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Here is the second of my fics for Moonridge '08 that's now timed out. It was bid on by 20 people, which is incredible; thank you all so much for your donation and I hope that you enjoyed the story.
Many thanks also to my beta reader,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mab_browne for her very helpful comments and t_verano for her support when I got stuck.
The story is, as the title suggests, set after Crossroads, and is 16,500 words. No kink, some angst, a happy ending. I've split it into two as it's too long for one post.
The opening few lines of dialog are from the episode script.
Crossroad Blues
"So it's back to Cascade?" Linda asked, her gaze traveling between the three men.
Jim looked her over. Smart, competent -- and content to be stuck in this dying town as its vet and makeshift doctor. Most people wouldn't understand that, seeing it as a lack of ambition, but he did. She was staying where she was needed; the sentinel in him responded to that choice with approval. He smiled warmly at her. "Well, actually, I thought we could all do some fishing tomorrow."
Jim watched Blair cover his face with his hand, acting out dismay, but ignored him. He'd said that he'd come here to fish and by God, that was what he was going to do.
"I'm in," Linda said brightly. "I'll spring for breakfast."
The length of time since he'd eaten made Jim's response wholehearted and sincere. "Great."
Simon chuckled wryly. "No, thank you. I think I prefer the mayhem of the city." He nodded at Linda. "Nice meeting you."
Jim watched Simon walk away and gave Blair an inquiring look. "Uh... I think I'm down with the mayhem," Blair said. He paused and then, when Jim didn't reply or try to stop him, turned and followed Simon.
"I finally shook them," Jim said, and heard the satisfaction in his voice.
Linda stared at him, her expression tinged with bewilderment. "'Shook them'?" she repeated. "I thought you were all up here together?"
"Not exactly," Jim replied. He saw that she wanted more of an explanation and sighed inwardly. "Simon's my boss and a friend, which means we see a lot of each other. We fish together plenty, but this time… this time I wanted some space."
"And what about Blair?" Linda was frowning now. "I didn't get chance to talk to him much, but he seems really nice. You were -- you seemed so worried about him when he got sick."
"Well, of course I was." Jim shrugged and tried to keep his impatience from showing. His stomach was growling and Blair was the last person he wanted to discuss with a relative stranger. "Sandburg's a friend, too. A good one. But when it comes to time apart, well, we just don't have any. When he can, he rides with me as an observer --" He saw her lips part on a question and cut her off. "For a paper he's working on for his doctorate. So I see a lot of him at work, and we live together, which means I see him at home, too."
"You live together?" Her eyebrows rose and then she shook her head. "Sorry. None of my business. You just seem a bit old for a roommate."
There was nothing in her voice to make him think that she was implying that Sandburg was more than that, so he threw her a bone. "His place blew up -- well, the drug lab next door did -- and took his digs with it, so I offered him a place to stay."
Her eyes widened. "He just lost his home? God, poor Blair! And now this…he's not having much luck recently, is he?"
"Oh, it wasn't recent," Jim said dismissively, without thought. "Couple of years back now."
She glanced away, trying to hide a smile. "Ah. Got it."
"No, you don't," he said, too used to this reaction to mistake her meaning, and feeling a familiar annoyance at the assumption. "He has a room at my place. A room with a bed in it. His bed. Not mine. We clear on that?"
Irritation flared in her eyes at his sharp words. "Crystal clear," she said crisply. "What's not so clear is why you see two friends as encumbrances, but that's your business. And you know what? I think you'll have to take a rain check on fishing and breakfast; I'm going to be busy helping out my friends. Like Blair, they're still suffering the after effects of that virus."
She turned on her heel and stalked away, leaving Jim to stare after her, stubbornness holding his guilt at bay. He'd driven up here for a break. He'd told them that he didn't want them to come with him. He was entitled to some peace after --
He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with pine-scented air to clear the ghost of Lila's perfume from them.
Lila… Her death had left him grieving, but the vague hope that one day he'd meet up with her again had faded long ago. Even before she'd been shot, he'd known that it wasn't going to work between them a second time. Too much had changed for him. He'd had the million to one chance of bumping into her in the street, but that had been it; their luck used up in one random collision of bodies.
Fresh from the jungle, she'd been as much of a delight as hot showers, cold beer, and a change of clothing whenever he wanted it. Her hands had been like sun heat on his skin, arousing him again and again, her body welcoming, the distance in her eyes interpreted by his male ego as a challenge, not rejection or a warning. He could no more have stopped himself from falling in love than he could have let himself be sent on another mission.
And she'd disappeared one day and left him with nothing to do but go home. Start over -- and tuck away his memories of a few days with her like something precious that was nothing of the sort, a child burying a treasured toy in the garden and finding it years later, rusted and misshapen.
He'd made love to her in his bed when she'd come to the loft and when she'd gone, he'd stripped the sheets and thrown open the patio doors, letting cool, damp air swirl through and cleanse the loft, while Blair shivered and pointedly donned a thick sweater.
He'd enjoyed it at a basic level, sure. She was -- had been -- a beautiful woman. But looking back at that night in the loft, it felt like an echo, not a new beginning, and it wasn't hard to work out why.
He breathed in the scent of the forest again and closed his eyes. He needed this time alone. Needed it.
***
He pitched his tent in a clearing on the edge of the lake, where the waves lapping languidly against the rocks lulled him to sleep and woke him in the morning. His senses were never in danger of stranding him in the no man's land of a zone; too many distractions from the town on the other side of the lake, not so far distant at all. The occasional boat passing by underlined the fact that this was hardly uncharted wilderness.
Quiet, though.
He didn't need uninterrupted solitude; from time to time he hiked the few miles into the town and ate a hot meal at the diner and picked up some bait to save himself digging for worms. He just needed peace.
Toward the end of his stay, with two more nights under canvas before he headed back to Cascade, he set his fishing rod aside, walked to a small cove, where the water lay deep and cool over sand and pebbles, and stripped. With his clothes in a heap on a flat rock, he plunged into the water, a shallow, racing dive, and emerged with a yell at the chill of the water on his sun-warmed skin, his body trying to tear itself free of the liquid ice.
His skin stung, burned, but he let himself feel the sensation fully, repressing the instinct to ignore the signals his skin was sending, and turned, striking out for the center of the lake with powerful strokes. He wanted to wear himself out in a simple, natural way. Sleep these days was a fitful affair, with long hours spent wakeful and yet exhausted, searching for the perfect position that would bring him rest. Being out here had helped a little, but the forest was noisy at night and each rustle of leaves, or crack of bark, each stealthy scuffle of hunter and hunted, brought him out of sleep into a confused drowse that sapped his strength.
He swam until the water felt warm and was lapping against his mouth because he couldn't keep his head up. Time to turn back. Overhead, the sky had darkened, a storm rolling in. It struck him that he was wet already, so who cared, and that thought made him chuckle, a mouthful of lake water his reward for overlooking the danger of being out on the water in a storm. He choked, turned his head, and spat, tendrils of saliva floating like clouds in the clear water.
Clear… but he was too far out to be able to see the bottom of the lake. Even for him, vision ended and darkness began a few feet down. Fear, primal, atavistic, struck and for a moment he actually jerked his legs in toward his body, his brain screaming 'sharks!'.
Reason took its own sweet time in returning, but by then he was heading back to shore, fast, splashy strokes churning the water, blind panic lending his tired limbs a spurious energy.
By the time he dragged himself onto land, a few hundred yards away from his clothes, with a lot of stony ground to cover and the mosquitoes humming, his arms and legs were heavy and trembling and his heart was thudding. Shit. That had been -- shit. He'd really lost it out there.
The first raindrops splashed down, striking him with an impersonal accuracy. His clothes would be damp when he got to them and he'd forgotten to bring a towel.
By the time he got back to camp, he'd been bitten three times, the ball of his right foot was throbbing, courtesy of a sharp stone on the trail, and his clothes were a clammy, ill-fitting weight on his body. The only potential gleam on the horizon was the memory of two beer bottles left to cool in the lake, wedged between two rocks.
Discovering that they'd been washed away would have been one cruelty too many; the universe had kindly, considerately, left them in place and he scooped them out while the thunder rumbled across the sky, and headed for his tent. It was warmer inside and he stripped again and stretched out, bare and shivering, on top of his sleeping bag, waiting to dry off enough to be able to crawl inside it.
A beer disappeared while he was waiting, the cool tingle on his tongue followed by a pleasant buzz, courtesy of an empty stomach and all that adrenaline.
He set the empty bottle aside, stared up at the canvas, with the rain drumming down steadily onto it, and let it all go.
All the crap, all the tension, all the lying. This was why he'd needed this break. He wanted to break free and if the freedom would be welcome, the breakdown that preceded it was going to hurt which was why he'd been putting it off. Blair wouldn't have let him do this -- well, he wouldn't have let Jim do it alone. And Jim didn't want witnesses, especially ones with anxious blue eyes that saw too fucking much at times and too little when it mattered.
The last time he'd felt this…. full, this close to bursting like a rotten fruit, pulp oozing out, he'd been surrounded by trees in a different forest and Incacha had been the one he'd tried to avoid. He'd failed then; his friend had tracked him down with a patient persistence and found him on the third day slumped against a fallen tree, after willing death to take him. He licked water from Incacha's fingers, suckling on them, greed replacing apathy, as his treacherous body overrode his suicide wish, and then graduated to trickled droplets, funneled down a glossy, wide leaf.
When he'd been capable of speech, he tried to tell Incacha something that even now he wasn't sure would have been a thank you, and damp fingers had silenced him. Incacha started to chant, his body swaying, his eyes unfocused, and Jim realized that what he'd been drinking wasn't just water.
Fever dreams took him and he'd woken clearheaded, focused, empty, to find Incacha smiling down at him, his hands gentle on Jim's body, grounding him.
His senses had returned to him, as Incacha had told him they would, and he'd accepted them without complaint, used them.
Now, his turmoil wasn't about betrayal or loss, or even the weight of his responsibilities. Work had made a convenient excuse to use with Simon and Blair, but if a few more days off would be nice, he could handle his caseload just fine.
There was only one burden too heavy to bear and that was his feelings for Blair.
A friend. A good friend. No more than that. How could he say that and be believed? He spoke the words sometimes and waited, expectant, for the laughter, incredulous and scathing, and got nothing but nods and smiles. Idiots. Blind as -- blind as Blair.
I love you.
He'd said that to Simon and Blair in the hotel lobby and he'd only looked away from Blair as he said it because he didn't trust himself to keep his voice steady.
