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Here's Part Two of A Mile in Your Shoes.
The first bar Jim came to was smoky, the music loud. He hesitated in the doorway and then snorted, went in, and let the door close behind him. It didn't matter now. He wasn't going to end up with his eyes burning, his throat raw, and a headache pounding away. All the people inside, drinking, chatting, flirting, could handle it, and so could he.
He made his way to the bar, vaguely aware that people weren't getting out of his way as much as they usually did, and after a few attempts to catch the bartender's eye, waved a ten-spot in the air as an attention-grabber.
Beer in hand, and a chaser he'd drunk immediately, searing its way down to his gut, he looked around for a quiet corner to begin a determined slide into a drunken haze. This place didn't do quiet. It did people, lots of them, all on display, all looking for… something. Most were younger than he was.
But not that much younger than Blair.
In this crowd, wearing Blair's clothes, that double glint of silver in his ears and the cloud of hair, he fitted in, more or less. People hadn't cleared a way for him, no, because Blair just didn't project 'cop' and 'dangerous' but it didn't mean they weren't paying attention to him. As he walked through the bar, he got looks; appraising, appreciative, mostly from women; some from men.
He returned them all with a stony indifference that made smiles die on lips and heads turn away. He was angry with Blair, hell, pissed at the world, but it didn't mean he was going to pick someone up just to get a petty revenge.
He was angry with Blair; that didn't mean that he didn't still love him.
In fact, that was why he was so pissed -- God, how could Blair have done that? Have taken something that was part of him, unacknowledged, unwanted, forgotten for much of his life, sure, but still… He'd been born a sentinel. It was what he was. It was something that went with the -- with the soul, not the body. No matter what body he was in, the senses, like a loyal dog, should've tagged along with him. He felt a deep, unreasoning resentment that they'd stuck with his body, not him, and ignored the fact that they'd actually hung in limbo and waited to be grabbed.
He found a small table in the corner of the room and proceeded to get drunk; paying for each drink he was brought so that he could leave when he wanted to. On the way back from the restroom, his vision and hearing blurred by alcohol, his movements deliberate and careful because he was starting to lose control, he saw that while he'd been gone the overly efficient waitress had cleared his glass away. He'd made sure he'd drained it before he walked away, as there was no way he'd have drunk from a glass he'd left unattended, and given the empty table and the crush of people, the inevitable had happened and his table had been taken by a couple now deep in conversation.
Fuck. He frowned at them and contemplated making a fuss, and then shrugged. He'd find another bar. The music in this one was too loud even for normal ears.
He studied the press of people between him and the door and decided to just start walking in a straight line and the hell with anyone in his way. That worked for about three bumped shoulders and then a startled shriek told him that he'd made someone spill their drink. He turned, an automatic apology rising to his lips, and met the brown eyes, irritation already turning to indulgence, of the woman Blair had broken it off with to be with him. Jen was bubbly, bright, and bouncy, a combination that had made Jim feel tired, but under the giggles was a solid core of intelligence and kindness. He was just glad that she'd taken Blair's inadequate and necessarily incomplete explanation about why he had to stop seeing her with equanimity. Hell, she'd come over to collect some of her belongings and kissed them both goodbye with a cheerful grin.
"Blair!" She shook her head. "That's a little obvious, even for you."
"I don't know what you mean." The stonewalling was automatic.
"You can pick me up once that way, but twice?" She tsked. "You did that on purpose."
"No, I --" He swayed and grabbed her arm to keep himself from staggering into the path of a waitress with a tray of glasses.
"Oh, God, you're drunk!" A concerned frown wrinkled her forehead. "That's not like you, Blair; is everything okay? Do you want me to call Jim?"
"Why would I want you to do that?" It came out as a snarl and he regretted it as he saw the hurt flash over her face. "Sorry. It's just… that wouldn't be a good idea, right now. I'm fine. I'll go home. Sleep it off."
"You argued with him, didn't you?" Jen sighed and patted his face, the affection behind the gesture clear. "That sucks."
"Yeah," he admitted. "I did and it does."
"Mmm." She glanced back at the group of friends she'd been with, who'd gone back to chattering once they'd seen that Jim wasn't a stranger. "Do you want to talk about it?"
He shook his head. "No. But thank you. It's just… complicated."
"I totally get it." Jen finished what was left of her drink and nodded. She wasn't entirely sober either, Jim realized. A slight slurring to her voice, and she was blinking too much. "He's a cop; they don't like people who wander off the straight and narrow." There was enough meaning layered over the words to make it clear she knew that Blair wasn't exclusively interested in women, and possibly suspected that her replacement had been a man.
"You'd be surprised," he said. "We're not all fucking bigots, you know."
"You think of yourself as one of them now?" Jen's eyebrows rose. "Wow, that's… Jim really has you under his thumb, doesn't he?"
Jim held up his hand and studied it. "Nope. Nothing attached to these babies."
"What?" She looked at him as if he was insane. "That doesn't make any sense."
He replayed it in his head and had to agree with her. "I have to go," he said abruptly. With a nod, he turned away, ignoring her when she called out Blair's name. Let Blair deal with any backlash from the encounter; talking to her was just too risky and right then, he couldn't trust himself to handle it if she continued to criticize him and who he was; what he did.
It hurt; a small sting compared to the burn of betrayal, but even so. He'd always thought she liked him.
The air outside was cool and refreshing but it didn't do anything to sober him up. Nothing ever did but time; he'd found that out as a teenager. It didn't matter; he didn't want to lose the buzz. Not yet. He was petty enough to hope that they would get swapped back during the night, so that Blair would be the one dealing with the hangover, but the shamed pang that followed on the heels of the thought made him realize that his anger was fading.
He wasn't drunk enough to have lost the ability to see himself objectively; it looked like maudlin was next on the predictable list of emotions, because he was starting to think about Blair, left alone with the senses.
"Didn't leave you alone, did he?" he muttered, needing to say the words aloud and the hell with the funny looks he was getting from the people passing by. He began to walk back to the loft, his steps veering slightly now and then. "Scary when it starts. Scared me. Might not scare him. Blair's brave. And he knows what's happening." He considered that. Yes. Blair knew. It would make a difference. Blair was probably okay.
He still kept walking as fast as he could, which wasn't very. Too many things in the way. People, trashcans, lampposts. The streets were a cluttered fucking mess. And somewhere, he'd gotten turned around, because he was going the wrong way. On foot, which he wasn't often, it all looked different.
And he needed to piss. Again. He was damned if he was going to use a wall in an alley, and he didn't feel like the bright lights of a coffee shop, so that left a bar. There was one up ahead with a group of people leaving. All men. Not unusual, but… oh, he knew where he was now. The bar wasn't exclusively for gays, but it had enough of a reputation as a safe place to go with your same-sex partner that he'd refused when Blair had suggested they try it. Too risky. They might get seen. People might think the worst. He hadn't had to trot out any of the tired excuses circling in his mind; he'd just shaken his head firmly. Blair had stared at nothing for a moment and then shrugged and taken him to a place very similar to the bar Jim had just left, which was punishment enough for being so fucking craven.
Tonight, hidden behind this mask, he could go wherever the hell he wanted and it didn't matter who saw him. Blair answered to no one, and the rules that hemmed Jim in were loosely wrapped around his partner.
He bought a drink first, out of politeness; another shot of whisky. Less volume. Swallowing it in a single gulp was easier than sipping at it, so that was what he did. He tossed money and a tip onto the bar and scanned the room, looking for what he wanted. It wasn't any quieter than the last bar and it was just as busy. Christ, didn't people have homes to go to?
He spotted an arrow on the wall pointing to the restrooms and made his way over to it, his own tendency to stride, and the alcohol, giving his walk a swagger Blair's didn't usually have. He was getting looks here, too, but they were more direct. He didn't feel vulnerable, but he did feel an itch of awareness flare awake. Someone was watching him and not looking away. He didn't glance back.
Business taken care of, he stayed in the restroom, giving whoever it was time to make a move. When a couple entered and gave him a curious look before going to piss, he began to wash his hands with a methodical care that meant they were leaving when he was still rinsing off.
The door took too long in closing; someone had slipped in as they'd left. Jim stared into the mirror with a feigned casualness. He'd found something to sober him up now. A man appeared behind him, taller than he was now, but younger than Blair by a few years, with soft, silky brown hair and gray eyes. He had wide shoulders but he was skinny with it, not built.
No threat, but he could have a weapon --
Jim pivoted on his heel, trapped between the man and the sink, and fuck, he wasn't as sober as he'd thought, because he stumbled, off balance. A hand caught him, supported him, and drew him closer.
