Sentinel Fic 'Legacy' Jim/Blair NC17 3/4

[janedavitt]

See Part One for warnings.



Blair dumped his few belongings onto the floor by the bottom bunk and gave Ellison a blank stare, looking straight through him.

"You going to keep sulking for long?" Ellison inquired, lying on the top bunk and looking indecently relaxed.

"For the rest of my life," Blair said. He started to make up his bunk with quick, irritable movements.

"You're still thinking that's measured in hours? Look, King gave you to me; he's probably already picking out another sweet young thing to take your place. He's not going to risk --"

"Risk what?" Blair demanded. "He's a murderer; what's one more victim? Where's the risk? He's already in prison for life. And no one will care if I die. It won't even go on his record, because he'll do it when no one's looking, when there's no one to see --"

"You know I'd care, hell, I'd fall to pieces, but since it's not going to happen, forgive me if I don't get worked up over the prospect." Ellison sat up, his legs dangling over the side. He'd stripped down to a T-shirt and shorts and his feet were bare, the fragile skin across the top of them looking supple and soft. Blair saw the purple bruises mottling Ellison's shins and felt a pang of sympathy that faded as Ellison continued. "You're not special to him; just another punk. When I called in the favor his brother owed me, King didn't look pleased, no, but he didn't look broken-hearted either, sorry to break it to you, buddy."

"You make it sound as if I want him to miss me."

"I'm starting to wonder."

"Fuck you."

Ellison smiled good-naturedly. "You want to do that, babe, go for it. I'm all yours, remember? And that most definitely includes sex."

"Go fuck yourself, then," Blair said, his temper frayed to breaking point.

"Want to watch me try?" Ellison placed his hand on his groin, cupping his balls, and raised his eyebrows.

"Fine," Blair said coldly. "Have it your way. I'm safe, you're a Sentinel, and we're destined to be together. Got it. And when I'm bleeding out from a shiv in my ribs, it's going to be comforting to know how upset you'll be."

Ellison considered that for a moment and then lay down again, tucking his hands behind his head. "I think I prefer you sulking."

"Why are you so -- happy?" Blair demanded after struggling to keep his resolve to maintain a dignified silence. "You're making jokes, you've got this smile on your face -- You've called in the one favor you had, you've signed up to service that sadistic fuck of a guard, and you've pissed off King -- yes, you have. He's pretending to be okay with this, and you handled it so he didn't lose face, but he knows he was forced to let go of me and he’ll hate that." Blair took a deep breath. "And can I just point something out?"

"Sure."

"When I decided to let King fuck me, it was my choice. Mine. I'm not property and you don't get to decide I'm yours. With King kicking me out, I had no -- I had to come in here, but I'm asking to be reassigned tomorrow."

"No, you're not." Ellison rolled to his side and met Blair's eyes, all humor -- and happiness -- gone. "I can protect you better if we're together, and there's no fucking way you're sleeping anywhere but next to me. I can pretty this up and we can pretend we're free agents, but we're not. I'll go nuts if I have to hear you get fucked by someone else again, no matter how willing you are, and if you're honest you'll admit the same goes for you. It's really bugging you thinking of me on my knees for Brackett, isn't it?"

Blair set aside his anger long enough to consider that honestly. "Yeah," he said reluctantly. "Like an itch I can't scratch. But that's not -- that's just because he's an asshole."

"No, it's because you know I belong to you and you don't like sharing any more than I do." Ellison shrugged. "Maybe he won't ask again. It's risky for him."

"You should have just played it the way he expected," Blair said. "But, no, you had to get all creative and rock his fucking world."

"It got him where we needed him so that we could get you in here."

"Where I don't want to be. Where I don't feel --" Blair hesitated.

"You can't say it, can you? Because you know it wouldn't be true. You're safe with me, Chief. I want you, but I won't force you. I don't think I could if I tried. It just doesn't work that way. With Incacha…" He broke off. "Lights out soon. Get settled and get some sleep; you're still beat up from last night."

"That’s the first thing you've said I agree with."

"I could rub you down, work out some of the aches." Ellison said it casually, but there was enough hope behind the words to make Blair suspicious, no matter how tempting it sounded.

"Forget it."

"Whatever you say, Chief."

Okay, that had been just too easy.

***

Blair was woken from a restless sleep in the middle of the night, not by King's bubbling, snorting snores, but Ellison above him, muttering in a foreign language. He rolled his eyes. It'd taken him hours to get to sleep, his nerves shot, his body aching, and now Ellison had woken him up.

He took a moment to savor a cell without King in it and then rolled over. He could sleep through snores; he'd learn to sleep through meaningless mutterings. The only problem was that he could understand some of what Ellison was saying. 'Incacha' was repeated a lot and Blair, whose studies of Quechua in preparation for his trip had taught him a few basic words, could easily pick out 'no' and 'please' and 'don't die'.

Fuck. Ellison was deep in a flashback and if he woke disorientated, it could turn out badly, and if he woke people up, well, the guards would come. Blair didn't want that to happen. They wouldn't be in the mood to listen to just how much of this wasn't his fault.

He got out of bed and stood up. No moon, but there was a floodlight outside in the courtyard, casting some light through the high, narrow slit of barred window. Ellison's forehead was furrowed, and there were traces of tears on his cheeks. Blair rested his head against the blanket, level with Ellison's chest, and sighed. Tears. From a guy who'd killed men without blinking and survived a couple of years in a jungle. Incacha must have been really something.

He didn't hear Ellison move, but the murmur of words cut off and a hand slid over his head, stroking his hair with clumsy gentleness, as if the action was one Ellison hadn't performed for a while.

"Hey," Blair said quietly.

"Incacha," Ellison said with profound relief and added something, speaking too rapidly for Blair to get more than the gist of it, which was that Ellison was really, really glad to see him.

Oh, fuck.

"No, it's me, Sandburg. Sorry."

"'Cacha," Ellison insisted, his hand finding the nape of Blair's neck and doing something involving dragging his nails over it lightly in all the right places that set a chain reaction of goose bumps and shivers racing through Blair.