And they'd both taken it as a joke to relieve the tension, one buddy to another, allowable because it was general, not specific. I love you, Blair -- and Simon, you're a good friend, the best, and I respect you more than anyone I've ever served under… that would have killed the conversation dead. Sentimentality first thing in the morning? No, thanks.
No one wanted truth from him.
Truth was a burn of lust for Blair that had died down, the fire unfed, to a banked warmth needing only a focused breath to send flames leaping high. Truth was a baffled, rejected love that Blair accepted the outward manifestations of without recognizing the source. Jim did so much for him, from the trivial, like a ride into work, to Blair's nominal-rent-only stay at the loft, and so much of it went beyond what one friend would do for another. Single acts, maybe, but added together, the sum total of his caring exceeded friendship.
Truth was fear of rejection and loss -- and God, pity in Blair's eyes; he couldn't -- no, he couldn't handle that. Ever.
But he couldn't continue like this, either.
When Blair had offered to move out, shift his stuff to the apartment on the floor below, Jim's heart had hurt for the space of a beat, an intense stab of pain that had left a dull ache behind. Blair sleeping directly beneath him, the hush of his breath a lullaby and a siren's call, was still too far away.
Practicality told him that it'd been an empty threat; no way could Blair afford the rent, but it didn't stop him wanting to keep Blair close by any means possible.
Of course, reducing it to a grim bottom line, if he didn't get his hands on Blair soon in more than the brief, friendly -- God, he'd grown to hate that fucking word -- touches he allowed himself, he'd go not-so quietly insane, and then the only person he'd be close to would be a six-foot rabbit or similar.
He lay and listened to the rain and let the second bottle of beer convince him that when he returned he'd tell Blair. Tell him everything.
***
"You're going out?" Jim dropped a tangle of fishing line into the trash, too tired suddenly to even contemplate unraveling it. "But I just got back."
He tried to censor the whine in his voice, but dammit, he'd only walked through the door fifteen minutes ago, after being gone the full week he'd said he was going to take. He'd never spent that long away from Blair since the man had moved in.
The drive back had been spent with him rehearsing a conversation with Blair that would end up with them heading to bed together a few hours later. Failing that, a hot shower, a meal that didn't have fish as the main ingredient, and Blair beside him on the couch making acidly amusing comments about whatever was on TV would do.
Blair dressed in the male equivalent of fuck-me pumps and a tight, short dress, announcing his intentions to go to a party and sleep there, just didn't fit into the picture Jim had drawn.
"Jim, you'll want to crash early, and get up at the crack of dawn to see what's happened at work," Blair said, all sweet reason. "If I stick around, I'll keep you awake tonight and you'll wake me in the morning. This works best."
"Got your toothbrush and clean underwear?" Jim asked with just a little too much edge to it.
Blair flushed and then closed his mouth on what Jim suspected would've been an equally tart reply. "Got all the supplies I need right here," he said and patted a pocket in the front of his tight, asset-framing jeans too flat to contain anything but a condom. Jim eyed the pocket until he'd mapped out the square shape for himself and said nothing and did it loudly.
"Well… goodnight," Blair offered, already halfway to the door.
Jim sketched a wave and then, when the door had closed, stabbed his finger with a fish hook just to have a valid reason to swear bitterly and at length.
***
If it had been just that night, Jim might have gotten past it. Blair was owed some sulking time -- Simon was sure as hell taking it, piqued still by Jim's comments about being his pit bull. The excitement at Clayton Falls had brought about a temporary truce, but back on home ground, Simon was aloof and cool, passing over cases with mock-solicitous comments, all variations on a theme; the theme being Jim's supposed inability to handle anything too distressing. It was petty and Simon would get over himself and feel guilty pretty soon -- equally wearing, in some ways -- but until the cloud passed, Jim was suffering, with no one to vent to.
Blair wasn't out every night, no, but the nights he was in mysteriously seemed to coincide with Jim on a stakeout or a late shift. Impossible not to suspect that Simon was tipping him off; Jim certainly hadn't shared his work schedule with Blair; they didn't get chance to do more than murmur good morning at each other when they passed in the kitchen.
It wasn't that Blair was sulking, either; if he had been, Jim would've owned the high ground free and clear. Blair was courteous, pleasant, all smiles. He just wasn't around enough for Jim to look behind the façade to the hurt that he was sure lay under the surface.
He tried twice to get Blair to himself for a few hours and was foiled both times. The drink after work he proposed turned into a Major Crimes outing with Blair sitting too far away from Jim to make conversation of any kind possible, and his tickets to a Jags game were accepted, only for Blair to bow out at the last minute, claiming pressure of work. Jim had given both tickets to Simon and bought forgiveness from his boss that way.
The Jags lost. Jim couldn't bring himself to care.
On Thursday of the third week, Jim cracked. He hadn't touched Blair since Clayton Falls. No hair ruffles, no shoulder pats, no brush of arms. His hands felt starved, empty. Ridiculous, but there it was. He felt them clench into fists every time he walked into a pocket of air that smelled of Blair and then open imploringly. He'd found himself drifting casually into Blair's room one night when Blair was out and then lying face down on Blair's bed, nuzzling the pillow, glutting one sense secondhand while his hands kneaded the covers.
He was just glad he'd had enough control to make it back to his own bed to jerk off, come spilling, spurting after his hand had closed tightly around his erection and worked it once, twice -- and there hadn't been any need for a third stroke.
Then he'd gone back downstairs and smoothed Blair's bedcover with hands that shook because that hadn't helped at all. In fact, it'd just made sex and Blair have the same definition as far as his brain was concerned.
You dammed things up and sooner or later, walls broke and the trapped water came crashing down, obliterating anything in its path. Nature didn't like being hemmed in and contained and his feelings for Blair were elemental, fuck, yes, they were.
Jim was drowning in need and Blair was standing on dry ground and watching him sink and splutter.
He stood at the kitchen counter, drinking coffee in slow, careful sips. Blair came out of the bathroom and began to walk to the coat rack, his hand outstretched to grab his jacket.
"I need to speak to you," Jim said, keeping his voice level with an effort.
Blair froze in place, half-turned, so that Jim could see his profile emerging from the wavy line of hair cloaking most of his face. "Sure thing, Jim, but not right now, okay? Busy day. Catch you later?"
"It's Thursday," Jim said. "The one day of the week when you don't have anything to do at Rainier and you ride with me." He knew Blair's schedule as well as his own. He'd made a point of memorizing it. And Blair kept finding things to do on Thursdays, but not this one.
"Normally, yes," Blair began, and suddenly Jim had had it with Blair's particular line of bullshit.
"You're staying and you're listening to what I have to say."
Blair turned to face him, his mouth twisting in anger. "Don't order me around, Jim. I've done what you wanted; I've given you space. If you're about to tell me it's not enough and you want me gone, then fine --"
"It's not," Jim interrupted, stumbling over the words in his haste to speak them. God, had Blair been avoiding him so that he never had chance to deliver a get out speech?
"No?" Blair said skeptically.
"No."
Blair considered that for a moment, rocking back and forth, heel to toe. "Okay," he said eventually with a nod of his head. "See you later, then."
"We still haven't talked," Jim said, his momentary softening well and truly over. God, would Blair just sit the fuck down and listen?
"Later," Blair said with finality, before he grabbed his coat, and opened the door.
Jim could move fast when he needed to and he was walking forward as soon as Blair reached for his jacket. His hand slammed against the door as Blair tugged it open and it closed with a slam that vibrated through Jim's bones. His teeth ached as if he'd chewed ice.
"What the hell? Jim!"
"I want you to listen to something I have to say," Jim insisted.
"This isn't like you," Blair said, his forehead creasing in an anxious frown. He hung his coat up again. "Is it the senses? Are they spiking?"
"My fucking senses are fine, Sandburg." Jim clenched the hand flat against the door into a fist and saw Blair flinch visibly, not the muted reaction only a sentinel could decipher, but a full-body jerk. "Oh, for God's sake --"
"I didn't think you were going to hit me," Blair said just a little too quickly. He gave the nervous laugh that Jim hated because he needed Blair certain, confident, competent. "You're not, right?"
"Of course I'm not." Jim forced his hand flat again and then took it away from the door, watching Blair warily in case he grabbed the handle. "I just wanted to tell you --" He realized how doomed any discussion was that began this way, with a reluctant, resentful Blair bludgeoned into listening, and sighed in defeat. "Never mind. Go."
"No, I'm curious now." Blair gave him an engaging smile, the concern in his expression having dissipated like morning dew in the sunlight once his escape was clear. So much for him being busy. "What I had to do can wait -- but you're going to be late for work."
"That doesn't matter." Jim saw Blair's eyes widen in surprise and recanted. "No, it does matter; it's just that we won't be all that late."
Blair shrugged amiably, the way he would have done a month or two ago, shrugged as if he hadn't spent the last two weeks avoiding Jim, and walked over to the couch to prop himself up against its back. "Shoot."
"Will you just sit down?" Jim said, the irritation he felt leaving his throat rasped raw from the sharp words. Blair's mouth tightened, but he nodded and walked around the couch and sat, not quite perched on the edge, but giving that impression.
Jim joined him and then found himself with nothing to say.
"Jim?"
"I want you," Jim said, every planned speech forgotten, every rehearsed preamble skipped over. Blair hadn't given him much warning before telling him that he was a sentinel; maybe this was payback for that long ago shock.
Blair's expression didn't alter. "Want me to…?" he prompted.
"Just want you," Jim said, the awkwardness of the moment making him sweat, hot prickles of it at his forehead and under his arms.
Blair shook his head. "I still don't get it. Want me to do what?"
"It's more of a 'how'," Jim clarified. Light-headed with tension, he felt an absurd impulse to laugh and knew that if he did it would be the end of anything like rational conversation. "How do I want you, I mean."
"How?" Blair repeated, perplexity dulling his eyes to gray in the dim light given by an overcast sky outside, grudgingly admitting that it was morning, but not much more than that. "Now I really don't get it."
Jim opened his mouth to explain and then caught something, he wasn't sure what, some hint, some tip-off, that Blair knew exactly what he meant and was stalling. The hunch of Blair's shoulders, the tautness of the muscles in his cheeks… the knowledge of the man Jim had built up over the years told him that. Blair was quick to comprehend, always. He knew.
He just didn't want Jim to cross this line between them.
The near certainty of rejection should have been all it took to make Jim stop to spare both their feelings, but he was tired of being considerate. It had worn him down to raw nerve endings and skin that sung and stung with every flick of dismissal Blair had administered recently.