"Blair…" The man smiled and bobbed forward to plant a kiss on Jim's cheek. Jim turned to avoid it and, because his timing sucked tonight, just sucked, the jerk of his head brought their mouths together.
As kisses went, it was a failure; fast, fleeting, and fumbled, and most definitely one-sided, but the man pulled back and beamed. "God, it's good to see you again! How are you?"
Feeling violated, thank you.
"Fine," Jim said uncommunicatively. "You?"
"Oh, God, you just don't want to know!"
Got that right.
"So how long has it been since we saw each other?" the man continued. He paused, clearly expecting some response.
Jim shrugged. "It seems like forever, man."
Had that sounded like Blair? Close enough.
"You are so right." The man shook his head ruefully. "We should get together sometime."
"Mmm."
"Still living with your cop?" Cue humorous eye roll. "Did he ever get a clue?"
"About what?"
"Duh? You?"
"Jim knows all about me," Jim said grimly.
"I'm sure he'd like to think so."
"Tell me one thing you think he doesn't," Jim challenged.
"Well, I hope you didn't tell him about what we did on his bed."
"Refresh my memory," Jim said into a tension-filled silence.
"Bounce, bounce?" The man sighed. "I thought you were going to hit me the way you reacted when I went up there."
"Jim's a very -- he doesn't like people messing with his stuff." Jim was thinking back and remembering, oh, yeah, he was remembering all of Blair's muttered excuses about going up there to nap because all of his sheets were in the wash. He'd made a big deal out of stripping the bed and Blair had looked hurt.
And it hadn't been because they smelled of Blair, because that wouldn't have bothered him, not really. Instinctively, he leaned in to sniff the man, wanting to confirm that this was the source of that long ago alien scent, but all that got him was a whiff of stale tobacco and sweat -- and arms going around him, as his movement was misinterpreted.
"No!" He pushed free. "Look, I'm with someone now, okay? And if you grab me one more fucking time --"
"You never used to mind being grabbed." The words were cool, distinct. "Fine. Piss off, then. Or stay and watch me piss, if you want to remember the good times."
"You've got to be kidding me."
With a studied indifference, a zipper was pulled down. Still facing Jim, not the urinals, the man tugged his dick out and held it cupped in his hand. "Well?" He was half-hard and as Jim watched, he pumped it slowly in a lewd invitation.
Jim found himself reaching for a badge he didn't have. Fuck. Arresting this slime for anything he could throw and make stick was so very fucking tempting, but it just wasn't a good idea.
He settled for a contemptuous stare at the growing length (nowhere near as big as his, in either body, nowhere fucking near) and then raised his eyes, his lip curling. "You've got nothing I want."
He made it out into the fresh air and turned toward home, hurrying now.
***
Jim walked into the loft, words of apology already planned out and ready to be spoken. He closed the door quietly, in case Blair had gone to bed, worn out by everything that had happened to them both, and glanced around. The lights were on, but Blair was -- oh God. The floor. On the floor, not moving, on the floor, eyes wide open, hands clamped to his ears, on the floor and hurting --
He couldn't break down the seconds that passed between seeing Blair and moving forward. He found a bruise on his thigh the next day and the pain of colliding with the corner of a table flooded back, as sharp as when it'd happened, but at the time, it failed to register. Reality snapped back into focus only when he was cradling Blair in his arms, his hands passing over the short hair in frantic, frightened caresses.
Zoned. He pulled Blair closer, and felt the strength of his former body in a way he'd never been aware of when he was wearing it. His body was solid, heavy, and with Blair out of it like this, close to an immovable object. He heard himself sob out Blair's name and took a deep breath. That wasn't helping.
Blair's hands now hung loosely, but they'd been over his ears, which meant sound had been the trigger for the zone. Jim kept his voice low and said, in as normal a tone as he could manage, wondering bitterly if the reek of alcohol on his breath would jar Blair from his zone, "Blair? Wake up, sweetheart. It's Jim. Come back to me. You're safe. Come back."
He kept talking and touching Blair's skin, punctuating his words with kisses to Blair's forehead and cheek, until a shiver ran through the body he held and Blair's open eyes filled with an awareness of self, the glassy, blank stare fading away.
***
"Was I this much of a pain in the ass when I was talking you through dealing with a zone?"
Jim shrugged, his gaze focused on the glass of water he held. "Yes?"
"God." Blair exhaled, an impatient huff that didn't come close to conveying his feelings. "Well, somehow I doubt it. Jim, it's not working. I lost it. Completely. And I don't know if I've got the nerve to try again."
The admission cost him, but he had to make it. He curled up in his corner of the couch and realized that Jim's longer legs didn't fit the available space very well. With another sigh, he propped his feet on the coffee table and then took a sip of the green tea with mint Jim had brewed for him. It tasted like hot water.
"You've got everything turned down low, haven't you?" Jim asked. Blair nodded. "That means you're controlling them," Jim pointed out. "High, low, or in the middle, you've still changed the settings." Jim gulped down some water, grimacing as if it was medicine.
Blair didn't need sentinel senses to spot that Jim was still less than sober. He was tempted to comment on the etiquette of taking care of borrowed bodies, but he approved of the water and nagging Jim right now wasn't going to be all that productive.
Tomorrow. When Jim had a hangover and was finding out the hard way that Blair didn't drink much for a reason.
"I suppose so."
"Not that I do that whole dial thing anymore," Jim said.
"What?" Blair set his tea down. "Since when?"
"Months." Jim waved his hand vaguely. "It was a good starting point, but once I'd gotten the hang of it, I kind of… personalized it. You know."
"No, I don't know," Blair said coldly. "Maybe because you never told me!"
"I didn't think you'd be interested. The principle was the same; I was just, uh, using a different approach." Jim finished his water. "Look, it's getting late; want to leave this until the morning?"
"Not a freaking chance." Blair poked Jim in the arm. "Tell me now. Because you might say I'm doing stuff, but it doesn't feel like I am and I'm -- I'm --"
"Scared?"
Blair rested his head against Jim's shoulder. "God, Jim, you don't know what it was like. The noise… And I couldn't make it stop. I thought I was going insane and it didn't help that I knew what was happening. It was like being in the middle of a tornado; the wind doesn't care that you know all about how weather systems work and you've read The Wizard of Oz a dozen times."
Jim was stroking his hair again, the slow, gentle strokes that he used when he brushed Blair's hair sometimes, patient, careful, loving. "I do know what it was like. And I know how terrifying it can be. God, I can't believe I walked out and left you like that. I'm sorry, Blair."
Blair kissed the prickle of stubble along Jim's chin. "I get why you needed your space, man. The walk probably did you good, though I can't say the same for the drinking."
"It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"It won't tomorrow." Blair straightened. "So what do you use?"
Reluctantly, Jim said, "I wanted something more…flexible. Less black and white. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's a -- a spectrum. So I see it as notes on a scale, high to low; or colors, like a rainbow. Red is top end, blue is about where you are now, and mostly I'm in the yellow."
"More nuanced…"
"If you say so."
Blair tried to visualize it, but his mind was too chaotic to be able to focus.
"You're trying to work with all your senses at once, instead of one at a time."
"How do you know?" Blair asked.
"Because it's what I did."
"We're not necessarily going to follow the same path," Blair pointed out. "I've got three years or so of study to build on."
"Tell me that isn't what you were doing, and I'll take it back." Jim looked entirely too smug, but Blair couldn't lie to him.
"I guess. So maybe just one to start with?"
"Yeah. Not hearing or sight; I don't want you left blind or deaf." Jim tapped his finger against his mouth in thought. "Smell," he decided.
"Okay." Blair sniffed experimentally. "I can't smell anything much," he reported.
"So move the dials, or whatever, and get back to normal."
"Well, what should I be smelling?" He gave Jim an inquiring look. "What can you smell?"
"Um…" Jim took a turn at sniffing the air. "Stuff. Your tea. Smoke on my clothes. Are you getting any of that?" Blair shook his head. "Wait here."
A moment later, Jim returned from the kitchen holding a lime in one hand, a dense, deep green in color, and in the other a zester that was nominally Blair's. Jim had bought it after coming in one day to find Blair whimpering in pain after grating his knuckles along with an orange in an attempt to make a fancy dish to impress whoever the hell he'd been after that week. Blair remembered the agony of the orange oil sinking into the shallow cuts and the way Jim had pushed his hand under the tap and then picked out every remaining shred of peel, his eyes intent, his forehead creased. The zester had been beside Blair's plate the next night, expensive, safe, never used since, but appreciated.
Jim sat down beside him and raked the zester across the lime, curls of green peel flaking away to reveal white pith. "Smell it."
Blair inhaled and felt something tickle his nose, a zing of citrus. "It smells prickly."