"You have to wake up, Ellison," Blair hissed. His nipples were hard and he was tingling all over, which wasn't unpleasant, but his face was also getting pushed into the blanket and he'd been there, done that, thank you. He twisted his head to one side so that he could breathe and found himself staring into Ellison's eyes, open, but unfocused. "Seriously. Wake up."

Ellison used his hold on Blair's neck to tug him closer and Blair stumbled and sidestepped, caught off balance. He knew where this was going, oh, he knew --

The warm touch of Ellison's mouth was still a shock. If earlier, Ellison had been tasting, now he was kissing, and Blair, shivering in the cool air, his hand on Ellison's broad chest to brace himself, found it hard to move away. There was that hand on his neck… and Ellison's other hand stroking his face -- God, so tentative a touch, as if Ellison thought he was dreaming, and couldn't quite believe -- and he was dreaming, of a man long dead and an endless jungle.

Somewhere between the moment that he parted his lips and turned the kiss into more of an invitation than a greeting, and the sweep of his tongue across Ellison's, Blair lost the edge of his anger. The man was an arrogant, controlling asshole, yeah, and possibly -- probably -- delusional, but right now he was just hurting and reaching out and Blair discovered that he hadn't gotten cold enough to turn away, walk on the other side.

He sighed forgiveness into Ellison's mouth with the next kiss and felt Ellison's arms go around him and cling.

"S'okay," Blair mumbled between kisses. "I'm not him, but I'm all you've got, right? And you need to wake up, Enquiri, wake up and go to sleep for real --"

Enquiri? Where the hell had that come from? Blair pulled away from that enticing warm mouth and swallowed hard. Freaky in the middle of the night was extra freaky. Ellison -- Jim -- closed his eyes and let Blair go with an instant compliance that was another layer of strange, and Blair was left shivering by the side of the bunks, his cock half-hard and his mouth kissed soft.

***

The next day passed as all the days did; monotonous but busy, designed, Jim guessed, to leave the prisoners physically tired and mentally numb. He felt sick with boredom and the pointlessness of it all grated on him. He was a Sentinel, and if he found a tribe of sorts within these walls to protect now that he had Blair to help him, it would still be a tribe of criminals and that went against the grain somehow, even with his own guilt making that reaction on the hypocritical side.

King was a glowering, sullen presence, never far away; Sandburg a nervy, twitching bundle of resentment with shadows brushed thickly under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept well. Jim felt rested enough, but he knew he'd dreamed of Incacha; his mind was in a smoke-green jungle, not a prison, and he saw the flash of Incacha's smile out of the corner of his eye half a dozen times, turning to meet only a flat, unfriendly stare from a stranger.

It was Saturday, and in the afternoon the prisoners were allowed free time, the irony of which wasn't lost on Jim. He stuck close to Blair, trailing him from the yard to the small library and then back to their cell, where Blair flung himself down on his bunk with a weary sigh.

"Take a nap, if you want, Chief," Jim offered. "I'll --"

"Watch over me?" Blair shook his head. "Thanks, but I can take care of myself."

"Then why did you come in here? Safer to stay where it's crowded and the guards can see you."

"Yeah, like they were so much use all the times King was whaling on me."

"You let him do that," Jim pointed out. "Part of the deal."

"I didn't know just how --" Blair bit back the words, but he'd said enough. Jim nodded slowly.

"You thought he just wanted sex."

"Yeah." Blair hunched his shoulder. "And, hey, me, too, you know, even if he wasn't exactly my type. I've never gone without for months and I thought… well, that it would work for me, too."

Jim sat on the edge of Blair's bunk. It was a sunny day and most people were outside; the hallway was quiet enough that it would be easy for him to pick up anyone approaching who posed a threat. He could relax, just for a short while.

"I didn't have you down as gay."

Blair smiled, looking younger for a moment. "I was brought up to be, uh, open to all possibilities, you know? So I tried men and I tried women and I just… I had fun where I found it."

"Not so much fun in here," Jim said.

The cheerful leer on Blair's face went away. "Yeah. Honestly? I could care less if I ever have sex again."

"So where did that come from? Because you seemed pretty interested yesterday."

"No, I wasn't!"

Jim tapped the side of his nose. "I could smell you."

"That is just the most -- really?" Blair seemed fascinated, even if he had screwed up his face. "You're kidding, right?"

"Most people can tell when someone's turned on," Jim said. "I'm not the only one with a nose and eyes; I can just tell sooner and I'm accurate."

"Must make picking up chicks in bars a breeze."

"I wouldn't know. I haven't -- not since Incacha." It wasn't easy to share that, not even with Blair. Jim felt his face heat. "It's not that I can't, it's just -- I know how good it can be and with anyone else, it'd be -- it wouldn't be anything special."

"What about with me?" Blair asked warily.

Jim stared up at the ceiling and smiled.

"Oh, fuck. You -- this is kind of sick you know. You're putting all this pressure on me and --"

"It would be just as good for you," Jim said. "I can make anyone feel the way Brackett did without even trying, but when it's you, with everything you'd be giving me -- God, Blair, there were times with Incacha that I came so hard it scared me."

"I don't want to know." Surprised, Jim turned his head. Blair looked at him and repeated, "I don't want to know, okay? Unless you want me to tell you about the time me and my buddy Mike hooked up with this girl with a thing for getting spanked by both of us and then watching us get each other off, while she --"

"You're making that up," Jim said flatly.

"Yeah, but until you figured that out, it pissed you off, right?"

"You know it did."

"Possessive asshole."

"Guilty as charged." Jim shifted position, turning sideways so that his leg was against Blair's. "Sorry."

"No, you're not." Blair pressed his lips together hard enough that they turned white. "God, why did you have to come here? Why did you have to come here now?"