"Would it help if I showed you?" he asked, smoothly, calmly enough that Blair didn't react at once. Then he did, springing up with an alacrity that confirmed Jim's suspicions.
Oh, yeah. Blair knew.
Blair darted toward to the door, his shoes skidding on the wooden floor, his hand grabbing at the couch for balance. Jim, moving in the cusp of the moment, every sense preternaturally clear -- an unfair advantage that he had every intention of exploiting -- stood and walked around the couch to meet him, grabbing Blair's arms.
"Let go," Blair said, without much hope but with plenty of angry intensity. "Get your hands off me, Jim."
"Not until I've shown you how I want you," Jim told him, listening more to the beat of blood in his ear and the hammer of his heart that Blair's protests. He spun Blair around and pulled him close, fitting the squirming wriggle of Blair's body to his own and subduing it with an arm wrapped tightly around Blair's waist and a hand thrust into the thick, loose weight of Blair's hair.
Then he bent Blair over the back of the couch and kicked Blair's feet wide.
"Like this," Jim said into Blair's ear, almost sweetly, and allowed himself one long moment to remember what this felt like; to have the strength of Blair against him, the thrust of Blair's ass fitting into the curve Jim's body had made for it.
He breathed in the scent pouring off Blair, wild, angry, spiced faintly with arousal, but no more than that, and then stepped back reluctantly. Blair lay there, catching his breath, legs spread, holding the position Jim had forced on him, and then straightened. Without turning, he spoke, his words soft and careful, trembling with what Jim guessed was an effort to keep his voice quiet.
"I don't have anything to say to you. I don't even want to look at you. That was -- that was unforgivable. You know that?"
Blair's voice broke on the words, his distress seeping out like blood from a reopened wound. Jim swallowed. "I didn't mean -- I just need --"
"Sex?" Blair turned then, his face contorted, flushed, his eyes like dry stones, flat and opaque. "Well, sure, Jim, all you had to do was manhandle me and treat me like shit and you know I'd put out for you, right?" He smiled. "Want me to get naked now? Blow you right here?"
"Stop it."
"No!" Blair was yelling now, not at the top of his lungs, but loud enough for Jim to want to tell him to lower his voice, except that wouldn't go down well at all. "No, you don't get to do that and then tell me to be quiet. That wasn't playing around; that was just fucking scary. You scared me. You --" Blair caught his breath on the last word, as if he'd just heard himself. "Fuck, look what you've done to me --"
"I didn't mean to --" Jim stopped. "Okay," he amended, "I did. I meant to do that. I -- you wouldn't listen--"
"So this is my fault?" Blair demanded incredulously. "I don't listen and you humiliate me?"
"It wasn't -- I didn't see it that way," Jim said and hoped that it was true. "Humiliate? No."
"Yes," Blair insisted. "What the fuck would you call it? You bent me over the fucking couch. You made me spread --" Blair choked, his face pale. "You bastard."
"Blair --"
"No!" Blair stepped aside and pointed at the couch, his arm shaking. "You do it. Go on. See how you feel bent over like that and then tell me it wasn't exactly what I said it was."
Jim gave an uneasy chuckle that he regretted immediately as Blair's expression hardened. He held up his hands in a placating gesture he'd learned from Blair. "Okay, okay…"
It was difficult turning his back on Blair, which was a wake-up call all of its own. He trusted Blair more than he'd ever trusted anyone and now his spine was crawling with a warning of danger. He took a deep breath and put his hands on the couch, his feet apart for balance.
"My hands were on the cushions," Blair said coldly. "And I was bent right over."
Jim slid his hands down until they were resting on the seat of the couch and felt his back curve and his ass lift. Heat washed over him, shame and a dark thrill of exposure. He didn't wait for Blair to order him to move his feet apart but did it himself and felt the muscles in the back of his thighs draw tight.
"Well?" Blair demanded.
"I don't feel humiliated," Jim said. He took a moment to reconsider and then shrugged. "No. Really don't. It's not like this position is unfamiliar."
"Is that so."
Jim craned his neck and caught Blair's eye. "Yeah. I've done this for men before when I've wanted to. They were usually in a better mood than you, though."
Blair sucked in a breath. "You have got to be fucking kidding me."
"No." Jim arched his back and turned his head to stare, unseeingly across the room. "Look all you like for as long as you like. Touch me. Tell me to get naked and get back in this position and I'll do it."
There was a long pause and then he heard Blair's footsteps approaching him and tensed, waiting for a blow, suddenly keenly aware of how vulnerable he was. Blair walked around the couch and sat on the coffee table, facing Jim.
"Tell me why you're doing this."
"You told me to," Jim pointed out.
"And you're always so obedient," Blair said. "I don't think so. Try again."
"Can I get up?" Jim inquired. Obedient? He'd been dancing to Pied Piper Sandburg's tune from day one; was he the only one who saw that?
Blair shrugged as if he was bored of the whole argument. "Sure."
Jim straightened and in a delayed reaction, felt the awkwardness that he should have experienced when he was bent over, with Blair staring at his ass. "I'm sorry," he said, the distress in his voice plain even to him. "It's just -- Blair -- you've just -- since I got back, you haven't --"
"Haven't what?" Blair prompted as Jim's stuttered words came to a jerky halt.
Jim turned away from that searching gaze and pushed down the urge to yell or hit something. He wasn't a teenager, all anger and emotion. Forcing himself to a calm that was all surface, he went to sit on the couch, opposite Blair.
"This is going to sound flaky even to you."
"Go on." Blair's voice was neutral, which wasn't really an improvement on furious.
"You're not letting me touch you and it's driving me crazy," Jim said, aware of how abrupt and accusatory it sounded, but unable to come up with a better way of phrasing it. "I can still see you and hear you, can still smell you -- and I'm used to not being able to taste you -- but the no touching is new and I feel… I need to do that. Need to be able to touch you." He gave Blair a pained smile. "God, listen to me. I sound nuts. Like I should be locked up."
"You would to most people," Blair agreed, "but you know I'm not most people, any more than you are." He sighed and held out his hand. "Okay. Touch -- no!"
Jim gaped at him, his hand hanging in mid-air as Blair got off the coffee table in an ungainly scramble and backed away from him. "What the hell are you playing at?"
"We need to find out more about this."
"We really don't," Jim snapped. His hand ached as if it'd been held in freezing water.
Blair stared at him. "And after all," he said, "you touched me plenty a few minutes ago. You know. When you were bending me over the --"
"That was different." Jim took a deep breath and moderated the volume of his voice. "That was me taking, not you giving. And it wasn't for long, and it wasn't bare skin --"
"Whoa." Blair looked shocked. "Jim, you don't touch my skin usually. You pat my arm, or my shoulder -- but I'm wearing clothes when you do it. I suppose you touch my hair, now and then, but mostly, well, you just don't."
Jim avoided Blair's gaze. "You'd be surprised," he muttered. Hard to believe that Blair didn't notice the number of pats on the arm he got when he was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt… "And anyway, it didn't matter when I was close to you and you were letting me -- not moving away -- it was enough. Then I spent a week away and when I came back -- you've closed me out, you know you have."
God, he sounded pathetic.
"You're addicted to me?" Blair's voice skidded up higher than a choirboy's and he stood as if to catch up to the words. "Is that what you're saying, because it sure as hell sounds like it? Fuck, Jim, just -- fuck. That's insane."
"Not addicted, just…" Jim searched for a way to tell Blair something that he'd worked out for himself months ago. "You make everything easier. You're supposed to do that and you do a really good job of it, Chief." He hoped that the rare praise would push past the barriers Blair was almost visibly building, but something told him that he was going to have to do better than that.
"So send me flowers," Blair said, sarcasm slathered thickly. "Or, I don't know, just tell me that once in a while. Just don't expect me to believe you when it's not that long since you were telling me, in front of Simon, that I was smothering you."
"I didn't say that," Jim said quietly. It was one of the tactics for talking down an angry, potentially dangerous criminal; talk softly, calmly and they'd automatically mirror you, or something. Jim thought that personally, it would piss him off, but he was willing to try it with Blair.
He was willing to try anything to make this right.
"Those exact words? No. But it was what you meant."
Jim leaned forward and let his head drop into his hands for a moment, welcoming the respite from meeting Blair's intense, confrontational stare. "Part of me did," he admitted. "Put yourself in my shoes; I'd arranged a week away and you two followed me. Tracked me down, crossing so many goddamned lines. Monitoring my credit card charges? What the hell was that all about?"
He glanced up and caught a sheepish look on Blair's face.
"That was Simon's idea," Blair admitted. "All of it. I wasn't going to do anything when you left, but he seemed to think it was a good idea to follow you and then I got to thinking that maybe there was something wrong --"
"There was nothing wrong," Jim began and then paused. "Well, that's not strictly true -- and I swear, Sandburg, if you say 'a-ha!' I'll brain you -- but what I needed to fix it was time alone. Which I got. Eventually."
"So what was wrong?"
Good question.
"I'm not sure I want to tell you," Jim said.
"I'm damn sure you will if you want me to stay within reach."
"Blackmail, Chief?" Jim gave him a hard stare. "Don't try and use what I have told you against me, okay?"
Blair sighed and had the grace to look ashamed of himself. "Sorry." That was just a word, easily said, but Blair proved that he meant it by walking over to sit on the couch beside Jim, still tense, but less wary.
"I wanted to sort through how I felt about you," Jim said bluntly. "I couldn't do it with you close by. You -- you're kind of distracting, you know that?"
"Distracting in a good way?" There was the hint of a smile in Blair's eyes, as if a compliment flicked on a switch and he began to flirt back automatically.
"Not really," Jim said. He didn't want to be one of Blair's flirtations, ephemeral as male mosquitoes and about as annoying.
"Oh." Blair absorbed that, his expression serious again. "Distracting to your senses, you mean?"
Jim wanted to get the senses out of this altogether; to make Blair see him as a man, a potential lover, but he had to admit that it would be as tricky as scooping water with a sieve. His feelings for Blair were based on the man himself being attractive physically and someone Jim just simply got on with and trusted, but he couldn't deny that as a sentinel, he responded to some signal Blair was giving off.
That discovery was one he'd known subconsciously from day one, but he'd only realized it fully in the last month or so. Sharing it with Blair…well, it had never seemed to be the right time.
"You could say that."
Sometimes, he spent the day with Blair's scent in a cloud around him, hours working alone breathing in the rich, complex smell, arousal sharpening his awareness in some areas, dulling it in others. It couldn't be a real scent, infusing the molecules of air; just a memory, but it felt real enough.