"Go higher. Turn it up."
"How?" Blair demanded. "I can't -- I don't know how to."
"You just do." Jim's expression mirrored the frustration Blair felt. "You reach for your tea without thinking about how to make your muscles move; it's the same thing."
Blair stared down at the lime. Without taking it out of Jim's hands, he ran his fingers over the torn peel and felt the shallow channels the blades had carved. Then he brought his fingers to his nose, breathed in --
green, intense, smoky, sharp, sour, greengreengreengreen -- lime
"Lime. I smell lime. I do, I smell it, Jim." He choked on saliva, welling up in an automatic reaction. "God, it's all I can smell."
"Too much," Jim said authoritatively, Mr. Expert at work. "Ease back, Chief."
"Better stop calling me that," Blair said and with that distraction, the world snapped back into focus -- a sentinel's focus, everything clear and intense, vibrant and pitch-perfect, singing to him.
"Oh, my God," he said quietly. "Jim, this is unbelievable. I can --" He held up his hand and saw the wavering line of a bitten fingernail like the teeth of a saw, fretted, intricate, without losing his awareness of the rest of the room. "I can choose what to see, how to see it, I can -- God, I can do anything." He grinned, exultant, delighted, suffused with power. The edge was taken off his joy when he saw Jim's expression; hunger, desperation, like a starving man looking at food through a window, out of reach. "Jim, is this what it's like for you?"
Jim didn't even try to pretend that he didn't know what Blair meant. "No, not always. Sometimes, yes, it just… balances. It doesn't last long; something will happen and it'll come crashing down, but when it's like that, it's -- it's good."
"Oh, man, it's just --" Blair shook his head and then reached out for Jim, reaching past the barrier of his own body, not caring that his hand was caressing his own face because that was Jim in there, behind that too-familiar flesh and bone, and it was Jim he was touching. "Kiss me. Before it goes away. I want to know how good it can be for you. I want to know if you've ever felt like this when we were making love." A flash of something like guilt answered his question, and he moaned. "Oh, man, you have? Details, Jim, I want details, but right now --"
"Shut up, Sandburg," Jim interrupted, and grabbed him, dragged him close. Blair relaxed willingly into the rough hold and waited for an equally demanding kiss, but it didn't come. Without hesitation, but with the utmost precision, Jim licked Blair's lips with the point of his tongue, a fine line of warm and wet that left them fizzing, sparkling, as the moisture evaporated and the skin cooled. The scent of Jim's saliva wafted up, rich and subtly different from anything Blair ever remembered tasting in his own mouth.
But it would be, of course. Anything and everything would taste different now.
No one had ever licked his lips like this, deliberate, purposeful. It was erotic and strange and left Blair hard and yet with most of his attention focused on his lips, not his dick. His arousal wasn't centered there, but wherever Jim was touching. Jim was the source of it all, and Blair, barely breathing, accepted what Jim was giving him; let himself be guided through a world Jim knew and was exiled from.
Jim's grip loosened, as if Blair's continuing acceptance without struggle (why would he struggle?) or attempts to reciprocate (he'd like to do that, but he'd give Jim this moment, he'd let him drive) had reassured him.
Once licked, Blair's mouth remained unkissed. The absence of kisses hurt, but Blair kept his protest unvoiced. It was all about trust.
"Upstairs," Jim said, his voice quiet, peaceful. "Get undressed. Let me show you."
***
The sheets were cool against his skin. Jim's skin. He had to remember that. This wasn't his body. Borrowed body, sneak peeks at Jim's life, except Jim knew, so he wasn't sneaking --
"Stop thinking." Jim's hair was loose around his face and his neck was bent. Strands of hair were brushing across Blair's chest, stirred by air currents, nothing more, because Jim wasn't moving. Blair's nipples were tight, pebbled and aching, smarting as if they'd been chewed on, whipped, clamped; as if seriously kinky things had been done to them, when all that they had endured had been this random soft touch from hundreds of individual hairs, tiny points tickling.
"I --"
"Don't talk. Feel." Jim sounded dreamily drunk, which Blair supposed he still was, but this intoxication wasn't physical. Jim was remembering. "You could come from this. I do this to your dick and how long do you think it would take? But I won't, because I know the answer. Not long at all, and I don't want this to end yet."
Blair didn't either, but he wasn't sure he could handle much more. He'd once told Jim to dial up touch when they were fucking and Jim's expression, exasperated, baffled, as he shook his head hadn't made much sense. It did now.
Jim sat up and reached over for the half-empty bottle of water on the nightstand. Trust began to shred away. If Jim poured that over him --
He didn't. He dripped it. Off the end of a finger, after warming a small puddle of it in his cupped palm. Blair's eyes -- sentinel sight at work -- tracked each drop as it fell, elongated, curved and complex, fell like a tear to splash against skin. The cup of his throat, each nipple, his closed eyelids… He was shaking by the time the third one struck; moaning by the fifth. He opened his eyes when no more drops fell, blinking away wetness. Jim got out a hair tie from his jeans pocket and pulled his hair back into a lopsided, but effective pony tail. Then he bent his head and drew his tongue along the track the water had taken after it had struck. Five meandering trails and Blair's skin was burning, fever-hot. Jim smiled, pursed his lips, full lips, juicy, lush… yeah, they looked good, Blair knew it. The cool stream of exhaled, directed air followed the path the water and then Jim's tongue had taken and Blair screwed up his face and writhed.
"God, how do you stand it? All those times I've clawed at you, chewed on you --"
"I control it," Jim whispered and even words were too much. Blair could hear them, feel the air they displaced and stirred, smell Jim's breath, alcohol-laden and, God, yes, he could see them, whisky-gold and amber…
He wanted to be held, cuddled, comforted, but like Midas, his precious gift had turned sour. If Jim's delicately teasing, barely there caresses had reduced him to this mewling mess of arousal and discomfort, a hug would kill him, would blast his brain to a cinder.
"No, it won't."
Blair blinked up at Jim. Okay, so he'd been babbling aloud, because telepathy really wasn't one of Jim's gifts or Blair would never have made it past his first week in the loft without getting punched. His thoughts about Jim's body as it passed him coming out of the bathroom, towel-swathed, had verged on pornographic.
"It will." He knew it would.
"Trust me."
"They really are scary words, aren't they?"
"Not when I say them," Jim said firmly. "Make me part of you. My skin, your skin; no difference. Accept me."
"Always, Jim." Wow, this was quite a moment they were having here. Was that really what Jim did when he was on the receiving end of one of the hugs Blair bestowed upon him without warning or permission? Because if so, man, that was flattering. And poetic. And sweet. And --
Jim got off the bed, leaving a hole in the air, and undressed. Blair watched Jim's fingers, clumsy at times, as if the body shaping the clothes made a difference when it came to pulling down a zipper. Or maybe Jim just didn't want to do anything to damage that serious looking hard-on he was sporting. Blair viewed it objectively. Nice. He'd suck it.
Jim got into bed, naked, hairy, short. Blair couldn't help summing himself up that way now that he was in Jim's body, although he never usually felt that the last two applied to him. He was the norm; the people around him were judged accordingly; too-tall, too-short, just right. Without a word, even when Blair for the first time ever, cringed back from one of Jim's touches, Jim wrapped himself over and around Blair, blanketing him with warm skin, furred in places, bare in others.
And Blair felt his borders expand to engulf Jim and let him in.
"See?"
"Oh, yeah." This was bliss. This was even, heresy though it was to think it, better than sex. Of course, he hadn't had sex yet, not in this body, not feeling like this…
"Okay, so now I want to know why you ever let me get dressed, why you ever let me leave this bed."
Jim chuckled. "I'm sometimes tempted to keep you in it naked when you feel this good to me, but I told you; it doesn't last. And I'm not sure I'd want it to."
"You're kidding me."
Jim moved against him, a delicious friction, skin on skin, subtle and erotic. "There's more to life than sex, even with you, Blair. I've got a job to do, remember? And besides… you get used to anything, even this, and I don't want to. Not ever."
"I hear you," Blair said reluctantly. "But, God, right now I don't think I have the willpower to let go of you."
"I'm not asking you to." Jim's hand began a slow, gentle stroking that went from Blair's shoulder to his hip, over and over, leaving contrails of sensation behind. "Enjoy it while it lasts."
"How many times has this happened to you since we started seeing each other?"
Jim nuzzled Blair's chin, a flush rising in his cheeks. "Come on, Chief. Don't tell me you can't work that one out yourself."
Blair closed his eyes and groaned. "God, of course I can! Shit, I thought I'd never be able to sit down without a cushion again."
"Worth it?"