"Let me think about that one," Jim said, allowing some sarcasm to bleed through. "Maybe because you're here? When is it going to sink into that thick skull of yours that I will find you? That you'll find me? That if we walked away from each other, we'd discover that we were walking in a circle? You don't like that idea and I get that, I do, but you've got to stop fighting it, because it's not an enemy, it's more like -- like gravity. It just is." In a quieter voice, he added, "I do get it, Chief. I had this fight with Incacha, only I had your lines and I didn't give in for months. We don't have that much time. I'm new, so I don't have any pull here -- none, now that I've alienated King, and, yeah, I know I did -- and you're not exactly Mr. Popular." He eyed Blair. "Or maybe you're too much in demand. All that spells trouble, and much though I'd like to, I can't be around 24/7 and I'm not Superman."

"I didn't ask you to look after me. I didn't ask you to rescue me," Blair spat out, propped up on one elbow, his face hard-edged with anger. He lashed out with his foot. "And get the fuck off my bed."

It hadn’t even occurred to Jim that he should have asked to sit on it. Anyone else, sure -- except he wouldn't have asked, because you just didn't cross a line like that; invade someone's territory. He stood reluctantly and leaned against the top bunk -- his -- and raised his eyebrows. "Better?"

"Better with you out in the corridor." The petulance of the retort hung in the air and Blair looked, for a moment, as if he wished he could unsay the words. Jim waited, silent. Let Blair talk; Jim had said enough.

"What made you give in?" Blair asked, sounding subdued. "Not that I'm going to, but I'm curious."

"I don't mind telling you, but it involves Incacha, so if you're going to start bitching about that..."

"You can say his name, just spare me the letter to Playboy crap."

Jim allowed his satisfaction to show on his face. "Guess there's more than one possessive asshole in the room."

"Just because I don't get off on secondhand sex doesn't mean I'm jealous of a dead man." Blair sat up and drew his legs up into a complex fold that looked painful. "But if he got you to change your mind about something, I'm full of admiration for the guy."

Jim looked pointedly at Blair's bunk. "So can I sit down now, or do you want to mark your territory some more?"

"Since you're making my neck ache looking up at you, you might as well."

Grudging permission, but he'd take it. "I fought it every step of the way," Jim began abruptly. "I let Incacha train me, because my senses were all over the fucking place, but the rest of it… no way. Part of it was because he was a guy, but not all of it. He wasn't my first." Jim grimaced. "I'd woken up with a hangover next to a man whose name I didn't know a couple of times. It wasn't a habit, just a -- sometimes, it was what I needed. But what Incacha wanted was out in the open, with someone I knew, and there was the whole partners for life thing… I didn't want anything to do with that."

"I'm sure sometime this week I'll find out what changed."

Jim glanced at Blair. "Impatient and mouthy. Guess you do trust me, because with King, I'm thinking smarting off like that would've ended badly." Ignoring the face Blair pulled, he continued. "I didn't believe the destiny shtick. Then I found out what happened the day before my chopper crashed in the jungle."

"The suspense is killing me."

"He was supposed to get married that day. Planned for years." Jim met Blair's questioning look calmly. "He had a vision and called it off. Told her his Sentinel was coming and his duty to the tribe meant he had to devote his life to me. And he did, for the little time he had left before he was killed, and I wonder sometimes if he knew that was coming, too."

"Wow, that had to suck for her." Blair fell silent, frowning. "Visions? I don't get them. And you can forget about the devotion bit; do I look like a fucking spaniel to you?"

"With that hair, more like a sheepdog," Jim said blandly.

Blair took hold of a handful and tugged at it, giving it a jaundiced look. "King made me grow it. Maybe I'll chop it off before he deals with me. No, forget it; he sees me do that and he will kill me."

"If you say that again, I'll save him the trouble," Jim said. "Forget the death wish, and if you want to look less like a walking mop, get me some scissors and I'll make it happen."

"You don't like it?" Blair studied a lock of his hair for a moment with less animosity. "You liked it last night."

Sweat prickled over Jim's skin. "What?"

"Forget it."

"Not a chance. Last night, we barely spoke, so whatever happened --"

"Was after you'd gone to sleep, yeah." Blair sighed. "You were talking in your sleep -- Quechan, not English -- and when I tried to make you stop, because it was seriously annoying, you…grabbed me. Stroked my hair. And you kissed me." Blair shrugged. "I didn't stop you, but don't read more into it than you should; I was half-asleep myself."

"I kissed you?"

Blair ran his tongue over his lips and Jim shuddered, sure he felt the fleeting touch on his own mouth. "Yeah."

"That was all I did, though, right?" If he'd forced Blair into more, Jim was fairly certain he'd have woken up with more bruises, but maybe Blair had gone along with it out of habit? He hated the thought that he'd forced Blair as much as he resented the idea that something had happened between them that he couldn't remember.

"Yeah, don't sweat it." Blair waved an airy hand. "Little tongue, some spit-swapping…not a big deal." He stared directly at Jim. "Just one question."

"Yeah?"

"Who's Enquiri?"

Startled, Jim fell back on silence as the safest reply. His Chopec name on Blair's lips stirred up a memory of the night before. Fuck, he'd called Blair 'Incacha'… He sighed and tapped his chest. "Me. It's the name the tribe gave me. Why? Did I say it in my sleep?"

"Not you; me." Blair took a deep breath. "I don't know where it came from, but when I used it, you just…settled down."

"That's pretty out there, Chief," Jim objected. "I must have said it and you picked it up."

"You didn't." Blair's mouth set in a mutinous line. "Why would you say your own name?"

"Well, there's no way --" Jim broke off. "Why am I suddenly the one who needs convincing that we're connected?" he asked wryly. "Never mind. You know my other name. Don't know how, not sure why, but you do."

"Mmm." Blair leaned forward and poked Jim in the shoulder. "Two things. One, you ever even hint that I'm possessed by your ex -- oh, you know you're thinking it -- and I'll take you down. Two, you call me by his name when you're hard again, and yeah, you were, and I'll rip your balls off with my fucking teeth, okay?"

Jim started to laugh; he just couldn't help it. "In a non-possessive way, though, right?" he managed to say before Blair's fist connected with his mouth. They were too close for it to really hurt, and Blair hadn't tried to make it count, but he shut up anyway.