And sometimes when Blair was close by, he couldn't help mapping his partner with every tool at his disposal, obsessively snooping on his conversations, the subtle changes in his pulse, his breathing, when a pretty woman -- or good looking man -- walked by.
Once, deeply ashamed of himself, he'd stayed linked by hearing as Blair took a leak, unable to break the connection between them, choking on the chemical reek of the industrial cleaner the department used in its rest rooms as smell piggybacked onto hearing.
"You screw with my senses," he said, the words bursting out shattering the brief silence between them. "Fuck, Blair, you screw with me."
Blair stared at him, serene as a Buddha now. "You say that as if I do it deliberately."
"Do you?" He watched Blair's tongue sweep across dry lips and leave them shimmering for an instant until the spit evaporated. Revelation time, but certainty brought with it a reluctant admiration twined around his anger. Blair was so damn sneaky sometimes. "Oh, you do, don't you, you manipulative son of a bitch."
Blair met his gaze without looking away. "Sometimes," he admitted. "Anyone would. You're -- well, it's easy, you know? And part of my research involves --"
"No," Jim said thickly, through a choking hurt, because he'd been waiting for a flash of guilt and he hadn't seen it. "Don't make this about your project. If you've been using me like that, it's your own version of pulling wings off flies. A sadist does that, not a scholar."
He watched the flush that stained Blair's cheeks spread down to his throat, charting the change in appearance and temperature of each inch of skin with an idle fascination. Blair had taught him to do this; live his life as normal, talking, laughing, eating, sleeping -- and underneath it all, the sentinel never rested. Blair had woken him once, deliberately, in the middle of the night by simply murmuring, "Jim? I need you." He'd found himself outside Blair's room a few moments later, trembling with an adrenaline rush -- the residual effects had taken hours to shake off -- his shoulder bruised because in his swift, headlong rush down the stairs, his sleep-dazed brain and body in overdrive, he'd slammed against the wall. He'd raised his hand to open the door, watching it lift with nightmarish slowness, and Blair had turned over in bed and called out that he was fine; go back to sleep; I'll explain it in the morning.
Blair had tried. In the face of Jim's incredulous glare, his words had stammered to a halt and he'd flushed then, too, his animated expression stilling, his hands dropping to his sides.
"Don't do that again," Jim told him, his words hard as stone, as bullets. "Ever. Unless you don't want me to come running when you really do need me."
"I wasn't crying wolf," Blair said quickly. "Really wasn't."
"I need to be able to trust you, Chief," Jim said more gently, and Blair had nodded, shame-faced, repentant.
And now, Blair was ashamed again, the bright flame of his enthusiasm, his optimism, wavering, about to be snuffed out. Jim used that flame to warm himself when the world turned chilly and he felt a clutch of panic in his gut. Blair, crushed, small, quiet, wasn't Blair at all.
Suspicion replaced panic between one breath and the next. "Chief, are you -- is this --?"
"Oh God." Blair pushed his hands though his air with resigned exasperation. "No, Jim, this isn't me working on your better nature to buy a pass on fucking up. This is me feeling shitty and wondering how I can make it right." He gave Jim a narrow-eyed glare. "Not that you're off the hook, either, in case you're wondering."
"We're both assholes," Jim agreed readily and watched Blair's embarrassment and residual annoyance dim and fade as amusement took their place. They were talking again, sitting close and talking; this was good. This was balm and surcease from the fight.
"Oh, man, we can be." Blair exhaled in a long, noisy blow of air. "We deserve each other."
"We've got each other," Jim said, correcting or agreeing with him; he wasn't sure which.
Blair nodded, his gaze fixed now on the gray mass of clouds through the windows. "That's so. For now, at least."
"'For now'?" Jim swallowed dryly. "You planning on moving?"
"I don't know what the future holds," Blair said abstractedly and, Jim thought, a little pompously. "I've been here with you longer than I've stayed most places."
"The novelty may have worn off but your welcome hasn't," Jim told him with as much effort put into keeping his voice casual as he'd used walking across three miles of jungle with a sprained ankle and an injured child -- Incacha's nephew -- slung across his shoulders. "I'm used to having you around."
"Maybe too used to me."
"Chief, the cryptic sound bites get old fast." Jim nudged Blair's leg with his knee. "And I'm going to have to go into work soon; talk to me."
"No." Blair shook his head, a decisive shake that sent two hairs drifting free of the wavy mass to float, buoyed on air, dragged by gravity, to the floor. Jim watched their journey; parts of Blair, their loss unnoted or mourned.
Except he'd noticed. He could have bent, retrieved them, and handed them back, but what would be the point? Blair didn't want them and wouldn't miss them.
And now he was creating metaphors and meaning out of something so trivial he gave serious thought to his mental state. This wasn't like him. Something was wrong.
"No," Blair repeated. "I've got to think about this. You've thrown a lot at me and I just need to do some research."
"What?" Jim felt the skin across his forehead tighten, as if the headache that had started to throb behind his eyes was making his head balloon bigger. "There's a book about what to do when your sentinel flips out on you? Or are you going to be researching apartment listings? Huh? Is that it?"
Blair stood. "No, that's not it. Jim, we're friends; you need me right now and I'd never leave when you needed me."
"Then you'll never go," Jim said, staring down at the floor. The two hairs had landed together, one on top of the other in a skewed cross; a child drawing a kiss on a card. He'd spoken so quietly that he wasn't sure Blair had heard him until a hand, warmly familiar, cupped his cheek and tilted his head back.
"Maybe I won't," Blair said. His hand moved without ever completely leaving, caressing Jim's face lightly and leaving a trail of warmth behind it.
Jim gasped, a silent intake of breath as his body responded to the touch, waking, reviving, blossoming. Blair sank back down on the couch, his eyes startled as if he'd felt something, too, his expression so open, so damn vulnerable --
As Jim waited, prepared to brace himself for Blair's withdrawal, Blair raised his other hand and flicked open the top two buttons of Jim's shirt to expose his collarbone. Without pausing, he slid his hand inside, concentration furrowing his brow, and spread his fingers wide. It wasn't a sexual touch, but Jim felt himself harden, as if his relief and pleasure needed an outlet and that was an easy path to follow, well-trodden and familiar.
Blair's little finger brushed Jim's nipple, already raised and tight, and his body jerked, a spasm of sensation too intense to bear ripping through him. His cock was bent awkwardly, fighting to straighten and swell in a straitjacket of fabric, the metallic bite of the zipper tormenting him, but he couldn't move away from Blair. Reaching down to adjust himself seemed equally impossible, though Blair had to know what his touch was doing to Jim.
"Is this helping?" Blair asked, his voice a whisper, a stir of breath, no more. "Is it?"
Jim nodded mutely, and Blair licked his lips again and moved his hand from Jim's face to the back of his neck, stroking up and down slowly, from skin to hair, over and over, while his other hand traveled across Jim's chest, its reach limited only by Jim's buttoned shirt.
Because as far as Jim was concerned, Blair could touch him anywhere. He would lie quiescent under Blair's roaming hands; spread his legs wide to accommodate a push and shove of fingers, tongue, or cock into his ass; hell, if Blair wanted to count his teeth, Jim would open wide and say aah.
Jim didn't offer to undo more buttons, or to take his shirt off. If Blair had wanted more than two buttons undone, he would have flicked them open.
His other nipple was brushed by Blair's thumb, a more purposeful, intended encounter, the rub that followed firm enough to douse the flare of lust the fleeting touch had lit. This was the impersonal intimacy of a doctor examining a patient, nothing more, and in some ways it didn't satisfy Jim as much as a friendly pat from Blair would have done, but it was helping. After starving for weeks, he wasn't prepared to be fussy over leftovers placed on his plate.
"I can't --" Blair snatched his hands back, breathing heavily, his face pale, some limit reached, some trigger squeezed. Jim wondered, with the curiosity he felt about every facet of Blair, just what exactly it was. Had he moaned? He'd tried not to, but -- Or leaned forward, shifted position, eager to get those deft fingers against virgin skin… "Later. Tonight. We'll… I'll talk to you, I swear, but I have to go now."
Jim nodded, euphoric, floating. It hadn't been what he'd thought that he wanted; his hands, sentinel hands, on Blair, learning him, absorbing the minutiae of each inch, but in some ways it had been better. His hands weren't the only part of him that could feel more than the average human and Blair's hands -- oh God, what they did to him! Capable, strong hands willingly placed on his body because Blair had seen how much he'd needed that… "Sure, Chief. Whatever you say."
The door slammed shut a moment later as Blair left without the formality of a farewell and Jim let himself moan and palm his cock, let himself move, released from the frozen immobility he'd forced on himself to keep Blair close.
He didn't want to come; this arousal had been created by Blair's hands, shaped and fashioned by him and Jim was willing to wait for Blair to finish what he'd started.
It still felt good to clutch and squeeze at himself, though, the faint pungency of precome filling his nostrils as he eased his cock into a better position and waited for it to soften so that he could go to work.
***
The day passed, minute by minute, with jerky, disconcerting lurches; time sometimes dragging, then racing by. Jim found himself watching the clock; something that he never did at work. He liked being there, surrounded by people he understood, the stale, airless room busy and bustling. It was rare for his senses to be overwhelmed by the constant shrill of phones or raised voices; or for him to drift away on the night shift, when a waiting calm settled over the room and the phone ringing always spelled trouble.
Blair didn't show up or call. His absence wasn't noted, or it was, nobody commented. For all that he was tolerated, even liked, Blair wasn't accepted the way even a rookie cop would have been, not really. Observer. Civilian. Ellison's shadow. He'd been adopted to a certain extent by Jim's closest friends, but Jim knew that if this whole thing between Sandburg and him blew up and Blair disappeared, off to follow the trail of another sentinel or something even more fantastic, he wouldn't be missed for long. Blair caused problems, made waves…saw the world differently. Not everyone found that attractive.
Once, that side of Blair had annoyed Jim, too. He'd found his cop impulses, trained instincts, thwarted by Blair's idealism, that came backed by a steely pragmatism. Jim didn't do thwarted well, but when it came to Blair, he didn't have much choice.
From day one, he'd put himself into Blair's hands, helpless to deal with the chaos of his senses, clinging to Blair, sometimes literally, as his world broke and shattered, waiting for Blair to piece it all back together again.
And now, after months when he really thought that he was getting a handle on the sentinel situation, this happened and he was left lost again, blinded by a baffled love and an ache of need.