"I thought so at the time." Blair kissed the top of Jim's head, breathing in the scents trapped by the intricate maze of hair. "And my only regret was that my ass was too tender for us to do it all again the next night."
"Tender?" Jim snorted. "You were fucked raw. I'm the one who put half a tube of ointment on you and in you afterwards, remember? That's another reason I don't want to be like this all the time. I'd -- I'm not sure how much control --"
"You didn't hurt me, Jim." Blair put his hand on Jim's face and met his gaze. "Okay, there was a little bit of blood, but that's not unusual, and you know I didn't tear. A few days of sitting carefully and, yeah, some pretty painful moments in the bathroom, but the sex was unbelievable and now that I know how it must have felt for you, well…"
"I'd offer to roll over and let you do it to me, but it'd still be your ass getting pounded," Jim said ruefully.
"Good point." Blair eyed him, tempted. "It's good, though? Really good?"
"The only way I could remember my own name was because you were screaming it every few seconds." The flat delivery of the words didn't hide a certain pride. Blair could understand that. Jim had been…yeah. Primal. Untiring. And he'd surrendered to that strength without hesitation for once. Usually, he'd have fought back; playfully, sure, but offering a genuine resistance to Jim rolling over him, all muscle and dominance. He loved getting fucked, but he made damn sure Jim did it without any hint that he was in charge of events, with Blair no more than a passive recipient of seven or so inches of cock and, eventually, a healthy dollop of spunk.
Partners. Two-way street. Always.
But that night… oh, he'd let Jim have him. No, he'd let Jim take him, conquer him, possess him, getting off on the novelty of it and reveling in it without particularly wanting to do it again often. Just then, it had suited his mood and it sure as hell had worked for Jim.
He'd put it down to a full moon, or Jim's spirit animal getting restless; in other words, he'd shelved the reason without thinking about it at all, half-embarrassed by his own uninhibited reaction. Screaming Jim's name was only too accurate a description, and he never screamed, fuck, why would he? But he had that night; hoarse, desperate, delighted cries every time that solid length of cock had slid home and made his body its sheath. Now he wondered how he could have missed the clues that Jim was on a different plane of existence when it came to his senses. Some sentinel expert he was.
He didn't want to get that wild and wanton, not when it was all so new, but he was hungry for the experience, too.
"Oh, do it." Jim sounded resigned. "Just use plenty of lube and don't get too carried away."
"You think you're spoiling the mood, but you're not." Blair knelt up on the bed and moved his hands over Jim with possessive touches. His body, under his hands. His body that he knew, inside and out, head to toe, top to bottom…
"Tell me something that you like I don't, or the other way around," he asked.
Jim's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?"
"Because I want to do it to you and see what happens; see if the body or the mind decides if it feels good."
Jim sighed. "Only you," he muttered. After a moment, he said, "Back of my knees. You love it when I kiss you there; it drives me crazy because it tickles."
"I discovered that when you kicked out and made my nose bleed, remember?" Not a night that he recalled fondly. Jim had felt guilty over the blood pouring from Blair's swollen nose because of his reflex action, which had taken them both by surprise, and -- unreasonably, in Blair's opinion -- annoyed by the mess. They'd gone to sleep an hour later, sex most definitely shelved, and barely speaking.
Jim went to his stomach without being told and pillowed his head on his folded arms. Blair cleared his throat and moved down, then, ready to duck, kissed the hollow at the back of Jim's knee, his body tingling with a memory of how it felt, goose bumps rising. Jim was tense, giving him nothing in the way of a reaction. Blair waited for him to relax and then did it again.
"It's… it's like they're canceling out," Jim said. "I want to say you're tickling me, only you're not, but you melt into a puddle when I do it to you, and that's just not happening."
"Hmm." On impulse, he sank his teeth into the meat of Jim's buttock, something Jim had only discovered he liked himself when Blair had done it playfully one night, a sharp nip, no more. By the end of the weekend, Jim's ass had been starred with bruises and his newfound kink had been explored as thoroughly as Blair's imagination, and what was left of Jim's inhibitions, permitted. They'd never taken it that far again, partly to keep it fresh; mostly because, as Jim had pointed out wryly, not being able to shower at the gym until the marks had faded had been, no pun, a pain in the ass.
Jim cried out sharply, a startled howl. "God…" His ass rose off the bed in a clear invitation for more, but Blair settled for an apologetic kiss on the place he'd bitten.
"Guess that answers that; when you're not expecting it, your mind processes the stimulus the way it's used to."
"But it's your body, and you don't like it all that much." Jim sounded baffled. "You don't hate it, but it doesn't…" His voice trailed away.
"Doesn't leave me drooling, no." Blair ran his hand consolingly over Jim's back. "The mind interprets the data, Jim; your body doesn't care; it just reports something new."
"So if you did it again, it wouldn't feel as good?" Without waiting for an answer, Jim groaned and banged his head against the pillow. "Don't do it," he said, his words muffled. "When I'm back in my own body, I want that to still work for me."
"No reason to think that it wouldn't," Blair pointed out.
Jim turned his head and gave him a baleful glare from behind a tangle of hair. "You don't know that for sure and I'm not risking it. Keep your teeth away from my ass, okay?"
"Just my teeth?" Blair sucked his fingertip and watched Jim's glare become a narrow-eyed stare of appraisal. He let his finger slip free -- man, Jim had long fingers -- and ran it, slick, but drying fast, down the cleft of Jim's ass. "Fingers allowed?" God, he could feel the softness of close to invisible hairs, the roughness of a tiny patch of dry skin… so much to feel that he was in danger of missing the obvious; his finger, Jim's ass, Jim spreading his legs and arching up…
"They're allowed." Jim sounded as if he was having trouble remembering how words worked; Blair looked away from Jim's half-hidden face and discovered that his exploring finger had remembered what to do with Jim's ass just fine by itself. Circling, probing, a gentle push…
My asshole. Mine. How does it feel? Different? No; I've done this before, after all… but now I don't know what it feels like for Jim; am I hurting him? Digging in? Do I need lube? Hell, you always need lube…
He got lube and a condom and put them where they'd do most good. The condom clung unpleasantly to his erection, a clammy shroud, and he shivered and lost the edge of his arousal. Then Jim moaned and moved restlessly against the bed, and he sucked in a sharp breath and got it back again, a driving, relentless ache of lust, leavened only by love. Primal wasn't all that kind a state of being; he could see why Jim backed away from it.
"God, Jim, I --"
"Don't think about it. Just do it." Jim glanced back, his lips peeled back from his teeth. "Do me. Now."
He didn't let himself hesitate or over-think it; breathing in shallow gasps, he eased inside Jim, inch by inch, and felt his body shudder and sweat. Heat. The world was heat and he was burning.
Pleasure shouldn't come like this, in such extravagant, lavish amounts. It was too much, too good, much too good, much too much. Flames licked at the base of his spine, the drawn-up tautness of his balls. He could feel a single drop of sweat rolling over his shoulder blade; the crisp pinch as his nipples hardened. He could hear Jim's breath, noisy, wordless, but still eloquent to Blair's senses which could interpret each gasp, each whimper. Jim wanted him to stop being careful and drive into him with the long, hammering strokes Jim loved. Did Jim read him this easily during sex? And if he did, why didn't he always give Blair what he was begging for? There had been times when he'd been close to biting a hole in the fucking pillow because Jim wasn't going deep enough or at the right angle. If that had been deliberate, Jim was a dead man.
He was generous and gave Jim what he wanted, partly because he knew he couldn't last long like this. Even through the condom, he could feel -- oh God, the thrum of Jim's blood, the beat and pulse of it, hidden behind such a thin, fragile layer of skin so that every stroke he felt it surge and try to break free. Should be careful; didn't want to be, should slow down, and that, yes, that he wanted because this would end soon and so good, so fucking good…
He was crooning that to Jim, his hands clutching the strong body beneath him (was he this strong? Was he? Was it Jim's strength, not his, he could feel, bracing against every slam-thrust, rocking into them greedily, demanding more?)
He flexed his hands and the muscles in his arms tightened too, hard, useful, muscles, earned in hours at the gym, paid for in sweat and pain. Blair's muscles now, just like Jim's senses were his.
Jim arched and cried out, guttural, blissful, and came, his body jerking wildly, fucking air and taking Blair spiraling down with him into a star-dusted darkness Blair's body chose as the easiest escape route from the ecstasy tearing him apart.
There was no time for a final thought in a neat scroll of words against his eyelids, linear, organized; it came in a flung splat, a gestalt.
I want to learn how to control this. I don't want to lose the senses. Not yet. Not -- Jim's senses, I mean, they're Jim's, sure they are -- (not yet).