No need to rub it in, and he didn't need Blair to admit it, not really. It was enough that they both knew where they stood.


***

"Ellison." King's voice was a flat sneer over the hiss of water from the showers. "Enjoying my leftovers?"

Blair had known this confrontation was coming; King had given them three days, keeping his distance, but the hatred in his eyes was a blaze that showed no signs of dying down. More worryingly, King hadn't replaced Blair, remaining alone in his cell. Blair had assumed that King would be parading someone young and pretty around -- Henderson, maybe, china-doll fragile, desperate as Blair had once been -- but it hadn't happened.

It didn't make sense. King couldn't take Blair back without admitting that it mattered to him that he'd lost Blair in the first place. The fiction that he'd gotten bored with Blair and passed him over to Jim as a sign of friendship just wasn't working as a cover story as it was, not with the hostility King was showing Jim. Everyone knew that Ellison had applied pressure and King had caved.

For the first time in years, King's power base was showing signs of crumbling. Jim had no power, no allies, no pull -- but Blair saw how people acted around him. They knew what he was subconsciously, and they responded to that. It was fascinating, and Blair would have loved to explore that reaction, but he was too busy watching his back and, if reluctantly, Jim's.

He'd expected Jim to have made a move, but it hadn't happened. They slept in their own beds, and Jim hadn't woken him again. Jim touched him, sure, casual, inevitable contacts in the confines of their cell, their arms brushing, shoulders bumping, but that had been all, until tonight.

They'd been about to leave their cell to shower when Jim had placed his hand on Blair's arm, halting him. Before Blair could do more than open his mouth to protest, Jim had smoothed his palm over Blair's face, light touches as Blair had caught his breath, bewildered, beginning to be aroused -- then a kiss, hard enough to leave his mouth stinging and wet from the lick that had ended it as Jim had tasted him.

Jim had stepped back, his face unreadable. "Sorry."

He hadn't sounded as if he meant it.

"A Sentinel thing, right?" It came out sounding curious, when Blair had been aiming for dryly sarcastic, but he still hadn't gotten an answer.

And now he was naked, his skin wet, his hands empty of anything that he could use as a weapon, and Jim was about to die. Lucky Jim. It would all be over for him real soon; King would want to make it last, make it hurt, but he wouldn't be able to drag it out for long. No guards around, no, of course there weren't, but in fifteen minutes the lights would flicker and five minutes after that, the guards would come in and clear everyone out. King couldn't leave too many marks; it had to be something the authorities could accept as an accident because Jim was high-profile enough after his time in court for his death to cause ripples.

Blair would get to live, for a while, anyway. Long enough to be broken, long enough to be made to pay for King's humiliation.

He closed his eyes and felt the soft skim of Jim's fingers over his lips and throat -- and found that he was whispering, "Enquiri" under his breath.

The harsh rasp of King's voice jolted him out of his panicked freeze.

"I said --"

"I heard you," Jim said calmly. He stood, outwardly relaxed, untroubled by his nudity. King had a towel wrapped around his waist and another around his neck; they were getting damp in the spray from the showers, but King could always get a dry one from someone else. "I just don't plan on discussing this with you."

Blair winced as King's face darkened. King wasn't used to people who argued with him or refused to do as they were told.

"Are we done here?" Jim asked.

King shook his head, less in reply and more like a bull preparing to charge. He was flanked by two of his men, pure, brute muscle, but next to King, they looked like wallpaper, paper dolls. "Done? I say when we're done, punk."

"What's your problem?" Jim smiled thinly. "I asked you for him; you gave him to me; I said thanks. Was I supposed to send you flowers or something?"

"Fuck you."

Jim moved, putting himself between Blair and King. "He's mine, now," he said quietly, clearly. "Find yourself another ass to spank, another mouth to fuck bloody."

"You think he's yours because I let you play with him a few days to get Chris off my back?" King laughed, a vicious bark that rasped over Blair's shredded nerves. "Don't fool yourself. I had him. I used him. I trained him. He's mine, and that's a fact." King pursed his lips, sleek satisfaction spreading over his face as if just saying it was enough to make it true. "And it seems to me that we're fighting over a bone and not letting it have its say." He craned his neck. "Why don't you step out here and give us your opinion, Sandburg. Tell the man who you really belong to. Use that pretty mouth of yours to talk for once."

Blair couldn't move, but he didn't have to; Jim did it for him, walking forward and getting into King's face. "You think he's yours? Think he obeyed you out of respect? You beat him and he gave you what you wanted to make it easy on himself. That's not control." Blair couldn't see Jim's face, but he heard the contempt sizzle through his voice, hot and bright. "Look at him now; do you see a bruise on him that wasn't left over from you? I haven't lifted my hand to him, but he's still mine."

King spat on the ground. "Prove it."

So much for the idea that he was going to get a say in this. Blair rolled his eyes, anger dousing his fear. The two of them were having so much fucking fun, weren't they? If he could, he'd have walked out, just left them to it. Let them fight and kill each other; no loss.

Except Jim's hands were shaking and Blair didn't think it was because Jim was scared for himself. The stupid son of a bitch was trying to protect him and something told Blair that Jim didn't have much choice about it; it was hardwired into him.

Just as the drive to shield and support a Sentinel was part of Blair. Fuck. He gave Jim's ass one last, regretful look -- I guess I'll never find out if you would've let me fuck you -- and walked between them.

"Remember me? The bone?" Blair wet his lips. "Honestly? I don't want either of you. You're both controlling assholes in your own way and I don't get a choice with either of you." The pain in Jim's eyes hurt to see, but Blair knew that he could make it go away later, always assuming they survived this. There were people around, witnesses, which, Blair realized almost too late, gave him his weapon.

"But if I had to choose between you, I'd choose Ellison," he said. "And he hasn't made me say that, before you ask."

King's mouth pinched tight. "I'm gonna enjoy reminding you where you belong, bitch."

