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janedavitt Mar. 2nd, 2009 06:25 pm)
janedavitt Mar. 2nd, 2009 06:25 pm)Here's the second, final part of Crossroad Blues.
"I don't date men."
Jim kept his exasperation from showing with an effort. "But you have sex with them, right?"
"I don't see how that's your business." The lush, ripe curves of Blair's lips straightened and clamped together, as if he was scared to open them and let the betraying words escape.
"I know you do," Jim said wearily, not in the mood for games. "Do you think I'd ever have told you I wanted you if I didn't know that about you? And did I ask you to date me? Did I?"
"No," Blair allowed, "but you're heading there."
"We can't openly date," Jim said. "I'm not in denial about what I am --"
"Bisexual," Blair said, separating the word out into a lot more syllables than it should have had and still sounding faintly incredulous.
"But that's going to sound like gay to everyone I work with; they're not big on subtle, and it's not going to go down well."
"Nice choice of words."
Jim slammed his fist down on the kitchen table. "Sandburg, I swear to God, if you don't take this seriously --"
A moment later, Blair's fist landed with an ever heavier thud. "Seriously? My best fucking friend attacks me, my sentinel flips out, my formerly straight cop roomie tells me he's got the hots for my ass -- oh, you bet I'm taking this seriously, Jim." The legs of Blair's chair scraped against the wooden floor, a wild screech of sound that assailed Jim's ears. "I am losing it here, Jim."
"I didn't attack you, I'm not flipping out, and you knew damn well I wanted you, so save it." Jim's hand was still clenched in a fist. He tried to relax it, but he felt like the Tin Woodman before the oil. "Lie all you want, but not to me. It's pointless."
"I know it is," Blair shouted, the increase in volume another fingernail scrape down a chalkboard for Jim's ears. "I still have to do it. I still have to be able to pretend that I'm not open to you, 24/7 --"
"God, I wish you were," Jim said involuntarily.
Blair turned and walked away to the windows, his back stiff, his averted face sending a clear message that Jim ignored.
He followed Blair and stood behind him, close enough that if Blair had wanted to lean back on him, he could have. "I'm not asking for a commitment in a -- a romantic sense."
"Good." Blair's voice was a stubborn mutter, echoing off the pane of glass.
"We don't even have to have sex --"
Blair swung around to face him, his eyes hard. "Sex wouldn't be a problem. If that was all you wanted, hell, yes, we could start fucking. No strings, a good way to unwind with someone safe instead of both of us out there in a bar or a club when we get the itch -- it would have been an ideal solution." He finger poked Jim's chest. "But you don't want the sex as much as you want the connection."
"You make it sound dirty," Jim said with his lip curling in distaste. "Thanks, Sandburg. You're the one person who's always said I wasn't a freak, but I guess that was before I needed you to cross the line you keep pushing me over."
"What?"
"I'm the one with the visions," Jim snapped. "I'm the one with the crazy senses, the zone -outs -- the fragile one. You're the rock, right? The one with all the answers."
"Your shaman," Blair said. "That's what Incacha wanted me to be."
"Don't you say a fucking word about him," Jim warned, his temper fraying. "He kept me safe when I was falling apart. He never backed away from me the way you are."
"He let you touch him, you mean?" Blair inquired snidely. "Let you put your hands on him, unlike mean old me?"
Jim pushed Blair back with a rough shove that sent Blair staggering, too close for safety to the glass. He reached out and gathered a handful of Blair's shirt and steadied him, giving back the stability he'd taken. "Yeah, he did. We weren't lovers, but we slept together now and then, just slept, and we -- he was part of me. Close." Anguish tore at him as he remembered what it'd been like in the soft, thick heat of the night, Incacha's bare body beside him, his shaman's level breathing filling his head like the rush of waves on the shore.
He jerked Blair away from the windows and released him, wiping his hands down his legs. "On second thought," he said, "I'll get by without bothering you. You've made me remember how good it was with him, and --"
"And I can't compete with a dead man," Blair interrupted. He shook his head. "Man, you're just never going to settle for my best, are you? It's always going to be second best."
The silence that followed was, for Jim, filled with nothing but confusion, ebbing away like the tide to reveal a dawning certainty.
"You're jealous of him."
Blair's gaze flickered away, only for a moment, but coupled with the drum of his heartbeat, it was enough.
"You -- Chief, that's ridiculous," Jim said helplessly.
"Is it?" Blair's chin came up, his attitude pugnacious. "I've read a book, Jim. One book. Written by a man who was as much an observer as I am, no matter how much he tried to immerse himself in another culture. Incacha was…sentinels were normal to him, as real and known as a cop is to me. He was trained -- knowledge was passed down --oh, fuck, Jim; he was a pro; I'm an amateur."
"You're doing a damn good job for an amateur."
Blair shook his head. "No, I'm not. I'm making it up as I go along, juggling what I know and what I've guessed at and trying not to miss a single catch." He gave Jim a despairing look. "Because if I do, it could get you killed." He blinked as if a possibility that kept Jim awake at night had only just occurred to him. "Hell, it could get us both killed."
"Blair, you've saved my life," Jim said. He wanted to put his hands on Blair reassuringly, the way he had so many times before; a ruffle of Blair's hair, a pat on the arm or the back, but he kept them by his sides. "And my sanity, on that very first day when you made me see that I wasn't going nuts and offered me a way of dealing with everything."
"You'd have worked it out eventually," Blair said, refusing to accept any comfort Jim could give him. "You had the senses as a child and in the jungle; those memories were buried, not lost; they'd have surfaced eventually."
"Oh, for God's sake!" Jim took a deep breath. "Listen to me. Will you do that?"
"I am --"
"You're blocking me," Jim said. "Putting up walls because you don't want to accept that you're wrong." He smiled ruefully. "Isn't that supposed to be one of my bad habits?"
"It is one of your bad habits, Jim." Blair bit his lip. "Okay. I hear you. I'm being hostile and closed off. If I accept that, I can move past it."
"You're not going to disappear into your room and meditate, are you?" Jim asked uneasily.
"Tempting, but I'll settle for some herbal tea and maybe moving this discussion to the couch?"
Jim smiled at him, a tentative smile that grew as Blair smiled back. "We can do that."
"You want a tea, too?"
"Hell, no."
Once they were settled on the couch, the steam from Blair's tea curling up like an elongated question mark -- appropriate enough -- Jim began to talk. Blair was the persuasive one, the manipulator, but Jim had something better than baby blue eyes and a don't kick this puppy look; he wasn't planning on saying anything that he didn't believe sincerely was true. The truth had a power all of its own.
"You think I see you as second best?" he asked bluntly. "Is this why you're giving me a hard time?"
"Not wanting you pawing at me --" Blair broke off. "Oh, who am I kidding?" he muttered. "I do want it."
"'Pawing'?" Jim let his affronted tone say it all. "All this time, that's what you've been thinking --"
"No!" Blair shook his head. "I'm still working through a lot of anger here. Ignore me. I like the way you touch me. I don't have a problem with it." He gave Jim a thoughtful look. "It doesn't help to keep the gossip down, though."
"Screw 'em," Jim said succinctly. "I said I wasn't coming out; it doesn't mean I'm going to let bigoted assholes dictate my behavior."
"Right," Blair murmured, enough skepticism showing that Jim glared at him. "Okay, you asked a question. Yes, I feel that way since I met Incacha. It's not reasonable, but I do, and you telling me that you needed space…"
"Space to work out how to get closer to you, not further apart."
Blair rolled his eyes. "Jim Ellison on retreat, seeking enlightenment? I'd have paid good money to see that."
There was no real mockery in his voice and Jim grinned. "See what a bad influence you've been?"
"My mission in life. So you went out there, did your own version of communing with nature, and decided to -- what?"
"Just to ask you if you wanted -- if you were interested --" Jim's words faltered and dried up for a moment. "Okay, I guess I wanted us to, uh, not date, but maybe have something like it. I knew you wouldn't care about me being a guy, but it doesn't mean I took anything for granted. I don't have a clue what you go for in a man and I was prepared for you to say no, let's just keep it as we are. It would have hurt, but I'd have handled it. Then you walked away and I realized I had more to lose than I thought."
"You're too used to being rejected," Blair said. "It's like you didn't expect me to say yes; you were prepared for it, expecting it."
"No, I --" Jim grimaced, recognizing how on the money Blair was. "Shit. Okay. Maybe a little."
Blair leaned back. "We don't communicate very well, do we?"
"Guy thing."
"Oooh, yeah," Blair said dryly. "Let's blame it on our balls."
"Works for me." Jim cleared his throat and returned to the attack. "Blair -- Incacha died telling you to take over from him. There's no way he'd have done that if he'd seen you as inadequate. He wouldn't let me get away with anything but the best efforts I could give when he was teaching me and he'd have told me to look for someone else if he hadn't thought that you could do it."
"Maybe." Blair sounded doubtful, but Jim thought that he was wavering, just a little. "It's not like he knew me. If he'd lived, if he could've trained me, showed me what to do…"
"I don't know if it would've helped," Jim said honestly. "You're not like him, Blair, but Cascade isn't like the jungle, either. Incacha couldn't have tracked down suppliers for toothpaste that didn't make my teeth itch --"
"Gums, Jim. It was your gums. The laurel sulfate content in most of the brands irritated them."