Part Three
The first bar Jim came to was smoky, the music loud. He hesitated in the doorway and then snorted, went in, and let the door close behind him. It didn't matter now. He wasn't going to end up with his eyes burning, his throat raw, and a headache pounding away. All the people inside, drinking, chatting, flirting, could handle it, and so could he.
He made his way to the bar, vaguely aware that people weren't getting out of his way as much as they usually did, and after a few attempts to catch the bartender's eye, waved a ten-spot in the air as an attention-grabber.
Beer in hand, and a chaser he'd drunk immediately, searing its way down to his gut, he looked around for a quiet corner to begin a determined slide into a drunken haze. This place didn't do quiet. It did people, lots of them, all on display, all looking for… something. Most were younger than he was.
But not that much younger than Blair.
In this crowd, wearing Blair's clothes, that double glint of silver in his ears and the cloud of hair, he fitted in, more or less. People hadn't cleared a way for him, no, because Blair just didn't project 'cop' and 'dangerous' but it didn't mean they weren't paying attention to him. As he walked through the bar, he got looks; appraising, appreciative, mostly from women; some from men.
He returned them all with a stony indifference that made smiles die on lips and heads turn away. He was angry with Blair, hell, pissed at the world, but it didn't mean he was going to pick someone up just to get a petty revenge.
He was angry with Blair; that didn't mean that he didn't still love him.
In fact, that was why he was so pissed -- God, how could Blair have done that? Have taken something that was part of him, unacknowledged, unwanted, forgotten for much of his life, sure, but still… He'd been born a sentinel. It was what he was. It was something that went with the -- with the soul, not the body. No matter what body he was in, the senses, like a loyal dog, should've tagged along with him. He felt a deep, unreasoning resentment that they'd stuck with his body, not him, and ignored the fact that they'd actually hung in limbo and waited to be grabbed.
He found a small table in the corner of the room and proceeded to get drunk; paying for each drink he was brought so that he could leave when he wanted to. On the way back from the restroom, his vision and hearing blurred by alcohol, his movements deliberate and careful because he was starting to lose control, he saw that while he'd been gone the overly efficient waitress had cleared his glass away. He'd made sure he'd drained it before he walked away, as there was no way he'd have drunk from a glass he'd left unattended, and given the empty table and the crush of people, the inevitable had happened and his table had been taken by a couple now deep in conversation.
Fuck. He frowned at them and contemplated making a fuss, and then shrugged. He'd find another bar. The music in this one was too loud even for normal ears.
He studied the press of people between him and the door and decided to just start walking in a straight line and the hell with anyone in his way. That worked for about three bumped shoulders and then a startled shriek told him that he'd made someone spill their drink. He turned, an automatic apology rising to his lips, and met the brown eyes, irritation already turning to indulgence, of the woman Blair had broken it off with to be with him. Jen was bubbly, bright, and bouncy, a combination that had made Jim feel tired, but under the giggles was a solid core of intelligence and kindness. He was just glad that she'd taken Blair's inadequate and necessarily incomplete explanation about why he had to stop seeing her with equanimity. Hell, she'd come over to collect some of her belongings and kissed them both goodbye with a cheerful grin.
"Blair!" She shook her head. "That's a little obvious, even for you."
"I don't know what you mean." The stonewalling was automatic.
"You can pick me up once that way, but twice?" She tsked. "You did that on purpose."
"No, I --" He swayed and grabbed her arm to keep himself from staggering into the path of a waitress with a tray of glasses.
"Oh, God, you're drunk!" A concerned frown wrinkled her forehead. "That's not like you, Blair; is everything okay? Do you want me to call Jim?"
"Why would I want you to do that?" It came out as a snarl and he regretted it as he saw the hurt flash over her face. "Sorry. It's just… that wouldn't be a good idea, right now. I'm fine. I'll go home. Sleep it off."
"You argued with him, didn't you?" Jen sighed and patted his face, the affection behind the gesture clear. "That sucks."
"Yeah," he admitted. "I did and it does."
"Mmm." She glanced back at the group of friends she'd been with, who'd gone back to chattering once they'd seen that Jim wasn't a stranger. "Do you want to talk about it?"
He shook his head. "No. But thank you. It's just… complicated."
"I totally get it." Jen finished what was left of her drink and nodded. She wasn't entirely sober either, Jim realized. A slight slurring to her voice, and she was blinking too much. "He's a cop; they don't like people who wander off the straight and narrow." There was enough meaning layered over the words to make it clear she knew that Blair wasn't exclusively interested in women, and possibly suspected that her replacement had been a man.
"You'd be surprised," he said. "We're not all fucking bigots, you know."
"You think of yourself as one of them now?" Jen's eyebrows rose. "Wow, that's… Jim really has you under his thumb, doesn't he?"
Jim held up his hand and studied it. "Nope. Nothing attached to these babies."
"What?" She looked at him as if he was insane. "That doesn't make any sense."
He replayed it in his head and had to agree with her. "I have to go," he said abruptly. With a nod, he turned away, ignoring her when she called out Blair's name. Let Blair deal with any backlash from the encounter; talking to her was just too risky and right then, he couldn't trust himself to handle it if she continued to criticize him and who he was; what he did.
It hurt; a small sting compared to the burn of betrayal, but even so. He'd always thought she liked him.
The air outside was cool and refreshing but it didn't do anything to sober him up. Nothing ever did but time; he'd found that out as a teenager. It didn't matter; he didn't want to lose the buzz. Not yet. He was petty enough to hope that they would get swapped back during the night, so that Blair would be the one dealing with the hangover, but the shamed pang that followed on the heels of the thought made him realize that his anger was fading.
He wasn't drunk enough to have lost the ability to see himself objectively; it looked like maudlin was next on the predictable list of emotions, because he was starting to think about Blair, left alone with the senses.
"Didn't leave you alone, did he?" he muttered, needing to say the words aloud and the hell with the funny looks he was getting from the people passing by. He began to walk back to the loft, his steps veering slightly now and then. "Scary when it starts. Scared me. Might not scare him. Blair's brave. And he knows what's happening." He considered that. Yes. Blair knew. It would make a difference. Blair was probably okay.
He still kept walking as fast as he could, which wasn't very. Too many things in the way. People, trashcans, lampposts. The streets were a cluttered fucking mess. And somewhere, he'd gotten turned around, because he was going the wrong way. On foot, which he wasn't often, it all looked different.
And he needed to piss. Again. He was damned if he was going to use a wall in an alley, and he didn't feel like the bright lights of a coffee shop, so that left a bar. There was one up ahead with a group of people leaving. All men. Not unusual, but… oh, he knew where he was now. The bar wasn't exclusively for gays, but it had enough of a reputation as a safe place to go with your same-sex partner that he'd refused when Blair had suggested they try it. Too risky. They might get seen. People might think the worst. He hadn't had to trot out any of the tired excuses circling in his mind; he'd just shaken his head firmly. Blair had stared at nothing for a moment and then shrugged and taken him to a place very similar to the bar Jim had just left, which was punishment enough for being so fucking craven.
Tonight, hidden behind this mask, he could go wherever the hell he wanted and it didn't matter who saw him. Blair answered to no one, and the rules that hemmed Jim in were loosely wrapped around his partner.
He bought a drink first, out of politeness; another shot of whisky. Less volume. Swallowing it in a single gulp was easier than sipping at it, so that was what he did. He tossed money and a tip onto the bar and scanned the room, looking for what he wanted. It wasn't any quieter than the last bar and it was just as busy. Christ, didn't people have homes to go to?
He spotted an arrow on the wall pointing to the restrooms and made his way over to it, his own tendency to stride, and the alcohol, giving his walk a swagger Blair's didn't usually have. He was getting looks here, too, but they were more direct. He didn't feel vulnerable, but he did feel an itch of awareness flare awake. Someone was watching him and not looking away. He didn't glance back.
Business taken care of, he stayed in the restroom, giving whoever it was time to make a move. When a couple entered and gave him a curious look before going to piss, he began to wash his hands with a methodical care that meant they were leaving when he was still rinsing off.
The door took too long in closing; someone had slipped in as they'd left. Jim stared into the mirror with a feigned casualness. He'd found something to sober him up now. A man appeared behind him, taller than he was now, but younger than Blair by a few years, with soft, silky brown hair and gray eyes. He had wide shoulders but he was skinny with it, not built.
No threat, but he could have a weapon --
Jim pivoted on his heel, trapped between the man and the sink, and fuck, he wasn't as sober as he'd thought, because he stumbled, off balance. A hand caught him, supported him, and drew him closer.