"Maybe, but after that how much fun are you going to have with me?" Blair said. Beside him, Jim was tensed up, ready to start something. Blair didn't dare touch him, but he was screaming at Jim in his head to back off and let him handle this, and crazy though it sounded, he thought that Jim was listening -- and straining at the leash. "I'll be no good to you when you've finished, and let's face it, you were getting bored of me or you'd never have passed me on to Ellison; we both know that." He put a quaver in his voice, and hoped that King would think it was hurt feelings. "You owed Ellison a favor and you wanted to dump me; it all worked out perfectly for you, just like always."

"You gonna start begging for me to take you back now?" King asked. "Forget it. You're right about one thing; I was going to get rid of you real soon. I just don't like having something of mine taken off me before I'm good and ready to trash it." His mouth split in something Blair didn't want to call a smile. "I was looking forward to that part."

Blair forced his mind away from what getting trashed would involve. A final session with no need to keep his toy in one piece would be -- would be -- Jim turned his head slightly and Blair willed his racing pulse to slow, because Jim's eyes looked passionless, empty of humanity, and Blair was doing that to him with the strength of his fear. He'd wanted power over someone, but not like this, not like this…

"Hey, come on, man. We had some good times, didn't we? There's no need to --" Blair swallowed, his mouth dry. No use appealing for mercy; it made more sense to remind King that killing people had consequences. In an ideal world, anyway. "There's no need to do anything that could get you into serious trouble. I get that you want to make sure I'm going to someone who'll treat me the way I deserve, the way that you did."

"Like the cocksucking little slut you are, you mean?" King jerked his head. "Somehow, I don't think he's got the balls for that, baby."

Jim made a sound too much like a growl for Blair's liking. He could feel the rage pouring off Jim now, waves of it, blood-hot. Time to push.

"You asked Ellison to prove he owns me the way you did. If he does, will you let him keep me?" He heard the annoyed hiss Jim made at his choice of words, but he didn't care. Placating King was necessary and this, humble words spoken, this was nothing. Let King think he'd won; give him the chance to strut off feeling strong. It was the only way this could end with even a chance of the two of them surviving.

King glanced around at the audience he had and Blair looked with him. Men who'd stood by and let King brutalize him; men who'd tormented him for months. King thought they were his allies, but they weren't. They were bored into apathy and they'd follow anyone who had the charisma to stand out, just a little.

Right now, Blair was offering them something entertaining and having Jim standing there like a fucking statue, that truly impressive body on display, didn't hurt, either. The man looked good, looked classy; he made King seem like the piece of shit he really was.

Blair knew that the audience wanted King to agree and Blair knew that King had picked up on that too.

After a long moment, King nodded, magnanimous, gracious. "What the fuck. I'll let him try, what with him being Chris' blue-eyed boy and all. But if he doesn't convince me that he can handle you, he's dead meat and your ass is mine until I say otherwise."

Saying thank you would have stuck in his throat, so Blair settled for a nod before turning to look at Jim. Fuck. Blair wasn't sure what had pushed Jim over the edge, but the scariest person in the room wasn't King anymore and Jim's anger seemed to be directed, not at King, but at Blair. Then Jim's hand clamped around his arm and Blair let himself get dragged back to the wall of showers.

He turned his head to face the tiled wall behind them and said in the barest whisper of a voice, one only Jim could hear, "Come up with something good and I'll back you all the way. I trust you, man."

Did he? He supposed he did. It wasn't as if he had much choice.

He turned back and Jim's fist struck his cheek and rocked his head back, hard.

"His ass, hell, every fucking inch of him, is mine," Jim said in a voice so thick with rage that King's bodyguards took a step back before remembering their jobs and crowding closer to their boss.

"You want proof? Want to see how well he obeys me?" Jim continued, his open palm cupping the flesh he'd struck. Blair tasted blood, salt and hot, from where his tooth had cut his cheek and had to swallow. He couldn't let King see blood and he wished he wasn't certain that Jim could smell it.

"Would be nice," King said. "All I'm seeing right now is that you can hit him and he'll stand there and let you. That just tells me he's a coward or he gets off on it; it don't tell me squat about you."

Jim's shoulders heaved as he took some deep, shuddering breaths and then, with an abruptness that left Blair shivering, he calmed down and let his hand drop away.

"You want to know about me? I killed a kid because it was easier than disarming him and I don't have a whole lot of guilt over that. I've killed a lot of people. I don't have a better side, I don't have a death wish. I want Sandburg for my own reasons, and I'm not interested in going head to head with you over anything else you do. I want to do my time and walk away."

He snapped his fingers and pointed at the floor. "On your knees, Sandburg."

Blair hesitated, not because he cared about what he guessed was coming next, but because blowing Jim in public wasn't going to be enough. And it would leave both of them vulnerable. One flint-eyed look from Jim converted doubt to a smooth slide down, the floor hard and cool against his knees. He'd been here before so many fucking times.

Jim grabbed a handful of Blair's hair and Blair went with it as Jim tilted his head back, doing his best to minimize the pain, small though it was. It all added up, and he could only take so much. Jim wasn't hard but as Blair watched, his eyes watering because Jim was keeping his grip tight, that changed, Jim's hand busy, until his cock was stiff, balls hanging heavy.

Someone whistled and a ripple of nervous laughter went around the room. Jim grinned, teeth showing, and picked out the man who'd whistled. "You want some of this, Saunders? Huh? Want to bend over for me to rip you open?"

Saunders had the sense to stay quiet and Jim's grin faded. "How about you, puppy? Want a taste?"

As cues went, it was an easy one to follow. Blair nodded, despite the increase in the throbbing pain at his scalp, and said, "Please," in a loud enough voice to be heard over the masking hiss of the shower still pouring water down. They were running out of time…

"I bet you do, but if you want a treat, you've got to do a trick."

The tip of Jim's cock was beaded with precome, clear against the deep red skin. It wasn't helping that even under these circumstances, Blair was getting turned on, his stomach tight with a lust he couldn't push away. It was partly a response to Jim's arousal, an echo of it, and partly, much though he hated to admit it, a trained reaction. On his knees, in pain, a thick, swollen dick about to plunge down his throat? Better get hard, Blair, better show that you're willing, because that's what sluts do…

He blinked up at Jim in a resentful silence and Jim ran his thumb through the sticky mess painting his cockhead shiny and held it just out of reach. "Lick it clean, puppy."

