The Wrong End of the Story

Sentinel Fanfiction
Title:	The Wrong End of the Story
Author(s):	Julad and Calico
Date(s):
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	The Sentinel
External Links:	online here
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The Wrong End of the Story is a Jim/Blair story by Julad and Calico.

Author's Notes

"Julad's notes: I started this a very very long time ago. Like, 1998 ago. I dreamed this story, and then scribbled it down at three in the morning. But in trying to tell it, I had bitten off far more than I could chew at the time. I left huge plot holes and made massive mistakes, so it was abandoned over and over as a lost cause. Calico came on board, wrote huge sections, and got a lot of the story fixed inbetween months of neglect. Today I came over all TS-reminiscent, plugged a few words into the remaining missing scenes, and lo-- a complete story.

It's not what either of us would have written today, so consider this a blast from the past, a digitally remastered eighties film, newly released on DVD. The hair is bad, the fashion is worse, and the set design looks cheap, but if you're feeling nostalgic for the old excesses, enjoy the flashback.

Finally, I completely fucked up the timing on the semester and seasons, being from the wrong hemisphere and all. I tried to fix it but it was mostly too late. Close your eyes and pretend it's an Alternate Universe with a different calendar or something."

Reactions and Reviews

First, don't let the author's notes bother you and take away from the joy of reading. This is a wonderful thrilling, creepy slash-story, well written and even so much more, set in a canon-universe. It's kind of a horror-story, but not a slasher-movie (not much blood-loss here) more the “Is this real?”-kind of type when casual situation turns into something frightening and your usual world suddenly turns upside down - or maybe not and what frightens you is only your imagination? The end left tendrils of doubt and insecurity in my mind, like ghostly traces of mist over empty fields in fall, although it is mostly a happy end.

It starts out as a pretty casual story/scene. The two of them away from Cascade, their journey home via plane is delayed because of bad weather but because they both have to be back in Cascade at a certain time they rent a car. They drive through bad winter-weather, it's slow going, it's night. They're a little bored, a little over-tired, a little stressed out by the problems they had up to this point and a little edgy. All they want is to go home …

Don't let yourself being thrown out by the Jim-characterization at the beginning. Things change, the impression you get changes, layers are stripped away in a manner that really requires your attention to follow Jim's motivations of why he does what he does.

And while reading: every time you go *huh?* take a short break and think about the location, time, situation, state of mind and being and the fact how certain circumstances influence your ability to think and perceive clear and in a logical way.

And when you finally reach the end of the story, take a second to think about why the things Jim says are so important at this point and at this moment and try to image how you (or Blair) would feel *if* Jim had not said this things.

Beyond the obvious plot, it's a story about the power of words and the power that knowledge of another person gives you over this person.

I don't want to say more in order not to spoil the story, but for those of you who want to read my thoughts and interpretations on certain scenes of the story, either before (careful: big spoilers) or after you read it, you're welcome to take a look at my livejournal here, ^{Archived version}.

Creepy, wild, fabulous and terrifying. A walk through madness in beautiful language. Personally, I would've preferred a darker ending, but we all know I'm perverse.