"Blair…" The man smiled and bobbed forward to plant a kiss on Jim's cheek. Jim turned to avoid it and, because his timing sucked tonight, just sucked, the jerk of his head brought their mouths together.
As kisses went, it was a failure; fast, fleeting, and fumbled, and most definitely one-sided, but the man pulled back and beamed. "God, it's good to see you again! How are you?"
Feeling violated, thank you.
"Fine," Jim said uncommunicatively. "You?"
"Oh, God, you just don't want to know!"
Got that right.
"So how long has it been since we saw each other?" the man continued. He paused, clearly expecting some response.
Jim shrugged. "It seems like forever, man."
Had that sounded like Blair? Close enough.
"You are so right." The man shook his head ruefully. "We should get together sometime."
"Mmm."
"Still living with your cop?" Cue humorous eye roll. "Did he ever get a clue?"
"About what?"
"Duh? You?"
"Jim knows all about me," Jim said grimly.
"I'm sure he'd like to think so."
"Tell me one thing you think he doesn't," Jim challenged.
"Well, I hope you didn't tell him about what we did on his bed."
"Refresh my memory," Jim said into a tension-filled silence.
"Bounce, bounce?" The man sighed. "I thought you were going to hit me the way you reacted when I went up there."
"Jim's a very -- he doesn't like people messing with his stuff." Jim was thinking back and remembering, oh, yeah, he was remembering all of Blair's muttered excuses about going up there to nap because all of his sheets were in the wash. He'd made a big deal out of stripping the bed and Blair had looked hurt.
And it hadn't been because they smelled of Blair, because that wouldn't have bothered him, not really. Instinctively, he leaned in to sniff the man, wanting to confirm that this was the source of that long ago alien scent, but all that got him was a whiff of stale tobacco and sweat -- and arms going around him, as his movement was misinterpreted.
"No!" He pushed free. "Look, I'm with someone now, okay? And if you grab me one more fucking time --"
"You never used to mind being grabbed." The words were cool, distinct. "Fine. Piss off, then. Or stay and watch me piss, if you want to remember the good times."
"You've got to be kidding me."
With a studied indifference, a zipper was pulled down. Still facing Jim, not the urinals, the man tugged his dick out and held it cupped in his hand. "Well?" He was half-hard and as Jim watched, he pumped it slowly in a lewd invitation.
Jim found himself reaching for a badge he didn't have. Fuck. Arresting this slime for anything he could throw and make stick was so very fucking tempting, but it just wasn't a good idea.
He settled for a contemptuous stare at the growing length (nowhere near as big as his, in either body, nowhere fucking near) and then raised his eyes, his lip curling. "You've got nothing I want."
He made it out into the fresh air and turned toward home, hurrying now.
***
Jim walked into the loft, words of apology already planned out and ready to be spoken. He closed the door quietly, in case Blair had gone to bed, worn out by everything that had happened to them both, and glanced around. The lights were on, but Blair was -- oh God. The floor. On the floor, not moving, on the floor, eyes wide open, hands clamped to his ears, on the floor and hurting --
He couldn't break down the seconds that passed between seeing Blair and moving forward. He found a bruise on his thigh the next day and the pain of colliding with the corner of a table flooded back, as sharp as when it'd happened, but at the time, it failed to register. Reality snapped back into focus only when he was cradling Blair in his arms, his hands passing over the short hair in frantic, frightened caresses.
Zoned. He pulled Blair closer, and felt the strength of his former body in a way he'd never been aware of when he was wearing it. His body was solid, heavy, and with Blair out of it like this, close to an immovable object. He heard himself sob out Blair's name and took a deep breath. That wasn't helping.
Blair's hands now hung loosely, but they'd been over his ears, which meant sound had been the trigger for the zone. Jim kept his voice low and said, in as normal a tone as he could manage, wondering bitterly if the reek of alcohol on his breath would jar Blair from his zone, "Blair? Wake up, sweetheart. It's Jim. Come back to me. You're safe. Come back."
He kept talking and touching Blair's skin, punctuating his words with kisses to Blair's forehead and cheek, until a shiver ran through the body he held and Blair's open eyes filled with an awareness of self, the glassy, blank stare fading away.
***
"Was I this much of a pain in the ass when I was talking you through dealing with a zone?"
Jim shrugged, his gaze focused on the glass of water he held. "Yes?"
"God." Blair exhaled, an impatient huff that didn't come close to conveying his feelings. "Well, somehow I doubt it. Jim, it's not working. I lost it. Completely. And I don't know if I've got the nerve to try again."
The admission cost him, but he had to make it. He curled up in his corner of the couch and realized that Jim's longer legs didn't fit the available space very well. With another sigh, he propped his feet on the coffee table and then took a sip of the green tea with mint Jim had brewed for him. It tasted like hot water.
"You've got everything turned down low, haven't you?" Jim asked. Blair nodded. "That means you're controlling them," Jim pointed out. "High, low, or in the middle, you've still changed the settings." Jim gulped down some water, grimacing as if it was medicine.
Blair didn't need sentinel senses to spot that Jim was still less than sober. He was tempted to comment on the etiquette of taking care of borrowed bodies, but he approved of the water and nagging Jim right now wasn't going to be all that productive.
Tomorrow. When Jim had a hangover and was finding out the hard way that Blair didn't drink much for a reason.
"I suppose so."
"Not that I do that whole dial thing anymore," Jim said.
"What?" Blair set his tea down. "Since when?"
"Months." Jim waved his hand vaguely. "It was a good starting point, but once I'd gotten the hang of it, I kind of… personalized it. You know."
"No, I don't know," Blair said coldly. "Maybe because you never told me!"
"I didn't think you'd be interested. The principle was the same; I was just, uh, using a different approach." Jim finished his water. "Look, it's getting late; want to leave this until the morning?"
"Not a freaking chance." Blair poked Jim in the arm. "Tell me now. Because you might say I'm doing stuff, but it doesn't feel like I am and I'm -- I'm --"
"Scared?"
Blair rested his head against Jim's shoulder. "God, Jim, you don't know what it was like. The noise… And I couldn't make it stop. I thought I was going insane and it didn't help that I knew what was happening. It was like being in the middle of a tornado; the wind doesn't care that you know all about how weather systems work and you've read The Wizard of Oz a dozen times."
Jim was stroking his hair again, the slow, gentle strokes that he used when he brushed Blair's hair sometimes, patient, careful, loving. "I do know what it was like. And I know how terrifying it can be. God, I can't believe I walked out and left you like that. I'm sorry, Blair."
Blair kissed the prickle of stubble along Jim's chin. "I get why you needed your space, man. The walk probably did you good, though I can't say the same for the drinking."
"It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"It won't tomorrow." Blair straightened. "So what do you use?"
Reluctantly, Jim said, "I wanted something more…flexible. Less black and white. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's a -- a spectrum. So I see it as notes on a scale, high to low; or colors, like a rainbow. Red is top end, blue is about where you are now, and mostly I'm in the yellow."
"More nuanced…"
"If you say so."
Blair tried to visualize it, but his mind was too chaotic to be able to focus.
"You're trying to work with all your senses at once, instead of one at a time."
"How do you know?" Blair asked.
"Because it's what I did."
"We're not necessarily going to follow the same path," Blair pointed out. "I've got three years or so of study to build on."
"Tell me that isn't what you were doing, and I'll take it back." Jim looked entirely too smug, but Blair couldn't lie to him.
"I guess. So maybe just one to start with?"
"Yeah. Not hearing or sight; I don't want you left blind or deaf." Jim tapped his finger against his mouth in thought. "Smell," he decided.
"Okay." Blair sniffed experimentally. "I can't smell anything much," he reported.
"So move the dials, or whatever, and get back to normal."
"Well, what should I be smelling?" He gave Jim an inquiring look. "What can you smell?"
"Um…" Jim took a turn at sniffing the air. "Stuff. Your tea. Smoke on my clothes. Are you getting any of that?" Blair shook his head. "Wait here."
A moment later, Jim returned from the kitchen holding a lime in one hand, a dense, deep green in color, and in the other a zester that was nominally Blair's. Jim had bought it after coming in one day to find Blair whimpering in pain after grating his knuckles along with an orange in an attempt to make a fancy dish to impress whoever the hell he'd been after that week. Blair remembered the agony of the orange oil sinking into the shallow cuts and the way Jim had pushed his hand under the tap and then picked out every remaining shred of peel, his eyes intent, his forehead creased. The zester had been beside Blair's plate the next night, expensive, safe, never used since, but appreciated.
Jim sat down beside him and raked the zester across the lime, curls of green peel flaking away to reveal white pith. "Smell it."
Blair inhaled and felt something tickle his nose, a zing of citrus. "It smells prickly."