"They're my teeth, Sandburg; I know when they're itching." Jim ran his tongue over his front teeth, shuddering as he remembered how it'd felt to have hot, itchy teeth for two days of hell. "And my point remains. For where I am now, here in Cascade, you're the best helper I could have. Hell, if I was at the North Pole, you would be; you suit me. I loved Incacha, he was the best, but in some ways we didn't connect."
"What ways?" Blair asked. "Don't give me generalized pats on the back, Jim; I need specifics."
"Are you after details or fishing for compliments?"
Blair smiled, a flicker of amusement leaving cracks in the wound-up tension. "A bit of both?"
"One way we didn't connect -- and even if we had, the tribe wouldn't have liked it -- was that Incacha didn't get hard when he watched me walk around with just a towel on." Jim saw the convulsive bob of Blair's Adam's apple as he swallowed. "Thanks for that, by the way. It was a nice boost for my ego."
"Like you don't know you're hot," Blair muttered. "Okay, he didn't lust after your body, but that's separate from the shaman/sentinel partnership, and I can keep you happy in bed, I guess, but so could a lot of other people if they knew how to handle the obstacles your senses create, and if I'm failing you where it counts as your shaman, then I'm failing in the most important part."
"I'm not sure it is." Blair raised his eyebrows questioningly, and Jim continued, finding his way through the maze they'd gotten trapped in. "The sex -- that wouldn't have been traditional between a sentinel and a shaman, unless I was missing something when I lived with the tribe, or maybe other villages had different customs."
"Or it was a female/male team?"
Jim shook his head. "Incacha never said anything about female sentinels or shamans."
"It doesn't mean they don't exist," Blair said and there, he was relaxed completely now, his hands partnering his voice, gesturing with a fluid grace. Jim had never learned sign language, but he could read the message Blair's hands drew in the air with no problem at all. Blair was about to launch into a lecture about gender-specific roles, Jim knew it.
"I don't want a female shaman, I don't want a Chopec one; I want you."
Blair's hands stilled and he locked them together in his lap, the knuckles pale. "I pushed myself onto you."
"Literally," Jim agreed, remembering the grit and heat of the road against his hands and Blair's body covering him like a blanket. "You threw yourself under a moving truck to save me minutes after I threw you up against a wall. I haven't forgotten."
"I forced you to take me in, and I never got around to moving out," Blair continued doggedly.
"No one forces me to do much that I don't want to. Ask Simon. And you even try to pack and I'll --"
"What?" Blair asked. "What would you do, Jim?"
If his life was a movie, Jim knew that his next line would be, "This" followed by a scorching, searing kiss, but Blair still looked as if he'd shy away from an advance and it wouldn't have been Jim's first reaction anyway.
"I don't know." Jim met Blair's eyes. "I'm not very good at asking people to stay. I tried with my mom and after that, well, if people wanted to leave, I held open the goddamned door. But if you left, it'd -- I'd miss you more than I -- God, you're not going to go, are you?"
Blair shook his head slowly and slid his hand into Jim's, clasping it firmly enough that their palms kissed, but without the painfully tight squeeze Jim was used to enduring from men with something to prove. "Not now."
It was like being connected to a power source or lying chilled in the sun and feeling its heat seep comfortingly into his bones. Jim held onto Blair's hand, dreading the moment when Blair would withdraw it with an excuse, but Blair sat quietly, allowing Jim to touch him with the same controlled lack of impatience that surrounded him when he meditated.
Their breathing slowed and gradually matched, each exhalation synchronized, their hearts beating in time, loud in Jim's ears, as if their linked hands connected them on a deeper level than skin on skin.
Sweat formed, slippery at first, then forming another bond. Jim's fingers ached with the need to do more, and after a while he gave into the impulse and began to play with Blair's hand, running his thumb over the blunt bump of knuckles until Blair's fingers loosened and parted invitingly.
Easy to slip a single finger between Blair's, one by one, following the shape they made spread out, easy to see-saw lightly across the webbing at their base, and see Blair suck in a breath that somehow didn't break the unison of their breathing. Blair's lips were a shade darker, his eyes wide, the pupils huge.
"That feels…that feels so fucking good," Blair said, his words spreading out to fill the silence around them, singing, echoing words that Jim felt thrum through him as if he were a struck tuning fork. "Jim."
It felt better than anything that Jim could remember in a long time, but he knew that it could get much better if Blair would let him -- God, what would Blair allow him to do? He had plenty of ideas, but this thing between them felt both as fragile as a snowflake and as remorselessly powerful as an avalanche. From nowhere, he recalled Blair's look of awed delight when he'd discovered that Jim could tell the difference in weight between individual flakes of snow when they landed on his face, his skepticism pushed aside because he wanted so much to believe that Jim could do it.
Taste. One sense that had been starved when it came to Blair. Jim had drunk from Blair's beer bottle, once by accident, after that on purpose more than once, swapping it with his own when Blair went to take a leak or refill the chip bowl. Muted, diluted, the taste of Blair's mouth still had the power to make him shudder with need.
Slowly, giving Blair chance to signal 'no' anyway he chose, Jim raised their joined hands to his mouth and ran his tongue across the pad of Blair's middle finger. The faintly salty taste of Blair's skin filled his mouth, made it water, made him moan far back in his throat. He swallowed, drawing the taste deeper, taking it inside him, and licked again, this time finding less salt and more of his own saliva, mingling with Blair's scent and taste in a way that was as arousing as a kiss.
"You can taste me, can't you?" Blair eased the tip of his finger between Jim's lips. "Taste yourself on me, too."
Jim sucked at Blair's fingertip without replying, his tongue lapping against the swell of flesh, his teeth scraping over the fingernail.
"God, your mouth…" Blair gave a choked sound. "It feels like that's my dick in there."
Jim smiled inwardly without changing the shape his lips were making and drew Blair's finger in deeper, swirling his tongue around it. He endured a moment of loss when Blair withdrew it, leaving it resting against Jim's lower lip, followed by a surge of gratitude when Blair slid it back in, a deliberate push, followed by another withdrawal, another push inside.
Jim was only supporting Blair's hand now, providing a cradle for it to rock in as Blair fucked his mouth with a finger that might as well have been a hook, capturing him beyond hope of freeing himself. Not that he was fighting it. He was so hard that he had to keep absolutely still to avoid coming in his pants and each breath brought him the heavy musk of their aroused bodies, as strong and unmistakable as garlic.
Blair wanted him. Blair was getting off on this drawn-out tease that had stopped being medicinal and merciful with the first thrust of Blair's finger.
When even Jim could only taste spit, he relaxed his jaw and Blair tugged his finger out, the skin sucked pink and glossy, and lowered his hand to Jim's thigh.
They stared at each other, Blair's expression pensive, his teeth worrying at his lip.
"Touching with no sex involved," he said. "That’s what you said. I can't see that working for us, you know?"
"Maybe not."
"So we need to reevaluate this situation. Work out some guidelines."
Jim made a sound of agreement and picked up Blair's hand before curling his feet underneath him on the couch and then leaning over. He put his head in Blair's lap and closed his eyes. Somewhere the world was busy and dangerous and needed him, but right now he was tired, a bone-deep exhaustion from weeks of stress fighting the buzz of his arousal.
Blair said his name, surprise putting a lilt into it, but when Jim didn't move except to tuck Blair's hand against his chest, he felt Blair relax and settle back against the couch. A moment later, Blair's free hand began to stroke Jim's hair, his fingers sliding through the strands, playing with them, his scent left behind like dust on wood.
Jim sighed with uncomplicated pleasure and stropped his cheek against the swell of Blair's erection. He'd take care of that soon, if Blair wanted him to, but now, right now, he just wanted to lie here until his cramped legs protested too loudly to be ignored, and feel welcomed not shunned.
"You're killing me here, you know that?" Blair whispered. The cadences of his voice when he was happy had been as rare as his touches in the last few weeks. Jim listened with his attention split between the meaning of the words and the way they felt on his skin; not a vibration, the plangent song of a struck bell, but a stir of air and a tickle. Blair sounded sincerely worked up, but his hand moved with metronome regularity. Slow and soothing. Not words that Jim usually associated with Blair, and yet, and yet…
"I'm going to assume this is doing as much for you as it is for me." Blair's nails scratched over Jim's scalp with the perfect amount of pressure to be toe-curlingly pleasurable on a primal level and then found a place behind Jim's ear that sent chills down that side of Jim's body. If he could have forced sound past the open-mouthed gasp he gave, he'd have howled at the moon -- or whimpered for more.
"Oh, yeah," Blair said. "It is." The quiet satisfaction in his voice was tinged with wonder, as if he hadn't expected Jim to react quite like this. There were, still, after all the time together, gaps in Blair's knowledge of him.
Jim sighed and turned his face, nuzzling against the mounded, stretched denim of Blair's jeans, tasting the precome already permeating the thick cloth.
"Suck me?" Blair said, like a child asking for a treat he was sure would be denied. "Right here, just like this?"
It didn't seem worth wasting time telling Blair that he would do that for him any time that Blair asked; easier to show him. Jim released Blair's hand with a loving pat and thumbed open the button on Blair's jeans.
