "I've always liked Lita myself."

That earned him a hint of genuine mirth. Just a hint, but it was still there. The sparkling eyes were infectious.

"So when you said 'full disclosure'…?"

"I lied."

"Ah."

A man of secrets then - Will liked a good puzzle. And Blair - if that was indeed his name - was a puzzle. Even now he could see the guilt creeping over the open face, but Will wasn't sure if it was because of him or the nameless love of the not-so-distant past.

"His name is Jim," Blair said suddenly, his eyes glazing. "He's a cop in Cascade, and I was his partner. 'Police observer' they said, but I always had his back. Then…it went wrong, and I had to leave."

A few puzzle pieces slid into place, and Will found his mouth opening of its own accord and words flowing out.

"Sam had a dream and I just let it happen. It was my dream first - I wanted to elect a Democrat, and Sam just offered himself." Will sensed the barely-audible gasp, but ploughed on. "The campaign dragged us close, even though we were physically far away. It only took a night or two to fall, sparse hours snatched to complete the whole mess. Then, he fails." Will's voice flattened to a monotone. "And he leaves, no word to anyone. Just…gone. But I'm still here."

The silence weighed heavy between them, until Will felt a pressure on his hand and saw Blair staring at him intently.

"So am I."

The world blue-shifted, and Will was in another bar, another time, clutching a tie with a half-dazed smile on his face. He found himself gripping the hand hard, and pulling it closer to him, as if he would never let go. Within in a moment, he was standing, being led and he hadn't the strength nor will to stop it.

Because, for the first time in forever, he didn't feel alone.

~

Blair wasn't entirely sure of what he was doing, but his heart was threatening to beat out of his chest, and Jim's light eyes had sparkled from every spirit glass for too long now. He owed Jim nothing, he'd already given over every speck of loyalty he'd had.

He saw nothing wrong in taking Will - unsure, stuttering, sweet Will - over to the seedy motel, securing their hands as he dragged them on, heart quickening still. He had shunned comfort for too long, and here, now, was a man as much in need of it as him. Blair wouldn't deny either of them their hearts' needs tonight.

The clerk all but ignored them, collecting a signature and idly shoving over a key. Blair paid her no heed, seizing the tarnished metal before he lost this drive, the reckless need and rush that drove him to take a complete stranger to his bed.

But he wasn't so strange, was he? Blair felt he knew this soul, ache-torn as his own, feeling the pain that his Jim no doubt felt - Blair quashed that thought. There would be no Jim in his room tonight; only Will, the man currently hanging onto his arm as if it connected him to the earth and to life.

He fumbled with the key and, laughing, Will took it from his hand, casually slipping it into the lock. Blair could tell that the man was surprised by his own grace, but he wouldn't curse it tonight. He could curse nothing tonight - he wondered what was wrong with him, awash with alcohol or not. Blair Sandburg had been won over by a few heart-broken words and pain-filled eyes that screamed to be saved. He wondered if his eyes shrieked the same.

The door slammed and Blair slowly, reluctantly released Will's hand. He could guide him no further; he had never known how to decide, to force - his whole being was designed to merely guide, and that appeared to be all that stopped him. Will stared at him with suddenly brilliantly clear eyes, as if seeing him properly for the first time, all alcohol-dulled sense snapping into focus.

And he began to remove his jacket.

Blair smiled.

~

He'd only wanted a quiet, solitary drink, an opportunity to escape and remove himself from all that reminded him of Sam. His thoughts had hounded him though, but a gentle distraction had appeared. Now that distraction had him in a motel room, slowly removing his jacket and starting a dance that would probably end badly, end him.

Will found himself completely uncaring. He needed someone, and that someone was here, in as much pain as he was and willing to help him through this day at least. One less day of hollow half-grief was the best he could manage right now, and he wanted that more than anything.

Despite the nagging feeling that he was being unnaturally selfish, he blamed Sam, for leaving him, for abandoning *them*. It was a stupid, irrational thought, because there was no them and there could never be. Perhaps they could have encounters like these, stolen moments in hotel rooms and interstate motels, but that wasn't what Will wanted for them, not really. He always fell quickly, and Sam had been no exception.

