New TS fic. Night 'verse

[castalie]

Title: Two Hundred Dollar Worth
Pairing: Jim/Blair
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 200
Story Notes: Set in my AU Night 'verse. The Cliff's Notes would be: Blair is a prostitute and Jim isn't a cop. They are together, though. Then again, what universe would that be if they weren't, right?
Story Notes 2: Written for sentinel_thurs's 200th challenge, the prompt being '200 + 200 words'

Thank you to both turps33 and starwatcher307 for the encouragements and help :-)

---

Before Jim, Blair's secret to continuing the routine of getting up in the morning and going outside at night and making himself available - making himself a commodity - was to hide behind the walls he had erected from an early age.

Kids build Lego forts in their rooms to have fun. Blair had built solid walls around him to stay sane.

It’s said that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? It’s the same principle; what doesn’t touch you can’t hurt you.

It was a pretty easy lesson to learn, really. Or so Blair has convinced himself. He learned it fairly young, and he’s damned proud of it.

So that’s the secret that helped him keep going before Jim. It wasn't so bad. Because, hey, at least he still kept going, right?

But after Jim, things aren’t the same.

Now, the secret to continue getting up in the morning and going outside at night and making himself available - a commodity - is to believe.

Believe that he’s worth something. That he’s worth much more than the two hundred dollars crumpled in his fist tonight.

And if that's too difficult? Then the secret is to believe that Jim, at least, believes it.

Comments

[starwatcher]

.
Great story; such a punch in so few words. As you so often do in this series, it's bittersweet, yet still hopeful. That last line just makes my throat go all tight. Well done!
.

[castalie.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the kind words: I'm overjoyed each time someones described the series using words like 'bittersweet yet still hopeful' because that's exactly how I see it myself so I'm always thrilled to see that I succeeded in showing just that :-)