Blair shifted under him, eager, spreading his knees wide and reaching for his zipper, his other hand curled loosely around the back of Jim's neck. Jim smacked his hand away with a reproving grunt and took care of easing the zipper down himself. No shorts. Just bare Blair, which Jim had known from the moment Blair walked out of his room that morning, and the knowledge that a single layer of cotton lay between the world and Blair's dick had triggered what had happened to a certain extent.
It didn't take a sentinel to see the shift and jiggle of cock and balls when Blair walked, an erotic display that was tempting and challenging. Jim, who had come to terms with his possessive side a long time ago, freely admitted that he hated the idea of Blair drawing admiring glances when those glances were directed south of his waist.
The thrust of hard hot flesh jutting up from a patch of hair a shade darker than the cloud of curls on Blair's chest was all his, though.
He drew Blair's jeans down to the top of his thighs and then cupped Blair's balls and rolled them in his hand. He'd listened to Blair jerking off and interpreted the sounds of hand on dick into his own porn movie, ashamed and excited at the same time. Blair had liked this…
Blair's hand tightened, clamping down on his neck, and Jim shivered, loving the sense of being claimed that it gave him. Looked like Blair still liked it.
He took his time exploring the hollows at Blair's hips and the pattern of hair on a stomach softer than his own with his mouth and fingers until Blair murmured a protest and a plea and arched up so that the head of his dick nudged Jim's jaw.
"Hey. Weren't you doing something?" Blair demanded, his voice breathy, shaky.
Sex once his senses were supercharged tended to be mind-blowing or anticlimactic in every department; it was risky and Jim had fallen into habits he'd learned in the army; keep your hand busy and wait for leave. Except for him leave never came.
With Blair, the risks of disaster were just as high, but the anxiety wasn't there. Blair would understand if Jim failed to perform or lost himself in a single caress repeated over and over because he couldn't get enough of the complexity of folds of wet-silk skin.
"Get your mouth on my dick," Blair said tightly. Jim could see the sweat popping up out of his pores, tiny flecks of moisture, beading the hairs clustered thickly around the base of Blair's dick. His hair was tugged sharply and he blinked and glanced up. "After I come, you can zone on my belly button all you want, but I'm hurting here, Jim."
Jim smiled lazily and stroked his tongue across the slippery head of Blair's dick with a flick of his tongue at the end.
"Feel better, babe?"
Blair's free hand struck the couch with an emphatic thud. "God!"
Jim's head swam, his body warmed through and shaky as if he'd just taken a long, hot bath. He licked the rounded smoothness repeatedly, coaxing more fluid from it, slicking it with his spit. Under his tongue it flushed with heat, a change no one but he would have noticed, and Blair squirmed, whimpering. "Enough there…"
With a last slow suck at the crown, a final flick of his tongue, an open-mouthed kiss, Jim turned his attention to Blair's balls, still snug in his palm. He blew at the soft, wrinkled skin there and watched it tighten, licked it wet and blew again to make Blair shiver. He picked up a stray hair in the process and absently removed it from his mouth without taking his eyes off Blair's groin. Impossible not to compare Blair's dick with his own, and he liked the results. He was longer by maybe an inch; Blair was thicker. He clenched his ass as if that blunt arrow of flesh was sunk deep into it, splitting him, piercing him…The metaphor was violent but Blair would be so careful, his lip caught between his teeth, too much lube making Jim's crack slippery. He'd end up pushing back impatiently, greedy for that first fiery rush of pain because what would follow would feel so fucking good.
Mindful of Blair's impatience, manifested in a low chant of swearwords that would've gotten Jim's mouth washed out with soap if Sally had heard him use them, even today, Jim abandoned his assessment and took as much of Blair's dick in his mouth as he could, lowering his head until he gagged, his throat muscles convulsing. Oh, God, he'd missed this…choking on a dick owning his mouth, fucking his mouth, silencing and filling his mouth…Eyes watering, he eased up a little and began to work Blair, his jaw aching pleasantly after a few minutes, his lips turning numb and rubbery. Out of practice…but he was still making Blair sweat and writhe, a jumble of appreciative words spilling down on him, with some instructions mixed in, because this was Blair and he always had suggestions.
Jim went along with some of them, but not all. Blair was asking for things that his body didn't want and Jim couldn't give them to him; it felt as wrong as missing a target on purpose at the range. So when Blair hissed out a plea for faster when that would've left Jim dealing with a mouthful of come a moment later, he eased back, licking lightly where he'd been sucking hard, and made Blair whimper and jerk his hips desperately, the flush across his belly telling Jim how much Blair was enjoying this.
And when Blair reached the point when his body was showing signs of stress from too long on the cusp, his dick softening just a little, Jim ignored Blair's fervent, "Don't stop, oh God, don't --" and finished Blair with a well-timed combination of tight hand and wet mouth.
The unforgettable, indescribable taste of come engulfed his mouth, overwhelming his senses so much that he knew he'd be tasting Blair for hours, smelling him, too. He could brush his teeth, but it wouldn't change anything. As he slept, the tripped circuits would reset themselves, but for now at least two of his senses were stamped indelibly with Blair's mark.
Hell, the way his cramped hand was locked into the shape of Blair's dick, maybe touch, as well.
He rolled to his back, his head in Blair's lap, and stared up at Blair, licking his lips to clean them.
Blair groaned, one hand dropping to wipe feverishly at Jim's mouth, light brushes of his fingers. Jim pursed his lips in a kiss and felt muscles twinge in his cheeks.
"You --" Blair shook his head. "That was so good, Jim."
He'd reduced Blair to brevity, stark and unadorned; as accolades went, it was a good one.
Blair's hand skimmed Jim's chest, heading south. "I want to take care of you now," he said, with no suggestion that he was simply returning the favor in his voice. No, he sounded anticipatory.
Jim put one foot on the floor and hooked the other over the back of the couch, spreading himself wide open for Blair. "It won't take long."
Blair smiled, all teeth, a predator's smile, and Jim realized that maybe he wasn't entirely forgiven. A frisson of excitement made his balls tighten painfully. Danger didn't turn him on -- that was a bad habit for a soldier to acquire -- but thinking about the form Blair's revenge would take did.
"Oh, yes, it will." Blair's palm settled snug and warm over the mound at Jim's groin. "You wanted me to touch you; I'm going to touch you a lot. Go ahead and come if you like; hell, cream your pants; I don't care…but I'll keep on touching you until you've had enough."
Jim smiled up at him and ground his dick against Blair's hand. Even through his clothing it felt incredible, stimulating his body in a way another person would've had to work for. "Never going to happen."
"We'll see," Blair told him and shoved his hand down the front of Jim's pants, scrabbling for a hold on a dick that had stiffened and jerked at the first brush of Blair's fingers. Startled out of his complacency, Jim grunted sharply and sucked his stomach in just enough to allow Blair's hand to slip a crucial inch lower.
He came in a warm, wet rush, his body not caring that it wasn't getting the tunnel of Blair's fingers to fuck or the succulent heat of his mouth. One scrape of Blair's fingertip over the ice-slick slipperiness of the head of his dick and he was lost.
Blair pulled out his hand and licked Jim's spunk off one of his fingers before wiping his hand dry on Jim's shirt. Jim was too occupied with the aftershocks to growl at him. Jesus, he felt better than he'd done in months, clear-headed, relaxed, hyped up and calm at the same time.
"You really were ready to pop, weren't you?" Blair sounded amused. "I hope you're good for another round, man, because I wasn't joking about having plans for you."
Jim closed his eyes and savored the moment. "Do your worst."
***
Some hours later, they were both naked in Jim's bed, sweat drying on his back but a shower unappealing because he liked smelling of Blair's come and sweat and spit and a combination of all three substances was adhering to his skin.
Blair was stroking Jim's chest lazily, his head pillowed in the hollow of Jim's shoulder, curled against and around Jim like a supple cat.
Touching him.
"I love you," Jim said without thinking.
Blair's hand paused. "No. You need me. It's not the same thing."
Shit. "I need you because I love you, not the other way around."
"Sorry, Jim, but I have trouble believing that." Blair propped himself up on his elbow. "'S'all right. Love's not required to get me to put out; ask any of my girlfriends."
"You say crap like that to hurt me?" Jim inquired, and kept his voice mild with an effort that became impossible to maintain very quickly. "If I tell you it worked, will you shut the fuck up and get over being mad at me for what I did earlier?"
"I don't want to piss you off or hurt your feelings," Blair said. "I just think that you're confusing something you need from me as a sentinel with an emotion that's just not connected to that requirement." He took a deep breath. "And I think you said it to make me happy and get me to say, oh, that I'm cool with all this, and that I think we should be exclusive, and yes, oh, mighty Jim, I love you too, and that's just not going to happen."
"Any of it?" Jim said with difficulty. Catching the scent of another lover on Blair was going to be immeasurably harder to deal with now that he knew what Blair smelled like after making love to him…
The pause that followed was long enough for Jim to wonder if Blair was ever going to answer. The silence between them rang in his ears.
"I can -- I can stop seeing people," Blair said slowly. "Having sex with them, anyway. I can't stop dating; people would notice. I'll try that and see if it works for me."