"Go higher. Turn it up."
"How?" Blair demanded. "I can't -- I don't know how to."
"You just do." Jim's expression mirrored the frustration Blair felt. "You reach for your tea without thinking about how to make your muscles move; it's the same thing."
Blair stared down at the lime. Without taking it out of Jim's hands, he ran his fingers over the torn peel and felt the shallow channels the blades had carved. Then he brought his fingers to his nose, breathed in --
green, intense, smoky, sharp, sour, greengreengreengreen -- lime
"Lime. I smell lime. I do, I smell it, Jim." He choked on saliva, welling up in an automatic reaction. "God, it's all I can smell."
"Too much," Jim said authoritatively, Mr. Expert at work. "Ease back, Chief."
"Better stop calling me that," Blair said and with that distraction, the world snapped back into focus -- a sentinel's focus, everything clear and intense, vibrant and pitch-perfect, singing to him.
"Oh, my God," he said quietly. "Jim, this is unbelievable. I can --" He held up his hand and saw the wavering line of a bitten fingernail like the teeth of a saw, fretted, intricate, without losing his awareness of the rest of the room. "I can choose what to see, how to see it, I can -- God, I can do anything." He grinned, exultant, delighted, suffused with power. The edge was taken off his joy when he saw Jim's expression; hunger, desperation, like a starving man looking at food through a window, out of reach. "Jim, is this what it's like for you?"
Jim didn't even try to pretend that he didn't know what Blair meant. "No, not always. Sometimes, yes, it just… balances. It doesn't last long; something will happen and it'll come crashing down, but when it's like that, it's -- it's good."
"Oh, man, it's just --" Blair shook his head and then reached out for Jim, reaching past the barrier of his own body, not caring that his hand was caressing his own face because that was Jim in there, behind that too-familiar flesh and bone, and it was Jim he was touching. "Kiss me. Before it goes away. I want to know how good it can be for you. I want to know if you've ever felt like this when we were making love." A flash of something like guilt answered his question, and he moaned. "Oh, man, you have? Details, Jim, I want details, but right now --"
"Shut up, Sandburg," Jim interrupted, and grabbed him, dragged him close. Blair relaxed willingly into the rough hold and waited for an equally demanding kiss, but it didn't come. Without hesitation, but with the utmost precision, Jim licked Blair's lips with the point of his tongue, a fine line of warm and wet that left them fizzing, sparkling, as the moisture evaporated and the skin cooled. The scent of Jim's saliva wafted up, rich and subtly different from anything Blair ever remembered tasting in his own mouth.
But it would be, of course. Anything and everything would taste different now.
No one had ever licked his lips like this, deliberate, purposeful. It was erotic and strange and left Blair hard and yet with most of his attention focused on his lips, not his dick. His arousal wasn't centered there, but wherever Jim was touching. Jim was the source of it all, and Blair, barely breathing, accepted what Jim was giving him; let himself be guided through a world Jim knew and was exiled from.
Jim's grip loosened, as if Blair's continuing acceptance without struggle (why would he struggle?) or attempts to reciprocate (he'd like to do that, but he'd give Jim this moment, he'd let him drive) had reassured him.
Once licked, Blair's mouth remained unkissed. The absence of kisses hurt, but Blair kept his protest unvoiced. It was all about trust.
"Upstairs," Jim said, his voice quiet, peaceful. "Get undressed. Let me show you."
***
The sheets were cool against his skin. Jim's skin. He had to remember that. This wasn't his body. Borrowed body, sneak peeks at Jim's life, except Jim knew, so he wasn't sneaking --
"Stop thinking." Jim's hair was loose around his face and his neck was bent. Strands of hair were brushing across Blair's chest, stirred by air currents, nothing more, because Jim wasn't moving. Blair's nipples were tight, pebbled and aching, smarting as if they'd been chewed on, whipped, clamped; as if seriously kinky things had been done to them, when all that they had endured had been this random soft touch from hundreds of individual hairs, tiny points tickling.
"I --"
"Don't talk. Feel." Jim sounded dreamily drunk, which Blair supposed he still was, but this intoxication wasn't physical. Jim was remembering. "You could come from this. I do this to your dick and how long do you think it would take? But I won't, because I know the answer. Not long at all, and I don't want this to end yet."
Blair didn't either, but he wasn't sure he could handle much more. He'd once told Jim to dial up touch when they were fucking and Jim's expression, exasperated, baffled, as he shook his head hadn't made much sense. It did now.
Jim sat up and reached over for the half-empty bottle of water on the nightstand. Trust began to shred away. If Jim poured that over him --
He didn't. He dripped it. Off the end of a finger, after warming a small puddle of it in his cupped palm. Blair's eyes -- sentinel sight at work -- tracked each drop as it fell, elongated, curved and complex, fell like a tear to splash against skin. The cup of his throat, each nipple, his closed eyelids… He was shaking by the time the third one struck; moaning by the fifth. He opened his eyes when no more drops fell, blinking away wetness. Jim got out a hair tie from his jeans pocket and pulled his hair back into a lopsided, but effective pony tail. Then he bent his head and drew his tongue along the track the water had taken after it had struck. Five meandering trails and Blair's skin was burning, fever-hot. Jim smiled, pursed his lips, full lips, juicy, lush… yeah, they looked good, Blair knew it. The cool stream of exhaled, directed air followed the path the water and then Jim's tongue had taken and Blair screwed up his face and writhed.
"God, how do you stand it? All those times I've clawed at you, chewed on you --"
"I control it," Jim whispered and even words were too much. Blair could hear them, feel the air they displaced and stirred, smell Jim's breath, alcohol-laden and, God, yes, he could see them, whisky-gold and amber…
He wanted to be held, cuddled, comforted, but like Midas, his precious gift had turned sour. If Jim's delicately teasing, barely there caresses had reduced him to this mewling mess of arousal and discomfort, a hug would kill him, would blast his brain to a cinder.
"No, it won't."
Blair blinked up at Jim. Okay, so he'd been babbling aloud, because telepathy really wasn't one of Jim's gifts or Blair would never have made it past his first week in the loft without getting punched. His thoughts about Jim's body as it passed him coming out of the bathroom, towel-swathed, had verged on pornographic.
"It will." He knew it would.
"Trust me."
"They really are scary words, aren't they?"
"Not when I say them," Jim said firmly. "Make me part of you. My skin, your skin; no difference. Accept me."
"Always, Jim." Wow, this was quite a moment they were having here. Was that really what Jim did when he was on the receiving end of one of the hugs Blair bestowed upon him without warning or permission? Because if so, man, that was flattering. And poetic. And sweet. And --
Jim got off the bed, leaving a hole in the air, and undressed. Blair watched Jim's fingers, clumsy at times, as if the body shaping the clothes made a difference when it came to pulling down a zipper. Or maybe Jim just didn't want to do anything to damage that serious looking hard-on he was sporting. Blair viewed it objectively. Nice. He'd suck it.
Jim got into bed, naked, hairy, short. Blair couldn't help summing himself up that way now that he was in Jim's body, although he never usually felt that the last two applied to him. He was the norm; the people around him were judged accordingly; too-tall, too-short, just right. Without a word, even when Blair for the first time ever, cringed back from one of Jim's touches, Jim wrapped himself over and around Blair, blanketing him with warm skin, furred in places, bare in others.
And Blair felt his borders expand to engulf Jim and let him in.
"See?"
"Oh, yeah." This was bliss. This was even, heresy though it was to think it, better than sex. Of course, he hadn't had sex yet, not in this body, not feeling like this…
"Okay, so now I want to know why you ever let me get dressed, why you ever let me leave this bed."
Jim chuckled. "I'm sometimes tempted to keep you in it naked when you feel this good to me, but I told you; it doesn't last. And I'm not sure I'd want it to."
"You're kidding me."
Jim moved against him, a delicious friction, skin on skin, subtle and erotic. "There's more to life than sex, even with you, Blair. I've got a job to do, remember? And besides… you get used to anything, even this, and I don't want to. Not ever."
"I hear you," Blair said reluctantly. "But, God, right now I don't think I have the willpower to let go of you."
"I'm not asking you to." Jim's hand began a slow, gentle stroking that went from Blair's shoulder to his hip, over and over, leaving contrails of sensation behind. "Enjoy it while it lasts."
"How many times has this happened to you since we started seeing each other?"
Jim nuzzled Blair's chin, a flush rising in his cheeks. "Come on, Chief. Don't tell me you can't work that one out yourself."
Blair closed his eyes and groaned. "God, of course I can! Shit, I thought I'd never be able to sit down without a cushion again."
"Worth it?"