He could never have Sam now. He had to settle for comforting his battered soul.

//But you haven't suffered// his demons railed //Sam lost all, and you just lost your heart. What does that matter, really? Blair has nothing, and it's your pain that consumes you. He needs you!//

Will moved without conscious thought, close to Blair, close enough to touch, to breathe, to absorb. The first kiss was hard and fast, but then he moved to pacify, long strokes of his tongue as he buried his hands under the jacket that clung to Blair's figure. The jacket joined his on the floor, and his tie was tugged from his neck.

The folds collapsed gracefully to the floor, and Will barely paid attention to Sam's gift becoming buried in more and more cloth until it was only two men and gauze-like motel sheets, deep sunlight bathing them as the curtains shifted with the window breeze. Will struggled to focus on Blair, as the man gently reached up to pull aside Will's glasses, smiling as he did so.

Sam was growing his hair, wasn't he? In a few months, years, it could look almost like Blair's, softly falling in twisted layers. The glasses were quite similar really, almost Sam-like, but that wasn't really it at all, that wasn't what had brought him here. When Blair smiled, the room didn't catch fire and his eyes were not the reflecting pools that Sam's could be.

But Blair had something darker to him, an edge of living outside the rules that the clean-cut Sam Seaborn had never possessed. He smiled with shadows, and Will could draw on that now to anchor him to this man and not his own unhappy past. He wanted to be with Blair today, even if he only knew a fraction of the enigma that kissed urgently, fought playfully.

He could drown here, in Blair and oblivion.

He chose to live, and know, and hurt a little less.

~

It was dusk when Blair began to stir, instantly conscious of the man curled into him, hand resting in his. He carefully shifted out from under the peacefully sleeping Will, dressing hurriedly.

It was meant to be a comfort, a healing for them both, a time to forget. And it had been, it had cleansed his soul in a way that months of running had failed to achieve. Then, as Will gasped his name, softly against his lips, it had become something more than just a distraction. It had become about them, together, one.

Madness, utter madness: Blair knew his heart was Jim Ellison's even as he had grown to hate the fact. The thought that a man from a bar could somehow change that years-old constant was unthinkable. Yet maybe he hadn't changed it at all - Blair still felt the ache for his Jim, but a new, light spark burned for the sprawled motel angel slumbering on the bed.

He couldn't be hurt again like that; he had to keep moving, resist anything, anyone, tying him down. If he possessed, he could lose, and he wasn't prepared for that kind of pain again with no hope of comfort.

Before he knew it, his hand was on the door handle and he was about to open it and flee. His hand strayed to his pocket, the battered notepad secluded there with its chewed stub of a pencil. He could leave no forwarding address, no number to call, but he could leave something, anything, to end this properly, as it deserved.

One-night stands needed closure now, it seemed. Maybe one-*day* stands were different. He smiled then, a free smile, one he hadn't felt for what seemed like an eternity. Will had given him that, and that would be lingering with him for a while now. Another ghost, another memory. But a good one - yes, a good one.

Blair made it back to the door and, with one last look at his peaceful Will, he turned his back and stepped back into the world.

~

Will awoke to pure darkness and groped for the light. The lamp cast haphazard shadows across the room, pooling around his pile of clothes on the floor. His clothes.

He sat up, regretful when the world tilted and he had to lie back again. That check had been enough though - Blair was gone, forever gone, and Will was back to being alone. They had both known it was temporary, transitory, but it still seemed wrong somehow, a second emptiness settling on his heart.

Reluctantly, he tried to rise again, and succeeded on the third attempt. He reached for his glasses but stopped, his hands hovering above the table. His trembling fingers reached for the small slip of paper, drawing his glasses with it and slipping them on his nose.

A few blinks to focus and then he read, read again and chuckled to himself.

"Yes, Blair," he whispered, "'Au revoir' indeed. And thank you."