Jim couldn't thank him for the concession with words; just too fucking weird to do that, but he patted Blair's arm and hoped that Blair could translate it into gratitude.
"And I'm not down with this reliance on me deal, at all," Blair said decisively. "What if I need to go somewhere? What if you do? What if I die?"
"Don't say that."
"It could happen," Blair said. "The lives we lead…I could die every time I go out on a call with you, and, no, I don't want to stop. Beside you is where I belong, but I might not always be there -- hey!"
Jim pinned Blair's wrists over his head with one hand, pressing them into the pillow as his other hand cupped Blair's face. "If you die, I will drag you back," he said. "Or follow you. They're about the only two choices I see me having, so think about it when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, huh, Chief?"
"Arrogant, self-destructive --"
"Schmuck," Jim finished.
"Do you remember all the times I insulted you?"
"Every one," Jim assured him and dropped a kiss on Blair's kissed-soft lips. "I don't have a death wish; I'm just not up to training another puppy, you know?"
"'Puppy'?" Blair shook his head. "That one, you'll pay for."
Blair twisted his hands free and ran them down Jim's back to his ass, which might have changed the conversation an hour ago, but Jim's dick was on strike for the time being.
"That's two things," Jim said. "The exclusive bit and the being cool with this."
"Hmm?" Blair bit at Jim's shoulder, avoiding his look.
"You didn't say if falling in love with me was going to happen." He felt that he was pushing Blair too much, but he wasn't going to be able to sleep with all of this circling in his head like sharks around a lifeboat.
Blair sighed. "Jim, I've been in love with you for years. Years. It's not going to happen because it already did. It's why I know you're not on the same page as me yet."
Uncertainty gripped Jim, the way it always did when Blair was so…definite. Was this just a conditioned response? Was Blair ringing a bell and he was drooling? It didn't feel that way, but how would he know? Hell, Blair could be as much a victim as he was, though even now, fucked stupid with his brains leaking out of his ears, he wasn't crazy enough to put that idea into Blair's head.
He settled for kissing Blair again. "Okay, but I'm a fast reader, Chief, so don't turn that page. I'll catch up."
"I'll wait," Blair said, his gaze steady now. "Not for ever, but for a while."
***
Summer heat shimmered the air around the lake and Blair turned his face up to a cloudless sky and grinned appreciatively. "Beautiful. It's hot, it's actually hot. I'm outside and I'm sweating, man."
"If that's another hint that your pack was heavier than mine…"
"It was," Blair insisted. "And you're the one who packed them."
Jim swatted Blair's ass playfully, feeling equally content with life. Blair yelped and gave him a punch on the arm and an indignant look. "Mosquito," Jim said blandly. "About to take a big, juicy bite out of your behind. And I'm the only one who gets to do that."
"Right," Blair muttered. "Through denim? I don't think so."
"Me or the bug?" Jim asked, surveying the clearing. His tent had been over by that tree in April and it'd worked okay, but he needed to scope out room for two more tents. Simon wasn't far behind them, traveling in his own car as he had to head back to the city on Sunday for an early morning meeting on Monday. "Because if you bend over, Chief, I'll show you just how sharp my teeth are."
"Promises, promises." Blair slipped his arms around Jim's waist and tilted his head back, inviting a kiss Jim was only too willing to give. Blair's mouth was warm, his tongue a teasing flicker against Jim's.
"Last chance for this," Jim said regretfully, breaking the kiss but tightening his hug to compensate before releasing Blair reluctantly. "Simon's going to be here soon."
"You hear him?" Blair raised his eyebrows inquiringly. "Come on; use a bit of that sentinel magic and tell me if we've got time for a blow job right there against that tree."
Jim eyed the tree that Blair was pointing at. Bark wasn't comfortable to lean against and the ground around it looked green and soft but was most likely littered with stones, roots, and other objects designed to dig into knees, so no matter what position he was in, it wouldn't compare to their bed, but what the hell…
He listened, ears at full stretch, as Blair called it, which always made him picture himself as Dumbo. Nothing…just the background noise of a living forest. A distant crack as a branch snapped under a boot forced him to re-evaluate his conclusion.
"I hear him," he reported. "Has to be Simon; I can smell his cigars a mile away."
"If he's parked where we did, it's more like a quarter of a mile," Blair said with a sigh. "No time, huh?"
"Well…" Jim was tempted, God, very tempted, but to his sensitized ears, Simon sounded so close that his ardor was easy to control. Getting caught in the act wasn't a turn-on for him, though Blair had a streak of the exhibitionist in him. "I want to," he said, "but…rain check?"
Blair looked horrified. "Don't say the 'r' word, man! Blue skies all the way this weekend."
The expression on Blair's face was so comical that Jim started to laugh, spluttering with amusement.
"God, I love you," he said, speaking the words for the first time in months, so sure of their truth that when Blair just nodded and smiled back at him looking uncomplicatedly happy, it wasn't a surprise or even a relief. He wrapped the thick fall of Blair's hair around his hand and then pulled his hand free slowly, feeling the hair cling and tickle, bright with static.
"Yeah," Blair said softly and Jim had to kiss him again, just one more time, with Blair screwing sun-dazzled eyes closed and arching up against him, pliant and familiar.
He jerked back a moment later, his enjoyment of the kiss curtailed by a mutter of curses about brambles and paths made for rabbits not men.
"Do you hear --"
Blair winced. "Yeah. He sounds pissed."
"There's a six-pack of his favorite beer in the cooler; get him one out," Jim suggested.
"The cooler I carried had Simon's beer in it?" Blair shook his head. "Man, if I'd known that --"
Simon strode into the clearing, his pack bowing his shoulders slightly, his face sweaty. "Next time you say you're going fishing alone, I'm going to let you go," he called out. "Call that a trail?"
"Hello to you, too, Simon," Jim said, walking over to him. He helped Simon take his pack off, marveling at the weight. "Sandburg's got a beer for you, nice and cold."
Simon gave Blair a baleful look that softened to a smile once he'd swallowed half of the bottle in three long gulps. "So what do you think of Jim's little slice of heaven? Worth hiking through a mile of trees for?"
"Sure," Blair said, diplomatically refraining from correcting Simon with an effort only Jim could see. "Look, Simon; the lake's right there. You can practically fish from your tent."
"It's a nice spot," Simon said after a moment's study of the clearing. "So why don't you two get the tents set up and we'll have time to get a few hours of fishing in before nightfall."
"And what will you be doing?" Jim asked. Simon's delegation skills were all well and good at work, but they were off-duty now.
Simon grinned. "Getting my rod set up and checking my flies; what else?"
Jim stared pointedly at Simon's crotch for a moment. "Looks like you're all zipped up to me, Simon, so why don't you go and look for some firewood? Unless you've got a taste for sushi."
"Very funny." Simon drained the bottle and stood. "Fine. I'll do that and you deal with the tents." He glanced around and then pointed at the spot where Jim had pitched his tent in the spring. "That looks like the perfect spot for my tent."
Jim opened his mouth to argue and then subsided. There were other places just as good, after all.
Simon cleared his throat. "So, how many tents did you bring?"
"Huh?" Jim exchanged a puzzled glance with Blair who shrugged minutely. "Two; why? Did you forget yours, or something?"
"Just wondered," Simon said. "Sure be nice to have a spare tent for all the gear in case it comes on to rain, but as we'll be using all three of them, I guess we'll have to hope it stays dry." He paused and when neither of them replied, gave a sharp nod. "Firewood. I'm on it."
Jim watched Simon head for the trees and sighed. "He knows."
Blair came up beside him, staring at Simon's retreating back. "Oh, yeah. He knows."
"This place is unlucky," Jim said with conviction. "If we catch anything, which I doubt, we'll probably choke on a bone, or get food poisoning, or --"
Blair rolled his eyes. "Will you shut up? Simon knows, which was kind of inevitable; we didn't need to have an awkward conversation about it with the two of you going between silence and yelling, and he's not freaking. Much. I think knowing how freaked we are, is making him feel better about it. So what about all of that is bad?"
"Well…" Put that way, Blair had a point. Jim was less sanguine that the matter had been shelved for good, but Simon seemed to have decided to not let it spoil the trip. He wondered what had given them away and realized that Simon's approach had been just a little too carefully noisy; he'd probably seen them kissing, backed away quietly, and then given them a polite warning of his presence.
Some sentinel he was, letting even a friend get that close unnoticed.
"Exactly. It's all good. Well, apart from the fact that we'd decided not to tell anyone about us to keep it simple, but we trust Simon with most things; this is just one more secret, right?"
"If we tell him any more of our secrets, we'll have to kill him," Jim said dryly.
"Jim!" Blair backhanded Jim's chest. "Behave."
Jim ran his hand over Blair's ass in a promise of good things to come. "Until Sunday night, I'll be a perfect gentleman, babe, but after that…"
Blair smiled, a small, complicit smile that made Jim wonder if he could really wait that long. "After that…" Blair echoed.
The surface of the lake broke as a trout leaped out, dripping silver as it snapped at a fly. Embarrassment, thwarted lust, and vaguely melancholy memories all lost their power in an instant.