Tick-tock, Blair. Tick-tock. Hit the books and then make this right for me. For us.
Go to Part Two
Many thanks also to my beta reader,
mab_browne for her very helpful comments and t_verano for her support when I got stuck.The story is, as the title suggests, set after Crossroads, and is 16,500 words. No kink, some angst, a happy ending. I've split it into two as it's too long for one post.
The opening few lines of dialog are from the episode script.
Crossroad Blues
"So it's back to Cascade?" Linda asked, her gaze traveling between the three men.
Jim looked her over. Smart, competent -- and content to be stuck in this dying town as its vet and makeshift doctor. Most people wouldn't understand that, seeing it as a lack of ambition, but he did. She was staying where she was needed; the sentinel in him responded to that choice with approval. He smiled warmly at her. "Well, actually, I thought we could all do some fishing tomorrow."
Jim watched Blair cover his face with his hand, acting out dismay, but ignored him. He'd said that he'd come here to fish and by God, that was what he was going to do.
"I'm in," Linda said brightly. "I'll spring for breakfast."
The length of time since he'd eaten made Jim's response wholehearted and sincere. "Great."
Simon chuckled wryly. "No, thank you. I think I prefer the mayhem of the city." He nodded at Linda. "Nice meeting you."
Jim watched Simon walk away and gave Blair an inquiring look. "Uh... I think I'm down with the mayhem," Blair said. He paused and then, when Jim didn't reply or try to stop him, turned and followed Simon.
"I finally shook them," Jim said, and heard the satisfaction in his voice.
Linda stared at him, her expression tinged with bewilderment. "'Shook them'?" she repeated. "I thought you were all up here together?"
"Not exactly," Jim replied. He saw that she wanted more of an explanation and sighed inwardly. "Simon's my boss and a friend, which means we see a lot of each other. We fish together plenty, but this time… this time I wanted some space."
"And what about Blair?" Linda was frowning now. "I didn't get chance to talk to him much, but he seems really nice. You were -- you seemed so worried about him when he got sick."
"Well, of course I was." Jim shrugged and tried to keep his impatience from showing. His stomach was growling and Blair was the last person he wanted to discuss with a relative stranger. "Sandburg's a friend, too. A good one. But when it comes to time apart, well, we just don't have any. When he can, he rides with me as an observer --" He saw her lips part on a question and cut her off. "For a paper he's working on for his doctorate. So I see a lot of him at work, and we live together, which means I see him at home, too."
"You live together?" Her eyebrows rose and then she shook her head. "Sorry. None of my business. You just seem a bit old for a roommate."
There was nothing in her voice to make him think that she was implying that Sandburg was more than that, so he threw her a bone. "His place blew up -- well, the drug lab next door did -- and took his digs with it, so I offered him a place to stay."
Her eyes widened. "He just lost his home? God, poor Blair! And now this…he's not having much luck recently, is he?"
"Oh, it wasn't recent," Jim said dismissively, without thought. "Couple of years back now."
She glanced away, trying to hide a smile. "Ah. Got it."
"No, you don't," he said, too used to this reaction to mistake her meaning, and feeling a familiar annoyance at the assumption. "He has a room at my place. A room with a bed in it. His bed. Not mine. We clear on that?"
Irritation flared in her eyes at his sharp words. "Crystal clear," she said crisply. "What's not so clear is why you see two friends as encumbrances, but that's your business. And you know what? I think you'll have to take a rain check on fishing and breakfast; I'm going to be busy helping out my friends. Like Blair, they're still suffering the after effects of that virus."
She turned on her heel and stalked away, leaving Jim to stare after her, stubbornness holding his guilt at bay. He'd driven up here for a break. He'd told them that he didn't want them to come with him. He was entitled to some peace after --
He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with pine-scented air to clear the ghost of Lila's perfume from them.
Lila… Her death had left him grieving, but the vague hope that one day he'd meet up with her again had faded long ago. Even before she'd been shot, he'd known that it wasn't going to work between them a second time. Too much had changed for him. He'd had the million to one chance of bumping into her in the street, but that had been it; their luck used up in one random collision of bodies.
Fresh from the jungle, she'd been as much of a delight as hot showers, cold beer, and a change of clothing whenever he wanted it. Her hands had been like sun heat on his skin, arousing him again and again, her body welcoming, the distance in her eyes interpreted by his male ego as a challenge, not rejection or a warning. He could no more have stopped himself from falling in love than he could have let himself be sent on another mission.
And she'd disappeared one day and left him with nothing to do but go home. Start over -- and tuck away his memories of a few days with her like something precious that was nothing of the sort, a child burying a treasured toy in the garden and finding it years later, rusted and misshapen.
He'd made love to her in his bed when she'd come to the loft and when she'd gone, he'd stripped the sheets and thrown open the patio doors, letting cool, damp air swirl through and cleanse the loft, while Blair shivered and pointedly donned a thick sweater.
He'd enjoyed it at a basic level, sure. She was -- had been -- a beautiful woman. But looking back at that night in the loft, it felt like an echo, not a new beginning, and it wasn't hard to work out why.
He breathed in the scent of the forest again and closed his eyes. He needed this time alone. Needed it.
***
He pitched his tent in a clearing on the edge of the lake, where the waves lapping languidly against the rocks lulled him to sleep and woke him in the morning. His senses were never in danger of stranding him in the no man's land of a zone; too many distractions from the town on the other side of the lake, not so far distant at all. The occasional boat passing by underlined the fact that this was hardly uncharted wilderness.
Quiet, though.
He didn't need uninterrupted solitude; from time to time he hiked the few miles into the town and ate a hot meal at the diner and picked up some bait to save himself digging for worms. He just needed peace.
Toward the end of his stay, with two more nights under canvas before he headed back to Cascade, he set his fishing rod aside, walked to a small cove, where the water lay deep and cool over sand and pebbles, and stripped. With his clothes in a heap on a flat rock, he plunged into the water, a shallow, racing dive, and emerged with a yell at the chill of the water on his sun-warmed skin, his body trying to tear itself free of the liquid ice.
His skin stung, burned, but he let himself feel the sensation fully, repressing the instinct to ignore the signals his skin was sending, and turned, striking out for the center of the lake with powerful strokes. He wanted to wear himself out in a simple, natural way. Sleep these days was a fitful affair, with long hours spent wakeful and yet exhausted, searching for the perfect position that would bring him rest. Being out here had helped a little, but the forest was noisy at night and each rustle of leaves, or crack of bark, each stealthy scuffle of hunter and hunted, brought him out of sleep into a confused drowse that sapped his strength.
He swam until the water felt warm and was lapping against his mouth because he couldn't keep his head up. Time to turn back. Overhead, the sky had darkened, a storm rolling in. It struck him that he was wet already, so who cared, and that thought made him chuckle, a mouthful of lake water his reward for overlooking the danger of being out on the water in a storm. He choked, turned his head, and spat, tendrils of saliva floating like clouds in the clear water.
Clear… but he was too far out to be able to see the bottom of the lake. Even for him, vision ended and darkness began a few feet down. Fear, primal, atavistic, struck and for a moment he actually jerked his legs in toward his body, his brain screaming 'sharks!'.
Reason took its own sweet time in returning, but by then he was heading back to shore, fast, splashy strokes churning the water, blind panic lending his tired limbs a spurious energy.
By the time he dragged himself onto land, a few hundred yards away from his clothes, with a lot of stony ground to cover and the mosquitoes humming, his arms and legs were heavy and trembling and his heart was thudding. Shit. That had been -- shit. He'd really lost it out there.
The first raindrops splashed down, striking him with an impersonal accuracy. His clothes would be damp when he got to them and he'd forgotten to bring a towel.
By the time he got back to camp, he'd been bitten three times, the ball of his right foot was throbbing, courtesy of a sharp stone on the trail, and his clothes were a clammy, ill-fitting weight on his body. The only potential gleam on the horizon was the memory of two beer bottles left to cool in the lake, wedged between two rocks.
Discovering that they'd been washed away would have been one cruelty too many; the universe had kindly, considerately, left them in place and he scooped them out while the thunder rumbled across the sky, and headed for his tent. It was warmer inside and he stripped again and stretched out, bare and shivering, on top of his sleeping bag, waiting to dry off enough to be able to crawl inside it.
A beer disappeared while he was waiting, the cool tingle on his tongue followed by a pleasant buzz, courtesy of an empty stomach and all that adrenaline.
He set the empty bottle aside, stared up at the canvas, with the rain drumming down steadily onto it, and let it all go.
All the crap, all the tension, all the lying. This was why he'd needed this break. He wanted to break free and if the freedom would be welcome, the breakdown that preceded it was going to hurt which was why he'd been putting it off. Blair wouldn't have let him do this -- well, he wouldn't have let Jim do it alone. And Jim didn't want witnesses, especially ones with anxious blue eyes that saw too fucking much at times and too little when it mattered.
The last time he'd felt this…. full, this close to bursting like a rotten fruit, pulp oozing out, he'd been surrounded by trees in a different forest and Incacha had been the one he'd tried to avoid. He'd failed then; his friend had tracked him down with a patient persistence and found him on the third day slumped against a fallen tree, after willing death to take him. He licked water from Incacha's fingers, suckling on them, greed replacing apathy, as his treacherous body overrode his suicide wish, and then graduated to trickled droplets, funneled down a glossy, wide leaf.
When he'd been capable of speech, he tried to tell Incacha something that even now he wasn't sure would have been a thank you, and damp fingers had silenced him. Incacha started to chant, his body swaying, his eyes unfocused, and Jim realized that what he'd been drinking wasn't just water.
Fever dreams took him and he'd woken clearheaded, focused, empty, to find Incacha smiling down at him, his hands gentle on Jim's body, grounding him.
His senses had returned to him, as Incacha had told him they would, and he'd accepted them without complaint, used them.
Now, his turmoil wasn't about betrayal or loss, or even the weight of his responsibilities. Work had made a convenient excuse to use with Simon and Blair, but if a few more days off would be nice, he could handle his caseload just fine.
There was only one burden too heavy to bear and that was his feelings for Blair.
A friend. A good friend. No more than that. How could he say that and be believed? He spoke the words sometimes and waited, expectant, for the laughter, incredulous and scathing, and got nothing but nods and smiles. Idiots. Blind as -- blind as Blair.
I love you.
He'd said that to Simon and Blair in the hotel lobby and he'd only looked away from Blair as he said it because he didn't trust himself to keep his voice steady.