Blair leaned forward to do just that and cried out as Jim's hand yanked sharply at his hair. "I can't reach."

"Stick your tongue out."

Why that was more humiliating than sucking Jim's thumb, Blair didn't know, but it was. He extended his tongue, straining to reach, and managed to flick the tip of his tongue against Jim's thumb. The taste did something to him; jacked him up, steadied him down. He went from interested to rock-hard in the space of two quick, rushed breaths and out of the corner of his eye saw Jim's cock jerk as if it'd been touched.

God, sex with Jim probably was going to be as good as the arrogant bastard had said it would be…

Lust made everything easier, as it always did. Blair whined, the sound lost in the murmur of voices, but, he guessed, audible to Jim, and tried to get another taste. Jim's grip on his hair slackened just enough to allow it and Blair knelt, sucking the tip of Jim's thumb with an avidity he didn't bother to hide.

"You want the real thing, you have to show me what an obedient little puppy you are," Jim said softly and tugged his thumb out, wiping it across Blair's flushed cheek, leaving a streak of dampness that felt like a cool kiss. "Can you do that? Or do you need to be taught your lessons again?"

"No!" Blair swallowed hard. "I'm good. I mean, I'll be good -- I'll do anything you say. Please."

The lines were blurring. How much of what he was saying was sincere and how much an act? He'd assured himself smugly that he'd meant none of it and that had kept him sane, but it was so easy to do this -- shouldn't it be difficult? Shouldn't he have to think about what to say, instead of having it pour out of him like blood from a wound?

"Please," he whispered. "Let me show you how good I can be."

Jim's empty hand clenched white-knuckle hard and Blair flinched, expecting a blow, but it didn't come. Instead, the hand in his hair turned his head so that he was looking across the room at King, whose face was twisted with desire and hate.

"Go to him," Jim said. "Beg to be allowed to suck him."

King's gaze went to Jim's face, his eyes wide and startled. "What the fuck?"

Blair felt the room gray out around him. Go to King? Feel that thick, sour-tasting hardness fill his mouth and bruise his throat again? No. No, he wouldn't do it, he couldn't do it --

He realized he was saying that under his breath, locked into a despairing, disbelieving mantra. It made no fucking sense for him to be freaking out like this; he'd sucked King many dozens of times, often in public. It was just one more time, and then it would be over, and he'd be safe…but he couldn't do it when it was Jim ordering him to; it was too much of a rejection, too bitter a betrayal.

"Hear that, King?" Jim said, and, unforgivably, sounded amused. "He doesn't want to do it. He's about to throw up or pass out, he's so shit-scared of the idea. I can hear his heart hammering from here."

Careful, Blair thought, and hated himself for the instinctive warning that rose to his lips. Let Ellison expose himself as a freak; why the hell should he care?

"But he's still going to do it, aren't you, puppy?" Jim released Blair's hair and petted the sore place on his scalp with cruelly gentle pats. "Good puppies always do what their masters tell them, and I'm telling you to crawl over to that big, bad man over there, wiggling your pretty little tail, and see if he wants your mouth on him. He might say yes, he might say no; I don't give a rat's ass either way. That's not important." One final pat, Jim's fingers soothing away the sting they'd inflicted, and then Jim stepped away. "Just ask the man nicely, puppy. Off you go."

He couldn't look up into that mocking, smiling face. Couldn't look at the sneering men around him. Head down, fighting to find the numbness that had always sustained him, Blair stared at the cracked, stained tiles as he made his way across them. One was chipped; it caught at his palm, and then his knee, and he felt his control splinter. He'd never been so fucking angry in his life. It was the kind of anger that made you feel you could take down Godzilla, withstand a hail of bullets -- or chew a man's dick off and spit it out.

Yeah. Look at that; he had a plan.

Except it wasn't King's dick he wanted to savage.

He arrived at King's feet and it was so fucking easy when he was there. He nuzzled them, rubbing his hair across them, making the whining, whimpering noises he knew King loved to hear.

He didn't think that Jim would get off on them, though.

King chuckled and kicked him away with a contemptuous shove of his foot. Blair smiled up at him through his eyelashes -- Hi, Daddy -- and crawled back to press an adoring kiss on the foot that had kicked him.

Really, this whole self-abasement thing was a breeze. You found your groove and you followed it. Foot, ankle, calf… kiss, lick, slobber.

The lights flickered and King grunted with annoyance and murmured something to one of his men, who left. Through the beat of blood in his ears, Blair didn't catch it, but he guessed the guards were being told to hold back. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't, but even the discussion would take time and it was quiet in here, no screaming, so probably they would.

"Let me suck you? Please?" He looked up at King and shaped a single word silently, watching King's face flush with heat and longing. Look at that; the big lunk was missing him. How sweet was that?

The towel around King's waist dropped to the floor, a splash of grayish-white. "Kneel on that, baby," King said and shot Jim a triumphant glance: See? I'm kind to him. And watch him obey me even in something this small.

Jim didn't say anything and Blair wasn't entirely sure which of them he would've obeyed if Jim had told him not to use the towel, so maybe it was just as well. He spread the towel flat and felt it steal a little of the ache from his knees.

"Now remind me of what you can do with your mouth, baby."

Baby. Puppy. Chief. When this was over, Blair was going to dream up some pet names of his own and use them at every fucking opportunity. He was so sick of answering to them. Blair Sandburg. That was his name. Just that.

He licked at the base of King's shaft and let his tongue swirl and curl, up and around. He couldn't taste Jim now. Couldn't see him, couldn't hear him, couldn't smell him.

But the skin on his back and ass felt blistered as if he was kneeling with his back to a fire, burning hotly. He didn't need to look to know that Jim was burning up, hating this even more than Blair was. Hurting over it, because Blair was his and Sentinels didn't share.