"Simon!" Jim called out, already heading for his tackle box. "Forget the firewood and the goddamned tents; they're biting."
It really was the perfect spot.
"I don't date men."
Jim kept his exasperation from showing with an effort. "But you have sex with them, right?"
"I don't see how that's your business." The lush, ripe curves of Blair's lips straightened and clamped together, as if he was scared to open them and let the betraying words escape.
"I know you do," Jim said wearily, not in the mood for games. "Do you think I'd ever have told you I wanted you if I didn't know that about you? And did I ask you to date me? Did I?"
"No," Blair allowed, "but you're heading there."
"We can't openly date," Jim said. "I'm not in denial about what I am --"
"Bisexual," Blair said, separating the word out into a lot more syllables than it should have had and still sounding faintly incredulous.
"But that's going to sound like gay to everyone I work with; they're not big on subtle, and it's not going to go down well."
"Nice choice of words."
Jim slammed his fist down on the kitchen table. "Sandburg, I swear to God, if you don't take this seriously --"
A moment later, Blair's fist landed with an ever heavier thud. "Seriously? My best fucking friend attacks me, my sentinel flips out, my formerly straight cop roomie tells me he's got the hots for my ass -- oh, you bet I'm taking this seriously, Jim." The legs of Blair's chair scraped against the wooden floor, a wild screech of sound that assailed Jim's ears. "I am losing it here, Jim."
"I didn't attack you, I'm not flipping out, and you knew damn well I wanted you, so save it." Jim's hand was still clenched in a fist. He tried to relax it, but he felt like the Tin Woodman before the oil. "Lie all you want, but not to me. It's pointless."
"I know it is," Blair shouted, the increase in volume another fingernail scrape down a chalkboard for Jim's ears. "I still have to do it. I still have to be able to pretend that I'm not open to you, 24/7 --"
"God, I wish you were," Jim said involuntarily.
Blair turned and walked away to the windows, his back stiff, his averted face sending a clear message that Jim ignored.
He followed Blair and stood behind him, close enough that if Blair had wanted to lean back on him, he could have. "I'm not asking for a commitment in a -- a romantic sense."
"Good." Blair's voice was a stubborn mutter, echoing off the pane of glass.
"We don't even have to have sex --"
Blair swung around to face him, his eyes hard. "Sex wouldn't be a problem. If that was all you wanted, hell, yes, we could start fucking. No strings, a good way to unwind with someone safe instead of both of us out there in a bar or a club when we get the itch -- it would have been an ideal solution." He finger poked Jim's chest. "But you don't want the sex as much as you want the connection."
"You make it sound dirty," Jim said with his lip curling in distaste. "Thanks, Sandburg. You're the one person who's always said I wasn't a freak, but I guess that was before I needed you to cross the line you keep pushing me over."
"What?"
"I'm the one with the visions," Jim snapped. "I'm the one with the crazy senses, the zone -outs -- the fragile one. You're the rock, right? The one with all the answers."
"Your shaman," Blair said. "That's what Incacha wanted me to be."
"Don't you say a fucking word about him," Jim warned, his temper fraying. "He kept me safe when I was falling apart. He never backed away from me the way you are."
"He let you touch him, you mean?" Blair inquired snidely. "Let you put your hands on him, unlike mean old me?"
Jim pushed Blair back with a rough shove that sent Blair staggering, too close for safety to the glass. He reached out and gathered a handful of Blair's shirt and steadied him, giving back the stability he'd taken. "Yeah, he did. We weren't lovers, but we slept together now and then, just slept, and we -- he was part of me. Close." Anguish tore at him as he remembered what it'd been like in the soft, thick heat of the night, Incacha's bare body beside him, his shaman's level breathing filling his head like the rush of waves on the shore.
He jerked Blair away from the windows and released him, wiping his hands down his legs. "On second thought," he said, "I'll get by without bothering you. You've made me remember how good it was with him, and --"
"And I can't compete with a dead man," Blair interrupted. He shook his head. "Man, you're just never going to settle for my best, are you? It's always going to be second best."
The silence that followed was, for Jim, filled with nothing but confusion, ebbing away like the tide to reveal a dawning certainty.
"You're jealous of him."
Blair's gaze flickered away, only for a moment, but coupled with the drum of his heartbeat, it was enough.
"You -- Chief, that's ridiculous," Jim said helplessly.
"Is it?" Blair's chin came up, his attitude pugnacious. "I've read a book, Jim. One book. Written by a man who was as much an observer as I am, no matter how much he tried to immerse himself in another culture. Incacha was…sentinels were normal to him, as real and known as a cop is to me. He was trained -- knowledge was passed down --oh, fuck, Jim; he was a pro; I'm an amateur."
"You're doing a damn good job for an amateur."
Blair shook his head. "No, I'm not. I'm making it up as I go along, juggling what I know and what I've guessed at and trying not to miss a single catch." He gave Jim a despairing look. "Because if I do, it could get you killed." He blinked as if a possibility that kept Jim awake at night had only just occurred to him. "Hell, it could get us both killed."
"Blair, you've saved my life," Jim said. He wanted to put his hands on Blair reassuringly, the way he had so many times before; a ruffle of Blair's hair, a pat on the arm or the back, but he kept them by his sides. "And my sanity, on that very first day when you made me see that I wasn't going nuts and offered me a way of dealing with everything."
"You'd have worked it out eventually," Blair said, refusing to accept any comfort Jim could give him. "You had the senses as a child and in the jungle; those memories were buried, not lost; they'd have surfaced eventually."
"Oh, for God's sake!" Jim took a deep breath. "Listen to me. Will you do that?"
"I am --"
"You're blocking me," Jim said. "Putting up walls because you don't want to accept that you're wrong." He smiled ruefully. "Isn't that supposed to be one of my bad habits?"
"It is one of your bad habits, Jim." Blair bit his lip. "Okay. I hear you. I'm being hostile and closed off. If I accept that, I can move past it."
"You're not going to disappear into your room and meditate, are you?" Jim asked uneasily.
"Tempting, but I'll settle for some herbal tea and maybe moving this discussion to the couch?"
Jim smiled at him, a tentative smile that grew as Blair smiled back. "We can do that."
"You want a tea, too?"
"Hell, no."
Once they were settled on the couch, the steam from Blair's tea curling up like an elongated question mark -- appropriate enough -- Jim began to talk. Blair was the persuasive one, the manipulator, but Jim had something better than baby blue eyes and a don't kick this puppy look; he wasn't planning on saying anything that he didn't believe sincerely was true. The truth had a power all of its own.
"You think I see you as second best?" he asked bluntly. "Is this why you're giving me a hard time?"
"Not wanting you pawing at me --" Blair broke off. "Oh, who am I kidding?" he muttered. "I do want it."
"'Pawing'?" Jim let his affronted tone say it all. "All this time, that's what you've been thinking --"
"No!" Blair shook his head. "I'm still working through a lot of anger here. Ignore me. I like the way you touch me. I don't have a problem with it." He gave Jim a thoughtful look. "It doesn't help to keep the gossip down, though."
"Screw 'em," Jim said succinctly. "I said I wasn't coming out; it doesn't mean I'm going to let bigoted assholes dictate my behavior."
"Right," Blair murmured, enough skepticism showing that Jim glared at him. "Okay, you asked a question. Yes, I feel that way since I met Incacha. It's not reasonable, but I do, and you telling me that you needed space…"
"Space to work out how to get closer to you, not further apart."
Blair rolled his eyes. "Jim Ellison on retreat, seeking enlightenment? I'd have paid good money to see that."
There was no real mockery in his voice and Jim grinned. "See what a bad influence you've been?"
"My mission in life. So you went out there, did your own version of communing with nature, and decided to -- what?"
"Just to ask you if you wanted -- if you were interested --" Jim's words faltered and dried up for a moment. "Okay, I guess I wanted us to, uh, not date, but maybe have something like it. I knew you wouldn't care about me being a guy, but it doesn't mean I took anything for granted. I don't have a clue what you go for in a man and I was prepared for you to say no, let's just keep it as we are. It would have hurt, but I'd have handled it. Then you walked away and I realized I had more to lose than I thought."
"You're too used to being rejected," Blair said. "It's like you didn't expect me to say yes; you were prepared for it, expecting it."
"No, I --" Jim grimaced, recognizing how on the money Blair was. "Shit. Okay. Maybe a little."
Blair leaned back. "We don't communicate very well, do we?"
"Guy thing."
"Oooh, yeah," Blair said dryly. "Let's blame it on our balls."
"Works for me." Jim cleared his throat and returned to the attack. "Blair -- Incacha died telling you to take over from him. There's no way he'd have done that if he'd seen you as inadequate. He wouldn't let me get away with anything but the best efforts I could give when he was teaching me and he'd have told me to look for someone else if he hadn't thought that you could do it."
"Maybe." Blair sounded doubtful, but Jim thought that he was wavering, just a little. "It's not like he knew me. If he'd lived, if he could've trained me, showed me what to do…"
"I don't know if it would've helped," Jim said honestly. "You're not like him, Blair, but Cascade isn't like the jungle, either. Incacha couldn't have tracked down suppliers for toothpaste that didn't make my teeth itch --"
"Gums, Jim. It was your gums. The laurel sulfate content in most of the brands irritated them."