And they'd both taken it as a joke to relieve the tension, one buddy to another, allowable because it was general, not specific. I love you, Blair -- and Simon, you're a good friend, the best, and I respect you more than anyone I've ever served under… that would have killed the conversation dead. Sentimentality first thing in the morning? No, thanks.
No one wanted truth from him.
Truth was a burn of lust for Blair that had died down, the fire unfed, to a banked warmth needing only a focused breath to send flames leaping high. Truth was a baffled, rejected love that Blair accepted the outward manifestations of without recognizing the source. Jim did so much for him, from the trivial, like a ride into work, to Blair's nominal-rent-only stay at the loft, and so much of it went beyond what one friend would do for another. Single acts, maybe, but added together, the sum total of his caring exceeded friendship.
Truth was fear of rejection and loss -- and God, pity in Blair's eyes; he couldn't -- no, he couldn't handle that. Ever.
But he couldn't continue like this, either.
When Blair had offered to move out, shift his stuff to the apartment on the floor below, Jim's heart had hurt for the space of a beat, an intense stab of pain that had left a dull ache behind. Blair sleeping directly beneath him, the hush of his breath a lullaby and a siren's call, was still too far away.
Practicality told him that it'd been an empty threat; no way could Blair afford the rent, but it didn't stop him wanting to keep Blair close by any means possible.
Of course, reducing it to a grim bottom line, if he didn't get his hands on Blair soon in more than the brief, friendly -- God, he'd grown to hate that fucking word -- touches he allowed himself, he'd go not-so quietly insane, and then the only person he'd be close to would be a six-foot rabbit or similar.
He lay and listened to the rain and let the second bottle of beer convince him that when he returned he'd tell Blair. Tell him everything.
***
"You're going out?" Jim dropped a tangle of fishing line into the trash, too tired suddenly to even contemplate unraveling it. "But I just got back."
He tried to censor the whine in his voice, but dammit, he'd only walked through the door fifteen minutes ago, after being gone the full week he'd said he was going to take. He'd never spent that long away from Blair since the man had moved in.
The drive back had been spent with him rehearsing a conversation with Blair that would end up with them heading to bed together a few hours later. Failing that, a hot shower, a meal that didn't have fish as the main ingredient, and Blair beside him on the couch making acidly amusing comments about whatever was on TV would do.
Blair dressed in the male equivalent of fuck-me pumps and a tight, short dress, announcing his intentions to go to a party and sleep there, just didn't fit into the picture Jim had drawn.
"Jim, you'll want to crash early, and get up at the crack of dawn to see what's happened at work," Blair said, all sweet reason. "If I stick around, I'll keep you awake tonight and you'll wake me in the morning. This works best."
"Got your toothbrush and clean underwear?" Jim asked with just a little too much edge to it.
Blair flushed and then closed his mouth on what Jim suspected would've been an equally tart reply. "Got all the supplies I need right here," he said and patted a pocket in the front of his tight, asset-framing jeans too flat to contain anything but a condom. Jim eyed the pocket until he'd mapped out the square shape for himself and said nothing and did it loudly.
"Well… goodnight," Blair offered, already halfway to the door.
Jim sketched a wave and then, when the door had closed, stabbed his finger with a fish hook just to have a valid reason to swear bitterly and at length.
***
If it had been just that night, Jim might have gotten past it. Blair was owed some sulking time -- Simon was sure as hell taking it, piqued still by Jim's comments about being his pit bull. The excitement at Clayton Falls had brought about a temporary truce, but back on home ground, Simon was aloof and cool, passing over cases with mock-solicitous comments, all variations on a theme; the theme being Jim's supposed inability to handle anything too distressing. It was petty and Simon would get over himself and feel guilty pretty soon -- equally wearing, in some ways -- but until the cloud passed, Jim was suffering, with no one to vent to.
Blair wasn't out every night, no, but the nights he was in mysteriously seemed to coincide with Jim on a stakeout or a late shift. Impossible not to suspect that Simon was tipping him off; Jim certainly hadn't shared his work schedule with Blair; they didn't get chance to do more than murmur good morning at each other when they passed in the kitchen.
It wasn't that Blair was sulking, either; if he had been, Jim would've owned the high ground free and clear. Blair was courteous, pleasant, all smiles. He just wasn't around enough for Jim to look behind the façade to the hurt that he was sure lay under the surface.
He tried twice to get Blair to himself for a few hours and was foiled both times. The drink after work he proposed turned into a Major Crimes outing with Blair sitting too far away from Jim to make conversation of any kind possible, and his tickets to a Jags game were accepted, only for Blair to bow out at the last minute, claiming pressure of work. Jim had given both tickets to Simon and bought forgiveness from his boss that way.
The Jags lost. Jim couldn't bring himself to care.
On Thursday of the third week, Jim cracked. He hadn't touched Blair since Clayton Falls. No hair ruffles, no shoulder pats, no brush of arms. His hands felt starved, empty. Ridiculous, but there it was. He felt them clench into fists every time he walked into a pocket of air that smelled of Blair and then open imploringly. He'd found himself drifting casually into Blair's room one night when Blair was out and then lying face down on Blair's bed, nuzzling the pillow, glutting one sense secondhand while his hands kneaded the covers.
He was just glad he'd had enough control to make it back to his own bed to jerk off, come spilling, spurting after his hand had closed tightly around his erection and worked it once, twice -- and there hadn't been any need for a third stroke.
Then he'd gone back downstairs and smoothed Blair's bedcover with hands that shook because that hadn't helped at all. In fact, it'd just made sex and Blair have the same definition as far as his brain was concerned.
You dammed things up and sooner or later, walls broke and the trapped water came crashing down, obliterating anything in its path. Nature didn't like being hemmed in and contained and his feelings for Blair were elemental, fuck, yes, they were.
Jim was drowning in need and Blair was standing on dry ground and watching him sink and splutter.
He stood at the kitchen counter, drinking coffee in slow, careful sips. Blair came out of the bathroom and began to walk to the coat rack, his hand outstretched to grab his jacket.
"I need to speak to you," Jim said, keeping his voice level with an effort.
Blair froze in place, half-turned, so that Jim could see his profile emerging from the wavy line of hair cloaking most of his face. "Sure thing, Jim, but not right now, okay? Busy day. Catch you later?"
"It's Thursday," Jim said. "The one day of the week when you don't have anything to do at Rainier and you ride with me." He knew Blair's schedule as well as his own. He'd made a point of memorizing it. And Blair kept finding things to do on Thursdays, but not this one.
"Normally, yes," Blair began, and suddenly Jim had had it with Blair's particular line of bullshit.
"You're staying and you're listening to what I have to say."
Blair turned to face him, his mouth twisting in anger. "Don't order me around, Jim. I've done what you wanted; I've given you space. If you're about to tell me it's not enough and you want me gone, then fine --"
"It's not," Jim interrupted, stumbling over the words in his haste to speak them. God, had Blair been avoiding him so that he never had chance to deliver a get out speech?
"No?" Blair said skeptically.
"No."
Blair considered that for a moment, rocking back and forth, heel to toe. "Okay," he said eventually with a nod of his head. "See you later, then."
"We still haven't talked," Jim said, his momentary softening well and truly over. God, would Blair just sit the fuck down and listen?
"Later," Blair said with finality, before he grabbed his coat, and opened the door.
Jim could move fast when he needed to and he was walking forward as soon as Blair reached for his jacket. His hand slammed against the door as Blair tugged it open and it closed with a slam that vibrated through Jim's bones. His teeth ached as if he'd chewed ice.
"What the hell? Jim!"
"I want you to listen to something I have to say," Jim insisted.
"This isn't like you," Blair said, his forehead creasing in an anxious frown. He hung his coat up again. "Is it the senses? Are they spiking?"
"My fucking senses are fine, Sandburg." Jim clenched the hand flat against the door into a fist and saw Blair flinch visibly, not the muted reaction only a sentinel could decipher, but a full-body jerk. "Oh, for God's sake --"
"I didn't think you were going to hit me," Blair said just a little too quickly. He gave the nervous laugh that Jim hated because he needed Blair certain, confident, competent. "You're not, right?"
"Of course I'm not." Jim forced his hand flat again and then took it away from the door, watching Blair warily in case he grabbed the handle. "I just wanted to tell you --" He realized how doomed any discussion was that began this way, with a reluctant, resentful Blair bludgeoned into listening, and sighed in defeat. "Never mind. Go."
"No, I'm curious now." Blair gave him an engaging smile, the concern in his expression having dissipated like morning dew in the sunlight once his escape was clear. So much for him being busy. "What I had to do can wait -- but you're going to be late for work."
"That doesn't matter." Jim saw Blair's eyes widen in surprise and recanted. "No, it does matter; it's just that we won't be all that late."
Blair shrugged amiably, the way he would have done a month or two ago, shrugged as if he hadn't spent the last two weeks avoiding Jim, and walked over to the couch to prop himself up against its back. "Shoot."
"Will you just sit down?" Jim said, the irritation he felt leaving his throat rasped raw from the sharp words. Blair's mouth tightened, but he nodded and walked around the couch and sat, not quite perched on the edge, but giving that impression.
Jim joined him and then found himself with nothing to say.
"Jim?"
"I want you," Jim said, every planned speech forgotten, every rehearsed preamble skipped over. Blair hadn't given him much warning before telling him that he was a sentinel; maybe this was payback for that long ago shock.
Blair's expression didn't alter. "Want me to…?" he prompted.
"Just want you," Jim said, the awkwardness of the moment making him sweat, hot prickles of it at his forehead and under his arms.
Blair shook his head. "I still don't get it. Want me to do what?"
"It's more of a 'how'," Jim clarified. Light-headed with tension, he felt an absurd impulse to laugh and knew that if he did it would be the end of anything like rational conversation. "How do I want you, I mean."
"How?" Blair repeated, perplexity dulling his eyes to gray in the dim light given by an overcast sky outside, grudgingly admitting that it was morning, but not much more than that. "Now I really don't get it."
Jim opened his mouth to explain and then caught something, he wasn't sure what, some hint, some tip-off, that Blair knew exactly what he meant and was stalling. The hunch of Blair's shoulders, the tautness of the muscles in his cheeks… the knowledge of the man Jim had built up over the years told him that. Blair was quick to comprehend, always. He knew.
He just didn't want Jim to cross this line between them.
The near certainty of rejection should have been all it took to make Jim stop to spare both their feelings, but he was tired of being considerate. It had worn him down to raw nerve endings and skin that sung and stung with every flick of dismissal Blair had administered recently.