Suck it up, Jimmy. Just suck it fucking up, because this was your bright idea, man. And when it's over, so are we, because I'm done with this bullshit --

How much of that Jim had picked up, he didn't know, but it didn't matter; Blair was more than willing to spell it out, write it out, scream it out until Jim got it through his skull.

Over. Done.

He sucked with purposeful clumsiness, eager, but new to all this, needing his Daddy to teach him, to show him, a guiding hand, a hoarse-voiced instruction…a gold star waiting for a good boy. He didn't get them; King was being carefully discreet, but they knew each other too well for it not to be implicit, understood, that the choke Blair gave after a thrust went too deep was deliberate, that the pleading sniffle that followed was planned.

My monster. My creation. Does that make me God or just Doctor Frankenstein?

He was supposed to be showing that he belonged to Jim, and he guessed that on the surface, he was. This humiliation would be enough for King to accept as proof that Jim was as big a fucking sadist as he was, so it was all good, all according to plan. King saw his baby giving him one last blow job; the audience saw a brutal, kinky floorshow they'd beat off to afterward in their bunks. No one left in the showers was the sort to protest what was going on; these were King's men, and standing behind some of them were their own fuck-toys, silent, scared.

But Jim, standing alone at the back of the room, what did he see?

Blair thought he knew. Jim saw betrayal in every bob of Blair's head as he took King in deep, every ecstatic groan King gave. Jim had to know that Blair was still hard; close to coming, in fact, and when Blair did, the climax hooked out of him by King's permission, which Blair knew damn well he'd get, it would break Jim.

Sentinels were fragile fucking flowers, weren't they? No wonder they were an endangered species.

Blair ran his hands imploringly over King's meaty, muscled thighs and sobbed around the swelling shaft in his mouth. That should do it.

He swallowed acrid, thick come in neat, perfectly timed gulps, and sat back, his eyes lowered, the head of his cock poking up between his legs, shiny and wet at the tip.

"Well, wasn't that nice," King said with throaty satisfaction. "Since you've been such a good boy, I guess I'll let you come, baby. Go on; get yourself dirty --"

"No." Blair heard footsteps and then the shower behind him was turned off, the silence that followed achingly empty. "He doesn't get to come."

"Is that right." King's foot nudged Blair's thigh. "Hear that, baby? Ellison says that you can't come, and look at you; you're about ready to burst, aren't you? And I want to see it, so you just go ahead and spill for me. Make some noise, too."

God help him, he wanted to. He had a head full of memories of lying across King's lap, strong arms cradling him, the sheer bliss of emptying his aching balls putting a smile on his face as he writhed and arched and panted out his gratitude. He wanted that moment of release now, that fleeting instant when nothing else mattered but getting the demands of his body met for once.

Jim snapped his fingers once and whistled. "Here, Trixie." There wasn't a trace of uncertainty or anger in his voice but it was spiced with that same infuriating tinge of amusement; an adult being kind and playing a game with the children.

Knowing Jim's calm was faked, as much of a performance as any Blair had staged, didn't help. Blair's needs veered away from an orgasm to the overriding desire to kill Jim Ellison with his bare hands. Slowly. While he begged for mercy.

He was starting to wonder if he really did want to swap King for Ellison.

***

God help him get through this without a body count that included Sandburg. The stupid little fucker was about to ruin everything just to get his kicks and if he came, King would keep him, claim him, and Jim would have to kill King.

The man was lucky to be still breathing as it was and Jim wasn't sure how much more he could take.

King's hands on Blair, his dick sliding wetly in and out of the mouth that had been warm against Jim's in their cell…

The snap of his fingers sounded like bones breaking and he saw Blair's head jerk up. Blair's emotions were chaotic; physically and mentally, his stress levels were through the roof, and Jim wasn't sure how much of that was coming from Blair and how much was his own response to what was going on. In a few months time, if he stubbed his toe, Blair would wince, but right now what they had was too new and untested for that connection to be something Jim could rely on.

He was doubting Blair; he'd never doubted Incacha, not once. Of course, he'd never pushed Incacha to the point where the shaman had wanted to gut him with a dull knife, which seemed to be the place Blair was at right now.

Willing himself to stay where he was, out of reach of King, he stared at Blair, meeting the molten glare with a bland indifference. He hadn't known it would be like this. No one had ever challenged him for Incacha. Sure, he'd killed the murdering asshole of a soldier who'd shot Incacha, but that was a reasonable response; feeling homicidal when King had done no more than stand there and let Blair's mouth work him on Jim's own command was less so.

Tempting, though.

He couldn't snap his fingers again. Couldn't add a single word to his order. All that he could do was wait for Blair to make up his mind.

Powerless. God, how he hated that feeling.

Blair sighed, his shoulders slumped, resigned to his fate, and stood. He turned his head and gave King a look that from where Jim was standing held some pity, and then walked over to stand beside Jim.

Well, thank fuck for that.

"You wait that long to obey an order again and I'll break one of your fingers," Jim said quietly.

Blair snorted, clearly not buying the threat. Jim wasn't sure how he felt about that dismissal of his ability to follow through. "Is that your way of saying thank you? Asshole. And we need to talk, Ellison."

The crowd was drifting away, those not already dressed going to hurriedly pull on their clothing, as those who were dressed filed out of the door. King stood alone, having dismissed his guards with a jerk of his head, his eyes narrowed, his gaze fixed on Blair.

"Later, Chief," Jim said absently as the last person left. Just the three of them now. With Blair beside him, his control was returning. He didn't want to kill King with the same burning intensity. Just wanted to scrub Blair clean and make him brush his teeth at least twice. He couldn't relax, though, not with King standing there, immobile, silent. This wasn't over.

As he thought that, some instinct made him shove Blair to the side, ignoring his startled yelp of protest as he fell to the floor. No; not instinct. King's heartbeat had quickened with excitement. The knife that appeared in King's hands, passed to him by someone as they left, was a threatening glitter, but Jim just smiled. A weapon with King's prints on it. Perfect. He could kill him safely now and claim self-defense.