"They're my teeth, Sandburg; I know when they're itching." Jim ran his tongue over his front teeth, shuddering as he remembered how it'd felt to have hot, itchy teeth for two days of hell. "And my point remains. For where I am now, here in Cascade, you're the best helper I could have. Hell, if I was at the North Pole, you would be; you suit me. I loved Incacha, he was the best, but in some ways we didn't connect."
"What ways?" Blair asked. "Don't give me generalized pats on the back, Jim; I need specifics."
"Are you after details or fishing for compliments?"
Blair smiled, a flicker of amusement leaving cracks in the wound-up tension. "A bit of both?"
"One way we didn't connect -- and even if we had, the tribe wouldn't have liked it -- was that Incacha didn't get hard when he watched me walk around with just a towel on." Jim saw the convulsive bob of Blair's Adam's apple as he swallowed. "Thanks for that, by the way. It was a nice boost for my ego."
"Like you don't know you're hot," Blair muttered. "Okay, he didn't lust after your body, but that's separate from the shaman/sentinel partnership, and I can keep you happy in bed, I guess, but so could a lot of other people if they knew how to handle the obstacles your senses create, and if I'm failing you where it counts as your shaman, then I'm failing in the most important part."
"I'm not sure it is." Blair raised his eyebrows questioningly, and Jim continued, finding his way through the maze they'd gotten trapped in. "The sex -- that wouldn't have been traditional between a sentinel and a shaman, unless I was missing something when I lived with the tribe, or maybe other villages had different customs."
"Or it was a female/male team?"
Jim shook his head. "Incacha never said anything about female sentinels or shamans."
"It doesn't mean they don't exist," Blair said and there, he was relaxed completely now, his hands partnering his voice, gesturing with a fluid grace. Jim had never learned sign language, but he could read the message Blair's hands drew in the air with no problem at all. Blair was about to launch into a lecture about gender-specific roles, Jim knew it.
"I don't want a female shaman, I don't want a Chopec one; I want you."
Blair's hands stilled and he locked them together in his lap, the knuckles pale. "I pushed myself onto you."
"Literally," Jim agreed, remembering the grit and heat of the road against his hands and Blair's body covering him like a blanket. "You threw yourself under a moving truck to save me minutes after I threw you up against a wall. I haven't forgotten."
"I forced you to take me in, and I never got around to moving out," Blair continued doggedly.
"No one forces me to do much that I don't want to. Ask Simon. And you even try to pack and I'll --"
"What?" Blair asked. "What would you do, Jim?"
If his life was a movie, Jim knew that his next line would be, "This" followed by a scorching, searing kiss, but Blair still looked as if he'd shy away from an advance and it wouldn't have been Jim's first reaction anyway.
"I don't know." Jim met Blair's eyes. "I'm not very good at asking people to stay. I tried with my mom and after that, well, if people wanted to leave, I held open the goddamned door. But if you left, it'd -- I'd miss you more than I -- God, you're not going to go, are you?"
Blair shook his head slowly and slid his hand into Jim's, clasping it firmly enough that their palms kissed, but without the painfully tight squeeze Jim was used to enduring from men with something to prove. "Not now."
It was like being connected to a power source or lying chilled in the sun and feeling its heat seep comfortingly into his bones. Jim held onto Blair's hand, dreading the moment when Blair would withdraw it with an excuse, but Blair sat quietly, allowing Jim to touch him with the same controlled lack of impatience that surrounded him when he meditated.
Their breathing slowed and gradually matched, each exhalation synchronized, their hearts beating in time, loud in Jim's ears, as if their linked hands connected them on a deeper level than skin on skin.
Sweat formed, slippery at first, then forming another bond. Jim's fingers ached with the need to do more, and after a while he gave into the impulse and began to play with Blair's hand, running his thumb over the blunt bump of knuckles until Blair's fingers loosened and parted invitingly.
Easy to slip a single finger between Blair's, one by one, following the shape they made spread out, easy to see-saw lightly across the webbing at their base, and see Blair suck in a breath that somehow didn't break the unison of their breathing. Blair's lips were a shade darker, his eyes wide, the pupils huge.
"That feels…that feels so fucking good," Blair said, his words spreading out to fill the silence around them, singing, echoing words that Jim felt thrum through him as if he were a struck tuning fork. "Jim."
It felt better than anything that Jim could remember in a long time, but he knew that it could get much better if Blair would let him -- God, what would Blair allow him to do? He had plenty of ideas, but this thing between them felt both as fragile as a snowflake and as remorselessly powerful as an avalanche. From nowhere, he recalled Blair's look of awed delight when he'd discovered that Jim could tell the difference in weight between individual flakes of snow when they landed on his face, his skepticism pushed aside because he wanted so much to believe that Jim could do it.
Taste. One sense that had been starved when it came to Blair. Jim had drunk from Blair's beer bottle, once by accident, after that on purpose more than once, swapping it with his own when Blair went to take a leak or refill the chip bowl. Muted, diluted, the taste of Blair's mouth still had the power to make him shudder with need.
Slowly, giving Blair chance to signal 'no' anyway he chose, Jim raised their joined hands to his mouth and ran his tongue across the pad of Blair's middle finger. The faintly salty taste of Blair's skin filled his mouth, made it water, made him moan far back in his throat. He swallowed, drawing the taste deeper, taking it inside him, and licked again, this time finding less salt and more of his own saliva, mingling with Blair's scent and taste in a way that was as arousing as a kiss.
"You can taste me, can't you?" Blair eased the tip of his finger between Jim's lips. "Taste yourself on me, too."
Jim sucked at Blair's fingertip without replying, his tongue lapping against the swell of flesh, his teeth scraping over the fingernail.
"God, your mouth…" Blair gave a choked sound. "It feels like that's my dick in there."
Jim smiled inwardly without changing the shape his lips were making and drew Blair's finger in deeper, swirling his tongue around it. He endured a moment of loss when Blair withdrew it, leaving it resting against Jim's lower lip, followed by a surge of gratitude when Blair slid it back in, a deliberate push, followed by another withdrawal, another push inside.
Jim was only supporting Blair's hand now, providing a cradle for it to rock in as Blair fucked his mouth with a finger that might as well have been a hook, capturing him beyond hope of freeing himself. Not that he was fighting it. He was so hard that he had to keep absolutely still to avoid coming in his pants and each breath brought him the heavy musk of their aroused bodies, as strong and unmistakable as garlic.
Blair wanted him. Blair was getting off on this drawn-out tease that had stopped being medicinal and merciful with the first thrust of Blair's finger.
When even Jim could only taste spit, he relaxed his jaw and Blair tugged his finger out, the skin sucked pink and glossy, and lowered his hand to Jim's thigh.
They stared at each other, Blair's expression pensive, his teeth worrying at his lip.
"Touching with no sex involved," he said. "That’s what you said. I can't see that working for us, you know?"
"Maybe not."
"So we need to reevaluate this situation. Work out some guidelines."
Jim made a sound of agreement and picked up Blair's hand before curling his feet underneath him on the couch and then leaning over. He put his head in Blair's lap and closed his eyes. Somewhere the world was busy and dangerous and needed him, but right now he was tired, a bone-deep exhaustion from weeks of stress fighting the buzz of his arousal.
Blair said his name, surprise putting a lilt into it, but when Jim didn't move except to tuck Blair's hand against his chest, he felt Blair relax and settle back against the couch. A moment later, Blair's free hand began to stroke Jim's hair, his fingers sliding through the strands, playing with them, his scent left behind like dust on wood.
Jim sighed with uncomplicated pleasure and stropped his cheek against the swell of Blair's erection. He'd take care of that soon, if Blair wanted him to, but now, right now, he just wanted to lie here until his cramped legs protested too loudly to be ignored, and feel welcomed not shunned.
"You're killing me here, you know that?" Blair whispered. The cadences of his voice when he was happy had been as rare as his touches in the last few weeks. Jim listened with his attention split between the meaning of the words and the way they felt on his skin; not a vibration, the plangent song of a struck bell, but a stir of air and a tickle. Blair sounded sincerely worked up, but his hand moved with metronome regularity. Slow and soothing. Not words that Jim usually associated with Blair, and yet, and yet…
"I'm going to assume this is doing as much for you as it is for me." Blair's nails scratched over Jim's scalp with the perfect amount of pressure to be toe-curlingly pleasurable on a primal level and then found a place behind Jim's ear that sent chills down that side of Jim's body. If he could have forced sound past the open-mouthed gasp he gave, he'd have howled at the moon -- or whimpered for more.
"Oh, yeah," Blair said. "It is." The quiet satisfaction in his voice was tinged with wonder, as if he hadn't expected Jim to react quite like this. There were, still, after all the time together, gaps in Blair's knowledge of him.
Jim sighed and turned his face, nuzzling against the mounded, stretched denim of Blair's jeans, tasting the precome already permeating the thick cloth.
"Suck me?" Blair said, like a child asking for a treat he was sure would be denied. "Right here, just like this?"
It didn't seem worth wasting time telling Blair that he would do that for him any time that Blair asked; easier to show him. Jim released Blair's hand with a loving pat and thumbed open the button on Blair's jeans.