"Would it help if I showed you?" he asked, smoothly, calmly enough that Blair didn't react at once. Then he did, springing up with an alacrity that confirmed Jim's suspicions.
Oh, yeah. Blair knew.
Blair darted toward to the door, his shoes skidding on the wooden floor, his hand grabbing at the couch for balance. Jim, moving in the cusp of the moment, every sense preternaturally clear -- an unfair advantage that he had every intention of exploiting -- stood and walked around the couch to meet him, grabbing Blair's arms.
"Let go," Blair said, without much hope but with plenty of angry intensity. "Get your hands off me, Jim."
"Not until I've shown you how I want you," Jim told him, listening more to the beat of blood in his ear and the hammer of his heart that Blair's protests. He spun Blair around and pulled him close, fitting the squirming wriggle of Blair's body to his own and subduing it with an arm wrapped tightly around Blair's waist and a hand thrust into the thick, loose weight of Blair's hair.
Then he bent Blair over the back of the couch and kicked Blair's feet wide.
"Like this," Jim said into Blair's ear, almost sweetly, and allowed himself one long moment to remember what this felt like; to have the strength of Blair against him, the thrust of Blair's ass fitting into the curve Jim's body had made for it.
He breathed in the scent pouring off Blair, wild, angry, spiced faintly with arousal, but no more than that, and then stepped back reluctantly. Blair lay there, catching his breath, legs spread, holding the position Jim had forced on him, and then straightened. Without turning, he spoke, his words soft and careful, trembling with what Jim guessed was an effort to keep his voice quiet.
"I don't have anything to say to you. I don't even want to look at you. That was -- that was unforgivable. You know that?"
Blair's voice broke on the words, his distress seeping out like blood from a reopened wound. Jim swallowed. "I didn't mean -- I just need --"
"Sex?" Blair turned then, his face contorted, flushed, his eyes like dry stones, flat and opaque. "Well, sure, Jim, all you had to do was manhandle me and treat me like shit and you know I'd put out for you, right?" He smiled. "Want me to get naked now? Blow you right here?"
"Stop it."
"No!" Blair was yelling now, not at the top of his lungs, but loud enough for Jim to want to tell him to lower his voice, except that wouldn't go down well at all. "No, you don't get to do that and then tell me to be quiet. That wasn't playing around; that was just fucking scary. You scared me. You --" Blair caught his breath on the last word, as if he'd just heard himself. "Fuck, look what you've done to me --"
"I didn't mean to --" Jim stopped. "Okay," he amended, "I did. I meant to do that. I -- you wouldn't listen--"
"So this is my fault?" Blair demanded incredulously. "I don't listen and you humiliate me?"
"It wasn't -- I didn't see it that way," Jim said and hoped that it was true. "Humiliate? No."
"Yes," Blair insisted. "What the fuck would you call it? You bent me over the fucking couch. You made me spread --" Blair choked, his face pale. "You bastard."
"Blair --"
"No!" Blair stepped aside and pointed at the couch, his arm shaking. "You do it. Go on. See how you feel bent over like that and then tell me it wasn't exactly what I said it was."
Jim gave an uneasy chuckle that he regretted immediately as Blair's expression hardened. He held up his hands in a placating gesture he'd learned from Blair. "Okay, okay…"
It was difficult turning his back on Blair, which was a wake-up call all of its own. He trusted Blair more than he'd ever trusted anyone and now his spine was crawling with a warning of danger. He took a deep breath and put his hands on the couch, his feet apart for balance.
"My hands were on the cushions," Blair said coldly. "And I was bent right over."
Jim slid his hands down until they were resting on the seat of the couch and felt his back curve and his ass lift. Heat washed over him, shame and a dark thrill of exposure. He didn't wait for Blair to order him to move his feet apart but did it himself and felt the muscles in the back of his thighs draw tight.
"Well?" Blair demanded.
"I don't feel humiliated," Jim said. He took a moment to reconsider and then shrugged. "No. Really don't. It's not like this position is unfamiliar."
"Is that so."
Jim craned his neck and caught Blair's eye. "Yeah. I've done this for men before when I've wanted to. They were usually in a better mood than you, though."
Blair sucked in a breath. "You have got to be fucking kidding me."
"No." Jim arched his back and turned his head to stare, unseeingly across the room. "Look all you like for as long as you like. Touch me. Tell me to get naked and get back in this position and I'll do it."
There was a long pause and then he heard Blair's footsteps approaching him and tensed, waiting for a blow, suddenly keenly aware of how vulnerable he was. Blair walked around the couch and sat on the coffee table, facing Jim.
"Tell me why you're doing this."
"You told me to," Jim pointed out.
"And you're always so obedient," Blair said. "I don't think so. Try again."
"Can I get up?" Jim inquired. Obedient? He'd been dancing to Pied Piper Sandburg's tune from day one; was he the only one who saw that?
Blair shrugged as if he was bored of the whole argument. "Sure."
Jim straightened and in a delayed reaction, felt the awkwardness that he should have experienced when he was bent over, with Blair staring at his ass. "I'm sorry," he said, the distress in his voice plain even to him. "It's just -- Blair -- you've just -- since I got back, you haven't --"
"Haven't what?" Blair prompted as Jim's stuttered words came to a jerky halt.
Jim turned away from that searching gaze and pushed down the urge to yell or hit something. He wasn't a teenager, all anger and emotion. Forcing himself to a calm that was all surface, he went to sit on the couch, opposite Blair.
"This is going to sound flaky even to you."
"Go on." Blair's voice was neutral, which wasn't really an improvement on furious.
"You're not letting me touch you and it's driving me crazy," Jim said, aware of how abrupt and accusatory it sounded, but unable to come up with a better way of phrasing it. "I can still see you and hear you, can still smell you -- and I'm used to not being able to taste you -- but the no touching is new and I feel… I need to do that. Need to be able to touch you." He gave Blair a pained smile. "God, listen to me. I sound nuts. Like I should be locked up."
"You would to most people," Blair agreed, "but you know I'm not most people, any more than you are." He sighed and held out his hand. "Okay. Touch -- no!"
Jim gaped at him, his hand hanging in mid-air as Blair got off the coffee table in an ungainly scramble and backed away from him. "What the hell are you playing at?"
"We need to find out more about this."
"We really don't," Jim snapped. His hand ached as if it'd been held in freezing water.
Blair stared at him. "And after all," he said, "you touched me plenty a few minutes ago. You know. When you were bending me over the --"
"That was different." Jim took a deep breath and moderated the volume of his voice. "That was me taking, not you giving. And it wasn't for long, and it wasn't bare skin --"
"Whoa." Blair looked shocked. "Jim, you don't touch my skin usually. You pat my arm, or my shoulder -- but I'm wearing clothes when you do it. I suppose you touch my hair, now and then, but mostly, well, you just don't."
Jim avoided Blair's gaze. "You'd be surprised," he muttered. Hard to believe that Blair didn't notice the number of pats on the arm he got when he was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt… "And anyway, it didn't matter when I was close to you and you were letting me -- not moving away -- it was enough. Then I spent a week away and when I came back -- you've closed me out, you know you have."
God, he sounded pathetic.
"You're addicted to me?" Blair's voice skidded up higher than a choirboy's and he stood as if to catch up to the words. "Is that what you're saying, because it sure as hell sounds like it? Fuck, Jim, just -- fuck. That's insane."
"Not addicted, just…" Jim searched for a way to tell Blair something that he'd worked out for himself months ago. "You make everything easier. You're supposed to do that and you do a really good job of it, Chief." He hoped that the rare praise would push past the barriers Blair was almost visibly building, but something told him that he was going to have to do better than that.
"So send me flowers," Blair said, sarcasm slathered thickly. "Or, I don't know, just tell me that once in a while. Just don't expect me to believe you when it's not that long since you were telling me, in front of Simon, that I was smothering you."
"I didn't say that," Jim said quietly. It was one of the tactics for talking down an angry, potentially dangerous criminal; talk softly, calmly and they'd automatically mirror you, or something. Jim thought that personally, it would piss him off, but he was willing to try it with Blair.
He was willing to try anything to make this right.
"Those exact words? No. But it was what you meant."
Jim leaned forward and let his head drop into his hands for a moment, welcoming the respite from meeting Blair's intense, confrontational stare. "Part of me did," he admitted. "Put yourself in my shoes; I'd arranged a week away and you two followed me. Tracked me down, crossing so many goddamned lines. Monitoring my credit card charges? What the hell was that all about?"
He glanced up and caught a sheepish look on Blair's face.
"That was Simon's idea," Blair admitted. "All of it. I wasn't going to do anything when you left, but he seemed to think it was a good idea to follow you and then I got to thinking that maybe there was something wrong --"
"There was nothing wrong," Jim began and then paused. "Well, that's not strictly true -- and I swear, Sandburg, if you say 'a-ha!' I'll brain you -- but what I needed to fix it was time alone. Which I got. Eventually."
"So what was wrong?"
Good question.
"I'm not sure I want to tell you," Jim said.
"I'm damn sure you will if you want me to stay within reach."
"Blackmail, Chief?" Jim gave him a hard stare. "Don't try and use what I have told you against me, okay?"
Blair sighed and had the grace to look ashamed of himself. "Sorry." That was just a word, easily said, but Blair proved that he meant it by walking over to sit on the couch beside Jim, still tense, but less wary.
"I wanted to sort through how I felt about you," Jim said bluntly. "I couldn't do it with you close by. You -- you're kind of distracting, you know that?"
"Distracting in a good way?" There was the hint of a smile in Blair's eyes, as if a compliment flicked on a switch and he began to flirt back automatically.
"Not really," Jim said. He didn't want to be one of Blair's flirtations, ephemeral as male mosquitoes and about as annoying.
"Oh." Blair absorbed that, his expression serious again. "Distracting to your senses, you mean?"
Jim wanted to get the senses out of this altogether; to make Blair see him as a man, a potential lover, but he had to admit that it would be as tricky as scooping water with a sieve. His feelings for Blair were based on the man himself being attractive physically and someone Jim just simply got on with and trusted, but he couldn't deny that as a sentinel, he responded to some signal Blair was giving off.
That discovery was one he'd known subconsciously from day one, but he'd only realized it fully in the last month or so. Sharing it with Blair…well, it had never seemed to be the right time.
"You could say that."
Sometimes, he spent the day with Blair's scent in a cloud around him, hours working alone breathing in the rich, complex smell, arousal sharpening his awareness in some areas, dulling it in others. It couldn't be a real scent, infusing the molecules of air; just a memory, but it felt real enough.
