It is a peculiarly lovely thing, the sight of Blair's hand wrapped so carefully
around the stem of his glass, the side of his thumb and forefinger just
cradling the base of the goblet. He releases the glass as Jim pours water into
it, knowing, perhaps, that Jim will be able to hear the slight, singing sound
of the crystal as it fills, and then he silences the vibrations with the
careful touch of fingers, as if orchestrating sound itself for Jim's pleasure.
When Blair finally lifts the goblet to his lips, he handles the crystal as
though he's afraid it will fly to pieces in his grasp.
Jim looks away so Blair won't see his rueful smile. He's thinking that if the
goblet can survive Blair's elaborate caution, it will survive anything.
They eat, and Blair talks about his day. His new 101 class seems brighter than
the last batch, but they're starting kinship relations next week and that's
always the acid test. Blair chuckles to himself. In fact, Chagnon has this
footnote about the way professional anthropologists themselves will skip over
the kinship stuff. It's really pretty funny. He takes a quick sip of water from
the goblet and says, "Just a second. I've got the book in my bedroom. You
have to hear this."
He sets the glass down on the edge of the table as he gets up, and for an
instant it teeters on the very cusp of being salvageable.
Jim sees it going, but Blair is already too far away.
It's too late to grab for it, too late to yell.
Jim simply closes his eyes and waits for the crash, his face composed, then
opens his eyes and smiles at Blair kindly, seeing the horrified realization
there.
Blair is frozen in his tracks. "Oh, Jim." Utterly heartsick.
"I'm so sorry." He kneels and tries to pick up the silvery, needle
thin shards with his bare hands.
"Sandburg." Jim knows the tone of his voice will stop Blair, and he
uses it deliberately, wanting him to leave the pieces alone before he's cut.
"Just leave it, please."
He finally moves, heading for the counter to get the dustpan and whisk broom
from the cabinet under the sink as Blair rocks back on his haunches, a few
shards cradled in his palm, shoulders hunched in misery. "Your
grandmother's crystal, Jim. And I broke it."
There's a slight feeling in the pit of Jim's stomach, a sense of loss of
something beautiful that had meant something to him. But he also knows quite
consciously that he had made the deliberate choice to use the glasses rather
than pack them away. A calculated risk, and one that had just played out pretty
much the way he'd expected
He can't say it's OK, because it wouldn't be completely true. "Don't worry
about it. Just be careful - those pieces are sharp." He kneels beside
Blair and holds out the dustpan for him, but Blair just keeps holding his
broken pieces, looking down at his hand, at the glittering pool of water and
glass spread out around him.
Jim begins to realize he should have brought a towel too; his own knee is
getting soaked through his jeans where it rests on the floor. The glass had
been nearly full. He watches an ice cube finish its lazy frictionless spin and
come to rest against the table leg.
"Is there any way to replace it?" Blair asks quietly. His voice is
shaking. "Like those places that find old china patterns and stuff."
There probably is, Jim thinks, but he wouldn't do it. He knows himself well
enough to know that a replacement glass would bother him worse than the broken
set, somehow. It wouldn't ever exactly match, the scratch pattern on the
crystal would be different from different users, and he would always know which
one it was.
Blair still holds those fragments in the palm of his hand, wishing so
desperately that he could undo the last minute of his life and save that poor
doomed goblet Jim can feel it rising from him like heat. He reaches out, wraps
his fingers around Blair's wrist, and gently tilts his hand so the few shards
he's holding fall out of his palm and into the dustpan. They make a light,
pretty sound as they hit, and one hums to itself in that faint singing voice
Jim knows so well.
He tilts his head to listen to it, eyes sliding half closed at the note dying
away. So pure and clear that he follows it, opening his hearing to catch the
last of it, wondering at how the tone stays so perfect.
There's blood on Blair's hand. Jim sees it as the last note ends. He has the
slightly unsettling sense that he has been away longer than he intended. He's
still holding Blair's wrist gently, and for some reason, Blair is not speaking.
He draws Blair's hand up and says in quiet exasperation, "Broken glass is
sharp, Sandburg. I asked you to be careful."
"I know." Blair's words are so low even Jim's still-sensitive hearing
isn't assaulted. Instead he hears something else in them, not just the familiar
sound of Blair's voice, or the hoarseness of his control, but some faint echo
of that clear ringing crystal tone, a hint of the same purity in Blair's
half-breathed words.
"Come on," Jim says gruffly, feeling both awed and shaken. He lays the
dustpan down on the floor, hearing the grinding of the smallest fragments
underneath the metal, and draws Blair up with him as he stands, still holding
Blair's wrist. His regret for the broken crystal is changing into something
else, an emotion with no taint of grief or loss about it.
"Jim?"
Instead of answering Jim pulls him close. He ducks his head to lay his cheek
against Blair's. Temple to temple, he can feel the faint, sweet singing in his
bones.
Fin
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