Blair shifted under him, eager, spreading his knees wide and reaching for his zipper, his other hand curled loosely around the back of Jim's neck. Jim smacked his hand away with a reproving grunt and took care of easing the zipper down himself. No shorts. Just bare Blair, which Jim had known from the moment Blair walked out of his room that morning, and the knowledge that a single layer of cotton lay between the world and Blair's dick had triggered what had happened to a certain extent.
It didn't take a sentinel to see the shift and jiggle of cock and balls when Blair walked, an erotic display that was tempting and challenging. Jim, who had come to terms with his possessive side a long time ago, freely admitted that he hated the idea of Blair drawing admiring glances when those glances were directed south of his waist.
The thrust of hard hot flesh jutting up from a patch of hair a shade darker than the cloud of curls on Blair's chest was all his, though.
He drew Blair's jeans down to the top of his thighs and then cupped Blair's balls and rolled them in his hand. He'd listened to Blair jerking off and interpreted the sounds of hand on dick into his own porn movie, ashamed and excited at the same time. Blair had liked this…
Blair's hand tightened, clamping down on his neck, and Jim shivered, loving the sense of being claimed that it gave him. Looked like Blair still liked it.
He took his time exploring the hollows at Blair's hips and the pattern of hair on a stomach softer than his own with his mouth and fingers until Blair murmured a protest and a plea and arched up so that the head of his dick nudged Jim's jaw.
"Hey. Weren't you doing something?" Blair demanded, his voice breathy, shaky.
Sex once his senses were supercharged tended to be mind-blowing or anticlimactic in every department; it was risky and Jim had fallen into habits he'd learned in the army; keep your hand busy and wait for leave. Except for him leave never came.
With Blair, the risks of disaster were just as high, but the anxiety wasn't there. Blair would understand if Jim failed to perform or lost himself in a single caress repeated over and over because he couldn't get enough of the complexity of folds of wet-silk skin.
"Get your mouth on my dick," Blair said tightly. Jim could see the sweat popping up out of his pores, tiny flecks of moisture, beading the hairs clustered thickly around the base of Blair's dick. His hair was tugged sharply and he blinked and glanced up. "After I come, you can zone on my belly button all you want, but I'm hurting here, Jim."
Jim smiled lazily and stroked his tongue across the slippery head of Blair's dick with a flick of his tongue at the end.
"Feel better, babe?"
Blair's free hand struck the couch with an emphatic thud. "God!"
Jim's head swam, his body warmed through and shaky as if he'd just taken a long, hot bath. He licked the rounded smoothness repeatedly, coaxing more fluid from it, slicking it with his spit. Under his tongue it flushed with heat, a change no one but he would have noticed, and Blair squirmed, whimpering. "Enough there…"
With a last slow suck at the crown, a final flick of his tongue, an open-mouthed kiss, Jim turned his attention to Blair's balls, still snug in his palm. He blew at the soft, wrinkled skin there and watched it tighten, licked it wet and blew again to make Blair shiver. He picked up a stray hair in the process and absently removed it from his mouth without taking his eyes off Blair's groin. Impossible not to compare Blair's dick with his own, and he liked the results. He was longer by maybe an inch; Blair was thicker. He clenched his ass as if that blunt arrow of flesh was sunk deep into it, splitting him, piercing him…The metaphor was violent but Blair would be so careful, his lip caught between his teeth, too much lube making Jim's crack slippery. He'd end up pushing back impatiently, greedy for that first fiery rush of pain because what would follow would feel so fucking good.
Mindful of Blair's impatience, manifested in a low chant of swearwords that would've gotten Jim's mouth washed out with soap if Sally had heard him use them, even today, Jim abandoned his assessment and took as much of Blair's dick in his mouth as he could, lowering his head until he gagged, his throat muscles convulsing. Oh, God, he'd missed this…choking on a dick owning his mouth, fucking his mouth, silencing and filling his mouth…Eyes watering, he eased up a little and began to work Blair, his jaw aching pleasantly after a few minutes, his lips turning numb and rubbery. Out of practice…but he was still making Blair sweat and writhe, a jumble of appreciative words spilling down on him, with some instructions mixed in, because this was Blair and he always had suggestions.
Jim went along with some of them, but not all. Blair was asking for things that his body didn't want and Jim couldn't give them to him; it felt as wrong as missing a target on purpose at the range. So when Blair hissed out a plea for faster when that would've left Jim dealing with a mouthful of come a moment later, he eased back, licking lightly where he'd been sucking hard, and made Blair whimper and jerk his hips desperately, the flush across his belly telling Jim how much Blair was enjoying this.
And when Blair reached the point when his body was showing signs of stress from too long on the cusp, his dick softening just a little, Jim ignored Blair's fervent, "Don't stop, oh God, don't --" and finished Blair with a well-timed combination of tight hand and wet mouth.
The unforgettable, indescribable taste of come engulfed his mouth, overwhelming his senses so much that he knew he'd be tasting Blair for hours, smelling him, too. He could brush his teeth, but it wouldn't change anything. As he slept, the tripped circuits would reset themselves, but for now at least two of his senses were stamped indelibly with Blair's mark.
Hell, the way his cramped hand was locked into the shape of Blair's dick, maybe touch, as well.
He rolled to his back, his head in Blair's lap, and stared up at Blair, licking his lips to clean them.
Blair groaned, one hand dropping to wipe feverishly at Jim's mouth, light brushes of his fingers. Jim pursed his lips in a kiss and felt muscles twinge in his cheeks.
"You --" Blair shook his head. "That was so good, Jim."
He'd reduced Blair to brevity, stark and unadorned; as accolades went, it was a good one.
Blair's hand skimmed Jim's chest, heading south. "I want to take care of you now," he said, with no suggestion that he was simply returning the favor in his voice. No, he sounded anticipatory.
Jim put one foot on the floor and hooked the other over the back of the couch, spreading himself wide open for Blair. "It won't take long."
Blair smiled, all teeth, a predator's smile, and Jim realized that maybe he wasn't entirely forgiven. A frisson of excitement made his balls tighten painfully. Danger didn't turn him on -- that was a bad habit for a soldier to acquire -- but thinking about the form Blair's revenge would take did.
"Oh, yes, it will." Blair's palm settled snug and warm over the mound at Jim's groin. "You wanted me to touch you; I'm going to touch you a lot. Go ahead and come if you like; hell, cream your pants; I don't care…but I'll keep on touching you until you've had enough."
Jim smiled up at him and ground his dick against Blair's hand. Even through his clothing it felt incredible, stimulating his body in a way another person would've had to work for. "Never going to happen."
"We'll see," Blair told him and shoved his hand down the front of Jim's pants, scrabbling for a hold on a dick that had stiffened and jerked at the first brush of Blair's fingers. Startled out of his complacency, Jim grunted sharply and sucked his stomach in just enough to allow Blair's hand to slip a crucial inch lower.
He came in a warm, wet rush, his body not caring that it wasn't getting the tunnel of Blair's fingers to fuck or the succulent heat of his mouth. One scrape of Blair's fingertip over the ice-slick slipperiness of the head of his dick and he was lost.
Blair pulled out his hand and licked Jim's spunk off one of his fingers before wiping his hand dry on Jim's shirt. Jim was too occupied with the aftershocks to growl at him. Jesus, he felt better than he'd done in months, clear-headed, relaxed, hyped up and calm at the same time.
"You really were ready to pop, weren't you?" Blair sounded amused. "I hope you're good for another round, man, because I wasn't joking about having plans for you."
Jim closed his eyes and savored the moment. "Do your worst."
***
Some hours later, they were both naked in Jim's bed, sweat drying on his back but a shower unappealing because he liked smelling of Blair's come and sweat and spit and a combination of all three substances was adhering to his skin.
Blair was stroking Jim's chest lazily, his head pillowed in the hollow of Jim's shoulder, curled against and around Jim like a supple cat.
Touching him.
"I love you," Jim said without thinking.
Blair's hand paused. "No. You need me. It's not the same thing."
Shit. "I need you because I love you, not the other way around."
"Sorry, Jim, but I have trouble believing that." Blair propped himself up on his elbow. "'S'all right. Love's not required to get me to put out; ask any of my girlfriends."
"You say crap like that to hurt me?" Jim inquired, and kept his voice mild with an effort that became impossible to maintain very quickly. "If I tell you it worked, will you shut the fuck up and get over being mad at me for what I did earlier?"
"I don't want to piss you off or hurt your feelings," Blair said. "I just think that you're confusing something you need from me as a sentinel with an emotion that's just not connected to that requirement." He took a deep breath. "And I think you said it to make me happy and get me to say, oh, that I'm cool with all this, and that I think we should be exclusive, and yes, oh, mighty Jim, I love you too, and that's just not going to happen."
"Any of it?" Jim said with difficulty. Catching the scent of another lover on Blair was going to be immeasurably harder to deal with now that he knew what Blair smelled like after making love to him…
The pause that followed was long enough for Jim to wonder if Blair was ever going to answer. The silence between them rang in his ears.
"I can -- I can stop seeing people," Blair said slowly. "Having sex with them, anyway. I can't stop dating; people would notice. I'll try that and see if it works for me."