"I thought so at the time." Blair kissed the top of Jim's head, breathing in the scents trapped by the intricate maze of hair. "And my only regret was that my ass was too tender for us to do it all again the next night."
"Tender?" Jim snorted. "You were fucked raw. I'm the one who put half a tube of ointment on you and in you afterwards, remember? That's another reason I don't want to be like this all the time. I'd -- I'm not sure how much control --"
"You didn't hurt me, Jim." Blair put his hand on Jim's face and met his gaze. "Okay, there was a little bit of blood, but that's not unusual, and you know I didn't tear. A few days of sitting carefully and, yeah, some pretty painful moments in the bathroom, but the sex was unbelievable and now that I know how it must have felt for you, well…"
"I'd offer to roll over and let you do it to me, but it'd still be your ass getting pounded," Jim said ruefully.
"Good point." Blair eyed him, tempted. "It's good, though? Really good?"
"The only way I could remember my own name was because you were screaming it every few seconds." The flat delivery of the words didn't hide a certain pride. Blair could understand that. Jim had been…yeah. Primal. Untiring. And he'd surrendered to that strength without hesitation for once. Usually, he'd have fought back; playfully, sure, but offering a genuine resistance to Jim rolling over him, all muscle and dominance. He loved getting fucked, but he made damn sure Jim did it without any hint that he was in charge of events, with Blair no more than a passive recipient of seven or so inches of cock and, eventually, a healthy dollop of spunk.
Partners. Two-way street. Always.
But that night… oh, he'd let Jim have him. No, he'd let Jim take him, conquer him, possess him, getting off on the novelty of it and reveling in it without particularly wanting to do it again often. Just then, it had suited his mood and it sure as hell had worked for Jim.
He'd put it down to a full moon, or Jim's spirit animal getting restless; in other words, he'd shelved the reason without thinking about it at all, half-embarrassed by his own uninhibited reaction. Screaming Jim's name was only too accurate a description, and he never screamed, fuck, why would he? But he had that night; hoarse, desperate, delighted cries every time that solid length of cock had slid home and made his body its sheath. Now he wondered how he could have missed the clues that Jim was on a different plane of existence when it came to his senses. Some sentinel expert he was.
He didn't want to get that wild and wanton, not when it was all so new, but he was hungry for the experience, too.
"Oh, do it." Jim sounded resigned. "Just use plenty of lube and don't get too carried away."
"You think you're spoiling the mood, but you're not." Blair knelt up on the bed and moved his hands over Jim with possessive touches. His body, under his hands. His body that he knew, inside and out, head to toe, top to bottom…
"Tell me something that you like I don't, or the other way around," he asked.
Jim's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?"
"Because I want to do it to you and see what happens; see if the body or the mind decides if it feels good."
Jim sighed. "Only you," he muttered. After a moment, he said, "Back of my knees. You love it when I kiss you there; it drives me crazy because it tickles."
"I discovered that when you kicked out and made my nose bleed, remember?" Not a night that he recalled fondly. Jim had felt guilty over the blood pouring from Blair's swollen nose because of his reflex action, which had taken them both by surprise, and -- unreasonably, in Blair's opinion -- annoyed by the mess. They'd gone to sleep an hour later, sex most definitely shelved, and barely speaking.
Jim went to his stomach without being told and pillowed his head on his folded arms. Blair cleared his throat and moved down, then, ready to duck, kissed the hollow at the back of Jim's knee, his body tingling with a memory of how it felt, goose bumps rising. Jim was tense, giving him nothing in the way of a reaction. Blair waited for him to relax and then did it again.
"It's… it's like they're canceling out," Jim said. "I want to say you're tickling me, only you're not, but you melt into a puddle when I do it to you, and that's just not happening."
"Hmm." On impulse, he sank his teeth into the meat of Jim's buttock, something Jim had only discovered he liked himself when Blair had done it playfully one night, a sharp nip, no more. By the end of the weekend, Jim's ass had been starred with bruises and his newfound kink had been explored as thoroughly as Blair's imagination, and what was left of Jim's inhibitions, permitted. They'd never taken it that far again, partly to keep it fresh; mostly because, as Jim had pointed out wryly, not being able to shower at the gym until the marks had faded had been, no pun, a pain in the ass.
Jim cried out sharply, a startled howl. "God…" His ass rose off the bed in a clear invitation for more, but Blair settled for an apologetic kiss on the place he'd bitten.
"Guess that answers that; when you're not expecting it, your mind processes the stimulus the way it's used to."
"But it's your body, and you don't like it all that much." Jim sounded baffled. "You don't hate it, but it doesn't…" His voice trailed away.
"Doesn't leave me drooling, no." Blair ran his hand consolingly over Jim's back. "The mind interprets the data, Jim; your body doesn't care; it just reports something new."
"So if you did it again, it wouldn't feel as good?" Without waiting for an answer, Jim groaned and banged his head against the pillow. "Don't do it," he said, his words muffled. "When I'm back in my own body, I want that to still work for me."
"No reason to think that it wouldn't," Blair pointed out.
Jim turned his head and gave him a baleful glare from behind a tangle of hair. "You don't know that for sure and I'm not risking it. Keep your teeth away from my ass, okay?"
"Just my teeth?" Blair sucked his fingertip and watched Jim's glare become a narrow-eyed stare of appraisal. He let his finger slip free -- man, Jim had long fingers -- and ran it, slick, but drying fast, down the cleft of Jim's ass. "Fingers allowed?" God, he could feel the softness of close to invisible hairs, the roughness of a tiny patch of dry skin… so much to feel that he was in danger of missing the obvious; his finger, Jim's ass, Jim spreading his legs and arching up…
"They're allowed." Jim sounded as if he was having trouble remembering how words worked; Blair looked away from Jim's half-hidden face and discovered that his exploring finger had remembered what to do with Jim's ass just fine by itself. Circling, probing, a gentle push…
My asshole. Mine. How does it feel? Different? No; I've done this before, after all… but now I don't know what it feels like for Jim; am I hurting him? Digging in? Do I need lube? Hell, you always need lube…
He got lube and a condom and put them where they'd do most good. The condom clung unpleasantly to his erection, a clammy shroud, and he shivered and lost the edge of his arousal. Then Jim moaned and moved restlessly against the bed, and he sucked in a sharp breath and got it back again, a driving, relentless ache of lust, leavened only by love. Primal wasn't all that kind a state of being; he could see why Jim backed away from it.
"God, Jim, I --"
"Don't think about it. Just do it." Jim glanced back, his lips peeled back from his teeth. "Do me. Now."
He didn't let himself hesitate or over-think it; breathing in shallow gasps, he eased inside Jim, inch by inch, and felt his body shudder and sweat. Heat. The world was heat and he was burning.
Pleasure shouldn't come like this, in such extravagant, lavish amounts. It was too much, too good, much too good, much too much. Flames licked at the base of his spine, the drawn-up tautness of his balls. He could feel a single drop of sweat rolling over his shoulder blade; the crisp pinch as his nipples hardened. He could hear Jim's breath, noisy, wordless, but still eloquent to Blair's senses which could interpret each gasp, each whimper. Jim wanted him to stop being careful and drive into him with the long, hammering strokes Jim loved. Did Jim read him this easily during sex? And if he did, why didn't he always give Blair what he was begging for? There had been times when he'd been close to biting a hole in the fucking pillow because Jim wasn't going deep enough or at the right angle. If that had been deliberate, Jim was a dead man.
He was generous and gave Jim what he wanted, partly because he knew he couldn't last long like this. Even through the condom, he could feel -- oh God, the thrum of Jim's blood, the beat and pulse of it, hidden behind such a thin, fragile layer of skin so that every stroke he felt it surge and try to break free. Should be careful; didn't want to be, should slow down, and that, yes, that he wanted because this would end soon and so good, so fucking good…
He was crooning that to Jim, his hands clutching the strong body beneath him (was he this strong? Was he? Was it Jim's strength, not his, he could feel, bracing against every slam-thrust, rocking into them greedily, demanding more?)
He flexed his hands and the muscles in his arms tightened too, hard, useful, muscles, earned in hours at the gym, paid for in sweat and pain. Blair's muscles now, just like Jim's senses were his.
Jim arched and cried out, guttural, blissful, and came, his body jerking wildly, fucking air and taking Blair spiraling down with him into a star-dusted darkness Blair's body chose as the easiest escape route from the ecstasy tearing him apart.
There was no time for a final thought in a neat scroll of words against his eyelids, linear, organized; it came in a flung splat, a gestalt.
I want to learn how to control this. I don't want to lose the senses. Not yet. Not -- Jim's senses, I mean, they're Jim's, sure they are -- (not yet).
Part Three
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