And sometimes when Blair was close by, he couldn't help mapping his partner with every tool at his disposal, obsessively snooping on his conversations, the subtle changes in his pulse, his breathing, when a pretty woman -- or good looking man -- walked by.
Once, deeply ashamed of himself, he'd stayed linked by hearing as Blair took a leak, unable to break the connection between them, choking on the chemical reek of the industrial cleaner the department used in its rest rooms as smell piggybacked onto hearing.
"You screw with my senses," he said, the words bursting out shattering the brief silence between them. "Fuck, Blair, you screw with me."
Blair stared at him, serene as a Buddha now. "You say that as if I do it deliberately."
"Do you?" He watched Blair's tongue sweep across dry lips and leave them shimmering for an instant until the spit evaporated. Revelation time, but certainty brought with it a reluctant admiration twined around his anger. Blair was so damn sneaky sometimes. "Oh, you do, don't you, you manipulative son of a bitch."
Blair met his gaze without looking away. "Sometimes," he admitted. "Anyone would. You're -- well, it's easy, you know? And part of my research involves --"
"No," Jim said thickly, through a choking hurt, because he'd been waiting for a flash of guilt and he hadn't seen it. "Don't make this about your project. If you've been using me like that, it's your own version of pulling wings off flies. A sadist does that, not a scholar."
He watched the flush that stained Blair's cheeks spread down to his throat, charting the change in appearance and temperature of each inch of skin with an idle fascination. Blair had taught him to do this; live his life as normal, talking, laughing, eating, sleeping -- and underneath it all, the sentinel never rested. Blair had woken him once, deliberately, in the middle of the night by simply murmuring, "Jim? I need you." He'd found himself outside Blair's room a few moments later, trembling with an adrenaline rush -- the residual effects had taken hours to shake off -- his shoulder bruised because in his swift, headlong rush down the stairs, his sleep-dazed brain and body in overdrive, he'd slammed against the wall. He'd raised his hand to open the door, watching it lift with nightmarish slowness, and Blair had turned over in bed and called out that he was fine; go back to sleep; I'll explain it in the morning.
Blair had tried. In the face of Jim's incredulous glare, his words had stammered to a halt and he'd flushed then, too, his animated expression stilling, his hands dropping to his sides.
"Don't do that again," Jim told him, his words hard as stone, as bullets. "Ever. Unless you don't want me to come running when you really do need me."
"I wasn't crying wolf," Blair said quickly. "Really wasn't."
"I need to be able to trust you, Chief," Jim said more gently, and Blair had nodded, shame-faced, repentant.
And now, Blair was ashamed again, the bright flame of his enthusiasm, his optimism, wavering, about to be snuffed out. Jim used that flame to warm himself when the world turned chilly and he felt a clutch of panic in his gut. Blair, crushed, small, quiet, wasn't Blair at all.
Suspicion replaced panic between one breath and the next. "Chief, are you -- is this --?"
"Oh God." Blair pushed his hands though his air with resigned exasperation. "No, Jim, this isn't me working on your better nature to buy a pass on fucking up. This is me feeling shitty and wondering how I can make it right." He gave Jim a narrow-eyed glare. "Not that you're off the hook, either, in case you're wondering."
"We're both assholes," Jim agreed readily and watched Blair's embarrassment and residual annoyance dim and fade as amusement took their place. They were talking again, sitting close and talking; this was good. This was balm and surcease from the fight.
"Oh, man, we can be." Blair exhaled in a long, noisy blow of air. "We deserve each other."
"We've got each other," Jim said, correcting or agreeing with him; he wasn't sure which.
Blair nodded, his gaze fixed now on the gray mass of clouds through the windows. "That's so. For now, at least."
"'For now'?" Jim swallowed dryly. "You planning on moving?"
"I don't know what the future holds," Blair said abstractedly and, Jim thought, a little pompously. "I've been here with you longer than I've stayed most places."
"The novelty may have worn off but your welcome hasn't," Jim told him with as much effort put into keeping his voice casual as he'd used walking across three miles of jungle with a sprained ankle and an injured child -- Incacha's nephew -- slung across his shoulders. "I'm used to having you around."
"Maybe too used to me."
"Chief, the cryptic sound bites get old fast." Jim nudged Blair's leg with his knee. "And I'm going to have to go into work soon; talk to me."
"No." Blair shook his head, a decisive shake that sent two hairs drifting free of the wavy mass to float, buoyed on air, dragged by gravity, to the floor. Jim watched their journey; parts of Blair, their loss unnoted or mourned.
Except he'd noticed. He could have bent, retrieved them, and handed them back, but what would be the point? Blair didn't want them and wouldn't miss them.
And now he was creating metaphors and meaning out of something so trivial he gave serious thought to his mental state. This wasn't like him. Something was wrong.
"No," Blair repeated. "I've got to think about this. You've thrown a lot at me and I just need to do some research."
"What?" Jim felt the skin across his forehead tighten, as if the headache that had started to throb behind his eyes was making his head balloon bigger. "There's a book about what to do when your sentinel flips out on you? Or are you going to be researching apartment listings? Huh? Is that it?"
Blair stood. "No, that's not it. Jim, we're friends; you need me right now and I'd never leave when you needed me."
"Then you'll never go," Jim said, staring down at the floor. The two hairs had landed together, one on top of the other in a skewed cross; a child drawing a kiss on a card. He'd spoken so quietly that he wasn't sure Blair had heard him until a hand, warmly familiar, cupped his cheek and tilted his head back.
"Maybe I won't," Blair said. His hand moved without ever completely leaving, caressing Jim's face lightly and leaving a trail of warmth behind it.
Jim gasped, a silent intake of breath as his body responded to the touch, waking, reviving, blossoming. Blair sank back down on the couch, his eyes startled as if he'd felt something, too, his expression so open, so damn vulnerable --
As Jim waited, prepared to brace himself for Blair's withdrawal, Blair raised his other hand and flicked open the top two buttons of Jim's shirt to expose his collarbone. Without pausing, he slid his hand inside, concentration furrowing his brow, and spread his fingers wide. It wasn't a sexual touch, but Jim felt himself harden, as if his relief and pleasure needed an outlet and that was an easy path to follow, well-trodden and familiar.
Blair's little finger brushed Jim's nipple, already raised and tight, and his body jerked, a spasm of sensation too intense to bear ripping through him. His cock was bent awkwardly, fighting to straighten and swell in a straitjacket of fabric, the metallic bite of the zipper tormenting him, but he couldn't move away from Blair. Reaching down to adjust himself seemed equally impossible, though Blair had to know what his touch was doing to Jim.
"Is this helping?" Blair asked, his voice a whisper, a stir of breath, no more. "Is it?"
Jim nodded mutely, and Blair licked his lips again and moved his hand from Jim's face to the back of his neck, stroking up and down slowly, from skin to hair, over and over, while his other hand traveled across Jim's chest, its reach limited only by Jim's buttoned shirt.
Because as far as Jim was concerned, Blair could touch him anywhere. He would lie quiescent under Blair's roaming hands; spread his legs wide to accommodate a push and shove of fingers, tongue, or cock into his ass; hell, if Blair wanted to count his teeth, Jim would open wide and say aah.
Jim didn't offer to undo more buttons, or to take his shirt off. If Blair had wanted more than two buttons undone, he would have flicked them open.
His other nipple was brushed by Blair's thumb, a more purposeful, intended encounter, the rub that followed firm enough to douse the flare of lust the fleeting touch had lit. This was the impersonal intimacy of a doctor examining a patient, nothing more, and in some ways it didn't satisfy Jim as much as a friendly pat from Blair would have done, but it was helping. After starving for weeks, he wasn't prepared to be fussy over leftovers placed on his plate.
"I can't --" Blair snatched his hands back, breathing heavily, his face pale, some limit reached, some trigger squeezed. Jim wondered, with the curiosity he felt about every facet of Blair, just what exactly it was. Had he moaned? He'd tried not to, but -- Or leaned forward, shifted position, eager to get those deft fingers against virgin skin… "Later. Tonight. We'll… I'll talk to you, I swear, but I have to go now."
Jim nodded, euphoric, floating. It hadn't been what he'd thought that he wanted; his hands, sentinel hands, on Blair, learning him, absorbing the minutiae of each inch, but in some ways it had been better. His hands weren't the only part of him that could feel more than the average human and Blair's hands -- oh God, what they did to him! Capable, strong hands willingly placed on his body because Blair had seen how much he'd needed that… "Sure, Chief. Whatever you say."
The door slammed shut a moment later as Blair left without the formality of a farewell and Jim let himself moan and palm his cock, let himself move, released from the frozen immobility he'd forced on himself to keep Blair close.
He didn't want to come; this arousal had been created by Blair's hands, shaped and fashioned by him and Jim was willing to wait for Blair to finish what he'd started.
It still felt good to clutch and squeeze at himself, though, the faint pungency of precome filling his nostrils as he eased his cock into a better position and waited for it to soften so that he could go to work.
***
The day passed, minute by minute, with jerky, disconcerting lurches; time sometimes dragging, then racing by. Jim found himself watching the clock; something that he never did at work. He liked being there, surrounded by people he understood, the stale, airless room busy and bustling. It was rare for his senses to be overwhelmed by the constant shrill of phones or raised voices; or for him to drift away on the night shift, when a waiting calm settled over the room and the phone ringing always spelled trouble.
Blair didn't show up or call. His absence wasn't noted, or it was, nobody commented. For all that he was tolerated, even liked, Blair wasn't accepted the way even a rookie cop would have been, not really. Observer. Civilian. Ellison's shadow. He'd been adopted to a certain extent by Jim's closest friends, but Jim knew that if this whole thing between Sandburg and him blew up and Blair disappeared, off to follow the trail of another sentinel or something even more fantastic, he wouldn't be missed for long. Blair caused problems, made waves…saw the world differently. Not everyone found that attractive.
Once, that side of Blair had annoyed Jim, too. He'd found his cop impulses, trained instincts, thwarted by Blair's idealism, that came backed by a steely pragmatism. Jim didn't do thwarted well, but when it came to Blair, he didn't have much choice.
From day one, he'd put himself into Blair's hands, helpless to deal with the chaos of his senses, clinging to Blair, sometimes literally, as his world broke and shattered, waiting for Blair to piece it all back together again.
And now, after months when he really thought that he was getting a handle on the sentinel situation, this happened and he was left lost again, blinded by a baffled love and an ache of need.
Tick-tock, Blair. Tick-tock. Hit the books and then make this right for me. For us.
Go to Part Two
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