Jim couldn't thank him for the concession with words; just too fucking weird to do that, but he patted Blair's arm and hoped that Blair could translate it into gratitude.
"And I'm not down with this reliance on me deal, at all," Blair said decisively. "What if I need to go somewhere? What if you do? What if I die?"
"Don't say that."
"It could happen," Blair said. "The lives we lead…I could die every time I go out on a call with you, and, no, I don't want to stop. Beside you is where I belong, but I might not always be there -- hey!"
Jim pinned Blair's wrists over his head with one hand, pressing them into the pillow as his other hand cupped Blair's face. "If you die, I will drag you back," he said. "Or follow you. They're about the only two choices I see me having, so think about it when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, huh, Chief?"
"Arrogant, self-destructive --"
"Schmuck," Jim finished.
"Do you remember all the times I insulted you?"
"Every one," Jim assured him and dropped a kiss on Blair's kissed-soft lips. "I don't have a death wish; I'm just not up to training another puppy, you know?"
"'Puppy'?" Blair shook his head. "That one, you'll pay for."
Blair twisted his hands free and ran them down Jim's back to his ass, which might have changed the conversation an hour ago, but Jim's dick was on strike for the time being.
"That's two things," Jim said. "The exclusive bit and the being cool with this."
"Hmm?" Blair bit at Jim's shoulder, avoiding his look.
"You didn't say if falling in love with me was going to happen." He felt that he was pushing Blair too much, but he wasn't going to be able to sleep with all of this circling in his head like sharks around a lifeboat.
Blair sighed. "Jim, I've been in love with you for years. Years. It's not going to happen because it already did. It's why I know you're not on the same page as me yet."
Uncertainty gripped Jim, the way it always did when Blair was so…definite. Was this just a conditioned response? Was Blair ringing a bell and he was drooling? It didn't feel that way, but how would he know? Hell, Blair could be as much a victim as he was, though even now, fucked stupid with his brains leaking out of his ears, he wasn't crazy enough to put that idea into Blair's head.
He settled for kissing Blair again. "Okay, but I'm a fast reader, Chief, so don't turn that page. I'll catch up."
"I'll wait," Blair said, his gaze steady now. "Not for ever, but for a while."
***
Summer heat shimmered the air around the lake and Blair turned his face up to a cloudless sky and grinned appreciatively. "Beautiful. It's hot, it's actually hot. I'm outside and I'm sweating, man."
"If that's another hint that your pack was heavier than mine…"
"It was," Blair insisted. "And you're the one who packed them."
Jim swatted Blair's ass playfully, feeling equally content with life. Blair yelped and gave him a punch on the arm and an indignant look. "Mosquito," Jim said blandly. "About to take a big, juicy bite out of your behind. And I'm the only one who gets to do that."
"Right," Blair muttered. "Through denim? I don't think so."
"Me or the bug?" Jim asked, surveying the clearing. His tent had been over by that tree in April and it'd worked okay, but he needed to scope out room for two more tents. Simon wasn't far behind them, traveling in his own car as he had to head back to the city on Sunday for an early morning meeting on Monday. "Because if you bend over, Chief, I'll show you just how sharp my teeth are."
"Promises, promises." Blair slipped his arms around Jim's waist and tilted his head back, inviting a kiss Jim was only too willing to give. Blair's mouth was warm, his tongue a teasing flicker against Jim's.
"Last chance for this," Jim said regretfully, breaking the kiss but tightening his hug to compensate before releasing Blair reluctantly. "Simon's going to be here soon."
"You hear him?" Blair raised his eyebrows inquiringly. "Come on; use a bit of that sentinel magic and tell me if we've got time for a blow job right there against that tree."
Jim eyed the tree that Blair was pointing at. Bark wasn't comfortable to lean against and the ground around it looked green and soft but was most likely littered with stones, roots, and other objects designed to dig into knees, so no matter what position he was in, it wouldn't compare to their bed, but what the hell…
He listened, ears at full stretch, as Blair called it, which always made him picture himself as Dumbo. Nothing…just the background noise of a living forest. A distant crack as a branch snapped under a boot forced him to re-evaluate his conclusion.
"I hear him," he reported. "Has to be Simon; I can smell his cigars a mile away."
"If he's parked where we did, it's more like a quarter of a mile," Blair said with a sigh. "No time, huh?"
"Well…" Jim was tempted, God, very tempted, but to his sensitized ears, Simon sounded so close that his ardor was easy to control. Getting caught in the act wasn't a turn-on for him, though Blair had a streak of the exhibitionist in him. "I want to," he said, "but…rain check?"
Blair looked horrified. "Don't say the 'r' word, man! Blue skies all the way this weekend."
The expression on Blair's face was so comical that Jim started to laugh, spluttering with amusement.
"God, I love you," he said, speaking the words for the first time in months, so sure of their truth that when Blair just nodded and smiled back at him looking uncomplicatedly happy, it wasn't a surprise or even a relief. He wrapped the thick fall of Blair's hair around his hand and then pulled his hand free slowly, feeling the hair cling and tickle, bright with static.
"Yeah," Blair said softly and Jim had to kiss him again, just one more time, with Blair screwing sun-dazzled eyes closed and arching up against him, pliant and familiar.
He jerked back a moment later, his enjoyment of the kiss curtailed by a mutter of curses about brambles and paths made for rabbits not men.
"Do you hear --"
Blair winced. "Yeah. He sounds pissed."
"There's a six-pack of his favorite beer in the cooler; get him one out," Jim suggested.
"The cooler I carried had Simon's beer in it?" Blair shook his head. "Man, if I'd known that --"
Simon strode into the clearing, his pack bowing his shoulders slightly, his face sweaty. "Next time you say you're going fishing alone, I'm going to let you go," he called out. "Call that a trail?"
"Hello to you, too, Simon," Jim said, walking over to him. He helped Simon take his pack off, marveling at the weight. "Sandburg's got a beer for you, nice and cold."
Simon gave Blair a baleful look that softened to a smile once he'd swallowed half of the bottle in three long gulps. "So what do you think of Jim's little slice of heaven? Worth hiking through a mile of trees for?"
"Sure," Blair said, diplomatically refraining from correcting Simon with an effort only Jim could see. "Look, Simon; the lake's right there. You can practically fish from your tent."
"It's a nice spot," Simon said after a moment's study of the clearing. "So why don't you two get the tents set up and we'll have time to get a few hours of fishing in before nightfall."
"And what will you be doing?" Jim asked. Simon's delegation skills were all well and good at work, but they were off-duty now.
Simon grinned. "Getting my rod set up and checking my flies; what else?"
Jim stared pointedly at Simon's crotch for a moment. "Looks like you're all zipped up to me, Simon, so why don't you go and look for some firewood? Unless you've got a taste for sushi."
"Very funny." Simon drained the bottle and stood. "Fine. I'll do that and you deal with the tents." He glanced around and then pointed at the spot where Jim had pitched his tent in the spring. "That looks like the perfect spot for my tent."
Jim opened his mouth to argue and then subsided. There were other places just as good, after all.
Simon cleared his throat. "So, how many tents did you bring?"
"Huh?" Jim exchanged a puzzled glance with Blair who shrugged minutely. "Two; why? Did you forget yours, or something?"
"Just wondered," Simon said. "Sure be nice to have a spare tent for all the gear in case it comes on to rain, but as we'll be using all three of them, I guess we'll have to hope it stays dry." He paused and when neither of them replied, gave a sharp nod. "Firewood. I'm on it."
Jim watched Simon head for the trees and sighed. "He knows."
Blair came up beside him, staring at Simon's retreating back. "Oh, yeah. He knows."
"This place is unlucky," Jim said with conviction. "If we catch anything, which I doubt, we'll probably choke on a bone, or get food poisoning, or --"
Blair rolled his eyes. "Will you shut up? Simon knows, which was kind of inevitable; we didn't need to have an awkward conversation about it with the two of you going between silence and yelling, and he's not freaking. Much. I think knowing how freaked we are, is making him feel better about it. So what about all of that is bad?"
"Well…" Put that way, Blair had a point. Jim was less sanguine that the matter had been shelved for good, but Simon seemed to have decided to not let it spoil the trip. He wondered what had given them away and realized that Simon's approach had been just a little too carefully noisy; he'd probably seen them kissing, backed away quietly, and then given them a polite warning of his presence.
Some sentinel he was, letting even a friend get that close unnoticed.
"Exactly. It's all good. Well, apart from the fact that we'd decided not to tell anyone about us to keep it simple, but we trust Simon with most things; this is just one more secret, right?"
"If we tell him any more of our secrets, we'll have to kill him," Jim said dryly.
"Jim!" Blair backhanded Jim's chest. "Behave."
Jim ran his hand over Blair's ass in a promise of good things to come. "Until Sunday night, I'll be a perfect gentleman, babe, but after that…"
Blair smiled, a small, complicit smile that made Jim wonder if he could really wait that long. "After that…" Blair echoed.
The surface of the lake broke as a trout leaped out, dripping silver as it snapped at a fly. Embarrassment, thwarted lust, and vaguely melancholy memories all lost their power in an instant.
"Simon!" Jim called out, already heading for his tackle box. "Forget the firewood and the goddamned tents; they're biting."
It really was the perfect spot.
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