He moved to meet the first wild rush and kicked the knife out of King's hand without thinking about it. King was tough and fast, but he relied too much on his reputation and he was untrained.

Jim had been taught to kill as a job and a duty; King did it for fun. Amateur.

"Going to kill you," King snarled. "Gut you like a fish."

Jim didn't reply. Talking could distract an opponent, but the time spent thinking up quips could be better spent looking for weaknesses. The knife skidded across the floor and Blair scrambled to get it.

"Leave it!" Jim snapped. "We need his prints on it."

King frowned as if sensing the trap, and opened his mouth. A yell for help would follow, Jim guessed, and then the guards would pour in. No. No fucking way. Moving through a world that had slowed down, giving him all the time he needed, he pivoted, lashed out another kick, this time to King's knee, and as King staggered, Jim got behind him.

The towel around King's neck was easily flipped, grasped, tightened…

"You're going to die," Jim said into King's ear, ignoring the struggles, the blows King tried to make count when the angle was all wrong. With no oxygen reaching King's lungs, even if they'd landed they wouldn't have hurt. "Want to know why?" King made an inarticulate gurgle that probably wasn't a yes, but Jim took it as one. "Because you touched him. I sent him to you, and all you had to do was turn him down and we'd have been good."

"Suh-suh--"

"Are you trying to say "sorry"?" Jim tightened the towel around King's neck. "I don't think I care."

"Jim." Blair was in front of them, his face pale, his hands clutched into fists at his side. "Jim, you have to stop this."

"He'll keep trying to hurt you," Jim said, reasonably enough he thought, but Blair shook his head.

"No, he won't. He's scared of you, Jim. He won't. Let him talk and he'll tell you, won't you, King?"

Jim shrugged and loosened the stranglehold a little. King sucked in a whooping breath, his face scarlet, sweating. "Won't -- won't hurt him. Please --"

"I don't believe you." Jim smiled cheerfully and started to choke the life out of King again. It felt good. Every cry of pain he'd had to listen to Blair make, every sick gasped out "Daddy"… This was payback.

"No." Blair's face swam in front of Jim as if he was the one dying, vision graying to emptiness. "Listen to me. I'm going to get out of here before you. Three, four years earlier."

The thought of spending those years without Blair made something inside Jim turn to ice, but he had the solution in his hands, literally, so he didn't allow himself to shiver. "So?"

"I'll wait for my Sentinel," Blair said quietly. "I won't wait for a killer."

"You won't have to wait," Jim said. "I'll explain it all --"

"Kill him and I walk away."

"Blair --"

"Let him go, Enquiri."

Incacha's voice, Incacha's patient stubbornness laced through Blair's own. Jim snarled with frustration, unable to hold out against both of them, and shoved King away from him, the towel falling with King, who collapsed, strings cut, on his belly.

"Happy now?"

"I am." Banks walked past Jim and stood staring down at King, his face impassive. "You wouldn't believe what the paperwork's like when a prisoner dies."

He hadn't heard Banks come in. Jim registered that with a dull shock of guilt. He couldn't afford to get sloppy like that; not in here.

King gasped, his hand groping for the knife that lay a foot away from his outstretched fingers. "Gonna kill you --"

The words were garbled, forced past a swollen throat, but Jim understood them and he tensed, ready to finish what he'd started, witnesses or no witnesses, but Banks held up his hand in a clear warning. King's fingers curled around the handle of the knife and he tried to push himself up. Jim grudgingly gave him credit for not giving in, but not much. Sometimes, the best course was to accept a temporary defeat and wait to fight again.

"No," Banks said softly and ground the heel of his shoe brutally hard against King's wrist. "Let it go, King."

Jim heard the thin bones break, snap-crackle-pop, but over the anguished sound that emerged from King's bruised throat, a stifled, mangled attempt to scream, he doubted that Blair or Banks had.

"I didn't come here to break up this fight," Banks continued, his weight still pressing down on King's wrist. "I was going to see you in your cell, King. I've got some news for you. Bad news. Guess there's no way to break it gently, so I'll give it to you straight. Your brother's dead."

King's body jerked once and his free hand hammered the floor. "No!"

"What?" Blair stepped forward. "How?"

Banks' gaze flickered over Blair dispassionately enough that Jim didn't feel threatened. "Evidence came to light that was enough to have him arrested. Word leaked and he made a run for it, planning to fly somewhere he couldn't be extradited from. Stupid of him. He was cornered, shot an officer -- wounded him -- and his partner put a bullet through King's head."

Jim couldn't take it in. Chris King dead? Then even if he'd killed Carl, it wouldn't have mattered, it wouldn't have helped --

"I can't do anything to my brother. He's family." Chris tapped the table in front of Jim. "But he's no relation to you. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

"You want me to trim a rotten branch off your family tree."

"In such a way that it looks, well…"

"Like storm damage, not an axe."

"Exactly." Chris smiled approvingly. "You know, imprisoning a man like you for six years is a travesty. Some time served for appearances sake, yes, but I think I could pull some strings and get that time reduced considerably."

Banks stepped back and King started to sob, choked, inhuman sounds that made Blair's face twist with pity and turned Jim's stomach.

"You've got nothing, now, have you," Banks murmured, almost to himself. "Money, influence, power… It's all gone in a heartbeat." His head whipped around, his expression hardening. "You two… all three of you. Listen up and listen good. This ends here, you got that? No payback, no retaliation -- no blood."

"Yes, sir," Jim said into the waiting silence when Banks had finished speaking. He meant it ironically, but found that at some point he'd come to attention, the respect Basic had drilled into him surfacing, dug out of him by the authority in Banks' voice.

"I'm good," Blair said after a moment.

Banks studied him. "So I hear," he said dryly. "Go and get dressed, both of you, and get back to your cell. Leave King to me."

Cell. Banks wasn't going to split them up. Jim looked down at the floor until he could be sure his face wasn't showing the relief he felt and then looked up to meet Banks' eyes. They weren't friendly, but they weren't hostile, either.

Good enough.




Part Four